===========================================
The electricity went out this morning. I was really whacked out. I took it very badly. It just hit me that I AM ADDICTED TO ELECTRICITY. Got to have it. Just about everything I do inside the house requires electricity (except some private things in the bathroom which we will not speak of further). Computer, radio, TV, lights, food preservation. GIVE ME THE JUICE.
==============================
Google has a little thing called Street View which is where they have assembled photos (360 degree worth) of a bunch of places. The number of locations shooting up and they are very cool. I think real estate agencies are responsible for many of the new pictures since it helps sell their houses. To see the official map of all the places that Google has Street Views goto:
http://gmaps-samples.
Now the really cool thing about this map is that you can zoom in on it and then hit the satellite 'button' and see the photographic map. This is really cool for me since one of the few short comings on Linux is it can not display Google Earth directly but I can see the maps from sites like this.
==============================
If you like Top Ten Lists then this web site is just for you.
http://www.the-top-tens.com/
Of course I disagree with most everything they have there but check it out you may be one of their fellow travelers.
==============================
Today is a special day. Today is the day I change the foil on my head. Once every two months on the 16th it is safe to rip off the old aluminum and replace it. There is about a 2 hour window when "THEY" are not broadcasting. I still hear voices but I think it is Howard Stern on XM radio.
==============================
Now to the reasons to be happy this week
(or at least civil).
Here goes:
The NoButtonButtons are a little longer this week. Deal with it.
==============================
monday 18 january
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** A computer lets you make more mistakes
*** faster than any invention in human history
*** - with the possible exceptions of
*** handguns and tequila.
***
*** ~Mitch Ratcliffe
******************************
birthdays:
1779 - Peter Mark Roget was a British physician and lexicographer. He is best known for publishing, the 'Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases' (Roget's Thesaurus), a classified collection of related words.
1782 – Daniel Webster, American statesman. Actually he should have been President of the United States. Twice he ran for President and twice this party picked another person. Twice Webster was offered the Vice Presidential slot which he turned down in disdain. Twice the President died and he would have been the MAN. Life is so unpredictable.
1813 – Joseph Glidden, the American farmer who patented barbed wire. The cattle men hated him. His invention started closing the vast open range that the big cattle ranchers depended on to move their critters to market. Barbed wire was originally created, as much, to keep cattle out as to keep them in. Now of course we use it, mostly, to keep them in. Joe became one of the richest men in the US with a fortune over a million dollars (back when a million dollars really meant something).
The "barbed wire salesman" in 'Back to the Future Part III' is based on Joe Glidden. He is played by Richard Dysart.
1882 – A. A. Milne, English author. Oh Bother.
events:
1535 – Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded Lima, the capital of Peru.
1591 – King Naresuan of Siam kills Crown Prince Minchit Sra of Burma in single combat, for which this date is now observed marked as Royal Thai Armed Forces day. NOW THIS IS A GREAT IDEA. If our leaders want to fight another country then let them fight and leave all us little guys alone. The only good thing I got out of being drafted in the Army was I got to shoot Machine Guns. They are fun. I do not care for shooting guns at all but any person that has ever fired a machine gun will tell you the same thing, they make you feel great. I do not understand it, but when you flip that switch to Rock n Roll and pull the trigger, its all good. This is not just a GUY thing either. With all the women in the military I have talked to a few that have trained with automatic weapons and they like it as well. I don't want to shoot anybody, just dump a clip into the scenery.
A M-16 takes less than 2 seconds to empty a 20 round clip. The best was the Quad 50s. Four .50 cal machine guns mounted on an electric turret that you sit in. When four M-2 (Ma Deuce) machine guns open up you are putting over 2000 rounds a minute, down range. Every fifth round is a tracer and it makes the special effects in a SciFi movie look like crap. It costs about $5000 a minute to fire the Quad 50s (I got to shoot them for about 5 or 6 minutes). I think the cost of the ammo (40mm and .50 cal) I used in training was in the $40,000 to $50,000 range and we are talking about only a few minutes of live fire. It is your tax money at work. Of course they made up for it by not paying us much. I was making about $125 dollar a month at the time. A 19 year old, under paid, draftee firing thousands of dollars of ammo from million dollar weapons, sleep easy tonight knowing we are on guard. But in 1970 while I was training to kill, I was not allowed to buy alcohol or vote. Well since the US Army was nice enough to send me to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas I could go across the border to Mexico where they would sell me any Booze I could afford, but the country I was supposed to be defending would not sell to me. Old enough to kill or die but not old enough to drink.
1670 – Henry Morgan captures Panama. Captain Henry Morgan, he was a pirate. The capture of Panama nearly caused a war between Spain and England. Morgan was Welsh and there was a treaty between Spain and the UK which Morgan's attack violated. When Henry was brought back to Britain to stand trial it was proved that he did not know about the treaty so had done nothing (to his knowledge) wrong. The next year he was made Governor of Jamaica. Hell of a pirate.
holidays:
Winnie the Pooh Day - Oh Bother.
National Peking Duck Day - Duck, duck, goose. (I never understood that.)
==============================
tuesday 19 january
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** Give a person a fish and you feed them
*** for a day; teach that person to
*** use the Internet and they won’t
*** bother you for weeks.
***
*** ~Unknown
******************************
birthdays:
November 2009 - FireFox web browser was five back in November. I missed it but since they are celebrating the entire year I thought it was still okay to say something. For information on how to hold a FireFox party goto:
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/
Unplug Microsoft Internet Explorer and plug into the Free FireFox (or Google Chrome).
events:
1788 – Second group of ships of the First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay. The Second First?
1840 – Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what became known as Wilkes Land for the United States. So we have the oldest legal claim to the iceberg.
The United States Exploring Expedition, AKA 'the Wilkes Expedition', included naturalists, botanists, a mineralogist, taxidermists, artists and a philologist. The expedition consisted of the vessels USS Vincennes, Peacock, the brig Porpoise, the store-ship Relief, and two schooners, Sea Gull and Flying Fish. They traveled down the Atlantic side of the Americas, over to Australia, around Antarctica and up to Washington State and back down the Pacific side of the US. The trip took four years ad covered 87,000 miles. The report took a long time. Wilkes spent most of 15 years writing and editing parts of the report. His 'Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition' (5 volumes and an atlas) were published in 1844 and he edited the scientific reports of the expedition (20 volumes and 11 atlases, 1844–1874) and was the author of Vol. XI and Vol. XIII.
You can find more information and see some of the texts by going to:
http://www.sil.si.edu/
Wilkes was raised by his Aunt Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was the first American-born woman to be canonized a saint by the Catholic Church. So he could literally have said that he was raised by a Saint.
1915 – German Zeppelins bomb the towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in the United Kingdom killing more than 20, in the first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target. They should have never shown us how to do that because it would come back to haunt them, in WWII, a thousand fold.
1935 – Coopers Inc. sells the world's first briefs. Today the briefs are more likely called 'Y' fronts or tidy whiteys and the company is better known as Jockey. My dad grew up with boxers and he says the briefs are panties. It seems as if the Thong (or as it was known in the old days 'G' string) dates from about this time as well. Strippers and street walkers were the only ones that wore G strings. They were invented to show off as much skin as possible with out breaking indecency laws. The problem with those indecency laws (and every stripper knows this) is a very scantily clad body is more sexy than to totally nude body. With a tiny bit of clothing there is the promise of more and with total nudity, Whomp there it is. So the G string was born to show it all off but it was adopted by modern women for the exact opposite reason. They did not want to show a visible panty line (VPL) underneath their tight fitted jeans and they did not want to quit wearing panties all together (although I think that is okay), so they run a string up their crack. I remember when I was younger every once in a while you would hear a women make some uncomfortable remark about her panties riding up in the crack of her butt and now that is where they are fitted to be. People are so strange.
By the way there are 'G' strings, 'C' strings, 'T' strings and 'V' strings. They are all variations of the same thing but the C string in really revealing since it does not have a waist strip and is held on as much by your imagination than anything else.
1977 – Snow falls in Miami, Florida. This is the only time in the history of the city that snow has fallen. It also fell in the Bahamas.
1983 – The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced. It cost about $10,000 and was the most sophisticated operating system on a PC for years. Obviously it was a total flop. Today a total mind blowing game machine with dual 30 inch monitors and a couple of terabytes of disk storage won't cost you $10,000.
holidays:
Champagne Day - Bubbles up the nose. I don't care who knows it, I love cheap Pink Champagne. I say cheap because it has been my experience that the more expensive a Champagne is, the worse it tastes. My real favorite is Sparkling Burgundy (that is what Cold Duck is).
Brew A Potion Day - Like Champagne.
Artist As Outlaw Day - Every true artist is an outlaw. Art is always forbidden or censored or misunderstood or hated by someone.
Healthy Weight, Healthy Look Day - Don't know what it is but I can tell it was not meant for me to celebrate.
==============================
wednesday 20 january
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** Computers make it easier to do a lot
*** of things, but most of the things
*** they make it easier to do
*** don’t need to be done.
***
*** ~Andy Rooney
******************************
birthdays:
1896 – George Burns, American actor, comedian. I really liked him. He was the most professional comedian I ever saw. 100 years old when he threw off this mortal coil. Laughter obviously was good medicine for him.
1899 - Kenjiro Takayanagi was a Japanese pioneer in the development of television. Although he failed to gain much recognition in the West, he built the world's first all-electronic television receiver, and is referred to as "the father of Japanese television". Once again this shows how many 'inventions' are developed at the same time in different places. It makes it really hard to pinpoint the true inventor. Maybe we should remember that life is a group sport. We are the product of what our genetics gives us and what we learn from those who have come before. Anyone who thinks that they are a completely self made person is an idiot. Well unless they can prove they changed their own diapers (Nappys for some of you) and warmed their own formula.
1920 – DeForest Kelley, American actor. Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy of the USS Enterprise. Before that he did westerns and even The Twilight Zone but who cares "Damn it Jim I'm a Doctor, not an actor!"
events:
1649 – Charles I of England goes on trial for treason and other "high crimes". Eventually he is executed. This fits the first part of my master plan for freedom.
My plan for freedom for all people consists of four parts.
1 - Kill the Kings and Queens
2 - Kill the Dictators
3 - Kill the Lawyers (sorry Joe, I will miss you)
4 - Eat their pets
1788 – The third part of First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay. The Third First?????
1841 – Hong Kong Island is occupied by the British. I think Hong Kong is what finally started the Communist government of China to start its capitalist reforms. Looking across a fence at your brothers and sisters (literally) who have so much stuff and realizing that you can have that stuff as well has got to be a powerful, powerful force. Do not get me wrong there is much about Socialism and Communism that I admire but their is no force on this planet that can change things (for good and bad) faster than good old capitalist greed. It is not all bad, it just needs to be whacked on nose really, really hard occasionally. (Oh yes eat their pets as well.)
1929 – 'In Old Arizona', the first full-length talking motion picture filmed outdoors, is released.
1959 – The first flight of the Vickers Vanguard. The Type 950 Vanguard was a British short/medium-range turboprop passenger airliner. The Vanguard was introduced just before the first of the large jet-powered airliners, and was largely ignored by the market. Only 44 were built and eventually all remaining craft were converted to cargo haulers. They served well a cargo planes and the last one was not retired until 1996.
1961 – John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the youngest man to become elected President of the United States.
1981 – Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as U.S. President, the oldest man to be inaugurated at 69.
holidays:
Hat Day - wear one.
==============================
thursday 21 january
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** The Internet is so big, so powerful and
*** so pointless that for some people
*** it is a complete substitute for life.
***
*** ~Andrew Brown
******************************
birthdays:
1824 – Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, American, Confederate army general. I do not like anything to do with the Confederacy. I hate much of what they stood for but the personal bravery and spirit of the men that fought was amazing. Stonewall Jackson was one such example. He got his nickname "Stonewall" from the fact that he and his brigade never retreated but always stood as a stone wall. Once when his troops were firing from behind ramparts Jackson stood up to survey the battlefield. With bullets flying by him and killing his men he stood there trying to find the advantage his men could exploit. Someone is reported to have said "There stands Jackson like a Stonewall".
Jackson was a West Point Graduate and a hero of the Mexican American War. He was an important but unliked instructor at Virginia Military Institute when the Civil War broke out. He answered the Confederacy's call because of what he felt was personal duty. His military lessons are still taught at VMI and West Point: discipline, mobility, assessing the enemy's strength and intentions while attempting to conceal your own, and the efficiency of artillery combined with an infantry assault. I have said before but war brings out the very worst and sometimes the absolute best in the men and women that participate.
1922 – Telly Savalas - bald headed actor, with a sucker, playing a homicide detective, saying "Who loves you, baby". What's not to like
1924 – Benny Hill - Thanks for all the laughs Benny. A lot of the world misses you.
1938 – Wolfman Jack, American disk jockey and actor - You know you have made it when famous people put your name in songs they write.
Here are some of the lyrics to Taj Mahal's Song "AIN'T NOBODY'S BUSINESS BUT MY OWN"
Champagne don't make me crazy .
Cocaine don't make me lazy,
Ain't nobody's business but my own.
Candy is dandy and liquor is quicker.
You can drink all the liquor down to Costa Rica.
Ain't nobody's business but my own.
Now you know sometimes I put on my straw hat
my striped pants and spats baby
and you know I go truckin' downtown
standin' on the corner so the fellas can say
Hey man ain't you the brother in the '57 Mercury
painted lime green
with turnpike skirts and the chrome reverse wheels,
with white wall tires
with dark windows you can see out off
can't nobody see in
with four on the floor
745 horse power
and a big stereo listening to Wolfman Jack saying "Ain't this X-E-R-B baby"?
XERB was the monster radio station of the 60s and 70s. It was call sign of a border blaster station in Rosarito, Baja, which was branded as The Mighty 1090. The genre was short religious programs and serious Rock n Roll. At night you could hear them in Detroit some times. XERB was pushing up to 250,000 watts of AM radio power into the night. For comparison clear channel (the only station on that frequency) WLW AM in Cincinnati is a 50,000 watt station that can be heard to the Gulf of Mexico and across two thirds of the US (at night).
events:
1789 – The first American novel, 'The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth', is printed in Boston, Massachusetts. This is why I was confused by the opening of a museum in 1773 (I think I talked about that last week), we had not even published a novel yet. What the heck did we have to put in museum in 1773. Maybe a Lego model of New Amsterdam.... no LEGOS HAD NOT BEEN INVENTED YET.
1887 – Brisbane gets 18.3 inches of rain, a record for any Australian capital city. I think this is a record for most places. The most rain I have ever seen I one day was 6 inches and I thought the flood had come.
1899 – Opel manufactures its first automobile. Open since 1863 they used to make sewing machines in a cow shed. They used to sell Opels in the US. My dad had one and I liked it. It was the European Econo-box, four on the floor, AM radio and no frills car. It was what I was driving on the last day on my Christmas leave, from the Army, in 1970 when I had my first traffic accident. Some jerk was not looking at the light and he rear ended me while I was stopped at the light. Anyhow you can't get them here anymore but they are available in a lot of the rest of the world. That is strange since they have been a wholly-owned subsidiary of General Motors (GM) since 1929.
1908 – New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, only to have the measure vetoed by the mayor. Good for the mayor. Smoking is not good for you but if guys can do it women should be allowed the same opportunity to make bad decisions. The right to make bad decisions is probably the very essence of free will. It is also one of the hardest ones to grant to those we care about or love. Some times you just have to sigh and let them go and pray they figure it out.
holidays:
Own Your Own Home Day - Or else
National Hugging Day - Trouble, Trouble, Trouble. We don't allow human contact anymore without a contract and a prenuptial agreement.
==============================
friday 22 january
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
*** (This is one for the the techies)
***
*** There are two major products that
*** came out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
*** We do not believe this to be a coincidence.
***
*** ~Jeremy S. Anderson
******************************
birthdays:
1796 - Karl Ernst Claus was a Russian chemist and naturalist of Baltic German origin and professor at Kazan State University. He discovered the element ruthenium. Claus named it after Ruthenia, the Latin name of Rus', a region of Eastern Europe populated by Eastern Slavs. This area includes Ukraine (excluding Crimea), Belarus' and parts of Russia, Poland and Slovakia. Its symbol is Ru and atomic number is 44. It is a rare transition metal of the platinum group.
1932 - Berthold Grünfeld was a Norwegian psychiatrist, sexologist, and professor of social medicine at the University of Oslo. He was also a recognized expert in forensic psychiatry, often employed by Norwegian courts to examine insanity defense pleas.
1959 – Linda Blair, American actress. She was once the girl friend of Rick James who wrote the song 'Super Freak'. Guess who it is about.
Super Freak by Rick James (and excessively sampled by MC Hammer for 'You Can't Touch This') (Well most of the lyrics)
She's a very kinky girl, the kind you don't take home to mother
She will never let your spirits down, once you get her off the street
She likes the boys in the band, she says that I'm her all-time favorite
When I make my move to her room it's the right time,
She's never hard to please
That girl is pretty wild now (the girl's a super freak)
The kind of girl you read about (in new wave magazines)
That girl is pretty kinky (the girl's a super freak)
I really love to taste her (every time we meet)
She's all right, she's all right, that girls all right with me, yeah, he-he-he
She's a super freak, super freak, she's super freaky, yeow
Everybody sing, super freak, super freak
She's a very special girl, (the kind of girl you want to know)
From her head down to her toenails, (down to her feet, yeah)
Yes she'll wait for me in backstage with her girlfriends, in a limousine
(Going back in Chinatown)
Three's not a crowd to her she says, (Menage a trois, ooh, la-la!)
Room 714 I'll be waiting
When I get there she's got incense, wine and candles,
It's such a freaky scene
events:
1506 – The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrives at the Vatican. The Swiss Guards are still there. They have modern weapons and uniforms but the traditional uniforms that they wear are something else. They are red, blue and yellow and totally unsuited to modern warfare but perfect for the tourists. Switzerland is now a very well to do country but that was not always the case. Over 500 years ago, young Swiss men formed guard units that hired out as body guards and military units. They were famed for their skill and loyalty to their employers. The only Swiss Guard unit left is the Pope's body guards in the Vatican. Over 500 years of loyal service.
Other Papal military units
The Noble Guard - Heavy Cavalry 1801 - 1970
Palatine Guard - Infantry unit 1850 - 1970. For a lot of its history this unit was a unpaid volunteer group that stood in ranks for the sole purpose of looking really good. Their 500 member swelled to 2000 when at the end of WWII they actually had to protect the Vatican and it properties from German troops that were running Italy after the Fasist government collapsed.
Corsican Guard - disbanded in 1860
Papal Zouaves - 1860 - 1870. Zouavaes were originally French infantry units stationed in North African. They had a distinctive uniform which included short open fronted jackets, baggy trousers and often sashes and oriental headgear. Often (not always) the uniforms were very brightly colored. They were originally recruited solely from the Zouaoua (or Zwāwa), a tribe of Berbers mostly located in Algeria. Eventually they were opened to Europeans that lived in Algeria and they became a very elite, experienced, dangerous force. Like every other human endeavor we copy those we respect and several military units around the world (usually all volunteer) adopted the baggy pants and unusual hats. They were the Green Beret of their day. Today the Dress Uniform of the French Foreign Legion is about the only remaining vestige of the distinctive units. The machine guns of WWI made sure that their colorful uniforms would not show up on the battlefield anytime soon. There were several 'Zouavae' units in the US Civil War on both sides.
The Papal Zouavaes numbered almost 5000 men from 26 different countries including the US, Russia, India, Holland, France, Belgium, Rome, Canada, Ireland, Prussia, England, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Peru and even the South Sea Islands.
1771 – Spain cedes Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands to England. The stage is set for war 200 years later.
1947 – KTLA, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, begins operation in Hollywood, California.
holidays:
Answer Your Cat's Question Day - I think the question is "Are you going to open that damn can tonight or am I going to have to bite you?"
==============================
****joe722****
==============================
Google has a little thing called Street View which is where they have assembled photos (360 degree worth) of a bunch of places. The number of locations shooting up and they are very cool. I think real estate agencies are responsible for many of the new pictures since it helps sell their houses. To see the official map of all the places that Google has Street Views goto:
http://gmaps-samples.
Now the really cool thing about this map is that you can zoom in on it and then hit the satellite 'button' and see the photographic map. This is really cool for me since one of the few short comings on Linux is it can not display Google Earth directly but I can see the maps from sites like this.
==============================
If you like Top Ten Lists then this web site is just for you.
http://www.the-top-tens.com/
Of course I disagree with most everything they have there but check it out you may be one of their fellow travelers.
==============================
Today is a special day. Today is the day I change the foil on my head. Once every two months on the 16th it is safe to rip off the old aluminum and replace it. There is about a 2 hour window when "THEY" are not broadcasting. I still hear voices but I think it is Howard Stern on XM radio.
==============================
Now to the reasons to be happy this week
(or at least civil).
Here goes:
The NoButtonButtons are a little longer this week. Deal with it.
==============================
monday 18 january
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** A computer lets you make more mistakes
*** faster than any invention in human history
*** - with the possible exceptions of
*** handguns and tequila.
***
*** ~Mitch Ratcliffe
******************************
birthdays:
1779 - Peter Mark Roget was a British physician and lexicographer. He is best known for publishing, the 'Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases' (Roget's Thesaurus), a classified collection of related words.
1782 – Daniel Webster, American statesman. Actually he should have been President of the United States. Twice he ran for President and twice this party picked another person. Twice Webster was offered the Vice Presidential slot which he turned down in disdain. Twice the President died and he would have been the MAN. Life is so unpredictable.
1813 – Joseph Glidden, the American farmer who patented barbed wire. The cattle men hated him. His invention started closing the vast open range that the big cattle ranchers depended on to move their critters to market. Barbed wire was originally created, as much, to keep cattle out as to keep them in. Now of course we use it, mostly, to keep them in. Joe became one of the richest men in the US with a fortune over a million dollars (back when a million dollars really meant something).
The "barbed wire salesman" in 'Back to the Future Part III' is based on Joe Glidden. He is played by Richard Dysart.
1882 – A. A. Milne, English author. Oh Bother.
events:
1535 – Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded Lima, the capital of Peru.
1591 – King Naresuan of Siam kills Crown Prince Minchit Sra of Burma in single combat, for which this date is now observed marked as Royal Thai Armed Forces day. NOW THIS IS A GREAT IDEA. If our leaders want to fight another country then let them fight and leave all us little guys alone. The only good thing I got out of being drafted in the Army was I got to shoot Machine Guns. They are fun. I do not care for shooting guns at all but any person that has ever fired a machine gun will tell you the same thing, they make you feel great. I do not understand it, but when you flip that switch to Rock n Roll and pull the trigger, its all good. This is not just a GUY thing either. With all the women in the military I have talked to a few that have trained with automatic weapons and they like it as well. I don't want to shoot anybody, just dump a clip into the scenery.
A M-16 takes less than 2 seconds to empty a 20 round clip. The best was the Quad 50s. Four .50 cal machine guns mounted on an electric turret that you sit in. When four M-2 (Ma Deuce) machine guns open up you are putting over 2000 rounds a minute, down range. Every fifth round is a tracer and it makes the special effects in a SciFi movie look like crap. It costs about $5000 a minute to fire the Quad 50s (I got to shoot them for about 5 or 6 minutes). I think the cost of the ammo (40mm and .50 cal) I used in training was in the $40,000 to $50,000 range and we are talking about only a few minutes of live fire. It is your tax money at work. Of course they made up for it by not paying us much. I was making about $125 dollar a month at the time. A 19 year old, under paid, draftee firing thousands of dollars of ammo from million dollar weapons, sleep easy tonight knowing we are on guard. But in 1970 while I was training to kill, I was not allowed to buy alcohol or vote. Well since the US Army was nice enough to send me to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas I could go across the border to Mexico where they would sell me any Booze I could afford, but the country I was supposed to be defending would not sell to me. Old enough to kill or die but not old enough to drink.
1670 – Henry Morgan captures Panama. Captain Henry Morgan, he was a pirate. The capture of Panama nearly caused a war between Spain and England. Morgan was Welsh and there was a treaty between Spain and the UK which Morgan's attack violated. When Henry was brought back to Britain to stand trial it was proved that he did not know about the treaty so had done nothing (to his knowledge) wrong. The next year he was made Governor of Jamaica. Hell of a pirate.
holidays:
Winnie the Pooh Day - Oh Bother.
National Peking Duck Day - Duck, duck, goose. (I never understood that.)
==============================
tuesday 19 january
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** Give a person a fish and you feed them
*** for a day; teach that person to
*** use the Internet and they won’t
*** bother you for weeks.
***
*** ~Unknown
******************************
birthdays:
November 2009 - FireFox web browser was five back in November. I missed it but since they are celebrating the entire year I thought it was still okay to say something. For information on how to hold a FireFox party goto:
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/
Unplug Microsoft Internet Explorer and plug into the Free FireFox (or Google Chrome).
events:
1788 – Second group of ships of the First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay. The Second First?
1840 – Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what became known as Wilkes Land for the United States. So we have the oldest legal claim to the iceberg.
The United States Exploring Expedition, AKA 'the Wilkes Expedition', included naturalists, botanists, a mineralogist, taxidermists, artists and a philologist. The expedition consisted of the vessels USS Vincennes, Peacock, the brig Porpoise, the store-ship Relief, and two schooners, Sea Gull and Flying Fish. They traveled down the Atlantic side of the Americas, over to Australia, around Antarctica and up to Washington State and back down the Pacific side of the US. The trip took four years ad covered 87,000 miles. The report took a long time. Wilkes spent most of 15 years writing and editing parts of the report. His 'Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition' (5 volumes and an atlas) were published in 1844 and he edited the scientific reports of the expedition (20 volumes and 11 atlases, 1844–1874) and was the author of Vol. XI and Vol. XIII.
You can find more information and see some of the texts by going to:
http://www.sil.si.edu/
Wilkes was raised by his Aunt Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was the first American-born woman to be canonized a saint by the Catholic Church. So he could literally have said that he was raised by a Saint.
1915 – German Zeppelins bomb the towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in the United Kingdom killing more than 20, in the first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target. They should have never shown us how to do that because it would come back to haunt them, in WWII, a thousand fold.
1935 – Coopers Inc. sells the world's first briefs. Today the briefs are more likely called 'Y' fronts or tidy whiteys and the company is better known as Jockey. My dad grew up with boxers and he says the briefs are panties. It seems as if the Thong (or as it was known in the old days 'G' string) dates from about this time as well. Strippers and street walkers were the only ones that wore G strings. They were invented to show off as much skin as possible with out breaking indecency laws. The problem with those indecency laws (and every stripper knows this) is a very scantily clad body is more sexy than to totally nude body. With a tiny bit of clothing there is the promise of more and with total nudity, Whomp there it is. So the G string was born to show it all off but it was adopted by modern women for the exact opposite reason. They did not want to show a visible panty line (VPL) underneath their tight fitted jeans and they did not want to quit wearing panties all together (although I think that is okay), so they run a string up their crack. I remember when I was younger every once in a while you would hear a women make some uncomfortable remark about her panties riding up in the crack of her butt and now that is where they are fitted to be. People are so strange.
By the way there are 'G' strings, 'C' strings, 'T' strings and 'V' strings. They are all variations of the same thing but the C string in really revealing since it does not have a waist strip and is held on as much by your imagination than anything else.
1977 – Snow falls in Miami, Florida. This is the only time in the history of the city that snow has fallen. It also fell in the Bahamas.
1983 – The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced. It cost about $10,000 and was the most sophisticated operating system on a PC for years. Obviously it was a total flop. Today a total mind blowing game machine with dual 30 inch monitors and a couple of terabytes of disk storage won't cost you $10,000.
holidays:
Champagne Day - Bubbles up the nose. I don't care who knows it, I love cheap Pink Champagne. I say cheap because it has been my experience that the more expensive a Champagne is, the worse it tastes. My real favorite is Sparkling Burgundy (that is what Cold Duck is).
Brew A Potion Day - Like Champagne.
Artist As Outlaw Day - Every true artist is an outlaw. Art is always forbidden or censored or misunderstood or hated by someone.
Healthy Weight, Healthy Look Day - Don't know what it is but I can tell it was not meant for me to celebrate.
==============================
wednesday 20 january
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** Computers make it easier to do a lot
*** of things, but most of the things
*** they make it easier to do
*** don’t need to be done.
***
*** ~Andy Rooney
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birthdays:
1896 – George Burns, American actor, comedian. I really liked him. He was the most professional comedian I ever saw. 100 years old when he threw off this mortal coil. Laughter obviously was good medicine for him.
1899 - Kenjiro Takayanagi was a Japanese pioneer in the development of television. Although he failed to gain much recognition in the West, he built the world's first all-electronic television receiver, and is referred to as "the father of Japanese television". Once again this shows how many 'inventions' are developed at the same time in different places. It makes it really hard to pinpoint the true inventor. Maybe we should remember that life is a group sport. We are the product of what our genetics gives us and what we learn from those who have come before. Anyone who thinks that they are a completely self made person is an idiot. Well unless they can prove they changed their own diapers (Nappys for some of you) and warmed their own formula.
1920 – DeForest Kelley, American actor. Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy of the USS Enterprise. Before that he did westerns and even The Twilight Zone but who cares "Damn it Jim I'm a Doctor, not an actor!"
events:
1649 – Charles I of England goes on trial for treason and other "high crimes". Eventually he is executed. This fits the first part of my master plan for freedom.
My plan for freedom for all people consists of four parts.
1 - Kill the Kings and Queens
2 - Kill the Dictators
3 - Kill the Lawyers (sorry Joe, I will miss you)
4 - Eat their pets
1788 – The third part of First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay. The Third First?????
1841 – Hong Kong Island is occupied by the British. I think Hong Kong is what finally started the Communist government of China to start its capitalist reforms. Looking across a fence at your brothers and sisters (literally) who have so much stuff and realizing that you can have that stuff as well has got to be a powerful, powerful force. Do not get me wrong there is much about Socialism and Communism that I admire but their is no force on this planet that can change things (for good and bad) faster than good old capitalist greed. It is not all bad, it just needs to be whacked on nose really, really hard occasionally. (Oh yes eat their pets as well.)
1929 – 'In Old Arizona', the first full-length talking motion picture filmed outdoors, is released.
1959 – The first flight of the Vickers Vanguard. The Type 950 Vanguard was a British short/medium-range turboprop passenger airliner. The Vanguard was introduced just before the first of the large jet-powered airliners, and was largely ignored by the market. Only 44 were built and eventually all remaining craft were converted to cargo haulers. They served well a cargo planes and the last one was not retired until 1996.
1961 – John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the youngest man to become elected President of the United States.
1981 – Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as U.S. President, the oldest man to be inaugurated at 69.
holidays:
Hat Day - wear one.
==============================
thursday 21 january
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
***
*** The Internet is so big, so powerful and
*** so pointless that for some people
*** it is a complete substitute for life.
***
*** ~Andrew Brown
******************************
birthdays:
1824 – Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, American, Confederate army general. I do not like anything to do with the Confederacy. I hate much of what they stood for but the personal bravery and spirit of the men that fought was amazing. Stonewall Jackson was one such example. He got his nickname "Stonewall" from the fact that he and his brigade never retreated but always stood as a stone wall. Once when his troops were firing from behind ramparts Jackson stood up to survey the battlefield. With bullets flying by him and killing his men he stood there trying to find the advantage his men could exploit. Someone is reported to have said "There stands Jackson like a Stonewall".
Jackson was a West Point Graduate and a hero of the Mexican American War. He was an important but unliked instructor at Virginia Military Institute when the Civil War broke out. He answered the Confederacy's call because of what he felt was personal duty. His military lessons are still taught at VMI and West Point: discipline, mobility, assessing the enemy's strength and intentions while attempting to conceal your own, and the efficiency of artillery combined with an infantry assault. I have said before but war brings out the very worst and sometimes the absolute best in the men and women that participate.
1922 – Telly Savalas - bald headed actor, with a sucker, playing a homicide detective, saying "Who loves you, baby". What's not to like
1924 – Benny Hill - Thanks for all the laughs Benny. A lot of the world misses you.
1938 – Wolfman Jack, American disk jockey and actor - You know you have made it when famous people put your name in songs they write.
Here are some of the lyrics to Taj Mahal's Song "AIN'T NOBODY'S BUSINESS BUT MY OWN"
Champagne don't make me crazy .
Cocaine don't make me lazy,
Ain't nobody's business but my own.
Candy is dandy and liquor is quicker.
You can drink all the liquor down to Costa Rica.
Ain't nobody's business but my own.
Now you know sometimes I put on my straw hat
my striped pants and spats baby
and you know I go truckin' downtown
standin' on the corner so the fellas can say
Hey man ain't you the brother in the '57 Mercury
painted lime green
with turnpike skirts and the chrome reverse wheels,
with white wall tires
with dark windows you can see out off
can't nobody see in
with four on the floor
745 horse power
and a big stereo listening to Wolfman Jack saying "Ain't this X-E-R-B baby"?
XERB was the monster radio station of the 60s and 70s. It was call sign of a border blaster station in Rosarito, Baja, which was branded as The Mighty 1090. The genre was short religious programs and serious Rock n Roll. At night you could hear them in Detroit some times. XERB was pushing up to 250,000 watts of AM radio power into the night. For comparison clear channel (the only station on that frequency) WLW AM in Cincinnati is a 50,000 watt station that can be heard to the Gulf of Mexico and across two thirds of the US (at night).
events:
1789 – The first American novel, 'The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth', is printed in Boston, Massachusetts. This is why I was confused by the opening of a museum in 1773 (I think I talked about that last week), we had not even published a novel yet. What the heck did we have to put in museum in 1773. Maybe a Lego model of New Amsterdam.... no LEGOS HAD NOT BEEN INVENTED YET.
1887 – Brisbane gets 18.3 inches of rain, a record for any Australian capital city. I think this is a record for most places. The most rain I have ever seen I one day was 6 inches and I thought the flood had come.
1899 – Opel manufactures its first automobile. Open since 1863 they used to make sewing machines in a cow shed. They used to sell Opels in the US. My dad had one and I liked it. It was the European Econo-box, four on the floor, AM radio and no frills car. It was what I was driving on the last day on my Christmas leave, from the Army, in 1970 when I had my first traffic accident. Some jerk was not looking at the light and he rear ended me while I was stopped at the light. Anyhow you can't get them here anymore but they are available in a lot of the rest of the world. That is strange since they have been a wholly-owned subsidiary of General Motors (GM) since 1929.
1908 – New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, only to have the measure vetoed by the mayor. Good for the mayor. Smoking is not good for you but if guys can do it women should be allowed the same opportunity to make bad decisions. The right to make bad decisions is probably the very essence of free will. It is also one of the hardest ones to grant to those we care about or love. Some times you just have to sigh and let them go and pray they figure it out.
holidays:
Own Your Own Home Day - Or else
National Hugging Day - Trouble, Trouble, Trouble. We don't allow human contact anymore without a contract and a prenuptial agreement.
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friday 22 january
***The Official NoButtonButton*************
*** (This is one for the the techies)
***
*** There are two major products that
*** came out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
*** We do not believe this to be a coincidence.
***
*** ~Jeremy S. Anderson
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birthdays:
1796 - Karl Ernst Claus was a Russian chemist and naturalist of Baltic German origin and professor at Kazan State University. He discovered the element ruthenium. Claus named it after Ruthenia, the Latin name of Rus', a region of Eastern Europe populated by Eastern Slavs. This area includes Ukraine (excluding Crimea), Belarus' and parts of Russia, Poland and Slovakia. Its symbol is Ru and atomic number is 44. It is a rare transition metal of the platinum group.
1932 - Berthold Grünfeld was a Norwegian psychiatrist, sexologist, and professor of social medicine at the University of Oslo. He was also a recognized expert in forensic psychiatry, often employed by Norwegian courts to examine insanity defense pleas.
1959 – Linda Blair, American actress. She was once the girl friend of Rick James who wrote the song 'Super Freak'. Guess who it is about.
Super Freak by Rick James (and excessively sampled by MC Hammer for 'You Can't Touch This') (Well most of the lyrics)
She's a very kinky girl, the kind you don't take home to mother
She will never let your spirits down, once you get her off the street
She likes the boys in the band, she says that I'm her all-time favorite
When I make my move to her room it's the right time,
She's never hard to please
That girl is pretty wild now (the girl's a super freak)
The kind of girl you read about (in new wave magazines)
That girl is pretty kinky (the girl's a super freak)
I really love to taste her (every time we meet)
She's all right, she's all right, that girls all right with me, yeah, he-he-he
She's a super freak, super freak, she's super freaky, yeow
Everybody sing, super freak, super freak
She's a very special girl, (the kind of girl you want to know)
From her head down to her toenails, (down to her feet, yeah)
Yes she'll wait for me in backstage with her girlfriends, in a limousine
(Going back in Chinatown)
Three's not a crowd to her she says, (Menage a trois, ooh, la-la!)
Room 714 I'll be waiting
When I get there she's got incense, wine and candles,
It's such a freaky scene
events:
1506 – The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrives at the Vatican. The Swiss Guards are still there. They have modern weapons and uniforms but the traditional uniforms that they wear are something else. They are red, blue and yellow and totally unsuited to modern warfare but perfect for the tourists. Switzerland is now a very well to do country but that was not always the case. Over 500 years ago, young Swiss men formed guard units that hired out as body guards and military units. They were famed for their skill and loyalty to their employers. The only Swiss Guard unit left is the Pope's body guards in the Vatican. Over 500 years of loyal service.
Other Papal military units
The Noble Guard - Heavy Cavalry 1801 - 1970
Palatine Guard - Infantry unit 1850 - 1970. For a lot of its history this unit was a unpaid volunteer group that stood in ranks for the sole purpose of looking really good. Their 500 member swelled to 2000 when at the end of WWII they actually had to protect the Vatican and it properties from German troops that were running Italy after the Fasist government collapsed.
Corsican Guard - disbanded in 1860
Papal Zouaves - 1860 - 1870. Zouavaes were originally French infantry units stationed in North African. They had a distinctive uniform which included short open fronted jackets, baggy trousers and often sashes and oriental headgear. Often (not always) the uniforms were very brightly colored. They were originally recruited solely from the Zouaoua (or Zwāwa), a tribe of Berbers mostly located in Algeria. Eventually they were opened to Europeans that lived in Algeria and they became a very elite, experienced, dangerous force. Like every other human endeavor we copy those we respect and several military units around the world (usually all volunteer) adopted the baggy pants and unusual hats. They were the Green Beret of their day. Today the Dress Uniform of the French Foreign Legion is about the only remaining vestige of the distinctive units. The machine guns of WWI made sure that their colorful uniforms would not show up on the battlefield anytime soon. There were several 'Zouavae' units in the US Civil War on both sides.
The Papal Zouavaes numbered almost 5000 men from 26 different countries including the US, Russia, India, Holland, France, Belgium, Rome, Canada, Ireland, Prussia, England, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Peru and even the South Sea Islands.
1771 – Spain cedes Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands to England. The stage is set for war 200 years later.
1947 – KTLA, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, begins operation in Hollywood, California.
holidays:
Answer Your Cat's Question Day - I think the question is "Are you going to open that damn can tonight or am I going to have to bite you?"
==============================
****joe722****
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