It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. – Mark Twain
TODAY – SEPTEMBER 1th – FRIDAY
254th day of 2015 with 111 to follow. The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Mercury, Neptune and Saturn.
Holidays for Today:
*911 Remembrance
*Patriot Day
*National Hot Cross Bun Day
*National Make Your Bed Day
*No News is Good News Day
*Emergency Number Day (9-1-1; proclaimed by President Reagan on August 26 in 1987)
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BIRTHDAYS ON THIS DATE:
1816 Carl Zeiss, German optical instrument maker (Founder of Zeiss company to make optical scopes & binoculars & camera lens)
1862 O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), Greensboro, North Carolina, author (The Gift of the Magi, The Ransom of Red Chief, A Retrieved Reformation)
1877 James Hopwood Jeans, British scientist (Rayleigh–Jeans law, Astronomer Royal)
1865 D. H. Lawrence, English author (The Lost Girl, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Twilight in Italy & Other Essays, Sea & Sardinia)
1900 D. W. Brooks, Royston, Georgia, farmer and businessman (founded Gold Kist chicken producing company)
1913 Paul “Bear” Bryant, Fordyce, Arkansas, football player and head coach of University of Alabama for 25 years (6 national championships, 13 conference championships)
1924 Tom Landry, Mission, Texas, football player and coach for Dallas Cowboys (2 Super Bowl titles, 5 NFC titles, 13 Divisional titles)
1928 Earl Holliman, Delhi, Louisiana, actor (The Big Combo, The Sons of Katie Elder )
1928 William X. Kienzle, Detroit, Michigan, Catholic priest and author (The Rosary Murders, Bishop as Pawn, The Gathering)
1937 Robert Crippen, Beaumont, Texas, retired USN Captain, astronaut (4 Space Shuttle missions/ 3 as commander / STS-1, STS-7, STS-41-C, STS-41-G)
1939 Charles Geschke, Cleveland, Ohio, inventor and businessman (co-founder w/ John Warnock of Adobe Systems Inc)
1940 Robert Palmer, American businessman (co-founded Mostek, integrated circuit manufacturer)
1950 Amy Madigan, Chicago, Illinois, actress (Field of Dreams, Carnivale, Twice in a Lifetime)
1958 Roxann Dawson, Los Angeles, California, actress (B’Elanna Torres on Star Trek: Voyager), author (co-wrote Tenebrea trilogy w/ Daniel Graham)
1959 Andre Dubus III, Oceanside, California, author (House of Sand and Fog, Townie, The Garden of Last Days)
1960 Anne Ramsay, Los Angeles County, California, actress (Mad About You, Hawthorne, Secret Life of American Teenager)
1962 Kristy McNichol, Los Angeles, actress (Apple’s Way, Family, Little Darlings, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, Empty Nest, Invasion America)
1970 Taraji P. Henson, Washington, D.C., actress and singer (The Division, Boston Legal, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Person of Interest, Empire, No Good Deed)
1979 Ariana Richards, Healdsburg, California, actress (Prancer, Tremors, Jurassic Park)
1987 Tyler Hoechlin, Corona, California, actor (Road to Perdition, 7th Heaven, Teen Wolf)
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Every day is a new opportunity to be grateful, and enjoy the world, and improve it in our own little ways. – Terri Guillemets
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HISTORICAL HAPPENINGS:
1609 Manhattan Island and the indigenous people living there are discovered by Henry Hudson.
1786 The Beginning of the Annapolis Convention.
1789 Alexander Hamilton is appointed the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.
1792 The Hope Diamond is stolen along with other French crown jewels when six men break into the house used to store them.
1847 Stephen Foster’s well-known song, Oh! Susanna, is first performed at a saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1857 Mormon settlers and Paiutes massacre 120 pioneers at Mountain Meadows, Utah, in what became known as The Mountain Meadows massacre.
1919 U.S. Marines invade Honduras.
1940 The first remote operation of a computer is done by George Stibitz.
1941 Ground is broken for the construction of The Pentagon.
1961 Foundation of the World Wildlife Fund.
1978 U.S. President Jimmy Carter, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel meet at Camp David and agree on the Camp David Accords a framework for peace between Israel and Egypt and a comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
1978 Janet Parker is the last person to die of smallpox, in a laboratory-associated outbreak.
1985 Pete Rose breaks Ty Cobb’s baseball record for most career hits with his 4,192nd hit.
1997 NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor reaches Mars.
2001 Three hijacked aircraft are deliberately crashed into the twin World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, in a co-ordinated attack which became known as “9/11”. Another hijacked airliner in the same attack crashes in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people are killed.
2012 The U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya is attacked, resulting in four deaths, including J. Christopher Stevens, the United States Ambassador to Libya.
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During his sermon, our pastor quoted Matthew 19:19, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” To emphasize the point, he asked three times, with increasing intensity: “Who is my neighbor? WHO is my neighbor? WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?!”
Each time he asked a young boy behind us answered (mimicking the pastor’s intensity, but not quite as loud): “Mister Rogers! Mister Rogers! Mister Rogers!”
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One Sunday morning, a Sunday school teacher was teaching on how Lot’s wife looked back and suddenly turned into a pillar of salt.
One little boy raised his hand and said, “Yes, my mother looked back once while she was driving… and she turned into a telephone pole.”
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A goober college student is taking a final exam. He takes his seat in the examination hall, stares at the question paper for a few minutes and then in a fit of inspiration he takes his shoes off and throws them out the window. He then removes his hat and throws it away as well. His shirt, pants, socks and watch follow suit.
The alarmed proctor approaches him and asks, “What’s going on?”
“I’m following instructions. It says very clearly, ‘Answer the following questions in brief’.”
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ONE-LINERS: Cow Government
~ Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
~ Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. The government gives you a glass of milk.
~ Bureaucratic Socialism: Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you should need.
~ Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.
~ Pure Communism: You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most “ability” and who has the most “need.” Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.
~ Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much as you can and sell it on the black market.
~ Perestroika: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the “free market.”
~ Cambodian Communism: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
~ Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
~ Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
~ Bureaucratic Democracy: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
~ Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
~ Bankers’ Capitalism: You don’t have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don’t have any cows to put up as collateral.
~ Surrealism: You have two polka-dotted giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
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About a half hour after takeoff, the lead flight attendant on a flight from Dublin nervously made the announcement:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m so very sorry but it appears that there has been a terrible mixup by our airport catering service. It’s not clear how this has happened but we have 103 passengers on board and, unfortunately, only forty dinner meals. Aer Lingus truly apologizes for this mistake and inconvenience.”
When the passengers’ muttering had died down, she continued:
“Anyone who is kind enough to give up their meal so that another passenger can eat will receive free, unlimited drinks for the duration of our five-hour flight.”
Her next announcement came a couple of hours later:
“If anyone would like to change their minds, we still have forty dinners available.”
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A big Texas rancher and a little Missouri farmer had a conversation.
The Texas rancher said, “I can get into my truck, drive it all day and not ever get off of my ranch!”
“Yeah,” replied the little Missouri farmer, “I had a truck like that one time.”
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In Remembrance: Original World Trade Center
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WARNING! ENTERING THE PUN ZONE!
>~ The math professor went crazy with the blackboard. He did a number on it.
~ The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground
~ The dead batteries were given out free of charge.
~ If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory.
~ A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail.
~ A bicycle can’t stand alone, it is two tired.
~ A will is a dead giveaway.
~ Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
~ A backward poet writes inverse.
~ In a democracy it’s your vote that counts; in feudalism, it’s your Count that votes.
~ I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.
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My daughter announced, “I want to open a happiness stand.”
I bit. I asked, “What’s a happiness stand?”
“It’s like a lemonade stand, only I’ll be selling happiness for a quarter.
“What do your customers get for their quarter?”
“I get to throw a water balloon at them.”
“And that will make them happy?”
“Maybe, maybe not. But it will make *me* happy! And I get their money, hee-hee!”
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LATE NIGHT QUIPS. . .
* Six Flags theme parks has announced new rides and attractions for 2016, including an insane roller coaster with incredible ups and downs. It’ll be called “The Dow Jones.” – Gary Bachman
* In a recent interview, Sarah Palin supported Donald Trump’s immigration policies and said that when immigrants are in the U.S., they should “speak American.” Then immigrants were like, “You first.” – Jimmy Fallon
* A new report found that the U.S. economy created 173,000 jobs last month. The most common job created this summer was a teacher. The second most common? Republican presidential candidate. – Jimmy Fallon
* President Obama has announced plans to rename Mount McKinley “Denali,” after its original Native American name. Because it turns out it’s easier to rename a mountain than a football team. – Seth Meyers
* Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said over the weekend that he’s not sure who he’ll vote for, but he loves Donald Trump. I guess Brady just loves anything that releases air. – Seth Meyers
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Bob was having trouble sleeping at night. He’d tried everything: Over the counter sleeping pills, warm milk, counting sheep, watching old, boring movies on late night television, and every other old wives’ tale and suggestion from friends.
Finally he went to his doctor, who prescribed a heavy dosage of extra-strength sleeping tablets.
Bob took the pills on Sunday night and awoke before he even heard the alarm, realizing he’d slept soundly. Elated, he dressed unhurriedly and took his time arriving at his office for work. When he walked in and saw his boss, he said, “I finally slept great last night! And I didn’t have a bit of trouble getting up this morning!”
“That’s fine,” his boss replied, “but where were you Monday and Tuesday?”
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QUIP OF THE DAY: It’s easy to identify people who can’t count to ten. They are in front of you in the express lane at the supermarket.” – June Henderson
THAT’S (ALMOST) ALL FOLKS!
Thought for the day. . . Farmer wisdom: Life is simpler when you plow around the stumps.