Paradise Driver

Thursday, October 30, 2008

DAILY CHUCKLE 8-304

Hey everybody. I am sorry that the editorial cartoons are so large lately. It is beyond my control. Blogger makes them 600 pixels wide, regardless of what size setting I enter. Maybe they;ll fix it some day. Yeah, right. Don't hold your breath.

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

OCTOBER 29TH

Today is Wednesday, Oct. 29, the 303rd day of 2008.
There are 63 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Oct. 29, 1929, "Black Tuesday" descended upon the New York Stock Exchange. Prices collapsed amid panic selling and thousands of investors were wiped out as America's "Great Depression" began.

On this date:

In 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh, the English courtier, military adventurer and poet, was executed in London.
In 1901, President McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was electrocuted.
In 1923, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed.
In 1940, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson drew the first number — 158 — in America's first peacetime military draft.
In 1956, "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" premiered as NBC's nightly television newscast, replacing "The Camel News Caravan."
In 1956, during the Suez Canal crisis, Israel invaded Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
In 1966, the National Organization for Women was formally organized during a conference in Washington.
In 1967, Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, closed after six months.
In 1979, on the 50th anniversary of the great stock market crash, anti-nuclear protesters tried but failed to shut down the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1994, a gunman fired more than two dozen shots from a semiautomatic rifle at the White House. (Francisco Martin Duran was later convicted of trying to assassinate President Clinton and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.)

Ten years ago:

Sen. John Glenn, at age 77, roared back into space aboard the shuttle Discovery, retracing the trail he'd blazed for America's astronauts 36 years earlier.
The government cleared the powerful drug tamoxifen as a way for healthy women at very high risk of breast cancer to cut their odds of getting a tumor.
South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission condemned both apartheid and violence committed by the African National Congress.
Sixty-three people were killed when fire broke out during a disco party in Goteborg, Sweden.

Five years ago:

International organizations continued their exodus from Iraq in the wake of car bombings in the capital and attacks against coalition troops.
A powerful geomagnetic storm walloped the Earth, knocking out some airline communications but apparently causing no large power outages or other major problems.
Opera star Franco Corelli died in Milan, Italy, at age 82.

One year ago:

A suicide bomber rode his bicycle into a crowd of police recruits in Baqouba, Iraq, killing some 30 people.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced he had prostate cancer, but would continue to perform his duties.
Authorities in Chad charged six French charity workers with kidnapping after they tried to put 103 children on a plane to France, claiming they were orphans from Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region. (The charity workers were later convicted, jailed for several months, then pardoned.)
A Moscow court sentenced Alexander Pichushkin, convicted of 48 murders, to life imprisonment, ending one of Russia's worst serial killer cases.

Today's Birthdays:

Writer-producer Dominick Dunne is 83.
Bluegrass singer-musician Sonny Osborne (The Osborne Brothers) is 71.
Country singer Lee Clayton is 66.
Rock musician Denny Laine is 64.
Singer Melba Moore is 63.
Musician Peter Green is 62.
Actor Richard Dreyfuss is 61.
Actress Kate Jackson is 60.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is 57.
Actor Dan Castellaneta ("The Simpsons") is 51.
Country musician Steve Kellough (Wild Horses) is 51.
Comic strip artist Tom Wilson ("Ziggy") is 51.
Singer Randy Jackson is 47.
Rock musician Peter Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) is 43.
Actress Joely Fisher is 41.
Rapper Paris is 41. Actor Rufus Sewell is 41.
Rock singer SA Martinez (311) is 39.
Musician Toby Smith is 38.
Actress Winona Ryder is 37.
Actress Tracee Ellis Ross is 36.
Actor Trevor Lissauer is 35.
Actress Gabrielle Union is 35.
Actress Milena Govich is 32.
Actor Brendan Fehr is 31.
Actor Ben Foster is 28.
Rock musician Chris Baio (Vampire Weekend) is 24.

Thought for Today:

"Moral indignation is in most cases 2 percent moral, 48 percent indignation, and 50 percent envy."
Vittorio De Sica, Italian movie director (1901-1974).

"Let's all be careful out there!"

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DAILY CHUCKLE 8-303

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

OCTOBER 28TH

Today is Tuesday, Oct. 28, the 302nd day of 2008.
There are 64 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

Fifty years ago, on Oct. 28, 1958, the Roman Catholic patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, was elected Pope; he took the name John XXIII.

On this date:

In 1636, the General Court of Massachusetts passed a legislative act establishing Harvard College.
In 1776, the Battle of White Plains was fought during the Revolutionary War, resulting in a limited British victory.
In 1858, Rowland Hussey Macy opened his first New York store at Sixth Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan.
In 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Cleveland.
In 1893, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducted the first public performance of his Symphony No. 6 in B minor ("Pathetique") in St. Petersburg, Russia, just nine days before his death.
In 1918, the Republic of Czechoslovakia proclaimed its independence.
In 1919, Congress enacted the Volstead Act, which provided for enforcement of Prohibition, over President Wilson's veto.
In 1958, the Samuel Beckett play "Krapp's Last Tape" premiered in London.
In 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the United States that he had ordered the dismantling of missile bases in Cuba.
In 1980, President Carter and Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan faced off in a nationally broadcast, 90-minute debate in Cleveland.

Ten years ago:

In London, the High Court ruled that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was immune from prosecution in British courts. (The House of Lords later overturned the decision, saying Pinochet's arrest could stand. Pinochet was eventually allowed to return to Chile, where a court later held that he could not face charges because of his deteriorating health and mental condition. Pinochet died in 2006.)

Five years ago:

Firefighters beat back flames on Los Angeles' doorstep, saving hundreds of homes in the city's San Fernando Valley from California's deadliest wildfires in more than a decade.
The Senate confirmed Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
A Soyuz space capsule carrying an American, a Russian and a Spaniard from the International Space Station landed in Kazakhstan.
The seven astronauts who died in the Columbia shuttle disaster were honored with the unveiling of their names carved into the national Space Mirror Memorial.

One year ago:

Fire ravaged a North Carolina beach house, killing seven college students.
Argentina's first lady, Cristina Fernandez, claimed victory in the country's presidential election; she became the first woman elected to the post.
The Boston Red Sox swept to their second World Series title in four years with a 4-3 win over the Colorado Rockies in Game 4.
Country star Porter Wagoner died in Nashville, Tenn., at age 80.

Today's Birthdays: