Paradise Driver

Saturday, November 29, 2008

NOVEMBER 29TH

Today is Saturday, Nov. 29, the 334th day of 2008.
There are 32 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 29, 1963, President Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.

On this date:

In 1530, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, onetime adviser to England's King Henry VIII, died.
In 1864, a Colorado militia killed at least 150 peaceful Cheyenne Indians in the Sand Creek Massacre.
In 1908, New York Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was born in New Haven, Conn.
In 1924, Italian composer Giacomo Puccini died in Brussels, Belgium, before he could complete his opera "Turandot." (It was finished by Franco Alfano.)
In 1947, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the partitioning of Palestine between Arabs and Jews.
In 1961, Enos the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.
In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced he was leaving the Johnson administration to become president of the World Bank.
In 1981, actress Natalie Wood drowned in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island, Calif., at age 43.
In 1986, actor Cary Grant died in Davenport, Iowa, at age 82.
In 2001, George Harrison, the "quiet Beatle," died in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer; he was 58.

Ten years ago:

Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected legalizing heroin and other narcotics.

Five years ago:

Gunmen in Iraq ambushed and killed two Japanese diplomats; seven members of Spain's military intelligence agency were killed in Mahmudiyah.
Thirty-three people were killed in the crash of a military plane in Congo.

One year ago:

A court in Sudan convicted British teacher Gillian Gibbons of insulting Islam for letting her students name a teddy bear "Muhammad" and sentenced her to 15 days in prison. (Gibbons was pardoned after spending more than a week in custody; she then left the country.)
Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, embarked on a new, five-year term as a civilian president, a day after ceding the powerful post of army chief.
Former Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde died in Chicago at age 83.
Former General Motors chief executive Roger B. Smith died in Detroit at age 82.

Today's Birthdays:

Hall-of-Fame sportscaster Vin Scully is 81.
Blues singer-musician John Mayall is 75.
Actress Diane Ladd is 73.
Composer-musician Chuck Mangione is 68.
Country singer Jody Miller is 67.
Pop singer-musician Felix Cavaliere (The Rascals) is 64.
Olympic skier Suzy Chaffee is 62.
Comedian Garry Shandling is 59.
Actor Jeff Fahey is 56.
Movie director Joel Coen is 54.
Actor-comedian-game show host Howie Mandel is 53.
Actress Cathy Moriarty is 48.
Actress Kim Delaney is 47.
Actor Tom Sizemore is 47.
Actor Andrew McCarthy is 46.
Actor Don Cheadle is 44.
Actor-producer Neill Barry is 43.
Musician Wallis Buchanan (Jamiroquai) is 43.
Pop singer Jonathan Knight (New Kids on the Block) is 40.
Rock musician Martin Carr (Boo Radleys) is 40.
Actor Larry Joe Campbell is 38.
Rock musician Frank Delgado (Deftones) is 38.
Actress Gena Lee Nolin is 37.
Actor Brian Baumgartner is 36.
Actress Anna Faris is 32.
Actor Julian Ovenden is 32.
Rapper The Game is 29.
Rock musician Ringo Garza is 27.
Actor Lucas Black is 26.

Thought for Today:

"Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable."
Mark Twain (1835-1910).

"Let's all be careful out there!"

SAILY CHUCKLE 8-334

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Friday, November 28, 2008

NOVEMBER 28TH

Today is Friday, Nov. 28, the 333rd day of 2008.
There are 33 days left in the year.
In American retail, today is known as "Black Friday."

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 28, 1942, nearly 500 people died in a fire that destroyed the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston.

On this date:

In 1520, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean after passing through the South American strait that now bears his name.
In 1907, future movie producer Louis B. Mayer opened his first movie theater, in Haverhill, Mass.
In 1919, American-born Lady Astor was elected the first female member of the British Parliament.
In 1943, President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began conferring in Tehran during World War II.
In 1958, Chad, Gabon and Middle Congo became autonomous republics within the French community.
In 1964, the United States launched the space probe Mariner 4 on a course to Mars.
In 1979, an Air New Zealand DC-10 en route to the South Pole crashed into a mountain in Antarctica, killing all 257 people aboard.
In 1987, a South African Airways Boeing 747 crashed into the Indian Ocean with the loss of all 159 people aboard.
In 1990, Margaret Thatcher resigned as British prime minister during an audience with Queen Elizabeth II, who conferred the premiership on John Major.
In 2001, Enron Corp. collapsed after would-be rescuer Dynegy Inc. backed out of an $8.4 billion deal to take it over.

Ten years ago:

Some Republicans expressed disappointment and outrage over President Clinton's written responses to 81 questions from the House Judiciary Committee concerning the Monica Lewinsky affair, with one accusing the president of "word games."

Five years ago:

President Bush returned to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, after a secret, nearly 36-hour journey that took him to Iraq for a Thanksgiving visit with U.S. troops.

One year ago:

A day after an international Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Md., President Bush told the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian territories he was personally committed to their mission of peace.
Republican presidential rivals Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney clashed over immigration in a provocative, no-holds-barred CNN/YouTube debate.
O.J. Simpson pleaded not guilty in Las Vegas to charges of kidnapping and armed robbery stemming from a confrontation with sports memorabilia dealers. (Simpson and a co-defendant were convicted last month.)
Broadway stagehands and theater producers reached a tentative agreement on ending a crippling 19-day-old strike.

Today's Birthdays:

Recording executive Berry Gordy Jr. is 79.
Former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., is 72.
Singer-songwriter Bruce Channel is 68.
Singer Randy Newman is 65.
Movie director Joe Dante is 62.
CBS News correspondent Susan Spencer is 62.
"Late Show" orchestra leader Paul Shaffer is 59.
Actor Ed Harris is 58.
Actress S. Epatha Merkerson is 56.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is 55.
Country singer Kristine Arnold (Sweethearts of the Rodeo) is 52.
Actor Judd Nelson is 49.
Movie director Alfonso Cuaron is 47.
Rock musician Matt Cameron is 46.
Actress Jane Sibbett is 46.
Comedian Jon Stewart is 46.
Actress Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon is 42.
Rhythm-and-blues singer Dawn Robinson is 40.
Hip-hop musician apl.de.ap (Black Eyed Peas) is 34.
Actress Aimee Garcia is 30.
Rapper Chamillionaire is 29.
Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead is 24.
Actress Scarlett Pomers ("Reba") is 20.

Thought for Today:

"I am not sure that God always knows who are His great men; He is so very careless of what happens to them while they live."
Mary Hunter Austin, American novelist and playwright (1868-1934).

"Let's all be careful out there!"

DAILY CHUCKLE 8-333

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Thursday, November 27, 2008

NOVEMBER 27TH

Today is Thursday, Nov. 27, the 332nd day of 2008.
There are 34 days left in the year.
This is Thanksgiving Day.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 27, 1978, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, a gay-rights activist, were shot to death inside City Hall by former supervisor Dan White.

On this date:

In 1701, astronomer Anders Celsius, inventor of the Celsius temperature scale, was born in Uppsala, Sweden.
In 1901, the U.S. Army War College was established in Washington, D.C.
In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad began regularly serving New York's Pennsylvania Station.
In 1942, during World War II, the French navy at Toulon scuttled its ships and submarines to keep them out of the hands of German troops.
In 1953, playwright Eugene O'Neill died in Boston at age 65.
In 1970, Pope Paul VI, visiting the Philippines, was slightly wounded at the Manila airport by a dagger-wielding Bolivian painter disguised as a priest.
In 1973, the Senate voted 92-3 to confirm Gerald R. Ford as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who'd resigned.
In 1983, 181 people were killed when a Colombian Avianca Airlines Boeing 747 crashed near Madrid's Barajas airport.
In 1988, actor John Carradine, known for his roles in horror films, died in Milan, Italy, at age 82.
In 1989, a bomb blamed on drug traffickers destroyed a Colombian Avianca Boeing 727, killing all 107 people on board and three people on the ground.

Ten years ago:

Answering 81 questions put to him three weeks earlier, President Clinton wrote the House Judiciary Committee that his testimony in the Monica Lewinsky affair was "not false and misleading."

Five years ago:

President Bush flew to Iraq under extraordinary secrecy and security to spend Thanksgiving with U.S. troops and thank them for "defending the American people from danger."

One year ago:

Israeli and Palestinian leaders at a Mideast conference in Annapolis, Md., agreed to formally restart peace talks.
A Somali immigrant, Nuradin Abdi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for plotting to blow up an Ohio shopping mall.
Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor died after being shot in his Florida home by an intruder.
Bill Willis, a Hall of Fame guard with the Cleveland Browns and Ohio State's first black football All-American, died in Columbus, Ohio, at age 86.
Dr. J. Robert Cade, inventor of Gatorade, died at age 80.

Today's Birthdays: