DAILY CHUCKLE 3-318

"Let's all be careful out there!"

NOVEMBER 12TH

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 12, the 317th day of 2008.
There are 49 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

• On Nov. 12, 1942, the World War II naval Battle of Guadalcanal began. (The Allies ended up winning a major victory over the Japanese.)

On this date:

• In 1815, American suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born in Johnstown, N.Y.
• In 1908, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun was born in Nashville, Ill.
• In 1927, Josef Stalin became the undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union as Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party.
• In 1948, former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal.
• In 1977, the city of New Orleans elected its first black mayor, Ernest "Dutch" Morial, the winner of a runoff.
• In 1982, Yuri V. Andropov was elected to succeed the late Leonid I. Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee.
• In 1990, Japanese Emperor Akihito formally assumed the Chrysanthemum Throne.
• In 1996, a Saudi Boeing 747 jetliner collided shortly after takeoff from New Delhi, India, with a Kazak Ilyushin-76 cargo plane, killing 349 people.
• In 2001, American Airlines Flight 587, en route from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to the Dominican Republic, crashed after takeoff, killing 265 people.
• In 2004, a jury in Redwood City, Calif., convicted Scott Peterson of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and dumping her body in San Francisco Bay. (Peterson, who maintains his innocence, was later sentenced to death.)

Ten years ago:

• Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley filed a $433 million dollar lawsuit against the firearms industry, declaring that it had created a public nuisance by flooding the streets with weapons deliberately marketed to criminals. (A judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2000; an appeals court ruled in 2002 that the city of Chicago could proceed; but the Illinois Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit in 2004.)

Five years ago:

• President Bush and his top foreign advisers reviewed new strategies to speed the transfer of political power in Iraq.
• A suicide truck bomber attacked the headquarters of Italy's paramilitary police in Nasiriyah, Iraq, killing more than 30 people.
• Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat swore in a new Palestinian Cabinet.
• Actress Penny Singleton died in Sherman Oaks, Calif., at age 95.
• Actor Jonathan Brandis died in Los Angeles at age 27.

One year ago:

• Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was placed under house arrest for the second time in four days ahead of a planned march to protest emergency rule.
• The Dow Jones industrial average closed below 13,000 for first time since August 2007.
• Ryan Braun won the NL Rookie of the Year award in one of the closest votes, while Dustin Pedroia ran away with the AL honor.

Today's Birthdays:

• Rhythm-and-blues singer Ruby Nash Curtis (Ruby and the Romantics) is 69.
• Actor-playwright Wallace Shawn is 65.
• Singer Brian Hyland is 65.
• Rhythm-and-blues singer Jimmy Hayes (Persuasions) is 65.
• Rock musician Booker T. Jones (Booker T. & the MGs) is 64.
• Singer-songwriter Neil Young is 63.
• Rock musician Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser (Blue Oyster Cult) is 61.
• Country singer Barbara Fairchild is 58.
• Actress Megan Mullally is 50.
• Olympic gold medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci is 47.
• Rock musician David Ellefson is 44.
• Actor Sam Lloyd is 41.
• Baseball player Sammy Sosa is 40.
• Figure skater Tonya Harding is 38.
• Actress Radha Mitchell is 35.
• Actress Lourdes Benedicto is 34.
• Actress Tamala Jones is 34.
• Actress Angela Watson is 34.
• Singer Tevin Campbell is 32.
• Actress Ashley Williams is 30.
• Actor Ryan Gosling is 28.
• Contemporary Christian musician Chris Huffman is 28.
• Actress Anne Hathaway is 26.
• Pop singer Omarion is 24.
• Actress Macey Cruthird ("Hope and Faith") is 16.

Thought for Today:

"Money is always there but the pockets change; it is not in the same pockets after a change, and that is all there is to say about money."
Gertrude Stein, American author (1874-1946).

"Let's all be careful out there!"

DAILY CHUCKLE 8-317

"Let's all be careful out there!"

NOVEMBER 11TH

Today is Tuesday, Nov. 11, the 316th day of 2008.
There are 50 days left in the year.
This is Veterans Day in the U.S., Remembrance Day in Canada.

Today's Highlight in History:

• On Nov. 11, 1918, fighting in World War I came to an end with the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Germany.

On this date:

• In 1620, 41 Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower, anchored off Massachusetts, signed a compact calling for a "body politick."
• In 1831, former slave Nat Turner, who'd led a violent insurrection, was executed in Jerusalem, Va.
• In 1889, Washington became the 42nd state.
• In 1918, the Second Polish Republic declared its independence.
• In 1921, the remains of an unidentified American service member were interred in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in a ceremony presided over by President Harding.
• In 1966, Gemini 12 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, Fla., with astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. aboard.
• In 1968, the Republic of Maldvies was declared.
• In 1983, President Reagan became the first U.S. chief executive to address the Diet, Japan's national legislature.
• In 1988, police in Sacramento, Calif., found the first of seven bodies buried on the grounds of a boardinghouse. Landlady Dorothea Puente was later charged in the deaths of nine people; she was convicted of three murders and sentenced to life in prison.
• In 2004, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died at a military hospital in Paris at age 75.

Ten years ago:

• President Clinton ordered warships, planes and troops to the Persian Gulf as he laid out his case for a possible attack on Iraq. Iraq, meanwhile, showed no sign of backing down from its refusal to deal with U.N. weapons inspectors.
  
• Israel's Cabinet narrowly ratified a land-for-peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Five years ago:

• President Bush's top foreign advisers summoned L. Paul Bremer, Iraq's U.S. administrator, for hurried White House talks focused on their growing frustrations with the Iraqi Governing Council and a logjam in transferring political power to Iraqis.
• In Galveston, Texas, millionaire Robert Durst was found not guilty of murdering Morris Black, an elderly neighbor whom Durst said he'd killed accidentally.
• Toronto's Roy Halladay won the American League Cy Young Award.

One year ago:

• President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Pakistan would stick to its January schedule for parliamentary elections, but set no time limit on emergency rule.
• Marking his fifth Veterans Day since the invasion of Iraq, President Bush honored U.S. troops past and present at a tearful ceremony in Texas.

Today's Birthdays:

• Dancer-choreographer Nicholas Royce is 83.
• Comedian Jonathan Winters is 83.
• Jazz singer-musician Mose Allison is 81.
• Author Carlos Fuentes is 80.
• Country singer Narvel Felts is 70.
• Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is 68.
• Rock singer-musician Vince Martell (Vanilla Fudge) is 63.
• Golfer Fuzzy Zoeller is 57.
• Pop singer-musician Paul Cowsill (The Cowsills) is 56.
• Rock singer-musician Andy Partridge (XTC) is 55.
• Singer Marshall Crenshaw is 55.
• Rock singer Dave Alvin is 53.
• Rock musician Ian Craig Marsh (Human League; Heaven 17) is 52.
• Actor Stanley Tucci is 48.
• Actress Demi Moore is 46.
• Actress Calista Flockhart is 44.
• Actor Philip McKeon is 44.
• Rock musician Scott Mercado is 44.
• TV personality Carson Kressley is 39.
• Actor David DeLuise is 37.
• Actor Adam Beach is 36.
• Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is 34.
• Rock musician Jonathan Pretus (Cowboy Mouth) is 27.

Thought for Today:

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."
Herman Hesse, German novelist (1877-1962).

"Let's all be careful out there!"

DAILY CHUCKLE 8-316

"Let's all be careful out there!"

NOVEMBER 10TH

Today is Monday, Nov. 10, the 315th day of 2008.
There are 51 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

• On Nov. 10, 1775, the U.S. Marines were organized under authority of the Continental Congress.

On this date:

• In 1871, journalist-explorer Henry M. Stanley found Scottish missionary David Livingstone, who had not been heard from for years, near Lake Tanganyika in central Africa.
• In 1917, 41 suffragists were arrested for picketing in front of the White House.
• In 1919, the American Legion opened its first national convention, in Minneapolis.
• In 1928, Japan's Emperor Hirohito was formally enthroned, almost two years after his ascension.
• In 1938, Kate Smith first sang Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" on her CBS radio program, which aired on Thursdays.
• In 1938, Turkish statesman Mustafa Kemal Ataturk died in Istanbul at age 57.
• In 1954, the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, depicting the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, was dedicated by President Eisenhower in Arlington, Va.
• In 1969, the children's educational program "Sesame Street" made its debut on National Educational Television (later PBS).
• In 1975, the ore-hauling ship SS Edmund Fitzgerald and its crew of 29 vanished during a storm in Lake Superior.
• In 1982, Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev died at age 75.

Ten years ago:

• The Pentagon stepped up the movement of warships to the Persian Gulf as the Clinton administration swept aside the idea of negotiations with Iraq over U.N. weapons inspections rejected by the Iraqis.

Five years ago:

• Democrat John Kerry shook up his faltering presidential campaign, replacing campaign manager Jim Jordan with Mary Beth Cahill.
• Federal regulators allowed customers to switch home phone numbers to their cell phones.
• A World Trade Organization panel upheld a ruling that U.S. duties on steel imports were illegal.
• Chicago newspaper columnist and TV personality Irv Kupcinet died at age 91.

One year ago:

• Six U.S. troops died in an insurgent ambush, making 2007 the deadliest year for American forces in Afghanistan since 2001.
• A stagehands strike shut down most Broadway shows, with curtains rising again 19 days later.
• Author Norman Mailer died in New York at age 84.
• The mother of rapper Kanye West, Donda West, died at a Los Angeles-area hospital at age 58 a day after undergoing plastic surgery.
• Miami ended its 70-year stay at the famed Orange Bowl with the biggest shutout loss in the stadium's history, a 48-0 rout to Virginia.

Today's Birthdays:

• Actor Russell Johnson is 84.
• Film composer Ennio Morricone is 80.
• Blues singer Bobby Rush is 74.
• Actor Albert Hall is 71.
• Country singer Donna Fargo is 67.
• Lyricist Tim Rice is 64.
• Actress Alaina Reed Hall is 62.
• Rock singer-musician Greg Lake (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) is 61.
• Actress-dancer Ann Reinking is 59.
• Actor Jack Scalia is 57.
• Movie director Roland Emmerich is 53.
• Actor Matt Craven is 52.
• Actor-comedian Sinbad is 52.
• Actress Mackenzie Phillips is 49.
• Author Neil Gaiman is 48.
• Actor-comedian Tommy Davidson is 45.
• Actor Michael Jai White is 44.
• Country singer Chris Cagle is 40.
• Actor-comedian Tracy Morgan is 40.
• Actress Ellen Pompeo ("Grey's Anatomy") is 39.
• Rapper-producer Warren G is 38.
• Rock singer-musician Jim Adkins (Jimmy Eat World) is 33.
• Actress Brittany Murphy is 31.
• Rapper Eve is 30.
• Rock musician Chris Jannou (Silverchair) is 29.
• Actor Bryan Neal is 28.
• Actress Heather Matarazzo is 26.
• Country singer Miranda Lambert is 25.
• Actor Josh Peck is 22.

Thought for Today:

"Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?"
Fanny Brice, American actress and singer (1891-1951).

"Let's all be careful out there!"