Paradise Driver

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

DAILY CHUCKLE 9-007

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

JANUARY 6TH

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 6, the sixth day of 2009.
There are 359 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Jan. 6, 1838, Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail gave the first successful public demonstration of their telegraph, in Morristown, N.J.

On this date:

In 1540, England's King Henry VIII married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. (The marriage lasted about six months.)
In 1759, George Washington and Martha Dandridge Custis were married in New Kent County, Va.
In 1912, New Mexico became the 47th state.
In 1919, the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, died in Oyster Bay, N.Y., at age 60.
In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address, outlined a goal of "Four Freedoms": Freedom of speech and expression; the freedom of people to worship God in their own way; freedom from want; freedom from fear.
In 1942, the Pan American Airways Pacific Clipper arrived in New York more than a month after leaving California and following a westward route.
In 1945, George Herbert Walker Bush married Barbara Pierce in Rye, N.Y.
In 1967, U.S. Marines and South Vietnamese troops launched Operation Deckhouse Five, an offensive in the Mekong River delta.
In 1982, truck driver William G. Bonin was convicted in Los Angeles of 10 of the "Freeway Killer" slayings of young men and boys. (Bonin was later convicted of four other killings; he was executed in 1996.)
In 1994, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the leg by an assailant at Cobo Arena in Detroit; four men, including Jeff Gillooly, ex-husband of Kerrigan's rival, Tonya Harding, were later sentenced to prison for their roles in the attack; Harding, who denied advance knowledge of the attack, received probation after pleading guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution.

Ten years ago:

The 106th Congress convened with Dennis Hastert taking over as the new House speaker.
Buckingham Palace announced that Prince Edward, the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II, would marry his longtime girlfriend, public relations executive Sophie Rhys-Jones, later in the year.

Five years ago:

Thirteen children and two adults were killed in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province by a time-bomb concealed in an apple cart on a street regularly used by U.S. military patrols.
A design consisting of two reflecting pools and a paved stone field was chosen for the World Trade Center memorial in New York.
Mijailo Mijailovic confessed to the fatal stabbing of Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in September 2003.
Hitting star Paul Molitor and reliever Dennis Eckersley were elected to baseball's Hall of Fame.

One year ago:

In a video posted on the Internet, Al-Qaida's American spokesman, Adam Gadahn, urged fighters to meet President Bush with bombs during his upcoming Mideast visit.
Mikhail Saakashvili won a second term as Georgia's president.

Today's Birthdays:

Pollster Louis Harris is 88.
Bluegrass performer Earl Scruggs is 85.
Author E.L. Doctorow is 78.
Actress Bonnie Franklin is 65.
Musician Joey, the CowPolka King (Riders in the Sky) is 60.
Rock singer-musician Kim Wilson (The Fabulous Thunderbirds) is 58.
Singer Jett Williams is 56.
Rock musician Malcolm Young (AC-DC) is 56.
Actor-comedian Rowan Atkinson is 54.
Golfer Nancy Lopez is 52.
Rhythm-and-blues singer Kathy Sledge is 50.
TV chef Nigella Lawson is 49.
Rhythm-and-blues singer Eric Williams (BLACKstreet) is 49.
Movie director John Singleton is 41.
TV personality Julie Chen (CBS' "The Early Show") is 39.
Actor Danny Pintauro ("Who's the Boss?") is 33.
Actress Rinko Kikuchi (Film: "Babel") is 28.
Rock singer Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys) is 23.

Thought for Today:

"What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism."
Pauline Kael, American movie critic (1919-2001).

"Let's all be careful out there!"

DAILY CHUCKLE 9-006

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Monday, January 05, 2009

JANUARY 5TH

Today is Monday, Jan. 5, the fifth day of 2009.
There are 360 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Jan. 5, 1896, an Austrian newspaper, Wiener Presse, reported the discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that came to be known as "X-rays."

On this date:

In 1781, a British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Va.
In 1809, the Treaty of the Dardanelles, which ended the Anglo-Turkish War, was concluded by the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire.
In 1895, French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, was publicly stripped of his rank. (He was ultimately vindicated.)
In 1925, Nellie T. Ross became governor of Wyoming; she was the first female governor in U.S. history. (She succeeded Frank E. Lucas, who had served as acting governor following the death of Ross' husband, William B. Ross.)
In 1933, the 30th president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, died in Northampton, Mass., at age 60.
In 1949, in his State of the Union address, President Harry S. Truman labeled his administration the Fair Deal.
In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed assistance to countries to help them resist Communist aggression; this became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.
In 1970, Joseph A. Yablonski, an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United Mine Workers of America, was found murdered with his wife and daughter at their Clarksville, Pa., home. UMW President Anthony Boyle and three others were convicted of the killings.
In 1994, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, died in Boston at age 81.
In 1998, Sonny Bono, the 1960's pop star-turned-politician, was killed when he struck a tree while skiing in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.; he was 62.

Ten years ago:

Four U.S. Air Force and Navy jets fired on, and missed, four Iraqi MiGs testing the "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq in the first such air confrontation in more than six years.

Five years ago:

Foreigners arriving at U.S. airports were photographed and had their fingerprints scanned in the start of a government effort to keep terrorists out of the country.
NASA released a 3-D, black-and-white panoramic picture of the bleak surface of Mars snapped by the newly landed rover Spirit.
China confirmed its first SARS case since an outbreak was contained in July 2003.
After 14 years of denials, Pete Rose publicly admitted that he'd bet on baseball while manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
Baseball pitcher Tug McGraw died near Nashville, Tenn., at age 59.

One year ago:

Republican Mitt Romney won the Wyoming caucuses, picking up eight delegates; in a debate three days before the New Hampshire primary, Romney clashed with Mike Huckabee on foreign policy and John McCain on immigration.
In a Democratic faceoff, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accused campaign rival Barack Obama of changing his positions on health care and "a number of issues."
A Piper Navajo Chieftain airplane crashed off Kodiak island in southern Alaska, killing six people.
A canal breach in Fernley, Nev., flooded about 600 homes.
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady won The Associated Press 2007 NFL MVP award.

Today's Birthdays:

Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale is 81.
Actor Robert Duvall is 78.
Football Hall-of-Fame coach Chuck Noll is 77.
King Juan Carlos of Spain is 71.
Talk show host Charlie Rose is 67.
Actress-director Diane Keaton is 63.
Actor Ted Lange is 61.
Rhythm-and-blues musician George "Funky" Brown (Kool and the Gang) is 60.
Rock musician Chris Stein (Blondie) is 59.
Actress Pamela Sue Martin is 56.
Actor Clancy Brown is 50.
Singer Iris Dement is 48.
Actor Ricky Paull Goldin is 44.
Actor Vinnie Jones is 44.
Rock musician Kate Schellenbach (Luscious Jackson) is 43.
Actress Heather Paige Kent is 40.
Rock singer Marilyn Manson is 40.
Actress January Jones is 31.
Actress Brooklyn Sudano is 28.

Thought for Today:

"The most certain sign of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy."
Francois de La Rochefoucauld, French author (1613-1680).

"Let's all be careful out there!"

DAILY CHUCKLE 9-005

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Sunday, January 04, 2009

JANUARY 4TH

Today is Sunday, Jan. 4, the fourth day of 2009.
There are 361 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

Two hundred years ago, on Jan. 4, 1809, Louis Braille, inventor of the Braille raised-dot reading system for the blind, was born in Coupvray, France.

On this date:

In 1821, the first native-born American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, died in Emmitsburg, Md.
In 1896, Utah was admitted as the 45th state.
In 1904, the Supreme Court, in Gonzalez v. Williams, ruled that Puerto Ricans were not aliens and could enter the United States freely; however, the court stopped short of declaring them U.S. citizens.
In 1948, Burma (now called Myanmar) became independent of British rule.
In 1951, during the Korean War, North Korean and Communist Chinese forces recaptured the city of Seoul.
In 1960, Nobel Prize-winning French author Albert Camus died in an automobile accident at age 46.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson outlined the goals of his "Great Society" in his State of the Union Address.
Poet T.S. Eliot died in London at age 76.
In 1974, President Richard M. Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
In 1987, 16 people were killed when an Amtrak train bound from Washington to Boston collided with Conrail locomotives that had crossed into its path from a side track in Chase, Md.
In 2007, Nancy Pelosi was elected the first female speaker of the House as Democrats took control of Congress.

Ten years ago:

Europe's new currency, the euro, got off to a strong start on its first trading day, rising against the dollar on world currency markets.
Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura took the oath of office as Minnesota's governor.

Five years ago:

In Iowa, seven of the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls participated in a feisty, first debate of the election year.
Afghans approved a new constitution.
Georgians overwhelmingly elected Mikhail Saakashvili president, two months after he'd led protests that forced Eduard Shevardnadze to step down.
Louisiana State University won college football's Sugar Bowl, defeating Oklahoma 21-14.

One year ago:

The government reported that the nation's jobless rate hit 5 percent in December 2007, a two-year high, fanning recession fears.
Howling winds, pelting rain and heavy snow pummeled California.
Britney Spears lost custody of her two sons to ex-husband Kevin Federline a day after police and paramedics were called to her home.

Today's Birthdays: