Paradise Driver

Friday, January 09, 2009

DAILY CHUCKLE 9-009

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Thursday, January 08, 2009

JANUARY 8TH

Today is Thursday, Jan. 8th, the eighth day of 2009.
There are 357 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Jan. 8, 1935, rock-and-roll legend Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Miss.

On this date:

In 1798, the Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was declared in effect by President John Adams nearly three years after its ratification by the states; it prohibited a citizen of one state from suing another state in federal court.
In 1815, U.S. forces led by Gen. Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans, the closing engagement of the War of 1812.
In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson outlined his "Fourteen Points" for lasting peace after World War I. Mississippi became the first state to ratify the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which established Prohibition.
In 1959, Charles de Gaulle was inaugurated as president of France's Fifth Republic. In Cuba, Fidel Castro and his army arrived in Havana in triumph following the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" in his State of the Union address.
In 1973, the Paris peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam resumed.
In 1976, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai died in Beijing.
In 1987, for the first time, the Dow Jones industrial average closed above 2,000, ending the day at 2,002.25.
In 1989, 47 people were killed when a British Midland Boeing 737-400 carrying 126 people crashed in central England.
In 2003, a US Airways Express commuter plane crashed at the Charlotte, N.C., airport, killing all 21 people on board.
A Turkish Airlines jet crashed in Turkey, killing 75 people.

Ten years ago:

By a unanimous vote, senators formally ratified the rules for President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial.
The top two executives of Salt Lake City's Olympic organizing committee resigned amid disclosures that civic boosters had given cash to members of the International Olympic Committee.

Five years ago:

A U.S. Black Hawk medivac helicopter crashed near Fallujah, Iraq, killing all nine soldiers aboard.
Libya agreed to compensate family members of victims of a 1989 bombing of a French passenger plane over the Niger desert that killed 170 people.

One year ago:

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican John McCain won the New Hampshire primaries.
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the only officer charged in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, was cleared of criminal wrongdoing.
A quick-thinking Boy Scout foiled an assassination attempt on the president of the Maldives, grabbing an attacker's knife as the man leapt from a crowd.
Paintings by Pablo Picasso and Brazilian painter Candido Portinari, stolen from Brazil's Sao Paulo Museum in December 2007, were recovered.

Today's Birthdays:

Actor-comedian Larry Storch is 86.
Actor Ron Moody is 85.
Comedian Soupy Sales is 83.
Broadcast journalist Sander Vanocur is 81.
CBS newsman Charles Osgood is 76.
Singer Shirley Bassey is 72.
Game show host Bob Eubanks is 71.
Country-gospel singer Cristy Lane is 69.
Rhythm-and-blues singer Anthony Gourdine (Little Anthony and the Imperials) is 68.
Actress Yvette Mimieux is 67.
Physicist Stephen Hawking is 67.
Rock musician Robby Krieger (The Doors) is 63.
Rock singer David Bowie is 62.
Movie director John McTiernan is 58.
Actress Harriet Sansom Harris is 54.
Singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith is 45.
Actress Maria Pitillo is 44.
Actress Michelle Forbes is 44.
Singer R. Kelly is 42.
Rock musician Jeff Abercrombie (Fuel) is 40.
Actress Ami Dolenz is 40.
Reggae singer Sean Paul is 36.
Country singer Tift Merritt is 34.
Actress-rock singer Jenny Lewis is 33.
Actress Amber Benson is 32.
Actor Scott Whyte is 31.
Actress Sarah Polley is 30.
Actress Rachel Nichols is 29.
Actress Gaby Hoffman is 27.
Rock musician Disashi Lumumbo-Kasongo (Gym Class Heroes) is 26.

Thought for Today:

"In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism."
Hannah Arendt, American author and historian (1906-1975).

"Let's all be careful out there!"

DAILY CHUCKLE 9-008

"Let's all be careful out there!"

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

JANUARY 7TH

Today is Wednesday, Jan. 7, the seventh day of 2009.
There are 358 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Jan. 7, 1789, the first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president.

On this date:

In 1608, an accidental fire devastated the Jamestown settlement in the Virginia colony.
In 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei began observing three of Jupiter's moons.
In 1800, the 13th president of the United States, Millard Fillmore, was born in Summerhill, N.Y.
In 1927, commercial transatlantic telephone service was inaugurated between New York and London.
In 1942, the Japanese siege of Bataan began during World War II.
In 1949, George C. Marshall resigned as U.S. Secretary of State, effective Jan. 20. President Harry S. Truman chose Dean Acheson to succeed him.
In 1959, the United States recognized the new government of Cuba, six days after Fidel Castro led the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.
In 1972, Lewis F. Powell Jr. and William H. Rehnquist were sworn in as the 99th and 100th members of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1979, Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge government.
In 1989, Emperor Hirohito of Japan died in Tokyo at age 87; he was succeeded by his son, Crown Prince Akihito.

Ten years ago:

For the second time in history, an impeached American president went on trial before the Senate. President Bill Clinton faced charges of perjury and obstruction of justice; he was acquitted.

Five years ago:

President George W. Bush proposed legal status, at least temporarily, for millions of illegal immigrants working in the U.S.
Swedish actress Ingrid Thulin died in Stockholm at age 77.

One year ago:

The Pentagon reported an Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged at and threatened to blow up a three-ship U.S. Navy convoy passing near Iranian waters, then vanished as the American ship commanders were preparing to open fire.
In Baghdad, the head of a key U.S.-backed Sunni group was killed in a double suicide bombing that claimed at least 11 other lives.
Second-ranked LSU defeated No. 1 Ohio State, 38-24, in the BCS championship game played in New Orleans.
Philip Agee, a renegade CIA agent whose naming of operatives led to a law against exposing spies, died in Cuba at age 72.

Today's Birthdays:

Author William Peter Blatty is 81.
Country singer Jack Greene is 79.
Pop musician Paul Revere is 71.
Magazine publisher Jann Wenner is 63.
Singer Kenny Loggins is 61.
Singer-songwriter Marshall Chapman is 60.
Latin pop singer Juan Gabriel is 59.
Actress Erin Gray is 59.
Actor Sammo Hung is 57.
Actor David Caruso is 53.
"CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric is 52.
Country singer David Lee Murphy is 50.
Rock musician Kathy Valentine (The Go-Go's) is 50.
Actor David Marciano is 49.
Actress Hallie Todd is 47.
Actor Nicolas Cage is 45.
Singer-songwriter John Ondrasik (Five for Fighting) is 44.
Actor Doug E. Doug is 39.
Actor Kevin Rahm is 38.
Country singer-musician John Rich is 35.
Actor Dustin Diamond is 32.
Actor Robert Ri'chard is 26.
Actor Liam Aiken is 19.
Actress Camryn Grimes is 19.
Actor Max Morrow is 18.

Thought for Today:

"I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable."
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American author (1906-2001).

"Let's all be careful out there!"

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: