The Flying Horse

[flyinghorse]

Here in central New York it's cloudy with a temp of 31ºF. The forecast is for snow flurries (like we had overnight) with a high of 34ºF. Another mild winter day. I'm being spoiled. Two weeks until Groundhog's Day prediction.

Today in history:
1801: Secretary of State John Marshall was nominated by Pres. John Adams to be chief justice of the US Supreme Court (sworn in 4 Feb). He would go on to become one of the great Chief Justices.
1841: the island of Hong Kong was ceded by China to Great Britain.
1887: the US Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.
1936: King George V died and was succeeded by his eldest son as Edward VIII.
1937: Pres. Roosevelt became the first president to be inaugurated on 20 January instead of 4 March.
1942: Nazi officials held the notorious Wannsee conference where they arrived at their "final solution" that called for exterminating the Jews.
1981: Iran released the American hostages, held for 444 days, minutes after the US presidency passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.
2009: Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president of the US and its first African-American president.

Haitian Update: A new 6.1 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti about 35 miles northwest from Port-au-Prince, sending people fleeing into the streets. Unfortunately, the international relief efforts have been unorganized, disjointed and insufficient to satisfy he great need of the country. The colossal efforts were proving inadequate due to the scale of the disaster as expectations exceeded what money, will and military might might have been able to achieve.

While nearly 9 out of 10 people like Pres. Obama, they give him mixed reviews on his first year in office that is emphasized y the stunning repudiation of his party by the Massachusetts voters. Hopes that he would be an extraordinary president have dimmed after a year of economic calamity, the war in Afghanistan and the health care debate.

A modern male Goldilocks: In Easton, Penn. a man broke into a home, cut his hair, took a shower and was found by the homeowner watching TV and cooking fried chicken. The man faces burglary, criminal trespass and other charges and is being held on $15,000 bail.

A major exhibition bringing together Vincent Van Gogh's paintings and letters opens in London next weekend, the first major Van Gogh show in over 40 years in London. The letters shed a light on the Dutch artist known for his tempestuous brushwork, sometimes odd angles and colors had having cut off his own ear. Most of the letters and 12 of the paintings are on loan from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, but other galleries and private collections are represented also.

Today is Stay Young Forever Day


:)Have a great day everyone.

[flyinghorse]

8-)Here in central New York it's cloudy with a temp of 28ºF that feels like 16ºF with a forecasted high of 31ºF and snow showers off and on all day. 8 days until the groundhog's makes his debut--will we have a shortened or elongated winter?
???Today in History:
1756: composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria.
1880: Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
1901: opera composer Giuseppe Verdi died in Milan, Italy, at age 87.
1943: some 50 bombers struck Wilhelmshaven in the first all-American air raid against Germany.
1944: the USSR proclaimed the deadly German siege of Leningrad was over (lasted for more than two years).
1945: Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps in Poland.
1951: the era of atomic testing in the Nevada desert began.
1967: astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft.
1967: more than 60 nations signed a treaty banning the orbiting of nuclear weapons.
1973: the Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.
1977: the Vatican reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's ban on female priests.
2006: Western Union delivered its last telegram.
The US is wrestling with extending an olive branch to the Taliban in a debate over reconciliation that rekindles memories of 9/11 terrorist attacks. Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, has indicated that he would like to reach out to the leaders of the Taliban. US officials warn that it carries political risks here and could jeopardize a widely backed effort to lure lower-ranking, more amenable Taliban fighters back into Afghan society. I've made my feelings known previously--talking is always better than shooting and the Taliban are not really our enemies, al-Qaeda is. If we could get assurances that they would no longer harbor the terrorist group, then let the Afghanis work out their own accommodations.
The world's next disaster? A mudslide on the famed Inca trail to Machu Picchu has killed and Argentine tourist and a Peruvian guide. Hundreds of tourists have been evacuated by helicopter from a flood zone with more than 1,500 others still stranded, as floodwaters from the Urubamba river rushed pass the ruins. What's next?
Wildlife officials fear that the world's only remaining natural flock of the endangered whooping cranes may be at risk of another winter die-off. Last year it suffered a record 23 deaths at its drought-stricken winter nesting grounds in southern Texas. The problem is their food supply. The rains came too late last winter to produce a healthy population of blue crabs and they fear it will result in another die-off among the 263 remaining cranes in the flock. So far one chick has died and another disappeared. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much that we can do to help.
Sports:
1. And another one bites the dust. Kentucky didn't last very long as the #1 college basketball team and the only one still undefeated. Last night unranked South Carolina beat them 68-62 in their first game as the #1 team since 2003. The Wildcats play was ragged and out of sync and they were outrebounded 41-35. They missed shots from close range and one player missed an all-by-himself layup. All in all not a good performance.
2. Australian Open: Serena Williams advances to the semifinals but her sister Venice doesn't. And for the first time ever, two Chinese women make the semifinal. On the men's side, Roger Federer marches on towards his 16th major title. Of the other three in the men's final, none has ever won a major title.
3. And the Beat Goes On: The University of Connecticut's woman's top ranked basketball team (20-0, 7-0 Big East) won its 59th straight game 73-36 over Rutgers. The 2008 and 200 NCAA champs haven't lost a game since 2008 (to Rutgers by 2 points) and has won every game in the streak by at least double digits. UConn has 70 straight conference wins against teams other than Rutgers since losing to Boston College on 26 Feb 2005.
Today is Thomas Crapper Day

Thought for Today:
"Who never doubted, never half believed. Where doubt is, there truth is--it is her shadow."
--Gamaliel Bailey, American abolitionist (1807-59)

[cnjmom]

Thomas Crapper Day, huh? Well, I'll have to go celebrate, won't I?

I hope all is well, Peg!

[flyinghorse]

Hi cnjmom, long time no hear. I'm doing fine. I hope all is well with you. Are you enjoying our fine weather? LOL

[flyinghorse]

Here in central New York it's mostly cloudy with a temp of 10ºF that feels like -2ºF with a high today of 14ºF. We are to get some more snow showers (chance 90%) accumulating 1-2 inches of the white stuff. 5 days until the groundhog makes his debut--will we have a shortened or elongated winter? Please say short!!

???Today in history:
1820: Britain's King George III died insane at Windsor Castle.
1845: Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" was published in the New York Evening Mirror for the first time.
1850: Henry Clay introduced in the Senate a compromise bill on slavery that included the admission of California as a free state.
1861: Kansas became the 34th state of the Union.
1919: the ratification of the 18th amendment (Prohibition) was certified by acting Secretary of State Frank L. Polk.
1929: The Seeing Eye, a New Jersey-based school which trains guide dogs to assist the blind, was incorporated by Dorothy Harrison Eustis and Morris Frank.
1998: a bomb exploded at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., killing an off-duty policeman and severely wounding a nurse. (The bomber, Eric Rudolph, was capture in May 2003 and is serving a life sentence)
2002: in his first State of the Union address, Pres. Bush warned of "an axis of evil" consisting of North Korea, Iran and Iraq.
2009: the Illinois Senate voted 59-0 to convict Gov. Rod Blagojevich of abuse of power and removed from office. (He faces federal corruption charges over an alleged effort to sell or trade Pres. Obama's vacant Senate seat.)

Our economy has grown faster than expected at a 5.7% pace, the fastest since 2003. But the engine of growth--companies replenishing stockpiles--is likely to weaken as consumers keep a lid on spending. The report is the strongest evidence yet that the worst of the recession has ended. But it does seems as if in today's economy each silver lining has a cloud.

>:(Toyota will face scrutiny from Congress over its biggest ever safety recall. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said he would hold a hearing next month to consider how quickly and effectively Toyota responded to complaints about sticking pedals and slipping floormats. Toyota's rival Honda Motor Co., thought to gain from Toyota's troubles, said it will also recall 1000s of its Fit/Jazz and City models worldwide, including 140,000 in the US, because of a faulty window switch (a child died when fire broke out in a car). It seems that the race to cut costs and the competition among all automakers is so fierce that even the vaunted Japanese are doing things that make them less reliable than they were. Welcome to the world of cut-throat competition.

:(Haitian Update: The UN's development agency has call for a write off of Haiti's $1 billion foreign debt. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) praised calls by the International Monetary Fund for international funding efforts along the lines of the US Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe. "UNCTAD believes this task should begin by immediate and total cancellation of Haiti's existing debt obligations," it said in a policy brief. I hope the international community does so and does institute a long-range plan to help the country recover. Likening it's situation to the destruction of Europe after World War II makes sense to me. We were able to help Europe recover from the destruction of WW II, surely the world can do as much for a small country like Haiti.

[flyinghorse]

Sports:
1. On her way to the Winter Olympics in two weeks, American Lindsey Vonn was thrid in women's super-combo at St Moritiz, Switzerland, but built her lead in the overall World Cup standings, leading in all three races--super-combined, downhill and super-G as well as the overall standings. This will be last series of races before the Olympics. Next comes the downhill in which she has won all five races to date. Can she carry over her success to the Olympics. I guess we'll have to watch and see.
2. Australian Open: Federer cruises into his 22nd Grand Slam title finals after a straight set win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (6-2, 6-3, 6-2). He will face Britain's Andy Murray in the title match. The women's title match will feature Serena Williams, currently no. 1 in the world, vs. Justine Henin, unranked but a former no. 1 player.
3. NFL Super Bowl: Behind Drew Brees, the New Orleans Saints are erasing more than 40 years of misery. Now no one is laughing at the team whose fans invented the custom of placing paper bags over their heads because they were ashamed of watching their team. In 2006, the club that had had just nine winning seasons in 43 years handed the keys to the franchise to a ex-Purdue quarterback who is 6 ft tall in his cleats. When the franchise offered Brees a 6-year contract four years ago, everyone wondered if this was another in a long line of wrong decisions. So when Monday rolled around this week, the city was in shock--the Saints were marching on with their runt QB to Miami and the Super Bowl.
4. The N(no)F(fun)L(league) is at it again. The NFL says that there can't be any more "Who dat" t-shirts, as many small businesses in New Orleans received cease and desist order for printing and selling the t-shirts. The NFL is claiming copyright infringement and no small business can afford to take on the big NFL bullies.

Today is Freethinker's Day




Have a great day everybody.

[cnjmom]

Hi Peg - it's been a wee bit chilly - but my parents in NC have had more snow than we have in NJ!

[flyinghorse]

Hi CNJ
Here in central New York it's mostly cloudy with a temp of 21ºF and the high today is 29ºF with a 50% chance of snow flurries this afternoon. A practically balmy winter day!!
Unfortunately the Ground Hog in Pennsylvania saw his shadow (although someone commented that the sun wasn't shining) but NYC's Chuck disagreed!!
I hope the winter has been treating you well.
Drop by the MSN TV board sometime and say hello.
boards.msn.com/TVboards/thread.aspx?threadid=1223027&boardsparam=Page%3d218

[flyinghorse]

:)good morning my friends from Tuxy and me.
It's the 49th day of 2010 and there are 316 days left in the year.

Today is the Finger Lakes area of NY it's cloudy with a temp of 31ºF that feels like 19ºF. Today's high is expected to be 30ºF with an 60% chance of snow.

???Today in history:
1546: Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, died in Eisleben.
1564: Italian artist, Michelangelo, died in Rome.
1735: the first opera presented in America, Flora, or Hob in the Well, was performed in Charleston, S.C.
1861: Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Ala.
1885: Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published for the first time in the US (it had been published in Canada and England)
1930: photographic evidence of Pluto was discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Ariz. Originally classified as a planet, the icy rock was downgraded to "dwarf planet" in 2006.
1953: Bwana Devil, the movie that heralded the 3-D fad of the 1950s, opened in New York City.
1970: the "Chicago Seven" defendants were found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, five were convicted of violating the Anti-Riot Act of 1968 (later reversed).
1977: the space shuttle Enterprise, sitting atop a Boeing 747, went on its maiden "flight" above the Mojave Desert.
1984: Italy and the Vatican signed an accord under which Roman Catholicism ceased to be the sate religion of Italy.
1988: Anthony M. Kennedy was sworn in as a justice of the US Supreme Court.
2001: auto racing legend Dale Earnhardt, Sr. died at age 49 from injuries suffered in a crash at the Daytona 500.
2001: veteran FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested, accused of spying for Russia for more than 15 years. (He pled guilty and is serving life in prison without parole).
2006: Shani Davis won the men's 1000m speedskating in Torino to become the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history.
2006: in Palestinian territory a Hamas-dominated parliament was sworn in.

;D Pakistan has captured two "shadow governors" belonging to Afghanistan's Taliban movement, according Afghan sources. Mullah Abdul Salam of Kunduz and Mullah Mir Mohammad of Baghlan were taken in Pakistan's Baluchistan province. Pakistan has yet to comment about the report of the arrest of two men who reported to the Taliban's second-in-command captured this month. These shadow governors primary responsibility was organizing military activity in their area. I hope that this will in the end allow the reduction of the use of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
>:(In Niamey, Niger, witnesses say that armed soldiers have stormed the presidential palace with guns blazing and left with the president, Mamadou Tandja, whose whereabouts are now unknown. Only months ago, a referendum allowed Tandja to extend his rule for years past the constitutional limit in the uranium-rich West African nation. Government officials could not be reached and the national radio didn't mention the incident in an afternoon report. Gun shooting democracy is alive and well in Africa.
A NASA image of the debris of an exploded star or supernova. Astronomers have long used supernovas as cosmic mile markers to help measure expansion of the universe. Now they have an answer to a nagging question of what sparks the massive stellar explosions. Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team headed by Marat Gilfanov from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany studied the supernovas in five nearby elliptical galaxies. The results suggest that all come from two white dwarfs merging with one drawing material from its sun-like companion. Further study is needed to determine if that is the primary cause in the spiral galaxies like ours.
::)Today is Thumb Appreciation Day



Have a good day everyone!!

[usamommajoy]

Good Night Peg have a great weekend

[flyinghorse]

Today in history:
1792: Pres. George Washington signed an act creating the US Post Office.
1809: the US Supreme Court ruled that the power of the federal government is greater than that of any individual state and no state legislature could annul the judgments or determine the jurisdiction of federal courts.
1839: the US Congress prohibited dueling in the District of Columbia.
1895: abolitionist and lecturer Frederick Douglass dies.
1934: a blizzard inundated the northeastern US.
1938: Anthony Eden resigned as British foreign secretary following Prime Minister Chamberlain's decision to negotiate with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
1944: US bombers began raiding German aircraft manufacturing centers in a series of attacks that became known as "Big Week."
1950: the US Supreme Court in US v. Rabinowitz ruled 5-3 that authorities making a lawful arrest did not need a warrant to search and seize evidence in an area that was in the "immediate and complete control" of the suspect.
1962: John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard the Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7.
1965: the Ranger 8 spacecraft crashed on the moon after sending back 1000s of pictures of the lunar surface.
1971: the National Emergency Warning Center in Colorado erroneously ordered US radio and TV stations off the air, some stations heeded the alert, which was not lifted for about 40 min.
1998: Tara Lipinski became at age 15 the youngest gold medalist in Winter Olympics history when she won the ladies' figure skating title at Nagano, Japan.
2003: a fire broke out during a rock concert at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., killing 100 people and injuring about 200 others.
2005: former Presidents Bush and Clinton traveled to Lampuuk, Indonesia, ground zero of tsunami devastation where they promised survivors that more help would come.
2005: counterculture writer and the inventor of gonzo journalism Hunter S. Thompson shot himself to death at age 67.
2009: The WTA fined Dubai Tennis Championships organizers a recorded $300,000 after Israeli player Shahar Peer was denied a visa by the United Arab Emirates.

An internal FDA report links the controversial diabetes drug Avandia to 500 heart attacks and 300 cases of heart failure a month and recommends that it be withdrawn from the market. However, some agency officials insist that studies provide contradictory information and that it should continue to be an option for doctors and patients.
It is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline who said that they had studied Avandia extensively and that "scientific evidence simply does not establish that Avandia increases the risk of heart attacks." At one time I was taking Avandia but about 7 years ago my doctor told me to stop taking it and throw out any pills I had left. Seven years ago--and they are still arguing about it?

The Sunni wing of Iraq's leading nonsectarian political coalition said it will drop out of next month's election as a result of alleged Iranian influence on a Shiite-led vetting panel that blacklisted 100s of candidates. This raises the probability of the legitimacy of the 7 March elections will be called into question. US and UN diplomats fear that a disputed result could open the door to a new round of violence and delay plans for the US troop withdrawal. Here we go again. More troops lost in the sinkhole that is Iraqi politics.

Is anyone like me fed up with the Tiger Wood fiasco? Why did this story require national media attention yesterday? Did it involve national security, healthcare reform, creation of jobs, or any other major issue facing the country? No? Then shut up and go away. I'm not interested in what some immature, ego-inflated golfer did or didn't do, his apology, or return to therapy for "sex addiction." If that's not a phony excuse, I don't know what is.

Thought for Today:
"I've always believed in the adage that the secret of eternal youth is arrested development."
--Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Teddy Roosevelt and Washington hostess (1884-1980)

[flyinghorse]

;DToday is Toothpick Day

[usamommajoy]

Hello Peg nice to see you here too!

Hope things going well for you.

Me, doing good although wish for a vacation but need the work to pay the bills.

I will "See" you again sometime hope you have a great afternoon/evening

[flyinghorse]

:)good morning my friends from Tuxy and me.
It's the 54th day of 2010 and there are 311 days left in the year
Today is the Finger Lakes area of NY it's cloudy again with a temp of 37ºF. Today's high is expected to be in the mid 30s with an 40% chance of snow. A warm (comparatively) winter day here.

8-)Today in history:
1822: Boston was granted a charter to incorporate as a city.
1836: the siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio, Texas.
1847: American troops under Gen. Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican general Santa Ana at the battle of Buena Vista in Mexico.
1861: Pres.-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office, following word of a possible assassination plot in Baltimore.
1870: Mississippi was readmitted to the Union.
1927: Pres. Coolidge signed a bill creating the Federal Radio Commission --forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission.
1942: the first shelling of the US mainland occurred as a Japanese sub fired on an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, Calif., causing little damamge.
1945: US Marines on Iwo Jima captured mount Suribachi and raised the American flag twice, with the second the subject of the iconic photography by Joe Rosenthal of the AP.
1954: the first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began in Pittsburgh, Pa.
1981: an attempted coup began in Spain as 200 members of the Civil Guard invaded Parliament, taking lawmakers hostage. It collapsed 18 hours later.
1991: Pres. Bush announced that Desert Storm, the allied ground offensive against Iraqi forecs, had begun.
1997: scientists in Scotland annunced they had cloned an adult mammal and produced a lamb named Dolly.
1999: a jury in Jasper, Texas, convicted white supremacist John William King of murder in the dragging death of an black man, James Byrd, Jr.
2005: a jury was selected in Santa Maria, Calif. to decide Michael Jackson's fate on charges that he'd molested a teenage boy at his Neerland Ranch (he was later acquitted).

The USS Farragut, a US Navy warship, prevented an attack on a Tanzanian ship and nabbed eight suspected pirates in the process. The ship dispatched a Seahawk helicopter to MV Barakaale 1 after it made a distress call saying it was under attack from a gang in a skiff. The helicopter fired a warning shot across the bow of the skiff and a boarding team took the eight aboard the Farragut. The Farragut is a guided missile destroyer and part of the task force patrolling the Guld of Aden and the east caost of Somalia. Good job.

A Delaware pediatrician has been charged with serial mosestation of 103 children and prosecutors expect to add more counts to the lengthy indictment. A grand jury returned a 100-page indictment against dr. Earl Bradley with 471 counts of sexual crimes. Attorney General Beau Biden said all the alleged victims, including one boy, were on more than 13 hours of videos, some dating to 1998. How horrible--someone who is supposed to be saving chldren actually preying on them. A good candidate for a life conviction. Priests and doctors, whose next I wonder?

A methan gas explosion caused the collapse of an underground chamber of a Turkish coal mine trapping more than two dozen workers. An Anatolia news agency said 49 miners were inside the mine and 23 have been evacuated so far. Are the US and Britain the only countries that practice modern mine safety? Of course, our two countries developed strong labor unions that forced mine operators to put the safety of the miners as a priority. When will the rest of the world comply? Or do countries like China and Turkey feel that men are expendable resources?

Today is Tennis Day


Thought for Today:
"If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your mirror." --Francois Rabelais, French satirist (1494-1553)

Have a grand Tuesday everyone.

[usamommajoy]

Hello Peg and Hello Tuxy!

Hello anyone that stops in here
Seems deserted for the most part but you know what
I prefer to be able to post
and not be pestered by mean spirited trolls!

Hope you all have a wonderful day