Thursday, November 19, 2009

Almanacs “The Almanac - Nov. 19 - Post Chronicle” plus 4 more

Almanacs “The Almanac - Nov. 19 - Post Chronicle” plus 4 more

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The Almanac - Nov. 19 - Post Chronicle

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 04:44 AM PST

Today is Thursday, Nov. 19, the 323rd day of 2009 with 42 to follow.

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Mars, Saturn and Mercury. The evening stars are Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include English King Charles I in 1600; U.S. frontier military leader George Rogers Clark in 1752; James Abram Garfield, 20th president of the United States, in 1831; baseball player and religious revivalist Billy Sunday in 1862; explorer Hiram Bingham, discoverer of the Inca city of Machu Picchu, in 1875; bandleader Tommy Dorsey in 1905; Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1917; actress Gene Tierney in 1920; former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick in 1926; talk show host Larry King in 1933 (age 76); entertainer Dick Cavett in 1936 (age 73); entrepreneur Ted Turner in 1938 (age 71); fashion designer Calvin Klein in 1942 (age 67); actress Kathleen Quinlan in 1954 (age 55); Eileen Collins, first female space shuttle commander, in 1956 (age 53); actress Meg Ryan in 1961 (age 48); actress/director Jodie Foster in 1962 (age 47); actress Terry Farrell ("Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") in 1963 (age 46); and Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug in 1977 (age 32).

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On this date in history:

In 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on a Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania.

In 1919, the U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles drawn up by the Paris peace conference at the end of World War I.

In 1939, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone for his presidential library at Hyde Park, N.Y.

In 1954, the first automatic toll collection machine went into service at the Union Toll Plaza on New Jersey's Garden State Parkway.

In 1985, a Houston jury ruled Texaco must pay $10.5 billion, the largest damage award in United States history, to Pennzoil Co. for Texaco's 1984 acquisition of Getty Oil Co.

In 1986, at the beginning of what became the Iran-Contra scandal, U.S. President Ronald Reagan said the United States would send no more arms to Iran.

In 1990, NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations signed a massive conventional arms treaty in Paris to end the 40-year Cold War.

In 1991, a cargo train derailment in central Mexico killed 70 people and injured 40 more when the boxcars crushed automobiles on a highway below the tracks.

In 1994, Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano and his party claimed victory in the country's first multiparty presidential and parliamentary elections.

In 1995, in a close presidential runoff election in Poland, former communist party leader Aleksander Kwasniewski defeated incumbent Lech Walesa.

In 1997, Bobbi McCaughey gave birth to septuplets in Des Moines, Iowa, the first time seven babies had been born and survived.

In 2001, the U.S. government offered a $25 million award for information leading to the location or capture of Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

In 2002, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to create a Cabinet-level Homeland Security Department in the largest government reorganization in more than 50 years.

In 2004, the chief of U.S. forces in South Korea said he is concerned that North Korea may sell weapons-grade plutonium to international terrorists.

In 2005, Ford Motor Co. said it would eliminate 4,000 white-collar jobs next year as part of a major cost-cutting plan.

Also in 2005, Prince Albert II formally became ruler of Monaco when he assumed the throne of his late father Prince Rainier.

In 2007, the official death toll from the Bangladesh cyclone reached 3,000. Authorities called it the worst storm to hit the area in two decades.

Also in 2007, at least 28 people were reported dead as a result of a pipeline fire in eastern Saudi Arabia.

In 2008, data on housing and prices sent U.S. stock markets spiraling. The Dow Jones industrial average fell to a six-year low, dropping 5.1 percent to 7,997.28, the first time since 2003 that it has fallen to less than 8,000.

Also in 2008, Somali pirates demanded $25 million in ransom for the hijacked Saudi-owned supertanker Sirius Star and set a 10-day deadline, authorities said. The ship, with a cargo of 2 million barrels of oil, was seized in the Indian Ocean some 500 miles off the coast of Kenya.

And, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, found guilty of seven felony charges for lying on financial disclosure forms and failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts from an oil field services company, confirmed he had lost the election to Democrat Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich after 40 years in the Senate.

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A thought for the day: Milan Kundera said, "The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past." (c) UPI

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The Almanac - OfficialWire

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 04:01 AM PST

The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Mars, Saturn and Mercury. The evening stars are Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Scorpio. They include English King Charles I in 1600; U.S. frontier military leader George Rogers Clark in 1752; James Abram Garfield, 20th president of the United States, in 1831; baseball player and religious revivalist Billy Sunday in 1862; explorer Hiram Bingham, discoverer of the Inca city of Machu Picchu, in 1875; bandleader Tommy Dorsey in 1905; Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1917; actress Gene Tierney in 1920; former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick in 1926; talk show host Larry King in 1933 (age 76); entertainer Dick Cavett in 1936 (age 73); entrepreneur Ted Turner in 1938 (age 71); fashion designer Calvin Klein in 1942 (age 67); actress Kathleen Quinlan in 1954 (age 55); Eileen Collins, first female space shuttle commander, in 1956 (age 53); actress Meg Ryan in 1961 (age 48); actress/director Jodie Foster in 1962 (age 47); actress Terry Farrell ("Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") in 1963 (age 46); and Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug in 1977 (age 32).

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On this date in history:

In 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on a Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania.

In 1919, the U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles drawn up by the Paris peace conference at the end of World War I.

In 1939, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone for his presidential library at Hyde Park, N.Y.

In 1954, the first automatic toll collection machine went into service at the Union Toll Plaza on New Jersey's Garden State Parkway.

In 1985, a Houston jury ruled Texaco must pay $10.5 billion, the largest damage award in United States history, to Pennzoil Co. for Texaco's 1984 acquisition of Getty Oil Co.

In 1986, at the beginning of what became the Iran-Contra scandal, U.S. President Ronald Reagan said the United States would send no more arms to Iran.

In 1990, NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations signed a massive conventional arms treaty in Paris to end the 40-year Cold War.

In 1991, a cargo train derailment in central Mexico killed 70 people and injured 40 more when the boxcars crushed automobiles on a highway below the tracks.

In 1994, Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano and his party claimed victory in the country's first multiparty presidential and parliamentary elections.

In 1995, in a close presidential runoff election in Poland, former communist party leader Aleksander Kwasniewski defeated incumbent Lech Walesa.

In 1997, Bobbi McCaughey gave birth to septuplets in Des Moines, Iowa, the first time seven babies had been born and survived.

In 2001, the U.S. government offered a $25 million award for information leading to the location or capture of Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

In 2002, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to create a Cabinet-level Homeland Security Department in the largest government reorganization in more than 50 years.

In 2004, the chief of U.S. forces in South Korea said he is concerned that North Korea may sell weapons-grade plutonium to international terrorists.

In 2005, Ford Motor Co. said it would eliminate 4,000 white-collar jobs next year as part of a major cost-cutting plan.

Also in 2005, Prince Albert II formally became ruler of Monaco when he assumed the throne of his late father Prince Rainier.

In 2007, the official death toll from the Bangladesh cyclone reached 3,000. Authorities called it the worst storm to hit the area in two decades.

Also in 2007, at least 28 people were reported dead as a result of a pipeline fire in eastern Saudi Arabia.

In 2008, data on housing and prices sent U.S. stock markets spiraling. The Dow Jones industrial average fell to a six-year low, dropping 5.1 percent to 7,997.28, the first time since 2003 that it has fallen to less than 8,000.

Also in 2008, Somali pirates demanded $25 million in ransom for the hijacked Saudi-owned supertanker Sirius Star and set a 10-day deadline, authorities said. The ship, with a cargo of 2 million barrels of oil, was seized in the Indian Ocean some 500 miles off the coast of Kenya.

And, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, found guilty of seven felony charges for lying on financial disclosure forms and failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts from an oil field services company, confirmed he had lost the election to Democrat Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich after 40 years in the Senate.

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A thought for the day: Milan Kundera said, "The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past."

 

Mountain Home Band Boosters Cookbook available - Baxter Bulletin

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 12:19 AM PST

The Mountain Home Band Boosters Cookbook again are available. After selling out in the first 10 days, a new supply has arrived. The spiral-bound cookbooks at $10 and are available from MHHS band members, First Security Bank main office, KTLO and Yelcot Telephone Co., Mountain Home location. "Jumbo Jack's Helpful Hints Almanac" also is available for $10, or is free with the purchase of 10 cookbooks. Proceeds from the sale of the cookbooks will be used to fund the band's trip to Orlando in December.

— From Sara Zimmerman

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High-speed rail planners ramp up communication spending; locals ... - The Almanac Online

Posted: 18 Nov 2009 11:50 PM PST

The latest efforts by planners of the California high-speed rail system to gather community input and influence the flow of information about the project have not done much to assuage the concerns of local skeptics.

Rail officials have characterized two recent developments -- the signing of a $9 million contract with a public relations firm, and the rollout of a comprehensive outreach plan to communities along the rail line -- as measures to provide accurate information and gather local feedback about the $40 billion project, which would run high-speed trains from San Diego to Sacramento.

But for local residents and officials skeptical of the project from the beginning, those efforts don't do much to assuage fears that, when the dust settles, plans will call for trains to tear through local communities on an elevated platform. That design is thought to be several times cheaper than running trains underground, the stated preference of both Menlo Park and Atherton.

"As far as leading to a satisfactory, do-it-right solution, I'm skeptical that (increased outreach) is going to be the answer," Atherton Mayor Jerry Carlson said in an interview. "I think the final answer's going to be made in Sacramento by the high-speed-rail board, regardless of what the consultants say." He added, however, that he hoped the outreach effort would at least get local residents more informed and involved.

As for the new $9 million public relations contract, Mr. Carlson and others interpret it as an effort to stifle dissent, rather than promote dialogue.

"I characterize it as a propaganda machine, I really feel that way," he said. "That's the intended purpose, to get their message across, and they've singled out the Peninsula as being the one area where they're gotten beaten up on" in newspapers and online venues.

Some have latched on to remarks by board member Ron Diridon to a representative of the PR company during a recent meeting as the latest sign that board members are intent on squelching opposition to the project, rather than working with local critics.

"Misinformation is causing serious media relations problems in the Midpeninsula; Atherton, Menlo Park, Palo Alto area especially," Mr. Diridon said. He blamed project opponents for "blatantly providing false information to the media," and went on to say that the PR firm needed to correct that information immediately, to prevent it from becoming "a sore that festers," or "the rotten apple in the barrel." PR workers should see themselves as "flying squads of emergency responders" in correcting false media reports, he said.

Mr. Diridon said the PR contract would help to streamline communication efforts and prevent employees of the rail agency from issuing conflicting or inaccurate messages.

One frequent poster on The Almanac's Web site saw evidence that the PR firm is already at it, accusing an anonymous poster -- who defended Mr. Diridon, the project, and the PR firm -- of being an employee of the firm. The accused poster denied the allegation. The PR firm, Ogilvy, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At Menlo Park's Nov. 10 council meeting, Councilman Rich Cline said he saw mixed messages in the rail authority's communication efforts with Peninsula residents.

On the one hand, "you're saying, 'your input is something we want,'" Mr. Cline told Mike Garvey, who's heading up community outreach efforts for the consulting firm overseeing the project's two-year environmental review process. "On the other hand, you're saying, 'we have to do something about these bad apples, we have to eliminate the bad apples from the bunch, we need to get rid of 'em, let's get a PR firm to do it.' The two messages completely contradict."

Joking that remarks by board members might put his children through college, Mr. Garvey said that the goal of the environmental analysis is to "get away from the kind of emotion we've seen up to this point -- not only on the part of the public, but also on the part of board members."

The board is "free to do what it wants," but its members won't be able to simply disregard the environmental study, he said. Project engineers would consider input gathered from local residents in conducting that study.

"We welcome everyone, whether they are critical or supportive," Mr. Garvey said.

Beyond continued doubts over whether their solicitations, complaints and pleas will influence the thinking of rail authority board members, local officials have also expressed concern that residents will simply get lost in a deluge of information about the rail project in the two-plus years before the board's decision on the preferred alignment, scheduled for early 2012.

They fear that efforts by the rail authority, the environmental review contractor, a regional advocacy group, local jurisdictions, and involved residents will merge into a soupy muddle in the minds of casual followers.

"It's a bit of a blur," Menlo Park Mayor Heyward Robinson told Mr. Garvey.

"How do we prevent burnout?" Councilwoman Kelly Fergusson asked. "I'm afraid that people are going to feel like they have to come to a lot of meetings to get their voices heard."

Mr. Robinson proposed a more direct solution, saying that he's heard rail officials complain of "misinformation" several times, without offering specific examples.

"We haven't had a presentation from the High-Speed Rail Authority to this council and to this community in well over a year," he said. "There are a lot of legitimate questions, and we kind of keep hearing things from various sources that there's misinformation out there. And I'm sure there is. ... Instead of sort of throwing darts and saying, 'well, there's misinformation,' come! We're here every Tuesday night. ... Come and clear up some of these things."

Daily almanac - Columbus Dispatch

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 12:12 AM PST

Today is Thursday, Nov. 19, the 323rd day of 2009. There are

42 days left in the year.

Highlights in History

• On Nov. 19, 1863, President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address as he dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania.

• In 1831, James Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was born in Orange Township, Ohio.

• In 1959, Ford Motor Co. announced it was halting production of the unpopular Edsel.

• In 1969, Apollo XII astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean made the second manned landing on the moon.

• In 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel.

• In 1985, President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev met for the first time as they began a summit in Geneva.

• Ten years ago: Hundreds of anti-American protesters battled riot police and set stores and banks ablaze as President Clinton rode through Athens under tight security and proclaimed a "profound and enduring friendship" with Greece.

• Five years ago: In one of the worst brawls in U.S. sports history, Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson of the Indiana Pacers charged into the stands and fought with Detroit Pistons fans, forcing officials to end the Pacers' 97-82 win with 45.9 seconds left.

• One year ago: Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, slurred Barack Obama as a black American who does the bidding of whites in a Web message intended to dent the president-elect's popularity among Arabs and Muslims.

Thought for Today

"You simply cannot hang a millionaire in America." -- Bourke Cockran, American politician and orator (1854-1923)

Source: Associated Press

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