Pegasus's Daily News, etc.

[the flying reindeer]

Christmas Eve
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 358th day of 2012 with 7 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 4:17 p.m., it's cloudy , temp 32ºF [Feels like 27ºF], winds ENE @ 5 mph, humidity 61%, pressure 29.95 in and falling, dew point 20ºF, chance of precipitation 10%.

Today in History:
1524--Vasco de Gama, Portugese explorer, died from malaria in Kochi, India.
1809--Kit Carson, American frontiersman and folk hero, was born; died 1868 at age 58.
1814--the War of 1812 officially ended as the US and Great Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent in Belgium.
1851--fire devastated the Library of Congress and part of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., destroying about 35,000 volumes.
1865--the Ku Klux Klan was founded as a private social club by several Confederate Army veterans in Pulaski, Tenn.
1871--Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida had its world premiere in Cairo, Egypt, to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal.
1873--Johns Hopkins, a wealthy entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded Johns Hopkins University, died in Baltimore, Md. without any heirs.
1906--Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to broadcast a music program over radio, from Brant Rock, Mass. He discovered the superheterodyne principle, the basis for all modern radio receivers.
1920--Enrico Caruso gave his last public performance, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
1927--Mary Higgins Clark, mystery writer, turns 85.
1942--German rocket engineers launched the first surface-to-surface guided missile.
1942--Adm. Jean Louis Darlan, the French administrator of North Africa, was assassinated as a sympathizer of the French Vichy regime.
1943--Pres. Roosevelt appointed Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe.
1951--Libya declares its independence from the UK and proclaims Idris I King of Libya
1968--the Apollo 8 crew became first humans to orbit around the moon, broadcasting live pictures during a Christmas Eve Broadcast,
1974--Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin Australia, killing 71 people.
1983--one of the US's severest early season cold waves in history claimed nearly 300 lives.
1989--Manuel Noriega, the object of US invasion forces, took refuge at the Vatican Embassy in Panama City and asked for political asylum.
1990--Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein reportedly threatened to attack Tel Aviv, Israel, if the allies tried to retake Kuwait.
1990--the bells of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow rang to celebrate Christmas for the first time since the death of Lenin.
1992--Pres. Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others in the Iran-Contra scandal.
1994--Islamic militants hijacked an Air France Airbus. that ended two days later when the plane was stormed by French paramilitary commandos in Marseille.
1997--a French court convicted the international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal of the 1975 killings of three men in Paris and sentenced him to life in prison.
2002--Laci Peterson was reported missing from her Modesto, Calif., home, by her husband, Scott, who was later convicted of murdering her and their unborn son.
2003--nine nations imposed bans on US beef imports after the first documented case of mad cow disease was reported in Washington state.
2004--gunmen opened fire on a bus in northern Honduras, killing at least 23 and wounding 16 with suspects a noted Central American youth gang.
2004--a Chinese freighter wrecked in the Aleutian Islands broke apart, spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the Bering Sea.
2005--the South Korean scientist whose research on stem cells and cloning won him international acclaim, Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, resigned after admitting he fabricated his groundbreaking paper in which he claimed to have created stem cell colonies from 11 patients.
2006--fighting escalated in Somalia as Ethiopian planes and helicopter gunships attacked Islamist targets in several central provinces.
2006--French and US intelligence agencies said the 31-mile tunnel connecting England and France had been targeted by al-Qaida terrorists for an attack.
2007--The chairman of the Sept. 11 commission accused the CIA of interfering with the panel's work by failing to turn over tapes of agents interrogating suspected terrorists with "enhanced" techniques, including waterboarding. The CIA earlier admitted destroying several such tapes.
2007--US officials said billions of dollars in funding to Pakistan to help fight al-Qaida and Taliban terrorism has been wasted because of too little control over the money.
2009--the US Senate passed health care legislation, 60-39, in the chamber's first Christmas Eve vote since 1895.
2009--a woman jumped barriers in St. Peter's Basilica and knocked down Pope Benedict XVI as he was walking down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass; the pope was unhurt.

Today's Headlines of Interest:
Yes, we can fix Social Security (but it won't be pretty)

Experts say there are ways to fix Social Security, but politicians just may not like trying to sell those changes to the American people. It has happened before, though. In the mid-1980s, none other than Pres. Reagan, working with Democrats in Congress, oversaw a major overhaul of the nation’s retirement safety net.
“There are politicians – and especially in the Senate but also in the House as well – who could work together and come to an agreement,” said Alan Auerbach, a professor of law and economics at the University of California, Berkeley. “But they’re not the majority of Congress.”

Experts say there are two ways to fix Social Security, and neither of them are pretty: reduce benefits or increase revenue. Pres. Obama and House Speaker John Boehner seem willing to compromise on involves a change in the way Social Security increases are calculated going forward. The proposed switch to calculating cost of living increases using the chained Consumer Price Index instead of the current method would result in smaller annual Social Security raises. That’s because that method assumes that people change their spending habits when prices go up. Proponents say the switch could save billions and is a more realistic method of how Americans really adjust to rising prices. But opponents say the chained Consumer Price Index isn’t a good way to measure the needs of older and disabled Americans, because their expenditures are disproportionately focused on things like health care. A family of four may choose to eat more chicken if beef prices go up, but an elderly person can’t easily choose to spend less on heart medicine, they argue.

One of the longer-term options for reducing benefits is to simply tell people they have to wait longer to get their full benefits and thus Social Security would be keeping up with trends toward longer life expectancies. Opponents say that a closer look at the data shows that the bulk of improvements in life expectancies have come from wealthier Americans. They say a broad-based increase in the age at which people can get benefits would punish less wealthy Americans, who haven’t seen such big life expectancy gains.

Another option would be to dial down benefits for middle- and high-income people while maintaining the current system for the poorest Americans. Another option would be to reduce the Social Security benefits available to spouses. Some critics argue that’s growing outdated now that more women work and earn their own Social Security payments and is a relic of earlier times.

Under the current rules, the maximum taxable earnings for Social Security in 2012 is about $110,000. Some argue that an easy fix would be to simply raise the cap on Social Security taxes to around $190,000. Raise it higher than that, he said, and wealthy earners will just start finding ways to dodge it. But others say that it’s unlikely politicians will propose raising taxes on high earners now, when many expect those taxpayers to already see increases as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations.

Another option would be to add an across-the-board increase in payroll taxes that go toward Social Security. Although that would help solve the system’s future funding woes, experts say it’s also likely to be a hard sell in these tough times. Americans may already be facing higher payroll taxes in 2012. For the past two years, Americans have enjoyed a payroll tax holiday that reduced the amount of money they paid toward Social Security, but that could end in the coming year.

Politicians may be nervous about proposing any reform to Social Security that costs more or results in fewer benefits, but Americans seem to accept that some changes are needed. About 66% of those polled by Pew Research Center said they would support raising payroll taxes on high-income earners, while 55% said they would support reducing benefits for high-income seniors. Just 38% said they’d support raising the eligibility age.

So what do you think we should do?

Thought for Today
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform."
--Mark Twain (1835-1910) American author

[the flying reindeer]

MERRY CHRISTMAS
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 259th day of 2012 with 6 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 3:07 p.m., it's cloudy , temp 27ºF [Feels like 20ºF], winds N @ 6 mph, humidity 74%, pressure 30.21 in and rising, dew point 21ºF, chance of precipitation 10%.

Today in History:
336--the first recorded celebration of Christmas on Dec. 25 took place in Rome.
800--Charlemagne, King of the Franks and son of the Pippin the Short, was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.
1000--Stephen I of Hungary is officially recognized by Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor, as the first Christian King of Hungary
1066--William the Conqueror was crowned king of England.
1100--Baldwin I of Jerusalem was crowned as the first King of Jerusalem in Bethlehem by patriarch, Dagobert of Pisa3
1130--Roger II of Sicily is crowned as the first King of Sicily in Palermo.
1776--Gen. Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River for a surprise attack against Hessian forces at Trenton, NJ.
1818--"Silent Night" was performed for the first time, at the Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorff, Austria.
1868--Pres. Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to everyone involved in the Southern rebellion that resulted in the Civil War.
1869--angered over a card game dispute, 16-year-old John Wesley Hardin shot James Bradley dead in the street.
1914--Christmast Truce of World War I - When enemy combatant soldiers ceased hostilities and even exchanged small gifts with each other.
1926--Hirohito became emperor of Japan, succeeding his father, Emperor Yoshihito.
1938--after auditioning 100s for the role, producer David O. Selznick chose British actress Vivien Leigh to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind.
1941--Bing Crosby introduced Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" to the world on his weekly radio program.
1941--British Hong Kong surrendered to advancing Japanese forces.
1952--Queen Eliizabeth II gave her first Christmas speech.
1977--silent film omedian Charlie Chaplin died at age 88 in Switzerland.
1982--the movie To Kill a Mockingbird had its debut.
1985--Mexico City police discovered a major museum theft of pre-Colombian treasures.
1986--the hijackers of an Iraqi Airways Boeing 737 en route from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan, exploded grenades, causing a fiery crash in Saudi Arabia, killing 67 out of 107 people aboard.
1989--ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed.
1989--former New York Yankees player and manager Billy Martin, 61, died when the pickup truck he was riding in crashed.
1991--Soviet Pres. Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on TV to announce his resignation as the eighth and final leader of a Communist superpower that had already gone out of existence.
1996--six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in her Boulder, Colo. home.
2000--a fire at a Christmas party in an unlicensed disco club in Luoyang, China turned deadly, killing more than 300 people.
2002--Iran and Russia signed an agreement to complete a nuclear power plant in southern Iran.
2003--Pakistan Pres. Pervez Musharraf survived a second assassination attempt in a little over a week but 14 others were killed and 40 injured in the suicide attack.
2004--a frail but determined Pope John Paul II delivered his traditional Christmas sermon in Rome's St. Peter's Square.
2004--authorities said Colombian guerrillas stormed a spa near San Rafael and kidnapped an estimated 40 tourists.
2006--"the godfather of Soul' singer James Brown died at age 73 from congestive heart failure due to pneumonia.
2006--Pope Benedict XVI focused on child abuse and suffering in a Christmas mass at Saint Peter's Basilica.
2006--British and Iraqi troops raided a Basra police station Monday, freeing 76 prisoners believed to be in danger of execution by local authorities.
2007--Pope Benedict XVI revealed a new-style nativity scene in Rome's St. Peter's Square depicting Jesus' birth in Joseph's house and makes no mention of a manger or a journey to Bethlehem. The new Christmas scene apparently is based on Matthew's version of the nativity.
2009--passengers aboard a Northwest Airlines flight foiled an attempt to blow up the plane as it was landing in Detroit by seizing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian accused of trying to set off explosives in his underwear.

World News Capsules:
1. Egypt's controversial constitution passes

....Egyptian voters have approved a new Islamist-backed constitution, an election official said on Tuesday. Critics say it will not protect the rights Egyptians fought for in last year's revolution. .
2. The girl the Taliban wanted dead

....The Pakistani teen simply wanted to get an education. Before long, she was a global symbol of empowerment, one the Taliban tried to silence.
3. Gaza cease-fire helps fishermen, but risks remain
....The deal that halted fighting between Israel and Hamas allows fishermen to go six nautical miles out to sea, instead of three, but arrests by Israeli patrols are still possible.
4. Russian prosecutor seeks acquittal in lawyer's death
....The prosecutor's turnabout came as the Russian government was moving to retaliate against the US for adopting a human rights law named for Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in prison.
5. No easy route if Assad opts to go, or to stay, in Syria

....Pres. Bashar al-Assad's meeting with a UN envoy on Monday raised questions about how the Syrian leader will choose to respond to mounting pressure to step down.
6. Officials push to postpone swearing-in of Chávez
....Aides to Pres. Hugo Chávez, who is recuperating from cancer surgery in Cuba, say they will push back the inauguration scheduled for Jan. 10 if he is too ill to return to Venezuela.

US News Capsules:
1. Real and virtual firearams nurture a marketing link
....The makers of firearms and the producers of violent video games have quietly forged a mutually beneficial marketing relationship.
2. Battered seaside haven recalls its trial by fire
....Ranking among the most devastating residential fires in New York City history, the fires that enveloped the community of Breezy Point, Queens, left a hole in the heart of this genial shore community.
3. With a parent off again at war, a holiday of pride and isolation

....The high school at Fort Campbell, Ky., offers a window into the families of the all-volunteer military force over 11 years of war.
4. Anti-government graffiti restored, courtesy of government
....The authorities usually go to considerable trouble to remove graffiti, but the National Park Service has worked to keep the markings made by Native Americans during an occupation of Alcatraz Island.
5. Gunman: Killing is what I do best

....Gunman William Spengler wrote that he wanted to "see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down and do what I like doing best -- killing people," police said.
6. Tornadoes reported as storms batter South

....The portion of the country from East Texas to the Florida Panhandle is being pounded by severe weather. There are reports of damage and power outages throughout the region.
7. For healthier chickens, farms use oregano

....Chicken farms including Bell & Evans are using oregano-based products as substitutes for antibiotics, but research on their effectiveness is scant and many remain skeptical.

Thought for Today
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."
--G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English author

[the flying reindeer]

Feast of St. Stephen, the 1st Christian martyr
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 260th day of 2012 with 5 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 3:07 p.m., it's cloudy , temp 21ºF [Feels like 21ºF], winds E @ 3 mph, humidity 77%, pressure 30.02 in and falling, dew point 16ºF, chance of precipitation 70%.

Today in History:
1606--William Shakespeare's play King Lear was performed at the court of King James I of England.
1610--infamous in the area for her torture and murder of servants and peasants, Countess Elizabeth Bathory's torture of young girls was exposed by Count Gyorgy Thurzo.
1776--Gen. Washington, having crossed the Delaware River on Christmas night, defeated Hessian mercenary troops fighting for the British at the Battle of Trenton, NJ.
1799--George Washington was eulogized by Col. Henry Lee as "first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
1820--Moses Austin met with Spanish authorities in San Antonio to ask permission for 300 Anglo-American families to settle in Texas.
1861--Confederate diplomatic envoys James Mason and John Slidell were freed by Pres. Lincoln, heading off a possible war between the US and Great Britain.
1865--James H. Nason of Franklin, Mass., received a patent for a coffee percolator.
1893--Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong was born in Hunan province; died 1976 at age 82.
1898--radium, a radioactive chemical element, was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in pitchblende from Czech Republic.
1908--Jack Johhnson became the first black heavyweight boxing champion when he knocked out Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia.
1917--the U..government took over operation of the nation's railroads for the duration of World War I.
1941--British Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed the US Congressm urging that the US become the "great arsenal of democracy."
1944--Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie premiered at the Civic Theatre in Chicago.
1944--Gen. Patton relieved the besieged Allied defenders of Bastogne, Belgium, during the brutal Battle of the Bulge.
1946--in Las Vegas, Nevada, mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel opened The Pink Flamingo Hotel & Casino at a total cost of $6 million.
1947--heavy snow blanketed the Northeast, burying New York City under 25.8 inches of snow in 16 hours and causing some 80 deaths.
1955--George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with an all-black cast opened in Leningrad.
1966--the first Kwanzaa was celebrated in Los Angeles under the direction of Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach.
1972--Harry S. Truman, the 33rd Pres. of the United States, died in Kansas City, Mo., at age 88.
1973--The Exorcist horror film opened in theaters across the country.

1974--Jack Benny, legendary radio-TV comedian died of cancer at age 80.
1982--Time's Man of the Year was given to a non-human for the first time
1986-http://www.kathrynrblake.com/images/153_Search_For_Tomorrow_ends-1951_12-26.jpg-Search for Tomorrow, American soap opera 1st aired in 1951, had its final episode.
1990--Nancy Cruzan, the focus of a right-to-die case that went to the US Supreme Court, died in a Missouri hospital.
1996--Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, Colo. The slaying remains unsolved.
1999--Lothar, a low pressure system that resulted in a violent extratopical cyclone, swept across Central Europe killing over 100
2003--more than 26,000 people were reported killed and 1000s injured when an earthquake struck the ancient Iranian city of Bam.
2003--the death toll reached 135 in the crash of a Boeing 727 in Benin.
2004--Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts broke Dan Marino's single-season touchdown pass record when he threw his 48th and 49th of the season in a victory over San Diego.
2004--a powerful earthquake triggered a tsunami in South and Southeast Asia, with massive tidal waves, some 40 feet high, slamming into India, Thailand, Indonesia and several other countries, killing 1000s of people.
2004--Ukraine opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko claimed victory in the court-ordered second vote in the country's presidential run-off.
2005--Pres.Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court that handles such matters was challenging his requests at an unprecedented rate.
2006--Gerald R. Ford, the 38th Pres. of the United States, died in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at age 93.
2006--more than 200 people died when a gas pipeline being vandalized exploded in the Nigerian capital of Lagos.
2007--the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission told employers they can reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees once they become eligible for Medicare.

World News Capsules:
1. Motive unclear in killing by woman in Afghan force
....Sergeant Nargis’s killing of an American police adviser in Afghanistan was the 62nd insider killing this year, but also one of the strangest.
2. Chinese officials find misbehavior now carries cost
....A flurry of revelations suggests that China's new leadership may be serious about trying to tame the cronyism and bribery that afflicts state-run companies and local governments.
a. World's longest high-speed rail line opens in China

...Bullet trains traveling 300 kilometers an hour, or 186 miles an hour, have begun regular service between Beijing and Guangzhou, shortening the trip from 21 hours to eight.
3. On Indian TV, 'I do' means to honor and obey the mother-in-law
....Television in India occasionally tests the boundaries, but nearly every soap opera seems to circle back to marriage and the relatives who come with the words “I do.”
4. Israel to review curbs on women's prayer at Western Wall

....The move comes after years of civil disobedience by a group called Women of the Wall against rules that support gender division at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, one of Judaism's holiest sites.
5. Russian Parliament sends adoption ban to Putin

.....The upper chamber of Parliament on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill to ban adoptions by US citizens.
a. Russsian says ban on US adoption flouts treaties
....A deputy prime minister's letter of warning widens the split among top leaders on a bill barring Americans from adopting from Russia.
b. Russia's desire for cars grows, and foreign makers take notice
....As Russia's middle class becomes a force in commerce, G.M., Ford and other automakers have been expanding, or plan to expand, in the country with new factories.
6. High-ranking Syrian general defects in new blow to Assad

....Maj. Gen. Abdul Azia Jassem al-Shallal, the military police chief, is the highest-ranking officer to abandon Pres.al-Assad.
7. United Arab Emirates arrests suspects in terror plots
....Security forces arrested a cell made up of Saudi Arabian and Emirate militants, who were planning to carry out attacks in both countries and other states, the official news agency reported.

US News Capsules:
1. Legal curbs said to hamper ATF gun inquiries
....Law enforcement officials say that in theory the ATF could take a lead role in reducing gun crime, but that it is hampered by politically driven laws and by the ferocity of the debate over gun regulation.
2. Pay in oil fields, not college, is luring youths in Montana

....Salaries of $50,000 a year have lured many high school seniors away from higher education amid the frenzied pace of oil and gas drilling.
3. Potent storm that hit wide swath of country heads east

....Severe weather that brought tornadoes to the South and snow from Texas to Ohio was expected to cause heavy snow and rain in the Northeast beginning Wednesday afternoon
4. Los Angeles weighs law banning elephant shows
....If the City Council passes the law, Ringling Brothers will be barred from Los Angeles unless its owners agree to abandon one of the show's signature acts.
POLITICS:
1. Clout diminished, Tea Party turns to narrower issues
....The November election significantly weakened the once-surging movement, and its activists have not been front and center in the fiscal debate consuming Washington.
2. Jan. 1 slowly morphs from fiscal deadline into horizon
....After hopes for a bargain to avoid hundred of billions in tax increases and spending cuts have faded, economists are now giving odds on what will happen and when, and its effect on a tender recovery.
a. Senators returning with little urgency as fiscal clock ticks
....Presi. Obama and members of the Senate are set to be in Washington on Thursday for a last-ditch effort at a fiscal deal, five days before a deadline.

Thought for Today
"First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.
Epictetus (55 AD-135 AD) Greek sage and Stoic philosopher

[Reckless Roselia]

2. The girl the Taliban wanted dead

....The Pakistani teen simply wanted to get an education. Before long, she was a global symbol of empowerment, one the Taliban tried to silence.

I hope she isn't harmed. Education is a must for both men and women in Islam. Perhaps the 'Taliban' need to study their own religion first.

[the flying reindeer]

It's About Time Week

Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 261st day of 2012 with 4 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 2:57 p.m., it's cloudy , temp 23ºF [Feels like 13ºF], winds WNW @ 9 mph, humidity 81%, pressure 29.77 in and steady, dew point 19ºF, chance of precipitation 70%.

Today in History:
537--Hagia Sophia, third church of the former patriarchal basilica, was completed and inaugurated by Justinian I and the patriarch Eutychius.
1571--Johannes Kepler, German astronomer, was born; died 1630 at age 58.
1780--Col. William Washington, a cousin of Gen. Washington, surprised Loyalists and Redcoats camping at Hammonds store, SC, killing or wounding 150 British Loyalists and capturing 40 prisoners without incurring any losses of their own
1822--Louis Pasteur, French biologist and chemist; invented pasteurization process, was born; died 1895 at age 72.
1831--British naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a voyage to the Pacific Ocean aboard the HMS Beagle. Darwin's discoveries during the nearly five-year journey helped form the basis of his theories on evolution.
1864-- the broken and defeated Confederate Army of Tennessee finished crossing the Tennessee River as Gen. John Bell Hood's force retreats into Mississippi.
1900--Carry Nation smashed up the bar at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kan., causing several thousand dollars in damage and landing in jail.
1904--Peter Pan, by James Barrie, opened in London.
1927--The musical Show Boat, with music by Jerome Kern and libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II, opened at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City.
1932--Radio City Music Hall, a magnificent Art Deco theater, opened in New York City.
1941--the Office of Price Administration began to ration automobile tires.
1941--Japanese warplanes bombed Manila in the Philippines, even though it had been declared an "open city."
1945--the World Bank was created with an agreement signed by 28 nations.
1947--the children's TV program Howdy Doody debuted on NBC.
1949--Queen Juliana of the Netherlands granted sovereignty to Indonesia after more than 300 years of Dutch rule.
1968--Apollo 8, the first spaceflight to orbit the moon, returned to Earth.
1969--US and North Vietnamese forces battled near Loc Ninh.
1970--Hello, Dolly! closed on Broadway after a run of 2,844 performances.
1975--a coal mine explosion followed by a flood killed at least 372 workers in Dhanbad, India,
1978--Juan Carlos, the Spanish king, ratified a democratic constitution.
1979--Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan, overthrowing and executing Pres. Hafizullah Amin, replaced by Babrak Karmal.
1985--naturalist Dian Fossey, who had studied gorillas in the wild, was found hacked to death at a research station in Rwanda.
1985--terrorists killed 20 people and wounded 110 in attacks on passengers of the Israeli airline El Al at the Rome and Vienna airports.
1992--a US jet shot down an Iraqi fighter over southern Iraq's "no-fly" zone in the first such incident since the Persian Gulf War.
1997--Britain's Windsor Castle was reopened to the public following restoration work on 100 rooms damaged in a 1992 fire.
2001--US officials announced that Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners would be held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
2002--Chechen rebels, seeking independence, killed 52 people with two vehicle bombs at pro-Russian government offices.
2003--the search continued for bodies in the aftermath of the Christmas Day mudslide in California's San Bernardino Mountains. 2003--the Italian government took control of Parmalat, the dairy conglomerate, and arrested its chairman in a major accounting scandal.
2004--the death toll jumped to 23,500 in the with hundreds of thousands reported hurt and many thousands missing.
2004--Viktor Yushchenko won a runoff in Ukraine's presidential election, completing the country's "Orange Revolution."
2004--radiation from SGR 1806-20 (a magnetar, neutron star) explosion finally reaches Earth in the brightest extrasolar event ever witnessed.
2005--Indonesia's Aceh rebels formally abolished their 30-year armed struggle for independence under a peace deal born out of the 2004 tsunami.
2005--workmen installing a water main in the Iraqi Shiite city of Karbala unearthed a grave containing dozens of bodies from a 1991 massacre.
2006--the US State Department indicated it supported Ethiopia's military incursion into Somalia as a means to counter Islamists trying to topple the government.
2007--former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, first woman to hold that post in an Islamic state, was assassinated in a suicide attack as she left a political rally in Rawalpindi.
2007--preliminary results in the Kenyan presidential election showed opposition candidate Raila Odinga the winner over incumbent Mwai Kibaki, 57 to 39%. Three days later the election commission reversed the results, touching off tribal violence.

World News Capsules:
1. Betrayed while they sleep, Afghan police are dying in numbers
....The fear of insider attacks has been an even bigger concern for Afghan security forces than it has been for NATO and American forces.
a. What's at stake for Afghan women

....As the deadline for withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan nears, many wonder how hard-won gains will be safeguarded. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says recent killings show the potential losses for Afghan women.
2. Coca licensing is a weapon in Bolivia's drug war

....The world's third-largest cocaine producer has taken an unorthodox approach to controlling the growing of coca that veers markedly from the wider war on narcotics.
3. Signs of changes taking hold in electronics factories in China
....After the hardships of workers in China's electronics factories were exposed to a global audience, working conditions have changed.
4. Morsi admits 'mistakes' in drafting Egypt's constitution
....Pres. Morsi appealed for unity after the bitter debate over the Constitution, and he pledged to respect the one-third of voters who cast ballots against it.
5. In Gabon, lure of ivory is hard for many to resist

....Gabon’s government has made efforts to combat poaching, but as the price of ivory soars its elephants are being slaughtered.
6. Iran's only female cabinet minister dismissed in medicine imports dispute
....Dr. Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi, who was appointed in 2009, apparently angered the president by criticizing the government’s response to acute shortages of medicine imports.
7. Russian measure banning adoptions by American citizens is sent to Putin who says he will sign it

....If Pres. Putin signs off on the ban, the departure of 46 children ready to be adopted by US parents could be blocked.
8. UN envoy calls for a transitional government in Syria
....The envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, said on Thursday that a transitional government should be granted full executive powers until new elections could be held.

US News Capsules:
1. Storm weakened a fragile system for mental care
....The odds of securing mental health treatment in a crisis in New York City have worsened significantly since Hurricane Sandy knocked out hospitals and disrupted outpatient services.
2. NBC's display of a 30-shot gun magazine prompts a police inquiry
....The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington said they were looking into whether David Gregory broke the law when he showed a high-capacity magazine on "Meet the Press."
3. Potent winter sstorm moves east after pouncing on wide area of the country

....Severe weather that brought tornadoes to the South and snow from Texas to Ohio could bring 12 to 18 inches of snow to an area from western New York to central Maine.
4. Libraries see opening as bookstorees close
....As librarians struggle with the task of redefining their roles in a digital age, many are seeing an opportunity to fill the void created by the loss of traditional bookstores.
5. Doctors warned on 'divided loyalty'
....The American Medical Association reminded doctors this week that the patient’s welfare must always come first and must not be overridden by the economic interests of hospitals.
POLITICS:
1. US Senators to return with 5 days left and no clear fiscal path
....Adding to the tension over a pileup of threatened tax increases and spending cuts, the treasury secretary notified Congress that the government would hit its borrowing limit on Monday.
2. US teeters on edge of fiscal cliff

....As Pres. Obama returns to Washington, hopes of a deal to address the nation's chronic debt and deficits appear dashed..
3. Washington State senators cross aisle and tilt ideological balance

....One of the creators of a new majority coalition said state politics had become too "Seattle-centric," too liberal to be representative of Washington as a whole.

Thought for Today
"An unexamined idea, to paraphrase Socrates, is not worth having and a society whose ideas are never explored for possible error may eventually find its foundations insecure."
--Mark Van Doren (1894-1972) Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, professor, and critic

[the flying reindeer]

Pledge of Allegiance Day
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 262 day of 2012 with 3 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 3:07 p.m., it's cloudy , temp 28ºF [Feels like 23ºF], winds W @ 5 mph, humidity 70%, pressure 30.06 in and rising, dew point 21ºF, chance of precipitation 3 0%.

Today in History:
1065--Westminster Abbey, site of coronation and burial for British Monarchs, was consecrated a week before Edward the Confessor's death.
1643--the first legal divorce in the American colonies - Anne Clarke of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted a divorce from her absent and adulterous husband, Denis Clarke.
1694--Mary II , Queen of England, Ireland and Scotland, died of smallpox after five years of joint rule with her cousin-husband, King William III.
1832--John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the US to resign, stepping down over differences with Pres. Jackson.
1846--Iowa became the 29th state to be admitted to the Union.
1856--Woodrow Wilson, 28th Pres. of the United States (1913-21), was born; died 1924 at age 67.
1879--Tay Bridge Disaster occurred when the first Tay Rail bridge in Scotland collapsed during a storm while a train was passing over it, killing 75.
1895--the world's first commercial movie screening takes place at the Grand Cafe in Paris
1897--Cyrano de Bergerac, a play by Edmond Rostand, premiered in Paris.
1905--the forerunner of the NCAA, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, was founded in New York City.
1908--Messina, Italy was nearly destroyed by an earthquake that killed between 60-75,000 people.
1914--Ford Motor Co. increased its daily wage from $2.34 for a nine-hour day to $5 for eight hours of work.
1919--the National Socialist (Nazi) Party was formed in Germany.
1922--Stan Lee, comic book creator (Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk), turns 90
1925--Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming was sworn in as the first woman governor in the US.
1945--the US Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.
1948--the first color newsreel, filmed at the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, Calif., was released on this date by Warner Brothers-Pathe.
1958--the Baltimore Colts won the NFL championship, defeating the New York Giants 23-17 in overtime at Yankee Stadium, in what has been dubbed the greatest football game ever played.
1964--Pope Paul VI and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras met in Jerusalem, the first meeting of a pope and a patriarch in more than five centuries.
1973--Alexander Solzhenitsyn published Gulag Archipelago, an expose of the Soviet prison system.
1981--Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the 1st "US test tube baby" was born.
1982--a black man was mortally wounded by a police officer in a Miami video arcade, setting off three days of race-related disturbances that left another man dead.
1993--Washington executed multiple child killer Westley Allan Dodd by hanging in the nation's first gallows execution in 28 years.
1994--the US and North Korea agreed, in principle, that the latter would allow inspections of its declared nuclear facilities.
1995--the US House of Representatives passed a bill requiring Congress to comply with its own civil rights and labor laws. The Senate followed suit six days later.
1996--the longest U.S. government shutdown ended after 21 days when Congress passed a stopgap spending measure that would allow federal employees to return to work.
1998-[imghttp://www.dvdizer.com/img/actor/Bono-Sonny_thumb.jpg][/img]-Rep. Sonny Bono, R-Calif., of Sonny and Cher fame, was killed when he hit a tree while skiing at South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
2000--the Clinton administration decided that Elian Gonzalez, a 6-year-old Cuban refugee whose mother drowned while trying to enter the US, should be returned to his father in Cuba.
2004--Pete Rose, barred from baseball for gambling, admitted he had bet on games involving his own team.
2005--former top Enron Corp. accountant Richard Causey pleaded guilty to securities fraud and agreed to help pursue convictions against Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling.
2005--At least 24 people were killed in two car bomb explosions ain Iraq in mounting violence ahead of upcoming elections.
2005--UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched a $977 million emergency appeal to cover six months of aid for 5 million victims of the Southeast Asia tsunami.
2006--134 people were killed in two car bombings in Iraq and more than 120 others were wounded in a second day of heavy violence.
2007--43 people died in a two-day series of militant assaults on migrants, mostly milkmen, in two districts of India.
2008--the Detroit Lions completed an 0-16 season, the NFL's worst ever, with a 31-21 loss to the Green Bay Packers.
2008--tribal violence following the disputed Kenya presidential election claimed almost 500 lives.


World News Capsules:
1. Betrayed while asleep, Afghan police die at hands of their countrymen
....The fear of insider attacks has been an even bigger concern for Afghan security forces than it has been for NATO and American forces.
2. China toughens its restrictions on use of the Internet
....New rules require Internet users to provide their real names to service providers, while assigning companies greater responsibility for deleting forbidden postings.
3. Woman whose gang rape galvanized India dies

....The woman, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, had been in critical condition since she was raped two weeks ago by several men who lured her onto a bus.
4. Iran's slowing of enrichment efforts may show it wants a deal, analysts say
....Some observers see signals in the Iranians’ diversion of medium-enriched uranium to a small research reactor.
5. Carbon taxes make Ireland even greener

....Over the last three years, Ireland embraced a novel strategy to help reduce its staggering deficit: charging households and businesses for the environmental damage they cause.
6. Islamists' harsh justice is on the rise in North Mali
....Amputations have occurred at least 14 times since the Islamist takeover of the region last spring, with a vow of more to come.
7. Russia's plan to bar American adoptions upends families

...For hundreds of Americans enmeshed in the costly, complicated adoption process, Pres. Putin's decision to endorse an adoption ban had a deeply personal effect.
a. Russia urges Syrian leader to negotiate with his opponents
....The move comes as further signs emerged that Moscow and other international parties were coalescing around the idea of a transitional government in Syria.
8. Car factories offer hope for Spanish industry and workers
....With labor costs so low, Spain is attracting car manufacturers that see a large competitive advantage in producing there rather than in other European countries.
9. Battle for Syrian city lays both sides weaknesses bare

....Growing rebel successes in the six-month fight for Aleppo have not come without setbacks, costs and questions about Syria’s future.

US News Capsules:
1. Sudden death of show pony clouds image of elite pursuit

....In horse racing, industry leaders have taken significant steps against the overmedicating of horses. But in the cloistered equestrian world, the issue has attracted less notice. Records show that since 2010, random drug tests of horses competing at equestrian events have tested positive for substances such as cocaine, antipsychotics and depressants.
2. Stalemate in Washington is eroding confidence of consumers
....Consumer confidence fell sharply in the first half of December despite improvement in new home sales and a slight drop in new jobless claims.
3. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, US commander in Gulf War, dies at 78

....Gen. Schwarzkopf, who was lauded for his leadership during the war, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Queen Elizabeth II made him an honorary knight.
POLITICS:
1. Obama to urge fiscal vote in Senate if two-party talks fail

....Pres. Obama said he was cautiously “optimistic” about Senate leaders’ work to avert the fiscal crisis. But he also warned that he would urge the Democratic-controlled body to put forward a measure anyway if the two sides can’t agree.
a. Summoned back to work, Senators chafe at inaction
....Lawmakers were fully united, if only around their sadness and frustration at being stuck in Washington in a holiday week, peering over the edge of the fiscal abyss.
2. Closing loopholes isn't enough
....Some politicians think America can raise the revenue it needs to balance its books without raising tax rates on anyone. There's a word for that: hogwash.
3. Washington's stalemate leaves taxpayers in limbo

....The impasse has left many with no idea how much they’ll be paying in federal income taxes in 2013, but taxpayers can take some steps amid the uncertainty.

Sports Headlines:
1. NBA: Putting 'the choke' further in the past
....After being dismissed from previous NBA. coaching stints, including with Golden State, where he was infamously choked by Latrell Sprewell, P.J. Carlesimo will take over as the Nets' interim coach.
a. Williams dismisses view that he caused coach's firing

....Point guard Deron Williams that he did not quit on Avery Johnson, but he did accept some responsibility for the Nets' poor play recently.
2. MLB: Matsui, star in two continents, is retiring
....Hideki Matsui, who announced his retirement on Thursday, hit 332 homers for the Yomiuri Giants in Japan before joining the Yankees for seven seasons, helping them to a World Series title.
3. Tennis: Injury and illness to keep Nadal out of Australian Open
....A stomach virus further delayed Rafael Nadal’s comeback from a knee injury that has sidelined him since June.

Thought for Today
"The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."
--[/i]George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright,


[/size][/color]

[the flying reindeer]

Pepper Pot Day
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 363rd day of 2012 with 2 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 3:08 p.m., it's lightly snowing , temp 28ºF [Feels like 28ºF], winds calm, humidity 82%, pressure 29.62 in and steady, dew point 24ºF, chance of precipitation 100%.

Today in History:
1170--Saint Thomas a Becket ,(rchbishop of Canterbury, was assassinated, while knelt in prayer, inside Canterbury Cathedral by King Henry II's men.
1721--Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson. Marquise de Pompadour, French mistress of King Louis XV, was born; died 1764 at age 42.
1778--the British capture Savannah, Georgia.
1808--Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, was born in Raleigh, N.C.
1809--William Gladstone, English statesman and four-time prime minister (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, 1892-94), was born; died 1898 at age 88.
1845--Texas was admitted to the union as the 28th state.
1848--gaslights were installed at the White House.
1851--the first American Young Men's Christian Association was organized, in Boston.
1862-- at the Battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, Union Gen. Sherman was thwarted in his attempt to capture Vicksburg, Miss.
1876--a bridge in Ashtabula, Ohio, collapsed causing a train to fall into a gorge, killing 80 passengers.
1878--the Cuban professional baseball league played its first game.
1890--US troops killed as many as 400 Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee, SD.
1911--Mongolia declared independence from the Qiing Empire (last ruing dynaty of China).
1915--the French National Assembly passed a law formally ceding the land that held the British war cemeteries to Great Britain.
1916--James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published.
1916--GrIgorI Rasputin, the monk who had wielded powerful influence over the Russian court, was murdered by a group of noblemen.
1936--Mary Tyler Moore, Actress, turns 76 1
1940--Germany began dropping incendiary bombs on London.
1957--Pat Boone earned his second #1 hit with "April Love."
1967--Paul Whiteman, the "King of Jazz" and most popular bandleader of the pre-swing era, died in Doylestown, Pa., at age 77.
1972--Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed on its approach to Miami International Airport, killing 101 people aboard.
1975--a terrorist bomb exploded at LaGuardia Airport in New York City, killing 11 people and injuring 75.
1983--the US announced its withdrawal from UNESCO, charging the UN cultural and scientific organization was biased against Western nations.
1985--the "Railway Rapist" attacked 19-year-old Alison Day, abducting her from a London train and strangling her for his first murder, although he had committed a number of previous rapes.
1989--playwright Vaclav Havel was sworn in as the first non-communist president of Czechoslovakia since 1948.
1992--a Cuban airliner was hijacked to Miami as part of a mass defection with 48 of the 53 people aboard seeking and granted political asylum.
1996-[/img]-war-weary guerrilla and government leaders in Guatemala signed an accord ending 36 years of civil conflict.
1998--the Khmer Rouge leaders apologized for the 1970s genocide in Cambodia that claimed 1 million lives.
1999--the NASDAQ composite index closed above 4,000 for the first time, ending the day at 4,041.46.
2002--Kenyan voters ousted the party that had ruled the nation since 1963 in an election that also ended the 24-year presidency of Daniel Arap Moi.
2003- blocked due to malware/_R8siXj5I9iY/TSeS5pfqKNI/AAAAAAAABno/wBfGX2DOpgY/s1600/FAMS.jpg[/img]-the US Department of Homeland Security announced that armed air marshals would be placed on certain foreign flights entering US airspace believed to be at risk of terrorist attacks.
2003--Five bodies were recovered from the Christmas Day mudslide in California's San Bernardino Mountains, running the total to 12 with two others missing.
2004--actor Jerry Orbach, star of stage, film and TV, best known for his starring role on TV's Law and Order, died of prostate cancer at the age of 69.
2005--grass fires in Texas and Oklahoma destroyed thousands of acres, hundreds of buildings and countless cattle. The Texas farming community of Cross Plains was demolished.
2006--AT&T won approval to complete an $85 billion takeover of BellSouth Corp. after it made a series of consumer-friendly concessions.
2007--Gen. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, reported that car bombs and suicide attacks dropped by 60% and that al-Qaida in Mesopotamia remained the greatest threat to Iraq's security.
2007--The New England Patriots became the first NFL team in 35 years to finish the regular season undefeated when they beat the New York Giants 38-35 to go 16-0.

World News Capsules:
1. Deadly bite of winter returns to the ill-prepared refugee camps of Kabul
....Stubbornness by Afghanistan’s government and refugees, inadequate aid and desperate families’ selling of clothes for food are again yielding a deadly toll in squalid camps.
2. Units of Spanish utility nationalized in Bolivia
....Pres. Evo Morales nationalized two electricity distribution subsidiaries of the Spanish energy company Iberdrola.
3. Shaky response of India's government in fatal rape case magnifies outrage

....The death of a young woman savagely assaulted and raped in the national capital has mushroomed into a volatile crisis that has touched a deep chord of discontent. Six people, including a minor and a bus driver, have been arrested.
a. An idea promised the sky, but India is still waiting
....The Aakash project was supposed to provide $50 tablet computers for students across India, revolutionizing the nation’s schools and its tech industry, but so far those goals remain elusive.
4. To save wildlife, and tourism, Kenyans take up arms

....In Kenya, people are so eager to protect their wildlife — and the tourism dollars that safaris bring — that civilians are risking their lives to confront poaching gangs.
5. At least 16 are reported killed in Nigeria
....The assault took place early Friday morning in Musari, the city where the sect known as Boko Haram first began its guerrilla campaign against Nigeria’s weak central government.
6. Cough syrup suspected to have killed 33 in Pakistan
....Tests show the victims’ stomachs contained a synthetic morphine derivative used in cough syrup that can have mind-altering effects if consumed in large quantities, an official said.
7. In Russia, exile in comfort for leaders like Assad

....Barvikha, a town of villas and luxury boutiques near Moscow, is a magnet for deposed leaders given asylum in Russia, and offers a possible future for Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad. But the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said there was “no possibility” Pres/ al-Assad of Syria could be persuaded to leave, suggesting slender hope for negotiations.

US News Capsules:
1. 414 homicides in '12 is a record low for New York City
....Overall crimes increased slightly, officials said, because of a rise in thefts - a phenomenon based solely on robberies of iPhones and other Apple devices.
2. A record worth wilting for: Death Valley is hotter than...
....Death Valley is officially the hottest place on earth, now that meteorologists have invalidated a 136.4-degree reading claimed since 1922 by a city in Libya.
3. As Walmart makes safety vows, it's seen as obstacle to change
....Critics of Walmart say its factory monitoring system is flawed, and the company has shown little interest in changing the practice of demanding that factories meet safety standards at their own cost.
3. Sprawling Memphis aims to be a friendlier place for cyclists
....The Tennessee city, which had been named one of the worst cities in American for cyclists, has opened dozens of miles of bike lanes as it tries to change commuting habits.
4. Partial deal with union averts a strike at 14 ports
....Shipping companies and dockworkers reached a deal on their main dispute, and the longshoremen's union agreed to drop its threat of a strike this Sunday.
5. Newspaper on Cape Cod apologies for a veteran reporter's fabrications
....A not-quite-right article set off alarm bells for an editor at The Cape Cod Times and the discovery of years of made up subjects by a longtime reporter who had appeared "down in the dumps."
6. How to prepare when next year's tax rates are anyone's guess
....The fiscal stalemate in Washington has left many with no idea how much they'll be paying in federal income taxes in 2013, but taxpayers can take some steps amid the uncertainty.
7. TV where taking it too far is never far enough

....Was 2012 a nadir for reality television? Can the offerings possibly get any worse? Has the genre become too ludicrous to parody?
8. A place comfortable with Boeing, anarchists and [/i]Frasier[/u]
....A revamped History & Industry Museum has a new home on Lake Union in Seattle, with some 50,000 square feet of exhibits about that city's past and future.
9. Braced for hardship, an Amish clan awaits sentences in shearing attacks

....Feuds with outsiders and wrenching internal strife culminated in five separate attacks, which have brought calamity to a community led by Samuel Mullet Sr.
10. Russian adoption ban brings uncertainty and outrage
....Pres. Putin signed the bill into law Friday, apparently blocking hundreds of orphans’ departure for the United States.
POLITICS:
1. US Senate leaders set to work on a last-minute tax agreement
....After weeks of fruitless negotiations with the House speaker, John Boehner, Pres. Obama turned to Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell to try to avert a fiscal crisis.
2. Wishful thinking and middle-class taxes
....A commitment to keep taxes low for the middle class could be one reason that the political process has become so deeply dysfunctional.
3. Federal power to intercept messages is extended
....Congress gave final approval on Friday to a bill extending the government’s power to intercept electronic communications of spy and terrorism suspects under a law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Thought for Today
"A smile is the shortest distance between two people."
--Victor Borge (1909-2000) Danish-born pianist & comedian


[/size][/color]

[the flying reindeer]

National Egg Nog Month
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 364thday of 2012 with 1 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 4:19 p.m., it's partly cloudy , temp 26ºF [Feels like 15ºF], winds W @ 12 mph, humidity 69%, pressure 30.12 in and steady, dew point 18ºF, chance of precipitation 10%.

Today in History:
1460--Wars of the Roses between Lancaster and York: Battle of Wakefield in the ) in which Edmund, Duke of York's second son, was killed.
1703--Tokyo was hit by an earthquake; about 37,000 died.
1809--wearing masks at balls forbidden in Boston.
1813--the British burned Buffalo, N.Y., during the War of 1812.
1816--English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Frankenstein were wed.
1853--the US bought 45,000 square miles of land along the Gila River from Mexico for $10 million that is now southern Arizona and New Mexico, establishing the southern US border.
1862--the Union ironclad ship USS Monitor sank off Cape Hatteras, NC, during a storm, 16 crew members died.
1865--author Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India; died 1936 at age 70.
1903-t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT6Dbyf1M0MeQv6_RwWzssmcScMiklKs2U4TZo3oudIRYpI5b7N&t=1 [/img]-about 600 people died when fire broke out at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago.
1911--Sun Yat-sen was elected the first president of the Republic of China.
1922--Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established, comprising a confederation of Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, and the Transcaucasian Federation (divided in 1936 into the Georgian, Azerbaijan, and Armenian republics)
1935--Sandy Koufax, Baseball Hall of Fame llefthander, born; turns 77
1940--California's first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena, was officially opened.
1965--former Philippines Senate Pres. Ferdinand Marcos was inaugurated president of the Southeast Asian archipelago nation.
1970--the US Navy transfered some of its Vietnam Conflict responsibility to the South Vietnamese.
1972--the US halted its heavy bombing of North Vietnam and peace negotiations resumed in Paris.
1978--Ohio State University fired Woody Hayes as its football coach, one day after Hayes punched Charlie Bauman, a Clemson University player, during a game.
1979--Richard Rodgers, Broadway composer (Oklahoma, South Pacific, Sound of Music.). died in New York City at age 77.
1986--Exxon Corp. became the first major international oil company to withdraw from South Africa because of that nation's racial policies.
1992--Ling-Ling, the giant female panda who delighted visitors to Washington's National Zoo for more than two decades, died of heart failure.
1993--Israel and the Vatican agreed to recognize one another.
1994--John Salvi III, an anti-abortion activist, went on a murder spree at abortion clinics in Brookline, Mass. and Norfolk, Va.
1995--North Korea released a US Army pilot whose helicopter had been shot down 13 days earlier over North Korean territory.
1999--a mentally ill man broke into George Harrison's mansion and attacked the former Beatle and his wife.
2002--a university student, thought to be linked to a terrorist group, allegedly killed three US missionaries working at a Baptist hospital in Yemen.
2003--the US government announced it would ban the sale of ephedra, an herbal stimulant linked to 155 deaths and dozens of heart attacks and strokes.
2004--the official death toll from the 11-country Asian earthquake and tsunami soared to 123,000. Indonesia was the hardest hit by the magnitude 9 quake and counted 80,000 dead.
2004--Artie Shaw, the clarinet virtuoso and leader of one of the biggest of the Swing Era big bands, died at age 94.
2005--despite opposition to the anti-torture provision, Pres. Bush signed into law the new $453 billion military spending bill.
2006--former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was hanged.
2006--car bombs struck markets in a Shiite area of Baghdad and in a southern Shiite town, killing at least 68 people.
2007--security was high in Iraq as supporters of deposed Pres. Hussein marked the first anniversary of his death.
2010--top-ranked UConn's record 90-game winning streak in women's basketball ended with a 71-59 loss to No. 9 Stanford


World News Capsules:
1. Afghan camps receive wiwnter aid, but officias say it isn't enough

....The UN High Commissioner for Refugees on Sunday distributed emergency cold weather supplies to families in a refugee camp where two days earlier a 3-year-old child died of exposure to the cold.
a. Afghan troop deaths rise as army expands its role
....The Afghan government hit a grim record in its quest to take over the country’s security: more than 1,000 soldiers died in 2012, a 20% increase from 2011.
2. Coming soon to Belgian village, a Frenh film idol fleeing taxes
....Néchin, a rural settlement in Belgium, has become a tax haven for scores of wealthy French citizens, including, most recently, the actor Gérard Depardieu.
3. In Germany, Merkel's main rival appears to stumble from gaffe to gaffe
....The Social Democrats’ candidate for chancellor, Peer Steinbrück, finds himself facing questions about speaking fees and a comment that Angela Merkel has the advantage of a “women’s bonus.”
4. Six charged with murder in India after rape victim's death

....As protests grew, a police spokesman said the suspects could face the death penalty in a Dec. 16 gang rape that shocked India with its savagery.
a. Rape victim is cremated in India after six are charged with murder
....The 23-year-old victim’s remains were received by India’s prime minister and cremated following candlelight vigils and violent protests that have galvanized India.
5. Israel, in shift, lets building materials cross into Gaza

....The easing of restrictions on imports is a result of continuing talks in Cairo meant to anchor the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
6. In Mexico, a factory on bicycle wheels, carrying hope of a better life

....Amor Muñoz’s mobile sewing factory is about community and “the experience of art” as much as economic development. “I’m interested in sharing the experience of art,” Ms. Muñoz says. Plus, she pays her workers about $7.50
7. In Pakistan, drone war spurs militants to deadly reprisals
....Militants punish those accused of being informers aiding drone attacks by taping their confessions and executions, deepening an atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust in the tribal belt.
a. 19 Shiite pilgrims bound for Iran are killed in Pakistan
....The remotely detonated bomb, which struck buses bearing passengers on a religious pilgrimage, also wounded at least 25 people in southwestern Pakistan.
8. Al-Qaida places bounties on Americans in Yemen
....Al Qaida’s branch in Yemen has offered bounties worth tens of thousands of dollars to anyone who kills the American ambassador or an American soldier in the country.

US News Capsules:
1. Halfway houses prove lucrative to those at top
....The 2nd-largest operator of halfway houses in New Jersey, a nonprofit, has paid its founder roughly $7 million over the past decade, and has hired several of the founder's relatives.
2. Obama faults US 'sloppiness' in fatal Benghazi attack
....Pres. Obama said an inquiry on the episode that claimed four American lives in Libya had identified “huge problems” in how the State Department protects its missions abroad.
3. Building congregations around art galleries and cafes as spirituality wanes
....As more Americans identify as "spiritual but not religious," evangelicals are changing their focus to building inviting community spaces.
4. A festive mood in Maine as same-sex marriage becomes legal

....In Portland, the mood was festive, as the city clerk's office opened at midnight to issue marriage licenses to gay couples as soon as it was legal.
5. Hillaray Clinton is hospitalized after exam finds a blood clot


....Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is being treated with anticoagulant medication after the discovery of a blood clot stemming from her concussion this month.
6. Boys missing for 10 days found safe

....The two Georgia boys were found at an Austin, Texas, hotel after authorities say their father took them on a road trip without telling anyone -- setting off a nationwide search.
POLITICS:
1. US Senate leaders racing to seek bipartisan formula to forge a tax deal as deadline nears

....The fear of another painful economic slowdown appears to have accelerated deal-making on Capitol Hill with just two days remaining before the so-called fiscal cliff arrives.
2. Vice Pres. Biden is back for a 2nd run at gun limits
....The current debate offers Vice Pres. Biden a chance to craft a legislative response that would reinstate his assault weapons ban, while also making it more effective.
3. Why your paycheck is getting smaller, no matter what

....That's because the government had temporarily lowered the payroll tax rate in 2011 to 4.2% from 6.2%, in an effort to keep more cash in the pockets of Americans and provide a boost to the economy. The tax cut, which applies on the first $113,700 in annual earnings, is expiring in December.

Thought for Today
"If you really do put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price."
--[/i]Anonymous.


[/size][/color]

[the flying reindeer]

Happy New Year's Eve Day
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 365th day of 2012 with 0 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 2:13 p.m., it's fair , temp 34ºF [Feels like 27ºF], winds SW @ 9 mph, humidity 56%, pressure 29.91 in and falling, dew point 28ºF, chance of precipitation 20%.

Today in History:
1738--Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, English general and statesman, was born; died 1805 at age 66.
1775--Patriots are defeated at Quebec
1857--Great Britain's Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.
1862--Pres. Lincoln signed an act admitting West Virginia to the Union.
1869--Henri Matisse, French painter, was born; died 1954 at age 84.
1879--Thomas Edison gave the first public demonstration of his incandescent lamp in Menlo Park, NJ.
1880--George C. Marshall, US Army Chief of Staff & 3rd Secretary of Defense, was born; died 1959 at age 78.
1904--Times Square holds its first New Year's Eve celebration .
1907--Times Square New Year's Eve crystal ball drops for the first time.
1909--Manhattan Bridge, asuspension bridge that crosses the East River in New York City, was opened.
1929--Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians' first New Year's Eve broadcast from the Roosevelt Grill in New York City, which became an annual event on CBS.
1937--actor Anthony Hopkins turns 75 years old today.
1951--the Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid.
1960--the farthing coin was no longer considered legal tender in Great Britain.
1970--Six months after release of their Let It Be album, Paul McCartney filed suit in London seeking the legal dissolution of the Beatles' partnership.
1974--private US citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years.
1983--the court-ordered breakup of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co. took effect at midnight.
1984--the US' first mandatory seat belt law went into effect in the state of New York at midnight.
1985--rock singer Rick Nelson, age 45, and six other people were killed when fire broke out aboard a DC-3 that was taking the group to a New Year's Eve performance in Dallas.
1993--entertainer Barbra Streisand performed her first paid concert in 22 years, singing to a sellout crowd at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas.
1994--Russian forces launched a full air and ground attack on Grozny, the capital city of the rebel republic of Chechnya.
1997--the Algerian government announced that more than 400 people had been massacred by Islamic extremists during the last nine days of December.
1999--in accordance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, Panama assumed full control of the Panama Canal.
1999--Boris Yeltsin, Pres. of Russia, announcesdhis resignation as on Russian Television.
2004--at least 175 youths were reported killed in an overnight fire at a popular Buenos Aires nightclub; bout 600 more were injured.
2004--Taipei 101 (101-floor landmark skyscraper in Taipei) opened as the world's tallest skyscraper.
2004--a bus slammed into an oil tanker in Pakistan, killing at least 31 people and seriously injuring 11.
2005--844 US military personnel died in Iraq, a year-end report said. Of that toll, 425 deaths were blamed on roadside bombs.
2006--Romania and Bulgaria joined the European Union bringing the number of countries to 27 and the number of citizens to 489 million.
2006--the death toll for Americans killed in the Iraq war reached 3,000.
2007--the death toll in Kenya's post-election violence reached at least 140 with the figure sure to go far beyond that. Tribal uprisings were triggered after incumbent Pres. Mwai Kibaki narrowly won re-election over challenger Raila Odinga despite trailing by a wide margin earlier.

World News Capsules:
1. Fearing fighting, residents flee capital of Central African Republic
....Rebels rejected an offer from Pres. François Bozizé that proposed forming a government of national unity, saying that previous agreements with him had been quickly broken.
2. Family of Chinese regulator profits in insurance firm's rise
....Dai Xianglong oversaw the insurance industry when a company his relatives helped control made an investment that came to be worth billions.
a. Times reporter in China is forced to leave over visa issue[/u]
....Visa troubles for the reporter and for the new Beijing bureau chief of The Times come amid government pressure on the foreign media over investigations into the finances of senior Chinese leaders
3. Europe's debt crisis: no relief on the horizon

....European Union officials have struggled to turn things around — debating new treaties, shoring up banks, securing more funding. The people of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Latvia have dealt with economic troubles in various ways.
4. Indian women march: 'That girl could have been any one of us'
....Protesters say they and others like them will never fully take part in the promise of a more prosperous nation unless something fundamental changes.
5. Iran tests new version of missiles in exercise
....A wide-ranging naval exercise focused on striking hypothetical unmanned aircraft and vessels in international waters to the south of the country.
6. Japan's new leader endorses nuclear plants
....Shinzo Abe, the newly elected prime minister, said Sunday that he would seek to build nuclear reactors, reversing a campaign pledge to move Japan away from nuclear power.
7. UN Envoy to Syria warns of slide to hellish fiefs with huge toll

....The international envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, said that if fighting continued, it could lead to 100,000 deaths in the next year and a territorial free-for-all.
8. Chávez faces new complications after surgery

....Pres. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is experiencing complications arising from a respiratory infection following cancer surgery in Cuba, Vice Pres. Nicolás Maduro said Sunday night.

US News Capsules:
1. Settlement expected on past abuses in home loans
....Banking regulators are said to be close to a $10 billion settlement with 14 banks that would end the government's efforts to hold lenders responsible for foreclosure abuses.
2. Woman accused of murder as a hate crime in NYC subway push death
....Erika Menendez, charged with shoving a stranger to his death under a train in Queens, has a long history with New York City's law enforcement and mental health establishments.
3. Lure of green cards brings big investment for remote resort in Vermont

....Developers with big plans for Jay Peak and nearby Newport, have got millions in financing under a program that gives foreigners a green card in exchange for a $500,000 investment.
4. Nine are killed in charter bus crash in Oregon

....A charter bus crashed through a guardrail and tumbled several hundred feet down a steep embankment, injuring about 20 others , including the driver of the bus, owned by a Canadian company.
5. Out maneuvered at their own game, antivirus makers struggle to adapt

....Consumers and businesses spend billions of dollars a year on antivirus software, but these programs rarely block freshly minted strains, because the malware creators move too fast.
6. Clinton's blood clot is located near her brain, doctors say

....Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did not suffer any neurological damage, and her physicians said they expect she will make a full recovery.
POLITICS:
1. Day of seesaw talks produces no accord on fiscal crisis

....The Senate was set to reconvene Monday after failing to produce a fiscal deal with just hours to go before large tax increases and spending cuts were to begin taking effect.
a. Shape of fiscal deal emerging, but spending still at issue
....Vice Pres. Biden and Sen. Mitch McConnell reached a tentative agreement on taxes but remained stuck on whether and how to stop $110 billion in across-the-board spending cuts.
b. A showdown long foreseen
....The struggle over how to reach a broad Congressional tax agreement is not just the latest partisan showdown but rather the culmination of two years of escalating fiscal confrontations.

Thought for Today
"Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?"
--[/i]Cicero (106 BC-43 BC), Roman orator


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[the flying reindeer]

New Year's DAY



January 1st in History
45 BC--the Julian calendar took effect for the first time.
404--the last known gladiator competition in Rome took place.
630--the Prophet Muhammad set out toward Mecca.
1502--Portuguese explorers landed at a harbor on the coast of South America and named the site Rio de Janeiro (River of January).
1515--Francis, Duke of Angouleme, became Francis I of France on the death of Louis XII.
1660--Samuel Pepys began his famous diary.
1764--in France, 8-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played for the Royal Family at Versailles.
1776--George Washington unveiled the Grand Union Flag, the first national flag in America.
1785--The Times newspaper was first published in Britain as the Daily Universal Register.
1797--Albany became the capital of New York state, replacing New York City
1801--the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland became effective, creating the United Kingdom.
1803--two months after his defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte's colonial forces, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed the independence of Saint-Domingue, renaming it Haiti after its original Arawak name.
1808--a law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States went into effect.
1833--the United Kingdom claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.
1863--the Emancipation Proclamation, introduced the previous September by Abraham Lincoln, took effect.
1877--Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India.
1892--the Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York opened.
1895--J. Edgar Hoover, 1st director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was born; died 1972 at age 77.
1898--New York City was consolidated into five buroughs.
1901--the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed.
1902--the University of Michigan beat Stanford, 49-0, in the inaugural Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, Calif.
1914--Great Britain established a West African colony it called Nigeria.
1919--J.D. Salinger, author of "The Catcher in the Rye," was born in New York City; died 2010 at age 90.
1925--the capital city of Norway, known as Christiana or Kristiana since 1674, resumed its name of Oslo.
1925--the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame's Fighting Irish (Jim Crowley, Elmer Layden, Don Miller and Harry Stuhldreher) played together for the fianl time as the Irish beat Stanford, 27-10.
1942--26 nations signed the "Declaration of the United Nations," affirming opposition to Axis powers.
1953--Country singer Hank Williams Sr., age 29, died of a heart attack in the back of a limousine on the way to a show in Canton, Ohio.
1956--RCA released Elvis Presley's hit single "Heartbreak Hotel."
1956--Sudan became an independent republic.
1958--treaties establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) went into effect.
1959--Fidel Castro led Cuban revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista.
1960--Cameroon achieved independence from France.
1968--Evel Knievel, stunt daredevil, lost control of his motorcycle during a 141 foot jump over the ornamental fountains in front of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.
1971--Tobacco ads, which represented $20 million dollars in advertising, were banned from radio and television.
1973--Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark became members of the EEC.
1975--a jury convicted former U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell and former White House aides John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman on all counts in the Watergate cover-up case.
1978--an Air India jumbo jet exploded in mid-air near Bombay, killing 213.
1979--the US and China established diplomatic relations.
1981--Greece was admitted as the 10th member of the European Economic Community.
1984--AT&T was divested of its 22 Bell System companies under terms of an antitrust agreement.
1986--Soviet television aired a five-minute greeting from Pres. Reagan and Americans received one from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
1990--David Dinkins was sworn in as New York City's first African-American mayor.
1992--a peace accord to end the El Salvador civil war was reached at the UN and Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt succeeded Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru as secretary-general.
1993-[imghttp://www.timegenie.com/flags/sk.png][/img]-Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
1994- reporting malware from this site/signeloodus/Geograafia/maailmajandus/NAFTA_logo_v.gif[/img]-the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect.
1995--suspected serial killer Frederick West, accused of murdering 12 women and girls in Britain's notorious "House of Horrors" case, was found hanged in his jail cell
1995--a four-month truce between the Muslim-led Bosnian government and Bosnian Serbs went into effect.
1996--Saudi Arabia's King Fahd handed over the running of the country to his younger brother Crown Prince Abdullah after suffering a stroke.
1999--the euro became the official currency of 11 European countries.
2000--in his first day as Russia's acting president, Vladimir Putin traveled to the rebellious republic of Chechnya to visit Russian troops.
2002--12 European countries began the new year by turning in their own currency and adopting a common one, the euro, in the biggest currency change in history.
2002--Argentina, staggered by severe economic problems, chose its fifth president in two weeks.
2004--British Airways canceled two flights from London to Washington because officials feared the flights had been targeted by terrorists.
2004--22 people were killed and hundreds of others injured during New Year's celebrations in the Philippines.
2005--Colombian officials suspected left-wing rebels were responsible for the slaughter of 17 people during a New Year's Eve celebration.
2006--Russia's state-owned energy company began shutting off natural gas supplies to Ukraine in a pricing dispute.
2007--a Jakarta airliner crashed in bad weather in Indonesian mountains killing most of its 102 passengers.
2007--South Korea's Ban Ki-moon succeeded Kofi Annan as secretary-general of the United Nations.
2008--In a vicious chapter of the Kenyan presidential dispute, some 15 members of the Kikuyu tribe, whose ranks include President Mwai Kibaki, were reported burned to death by a rival tribe after taking refuge in a church in the Rift Valley.

Thought for Today:
"There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. "
--[/i]Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British philospher
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[the flying reindeer]

Duplicate Message deleted by the flying reindeer.

[the flying reindeer]

Diet Resolution Week
Good afternoon from Tuxy and me
This is the 2nd day of 2013 with 363 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 1:16 p.m., it's cloudy , temp 26ºF [Feels like 14ºF], winds WSW @ 13 mph, humidity 51%, pressure 30.01 in and falling, dew point 13ºF, chance of precipitation 30%.

Today in History:
533--Mercurius, a Roman priest of the Basilica di San Clemente, became the first Pope to adopt a new regnal name upon his elevation to the papacy as Pope John II
1492--the leader of the last Arab stronghold in Spain surrendered to Spanish forces loyal to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I.
1776--the Continental Congress published the "Tory Act" resolution on how colonies should handle those Americans who remain loyal to the British and King George.
1788--Georgia became the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1811--Timothy Pickering, a Federalist from Massachusetts, became the first US senator to be censured after being accused of publicly revealing secret presidential documents.
1863-- the Union troops of William Rosecrans defeat Confederates under Braxton Bragg at Murfeesboro, Tennessee, just south of Nashville in the Battle of Stones River.
1897--Stephen Crane survived the sinking of his boat off the coast of Florida and turned the harrowing adventure into his classic short story "The Open Boat" (1897).
1900--Secretary of State John Hay announced the Open Door Policy to prompt trade with China.
1905--the Russian fleet surrendered to the Japanese at Port Arthur.
1923--Albert Fall, the secretary of the Department of Interior, resigned in response to public outrage over the Teapot Dome scandal.
1926--Isaac Asimov, science fiction author and professor of biochemistry, was born; died 1992 at age 72.
1935--Bruno Hauptmann went on trial in Flemington, N.J., on charges of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh.
1942--the US Navy opened a blimp base in New Jersey.
1942--Japanese forces occupied Manila, forcing US and Philippine forces to withdraw to the Bataan peninsula.
1959--the Soviet Union launched Lunik-1, the first unmanned spacecraft to travel to the moon.
1962--the folk group The Weavers were banned by NBC after refusing to sign a loyalty oath.
1965--the New York Jets signed University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath for a reported $400,000.
1971--66 football (soccer) fans were killed in a stampede at a stadium in Glasgow, Scotland,
1974--Pres. Nixon signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 mph.
1980--in a reaction to the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pres. Carter asks the Senate to postpone action on the SALT II nuclear weapons treaty and recalls the US ambassador to Moscow.
1980--former model Sherry Lansing was named the first female studio production head at Fox Productions.
1981--Police in Sheffield, England, arrested Peter Sutcliffe, who confessed to being the "Yorkshire Ripper," the serial killer of 13 women.
1990--Great Britain's most wanted terrorist suspect, Patrick Sheehy, was found dead in the Republic of Ireland.
1991--Sharon Pratt Dixon was sworn in as mayor of Washington, D.C., becoming the first African-American woman to head a city of Washington's size and prominence.
2004--more than 200 people in northern India were reported to have died because of a prolonged cold spell.
2005--US helicopters began dropping supplies on remote sections of Aceh province in Indonesia, devastated by Southeast Asia's earthquake and tsunami. Airdrops also were under way in parts of India.
2005--a suicide car bomb killed 18 members of the Iraqi National Guard and a civilian in Baghdad.
2006--a methane gas explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia trapped 13 miners underground for more than 40 hours; only one survived.
2007--national and world dignitaries attended a funeral ceremony in Washington's National Cathedral for former president Gerald Ford.
2008--Pakistan's national parliamentary elections were postponed until Feb. 18 in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
2008--Oil prices soared to $100 a barrel for the first time.
2009--a rare unrestored 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalante Coupe was found in a garage of a British doctor and sold at a Paris auction a month later for some $4.4 million.

World News Capsules:
1. With US set to leave Afghanistan, echoes of 1989
....As the US prepares to withdraw from an unpopular war in Afghanistan, it faces challenges similar to what the country’s last occupier, the Soviet Union, had experienced.
2. Central African Republic rebels halt advance

....The rebels said they had halted their advance on the capital of Bangui and would start peace talks, averting a clash with regionally-backed troops.
3. Europe's debt crisis: no relief on the horizon
....European Union officials have struggled to turn things around — debating new treaties, shoring up banks, securing more funding. The people of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Latvia have dealt with economic troubles in various ways.
4. Iraq's Sadr encourages anti-government demonstrations
....A populist Shiite leader, Moktada al-Sadr, expressed support on Tuesday for new protests against Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite but his political opponent.
5. Used to hardship, Latvia accepts austerity, and its pain eases

....In four years, the country has gone from the European Union's worst economic disaster zone to a model of what is being hailed as the healing properties of deep budget cuts.
6. Laos could bear cost of Chinese railroad
....China wants a railroad linking it to Thailand and on to the Bay of Bengal in Myanmar, but some international groups warn that it may put a big burden on Laos.
7. North Korean leader makes overture to South

....Kim Jong-un, who called for an end to the "confrontation" with South Korea, also laid out broad policy guidelines for the new year.
8. Militants gun down seven aid workers in Pakistan
....Continuing a militant campaign of violence against aid workers in Pakistan, gunmen killed seven Pakistani teachers and health workers, six of them women.
9. Putin orders new system for Russian parliamentary elections
...The move by Pres. Putin to establish a mixed electoral system would alter the way seats are filled in the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, and could help solidify his power.
a. Malls blossom in Russia, with a middle class
....While malls appear to be past their peak in the US, in Russia they are luring shoppers with money to spend and investors like Morgan Stanley.
10. A Swiss region where the gold comes in solid and liquid forms

....Mendrisio, Switzerland, is home to three major gold refiners and a dark red merlot produced in the surrounding hills.
11. More than 60,000 have died in Syrian conflict, UN says

....The UN’ human rights chief, Navi Pillay voiced dismay over an analysis that far exceeds earlier estimates of the toll in 22-month-old war.
a. Dozens of Syrians killed in explosions around Damascus

....Blasts at a gas station east of the Syrian capital and in another of its suburbs killed more Syrians.

US News Capsules:
1. Energy drinks promise edge, but experts say proof is scant
....The popularity of the drinks reflects success in convincing consumers that they provide an edge, but most of their ingredients have no or little benefit, research shows.
2. Rig runs aground in Alaska, reviving fears about Arctic drilling

....There are no signs of spilled fuel, but that remains a concern as long as the Shell Oil vessel is stuck; the Coast Guard hopes to get salvage experts aboard to assess the damage.
3. Study suggests lower mortality risk for people deemed to be overweight
....A report on nearly three million people found that those whose body mass index ranked them as overweight had less risk of dying than people of normal weight.
4. Drug makers losing a bid to foil generic painkillers
....The companies making the narcotic painkillers OxyContin and Opana have introduced tamper-resistant pills, hoping to slow adoption of the drugs' generic versions.
5. Learning to create the perfect cup of coffee

....At coffee training centers, which are increasingly common, prospective baristas are learning the art and science behind the best-tasting coffee drinks.
6. ARTS: 2 queens, 3 lovers and one death warrant

....Joyce DiDonato triumphs in the title role, and Elza van den Heever makes a notable Met debut as Queen Elizabeth I, in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda.
7. Feeling draged through the mud, as MTV comes to West Virginia
....Like Jersey Shore, whose slot it is filling, Buckwild is prompting anger over what some consider the exploitation of stereotypes.
POLITICS:
1. Amid pressure, House passes fiscal dea

....Ending a climactic showdown in the final hours of the 112th Congress, the House sent Pres. Obama legislation to avert big income tax increases on most Americans.
2. From Congress to halls of state, in New Hampshire, women rule

....New Hampshire, which again chose a woman to be governor, will also become the first state in history to have an all-female delegation in Washington.
3. House ignores storm relief, to fury of local Republicans
....Gov. Christie of New Jersey angrily accused Congressional leaders in his party of “duplicity” after the House refused to take up a federal aid package for states that suffered damage from Hurricane Sandy.
a. King: House to vote on Sandy aid

....Republican Rep. Peter King of New York said that House Speaker John Boehner has promised a vote Friday on $9 billion in disaster aid for Superstorm Sandy and then another vote on $51 billion in aid on January 15.
4. House GOP looks to a round 2 Obama hopes to avoid
....Though Pres. Obama said he would not be pulled into another debt negotiation, Republicans are looking to reprise a bitter clash from 2011.

Thought for Today
"You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics."
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer

[the flying reindeer]

Drinking Straw Day
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 3rd day of 2013 with 362 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 4:22 p.m., it's cloudy , temp 28ºF [Feels like 17ºF], winds SSW @ 13 mph, humidity 63%, pressure 29.96 in and falling, dew point 19ºF, chance of precipitation 50%.

Today in History:
1521--Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
1777--Gen. Washington's army routed the British in the Battle of Princeton, NJ.
1793--Lucretia Mott, an early proponent of the women's rights movement in America, was born; died 1880 at age 87.
1818--Venus transits Jupiter.
1841--Herman Melville sailed for the South Seass
1861--Delaware rejected secession.
1868--the Meiji Restoration re-established the authority of Japan's emperor and heralded the fall of the military rulers known as shoguns.
1892--J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa; died 1973 at age 81.
1924--British archaeologist Howard Carter and his workmen uncovered the greatest treasure of King Tut's tomb--a stone sarcophagus containing a solid gold coffin that holds the mummy of Tutankhamen.
1938--the March of Dimes campaign to fight polio was organized vy Pres. Roosevelt.
1945--Rock musician Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills and Nash) turns 68 years old.
1945--Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Adm. Chester Nimitz were given new commands in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima, Okinawa and mainland Japan.
1952--the police drama Dragnet became one of the first TV series filmed in Hollywood, beginning a long, nearly unbroken line of popular crime and police TV dramas, continuing into the present day.
1959--Alaska became the 49th state of the union.
1961--the US severed diplomatic relations with Cuba.
1965--anti-government demonstrators clash with police in Saigon, South Vietnam.
1967--Jack Ruby, the man who fatally shot accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, died in a Dallas hospital.
1968--Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-<Minn.) announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
1981--New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning turns 32 years.
1990--ousted Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega surrendered to US forces, 10 days after taking refuge in the Vatican's diplomatic mission in Panama City.
1991--AIDS was removed from the list of diseases that would automatically bar an infected person from entering the US.
1993--Pres. Bush and Russian Pres. Boris Yeltsin signed the START II treaty reducing strategic nuclear arsenals by two-thirds.
2000--the last new daily "Peanuts" comic strip by Charles Schulz ran in 2,600 newspapers.
2004--a Flash Airline (Egyptian Charter flight company) Boeing 737 crashed shortly after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheik in Egypt, killing 148 people.
2004--NASA's Mars Rover, Spirit, touched down on the red planet.
2005--Indonesia's Ministry of Health announced another 14,000 deaths, bringing the total of lives lost in Asia's earthquake and tsunami disaster to 155,000.
2006--lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion and agreed to cooperate in investigations of corruption in Congress.
2006--Iran advised the International Atomic Energy Agency it planned to restart work on what it called its "peaceful nuclear energy program."
2007--an Iraqi prison guard was arrested for illegally videotaping the Baghdad execution of deposed leader Saddam Hussein and posting it on the Internet.
2007--National Express Coach crash occurred on the motorway slip connecting to the M25 motorway in London resulting in the death of 3 people with several more injured.

World News Capsules:
1. Afghan war commander ives options for after '14
....Gen. John R. Allen has submitted military options to the Pentagon that would keep 6,000 to 20,000 American troops in Afghanistan after the NATO mission ends in 2014.
2. Central Africa on the brink, rebels halt their advance
....A new willingness to talk raises hope of a peaceful resolution to a conflict that has driven thousands of civilians from their homes in search of refuge.
3. In China, grasss-roots groups take on HIV/AIDS outreach work
....Community organizations are slowly facing less resistance from government officials as they offer services to HIV-infected people, many in the gay community, who are often stigmatized.
4. Report says Mubarak dictated fierce response to Egypt protests
....Former Pres. Hosni Mubarak "knew everything, big and small" regarding the brutal response to protests against him last year in Egypt, a report says.
5. Murder charges are filed against 5 men in New Delhi gang rape
....Rape, murder and other charges were filed against five men suspected of carrying out an attack on a 23-year-old student in a case that has sparked outrage and protests across India.
6. Attacks in Iraq kill at least 32 pilgrims
....In what appeared to be a spate of sectarian-motivated violence, a car bomb and a roadside bomb exploded during the culmination of one of Shiite Islam’s holiest rituals.
7. Hezbollah leader urges Lebanon to aid in a solution for Syria
....Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Shiite militant movement in Lebanon, also wants the country to open its border to refugees to avoid further bloodshed.
8. US drone strike kills a top Pakistani militant

....The death of Maulvi Nazir, reported by security officials, was seen as a serious blow to Taliban fighters who attack US and allied forces in neighboring Afghanistan.
9. South Korea rejects extraditio in attack on Japanese shrine
....A Chinese man who carried out an arson attack on a Japanese war shrine will not be deported from Korea to Japan, a South Korean court ruled.
10. What's next for Syria?

....More than 60,000 have died in Syria's almost 2-year civil war. Will the bloody stalemate linger in 2013 or will the tide turn?
11. Plane crash? Murders? Time to play Thai lottery

....Thais, who often mix superstition with a proclivity for fun, play the underground lottery with numbers gleaned from calamity, believing that disaster can beget good fortune.

US News Capsules:
1. Inmates find health and solace in yoga

....In prisons across the country, inmates are doing yoga to improve their fitness and cope with the stress of overcrowded prison life.
2. A soaring homicide rate, a divide in Chicago
....The killing of one man outside the funeral for another emphasized gang violence in some of Chicago's neighborhoods.
3. Clinton out of hospital after treatment for clot
....Doctors said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would make a full recovery after being treated for several days for a blood clot in a vein in her head.
4. Together a century, city and oil giant hit a rough patch
....Chevron has spent millions in recent years trying to shore up its relationship with Richmond, Calif., but many residents still oppose the company's efforts to repair a refinery hit by a fire.
5. In drug fight on Texas border, some officers play both sides
....Some officers sworn to fight the drug trade along the Texas border with Mexico give in to the temptation of corruption, authorities say.
6. Immigration change to ease faily separations
....New rules unveiled will allow many American citizens to avoid long separations from family members who are illegal immigrants as they apply to become legal residents.
7. Suit claims officer faked DUI cases
....A former trooper of the year with the Utah Highway Patrol is accused of falsifying dozens of arrests on charges of driving under the influence during her 10-year career.
8. In victory for Google, US ends antitust investigation

....The Federal Trade Commission found that Google had not violated antitrust statutes in the way it structures its Web search application, dealing a setback to Google’s rivals.
POLITICS:
1. Lawmakers gird for next fiscal clash, on the devt ceiling
....Even as Republicans vow to leverage the federal borrowing limit in their demands for spending cuts, Pres. Obama, who signed the tax bill Wednesday, says he won't join in more charged talks on the issue.
2. Stalling of storm aid makes Northeast Republicans furious
....The depth of the anger that followed the House's refusal to take up a package of assistance for Hurricane Sandy victims was extraordinary and exceedingly personal.
3. Boehner re-elected speaker despite dissenting votes

....As the 113th Congress convened, John A. Boehner weathered some protest votes and was re-elected by a vote of 220 to 192.

Thought for Today
"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."
--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright

[the flying reindeer]

National Poverty in America Awareness Month
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 4th day of 2013 with 361days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 5:46 p.m., it's cfair , temp 33ºF [Feels like 23ºF], winds SW @ 12 mph, humidity 54%, pressure 29.88 in and steady, dew point 17ºF, chance of precipitation 10%.

Today in History:
1643--Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist and father of modern science, was born; died 1727 at age 84.
1698--the Palace of Whitehall, main residentce of the English monarchs in London from 1530 to 1698, was destroyed by fire
1746--Benjamin Rush, American physician, political leader and signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born; died 1813 at age 67.
1796--the US Congress accepted the Colors, or flag, of the French Revolutionary Republic.
1821--Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American born saint, died of tuberculosis at age 46.
1847--Colt sold his first revolvers to the U.S. government.
1865--the New York Stock Exchange opened its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street in New York City.
1885--Dr. William Grant of Davenport, Iowa, performed the first successful appendectomy.
1896--Utah was admitted to the Union as the 45th state.
1936--Billboard magazine published the first pop music chart.
1944--US aircraft began dropping supplies to guerrilla forces throughout Western Europe.
1948--Great Britain granted independence to Burma.
1951--North Korean and Communist Chinese forces captured the city of Seoul during the Korean War.
1960--Nobel Prize-winning French author Albert Camus died in a car accident at age 46.
1964--the Boston Strangler strikes again, raping and strangling Mary Sullivan who turned out to be his last of 13 victims.
1964--Bobby Vinton topped the pop charts with the last #1 single of the pre-Beatles era, "There! I've Said Again."
1965--Pres. Johnson presented his Great Society program in his State of the Union address.
1965--T.S. Eliot, the moxt important English language poet of his time, died at age 76.
1972--Rose Heilbron, the first woman appointed Queen's Counsel, became the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey.
1974--Pres. Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
1985--Israel confirmed that 10,000 Ethiopian Jews had been flown to Israel.
1993--25 people, including 18 Americans, were killed when their tour bus traveling on a rain-slick highway near Cancun, Mexico, crashed into a utility pole and burned.
1995--the 104th Congress was the first entirely under Republican control since the Eisenhower era; Newt Gingrich was elected speaker of the House.
1999--former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura was sworn in as governor of Minnesota.
1999--for the first time since Charlemagne's reign in the ninth century, Europe is united with a common currency when the "euro" debuts.
2000--Pres. Clinton nominated Alan Greenspan to a 4th four-year term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
2004--Spirit Rover (NASA's MER-A) landed successfully on Mars three weeks before its twin (Opportunity) landed on the other side of the planet
2006--Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke and his powers were transferred to his deputy, Ehud Olmert.
2007--Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., became the first female speaker of the House.
2010--Dubai opened the world's tallest skyscraper, the 2,717-foot gleaming glass-and-metal tower Burj Khalifa.

World News Capsules:
1. Insider attacks in Afghanistan shape the late stages of a war
....Interviews with an Afghan soldier who opened fire on Americans reveal the rage that officials worry may disrupt the training mission at the core of the United States' withdrawal plan.
a. Afghanistan frees detainees in show of sovereignity before Karzai visits US
....Pres. Hamid Karzai’s government in Afghanistan released 80 people as part of an effort to assert sovereignty over detainees, a source of tension with the US.

Leaders of Sudan and South Sudan in Ethiopia for talks
....The two nations have been locked in a tense dispute over borders, territory and oil since the south split off and became its own country 18 months ago.

Europe's debt crisis: no relief on the horizon
....European Union officials have struggled to turn things around — debating new treaties, shoring up banks, securing more funding. Also, the people of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Latvia have dealt with economic troubles in various ways.

Anglicans open a path to bishopric for gay men
...The Church of England said that gay clergymen in civil partnerships could become bishops as long as they vowed to remain celibate.

Iraqi prime minister faces more calls for resignation
....Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has come under fire for measures that some lawmakers and political opponents see as an attempt to monopolize power ahead of provincial elections.

Japanese envoy tries to mend ties with South Korea
....Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan reached out to South Korea’s incoming president, Park Geun-hye, by sending a special envoy to Seoul.

Fleeing North Korea is becoming harder
....The tightening of controls at the Chinese border led to a fall of about 44% from the previous year in the number of North Koreans defecting to South Korea in 2012

Drone dills a Pakistani militant behind attacks of US forces
....The death of Maulvi Nazir, reported by security officials, was seen as a serious blow to Taliban fighters who attack US and allied forces in neighboring Afghanistan.
a. Pakistani girl shot by Taliban is discharged from British hospital

....Doctors said Malala Yousafzai, the teenager attacked for advocating girls’ education, has made “excellent progress” and will receive surgery to her skull in coming weeks.

In Palestine, Fatah celebration in Gaza signals easing of rift with Hamas

....A show of unity between rival Palestinian factions posed a diplomatic quandary for the US, which considers Hamas a terrorist organization.

Gunman kills 9 in house-to-house rampage in Philippine town

....A gunman, Ronald Bae. went door-to-door near the Philippine capital Friday, shooting and killing at least nine people in his neighborhood, authorities said.

Gas station attack kills at least 10 n Damascus

....An explosion in the Syrian capital added to fears that attackers were focusing on places where civilians congregate in order to inflict maximum casualties.
a. Battle for Syria airport as US troops arrive in Turkey

....Syrian rebels battle for control of an airport in northern Syria as US troops arrive in Turkey to man Patriot missile defense batteries near the Syrian border.

Debit and credit card purchases shut down at Vatican

....The move follows a Bank of Italy decision based on concerns over financial accountability and money-laundering controls.

Chavez battling 'severe' lung infection, respiratory failure

....Hospitalized in Cuba since undergoing cancer surgery more than three weeks ago, Venezuelan Pres. Chavez, 58, is battling a "severe" lung infection that has caused respiratory failure, a top official said.

US News Capsules:
1. Obama disputes limits on detainee transfers imposed in defense bill
.....The president said he had the power to override a defense measure's limits on the executive branch's ability to transfer detainees out of military prisons.
2. Lawyers saying DNA cleared inmate, pursue access to data
....Attorneys for a man incarcerated for 10 years for a rape say his exoneration by DNA evidence, after months of litigation, proves such data must be made available to defense lawyers.
3. Pregnancy centers gain influence in anti-abortion arena

....Pregnancy centers, largely run by conservative Christians, say they are taking a “compassionate approach” to efforts to restrict abortion.
4. Massachusetts plans stricter control of compounding pharmacies
.....Gov. Deval Patrick proposed changes to prevent another public health disaster like the meningitis outbreak tied to a Framingham company.
5. Scare amplifies fears that Clinton's work has taken heavy toll
....Those who know her best hope that Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is renowned for her grueling work and travel schedule, will take some time to rest.
6. Justices take case on adoption of Indian child
....Via a case from South Carolina, the Supreme Court agreed to address a 1978 federal law underlying the adoption of American Indian children.
7. Job creation is still steady despite worry
....Employers added 155,000 jobs in December, about apace with job growth over the last year, the Labor Department reported on Friday. The unemployment rate was 7.8%.
8. FDA offers sweeping rules to fight food contamination

....The plan shifts the agency away from taking action after contamination has been identified to requiring measures to prevent it in the first place.
9. Inaugural contributors identified
....When President Obama’s inaugural planners released the names of donors on Friday, only a handful of companies were on the list of several hundred contributors.
10. Gore went to bat for Al-Jazeera network, and for himself

....Al Gore used the same arm-twisting he employed to build up Current TV to persuade cable distributors to keep showing it after it was sold to Al Jazeera.
POLITICS:
1. Boehner retains Speaker's post, but dissidents nip at his heels
....Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio was re-elected Speaker of the House amid open dissent from conservatives that suggested the last Congress's turmoil would live on.
2. Congress approves scaled-back Sandy aid bill

....Congress approved a $9.7 billion Superstorm Sandy aid package following delays over fiscal cliff bickering, warnings of dwindling federal funds and swirling controversy over millions of dollars for unrelated projects. The measure passed the House, 354-67. The Senate did so unanimously and without debate.
3. Auto racetrack owners keep coveted tax break
....A break for speed racing, like similar special benefits, will cost the government millions, but supporters defended it as a tax break.
4. Nomination of Hagel could come next week

....Administration officials cautioned that Pres. Obama had not made a final decision or offered Chuck Hagel the job, but those who know the former senator said all signs point to his selection.

Thought for Today
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
--Voltaire (1694- 778) French author, playwright and philosopher

[the flying reindeer]

National Bird Day
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 5th day of 2013 with 360 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 6:10 p.m., it's cloudy , temp 31ºF [Feels like 26ºF], winds S @ 5 mph, humidity 60%, pressure 30.19 in and falling, dew point 21ºF, chance of precipitation 50%.

Today in History:
1066--Edward the Confessor died in London, England, leaving three men to claim the throne of England including William, Duke of Normandy.
1589--Catherine de Medici, widow of Henry II of France, died at age 69 most likely from pleurisy.
1643--in the first record of a legal divorce in the colonies, Anne Clarke of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted a divorce from her absent and adulterous husband, Denis Clarke.
1757--Louis XV was subject to an assassination attempt by Robert Damiens.
1762--Elizabeth, Empress of Russia ,(aughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I, died at age 52 after a 21 year reign .
1781--a British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold captured and burned Richmond, Va.
1846--the US House of Representatives passed a resolution calling for an end to British-American sharing of the Oregon Territory.
1861--thr Star of the West left New York with supplies and 250 troops to relieve the beleaguered Fort Sumter at Charleston, SC.
1894--Alfred Dreyfus, French artillery officer of Jewish background, was convicted of treason and sentenced to Devil's Island.
1896--German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovered a type of radiation that came to be known as an X-ray.
1914--Ford Motor Co. increased its daily wage from $2.34 for a nine-hour day to $5 for eight hours of work.
1916--the 1st conscription bill was introduced in the British parliament.
1920--the New York Yankees announced the purchase of slugger-pitcher Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox.
1925--Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming was sworn in as the first woman governor in the US.
1928--Walter F. Mondale, former vice president and Democratic candidate for president, turns 85 today.
1933--construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge, as workers began excavating 3.25 million cubic feet of dirt for the structure's huge anchorages.
1933--Calvin Coolidge, the 30th Pres. of the US, died at age 60 in Northampton, Mass.
1938--Juan Carlos, King of Spain, turns 75 today.
1939--Amelia Earhart was declared dead approximately two years after her initial disappearance.
1945--Japanese pilots received the first order to become kamikaze, as the suicidal blitz revealed Japan's desperation in the final months of World War II.
1945--the Soviet Union recognized the pro-Soviet Polish Provisional Government
.1949--in his State of the Union address, Pres. Truman labeled his domestic program the "Fair Deal."
1957--Pres. Eisenhower proposes new Middle East policy, "the Eisenhower Doctrine" that established the Middle East as a Cold War battlefield.
1967--the 1st Battalion, 9th U.S. Marines and South Vietnamese Marine Brigade Force Bravo began amphibious operations in the Kien Hoa Province in the Mekong Delta,1
1968--Alexander Dubcek's effort to establish "communism with a human face" was celebrated across Czechoslovakia, and the brief period of freedom became known as the "Prague Spring."
1969--Pres3-elect Richard Nixon named Henry Cabot Lodge to succeed W. Averell Harriman as chief US negotiator at the Paris peace talks.
1970--the soap opera "All My Children premiered on ABC-TV.
1970--The bodies of dissident union leader Jock Yablonski, his wife, and daughter were discovered in their Clarksville, Pa, farmhouse, illed on the order of United Mine Workers leadership.
1972--Pres. Nixon ordered development of the space shuttle.
1973 --Bruce Springsteen's debut album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., was released.
1976--Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot announced a new constitution changing the name of Cambodia to Kampuchea and legalizing its Communist government.
1982--an amazing 18,000 different landslides took place in the San Francisco Bay Area killed up to 33 people and closed the Golden Gate Bridge.
1993--Washington state executed multiple child killer Westley Allan Dodd by hanging in the nation's first gallows execution in 28 years.
1994--former House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill died in Boston, Mass. at age 81.
1995--the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill requiring Congress to comply with its own civil rights and labor laws.
1996--the longest US government shutdown ended after 21 days when Congress passed a stopgap spending measure that would allow federal employees to return to work.
1998--Rep. Sonny Bono, R-Calif., of Sonny and Cher fame, was killed when he hit a tree while skiing at South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
2000--the Clinton administration decided that Elian Gonzalez, a 6-year-old Cuban refugee whose mother drowned while trying to enter the US, should be returned to his father in Cuba.
2002--a 15-year-old student pilot, flying alone, was killed when he crashed his single-engine Cessna into the 28th floor of the Bank of America building in Tampa, Fla.
2004--Pete Rose publicly admitted that he'd bet on baseball while manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
2005 At least 24 people were killed in two car bomb explosions in Iraq in mounting violence ahead of upcoming elections.
2005--UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched a $977 million emergency appeal to cover six months of aid for 5 million victims of the Southeast Asia tsunami.
2005--Eris, the largest dwarf planet in our solar system, was discovered.
2006--134 people were killed in two car bombings in Iraq and more than 120 others were wounded in a second day of heavy violence.
2007--43 people died in a two-day series of militant assaults on migrants, mostly milkmen, in two districts of India.
2008--tribal violence following the disputed Kenya presidential election of incumbent president Mwai Kibaki claimed almost 500 lives.
2013--Rep. John Boehner of Ohio was re=elected speaker as Republicans retained control of the House of Representatives.

World News Capsules:
1. Argentine vitriol over Falklands resurfaces, as do old arguments
....Thirty years after Britain and Argentina fought over the Falkland Islands, the same questions of sovereignty that led to that conflict are being voiced again.
2. Rangers in isolated Central Africa uncover grim cost of protecting wildlife

....Increasingly, the rangers, many in their 40s or 50s, are finding themselves wading into the bush to confront hardened soldiers working as ivory poachers.
a. Alarm gorws over use of child soldiers in Centtral African Republic

....Opposition and pro-government militias are recruiting child soldiers as the Central African Republic faces a rebellion in the north, the UN warned..
3. Travel disrupted in China amid unusually cold weather

....Snow and ice led to closed highways, canceled flights, stranded tourists and power failures in several provinces.
4. Germany, for decades a pacifist power, faes the need to play a military role
....Not so long ago, every German military action brought mass demonstrations, public hand-wringing and probing questions about the country’s militarist past. But that time is over
5. Greek tax scandal distracts from a collection shortfall

....Foreign lenders say Greece has fallen short of its tax collection targets and is still not moving hard enough to tackle widespread, long-tolerated tax evasion.
6. With deposits, India aims to keep money for the poor from others' pockets

....On Jan. 1, the government began depositing pension and scholarship payments directly into the bank accounts of about 245,000 people — to prevent corrupt officials from diverting the money.
7. Baath leader urges Sunnis to protest Iraqi premier
....Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the most senior member of Saddam Hussein’s entourage, called on Sunnis to keep up the pressure until Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is toppled.
8. Soccer racism prompts walkout, and outrage

....Showered with racist taunts, a player at an Italian exhibition led his team off the field — a first — and many hope that will have wide repercussions in sports.
9. French actor arrives in Russia with sights on citizenship

....Gérard Depardieu, who is fleeing high taxes in France, arrived by private airplane to claim his new Russian passport, possibly from Pres. Putin himself.
10. Rebellion at stalemate, waiting for undecided Syrians to make a move

....In Syria, each side has bloodied the other while many stay on the sidelines, and a contingent of supporters feels obligated to stick with the government even as their doubts grow.
11. After years in solitary, an austere ife as Uruguay's president
....José Mujica, a former guerrilla who took office in 2010, shuns opulence, donates most of his salary and lives modestly, as he says a leader of a proper democracy should.

US News Capsules:
1. Ex-officer is first in CIA to face prison for a leak

....John C. Kiriako says he did not intend to harm national security and doesn’t think he did. But Mr. Kiriakou is the first CIA officer to face prison for leaking classified information to a reporter.
2. General details Pentagon tensons with Obama on Afghanistan
....In a long-awaited memoir, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says disputes with the White House began at the beginning of Pres. Obama’s first term.
3. Health insurers raise some rates by double digits

....States with and without regulatory approval of rate increases are allowing insurers to pass on their higher expenses to consumers and small businesses.
4. On the trail of a counterfeiter called "The Printer"
....Arresting an Atlanta-area man suspected of printing $1 million in fake money required months of detective work and another man's ill-fated decision not to bail someone out.
5. [Gabrielle Giffords visits Newtown, Conn.

....The former Arizona congresswoman who survived a mass shooting in her district roughly two years ago paid a visit Friday to Newtown, where last month a gunman killed 27 people and himself in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.
6. u]Exports of American natrual gas may fall short of high hopes[/u]
....Global demand for natural gas - which would be shipped from the US in a condensed form - could taper off by the time new and costly export terminals are ready.
7. Gunman and three others killed after standoff in Aurora, Colo.

....A barricaded gunman and three people were found dead in an Aurora, Colo., home after unsuccessful attempts to force the gunman out of the house. He was shot to death by the police after he appeared in a second-floor window, authorities said.
8. Alaska gets all clear after quake and tsunami alert
....The powerful earthquake struck the Pacific Ocean late Friday night, causing tsunami warnings on the mainland and jolting some residents of Alaska.
9. Town launches website to fight rumors

....Community leaders in Steubenville, Ohio set up a website to keep the community updated on a rape case that has consumed the small Ohio town
POLITICS:
1. After fiscal deal, tax code may be the most progressive since 1979
....By some measures, the tax code might now be the most progressive in a generation, with about 99.3% of US households seeing no change in their income taxes.
2. In Texas, resistance to a renewed call for an annual roundup of legislators
....A bill in Texas would change not only how lawmakers conduct business, but also how often, in a state where legislators meet only in odd-numbered years.
3. GOP begins soul-searching after tax vote
....From Mitt Romney’s loss through the recent tax fight, Republicans have seen the foundations of their strategy called into question, stirring a debate about how to reshape the party.
4. Obama and Republicans gear up for next fiscal fight

....Days after one high-stakes standoff over finances was resolved, the two sides are getting ready for another as Congress prepares to address the nation’s borrowing limit.

Sports Headlines:
1. Rinks in Canada's Aaractic turn to cooling systems
....Climate change has forced arena managers in the northernmost reaches of Canada to forgo relying on natural ice for the entire skating season.
2. NFL: Texans' Schaub looks to reassert himself
....As Houston struggled through the end of the regular season, losing a top seed for the playoffs, quarterback Matt Schaub has shouldered much of the blame.
a. Spearheaded by Foster and defeense, Texans win 19-13 over Bengals[/i]
....Thanks to Arian Foster’s 140 rushing yards and a defense that did not allow a touchdown, Houston regained its swagger with a victory over Cincinnati in the AFC wild-card game.
3. NCAAF: In no rush to leave Saban's shadow

....Alabama's defensive coordinator, Kirby Smart, attracts interest from other programs but says his job of coaching with Nick Saban is tough to beat.
4. NBA: Lakers finding there is nothing beautiful about an aging lineup

....After Friday’s loss to the Clippers, Kobe Bryant and the Lakers found themselves 10 games behind in the standings to the other team in Los Angeles.

[ Thought for Today
"It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate."
--[/i]Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American essayist, poet and philosopher


[/size][/color]

[the flying reindeer]

;)I just noticed that I've made full contributor. YAAAAAAAY!!

[the flying reindeer]

Make All Your Dreams Come True Day
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 40th day of 2013 with 355 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 8:37 p.m., it's fair , temp 31ºF [Feels like 31ºF], winds calm, humidity 74%, pressure 30.52 in and steady, dew point 25ºF, chance of precipitation 20%.

Today in History:
1645--William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, was beheaded by Paraliament for treason.
1776--Thomas Paine published the pamphlet Common Sense.
1861--Florida became the third state to secede from the Union to join the Confederacy.
1863--London's Metropolitan, the world's first underground passenger railway, opened to the public.
1870--John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.
1878--a constitutional amendment that would give women the right to vote was introduced into the US Senate.
1901--oil was discovered at the Spindletop claim near Beaumont, Tex., launching the Southwest oil boom.
1911--while flying over San Diego, Calif., Major Jimmie Erickson took the first photograph from an airplane.
1912--the first flying boat, designed by Glenn Curtiss, made its maiden flight at Hammondsport, NY.
1920--the League of Nations was established as the Treaty of Versailles went into effect.
1926--Fritz Lang's gripping silent film, Metropolis, opened in Berlin, Germany.
1945--Rock singer Rod Stewart was born and turns 68 today.
1946--the first meeting of the UN General Assembly convened in London.
1947--Finian’s Rainbow opened on Broadway in New York City., playing for 725 performances.
1951--taking an hour an 42 minutes, Donald H. Rogers piloted the first passenger jet from Chicago to New York City.
1952--Cecil B. DeMille's circus extravaganza, The Greatest Show on Earth, starring Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Charlton Heston, and Dorothy Lamour, opened in the US,
1957--Harold Macmillan became prime minister of Great Britain following the resignation of Sir Anthony Eden.
1967--Republican Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, the first black elected to the US Senate by popular vote, took his seat.
1969--after 147 years in publication, the final issue of The Saturday Evening Post was published.
1971--Masterpiece Theatre premiered on PBS.
1984--the US and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations.
1986--in Washington, D.C., the uncut version of Jerome Kern’s musical, Showboat, opened at the Kennedy Center, marking the first time in 60 years the four-hour version was seen.
1994--NATO approved a plan for a limited expansion of the membership to Eastern European nations.
1996 rebels in the Russian republic of Chechnya holding 2,000 rebels released all but 130 and were allowed to flee.
2000--America Online agreed to buy Time-Warner for $162 billion. (Time-Warner decided to spin off AOL in 2009.)
2003--North Korea withdrew from the 1979 nuclear nonproliferation treaty barring it from making nuclear weapons.
2005--CBS issued a damning independent review of mistakes related to a 60 Minutes Wednesday report on Pres. Bush's National Guard service.
2005--Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip elected Mahmoud Abbas as their new president, succeeding the late Yasser Arafat.
2006--Iran unsealed its nuclear facility at Natanz and resumed atomic research for what it claimed to be peaceful purposes but sparking international ire.
2007--Pres. Bush announced he would send a "surge" of 21,500 U.S. forces to Iraq.
2007--the US House of Representatives approved and sent to the Senate a $2.10-an-hour increase in the national minimum wage, raising the figure to $7.25.
2008--US forces mounted a major air offensive against al-Qaida targets on the southern outskirts of Baghdad.
2008--23 people were killed and 60 others injured when a suicide bomber detonated outside a busy courthouse at midday in Lahore, Pakistan.
2011--a judge ordered former US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to serve three years in prison for his role in a scheme to illegally funnel corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002. (DeLay remains free on bond as he appeals.)
2012--former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary.

World News Capsules:
1. Heat, flood, or icy cold, extreme weather rages worldwide

(Snow blanketed Jerusalem yestereay)
....The growing incidence and intensity of extreme weather events is a sign that climate change is not just about rising temperatures.
2. Priorities are far apart for Karzai and Obama

....The meeting between Pres. Obama and Pres. Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan will bring together two sides with vastly different expectations of the role of the US in Afghanistan.
3. Chinese newspaper protests end, but battle over censorship is unresolved

....The publication Southern Weekend appeared on newsstands, but the newspaper remains at the forefront of the dispute over government control.
a. To counter China, Japan and Philippines will bolster maritime cooperation
....The foreign ministers of Japan and the Philippines proclaimed their nations to be strategic partners that would collaborate more in resolving their separate territorial disputes with China.
4. At once Catholic and secular, France debates gay marriage
....There appears to be broad support for gay unions in France, but when it comes to marriage, it may be another matter.
a. Three Kurdish women politial activists are killed in Paris, in locked-door mystery

....The deaths of three women opened up questions about whether the killings were linked to the long struggle for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.
5. Signs of a rift in British coalition over European Union
....Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats, said that risking British membership in the union was perilous.
a. Officer at Scotland Yard is guilty in hackng trial
....Detective Chief Inspector April Casburn was convicted of a single count of misconduct in public office in the phone hacking scandal that has enveloped Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire in Britain.
6. Iran finding ways to circumvent sanctions, US Treasury Department says
....The department said Iranians were using private exchange houses and trading companies in other countries, masking transactions with fake identities and transferring money informally and often illegally through couriers.
a. Film to present Iran's view of Argo events

....The Iranian government is reportedly planning to finance a movie that will correct what it says are the numerous distortions of the historical record in Argo.
7. Mali government is left reeling after Islamists take village long held by army
....Islamists advanced into territory long held by the Mali government, dealing a significant blow to the army’s efforts to contain the militants, according to an army officer.
8. Blasts in Pakistan kill scores and stir fears on elections

....The bombings in Quetta and the Swat Valley offered harrowing evidence of how Pakistan’s myriad internal conflicts may destabilize the country as elections approach.
9. Russia to let a few US adoptions go on
....The spokesman for Pres. Putin said adoptions already approved by a court would be honored, despite a ban on American adoptions signed into law last month.
10. Syrian lives collapsing again

....First their houses were destroyed by regime forces -- now Syrian refugees are battling to save their tents from icy floodwaters in hideous conditions.
11. Chávez, or at least his sash, is set for Venezuela inauguration

....Pres. Hugo Chávez's health crisis and decision to proceed with a quasi-presidential inauguration that he is unable to attend is producing a stream of bizarre developments and national angst about who is in charge.
12. Activistss convicted in Vietnam crackdown on dissent
....A Vietnamese court convicted 14 democracy activists of plotting to overthrow the government and sentenced them to jail terms ranging from 3 to 13 years.

US News Capsules:
1. New York is moving quickly to enact tough curbs on guns
....The rush to put new gun controls in place made New York the first flash point in the battles over firearm restrictions that are expected to consume several state capitals this year.
a. Governor of Colorado calls for stricter controls on gun sales
....In his State of the State address, Gov. John W. Hickenlooper of Colorado called for universal background checks on all gun sales, a proposal applauded by Democrats.
2. Flu widespread, leading a range of winter's ills

....Public health officials say the flu season is off to an early start with an unusually aggressive virus.
3. Fund titans battle ofer Herbalife
....Daniel S. Loeb's Third Point disclosed that it had acquired more than 8.2 % of the nutritional supplements company, putting him at odds with his friend William A. Ackman.
4. Student who opened fire felt he'd been bullied, sheriff says


....One student was critically injured at the Taft, California, high school. A teacher and a school staffer "stood there face-to-face" with a shotgun-wielding student and talked him into putting the weapon down, the Kern County sheriff said.
5. Cash for hay driving thieves to move bundles
....Drought and grass fires have pushed the price of hay to near records, making it an increasingly irresistible target for thieves or desperate peers.
6. Washington National Cathedral announces it will hold same-sex marriages
....The cathedral's dean said that they wanted to give gay and transgender people "the same tools for living their lives faithfully that straight people have always had."
7. US consumer watchdog to issue mortgage rules
....In an attempt to prevent future housing crises, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued new laws for lenders.
8. Drug agency recommends lower doses of sleep aids for women
....After laboratory studies and driving tests confirming the risks of next-day drowsiness, the Food and Drug Administration said that women should be taking half as much.
9. Gun enthusiast with popular online videos is shot to death in Georgia
....Keith Ratliff, who helped make online videos of high-powered weapons and explosives, was found surrounded by guns, but not the one that killed him.
10. Justices look at legality of drunken-driving test
....The US Supreme Court considered a request by Missouri prosecutors and the federal government to rule that warrants are not needed to obtain blood samples in drunken-driving cases.
POLITICS:
1. Tough path for ban on assault guns shifts Obama's focus

....Pres. Obama pledged to crack down on what he called “weapons of war” after last month’s school massacre, but the White House is emphasizing other measures it deems more politically achievable.
a. Biden: Obama exploring execuitive orderss to combat gun violence
...."The president is going to act. Executive orders, executive action, can be taken," Biden told reporters before meetings with groups representing survivors of mass shootings. "We haven't decided what this is yet, but we're compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and all the rest of the Cabinet members."
2. Pentagon acts to limit spending in case cutbacks begin in March
....Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta announced the money-saving steps, which are designed to be reversible should a compromise be reached on federal spending.
3. Despite 12 years in Senate, Hagel has few allies there
....The brusque Chuck Hagel was not known as a dealmaker in the Senate, whose confirmation he needs to become defense secretary.

Sports Headlines[/u][/b]:
1. MLB: Bonds (and everyone) strikes out

....In the most resounding referendum yet on the legacy of steroids in baseball, voters for the Hall of Fame emphatically rejected the candidacies of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
a. Despite no diret tie to steroids, Piazza falls short

....Mike Piazza hit more home runs as a catcher than any player in baseball, but suspicion about performance-enhancing drugs may have prevented him from being elected to the Hall of Fame.
b. Baseball to expand drug-testing program
....Major League Baseball and its players union have agreed to in-season blood testing for human growth hormone and a new test for testosterone.
2. NFL: Questions of strategy as Griffin has surgery
....The injury to Robert Griffin III has cast doubt over his availability next season and also called into question whether his dynamic style of play can, or should, be continued when he returns.
a. Seau suffered from brain disease

....The former linebacker Junior Seau had chronic traumatic encephalopathy when he committed suicide last spring, the National Institutes of Health said.

Thought for Today
"A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't. "
--[/i]Anonymous


[/size][/color]

[the flying reindeer]

Hot Tea Month
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 11th day of 2013 with 354 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 6:31 p.m., it's mostly cloudy , temp 39ºF [Feels like 31ºF], winds S @ 13 mph, humidity 79%, pressure 29.98 in and steady, dew point 33ºF, chance of precipitation 90%.

Today in History:
1757--American founding father and 1st secretary of the treasury Alexander Hamilton was born in the West Indies' died 1804 at age 49 in a duel with Aaron Burr.
1775--Francis Salvador, the first Jew to hold an elected office in the Americas, takes his seat on the South Carolina Provincial Congress.
1785 The Continental Congress convened in New York City.
1787--English astronomer William Herschel discovered both Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus.
1805--the Michigan Territory was created.
1842--William James, American psychologist and exponent of pragmatism, was born; died 1910 at age 68.
1861--Alabama seceded from the Union.
1863--Union Gen. John McClernand and Adm. David Porter captured Arkansas Post, a Confederate stronghold on the Arkansas River.
1885--Alice Paul, American women's rights activist, was born; died 1977 at age 92.
1908--Grand Canyon National Park was declared to be a National Monument by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt.
1912--Lawrence, Mass. became the site of an immigrant textile workers strike over lowered wages due to the law shortening the work week.
1922--Insulin was first used on a human being for the treatment of diabetes by Dr. Frederick Banting.
1928--Stalin banishes Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Bolshevik revolution and early architect of the Soviet state, to Alma-Ata in remote Soviet Central Asia..
1935--aviator Amelia Earhart began a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
1937--a sit-down strike by General Motors auto workers at the Fisher Body Plant No. 2 in Flint, Mich., a riot breaks out when police try to prevent the strikers from receiving food deliveries.
1945--Greek civil war: a political truce was signed between the British-backed Democratic National Army and the communist rebel National Liberation Front.
1949--on Connecticut Ave. in Washington, D.C., the cornerstone was laid at the first mosque of note in the US.
1957--Jack Gilbert Graham was executed for planting a bomb in his mother's luggage, which caused UA Flight 629 to crash 11 minutes after takeoff.
1962--An avalanche in Huscaran Peru caused 4,000 deaths.
1964--Surgeon General Luther Terry released a report saying smoking cigarettes is a definite "health hazard."
1973--owners of American League baseball teams voted to adopt the designated-hitter rule.
1977--France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a Palestinian suspected of involvement in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
1984--the US Supreme Court reinstated a $10 million award to the family of Oklahoma nuclear worker Karen Silkwood, who died in 1974.
1990--martial law, imposed during the June 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement, was lifted in Beijing, China.
1995--the US State Department accused Russia of breaking an international agreement by making major troop movements into the rebel republic of Chechnya without providing notification.
2000--the British government declared Chile's Augusto Pinochet medically unfit to stand trial in Spain. The ruling cleared the way for the former dictator to avoid charges of crimes against humanity.
2001--a yearlong investigation by the US Army concluded that US soldiers killed unarmed South Korean civilians in July 1950 during the Korean War.
2002--Ford announced it planned to lay off 35,000 employees, drop four car models and close four plants.
2002--the first planeload of al-Qaida prisoners from Afghanistan arrived at a US military detention camp in Guantanamo, Cuba.
2003--calling the death penalty process "arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral," Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 condemned inmates, clearing his state's death row two days before leaving office.
2005--NASA scientists studying the tsunami-inducing Indonesia earthquake of Dec. 26 calculated it slightly changed Earth's shape and shifted the poles by about 1 inch.
2006--China confirmed a new outbreak of bird flu with the deaths of two more people, bringing the number of avian influenza deaths there to five.
2007--the president of Sudan agreed to a 60-day cease-fire in the country's war-torn Darfur region.
2007--an Indonesian fisherman found a piece of an airliner missing since Jan. 1 with 102 aboard off the coast of South Sulawesi.
2008--Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to conquer Mount Everest, died at age 88.
2010--Mark McGwire admitted to The Associated Press that he'd used steroids and human growth hormone when he broke baseball's home run record in 1998.
2011--Rio de Janeiro was struck by a series of floods and mudslides in the worst weather-related natural disaster in Brazilian history.

World News Capsules:
1. Obama accelerates transition of security to Afghans

....After meeting with Pres. Hamid Karzai, Pres. Obama said American troops would play a supporting role in Afghanistan beginning this spring, and that few would remain next year.
2. China said to crack down on censorship protests
....People across China have been detained or questioned in recent days for supporting journalists at a newspaper who have been protesting strict censorship, according to a rights group and online posts.
3. Fiji's government rejects proposed constitution
....The government blamed foreign meddling in dismissing the document, which was meant to help the coup-plagued nation return to democracy ahead of elections set for next year.
4. France sends troops into combat in Mali to counter Islamist advance

....France answered an urgent plea from the government of its former colony to help blunt an advance into the center of the country by Islamist extremist militants.
5. Report depicts horrific pattern of child sexual abuse by BBC celebrity

....The report drew a horrific picture of almost six decades of sexual abuse of children as young as 8 by the BBC television host Jimmy Savile.
6. Greece votes to raise tax on its higher earners
....Prime Minister Antonis Samaras hopes to raise 2.3 billion euros (about $3 billion) from a tax increase on middle- to high-income earners, self-employed professionals and businesses.
7. A trail of bullet casings leads from Africa's wars to Iran

....Researchers worked for years to locate the source of rifle and machine-gun ammunition in war-torn regions. The manufacturer was not one of Africa’s usual suspects.
8. With Laos disappearance, signs of a liberalization in backslide
....With a man who led one of the most successful nonprofit organizations in Laos missing, the Communist government is under increasing pressure to provide answers.
9. Pakistanis protest the killing of 86 shiites

....The protesters and family members of the dead refused to bury the bodies until the Pakistani Army took control of Quetta, where the attack occurred.
10. Palestinians set up tents where Israel plans homes

....Scores of Palestinian activists and international supporters erected tents in a hotly contested piece of Israeli-occupied West Bank territory known as E1.
11. Hotel fire in Philippines kills 7, officials say
....The fire ripped through a small hotel near the former US naval base in Subic Bay, and four foreign visitors were among those killed, according to officials.
12. Trouble in Russia over ban of adoptions by Americans
....The ban on American adoptions of Russian children began as a dispute between two countries, but Russians are now fighting among themselves over the ban.
13. Saudi Arabia's king allows women to join National Advisory Council
....King Abdullah for the first time granted women seats on the Shura council, but they will have to wear conservative Islamic head covering and use doors, offices and seating areas separate from the men.
14. Sri Lankan parliament impeaches Chidf Justice
....The impeachment was a significant step in a worsening showdown between the nation’s legislature and its judiciary that could become a constitutional crisis.
15. Syrian rebels say they seized helicopter base in the north

....The rebel claims came as the international envoy on the Syria crisis met with Russian and American officials in hopes of finding a political solution to the conflict.

US News Capsules:
1. Bank deal ends flawed reviews of foreclosures
....As quick justice, regulators are giving cash payments to 3.8 million borrowers, but the deal is actually a way to paper over a deeply flawed review of foreclosed loans across America.
2. Drug agency recommends lower doses of sleep aids for women
....After laboratory studies and driving tests confirming the risks of next-day drowsiness, the Food and Drug Administration said that women should be taking half as much.
3. Back from the fiscal abyss, California balances its budget
....Gov. Jerry Brown declared that "the deficit is gone," and he projected that his state would post surpluses beginning next year.
4. In 2nd look, few savings from digital health records
....The conversion to electronic records has failed so far to reduce health care costs, according to a new study by the RAND Corporation, which issued a rosier report in 2005.
5. A big exhibition about an even bigger war

....The National World War II Museum, in New Orleans, opens its third building on Sunday.
6. Flu season deaths reach epidemic level but may be at peak, CDC says

....Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were not alarmed, urging Americans to continue to get flu shots, which they acknowledged were not completely effective.
7. Monks in California breathe life into a monastery from Spain..
....An order of Cistercian monks have rebuilt a 12th-century chapter house whose stones lay for decades after being brought from Europe by William Randolph Hearst in the 1930s.
POLITICS:
1. Tough path seen by Obama on ban of assault arms
...Pres. Obama pledged to crack down on what he called "weapons of war" after last month's school massacre, but the White House is emphasizing other measures it deems more politically achievable.
2. Senator Rockefeller is retiring fter five terms

....Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the scion of the Rockefeller family who established himself as a liberal voice in Congress, said he would retire in 2014 after five terms in the Senate.

Thought for Today
"You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was."
--Irish proverb

[the flying reindeer]

Home Office Safety and Security Week
Good evening from Tuxy and me
This is the 12th day of 2013 with 353 days left in the year.
Today in NY's Finger Lakes at 4:56 p.m., it's cloudy , temp 51ºF [Feels like 51ºF], winds SSW @ 8 mph, humidity 80%, pressure 30.01 in and steady, dew point 48ºF, chance of precipitation 10%.

Today in History:
1528--Gustav I of Sweden was crowned King at Uppsala Cathedral nearly 5 years after he was elected.
1737--National Handwriting Day celebrates John Hancock's birthday.
1773--the first public museum in America was established, in Charleston, SC. (The building itself burned to the ground in the late 1880s.)
1777--American Brigadier General Hugh Mercer died from the seven bayonet wounds he received during the Battle of Princeton.
1828--a border treaty, which had acknowledged Mexico's sovereignty over Texas, settled boundary disputes between the US and Mexico.
1838--after his Mormon bank failed in the Panic of 1837, Joseph Smith fled Kirtland, Ohio for Missouri, to avoid arrest.
1879--the British-Zulu War began as British troops under Lieutenant General Frederic Augustus invade Zululand from the southern African republic of Natal.
1888--the so-called "Schoolchildren's Blizzard" killed 235 people, many of whom were children on their way home from school, across the Northwest Plains.
1895--The National Trust, a conservation organization in England, was founded .
1904--Henry Ford set a land-speed record of 91.37 mph on the frozen surface of Michigan's Lake St.
1915--the US House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote.
1919--British Prime Minister David Lloyd George met with representatives from the other Big Four nations—Prime Ministers Georges Clemenceau of France and Vittorio Orlando of Italy and Presi. Woodrow Wilson of the United States.
1926--the two-man comedy series Sam 'n' Henry" that later became Amos 'n' Andy debutsedon Chicago's WGN radio station.
1928--the young Russian-born pianist Vladimir Horowitz made his American debut at Carnegie Hall playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with Sir Thomas Beecham conduction the NY Philharmonic Orchestra.
1932--Hattie W. Caraway, a Democrat from Arkansas, became the first woman elected to the US Senate.
1942--Pres. Roosevelt reinstated Pres. Wilson's National War Labor Board in an attempt to forestall labor-management conflict.
1943--Soviet forces punched a hole in the German siege of Leningrad that allowed for more supplies to come into the city.
1945--Soviet forces began a huge offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe during World War II.
1948--the US Supreme Court ruled that states could not discriminate against law-school applicants because of race.
1954--US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced a policy toward protecting our allies of "massive retaliation."
1959--Berry Gordy Jr. founded Motown Records (originally Tamla Records) in Detroit.
1967--James Bedford , a University of California psychology professor, became the first human being to be cryonically preserved.
1969--Led Zeppelin's self-titled first album was released.
1969--the New York Jets of the AFC defeated the Baltimore Colts of the NFC 16-7 in Super Bowl III at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
1971--the sitcom All in the Family premiered on CBS.
1971--a US grand jury indicted the "Harrisburg Six", Rev. Philip Berrigan and five other people, including a nun and two priests, on charges of plotting to kidnap presidential adviser Henry Kissinger.
1976--Agatha Christie , popular English novelist and playwright, died.
1990--Salvadoran Presi. Alfredo Cristiani named eight soldiers, including chief of the military academy, as suspects in the November 1989 slayings of six Jesuit priests.
1991--a deeply divided Congress gave Pres. Bush the authority to use force to expel Iraq from Kuwait.
1994--Pres. Clinton asked Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the Whitewater land deal affair that involved him and the first lady.
1995--Pres. Clinton and congressional leaders agreed on a bailout package that would give Mexico as much as $40 billion in loan guarantees.
1995--Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, was arrested for conspiring to kill Louis Farrakhan.
1998--Linda Tripp provided Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's office with taped conversations between herself and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
2000--the SUS upreme Court gave police broad authority to stop and question people who run at the sight of an officer.
2004--the ocean liner Queen Mary 2 made her maiden voyage.
2005--the Southern California death toll from rain, flood and mudslides rose to 19.
2005--Great Britain's Prince Harry apologized after a newspaper published a photograph of the young royal wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party.
2006--350 people were crushed to death by a stampeding crowd at the entrance to Jamarat Bridge in Mina, Saudi Arabia, during an annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
2007--Comet McNaught reached perhelion and became the brightest comet seen by the naked eye since Comet Ikeya-Seki in 1965
2007--a proposed law to require the US government to negotiate Medicare drug prices was soundly approved by the House of Representatives.
2010--Port-au-Prince Haiti experienced an earthquake registering 7.0 on the Richter scale affecting as many as 3 million people with a death toll exceeding 100,000.

World News Capsules:
1. Obama accelerates transition of security to Afghans

....After meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, President Obama said American troops would play a supporting role to Afghans beginning this spring.
2. Rebel coalition in Central African Republic agrees to short cease-fire
....Rebels gave up their demand for President François Bozizé to step down in exchange for the release of political prisoners and the forming of a coalition government
3. Rivals in Czech presidential runoff support warmer ties with Europe
....Former prime minister, Milos Zeman, won 24.21% of the vote, giving him a narrow lead over Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, an ardent supporter of the European Union and the US.
4. French airstrikes in Mali deter Islamist rebels

....French airstrikes overnight in Mali pushed back Islamist rebels from a key village and destroyed a rebel command center, France said, as West African nations promised a fast deployment of troops to Mali.
a. French soldier killed in Somalia commando raid

....At least one French commando was killed during a raid Friday night in Somalia to rescue an intelligence agent being held hostage, the French defense ministry said.
b. Theories and motives abound in the kiling of 3 Kurdish women in Paris

....The brother of one of three Kurdish women found shot to death in Paris said he considered it a professional assassination aimed at derailing peace talks.
5. Journalists in Greece are becoming targets
....An anarchist group claimed responsibility for Friday’s attacks, citing coverage of the financial crisis that the group denounced as sympathetic to austerity programs.
6. Salvagers in Italy say Costa Concordia wreck may be gone by summer's end[/u]
....As the island of Giglio prepares to commemorate the anniversary of the wreck on Sunday, environmentalists worry that the longer the delay, the greater the environmental risk.
7. Rebels claim copter attack in Myanmar
....Ethnic Kachin rebels battling Myanmar’s army said they shot down a government helicopter, but the army denied the claim, saying on Saturday that engine failure caused the crash.
8. Russia says it supports UN envoy for Syria
....Support aside, Russia also insisted that the exit of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, could not be a precondition for a deal to end the country’s conflict.
a. Russian lawmakers undertake a quest to scrub civic life of foreign influences
....The lower house of Parliament is considering steps that would force Russians to cut, or at least reduce, their ties to the rest of the world.
9. A desert cold and wet multiplies the misery of Syrian refugees

....With aid agencies expecting the number of Syrian refugees to reach 1 million in 2013, the misery in one struggling camp highlights the deepening humanitarian crisis that threatens to further destabilize the Middle East.
10. Venezuela warns opposition against vocal dissent
....The vice president threatened action against any who question the legality of delaying the swearing-in of President Hugo Chávez, who is still in Cuba.

US News Capsules:
1. Sales of guns soar in US as nation weighs tougher limits
....The rapid growth in gun sales began after Pres. Obama's re-election and surged after the Dec. 14 shooting at a school in Newtown, Conn.
2. New York ties doctors' pay to quality of care
....The plan, affecting physicians in public hospitals, represents a push away from the traditional model of rewarding doctors for the volume of services they order.
3. Drivers with hands full get a backup: the car
....New technology is poised to refashion driving fundamentally long before completely autonomous vehicles arrive.
4. Makers of violent video games marshal support to fend off regulation

....With the Newtown, Conn., massacre spurring concern over violent video games, makers face their biggest regulatory threat in two decades.
5. Smartphones bcome life's remote control
....At the Consumer Electronics Show, many app-powered accessories are on display that allow consumers to turn off lights, unlock doors or monitor their blood pressure.
6. Over 50, and under no illusions

....Many people aged 55 to 64, who had been dreaming of easy retirement, have had to remake their lives to find work during the recession and its aftermath.
7. As 'bodega clinicas' fill void, officials are torn on embracing them
....In Los Angeles, storefront doctors’ offices are servicing mostly uninsured Latinos, leaving officials to examine the clinics’ place in the nation’s health system.
8. Justices to hear case on groups' free speech
....The Suprme Court will hear cases on the free speech rights of private groups receiving federal money and the right against self-incrimination during police questioning.
9. Flowers Foods to buy Wonder bread from Hostess

....Wonder Bread may soon have a new owner. But there is still no buyer for Twinkies just yet.
POLITICS:
1. Fund-raising is lagging, so far, for inaugural plans
....The Obama inaugural committee is struggling to enlist corporate donors to help toward its $50 million goal.
2. Lawmaker seeks public reply on guns
....Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) said he would use information gleaned from three town hall meetings for recommendations on curbing guns.

[ Thought for Today
"It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important."
--[/i]Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), British author and lecturer


[/size][/color]

[the flying reindeer]

Now that I've found this board again, I'd like to revive this thread to post on again - my daily greetings, as well as other postings.

[the flying reindeer]

Wear Something Gaudy Day
Good evening everyone
It's a great autumn day - cool but sunny. Most of the trees have now turned colored, making a splendid sight to see. And the Canadian geese are honking their way in for their layover before going further south.
I had my throat ultrasound today. Now I have to wait to find out if there's been a deterioration in the partial blockage of my left carotid artery.
Well, once again we dodged the political fiscal bullet. Now why can't these compromises be reached before they reach the crisis stage? It boggles my mind what damage this latest fiasco did to the average working/middle class family. Just how many had to dip into or use their entire savings to exist for the 2 1/2 weeks of the shutdown? How many food banks had to feed the swollen numbers of the hungry? Did any of those Tea Party representatives along with Senator Cruz ever give a thought what they were doing to those people? I doubt it. At least the moderate Republicans stepped up and voted yes on the compromise bill, but that doesn't erase the anger I still feel for what happened and will probably happen again in January when this will all come to a head again.
Thought for Today:
"It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right - especially when one is right."
--Friedrich Nietzsche, (1844-1900) German philosopher, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Sunflowers in memory of Sparkle

I hope you all are having a tremendous Thursday

[Peace Of Mind]

Welcome back!  

Best wishes for good news on your test results. 

[mmhmm]

Good luck on that ultrasound, Peg.  I hope it comes up with no further blockage!

[mmhmm]

I've moved this thread from Politics & the Markets to Current Events.  It seems to fit best here, even though your posts also contain bits of history, at times, Peg.

[the flying reindeer]

 Thanks for the welcome. I thoroughly agree with the move of this thread to Current Events. Definitely more fitting. Thanks, mmhmm.
-idunno-As for the carotid ultrasound, no news is good news. I'll only hear from the doctor if there is something wrong. This is one time when silence is definitely golden.

[the flying reindeer]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm finding the V5 more difficult to use and more restricted in choices.

[the flying reindeer]

No Beard Day
Good morning my friends
It's turning out to be another nice autumn day, cooler but nice. When I got up this a.m. I would have bet the day was going to be gloomy and drear, so this is a lovely surprise!!
Have seen the story about the two Utah men who deliberately vandalized an ancient rock formation and then celebrated as if they had really accomplished something? A rock formation that park officials say is 170 million years old and now two idiots found is amusing to disturb it. Neither rain, snow, etc. had done so in centuries but mighty male idjits did so for fun. Authorities are considering criminal charges against them. I hope that they will suffer some form of punishment. Why do you think places like this are set aside? It's so everyone can enjoy the sights and sounds they provide us and now part of that is gone forever. .

There is some good news on another conservation issue - the endangered rhino is to get microchips in its horns in Kenya to fight poachers. The Kenya Wildlife Service said it will use the chips along with DNA records to track the country's dwindling rhino population, which is thought to be around 1,000. I hope the technology will do the job, as well as provide evidence in court trials of poachers. To destroy the animals for their horns that ignorant Asian men think to use it to increase their potency is beyond criminal.

Thought for Today:
"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."
--Nelson Mandela (b. 1918) South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and politician

Cats eye dwarf bearded iris

TGIF

[the flying reindeer]

Freedom From Bullies Week

Good evening from Tuxy and me

This is the 291st day of 2013 with 74 days left in the year.

Today in History:

1685--King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had established the legal toleration the Protestant Huguenots.
1812--in the War of 1812, the British ship HMS Frolic was captured off the Virginia coast by the crew of the USS Wasp, which was in turn captured by the HMS Poitiers.
1867--the US took possession of Alaska from Russia.
1892--the first long distance telephone line between Chicago and New York was opened.
1922--the British Broadcasting Co., Ltd. (later the British Broadcasting Corp. of BBC) was founded.
1931--inventor Thomas Alva Edison died in West Orange, NJ, at age 84.
1944--Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia in World War II.
1961--the movie musical West Side Story, starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer, premiered in New York City..
1962--James D. Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins were honored with the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology for determining the double-helix molecular structure of DNA.
1968--the US Olympic Committee suspended two black sprinters, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, for giving a "black power" salute as a protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City.
1969--the federal government banned artificial sweeteners known as cyclamates because of evidence they caused cancer in laboratory rats.
1972--the US Congress passed the Clean Water Act, overriding Pres. Nixon's veto.
1977--West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers.
1982--former first lady Bess Truman died at age 97 in Independence, Mo.
2001--four followers of Osama bin Laden were convicted in New York for the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa.
2003--Pope John Paul II celebrated a Mass at the Vatican marking the 20th anniversary of his election to the papacy.
2007--former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan, ending eight years of self-imposed exile.
2008--Pres. Bush announced that he would host an international summit in response to the global financial crisis.
2012--the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that a federal law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman was unconstitutional.

World News Capsules:
Suicide bombers attack international convoy in Kabul
....The blast, near a compound housing foreigners, killed two people and injured at least four, but a subsequent attack did not breach compound security.

US prepares to train African forces to fight terror
....The program is drawing on troops from a brigade in the Army’s First Infantry Division to conduct more than 100 missions in Africa over the next year.

Australia bush fires claim their first victim

....Bush fires blazing in Australia's New South Wales claimed their first victim Friday after a man died of a suspected heart attack defending his home against the blaze on the NSW Central Coast.

China hits at effort to export cars to West
....Western executives say Chinese automakers are starting to ask them to supply parts that meet American and European regulatory standards by 2016.

Dominican court's ruling on citizenship stirs emotions in New York
....Protesters denounced a recent court ruling in the Dominican Republic that annulled the citizenship of anyone born in the country to noncitizens after 1929, which mostly applied to people of Haitian descent.

Europe moves to shield citizens' data
....Lawmakers have introduced a measure that could require American companies to seek European clearance before complying with United States data warrants.

German parties to begin talks to revive coalition
....Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc and the Social Democrats to open formal negotiations next week on reviving the “grand coalition” after a breakthrough on the issue of minimum wage.
a. Posters lost to Nazis are recovered, and up for sale
....Premier poster collections that were forfeited when the Nazis came to power in Germany and Austria are gradually going on the block after being returned to the owners’ families.

Hopeful city, buoyed by campaign vows, waits for change in Iran

....Pres. Hassan Rouhani has stoked hopes for liberalization and economic relief, but people in Tehran have seen little of that yet.
a. White House weighs easing Iran sanctions' bite with slow release of assets
....The US could free up frozen Iranian assets in installments as a reward for taking steps to curb its nuclear program.

Norwegian may have been involved in Kenya's Westgate mall attack

....Investigators are questioning the family and friends of Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow, a Norwegian citizen born in Somalia, whose sister said he began taking “long vacations” there in 2009.

Snowden says he took no secret files to Russia

....In an interview, Edward J. Snowden responded to accusations by critics, provided insights into why he disclosed secret documents and talked about the debate over surveillance.

Saudi Arabia rejects Security Council seat

....The unprecedented decision, apparently made overnight by the country’s ruling monarchy, assailed what it called double standards at the United Nations.

Syrian official says peace talks could be held late November
....The announcement from a deputy prime minister raised speculation about who would attend and who would represent the fractured opposition.

Turkey's Erdogan, Syrian rebels' leading ally, hesitates
....Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long backed the Syrian rebels. But Turkey shelled rebel positions this week, signaling concern about the dominance of radical Islamist groups.
a. Report that Turkey exposed spies strains its relations with Israel
....Turkey’s foreign minister denied claims by an opinion column in The Washington Post that his country had revealed the identities of up to 10 Iranians who had spied for Israel.

US News Capsules:
1. More American Jewish students take up study of the Arab world
....These students say their interest grew because of their heritage and that they are drawn to act as bridges between cultures — explaining the Arab world to Americans, and America (and sometimes Jews) to Arabs.
2. In North Dakota, new concerns over mixing oil and wheat

....A proposed landfill for oil drilling waste has farmers worried that a state long known for agriculture is putting the energy industry's needs ahead of theirs.
3. Former Pentagon official to be chosen as Homeland Security chief
....If confirmed by the Senate, Jeh C. Johnson, a former general counsel for the Defense Department, will fill the vacancy left by Janet Napolitano, who resigned in July.
4. Court rules on 'Stand Your Ground' costs
....A defendant who successfully uses a self-defense claim is entitled to reimbursement for lost wages and other costs, as well as legal fees, a court ruled.
5. Police hunt for mistakenly freed murderers

....State and federal police fanned out across Florida in search of two murderers who walked out of prison after documents bearing forged signatures resulted in their release, authorities said.
6. Belgian brewery buys US maker of craft beers
....As global brewers take interest in American craft beers, Duvel Moortgat of Belgium has acquired the Boulevard Brewing Company, the United States’ 12th-largest craft brewer.
POLITICS:
1. Two parties start work to avoid repeat crisis
....The need for a bipartisan breakthrough, even a modest one, was amplified by the economic costs wrought by the 16-day shutdown and near-default on government obligations.
a. From the right, despair, anger and disillusion
....For glum and frustrated conservatives, the end of the government shutdown was as much a surrender to reality as to Democratic demands.
b. Government gets back to business, but effects of the shutdown linger

....Hundreds of thousands of employees streamed back to work after Pres. Obama and Congress ended the shutdown, paving the way for another series of budget talks in the weeks ahead.
2. Obama's edge over GOP is still unclear after victory in standoff
....Republicans, stung from the outcome of the budget battle, could be more flexible or more determined not to lose again.
3. Lingering confusion in debt ceiling deal's temporary fix
....There’s confusion over the text of the deal that Congress just approved and President Obama signed, but it doesn’t kill the debt ceiling.
4. After pause, resupplying economic data
....Delayed data will trickle out over the month. September’s jobs report will not be released until next Tuesday.
5. Congressional fight over Obamacare turns to website woes

....The deal ending the shutdown may not have put a dent in Obamacare, but the battle over implementing the health coverage law is not over.
6. Spending cuts are hurting the economy

....If you thought this year's cuts to preschoolers, senior meals and medical research were bad, get ready for more. The two-week U.S. government shutdown may have ended and the U.S. didn't default on its debt. But the deal passed by Congress late Wednesday night allows the series of unforgiving budget cuts, also known as sequester, to continue through Jan. 15.

Thought for Today
"Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast — you also miss the sense of where you are going and why."
--Eddie Cantor (1892-1964 )American comedian-singer

[the flying reindeer]

  Ooops, my bad - Etruscan warrior prince actually a princess.



Archaeologists recently announced a stunning find: a completely sealed 2,500 year-old tomb cut into the rock in Tuscany, Italy. The untouched tomb held what looked like the body of an Etruscan prince holding a spear, along with the ashes of his wife. But the grave held a surprise, when bone analysis revealed the warrior prince was actually a princess!
.
Since the Etruscans left no historical records, historians know relatively little about their culture that flourished in Italy until absorbed into the Roman civilization about 400 B.C. When the team removed the sealed slab blocking the tomb, they saw two large platforms. On one platform lay a skeleton bearing a lance. On another lay a partially incinerated skeleton. The team also found several pieces of jewelry and a bronze-plated box that researchers said might have belonged to a woman. The lance suggested that the skeleton on the biggest platform belonged to a male.

Then came the analysis of the bones. Shockingly, the warrior turned out to be a woman and the partially burnt skeleton on the smaller platform was a man!! It just goes to show how our culture's conceptions can obscure the actual facts. Lances go with men, jewelry with women. Never mind that in many African cultures, the men are more jewelry conscious than women. And this grave mix-up just highlights how easily both modern and old biases can color the interpretation of ancient graves.

Instead of using objects found in a grave to interpret the sites, archaeologists should first rely on bone analysis or other sophisticated techniques, according to Judith Weingarten, an alumna of the British School at Athens. "Until very recently, and sadly still in some countries, sex determination is based on grave goods. And that, in turn, is based almost entirely on our preconceptions. A clear illustration is jewelry: We associate jewelry with women, but that is nonsense in much of the ancient world," Weingarten said. "Guys liked bling, too."

So were Etruscan women the actual the source of the ancient legends of Amazon women? Hmmmm. Now I wonder what the scientific and archaeological communities think?

[the flying reindeer]

Squirrel Awareness Month
Good evening from Tuxy and me

This is the 292nd day of 2013 with 73 days left in the year.

Today in History:

1765--the Stamp Act Congress, meeting in New York, drew up a declaration of rights and liberties.
1781--British troops under Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Va., as the American Revolution neared its end.
1796--an essay appeared in the Gazette of the United States slyly attacks presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson that accused Jefferson of an affair with a slave, typical of the nasty, personal nature of political attacks in late 18th-century America.
1812--French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte began a retreat from Moscow.
1864--Confederate Gen. Jubal A. Early attacked Union forces at Cedar Creek, Va.; the Union troops were able to rally and defeat the Confederates.
1869--the Prussian-born mining engineer, Adolph Sutro, began work on one of the most ambitious western engineering projects of the day - a four-mile-long tunnel through the solid rock of the Comstock Lode mining district.
1872--the Holtermann Nugget, a slab of slate weighing 235.14 kg, was found in New South Wales, Australia and contained 82.11 kg of gold, the largest mass of gold ever found.
1885--Charles E. Merrill, the American investment banker who helped create the largest brokerage firm in the US (Merrill Lynch), was born; died 1956 at age 70
1914--near the Belgian city of Ypres, Allied and German forces begin the first of what would be three battles to control the city and its advantageous positions on the north coast of Belgium.
1931--John le Carre, British spy novelist (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), turns 82 today.
1933--the Berlin Organization Committee introduce basketball to the 1936 Olympic Games.
1939--one of Frank Capra's finest films, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, starring Jimmy Stewart,, opened in the United States.
1944--the play I Remember Mama, by John van Druten, adapted from Kathryn Forbes' novel, Mama's Bank Account, opened at the Music Box Theater on Broadway. Marlon Brando made his New York stage debut at age 20 in the hit Broadway play.
1950--UN forces entered the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
1951--Pres. Truman signed an act formally ending the state of war with Germany.
1959--The Miracle Worker, based on the childhood training of deaf and blind Helen Keller, and starring Anne Bancroft and 12-year-old Patty Duke, opened on Broadway
1960--the US imposed an embargo on exports to Cuba.
1967--the US space probe Mariner 5 flew past Venus.
1969--Vice Pres. Spiro T. Agnew referred to anti-Vietnam War protesters "an effete corps of impudent snobs."
1977--the supersonic Concorde made its first landing in New York City.
1982--automaker John Z. DeLorean was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles, accused of conspiring to sell $24 million of cocaine to salvage his business.
1983--the US Senate passed a bill making Martin Luther King's birthday a public holiday.
1987--the stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 508 points, or 22.6% in value, to close at 1,738.74
1994--22 people were killed as a terrorist bomb shattered a bus in the heart of Tel Aviv's shopping district.
2001--two US Army Rangers were killed in a helicopter crash in Pakistan in the first combat-related American deaths of the military campaign in Afghanistan.
2003--Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa during a ceremony in St. Peter's Square.
2005--a defiant Saddam Hussein pleaded innocent to charges of premeditated murder and torture at his trial in Baghdad.
2008--Retired Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican who was Pres. Bush's first secretary of state, broke with the party and endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president.
2011--in Greece, hundreds of youths smashed and looted stores in central Athens and clashed with riot police during a massive anti-government rally against painful new austerity measures.
2012--the Dow Jones industrial average had its worst day in four months, falling 205 points, or 1.5%, to 13,344, while Standard & Poor's 500 lost 24, or 1.7% and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 67 points to 3,006.

World News Capsules:

Pickup soccer in Brazil has an allure all its own
....Known as pelada, pickup soccer has long been a part of Brazilian culture, attracting players day and night who play for the love of the game.

Outspoken Chinese professor says he was dismissed
....Xia Yeliang, an economist, believes Peking University made its decision because of his public support for democratization and criticism of the Communist Party.

Lobbying bonanza as firms try to influence European Union
....As the European Union has emerged as a regulatory superpower affecting 28 countries, lobbying in its seat of power has become ever more competitive.

France says deportation of Roma girl was legal
....The French government said the controversial expulsion of a 15-year-old Roma girl with her family was legal but could have been conducted with more sensitivity.

Royal welcome in Great Britain for Malala

....Pakistani girls' education campaigner Malala Yousafzai, in the international spotlight since being shot by Taliban militants last year, met with another icon Friday: Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.

Typhoon hits Tokyo area, killing at least 18

....At least 18 people have died and 44 people are missing after Typhoon Wipha pummeled the Tokyo area with the majority dying after heavy rain triggered flooding and landslides that blocked roads and crushed houses in Oshima, a small island 120 km (75 miles) south of Tokyo.

Prisoner swap frees Lebanese and Turks
....Lebanese citizens held by Syrian rebels were freed under the deal, as were Turkish pilots kidnapped by Lebanese gunmen.

Wave of high-profile crimes has put Malaysians on the defensive

....A sign in Kuala Lumpur warns of a common form of crime..Once one of Asia’s safest cities, Kuala Lumpur now finds that most residents have a story about a purse snatching, a burglary or worse.

Police force blocks a planned presidential election in the Maldives
....Election commission officials said they could not carry out the planned vote because the police had surrounded their offices and would not allow personnel to do their work.

Corruption in Peru aids cutting of rain forest

....Bribery and reversals of prosecutors' efforts by other officials have hampered the efforts of environmental investigators.

The Russia left behind
....Along the highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg — a 12-hour trip by car — one sees great neglected stretches of land that seem drawn backward in time.

Suicide blast in Somalia kills 15, police say

....The Shabab, the militant Somali Islamist group, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on Saturday at a café in western Somalia, near the border with Ethiopia.

A Sri Lankan journalist eagerly toes the line
....Rajpal Abeynayake stands atop his nation’s journalistic firmament with an uncritical boosterism of the government. He calls himself the Rush Limbaugh of Sri Lanka.

Venezuela releases oil research ship
....The Houston company that chartered an oil research ship seized by Venezuela’s navy a week ago in disputed waters said the vessel and its crew had been released.

US News Capsules
1. California sees gridlock ease in governing
....New election rules in California, once a symbol of government dysfunction, may be having their desired effect of leaching some of the partisanship out of politics.
2. High school sexual assault case is revisited, haunting Missouri town

....An almost two-year-old sexual assault case involving a high school football player and a 14-year-old girl has come back to haunt a small town in Missouri.
3. US Army hones ant terror strategy for Africa, in Kansas
....The first-of-its-kind program will draw on the Army’s storied First Infantry Division, based in Kansas, to conduct more than 100 missions in Africa over the next year.
4. Low-cost B.A. degree starting slowly in two states
....The $10,000 degrees are available in Florida and Texas - but not for many students, not for many majors and not on the flagship campuses.
a. Deadlines for colleges are delayed
....Officials said they hoped the later early application deadlines would not only give some practical relief to students struggling with the Common Application, but also calm them down.
5. Kentucky's case of the missing bourbon
....Someone stole 65 cases of Pappy Van Winkle, one of the nation's most sought-after bourbons, from a warehouse in Frankfort, Ky.
6. San Francisco area transit strike stymies commuters
....The strike by employees of the Bay Area's main commuter railroad will force hundreds of thousands of people to scramble to find alternate transportation.
7. Early release of convicts stirs worry in Florida
....As the authorities search for two convicted killers freed recently by bogus paperwork, questions linger about who created the legitimate-looking documents, which exposed gaps in Florida’s judicial system.
8. Hit by low prices, lobstermen are at odds in Maine and Canada
....A surplus of lobster has pushed down prices and stoked arguments over the coast of origin, and even which flag’s catch is the tastiest.
o. JP Morgan Chase to pay #13 billion

....The deal includes a $4 billion settlement over allegations that JPMorgan Chase misled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when it sold them home loans, many of which soured ahead of the 2008 financial crisis.
10. Wrongly freed killers captured
....Charles Walker and Joseph Jenkins -- two convicted murderers who walked out of a Florida prison on forged documents -- were taken into custody this evening at a Panama City motel, authorities said.
POLITICS:
1. States are focus of effort to foil health care law
....Conservative groups are increasingly taking the fight against President Obama's health care law to states like Virginia in an effort to block Medicaid expansion.
a. Driving a new bargain on health care
....The new health care law has snags, but there are ways for Republicans and Democrats to work together to improve it.
2. Texans stick with Cruz despite defeat in Washington
....Senator Ted Cruz’s defiance in Washington has only bolstered his standing in his home state, illustrating the growing political divide between Texas and the rest of the nation.
3. Democrats aim to restore immigration to agenda
....The possibilities for progress on the issue will be determined in the House of Representatives, where many conservative Republicans are frustrated over their meager gains from the two-week shutdown.
4. R.I.P. Rep. Bill Young, longest-serving member in House, dies at age 82

....Rep. Bill Young of Florida died Friday evening, his chief of staff said., at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center surrounded by his family. "The cause of death was complications related to a chronic injury," Harry Glenn said.
6. A defeated GOP wants to unite, move on, fight another day

....In a large conference-style room in the basement of the US Capitol, Republican members of the House, exhausted from more than two weeks of battling on the shutdown and debt ceiling crisis, met for one last time.

Sports Headlines:
1. For Jewish school's football team, it's Thursday night lights
....Players at one of the only Jewish religious schools in the nation to play the varsity sport reserve Friday evenings for Shabbat dinner. But the night before is set aside for the gridiron.
2. MLB: Cardinals' latest wave of power replaces big names with ingenuity

....The Cardinals, with an emphatic victory over the Dodgers, won their fourth N.L. pennant in 10 years on Friday night. “They have a system, and it works,” said A. J. Ellis, the Dodgers’ catcher, admiring the Cardinals in defeat.
3. NFL: From a bitter end to a fresh chance for Freeman
....When Tampa Bay released Josh Freeman, he was tossed from a sinking ship into a rescue boat: Minnesota Coach Leslie Frazier and the ownership desperately want him to succeed.
a. R.I.P. Bum Phillips, an astute NFL coach, dies at 90

....Phillips took over a downtrodden Houston team and took it to two consecutive American Football Conference championship games, then struggled with the New Orleans Saints.
b. To Jets' Ryan, the passer rating really does mean something

....Passer rating is one of the N.F.L.’s least-understood statistics. But Rex Ryan, the Jets’ coach, has cared about it ever since discovering its reliability as an indicator of team success.
4. NCAAF: Fordham enjoying renaissance, on a smaller scale

....With the help of full athletic scholarships, Fordham football, once known for the Seven Blocks of Granite, is off to its best start since 1930.
a. Grambling football team refuses to play game due to state of program
....The turmoil surrounding Grambling State University reached new heights on Friday, as the players on the 0-7 football team have reportedly refused to play their game this week vs. Jackson State.

Thought for Today
"To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something."
-- Walker Percy (1916-1990) American author