Thursday, April 24, 2014

Nuke 'em Back To The Stone Age

     



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175 pounds

I always go back to Harry Truman: Should we drop an atomic bomb to save 100,000 lives? That's a hell of a decision to make. Did he make that decision by himself? No, he had advisers.
--Lee Iacocca

Decisions.

The older I get the more difficult I find it to make choices. Little things. Tiny, seemingly insignificant selections (Hunts, Heinz, or store brand catsup) from the grocery shelves become overwhelming options to be lengthily considered. One has a better flavor, another is 20 cents cheaper, the other is almost a dollar less.

Adding a dollop of catsup to a serving of fried fish makes it tastier, but it also causes me to want more than one. Maybe I would be better off not buying any. I like the taste of breaded crunchy-fried fish without enhancement well enough. And catsup adds unnecessary calories.

But I like it even better with a splash of catsup.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.


It is getting harder for me to walk my usual two miles each day. After the walk my legs are so tired they hurt, and the pain lasts for several hours. Especially if I do not lie down for a while after I get home, take a possible nap for an hour or so. And I need nothing from the grocery, which is at the halfway point of my walk. My cupboard, my refrigerator, and my freezer are full.

Maybe it is better to skip walking today... let my old muscles rebuild a bit.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.


Is it so mysterious that I feel John McCain, well into his seventies, is a poor choice to continue as a decision making U.S. Senator?

I think not.

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Did You Know . . .?

The first animal launched into orbit, Laika, was found as a stray wandering the streets of Moscow. Soviet scientists assumed that such animals had already learned to endure conditions of extreme cold and hunger.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1945 President Harry Truman learned the full details of the Manhattan Project, in which scientists were attempting to create the first atomic bomb. The information thrust upon Truman a momentous decision: whether or not to use the world's first weapon of mass destruction.

The war with Japan dragged on and it looked to many as if the Japanese would never surrender. On July 16, the team of scientists at Alamogordo, New Mexico, research station successfully test  exploded the first atomic bomb.

The first Japan-directed bomb was exploded over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and a second was dropped on Nagasaki on August 8. The Japanese quickly surrendered.

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WORD FOR TODAY

bombastic
adjective
1.  Ostentatiously lofty in style,
2.  High-sounding but with little meaning.
3.  (of speech or writing) high-flown; inflated; pretentious.

To be bombastic is to be full of hot air -- like a politician who makes grand promises and doesn't deliver.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS


(born April 24, 1942)
Barbara Streisand is an American singer-songwriter, author, actress, writer, film producer, and director. She is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award. She is the best selling female artist of all time, with more than 71.5 million albums in the United States and 245 million records sold worldwide. 

After beginning a successful recording career in the 1960s, by the end of the decade, Streisand ventured into film starring in the critically acclaimed Funny Girl. Other notable films include The Owl and the Pussycat, The Way We Were and A Star Is Born. 



(born April 24, 1934),
Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author. She has won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy twice, for her roles in The Apartment and Irma la Douce, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama twice for Terms of Endearment and Madame Sousatzka. 



(Apr 24, 1936 - May 18, 1990)
Jill Ireland was an English actress, best known for her many films with her second husband, Charles Bronson.



(born April 24, 1969)
Melinda Clarke is an American actress who has primarily worked in television. Clarke is known for playing Faith Taylor on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives, the manipulative and cunning Julie Cooper on The O.C., and the professional dominatrix Lady Heather on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. From 2010 to 2013, she portrayed Amanda on the action-thriller television series Nikita. She was added as a recurring character on Vegas in 2013.


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I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.
--Albert Einstein

NASA TV

   

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