Capitol Hill Blue Forums Hot Topics & Breaking News The RoundTable Round Table For Thursday, June 28th, 2007

1997 - The headlines screamed: “Fight Bites into MGM Earnings,” “Bit Part for Tyson,” “Pay-Per-Chew Bout,” and the one that said it all, “Tyson Disqualified After Ripping Piece of Holyfield’s Ear.” Needless to say (but we will anyway), Evander Holyfield retained his World Boxing Association heavyweight championship after Mike Tyson was disqualified for biting Holyfield, not once, but twice. The Nevada Athletic Commission revoked Mike Tyson’s boxing license for a year and fined him $3 million.






Today In History~

1894 - U.S. President Grover Cleveland signed an act of Congress, making Labor Day a federal holiday in the U.S. The first Monday of September is when Labor Day is celebrated as a salute to working men and women across the country.

1907 - The Washington Nationals stole 13 bases in a single baseball game against the New York Highlanders. The New York catcher, incidentally, fared far better as a baseball executive in later years. That catcher became baseball commissioner Branch Rickey.







1914 - World War I began. Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated while at (what is now known as) Sarajevo, Bosnia.

1919 - With the signing of The Treaty of Versailles, World War I ended - exactly five years after it began.







1919 - Elizabeth ‘Bess’ Wallace became Bess Truman when she married the future U.S. President, Harry S Truman.

1937 - In a poll conducted by a New York City newspaper, players for the Giants, Yankees and Dodgers said they opposed the proposed baseball players’ union.







1940 - As a summer replacement for blind, piano virtuoso Alec Templeton, The Quiz Kids was first heard on radio. The show continued on NBC until 1953.

1943 - The Dreft Star Playhouse debuted on NBC radio. Jane Wyman (the former Mrs. Ronald Reagan) starred in the first broadcast, titled Bachelor Mother.







1944 - The Alan Young Show debuted on NBC radio. It was a summer replacement for the popular Eddie Cantor. The show became a regular in the fall NBC lineup. Young, incidentally, made the switch to TV in 1961. He became a CBS star with a talking horse, of course, of course, named Mister Ed.

1948 - Football star Tom Harmon announced his retirement from professional football. Harmon later became one of the big names in sportscasting for ABC radio and TV.



One for BC!




1951 - An old favorite of radio audiences made the switch to TV. Amos ’n’ Andy moved to CBS-TV. Two years later, a protest by the NAACP forced the network to drop the show.

1976 - Detroit Tiger pitcher Mark ‘The Bird’ Fidrych was called “...the most interesting player since Dizzy Dean” on ABC’s nationally televised coverage of a Tigers-Yankees match-up. The 21-year-old rookie sensation led the Tigers past the Yankees and made the All-Star team two weeks after the TV appearance.







1976 - Women entered the Air Force Academy for the first time on this day. President Gerald R. Ford had actually opened the door by signed legislation [Oct 7, 1975] allowing women to enter the nation’s military academies. The first Air Force Academy class with women graduated in May 1980.

1979 - Billie Jean King defeated Linda Siegel with a first at the 102-year-old Wimbledon tennis championships. Not only did King defeat Siegel, but in an embarrassing moment, Siegel, wearing a plunging neckline tennis top became partly naked when the neckline plunged too far.







1981 - Jerry Pate won the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic after three years of disappointment on the men’s PGA tour. Pate celebrated with a birdie on the last hole. He was so excited, Pate handed his putter and his sun visor to his caddie and jumped into the lake that bordered the 18th green.

1981 - Variety, the movieland trade paper, reported that the biggest single weekend in box-office history saw American moviegoers spending a blockbusting $56,101,095 at the box office. The popular movies bringing in the bucks were Superman II with Christopher Reeve, Raiders of the Lost Ark with Harrison Ford and The Great Muppet Caper with Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.







1985 - A survey by the U.S. Transportation Department indicated that 42 percent of drivers polled said that they drove faster than the legal 55 MPH speed limit. Three motorists out of four confessed to driving faster on the nation’s interstate highways. Slow down and buckle up, please. I’m Chief Matthews. Now back to the show...

1987 - American League baseball hitters put their batting faces on as the league combined to hit a record 28 home runs in a seven-game day.







1988 - Founder Berry Gordy Jr. sold Motown Records to MCA Records and Boston Ventures, an investment firm, for $61 million.

1992 - A very strong earthquake shook the high desert of Southern California at 4:57 a.m. The M7.3 earthquake was centered on the eastern side of the San Bernardino Mountains near the town of Landers. The quake was the largest to strike California since the Kern County M7.7 earthquake in 1952. Vigorous rocking and rolling was felt 100 miles away in L.A. and the quake was felt as far away as Central California and Las Vegas, Nevada. Property damage: $56 million, including collapsed buildings, ruptured utility lines and widespread nonstructural damage. Human toll: One killed, 25 seriously injured, 372 treated for some sort of earthquake-related injuries, millions awakened with nightmares for weeks.


[img]http://www.spring.net/geo/JohnVolos/Public/Geology/rigma11.gif[/img]




1994 - The U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) announced it would begin experimenting with a UV (ultraviolet) Index, “To enhance public awareness of the effects of overexposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays, and to provide the public with actions they can take to reduce harmful effects of overexposure, which may include skin cancer, cataracts and immune suppression.”

1996 - The Citadel, which had fought to keep one woman from enrolling as a cadet in its all-male military academy in 1993, abruptly ended its opposition to enrolling qualified female cadets. The change of policy happened after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a similar all-male policy at the Virginia Military Institute was unconstitutional. The court said the school could not refuse to accept women while receiving federal or state tax dollars. Had the Citadel decided to retain its 153-year-old men-only policy, it would have lost public tax dollars. As usual, money talked.


[img]http://www.tradecentrelimited.com/photos/8/Citadel%20Aerial%20-%20Low.jpg[/img]


Quote For The Day~

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Douglas Adams


[img]http://www.cyberlawcentral.com/Photos/dna3c.jpg[/img]


Chuckle For The Day~

Subject: Why you can't take men shopping



This is why women should not take men shopping against their will.
After
Mr. and Mrs. Fenton retired, Mrs. Fenton insisted her husband accompany
her on her trips to Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, Mr. Fenton was like
most men -- he found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get
out.

Equally unfortunately, Mrs. Fenton was like most women -- she loved to
browse. One day Mrs. Fenton received the following letter from her
local Wal-Mart.
.

Dear Mrs. Fenton,
Over the past six months, your husband has been causing quite a
commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and may be
forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against
Mr. Fenton are listed below and are documented by our video
surveillance cameras.

1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's
carts when they weren't looking.
2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5 minute
intervals

3. July 7: Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the
women's
restroom.

4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice
"Code 3 in Housewares - get on it right away."

5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M & M's
on
layaway.

6. September 14: Moved a "CAUTION - WET FLOOR" sign to a carpeted area.

7. September 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told other
shoppers
he'd invite them in they would bring pillows and blankets from the
bedding department.

8. September 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began
crying
and screamed,
"Why can't you people just leave me alone?'

9. October 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a
mirror
while he picked his nose.

10. November 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he
asked
the
clerk where the
antidepressants were being sold.

11. December 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly
humming the "Mission Impossible" theme.

12. December 6: In the auto department, he practiced his "Madonna look
by

using different sizes of funnels.

13. December 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed
through,
and
yelled, PICK ME!
PICK ME!!"

14. December 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he
assumed
a fetal position and screamed, "OH HO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!"

And last but not least....
15. December 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited
awhile,
and
then yelled very
loudly, "Hey, There's no toilet paper in here!"

Regards,

<Manager, WAL-MART


[img]http://www.crazy-jokes.com/pictures/oldman.jpg[/img]


Picture For The Day~


[img]http://www.nhn.ou.edu/~feldt/images/taq-falls.jpg[/img]
Tahquamenon Falls, Upper Peninsula, Michigan



Ginger has been clinically demonstrated to work twice as well as Dramamine for fighting motion sickness, with no side effects.


[img]http://www.germes-online.com/direct/dbimage/50270120/Ginger.jpg[/img]

Yeah...but, do you want to be seated next to that person on a long international flight? How about a garlic lover?

Mornin' everybody

Thanks for the chuckle, SG! I'll tell my father, it may give him some ideas....

And shopping isn't bad: you go in, get what you need and leave. It's the browsing. Why do women want to spend time looking at and checking out things they have no conceivable use for? "Honey, you've spent 15 minutes looking at bird cages: we don't own a bird! "

Good morning Ranters! What an excellent opening post this morning, Scout! Somehow it looks cleaner and neater than usual. Different font? More white space? I dunno. But it sure was easy to read every word. And what great photos today - course you know I'm a sucker for waterfalls. Maybe Bob can explain why the water is so brown - is it Tannin? or (ugh) pollutants?

Rick, I'll take the smell of ginger on the breath over garlic any day. Oddly, I can't stand the taste of ginger, but I absolutely love garlic on my food. Go figure.

Well it's official folks. Beloved and I are going to Boston to escape the annual Bele Chere Festival on the last weekend of July. We go somewhere every year for that reason. When Bele Chere first started, twenty some years ago, it was a homespun street fair, and we enjoyed both attending and participating (though we were not by any means a "couple" at the time!). But like all good things with a profit potential, Bele Chere became an overblown tourist trap. Ironically, it loses money every year for the City.

So what do you all think? Did Mike Tyson get the idea of biting Evander Holyfield's ear from watching The Big Lebowski? I wouldn't bother to ask if it weren't the most emulatable movie of all time. PHUKN-A!

COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!

FROM THE CHURCH OF INEFFABLE STUPIDITY:

a) IraqNam
Tis strange politics indeed when the GOP leaders in the Senater are firmer and more rational than the majority leadership.
Sen. Lugar (ind-R) may be trying to preserve his seat, but unlike Reid and many others, he is also trying to preserve the troops' lives.
- - -

b) IranGate (the future)
Guess one of the reasons that Haliburton is moving to an offshore headquarters:
i. So it can contract directly with Iran to increase its refining capacity
ii. So it can rebuild some sagging oil production sectors in Iran
iii. So it can take advantage of Cheney's hardline approaches, forcing Iran to do business with it.
iv. Because they don't have shredders big enough in the USA
v. because they see the writing on the wall and would hate to be in the US once the Senate starts sniffing around its yrs of fraud and theft in Iraq
vi. Because they follow Cheney's example and are telling the US citizens to go **** themselves.
- - -

c) From the who wudda thunk it department:

John Ashcroft fought hard to PROTECT CIVIL RIGHTS?
Chrissie Todd Whitman fought hard to PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT?
Condi Rice fought hard to KEEP INTERROGATIONS USING TORTURE ILLEGAL?
Colin Powell fought hard to KEEP US OUT OF IRAQ?

damn, Pastor Agnostic's conventional wisdom has just followed the Enterprise and gone where no man has gone before.

At least they faced one common enemy, One Darth Cheney:
One Darth to rule them all,
One Darth to find them,
One Darth to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

- - -

Pastor Ag's bin Laden with work of late, but luckily, some friends called and said come to Ravinia.

Braving 1 inch hail, torrential downpours, floods, and more, we headed to one of the finest outdoor concert venues in the country. Ravinia is an amphitheater, (covered) and open air picnic areas located north of Chicago in Highland Park, Illinois. the area is surrounded with restaurants, chair rentals, and thousands of people with picnic baskets.

The concert?

Mormon Tabernacle Choir in a two hour spectacular concert. From 14th century Sepharic chants from Spain, to show tunes like Wizard of Oz, from Mozart's Requim to a Nigerian love chant to their god. From Dannie Boy to Battle Hymn of the Republic.

I don't much care for "the Chin", I think some aspects of Morman faith are truly amazing Mormon rules and entertaining, but scary as $^!*. Their incredible growth is due, in great part, to their incredible capacity to breed like furry, crop-destroying fuzzy-tailed long eared rodents, sometimes kept as pets.

But I have to say, watching a world class chorus, 315 voices strong, incredibly trained and musical, ALL VOLUNTEERS, and a fine orchestra of 45, WOW.

A truly class performance. What was nicer was how they brought out a seriously ailing catholic cardinal from the audience, Cardinal George, and asked him to conduct the 3d of 4 encores.

Coincidence? Pigs love the weird, the bad and the ugly.

I vote B.

Letter of complaints from Wal-mart.

I vote 13.

Good opening, SG.