History for December 10

History for December 10 - On-This-Day.com
Thomas H. Gallaudet 1787 - Pioneer of educating the deaf, Emily Dickinson 1830 - Writer, Melvil Dewey 1851 - Created the "Dewey Decimal Classification" system 


Tommy Kirk 1941 - Actor, Susan Dey 1952 - Actress ("L.A. Law," "The Partridge Family"), Kenneth Branagh 1960 - Actor-director 


1520 - Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict. The papacy demanded that he recant or face excommunication. Luther refused and was formally expelled from the church in January 1521. 


1817 - Mississippi was admitted to the Union as the 20th American state. 


1845 - British civil engineer Robert Thompson patented the first pneumatic tires. 


1906 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for helping mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War. 


1931 - Jane Addams became a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, she was the first American woman to do so. 


1941 - The Royal Naval battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by Japanese aircraft in the Battle of Malaya. 


1950 - Dr. Ralph J. Bunche was presented the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the first African-American to receive the award. Bunche was awarded the prize for his efforts in mediation between Israel and neighboring Arab states. 


1953 - Hugh Hefner published the first "Playboy" magazine with an investment of $7,600. 


1964 - In Oslo, Norway, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the youngest person to receive the award. 


1994 - Advertising executive Thomas Mosser of North Caldwell, NJ, was killed by a mail bomb that was blamed on the Unabomber. 

New Tape Reveals Jonathan Gruber Admitting Obama Lied About Obamacare Cost Savings

New Tape Reveals Jonathan Gruber Admitting Obama Lied About Obamacare Cost Savings:

"As Jonathan Gruber, the Obamacare architect who admitted that the law was a scheme to deceive, who also referred to on multiple occasions, “the stupid American voter,” testifies today on Capitol Hill, a newly discovered podcast captures Gruber admitting that the supposed cost savings that Obama used to sell the law were completely fictitious."

Hume: 'Inexplicable' For Dems To Release CIA 'Torture Report' | The Daily Caller

Hume: 'Inexplicable' For Dems To Release CIA 'Torture Report' | The Daily Caller:

"Fox senior political correspondent Brit Hume said Monday on “America’s Newsroom” that the Senate Intelligence Committee’s decision to release a report on the CIA’s interrogation tactics, despite the Obama administration and American allies alike warning that it could lead to violence, was “inexplicable” and “burning the ban on your way out.”

The Shocking, Three-Word Question Darrell Issa Asked Jonathan Gruber During Obamacare Hearing | Video | TheBlaze.com

The Shocking, Three-Word Question Darrell Issa Asked Jonathan Gruber During Obamacare Hearing | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) challenged Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber Tuesday by asking if Gruber is a “stupid” man who lucked his way into key jobs advising governments on health care and a professorship at MIT.

Issa said he thought to ask the question after the Kennedy Center honored Tom Hanks, who played Forrest Gump, the “ultimate in successful stupid man.”

“Are you stupid?” Issa asked Gruber, quoting a line from “Forrest Gump,” in which a young girl asked Gump, “Are you stupid or something?”

Must-Know Facts About the Chokehold Killing of Eric Garner

Must-Know Facts About the Chokehold Killing of Eric Garner | The Daily Sheeple
And the Christian Science Monitor notes:

Many on the political right and left united to condemn the grand jury decision, a rare event in an age of acute polarization.

The cover of the conservative New York Post says: “IT WAS NOT A CRIME,” written in big, bold letters, accompanied by still frames of Pantaleo putting Garner in a chokehold.

Fox News syndicated columnist and contributor Charles Krauthammer called the grand jury’s decision “totally incomprehensible.”

“I think anybody who looks at the video would think this was the wrong judgment,” Krauthammer said.

“It defies reason. It makes no sense,” wrote Sean Davis at the Federalist. “Just going on the plain language of the law, the police officer who killed Garner certainly appears to be guilty of second-degree manslaughter at the very least … All we have to do is watch the video and believe our own eyes.”

Leon Wolf of the conservative blog Redstate wrote, “This decision is really and truly baffling to me, and infuriating besides.”

Conservative commentator Erick Erickson endorsed this statement from the conservative Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. “[A] government that can choke a man to death on video for selling cigarettes is not a government living up to a biblical definition of justice or any recognizable definition of justice.”

Twitter also lit up with reaction, with many on the right uniting to condemn the decision.

For example, Noah Rothman – Associate Editor at Hotair – tweeted:

This is one of those moments where left and right could unite. Few seem comfortable with this outcome.

The vending machine of the future is here, and it knows who you are

The vending machine of the future is here, and it knows who you are - Telegraph:
"The vending machine brought an element of anonymity to snacking: you could scoff chocolate all day and no shopkeeper would know just how many bars -- or cigarettes, or ice creams, or lottery tickets -- you’d already gone through that day.
But that’s all about to change, because the vending machine of the future is here, and it knows who you are.
The Luce X2 Touch TV vending machine, which was debuted to industry professionals in Hertfordshire in October, is claimed to be the first in the world to use facial recognition technology.
The machines are able to identify and greet a user, remember a person’s preferences and even refuse to vend a certain product based on a shopper’s age, medical record, dietary requirements or purchase history.
For example, a school can link the Luce X2 with its database and tell the machine to refuse to sell certain products, such as cigarettes, to underage students.
A gym could program the machine with its membership database not to sell fattening snacks to a person who is on a diet, while a hospital could prevent a user with health conditions such as diabetes buying a sugary product...."

Law School Students Will Be Allowed To Postpone Final Exams | The Daily Caller

Law School Students Will Be Allowed To Postpone Final Exams | The Daily Caller:

"Columbia University has allowed law school students who feel they suffered trauma from two high-profile grand jury decisions to postpone taking their final exams, the school’s interim dean Robert Scott wrote in a message to students this weekend."

Yabba Dabba Dough: Wisconsin DOT spends $30K on 'Flintstones'-style training video

Yabba Dabba Dough: Wisconsin DOT spends $30K on 'Flintstones'-style training video « Watchdog.org:
"MADISON, Wis. — Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and let your mind go blank.
Now picture, if you will, a group of motorists navigating traffic, only their cars are not powered by gas, solar power or electricity.
Nope, the only way to get around in these vehicles is by extending your feet through the floorboard and skipping your toes across the pavement, a la the “Flintstones.”
But you would be incorrect.
What I’m talking about is a two-minute roundabout training video produced by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation that features actors walking around in a circle with what appears to be cardboard automobiles hanging over their shoulders with straps.
And it cost you $30,000, according to DOT spokesman Steven Olson."

Former ABC Reporter Reveals Unflattering Account of How Obama Sometimes Handled Press Behind Closed Doors | Video | TheBlaze.com

Former ABC Reporter Reveals Unflattering Account of How Obama Sometimes Handled Press Behind Closed Doors | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Compton is the latest in a string of journalists who have complained recently about a lack of transparency from the Obama administration, including former New York Times editor Jill Abramson and Susan Page, formerly of USA Today.
“Before I walked out the door on September 10, I was a strong voice for complaining that this particular administration has been more opaque than any I have covered about what the President does in the Oval Office everyday,” Compton said. “He is far less accessible on photo-ops with meetings."

No money to fix roads.........One 'bad machine': Muskegon County to receive $600K for boat in Port of Muskegon

One 'bad machine': Muskegon County to receive $600K for boat in Port of Muskegon | MLive.com:

"MUSKEGON, MI – The Muskegon County is set to receive more than $600,000 for a new boat that would patrol and possibly fight fires or conduct search-and-rescue missions in the Port of Muskegon.
The county's board of commissioners, meeting as the Courts and Public Safety Committee Tuesday, Dec. 2, gave preliminary approval to receive a $604,575 grant from the Department of Homeland Security for a 32-foot port security boat.
The county will pay an in-kind match of $201,525 by conducting training drills, Muskegon County Sheriff Dean Roesler said.
"It's a bad machine," said Muskegon County Commissioner Ben Cross."

Prof. Tells Students Not to ‘Tell Anybody’ About His Vexed Tea Party ‘Analogy’ — He Didn’t Know It Was Already Caught on Video | Video | TheBlaze.com

Prof. Tells Students Not to ‘Tell Anybody’ About His Vexed Tea Party ‘Analogy’ — He Didn’t Know It Was Already Caught on Video | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"A psychology professor at South Texas College in Weslaco, Texas, was seemingly caught on video last month comparing the tea party to the Nazis of the 1930s in Germany.

He then told his students not to “tell anybody” about his remarks — but one of his students had already started filming after he allegedly called Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) a “bastard” for using the name “Cruz” to win his election."

Leftist fratricide! Delicious!-----The Rise and Fall of Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge, America’s Worst Gay Power Couple

The Rise and Fall of Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge, America’s Worst Gay Power Couple - The Daily Beast:
"Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge have always been entitled brats.
And now the media has finally noticed.
Just three years ago, Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge were the toast of the liberal establishment.

The Facebook co-founder and his politically ambitious husband embodied all the attributes of a bona fide “gay power couple.” 
In 2012, Hughes bought The New Republic, rescuing the flagship liberal magazine from financial peril and establishing himself as a player in Washington.
At the same time, Eldridge was quietly preparing to run for Congress in upstate New York.
Young, handsome, Ivy League-pedigreed, rich (“the wealthiest openly gay men under 30” according to The Advocate, a stretch considering that the fortune belongs to Hughes), and espousing predictably liberal political views, the Hughes-Eldridge partnership was destined to work wonders for America.
How swiftly things change.
In just the past two months, one half of this pair managed to single-handedly destroy a storied journalistic institution, while the other suffered a crushing electoral defeat in New York’s 19th Congressional District.
Last week, the 31-year-old Hughes forced the resignations of both the editor and literary editor of The New Republic, whose 100th anniversary he presided over last month at a star-studded gala in Washington, D.C.
In protest of the magazine’s newly ensconced CEO’s plan to transform TNR into a “vertically integrated digital media company,” the majority of the magazine’s senior and contributing editors resigned.
Weeks before the implosion at TNR, 28-year-old Eldridge lost his congressional bid by a stunning 30 points, despite having outspent his opponent nearly 3-to-1 in a district President Obama won by 6 percentage points.
The couple had purchased a $2 million home in the district expressly so that Eldridge could run there, their purchase of a $5 million mansion in the adjoining 18th having come to naught after that seat was won by another gay Democrat in 2012."

Petition calls on MSU to cancel George Will speech

Petition calls on MSU to cancel George Will speech:
A group of activists will deliver a petition signed by tens of thousands of people to Michigan State University to protest winter commencement speaker George Will, who they call a "rape apologist," leaders announced Monday.
.....because Will stated in a column that sexual assault victims make it up to achieve the "coveted status" of "victimhood."
The column can be read here.

A group of students will deliver the petition at noon on Wednesday to the MSU administration office. Molly Haigh, a spokeswoman for the women's advocacy group UltraViolet, said more than 40,000 people had signed the petition as of Monday evening.
"It is appalling that MSU, a school currently under Title IX investigation for failing to address rape on campus, would invite a man known for shaming survivors of rape on campus to speak at their graduation ceremony," said Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of UltraViolet.
"One in 5 women are sexually assaulted before graduating from college across America; this is an issue that MSU and every university should take extremely seriously.
We urge MSU to stop condoning rape and cancel George Will's speech."

*******************************************************************************

By George F. Will Opinion writer June 6 

Colleges and universities are being educated by Washington and are finding the experience excruciating. They are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous (“micro-aggressions,” often not discernible to the untutored eye, are everywhere), and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate. And academia’s progressivism has rendered it intellectually defenseless now that progressivism’s achievement, the regulatory state, has decided it is academia’s turn to be broken to government’s saddle.

Consider the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. “sexual assault.” Herewith, a Philadelphia magazine report about Swarthmore College, where in 2013 a student “was in her room with a guy with whom she’d been hooking up for three months”: 

Six weeks later, the woman reported that she had been raped. Now the Obama administration is riding to the rescue of “sexual assault” victims. It vows to excavate equities from the ambiguities of the hookup culture, this cocktail of hormones, alcohol and the faux sophistication of today’s prolonged adolescence of especially privileged young adults.“They’d now decided — mutually, she thought — just to be friends. When he ended up falling asleep on her bed, she changed into pajamas and climbed in next to him. Soon, he was putting his arm around her and taking off her clothes. ‘I basically said, “No, I don’t want to have sex with you.” And then he said, “OK, that’s fine” and stopped. . . . And then he started again a few minutes later, taking off my panties, taking off his boxers. I just kind of laid there and didn’t do anything — I had already said no. I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. I let him finish. I pulled my panties back on and went to sleep.’”

The administration’s crucial and contradictory statistics are validated the usual way, by official repetition; Joe Biden has been heard from. The statistics are: One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and only 12 percent of assaults are reported. Simple arithmetic demonstrates that if the 12 percent reporting rate is correct, the 20 percent assault rate is preposterous. Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute notes, for example, that in the four years 2009 to 2012 there were 98 reported sexual assaults at Ohio State. That would be 12 percent of 817 total out of a female student population of approximately 28,000, for a sexual assault rate of approximately 2.9 percent — too high but nowhere near 20 percent......

The World’s Climate Change Mafia Meet in Peru

The World’s Climate Change Mafia Meet in Peru | Somewhat Reasonable:

"To understand all the talk of “climate change” you must understand that everything and everyone involved—except for those of us who debunk the lies—are engaged in a criminal enterprise to transfer billions from industrialized nations to those who have failed to provide a thriving economy, often because they are run by dictators or corrupt governments who skim the money for themselves.

 The lies being inflicted on Americans include Obama’s “war on coal” that is shutting down coal-fired plants that affordably and efficiently produce the electricity the nation needs, along with the six-year delay of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Add in the thousands of Environmental Protection Agency regulations affecting our manufacturing, business and agricultural sectors and the price we are paying is huge.
 At its heart, environmentalism hates capitalism."

112 Solar Companies Close In 5 Years

112 Solar Companies Close In 5 Years | The Daily Caller:
Solar industry bankruptcies became a hot-button issue in 2011 after Solyndra declared bankruptcy. 
The company went broke after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees from the Obama administration.

Solyndra was quickly followed by Abound Solar and other green energy companies backed by the federal government. 

Abound got a $400 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration, but only used $68 million before the government cut off funding in the wake of Solyndra’s scandalous bankruptcy.

House Report: FDIC Targeted Gun Dealers Under Operation Choke Point | TheBlaze.com

House Report: FDIC Targeted Gun Dealers Under Operation Choke Point | TheBlaze.com:

"Another industry listed were payday lenders — the report found that FDIC had what amounted to a moral vendetta against these companies, even though they are legal.

“Personal animus towards payday lending is apparent throughout the documents produced to the committee,” the report said. “Emails reveal that FDIC’s senior-most bank examiners ‘literally cannot stand payday,’ and effectively ordered banks to terminate all relationships with the industry.”

NYT Aerial Photos: Detroit's Urban Fabric Looks Like 'A Moth-Eaten Blanket'

NYT Aerial Photos: Detroit's Urban Fabric Looks Like 'A Moth-Eaten Blanket' –  Deadline Detroit

Mad World NewsBar In Hot Water After 'RACIST' Drinking Promotion Advertised

Mad World NewsBar In Hot Water After 'RACIST' Drinking Promotion Advertised [Photos]: "Where Michael Brown’s name is mentioned, a protest ensues, which is exactly what happened Saturday evening at the bar once the word had gotten out about their insensitive promotion.
Angry residents in the area held signs and chanted outside Mug Shots — which goes by the slogan “where sarcasm is always free” — so really there is something for everyone without having to loot for it."

History for December 9

History for December 9 - On-This-Day.com
John Milton 1608, Clarence Birdseye 1886, Emmett Kelly 1898 


Kirk Douglas 1918 - Actor, Dick Van Patten 1928 - Actor ("Eight is Enough"), Dick Butkus (NFL) 1942 - Football player 


1803 - The 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. With the amendment Electors were directed to vote for a President and for a Vice-President rather than for two choices for President. 


1848 - American author and creator of "Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit," Joel Chandler Harris was born. 


1854 - Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," was published in England. 


1926 - The United States Golf Association legalized the use of steel-shafted golf clubs. 


1958 - In Indianapolis, IN, Robert H.W. Welch Jr. and 11 other men met to form the anti-Communist John Birch Society. 


1960 - Sperry Rand Corporation unveiled a new computer, known as "Univac 1107." 


1962 - "Lawrence of Arabia," by David Lean had its world premiere in London. 


1990 - Lech Walesa won Poland's first direct presidential election in the country's history. 


1996 - UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali approved a deal allowing Iraq to resume its exports of oil and easing the UN trade embargo imposed on Iraq in 1990.