History for May 31

History for May 31 - On-This-Day.com
Walt Whitman 1819 - Poet, essayist, journalist, humanist, Norman Vincent Peale 1898, Clint Eastwood 1930 - Actor ("Pale Rider") 


Peter Yarrow 1938 - Musician (Peter, Paul and Mary), Joe Namath 1943 - Football player, Tom Berenger 1950 - Actor ("The Big Chill," "Platoon") 


Chris Elliot 1960 - Comedian, Brooke Shields 1965 - Actress, Colin Farrell 1976 - Actor 


1854 - The Kansas-Nebraska Act passed by the U.S. Congress. 


1859 - In London, Big Ben went into operation. 


1884 - Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patented "flaked cereal."
 

1900 - U.S. troops arrived in Peking to help put down the Boxer Rebellion. 


1902 - The Boer War ended between the Boers of South Africa and Great Britain with the Treaty of Vereeniging. 


1907 - The first taxis arrived in New York City. They were the first in the United States. 


1913 - The 17th Amendment went into effect. It provided for popular election of U.S. senators. 


1915 - A German zeppelin made an air raid on London. 


1962 - Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel. Eichmann was a Gestapo official and was executed for his actions in the Nazi Holocaust. 


1977 - The trans-Alaska oil pipeline was finished after 3 years of construction. 


1979 - Zimbabwe proclaimed its independence. 

AUDIO: How does a free society that values religious liberty handle Islamic supremacism that seeks to destroy it? A former fed prosecutor responds. | TheBlaze.com

AUDIO: How does a free society that values religious liberty handle Islamic supremacism that seeks to destroy it? A former fed prosecutor responds. | TheBlaze.com:

"That ideology is — it has a religious component — but it’s a political ideology overwhelmingly. And it ought to be dealt with as one. And we should stop — you know our public officials should stop trying to label it as something it isn’t. It’s a political, totalitarian conquest ideology that has certain religious elements to it."

Blame It on Global Cooling? Obama Has Lowest Average 1stQ GDP Growth of Any President on Record

Blame It on Global Cooling? Obama Has Lowest Average 1stQ GDP Growth of Any President on Record:
"Even if you leave out the first quarter of 2009—when the recession that started in December 2007 was still ongoing--President Barack Obama has presided over the lowest average first-quarter GDP growth of any president who has served since 1947, which is the earliest year for which the Bureau of Economic Analysis has calculated quarterly GDP growth.
In all first quarters since 1947, the real annual rate of growth of GDP has averaged 4.0 percent.
In the seven first quarters during Obama’s presidency, it has declined by an average of -0.43 percent. And if you leave out the first quarter of 2009 and look only at the first quarters of the six years since the recession ended, it has averaged only 0.4 percent."

Elderly face NHS discrimination under new UN death targets

Elderly face NHS discrimination under new UN death targets - Telegraph:
"The NHS could be led to discriminate against the over 70s to meet ‘highly unethical’ UN health targets which seek to reduce premature deaths in younger people, senior medics have warned.
Under the proposed Sustainable Development Goals, UN member states will be given targets to cut the number of deaths from diseases like cancer, stroke, diabetes and dementia by one third by 2030.
However because many are age-related illnesses people who succumb to those diseases from the age of 70 are not deemed to have died prematurely and so are not included in the target.
In an open letter published in The Lancet, an international group of ageing specialists say the new guideline sends out the message that health provision for younger groups must be prioritised at the expense of older people.
Prof Peter Lloyd-Sherlock, professor of social policy and international development at the University of East Anglia, and lead author of the letter, said:
“This premature mortality target is highly unethical, since it unjustifiably discriminates against older people.
“We already know that there is age discrimination in cancer care and surgery and these targets give that the stamp of approval.
“The targets are not quite set in stone yet, so we have a final opportunity to impress upon the UN the need to alter this explicitly ageist health target.
“If this doesn’t happen, people aged 70 and over will become second-class citizens as far as health policy is concerned.”"

‘Religious Hypocrisy’: Media-Watchdog Slams New York Times for Publishing This ‘Offensive’ Image | TheBlaze.com

‘Religious Hypocrisy’: Media-Watchdog Slams New York Times for Publishing This ‘Offensive’ Image | TheBlaze.com:

"A conservative media-watchdog on Friday blasted The New York Times for publishing an “offensive” Virgin Mary image, but refusing earlier this year to publish Charlie Hebdo’s controversial depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

The image was published in Friday’s Arts section and shows artist Chris Ofili’s “The Holy Virgin Mary” painting. The artwork depicts"

Experts surprised!.......“Economists” Have No Clue——Q1 Actual Vs. Blue Chip Consensus

“Economists” Have No Clue——Q1 Actual Vs. Blue Chip Consensus | David Stockman's Contra Corner:
This is what the “Blue Chip” economists thought about first quarter GDP on April 2.

GDPNow Estimate for 1st Quarter, April 2

Note the “Blue Chip” consensus at the end of the first quarter was for 1.7% annualized growth.
They were off by 2.4 percentage points.

Pathetic.

And No One Knew ANYTHING???----Dennis Hastert and the chain of congressional corruption

Dennis Hastert and the chain of congressional corruption - CSMonitor.com
Dennis Hastert, a former speaker of the House, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly structuring bank withdrawals of large sums of cash to evade federal law.

Dennis Hastert has not been a member of Congress since 2007...
That said, his indictment has created a situation that appears very serious and perhaps dark.
Since 2010, the Illinois Republican and former speaker of the House has paid $1.7 million to an unnamed person to “conceal his [Mr. Hastert’s] prior misconduct,” according to the indictment...
Thus it’s possible Hastert may soon enter an unenviable fraternity: national-level lawmakers convicted of crimes.
The bad news is that this is not a tiny group.
The good news is that in the United States, such bad actors can be brought to account.
...At least 10 US lawmakers have been convicted of felonies since 2000, according to a quick and non-comprehensive review of federal records.
While most resigned following their convictions, one – ex-Rep. James Traficant (D) of Ohio – was expelled from the House by a floor vote.

MICHELLE O TO GO: Food trucks deliver school lunches to students during summer break

MICHELLE O TO GO: Food trucks deliver school lunches to students during summer break - EAGnews.org: "PAUL, Minn. – Government-sponsored food trucks will be stalking students this summer with the goal of giving out thousands of “healthy” free lunches officials don’t trust parents to provide.
Officials at St. Paul public schools recently announced they’re working with the local food bank Second Harvest to dispatch a mobile food truck to expand locations offering students free lunches during the summer.

...the truck will drive around to different locations between 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. to help feed the city’s needy youngsters.
The truck will track down students at “spots like suggested basketball courts or fields where kids like to play,” according to the news site.

The very expensive-looking specially rigged step van features a billboard with grinning teens alongside the message “Kids and teens: Get your free meals here.”
The district apparently didn’t offer the details on how the new program is financed, or how much the truck cost, and the news station didn’t bother to ask.
School officials said the truck will be manned by volunteers.
Koppen said the district serves 29,000 lunches a day during the school year, but only 6,000 a day during the summer, so officials reasoned a truck is necessary to make sure students aren’t starving...

Police on Edge Over Upcoming ‘Draw Muhammad’ Contest That Encourages Attendees to Bring Their Guns | Video | TheBlaze.com

Police on Edge Over Upcoming ‘Draw Muhammad’ Contest That Encourages Attendees to Bring Their Guns | Video | TheBlaze.com:

“I want this to be about pushing out the truth about Islam,” he added. “I’ve read the Koran three times … the ones flying the planes into the tower, those are Muslims following the book as it is written.”

The Garland, Texas, attackers, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, attended the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix — the planned location of Friday’s protest — until 2010. Mosque leaders have said the pair didn’t express extremist or violent views there."

When Will Climate Scientists Say They Were Wrong?

When Will Climate Scientists Say They Were Wrong? | Cato Institute
Day after day, year after year, the hole that climate scientists have buried themselves in gets deeper and deeper.
The longer that they wait to admit their overheated forecasts were wrong, the more they are going to harm all of science.
The story is told in a simple graph, the same one that University of Alabama’s John Christy presented to the House Committee on Natural Resources on May 15.
The picture shows the remarkable disconnect between predicted global warming and the real world.
The red line is the 5-year running average temperature change forecast, beginning in 1979, predicted by the UN’s latest family of climate models, many of which are the handiwork of our own federal science establishment.
The forecasts are for the average temperature change in the lower atmosphere, away from the confounding effects of cities, forestry, and agriculture.
The blue circles are the average lower-atmospheric temperature changes from four different analyses of global weather balloon data, and the green squares are the average of the two widely accepted analyses of satellite-sensed temperature.
Both of these are thought to be pretty solid because they come from calibrated instruments.
“The longer that they wait to admit their overheated forecasts were wrong, the more they are going to harm all of science.”

14 More Funny Pinterest Fails - ODDEE

14 More Funny Pinterest Fails - ODDEE

Should It Be Illegal for Supermarkets to Waste Food?

Should It Be Illegal for Supermarkets to Waste Food? - The Atlantic
In 2010, U.S. supermarkets and grocery stores threw out 43 billion pounds, or $46.7 billion worth, of food, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA). 

But if Arash Derambarsh had his way, that number would be zero. 
His goals are ambitious, but then again the municipal councilor from Courbevoie, France did manage to get a law passed in France last week that would accomplish just that.
The law bans supermarkets in France from discarding or destroying unsold food. 
According to Salon’s Lindsay Abrams, the law mandates that all unsold but edible food should be donated to charities for immediate distribution to the poor. 
Food that is unsafe to eat is to be donated to farms for agricultural purposes. 
Supermarkets that exceed a certain square footage are required to sign contacts with charities by July 2016; penalties for failing to do so include fines of up to roughly $81,600 or two years in prison.
...Now Derambarsh is hoping to globalize his movement. 
He said he plans to return to Change.org within the next week with a call for an international law that mirrors the new French legislation. 
In coordination with the advocacy group ONE, he plans to present the issue to the European Union, United Nations, the G-20 forum of major economies, and the upcoming UN climate-change conference in Paris known as COP 21

‘Snap Out of It’: CNN Host Likens Drawing the Prophet Muhammad to Saying the N-Word | Video | TheBlaze.com

‘Snap Out of It’: CNN Host Likens Drawing the Prophet Muhammad to Saying the N-Word | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Activist Pamela Geller clashed with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday morning, accusing him of “very shallow journalism” and pushing back against a comparison that he made between saying the N-word and drawing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The heated segment started with Cuomo discussing the Garland shooting that unfolded earlier this month when “would-be jihadists” attacked the venue where Geller’s Muhammad cartoon contest was held, before asking why she’s now trying to publicly post the winning cartoon on Washington D.C. buses.

“The media and the political and academic elites are censoring this cartoon and we think the American people should see that you are self-enforcing the Shariah,” Geller responded."

Subsidized Broadband: FCC Chairman Plans to Expand ‘Obama Phone’ Program to Internet

Subsidized Broadband: FCC Chairman Plans to Expand ‘Obama Phone’ Program to Internet: "Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler announced on Thursday that he intends to expand Lifeline, popularly known as the “Obama Phone” program, to the Internet.
“I am circulating new proposals to “reboot” Lifeline for the Internet age,” Wheeler wrote in a blog post on the FCC’s Website.
He said the reboot would include “establishing minimum standards of service for voice and broadband,” in addition to subsidies for low-income consumers.
Lifeline is a government benefit program that provides a monthly subsidy of $9.95 on telephone service for those at or below 135 percent of the poverty line so they can connect to the nation's communications networks, find jobs, access health care services, connect with family and their children's schools, and call for help in an emergency."

History for May 30

History for May 30 - On-This-Day.com
Stepin Fetchit 1892, Mel Blanc 1908, Benny Goodman 1909 


Clint Walker 1927, Meredith MacRae 1945,Wynonna Judd 1964 - Country musician (The Judds) 


1431 - Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen, France, at the age of 19. 


1539 - Hernando de Soto, the Spanish explorer, landed in Florida with 600 soldiers to search for gold. 


1848 - W.G. Young patented the ice cream freezer. 


1868 - Memorial Day was observed widely for the first time in the U.S. 


1911 - Ray Harroun won the first Indianapolis 500. At the time, it was known as International 500-Mile Sweepstakes Race. Harroun's average speed was 74.59 miles per hour. 


1921 - The U.S. Navy transferred the Teapot Dome oil reserves to the Department of the Interior. 


1958 - Unidentified soldiers killed in World War II and the Korean conflicts were buried at Arlington National Cemetery. 


1967 - The state of Biafra seceded from Nigeria and Civil war erupted. 


1989 - The "Goddess of Democracy" statue (33 feet height) was erected in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators. 


1997 - Jesse K. Timmendequas was convicted in Trenton, NJ, of raping and strangling a 7-year-old neighbor, Megan Kanka. The 1994 murder inspired "Megan's Law," requiring that communities be notified when sex offenders move in.