Fogbow

Bells toll across Norway to mark 10 years since neo-Nazi Breivik killed 77 people


OSLO, July 22 (Reuters) - Church bells across Norway rang for five minutes on Thursday to mark 10 years since Anders Behring Breivik, a far right extremist, killed 77 people, most of them teenagers at a youth camp.

Breivik, a white supremacist who wanted to bring about a fascist revolution through violent means, detonated a car bomb outside the prime minister's office in Oslo, killing eight, before driving to Utoeya island and shooting 69 people at a Labour Party youth camp on July 22, 2011.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/no ... 021-07-21/

Apollo 15 (July 26, 1971 – August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the United States' Apollo program and the fourth to land on the Moon. It was the first J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and a greater focus on science than earlier landings. Apollo 15 saw the first use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_15

NATIONAL CHILI DOG DAY

The last Thursday in July is National Chili Dog Day (July 29)! Making decisions is difficult. Alas, making decisions about what mouthwatering cuisine to satiate your appetite during the sweltering summer months can also be difficult. Do you want chili? Do you want hot dogs? Sometimes life doesn’t have to be so complicated. Sometimes you can have it all. Enter, like a shining beacon from the sky, the Chili Dog. On National Chili Dog Day, we the people celebrate a food that doesn’t make us choose. We celebrate a food that chooses us. We celebrate the chili dog.

Estiveo wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 6:49 pm Close enough?

Keith Olbermann
3 Aug 2021

Late in the afternoon of February 5, 1982, the phone rang at our "sports desk" at CNN Sports in New York (literally: a desk. Producer Phil Griffin and I shared it. If one of us was sitting at it, the other had to sit somewhere else).

It was Assignment Editor Bev Broadman. She said something on the 7 PM sportscast had fallen through and they needed me to do a commentary, that night, live, about the infamous New York sportswriter Dick Young jumping his contract with The New York Daily News, so he could go work for the rival New York Post. This, after Young had helped drive the Mets' Tom Seaver out of town five years earlier, writing that "a real man honors his contract."

I pointed out I'd never been live on TV before and had never used a teleprompter and had no idea how to use one. "Well learn," she said. "You HAVE like three hours!"

I asked around and one of our CNN Business guys said he'd teach me, it wouldn't take long. His name was Stuart Varney and back then he was a nice guy. Little did he know he was unleashing on an unprepared cable news world THE very first TV commentary I ever did (and I had the gig because Lou Dobbs ran off with my predecessor in the CNN New York sports job, Debi Segura).

Gotta say, it ain't bad. And the read ain't bad considering it was literally my first attempt!

Suranis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 14, 2021 5:58 am Today in History - Japanese surrender to the US, officially bringing world war 2 to a close.

Also, in 1994, Illich Ramirez Sanchez, long known as Carlos the Jackal, is captured in Khartoum, Sudan, by French intelligence agents.

In 1935, FDR signs social security act.

In 1985, Michael Jackson took control of the Beetles publishing rights.

And in 1784, the Russians establish the first settlement in Alaska, Three Saints bay, on Kodiak Island.

On 15 August 1971, the United States unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively bringing the Bretton Woods system to an end and rendering the dollar a fiat currency.[2] Shortly thereafter, many fixed currencies (such as the pound sterling) also became free-floating.[3] The Bretton Woods system was over by 1973.[3] The subsequent era was characterized by floating exchange rates.[4]

A Proclamation on Women’s Equality Day, 2021
AUGUST 26, 2021. PRESIDENTIAL ACTIONS

Today, we celebrate Women’s Equality Day, a reminder not only of the progress women have won through the years, but of the important work that remains to be done. One hundred and one years ago, the ratification of the 19th Amendment moved our Nation one essential step closer to fulfilling its foundational promise — establishing at long last that no American’s right to vote could be denied or abridged on the basis of gender. As we reflect on the decades-long effort to win the fight for universal suffrage, we also remember the women of color who helped lead the movement to ratify the 19th Amendment, whose own rights would still be denied for years to come despite their hard-earned victory. We celebrate their extraordinary courage and resolve, and rededicate ourselves to the work we still have ahead of us to protect voting rights across our country.



Efforts to improve voting access have paid off; in 2020, we witnessed the greatest number of votes ever cast in American history. And one barrier that had stood for more than two centuries was finally dismantled with the inauguration of America’s first woman Vice President, Kamala Harris.

But the struggle to ensure that every American is able to exercise their right to vote continues, especially for women of color. In the years prior to the 2020 election and in the months since, we have seen a wave of shameless attacks on voting — burdening a constitutional right with obstacles that overwhelmingly impact voters of color, low-income communities, and people with disabilities. These tactics are nothing new. But they are an affront to our most cherished values and rights as a Nation.

As I have said before, some things in America should be simple and straightforward. Perhaps the most important — the most fundamental — is the right to vote and to vote freely. With it, anything is possible. Without it, nothing is.

On September 15, 1963, the congregation of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama greeted each other before the start of Sunday service. In the basement of the church, five young girls, two of them sisters, gathered in the ladies room in their best dresses, happily chatting about the first days of the new school year. It was Youth Day and excitement filled the air, they were going to take part in the Sunday adult service.

Just before 11 o'clock, instead of rising to begin prayers the congregation was knocked to the ground. As a bomb exploded under the steps of the church, they sought safety under the pews and shielded each other from falling debris. In the basement, four little girls, 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and 11-year-old Cynthia Wesley, were killed. Addie's sister Susan survived, but was permanently blinded.

In the moments after the explosion, questions hung in the air - 'Where is my loved one?' 'Are they ok?' 'How much longer can this violence last?' They did not ask if this was an accident, they knew that this was a bomb that had exploded as it had dozens of times before in "Bombingham."

Hanging out on a limb.

th (19).jpeg (23.77 KiB) Viewed 6573 times

For International [Fierce] Red Panda Day, we're hanging out on a tree limb with this cutie in the Chengdu Panda Base of Sichuan, China. If you s... https://www.bing.com/search?q=red+panda ... %3D&shtc=0

The Bill of Rights: A Transcription

On September 25, 1789, the First Congress of the United States proposed 12 amendments to the Constitution. The 1789 Joint Resolution of Congress proposing the amendments is on display in the Rotunda in the National Archives Museum. Ten of the proposed 12 amendments were ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures on December 15, 1791. The ratified Articles (Articles 3–12) constitute the first 10 amendments of the Constitution, or the U.S. Bill of Rights. In 1992, 203 years after it was proposed, Article 2 was ratified as the 27th Amendment to the Constitution. Article 1 was never ratified.

The Floppy Disk

Though the floppy disk came from many different places and in many different shapes and sizes throughout its time as the preferred data storage solution, it was born in an IBM lab.

The floppy disk was once ubiquitous. More than five billion were sold per year worldwide at its peak in the mid-1990s. Now, the little plastic packages are a fast-fading memory. It has been widely reported that Sony, the last major floppy disk maker, will stop producing them in major markets this year. Today, the disks can be found mainly in the dusty bottoms of desk drawers and filing cabinets. Yet the floppy disk will go down as a singular advance in computing history. Floppies helped enable the PC revolution and the emergence of an independent software industry that now includes more than 10,000 companies. “It turned out to be one of the most influential product introductions ever in the industry,” says Jim Porter, a long-time disk drive analyst.

The floppy got its start at IBM’s data storage skunkworks in San Jose, California. In 1967, a small team of engineers under the leadership of David L. Noble started working on developing a reliable and inexpensive system for loading instructions and installing software updates into mainframe computers. The big machines were already equipped with hard disk drives, also invented by IBM engineers, but people used paper punched cards for data entry and software programming. The team considered using magnetic tape first, but then, in a project code-named “Minnow,” they switched to using a flexible Mylar disk coated with magnetic material that could be inserted through a slot into a disk drive mechanism and spun on a spindle. “I had no idea how important it would become and how widespread,” recalls Warren L. Dalziel, the lead inventor of the floppy disk drive.

The first floppies were 8-inch disks that were bare, but they got dirty easily, so the team packaged them in slim but durable envelopes equipped with an innovative dust-wiping element, making it possible to handle and store them easily. IBM began selling floppy disk drives in 1971, and received U.S. patents for the drive and floppy disk in 1972. In the early days, a single disk had the capacity of 3,000 punched cards, and IBM adapted its punched card data entry machines so their operators could easily shift from loading data on paper cards to putting it on the disks. In this way, the company sent into retirement the punched card, which had been a key to its success since its founding in 1911. It’s an example of IBM’s willingness over the years to obsolete its own technology when it discovers something that does the job better.

https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/ ... ns/floppy/

neonzx wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 9:57 am Floppy disks. pffh. I remember back when we stored computer data on old-school audio cassette tapes, kids.