Saturday, January 28, 2012

News: Sunset Act. Making Fun of God. Abortion. Saturdays. Saigon. Challenger. Nat. Geo. Faucets.

News, Some New, Some Old.

Sunset Act, Purpose:

"To provide for the periodic review of the efficiency and public need for Federal agencies, to establish a Commission for the purpose of reviewing the efficiency and need of such agency, and to provide for the abolishment of agencies for which a public need does not exist."

"For those in Congress who are committed to cutting wasteful spending, a federal Sunset Law is a powerful tool. No longer will federal agencies, once created, assume immortality.

Sunsetting shifts the burden of proof, forcing agencies to regularly justify their existence to American taxpayers who will have a real say in whether they deserve our precious tax dollars.

We support the Federal Sunset Act and encourage members of Congress to join Representative Brady in bringing accountability to our massive federal bureaucracy."

- Thomas Schatz, President (http://www.cagw.org/about-us/staff/thomas-schatz.html )

More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_provision  and

"If the President wants to seriously streamline the federal government and save money, I would invite him to embrace the Federal Sunset Act modeled on successful consolidation programs in more than twenty of our states. A bipartisan sunset law, which sets an expiration date on every federal agency and program and requires them to prove their value to the taxpayers or face elimination, that's how you eliminate obsolete and duplicative federal programs." January 15, 2012

http://www.house.gov/brady/sunset_executive_summary.html

______________

Making Fun of God?

January 17, 2012 - "God and Christians are under attack. Award shows, animated programs and even documentaries seem to make fun of God, faith, and the Bible. What can be done?

It's been all over the news with the condemnation of Christianity out there in the world today. Whether it's Tim Tebow and praying in public or whether it's at the Golden Globe Awards, it seems that people just cannot resist putting down any form of Christianity."

 http://youtu.be/W-H0_Ay9JYA

____________

January 27, 2012 - "For those struggling with guilt over a past action there is a path to forgiveness and redemption."

The previous messages on this subject:

Roe v. Wade: Abortion's 39th Anniversary. The US Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973 but can we really call it freedom and liberty?
http://www.ucg.org/beyond-today-daily/christian-living/roe-v-wade-abortions-3...
Abortion and History.  Nations have declined when they choose a culture of death over life.
http://www.ucg.org/beyond-today-daily/christian-living/abortion-and-history

_____________

Some Amazing Facts about Saturday.  "History's Greatest Hoax."

http://www.amazingfacts.org/television/amazing-facts-presents/ctl/playmedia/mid/411/mdid/1014.aspx

_____________

On This Day:

Cease-fire goes into effect, Jan 28, 1973:

"A cease-fire goes into effect at 8 a.m., Saigon time (midnight on January 27, Greenwich Mean Time).

When the cease-fire went into effect, Saigon controlled about 75 percent of South Vietnam's territory and 85 percent of the population. The South Vietnamese Army was well equipped via last-minute deliveries of U.S. weapons and continued to receive U.S. aid after the cease-fire. The CIA estimated North Vietnamese presence in the South at 145,000 men, about the same as the previous year. The cease-fire began on time, but both sides violated it. South Vietnamese forces continued to take back villages occupied by communists in the two days before the cease-fire deadline and the communists tried to capture additional territory.

Each side held that military operations were justified by the other side's violations of the cease-fire. What resulted was an almost endless chain of retaliations. During the period between the initiation of the cease-fire and the end of 1973, there were an average of 2,980 combat incidents per month in South Vietnam. Most of these were low-intensity harassing attacks designed to wear down the South Vietnamese forces, but the North Vietnamese intensified their efforts in the Central Highlands in September when they attacked government positions with tanks west of Pleiku. As a result of these post-cease-fire actions, about 25,000 South Vietnamese were killed in battle in 1973, while communist losses in South Vietnam were estimated at 45,000."

_____________

Challenger explodes, Jan 28, 1986:

"At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place among the seven-member crew of the Challenger. She underwent months of shuttle training but then, beginning January 23, was forced to wait six long days as the Challenger's launch countdown was repeatedly delayed because of weather and technical problems. Finally, on January 28, the shuttle lifted off.

Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including Christa's family, stared in disbelief as the shuttle exploded in a forking plume of smoke and fire. Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live television. There were no survivors.

In 1976, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) unveiled the world's first reusable manned spacecraft, the Enterprise. Five years later, space flights of the shuttle began when Columbia traveled into space on a 54-hour mission. Launched by two solid-rocket boosters and an external tank, only the aircraft-like shuttle entered into orbit around Earth. When the mission was completed, the shuttle fired engines to reduce speed and, after descending through the atmosphere, landed like a glider. Early shuttles took satellite equipment into space and carried out various scientific experiments. The Challenger disaster was the first major shuttle accident.

In the aftermath of the explosion, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with Challenger and to develop future corrective measures. The presidential commission was headed by former secretary of state William Rogers, and included former astronaut Neil Armstrong and former test pilot Chuck Yeager. The investigation determined that the explosion was caused by the failure of an "O-ring" seal in one of the two solid-fuel rockets. The elastic O-ring did not respond as expected because of the cold temperature at launch time, which began a chain of events that resulted in the massive explosion. As a result of the explosion, NASA did not send astronauts into space for more than two years as it redesigned a number of features of the space shuttle.

In September 1988, space shuttle flights resumed with the successful launching of the Discovery. Since then, the space shuttle has carried out numerous important missions, such as the repair and maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station.

On February 1, 2003, a second space-shuttle disaster rocked the United States when Columbia disintegrated upon reentry of the Earth's atmosphere. All aboard were killed. Despite fears that the problems that downed Columbia had not been satisfactorily addressed, space-shuttle flights resumed on July 26, 2005, when Discovery was again put into orbit."

________________

Yesterday:

National Geographic Society founded, Jan 27, 1888:

"On January 27, 1888, the National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C., for "the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge."

The 33 men who originally met and formed the National Geographic Society were a diverse group of geographers, explorers, teachers, lawyers, cartographers, military officers and financiers. All shared an interest in scientific and geographical knowledge, as well as an opinion that in a time of discovery, invention, change and mass communication, Americans were becoming more curious about the world around them. With this in mind, the men drafted a constitution and elected as the Society's president a lawyer and philanthropist named Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Neither a scientist nor a geographer, Hubbard represented the Society's desire to reach out to the layman.

Nine months after its inception, the Society published its first issue of National Geographic magazine. Readership did not grow, however, until Gilbert H. Grosvenor took over as editor in 1899. In only a few years, Grosvenor boosted circulation from 1,000 to 2 million by discarding the magazine's format of short, overly technical articles for articles of general interest accompanied by photographs. National Geographic quickly became known for its stunning and pioneering photography, being the first to print natural-color photos of sky, sea and the North and South Poles.

The Society used its revenues from the magazine to sponsor expeditions and research projects that furthered humanity's understanding of natural phenomena. In this role, the National Geographic Society has been instrumental in making possible some of the great achievements in exploration and science. To date, it has given out more than 1,400 grants, funding that helped Robert Peary journey to the North Pole, Richard Byrd fly over the South Pole, Jacques Cousteau delve into the sea and Jane Goodall observe wild chimpanzees, among many other projects.

Today, the National Geographic Society is one of the world's largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions. National Geographic continues to sell as a glossy monthly, with a circulation of around 9 million. The Society also sees itself as a guardian of the planet's natural resources, and in this capacity, focuses on ways to broaden its reach and educate its readers about the unique relationship that humans have with the earth"

________________

My Yesterday:

After walking Misty and Maddie when I went to get Jay, we started getting everything ready to put a faucet in the cargo trailer's sink. I have always disliked the two-knobbed white faucet on my utility sink.  My hands don't turn knobs very well.  The faucet I bought at the thrift shop is a lift up single-lever type. So we swapped them out.  Jay took the utility sink loose from the cabinet next to it, which has a big draining board with a row of perforations at the low end to drain into the sink.  Then we took it outside to work on it.

Ray came over to spread the fertilizer on the lawn (grass and weeds), but there was still dew on the ground.  So he was roped into doing some other jobs first.  The removable metal legs on the utility sink had become ratty looking, so Ray primed and painted them.  I spent most of the time cleaning up the white faucet that was on the utility sink.   That sink gets used for cleaning all kinds of things, and the faucet was quite grubby.  I hope everyone will take better care of the chrome one.  With it's lift-up handle, maybe it won't be so apt to get paint, etc. on it.

We rolled out the plumber's putty, and installed the 'new' faucet on the utility sink before we put it back in place, easier that way.  The used faucet works great.

Ray put their two 'outside-daytime-only' cats up in their beds in his utility room to keep them out of the way of the spreader, and spread the fertilizer as soon as the dew had dried.  Then he watered in the whole area. http://www.dirtdoctor.com/Cornmeal-Uses-and-Reports_vq18.htm  Hopefully, it will kill the cockleburs, and dandelions.

It was lovely and sunny, great to be working outside.  The high was 67° yesterday.

1 comment:

Dizzy-Dick said...

I, too, must install a new fixture, but I need to get some more pipe and fittings.