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January 16th, 2008 weds
January 15th, 2008

Quiz: Which Senator looked at a line up of Ronald Reagan,Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon and quipped: Look, it's See no Evil, Hear No Evil and Evil...?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: Who first labeled Ronald Reagan’s ideas Voodoo Economics?
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History for 1/16/2008
Birthdays: Yukon poet Robert Service, Andre Michelin 1853 the pneumatic tire inventor, Ethel Merman, Dizzy Dean,, A.J. Foyt, Marilyn Horne, Sade, Aliyeah, Michael Wilding, Eartha Kitt, Debbie Allen, John Carpenter, Diane Fossey, Kate Moss is 34, Tsianina Joelson, Great animator-amigo Raul Garcia-Sanz is 50

1883- Moved to act by the assassination of President James Garfield by an unemployed civil servant, Congress passed the Pendleton Act. It created a rigid merit standards for government jobs and created the Civil Service Commission. Before this things ran as the "Spoils System"- after every election, hundreds of government jobs were given by the President and his party to party hacks and amateurs as payment for favors, much uhh..as do today.

1935- Ma Barker’s gang has a furious shootout with the FBI at Ocklawaha, Florida. Legend has it they found Ma's body with the smoking tommygun still cradled in her lap. Others say she was only an ignorant hillbilly lady traveling with the gang as a cover. Only one of Ma Barker's sons (Fred) was killed with her. Herman Barker committed suicide at Wichita, Kansas, August 29, 1927, after being blinded by police bullets in a gun battle in which he killed a policeman. Arthur "Doc" Barker was captured by the FBI in Chicago eight days before the shootout that killed Ma and Fred. He was killed attempting to escape from Alcatraz on January 13, 1939. Lloyd "Red" Barker was released from Leavenworth in 1939 after serving seventeen years of a 25-year sentence for mail robbery. He was murdered by his wife at their suburban-Denver home on March 18, 1949.



1936- the first racetrack photo-finish camera installed.

1936- Albert Fish, the Moon Maniac was executed at Sing Sing Prison. The 66 year old Fish had killed ten children and cannibalized their remains. He even went as far as to send a letter to the mother of his last victim describing how he had turned her daughter into a stew. The letter was traced back to him and he was arrested. He almost shorted out the electric chair because he kept his underpants filled with metal sewing needles. As he went to his death he told guards he was looking forward to the electric chair. "it is a thrill I never tried."

1938- Benny Goodman brought the new Swing Music to staid old Carnegie Hall. Count Basie and Harry James joined in to get the tuxedoed crowd dancing in the aisles, then afterwards they all went uptown to the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem to watch Count Basies band square off against the legendary Chick Webb. After this triumph Benny Goodmans’ band would never be the same- Lionel Hampton, Harry James and Gene Krupa all split off to form their own orchestras."That band I had the night I played Carnegie Hall was the best I think I ever had." Goodman said later.

1940- Lee Francis, then Hollywood’s top madam, was busted for prostitution.

1942-Actress Carol Lombard and her mother died in a plane crash in the Sierra Mountains while returning from a war bond drive. Her husband movie king Clark Cable was so disconsolate that he joined an airforce combat squadron instead of doing USO work and took dangerous missions trying to get killed.

1954-THE WAR ON COMICS- Senator Estes Kefauver chaired a U.S. Senate subcommittee to study juvenile delinquency. They conclude that one of the contributing factors to adolescent moral decay was four-color comic books. The probe was sparked by the publication of a book called The Seduction of the Innocent by Dr Frederic Wertham. It charged among other things that Batman & Robin were gay because when not fighting crime, Bruce Wayne & Dick Grayson lounged around all day in silk pajamas with no women around! Despite testimony by Walt Kelly, Milt Caniff, Al Capp and Bill Gaines 350 comic book companies including the EC "Tales from the Crypt" label were driven out of business. The strict comics-code was established. The comic book industry, which had been selling one million books a month, never regained that level of prosperity in the US again. Dr Wertham spent the rest of his life denying he was responsible for destroying the comic book industry. Estes Kefauver tried to run for President in 1959 but was defeated for the Democratic nomination by John Kennedy.

courtesy of spy.org

1962- Television pioneer Ernie Kovacs died when he plowed his Corvair into a tree at Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Blvds. Kovacs had a fondness for all night poker and vodka parties. Friend Jack Lemmon said Ernie was so fanatical for a good card game that once when over a friend's house no table large enough could be procured for a game, Kovacs ordered the front door taken off it's hinges and a tablecloth thrown over it so they could all play.



1962-First day of shooting on the film Dr No.

1970- Col. Mohammar Khaddafyi became premier of Libya, and he's still in power.

1974- Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws first published.

1979- Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi fled Iran in the face of the Ayatollah’s fundamentalist revolution.

1980-The silver market collapses, making the Hunt Brothers from two of the richest men in America to two of the poorest.

1991- GULF WAR I -U.S., French, British and Arab airforces begin attacking Iraqi-held Kuwait. Sadam, Wild Weazels, Gen Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, Republican Guards, Scuds, Smart Bombs and CNN's Peter Arnett hanging a mike out the window of his Baghdad office as the bombs rained down.

1995- The UPN Network (Universal-Paramount Network) began telecasting.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Sometimes rougher stuff is said in presidential primaries than in the final election. Who was it who first called Ronald Reagan’s ideas Voodoo Economics?

Answer: George H.W. Bush the Elder in 1980. Alexander Hamilton and John Adams loathed one another worse than their opponent Thomas Jefferson. Teddy Roosevelt referred to his fellow Republican William Howard Taft as a Puzzlewit and Fathead. Democrat Hubert Humphrey was the first to accuse John F. Kennedy’s father of Anti-Semitism and Al Smith accused Franklin Roosevelt of stealing his ideas for the New Deal. In 2000 Dan Quayle was harder on George W. Bush mocking his Compassionate Conservatism than AL Gore ever was. So, enjoy the U.S. primary season!


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