On March 16th 1751, in a nation that was heading towards a rebellion that would change the world forever, James Madison Jr. was born in Port Conway, Virginia. He was raised on a tobacco plantation with his 11 younger brothers and sisters, and inherited the plantation upon his fathers death. He would later come to be known as “Father of the Constitution” for drafting the United States Constitution and the United States Bill of Rights, and was the loudest voice of the time for ensuring that the government of the newly formed nation held no secrets from the people it served.
Freedom of Information Day is dedicated to that very concept, with the Freedom of Information Act being enacted on July 4th, 1966 and coming into effect a year from that date. It declared that every person has the right to get information to federal agency records that are not protected by one of nine exemptions, or special law enforcement record exclusions. This put into law the very concepts that James Madison had held so dear, and ensured that the citizens of the United States were able to obtain that information to which they were entitled.
You can celebrate Freedom of Information Day by being open with those around you. When you’re asked a question by friend or coworker, take the time to provide them with all the relevant details, making sure they have all the information they may require for the situation at hand. Never forget that you are entitled to the information about you held in government records, and make sure when you put in a request for them you know which agency is likely to hold it.
Word of the Day
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| Definition: | (noun) Remains from which the substance or character is gone. | ||
| Synonyms: | remains, remnants | ||
| Usage: | At one end of the camp lies the carcass of an aircraft which crashed in the mountains. | ||
History
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 | A bagel is a yeast-raised, doughnut-shaped roll with a hard crust. The dough, sometimes flavored, is chilled, then dropped briefly into nearly boiling water, and then baked. A 1610 document from Krakow mentions "beygls" given as gifts to women in childbirth, but the document is not clear as to what a "beygl" is. Ashkenazi immigrants brought the bagel to New York City in the 1880s. | ||
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 | Lewis, an entertainer known for his slapstick comedy, became popular in the 1940s through his partnership with Dean Martin. They performed together in nightclubs as well as 17 films before parting ways in 1956. Lewis then went on to direct and star in The Nutty Professor and many other movies. He left filmmaking in the 1970s to focus on supporting and fundraising for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) | ||
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 | Call it a preview of the cross-country road trip of the future. An autonomous car developed by Michigan-based auto supplier Delphi Automotive will soon be making a 3,500-mile journey across the US. | ||
1850 - The novel "The Scarlet Letter," by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was published for the first time.
1883 - Susan Hayhurst graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. She was the first woman pharmacy graduate.
1918 - Tallulah Bankhead made her New York acting debut with a role in "The Squab Farm."
1963 - "Puff The Magic Dragon" was released by Peter, Paul and Mary.
1985 - "A Chorus Line" played its 4,000 performance
1987 - "Bostonia" magazine printed an English translation of Albert Einstein’s last high school report card.
1993 - In France, ostrich meat was officially declared fit for human consumption.
1994 - Tonya Harding pled guilty in Portland, OR, to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for covering up the attack on her skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. She was fined $100,000. She was also banned from amateur figure skating.
If You Were Born Today, March 16
You accept little at face value, and are always looking for hidden meanings or deeper knowledge of people and circumstances in your life. You are generally very poised and charming, and have a talent for coming up with money-making ideas and creative marketing projects. Periods of solitude are absolutely essential to your well-being, as quite time is how you refresh yourself. You are self-motivated, perceptive, and versatile. Famous people born today: Jerry Lewis, Chuck Woolery, Isabelle Huppert, Erik Estrada, Pat Nixon, John Butler Yeats.
Self-Portrait at Reata Pass
Photograph by Andrei Stoica, National Geographic
Andrei Stoica used the sun and an Arizona landscape to create this self-portrait for a recent community assignment. “It wasn’t that different from using dyes to create pictographs,” writes Stoica, who calls his image a “sungraph.”
knit, 2 - 8 yrs
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Vimpel ponchogenser /Garland sweater poncho pattern by...
A sweater poncho!
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Marche pattern by Berroco Design Team
Marche can be worn tied at the waist or draping loosely. Short cap sleeves keep the focus on the sumptuous angled fronts. Subscribe to KnitBits for a weekly...
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Alterknit Universe: Mini Eggplant
Well, after a long period of inactivity in the blogging world, I'm back. Guess I can't stay away!
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crochet
crochet, vintage
crochet
crochet
crochet
St Patrick's Day, March 17
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recipe
crockpot recipe
stephanie o'dea
French Onion Soup CrockPot Recipe
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There is nothing better than french onion soup. Nothing!
This is ridiculously easy to make, and tastes like it belongs in a french restaurant. This is a good dish to simmer all day long while you are at work, or while out and about saving the world.
The Ingredients.
3 1/2 cups of beef broth
3 tablespoons butter
2 yellow onions, peeled and sliced in rings
1/2 tablespoon white granulated sugar
1/4 cup cooking sherry or regular sherry if that's what you like! (or dry white wine would probably work)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (you might need more if your butter isn't salted)
slices of toasted bread (we are gluten free,so that's what I used)
gruyere cheese (swiss could work too)
The Directions.
--heat your crockpot to high and plop your butter in to start melting
--slice the yellow onions into rings
--break up the onion slices with your fingers, and rub them around in the melted butter
--add the beef broth, sugar, salt, and sherry
--cook on high for 6-8 hours or low for 10-12. It takes a while for the onions to get translucent and pliable
before serving:
--preheat oven to the broiling option
--toast 4 slices of the bread that you are going to use.
--cut gruyere cheese into slices
--put the cheese onto the toasted bread, and carefully float the bread and cheese on the top of the soup
--remove stoneware from crockpot and place the UNCOVERED stoneware into the oven
--broil for a minute or two--the cheese should be all melty and turn a golden color
ladle into 4 bowls.
The Verdict.
This was fantastic! It really only serves 4 though---and 2 of them were kids. So if you have a larger family or are serving more adults, you would probably want to double or at least increase by 50%. The flavor and consistency was spot on.
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Dollar Store Crafts » Blog Archive » Tutorial: Funny Fac...
School is starting up again, and it's always fun to give students a little handmade something to start the year off on the right foot. Everyone, no matter whe...
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BEFORE POLIO VACCINATION
Children in an iron lung before the advent of the polio vaccination, 1937. An iron lung is a form of medical ventilator that enables a person to breathe when normal muscle control has been lost.
'where's the bathroom?' in Finnish - Missä on vessa?
puzzle
CHILDREN'S CORNER ... craft
Glow in the Dark Food
Our Best Bites
The secret to glowing food is tonic water (diet tonic water works too). It contains quinine, and guess what happens when you expose quinine to black light?
fun, right?? So if you mix up a drink (like crystal light lemonade like I’ve done below) and add a little tonic water…
magical glowing beverages! Pretty much anything you can make that includes water can glow with tonic water. Like Jello for example:
My kids thought that glowing jello was pretty much the coolest thing ever.
Now tonic water does have a bitter taste to it. My kids actually didn’t notice at all, which I thought was strange. Maybe I’m just super sensitive. I don’t like the flavor, so if you’re like me know that you only need a little to make it glow. Adding a bit to juice or punch isn’t very noticeable. And if you do jello, you can use part regular water (half and half, or even less tonic) to minimize the bitter taste.
Think of other creative uses and gather stuff on your kitchen table. Turn down the lights, flip on a black light, and watch your kids ooh and ahhh as they sip glow in the dark juice and chomp down radioactive jello.
quote
clever
EYE OPENER!
Facts:
- During absence seizures, the person will often appear to be just staring off into space. There is no typical jerking or twitching as is associated with many other types of seizures. Absence seizure victims may also move from one location to another without purpose or thought behind it. If they are speaking when the seizure hits, they may or may not stop talking. If they continue to talk, their speech usually will suddenly switch to being slurred or slowed down.
- Michael Keaton was once a stagehand on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Keaton also appeared in Neighborhood as an acrobat in The Flying Zookeenie Brothers troupe that performed for the birthday of King Friday in 1975. He eventually quit his job there to pursue acting full time.
- How the cores are placed into wood pencils is as follows: A plank is cut with several long parallel grooves. The core is then inserted into the grooves. A separate plank is then glued to the top of this first plank. The combined planks with the core inside are then cut into pencil size, varnished, and painted. Finally, the erasers and ferrule (the metal band that secures the eraser to the pencil) are added, as well as any text to be imprinted on the pencil.
- Contrary to popular belief, most laughter is not associated with humor, but rather stems from non-humor related social interactions. This was discovered from a study covering over 2,000 cases of naturally occurring laughter, almost none of which stemmed from jokes or other such humor devices. Most cases were simple, short “ha ha’s” during normal conversations. These short laughs almost never interrupted speech, but rather occurred during breaks, providing social cues to those around.
- Jimmy Stewart’s final film role was as the voice of Wylie Burp, in the 1991 movie An American Tail: Fievel Goes West.
- Toilet Paper Wiping Methods: 44% of people wipe from front to back; 42% fold the tissue after wiping; 33% crumple; 8% fold and then crumple; 6% wrap it around their hands.
- During Prohibition, grape growers of the day began selling “bricks of wine”, which were primarily blocks of “Rhine Wine”. These often included the following instructions: “After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty days, because then it would turn into wine.”
- Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the Web, chose the name “World Wide Web” because he wanted to emphasize that, in this global hypertext system, anything could link to anything else. Alternative names he considered were: “Mine of Information” (Moi); “The Information Mine” (Tim); and “Information Mesh” (which was discarded as it looked too much like “Information Mess”)
Interesting stuff on the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT...it appears that the government has declared many living folks dead:( http://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-identity-fraud-scott-pelley-60-minutes/
ReplyDeleteLove all the feline and canine reading companions--the best of the best!
from winter-white VT,
the Vermonster