FReeper Canteen ~ Pancakes on Wednesday ~ 6 Apr 2004

Canteen Crew ~ Radix

[Radix]

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Thank the Veterans who served in
The United States Armed Forces.

Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom?
Support The United States Armed Forces Today!

 

Pancakes on Wednesdays

Welcome to Pancakes on Wednesdays

Wednesday, April 7, 2004

Here is an amalgamation of trivial facts and seemingly useless data.

Do not forget to hit the hyperlinks.

We have links, lots of them.

From the Radixionary

MIMSY

Prim or affected; over-refined; mincing.

Aficionados of Lewis Carroll will know a different meaning, which appears in the poem called Jabberwocky in his Through the Looking-Glass: “All mimsy were the borogoves”. Later in the book, Humpty-Dumpty explains its meaning as being a blend (he calls it a portmanteau word) of flimsy and miserable, so meaning “unhappy”. Carroll either invented it afresh or borrowed an existing English dialect word and gave it a new meaning.

In the sense of affected or over-refined, mimsy has long been known in the British Isles, especially in Scots and northern dialects; an example is in A Rock in the Baltic, by Robert Barr (1906): “In one corner of the room stood a sewing-machine, and on the long table were piles of mimsy stuff out of which feminine creations are constructed.” It’s known in other spellings, such as mimsey and mimzy; mimp is closely related; an elaborated version is miminy-piminy or niminy-piminy.

All forms seem to be built on mim. This little word may come from an imitation of pursing up the mouth in prudishness (a related form is mim-mouthed, affectedly prim and proper in speech, which appears in Virginibus Puerisque, by Robert Louis Stevenson, published in 1881: “Mim-mouthed friends and relations hold up their hands in quite a little elegiacal synod about his path: and what cares he for all this?”)

Mimsy is far from dead. It is found in the issue of The Medical Post for 6 January 2004 (published in Toronto, but the writer was remembering his childhood in Scotland): “Certainly if I had been drafted into the Armed Forces I would have been streets ahead of these mimsy Boy Scouts with their cowboy hats and their two-fingered apology for a salute.” It also appeared in an article by Griff Rhys Jones in the Independent on 24 October 2003: “This is food writing. Not mimsy pseudo-porn, but genuinely funny gastro-investigation driven by a slavering appetite.”

Happy Birthday 

William Woodsworth 1770

What Heavenly Smiles!

What heavenly smiles! O Lady mine
Through my very heart they shine;
And, if my brow gives back their light,
Do thou look gladly on the sight;
As the clear Moon with modest pride
Beholds her own bright beams.
Reflected from the mountain's side
And from the headlong streams.

Happy Birthday 

W.K. Kellogg 1860

The Canteen sponsor of the week; Fresh to you each morning, Straight from Battle Creek

Orbit

Happy Birthday 

Jersey Joe Walcott 1872

Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.

Socrates

Happy Birthday

Irene Castle 1893

Irene was the first woman to BOB her hair. She and husband Vernon, invented social dancing Charleston, Turkey Trot, Vernon Walk and others.

Happy Birthday

Walter Winchell 1897

Upon his death in 1972, a front-page obituary in the New York Times eulogized Walter Winchell as "the country’s best-known, widely read journalist as well as its most influential."

Conjunction

The coincidence in right ascension of two celestial bodies (one of which is often the Sun). For example, when a planet is at the same right ascension as the Sun, it is said to be in conjunction.

What else is the function of a Conjunction?

Happy Birthday 

Percy Faith 1908

Happy Birthday

Billie Holiday 1915

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.

Plato

Happy Birthday 
James Garner 1928

"A guy calls his lawyer. He says, 'Can I ask you two questions?' 
Lawyer says, 'What's the second one?' "

Happy Birthday

David Frost 1939

Happy Birthday 

Francis Coppola 1939

Opposition

The time when the Earth lies between a planet and the Sun, making the Sun and planet appear in opposite directions as viewed from the Earth. Oppositions are the best opportunities for observing superior planets because they are well away from the glare of the Sun, and closer to the Earth than usual.

Happy Birthday 

Jackie Chan 1954

Parallax

Hold out a pencil at arm's length so that it covers your view of a more distant object. Now close each eye in turn. The pencil seems to move relative to the distant object when a different eye is closed. Each eye looks at the pencil from a slightly different direction. With both eyes open you get more visual clues as to how far away any object is. The following diagram shows the situation:

Your brain instinctively determines the object's distance from the slight change in direction (measured by the angle - P). This method of measuring distances is called PARALLAX.

Parallax

Happy Birthday 

Tony Dorsett 1954

We are counting yards.

Look into the center (white point) and stare for a while. How many colors can you see altogether in the object? You should see a purplish circle... and the 4 rotating 'wings' are tinted green. Make sure you always keep focused on the center.

Happy Birthday 

James "Buster" Douglas 1960

Patient: "Nurse, I just swallowed my pillow!"
Nurse: "How do you feel?"
Patient: "A little down in the mouth"

Apogee

The point in the orbit of the moon or of an artificial satellite most distant from the center of the earth.

At apogee, a satellite travels more slowly than at any other point in its orbit. When viewed from the earth's surface, a satellite at or near apogee takes a long time to traverse the sky. In communications, apogee is the best time to access a satellite.

 

Happy Birthday 

Russell Crowe 1964

Happy Birthday 

Victoria Adams Beckham (Spice Girls) 1975

Today's Wednesday field trip takes us to perigee.

Parsec

A parsec is the unit for expressing distances to stars and galaxies, used by professional astronomers. It represents the distance at which the radius of the Earth's orbit subtends an angle of one second of arc; thus a star at a distance of one parsec would have a parallax of one second, and the distance of an object in parsecs is the reciprocal of its parallax in seconds of arc.

1 Parsec = 3.08568025 × 10¹⁶ meters

I am an excellent driver

We are counting cards!

On This Day

1652 - The Dutch established a settlement at Cape Town, South Africa.

On this Day

1798 - The territory of Mississippi was organized.

Astronomical Unit

On this Day

1862 - Union General Ulysses S. Grant defeated Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh, TN.

On this Day

1888 - P.F. Collier published a weekly periodical for the first time under the name "Collier’s."

Peter Collier founded the periodical, Collier's Once a Week in April 1888. It was advertised as a magazine of "fiction, fact, sensation, wit, humor, news". By 1892 it had a circulation of over 250,000 and was one of largest selling magazines in the United States.

On this Day

1914 - The British House of Commons passed the Irish Home Rule Bill.

 

On this Day

1922 - U.S. Secretary of Interior leased Teapot Dome naval oil reserves in Wyoming.

The Teapot Dome scandal was also called the OIL RESERVES, or ELK HILLS, SCANDAL, in American history, scandal of the early 1920s surrounding the secret leasing of federal oil reserves by the secretary of the interior, Albert B. Fall. After President Warren G. Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil reserve lands from the navy to the Department of the Interior in 1921.

On this Day

1933 - Prohibition ended in the United States.

National prohibition of alcohol (1920-33)--the "noble experiment"--was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America. The results of that experiment clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts. The evidence affirms sound economic theory, which predicts that prohibition of mutually beneficial exchanges is doomed to failure

On this Day

1940 - Booker T. Washington became the first black to be pictured on a U.S. postage stamp.

There are people whose abilities and energy take them far past any limitations life tries to place on them. Booker T. Washington was one of those people. He rose up from slavery and illiteracy to become the foremost educator and leader of black Americans at the turn of the century.

On this Day

1945 - The Japanese battleship Yamato, the world’s largest battleship, was sunk during the battle for Okinawa. The fleet was headed for a suicide mission.

On this Day

1948 - The musical "South Pacific" by Rogers and Hammerstein debuted on Broadway.

Adapted from two short stories by  James Michener,  South Pacific chronicles two love affairs.

On this Day

1948 - The United Nations' World Health Organization began operations.

On this Day

1953 - IBM unveiled the IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine.

 It was IBM's first commercially available scientific computer.

On this Day

1963 - At the age of 23, Jack Nicklaus became the youngest golfer to win the Green Jacket at the Masters Tournament.

I am an excellent driver.

On this Day

1963 - Josip Broz Tito was proclaimed to be the leader of Yugoslavia for life.

On this Day

1970 - John Wayne won his first and only Oscar for his role in "True Grit." He had been in over 200 films.

Don't forget the Maple Syrup.

Pancakes Wednesdays

Definitely

[stand watie]

THANKS!

Sarah talked LD to Frank about 3pm local time today-he is up north with the Kurds, as we speak. all is WELL with him.

free dixie,sw

[TexasCowboy]

"The Doonesbury cartoon depicting President Bush calling Dr. Rice,"Brown Sugar", is disgraceful."

I agree, Diva.
This lady is first class all the way.

I've wondered why the Demoncrats haven't started rumors about her and GW.
It would be their MO to do that.

[TexasCowboy]

"And, is lye soap really ugly? I never noticed."

My mother's lye soap was where the expression originated.

She used ashes from the heating fire along with lye and hog fat so it was kind of.......uh, gray with black spots and all muckeldy.
It shore took the scruff off the elbows and knees, though!

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Snow for you TR!

[trussell]

Thank you!!! I feel better now. :)

[Pippin]

Those people who do doonsbury are a SICK lot.

[Diva Betsy Ross]

IMO it has already been done and will be done again in the near future. We will see, right?

[Kathy in Alaska]

Hurrah for Sarah! Prayers for Frank on his mission. Thanks, Frank, for your service to America.

Don't forget, sw!

[TexasCowboy]

As a friend and I were talking the other night, it's going to be thin ice for them if they do.

Condi is not Monica.

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Here is a great story!

Tiger Woods hits a HOLE IN ONE at the Masters

[Kathy in Alaska]

Duty in Kirkuk

An F-16 pilot and crew chief with the 107th Fighter Squadron, Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich., deployed to Kirkuk, Iraq, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, prepare for a mission Aprill 1, 2004. The 107th Fighter squadron's mission is to do armed reconnaissance. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Glenn Wilkewitz

Staff Sgts. Mike Mazure and Ron Davenport, both with the 107th Fighter Squadron, Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich., run tests on an F-16 pitot tube while deployed to Kirkuk, Iraq, March 28, 2004. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Glenn Wilkewitz

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

From the men in the Military and the Canteen

[Kathy in Alaska]

An F-16 C, piloted by Maj. Leonard W. Isabelle with the 107th Fighter Squadron, Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich., departs on a mission from Kirkuk Air Base, Iraq, March 22, 2004. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Glenn Wilkewitz

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Justin Smith (l) and Airman 1st Class Anthony Blain, both with the 506th Civil Engineering Squadron, fold up one of many tents no longer in use at Kirkuk Air Base, Iraq, March 21, 2004. Tent City is slowy being disassembled as more personnel move into more permanent quarters. U.S. Air Force photo Staff Sgt Jeremy Smith

[Kathy in Alaska]

Service members with the 506th Expeditionary Civil Engineering Squadron smooth the dirt out evenly so that another row of barriers can be placed on top of the exsisting barriers. New barriers have been placed next to Modular dorms, providing extra protection. U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith

Tech. Sgt. Rozzi Messina, 506th Expeditionary Civil Engineering Squadron, arm wrestles Staff Sgt. Mike Cottle, 107th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, as Tech. Sgt. Calvin Groover, 506th Services Squadron, judges the match, April 3, 2004. The arm wrestling competition was sponsored by the 506th Expeditionary Services Squadron and held in the tent city wieght room at Kirkuk Air Base, Iraq, April 3, 2004. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt Jeremy Smith

[Kathy in Alaska]

U.S. service members at Kirkuk Air Base, Iraq, start a 10-kilometer run sponsored by the 506th Services Squadron early in the morning of March 27, 2004. U.S. Air Force photo Staff Sgt Jeremy Smith

Master Sgt. Natalie Bigham with the 107th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Mich., raises her right to hand to take the Soldier's Oath of Allegiance from Lt. Col. Glenn Schmidt during her reenlistment ceremony at Freedom Air Base Kirkuk, March 23, 2004. Holding the flag is Maj. William Hargrove and Senior Airman Mike Squier. All are members of the 107th Fighter Squadron out of Selfridge Air National Guard Bureau, Mich., currently deployed supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Glenn Wilkewitz

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Please relay this to Frank

Thank You Frank!
God Protect you and your Brothers and Sisters in Iraq.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Hoarding nuts is exhausting: A white squirrel recharges the batteries in Liberty, Mo.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Light rock: Workers heft a massive hewn stone made of Styrofoam, part of artist Mark Cline's Stonehenge replica in Natural Bridge, Va. Clines calls the temporary installation "Foamhenge."

[Kathy in Alaska]

Douse that mock fire! Firefighters spray water at nothing in particular during a training exercise in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Paris Hilton was never this funny: It looks like the new TV reality show "La Fattoria" (The Farm), filmed in Concorezzo, Italy, is going to be a laugh riot. At least the extras think so.