Monthly Archives: November 2013

Treeson in Williams! (Again)

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131130-066WILLIAMS—Williams lit the city Christmas tree to highlight its Mountain Village Holiday. The event kicked off with the annual Parade of Lights leading to the lighting by Mayor John Moore and Santa Clause. While the crowd waited they sipped hot chocolate and cokes handed out free by the Grand Canyon Railway which runs the Polar Express.

Mayor John Moore scans the crowd for Santa after the parade no doubt wondering if he is on the "naughty" list.

Mayor John Moore scans the crowd for Santa after the parade no doubt wondering if he is on the “naughty” list.

The parade this year was one of the best. Lasting almost an hour entries can from Flagstaff and Williams. And there were plenty of fire trucks from Williams, Junipine and the forest service. Churches from Williams also came out to celebrate the birth of the Savior.

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Mayor John Moore and Santa countdown to the ceremonial lighting of the tree.

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IS IT REALLY 79,000 YEARS until the next Thanksgivukkah?

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I was astounded to read that this rare event – Thanksgiving and Hanukkah – might not occur again for 79,000 years! Here’s why:

Well, almost never. If the Jews don’t ever abandon the calculations based on the Shmuelian calendar, Hanukkah will keep getting later and later — moving through winter, then into spring, summer, and finally back into fall — so that tens of thousands of years from now they will again coincide. But long before then the springtime holiday of Passover will have moved deep into summer, so be on the lookout for a memo with a calendar update in the next several thousand years.

But another source (A Jewish source) says it will be 2070AD! But it will be the next to last time.

You’ll notice that these dates are getting further and further apart. That’s not just FDR’s fault. Both the Gregorian calendar and the Jewish calendar are slowly drifting in relation to the actual solar year—but at different rates. After 2165, Chanukah would have completely drifted out of November—unless one of these calendars (or Thanksgiving) is changed.

More at Virginia Right

CIA reveals it turned Gitmo prisoners into double agents in exchange for millions of dollars cash, the promise of safety for their families and PORN

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At the same time the government used the risk of terrorism to justify imprisoning people indefinitely, it was releasing dangerous people from prison to work for the CIA.

It was a nod to the classic Beatles song and a riff on the CIA’s other secret facility at Guantanamo Bay, a prison known as Strawberry Fields.

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Penny Lane: Officials have revealed that the CIA trained terrorist prisoners as double agents at a top secret Guantanamo facility codenamed Penny Lane in the early days after 9/11. The facility, now abandoned, is the white rows of buildings at the center of this satellite image

The CIA turned some Guantanamo Bay prisoners into double agents then sent them home to help the U.S. kill terrorists in the early years after 9/11, officials have revealed.

The CIA promised the prisoners freedom, safety for their families and millions of dollars from the agency’s secret accounts.

It was a risky gamble. Officials knew there was a chance that some prisoners might quickly spurn their deal and kill Americans.

For the CIA, that was an acceptable risk in a dangerous business. For the American public, which was never told, the program was one of the many secret trade-offs the government made on its behalf. At the same time the government used the risk of terrorism to justify imprisoning people indefinitely, it was releasing dangerous people from prison to work for the CIA.

The program was carried out in a secret facility built a few hundred yards from the administrative offices of the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The eight small cottages were hidden behind a ridge covered in thick scrub and cactus.

The program and the handful of men who passed through these cottages had various official CIA code names.

But those who were aware of the cluster of cottages knew it best by its sobriquet: Penny Lane.

More at Mail Online

Bicyclist hit by US Forest Service truck to dispute ticket

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A bicyclist who was ticketed after he was hit by a US Forest Service pickup Saturday in north Fort Collins said he plans to dispute the citation in court.

Roger Hoover, 51, said he was slowly riding his bike in front of the law-enforcement truck, which was blocking the crosswalk, when it pulled forward and hit him. He was ticketed with leaving a place of safety into the path of a moving vehicle.

“I thought that basically any time somebody runs over a pedestrian with a car, that it’s the car’s fault,” he said. “Apparently not.”

Read more at the Coloradoan

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamations

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By the President of the United States of America.

Proclamation 118 – Thanksgiving Day, 1864
October 20, 1864

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad and vouchsafing to us in His mercy many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of October, A.D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.
The American President Project

Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation

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Thanksgiving Proclamation

Issued by President George Washington, at the request of Congress, on October 3, 1789

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favor, able interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other trangressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go. Washington

The Heritage Foundation