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[CigarBanter]

Don't be a turkey!  Join in this discussion and perhaps learn something about cigars along the way.  Be warned, post on this site and you will catch hell from members and trolls alike.  Therefore, don't proceed if you have thin skin.  If you can accept all that, light a cigar, pour a beverage of your choice and welcome aboard!

[IrascibleOldFool]

Good morning slackers!

[LSUFAN]

Good morning guys.

[LSUFAN]

On this day in 1895, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen (1845-1923) becomes the first person to observe X-rays, a significant scientific advancement that would ultimately benefit a variety of fields, most of all medicine, by making the invisible visible. Rontgen's discovery occurred accidentally in his Wurzburg, Germany, lab, where he was testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass when he noticed a glow coming from a nearby chemically coated screen. He dubbed the rays that caused this glow X-rays because of their unknown nature.

X-rays are electromagnetic energy waves that act similarly to light rays, but at wavelengths approximately 1,000 times shorter than those of light. Rontgen holed up in his lab and conducted a series of experiments to better understand his discovery. He learned that X-rays penetrate human flesh but not higher-density substances such as bone or lead and that they can be photographed.

Rontgen's discovery was labeled a medical miracle and X-rays soon became an important diagnostic tool in medicine, allowing doctors to see inside the human body for the first time without surgery. In 1897, X-rays were first used on a military battlefield, during the Balkan War, to find bullets and broken bones inside patients.

Scientists were quick to realize the benefits of X-rays, but slower to comprehend the harmful effects of radiation. Initially, it was believed X-rays passed through flesh as harmlessly as light. However, within several years, researchers began to report cases of burns and skin damage after exposure to X-rays, and in 1904, Thomas Edison's assistant, Clarence Dally, who had worked extensively with X-rays, died of skin cancer. Dally's death caused some scientists to begin taking the risks of radiation more seriously, but they still weren't fully understood. During the 1930s, 40s and 50s, in fact, many American shoe stores featured shoe-fitting fluoroscopes that used to X-rays to enable customers to see the bones in their feet; it wasn't until the 1950s that this practice was determined to be risky business. Wilhelm Rontgen received numerous accolades for his work, including the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901, yet he remained modest and never tried to patent his discovery. Today, X-ray technology is widely used in medicine, material analysis and devices such as airport security scanners.

[LSUFAN]

Nov 8, 1994:
The Republican Revolution
For the first time in 40 years, the Republican Party wins control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm congressional elections. Led by Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who subsequently replaced Democrat Tom Foley of Washington as speaker of the House, the empowered GOP united under the "Contract with America," a 10-point legislative plan to reduce federal taxes, balance the budget, and dismantle social welfare programs established during six decades of mostly Democratic rule in Congress.

Gingrich's House of Representatives, home to the majority of the Republican freshmen, led the "Republican Revolution" by passing every bill incorporated in the Contract with America--with the exception of a term-limits constitutional amendment--within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress.

[LSUFAN]

On this day in 1942, just as the Allies were preparing an invasion of North Africa during World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt broadcasts a message directed at Vichy France and its leader Marshal Petain. Petain, who chose to collaborate with the Germans in 1940 rather than fight them, was nominally the leader of France but the country was far from free. (Exiled French General Charles De Gaulle was considered the leader of the "Free French.")

FDR's radio broadcast was intended to appeal to the patriotism of Petain and the Francophile residents of the French colonies in North Africa and the Nazi-controlled portion of France. American ships had just arrived in North Africa carrying the Allied Expeditionary Force. The consummate orator, Roosevelt warned French listeners that if they did not assist the Allies in throwing off the "Axis yoke" that it would mean the "death knell of the French Empire." In his message, Roosevelt reminded Petain that the Axis powers had plundered France of its savings, industry and transport, and looted the nation's farms and factories "all for the benefit of a Nazi Reich and Fascist Italy." Calling himself an "old friend of France," Roosevelt promised that America was not looking to take over French territory in North Africa. He hoped Petain might encourage his fellow countrymen to rise up and help boot out the Germans.

Petain, however, was not moved by Roosevelt's words. In a written reply sent the same day, Petain lamented "It is with stupor and sadness that I learned tonight of the aggression of [American] troops against North Africa." He denied that Germany's treatment of France had been as bad as Roosevelt described and, furthermore, promised to defend French territory against any aggressor, America included.

"Operation Torch," the code name for the Allied invasion of North Africa, commenced that same day, led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower. After a month of fighting against Vichy troops, the Allies, with help from a small number of Free French forces and colonists, were able to gain a foothold in North Africa. Roosevelt's promise to rout the Germans from North Africa was carried out by May 1943.

[LSUFAN]

Adolf Hitler, president of the far-right Nazi Party, launches the Beer Hall Putsch, his first attempt at seizing control of the German government.

After World War I, the victorious allies demanded billions of dollars in war reparations from Germany. Efforts by Germany's democratic government to comply hurt the country's economy and led to severe inflation. The German mark, which at the beginning of 1921 was valued at five marks per dollar, fell to a disastrous four billion marks per dollar in 1923. Meanwhile, the ranks of the nationalist Nazi Party swelled with resentful Germans who sympathized with the party's bitter hatred of the democratic government, leftist politics, and German Jews. In early November 1923, the government resumed war-reparation payments, and the Nazis decided to strike.

Hitler planned a coup against the state government of Bavaria, which he hoped would spread to the dissatisfied German army, which in turn would bring down the central, democratic government in Berlin. On the evening of November 8, Nazi forces under Hermann Goering surrounded the Munich beer hall where Bavarian government officials were meeting with local business leaders. A moment later, Hitler burst in with a group of Nazi storm troopers, discharged his pistol into the air, and declared that "the national revolution has begun." Threatened at gunpoint, the Bavarian leaders reluctantly agreed to support Hitler's new regime.

In the early morning of November 9, however, the Bavarian leaders repudiated their coerced support of Hitler and ordered a rapid suppression of the Nazis. At dawn, government troops surrounded the main Nazi force occupying the War Ministry building. A desperate Hitler responded by leading a march toward the center of Munich in a last-ditch effort to rally support. Near the War Ministry building, 3,000 Nazi marchers came face to face with 100 armed policemen. Shots were exchanged, and 16 Nazis and three policemen were killed. Hermann Goering was shot in the groin, and Hitler suffered a dislocated elbow but managed to escape.

Three days later, Hitler was arrested. Convicted of treason, he was given the minimum sentence of five years in prison. He was imprisoned in the Landsberg fortress and spent his time writing his autobiography, Mein Kampf, and working on his oratorical skills. Political pressure from the Nazis forced the Bavarian government to commute Hitler's sentence, and he was released after serving only nine months. In the late 1920s, Hitler reorganized the Nazi Party as a fanatical mass movement that was able to gain a majority in the Reichstag in 1932. By 1934, Hitler was the sole master of a nation intent on war and genocide.

[LSUFAN]

On this day, Doc Holliday--gunslinger, gambler, and occasional dentist--dies from tuberculosis.

Though he was perhaps most famous for his participation in the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, John Henry "Doc" Holliday earned his bad reputation well before that famous feud. Born in Georgia, Holliday was raised in the tradition of the southern gentleman. He earned his nickname when he graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872. However, shortly after embarking on a respectable career as a dentist in Atlanta, he developed a bad cough. Doctors diagnosed tuberculosis and advised a move to a more arid climate, so Holliday moved his practice to Dallas, Texas.

By all accounts, Holliday was a competent dentist with a successful practice. Unfortunately, cards interested him more than teeth, and he earned a reputation as a skilled poker and faro player. In 1875, Dallas police arrested Holliday for participating in a shootout. Thereafter, the once upstanding doctor began drifting between the booming Wild West towns of Denver, Cheyenne, Deadwood, and Dodge City, making his living at card tables and aggravating his tuberculosis with heavy drinking and late nights.

Holliday was famously friendly with Wyatt Earp, who believed that Holliday saved his life during a fight with cowboys. For his part, Holliday was a loyal friend to Earp, and stood by him during the 1881 shootout at the O.K. Corral and the bloody feud that followed.

In 1882, Holliday fled Arizona and returned to the life of a western drifter, gambler, and gunslinger. By 1887, his hard living had caught up to him, forcing him to seek treatment for his tuberculosis at a sanitarium in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He died in his bed at only 36 years old.

[LSUFAN]

If you had made a friendly wager back in 1974 as to which recent or current pop-music figure might go on to serve in the United States Congress in 20 years' time, you might have picked someone with an apparent political agenda, like Joan Baez, or at least one who was associated with some kind of cause, like nature-lover John Denver. You almost certainly wouldn't have placed your bet on Sonny Bono, a singer of arguably limited talents who appeared content to stand, literally and figuratively, in the shadow of his far more popular wife, Cher. It was indeed Salvatore "Sonny" Bono, however, who had a future in elective politics—a future that included his election to the United States House of Representatives from California's 44th Congressional District on this day in 1994

Sonny Bono fell almost completely out of the public eye following the cancellation of The Sonny and Cher Show in 1977. While his ex-wife and erstwhile musical partner, Cher, launched a hugely successful second phase of her career with well-received acting roles in the 1980s, Sonny left the spotlight behind to focus on the restaurant business. Although he presented himself as a none-too-bright bumbler during his days on television, Bono had been an astute operator in shepherding his and Cher's early musical career and in his later business dealings. The owner of several successful restaurants, Bono got involved in politics after growing frustrated with the bureaucratic hurdles placed before one of his restaurant construction projects by local officials in Palm Springs, California, in the late 1980s. Though he himself had registered to vote for the first time only one year earlier, Bono was elected mayor of Palm Springs in 1988. Following a failed run in the California Republican Senatorial primary in 1992, Bono turned his attention to the 44th District's Congressional seat in 1994. A conservative Republican, Bono was swept into office as part of the Newt Gingrich-led Republican "revolution" that year, and he was re-elected in 1996.

During his time in office, Bono did not treat his fellow lawmakers to any singing performances, but the man behind the hits "I Got You Babe" (1965) and "The Beat Goes On" (1967) did trade on his public persona as a good-natured, non-threatening nice guy. As The Washington Post noted in its obituary following Bono's death in a skiing accident in 1996, "Bono brought to Congress a rare skill: He could make lawmakers—even the most pompous among them—laugh at themselves." Or as President Bill Clinton said, ""His joyful entertainment of millions earned him celebrity, but in Washington he earned respect by being a witty and wise participant in policymaking processes that often seem ponderous to the American people."

[LSUFAN]

Dead Horse
-------------------------

Old tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. Businesses, however, often try other strategies. These include...

1. Buying a stronger whip.

2. Changing riders.

3. Saying things like "This is the way we always have ridden this horse"

4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.

6. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.

7. Appointing a tiger team to revive the dead horse.

8. Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.

9. Comparing the state of dead horses in today's environment.

10. Change the requirements declaring that "This horse is not dead".

11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.

12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.

13. Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat."

14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.

15. Do a CA Study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.

16. Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster.

17. Declare the horse is now "better, faster and cheaper."

18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.

19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.

20. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.

21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

[LuvTooGolf]

Morning Chip. Especially slow going this morning, even for a Saturday.

[South Carolina Redfish]

Morning LSU & Golf.

[South Carolina Redfish]

Nothing like waking up on Vagina Farms.  Deals really stink this morning.

[South Carolina Redfish]

Dean was shacking up last night so don't look for him this morning.

[LSUFAN]

Morning LSU & Golf.

Good morning Dave and Native.