Today in History

People born today

1143 Emperor Nijo
1527 Maximilian II
1911 (George) Liberace
1912 Milton Friedman
1921 Whitney Young
1929 Don Murray
1943 Lobo
1944 Robert C. Merton
1950 Steve Miller
1956 Michael Biehn
1958 Bill Berry
1962 Wesley Snipes
1964 Jim Corr
1965 John Laurinaitis
1965 J.K. Rowling
1966 Dean Cain
1969 David Cash
1976 Annie Parisse
1977 Web Editior
1978 Will Champion


People who died today

1099 El Cid
1556 St. Ignatius Loyola
1750 King John V of Portugal
1875 Andrew Johnson
1964 Jim Reeves
1966 Bud Powell
1986 Teddy Wilson
1993 King Baudouin I of Belgium
2004 Virginia Grey


Holidays

Hawaiian Flag Day
Feast of St. Ignatuis of Loyola
Web Editors Birthday

Phobia of the Day:

Hagiophobia – The fear of saints

Phobia of the Day:

Hadephobia – The fear of hell

Phobia of the Day:

Gymnophobia – The fear of nudity

Phobia of the Day:

Glossophobia – The fear of public speaking

Short Entries

We are Weird News BNI would like to apologize for our short blog entries this week. We have been sick while reading two books and planning a party. We will have more next week.

Book Note:

We are Weird News BNI not only use our book reports to let you know about books that are out there, but to also keep track of books we have read. Because of that, although we do not want to give away any of the plot for Harry Potter, we want to note for ourselves that we read it for out end of year records. So you make disregard this entry and move on to the phobia of the day.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by: J.K. Rowling
Fiction 759 pages, copyright 2007

Phobia of the Day:

Gerontophobia – The fear of old people

Phobia of the Day:

Germanophobia – The fear of Germany

Phobia of the Day:

Gephydrophobia – The fear of crossing bridges

Phobia of the Day:

Genuphobia – The fear of knees

Phobia of the Day:

Gamophobia – The fear of marriage

An Actual Report of a Book – Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About

Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About By: Mil Millington
Fiction, 373 pages copyright 2002

We read this book for the title alone. And it did have lots of pages devoted to the arguments he had with his girlfriend. First some background information on the main characters. The story takes place in Britain and the main male character is English and his live-in girlfriend of at least 6 years is German and believes that they way that they do everything in Germany is better and England should do things like them. So, they get into a LOT of fights. One, there is the fact of the culture barriers that she has no interest in working on. Two, there is the fact (found from reasontly released data on the subject) that as a live-in in girlfriend/boyfriend couple and not a married one (although, depending on England’s laws they may be common-law married) they will tend to argue more and on more trivial subjects. (Possibly, due to the independence and ease of leaving in that situation or to thinking of the other person more as a roommate with sex.) Anyway, these arguments with his girlfriend are actually the least of his concerns. (Excluding that one time people might have died over a broom.) He works as IT at a “learning center” (library) and has been quickly promoted do to his superiors quickly leaving. It is only after taking these jobs that he learns that they were doing a lot more than he thought they did, and it has nothing to do with computers. (Except for the swingers sex toy on-line store, but that is only a minor issue for him on level with say the Triad in his life.)

Phobia of the Day:

Gatophobia – The fear of cats

Phobia of the Day:

Gatophobia – The fear of cats

A Review of a Book

As all of you know at midnight the new Harry Potter book comes out, the 7th and last in the series. Because of this we thought the we would refresh in your mind what happened in the last book, “Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince” (#6). Note: if for some odd reason you are planning to read the 6th book but haven’t yet then please skip today’s blog entry. OK, is everyone where I could ruin the book gone? . . . Good, so now what happened last book. 1st, Voldemont is alive and back in power of the Death-Eaters. This has caused many bad things to happen. Harry is learning all about the past of Tom Riddle who became Voldemont. He learns that he has become the chosen one who is to destroy Voldemont, not because of prophesy, but because that is how Voldemont chose to see the prophesy. He also learned that Voldemont has hidden parts of his soul in 6 objects. One is in a journal that has already been destroyed. One is in a ring that is destroyed during the book. One is in a necklace that maybe destroyed. One is in a cup, and the others maybe in objects from the founders Ravenclaw and Gryffindor or in the snake living under the school. (And readers have thought in Harry or his scar.) All of these bits of soul must be destroyed before Voldemont is. Also Draco is working for Voldemont and was to kill Dumbledore. He was unable to, but either because: he is working for Voldemont, he promised with the unbreakable promises, or as part of a plan to stop Voldemont, Snape killed Dumbledore using a forbidden spell. And now he and Draco are in hiding. (Snape is also the half-blood prince who wrote spells and notes all over Harry’s potions book.) Also Harry was dating Ginny Weasley his best friend’s little sister but broke it off for fear that Voldemont would hurt her to get to him. Also he is turning 17 the age a wizard is an adult. Hogwarts might not open next year but in any case Harry will not be there as after Bill Weasley’s marriage to Fluer in the summer he is going to set out to destroy Voldemont. And a lot more things happen, but that should be enough of a refresher to those that will start reading book 7 some time tomorrow.

Book info: Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, book 6 in the Harry Potter series by: J.K. Rowling
Fiction, Fantasy 652 pages 6th grade reading level, copyright 2005

An Actual Report of a Book – The Pirate’s Son

The Pirate’s Son by: Geraldine McCaughrean
Fiction: historic 294 pages, 6th grade reading level, copyright 1996

This is a fun book on pirates for children. It has both strong male and female characters making it a good read for all pre-teens into pirates. It also goes into the reality of how bad real pirates were, so we would not recommend it for younger children; however, it is nice to find a youth fiction book on pirates that does not completely romanticize the pirate’s life.

Phobia of the Day:

Frigophobia - the fear of cold

Tag Line Contest

We at Weird News B.N.I. have grown tired of our current tag line/blog description/page filler of “A Fun Waste of Time”. And so we would like to know what you, the reader of this blog, would like that line to say. We have thought up a few and will list a pro and con for each one, but feel free to think up your own and in either case let us know what you think with a comment on this blog.

* Batteries Not Included
+ This is classic WNBNI (click here for WNBNI history)
- It is now already part of the title

* A Fun Waste of Time
+It would be no work at all to use this
- WNBNI is worth the time ;)

*FEDS approved (Flat Earth Debate Society- Hickville/international Chapter)
+ Sounds impressive
-FEDS unofficially disbanded April 1st, 1998

*Information you can find elsewhere but won’t bother looking
+mostly true, most everything is online today
- we do have some original content

And so tell use what you think.

Presidents on Politics – Woodrow Wilson part II

I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.

The seed of revolution is repression.

There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.

He is not a true man of the world who knows only the present fashions of it.

Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.

I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose.

If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.

A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.

The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.

Phobia of the Day:

Frencophobia - the fear of France

Presidents on Politics – Woodrow Wilson part I

America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us.

America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal - to discover and maintain liberty among men.

Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.

Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is growing or swelling.

Never attempt to murder a man who is committing suicide.

Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.

There are blessed intervals when I forget by one means or another that I am President of the United States.

If you think too much about being re-elected, it is very difficult to be worth re-electing.

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

Interest does not tie nations together; it sometimes separates them. But sympathy and understanding does unite them.

My dream of politics all my life has been that it is the common business, that it is something we owe to each other to understand and discuss with absolute frankness.

Property as compared with humanity, as compared with the red blood in the American people, must take second place, not first place.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation.

The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.

The history of liberty is a history of resistance.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.

That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic.
The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation.

Phobia of the Day:

Erythrophobia - the fear of redlights

Could some one PLEASE get Disney a calendar

OK, so I was flipping threw the channels today looking for something to watch, and guess what was on Disney channel? A movie about some kids accidentally setting their mom up on a date with a vampire. Why is this on in July? It’s a Halloween movie. And on top of that they are also running the Halloweentown series this week. Since when has their been Halloween in July? And it’s not like these are “scary” movies so they play them in October, the movie on today references Halloween and the other movies all take place on Halloween. If it was on Friday I could some what understand it as it was Friday the 13th, but today? What’s up with that?

An Actual Report of a Book – Dave Barry’s Money Secrets

Dave Barry’s Money Secrets, by: Dave Barry
Non-fiction: humor, finances 229 pages, copyright 2006

If you like Dave Barry’s writing then you will love this book. Also what is written on the inside cover is really in the book; even the pictures of Suze Orman and “many gratuitous references to Angelina Jolie naked.” After reading this book I learned the importance of Adam Sandler films in the international economy, how to fill out a job application and how to win any argument with a man threw the use of word tampon. And it was funny too.

Phobia of the Day:

Euphobia - the fear of good news

An Actual Report of a Book – Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl

Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl By: Tonya Bolden
Non-Fiction: Biography 43 pages 4th grade reading level copyright 2005

This is a book on a free African American girl that was born in 1848 in New York City. It received the Coretta Scott King Award. And is written mainly about her life as a child using the unpublished memoir that she wrote shortly before her death. It was an interesting look at an amazing life; however, it was really much too short. But, this could be useful in getting a child that is not into reading to learn more about history as it is not only short but also has large pictures from that time or representive of that time on most pages.

Phobia of the Day:

Ergophobia - the fear of work

Sorry

We at Weird News BNI would like to apologize for the lack of entries the last few days. Our computer was messing up.

Phobia of the Day:

Ereuthrophobia - the fear of blushing

Phobia of the Day:

Epistemophobia - the fear of knowledge

Presidents on Politics – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.

From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?


I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

Do not needlessly endanger your lives until I give you the signal.

If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.

There are a number of things wrong with Washington. One of them is that everyone is too far from home.

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.

Phobia of the Day:

Ephebiphobia - the fear of teens

Phobia of the Day:

Eosophobia - the fear of daylight

Phobia of the Day:

Eleutherophobia - the fear of freedom

Presidents on Politics – John Quincy Adams

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

Where annual elections end where slavery begins.

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.

Phobia of the Day:

Eisoptrophobia - the fear of mirrors

Presidents on Politics – Jimmy Carter

The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.

Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.

I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A. I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts.

It is difficult for the common good to prevail against the intense concentration of those who have a special interest, especially if the decisions are made behind locked doors.

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

We must make it clear that a platform of 'I hate gay men and women' is not a way to become president of the United States.

Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.

You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.

My decision to register women confirms what is already obvious throughout our society-that women are now providing all types of skills in every profession. The military should be no exception.

I look forward to these confrontations with the press to kind of balance up the nice and pleasant things that come to me as president.

Phobia of the Day:

Ecophobia - the fear of home

Happy 4th of July

Presidents on Politics – John Adams

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman. (Written to his wife, Abigail Adams.)

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
The happiness of society is the end of government.

In politics the middle way is none at all.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Phobia of the Day:

Ecclesiophobia - the fear of church

Presidents on Politics

As everyone has jumped on the Presidential election bandwagons insanely early, we at Weird News B.N.I. have decided to join in by seeing what past Presidents have said on politics, government and America in general. As for some reason they tend to say a lot, we will be looking at one President at a time. Also it will be in the random order, missing people for no good reason, like you have come to expect on-line; as we wouldn’t want to disappoint you with accurate and complete information. Also that would just be too much work, and you don’t care what Chester A. Arthur has to say on anything.

Franklin on Fun

As Tomorrow is the 4th of July, we thought that we would see what Ben Franklin would say about our festivities.

~Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
~ Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.
~ Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.
~ Games lubricate the body and the mind.
~A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
~ In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.
~ The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

Phobia of the Day:

Dutchphobia - the fear of the Dutch

Phobia of the Day:

Dromophobia - the fear of crossing the road