Happy Chinese New Years Day

It's the Year of the Rabbit.

(Please be aware I will be celebrating Chinese New Year by recklessly shooting firecrackers in public locations for the next two weeks.)

It's the year of the Rabbit. A placid year, very much welcomed and needed after the ferocious year of the Tiger. People born in the Year of the Rabbit are articulate, talented, and ambitious. They are virtuous, reserved, and have excellent taste. Rabbit people are admired, trusted, and are often financially lucky. They are fond of gossip but are tactful and generally kind. Rabbit people seldom lose their temper. They are clever at business and being conscientious, never back out of a contract. They would make good gamblers for they have the uncanny gift of choosing the right thing. However, they seldom gamble, as they are conservative and wise. They are most compatible with those born in the years of the Sheep, Pig, and Dog.

Kung Hei Fat Choi

The first day of the New Year is for the welcoming of the deities of the heavens and earth. Many people, especially Buddhists, abstain from meat consumption on the first day because it is believed that this will ensure longevity for them. Some consider lighting fires and using knives to be bad luck on New Year's Day, so all food to be consumed is cooked the day before. Also, the first day of Chinese New Year is a time when families visit the oldest and most senior members of their extended family, usually their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents.


Presented without comment - Bill O'Reilly's moment of existentialism



Hello God, it's me Bill



Bill, Louis didn't answer your question but he has explained how we, the pinheads feel.


February 3, 1944 -
Another film Orson Welles has his fingerprints all over, Jane Eyre, was released on this date.



Orson Welles did enough work behind the scenes that the production company offered him a producer credit, which he turned down. Welles's official reason for this is a belief that a person who is not directing the film shouldn't be "just" a producer. Look for Elizabeth Taylor in an uncredited role in the film.


February 3, 1951 -
Another great Sylvester cartoon, Canned Feud, premiered on this date.



They forgot to put out the cat! Ha, ha, ha! The cat? 'I'm' the cat!


February 3, 1956 -
It's Nathan Lane's birthday







Pound for pound, one of the funniest guest on a talk show.


February 3, 1945 -
Walt Disney's The Three Caballeros, premiered in the US, on the date.



The film was produced as part of the studio's contribution to the Good Neighbor policy towards South America


Today in History: February 3, 1468 -
About 600 years ago a child was born in the city of Mainz, in what is today Germany. His name was Johannes Gutenberg. He worked as a goldsmith and gem cutter until finally converting a wine press into a printing press.



He printed 200 copies of the Bible and gradually went broke. He died on this date.

Lesser known to history is the name of Edgar Weasle-Puck, the Englishman who developed a printing press at around the same time as Gutenberg. Instead of printing Bibles, however, Weasle-Puck ran off 500 copies of Lewde & Graffical Engravingf of Perfonf Not Wearing Any Clothef. He made a small fortune, changed his name, purchased an Earldom, and moved to southern France, where he spent the rest of his days eagerly awaiting the invention of the lower-case "s."


February 3, 1882 -
P.T. Barnum purchases the elephant Jumbo on this date. He keeps him for three years until the animal's skull is crushed by a train.

After his death, Jumbo's skeleton was donated to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The elephant's heart was sold to Cornell University. Jumbo's hide was stuffed by William J. Critchley and Carl Akeley, both of Ward's Natural Science, and the mounted specimen traveled with Barnum's circus for a number of years.

In 1889, Barnum donated the stuffed Jumbo to Tufts University, where it was displayed until destroyed by a fire in 1975, coincidentally a fate that befell many of Barnum's exhibits during his own lifetime. The great elephant's ashes are kept in a 14-ounce Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter jar in the office of the Tufts athletic director.

I could not make this up if I wanted to do so.


February 3, 1913 -
In one of the blackest days in U.S. history, the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. This amendment created the income tax.

Although, most teabagger would like to thinks this is a fairy tale.


The United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany on February 3, 1917. The Germans were very upset by this and tried to make America jealous by flirting with Mexico. Britain overheard Germany's sweet talk and told America everything she'd heard. Unfortunately for Germany, however, it didn't make America jealous. It made America angry. A few months later the United States declared war on Germany.

(Less than two years later, World War I ended with Germany's defeat. This made Germany upset again, and they spent the next two decades planning how they'd get even. Eventually this led to World War II, which also ended with Germany's defeat. Germany remains upset to this day, but, having been deprived of an army, poses no serious threat to anyone but France.)


February 3, 1927 -
Kenneth Anger, American underground avant-garde film-maker, author of the book Hollywood Babylon,







and professional Dan Rather impersonator, was spawned on this date.


February 3, 1959 -
The Day the Music Died: A small plane carrying The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), Buddy Holly, and Richie Valens crashes near Mason City, Iowa, while en route to a show in Fargo, North Dakota. Richardson had developed a case of the flu during the tour (erroneously thought to have been caused by riding on the unheated bus) and asked one of Holly's bandmates, Waylon Jennings, for his seat on the plane; Jennings agreed to give up the seat. According to an account by Jennings years later, when Holly heard about this, his reply to Jennings was, "Well, I hope your ole bus freezes up!" to which Jennings replied, "Well, I hope your damn plane crashes!" This exchange of words, though made in jest at the time, haunted Jennings for many years afterward.



Dion DiMucci of Dion & The Belmonts, who was the fourth headliner on the tour, was approached to join the flight as well; however, the price of $36 was too much. Dion had heard his parents argue for years over the $36 rent for their apartment and could not bring himself to pay an entire month's rent for a short plane ride.



And yet Pat Boone still lives.


February 3, 1971 -
New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption.



Many believe the incident proves that NYPD officers tried to kill him.



And so it goes