Friday, October 17, 2008

New Time Waster

I guess I have told you that I have a lot of time to kill at work and spend a lot of that time reading news sites in the net. Well, whether I told you or not, I do. I have now found a new time waster, net news quizzes.

UPDATE:
here
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20081015/sc_livescience/americansflunksimple3questionpoliticalsurvey
Is an article that says "Americans Flunk Simple 3-Question Political Survey"
The survey, conducted between April 30 and June 1 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, measured the political knowledge of 3,612 U.S. adults. Participants were asked to name the controlling party of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. secretary of state and Great Britain's prime minister.
Overall, just 18 percent of participants answered all three questions correctly.

Thanks to all the time I waste on reading the news online and watching the so called 'news' shows on TV, I got all these correct.

My favorite is the MSNBC quiz because I watch it sometimes and usually know the answers. It is here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4250964/
I made 80% last week and 70% this week.

This one
http://pewresearch.org/newsiq/
at the Pew Institute was fun. I made 83%. I liked this one cause it rated you with the national average like those tests the kids take in school...

The New York Times on was hard, I think because it was more international
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/quiz/

Reuters here
http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/newsquiz

And NPR here
http://www.npr.org/programs/waitwait/quiz/
I had the wrong link here, but I have fixed it. On this one there is only 1 question. You click on Previous Quiz to get another question, and it keeps track of all the questions.

Then there it the Sarah Palin IQ quiz here
http://75.125.110.195/us2/US1/?c=US&a=51
I got here from a search that said are you smarter than Sarah Palin, but on the page it does not say that. On this one you have to keep track of your answers and then hunt them out on the net because at the end it tells you to put in your phone number to find out your score. Don't give them your phone number. You can take the test again and again if you want. After I thought about it I changed a couple of my answers the second time I took it. The second time I think I got them all right, but I am not really sure of the Human / Feline answer. None of the answers seemed to fit exactly right, but only one seemed to be possible.

I think all these have the same quiz for a week, so if you don't like your score you can try again. I guess me and Helen both have a lot of time to waste casue she has tried all of these.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Our poor hero

Our hero, McCain, is really having a hard time with this down economy thing. Not our economy, but his campaign economy. The M has raised much less campaign money than The O, and has taken our tax dollars to help him out, which means his campaign spending is under stronger regulations than The O's. The Repubs may do well as the underdogs, but they just do not understand how to operate with less money.

The M's campaign has been posting videos on YouTube. You know, where all the teeny boppers hang out and post dead pig videos, kill the cat video's, and hang the baby out the window videos. I guess they thought it would be free publicity. Now they are going to get free publicity. Because YouTube has been taking down the big M's videos because they contain news footage that is under copyright and not permitted on their site. Why is YouTube doing this. Because the Repubs passed a couple of copyright laws in during their reign, one just in the last month, aimed at protecting the big music and movie companies. Now, YouTube is involved in a huge lawsuit that they are likely to loose because of these new regs. So, they have a computer program that prowls the postings on their site and automatically removes any using published material from movies or TV. Seems all of the M's videos fall into this group and have been taken down within hours of being posted. So much for free airtime.

Well, the M is a hero and is not going to go quietly. NO! his campaign has sent YouTube a letter asking for special rules for campaign videos to let his videos stay while YouTube hires staff to investigate and see if the videos fall under fair use. Oh, and by the by, don't worry about investigating all the Joe Six packs videos, Just take them down.

See here
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10066570-38.html
and here
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39745/118/
where it says the big M voted for the regs he is trying to circumvent.

For now, this is just going around in the online community, but I think it will hit the mainstream. See, they did not just write YouTube, they copied the big O.

Do you think the hero understands the common man's perspective in anything. There is nothing more common man than YouTube. Where anyone can post their news. But the M is not common, he is a hero and should have hero rules.

I predict that the big M will step in it tonight. He is not doing too well under pressure and the pressure is really on tonight.

Monday, October 13, 2008

A First



George's cousin, Kenneth Terherst, came over and cut hay off the pasture for Aunt Bobbie. This is the first time ever hay was cut on this land. This is on our side of the road, on the hill side between the pond and the road. George said he saw two deer at the far edge of this field again this morning.



This is not a first. I have been taking pictures of the horses even tho I have not posted many. I would go down to the fence and call them and they would come up, I am sure thinking they might get something to eat. Today they said fool me twice shame on me and would not come to the fence. They were busy eating.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Mothers of my Mother



Mama, about age 4 years...


Grandma, Irene Ilo Thomas Gaddy...



Myrtle Mae Kinzer Thomas, our great grandmother, on the left and her sister Cora on the right.



Phebe Ann Cox Kinzer, our great grandmother and her granddaugher Leona Thomas Gaddy, our Grandma Gaddy's sister.

I had found material that Phebe's Cox family were Quakers, Friends from Indiana and before that North Carolina. Her mother was Hannah Vickery, daughter of Sampson Vickery and Mary Gifford of Guliford Co. North Carolina. Mary Gifford was a daughter of Jonathan Nathan Gifford and Eunice Beard. This is as far as I had gotten until Betty got me to wondering where our mtDNA might take us.

Eunice Beard is a daugher of Richard Beard and Eunice Macy. Eunice Macy is a daughter of Jazeb Macy and Sarah Starbuck. Sarah Starbuck is a daugher of Jethro Starbuck and Dorcas Gayer. Dorcas was a daughter of William Gayer and Dorcas Starbuck. Dorcas Starbuck was a daughter of Edward Starbuck and Katherine Reynolds. All these ancestors were active Quakers, and before Eunice Beard came to North Caroline with her husband they all lived on Nantuck Island, MA.

Edward Starbuck and Katherine were some of the first settlers on Nantucket and Alexander Starbuck wrote a history of Nantucket as I found referenced here.
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=pjmpjm&id=I9196
Nantucket Genealogies. Excerpted from The History of Nantucket County, Island, and Town, Including Genealogies of First Settlers. Alexander Starbuck. Softcover, (1924), repr. 2003, New, Index, 199 pp.The island of Nantucket was settled in the 1640s by English Puritans who had grown discontented with the rule of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. This work consists of detailed genealogies of the majority of the First Purchasers of Nantucket (the original owners of the island, as they were called). It is excerpted from Alexander Starbuck's much longer History of Nantucket County, Island, and Town, constituting the final 200 pages of that opus. The volume begins with biographical sketches of the First Purchasers, in which the author explains to what extent each man figured in Nantucket's British beginnings and gives an account of that pioneer's immediate family and the circumstances of his death. The First Purchasers included: Thomas Macy, Benjamin Coffin, Tristram Coffin, Edward Starbuck, Richard Swain, William Bunker, John Swain, Thomas Barnard, Robert Barnard, Christopher Hussey, Thomas Mayhew, Peter Coffin, Stephen Greenleaf, William Pile, Robert Pike, Tristram Coffin, Jr., James Coffin, Thomas Coleman, Nathaniel Starbuck, Thomas Look, and John Smith. Not every one of the First Purchasers actually settled on Nantucket, though a majority did so. Even so, many of these founders were well acquainted with one another and, in a number of instances, were connected through intermarriage as well. These relationships are clearly established by Mr. Starbuck's genealogies of the following founders from their origins in England through four or five generations to the eve of the American Revolution and beyond: Barnard, Bunker, Coffin, Coleman, Folger, Hussey, Macy, Starbuck, Swain, and Worth.Repository:
Name: New England Historic Genealogical SocietyBoston, MA 02116U. S. A.

There is a short Starbuck history here
http://www.billputman.com/Starbuck.pdf

You can search for Edward Starbuck and Thomas Macy and find much reading about our Mama's family including Google Books.

Now, I think maybe Patsy and Betty are related to John McCain. You know he is always referring to 'My Friends'...