Where do we go to review Yelp itself?
I was not aware you could post a review of Yelp on the Yelp.com website. You can. In case you feel the need to do so, go to www.yelp.com/biz/yelp-san-francisco which is the place to rate the company itself.
Interestingly enough, Yelp's reviewers give it a rating of only 2.5 out of 5 stars, and over the last 30 days, ratings are going down. The Federal Trade Commission has received hundreds of complaints over the past several years. This past January, there was an article detailing some of what Yelp does. https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2013/jan/23/businesses-yelp-thug-of-the-internet/
So I read through a few dozen of the reviews about Yelp itself that their "automated filter" filtered out. Here is a sampling of what I found:
It has been 2.5 YEARS and my business now has 12 reviews. Eleven 11 5-STAR and One 1-STAR. All eleven of the 5-STAR reviews have been filtered and only the 1-STAR shows up. The filter doesn't work, don't rely on this site. I can get no satisfaction from the owner of Yelp. They simply don't care what they do to businesses. I will also add that the ONLY review I don't recognize is the 1-STAR, the rest are legit clients.
Your participation in ALEC is distressing. I will not look to yelp for further reviews unless I read that you have left this organization. (Note: There are a lot of these negative reviews mentioning ALEC )
Yelp is a company that uses extortion for business purposes. They filter out the good ones unless you pay them money, effecting small businesses. As a consumer I have stopped using Yelp as a legitimate site for reviews and have ask my friends and family to do the same.
it is unbelievably so un-American!
This one is from the list of reviews that weren't filtered. It is very representative of the most common complaint about Yelp:
Flat out extortion. I got many calls from Yelp asking us to pay them. When I refused their service, all the good reviews I had magically disappeared.
These people are frauds.
What many people are claiming is that they get a bad review and Yelp's salesperson promises to get it removed if they'll spend between $3,000 and $4,000 annually on advertising with Yelp. That's not a business model, that is extortion, as that last reviewer says it is.
Personally I've had eight clients post Yelp reviews of my service. Seven at my primary location and one at another office. Five of those ratings were 5 out of 5 stars, but were from "Yelpers" with only 1 or 2 reviews. They were filtered. One rating of 5 and one rating of 4 were not filtered (and the author of the rating of 4 said I'd have been rated a 5 if it had been just a rating of me and not the location), and the one rating of 1 at the other location was also not filtered.
Now how is it that an algorithm can take a rating of 1, from a reviewer with only two reviews and not filter it, when they take ratings of 5 from reviewers with the same number of ratings and automatically filter those? The answer that springs to my mind supports the notion that people are advancing about Yelp leveraging those negative reviews to get businesses to pay them for advertising. "Pay us and the negatives go away" works a lot better when there are negatives. "Pay us and the positives get unfiltered" also works better in that instance.
Wonder how long before all of my reviews, both good and bad, are filtered by Yelp for my daring to speak out?
Now I'm sure some of you are wondering, what in the world is ALEC? It is the American Legislative Exchange Council. Its website has this statement in the page on its history:
More than 30 years ago, a small group of state legislators and conservative policy advocates met in Chicago to implement a vision: A nonpartisan membership association for conservative state lawmakers who shared a common belief in limited government, free markets, federalism, and individual liberty. Their vision and initiative resulted in the creation of a voluntary membership association for people who believed that government closest to the people was fundamentally more effective, more just, and a better guarantor of freedom than the distant, bloated federal government in Washington, D.C.
At least they don't hide their conservative roots or membership. Their board of directors and list of state chairmen is almost exclusively Republican, and most of those would be accurately labeled as "conservatives".
Their agenda, according to more than one source, includes suppression of voting rights, eroding women's rights, rolling back environmental protections, the Castle Doctrine, Stand Your Ground laws and more. There is no big money trail here, as their financials show that their revenues for 2011 were under $10 million. While they don't publish a donor list, one can imagine where their funding comes from.
Now I'm actually in favor of the Castle Doctrine. Inside your home, your right to defend yourself is inviolate. Stand Your Ground is another issue for another blog. I'm coming around to the view that the new laws about voter identification are more of an attempt at disenfranchisement rather than the laudable goal of suppressing what voting fraud is actually going on.
But I'm not advocating you do anything with this information other than make your own informed choice regarding the use of Yelp. If you don't object to how they spend their money, feel free to keep using their service. If you want alternatives, try Citysearch or Foursquare.
* * *
I'm home all day today, resting and preparing for the next couple of days. I am helping another instructor begin his class tomorrow and then working. I have a client coming in who can't get there before my usual workday is done, so I'll be working late. Then my own class begins on Tuesday evening and I'll have spent 3 or more hours at the VA that morning.
I suspect my view next week will be "Thank God It's Wednesday".
* * *
Random ponderings:
Why is it that I somehow manage to keep kicking hard things when I'm not wearing shoes? I did it again today and it is really beginning to be annoying. At least this time it wasn't the big toe.
If it is true that the producers and director of the upcoming "Man of Steel" sequel were considering Josh Brolin as Batman, he would have been a better choice than Ben Affleck.
Is it somewhat silly of Sony to have rereleased "This Is The End" in theaters this weekend in order to get its domestic gross over the magical $100 million mark (maybe)?
I had no clue that Subway's fastest growing competitors were companies named "Jimmy John's", "Potbelly Sandwich Shop" and "Firehouse Subs". I'd have thought it was Jersey Mikes, which opened a location near here recently.
The most surprising thing I found in an article about the upcoming film "The Dallas Buyers Club" isn't that Jared Leto looked convincing in drag, or that the pink robe Matthew McConaughey wears in one scene actually belongs to his wife. The surprising thing to me was McConaughey using the word "lagniappe" in a response to a question.
There's a divorce going on in Connecticut that's still going on 10 years after the initial filing and it shows no sign of ending anytime soon. Now that's acrimony.
A NBA fan has come up with an idea to stop players from "flopping" when they are on the defensive end of the court. If a referee believes that the player has flopped, he or she cannot call a charging foul. So rather than rewarding the player's acting and stopping play, play continues. I like it.
* * *
This Date In History:
70 – Roman forces under Titus sack Jerusalem.
617 – Battle of Huoyi: Li Yuan defeats a Sui Dynasty army, opening the path to his capture of the imperial capital Chang'an and the eventual establishment of the Tang Dynasty.
1264 – The Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving battei din jurisdiction over Jewish matters, is promulgated by Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland.
1331 – Stephen Uroš IV Dušan declares himself king of Serbia
1380 – Battle of Kulikovo – Russian forces defeat a mixed army of Tatars and Mongols, stopping their advance.
1504 – Michelangelo's David is unveiled in Florence.
1514 – Battle of Orsha – in one of the biggest battles of the century, Lithuanians and Poles defeat the Russian army.
1551 – The foundation day in Vitória, Brazil
1565 – The Knights of Malta lift the Turkish siege of Malta that began on May 18.
1655 – Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge, making it the first time the city is captured by a foreign army.
1727 – A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell in Cambridgeshire, England kills 78 people, many of whom are children.
1755 – French and Indian War: Battle of Lake George.
1756 – French and Indian War: Kittanning Expedition.
1761 – Marriage of King George III of the United Kingdom to Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
1781 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina, the war's last significant battle in the Southern theater, ends in a narrow British tactical victory.
1793 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Hondschoote.
1796 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Bassano – French forces defeat Austrian troops at Bassano del Grappa.
1810 – The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrives at the mouth of the Columbia River and Astor's men establish the fur-trading town of Astoria, Oregon.
1831 – William IV and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1860 – The Steamship Lady Elgin sinks on Lake Michigan, with the loss of around 300 lives.
1863 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Sabine Pass – on the Texas-Louisiana border at the mouth of the Sabine River, a small Confederate force thwarts a Union invasion of Texas.
1883 – The Northern Pacific Railway (reporting mark NP) was completed in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana. Former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in an event attended by rail and political luminaries.
1888 – In Spain, the first travel of Isaac Peral submarine, was the first practical submarine ever made.
1888 – In London, the body of Jack the Ripper's second murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found.
1888 – In England the first six Football League matches are played.
1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited.
1900 – Galveston Hurricane of 1900: a powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people.
1914 – World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the war.
1921 – 16-year-old Margaret Gorman wins the Atlantic City Pageant's Golden Mermaid trophy; pageant officials later dubbed her the first Miss America.
1923 – Honda Point Disaster: nine US Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast. Seven are lost, and twenty-three sailors killed.
1926 – Germany is admitted to the League of Nations.
1930 – 3M begins marketing Scotch transparent tape.
1934 – Off the New Jersey coast, a fire aboard the passenger liner SS Morro Castle kills 135 people.
1935 – US Senator from Louisiana, Huey Long, nicknamed "Kingfish", is fatally shot in the Louisiana State Capitol building.
1941 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins. German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad.
1943 – World War II: The O.B.S. (German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone) in Frascati is bombed by USAAF.
1943 – World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy.
1944 – World War II: London is hit by a V-2 rocket for the first time.
1944 – World War II: Menton is liberated from Germany.
1945 – Cold War: United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier.
1951 – Treaty of San Francisco: In San Francisco, California, 48 nations sign a peace treaty with Japan in formal recognition of the end of the Pacific War.
1954 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) is established.
1959 – The Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) is established.
1960 – In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1).
1962 – Newly independent Algeria, by referendum, adopts a constitution.
1962 – Last run of the famous Pines Express over the Somerset and Dorset Railway line (UK) fittingly using the last steam locomotive built by British Railways, 9F locomotive 92220 Evening Star.
1965 – Pakistan Navy raids Indian coasts without any resistance in Operation Dwarka, Pakistan celebrates Victory Day annually.
1966 – The Severn Bridge is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.
1966 – The first Star Trek series premieres on NBC.
1967 – The formal end of steam traction in the North East of England by British Railways.
1971 – In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated, with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
1974 – Watergate Scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.
1975 – Gays in the military: US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "I Am A Homosexual". He is given a general discharge, which was later upgraded to honorable.
1988 – Yellowstone National Park is closed for the first time in U.S. history due to ongoing fires.
1991 – The Republic of Macedonia becomes independent.
Famous Folk Born On This Date:
Richard I of England
Sancho II of Portugal
Tanikaze Kajinosuke, 4th Yokuzuna (first to receive the honor while still living)
Antonin Dvorak
Charles Giteau
Claude Pepper
Sid Caesar
Lyndon LaRouche
Jean-Paul Cloutier
Nguyen Cao Ky
Patsy Cline
Bernie Sanders
Rogie Vachon (still my favorite former Kings goalie)
L. C. Greenwood
Great Kabuki
Anne Diamond
Mick Brown
Heather Thomas (Samohi alum)
David Steele
Brad Silbering
David Arquette
Phil Laak (wonder if he'll try to break the record for longest poker playing at a stretch, a record he once held but which was broken last year)
Pink
Jonathan Taylor Thomas
Wiz Khalifa
Chantal Jones
Movie quotes today come from "Animal House" because there weren't any good quotes from any movie that Heather Thomas was in:
Otter: Let me give you a hint. She's got a couple of major-league yabbos.
Boon: Beverly!
Otter: No. But you're getting warmer. Here's another: "Oh God, Oh God, OH GOD!"
Boon: Marlene! Don't tell me you're gonna pork Marlene Desmond!
Otter: Pork?
Boon: You're gonna hump her brains out, aren't you?
Otter: Boon, I anticipate a deeply religious experience.
#2
Dean Vernon Wormer: Greg, what is the worst fraternity on this campus?
Greg Marmalard: Well that would be hard to say, sir. They're each outstanding in their own way.
Dean Vernon Wormer: Cut the horseshit, son. I've got their disciplinary files right here. Who dropped a whole truckload of fizzies into the varsity swim meet? Who delivered the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner? Every Halloween, the trees are filled with underwear. Every spring, the toilets explode.
Greg Marmalard: You're talking about Delta, sir.
Dean Vernon Wormer: Of course I'm talking about Delta, you TWERP!
#3
[the Deltas have been expelled]
Bluto: Christ. Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the fucking Peace Corps.
#4
Otter: Point of parliamentary procedure!
Hoover: Don't screw around, they're serious this time!
Otter: Take it easy, I'm pre-law.
Boon: I thought you were pre-med.
Otter: What's the difference?
[Addressing the room]
Otter: Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests - we did.
[winks at Dean Wormer]
Otter: But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!
[Leads the Deltas out of the hearing, all humming the Star-Spangled Banner]
Finally, since many of you know I love parody songs, I'm going to start adding one from time to time. Maybe daily, maybe not. Here is today's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJjMnHoIBI
Interestingly enough, Yelp's reviewers give it a rating of only 2.5 out of 5 stars, and over the last 30 days, ratings are going down. The Federal Trade Commission has received hundreds of complaints over the past several years. This past January, there was an article detailing some of what Yelp does. https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2013/jan/23/businesses-yelp-thug-of-the-internet/
So I read through a few dozen of the reviews about Yelp itself that their "automated filter" filtered out. Here is a sampling of what I found:
It has been 2.5 YEARS and my business now has 12 reviews. Eleven 11 5-STAR and One 1-STAR. All eleven of the 5-STAR reviews have been filtered and only the 1-STAR shows up. The filter doesn't work, don't rely on this site. I can get no satisfaction from the owner of Yelp. They simply don't care what they do to businesses. I will also add that the ONLY review I don't recognize is the 1-STAR, the rest are legit clients.
Your participation in ALEC is distressing. I will not look to yelp for further reviews unless I read that you have left this organization. (Note: There are a lot of these negative reviews mentioning ALEC )
Yelp is a company that uses extortion for business purposes. They filter out the good ones unless you pay them money, effecting small businesses. As a consumer I have stopped using Yelp as a legitimate site for reviews and have ask my friends and family to do the same.
it is unbelievably so un-American!
This one is from the list of reviews that weren't filtered. It is very representative of the most common complaint about Yelp:
Flat out extortion. I got many calls from Yelp asking us to pay them. When I refused their service, all the good reviews I had magically disappeared.
These people are frauds.
What many people are claiming is that they get a bad review and Yelp's salesperson promises to get it removed if they'll spend between $3,000 and $4,000 annually on advertising with Yelp. That's not a business model, that is extortion, as that last reviewer says it is.
Personally I've had eight clients post Yelp reviews of my service. Seven at my primary location and one at another office. Five of those ratings were 5 out of 5 stars, but were from "Yelpers" with only 1 or 2 reviews. They were filtered. One rating of 5 and one rating of 4 were not filtered (and the author of the rating of 4 said I'd have been rated a 5 if it had been just a rating of me and not the location), and the one rating of 1 at the other location was also not filtered.
Now how is it that an algorithm can take a rating of 1, from a reviewer with only two reviews and not filter it, when they take ratings of 5 from reviewers with the same number of ratings and automatically filter those? The answer that springs to my mind supports the notion that people are advancing about Yelp leveraging those negative reviews to get businesses to pay them for advertising. "Pay us and the negatives go away" works a lot better when there are negatives. "Pay us and the positives get unfiltered" also works better in that instance.
Wonder how long before all of my reviews, both good and bad, are filtered by Yelp for my daring to speak out?
Now I'm sure some of you are wondering, what in the world is ALEC? It is the American Legislative Exchange Council. Its website has this statement in the page on its history:
More than 30 years ago, a small group of state legislators and conservative policy advocates met in Chicago to implement a vision: A nonpartisan membership association for conservative state lawmakers who shared a common belief in limited government, free markets, federalism, and individual liberty. Their vision and initiative resulted in the creation of a voluntary membership association for people who believed that government closest to the people was fundamentally more effective, more just, and a better guarantor of freedom than the distant, bloated federal government in Washington, D.C.
At least they don't hide their conservative roots or membership. Their board of directors and list of state chairmen is almost exclusively Republican, and most of those would be accurately labeled as "conservatives".
Their agenda, according to more than one source, includes suppression of voting rights, eroding women's rights, rolling back environmental protections, the Castle Doctrine, Stand Your Ground laws and more. There is no big money trail here, as their financials show that their revenues for 2011 were under $10 million. While they don't publish a donor list, one can imagine where their funding comes from.
Now I'm actually in favor of the Castle Doctrine. Inside your home, your right to defend yourself is inviolate. Stand Your Ground is another issue for another blog. I'm coming around to the view that the new laws about voter identification are more of an attempt at disenfranchisement rather than the laudable goal of suppressing what voting fraud is actually going on.
But I'm not advocating you do anything with this information other than make your own informed choice regarding the use of Yelp. If you don't object to how they spend their money, feel free to keep using their service. If you want alternatives, try Citysearch or Foursquare.
* * *
I'm home all day today, resting and preparing for the next couple of days. I am helping another instructor begin his class tomorrow and then working. I have a client coming in who can't get there before my usual workday is done, so I'll be working late. Then my own class begins on Tuesday evening and I'll have spent 3 or more hours at the VA that morning.
I suspect my view next week will be "Thank God It's Wednesday".
* * *
Random ponderings:
Why is it that I somehow manage to keep kicking hard things when I'm not wearing shoes? I did it again today and it is really beginning to be annoying. At least this time it wasn't the big toe.
If it is true that the producers and director of the upcoming "Man of Steel" sequel were considering Josh Brolin as Batman, he would have been a better choice than Ben Affleck.
Is it somewhat silly of Sony to have rereleased "This Is The End" in theaters this weekend in order to get its domestic gross over the magical $100 million mark (maybe)?
I had no clue that Subway's fastest growing competitors were companies named "Jimmy John's", "Potbelly Sandwich Shop" and "Firehouse Subs". I'd have thought it was Jersey Mikes, which opened a location near here recently.
The most surprising thing I found in an article about the upcoming film "The Dallas Buyers Club" isn't that Jared Leto looked convincing in drag, or that the pink robe Matthew McConaughey wears in one scene actually belongs to his wife. The surprising thing to me was McConaughey using the word "lagniappe" in a response to a question.
There's a divorce going on in Connecticut that's still going on 10 years after the initial filing and it shows no sign of ending anytime soon. Now that's acrimony.
A NBA fan has come up with an idea to stop players from "flopping" when they are on the defensive end of the court. If a referee believes that the player has flopped, he or she cannot call a charging foul. So rather than rewarding the player's acting and stopping play, play continues. I like it.
* * *
This Date In History:
70 – Roman forces under Titus sack Jerusalem.
617 – Battle of Huoyi: Li Yuan defeats a Sui Dynasty army, opening the path to his capture of the imperial capital Chang'an and the eventual establishment of the Tang Dynasty.
1264 – The Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving battei din jurisdiction over Jewish matters, is promulgated by Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland.
1331 – Stephen Uroš IV Dušan declares himself king of Serbia
1380 – Battle of Kulikovo – Russian forces defeat a mixed army of Tatars and Mongols, stopping their advance.
1504 – Michelangelo's David is unveiled in Florence.
1514 – Battle of Orsha – in one of the biggest battles of the century, Lithuanians and Poles defeat the Russian army.
1551 – The foundation day in Vitória, Brazil
1565 – The Knights of Malta lift the Turkish siege of Malta that began on May 18.
1655 – Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge, making it the first time the city is captured by a foreign army.
1727 – A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell in Cambridgeshire, England kills 78 people, many of whom are children.
1755 – French and Indian War: Battle of Lake George.
1756 – French and Indian War: Kittanning Expedition.
1761 – Marriage of King George III of the United Kingdom to Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
1781 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina, the war's last significant battle in the Southern theater, ends in a narrow British tactical victory.
1793 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Hondschoote.
1796 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Bassano – French forces defeat Austrian troops at Bassano del Grappa.
1810 – The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrives at the mouth of the Columbia River and Astor's men establish the fur-trading town of Astoria, Oregon.
1831 – William IV and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1860 – The Steamship Lady Elgin sinks on Lake Michigan, with the loss of around 300 lives.
1863 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Sabine Pass – on the Texas-Louisiana border at the mouth of the Sabine River, a small Confederate force thwarts a Union invasion of Texas.
1883 – The Northern Pacific Railway (reporting mark NP) was completed in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana. Former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in an event attended by rail and political luminaries.
1888 – In Spain, the first travel of Isaac Peral submarine, was the first practical submarine ever made.
1888 – In London, the body of Jack the Ripper's second murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found.
1888 – In England the first six Football League matches are played.
1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited.
1900 – Galveston Hurricane of 1900: a powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people.
1914 – World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the war.
1921 – 16-year-old Margaret Gorman wins the Atlantic City Pageant's Golden Mermaid trophy; pageant officials later dubbed her the first Miss America.
1923 – Honda Point Disaster: nine US Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast. Seven are lost, and twenty-three sailors killed.
1926 – Germany is admitted to the League of Nations.
1930 – 3M begins marketing Scotch transparent tape.
1934 – Off the New Jersey coast, a fire aboard the passenger liner SS Morro Castle kills 135 people.
1935 – US Senator from Louisiana, Huey Long, nicknamed "Kingfish", is fatally shot in the Louisiana State Capitol building.
1941 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins. German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union's second-largest city, Leningrad.
1943 – World War II: The O.B.S. (German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone) in Frascati is bombed by USAAF.
1943 – World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy.
1944 – World War II: London is hit by a V-2 rocket for the first time.
1944 – World War II: Menton is liberated from Germany.
1945 – Cold War: United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier.
1951 – Treaty of San Francisco: In San Francisco, California, 48 nations sign a peace treaty with Japan in formal recognition of the end of the Pacific War.
1954 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) is established.
1959 – The Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) is established.
1960 – In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1).
1962 – Newly independent Algeria, by referendum, adopts a constitution.
1962 – Last run of the famous Pines Express over the Somerset and Dorset Railway line (UK) fittingly using the last steam locomotive built by British Railways, 9F locomotive 92220 Evening Star.
1965 – Pakistan Navy raids Indian coasts without any resistance in Operation Dwarka, Pakistan celebrates Victory Day annually.
1966 – The Severn Bridge is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.
1966 – The first Star Trek series premieres on NBC.
1967 – The formal end of steam traction in the North East of England by British Railways.
1971 – In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated, with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
1974 – Watergate Scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.
1975 – Gays in the military: US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "I Am A Homosexual". He is given a general discharge, which was later upgraded to honorable.
1988 – Yellowstone National Park is closed for the first time in U.S. history due to ongoing fires.
1991 – The Republic of Macedonia becomes independent.
Famous Folk Born On This Date:
Richard I of England
Sancho II of Portugal
Tanikaze Kajinosuke, 4th Yokuzuna (first to receive the honor while still living)
Antonin Dvorak
Charles Giteau
Claude Pepper
Sid Caesar
Lyndon LaRouche
Jean-Paul Cloutier
Nguyen Cao Ky
Patsy Cline
Bernie Sanders
Rogie Vachon (still my favorite former Kings goalie)
L. C. Greenwood
Great Kabuki
Anne Diamond
Mick Brown
Heather Thomas (Samohi alum)
David Steele
Brad Silbering
David Arquette
Phil Laak (wonder if he'll try to break the record for longest poker playing at a stretch, a record he once held but which was broken last year)
Pink
Jonathan Taylor Thomas
Wiz Khalifa
Chantal Jones
Movie quotes today come from "Animal House" because there weren't any good quotes from any movie that Heather Thomas was in:
Otter: Let me give you a hint. She's got a couple of major-league yabbos.
Boon: Beverly!
Otter: No. But you're getting warmer. Here's another: "Oh God, Oh God, OH GOD!"
Boon: Marlene! Don't tell me you're gonna pork Marlene Desmond!
Otter: Pork?
Boon: You're gonna hump her brains out, aren't you?
Otter: Boon, I anticipate a deeply religious experience.
#2
Dean Vernon Wormer: Greg, what is the worst fraternity on this campus?
Greg Marmalard: Well that would be hard to say, sir. They're each outstanding in their own way.
Dean Vernon Wormer: Cut the horseshit, son. I've got their disciplinary files right here. Who dropped a whole truckload of fizzies into the varsity swim meet? Who delivered the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner? Every Halloween, the trees are filled with underwear. Every spring, the toilets explode.
Greg Marmalard: You're talking about Delta, sir.
Dean Vernon Wormer: Of course I'm talking about Delta, you TWERP!
#3
[the Deltas have been expelled]
Bluto: Christ. Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the fucking Peace Corps.
#4
Otter: Point of parliamentary procedure!
Hoover: Don't screw around, they're serious this time!
Otter: Take it easy, I'm pre-law.
Boon: I thought you were pre-med.
Otter: What's the difference?
[Addressing the room]
Otter: Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests - we did.
[winks at Dean Wormer]
Otter: But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!
[Leads the Deltas out of the hearing, all humming the Star-Spangled Banner]
Finally, since many of you know I love parody songs, I'm going to start adding one from time to time. Maybe daily, maybe not. Here is today's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJjMnHoIBI
posted by me at 5:01 PM
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