Shiver me timbers.

[mattd]

Today's Birthdays
English physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, considered one of the 
most important scientists of all time, was born on this day in 1642.
Newtons Sleep by Ursula K Le Guin
On a future Earth of environmental devastation and political instability, 
rapidly mutating viruses have caused billions of deaths, and the future of 
the human race is in jeopardy. When a select group of pragmatists take 
residence in an orbiting habitat, the occupants begin to see visions of the 
unfortunates they left behind, and some fear that the environmental 
deprivation has bridged the gap between reality and hallucination. 1991
1907 -- Activist journalist I. F. "Izzy" Stone, US
journalist, lives to tell it like it is, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
Washington editor of "The Nation" magazine &
founder of the legendary "I. F. Stone's Weekly",
Stone specialized in publishing
information ignored by the corporate media
1913 -- "The Italian Hall Disaster." In Calumet,
Michigan, striking copper miners & their children are
having a Christmas celebration; strike-breakers outside
bar the doors then raise a false fire alarm.
In the ensuing stampede, 73 (roughly half are children)
are crushed or suffocated.
http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/BalladIndex.html
http://members.xoom.com/elstongunn/1913.html
1914 -- Wilderness advocate John Muir dies, Los
Angeles, California.
2001-dec 30.Tim May savaged to death
by own security dogs.
Buried at sea.no flowers.