Welcome back to another installment of the Watercooler, RedState’s daily Open Thread! Today, we’ve got…

New Year’s Resolutions?

Here we are a little over a week into the New Year, so I just thought it might be an appropriate time to invite a discussion about our New Years Resolutions, what we made and how we’re doing keeping ’em. (Mine was simple: I resolve not to MAKE any NY Resolutions… so I only have to fight with it one day out of the year.)

Weird News

• Don’t Mess With Granny: Mississippi woman bags deer shortly before 100th birthday.
• Don’t Underestimate Grandpa Either: Octogenarian bank-robber busted in Switzerland.
• Scientist studies whale. Whale responds by protecting her from nearby shark.
• Postal Service: “Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dead of night… OMGWTF?!Turkeys?!RUUUUN!”
• Hong Kong-bound UAL flight diverted to Anchorage… cause is a real Party Pooper.
• Snow versus Shoplifter? Yup… and Snow wins.

This Week In History

• Sunday, 1/7: First Presidential election, 1789; first trans-Atlantic phone service, 1927; H-bomb development announced, 1953
• Monday, 1/8: Battle of New Orleans, 1815; National Debt is zero for only time, 1835; Crazy Horse’s final defeat, 1877
• Tuesday, 1/9: Paine’s Common Sense published, 1776; merchant Star of the West fired on attempting to supply Ft. Sumter, 1861; 007/Aston Martin relationship established in Goldfinger, 1965
• Wednesday, 1/10: First steamboat reaches New Orleans, 1812; birth of Texas oil industry at Spindletop, 1901; NASA announces Saturn V rocket plans, 1962
• Thursday, 1/11: Michigan Territory created, 1805; CSS Alabama sinks USS Hatteras off Galveston, 1863; Grand Canyon Nat’l Monument created, 1908; first networked TV broadcast, 1949
• Friday, 1/12: House rejects women’s suffrage, 1915; Landis elected first MLB Commissioner, 1921; Con(gress)man Nelson plays space-cadet aboard shuttle Columbia, 1986
• Saturday, 1/13: Fall of Ft. Peter, Georgia, 1815; Great Fire of New Orleans, 1830; Johnny Cash’s Folsom concert, 1968

Today’s Birthdays: Outlaw Frank James, 1843; actor Ray Bolger, 1904; wearable pacemaker inventor Earl Bakken, 1924; activist David Horowitz, 1939; boxer George Foreman, 1949.

Holidays Around the World: It’s Fete de Vodoun in Benin and Majority Rule Day in the Bahamas.

This Week In History is compiled with assistance from History.com and Wikipedia. Something interesting not listed here? Please share in the Comments section–this is an Audience Participation Encouraged featurette.

Gratuitous Gun Giveaways

• *American Handgunner magazine, for a Les Baer Premier II longslide 1911 or SCCY CPX-3 .380 pistol package: http://americanhandgunner.com/giveaway/
• *Guns Magazine, for a Ruger Mk IV scoped .22 target pistol, Devil Dog Arms RIS-15 AR-pattern rifle or Auto-Ordnance 1911BKOW WWII-style .45 pistol package: http://gunsmagazine.com/giveaway/
• Davidson’s Gallery of Guns, for one of two SCCY CPX-2 subcompact 9mm pistols: https://ggg.galleryofguns.com/
• Aero Precision, for a custom AR15: http://gvwy.io/kcq7rcw
• GrabAGun, for a Springfield TRP Operator 10mm 1911 pistol: http://grabagun.com/giveaway
• Springfield Armory, for another TRP Operator 10mm 1911: http://www.springfield-armory.com/resources/giveaways/

*Note: FMG Publishing giveaways require you to provide an FFL dealer’s info at entry. Aero Precision and Primary Arms giveaways give me one entry each per person who uses my referral link.

Quote of the Day

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds.–Miguel de Cervantes

As always, the Watercooler is an Open Thread. And as so eloquently coined by ntrepid, “Thanks for the click! Your effort helps fund future posts of this nature.”

“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”–Voltaire

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