Happy Birthday, Ted!

Today is Senator Ted Kennedy’s 77th birthday. Let’s wish “The Lion of the Senate” a very happy birthday!

Ted Kennedy was born February 22, 1932, and has been the Democratic US Senator from Massachusetts since November 7th, 1962.

From Wiki:

Since his presidential bid, Kennedy has become one of the most recognizable and influential members of the party, and is sometimes called a “Democratic icon”. In April 2006, Kennedy was selected by Time as one of “America’s 10 Best Senators”; the magazine noted that he had “amassed a titanic record of legislation affecting the lives of virtually every man, woman and child in the country” and that “by the late 1990s, the liberal icon had become such a prodigious cross-aisle dealer that Republican leaders began pressuring party colleagues not to sponsor bills with him”.

As of 2008, Kennedy is the second-longest serving current senator, trailing only Robert Byrd.

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22 thoughts on “Happy Birthday, Ted!

  1. Happy Birthday, Ted. And thank you for your service to our country, and for standing up for the people the Republicans would rather see eliminated from society (the poor, the homeless, the starving).

  2. Sean just pointed out to me that today is also George Washington’s birthday.. Guess I should also say happy birthday to George! (Just kidding..)
    We couldn’t figure out what he was talking about last night.. We are having a very late birthday party for him (beings everyone was going through the flu for his actual birthday), and he kept saying George was coming to his birthday party today. We couldn’t figure out who George was.. Well, he took me in and showed me on the calendar.

    I had to tell him “George” was dead – and wouldn’t be at the party.. He just said “…oh…”

  3. Senator Kennedy, we progressives are all so thankful you made this one, keep up the recovery and have a veritable shitload more!!

  4. Interesting Fun Fact about George Washington.

    Actually, when he was born, the date was Feb 11, 1732. But this was under the old Julian calendar. When the British colonies finally adopted the two-hundred-year-old Gregorian calendar in 1754, George “translated” his birthdate to match the new calendar, and thus it was changed to Feb 22, 1732.

    When Pope Gregory XIII made this change to the new calendar, it was because Easter wasn’t coming when it was supposed to on the Julian calendar.

    Ten days were omitted from the calendar to bring the calendar back in line with the solstices, and Pope Gregory XIII decreed that the day following Thursday, October 4, 1582 would be Friday, October 15, 1582 and from then on the reformed Gregorian calendar would be used.

    This caused much panic, because back then people really that it was literally true that God wrote your date of death in His Book of Life, so people believed that they were all suddenly ten days closer to death. As you can well imagine, much hilarity ensued. (Just kidding. Actually it took a while to calm people down, but they eventually got over it.)

  5. RUC… I was unaware you were in the Army. .

    Pleased though you are to be out of it I assume or hope you still found the experience of some use?

    And I for one would love to hear any anecdotes about Army life, if you have any.

  6. RUC,

    Mar 5 will mark the 21st anniversary of my getting out of the Air Force. Your Commander-in-Chief was Nixon when you got out, and mine was Reagan. Hmmm, I wonder if that means anything. Probably not. :)

  7. Wayne, that is interesting…..

    In two months it will be the 34th anniversary of getting out of Her Majesty’s Sea Cadets. Of course in the UK the C-in-C doesn’t change until death occurs.

  8. Found this interesting quote:

    “If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.” ~ John F. Kennedy, 1960

    And I’m sure Ted is, too! Thank you again, Ted, for all you’ve done, and all you will do for this great nation of ours.

  9. 5th, it was an interesting experience.
    I volunteered two weeks out of high school, spent a year in Germany and a year in Nam.

    The most important lesson I learned was that the real war was between the lower enlisted ranks and the rest who were trying to get us killed.

  10. Thanks Wayne! And yours as well! Lots of lessons learned.
    First time layed (by a German prostitute), first real good drunk (and lots more following), first AAA class bud (Ashau green).
    Ah, good times!

  11. I got to taste genuine German beer while I was stationed at Ramstein AB. Unfortunately, due to my history of alcoholism, I had to limit myself to drinking only while off base visiting my friend, who was in the Army stationed at Bremerhaven. That was goooood beer. :)

  12. A very Happy birthday wish for Senator Kennedy, hope he has many more….Special thank’s go out to all service person’s here and every where and Happy anniversary to all retired……Blessings and long life.

  13. Well, now, thanks, Schneider, Marilyn just got replaced by Carroll O’Connor. “Gee, the songs Glen Miller played…”

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