An Unlikely Ally for Eliminating the Penny?

[shinnosuke]

If you don't care to read about the weather, just jump to the end of the article (in red).

AP/ August 25, 2013, 3:51 PM
"Farmers' Almanac" predicts a "bitterly cold" winter

LEWISTON, MaineThe Farmers' Almanac is using words like "piercing cold," "bitterly cold" and "biting cold" to describe the upcoming winter. And if its predictions are right, the first outdoor Super Bowl in years will be a messy "Storm Bowl."

The 197-year-old publication that hits newsstands Monday predicts a winter storm will hit the Northeast around the time the Super Bowl is played at MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands in New Jersey. It also predicts a colder-than-normal winter for two-thirds of the country and heavy snowfall in the Midwest, Great Lakes and New England.

"We're using a very strong four-letter word to describe this winter, which is C-O-L-D. It's going to be very cold," said Sandi Duncan, managing editor.

Based on planetary positions, sunspots and lunar cycles, the almanac's secret formula is largely unchanged since founder David Young published the first almanac in 1818.

Modern scientists don't put much stock in sunspots or tidal action, but the almanac says its forecasts used by readers to plan weddings and plant gardens are correct about 80 percent of the time.

Last year, the forecast called for cold weather for the eastern and central U.S. with milder temperatures west of the Great Lakes. It started just the opposite but ended up that way.

Caleb Weatherbee, the publication's elusive prognosticator, said he was off by only a couple of days on two of the season's biggest storms: a February blizzard that paralyzed the Northeast with 3 feet of snow in some places and a sloppy storm the day before spring's arrival that buried parts of New England.

Readers who put stock in the almanac's forecasts may do well to stock up on long johns, especially if they're lucky enough to get tickets to the Super Bowl on Feb. 2. The first Super Bowl held outdoors in a cold-weather environment could be both super cold and super messy, with a big storm due Feb. 1 to 3, the almanac says.

Said Duncan: "It really looks like the Super Bowl may be the Storm Bowl."

The Maine-based Farmers' Almanac, not to be confused with the New Hampshire-based Old Farmer's Almanac, which will be published next month, features a mix of corny jokes, gardening tips, nostalgia and home remedies, like feeding carrots to dogs to help with bad breath and using mashed bananas to soothe dry, cracked skin in the winter.

Also in this year's edition, editor Peter Geiger is leading a campaign to get people to ditch the penny, like Canada is doing.

Past campaigns have focused on moving Thanksgiving to harvest time in October, reconsidering "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem and changing the color of money. This time, Geiger thinks he has a winner.

He wants people to donate pennies to charity and then lobby Congress to stop making them.

"They don't get used very much. They get tossed. The only real use of a penny is if you save tens of thousands of them, then you can use them to help someone," he said.

© 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[shinnosuke]

I'll go first:

The National Penny Depository Charity of Shinnosuke, Inc.

[Copper Catcher]

Maybe we should create a website: Pennies-R-us.com

[fasteddy]

One of these books called for snow on Christmas day here in Houston a few years back. It started to snow Christmas Eve about 10:30 that nite. Woke up to a white Christmas that year. *2004.

[JerrySpringer]

"They don't get used very much. They get tossed. The only real use of a penny is if you save tens of thousands of them, then you can use them to help someone," he said.


Or so the Germans would have us believe..........

[shinnosuke]

Jerry,
I'm kind of dense. What does the German reference mean?

[JerrySpringer]

Jerry,
I'm kind of dense. What does the German reference mean?

Maybe the Farmer's Alamanac people have a barn-full of copper pennies.

[FatherRosado]

Have you been to countries without pennies? I find it annoying you have to haggle. In the dominican republic the smallest coin is 1 peso. That is 2 cents. Often store owners don't have it so you have to haggle. In Argentina the buyer automatically gets the lower price which is kind of cool. In Canada...oh wait when I went to Canada I used my card :0)

[shinnosuke]

Japan still has the ichi en (one yen) which is right now almost par with the penny. It's made of aluminum, but production costs probably still take it over its face value. Until all the central banks of the world stop debasing their currencies, a penny won't be worth much.

[John_doe]

people are very niave. most people here will not complain about that though.


I think I speak for everyone when I say I would be happy to take them off their hands.

[RichardPenny43]

Jerry,
I'm kind of dense. What does the German reference mean?

Glad to see I'm not the only one still saying that.

[68Camaro]

I had essentially forgotten the source of that phrase, but the clip brought it all back. Thanks!

[Morsecode]

My brother-in-law and I were just talking about this outdoor SuperBowl in Jersey.

I'd bet they'd postpone it a week in the event of bad weather to keep the advertisers happy; claiming all the while it was for the safety of fans driving to the game. A SloppyBowl would hurt the TV numbers.

Of course, that means they'd have to postpone it a day or two in advance of storm predictions. They'd be stuck with a surprise blizzard.

[JerrySpringer]

Jerry,
I'm kind of dense. What does the German reference mean?

Glad to see I'm not the only one still saying that.

Bwahahahahaha...hahaha....hahaha...!