Read Being Five Comics From The Beginning
2 years ago
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Wait A Second: 2008 Gets Longer
With a brutal economic slowdown, 2008 may feel as if it will never end. Now the world's timekeepers are making it even longer by adding a leap second to the last day of the year.
Along with the economy, the Earth itself is slowing down, requiring timekeepers to add an extra second to their atomic clocks to keep in sync with Earth's slightly slowing rotation.
So an extra second will be tacked on to December 31 after 18:59:59 and before 19:00 Eastern Standard Time.
That extra second will make 2008 - already long with an extra day on February 29 - the longest year since 1992.
The decision to add an extra second was made by an international consortium of timekeepers, whose American arm announced it on Monday.
World commerce and digital technology depend on accurate to-the-second timekeeping, said Geoff Chester, spokesperson for the US Naval Observatory in Washington, responsible for one-third of the world's atomic clocks.
Most cellular phone providers and computer operating systems check with the world's atomic clocks and update their time to add the leap second automatically, he said.
The world started adding leap seconds in 1972, sometimes twice a year. This is first leap second since December 31, 2005.
This is the fourth year to have a leap day and a leap second.
At the Naval Observatory they have a party at 18:59:60.
"We watch the clock and make sure nothing breaks," Chester said. "It's an early New Year's celebration." A brief one.
Along with the economy, the Earth itself is slowing down, requiring timekeepers to add an extra second to their atomic clocks to keep in sync with Earth's slightly slowing rotation.
So an extra second will be tacked on to December 31 after 18:59:59 and before 19:00 Eastern Standard Time.
That extra second will make 2008 - already long with an extra day on February 29 - the longest year since 1992.
The decision to add an extra second was made by an international consortium of timekeepers, whose American arm announced it on Monday.
World commerce and digital technology depend on accurate to-the-second timekeeping, said Geoff Chester, spokesperson for the US Naval Observatory in Washington, responsible for one-third of the world's atomic clocks.
Most cellular phone providers and computer operating systems check with the world's atomic clocks and update their time to add the leap second automatically, he said.
The world started adding leap seconds in 1972, sometimes twice a year. This is first leap second since December 31, 2005.
This is the fourth year to have a leap day and a leap second.
At the Naval Observatory they have a party at 18:59:60.
"We watch the clock and make sure nothing breaks," Chester said. "It's an early New Year's celebration." A brief one.
Words Of Wisdom
What's at the top of the list for you this year? Better financial practices? Saving? Spending more time with family? Better relationships with those who work with you? What ever it is... Self- discipline is necessary... John Maxwell said in his book The 21 indispensable QUALITIES OF A LEADER... "If you can determine what's REALLY a priority and release yourself from EVERYTHING ELSE, its a lot easier to follow through on WHAT'S IMPORTANT.
And that's the essence of self-discipline."
And that's the essence of self-discipline."
Monday, 29 December 2008
Discover The Treasures Inside
“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”
Peace, joy, health and well-being can only be found inside us. They exist within us now, waiting to be discovered. Yet we tend to look to the outside world to satisfy our needs and longings.
Our outer life reflects back to us the way we think, feel and behave. The outer world is all effects. Go to the source inside for all of life’s treasures.
How are you searching for peace and contentment outside of yourself?
"The great Western disease is, ‘I'll be happy when… When I get the money. When I get a BMW. When I get this job.’ Well, the reality is, you never get to when. The only way to find happiness is to understand that happiness is not out there. It's in here. And happiness is not next week. It's now."
Friday, 26 December 2008
Words Of Wisdom
When we release ourselves from the desire to please, we release ourselves from an inner disease. Our self-worth is not based on accomplishments.
Thursday, 25 December 2008
Merry Christmas........
Geseënde Kersfees
Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah
Shenoraavor Nor Dari yev Pari Gaghand
Malaysia Selamat Hari Natal
Tchestita Koleda
Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Haw Sun
Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan
Sretan Bozic
Glredelig Jul
Vrolijk Kerstfeest
Merry Christmas
Gajan Kristnaskon
Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah
Shenoraavor Nor Dari yev Pari Gaghand
Malaysia Selamat Hari Natal
Tchestita Koleda
Gun Tso Sun Tan'Gung Haw Sun
Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan
Sretan Bozic
Glredelig Jul
Vrolijk Kerstfeest
Merry Christmas
Gajan Kristnaskon
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
A Time To Remember, All Over The World.........
Employees of a buildring cleaning company clean the windows in Santa Claus and Reindeer constumes in Tokyo
Santa Claus prepares his Reindeer and sled in Rovaniemi
Gingerbread houses decorates a dining area for Christmas aboard the USS Iwo Jima
Traffic moves past the statue of St.George decorated like a Christmas tree in downtown Tbilisi, Georgia
Passers-by look at a private house that has been decorated with some 45 000 lights bulbs in Wallersdorf, GermanyDarwin Awards - Award Winners 2008
The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it...
2008 - The Balloon Priest
(20 April 2008, Atlantic Ocean, Brazil) In 1982 Lawn Chair Larry, beloved survivor of a Darwin-worthy attempt, attached 45 helium weather balloons to his comfortable Sears lawn chair, packed a picnic and a , and cut the tether. But instead of drifting lazily above the Los Angeles landscape, the combined lift of 45 huge helium balloons rocketed Larry into LAX air traffic lanes 16,000 feet above sea level. Astoundingly, he survived the "flight."
In homage to Larry's aerial adventure, a Catholic priest recently ascended towards heaven on a host of helium party balloons. Adelir Antonio de Carli, 41, was attempting to set the world record for clustered balloon flight to publicize his plan to build a spiritual rest stop for truckers.
Sitting for more than 19 hours in a lawn chair is not a trivial matter, even in the comfort of your own backyard. The priest took numerous safety precautions, including wearing a survival suit, selecting a buoyant chair, and packing a satellite phone and a GPS. However, the late Adelir Antonio made a fatal mistake.
He did not know how to use the GPS.
The winds changed, as winds do, and he was blown inexorably toward open sea. He could have parachuted to safety while over land, but chose not to. When the voyager was perilously lost at sea, he prudently phoned for help. But rescuers were unable to reach him since he could not use his GPS! HE struggled with the control panel as the charge on the satellite phone dwindled.
Instead of a GPS, the priest let God be his guide, and God guided him straight to heaven. Bits of balloons began appearing on mountains and beaches. Ultimately the priest's body surfaced, confirming that he, like Elvis, had left the building.
The kicker? It's a Double Darwin. Catholic priests take vows of celibacy. Since they voluntarily remove themselves from the gene pool, the entire group earns a mass Darwin Award. Adelir Antonio wins twice over!
What Is Love?
| "When mystics use the word love, they use it very carefully -- in the deeply spiritual sense, where to love is to know; to love is to act. If you really love, from the depths of your Consciousness, that love gives you a native wisdom. You perceive the needs of others intuitively and clearly, with detachment from any personal desires; and you know how to act creatively to meet those needs, dexterously surmounting any obstacle that comes in the way. Such is the immense, driving power of love." "Therefore, when I say that ‘I love,’ it is not I who love, but in reality Love who acts through me. Love is not so much something I do as something that I am. Love is not a doing but a state of being - a relatedness, a connectedness to another mortal, an identification with her or him that simply flows within me and through me, independent of my intentions or my efforts." "When you are aware that you are the force that is Life, anything is possible. Miracles happen all the time, because those miracles are performed by the heart. The heart is in direct communion with the human soul, and when the heart speaks, even with the resistance of the head, something inside you changes; your heart opens another heart, and true love is possible." |
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Darwin Awards - Award Winners 2007
The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it...
2007 - Crutch, Meet Crotch
(November 2007, Russia) Late one night, Eduard entered the apartment of a 30-year-old handicapped man, who slept peacefully as Eduard quietly cleaned out the valuables. Eduard was preparing to leave when suddenly the man woke up.
"I couldn't believe my eyes! The dark shape of some goon was standing next to my nightstand!" recalls the burglary victim. "I cried out and he attacked me, who was defenseless, with his fists! I had no choice. I hit him between the legs with my crutch, and he leapt out the window. Thank God I live on the first floor, and he did not die from the fall.
"I didn't understand at first what had fallen out of his pants. When I looked closer, I realized that it was a testicle, a man's testicle! I put it in cold water, and rushed to the phone." The handicapped man dialed the emergency services several times, but "the doctors hung up on me when I told them I had ripped a burglar's balls off!"
Half an hour later, the blood-covered thief was found by a passerby, who called the police. "An unconscious man was lying on the sidewalk," said the police investigator. "When the medics revived him, he started screaming hysterically, 'Give me back my balls!'"
Eduard's genitals were so traumatized that doctors had to amputate the entire scrotum to prevent gangrene. In the hospital, the burglar filed a complaint against his victim. He said, "I will never forgive him!"
Darwin Awards - Award Winners 2006
The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it...
2006 - Modern Armor
(26 August 2006, Leicester, England) Darren's death was a mystery. The 33-year-old was found slumped in the hallway of his house, bleeding from stab wounds to his chest. Police initially assumed that an assailant had attacked him, but they could find no supporting evidence. A year later, the inquest revealed why Darren can stake his claim to a place among the winners of the Darwin Award.
Darren had called a friend, but minutes after he hung up, rang back to ask for an ambulance. The front door was ajar, and Darren was found lying near a bloodstained lock-knife he had purchased whilst on holiday in Spain. Forensics investigators saw no indication of a struggle, and the coroner reported that the stab wounds seemed to be self-inflicted. However, Darren had shown no suicidal tendencies.
His wife, who was on holiday at the time of the incident, cleared up the mystery, and revealed why our subject will go down in history as a Darwin Award winner. As she was leaving for the holiday, she remembered Darren wondering whether his new jacket was 'stab-proof'.
That's right. Darren decided to find out if his jacket could withstand a knife attack. Did he choose to test his jacket while it was draped over the back of a chair? No, our man thought that the best approach would be to wear the garment and stab himself. Sadly, his choice of armor proved less resistant to a sharp blade than he had hoped.
The coroner reached a verdict of accidental death by 'misadventure'.
Highlights In History On This Date:
December 23
Today is Tuesday, December 23, the 358th day of 2008. There are 8 days left in the year.
*1588 - Henry, Duke of Guise and leader of militant Catholics who wanted a Spanish princess on the French throne, is assassinated on King Henry III's orders at Blois, France.
*1601 - Irish rebels Tyronne and O'Donnell are routed near Kinsdale by British forces.
*1698 - George Lewis succeeds as Elector of Hanover on death of Ernest Augustus.
*1728 - Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI and Frederick William of Prussia sign Treaty of Berlin.
*1783 - George Washington resigns as commander in chief of the US. Army and retires to his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia.
*1832 - The French take Antwerp, forcing Holland to recognize Belgium's independence.
*1861 - Sultan of Turkey agrees to unification of Moldavia and Wallachia as Romania.
*1876 - The first constitution in a Muslim country is passed in Turkey, but power remains largely in the hands of the sultan.
*1920 - French and British approve convention fixing boundaries of Syria and Palestine.
*1941 - US forces on Wake Island in the Pacific surrender to Japanese in World War II.
*1947 - The transistor is invented at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. This made equipment miniaturization possible and ushered in a tidal wave of electronic miracles including the personal computer.
*1948 - Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese World War II leaders are executed in Tokyo.
*1950 - A treaty in which Vietnam becomes a sovereign nation within the French Union is signed in Saigon.
*1968 - Eighty-two crew members of the US intelligence ship Pueblo are released by North Korea, 11 months after they were captured.
*1972 - Earthquake strikes Managua, Nicaragua, killing 10 000.
*1977 - Eight French nationals kidnapped in May by guerrillas fighting for the independence of the former Spanish Sahara, are handed over to UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim in Algiers.
*1986 - The experimental US airplane, Voyager, lands in California's Mojave Desert after becoming the first aircraft to circumnavigate the globe nonstop without refueling.
*1989 - United States sends 2 000 reinforcement troops to Panama to combat unexpectedly stiff resistance from Panamanian troops loyal to ousted General Manuel Antonio Noriega.
*1990 - Slovenes vote overwhelmingly in favor of secession from Yugoslavia.
*1993 - The Rhine sweeps to its greatest height in 67 years, flooding Cologne's old town and menacing the new Parliament building in Bonn. The death toll in European flooding reaches six.
*1994 - Bosnia's Serbs and the Muslim-led government agree to a cease-fire in their war.
*1995 - A fire in Dabwali, India, kills 540 people, including 170 children, during a year-end party being held near a children's school.
*1996 - Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmonov and the top opposition leader Sayed Abdullo Nuri sign a cease-fire agreement aimed at ending the four-year civil war.
*1997 - Gunmen charge into a village of rebel sympathizers in Chiapas, Mexico, and kill 45 people, including 15 children.
*1998 - South Korean police use water cannon and tear gas to evict a group of monks from the Chogye temple, after the monks threw firebombs and rocks at them. The clash ends a 40-day standoff between rival monks at the spiritual home to eight million Buddhists.
*2000 - US and British warplanes in Baghdad strike targets in southern Iraq. Iraqi officials say the attack killed one person and injured two others. The US Central Command headquarters reports that the warplanes, patrolling the no-fly zone in southern Iraq, attacked a radar system and anti-aircraft sites with precision-guided weapons.
*2001 - San Luis Governor Adolfo Rodriguez Saa takes over as interim president of Argentina, immediately halting payments on the nation's $132bn debt. He resigns a week later saying "an attitude of pettiness and haggling" within his Justicialist party has left him unable to govern.
*2003 - An explosion at a natural gas field near Chongqing in Sichuan province of China kills at least 198 people. The explosion reportedly occurred when a pocket of natural gas and hydrogen sulfide was accidentally drilled open.
*2005 - South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk resigns from his university after he was found to have faked stem-cell breakthroughs that kindled worldwide optimism of revolutionary cures for disease.
*2006 - UN Security Council votes unanimously to impose the first set of sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment amid suspicions Tehran wants to build nuclear weapons.
*2007 - The world's last Hindu monarchy is to be swept aside under an agreement signed between Nepal's former communist rebels and its major political parties that sets the stage for the country to become a republic.
Today is Tuesday, December 23, the 358th day of 2008. There are 8 days left in the year.
*1588 - Henry, Duke of Guise and leader of militant Catholics who wanted a Spanish princess on the French throne, is assassinated on King Henry III's orders at Blois, France.
*1601 - Irish rebels Tyronne and O'Donnell are routed near Kinsdale by British forces.
*1698 - George Lewis succeeds as Elector of Hanover on death of Ernest Augustus.
*1728 - Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI and Frederick William of Prussia sign Treaty of Berlin.
*1783 - George Washington resigns as commander in chief of the US. Army and retires to his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia.
*1832 - The French take Antwerp, forcing Holland to recognize Belgium's independence.
*1861 - Sultan of Turkey agrees to unification of Moldavia and Wallachia as Romania.
*1876 - The first constitution in a Muslim country is passed in Turkey, but power remains largely in the hands of the sultan.
*1920 - French and British approve convention fixing boundaries of Syria and Palestine.
*1941 - US forces on Wake Island in the Pacific surrender to Japanese in World War II.
*1947 - The transistor is invented at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. This made equipment miniaturization possible and ushered in a tidal wave of electronic miracles including the personal computer.
*1948 - Japanese Premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese World War II leaders are executed in Tokyo.
*1950 - A treaty in which Vietnam becomes a sovereign nation within the French Union is signed in Saigon.
*1968 - Eighty-two crew members of the US intelligence ship Pueblo are released by North Korea, 11 months after they were captured.
*1972 - Earthquake strikes Managua, Nicaragua, killing 10 000.
*1977 - Eight French nationals kidnapped in May by guerrillas fighting for the independence of the former Spanish Sahara, are handed over to UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim in Algiers.
*1986 - The experimental US airplane, Voyager, lands in California's Mojave Desert after becoming the first aircraft to circumnavigate the globe nonstop without refueling.
*1989 - United States sends 2 000 reinforcement troops to Panama to combat unexpectedly stiff resistance from Panamanian troops loyal to ousted General Manuel Antonio Noriega.
*1990 - Slovenes vote overwhelmingly in favor of secession from Yugoslavia.
*1993 - The Rhine sweeps to its greatest height in 67 years, flooding Cologne's old town and menacing the new Parliament building in Bonn. The death toll in European flooding reaches six.
*1994 - Bosnia's Serbs and the Muslim-led government agree to a cease-fire in their war.
*1995 - A fire in Dabwali, India, kills 540 people, including 170 children, during a year-end party being held near a children's school.
*1996 - Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmonov and the top opposition leader Sayed Abdullo Nuri sign a cease-fire agreement aimed at ending the four-year civil war.
*1997 - Gunmen charge into a village of rebel sympathizers in Chiapas, Mexico, and kill 45 people, including 15 children.
*1998 - South Korean police use water cannon and tear gas to evict a group of monks from the Chogye temple, after the monks threw firebombs and rocks at them. The clash ends a 40-day standoff between rival monks at the spiritual home to eight million Buddhists.
*2000 - US and British warplanes in Baghdad strike targets in southern Iraq. Iraqi officials say the attack killed one person and injured two others. The US Central Command headquarters reports that the warplanes, patrolling the no-fly zone in southern Iraq, attacked a radar system and anti-aircraft sites with precision-guided weapons.
*2001 - San Luis Governor Adolfo Rodriguez Saa takes over as interim president of Argentina, immediately halting payments on the nation's $132bn debt. He resigns a week later saying "an attitude of pettiness and haggling" within his Justicialist party has left him unable to govern.
*2003 - An explosion at a natural gas field near Chongqing in Sichuan province of China kills at least 198 people. The explosion reportedly occurred when a pocket of natural gas and hydrogen sulfide was accidentally drilled open.
*2005 - South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk resigns from his university after he was found to have faked stem-cell breakthroughs that kindled worldwide optimism of revolutionary cures for disease.
*2006 - UN Security Council votes unanimously to impose the first set of sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment amid suspicions Tehran wants to build nuclear weapons.
*2007 - The world's last Hindu monarchy is to be swept aside under an agreement signed between Nepal's former communist rebels and its major political parties that sets the stage for the country to become a republic.
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