25 Hour Day?

~~~~

We had some storms last night and this morning, Anika came running into the bedroom last night and hid in the bathroom at the first sound of thunder. She is so afraid of the storms. We received over an inch of rain so it was a good thing I put down the Scotts on the yard yesterday.

Today was busy, with doctor appointments and everything else that usually goes with Monday’s at our house.

~~~~

KILLING FIELDS

Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country’s murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film “The Killing Fields,” died Sunday, his former colleague said.

Dith, 65, died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Dith had been diagnosed almost three months ago.

Dith was working as an interpreter and assistant for Schanberg in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, when the Vietnam War reached its chaotic end in April 1975 and both countries were taken over by Communist forces.

Dith Pran was born Sept. 27, 1942 at Siem Reap, site of the famed 12th century ruins of Angkor Wat. Educated in French and English, he worked as an interpreter for U.S. officials in Phnom Penh. As with many Asians, the family name, Dith, came first, but he was known by his given name, Pran.

~~~~

UNDERAGE PARTY FOOLS COPS

The Zebro home in Kronenwetter showed all the signs of an underage drinking party March 1: cars blocking the road, dozens of rowdy kids and a keg.

And yet, every partyer’s breath test revealed an alcohol-free gathering.

Dustin Zebro, 18, and his friends said they threw the party after D.C. Everest High School administrators suspended their friends from sports.

Dustin Zebro, 18, and his friends said they threw the party after D.C. Everest High School administrators suspended their friends from sports.

“We didn’t know it would work well enough to make the cops show up,” Zebro said of the plan to poke fun at the administrators by throwing a root beer kegger.

However amusing, the event — which partyers posted on the video Web site YouTube — highlights serious differences in attitudes about underage drinking.

Zebro and his friends said they think underage drinking is between students and police, not schools.

Principal Tom Johansen disagrees.

“I think we have an obligation as an educational institution,” he said, explaining that schools investigate cases of underage drinking carefully. Violations at school can lead to suspension or expulsion, while those at other venues can lead to expulsions from sports.

~~~~

THE 25 HOUR DAY?

Days are gradually growing longer. To the layman this means that in the northern hemisphere days are longer in summer than they are in winter. But geoscientists interpret this phrase as follows: they found that days grow longer not only in spring time.

The reason for that is the Moon, first and foremost. Its gravity creates permanent waves in oceans and in Earth’s depths. Thus our planet seems to waver, the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung wrote.

Earth resembles a rotating figure skater. To slow rotations down, a figure skater stretches his or her arms out. That is why in the far future there will be 25 hours in a day. A British astronomer managed to prove that Earth’s rotation has been slowing down since 700 B.C.

The scientist studied clay plates and other historical writings that contained information about solar and lunar eclipses. He used the information to calculate the Earth’s breaking path.

When prehistoric proto-animals inhabited Earth 530 million years ago, there were 21 hours in a day. For dinosaurs who lived 100 million years ago days alternated each other every 23 hours.

Since the trajectory of the Earth’s rotation about the Sun is not connected with the Earth’s rotation on its axis, astronomers calculated the independent timescale – the so-called Terrestrial Time (TT). Slowdown in the Earth’s rotation is seen if we compare the Terrestrial Time with the Universal Time (UT).

UT is the general time based on the rotation of the Earth and is determined by the Sun position with regard to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) (Greenwich is a British city). It is necessary to set this time backward, for every several years between the end of one year and the beginning of the other there is one spare second.

According to the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), July 13 2003 was the shortest day within the last 100 years. This day was shorter than an average 24-hour day by 1.5 thousandths of a second.

~~~~

“I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn’t here.”

—George W. Bush, speaking at the President’s Economic Forum in Waco, Texas, Aug. 13, 2002

~~~~

295 Days Left
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Number of Operations Iraq Freedom and Enduring
Freedom casualties as confirmed by U.S. Central
Command: 4475

Its more than a number

©2008 Ted's Soapbox 2.0. All Rights Reserved.