Breaking News: MJ & Elvis Sighted

Breaking News: Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley were seen together last night at a Dallas area Chuck E. Cheese as shown in this photo ...

Sign for the Times

I spotted this realtor's sign lying at the bottom of a small stream near my home. It appears that it was a victim of a recent wind storm. It seemed, however, a timely and poignant indicator of the times.

Free Grand Slams at Denny's

Slideshow of images from the Grand Slam giveaway at Denny's in Altoona, PA, 3 Feb 2009

Pres. Obama's Inaugural Speech in Wordle

Wordle of President Obama's inauguration speech ...

Video of US Airways 1549 Landing in the Hudson

The Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board has posted a remarkable video to its YouTube channel showing the emergency landing of US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River on January 15. Be patient, the plane comes into view from the left about 2 minutes into the recording, then it zooms in.

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Track the Polls

As the campaign winds down and election day nears, here are some tools you can use to track opinion poll results ...

• USAToday Presidential Poll Tracker - good trendline representation
• ABC News Poll Tracker - shows poll results with demographic breakdowns you choose
• Pollster.com - numerous results for a variety of races
• TPM Election Central Poll Tracker - non-graphical presentation of results from numerous polls
• Electoral-vote.com - downloadable poll results

What IS the Happiest Place on Earth?

This story from the Today Show this morning spiked my interest.

The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research study cited Denmark, Puerto Rico, and Colombia as the happiest nations in the world with Zimbabwe as the least happy.

I was curious and did some quick investigation. This story from BBC News names Nigeria, Mexico, and Venezuela as the happiest places and Russia as the most morose. Meanwhile, this story from HappyNews.com cites London-based market research company GfK NOP as giving the top spots in the happiness sweepstakes to Australia, the US, and Egypt with the most disconsolate people in Hungary.

So, who really are the happiest people in the world? And anyway, isn't Disneyland "the happiest place on Earth"?

Bumpy

Outta Control

New local record high gasoline prices, $3.359 for 87 octane.

This thing is out of control. Last week oil company execs appearing before Congress tried to defend their record profits and their tax breaks.

How Much is $12 Billion-a-Month?

This article reports on a study by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes that the war in Iraq will cost about $12 billion dollars a month in 2008.

Studies: Iraq a $12 billion-a-month war - Conflict in Iraq- msnbc.com

A little simple arithmetic means the war costs a family of four in America about $150 a month. What would en extra $150 a month in the family bank account mean?

DST: A Brief History

Daylight Saving Time was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin in a 1784 essay. Daylight Saving Time has been in use in the US and many European countries since World War 1. President Franklin Roosevelt implemented full time Daylight Saving Time (War Time) during World War 2.

Prior to passage of the Uniform Time Act of 1966, the observance of Daylight Saving Time was determined by local laws and varied widely throughout the US. This law set the beginning of Daylight Saving Time as the last Sunday of April continuing until the last Sunday of October. However, states could opt out by passing their own legislation.

The beginning and end of Daylight Saving Time in the US has been altered several times over the years since.

In 1974, President Nixon signed the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973 into law. This extended Daylight Saving Time from January 6 until October 27, 1974.

Now, in most of the US, Daylight Saving Time runs from the second Sunday in March to the last Sunday in November. Daylight Saving Time is not observed in Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and a few other locations.

In Europe, Summer Time runs from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.

Daylight Saving Time changes our clocks to shift an hour of daylight from early morning to late evening. The two predominant reasons for the implementation of Daylight Saving Time are supposed energy savings and more daylight for leisure activities. The former is somewhat in dispute as the result a recent study by Matthew Kotchen and Laura Grant (University of California in Santa Barbara).

Read much more about the history of Daylight Saving Time at webexhibits.org.

Inspector Clouseau Would Love This

In a small village in southwestern France it is against the law to die and violators will be severely punished. Exactly how is not clear.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."

It seems this unusual ordinance has arisen as a result of the local cemetery being full up.

The rest of the story …
Cemetery full, mayor tells locals not to die | Oddly Enough | Reuters

Wow! Some People Will Do Anything to Miss Work

Another one for the Stupid Files ...
A man gets his buddy to shoot him in the shoulder to avoid going to work.

Officials: Wash. man took bullet to skip work - USATODAY.com

OMG!!!

Is this the first sign of the end of humanity as we know it? Better lay in a supply of joe to get through this crisis!

Starbucks to close all stores for three hours - Food Inc.- msnbc.com

Just in ... Dunkin' Donuts to offer 99 cent lattes and cappuccino during Starbucks blackout.

Times Machine - NY Times

The New York Times has scanned and made available free online every issue of the paper from V1, N1, Sept 18, 1851 through Dec 30, 1922.

Pages are displayed just as they appeared originally. What a source of primary information!

TimesMachine - New York Times

Balanced and Fair?

Following are screenshots of two items in this afternoon's news feeds. The story is the same, but the headlines are distinctly different.

This one is from USA Today ...

This one from MSNBC.com ...

Where Have We Heard This Before?

Following up two previous posts on the recent UFO phenomena ...

The US military dismissed recent reports of UFO activity in Texas. Officials said F-16 fighter jets were training in the area on the night of the alleged sightings (Jan 8) despite initially reporting none of their aircraft had been in the area at the time.

Officials: UFO sightings were military jets - msnbc.com

What to Do If You See a UFO

This post follows up an earlier post about the UFO sighting phenomena. MSNBC science editor Alan Boyle offers tips on how to record and document UFO sightings.

UFO viewing tips - Cosmic Log - msnbc.com

Lock Bumping - What is it?

Do you know about this stuff

StupidFilter - It's About Time!

I've been waiting for something like this ...

scientists are developing the “StupidFilter” – an open-source filter software that will be able to detect “rampant stupidity” of web-content in written English. Similarly to the way spam recognizing software detects suspicious e-mails, the “StupidFilter” will look for pre-fed words or sign combinations that characterize stupidity

Read more at The Future of Things ...

StupidFilter - Time to Fight Back the Imbeciles - TFOT