What Caught My Eye Today - Honduras, Deportation, Potpourri

Honduras - For the third year in a row, San Pedro Sula, Honduras is the world's most murderous city with 187 homicides per 100,000 residents. Quick honey, call the travel agent and cancel our reservations. I knew that all inclusion vacation to San Pedro Sula was too good to be true. The high murder rate is blamed partly on a crackdown on drug cartels in Mexico that has pushed some of the drug trade into Honduras. Oh sure, blame Mexico. Dude, that is so low. 41 of the world's top 50 murder-prone cities are in Latin America, including the rest of the top 5: Caracas, Venezuela; Acapulco, Mexico; Cali, Colombia; and Maceio, Brazil. 16 of the top 50 are in Brazil, nine in Mexico, and four in the United States (#24 - Detroit; #26 - New Orleans; #36 - Baltimore; #45 - St. Louis). The survey does not include cities located in war zones. So does that mean that Damascus, Syria, Baghdad, Iraq and Kabul, Afghanistan are not the seas of tranquility that I thought they might be?

Deportation - The voice of the people has spoken, and now the government has to respond. After topping more than 100,000 signatures on "We the People," the White House is now obligated to respond to a petition to "Deport Justin Bieber and revoke his green card." The petition reads, "We the people of the United States feel that we are being wrongly represented in the world of pop culture. We would like to see the dangerous, reckless, destructive, and drug abusing, Justin Bieber deported and his green card revoked. He is not only threatening the safety of our people but he is also a terrible influence on our nation's youth. We the people would like to remove Justin Bieber from our society." Yeah, the Beibs is the cause of all that is wrong with our society. Don't get me wrong, I think the guy is a hack and has serious delusions of grandeur, but that doesn't mean he's a bad person. Beiber carries an O-1 visa that allows individuals "of extraordinary ability in the arts" to stay in the U.S. One must remember that "extraordinary" doesn't necessarily mean good. On all petitions, "We the People" states, "If a petition meets the signature threshold, it will be reviewed by the Administration and we will issue a response." As of this Wednesday afternoon the petition had 104,700 signatures and climbing. The White House reviews and usually responds to petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures within 30 days. I wonder what staffer will get this plum assignment. A rival petition started a few days later on the site and pleading on behalf of the pop star had garnered less than 1,000 signatures. This guy cannot catch a break can he? Pity.

Potpourri - I call this the "Scary or Gross?" edition.

• Winter Olympics: The 2010 Winter Olympics had the same overall injury rate as the Summer Olympics in 2012, about 11%, but severe acute injuries are more common in the Winter Games because so many of the events involve high speeds. I'm going with scary on this one.  Think about it. More than 1 in every 10 athletes is going to be injured at the upcoming Olympic Games in Sochi doing something voluntarily and for the most part not getting any sort of monetary compensation for. Not convinced?  Check out these statistics and see if anything jumps out at you. The top five events with the highest injury rate for male athletes are: Short track speed skating - 28%; Bobsled - 17%; Ice Hockey - 16%; Ski Cross - 15%; Aerials and Snow Pipe (tie) - 13%. The top five events with the highest injury rate for female athletes are: Snowboard Cross - 73%; Aerials - 26%; Bobsled - 24%; Ski Cross / Ice Hockey (tie) - 23%. 73% percent! Holy crap!
• Promiscuity - America's senior citizens are indulging in a lot of unsafe sex in retirement and assisted living facilities. I wonder if unsafe sex really means unprotected sex. If that is the case, I'm not sure I'd go with gross or scary here; maybe stupid or foolish.  And let's be honest here--if a horny senior has a heart condition, a condom probably isn't going to help much. Plus can you think of a more pleasant way to go into the afterlife. Over the past two years, 2.2 million Medicare recipients received free tests for sexually transmitted diseases, about the same as the number who received free colonoscopies to screen for colon cancer. Having had both sex and a colonoscopy, given the choice, I'd take sex every time.
• Diet - American adults consumed 118 fewer calories in 2010 than they did in 2006. Health experts theorize that the slight decline reflects public education about diet, pressure on fast food makers to offer healthier alternatives, and a decline in dining out due to financial struggles. I'm going scary here. It's a little disturbing to think that the inability to buy food might be the most effective means for Americans to lose weight.
• Agriculture - China has banned food crops from being grown on 8 million acres of land, an area about the size of Belgium, because the soil is too saturated with industrial pollutants. Scary. Definitely scary.
• Wealth - The combined wealth of the world's 85 richest people, $1.7 trillion, is equivalent to the wealth held by the poorest half of the world's population, some 3.5 billion people. Since tragic isn't an option, gross it is. It borders on obscene (sort of a take on gross, don't you think) that 85 people have more wealth than 3.5 billion. Perhaps if I was one of those 85 people, I might feel differently, but I'm not, so I don't.

Did You Know? #50

What is the geographic uniqueness of India's Dahala Khagrabari?

It is the world's only third-order enclave. It is a patch of India inside a patch of Bangladesh, which is inside a patch of India--all of which is surrounded by Bangladesh (see map below).

What Caught My Eye Today - Diamonds, Venezuela, Africa, Ireland, Hamburgers

Diamonds - A rare 29.6-carat blue diamond has been discovered in a South African mine. Good news, lads.  You know that stupid thing you are going to do that pisses off your significant other. Here's your get out of jail free card. The "exceptional" vivid blue stone was found in the Cullinan mine, near Pretoria.  Let me guess, "exceptional" is industry speak for butt ass expensive. The Cullinan mine has an even greater history as the place where in 1905 the world's biggest diamond -- dubbed the "Cullinan" -- was found. The 3,106-carat stone was cut up and two major pieces are part of the British crown jewels. To give you some context, a carat is 0.2 grams, which means the "Cullinan" weighs in at 621 grams or about 1 pound 6 ounces. This newly discovered blue diamond is less than one-hundredth the size. Blue diamonds are seldom hit the market and have been coveted by royals and celebrities for centuries. That makes complete sense, if you think about it. Who else but some obscenely wealth jerk could afford the price tag (no bitterness here)? A 5.30 carat-fancy deep-blue diamond sold for $9.5 million at a London auction in 2013, setting a new world record for price per carat. You know how I started off saying this gem could be your get out of jail card? Maybe jail isn't so bad.

Fred's Note: As you all know, Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez passed away last year and no one was more depressed about his passing than me. Boyfriend provided so much material for this blog and my fear has been no one would ever be able to fill that gap.  Perhaps I need not worry so much...

Venezuela - President Nicolas Maduro has a new villain as he campaigns to bring down Venezuela's spiraling crime: TV soap operas. God love ya, President Maduro. Hugo would be proud. He accuses them of spreading "anti-values" to young people by glamorizing violence, guns and drugs. The criticism follows attacks last year by Maduro on violent video games and the Hollywood movie "Spider-Man." I don't know that I can fault Maduro too much for this. The last few installments of "Spider Man" have been pretty lackluster. It's unclear whether the government will take steps to restrict programming or impose harsher rules on the soap operas known as telenovelas, which are hugely popular across Latin America. I'm not sure the government would need to exert much effort here.  Inflation is so out of control, I don't think too many citizens can actually afford TVs in the first place. Analysts say arm-twisting is unlikely to reduce Venezuela's high homicide rate, which the United Nations ranks as the fifth worst globally, and they warn that Maduro's campaign could be used as an excuse to further gag media criticism of the government. . Critics have blamed the country's bloodshed on the proliferation of illegal firearms, between 9 million and 15 million by the government's count, as well as the lack of punishment for those who commit crimes. Here's a question for you. Are these telenovelas inspiring people to use firearms or is the widespread use of firearms inspiring storylines for telenovelas?  Try to wrap your heads around that one.

Africa - President Barack Obama will invite 47 leaders to a landmark US-Africa summit in August, seeking to widen U.S. trade, development and security ties with an increasingly dynamic continent to which he traces part of his ancestry. Obama will send out invites to all African nations that are currently in good standing with the United States or are not suspended from the African Union. Is it just me or does this remind you of a party that only the cool kids get invited to?  Let's see who didn't make the cut. Egypt is not eligible to attend as it is currently suspended from the African Union. Yeah, we dodged a bullet on that one. Gee guys, we'd love for you to attend (hell, no!) but you aren't part of the African Union. Darn it all. The United States maintains sanctions against the Zimbabwean government of Robert Mugabe and key officials over suppression of democracy and what Washington sees as politically motivated violence. You're a bad man who doesn't know how to play nice, so you cannot come to our party. Also not on a list distributed by the White House were Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar. Washington has concerns over the subversion of democracy in both nations. Not to mention the fact that most of the State Department probably couldn't find Guinea-Bissau on a map (I checked and its on the west side of the continent sandwiched between Senegal and Guinea). Fun fact about Guinea-Bissau--the national motto is "Unity, Struggle, Progress". So you gotta figure that getting excluded from the summit probably doesn't come as that big of a surprise to this struggling nation. There will also be no invitation for Sudan, whose president, Omar al-Bashir, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Show of hands...who actually wants al-Bashir to show up? One notable inclusion is Kenya, where President Uhuru Kenyatta is currently awaiting a delayed trial at the ICC on charges related to violence after an election in 2007 that left 1,000 people dead. I get that one is innocent until proven guilty, but dude is under indictment by the International Criminal Court. He must have done something not good. Obama pledged during his trip to the continent last year to help build "Africa for Africans" and argued that the region's growing economic potential could help it shake off its reputation as simply a recipient of foreign aid. Translation: We don't want China to buy up the continent.  We were here first, dammit. The Obama administration has also been increasing its indirect engagement in regional conflicts in Africa and is also increasingly concerned about Al-Qaeda franchises in the continent. Translation: We don't want another Iraq or Afghanistan.

Ireland -  Ireland is reopening its embassy to the Vatican more than two years after shutting it down in the wake of sex abuse cases, in a sign relations may be thawing. In a huge blow to the Holy See's prestige, staunchly Catholic Ireland closed its embassy to the Vatican in 2011, when relations soured over Church handling of sex abuse cases.  Maybe its just me, but you'd sort of expect the roles to be reversed, right? That said, turns out this is not that big of a deal. Guess how large the staff will be at the Irish embassy? Hint: Anything more than one, is way too high. Ireland also plans to establish embassies in Thailand and Indonesia and newest European Union member Croatia, and consulates in financial hubs Hong Kong, Sao Paolo and Austin, Texas. I'm sorry, but when did Austin, Texas become a financial hub? Ireland will set up an embassy in Kenya to support an aid program there and is closing its mission in Lesotho. Anyone know where Lesotho is on a map? Does anyone care?

Hamburgers - Time magazine says White Castle's small, square "sliders" are "the most influential burger of all time," noting the "now-iconic square patty" that debuted in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas was the first burger to spawn a fast-food empire. And with it the expansion of humanity's waist line. The full list of influential burgers includes the following:
17. The Krusty Burger - The fictional Simpsons hangout was so popular, it became a real-life restaurant when Universal Studios Orlando opened a Simpsons theme park. At the risk of stating the obvious, the criteria for this list is influence. Taste has nothing to do with it.
16. The Ghost Burger - A Chicago heavy-metal-themed bar launched one of the most outrageous burgers to date: the Ghost Burger (named after Swedish metal band Ghost B.C.) was topped with an unconsecrated Communion wafer. I rest my case.
15. The Varsity Burger - The ordering lingo for this Atlanta staple is almost as well known as the burger itself: you get it “all the way” in lieu of “with onions,” and “walk a steak” replaces “to-go.” Yeah, because just saying "with onions" is way too complicated. 
14. The Umami Burger - Arguably the first “modernist cuisine” patty, the Umami Burger is meant to taste like, well, umami (a savory taste embodied in MSG), incorporating such toppings as soy-roasted tomatoes, parmesan crisps and pickled ginger. So is umami the modernist term for salt lick?
13. The Ray’s Hell Burger - President Obama treated then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to one of these patties in Arlington in 2010—Obama’s was reportedly ordered plain, while Medvedev added jalapeños, mushrooms and onions. Really, a plain burger, Mr. President? Man up, dude. 
12. The Ramen Burger - This so-called hybrid burger—two parts ramen, one part beef patty—drew vast crowds at the Smorgasburg outdoor food market in Brooklyn throughout the summer of 2013. Alas, there’s no official ramen-burger restaurant yet. Imagine that.
11. The MOS Burger - MOS (a.k.a. “Mountain Ocean Sun”) Burger, which opened in Japan in 1972. Although its signature patty mimics the U.S. classic, other items are designed around Japanese tastes; there’s a teriyaki burger and a grilled salmon rice burger. And this is influential in what way?
10. The Jucy Lucy - A twist on the cheeseburger, in which the cheese is melted inside the patty, the Jucy Lucy was reportedly invented in the 1920s. They had me a melted cheese.
9. The Lab-Grown Burger -  This burger is grown in a lab from cow stem cells, which means it may even be palatable for vegetarians. The only issue: for now, it carries a $325,000 price tag. What's the word I'm looking for here?  Oh that's right: Eew.
8. The Quadruple Bypass Burger - The Heart Attack Grill's (notorious for offering free meals for those over 350 pounds) most notorious dish is this behemoth, which layers eight slices of cheese between four half-pound patties and clocks in at nearly 10,000 calories. 10,000 calories of pure heaven if you ask me.
7. The ShackBurger - The 2004 invention—topped with a tangy, secret-recipe ShackSauce—was the first burger to start a food craze, inspiring hordes of eaters to wait in lines that stretched throughout New York’s Madison Square Park. Food craze or pathetic excuse to take a 3 hour lunch? You tell me.
6. The Gardenburger - The original veggie burger was invented in 1981 at the Gardenhouse, an Oregon vegetarian restaurant, and it consisted mainly of leftover vegetables and grains. Riddle me this. Why would a vegetarian want to eat something that reminds them of the animal flesh they are trying to avoid in the first place?
5. The Burger King Whopper - The quarter-pound patty, introduced in 1957, was the fast food industry’s first gimmick burger—developed as a premium alternative to McDonald’s, Wendy’s and others. Too bad they didn't spend as much time on the taste as they did the gimmick.
4. The 21 Burger - When the 21 Club introduced its gourmet burger in the late 1940s or early 1950s, New Yorkers were shocked that an upper-class establishment would offer something as lowly as the burger—and at the exorbitant price of $2.75, compared with McDonald’s’ 15 cents. Nevertheless, it was a hit. The luxury burger has since become a mainstay at many higher-end restaurants, from Le Parker Meridien (a high-low offering in the lobby’s Burger Joint) to db Bistro Moderne (the truffle, foie gras and short ribs DB Burger) to Hubert Keller’s (the foie gras-topped Fleur Burger, which costs $5,000 and is served with a bottle of 1995 Château Pétrus).  Now this is what I call a gimmick.
3. The In-N-Out Burger - In-N-Out focuses on food—its signature burger, which debuted in 1948, was made from locally sourced ground beef and fresh vegetables. That approach may have prevented In-N-Out’s expansion (it has just 294 locations today, compared with McDonald’s 34,000-plus). The way I heard it was the secret menu was too complicated to appeal to a mass audience.
2. The McDonald’s Burger - The original McDonald’s burger, which debuted in San Bernardino, California, spawned an empire that now spans 118 countries. You just know that In-N-Out is kicking itself over this.
1. The White Castle Slider  I've never had the pleasure. Pity.

Run, Fred, Run - Jan 2014

Fred's Note: I start calendar year #7 working my way through South Carolina and up the East Coast.  My lofty ambition for the year is to make it to New England, the first stop of which would be Connecticut. That means I need to go about 900 miles this year.  My track record (pardon the pun) does not bode well for me. My annual average is only 460 miles.  Then again, why not aim high?

Total miles to date: 3,202,2
Number of marathons (26.2mi): 122.2
States visited: 10 (CA, AZ, NM, TX, LA, MS, AL, FL, GA, SC)
States to go: 23
Miles to go: 5253.8

What Caught My Eye Today - U.S. Federal Budget, Japan, Zambia, Egypt

U.S. Federal Budget - The federal budget bill that Congress passed this week authorizes $1.1 trillion in spending. Before I dump on Congress, let's pause for just a moment and applaud the lawmakers in Washington for managing to do their jobs on this rare occasion.  Okay, that's good. It is 1,582 pages long and has 370,445 words, numbers and symbols. Simple math comes up with $2.9 million per word average. By comparison, there are only 4,543 words in the U.S. Constitution, before amendments, and 1,458 words in the Declaration of Independence. Of course, if you compare the budget bill to the U.S. tax code - which comes in at 73,954 pages - it's practically a memo. Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington spending watchdog, figured that senators spent slightly more than 69 hours before passing the bill, giving them just under two minutes per page to read it. It's not the two minutes per page that concerns me, but rather whether they even bothered to try to read the budget at all.

Fred's Note: Lest you think the U.S. is on a perpetual downward spiral into irrelevance and mayhem, bear in mind things could always be worse...a lot worse.  With that comforting thought in mind, I proudly present the rest of today's postings.

Japan (Part I) - The Japanese have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, and at the same time, one of the highest longevity rates. Taken in the wrong context, one might conclude that sex is hazardous to one's health and/or something unpleasant and to be avoided if at all possible. As a result, the population is dropping rapidly, and becoming increasingly weighted toward older people. After peaking at 128 million in 2006, Japan's population has been falling by roughly 1 million a year. By 2060, the government estimates that the population will be just 87 million, with nearly half that number age 65 or older. And we thought we had an aging problem in the U.S. Most Japanese young people just aren't settling down. What's that got to do with doing the ba-donk-a-donk? The marriage rate has plummeted and with it the birthrate, since out of wedlock births are rare in Japan. Right then, asked and answered.  In 2005, 60% of women had never been married and 72% of men. It seems to me that this issue is easily remedied. Step 1: Take that metaphorical stick out of you ass, Japan. Step 2: Make a little love tonight.

Japan (Part II) - China's and Japan's war of words over the Japanese stance toward its war record took an unexpected turn after China invoked the evil mastermind of the Harry Potter books. Say what? China is angry over the Japanese Prime Minister's recent visit to a shrine, where some of the top Japanese leaders from World War II are buried. Quick history lesson for a bit of context.  Japan pretty much opened a can of whup ass on China in the years leading up to World War II. Basically, it was a land grab by Japan to feed its industrial complex. You see Japan is an island with limited access to natural resources, what with being surround by water, but I digress. Long story short, China still holds a bit of a grudge against Japan. A China diplomat was quoted as saying, "If militarism is like the haunting of Voldemort of Japan, the Yasukuni Shrine is a kind of Horcrux, representing the darkest parts of that nation's soul. Japan responded by saying China was the one acting like Voldemort by claiming other countries' islands. Tough call on the more absurd aspect of this story--that a Chinese diplomat resorted to using a Harry Potter reference to voice displeasure over something, or that a Japanese diplomat responded in kind.  I'm going with the latter. Clearly, dude from Japan never bothered to ready the Harry Potter series. If he had, he would have known that Voldemort never tried to claim islands. Duh.

Zambia - A Zambian opposition leader has been charged with defamation for comparing the country's president to a potato. The man faces five years in prison for calling the president a potato or, metaphorically someone who does not list to advice. Five years in prison for suggesting that the president is a couch potato? Yeah that sounds about right. The President was elected to office in 2011 on a pledge to improve freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In fairness, the president said he would improve freedom of speech and of the press. He didn't say he would eliminate it altogether. Still, boyfriend needs to develop a thicker skin. "Couch potato" isn't exactly what I would consider to be hitting under the belt. Grow a pair, dude.

Egypt - The Egyptian regime has accused a puppet of sending coded messages to the Muslim Brotherhood. Sure, why not? Prosecutors are investigating allegations that a commercial featuring a popular Muppet-like character contains symbols and code words encouraging Muslims to attack Coptic Christians. The theory, widely mocked in the press, first surfaced on the blog of a strong supporter of ousted President Hosni Mubarak and the military. I suppose (glass half full) we can be glad that the press sees this as being as stupid as it reads. My question is this; doesn't the Egyptian justice system have more legitimate things to focus its energies on?

What Caught My Eye Today - Iran, Syria, Pope, Natural Disasters, India, Time

Iran - Having successfully curbed birth rates for two decades, Iran now is promoting a baby boom to help make up for its graying population. Here's a thought. Instead of trying to control the forces of nature, why not just let things play out and see what happens. Iran's birthrate reached a peak of 3.6 children per couple after its 1979 Islamic Revolution, among the world's highest at the time. By 1990, experts estimated Iran could be home to 140 million people if the rate was left unchecked. To combat the rise, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei endorsed birth control. The birth rate dropped precipitously, now reportedly standing at 1.8 children per couple with a population of some 77 million people. In case you were wondering, you need a birth rate of just about 2.2 children per couple to maintain a population at its current level. Experts now say that drive might have been too successful, estimating that Iran's population growth could reach zero in the next 20 years if the trend is not reversed.  Khamenei, who has final say over all matters of state, now says Iran should have a population of 150 million people or more. Some blame a drop in marriages and a rise in divorce for the falling birth rate. Others point to Iran's economy, battered by Western sanctions over its contested nuclear program. Inflation stands at 36% while unemployment officially stands at 12%, though some private experts suggest nearly one in three working-age Iranians is out of work. Leave it to the so-called civilized western world to complicate things.  Here we are trying to use economic sanctions and other political tools to reign in Iran's nuclear ambitions. Who would have that that if we just leave Iran alone, it might birth control itself out of existence.

Syria - The U.N.'s human rights office has stopped updating the death toll from Syria's civil war, confirming that it can no longer verify the sources of information that led to its last count of at least 100,000 in late July, 2013. Is this sort of like the adage, "if a tree falls, but no one is around to see it, does it make a sound"? If we cannot count the fatalities is no one actually dying? I think not. Officials blamed the failure to provide new figures on the organization's own lack of access on the ground in Syria and its inability to verify "source material" from others. The total number of dead the U.N. had estimated was based on an exhaustive effort to verify six different figures supplied by a variety of nongovernmental organizations in the region. I think the issue here is motivation rather than the ability to count. The technology to provide reliable counts certainly existing.  If a drone can gather intelligence for a pinpoint missile strike, it seems reasonable that the same drone could take some pictures of bodies lying on the ground as well. 

Pope - Pope Francis is set to name new cardinals in the next few weeks who will help him set its future course and one day elect his successor from their number. In the past, it was a fairly safe bet that archbishops of big dioceses or those heading Vatican departments would be named as cardinals, but Francis has shown little regard for precedent or tradition. Atta boy. You do your own thang, boyfriend! There are currently 14 vacancies in the College of Cardinals for cardinal electors, those who would be allowed to enter a conclave to elect a pope. Church rules, in theory, limit the number of "cardinal electors" to 120. The "in theory" part is a subtle acknowledgement that the pope can pretty much do whatever he wants, what with him being infallible.  Nice job perk, don't you think? Apart from potentially shifting the liberal-conservative balance of the College, and elevating men whose personal abilities he values, Francis could also alter its geographical distribution. In the conclave that elected Francis last March, 60 cardinals were from Europe, even though the Church on the continent has been hardest hit by falling membership. Italy alone had 28. By comparison, there were only 19 cardinals from all of Latin America, a region with the largest Catholic populations, and 11 and 10 respectively from Africa and Asia, where the Church is growing fast. Maybe, if the pope is successful in his endeavors, we won't have to wait another 1600 years for the next non-European pope.

Natural Disasters - This is one of those matter of perspective stories. Here's the first perspective. A German insurance company says some 20,000 people died in natural disasters in 2013, about twice as many as in 2012. Most of the deaths resulted from Typhoon Haiyan that hit the Philippines, Vietnam and China in November with a loss of almost 6,100 lives. This was followed by floods in India that killed about 5,500 people in June. And now for the other perspective. The company's annual disaster report found that the economic cost of natural catastrophes was lower last year. Some 880 events cost about $125 billion, with insured losses of $31 billion. This compares with costs of $173 billion and insured losses of $65 billion in 2012. The costliest natural disasters were summer hailstorms in Germany, floods in Central Europe, and storms and tornadoes in the United States. Okay then, more people died, but the financial losses were less.  What can we conclude from this? Personally, I think the losses were less because the vast majority of those who died in the nations mentioned about probably didn't have much in terms insurance.  My guess is that they probably placed a higher priority on putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads. Until, of course, Mother Nature came in and did her thing.

And finally, we have a two-fer on, of all things, the peculiarities of time...

India - Assam, a northeastern Indian state, plans to shift its clock one hour ahead of the rest of India saying the adjustment will boost the state's productivity, granting its workforce more time in the daylight hours. It is unclear whether other states in India’s far-flung Northeast will follow suit or if the move will gain official sanction from New Delhi. Despite India’s continental vastness, the country has clung to one time zone. Imagine if you will, Los Angeles and New York being in the same time zone. Sunrise in the west at 3:00am and sunset at 3:00pm. What's not too like about that?  It’s not alone in such a conspicuous arrangement: China, which rivals the U.S. in landmass, operates entirely on Beijing time. Already, there are fears that an abrupt changing of timetables will lead to disruptions in the country’s plane and railway services. I can certainly sympathize with that.  My goodness, can you even contemplate the difficulty of printing new timetables that reflect time zone differences? Neither can I. And don't even get me started on the mass hysteria that would ensue caused by having to try to read those new time tables.  Oh, the horror.

Time - At the International Meridian Conference in 1884, the world’s time standard was established from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, U.K. Greenwich Mean Time is still the global measuring stick, but not without its wrinkles and oddities.

• In 2011, the Pacific island of Samoa erased a day off its calendar by jumping over to the other side of the International Date Line — rather than being the last country to ring in the New Year, it became the first, a move that also better aligned the tiny country closer to nations in Asia. Dude, Hawaiian must be totally pissed at that move. Now they are last.
• The massive Soviet Union, on the other hand, sized up its immensity and figured it justified 11 distinct time zones of its own — a boasting, nationalist legacy that Russia has inherited. In 2010, Moscow trimmed the number of zones down to nine (some experts think just four would suffice). Poopy-gook. More is always better than less. 
•  The ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, in China’s far west, is two and a half hours ahead of India on the clock despite lying further west on the map than much of the subcontinent. In fairness, this is not exactly a unique occurrence.
• In India, a 2012 study by the National Institute of Advanced Studies suggests that if the entire country moved its clock half an hour ahead (GMT +6 hours, rather than +5:30), India would save 2 billion kilowatt-hours in electricity a year. But there’s an inertia about making the change, in part because of politics — no nation wants to lose its time-stamp (see Nepal, at GMT +5:45).  Can someone please enlighten me as to when time-stamps became status symbols? Seriously, what's this +5:45 thing all about?

Did You Know? #49

What does a Penrose Triangle have in common with a Blivet?

Both are impossible objects. An impossible object is a type of optical illusion consisting of a two-dimensional figure which is interpreted as representing a projection of a three-dimensional object although it is not geometrically possible for such an object to exist.

The top image is a Penrose Triangle and the bottom image is a Blivet (also know as a devil's fork).