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The Daily Dose/December 31, 2008
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
   
This will surprise, but we have notes from around the Human Experience today, plus Aishwarya Rai is the Column Four Foto!
THREE…TWO…ONE…ONE: Time junkies - a category that, like you, we tend to fall in to - get a bonus tonight as not only does the year change, but the keepers of mankind's time standard at the Royal Observatory on the Prime Meridian at Greenwich, England are adding a second at the end of 2008 and before 2009 starts.
Leading Off: Dry, Technical Matter: Such added seconds are called leap seconds, and the limey's have been adding them from time to time, either at the end of June or the end of the year, since 1972.
Really Dry, Technical Matter: The maniacs at the Royal Observatory do not actually decide when to add a leap second. They, along with every other official timekeeper - like the US Naval Observatory - do so under the auspices of - and we are not making this up - the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service.
Really, Really Dry, Technical Matter: No, on second thought, you really don't want to know anything about the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service. It's even duller than it sounds.
We Return You To Our Regularly Scheduled Dry, Technical Matter: Leap seconds are required because the rotation of the Earth is not - for reasons having a lot to do with the Moon but which otherwise are beyond the scope of this column - constant. It varies from year to year. Not by a whole lot, and, certainly, not by any amount that would be noticeable over the course of a normal human lifetime, but enough so that over a millennium or two the human time standard would no longer be in step with the seasons.
Historical Dry, Technical Matter: The original clocks built for the Royal Observatory by Thomas Tompion circa 1676 were accurate to within seven (7) seconds, an astounding feat for that, so to speak, time.
Look! More Dry, Technical Matter: The Royal Observatory at Greenwich has been the keeper of international time since the 1884 International Meridian Conference declared Greenwich to be the planet's prime meridian and if you think today's column is mainly dry, technical matter, you should read the minutes of that little gathering.
Surprise! Dry, Technical Matter: The previous leap second insertion occurred in 2005; before that, 1998.
Dissenting Dry, Technical Matter: Nothing, it seems, in today's world can be done without a dissenting viewpoint, and so it is here: the French are pushing to have the International Bureau of Weights and Measures' (IBWM) International Atomic Time standard - conveniently kept near Paris - become the keeper of the world's clock.
Good, Old Fashioned Dry, Technical Matter: This would pose a practical problem because International Atomic Time is stable and would not allow for leap seconds, and does not take into consideration Earth's varying rotation, which even the IBWM acknowledges mankind more or less needs.
Please Pass The Dry, Technical Matter: The French may still be snitty about not having its own Paris Meridian selected as prime meridian. They had abstained from the vote that selected Greenwich at the 1884 International Meridian Conference, and, in fact, had stubbornly clung to the Paris Meridian until they on-boarded onto the Greenwich meridian bandwagon until 1911.
THE YEAR IN REVIEW: We had a good time producing this column for you in 2008. We must be honest though, and say chronicling the 1908 Chicago Cubs season was a lot of fun, more so than the usual day in, day out blather we subject you to. Typically, though, rather than whine about it ending or trying to force something similar in 2009 that wouldn't really work, the staff here is content to have been able to offer a review of the Cubs' 1908 season during the centennial anniversary of their last World Series title.
FunFact: The next opportunity to celebrate an entire century without a World Series title will come in 2048 when the world gathers to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Cleveland Indians last World Series title.
Outlook For 2009: Pretty good. This column will continue, and The Bottom Ten will return, and we should have another book for you to buy. And, as always, we will keep an eye out for not-too-boring columnists who write for free, though hopefully they will be slightly more prolific than Chuck Baldwin.
A GOOD VINTAGE: It was a good year for official Writer's Shack Faves, which shouldn't be too surprising as we are the biggest bunch of bandwagon hoppers on the planet. Our Norwegian chick team handball squad and USA men's volleyball team won gold medals at the Beijing Games and our Mount Union Purple Raiders won their tenth Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, the NCAA Division III national championship game. Our other official Fave, the All Blacks, the national rugby union team of New Zealand, had a good year, too, winning their fourth consecutive Tri Nations Cup, a yearly competition against South Africa and Australia.
OH, WHAT THE HELL: On this date in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln - who, and he wasn't the only one, felt it was probably unconstitutional - signed an act allowing several malcontent counties from Virginia to join the Union as West Virginia.
Light This Way: On this date, in 1879, in Menlo Park, New Jersey, one of the most useful men this species had produced, Thomas Edison, demonstrated incandescent lighting to the public.
It's About Time: Culminating an effort that began in 1903 and was formalized in two treaties signed in 1977, Panama assumed control of the Panama Canal from the United States on this date in 1999.
Thought For The Day: Each of us must endure the entire cycle from beginning to end. There is no way out. - Gore Vidal, Creation
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: There was not a trivia question last time.
Today's Stumper: How many countries lie on the prime meridian? - Answer next time!
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