Eideard

For the people of Samoa, December 30 will be a day that never existed as the island nation makes an historic leap across the international dateline.

At midnight on Thursday December 29, Samoa’s calendar will leap straight to Saturday December 31, as it redraws the dateline to move to the western side after more than a century on the east. The country will go from being the last place in the world to see sunset to one of the first to see the sunrise.

The shift, aimed at improving trade, initially angered tourism operators, which will no longer be able to lure visitors with the sight of the final sunset. But the tourism sector quickly switched to a new offering: visitors can now celebrate two New Year’s Eves – one on Samoa and one on American Samoa, which remains on the western side. The two countries – about an hour’s flight apart – are also planning offers of double birthdays, Christmas and anniversaries.

The switch has also caused concern among some religious groups, particularly those whose Sabbath incorporates Friday – a day that, for this week only, will be eternally erased.

Some of the island’s 7000-odd Seventh Day Adventist members have said they will not recognise the change and will continue to observe the existing seven-day cycle. “God will not recognise our manmade right to drop a day from the calendar, thus changing the weekly cycle,” said a local Adventist, Noeline Cutts, who noted that Sunday-keeping Christians will henceforth “unknowingly” be celebrating Sabbath on Saturdays.

Hilarious!

The dateline change was pushed by Samoa’s colourful, outspoken and somewhat whimsical Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, who has previously made a switch to driving on the left in 2009 and introduced daylight saving with little warning in 2010. The country last shifted time zones in 1892 when an American trader convinced the island to align with California. With the opportunity to repeat the same day, the country celebrated two consecutive Fourth of Julys…

The dateline, which passes through the Pacific near the 180º meridian, is not set by an international treaty or organisation and has long been wobbly, mainly to ensure some countries are not left with territory on both sides. Samoa is currently about 20 miles from the dateline.

RTFA for more delightful tales of local politics including an apparent concern that someone will someday shift Samoa, again, and they will end up covered with snow next door to Russia.

 
Scuffles have broken out between rival groups of Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics over a turf war in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.

Bemused tourists looked on as about 100 priests fought with brooms while cleaning the church in preparation for Orthodox Christmas, on 7 January.

Palestinian police armed with batons and shields broke up the clashes.

Groups of priests have clashed before in the church, built on the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.

“It was a trivial problem that… occurs every year,” Bethlehem police Lt-Col Khaled al-Tamimi told Reuters. “No one was arrested because all those involved were men of God,” he said…

The 1,700-year-old church, one of the holiest sites in Christianity, is in a bad state of repair, largely because the priests cannot agree on who should pay for its upkeep.

Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, has also seen similar incidents.

Anyone surprised that money is the root of battles between these churches. Another primo reason for skirmishes like this is who gets the juiciest spots to sell souvenirs to tourists.

After a great discussion of the origins of Christianity – he explained why he wore a fedora hat. Though already out of fashion in the 1960′s, he figured it made him look more like Bing Crosby and therefore less likely to be beaten by the defenders of law and order.

Most of the gold bars I own are only this long
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

When Representative Ed Pastor was first elected to Congress two decades ago, he was comfortably ensconced in the middle class. Mr. Pastor, a Democrat from Arizona, held $100,000 or so in savings accounts in the mid-1990s and had a retirement pension, but like many Americans, he also owed the banks nearly as much in loans.

Today, Mr. Pastor, a miner’s son and a former high school teacher, is a member of a not-so-exclusive club: Capitol Hill millionaires. That group has grown in recent years to include nearly half of all members of Congress — 250 in all — and the wealth gap between lawmakers and their constituents appears to be growing quickly, even as Congress debates unemployment benefits, possible cuts in food stamps and a “millionaire’s tax…”

Largely insulated from the country’s economic downturn since 2008, members of Congress — many of them among the “1 percenters” denounced by Occupy Wall Street protesters — have gotten much richer even as most of the country has become much poorer in the last six years, according to an analysis by The New York Times based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group…

What is clear is that members of Congress are getting richer compared not only with the average American worker, but also with other very rich Americans.

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An Egyptian court has ordered a halt to forced virginity tests on female detainees in military prisons.

The case…was filed by Samira Ibrahim, a woman who said the army forced her to undergo a virginity test in March after she was arrested during a protest in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

Human rights organisations say that there have been many other such tests by the military…

Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal, reporting from Cairo, said the verdict was cheered by hundreds who had gathered inside the courtroom to hear the ruling read out.

“Today’s verdict to ban any form of virginity test [in military prisons] will be seen by many as vindication for their criticism of the military over the past few months,” our correspondent said…

On January 3, one soldier is to face court martial in the case of the so-called virginity tests, charged with “public indecency and not following orders”…

On March 9, army officers violently cleared Cairo’s Tahrir Square and held at least 18 women in detention. Women said they were beaten, given electric shocks, subjected to strip searches while being photographed by male soldiers, then forced to submit to “virginity tests” and threatened with prostitution charges.

Overdue. But, then – there’s a lot that’s overdue in Egypt. Most of which is just as criminal as this brutal treatment of women.

 
A whirlwind of pillows bearing the names of bosses and teachers filled the air as hundreds of Chinese gathered to blow off stress in Shanghai, staging a massive pillow battle.

The annual event marked its fifth year with such a surge in interest from stressed young office workers and students that organizers held two nights of pillow fighting before Christmas Day and plan another for Dec 30.

“Nowadays there are many white collar workers and students that are facing huge pressures at work and at school, so we hope to give them an outlet to release their stress before the end of the year,” said Eleven Wang, the founder and mastermind behind the epic pillow fights.

“Sometimes we have pressure on us by our bosses, teachers and exams, so today we can go crazy. Everyone will get to write onto the pillows the names of their bosses, teachers and exam subjects, and enjoy and vent to the maximum,” he added. “After releasing the stress, we can once again face our daily life with joy…”

Not certain if that’s the best translation.

Pillows filled the air, with many combatants opting for throwing rather than using them to whack opponents. A few hapless participants shielded their heads with as many pillows as they could hold, but most ventured eagerly in to the fray.

“I really enjoyed the fight, but my friend was useless. He joined in for two ticks and could not go on, he was afraid of getting beaten by other people,” said 24-year-old Chen Yi…

Others gamely said they enjoyed the experience even though they ended up as attackees rather than attackers.

Can we try this out on Congress?

 
Har!

Thanks, Ursarodinia

Click on graphic or refresh to see animation

I’ve heard it many times before. Remarkable growth in Asia is leading to big increases in coal consumption and carbon-dioxide emissions. But I didn’t have a good sense of just how big that change has been until I saw this graphic from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Asia’s coal use was smaller than Europe’s in 1980. Now it dwarfs coal consumption even in North America, the world’s second-largest consumer.

Stunning – as a reflection of fossil fuel consumption, energy production. Without differentiating the portion of coal consumed as metallurgical versus thermal coal we’re still looking at enormous growth in industrial potential.

The concurrent pollution problems help to understand why China is fast becoming the world’s leading manufacturer of alternative energy devices. Their conversion rate to solar and wind power is close to first – though still behind Europe. They’re trying equally fast to catch up to and surpass nations like France in nuclear power generation. They have to. That burgeoning middle class is starting to make lifestyle demands to match their growing wealth and education.

The first test train that can reach speeds of up to 500 km an hour stands on a railway line in Qingdao

The six-carriage train with a tapered head is the newest member of the CRH series. It has a maximum drawing power of 22,800 kilowatts, compared with 9,600 kilowatts for the CRH380 trains now in service on the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway, which hold the world speed record of 300 km per hour.

The gray train, which has testing and data processing equipment on board, was designed and produced by CSR’s Sifang Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co…Ding Sansan, the company’s chief technician, said the concept of the super-speed train design was inspired by the ancient Chinese sword. The bodywork uses plastic material reinforced with carbon fiber…

The test train is based on revisions to the CRH 380A – regarding the shape of the front, body, engine and brake systems – intended to increase the speed, promote the engine power and decrease the drag force…

Many high-tech materials, including carbon fiber, magnesium alloy and sound insulation materials, have been used in the train.

Shen Zhiyun, a locomotive expert and academician with both the Chinese academies of sciences and engineering, said the testing of the train will provide useful reference for current high-speed railway operations.

And that is as critical for the process of moving forward to faster, more efficient transport of people and goods. It’s logical that improvements may be needed to roadbeds and rail design, maintenance and upgrades. Whatever is needed for 500kph rail travel will make 300kph even safer.

There will be a predictable number of timorous political mice – who will whine about the danger of testing. You make it as safe a process as possible and then you get on with it. If engineers and designers spent their careers listening to 19th Century fearmongers we’d still be trying to breed faster horses for public transit.

Flowers by the canal where the bodies of the Shafia sisters and their mother were found

Few phrases in the popular discourse are as contentious as “honour killing,” but the Shafia trial, currently taking place in Kingston, Ont., is forcing Canadians to once again grapple with this controversial issue.

Mohammad Shafia, his wife, Tooba Yahya, and their son Hamed stand accused of killing four female family members.

In 2009, teen sisters Sahar, Zainab and Geeti Shafia, along with Mohammed Shafia’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, were found dead in a submerged car in the Rideau Canal. The Crown alleges the four women were killed because Sahar and Zainab Shafia were thought to have dishonoured the family by having boyfriends and living a modern lifestyle…

In a wiretapped conversation between Mohammed Shafia and his wife and son after the bodies were discovered, Shafia revealed his anger at seeing suggestive cellphone photos of his two eldest daughters: “Curse God on both of them. Is that what a daughter should be? Would a daughter be such a whore?”

Though often linked to sexual issues such as adultery and premarital sex, the perceived “offences” that have prompted honour killings have ccome to include a woman’s push for independence…There are documented cases of men being killed for ruining a family’s reputation, but the vast majority of the victims are female.

To some observers, honour killings confuse the issue of domestic abuse with religious connotations. For others, it’s an important designation of a cultural phenomenon distinct from domestic violence…

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In 2008, for the first time in nearly 30 years, more people died of poisoning than in car crashes. Poisoning is now the leading cause of injury death, and 90 percent of poisonings were caused by drugs.

An analysis published last week by the National Center for Health Statistics found that opioid painkillers like morphine, hydrocodone (sold as Vicodin and other brands) and oxycodone (Percocet and other brands) were involved in more than 40 percent of drug poisonings in 2008. These drugs were implicated in more poisoning deaths than heroin or cocaine.

Opioid analgesics accounted for 14,800 of the 36,500 fatal drug poisonings in 2008. About 12,400 people died after taking other kinds of drugs, and for 25 percent of the cases where drugs were listed as a cause of death, no specific drug was mentioned…

Non-Hispanic whites had higher rates of death from drugs than Hispanics, and rates among African-Americans were lower than both.

In 30 states, poisoning is the leading cause of injury death. New Mexico, West Virginia, Alaska, Nevada and Utah have the highest rates in the country…

According to the article, more than five million Americans in 2009-10 reported using pain relievers without a prescription or only for the feeling they caused.

It’s a wonderful life, eh?