New times

Today the European Union standards agency announced a new initiative, as part of the ongoing G20 summit. Building on the nearly world-wide success of the metric system for weights and measures, they are ready to take the metric system to the next level.

The system will be phased in over the next several years. By 2016-04-01, all member states will need to complete the switch over to metric time. “The current calendar is a relic of Pope Gregory and the medieval Catholic Church. It builds on the Roman calendar developed by Julius Caesar. And just as we no longer use Roman Numerals to count, and we no longer use Feet and Hogsheads to measure distance, it’s time to get away from the chaotic math of the current clock,” said the chairman of the Greenwich Mean Time committee.

The new system will make it easier to tell and calculate time.

The base unit of the system will still be the day. The new day will be 10 hours long. During the transition, the metric day will be called an “mDay” in English. Once the transition is complete, the “m” prefix and archaic name will be replaced permanently with the new metric name. To make the conversion, 1 hour will equal .416667 mHours.

The term “hour” will be replaced with the “deciday.” There will be 100 minutes in an hour (or 100 Millidays).

The new week, the mWeek (after 2016, the Decaday) will equal 10 mDays. Each mMonth (or Hectoday) will equal 10m weeks (or 10 Decadays), or 100 mDays.

The mYear (or Kiloyear) will equal 10 mMonths (or 100 Decidays), or 1,000 mDays.

This chart may help:

New Term	Definition	Obsolete Term
1 Milliday	.001 Days	Minute
I Deciday	.1 Days	Hour
1 Day	1 Day	Day
1 Decaday	10 Days	Week
1 Hectoday	100 Days	Month
1 Kiloday	1,000 Days	Year

The problem here is obvious, and was discussed extensively in committee. The current year is 365.25 days. The new Kiloyear is equal to almost 3 current years (which total 1,095.75 current days). Naturally age restrictions in laws, licensing, retirement, and other documents will need to be adjusted.

It also means each year will have three summers and three winters. We will need more Holidays to adjust for the annual events.

The dates for each season and equinox will have to float. Protesters argued this is unnatural. “Comment peuvent-ils indiquer la Terre quand incliner?” shouted protesters in Paris. The committee chairman shrugged it off. “The dates on the calendar have always been arbitrary. Some years we adjust the year by as much as 15 seconds because of the inconvenient nature of the Earth’s slightly irregular orbit. This is the same thing.”

“We can’t let the arbitrary holidays interfere with the science of measurement,” he continued.

Nineteen of the 20 member of the G20 issued a joint statement praising the shift:

Not only will this change simplify time, it will provide a significant aid to the world economy. Manufacturing and scientific organizations will have a cleaner and more efficient measurement system. And it will be a significant boon to the watch and clock makers around the world during these troubled times.

President Obama declined to join in the statement. The President released his own statement later.

While we are pleased to see our European partners working so closely together to come up with new solutions to old problems, we don’t plan to impose this change on the American people. The American people have no trouble with the 60s and 7s that make up our calendar. Further, we don’t need to mandate this program.

The American people have always worked with partners around the world to build a world class economy and to help people from all walks of life achieve their true potential. The American people are thrilled to buy their soda in 2 liter bottles and their milk by the gallon. The power of American business is that it works with and respects the traditional culture of America, while still working with the rest of the world in the different measures they use. The people will use the units they prefer as we move into the next global age of economic revitalization.

Some European editorialist scoffed at Obama’s suggestion that this won’t be a problem for the US. “Didn’t the Americans lose a space ship because they don’t understand metric?” suggested the editor of the London Financial Times.

The Director of the US Bureau of Weights and Measures stated the US would work with others on the new calendar, but beyond providing conversion tables, would take few initiatives. “We still plan to keep our speed limit signs at 65 MPH. We don’t plan to change them to 249.6 KMpdD (kilometers per deciday).”

After the press conference, was overheard talking to a colleague about the issue. Apparently he didn’t realize his microphone was still open. “Not this crap again. What is this? 1977? I’m getting too old for this.”

The second will remain at 9,192,631,770 Cesium atom vibrations for now. The seconds in a Milliday will be defined by conversion tables. The standards body will discuss alternative definitions for the “second” over the next year.

There is still a great deal of debate over what to do with the yet to be implemented Decimilliday.

Dave Wopat -- Undercover agent?

Back in the early 90s, Dave Wopat, was driving around the country in a small station wagon playing music at college campuses and other venues. I saw him when he came to Carroll College. It was really nice, low key show. I bought a copy one of his tapes.

I think it was called 5 Songs. Or something like that. One side, as I recall, was labeled 5 Songs. The other side was labeled 5 More Songs. I think there were 13 on the tape. It was mostly covers of lite rock. That cassette got quite a workout in my tape deck.

Unfortunately, I lost a case of 12 tapes on a trip and that tape was in that case. I've made some half-hearted efforts to replace it since then, but I haven't had much luck.

And here's where it gets interesting -- Google is failing me.

If the names sounds familiar, it's because his brother is Actor/Singer/Broadway dude Tom Wopat. Best known for his work on the Dukes of Hazzard, the past 20 years of his career have been surprisingly diverse.

But his roaming minstrel brother seems to have disappered. There are no references to him on Wikipedia or on Tom's website. MySpace is no help. Amazon lists nothing. And the Google search returns just a few mentions of his name, and those are people who also saw him perform at colleges in the 80s and early 90s.

That may not have been a superstar career, and it was before the Internet reached a mass audience. But still. He apparently made his living as a professional musician, went back to the same places several times, recorded a album (which was not as cheap and easy back them), and must have had some fans. It's odd that there is so little of him on Internet.

My working theory is that music was just a cover career. He was actually working for some shadowy governmental organization. He travelled around the country singing at night and taking on missions during the day. And one day he had an especially important mission. He had to "disappear." His handlers took him off the road and proceeded to wipe out his existence. They erased online entries and databases. They convinced his family not to talk about him. They even followed me just so they could recover that cassette, which must have had state secrets encoded into it.

I guess now that I have given voice to this national secret, I should keep my eyes open for unmarked vans...

Plot to undermine the Republican Party

As I watched the coverage of the RNC I saw all the McCain-Palin signs, and in the vein of Brangelina and Bennifer, it wasn't long before people were referring to the Republican ticket as McCalin. Thus a plan that was born in the early nineties was activated.

In the early 1990s, the a shadowy organization went to work. They saw the potential of Ralf Reed and Newt Gingrich leading a coalition of Christian Conservatives to take over the Republican party. Their prescient move, before the Contract with America reached the media, would take nearly 18 years to come to fruition, but it is happening today. This shadowy group is determined to take back the party from the religious right by torpedoing the 2008 election and handing to the Democrats.

Here's how they did it.

Don Von Tress was an early player in the conspiracy. He worked his Nashville connections and partnered with Billy Ray Cyrus. Billy went on to record Von Tress's song, "Don't Tell My Heart" (renamed "Achy Breaky Heart") and reach the top of the country music charts. Cyrus would go on to be hated by millions of people who wanted to throttle anyone who played that song.

But Cyrus accepted that sacrifice for the good of the organization.

Phase 1 was complete.

As the years went by, Cyrus and the organization called in some favors from the leadership of the Disney organization. The result of this careful, long range planning was the creation of Hannah Montana and the Hanna Montana TV series.

Phase 2 was complete.

Early in the first season, the producers cast Selena Gomez as Hannah's evil arch rival, pop star Mikayla. Naturally, viewers hate Mikayla, the upstart who causes all kinds grief for the All-American Hannah.

Said out loud Mikayla sounds an awful lot like McCalin, doesn't it? Clearly, Disney, Cyrus, Tress, and the shadowy organization are working to make the populace believe that the McCain-Palin ticket is wrong for America. They are saying these candidates will undermine all that is good and pure about America, as embodied in Miley Cyrus's Hannah Montana.

Further, by casting Gomez, an actress with a latina sounding name, as Mikayla, the organization is trying to tie McCain and Palin unfavorably to the immigration debate.

With this plan, they expect to alienate mainstream, apple-pie America from the McCain-Palin ticket.

Phase 3 was complete.

Now they ensured an Obama victory in November, the organization had to break the grip party leadership has over the Christian Conservative vote. They had to alienate that wing of the party from the McCain-Palin camp.

So they went back to Mikayla and Gomez. They no longer needed a name that sounded like McCalin. People already associate Gomez with McCalin now. How do they make sure the religious right hates McCalin?

Witchcraft.

Enter the Wizards of Waverly Place. In Gomez's new show, she plays and irresponsible teen age witch.

Phase 4 complete.

Middle America hates McCain-Palin because of Hannah Montana.

The Religious Right hates McCain-Palin because of all the witchcraft.

Obama-Biden wins in 2008.

The Republican party leadership loses the support of the moderate Republican wing by blowing the election.

The Republican party leadership loses the support of the Religious Right because of all the witchcraft.

The shadowy organization seizes control of the party and wins in 2012.

IT'S SO OBVIOUS!

Lead: The Latest Threat to Homeland Security

Everyday brings news of another recall of a Chinese made product. The early recalls were for deadly tires and poisoned pet food. Now, though, the recalls are for the more subtle lead poisoning in toys.

It’s truly shocking that we can’t trust the cheapest possible products, made with slave labor to be quality learning and entertainment aids for our children. How can these accidents happen?

Obviously, they’re not accidents – they’re intentionals.

China has made tremendous strides over the past few decades. Market oriented reforms and a focus on growth have turned the country into an economic powerhouse, providing finished goods for much of the world. China is the reason steel and oil prices have skyrocketed in recent years; they are importing more of these raw materials than ever before and limiting supply to the rest of the world.

In fact, that was part one of the recently established plan. It’s a clever form of market oriented attack on the US. By buying all this stuff, and driving up commodities prices, they hope to crash the economy of the US.

But that might only be effective for the next few years. The US has a massive capacity for innovation. The inherent scrappiness in the national character that gave the world everything from the Internet to the Chicago Cubs gives us tremendous resilience. Even if we face an economic collapse, the children of today will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. They are smart enough and determined enough to pull the country out of any trench and create the next economic bubble.

To bring down the US, you have to collapse the economy of today, and destroy the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

And that’s what these lead contaminated toys are.

Excessive lead exposure in children learns to impaired intellectual development. It lowers IQs, causes stunted grown, limits hearing, and gives kids ADHD.

The increase in lead toys is all part of a long term world domination plan on the part of the Communist party in China. Before invading the US, they first have to make our kids dumb.

That must be we why they are letting Survivor be filmed there, too.

You’ve been warned.