If you’re used to counting down the New Year from 10, 9, 8, etc. this year you’re going to have to make sure you go from 11! Yes, a “leap second” is going to be added to the atomic clock between 2008 and 2009 in order to stay in step with the Earth’s irregular, gradually slowing rotation. (Atomic clocks have an inaccuracy of less than one second in 200 million years.)

It’s the 24th time this has happened since the practice was started in 1972, but only the first time in three years. The IERRSS (International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service) will mark the extra second at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday in Greenwich, England, the home of Coordinated Universal Time.

Why do we need to do this, you ask? Apparently gravity (as well as some man-made factors like global warming), causes irregular axis rotation, which means the planet lags behind the atomic clock on average two milliseconds per day. At the moment, we’re behind roughly 6/10ths of a second. So the extra second will put us about 4/10ths of a second ahead in ’09.

All this is to say that you now have a perfectly legitimate excuse when you show up half a second late at your first meeting in ‘09.

“Erg! Blasted leap second! I totally forgot. It won’t happen again, promise.”

If you own an atomic clock, on December 31st, at 7 p.m. ET, you’ll notice that the minute beginning at 6:59 p.m. will contain 61 seconds. In some versions of the clock, the number 59 will flash twice. If you want to watch it on your computer, check out this site at the same time just indicated.

Every aspect of the American presidency comes under intense scrutiny, but few parts of a president’s life contain as many amusing, slightly sordid anecdotes as their siblings’ behavior. When a new president takes office, his ne’er-do-well siblings receive a whole slew of opportunities for corrupt behavior, legal scrapes, and generally humiliating mayhem. Here are a few of our favorites:

1. Neil Bush: Opening Doors When Opportunity Knocks!

George W. Bush’s younger brother Neil certainly hasn’t done much to make his brother’s rocky political life any easier. Neil’s been making the wrong kind of news since as far back as the 1980s, when as the son of Vice President George H.W. Bush he served as a director of Silverado Savings and Loan, which cost taxpayers an estimated $1 billion when it collapsed. He drew accusations of insider trading chicanery in 1999 when he made nearly $800,000 in three trades of Kopin Corporation stock in a single day; Bush had been a consultant for Kopin and sold on the day the stock’s price soared as the result of good news from a client. Bush also had a somewhat dubious-sounding arrangement with Grace Semiconductor, a Chinese company with ties to former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Despite admittedly not knowing anything about semiconductors, Bush had a deal to receives $2 million in stock and $10,000 for every board meeting he attended to discuss business strategies, a deal that led to claims of influence peddling.

These little business episodes were just appetizers for Bush’s truly bizarre 2003 divorce proceedings. His wife Sharon Smith accused Bush of enjoying the company of high-priced escorts on business trips to Thailand and Hong Kong. (Bush’s defense: yes, he had sex with these strange women, but they might not have been prostitutes. They just showed up at his door, and he slept with them. No money changed hands.) Not content to let things die with that simple embarrassment of infidelity, Neil’s friend John Spalding accused Sharon of pulling out Neil’s hair for use in a voodoo curse. Sharon countered that she simply wanted the hair tested for evidence of cocaine use. In either event, the President couldn’t have been too pleased as this saga played out in front of the media.

2. Roger Clinton: Codename “Headache”

(more…)

At 4pm (ish) each day this month, we’ll be posting one of the year’s most popular quizzes. (And by “most popular,” we mean “ranked somewhere between #21 and #100,” since the actual Top 20 is listed beside every quiz.)

Years of expansion and multiple franchise relocations have made the NHL a much different league than it was just two decades ago. The object of the #24 quiz on our countdown is simply to name all 30 current NHL teams. We don’t need city or state names, just the team names, and typing case doesn’t matter. Give it a shot!

Take the Quiz: 30 Teams, 5 Minutes

The venerable CBS News commentator has said a lot of crazy stuff over the years. We’ve compiled fifteen sayings. Can you pick out the actual Rooneyisms?

Take the quiz: Did Andy Rooney Really Say That?

By now, you’re probably aware that the Detroit Lions just completed a “perfect” 0-16 season. Rather than kick the team when they’re down, let’s instead celebrate some of history’s underappreciated undefeated seasons.

1. 1948 Cleveland Browns

Coached by their namesake, Paul Brown, the Cleveland Browns were the model franchise of the All-American Football Conference. The Browns compiled a 52-4-3 and won all four titles during the league’s existence, including a perfect season in 1948 that was capped by a 49-7 win over Buffalo. (Apparently the Bills’ inability to win the big game wasn’t just an early 90s fad.) The Browns’ dominance actually helped contribute to the downfall of the AAFC, as the team was so good that Cleveland fans stopped coming to games.

An afterthought because: The NFL doesn’t recognize the Browns’ perfect season, or any other AAFC records.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: Fittingly, Cleveland’s first AAFC game was against the franchise from the city associated with pro football perfection since 1973. The Browns stomped the Miami Seahawks, 44-0.

2. 2007 Bronx Gridlock

(more…)

(President) Will and (Editor) Jason told me about a Mohammad statue at the Supreme Court they heard about on This American Life. This was their way of saying, “We’re curious, so you should go do a bunch of research on it. Let us know how that goes.”

When I hear about depictions of Mohammad, I picture Muslims burning Aqua* CDs in the streets and boycotts of Danish…danishes.

But much to my surprise, the Danes aren’t to blame this time around. The statue in question is, in fact, right in our very own Supreme Court building.

Let’s start at the beginning.

A Court to Call Home

Despite its stature in the country’s political and cultural landscape, the Supreme Court was something of a vagabond in its early years. When New York City was our capital, the Court met in the Merchants Exchange Building, and when the capital moved to Philadelphia in 1790, the Court set up shop in Independence Hall, and then City Hall. When the federal government went off to Washington, the Court used the Capitol Building as a flophouse, but got bounced to a new chamber six different times during their stay.

(more…)

My wife Kara became ill after eating some ham over the holidays. So, to prove that I’ll turn just about anything into a puzzle… here goes!

By changing one letter at a time to form new words (and leaving the other three letters in their original positions), how many steps will it take you to convert the word FOOD into the word SICK? I was able to do it in five steps:

F O O D
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _
S I C K

Here’s one SOLUTION.

As 2008 comes to a close, we’ll be resting our starters and looking back at some of the year’s greatest hits. This site welcomed almost four times as many readers in November than we had in January, so there’s a good chance many of you missed these articles and quizzes the first time around.

But fear not, loyal daily readers. We’ll be sprinkling in some new stuff this week as well. One other programming note: starting next Monday, we’ll be giving away a different book every weekday here on the blog. How exactly those books will be awarded is still up in the air, but we’ll think of something. Or 20 different things. It’s our way of giving something back. (OK, it’s really our way of clearing out some space in the Chagrin Falls office. But either way, free books!)

By Michael Kress
What’s not to love about holidays? You get to take off work, everyone’s in a great mood, and there’s always plenty of delicious food lying around. Wouldn’t it be great if we could sustain all that fun and excitement throughout the year? Well, you’re in luck. So sit back, crack open a Good Book, and get ready to celebrate these 10 major religious holidays that still aren’t on Hallmark’s radar.

1. Sikhism: Guru Nanak’s Day

Although most Sikhs live in the religion’s homeland of India, Sikh communities have become increasingly common in the West. (Those men in turbans you might think are Muslims are most likely Sikh.) But wherever they reside, you can bet Guru Nanak’s Day will be celebrated in style.

For the first couple of centuries after Sikhism was founded, 10 gurus served in succession as the leaders of the religion. When the 10th guru died, however, no single leader emerged, and the tradition of having a sole guru was abandoned. Not surprisingly, many Sikh holidays hearken back to events in the lives of these great men. And one of the biggest, no doubt, is the festival honoring the birth of the first guru, Nanak.

Guru Nanak was born to a Hindu family in 1469, and around the time he turned 30, he had a mystical experience that became the basis for the religion. While bathing in a river, he plunged into the water and didn’t resurface for three days. During that time, he later said, he was communing with God. Drawing on elements of both Hinduism and Islam, Nanak journeyed far and wide, preaching his new faith of Sikhism and compiling his teachings into a scripture known as the Guru Granth Sahib.

Today, Nanak’s birthday, which falls in October or November (depending on the lunar calendar), marks a joyous three-day celebration for Sikhs around the world. As part of the festivities, some communities undertake a ritual known as the Akhand Path, a kind of marathon reading of Sikh scriptures, usually continuing nonstop for the entire 72-hour holiday and ending on Nanak’s actual birthday. For the slightly less studious, there are grandiose processions that typically take place the day before Guru Nanak’s birthday, during which devotees wave the Sikh flag, brass bands play, and martial-arts teams show off their swordsmanship.

2. Shinto: Shichigosan

(more…)

At 4pm (ish) each day this month, we’ll be posting one of the year’s most popular quizzes. (And by “most popular,” we mean “ranked somewhere between #21 and #100,” since the actual Top 20 is listed beside every quiz.)

As Seinfeld taught us, some men will stop at nothing to stake their claim to a Twix bar that’s rightfully theirs. While George Costanza was unable to fool anyone with his all-Twix candy bar lineup at David Puddy’s car dealership, maybe you’ll have better luck identifying your favorite unwrapped confections.

Take the George Costanza Candy Identification Quiz

Note: We haven’t done a fill-in-the-blanks quiz in a while, so be sure to read the instructions and use the answer key.