An educated person will go all the way to prove his point,
but an intelligent person knows when to retreat …
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Recently, I came across a joke that dates back to the 1990s about a hotshot big city lawyer and the “three-kick rule of rural North Cowra.”
Cowra is a town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia in the Cowra Shire. When I scoured the net to find the originator of this popular joke, I found many authors had duplicated the gist of the story using various places for the origin of the “Three Kicks Rule“: Arizona, Louisiana, Texas, Montana, Minnesota, Tennessee and a lot of other places.
Here is the story that I read the first time:
A big city hotshot lawyer went duck hunting in rural North Cowra in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia.
The first bird he shot fell on the other side of a fence into the field of a grouchy elderly farmer.
The farmer seated on his tractor spotted the lawyer climbing over the fence, and asked him what he was doing.
The lawyer responded, “The duck I shot fell in your field, and now I am going to retrieve it.”
The ill-tempered old farmer replied, “This is my property, and how can you jump over my fence?”
The irate lawyer said: “Do you know who I am?”
“I don’t care who you are. Get off my field,” shouted the farmer.
“I am one of the leading trial lawyers in Australia and, if you do not let me get that duck, I will sue you, take everything you own and leave you stranded on the road.”
The old farmer smiled and said: “You city slickers apparently don’t know how we settle disputes in North Cowra.”
“How?”
“We settle small disputes like this with the ‘Three Kick Rule’.”
“What is the ‘Three Kick Rule‘?” the lawyer asked.
The Farmer replied, “Because the dispute occurs on my land, I get to go first. I kick you three times and then you kick me three times and so on back and forth until someone gives in.”
The lawyer quickly thought about the proposed ‘Three Kick Rule’ and thought he could easily take the old codger. So, he agreed to abide by the local custom.
The old farmer got down from his tractor and cautiously walked up to the lawyer. His first kick planted the toe of his heavy steel-toed work boot into the lawyer’s groin and dropped him to his knees.
His second kick to the midriff sent the lawyer reeling with his last meal spewing out of his mouth. The lawyer was on all fours when the farmer’s third kick to his rear end, sent him face-first into a fresh cow pie.
Summoning every bit of his will and remaining strength the lawyer managed to get on to his feet. Wiping his face with the arm of his jacket, he said: “Okay, you old fart. Now it’s my turn.”
(Now comes the part I love …)
The old farmer smiled and said: “Nah, I give up. You can have the duck.”
But now the plate movements and spreading Atlantic have positioned the N American continent for what we have long described. A diagonal tear in the New Madrid, a bowing of the continent around San Diego so that Mexico is too far West, an adjustment up the West Coast to relieve the bow. Meanwhile, the entire continent has stress of some kind as this process has already begun but has not manifested in large adjustments, quakes, as yet. It soon will! – ZetaTalk
Five states across the U.S., from Arizona to Rhode Island reported simultaneous series of unexplained booms and trembling ground. It started near midnight on December 4th, and reports say the phenomenon is still occurring in Georgia. It might be due to the diagonal stress asserted across North America.
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CBS 5 News first received reports of the explosion-like noises shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday and began checking with law enforcement and government sources.
In the past major media outlets in the US have reported several unexplained booms:
Orange County, California 9:15 pm Tuesday March 3, 2009
Bob Dollar of the USGS told the Register that Caltech scientists reviewed seismograms from Tuesday night’s event in Orange County. “These data are consistent with a sonic event coming onshore near Dana Point and traveling northward inland,” Dollar said. “The energy traveled across our seismic sensor network at the velocity of a compressional wave in air rather than the velocity of a similar wave through the ground, which is much faster,” Dollar said.
Santa Cruz, California 9:15 am Wednesday March 4, 2009
Wilmington, North Carolina 10 am, Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Glynn County, Georgia 8:30 am, Tuesday, March 15, 2012
Clintonville, Wisconsin, 12 am, Monday, March 19, 2012
San Diego, California, 8:38 am, Friday, April 13, 2012
A weather forecaster stated that the sound could have been caused by military aircraft doing a maneuver in which chaff was released.
San Diego, California, 12:45 pm, Friday, June 29, 2012
Do you have a theory about the unexplained noise? If you do, please comment below.
Daylight Saving Time Countries as of October 2011.
Daylight Saving Time often known as “Summer Time”, “DST” or “Daylight Savings Time” helps to make better use of daylight in the evenings during certain periods of the year.
The clock moves ahead losing one hour in the spring when DST starts, and it falls back one hour gaining an hour when DST ends in the Fall. The transition from Standard Time (ST) to Daylight Saving Time (DST) has the effect of moving one hour of daylight from morning to the evening and the transition from DST to ST effectively moves one hour of daylight from the evening to the morning.
This year on Sunday, March 11 at 2 am, the Eastern Time Zone officially switched from standard time to DST, giving us a later sunrise and sunset. After being in effect for 238 days, or about 65% of the year DST ended today at 2 am.
From yesterday, the time difference between New Delhi, India and Washington DC, USA is -19:30 hours instead of -9:30 hours.
Here are some facts about Daylight Saving Time:
In his article “Daylight saving in ancient Rome,” that appeared in The Classical Journal 13 (6): 450–451, B.L. Ullman (1918-03) wrote about the common practice of saving daylight in the ancient world.
Benjamin Franklin
In 1784, Benjamin Franklin the American inventor, statesman, and publisher resurrected this idea. During his time as an American envoy to France, on April 26, 1784 Journal de Paris published in its “Économie” section an anonymous light-hearted satire titled “Aux auteurs du Journal” in French translated from the English original. In this satire, Franklin suggested that Parisians could economize on candles by rising earlier than they used to and use morning sunlight. He also proposed taxing shutters, rationing candles, waking the public by ringing church bells, and firing cannons at sunrise.
Franklin wrote under the pseudonyms of “Poor Richard” and “Richard Saunders”. He achieved success publishing a yearly almanac named “Poor Richard’s Almanack“. Being the best-selling pamphlet published in the American colonies, yearly print runs of the almanac reached 10,000. He published this almanac continually from 1732 to 1758. In this almanac, Franklin’s facetiously suggested that people should get up earlier in the summer to take advantage of more sunlight. The axiom “Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” has been attributed to him.
George Vernon Hudson
In 1895, George Vernon Hudson, a New Zealand entomologist, mooted the idea of modern daylight saving time (DST).
William Willett
On an early summer morning in 1907, William Willett, an Englishman, after riding his horse in Petts Wood, near his home noticed many blinds still down, and the idea for daylight saving time occurred to him.
William Willet published a pamphlet “The Waste of Daylight” using his own financial resources. He proposed that the clocks should be advanced by 80 minutes in four incremental steps during April and reversed the same way during September. The evenings would then remain light for longer increasing daylight recreation time, and this could save ₤2.5 million in lighting costs. He suggested that the clocks should be advanced by 20 minutes at a time, at 2 am on successive Sundays in April, and be retarded by the same amount on Sundays in September.
In 1908, the fate of Willett’s proposal involved several political issues in Britain. His idea captivated many persons in high office, including Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour, David Lloyd George, James Ramsay MacDonald, King Edward VII (who used half-hour DST at Sandringham), budding politician Winston Spencer Churchill, the managing director of Harrods, and the manager of the National Bank.
Even so, the opposition to Willett’s proposal was stronger. It included Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith, Sir William Christie (the Astronomer Royal), Sir George Howard Darwin, Sir William Napier Shaw (director of the Meteorological Office), many agricultural organizations, and theater owners.
In 1909, after many hearings by a Parliamentary select committee on Willett’s proposal nothing came out of it.
In the same year, Andrew Peters introduced a DST bill to the US House of Representatives. However, the skeptical US politicians killed it in committee.
Every year from 1911 through 1914, Willett’s allies introduced similar bills to the British Parliament, to no avail.
The outbreak of the First World War made the issue of daylight saving more important because of the need to save coal. By 1916, Germany and its allies enforced daylight saving time calling it Sommerzeit.
Finally, after Britain passed the bill on May 17, 1916 it advanced the clocks by an hour on the following Sunday, 21st May. Subsequently, other European countries adopted daylight saving. Russia waited until 1917.
Sir Winston Churchill in his article “A silent toast to William Willett” in the Pictorial Weekly dated April 28, 1934 argued that daylight saving enlarges “the opportunities for the pursuit of health and happiness among the millions of people who live in this country.”
The term “summer time” replaced daylight saving time in draft legislation in Britain. Continental Europe uses similar phrases, like Sommerzeit in Germany, zomertijd in Dutch, horario de verano or hora de verano in Spain and l’heure d’été in France. In Italy, the term became ora legale, that is, legal time (legally enforced time) as opposed to ora solare, solar time, in Winter.
The United States adopted daylight saving time in 1918. Two states, Arizona and Hawaii do not observe daylight saving time. In 2005, President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act, extending daylight saving time by four weeks.
Many countries near or south of the equator do not observe DST. Kazakhstan dropped DST in 2005 citing negative health effects.
A few studies link an increase in heart attacks when DST goes into effect, and a decrease when it ends.
Still people debate whether DST actually saves energy.
As I opened my laptop this morning, I remembered I had to fall back on time today. I clicked the clock icon at the bottom of the screen, and the clock applet showed this message: “Daylight saving time ended Sunday, November 04, 2012 at 2:00 AM. The clock went back 1 hour at that time.”
I googled “daylight saving time” and the first item I saw on the screen was:
“Daylight Saving Time (United States) began Sunday, March 11, 2012, 2:00am, and ended Sunday, November 4, 2012, 2:00am. Except Arizona and Hawaii. Move your clocks ahead 1 hour in spring and back 1 hour in fall (“Spring forward, fall back”).“
The clock moves ahead losing one hour in the spring when DST starts, and it falls back one hour gaining an hour when DST ends in the Fall. This year on Sunday, March 11 at 2 a.m., the Eastern Time Zone officially switched from standard time to DST, giving us a later sunrise and sunset. After being in effect for 238 days, or about 65% of the year DST ended today at 2 a.m.
“As his mother, it was very meaningful to me that people who didn’t know us stepped forward to be in Bopsy’s life.” – Octaviana Trujillo, Mother of Frank “Bopsy” Salazar
Note: This story is in circulation through emails since February 2001. In most of the versions the boy is fictitiously named “Billy” instead of using his real name – Frank “Bopsy” Salazar. This story is relatively true.
Octaviana Trujillo, 26, sadly stared down at her 7-year-old dying son. Like all mothers, Octaviana too wanted her son to grow up and fulfil all his dreams. But leukaemia would not allow him to live long enough.
In 1981, in Phoenix, Arizona, doctors diagnosed Frank “Bopsy” Salazar as having terminal leukaemia.
Octaviana clasped her son’s hand and asked, “Bopsy, did you ever think about what you wanted to be once you grew up? Did you ever dream and wish what you would do with your life?”
Bopsy replied, “Mommy, I want to be a firefighter; I want to go up in a balloon; I want to go to Disneyland. “
She smiled back and said, “Let’s see if we can make your wish come true.”
Later that day, she went to her local fire Department in Phoenix. She explained her son’s last wish and asked if it might be possible to give her little son a ride around the block on a fire engine.
The Chief said, “Madam, we can do better than that. We’ll make him an honorary Fireman for the day. He can come down to the fire station, eat with us, go out on all the fire calls, the whole nine yards!”
The Chief’s reply enthralled Octaviana.
The Fire Chief decided that the Phoenix Fire Department should make sure the dying boy had an experience truly befitting a fireman.
“And if you’ll give us his sizes, we’ll get a real fire uniform for him,” the Chief added.
The first wish-granting team started with the Phoenix Fire Department.
A full uniform, complete with a yellow coat and a helmet, was custom-made for him.
A few days later the Fire Chief picked up Bopsy, dressed him in his uniform, and escorted him from the hospital to the waiting hook and ladder truck.
The 7-year-old got into the truck. He was in heaven. Bopsy scrambled around the back of Engine 9’s ladder truck, turned on the horn.
The boy went out with the firefighters. He rode in different fire engines, the Paramedic’s van, and even the fire chief’s car; and he doused a few cars with water from a 75-pound hose.
At the end of the day, the Phoenix Fire Department made Bopsy the first honorary fireman in Phoenix history and pinned him an official firefighter’s badge.
There was more to come. Media coverage of Bopsy’s first wish made others want to help, and more offers came in from people eager to lift the little boy’s spirits.
Hot-air balloon pilots and owners Chris and Bob Pearce took Bopsy on an unforgettable ride in their balloon that gave him a bird’s-eye view of Phoenix.
Next, the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim created a special day complete with private tours, meals, gifts and more just for Bopsy. In Anaheim, they treated him with every courtesy a visiting fireman could wish for from his Southern California colleagues. They chauffeured him to and from the Los Angeles airport in a fire truck, and two of his fellow firefighters from the Anaheim Fire Department escorted him around the park.
Having his dream come true, with all the love and attention that was lavished upon him, Bopsy lived three months longer than the doctors thought possible.
One night, after Bopsy returned to the hospital after his trip to Disneyland, he became critically ill. The head nurse, who believed in the hospice concept – that no one should die alone, began to call the family members to the hospital.
Remembering the day Bopsy had spent as a Fireman, she called the Fire Chief and asked if it would be possible to send a fireman in uniform to the hospital to be with Bopsy as he made his transition.
The Chief replied, “We can do better than that. We’ll be there in five minutes. Will you please do us a favor?”
The nurse said, “Sure. What do you want me to do?”
The Chief said, “Please keep the window to his room open.”
Five minutes later a hook and ladder truck arrived at the hospital and extended its ladder up to Bopsy’s third-floor open window. Five of his fellow Phoenix firefighters climbed through using the ladder. Bopsy shared a few laughs with his friends.
Before going back to sleep Bopsy looked up at the Fire Chief and asked, “Chief, am I really a fireman now?”
“Yes. You are,” the Chief said.
Later that evening, Bopsy passed away peacefully with his fondest wishes come true.
Yesterday at 1:30 pm I received a phone call from my elder daughter Sujatha who lives in Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli, India. I asked her “Is it an emergency call? Isn’t it midnight over there? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
She laughed and said, “Appa, it’s only eleven o’clock in the night, not midnight.”
Then it dawned on me. I remembered my daughter-in-law, Ligia, telling my wife that morning something about daylight saving time coming into force in the Eastern Time Zone (EST) where Elkridge, MD is.
In India we don’t have this phenomenon called Daylight Saving Time (DST) since in most part of the country we have almost equal amount of daytime and night-time the whole year round.
Daylight-saving time, or DST, is the period of the year when clocks are moved one hour ahead. This has the effect of creating more sunlit hours in the evening during months when the weather is the warmest. The clocks are advanced ahead by one hour at the beginning of DST, and are moved back one hour (“spring forward, fall back”) to return to standard time (ST).
The transition from ST to DST has the effect of moving one hour of daylight from the morning to the evening; and the transition from DST to ST effectively moves one hour of daylight from the evening to the morning.
Yesterday, Sunday, March 11 at 2 a.m., the Eastern Time Zone officially switched from standard time to DST, giving us a later sunrise and sunset. DST will now be in effect for 238 days, or about 65% of the year. DST will end at 2 a.m. on November 4, 2012.
So, from yesterday, the time difference between New Delhi, India and Washington DC, USA is -9:30 hours instead of -10:30 hours.
New Delhi is 9:30 hours ahead of Washington DC. That means when it is 8:00 a.m. in Elkridge, Maryland, USA, it is 5:30 pm in Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli, India.
Why does anyone bother with daylight saving time in the first place?
Benjamin Franklin, the 18th century icon, is widely credited with coming up with the concept of daylight saving time in one of his satiric essays. He suggested a later sunset to decrease the use of fuel for artificial lights.
In an effort to conserve fuel, war-torn Germany, during World War I, was the first country in the world to introduce Daylight Saving Time (DST). Germany began observing DST on May 1, 1916. As the war progressed, most countries in Europe followed suite.
United States introduced the Standard Time Act on March 19, 1918 that established standard time zones and set summer Daylight Saving Time to begin on March 31, 1918. Though the idea of DST was beneficial to the country, it was unpopular on many fronts and US Congress abolished DST after the war. DST then became a local option and observed in some states.
When World War II began,on February 9, 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt implemented year-round DST, called “War Time”. It lasted till the last Sunday in September 1945. From the following year, many states and localities in US adopted summer DST.Today, most of the United States and its territories observe DST. However, DST is not observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the state of Arizona.
“There’s a Navajo saying about it,” said Marshall Trimble, Arizona’s State Historian, “That only the U.S. government could believe that when you chop the top off a blanket and sew it on the bottom, you have a longer blanket.”
Some tribes, including the Hopi and, locally, the Yavapai-Prescott Tribe, don’t spring forward in Arizona, but others like the Navajo Indian Reservation, does observe DST. This creates time zone pockets within time zone pockets, causing headaches for travelers in northeastern Arizona.
“Depending on where you’re coming from, you could change your watch, drive a few miles, change it again, drive a few miles and change it again,” said Trimble.
Impressions 