I was all ready to deck the halls of Geo for the holidays until I saw the veritable plethora of them. I echo Cheryl's comments. Season's Greetings, to all.

Check what Peace on Earth means when we all work together... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg Thanks Gandalf, for reminding us!

MIDWINTER FESTIVAL OR CHRISTMAS Midwinter, or rather the winter solstice, marked the end of the first half of the Celtic year. It marked the date of the southernmost rising and setting of the sun. By our calendar, the day of the longest night usually falls on 21st December. The Celtic festival of the winter solstice, like Samhain, also had Roman and Christian festivals grafted onto it, the very important celebration of Christmas, and the Roman festival of Saturnalia. The festival dedicated to Saturn began on the 19th December. It celebrated the overthrow of the old father-god, Saturn, by the new father-god, Jupiter or Deus Pater (God the father, although in this context he is actually God the son). These gods have direct counterparts in Greek mythology (Cronos and Zeus) and in Celtic mythology (Bran and Bel or Belin). The basic symbolism is very ancient and a trifle convoluted. The goddess (Madron, mother of all creation, the moon) is married to the god Mabon (her son, the Sun). The renewal and continuation of the marriage (creation, the kingdom, life and the harvest) depends on the aging god (or king) being replaced by the young god (his twin, also Mabon, the new Sun, the new king). The Saturnalia also known as 'Dies Natalis Invicti Solis', the Day of Birth of the Unconquered Sun. Resulting from this title, the Saturnalia also became associated with the New Year. Subsequently the Romans created a new god to oversee the transition on the following Kalends, or first month day. He was Janus, the two-headed god who looked back over the past and forward into the future. His name gave rise to the naming of this first month, January. The Saturnalia was a fire festival, homes were decorated with evergreens, candles, and especially constructed coloured lanterns. The formal festivities lasted seven days though the whole of the preceding month was dedicated to Saturn. Personal gifts were exchanged, wrapped in coloured cloth. Popular festival foods were figs, dates, plums, and pears and apples, fresh melons and pomegranates from Africa, quince preserved in honey, sweet bread, cakes and pastries pressed into the shape of stars, nut breads, cheese pies, shelled pistachios, filberts, pine nuts and walnuts accompanied by cider and mulled wine. Many of these customs seem to be synonymous with the traditional festivities of Christmas. In fact Christ's birth-date was deliberately and artificially set in the third century AD to coincide with, absorb and supersede the pagan festival dedicated to Saturn. It is not certain when Christ was born, research has put his birth most likely in the spring. Some of the many controversies caused by the switch from the old Julian calendar to the Gregorian by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 persisted in the popular folk story that Christ was actually born on January 6th. At midnight on the eve of that day animals kneel in homage to the Christ Child in mangers and stables. The theme of the advent and the virgin birth is, of course, not Celtic or Roman, although there are virgin births in other religions and mythologies. Specifically Christian though, are the three Magi. Two midwinter tradition, almost certainly Celtic in origin are the Yule Candle and the Yule Log. Early Welsh texts, a good example being the 'Romance of Amergin', give us detailed evidence of the Druid preoccupation with trees and their mythological and religious significance. The Yule Log was directly associated with fire and the purifying embodiment of the sun god. Bringing the Yule Log indoors was symbolic of bringing the blessing of the sun god into the house. The collecting, hauling and kindling of the wood were conducted with great ceremony. The word Yule, however, is derived from the Middle English 'yole', from the earlier Anglo-Saxon 'geol'. It's meaning is unclear but could be related to 'geolo' (yellow) or 'geoleca' yolk. The word appears in a variety of spellings, in Old Norse and other Teutonic languages, it appears though, to have no Celtic counterpart. The Goidelic for Christmas is 'Noillach' (Scots Gaelic) or 'Nollaig' (Irish) related to the Brythonic 'Nadelik' (Cornish) or 'Nadolig' (Welsh) derived from the Latin 'Natalicia'. The Yule Candle was very large and ornamental, usually blue, green or red in colour, which was lit at the beginning of the Christmas season and associated with several superstitions. It could only be extinguished using a pair of tongs, blowing out the flame invited bad luck. Only the head of the household could light or extinguish the flame. The unconsumed remnant of the candle was preserved as a protection, to be lit during thunderstorms to prevent the house being struck by lightning. Its tallow was rubbed on the sole of the plough before spring ploughing, to bless and promote the seed. The lit candle was displayed in a window, as a sign of goodwill, a custom still widely observed in parts of New England and rapidly spreading throughout the rest of the US. These associations derive from the ancient Celtic veneration for the candle as a symbol of light in the darkness of winter. The Romans used oil lamps, but the Celts made candles from wicks or reeds dipped in tallow rendered from beef lard. Some sources erroneously list pig fat, this does not set firmly enough for candle making, it would have been used in lamps only. The Yule Log had a number of associated superstitions. It had to burn steadily without being extinguished, or bad luck would follow. It could be cut down on one's own land, or accepted as a gift from a neighbour, or be stolen from the forest, but it could not be bought or sold: the exchange of money for a Yule Log would destroy its magic properties. It was decorated with evergreens and dragged to the house by oxen if it was too heavy to be manhandled. In Cornwall, the figure of a man was chalked on the log, to be consumed by the fire. Did this represent an earlier sacrifice by burning? Wine, cider or ale, and sometimes corn, was sprinkled over the log before it was lit. Apparently some communities soaked the log for several days before it was ready for the fire. One must presume the alcohol was initially burning rather than the soggy log. After the Yule season, part of the unconsumed log was kept safely to one side and used to ignite the new log in the following year, probably from the communal bonfire. The remainder was kept to attach to the plough in the ploughing season and the ashes were gathered up and sprinkled on the land to ensure a good harvest next year. The two plants still associated with the Yule, namely the holly and the ivy, were also associated with the Celts and the Saturnalia. Saturn's club was of holly wood and his sacred bird, the golden crested wren, nested in ivy. Holly represents the letter T (Tinne) in the Ancient Druidic alphabet Beth-Luis-Nion. It is the totem tree of the oak god's twin (or father), the holly god, or Green Knight, represented by Bran in the British tradition, Cronos in Greece and Saturn in Rome. He is the god of the waning part of the year, while his brother-son Bel is the god of the waxing part of the year. When Christian mythology began to include aspects of earlier pagan mythology, John the Baptist became identified with oak. He was beheaded at midsummer, the day of transition between the oak king and the holly king, in turn leading to the identification of Jesus with the oak's successor, holly. This is the origin of the lines in the carol 'The Holly and the Ivy'�. Of all the trees that are in the wood, the Holly bears the crown and, I feel, is a small demonstration that Christians then were perfectly comfortable sharing the traditions of the Celts. In Middle English the word for holly was spelt 'holi' this was derived from the Old English 'Holen'. Holy was also spelled 'holi' from the Old English 'halig'. There has been an association of holly and Holy ever since. A further connection with Jesus is the shape of the letter itself. The Hebrew 'Tav', the Greek 'Tae' and our letter T all graphically represent the cross of the Crucifixion. Ivy represents the letter G (Gort) in the Ancient Druidic alphabet Beth- Luis-Nion. The vine and the ivy share the characteristic of growing spirally and both are associated with resurrection. As with holly, ivy is associated with Bran, Saturn and Cronos and had many of the same attributes. Then of course there is the Mistletoe, one of the Druids most sacred plants and venerated in folk-law way after the Druids passing. With good reason too, the plant contains eleven proteins and lectins (which are currently being investigated for anti-cancer effects). Its known uses, ancient and modern, include the infusion of dried leaves and berries which makes a tea that has hypotensive (reduces blood pressure), cardiac stimulant, diuretic and sedative properties, when taken by humans (this is not a suggestion). It has been demonstrated to have an antineoplastic (tumour reducing) effect on animals. The custom of kissing under the mistletoe at Christmas seems to confirm Pliny's description of it as an acknowledged aid to fertility, although it was also an earlier custom to hang mistletoe in the porch of a house as a more general and innocent sign of peace and hospitality. In Christian times, mistletoe was carried as a defense against witches, or placed in a baby's cradle to prevent its abduction by fairies.

Ooops, citation for the above got away from me: http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/shaman/99/midwinter.html

Imbolc An additional festival was added later. This is Imbolc and was held in Leinster to celebrate the Goddess Brigit. This festival marks the ending of Winter's grip and the passing of the influence of the Crone or Cailleach to the Maiden of Spring. It is the time of the first lambs and of new beginnings. Brigit's sacred flame was tended in Leinster in a sacred center for female Druids. This festival was usually one of the home and the hearth and was usually presided over by the female head of the house. http://www.summerlands.com/crossroads/library/celticfi.htm

******************************* ECLIPSE STUFF POSTED ON GEO 24 *******************************

Where did the iceman get the ice he delivered to homes before refrigeration? You've seen old movies in which a big burly guy delivers the ice that kept food cold in the icebox. But you never see where he got the ice to put on his truck. Was it magic? Did HE have a refrigerator � perhaps a truly pre-production model? Not at all. Before civilization advanced to the level of TV dinners and keeping leftovers frozen for months because we can always pop them in the microwave, they actually got ice from very cold places, such as frozen ponds in the winter. They even shipped it in from Alaska. The problem was keeping the ice from melting. The solution was sawdust as insulation � on the ice itself and between the walls of the icehouse, where ice was stored. With that kind of insulation it could even be shipped south to Latin America! Cool, heh! (Source: DO FISH DRINK WATER? By Bill McLain)

+-------------- Bizarre Christmas Traditions --------------+ In Italy they have no Christmas trees, instead they decorate small wooden pyramids with fruit. In Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, it is customary for the streets to be blocked off on Christmas eve so that the people can roller-skate to church. An artificial spider and web are often included in the decorations on Ukrainian Christmas trees. A spider web found on Christmas morning is believed to bring good luck. It is a British Christmas tradition that a wish made while mixing the Christmas pudding will come true only if the ingredients are stirred in a clockwise direction. A traditional Christmas dinner in early England was the head of a pig prepared with mustard. Sending red Christmas cards to anyone in Japan constitutes bad etiquette, since funeral notices there are customarily printed in red. In Norway on Christmas Eve, all the brooms in the house are hidden because long ago it was believed that witches and mischievous spirits came out on Christmas Eve and would steal their brooms for riding.

The stopwatch on 60 Minutes is made by Heuer. An ant has five noses. A cave man's life span was only 18 years.

Cinderella is known as "Tuna" in Finland. In days long ago, when men who worked on the railroad visited a brothel, they left their red lamps outside - and there you have the coining of the phrase "red light district." A duck feather weighs approxiamtely .016 to .063 grams. The term "senator" means "old man" in Latin. Earthworms don't have eyes or ears.

Why do we call a wild fight a real "donnybrook?" There are all kinds of gradations of conflict and colorful ways to describe them. For example, there's the rhubarb between you and your neighbor over a backyard fence, the parents of kids who have been fighting who go at it themselves hammer and tong, and the brouhaha over who had the right of way on the freeway ramp. On the spectrum of contentiousness, a donnybrook is helter- skelter and Katy-bar-the-door. And why not? The word comes from a fair begun in medieval times at Donnybrook, on the site of the modern Dublin. The fair was held amid much drinking. One boisterous thing led to another. People were pleased as punch to be having such a grand old time and before you know it they were punching as they pleased in the midst of a general melee. In fact you could call it a real donnybrook. (Source: HEAVENS TO BETSY! & OTHER CURIOUS SAYINGS by Charles Earle Funk) Mix up Ivory soap didn't always float. Proctor and Gamble's famous product began life in 1878 as White Soap. It smelled good, had a rich, white color, and sunk like a stone if you let go of it in the bathtub. Then the guy who ran the machine that mixed White Soap's ingredients neglected to throw the off switch one afternoon when he took his lunch break. The soap that resulted had more air in it. The lighter bar floated, consumers loved it, and the rest is history. I just thought you should finally know the real story � a matter of history coming clean, so to speak. (Source: EXTRAORDINARY ORIGINS OF EVERYDAY THINGS)

AT WHAT WIND SPEED DOES A SNOWSTORM BECOME A BLIZZARD? Wind speed in excess of 35 miles an hour is considered a blizzard. WHAT IS THE WARMEST MONTH OF THE YEAR IN THE ARCTIC? The month of July, when the average temperature is no more than 50 degrees F, 10 degrees C.

And you thought you had a bad job... Beijing Scoops the Last Ladles of Nightsoil BEIJING (Reuters) - Ending a century-old tradition, nightsoil collectors have cleared the last lavatory in Beijing by hand, another milestone in what has been dubbed the "toilet revolution" sweeping China. Armed with long-handled ladles and wooden barrels, six collectors on Saturday paid their final early morning call on two courtyard homes on one of Beijing's famous "hutong" alleyways. The squat-style "draught lavatories" -- pits that can accommodate only one user at a time -- were once common in the Chinese capital. But modern public conveniences with flush toilets have made them obsolete. Not that nightsoil collectors are now out of a job altogether. Much of the sewage from public toilets, as well as residential blocks and tourist hotels, still drops into septic tanks that are cleared by nightsoil trucks with long nozzles attached to suction pumps. The small green trucks are a familiar sight darting about the streets of Beijing on their way to the suburbs, where their human waste is spread on cabbage patches.

Pez is one of the most secretive companies in the US. It is not even known who currently owns the company. The world's longest fence is 1,000 miles longer than the Great Wall of China. 3,307 miles long, it runs half the length of Australia and is designed to keep the Dingos separate from the sheep. 1,000,000 one dollar bills would weigh 2,040 pounds. The British fired 2,876 shells into the Bismarck on the day they sank it. Supermassive black holes contribute about as much energy to the universe as do all the stars combined. http://www.sciam.com/news/121400/2.html There are only 2 original parts on the President's limousine. Contrary to popular belief, most black widow spiders don't eat their mates. The Chunnel is 131 feet below the English Channel floor. China has over 22,000 large dams, the most in the world.

Q. What continent has the most silver? A. 50% of the world's silver is in South America. Peru has 12%. The rest is mostly in North America. Mexico, Canada and the US all have large silver reserves. In the rest of the world, silver is mainly found in Australia, Poland and some of the former Soviet republics.

They say (on a tv show I saw the ohter night) that the S African diamond trade is moving to the NW territory, where they have specially micro marked diamonds. This is a region not marked in bloodshed or strife, so the diamonds are sought after because they aren't tainted with overtones of repression.

That is nice to know. Does DeBeers own that, too? Theyhave a huge stockpile of diamonds which are NOT rare, to make them more expensive, but the ones out of Russia are lovely and much more affordable since DeBeers cannot control them. Even colored ones! Why don't doors in homes open outward as they do in all public buildings? The reason for the outward orientation of doors in public places is simple: in case of danger, as in a fire, people have to be able to open the door and pour through the doorway quickly and in great numbers. If the doors opened inward, people might pile up at the exit as everyone pushed to get through at once instead of stepping back to allow space for the door to be opened. Doors open inward in homes � at least the front door does � because they sometimes have to be removed from the hinges in order to allow furniture to be moved in. If the hinges were on the outside, burglars could also remove them. Since there are fewer people in a home, there's no danger of a pileup at the door in case of fire. (Source: WHY DO DOGS HAVE WET NOSES? By David Feldman)

Millennium Meteors NASA Science News for December 29, 2000 One of the most intense annual meteor showers, the Quadrantids, will peak over North America on January 3, 2001. Observers in western parts of Canada, the USA and Mexico could see an impressive outburst of shooting stars, numbering as many as 100 per hour. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast29dec_1.htm?list89800

WHAT DID BLIND CELLARMASTER DOM PERIGNON SAY WHEN HE DISCOVERED CHAMPAGNE IN 1668? "Oh, come quickly, I am drinking stars!" WHAT DOES THE WORD KOALA MEAN IN AUSTRALIA'S ABORIGINE LANGUAGE? Koala means "no drink". This Australian marsupial gets all the liquid it needs from the eucalyptus leaves it eats.

There were 1,511,300 drunken driving arrests in the US in 1999. 407,100,000 people have Internet access as of Dec, 2000. There are three earlier versions of La Giaconda, the Mona Lisa painting's real name, underneath the top layer. In one of those versions da Vinci allegedly gave his subject not only eyebrows, but a beard, moustache and sideburns as well. Devoid of its cells and proteins, human blood has the same general composition as seawater. There are about 8,600 species of birds on Earth. Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia were the 13 original American colonies. The phrase "a red letter day" dates back to 1704, when holy days were marked in red letters in church calendars. Without using precision instruments, Eratosthenes measured the radius of the Earth in the 3rd century B.C. and came within 1% of the value determined by today's technology. The practice of naming hurricanes began early this century when an Australian weather forecaster decided to insult politicians he didn't like by naming devastating tropical storms after them.

Why is that liquid refreshment served in big bowls at parties called punch? If one can legitimately describe what you are drinking as "spiked," you might easily conjecture why the drink is called "punch," especially if you wake up prone next to the punch bowl. You might never know what hit you. But the word's origin is not so direct. It was a product of the British colonization of India. In the northern part of that land the Brits came upon a refreshing native drink made from rice alcohol blended with tea, sugar and lemon, all diluted with water. The colonizers, noting that the drink had five ingredients, used the Hindi word for five, "punch," to describe it. Now of course you also have five fingers, and if you curl them into a fist . . . . Just a thought. (Source: WHY YOU SAY IT by Webb Garrison)

General Custer was the youngest general in US history. He was promoted at age 23. Waste products from the production of a single six-inch silicon wafer include 7 pounds of miscellaneous hazardous waste. UN statistics show that 88 nations have a lower death rate than the US. Early systems of measurement used body parts to calculate length. A cubit ran from elbow to middle fingertip. The distance from fingertip to fingertip of outstretched arms was a fathom. Oreos have been the number one selling cookie in America since their introduction in 1912. Elephants have 4 teeth. As they wear out, they are replaced, up to 6 times. After that, the elephant can't eat and starves. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. The highest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 136 degrees Farenheit on September 13, 1992, in Azizia, Libya. The bottle-nosed whale can dive to 3,000 feet in 2 minutes.

+-------------------- Bizarre Holidays --------------------+ JANUARY January is... National Fiber Focus Month January 1 is...First Foot Day January 2 is...Run Up the Flagpole and See if Anybody Salutes It Day January 8 is...National JoyGerm Day and Man Watcher's Day January 10 is... Peculiar People Day January 11 is... National Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friend Day January 12 is... Feast of Fabulous Wild Men Day January 22 is... National Answer Your Cat's Question Day January 23 is...Measure Your Feet Day January 24 is... Eskimo Pie Patent Day January 27 is...Thomas Crapper Day January 28 is... National Kazoo Day and Rattle Snake Round-Up Day

Why is the flag flown at half-staff to honor someone who has died? The Greeks and the Romans believed that the souls of the dead began their journey to the afterlife by crossing the river Styx � rowed across by a fellow named Charon. With our modern transportation, we wouldn't be caught dead making such an important trip in so tacky a manner. Yet we still honor the passing of prominent people with a custom that stems from a time when travel by boat was where it was at. The flag at half-staff, originally unconnected to death, comes from an old naval ritual. When a ship lost a battle, the crew was obliged to fly the winner's pennant from the top of their mast. In order to make room for it, the losing captain ordered his own flag lowered halfway. By implication, this gesture of respect was also a symbol of loss. Even after this custom faded, captains might dip their flag to a passing ship as a sign of respect, like tipping one's cap. Eventually the practice was adopted to honor the dead. (Source: EVER WONDER WHY? By Douglas B. Smith) ---------------------------------------------------------- Look for the silver lining In one of history's most famous assassinations, Charlotte Corday stabbed to death French revolutionary Jean Paul Marat. She gave it to him while he was taking a bath. No doubt you have seen the famous painting that depicts the scene. But history had the last laugh: She killed an already dying man. He was in the tub to treat an invariably fatal skin disease. Nevertheless, had Charlotte let nature take its course we wouldn't have that famous painting, now would we? My mother always said that you could find something good in most everything. (Source: THE JOY OF TRIVIA)

Listen to the Quadrantids tonight Space Weather News for January 2, 2001 http://www.spaceweather.com The Quadrantid meteor shower will peak over North America before dawn on Wednesday morning, January 3rd. No matter where you live you can listen to the shower by tuning in to a radio meteor listening station at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. The installation, located in Huntsville, AL, is perfectly situated to detect a Quadrantid outburst. For more information and realtime audio please visit http://www.spaceweather.com

Tiger Woods made $9,188,321 on the PGA Tour in 2000. He averaged $459,416 per start, $110,703 per round and $1,622 per stroke. By the year 2005, Bill Gates' wealth could overtake the GDP of the United Kingdom. A cricket's chirps can tell you the temperature. Just count the number of chirps it makes in 15 seconds and add 40. The result is a good approximation for the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. Birds do not sleep in their nests. They may occasionally nap in them, but they actually sleep in other places. Tremendous, stupendous, hazardous and horrendous are the only words in English that end in "dous". Internet data alone is expected to account for 90 percent of the world's bandwidth by 2003.

There are more than 50 different kinds of kangaroos. The first Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is worth more than twice its weight in gold -- an estimated $50,000,000. When Clyde Tombaugh discovered the planet Pluto, he announced the coordinates of its orbit. Astronomers around the world retrieved old photographs and -- sure enough, there was Pluto, right in front of their faces. Nobody had seen it because they didn't know where to look. Half the world's population now live in cities. The Greek unit of currency, the Drachma, has been in use for 2,650 years. In 1830 the first railroad station was built in Baltimore, Maryland. The U.S. interstate highway system requires that 1 mile in every 5 must be straight. These sections can be used as airstrips in a time of war or other emergencies. The ZIP in Zip-code stands for Zoning Improvement Plan. Most mammals view color only as shades of gray.

Q. Which nations of Europe consume more food than they produce? A. Nearly all the nations of Europe run billion-dollar food deficits. Only three European countries have billion- dollar or better food surpluses: the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland.

50 different kinds of kangaroos? wow!!

I only know of Red kangaroos and the other ones. Not 49 other ones!!! CORRECTION: The U.S. interstate highway system requires that 1 mile in every 5 must be straight. These sections can be used as airstrips in a time of war or other emergencies. HpstrDufuz points out the truth here: http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/airstrip.htm ADDITION: Tremendous, stupendous, hazardous and horrendous are the only words in English that end in "dous". HpstrDufuz adds "apodous", a zoological term meaning "having no feet". ************************************************************* The first Harley Davidson motorcycle, built in 1903, used a tomato can for a carburetor. 15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day. West Virginia is the only state to have acquired its sovereignty by proclamation of the President of the United States. Margaret Mitchell has sold 20,000,000 copies of "Gone With The Wind". The largest incense stick ever made was almost 15 feet long and 6 inches thick. In the 1940s a survey listed the top 7 discipline problems in public schools: talking, chewing gum, making noise, running in the halls, getting out of line, wearing improper clothes, and not putting paper in wastebaskets. A more recent survey lists these top 7: drug abuse, alcohol abuse, pregnancy, suicide, rape, robbery, and assault. Arson, gang warfare, and venereal disease rounded out the modern "top ten". - George F. Will Although in America today life expectancy at birth is near the best of any civilized country in the world, at age 40 life expectancy is near the bottom. - New York State Medical Journal, Sept. 15, 1955 The rumbling sound your stomach sometimes makes is called a "borborygmi." The brain accounts for just 2% of body weight, but burns up 20% of our daily caloric intake.

A sunrise/sunset calculator from the U.S. Naval Observatory website. http://aa.usno.navy.mil/AA/data/docs/RS_OneYear.html Put in your lat/lon and time zone, and you're in business

Happy Birthday Kilauea 0930 January 3, 2001 You know how hard it is to remember anniversaries, especially "after all these years." Well, that happened today until a sentimentalist reminded us that today is the 18th anniversary of the ongoing eruption, which was born on January 3, 1983, and is now a healthy adult with no sign of early senescence. ___ Lava continues down Pulama pali and onto the coastal flat this Wednesday morning at 0454. More of the flow on the pali is crusted, however, so that the scene is less colorful than it has been for the past week or more. Most of the lava is confined to the east flow, where one river descends the pali amid a sea of patchy incandescence from past, still hot, surface flows. The west flow is dark except for one small incandescent spot, possibly a skylight, high on the pali. Lava fed by the flows continues to pond high on the coastal flat, some 2 km or so from the coast. The position of glow this morning suggests that the lava has not moved significantly seaward in the past 24 hours. The crater of Pu`u `O`o is dark this morning. Seismic tremor is weak to moderate near Pu`u `O`o and weak below Kilauea's caldera. The tilt at Kilauea summit and along the east rift zone is flat.

ok, someone gave a name to the rumbling tummy sounds? they must've had a lot of time on their hands!

check our your filtrum and AM's frenulum... (may not have one, actually) Every sailing ship had to have cannon for protection. Cannon of the times required round iron cannonballs. The master wanted to store the cannonballs such that they could be of instant use when needed, yet not roll around the gun deck. The solution was to stack them up in a square-based pyramid next to the cannon. The top level of the stack had one ball, the next level down had four,the next had nine, the next had sixteen, and so on. Four levels would provide a stack of 30 cannonballs. The only real problem was how to keep the bottom level from sliding out from under the weight of the higher levels. To do this, they devised a small brass plate ("brass monkey") with one rounded indentation for each cannonball in the bottom layer. Brass was used because the cannonballs wouldn't rust to the "brass monkey," but would rust to an iron one. When temperature falls, brass contracts in size faster than iron. As it got cold on the gun decks, the indentations in the brass monkey would get smaller than the iron cannonballs they were holding. If the temperature got cold enough, the bottom layer would pop out of the indentations spilling the entire pyramid over the deck. Thus, it was, quite literally, "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey."

Q. What did European clergymen originally think of hot chocolate? A. Chocolate drinks were the first form of chocolate to spread widely in Europe but clergymen were not pleased. They considered the caffeine kick of chocolate a spur to bad behavior.

Theodore Roosevelt was the only US president to deliver an inaugural address without using the word "I". Mysterious monolith appears in Seattle park. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/15774.html There are significant problems with storing hydrogen. You could liquefy and compress the hydrogen, but this is costly and uses between 20 and 40% of the energy eventually stuffed into the tank. Also, the tanks themselves are robust and heavy--hydrogen only accounts for between 5 and 7% of their weight even when they're full. For buses and trucks this isn't a problem but it effectively limits the range of a hydrogen car to half that of a regular one. The Seattle Space Needle is 605 foot tall and is attached at its based with 72 bolts, each 30 feet long. Aunt Jemima was a real person. Our original expectation [in studying three dental school classes in California] was that, as the students progressed through dental school, they would learn more about professional ethics and display a higher level of ethical responses. The exact opposite occurred. In the first year 67% had a high ethics score. In the final year it had plummeted to 18%. Approaching the end of their professional education, the students were at the nadir of ethicality. http://upalumni.org/medschool/appendices/appendix-2b.html The world's largest alphabet is Cambodian, with 74 letters. Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined. [100,000 of which are in Manitoba, according to that province's license plate]

So that's where that expression comes from!

Seems we passed it past an archaeologist or two. One,who also enjoyed it, said there was not evidence for that brass plate in archaeological finds, but agreed with me that it was probably the creation of under used and over active college students. Sill a clever story! Why do we sometimes call a hodgepodge a mishmash? If you come from the northeastern United States, you might suspect that there's a spelling error here. Isn't it "mishmosh?" Isn't this another one of those slang Yiddishisms that have made their way into colloquial English, like something being "kosher?" Well, no. It's not even Yinglish, that blend of English and Yiddish that produced language-bridging expressions such as "fancy-shmancy." Mishmash, in fact, has a fairly old English pedigree. It dates from about 1500, about the time that "mash," a crushed mixture with the consistency of mush, also entered the language. Mishmash is what linguists call a reduplication, a doubling of a word root or syllable to form a new word. The result is a word that sounds very much like what it describes. And that's the whole megillah. (Sources: Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins by William and Mary Morris; The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, edited by C. T. Onions; The Oxford Companion to the English Language, edited by Tom McArthur) Cinderella is one of our most beloved children's stories. Who can forget the mistreated girl who ends up with the Prince and the glass slipper? Whoa! There ain't no glass slipper. This error came about because the most well known version of the old legend � the one from the Mother Goose stories � contains a mistranslation. The fellow who got it from the old French mistook "pantouffles en vair," slippers lined with white squirrel fur, for "pantouffles en verre," slippers of glass. White squirrel fur? Not only does she really believe that she has a fairy godmother, she's also kinky to boot? (Source: FABULOUS FALLACIES)

Elephants have poor hearing. At age ninety, Peter Mustafic of Botovo, Yugoslavia, suddenly began speaking again after a silence of 40 years. The Yugoslavian news agency quoted him as saying "I just didn't want to do military service, so I stopped speaking in 1920. Then I got used to it". A skunk can propel its spray 10 feet. Penguins don't always live in cold climates. Though they can be found in the South Pole, they can also be found on the equator. The Chunnel uses 3-tube construction: the two main tubes are 24 feet in diameter, and carry trains in each direction. The service tunnel provides ventilation and access for personnel. Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.

Travel Channel, Tuesday "Hawaii Volcanoes" Join us in paradise to check out the most active volcanoes in the world.

Q. If I heat a 3 foot long iron bar, I can hold it at one end with my bare hands. If I then dunk the bar in water, it gets too hot to hold and starts to vibrate. Why? A. When red-hot iron touches water near atmospheric pressure, it boils the water so fast that a thin film of steam completely separates the water from the hot metal. So you can think of the bar as being in a closely fitting bubble of steam, surrounded by water. The bubble is unstable because of its buoyancy, so liquid water touches the iron at some point soon after the creation of the film. Where they touch, steam is produced very rapidly and it drives the iron and the water apart again. This movement drives the opposite side of the iron bar against the opposite side of the bubble. Again it contacts liquid water, and the the bar gets driven back toward the first point of contact, hence the vibration. The heating of the iron at the cooler end is caused by steam flowing upward along the rod. Its buoyancy drives the steam upward and it follows the rod because of the Coanda effect-- flowing fluid tends to follow a surface because if it tries to flow away from the surface it leaves behind a partial vacuum that draws it back. The steam then condenses on the rod where the rod is below 212 degrees. This will rapidly heat the whole rod to 212 degrees.

Just how heavy and cumbersome was a suit of armour? You've probably seen movies in which a knight in armour was lifted by a winch onto his horse, so heavy was his protective covering. Or maybe you've seen the scene where Sir Somebody is knocked from his horse and can't get up without assistance. "Poppycock," as we used to say in medieval England. Those suits of armour weighed no more than about 50 pounds and were flexible enough to permit Sir Laughalot to walk around. You wouldn't want to play squash in one, but they were not much more constricting than a business suit, the armour worn by today's corporate warriors. Which reminds me: A couple of years ago, in a museum, I saw a knight in armour from the medieval kingdom of Bohemia, later part of the Czech Republic. Could this have been the origin of the phrase, "The Czech is in the mail?" Just a thought. (Source: DICTIONARY OF MISINFORMATION by Tom Burnam)

Happy Belated Birthday Kilauea! You've become a healthy adult in 18 years. So is Kilauea of legal drinking age in the state of Hawaii? I hope that every celebrated, and continues to have, a Happy New Year. On the subject of holidays, Twelfthnight or Epiphany was January 6th, and I can say Merry Christmas because January 7th is Orthodox Christmas.

Age 21 legal drinking age in Hawaii. LUNAR ECLIPSE TONIGHT NASA Science News for January 8, 2001 On January 9th sky watchers across some parts of Earth will enjoy a total lunar eclipse. But what would they see if they lived, instead, on the Moon? This story considers Tuesday's eclipse from a different point of view. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast08jan_1.htm?list89800

really? we have a near full moon tonight (i mean, it's right there)... check your email, sweetie!

Quite excitingly, the full moon is right outside my apartment and about to go into eclipse over the next hour or two. All I have to do is cross the street and look up every half-hour or so.

And now almost total eclipse..... Eclipsed from the bottom up

Wheeeeeeeeee!!!! Live and direct! Thanks Mark and big hugs for your eye-witness account. *** Jackie Bibby holds the record for sitting in a bathtub with the most live rattlesnakes: 35 of them. The Seven Deadly Sins are lust, pride, anger, envy, sloth, avarice, and gluttony. The Seven Virtues are prudence, courage, temperance, justice, faith, hope, and charity. The Moon travels around the Earth at 66,641 miles per hour. The Statue of Liberty's mouth is 3 feet wide. Ross Perot resigned from the General Motors Board of Directors because of the decision to purchase Hughes Aircraft Company. Holland gets by on a total of four food additives. We have over 1,400. - US Congressman Fred Richmond, Chairperson, Subcommittee on Domestic Marketing, Consumer Relations and Nutrition The Netherlands and The United States both have anthems that do not mention their country's name. Natchez, Mississippi was settled by the French in 1716 and is the oldest permanent settlement on the Mississippi River.

And now the full moon is back, (at 66,641 mph?). It disappeared bottom first, and then reappeared right side first. Strange.

Lunar eclipse from the Midlands, England... Partial: http://www.cix.co.uk/~aal/partial.jpg Totality: http://www.cix.co.uk/~aal/totality.jpg

Thanks, Ian, and friend Anyone else take pictures???

YOu just KNEW this was gonna happen, didn't you??? From Reuters: An estimated 1,500 white witches are planning to gather in Britain, Sweden, Iceland, France, Canada and Austria during the eclipse to ward off any doom it may bring, the BBC reported.

I had a sneaking suspicion.

This now from MSNBC about Stonehenge: http://www.msnbc.com/news/513457.asp?bt=nm&btu=http://www.msnbc.com/tools/newstools/d/news_menu.asp Been there and seen it - they restored it Just enough in my opinion. Thoughts?

1. In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase "goodnight, sleep tight". 2. It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son- in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month or what we know today as the honeymoon. 3. In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's" 4. Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice. 5. In ancient England a person could not have sex unless you had consent of the King (unless you were in the Royal Family). When anyone wanted to have a baby, they got consent of the King, the King gave them a placard that they hung on their door while they were having sex. The placard had F.*.*.*. (Fornication Under Consent of the King) on it. Now you know where that came from. 6. In Scotland, a new game was invented. It was entitled Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden ... and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language. (don't think #5 is correct...)

A group of owls is called a parliament. Jordan's national anthem does not mention the country's name. No president was an only child. Wisconsin's streams and rivers, if joined end-to-end, would stretch 26,767 miles. The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter Ruth. A dragonfly can fly up to 30 miles per hour. President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other--simultaneously!

The tuatara lizard of New Zealand has 3 eyes: 2 in the center of its head and the third on top. Malaysia's national anthem does not mention the country's name. The average life span of an umbrella is 1 1/2 years. A rock band amplified at close range is 140 decibels -- 100,000 times louder than the 85 decibel level that causes permanet hearing loss from prolonged exposure. Julie Nixon, daughter of Richard Nixon married David Eisenhower, son of Dwight Eisenhower. Andrew Johnson, was the only president who was a self-educated tailor. He made his own clothes and that of his cabinet. A piano has to withstand 15 tons of force from the strings. It would take 212 years to drive a car to the sun, at 50 miles per hour.

I don't think any of the "facts" in No 655 are right. P's and Q's comes from "pleases and thank-yous". "Wet your whistle" started out as "whet your whistle" to do with whetting (sharpening) your appetite, and golf comes from a Dutch word. I suspect the source may be a wind-up.

Ah yes, Mark, thank you! Feedback is much appreciated! This from a fellow Londoner: I would take all this with a significant pinch of salt. # At the time of Shakespeare people slept on wooden beds, as anyone who has been to the Shakespeare museum will tell you. # Not too sure of the origins of mead but it was certainly made and served in the inns of England at least 1000 years ago. # Pints are the order of the day in English pubs, never quarts (A filthy European intrusion into our way of life as far as I'm concerned). This has been so forever to the best of my knowledge. # I have never heard of whistles in ceramic jugs. A simple.."another pint if you please inn keeper" would have worked just as well and been less trouble. # I think not. I am inclined to believe that certain citizens would not have waited for the consent of their intended partner before taking action, let alone the monarch. ..and two real ones for you. Derivation of the word POSH. A relatively modern introduction into the English language. When wealthy couples travelled across the Atlantic to New York from Southampton and back, they would always have a cabin on the port side of the ship on the outward journey and starboard on the homeward leg. This meant that the sun always shone through the porthole of their cabin. Thus...Port Out Starboard Home gave rise to POSH. The Royal Fish The sturgeon is a royal fish. Any sturgeon caught in British territorial waters must be offered to the king or queen of the day. Only when the monarch declines the offer can the fish be eaten by its capturer.

CORRECTION: Thee Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter Ruth. No, it was named after Babe Ruth. The Ruth Cleveland thing was a dodge to avoid paying royalties, and was later used to keep a product bearing the Famous Ballplayers name off the market. - HpstrDufuz ************************************************************* The "Cob" in cobweb is an old English word for spider. President Taft got stuck in his bathtub on his Inauguration Day and had to be pried out by his attendants. Jerry Rice holds the Super Bowl record for most receiving touchdowns in a game: 3 Lie detectors do not. Independent research consistently shows they are barely better than chance at detecting lies. That is why they are not admitted into a court of law unless both sides agree to it, and often not then. London was the first city with a population over 1,000,000, in 1811. The Practicioner, a British medical journal, has determined that bird-watching may be hazardous to your health. The magazine, in fact, has officially designated bird-watching a hazardous hobby, after documenting the death of a weekend bird-watcher who became so immersed in his subject that he grew oblivious to his surroundings and consequently was eaten by a crocodile. At the Rocky Mountain Front Eagle Migration Area west of Great Falls, Montana more golden eagles have been seen in a single day than anywhere else in the country. 87,000,000 people in China have a family name of Li. Abe Lincoln's mother died when the family dairy cow ate poisonous mushrooms and Mrs. Lincoln drank the milk.

CORRECTION: Lincoln's mother died of mushroom poisoning It was in fact a plant called white snakeroot, that was transmitted via milk. - Dave ************************************************************* Andrew Jackson thought that the world was flat. Consumers spent $10.7 billion in online shopping during the 2000 holiday season, up from $5.2 billion in 1999. If persons in the untreated group die at any time in the study interval, they are reported. In the treated group, however, deaths which occur before completion of the treatment are rejected from the data, since these patients do not then meet the criteria of the term 'treated'. - Hardin B. Jones, PhD, ACS 11th Annual Science Writers Conference 362,000,000 Oreos have been sold to date. In 1865 opium was grown in the state of Virginia and a product was distilled from it that yielded 4% morphine. In 1867 it was grown in Tennessee: six years later it was cultivated in Kentucky. During these years opium, marijuana and cocaine could be purchased legally over the counter from any druggist. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. Even though a mosquito beats its wings 600 times per second, it only travels about one mile per hour. The Chunnel was the biggest civil-engineering project of the 20th century.