Nasa Rover "Spirit" Feared Dead On Mars

Nasa this week has decided it will no longer make any attempts to contact it's long silent Martian rover known as "Spirit." The rover has failed to respond to radio communications and instructions from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Control Center in Florida since March 22, 2010. Daily attempts since that date have been made to reach the rover via UHF radio signals and the only reply has been silence. On May 25, 2011 all attempts to revive the rover ceased. "Spirit" was launched in January of 2004 along with its sister rover "Opportunity" to explore the surface of Mars and radio back data and images in what was expected to be a three month mission. "Spirit" ended up lasting over 6 years and "Opportunity" is still going strong. "Spirit" is believed to have gotten stuck in some kind of a sand trap on the surface of Mars which limited it's ability to roam. It is further believed that it suffered damage to its internal electronics systems while trying to survive it's last Martian winter where it was exposed to temperatures of 55 degrees below zero for extended periods of time.

The Missing Girls Of India

A crisis is evolving in India and it has gone on for decades. The preference for Indian families to have male children is becoming so epidemic that there is now a lack of females in the culture and society that is leading to problems. Some estimates are that over 8 million female children have become victims of infanticide in India since 1986. The reason for male preference in having children is economic in nature. Males are preferred due to the fact that when they grow up they often bring money into the families that they belong to. They also help retain property that is owned by their families. With females in India the opposite is true. They do not help a family gain wealth, in fact the family of the female must often present a huge dowry to the family of the male when a marriage takes place and also surrender property to their daughters new husband. Indian couples often believe that it is not worth it to have and raise a female child for these reasons. The use of Ultrasound techniques in India is widespread in order to determine the sex of the child before it is born. Often after the female child is born it is either killed or abandoned somewhere and left to die. There is now beginning the makings of a crisis in that adult males in India are now finding it harder to find suitable females to marry when the time comes. Some adult males now indicate that they have to look farther and farther beyond their home villages in order to find women of their own age that they can marry due to the shortage.

The Cost Of Bin Laden

Now that the U.S. finally got it's man and dispatched the leader of Al Queda it might be a good time to try and figure out at what cost it all came to. So exactly how much money has the U.S. spent on the war on terror since 9-11-01? Lets start with both of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To date both conflicts have been estimated to have cost about 1.3 trillion so far. Some experts say that by the time we untangle ourselves from both of those messes it might be well over 2 trillion. If you count Homeland Security spending that figure to date is somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 billion dollars. Let us not forget the Annual Defense budget for the Pentagon. Before 9-11 the defense budget was at about 365 billion a year. This years defense budget is in excess of 700 billion a year. If you factor in other results of the war on terror that are not monetary such as longer waiting lines at the airports for security, invasions of privacy with scanners at airports and body searches that can be invasive and uncomfortable, the increased cost for an airline ticket in order to pay for the new security layers, the PTSD that many Americans have developed in the wake of the 9-11 attacks and the accompanying health issues and health bills than you can easily add up the total to be in excess of 3 trillion and more and the whole matter is far from over as we all know. That 3 trillion total by the way does not even include the 60 million dollar Black Hawk Helicopter that we lost during the raid on Bin Laden's house. Osama Bin Laden had said on several occasions that one of his goals was to economically damage the United States by forcing it to spend serious amounts of money in order to defend itself against Al Queda and its terror tactics. On that score Al Queda is doing well. 3 trillion dollars is currently about 20% of the total U.S. National debt as of this writing.

Facebook Facts And Figures

Don't look now but the Internet website Facebook has taken over the known universe. Kudos to the new boy king Zuckerberg. In case you are not sure just how dominant and ubiquitous Facebeeok has become here are just a few facts about the site:

• In 2010 Facebook signed up profile number 500,000,000. That is 1 out of every 13 people currently on this planet who are now also on Facebook.


• 48% of 18-34 year old's say that they check Facebook right after they wake up everyday.


• 72% of the U.S. web audience is now on Facebook.


• 57% of people questioned say that they now talk more on Facebook than they do in real life.


• 48% of Americans say that they find out news for the first time on Facebook.


• 750 million photos were uploaded to Facebook over last New Years eve.


• Every 20 minutes on facebook there are:


• 1,000,000 links shared


• 1,484,000 event invites


• 1,323,000 tagged photos


• 1,851,000 status updates


• 1,972,000 friend requests accepted


• 2,716,000 photos uploaded


• 10,208,000 comments made.

The Failure Steve Jobs And Henry Ford Have In Common

We all know that Steve Jobs and Henry Ford have a lot of success in common. They both created something that the world went crazy for that made them both uncounted millions. In Henry Fords case it was the car of course and in Steve Jobs case it was the earliest personal computer systems. In both cases they revolutionized the world for better or for worse.
One failure that they have in common is that they both tried to create a new version of their original invention that was named after one of their children and in both cases it was a failure. In Henry Fords case it was the "Edsel." It was first released in 1958 and it was named after his son Edsel Ford who had died in May 1943. The model lasted less than three years and after selling poorly finally disappeared from showrooms nationwide. One of the biggest complaints that some consumers had about the "Edsel" was that its front nose design to some people resembled a toilet bowl.
For Steve Jobs the failure first began in 1978 shortly after the birth of his daughter Lisa. He got the idea to name the new computer system he was building "The Lisa." It took about 4 years and it cost an estimated 50 million dollars to develop and it debuted in early 1983 at a cost of $10,000 a copy. After two years and only about 100,000 units sold and many revisions to the original design the project was largely abandoned and replaced with a new computer system called "The Mackintosh" which after it debuted sold over 70,000 units in three months and went on to be much more of a success.

What Is The Point Of Daylight Savings Time?

It is springtime again as i write this article and it is time again for me to get up on a ladder and climb up to my big clock on the wall and turn it over one hour. Have you ever wondered why we bother to do this? Well as it turns out there is more than one reason. The biggest one that is usually given is that it saves energy. How does it do that you might ask? Well the government says that by increasing the number of daylight hours in a persons workday it saves energy because things like the street lights in the city don't have to come on as early and they don't have to stay on as long. People driving in their cars don't have to turn on their headlights as early and it saves them energy and money. It also helps with traffic safety. There are fewer auto accidents in the daylight hours than at night because drivers can see better so it actually saves lives as well. It also reduces crime. Criminals prefer committing crimes at night it seems so with fewer night time hours available to them they commit fewer crimes. Probably the biggest and best reason of all is that it provides the public with more daylight hours after work so they can go out and shop or go dine or engage in other after work activities so it is also actually good for certain industries like retail and restaurants. The original reason for daylight savings time was in order to provide farmers with more daylight hours to work their farms and grow more food and it still does this.

So How Do You Spell That Libyan Guy's Name?

While the people of Libya struggle to remove a dictator that has ruled over their country for over 40 years the media in the United States struggles to figure out exactly how to spell his name properly. As it turns out there is no one correct way to do it but several hundred ways it seems. The problem is that there are no exact letters or equivalent sounds in English for spelling several parts of his name ergo you get the numerous variations. Here are just some of the many different spellings that I came across in researching this article on how to spell that guy's name, what's his face:

• Muammar Qaddafi



• Mo'ammar Gadhafi



• Muammar Kaddafi



• Moammar El-Kadhafi



• Muammar Qadhafi



• Moammer El-Kazzafi



• Moamar Al-Gaddafi



• Muammar Al-Qathafi



• Moamer El-Kadhafi



• Muammar Qadafi



• Moamar Gaddafi



• Mu'ammar Qadhadafi



• Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi



• Muammar Quathafi



• Muammar Al-Khaddfi



• Mu'ammar Al-Qadhdhafi



• Mu'amar Kadafi



• Muammer Gheddafi



• Muamar Khadafy



• Muammar Ghaddafi



• Mu'ammar Al-Qaddafi



• Mohammer Q'udafi

POST SCRIPT: On October 20, 2011 Muammar Qaddafi was captured by rebels in Libya and brutally beaten, tortured, and finally shot at close range in the head. His death ended a 42 year reign as the leader of Libya.