A man wrote a letter to the IRS: “I have been unable to sleep knowing that I have cheated on my income tax. I understated my taxable income and have enclosed a check for $200.00. If I still can’t sleep, I will send the rest.”
SOURCE:::: Joke a day.com
Natarajan
An interesting link….pl click the above link and see.Natarajan
Increasingly golden or orange color as the moon sets is due to the fact that – as it sinks – you’re seeing the moon through more and more of Earth’s atmosphere.
Ken Christison posted this photo to EarthSky Facebook and wrote:
Watching the moon set behind the trees. I always liked to get clean images of the moon, but this morning I just kept it running through the trees. I think it does add to the whole atmosphere.
SOURCE::::Deborah Byrd IN earthsky.org Photo By …Ken Christison
Natarajan
By the end of this article, you’ll be more familiar with the causes and symptoms of neck pain, and have a better understanding on how to treat the pain at home.
Main Causes of Neck Pain
| Common Symptoms | Related Diseases and Disorders |
| Muscle sprain | Meningitis |
| Difficulty swallowing | Osteoarthritis |
| Arm numbness | Osteomyelitis |
| Dizziness | Whiplash |
| Lymph node swelling | Herniated disc |
| Headache | Laryngitis |
| Shoulder pain | Neck cancer |
| Back pain | Fibromyalgia |
| Pinched nerve | Polymyalgia Rheumatica |
A Few Extra Tips
SOURCE::::ba-ba mail site
Natarajan
While performing your duties in your house or outside, constantly remind yourself, “Whatever I do, think or speak, everything belongs to God.” The proper attitude should be, ‘Sarva karma Bhagavath preethyartham’. Take for example, the process of cooking. You add different ingredients to the dish being cooked in definite proportions and try to make them tasty. But the real taste comes only when the job of cooking is done as an offering to God. The food becomes divine when it is offered to God. On the other hand, if the various items are cooked with the attitude, ‘I am doing this job as a routine; I am cooking these items for my family members to partake’, it does not reach God. Hence undertake every act in your life as an offering to God, chanting His Name. Whatever you think, speak or do, consider it as God’s command, God’s work.
Nov. 9 marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the iconic barrier that completely enclosed East Berlin between 1961 and 1989 and symbolized the height of Cold War tensions.
West Berliners crowd in front of the Berlin Wall Nov. 11, 1989, as they watch East German border guards demolish a section to open a crossing point.
Around the world, the international German community and others are marking the milestone with celebrations and shared memories. In Germany, artists have recreated the Wall with illuminated white balloons along the path that the structure once traced. The 8,000 balloons stretch more than nine miles across the city, according to the German embassy in London.
With the anniversary putting the Cold War fresh in most people’s minds, here are nine facts about the Berlin Wall that may be new to you:
• A mistake helped lead to the fall of the Wall. The flood of East Germans and West Germans to the Wall, which led to its ultimate collapse, came after East German Politburo member Guenther Schabowski on Nov. 9, 1989, mistakenly announced that East Germans would be allowed to cross into West Germany effective immediately, according to National Public Radio.
• What the world saw as the Berlin Wall was actually two concrete barriers with a 160-yard “death strip” in between that included watchtowers, trenches, runs for guard dogs, flood lights and trip-wire machine guns, according to History.com.
• Parts of the Wall are on display or in private safekeeping all over the world. One section of the Wall is in a men’s room of the Main Street Casino in Las Vegas, History.com reports. Urinals are mounted on the graffiti-covered segment, which is protected by glass. Another section is in the gardens of the Vatican. If you don’t feel like traveling to Italy or Vegas to see a part of the Wall, you can have your own little slice for as little as $10 on eBay. And you can consider that a steal; an 8,000-pound slab went for $23,500 at an Atlanta auction
• A mass exodus of East Germans into West Germany began almost 15 years before the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961. In fact, so many left that by the time the Wall went up, East Germany lost one-sixth of its population, according to the Berlin Wall Memorial website.
• The Wall and several U.S. presidents shared a relationship. President Kennedy visited in the summer of 1963, not long before his assassination that November. He said in a rousing speech that Berlin could help the world understand the divisions between the Communist and non-Communist world.
In 1987, Reagan challenged Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall” during a June 1987 speech near the Wall.
When Clinton visited in 1994, he told the crowd of Berliners, “You have proved that no Wall can forever contain the mighty power of freedom.”
During President Obama’s June 2013 visit, he noted neither he nor German Chancellor Angela Merkel looked like their predecessors.
“The fact that we can stand here today, along the fault line where a city was divided, speaks to an eternal truth: No wall can stand against the yearning of justice, the yearnings for freedom, the yearnings for peace that burns in the human heart,” he said.
• The formal reunification of East and West Germany did not happen until Oct. 3, 1990, almost a year after the fall of the Wall, according to History.com.
• A July 1988 concert by Bruce Springsteen in East Berlin may have led to the growing sense of dissent in the walled city that contributed to the fall of the Wall, according to the CBC. “The Boss” told the crowd in German, “I’ve come to play rock ‘n’ roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down.”
Another in the U.S. music industry, conductor Leonard Bernstein, performed a series of concerts in venues on both sides of the barrier just weeks after the November 1989 fall of the Wall. Bernstein’s international orchestra included musicians from the four countries that had occupied Berlin after World War II: the United States, the former Soviet Union, France and England. Bernstein led Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and altered its final movement, “Ode to Joy,” to become “Ode to Freedom.”
• Some parts of the barrier became world famous. Checkpoint Charlie, formally known as Checkpoint C, was the nickname that Western Allies gave the best-known border crossing point between East and West Berlin.
Also, the Brandenburg Gate is an 18th-century arch that is built on the site of a former gate that marked the start of a road that led from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg. Because of its location, it was associated with the Berlin Wall for a time.
• The physical demolition of the Berlin Wall was not complete until 1992, according to the BBC.
SOURCE::::www.usatoday.com
Natarajan
THE pilot who miraculously survived the Virgin spaceship disaster has revealed how he was blasted from the wreckage of the disintegrating rocket ship and plummeted nearly ten miles back to Earth.
Having suffered serious injuries, the experienced test pilot only regained consciousness halfway into his fall but was composed enough to give a thumbs-up to colleagues in a passing aircraft to show he was alive.
Peter Siebold spoke for the first time about the tragedy that killed his close friend, copilot Mike Alsbury, revealing he blacked out as the craft broke up around him at 50,000ft but was saved by his emergency parachute.
Siebold, 43, a married father of two, said: “I must have lost consciousness at first. I can’t remember anything about what happened but I must have come to during the fall. I remember waving to the chase plane and giving them the thumbs-up to tell them I was OK. I know it’s a miracle I survived.”
Perished … Mike Alsbury was a close friend and colleague of Peter Siebold. Source: AP
Survivor … Peter Siebold can’t remember much of what happened that day. Source: AP
The Mail on Sunday reported that despite his injuries, Siebold — who is yet to speak to crash investigators — returned home to his family on Monday, just three days after Sir Richard Branson’s SpaceShipTwo tore apart.
He gave his amazing account of survival to his father, Dr Klaus Siebold, who visited him yesterday at his modest ranch home in Tehachapi, California, on the edge of the Mojave Desert where the spaceship crashed.
CRASHING DOWN: Is this the end of Branson’s space dreams?
PILOT IDENTIFIED: Michael Alsbury named as the man who perished.
LONG ROAD AHEAD: Investigation may take a year
Dr Siebold, who is also a pilot, travelled to California from his home in Seattle to see his son. He said Peter was in good spirits despite suffering serious injuries, including a shattered shoulder.
Both pilots were strapped into standard pilot seats and wearing thin flight suits and emergency parachutes when SpaceShipTwo was released from its mothership WhiteKnightTwo shortly after 10am on October 31.
Explosion … These three images show the space craft’s demise. Source: AP
The craft’s rocket was ignited at 50,000ft (15.24km). The pilots, wearing oxygen masks, were pinned against their seats by gravitational forces as the craft accelerated at more than 1500km/h.
Then disaster occurred. Preliminary investigations suggest that the rocket ship’s folding wings — designed to slow it down and achieve safe speeds during landing — deployed early, causing the ship to break up due to the tremendous turbulence around the craft.
Alsbury was trapped in the cockpit but Siebold was thrown clear of the wreckage or somehow unbuckled his seatbelt. He then plunged towards Earth at speeds topping 193km/h. Witnesses reported seeing Siebold descending with part of the base of his seat still attached. It is likely that his oxygen mask, attached to a portable tank, remained in place. But at that altitude, the sudden decompression and extreme G-forces would have caused him to black out in seconds.
His emergency parachute deployed t about 20,000ft. It is not known if he pulled the cord or if it unfurled automatically. Both pilots were wearing parachutes calibrated to open automatically at a certain height in the event they became unconscious during an emergency.
Incredible … Siebold has no idea how he managed to exit the space ship, given it has no ejection seat. Source: AFP
Dr Siebold, 79, explained: “He doesn’t know how he managed to exit SpaceShipTwo. They don’t have an ejection seat. They have a panel they take out and they have to crawl towards the hole and jump out. But the plane broke up suddenly. I’m sure he was unconscious because he could not have maintained consciousness at 50,000ft.
“He doesn’t remember anything from the actual crash. He came to during the descent. He must have woken up about halfway down. When he was on the way down the chase plane was circling him and he was waving and giving the thumbs-up to indicate he was all right while he was dangling from the parachute.
“He’s recovering at home. He broke the head of the humerus bone that sits in the right shoulder. He’s got a rib and lung contusion and there is an issue with his eyes because of the cold. It was around minus 60 degrees up there.
“It’s a medical miracle he survived considering the temperature, the lack of oxygen and the barotrauma [injury caused by a sudden change in pressure].”
The pilot’s horrified wife, Traci, and children 12-year-old Alexandra and Nick, nine, were standing with the family of Mike Alsbury as the tragedy unfolded.
The body of Alsbury, 39, was found still strapped into his seat on a desert road by construction workers. His parachute did not deploy. His wife Michelle said she had “lost the love of my life”.
Dr Siebold said: “Mike’s children and my grandchildren were all watching the flight so the emotional impact of that is tremendous.
Mike, second from right, was a friend and neighbour of Siebold. Source: Supplied
“Mike was a friend and neighbour. Their children are the same age and friends. Peter is asking himself whether he could have done more and why he got out and Mike didn’t? Traci is a strong woman. She’s drained but very much in charge.
“She’s protecting Peter and she’s holding up incredibly well most of the time. He’s on pain medication, which is making him tired and confused.” Dr Siebold, who split with Peter’s mother Barbara when his son was five, spoke proudly of teaching his son to fly: “Flying was the only thing Peter was ever really interested in. I flew privately — that was my recreation — so he grew up with it. It’s what we did together. We would go to the airport after school.”
At 16, Siebold studied aviation at California State University and landed a job with Scaled Composites — the company conducting last week’s test flight for Virgin Galactic — before he graduated.
“He worked as an engineer and pilot, starting from the bottom and working his way up,” Dr Siebold said proudly.
Siebold began working as a test pilot and engineer with Virgin Galactic at the start of its space program a decade ago.
“He told me straight away he was involved with Virgin Galactic,” his father continued. “Safety was a great concern but I had total confidence in his piloting skills.
“Peter would say, ‘These aeroplanes fly just beautifully.’ He was never worried about the safety aspect of it.”
Big sky dreaming … Sir Richard Branson vowed to become an astronaut by the end of the year. Source: AP
The October 31 flight was so routine that Dr Siebold had no idea his son was piloting the pioneering craft that day until his panicked daughter-in-law phoned.
“I picked up the phone oblivious to what had happened. I said, ‘Hi Traci, how are you?’ cheerful as usual and she said, ‘It’s serious. Peter had an accident. We don’t know exactly but it looks like he hurt his shoulder and he’s on his way to the hospital.’
“We were worried but the main thing was we knew he was alive.
“I hope he’s going to recover enough to be able to fly again. That’s his life. We’re focusing hour to hour rather than day to day.”
Yesterday, it was revealed that 24 passengers who have paid $A290,000 each for the chance to go into space — alongside celebrities including Angelina Jolie and Kate Winslet — have demanded their money back.
Virgin Galactic chief executive George Whitesides claimed it was unsurprising passengers had pulled out, adding: “I think what is relevant is that the vast majority have said, ‘Don’t give up, keep going, we’re with you’.”
Before the accident, billionaire Sir Richard Branson vowed he and son Sam would become astronauts by the end of this year and the first space tourist flights would begin next spring. But the Virgin Galactic project has been beset by years of delays and safety fears, including previous accidents with SpaceShipOne which necessitated a redesign of the ship’s engines and fuel.
The investigation into this month’s crash is now likely to delay any commercial flight for at least another year. But Branson has vowed to press ahead with the project, while acknowledging the risks taken by his test pilots. Last night, Mr Whitesides paid tribute to Siebold, saying: “It will be regarded as one of the most amazing test flight survival stories of all time.
SOURCE:::: Peter Sheridan IN NEWS.COM.AU
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Take off with Natarajan 