Friday, August 31, 2012

Ten Commandments - Layman style


Someone has written these beautiful words. Must read and try to understand the deep meaning of it. They are like the ten commandments to follow in life all the time.


1. Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a "steering wheel" that directs the right path throughout.

2. So why is a car's windshield so large and the rear view mirror so small? Because our past is not as important as our future. So, look ahead and move on.

3. Friendship is like a book. It takes few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write.

4. All things in life are temporary. If it’s going well, enjoy it, that won't last long. If it’s going badly, don't worry, that won't last long either.

5. Old friends are gold! New friends are diamond! If you get a diamond, don't forget the gold! Because to hold a diamond, you always need a base of gold!

6. Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, God smiles from above and says, "Relax, sweetheart, it's just a bend, not the end!"

7. When God solves your problems, you have faith in His abilities; when God doesn't solve your problems, He has faith in your abilities.

8. A blind person asked St. Anthony, "Can there be anything worse than losing eye sight?" He replied, "Yes, losing your vision!"

9. When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them; sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you.

10. Worrying does not take away tomorrow's troubles, it takes away today's peace .


Wednesday, August 29, 2012

DID YOU KNOW?


If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on the right side of your mouth.



If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on the left side of your mouth.



To make half a kilo of honey, bees must collect nectar from over 2 million individual flowers.



Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by 'Bayer'.



Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult!



People in nudist colonies play volleyball more than any other sport.



Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952, but he declined.



Astronauts can't belch - there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.



Ancient Roman, Chinese and German societies often used urine as mouthwash.



The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. In the Renaissance era, it was fashion to shave them off!



Because of the speed at which Earth moves around the Sun, it is impossible for a solar eclipse to last more than 7 minutes and 58 seconds.



The night of January 20 is "Saint Agnes's Eve", which is regarded as a time when a young woman dreams of her future husband.



Google is actually the common name for a number with a million zeros.



It takes glass one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite amount of times!



Gold is the only metal that doesn't rust, even if it's buried in the ground for thousands of years.



Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end.



If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. When a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.



Each year 2,000,000 smokers either quit smoking or die of tobacco-related diseases.



Zero is the only number that cannot be represented by Roman numerals.



Kites were used in the American Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.



The song, Auld Lang Syne, is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the new year.



Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent.



Peanut oil is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn't smoke unless it's heated above 450F.



The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.



Nine out of every 10 living things live in the ocean.



The banana cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.



Airports at higher altitudes require a longer airstrip due to lower air density.



The University of Alaska spans four time zones.



The tooth is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.



In ancient Greece , tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant she accepted.



Warner Communications paid $28 million for the copyright to the song Happy Birthday.



Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.



A comet's tail always points away from the sun.



The Swine Flu vaccine in 1976 caused more death and illness than the disease it was intended to prevent.



Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, that is why it is found in some medicines.



The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armor raised their visors to reveal their identity.



If you get into the bottom of a well or a tall chimney and look up, you can see stars, even in the middle of the day.



When a person dies, hearing is the last sense to go. The first sense lost is sight.



In ancient times strangers shook hands to show that they were unarmed.



Strawberries are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside.



Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams.



The moon moves about two inches away from the Earth each year.



The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust.



Due to earth's gravity it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters.



Mickey Mouse is known as "Topolino" in Italy.



Soldiers do not march in step when going across bridges because they could set up a vibration which could be sufficient to knock the bridge down.



Everything weighs one percent less at the equator.



For every extra kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel are needed at lift-off.



The letter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements.



And last but not least: I'm not sure I believe all of this trivia









Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Just A Thought

The Swiss bank account raises tax compliance questions, too.


The IRS announced in 2009 a partial tax amnesty for unreported foreign bank accounts, in light of the Justice Department's criminal investigations involving several Swiss banks. To date, some 34,500 Americans have taken advantage of such amnesty programs. Did the Romneys avail themselves of any of these amnesty programs? One hopes that such a suggestion is preposterous, but that is what disclosure is for -- to replace speculation with truth-telling to the American people.



Second, Romney's $100 million IRA is remarkable in its size. Even under the most generous assumptions, Romney would have been restricted to annual contributions of $30,000 while he worked at Bain. How does this grow to $100 million?

Monday, August 6, 2012

History's Turning Points - AD 1453 Siege of Constantinople

On this day in 1945, at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world's first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout

Friday, August 3, 2012

World War 2 Casualty Statistics

Numbers do not lie - this war was one of the biggest in history with no corner left untouched. World War 2 Total Deaths (Approximate):

COUNTRY CASUALTIES

Soviet Union 23,954,000
China 15,000,000
Germany 7,728,000
Poland 5,720,000
Japan 2,700,000
India 2,087,000
Yugoslavia 1,027,000
Rumania 833,000
Hungary 580,000
France 567,600
Greece 560,000
Italy 456,000
Great Britain 449,800
United States 418,500
Czechoslovakia 345,000
Netherlands 301,000
Austria 123,700
Finland 97,000
Belgium 86,100
Canada 45,300
Australia 40,500
Bulgaria 25,000
New Zealand 11,900
South Africa 11,900
Norway 9,500
Spain 4,500
Denmark 3,200

TOTAL: 63,185,500

From1939 to 1945  

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Time We Get It Right

High Rate of Gun-Related Crime


Americans favoring more restrictive gun ownership/use laws believe that such measures will reduce gun-related crime, homicide and suicide in the U.S.

About 80 million Americans, representing 50% of U.S homes, own 223 million guns , easily the highest private gun ownership rate of any country in the world.

Gun use in the United States is associated with the majority of homicides and over half the suicide, .

More than 30,000 U.S. men, women and children die each year from gunshot wounds, the highest homicide rate from guns in the world. Of those 30,000 deaths, only about 1,500 are due to accidental shootings.

     For hundreds of years, the prevailing opinion of Constitutional scholars has been that the Second Amendment does not address private gun ownership rights, but only guarantees the collective right of states to maintain militias.


No one disputes that the intended purpose of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is to empower U.S. residents to resist governmental tyranny. The controversy is whether that empowerment is intended to be on a individual or collective basis.