Remnants of Buddha Found in 1,000-year-old Asoka Pagoda

Archeologists on Saturday removed an about 1,000-year-old miniature pagoda, believed to hold the top part of Buddha's skull, from an iron case found at a former temple site in Nanjing in July.
It is believed to be one of the 84,000 "pagodas of King Asoka (273 BC - 236 BC) that contain Sakyamuni's sarira, or his remains found in the cremation ash. Sarira are highly sacred for Buddhists.
Asoka was an Indian emperor who converted to Buddhism after a bloody war with a king in the eastern part of the country. According to Buddhist records, Asoka collected all the parts of Buddha's sarira, divided them into 84,000 parts, and stored each one of them in a pagoda-shaped shrine. Then he sent the sacred relics to different parts of the world. China is considered to have 19 of them.

Photos and full story here from. Sina English

At Home with John Cleese

At Home with John Cleese from Dean Whitbread on Vimeo.

Remember your friends this season..

HOW BIG IS WAL-MART?

This should boggle your mind!! And scare you as well!

1 . At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day.
2 . This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!
3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.
4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.
5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer.
6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.
7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.
8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chains sought bankruptcy (including Winn-Dixie).
9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.
10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are SuperCenters; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.
11. This year, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion.)
12. 90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart.
13 Let Wal-Mart bail out Wall Street

Scenario Earthquake, Magnitude 7.8

Earthquake scenario animation. My physical location on this map is about an inch to the left of the letter "T" in Temecula. I am trying to convince my elderly mom that this is not a real earthquake only a practice session. She doesn't seem to understand.

Good Financial Advice?

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today. If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today. If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today. But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you will have received a $214.00. Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-Keg. A recent study found that the average American walks about 900 miles a year. Another study found that Americans drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means that, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon! Makes you proud to be an American!

Obama e-mail

I'm sure millions of us received this message last night, but this is one of the reasons President-elect Obama's campaign was superior.

How this happened

Michael --

I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.
We just made history.
And I don't want you to forget how we did it.
You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.
I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.
We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.
But I want to be very clear about one thing...

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,

Barack

Good Riddins!

Fully recyclable, the bike made out of cardboard

Sheffield A student of industrial design has made a working £15($24.10 US) bicycle out of industrial-strength cardboard. Phil Bridge, 21, of Sheffield Hallam University, said the bike was strong enough for a rider weighing up to 12 stones(168 lbs.) and would not go soft in the rain, although it has a life expectancy of only about six months.

The bike is made almost entirely from recyclable and recycled materials, using mechanical parts that can be reused. Mr Bridge said: “The lightweight quality of the cardboard, combined with its low cost, means it’s possible to create a bargain bike that’s also less susceptible to thieves.”

London Times
I would like one of these just for the creativity that went into design and construction.