I heard the Finnish diplomat Martti Ahtisaari say today that he had been "eternally displaced" ever since he had become a child refuge in World War II. The recipient of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize recalled his wartime suffering as the impetus for his lifetime work in peacemaking.



Thank you, Martti Ahtisaari, for being you. Congratulations!



I recall that Deepak Chopra designated seven practices for peace in his book "Peace is the Way".(1)



Friday (Creating for Peace)



Saturday (Sharing for Peace)



Sunday (Being for Peace)



Monday (Thinking for Peace)



Tuesday (Feeling for Peace)



Wednesday (Speaking for Peace)

Way is here to a ton of joy for our hearts and minds and bodies, folks. It is that time of the year. Let's visualize giant pumpkins... Two-thousand pounds of feast for the eyes and the stomachs. And 1900 pumpkin pies!



Pumpkins are our joy

For every girl and boy

Those who carve them

Pies are not a toy!



I am not teaching you how to grow giant pumpkins.(1) Perhaps I would convince you to become a grower like Joe Sutras of Rhode Island. His pumpkin of 1689 pounds broke the world record in 2007.



My list shows you the top countries in this giant-pumpkin race. The barrier at 1100 pounds (500 kilograms) has been passed over by some eight countries.

Who needs to read science fiction when you have real science mystery in your hands?



Mystery began on 19 September 2008 according to the news on 22 September: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was shut down last Thursday owing to a fault with its cooling system. Scientists managed to restart it again last Friday, only for it to break down later in the day. Repairs will be carried out on the machine, which will take at least two months. An investigation into technical problems with the world's largest atom-smasher could produce its preliminary findings this week into why it had to be shut down.(1)

Old has its own rewards but how about the new? Specifically, 4.2 million new green jobs were predicted by the U.S. Congress of Mayors in their new report.(1)

There are now, as I write, about 3,530,000 entries in a search for '4.2 million new green jobs', e.g. "US could create 4.2 mln green jobs by 2038 - study"(2) or "Report: 4.2 million new 'green' jobs possible"(3). My own "Happiness is a Green Job (Mayors)" includes that phrase as well.(4)

Let's consider the definition of new, according to Merriam-Webster Online(5):

1 : having recently come into existence : recent , modern
2 a (i): having been seen, used, or known for a short time : novel (ii): unfamiliar

Given that "Being Green Causes Happiness - Study"(1), then a green job is bound to make a person happy, right?



U.S. Conference of Mayors released today a report that predicts 4.2 million new green jobs in the next 30 years.(2) I thought to connect some dots here in the energy picture to shape a new workforce for a future green economy.



The Mayors' study first examined "the economic benefits of the Green Economy - that part of economic activity which is devoted to the reduction of fossil fuels, the increase of energy efficiency, and the curtailment of greenhouse gas emissions."

Zhai Zhigang, a Chinese taikonaut, exited his spacecraft Shenzhou 7 for a spacewalk at about 0840 GMT on 27 September 2008. He completed his 18 minutes in space after retrieving a solid lubricant sample on the outside of the spacecraft.(1)



Zhai's spacesuit was reportedly a Chinese-built "Feitian" (or "fly the sky" in Chinese) weighing about 265 pounds (120 kg).(2) Probably, a modified Russian-suit, i.e. Orlan, Feitian took 15 hours to assemble and to don. An Orlan would have taken 4 to 6 hours to be spacewalk-ready in comparison.



Although no manned maneuvering unit (MMU) of the USA, Feitan proved to do its job while tethered to the spacecraft.



Shenzhou 7's re-entry module landed on Earth on 28 September 2008.