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August 13, 2010
What's not to like?
It dices! It slices! It's "in perfect alignment with the magnetic north"! But wait... it affects the Earth's gravity too!
Giant Mecca clock seeks to call time on GreenwichFor more than a century, a point on the top of a hill in south-east London has been recognised as the centre of world time and the official starting point of each new day.
But now the supremacy of Greenwich Mean Time is being challenged by a gargantuan new clock being built in Mecca, by which the world's 1.5 billion Muslims could soon be setting their watches.
Due to start ticking on Thursday as the faithful begin fasting during the month of Ramadan, the timepiece sits atop the Royal Mecca Clock Tower which dominates Islam's holiest city. [...]
According to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric known around the Muslim world for his popular television show "Sharia and Life", Mecca has a greater claim to being the prime meridian because it is "in perfect alignment with the magnetic north."
This claim that the holy city is a "zero magnetism zone" has won support from some Arab scientists like Abdel-Baset al-Sayyed of the Egyptian National Research Centre who says that there is no magnetic force in Mecca.
"That's why if someone travels to Mecca or lives there, he lives longer, is healthier and is less affected by the earth's gravity," he said. "You get charged with energy."
H.T. Paul B.
Posted by joke du jour at August 13, 2010 08:01 PM
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