Taking The Weight Off

This news indicates one of the greatest dangers mankind has ever faced. The kilogram is losing weight.

The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight — if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50 micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies.

"The mystery is that they were all made of the same material, and many were made at the same time and kept under the same conditions, and yet the masses among them are slowly drifting apart," he said. "We don't really have a good hypothesis for it."

The kilogram's uncertainty could affect even countries that don't use the metric system — it is the ultimate weight standard for the U.S. customary system, where it equals 2.2 pounds. For scientists, the inconstant metric constant is a nuisance, threatening calculation of things like electricity generation.

"They depend on a mass measurement and it's inconvenient for them to have a definition of the kilogram which is based on some artifact," said Davis, who is American.

Do you realize what this means? Global lightening is happening! It's real! This will manifest itself in many ways as the crisis accelerates. For example, as fish get lighter, they may begin to fly - oh, no. Too late. This also explains the "obesity epidemic" that has some people's shorts tightly knotted. The human body is gaining weight in a natural defensive move to keep from going orbital.

We fully expect the cover of Time Magazine for discovering this new menace. Global lightening, you heard it here first.

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  By Ed Flinn, Wednesday, 12 September , 2007 @ 1:41 pm

  I question the timing. Bush, you slippery devil!

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  By Mwalimu Daudi, Wednesday, 12 September , 2007 @ 3:22 pm

  I blame global warming. And the war in Iraq. And tax cuts.

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