Planet Earth Slowing 0.5 Second/Day(!?!!)

Josh wrote:
> That was about the trend, but the total average seems
> fairly established at .5 seconds slower per day.

Indeed, on our Troubled Times site (or pending in the queue) are the
following:

1. a finding that per the Earth Rotation Service and
   other official databanks, the Earth was slowing in
   its rotation some 54.87 seconds/year in 1986, and
   is now up to 64.0908 seconds/year (below)

2. a finding that the atomic clock has been adjusted WAY
   past the claimed inserted leap seconds the public is
   being led to believe are the only manipulations done
   to clocks by the clock-masters, the US Navy (next post).

From the Troubled Times Slowing TOPIC
  (http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tword172.htm)

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I have only book in my home on the subject: Practical Astronomy with
your Calculator by Peter Duffett-Smith, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1988. I was very surprised to find in this book a chapter 16
describing the phenomenon of the recent slowing of the Earth rotation in
great details. The change of the Earth rotation of in this book was
calculated from the motion of the Moon for old data (since 1620) or from
the time measured by atomic clock (since 1984). ... Then the Earth
rotation was quite stable for more then two centuries. Suddenly, since
the year 1900 the Earth rotation began slowing quite rapidly, and it is
continuing slowing. In January 1986 the difference between ET (ephemeris
time) or TDT (terrestrial dynamic time) and UT (universal time) was
54.87 seconds, UT being behind TDT; that is TDT-UT=Delta T=54.87
seconds.

I found that International Earth Rotation Service
(http://maia.usno.navy.mil/)gives a table showing the Earth slowing data
(Delta T) from January 1972 to January 2001 (monthly). In January 1,
2001 the slowing was 64.0908 seconds. The International Earth Rotation
Service also updates these data weekly. Thus I was able to incorporate
in this plot the slowing data including June 1 of 2001. The data shown
in the Figure coincide exactly with the correspondent portion of the
Figure 4 from the Peter Duffett-Smith's book. The very recent data from
the International Earth Rotation Service show numbers which allow
calculating Delta T for June 13, June 14, and June 20 of 2001:

    June 13, 2001, Delta T = 64.208477 seconds
    June 14, 2001, Delta T = 64.208550 seconds
    June 20, 2001, Delta T= 64.209395 seconds

So, the change of Earth slowing during one day was 0.000073 second or 73
microseconds at that time; the change during one week was 0.000918
second or 918 microseconds. This very small daily change is very hard to
measure with common time devices. I have learned from the International
Earth Rotation Service web page that their data are based on very
accurate measurements of the Earth rotation using data from Very Long
Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR), Global
Positioning System (GPS) satellites, and Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR). Data
are supplied by many organizations including U.S. Naval Observatory,
Paris Observatory, Institute of Applied Astronomy, St. Petersburg, and
many other. Astronomical times are fully defined.