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An accounting mix-up led to the wrong woman being crowned Miss California USA, and she’s relinquished her crown to the rightful winner, organizers said Monday.

Christina Silva, 24, was declared the winner of the annual state beauty pageant, but she gave up the title to Raquel Beezley, who was originally named the second runner-up. Beezely, 21, will represent the state at the Miss USA pageant next April.

The pageant’s state director, Keith Lewis, said several judges questioned the results of the November 25 competition at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. Lewis said the error was discovered the next day after the ballots were opened and recounted.

“It was a simple human error,” Lewis said.

Silva has hired an attorney and is weighing her legal options, according to her manager, Tony Brewster.

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Christmas is hectic for all but particularly for Santa, who must live in Kyrgyzstan and make his rounds at lightning speed if he is to deliver gifts to all the world’s children on time, a Swedish consultancy has concluded.

Between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Santa Claus’s route around the planet includes stops at 2.5 billion homes, assuming that children of all religions receive a present from the jolly man in the red suit, Anders Larsson of the engineering consultancy Sweco told AFP.

“We estimated that there are 48 people per square kilometer (120 per square mile) on Earth, and 20 metres (66 feet) between each home. So if Santa leaves from Kyrgyzstan and travels against the Earth’s rotation he has 48 hours to deliver all the presents,” he said.

Father Christmas has long been believed to reside at the North Pole, although a number of northern towns, including Finnish Rovaniemi, claim to be his true home.

But Sweco’s report on Santa’s most efficient route — which takes into account factors like geographic density and the fewest detours — shows that he wouldn’t be able to make his round-the-world trip from there in time.

“He has 34 microseconds at each stop” to slide down the chimney, drop off the presents, nibble on his cookies and milk and hop back on his sleigh, Larsson said.

Santa’s reindeer must travel at a speed of 5,800 kilometers (3,604 miles) per second to make the trip on time.

Another report circulating on the Internet suggested however that Santa’s sleigh, weighed down with presents and travelling at supersonic speed, would encounter such massive air resistance that the entire contraption would burst into flames and be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second.

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I always liked this claymation special . . . 

Original Santa Claus and Rudolph puppets from the TV special ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,’ are seen on display at the Time and Space Toys booth during the Mid-Ohio-Con comic book convention in Columbus, Ohio, Sunday, Nov. 25, 2007. Kevin Kriess, owner of the Pittsburgh, Penn., store found the puppets and had them restored after they were used as toys.

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Marcus McDonald knew his time was short. He had lung cancer. His condition was deteriorating this fall.

So, McDonald, looking to spare his family the stress, picked out his own casket, made all his funeral arrangements and started writing his obituary Sept. 14 to spread the word of Jesus Christ, share his love for his wife and four daughters — and share his laid-back style of humor.

“I am writing this obituary, while still alive … so my family doesn’t have to go through this,” he wrote in the obit published in The State on Saturday, two days after he died. He was 58.

“My funeral will be held Monday at 2 p.m. … at Faith Presbyterian Church with interment immediately thereafter in Bush River Road Memorial Gardens. Sorry to have you driving all over the place from the church to the cemetery, but it’s my funeral and I don’t want to hear any excuses for not staying for the interment!”

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