Last Tuesday, when Democrats unwilling to let President Bush shift the spotlight from the indictment of a top White House aide to his new Supreme Court nominee threw the Senate into a special secret session on the intelligence that led to war in Iraq, cable channels carried the event live, with ticking countdown clocks.
A website called ProphetsOfRage.com launched earlier this week, carrying nothing but the the slogan #TAKETHEPOWERBACK and a ticking countdown to 31 May.
Like a wound-up clock, the new Edinburgh Parliament is going to start ticking the countdown to what the SNP hopes will be a new nation's birth, but what in reality will be the funeral of an old one, the United Kingdom.
Now, anytime I feel the tick, tick, TICK countdown to an Instant Bad Mood, I fall back on the advice of James 1 19-20, which I've learned firsthand: "Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.
It feels cold and quiet against my butt, yet I know it's ticking away, a countdown to my death and my corpse on the road.
In the light of this, the clock is ticking in the countdown to the next arson attack, and the one after".
Asked about cable news programs that are running countdown clocks ticking down to the deadline, Mr. Carney shrugged.
(A countdown clock ticking away on the press association's Web site did not help to steady nerves).
The film opens Thursday in the United States, where critics have been adding their voices to the choir, and where the aggregating site Metacritic has a countdown clock ticking off the seconds until the film's release.
Tuesday finally rolled around, with CNN's countdown clock ticking down the hours and minutes until the Inauguration ceremony; any viewers who were planning on attending had previously been asked by CNN to e-mail pictures of "the moment" — Obama raising his hand to take the oath of office — to the network, whose gadgets would then create a huge composite, three-dimensional-seeming photograph.
Early this year, a countdown appeared ticking down to today's date, suggesting a return of the site at the old domain.
