29 Apr 2005
Exploding toads baffle scientists

Just plain strange ...

More than 1,000 toads have puffed up and exploded in a Hamburg pond in recent weeks, and German scientists still have no explanation for what's causing the combustion, an official said.

(link) [CNN]

Update: from Secular Blasphemy.

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Indiana passes daylight-saving time bill

Well, we've got it now - despite earlier defeats, and by a very close margin, the Indiana House passed a Daylight Saving Time bill last night, moving us on the "spring forward, fall back" schedule starting next year.

But exactly when we'll be changing our clocks is still a bit of a mystery. You see, Congress is considering an energy bill that would extend DST to run from March to November. And I must say, that for purely local political reasons, I hope they pass it! Why?

It's well known to my readers that I consider myself a conservative kinda guy, and have, in the past, supported Republicans, mainly on the basis of fiscal responsibility and a perceived lack of willingness on their part to "change for the sake of change".

But what with the advent of the Religious Right, and the increasing willingness of the party to kow-tow to large business interests (the House also passed a new tax bill that increases taxes on me, in Boone County, to build a new stadium for the multi-millionaire owner of the Colts in Marion County ... go figure) I have become disaffected with the Republicans - I have been labeled a "RINO" (Republican in Name Only) due to this disaffection, and have resolved to rid myself of that label - if the Republicans don't want me, perhaps the Democrats do.

Anyway, because this idiotic measure was pushed by Republicans, if Congress extends DST, and Indiana remains in the Eastern time zone, sunrise in Indiana on Election Day in 2006 will occur at 8:20 am. And I believe that most voters will be totally pissed off by leaving their kids standing at the bus stop in the dark, voting in the dark on their way to work, and then getting on the job and it still being dark. They'll remember the reason we abandoned DST some forty years ago. And the morons that voted to do this to their constituents are about to discover it...

When 47 states move their clocks forward an hour next April to observe daylight-saving time, all of Indiana is expected to join them for the first time in decades.

(link) [CNN]

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Ancient Oaths

is the title of a post today from Laudator Temporis Acti, and an excellent essay it is, too! He analyzes various oaths from the Greco-Roman world in terms of structure, not just content, and (perhaps inadvertently, as he never mentions the connection) ties them into a tripartite structure so common in Indo-European heathen practice (see this article on Georges Dumézil for more info). Read it, and learn.

00:00 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link