All you pagan moonchildren will likely be petting your sacred hares this weekend when the vernal equinox rolls in from Spokane on Saturday. The petting of sacred hares has supplanted, for the most

Since the earliest times, the egg has been humanity's obvious and essential symbol for the significant atmosphere of the vernal season: birth, fertility, growth, eternity. The purely primal power, whi

Neil Hudson asked a folklore expert and a weatherman what spring meant to them. The name 'vernal equinox' sounds vaguely mystical and conjures up images of shrouded figures moving through ancient s

Complaints of dogs and cats injured and sometimes even killed by flea treatments have increased significantly, the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday as it outlined plans to make the produ

Hey, kids! Here's something I bet you didn't know: Black people? Back in 1800 or whenever? They liked being slaves. True! Many savvy, industrious Negroes actually volunteered for that fine, desirable

A controversial ban on holding church meetings in private homes in a rapidly-growing town in Arizona could be rescinded as early as next week, officials say. Gilbert, Ariz., Mayor John Lewis said m

A recently fired Dallas County jail guard previously disciplined for making offensive remarks says his free speech rights have been violated. A sheriff's department review concluded 59-year-old Ste

Like a greedy vampire, I bite the head then suck out the gooey innards. But I’ve seen finger-scoopers, shell-lickers, even all-in-one swallowers. How do you eat yours? The method of devouring Cadbu

This morning, the New Jersey Board of Education voted to approve their list of religious holidays permitting pupil absence from school for the 2010-2011 school year. Included for the first time on thi

Using deodorants and antiperspirants are considered by many to be essential in order to prevent body odor. Finding a good deodorant that does not contain aluminum oxide, aluminum compounds, synthetic

As any Star Wars fan knows, the Force is a powerful tool that can be harnessed to control the minds of weak-willed individuals. So when Jedi believer Chris Jarvis was told to remove his hooded top

Ireland is to hold a referendum on removing a blasphemy ban from the constitution, the Justice Minister has announced. At the beginning of the year, the Irish Republic introduced legislation making

Ninth Circuit did a good thing by upholding the propriety of reciting the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. And before everyone starts screaming, let me explain both why I make that claim

We credit St. Patrick for bringing Christianity to Ireland and banishing the island’s snakes. But post-glacial Ireland never had snakes and the saint recognized on March 17 is actually a combination

A teenage couple from Australia are planning to travel to Northampton to carry out an ancient marriage ritual because they believe the town is the "pagan capital of the world." Alex Stewart-Pole, a

Talk about function creep. A new product, the RosettaStone (www.personalrosettastone.com), guarantees that RFID will follow you straight to your grave. The RosettaStone is a palm-size stone tabl

Svippy writes "As revealed last summer, Futurama will be returning this year, and while there were conflicts about the cast of the show in the late summer of 2009, a deal was eventually secured. Last week, Comedy Central confirmed the airing of the first episode, 'Rebirth,' will be 24 June 2010. Several other details related to plot and production have surfaced over the months, and for those interested, a full article is available on the subject."

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www.sorehands.com writes "In the first case brought by a spam recipient to actually go to trial in California, the Superior Court of California held that people who receive false and deceptive spam emails are entitled to liquidated damages of $1,000 per email under California Business & Professions Code Section 17529.5. In the California Superior Court ruling (PDF), Judge Marie S. Weiner made many references to the fact that Defendants used anonymous domain name registration and used unregistered business names in her ruling. This is different from the Gordon case, where one only had to perform a simple whois lookup to identify the sender; here, Defendants used 'from' lines of 'Paid Survey' and 'Your Promotion' with anonymously registered domain names.Judge Weiner's decision makes it clear that the California law is not preempted by the I CAN-SPAM Act. This has been determined in a few prior cases, including my own. (See http://www.barbieslapp.com/spam for some of those cases.)"

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Even with Jude Law, Forest Whitaker and a perfect sci-fi setup, this movie sputters a bit in the middle, and the whole bloody affair suffers from a lack of black humor. But that's one hell of a knife fight that first-time director Miguel Sapochnik pulls out of his bag of tricks.

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that American companies like Applied Materials are moving their research facilities and engineers to China as the country develops a high-tech economy that increasingly competes directly with the United States. Applied Materials set up its latest solar research labs in China after estimating that China would be producing two-thirds of the world's solar panels by the end of this year and their chief technology officer, Mark R. Pinto, is the first CTO of a major American tech company to move to China. 'We're obviously not giving up on the US,' says Pinto. 'China needs more electricity. It's as simple as that.' Western companies are also attracted to China's huge reservoirs of cheap, highly skilled engineers and the subsidies offered by many Chinese cities and regions, particularly for green energy companies. Applied Materials decided to build their new $250 million research facility in Xi'an after the city government sold them a 75-year land lease at a deep discount and is reimbursing the company for roughly a quarter of the lab complex's operating costs for five years."

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