25 Jun 2006
European Muslims resort to virginity ploys

This is moral depravity on public display: both in the demand for a virgin bride and the faking of virginity to obtain a desirable husband. Neither an intact hyman nor a doctor's certificate make female virginal: and the state of an internal membrane neither increases nor decreases the intrinsic worth of her womanhood.

And honesty is always the best policy.

Lying impacts personal morality, and forces secrecy into a relationship. The cure is far worse than the disease.

AP - Chastity can exact a painful price from young Muslim women, forced into lies or surgery to go to the marriage bed as virgins.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

21:56 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

Genealogical site digitizes millions of census records

Despite my religious (some say "religious" meaning "intense", but I'm being quite literal here) interest in genealogy, I've never seen the point in signing up for one of these kind of sites. Especially as much of the data they offer can be obtained for free elsewhere.

That just changed.

This was a massive effort, and is certainly enough to get me to give it another try. Depending on how much they're going to be charging for it, it might be worth a years membership. This could be very useful for me in filling in the "side-story" - those brothers, sisters, cousins and other family members not in my direct ancestry that I know about in one time frame but lose over the long haul due to lack of data. I don't think I can claim "lack of data" any more ...

An Internet company is adding U.S. Census records to boost its archive of searchable names to 5 billion, which it says is the most comprehensive genealogical database ever compiled.

(link) [CNN]

18:43 /Asatru | 1 comment | permanent link

$5 lotto tiff will cost state $1.1 million

My tax dollars at work ... the high cost of pigheadedness.

A dispute over a winning lottery ticket would have cost Indiana's Hoosier Lottery $5 to resolve in 1997. Now it will cost more than $1 million to settle in court.

(link) [CNN.com]

18:43 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Agriculture Coalition Urges Action on Interstate Meat Shipment Bill

This would be wonderful news if it goes through! Given the scarcity of Federally inspected plants in Indiana this would be a serious marketing boost to Hammerstead Farms.

A broad-based coalition of agricultural and farm organizations is urging Congress to take prompt action on legislation introduced June 15 that would allow interstate sales of state-inspected meat and poultry products. S. 3519, the Agricultural Small Business Opportunity and Enhancement Act of 2006, was introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Kent Conrad (D-ND), and Herb Kohl (D-WI).

(link) [National Association of State Departments of Agriculture]

via Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

14:21 /Agriculture | 1 comment | permanent link