The bizarre tale of "Indiana time" is worth a peek at Dog's Life, all the more interesting since I now live within that rarest of Hoosier places, one of the 5 counties (out of 92, I believe) who operate under Central Time and use Daylight Savings. Here's the map.

Seems poor old St. Christopher was rooked by the post-Vatican II purge of his sanctification. Did anything good happen in 1969? I'm still thinking.

Here's a surprise: a group of pastors and religious leaders held a conference on the question, "How would Jesus vote?" Seems they think the Savior would go Kerry. I disagree, of course. Jesus was a monarchist. He wouldn't vote at all. It was, after all, the Kingdom of Heaven he was helping us toward, not the People's Republic of Heaven. Long live the King. Sort of reminds me of that earlier canard of "What would Jesus drive?" foisted by the anti-SUV crowd. To which I always answered, either an SUV or van -- how else could you fit all the disciples into one vehicle?

Happy Birthday former British Prime Minister Lord John Russell, PM 1846-1852 and 1865:

Immediately after the repeal of the Corn Laws Peel resigned and Russell became Prime Minister at the head of a Whig administration. During this first premiership (1846-1852), he helped pass legislation limiting working hours in factories in the 1847 Factory Act and was responsible for the passing of the Public Health Act of 1848. This ministry also ended restrictions on colonial trade by repealing the Navigation Acts in 1849.

His government's efforts to prevent widespread starvation as a result of the Irish famine of 1846-1847 were ineffective. Russell's alternate support for and dissent from Aberdeen's government policies during the Crimean War (1854-46) caused him to lose the leadership of the Liberal party to Viscount Palmerston.

As foreign secretary (1859-1865) under Palmerston, he supported Italian Unification and antagonised the United States during the American Civil War by actions that seemed to favour the Confederacy. He retired from political office after briefly heading a second ministry in 1865-1866 but continued to sit in the House of Lords where he spoke on a variety of issues until he died on 28 May 1878.