Internet Funnies

If there is anything that might top the easy access of information as my main love of the internet, it would have to be the fact that it exposes you to just how freaking hilarious mankind can be. Stroll through any center on the internet that allows commenting and discussion and I bet more than once you will find a little comedy gem slipped in there by some anonymous or obscure user.
Here is a nice little comment I stumbled upon years ago when I was looking at an Instructable for building a small origami box (this one I believe). I remember saving the image, and its discovery on an old USB was the catalyst for this mini post.

Cockpits and Curiosity

 “I wonder why they call it a cockpit?”

That was the question put to me by a friend the other night. There were a few attempts at a jocular answer, but we didn’t take it very far as we were ourselves in the midst of battle; situated in our own virtual cockpits in Battlefield 3.

But the question stuck with me, and I had to find the answer. Luckily the Internet was there to serve as my guide into this words etymology, so I soon had an answer; and it seemed an answer worth sharing.

As with many English words, the history of ‘cockpit’ goes back further than you would think, and comes from an origin that is at the same time odd, but somewhat logical. After all what is the first thing you think of when you look at the word objectively? It’s made up of cock, and pit; and that’s precisely what the word described back when it was coined 1580, as a translation from Chinese; a pit that cocks fight in.

Now this might present some odd images when you consider the cockpits of today, but the world had a few slight twists in meaning before it arrived where we find it in the dictionary today.

Right between cockle and cockroach.

I have never seen a true cockfight, only dramatisations on shows like Seinfeld, Family Guy, Samurai Jack and others; and this is a fact I am quite glad of. I would be happy if I never saw one from this day on, and the rest of the planet shared in my moratorium, as I hear they are a dreadful thing to watch if you are a person with a scrap of humanity.

On the lighter side; I am surprised how many quality shows I am able to reference here 

But despite my inexperience with these spectacles in person, I know enough about the bouts to understand why by the 1700’s the term cockpit had evolved to describe not only the bloody arenas where fowl battled to the death, but also any scene of combat.

It originally found purchase in naval lingo as the name for the area below decks on a man-o-war where the wounded were evacuated during battle. Two hundred years later the word would again be appropriated by a group of military pioneers, this time as aviators in World War I used it to describe the cramped places these men conducted their portion of the war effort from. Since then the name has stuck, and thanks to the commercialisation of air travel and its place within the everyman’s sphere of knowledge, the word cockpit is now a part of the common vocabulary.

"That's the way to fight a war. Tasty tuck, soft beds and a uniform so smart it's got a PhD from Cambridge" -  Lord Flashheart

Just goes to show you that even the most mundane of things can lead to some pretty interesting revelations now that we live in the age of instant information.

Hope this tickled your trivia bone just a tad. If it did, rest assured there will be scads more to come on this blog in the future.

Hmmmm, I wonder where the word scads came from.........

MM

It's crazy like a fool, eddy eddy cool!

NASA has a brilliant feed I subscribe to over at their Earth Observatory that provides regular updates from a couple of their imaging satellites.

The below image is courtesy of the Terra – MODIS satellite, and looks so cool that I thought I would share it with you all.

It depicts an eddy off the tip of South Africa that has stirred up a bevy of nutrients from the ocean floor, and precipitated a large phytoplankton bloom. This is the brilliant swirl of discolouration that stands out from the rest of the ocean surface.

It’s amazing to see these massive phenomena and then realise that they are caused by some of the world’s smallest plants. To get a bit of perspective, if this bloom was superimposed over Victoria, it would cover Ballarat, Geelong and most of Melbourne! Pretty impressive for something comprised of individuals, that aren’t even visible with the naked eye.

Note: this is not the plankton I am referring to here; these guys are plants, and the food of zooplankton like the Plankton pictured above

These mini plant factories are prodigious little things too, and are responsible for half of all the oxygen generated by plant life on planet earth; so we should be thankful such blooms are common occurrences.

For a bit more perspective, here is the full image from the site, showing its position off the coast of Africa, and for those of you who know your geography; it will also give an example of the scale of the thing.

Pretty awesome stuff.

MM

P.s. I must dedicate this post to my wonderful wife, who insisted that I use the above title after I jokingly mentioned it.

Wednesdays Words – Week 3

“The average, healthy, well adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible” – Jean Kerr

I am not a morning person. I like the morning only in the sense that I naturally stay up till around 2a.m. before that voice inside my head informs me that I should probably go to bed. But the thing is, the voice I hear isn’t my inner weariness trying to overrun the part of me that wants to stay awake. I am not tired at these times. No the voice is simply the part of me that knows I live in a world geared towards those who are morning people, and the fact that these are generally those in charge of the working world (of which I am begrudgingly a part).
The morning I like is dark, not light. It’s at the end of my waking day, not the start. It’s populated by weird shows and foreign SBS films, not beaming out those crappy ‘morning shows’ that seem to want to straddle the line between news, commercial, and brain numbing inanity (but more often than not they only succeed in the last criteria).
I remember years ago during my uni days I would ponder the different Mathews that formed the gestalt entity I identify as myself. There was Drunk Mathew, Uni Mathew, Study Mathew, Morning Mathew...... the list went on. Generally Drunk Mathew had the best time; he all but killed Morning Mathew for a few years, and was the bane of Uni Mathew, who often found himself late, unprepared, and feeling a bit too seedy for a day of lectures.
A point worth noticing however is that Morning Mathew is a reluctant addition to this whole menagerie, he is a social construct; a forced part of my psyche. If I were the true lord and master of my life, morning Mathew wouldn’t exist. He would reside in a limbo, only coming back into existence when some undue force awoke me from my slumber.
This is the reason why for this Wednesdays Words, I picked the above quote from Jean Kerr, a person who I know next to nothing about, save the fact she was a playwright, and lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Scranton, Pennsylvania; home of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company

I chose it because I feel terrible in the mornings. Not terrible in any physiological sense, I just don’t want to be up; don’t want to be conscious.
However these days I have a new variable in my mornings, one that adds a more ambiguous quality to my waking experience.
I have a family.
I have a wife and a son who are both a lot more comfortable in the a.m. than I am. So more often than not Morning Mathew will now be pulled into existence, even on the weekends, when his son enters the room, and coaxes him out of bed. My wife too is always eager for me to forsake my world of slumber for the promised delights of the waking world.
But it isn’t all bad. Sure Morning Mathew doesn’t like this, and his temper is generally a bit shorter than Laidback Mathew. But there is a new guy on the scene now; Family Mathew. Luckily for us Mathews as a whole, Family Mathew has wrought by far the most positive elements in my life, and he is here to stay.
So though I may find myself up hours ahead of when I would ideally like to be, it is finally for a good enough reason. I am up having a family breakfast, watching cartoons with my son, or eating out at a cafe with my wife. I am keen to get out and watch my son’s karate classes, or go for a roadtrip with the family to buy some antique tools or whatnot from some obscure country town. Or just to relax at home doing nothing, but doing it with good company (not to mention the days when my wife bribes me out of bed with pancakes and waffles, mmmmm).
These benefits are enough to outweigh the negatives of missing my extra hours of sleep, and placate me as a whole, so I can shut out Morning Mathews objections for the time being.

Well that’s my Wednesdays Words done, a tad off topic this week, but these quotes aren’t always the most inspirational, and as it is just meant to be a catalyst for more writing, I guess it has done its duty.
Until next time dear reader.
MM

It’s not just hearts that break on St Valentines Day

I am not really one for Valentine’s Day. The idea of a scheduled day for expressing love toward ones significant other seems somewhat against the point to me, and consequentially I was not going to make any Valentine’s Day related post. But then as usual I read something that got my mind ticking along, and before you knew it, I had a rant on the way.

It was this article over at io9, 10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Love and Sex that started it all; this line in particular jumped out at me (no pun intended):

"We had this patient who suffered penile fracture after running across the room and trying to penetrate his wife with a flying leap," he says.

The ‘he’ in this case was Hunter Wessells — chair of the urology department at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and he is talking about "[Penile fracture] a severe form of bending injury to the erect penis that occurs when a membrane called the tunica albuginea tears". Apparently then blood fills areas that it isn’t meant to, and you are left with painful swelling and bruising. Ouch!

But enough about that, I am only including the quote because it spurred me on in writing this post (and because it creates a pretty amusing mental image). You have to admit, the man must have had some gusto. And though perhaps this doesn't embody the more loving parts of Valentine’s Day, it nevertheless was the catalyst for the rest of this post.

All I can say is I hope the guy had some form of costume on when they dragged him to the emergency room.

"Holy fractured penis Batman!"

Anyhow, onto the rest of the post:

Saint Valentine's Day, as the name hints, is a celebration rooted in religious steeping. There are a lot of holidays that try and force their religiosity on us, but I can’t claim that it is my atheism that makes me averse to this Saint centered holiday, as one of my favourite days of the year likewise takes its name from an esteemed Catholic of old.

There are 14 Saint Valentines (the Catholics are nothing if not thorough in their application of religion en masse), but the one most often associated with the holiday was a Roman priest martyred (cf. killed) during the reign of Claudius II. What had he done during this time to enrage the then Emperor, but to also instill himself as the name of a holiday based on love?

Marrying Christians.

You see back then it was the Christians who were being persecuted and refused marriage; something you think they would have learnt from by now. The emperor was against marriage for young men in general, because he figured married men would be less willing to serve in his army. So combine the fact that Valentine was helping out Christians (a crime in itself), and marrying people under the Empires nose, and you begin to understand why he was soon put to death.

While in prison, the ever pious Valentine even tried to convert the Emperor, who was likewise trying to convert him! It wasn't much of a competition in the end, with the Emperor being offended by the others efforts (an offended religious person; who would have thought it?), and as a result having Valentine beaten with clubs, stoned and beheaded.

Perfect fodder for a day celebrating love yes?

But there are much more interesting facts about Valentines Day from around the world that don't necessarily involve gruesome murder, for instance:

It is a public holiday in Mexico.

In Slovenia the traditional day of love is March 12, the Saint Gregory's day, which I love solely for its dispassionate sound.

Guatemala isn't as willing to commit, and simply calls it Affection Day. While Latveria celebrate it as ‘Just Good Friends’ day, though don’t quote me on that one.

The most depressing of all the worlds traditions I read about has to be Korea’s. It starts off good; on the 14^th of February men are given chocolate by women, so I am up for that. Then on March 14^th, men reciprocate by giving non-chocolate candy to the women, in what is called White Day. But then, to add insult to what would have hoped to have been private injury, April 14^th is called ‘Black Day’, and those who did not receive anything on Valentine’s Day, or White Day, “go to a Korean restaurant to eat black noodles (자장면 jajangmyeon) and "mourn" their single life”!!

Nothing helps you cheer up about your single life more than drab black noodles

After reading up a bit on Valentine’s Day, and how it is expressed across the globe, I have to say that the cynics, who often bemoan the commercialisation of this ‘holiday’, are pretty on the ball in this case. It’s obvious that Valentine’s Day is latched on to by the flower, chocolates and greeting card industry, but in many cases this is the sole reason for the holiday’s existence. Many cultures have a love related day, and many western ones derive this from some sort of religious origin and custom dating back to the days of Chaucer. But many more, such as those in Japan, Denmark and Norway were forced into the native culture by florist organisations, and chocolate company executives.

This has been so successful in Japan that Japanese chocolate companies now make half their annual sales during this time of the year!

Japanese ladies may seem a bit jilted, as due to a typo from one of these executives back when they were fabricating this special day, it was perceived that the custom should be only for women to give chocolates to men. However don't feel too bad for the Japanese female population, as those crafty execs also managed to institute a ‘White day’, or ‘Reply Day’ on March 14^th, where men are expected to return the favour to those women who gave them chocolate, but the return gifts are expected to be at least two or three times more valuable than the gifts received on Valentine's Day.

The obverse situation to all this lovey stuff is of course found in Saudi Arabia where the ‘cheer police’ not only ban the holiday for its Christian origins, but also warn local store owners not to stock any red items on that day. How lovely.

I suppose it is better than in Malaysia where last year over 100 couples were arrested on Valentines Day simply for being together (and perhaps wanting to have sex), while the Deputy Prime Minister remarked on how celebrating romantic love was "not suitable" for Muslims.

At the end of the day there is no real harm in having a day set aside for celebrating romantic love. And hell, it might even spur on those less likely to express this stuff daily to their loved ones. But honestly I find the stuff above, the changes through history, and the differing perspectives of the world, far more interesting than boxes of chocolates and soon to die flowers.

Tata for now.

MM

My Thoughts on Religion as a Child Weren’t That Childish

I have been reading a lot of ‘Why I am an atheist’ posts from various people over at PZ Myers blog Pharyngula, and thought it would be interesting to tackle my own. However I found my explanation for why I am an atheist somewhat less interesting (I am an atheist, and always have been), and slowly my post turned into yet another rant. This one involved some of my early thoughts regarding religion when I was a child, and how my early version of atheism treated religion when it was thrust upon me.

I hope it is entertaining in some way for you dear reader, so please, enjoy:

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I have been an atheist for as long as I can remember. I am not one of those atheists who have a nice story of discovering their atheism, or conjunctly losing their religious faith. I can’t really explain how I became an atheist, only point out that at some point along the way, I realised that I was one.

I remember attending religious education classes in primary school, I don’t recall what age I was, or why I was in religious education at a public school at all (I assume my parents could have opted out, but chose not to for some reason); but I do remember the stark differences I noticed between real classes, and what was essentially story time, with unconvincing, and un-entertaining stories.

Like when Jesus cursed a tree. That's right; a tree. A worthy foe for the son of a god

The god stuff never gelled for me, and I remember sneakily voicing this fact to my fellow students in a hushed tone.

“I don’t think this god stuff is real” I would whisper.

Many of my mates didn’t either, but there didn’t really seem to be any room for questioning the truth of these classes; we just undertook them. Indoctrination after all is only really a one way process.

I do remember one of my early reasoned arguments as to why I didn’t think that the particular religion I was being exposed to at school was the ‘right one’. Being an avid reader and watcher of documentaries as a child, I was vaguely aware of the history of western civilisation’s conquest of other nations and peoples. I knew about Inca gold, and conquistadors; about Native American Indians, and Australian aboriginals.

Thus it seemed to me at an early age that there was a conspicuous lack of verification from any of these newly encountered peoples, regarding the ultimate nature of the universe. Each group appeared to have their own guesses, and Christianity only seemed to flow from country to country with the power and influence of its current believers (or at the tip of their divine sword).

"Behold; my rational arguments for believing in Jesus!"

What would have convinced me was the arrival of Cortez to an unknown land, but one replete with Christ worshipers (or at least a form of proto-Jew still waiting to hear of the messiah’s arrival). When civilisations meet, there are generally common facts that they will be able to confirm with one another.

Have you heard of Mars, the fire planet?Yes we have, but we call him something else, and believe it is a wandering beast.

Fair enough. Not really the same answer and perhaps a charge of blasphemy if someone was zealous enough; but nonetheless a general agreement on the physical facts. Mars is up there, looks a bit reddish, occasionally moves in retrograde motions et cetera. The notion of a god however, is never so similar.

Have you heard of Jesus of Nazareth, your eternal saviour?
No I have not. But if you sacrifice a young girl to Tezcatlipoca, I am sure he will enlighten us.

Sure people might like to point out that most, if not all, of these civilisations nevertheless had concepts of supernatural beings in common. However if you look at the nature of these disparate deities you will see they are far too different, and often outright contradictory, to be different interpretations of the same fact.

In order for a semblance of credibility to be attributed toward the Christian explanation for the universe, and mans place within it, there would need to be interpretations which though they may differ, at least bare more than a passing resemblance to one another.

But of course, this is never the case. Some religions have similar stories to others, but inevitably, they are always within walking distance, or perhaps hiking, trading or sailing distance from each other. We would expect the Egyptian mythology to have similar characters to Greek ones. I am not in the least surprised that the religion of the Carthaginian Empire bears a resemblance to the Phoenician one because if you chanced to look at it, I would bet their cultures also share similarities.

Pictured: Carthaginians. (And if you think that was a stretch to get Gladiator in there, then you forget you are dealing with a man who had his son named Harrison Maximus Gunn Morton)

However when you look at it rationally, there is an obvious excuse for this lack of knowledge being spread around the globe, namely that it isn’t true. The Christian on the other hand must explain why, for some reason, their almighty god decided that rather than appear in one of the more advanced civilisationsof the day, it was better to confine himself to a small portion of the Arabian Peninsula.

One might then seek to get away with this lack of independent Christians throughout the world, and explain it away by pointing out a Bible passage that commands Christians to do their best to spread the word (a task I might add that surely could have been better achieved if Christ had lived in China, or perhaps if the almighty god itself had helped out distributing his leaflets). In this sense the lack of confirmation from other lands is acceptable, as the almighty predicted this occurrence, and took account for it in the decree to prosthelytise.

Ignoring the fact that this seems quite an inefficient and demonstrably unsuccessful way of spreading ultimate truth, the avid apologist would still have to account for the fact that these isolated pockets of other religions seem to have wildly different origin stories than those prevalent in the middle east. The Hindu people believe that the earth was created by a cosmic egg being split, while the early Finns will tell you about how the world was created when a beautiful teal landed on the primordial waters and laid seven eggs, one of which would become the earth. It’s not like they are just a bit out; they are way out (though both are at least ova related).

However, don’t count out those persistent Christian apologists yet, because thousands of years of cultural evolution have made quite a slippery beast of their originally desert dwelling religion.

Ask a learned Christian about the question of different cultures and languages, and you will no doubt be presented with the Tower of Babel as the panacea for all rational thought on the subject.

For those not in the know, the tower of Babel is a Biblical story whereby man got quite cocky with himself, and decided to build a tower so high, that they could reach heaven. God, seeing that and being caught quite off guard, decided to thwart mans attempt to jump the queue (he is the arch-conservative after all), and scattered them upon the face of the earth. To add insult to injury God moved to hinder mankind further by confusing his language, remarking “Come, let us go down and confound their speech”.

Considering the modest height of it, God must be incensed at the Burj Khalifa

This is supposed to explain the profusion of differing languages across the globe, but is woefully inaccurate and childish when compared to the linguistic analysis we have about the development of humanlanguages. Not to mention the odd way that this god talks, which is either to himself, or some bizarre combination of first and third person narrative (he is after all three gods in one I suppose).

So here we have a story trying to explain the different languages and cultures across the earth. However it fails to really address the question, as though it would be true that two peoples unable to communicate will develop differently; it doesn’t then follow that they will drastically change their religious views accordingly. I find it hard to believe that the Mayans developed their rich mythology and religious practises from a primitive version of Christianity, or that the fortelling of Ragnarök has merely resulted from inexact interpretations of Christian eschatology.

This smacks of a form of linguistic elitism, whereby those who follow the Bible must assume that the only group of people who managed to ‘get it right’, were those who spoke their own favoured language.

Nor does this biblical explanation take into account mankind’s adroit ability to learn other languages! Surely two groups of people living nearby would not give up so quickly upon realising they speak a different language. It is this kind of fairytale explaining that not only fails to capture the truth of the world, but also sets up our kid’s minds for failure in the future, when real life explanations cannot be counted upon to be so childish.

Though I am still partial to invoking Thor as the explanation for thunder...

Now, whether the Christian believes this story as literal or as merely metaphorical is another matter.

But, I don’t want to turn this post into a rant too focused on these particular arguments against the Christian religion. Rather I just want to highlight the fact that this was an influential argument that I came up with all by myself whilst in primary school. It isn’t really that technical, nor was it planted in my head by any overwhelmingly atheist or secular influence; it’s just what I believed to be the rational outcome after learning about humanity’s history on this earth.

As time went by, and my atheistic roots grew ever deeper, I would amass a bevy of additional arguments against the religious myths and assertions thrown my way. But I always remembered this particular set of reasoning that allowed me to come up with my own theory of what they world would be like if these religious claims were true, and why the facts that I knew about the world negated this null hypothesis.

It was my first example of what is now a long tradition of atheism setting me free.

I can only hope that by arming my son with similar tools of the mind, he too will be able to see through the false claims of religions, and observe the fundamental inconsistencies within. The world may be a bit of a harsh reality to face at first, especially with these religions tailor making their ontology to be more attractive to susceptible human minds. But I think there is a much more satisfactory existence to be had in accepting the truth regardless of the outcome, because surely there is more virtue in such a thing, than there is in the alternative (i.e. comfort in untruth).

I am a firm believer in the art of quoting other people, if only because of the modest fact that pretty much anything I say can and has been said better by more qualified people before me. So as I am wont to do, I shall end this post with a couple of quotes from my arsenal.

“The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it” – George Santayana

“I cannot believe — and I say this with all the emphasis of which I am capable — that there can ever be any good excuse for refusing to face the evidence in favour of something unwelcome. It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth” - Bertrand Russell

Cheers.
MM

February

February is definitely the weirdest month of the year. Its the only variable month; the only month that never (at least nowadays) has the standard 30, or 31, days. As a result, this mucks up that useful rhyme that helps us remember how long a month is. Or you can just use this handy tool:

It is also the month most often mispronounced, with the initial ‘r’ causing a lot of trouble. There is something called the dissimilation effect, which explains the fact that having two ‘r’s so close together in a word causes us to drop the pronunciation of one of them as we speak (think of surprise, or particular for instance). This is why we sometimes hear February being called ‘Febuary’, like its January neighbour.

Incidentally both these months share name roots with two ancient Roman gods; January Being Janus (that’s right, the god of doors), and February being Februu. Though actually the god Februu was named after a purification ceremony that took place at that time of the year. I find it interesting that the Romans explicitly named their gods after things that already existed, such as festivals, or concepts. Seems a much more human way of making a religion.

Janus also had two faces, one to look back and the other forward; which makes sense as the first month of the year I suppose. Looking back at the previous year, looking forward to the new year.

Anyhow, odd though February may be, looking into its history actually helps explain why our calendar looks the way it does today, and solves a little quirk involving the months names that used to annoy me as a child.

Way back prior to 713 BCE, before Jesus was invented, the Roman calendar was based on the lunar cycle, so that every month had around 30/31 days. It was a ten month calendar, with roughly each month being named in the Roman fashion for its position throughout the year. Hence back then the fifth month was called Quintilis (literally Latin for fifth), and the sixth was Sextilis (later to become August, the best month), ‘sept’ for seven made September, ‘oct’ for eight: October, and so on up to December.

I remember noticing this as a kid and being confused as to why the numbering order was out of sync with the months place in the year.

Well it turns out that back when this roman lunar calendar was being used, there were only ten months in a year, and they were named and set out as such:

Martius (31 days), Aprilis (30 days), Maius (31 days), Iunius (30 days), Quintilis (31 days), Sextilis (30 days), September (30 days), October (31 days), November (30 days), December (30 days).

The more astute of readers might have noticed that this leaves us with a year only 304 days long. It turns out that the Romans didn’t consider the winter season as having any months at all, and so when the month of December came to an end, the calendar simply stopped and waited until the winter season broke, and Martius (March) could begin.

Then King of Rome, Numa Pompilius, put a stop to this practise by adding in two 26 day months at the end of the year; and here is where we find the beginning of January, and February.

Around two-hundred and sixty years later the start of the year was moved from March to January, and the length of the months altered so that January began to resemble a more normal month, while February was doomed to forever be the odd month out, accounting for the sloppy ellipse our planet makes around the sun each year (why didnt the gods just make a more evenly divided circuit of the sun?).

And so February moved from being a disjointed time of the year, to the end of the year, and now to its current spot as the second month of the year. It started off as no days, was born with 26 days, fluctuated for a while from 23, to 27 and even 30 days before settling on its four year oscillation from 28 to 29 days.

On a leap year it is the only month that ends on the same day of the week that it began, which just has to be true, because it’s on Wikipedia.

Though it is named after a ritual that we no longer practice, perhaps we should think ourselves lucky that February didn’t retain its old English name of Solmonath, which described it as the mud month, or the curious Kale-monath, which proclaimed it the month of cabbage.

Cabbage; great for Chow Mein, not so great for naming months after.

There are languages whose names for February stem from nicer etymologies, such as the Finnish name helmikuu. This translates to the month of the pearl, and describes the frozen droplets that form on trees around that time of year in Finland. The Polish and Ukrainian languages likewise refer to the obvious season properties in that region, where they call February Luty or лютий, meaning the month of ice or hard frost.

Luckily us English speakers from the southern hemisphere can focus on our defunct Roman ritual based month, instead of having to reside in a month named after cold, when the time of year can be anything but.

February also has some interesting anniversaries in it:

National No-Bathroom Month [sic] (whatever that means) 

Groundhog Day: February 2 

Abraham Lincoln's birthday: February 12 (More importantly Darwin Day, as the great naturalist was born on the same day in history as the great emancipator) 

Liberation Day (Kuwait) February 26 (Really?) 

National Wear Red Day………..

I for one celebrated Groundhog Day with a re-watch of the Bill Murray classic.

"I would love to stay here and talk with you... But I'm not going to ......." - Phil Connors

And with that I end my little post on the shortest month of the year; I hope it was in some way enlightening for you.
Cheers.
MM