Random

• 70% of the marriages between an English citizen and a spouse born in Asia involve force and coercion, says a new study ~ Link

• 21-leaf clover discovered ~ Link

• I noticed that the sign in front of St Francis Episcopal Church in Turlock now says St Francis Anglican Church. Most of the San Joaquin diocese pulled out of the Episcopal Church USA and attached itself to the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, based in Argentina.

• California has a new law in effect on July 1. You have to use a hands-free device if you're going to use the cell phone while driving.

• Gas prices might affect church attendance, according to a post on churchrelevance.com. I'm not terribly worried. Even if some people change their attendance patterns the kingdom of God isn't depending on petroleum production levels.

• Thomas Bussanich, acting director of the US Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs, says poor fiscal management by successive national administrations in the Federated States of Micronesia is behind that country's weak economic growth. ~ Link

• Sky rocketing prices will probably force more out-migration from the Marshall Islands. Currently about 30% of the Marshall Islanders now live in the US. ~ Link

• Less is more! If you sleep eight hours a night or more you are more likely to die sooner than those who sleep less. ~ Link

• With gas prices so high maybe now is the time to make the shift to Segway! Whatever happened to those things? Wasn't the once mysterious invention supposed to change the world? You see one occasionally but they certainly haven't caught on -- yet.

• Vatican report outlines the causes of the current food crisis: bad weather, rise in energy costs, commodity speculation, stockpiling, global shift from cereal-based foods to protein-rich foods, farm subsidies, urbanization, increased production of bio-fuels... That pretty much covers everything -- except direct political manipulation and original sin -- which are probably buried somewhere in the report. ~ Link