A quick insight into the musings of the curious mind of CW:
Has anyone actually been a snake oil salesman? - I'd never understood this phrase. I got that it was a term for a sleazeball salesman but I wasn't sure what to make of the origin. Was there some Oil salesman back in the 1800's that would pull the old switcheroo on his customers and give them snake oil instead of real oil? And just how many snakes would he need to pull this feat off? How much oil can one snake possibly produce? Well turns out I was way off, and yes there were actual snake oil salesman back in the day. It was sold presumably by gypsies and schemers as a sort of Robitussin of the day.
Why is February so short? - It took me 26 years to get to pondering this but how come no one has rectified this situation yet? The only explanation I can find is it had something to do with the Caesars shortening the month of February because of some unpleasant religious holiday, but that clearly has no bearing today, or for that matter for the past 2000-3000 years. There are more than enough months that have an extra day that we could redistribute evenly. It just seems odd that the whole world has been willing to go along with this fairly bizarre system for so long. Remember the debate between the Metric System and the US system of measurement? How is that a more pressing issue that the way we keep track of time? February needs to have 30 days if only so it fits into that song we all learn as kids (30 Days has September, April, June, and November, all the rest have 31, except for February which has 28), the February line doesn't rhyme or fit in at all, it has no rhythm.
Remember when George Bush changed Day Light Savings Time - All by himself. Probably the single biggest feat of his Presidency. In 2005 Bush and his Republican government were so unwilling to accept global warming and the need for green initiatives, carbon caps, and stricter emissions laws (not to mention all of these initiatives would have presumably harmed their deep pocketed supporters) that they decided it would be easier to appease us by changing time! Read that again, they'd rather have changed the way we keep time, than push laws and agendas that would create a healthier planet (and incidentally the whole time change thing did nothing to help conserve energy according to recent studies, so failure all around). Couldn't they have at least addressed the whole February issue while they were at it?
