February 6 is Lame Duck Day -- and there's no good reason for it, either

The Usual Suspects are pretty much agreed that Wednesday, February 6, will be Lame Duck Day, a day set aside to honor the defeated officeholder or term-limited officeholder in the waning stages of his or her political career.

There's nothing illegal, immoral or fattening about Lame Duck Day, in our opinion, but the placement of this microminiholidayette on the calendar in February strikes us as particularly dumb.

The American elections were in November. The new Congress was sworn in in early January. Most of your newly elected state legislators took office somewhere around the same time. In other words, most of your lame ducks are already out working as lobbyists, er, looking for work. If lame ducks are worthy of a microminiholidayette to call their own, it should be in late November or December.

A better call for Wednesday might be to celebrate the life of George Herman Ruth, Jr. You may know him better as 'Babe Ruth,' the Sultan of Swat, the Bambino. Babe Ruth was born on February 6, 1895.

You may have forgotten, however, that Ruth was a pretty darn good pitcher before he became a full-time hitter.

Ruth was on his way to becoming an everyday player in 1918, when the Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs in the World Series -- but Ruth started and won Games 1 and 4 of the 1918 Series, tossing a complete game shutout in Game 1. (Of course, there is a rumor that the Cubs threw the 1918 Series, inspiring some on the 1919 Black Sox to try the same thing a year later. The "Eight Men Out," however, forgot that Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the new baseball commissioner, was a die-hard Cub fan... and wasn't likely to make an example of them. He may have had less difficulty making examples out of members of the hated cross-town rivals.)

Singapore was founded on February 6, 1819 by Sir Thomas Raffles.