The Islamic calendar has been lunar since its inception in AD622, with each month beginning with the sighting of a new moon.
It begins with the sighting of the signal fires that show that Agamemnon has defeated Troy and sweeps through the plot by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus to murder Agamemnon.
Eid al-Fitr - the festival that marks the end of Ramadan - traditionally begins with the sighting of the new moon, but for me it's more often a sighting of a text message.
This more or less confirms, along with the sighting of the stray wolves, that the Chippewa Harbor Pack is not the only territorial group of wolves on the island.
They saw nothing odd about asking Mr. Wolfowitz, the son of a Polish-Jewish émigré to America, to intercede with Islamic leaders in Baghdad to declare the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that begins with the sighting of the first sliver of the new moon.
The world's twitchers disagreed and descended on stores with the kind of enthusiasm normally associated with the sighting of a long-billed murrelet in south Devon, leaving the manufacturer having to issue a hasty apology last week after selling out in days.
