Sunspots 722

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: resurrecting orthodoxy has a fine review (I haven't read the book, so I think it's a fine review) of John Walton's new book on how people in Bible times understood the Torah. Says resurrecting orthodoxy: "Someone who scoffs at the valuable insights scholars try to give about the Bible is someone who is not serious about understanding the Bible." 

Computing: (and Politics) A Section 230 of a law, passed a number of years ago, which protects on-line publishers, and means, for example, that this blog is not liable for the articles it links to, is now under attack. Gizmodo says that it shouldn't be.

Education: Grammarphobia tells us how to punctuate "yada yada yada," "blah blah blah" etc.

Health: (or something) Relevant reports on a survey that indicates that we are having less sex now than we used to.

(and Politics) Catherine Rampell says that if Republicans develop an alternative to Obamacare, it will look a lot like Obamacare.

Humor: (or something) Listverse tells us 10 interesting things about horses.


Politics: (And Finance) Catherine Rampell is unhappy with the President's choice to fill a vacancy on the Federal Reserve.

FiveThirtyEight has an essay on the differences within the Republican Party.

Relevant has compiled what Democratic candidates for President have said about their faith. (Some haven't said much, some have said quite a bit.)

S. E. Cupp says that all Presidents, and candidates for that office, should be as thoroughly scrutinized as President Trump has been.

Catherine Rampell reminds us that we still haven't seen President Trump's tax returns, and what we might learn if and when we do. She understands that he is not legally bound to let us (or Congress) see them, unless Congress asks for them.

Michael Gerson believes that the President is very wrong in his desire to cut off aid to Central American countries.

Science: Gizmodo reports on a study of the positions animals take when they relax.

NPR reports that up-to-date astronomical discoveries are being translated into Blackfoot, a native American language, by the mother of one of the scientists. She has had to make up words for some scientific terms.


The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, I believe, it is public domain. 

Thanks for looking!

Sunspots 199

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:
(or something) Slate reports that testing embryos for hair color, and other superficial traits, is becoming more common. "This is how revolutions happen: Technology matures, trends converge, and cultural changes pave the way. By the time Steinberg opens his trait-selection business . . . it'll be too late to stop him. In fact, before you know it, we'll be used to it."

There has been some work done on the Neanderthal genome. Really.

Politics:
(or something) Jan points out that the real cause of our current financial problems is that there are no women in charge of things on Wall Street. None of the big bankers in front of a congressional committee last week were women. (I saw a bit of it on C-SPAN.) (Actually, the chair of the FDIC is a woman.)

Computing:
A recent court case may affect our ability to link freely to web sites that are available to the public at large, says Slate. Let's hope not

Christianity:
Cody says that he is not defined by his paycheck, but by what he does for nothing.

Bonnie on questioning authority.

Image source (public domain)