Sunspots 867

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*: 

The Arts: Listverse tells us about 10 literary locations that you can actually visit, in the UK.

Computing: Gizmodo reports that Gettr, a social network that claims not to censor user's posts, is deeply connected to Facebook and Google.

Environment:  Gizmodo has posted a slide show of the 9 worst invading species in the US, including one plant.

Finances: ABC News reports that the 10 richest men in the world doubled their worth during the pandemic, while the rest of us mostly lost worth.

History: NPR reports that authorities may have finally discovered the name of the person who turned in Anne Frank and her sister and parents to the Nazis. For more on Anne Frank, go here.

Humor:  (or something) Lego has released a build-it-yourself globe that can spin, according to Gizmodo.

Politics: According to NPR, the Supreme Court justices aren't getting along very well, and there was a time in the past when they got along even more poorly.

Science: Gizmodo reports on analysis of horse bones from the Middle Ages, that indicates that war horses from that time were smaller than modern horses.

SciTechDaily reports that a huge fish nesting area (60 million nests, from one species, estimated) has been found near Antarctica.

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 609

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


Christianity: Relevant reports that Christians are the most persecuted people in the world.

Sojourners has extracted excerpts from speeches from soon-to-be-ex-president Obama, on his faith.

Benjamin L. Corey points out that God didn't demand the death penalty for the murder of Abel. (I don't always approve of Mr. Corey's language, but his posts are always thought-provoking.)

Corey also points out that, even if you don't believe in Christianity, it's wrong to dismiss the Bible as a fairy tale.


Education: Listverse points out some troubling facts and trends in higher education.

Finance: The Associated Press reports that eight men are, in combination, as rich as half of the people in the world.

Health: Apparently, President-elect Trump is listening to the anti-vaccine movement, in spite of the lack of scientific evidence that vaccination is linked to autism, and may be going to do something about what he hears, according to Scientific American.

Scientific American also reports on warnings against cleaning out your earwax.

History: I don't expect this will change any holocaust denier's mind, but ListVerse has 10 facts that prove that the holocaust really happened.

Humor: (or something) Listverse reports on 10 surprising lost objects, including a city, a spaceship, and thousands of shipping containers.

An amazing construction of marbles, and other items. (Video, about 2 minutes.)


Politics: FiveThirtyEight points out that, barring unforeseen events, soon-to-be-ex-vice-president Joe Biden will be the only veep who served for two terms, and never cast a tie-breaking vote.

Image source (public domain)

Excerpts from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton, 44

Is there any answer to the proposition that those who have had the best opportunities will probably be our best guides? Is there any answer to the argument that those who have breathed clean air had better decide for those who have breathed foul? As far as I know, there is only one answer, and that answer is Christianity. Only the Christian Church can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man’s environment, but in man. Further, she has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous environment of all is the commodious environment.

I know that the most modern manufacture has been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally large needle. I know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very small camel. But if we diminish the camel to his smallest, or open the eye of the needle to its largest—if, in short, we assume the words of Christ to have meant the very least that they could mean, His words must at the very least mean this—that rich men are not very likely to be morally trustworthy. Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For the whole modern world is absolutely based on the assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which is tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, which (for a Christian) is not tenable. You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man. The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt. There is one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to kill the rich as violators of definable justice. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to crown the rich as convenient rulers of society. It is not certainly un-Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the rich. But it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor. A Christian may consistently say, “I respect that man’s rank, although he takes bribes.” But a Christian cannot say, as all modern men are saying at lunch and breakfast, “a man of that rank would not take bribes.” For it is a part of Christian dogma that any man in any rank may take bribes. It is a part of Christian dogma; it also happens by a curious coincidence that it is a part of obvious human history. When people say that man “in that position” would be incorruptible, there is no need to bring Christianity into the discussion. Was Lord Bacon a bootblack? Was the Duke of Marlborough a crossing sweeper? In the best Utopia, I must be prepared for the moral fall of any man in any position at any moment; especially for my fall from my position at this moment.

Orthodoxy, first published in 1908, by G. K. Chesterton, is in the public domain, and available from Project Gutenberg. The previous post in this series is here. Thanks for reading! Read Chesterton.