Submitted for your consideration: THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is , where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity. What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot. Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined...

The relationship of the Christian church and the broader culture has been a perennial question whose genesis antedates the life of the early Church. In his Apology, the church father Tertullian defended Christians as citizens of the Roman empire in the truest and best sense. If all the Christians of the empire were to leave, he wrote, “you would be horror-struck at the solitude in which you would find yourselves, at such an all-prevailing silence, and that stupor as of...

I know there are some economic arguments against recycling, at least some forms of it. Many of these seem to be based on the fact that there’s no real profit margin, so proponents have to either engage the coercive power of government to get people to recycle (by charging them a fee or by offering city services) or people have to simply donate their recycle-ables gratis. But one “economic” argument I’ve never understood is the on that goes like this:...

I’m hosting this month’s Oekologie environmental science blog carnival. Lots of interesting stuff if you’ve got a hankering for a little less politics shaken on your greens. ...

It’s an otherwise fine story by an AP writer, but I’m on the prowl for media infelicities in the pope coverage, so silly lines get noticed: After making little headway in his efforts to rekindle the faith in his native Europe, the German-born Benedict will be visiting a country where many of the 65 million Catholics are eager to hear what he says. I like the “making little headway” clause. As though reestablishing Christendom were a matter of uttering a...

A statement of the reformer Heinrich Bullinger, an influential second-generation leader in Zurich, on his preferred form of government: God had established through Moses in His law the most excellent, the most admirable and convenient form of republic, depending on the wisest, most powerful and most merciful king of all, God, on the best and fairest senators and not at all on extravagant and arrogant ones, and finally on the people; to which He added the judge, whenever it was...

Clinton or Obama? A few of you may have noticed that we’ve added a small polling widget on the right side-bar of this blog. This, of course, is all highly “un-scientific” and doesn’t really mean much, but can provide some interesting results. The current poll asks who you would prefer as the Democratic candidate for the general elections in November – Omaba or Clinton. The results, so far, show Clinton ahead of Obama by about 58% to 42%. This is...

This sounds like a book with pelling narrative: McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld. I’ve often thought about the connection between organized crime and legitimate governmental structures. In the NPR interview linked above, “Journalist Misha Glenny points out that while globalization may have given the world new opportunities for trade and investments, it also gave rise to global black markets and made it easier for criminal networks to do business.” There’s a lot of cogent analysis of trade...

Patriots’ Day is a festive memorating the battles of Lexington and Concord. The holiday observes the April 19 anniversary of when the American colonies first took up arms against the British Crown in 1775. Massachusetts and Maine officially recognize the historic anniversary. Recently the holiday has been observed on the third Monday in April to allow for a three day weekend. The Boston Marathon takes place today and the Boston Red Sox are always scheduled to play at home. Historian...

Late last year controversy arose after the federal Bureau of Prisons had created a list of approved religious and spiritual books that would be allowed into prison chapels. Among those authors who was excluded from the list was the greatly influential twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth. The potentially incendiary nature of religion was apparently the impetus behind the bureau’s attempt to control access to religious works, which was quickly reversed. As one blogger put it, Karl Barth was “going back to...