Rotundus.com

Behold the Rusting Beauty of Abandoned Train Graveyards

"Retired from the tracks, many old trains find themselves in glorious graveyards, filled with car upon rusted car. Photos of these scrapyards let us witness the magnificent decay of these mighty vehicles."

Going into battle with Tim Hortons no longer: DND ends plan for mobile outlets

How will the military survive without "coffee"? From the article: "A Tim's outlet at Kandahar Airfield, which operated for five years, generated $7.1 million in gross profit"

Stand with . . . Death

More polling data for Texas where Wendy Davis blocked the passage of a bill restricting abortions. "Americans in general favor Texas’s bill by 48 percent to 44 percent, with women supporting the measure in greater numbers than men. Sixty-two percent of Texans support 'prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks.'"

What Happened to the Mysterious Humans of the Sahara 7,000 Years Ago?

"The Sahara in central Africa is the largest hot desert on Earth, its blistering sands practically lifeless. But just a few thousand years ago, it was a home to early human civilizations."

A recent piece in Christianity Today entitled Preaching Liberty to the Colonists left me thinking. Here are a few of the article's conclusions:

Three overarching patterns emerge from Byrd's study that should trouble Christian readers. First, the influence of political ideology and historical circumstance in shaping the colonists' interpretation of Scripture is striking. Traced to its roots, the colonists' conviction that civil liberty is a God-given right owed more to the Enlightenment than to orthodox Christian teaching, and yet the belief strongly informed how colonists understood the Word of God. Reading the Scripture through the lens of republican ideology, they discovered "a patriotic Bible" perfect for promoting "patriotic zeal."
Second, the readiness with which Christian advocates of independence sanctified violence is disturbing. "Colonial preachers did not shy away from biblical violence," Byrd finds. "They embraced it, almost celebrated it, even in its most graphic forms."
Third, and most ominously, the evidence suggests that the way patriotic ministers portrayed the military conflict with Britain morphed rapidly from merely a "just war"—a war originated for a morally defensible cause and fought according to moral criteria—into a "sacred" or "holy war"—a struggle "executed with divine vengeance upon the minions of Satan." Patriotism and Christianity had become inseparable, almost indistinguishable.

Made me think of (a) modern American politics, (b) the extent to which we're all products of our own time, and (c) "jihad".

Judge Finds Cop Not Guilty of Assault after Refusing to Watch Video of Assault

"Judge Burke refused to tell KMOV-TV why she did not want to watch the strongest piece of evidence in the case against the former cop. But the head of the police union, Jeff Roorda, who is also a Missouri state representative, fully agreed with her decision not to view the video because he believes videos should only be used to protect police, not hold them accountable." *sigh*

Thorium nuclear reactor trial begins, could provide cleaner, safer, almost-waste-free energy

"What they have done ... is use thorium instead of uranium in a conventional nuclear reactor. In one fell swoop, thorium fuel, which is safer, less messy to clean up, and not prone to nuclear weapons proliferation, could quench the complaints of nuclear power critics everywhere."

Boys in Custody and the Women Who Abuse Them

On a US Department of Justice report: "What was a genuine shock to many was the finding that in the vast majority of instances, it was female staff members who were targeting and exploiting the male teens in their custody. ... Justice Department researchers estimate that 1,390 juveniles in the facilities they examined have experienced sex abuse at the hands of the staff supervising them, a rate of nearly 8 percent. ... Nine out of 10 victims were males abused by female staff."

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars

"The attack on the Death Star, in blank verse."

From Russ Douthat's blog at the NYT (emphasis mine):

The pro-life movement has been pushing legislation along the lines of the bill that Davis filibustered for some time, but the sudden energy behind SB5 in Texas or the similar post-viability restrictions that passed the House of Representatives has a great deal to do with the recent trial of Kermit Gosnell, and the spotlight that case put on late-term abortion nationwide. In Texas and in Washington D.C., in other words, abortion opponents have basically tried to do what gun control advocates did after Newtown, and use a horror story to make the case for policies that have clear majority support but also face passionate opposition. And Davis and other abortion rights supporters have tried to do in Texas what gun rights supporters did in the United States Senate: Use countermajoritarian mechanisms to thwart a legislative push, and hope that with time and sufficiently passionate opposition the energy behind the bill will subside.

What the bill was attempting to do was require abortion facilities to meet the same standards required of other surgical facilities given the example of Gosnell's decrepit facility. In addition it also tried to restrict abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Is that sort of limit something that Americans oppose? Not according to the Gallup polling agency which asserted that:

One of the clearest messages from Gallup trends is that Americans oppose late-term abortion.