Rotundus.com

An interesting article from Vox, using a Christian film called Old Fashioned as an example:

Old Fashioned’s problem isn’t that it’s telling a religious story. The biggest problem here is it’s desperately trying to invalidate a secular one. ... The end result is that the Christian product seems like a knock-off, a cheap alternative.
... There’s an old maxim in Hollywood that goes, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.” Embedding explicit takeaways in film is something that bedevils some of the worst films out there, regardless of whether or not they’re religious. Sending a message is usually a good way to create a bland, boring mess.
Brian Godawa, Christian screenwriter, thinks it’s important to note that Christian films aren’t the only ones that are explicitly preachy. All films, says Godawa, “have messages to some degree or another, and writers and directors know full well they’re embodying those messages in their storytelling.”

The great Medieval water myth

"The idea that Medieval people drank beer or wine to avoid drinking bad water is so established that even some very serious scholars see no reason to document or defend it; they simply repeat it as a settled truth. In fact, if no one ever documents the idea, it is for a very simple reason: it's not true."

Families of two women accidentally switched at birth awarded €1.88m in ruling by French court

This problem, discovered by DNA testing, happened in the same country where DNA testing to confirm paternity is an offense punishable by a substantial fine and up to a year in jail as it's argued that the parent relationship is a social rather than a biological one.

The Chapel Hill shooting: White male atheist murders three Muslim students

"Three Muslim students have been shot dead in what appears to be a racially motivated attack by a self-described 'anti-theist'." Somehow his motives seem other than "racial". Apparently they've been attributed by police to a dispute over parking in the neighborhood - thought that conclusion has been questioned.

U. of Tulsa Suspends Student for Someone Else’s Facebook Post

"the University of Tulsa (TU) arbitrarily banned a student from campus until 2016 for Facebook posts that someone else admitted to writing and then attempted to intimidate student journalists who were trying to cover the story."

I've seen quite a few articles like this one titled "Who Should Clean Up Big Ag's Mess?" which look at the problems associated with farm waste contaminating local ecosystems and also causing problems for downstream human use of the water. Apply Coasian economics and it seems to me that there's a decent case for charging agricultural operations for the harmful effects of their runoff and using this to subsidize the production of shellfish. Shellfish operate as filter feeders, and the difference that they can make to water quality is quite apparent and can be seen in the following timelapse recorded over a 90 minute interval:

This cleaning process can happen with "no demonstrable negative impacts on the bay's ecosystem, harbor seals or native eelgrass" as concluded by a National Research Council report on one project. It's worth noting that the same can be said also of seaweed.

Is more shellfish and seaweed how your diet is likely to change in years ahead. I'm a lot more positive about their potential than I am about some of the fish species currently being farmed - this solution can even be applied to fish farm waste.

The Koreans who televise themselves eating dinner

"How do you fancy eating your dinner at home in front of a webcam and letting thousands of people watch? If they like the way you eat, they will pay you money - maybe a few hundred dollars a night... a good salary for doing what you would do anyway. This is happening now in South Korea."

‘Ordinary bloke’ prepares for hysterectomy after doctors discover womb during bladder cancer test

"Doctors believe Rob has a rare condition called persistent Mullerian duct syndrome (PMDS). This results in men developing external male genitalia and internal female reproductive organs."

Optimal life cycle unemployment insurance

Makes sense to me: "we should index unemployment benefits to a person’s age. For the liquidity-constrained, human capital-investing young, we don’t want to rush them into unsuitable jobs. The older workers — that’s another matter."

The Scorching of California

As with most environmental policies there tends to be a mix of pros and cons - here this piece argues that "Green extremists made a bad drought worse"