Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Notes and Links

* I may have linked to this before, but it's interesting enough. John Pugh's 3D murals. My favorite is the fourth one down.

* I found this post at "u n d e r v e r s e" rather funny; one really does have to deal with people like this at times. (I was equally amused by the commentator who tried to reverse the parody using alcoholism instead of music, apparently thinking it was something about music that made the reasoning bad, when obviously it's the approach itself that's the problem.)

* Barrett Brown wrote a post that leads me, for the first time I can ever recall in over five years of blogging, to link to the Huffington Post: Intelligent Design, Online Edition (ht: Wilkins and Farrell). The usual sorts of comments ensue, but they are worth reading as well because Wesley Elsberry (who blogs at The Austringer) does the Lord's work of insisting on the facts.

* A federal appeals court recently reversed the decision of the lower court in the Merced case; Jose Merced is a Santero who was fighting a Euless, Texas ordinance against animal sacrifice. The lower court took the side of the city; the appeals court argued instead (and rightly, I think) that the city was imposing a substantial burden without proving that it was the least burdensome means to fulfill a government interest.

* I loved this post at "Quodlibeta" on the medieval legends about the Dog-Heads. Humphrey had another post recently on early modern research into dragons.

* Roger Scruton mourns the passing of the pub.

* Josh Levin has an interesting article in which he wonders whether Mormons will carry forward American ideals long after the U.S. is gone. Such things really depend, of course, on institutional structures: schools, monasteries, etc. But assuming those, Mormonism is in many ways a very, very American religion, and would be likely to preserve lots of features of American life into whatever eras to which it itself extends.

* Sherry's Hundred Hymns list continues:

#47 Joy to the World
#46 The Church's One Foundation
#45 Immortal, Invisible
#44 Just As I Am
#43 Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy

#42 What a Friend We Have in Jesus
#41 This Is My Father's World

* And he's right; there's nothing in the Constitution that says a Cylon can't be President: