Blogaround

A screenshot from Pokemon Go showing a 3D representation of an eevee next to an actual real similar-looking dog. Image source.

1. Why it’s impossible to calculate the percentage of police shootings that are legitimate (posted July 14) "In truth, the only gun in Ellis’ home was a pellet gun, and the crime lab couldn’t even get it to fire. Yet for the purposes of data collection, Lori Jean Ellis would be listed as an armed suspect who fired a gun at police."

2. This Isn't Funny Anymore. American Democracy Is at Stake. (posted July 14) "And damn all members of the media who treat this dangerous fluke of a campaign as being in any way business as usual. Any support for He, Trump is, at this point, an act of moral cowardice. Anyone who supports him, or runs with him, or enables his victory, or even speaks well of him, is a traitor to the American idea."

3. Women are calling Donald Trump’s campaign to report on their periods (posted July 15) "Are you bleeding out of your wherever? Let @realDonaldTrump know!"

4. Catholic Bishop’s Advice For Divorced, Remarried Catholics: Stop Having Sex (posted July 7) "In addition to reminding divorced and remarried couples to live chastely, Philadelphia’s archdiocese also made it clear that these Catholics shouldn’t hold positions of responsibility in a parish, to avoid 'giving scandal or implying that Christ’s teaching can be set aside.'" Wow. Reminds me of something I read somewhere about straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

5. Here’s the Problem With ‘You Can’t Love Someone Else Until You Love Yourself’ (posted March 28) "To tell a depressed person that they're incapable of loving someone because of their illness is harmful."

6. Government drones spray prairie dogs with M&Ms to help ferrets (posted July 13) Cool!

7. Pokemon Go helps people with anxiety, stress, and more! (posted July 13) "3 years of agoraphobia and it turns out all i needed to get me to leave the house was pokemon"

8. The Parable of the Good Samaritan, revised (posted July 15) "There was once a young black man, traveling alone."

9. Is Josh Harris Actually Taking Responsibility? (posted July 14) "It’s become all the rage for would-be hip pastors like Harris to denounce formulas. They deride any attempt to add rules to the word of God—that is, until some young Christian blogger points out that the New Testament is way more hung up on greed than it is on sex before marriage, and that maybe we should be focusing more on love than on how people use their private parts. And then, suddenly, these hip pastors are a-okay with standing up and shouting “NO NO NO THE BIBLE IS VERY CLEAR ON THAT” as though they aren’t, in fact, adding to the Bible by doing so. They’re all about not using formulas, except for, you know, their own formulas."

10. First responders and guns (cont’d.) (posted July 16) "No one has ever called the police saying, 'My relative is having a mental health crisis, I want you to come here and shoot them dead.'"

Also this: Subsidiarity: ‘Policing was never meant to solve all those problems’

11. Pokémon Go Could Be A Death Sentence For A Black Man (posted July 9) "I spent the other 14 minutes being distracted from the game by thoughts of the countless Black Men who have had the police called on them because they looked “suspicious” or wondering what a second amendment exercising individual might do if I walked past their window a 3rd or 4th time in search of a Jigglypuff."

12. You Aren't a Different Person When You Drink (posted June) [content note: rape] "We all know that the work I and they do in keeping safe when we go out is something of a charade. But we also know that if something does happen, if someone decides to rape them, we need to be able to tell the police that we were taking “all the precautions,” because those questions will come up. If, by some chance, the incident makes the media, we’ll have to defend ourselves against all kinds of accusations and “advice” about what we should have done."

13. Why Hispanics Are “White” on Surveys (and Other Things) (posted July 19) "This act restricted annual immigration from any given country to 2% of the number of foreign-born individuals from that country who had been living in the U.S. in 1890. Why 1890? Because before 1890 most immigrants were from northern and western Europe while after 1890 most immigrants were from southern and eastern Europe, and southern and eastern European immigrants were viewed as inferior by many Americans."

14. Creationist Ken Ham Caught Misleading People About Ark Encounter’s Attendance on Opening Day (posted July 15)

15. WATCH: Emotional First Trailer For Adam Nimoy’s ‘Spock’ Documentary (posted July 19)

16. Rewriting evangelicals’ past to preserve our mistakes (posted July 18) So, Christianity Today said that refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than arguments made for segregation back in the day, because those were just about racism and nobody thought of it as a religious or moral issue. And then everybody who knows anything about history was like LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.