Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Scott Adams, 'Dilbert' creator and conservative commentator, dies at 68 (January 13) 

2. China’s Viral New App Is a Safety Tool Called ‘Are You Dead?’ (January 13) "The app, known as Demumu abroad, functions as a daily check-in. Users input emergency contacts, then press the check-in button on the interface’s home screen each day. If a user misses two consecutive check-ins, the app alerts their contacts via email."

3. Planetary Alignment (January 9) From xkcd.

4. The lumpers, the splitters, and me (January 13) "So when somebody like Matthew Avery Sutton comes along and says 'evangelicalism is best defined as a white, patriarchal, nationalist religious movement made up of Christians who seek power to transform American culture through conservative-leaning politics' it can feel for them exactly the way it has felt for them over the past several decades when the gatekeeping goons said to them — repeatedly and regularly — 'You are a fake Christian and your story of being born again and transformed by your religious experience must be a lie and you must hate Jesus and the Bible because what it really means to be an evangelical is to be like us — to be part of a white, patriarchal, nationalist religious movement seeking power to transform American culture through conservative politics.'"

5. The Rape of Dinah and The Shame of Adults (January 10) [content note: rape and victim-blaming] "Dinah’s rape and her brothers’ reactivity show us the shame of adults: that adults will, time after time, do nothing but negotiate and cover up the rape of their children by powerful people."

6. This country taxes menstrual pads as luxury goods. She's aiming to end the tax (January 15) "The link to child marriage contributes to the secrecy around periods and makes it an extremely isolating experience."

7.  Sesame Street: ABC-DEF-GHI Song Love this classic Sesame Street song.

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Image source

Image source

Links related to the antichrist:

1. In Defense of Pretexts (January 9) "What I came to is this: For my entire adult life, I've watched American leaders justify war and atrocity with lies about democracy and freedom and self-defense."

2. Chaos continues (January 12) "Businesses are locking their doors even while open to keep employees and customers safe. As I type this, I’m standing guard at the locked door of our neighborhood burrito joint while I wait formy takeout order, so the employees can focus on their jobs. The place is packed with neighbors supporting this small business."

Also about Minnesota: Minnesota federal prosecutors resign after DOJ push to investigate Renee Good's widow (January 13) "The investigation allegedly centers around any possible ties to activist groups [Becca Good] may have. That, of course, is protected First Amendment activity."

A Common Occurrence (January 14) "I’m sharing this so you’re aware that the ICE abuses we’re seeing since Renee Good’s killing is – aren’t new."

The Fascists are Lying about ICE Murdering an Innocent Woman (January 14) "Fuck Michael Shermer and the rest of his rightwing pro-murder pro-fascism sniveling grifters, who spread this lie even as we see ICE now enabled to literally go door to door, breaking into people’s homes, and dragging them away with zero accountability."

3. US aircraft that attacked suspected drug boat reportedly disguised as civilian plane (January 13) "'Fundamentally, the debate about ‘war crimes’ is a distraction – the whole operation is illegal, and the conduct of an extrajudicial execution by means of a plane with civilian markings is in fact reminiscent of a death squad operation,' Bhuta said."

4. Hundreds of nonconsensual AI images being created by Grok on X, data shows (January 8) [content note: contains descriptions of sexually explicit images (does not contain the images themselves)] 

Elon Musk's X faces bans and investigations over nonconsensual bikini images (January 12)

5. For Immigrants, Citizenship Now (January 13) "We have effectively created a class of criminalized residents who do not have full rights and protection under law. Immigration enforcement is a small fascist state within our polity."

I can't really agree with this without seeing an actual policy with more details- automatic citizenship? for who exactly? wouldn't there have to be some kind of criteria, like how long they've lived in the US? What about people from countries that don't allow dual citizenship, so they would have to renounce their other citizenship in order to get US citizenship, and they might not want to do that- there should be a way to have them legally protected anyway. It sounds too big and pie-in-the-sky to actually be a real policy- but, what if we think about it this way instead: What if the path to get US citizenship was a lot easier? What if it was less about bureaucracy and proving that you're "good enough," and more about a principle that people who live in the US and want to be US citizens should have a reasonable pathway to do so. Yeah, I support that.

6. Hillary Clinton May Finally Get Lock-Her-Upped For Refusing Stupid Subpoena From Dipsh*t James Comer (January 15) "You should definitely give the full Clinton letter a read, because it lays out not just why the Clintons won’t go along with Comer’s attempt to shift attention away from Trump and the DOJ’s foot-dragging, but also why this government’s corruption must be resisted wherever possible, from the streets to closed-door hearing rooms."

7. A federal judge dismisses the DOJ's effort to get voter data from California (January 15) "In 2017, one Republican secretary of state famously said the Trump administration could 'go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.'"

8. Behind the front lines of the legal battle against Trump's National Guard deployments (January 15) "Earlier this month, President Trump pulled hundreds of National Guard troops from California, Oregon and Illinois after the Supreme Court ruled against the administration in the Illinois case."

9. UPenn faculty condemn Trump administration’s demand for ‘lists of Jews’ (January 13, via) WTF