Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Rachel and Kristin (and Babs) (September 17) "This uppity woman was asking questions the gatekeepers did not want asked, and she was becoming more popular than they were because she’s nicer than they are." 

I'm super-interested in reading this book, "Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made."

2. Jehovah’s Witnesses just gutted their deadly blood transfusion policy (September 19) "That will almost certainly prevent deaths. But it also raises an important question: How many people suffered or died because the same men previously insisted that accepting those components violated God’s law?"

3. Ms. Rachel has entered her album era, and she is so happy about it (September 18) Oh my toddler will be so excited about this. The other day she was very earnestly telling me all about how Ms. Rachel sings a song that says frogs say "dadi dadi."

"As her audience has grown, so has the public role Ms. Rachel has to take on. She has increasingly used her platform to advocate for children affected by war and humanitarian crises, including in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. She said she sees that advocacy as part of the responsibility that comes with reaching millions of children and families."

4. Canada First Nation Leaders Announce They Won’t Comply With Alberta Trans Care Ban (September 12) "'We are asking Canadians, Treaty people, Indigenous Nations, health professionals, human-rights advocates, allies and people around the world to stand with us,' it continued, vowing to be a 'safe haven' for trans youth."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Trump’s Kennedy Center tantrum — and the value of Beatty fighting back (September 17) "Trump is seeking to destroy a memorial to a man because that man is not him."

And related: Thousands Protest At Kennedy Center Singing A Song Of Angry Men (September 20)

2. EU offers Canada 'associate member' role; Trump calls it 'laughable' (September 16)

3. Gov. Josh Shapiro calls on CDC to recognize measles-associated deaths in Pa. outbreak (September 17) "Two more people have died in Pennsylvania’s growing measles outbreak, bringing the total number of measles-related deaths to four — but, a public federal dashboard still shows no measles deaths so far this year."

4. ICE agent appears in Minnesota court to face charges in the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant (September 17) "On Jan. 14, Castro allegedly shot through the front door of a house Sosa-Celis had entered while fleeing. The bullet passed through Sosa-Celis' leg and lodged into the wall of a child's bedroom, state authorities say."

5. U.N.-backed experts cite possible U.S. war crimes in Iran, including a school attack (September 17)

6. Pediatricians raise the alarm on the effect of Trump's immigration crackdown on kids (September 17) "There wasn't room for her on the helicopter. She was told to meet them at the hospital. 'And now I'm wondering whether I will be safe in an Uber. If my whole family drives, what happens if we get stopped. Do ICE agents board public transportation?'"

7. CNN, MS NOW and Politico sue Trump administration over White House access (September 21) "'This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,' the outlets said in their lawsuit, which is asking the court to act immediately to revive their journalists’ access to the White House."

8. Federal immigration agent shoots and injures man in Austin, Texas (September 21) "'We were told that he was at this hospital, so we came back and they have run us off the property,' she said, referring to Dell Seton Medical Center in Austin. 'We have been informed that if he's in ICE custody, they will decline to confirm that he's here. And no one has updated her about his status.'"

9. Trump says his D.C. arch will serve as 'military complex' with snipers and drones (September 20)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Something Still Could: Courage for a Turbid Anniversary (June 9) "The Declaration’s words outran the intentions of the men who wrote them. “All men are created equal” meant, in 1776, free men of property, and everyone knew it. But the sentence did not say that. Lincoln saw what Jefferson had done, perhaps without fully meaning to: created a rebuke (even to himself) timed unintentionally to detonate in every coming day. The distance between what the sentence said and what its authors meant became a standing invitation to everyone it was never meant to include."

2. 134 Days, 68 Places, Zero Internet: One Man’s Journey Through Digital China (June 23) "One of the initial challenges was hotel reservations. At his first stop, a chain hotel in Linfen, another city in Shanxi, he couldn’t get a room in person because the hotel only accepted online bookings. The front desk staffer told Yang there was nothing he could do to help him check in, though kindly drew him a map to another location of the same chain that could accommodate walk-in guests."

Also from Sixth Tone: Through the Eyes of Shop Cats (June 23) "Shop cats originally existed to drive away rats and protect goods in old, simple stores. Now, many old shops are renovated or closed, and the new commercial spaces are cleaner and do not need cats to catch rats. Therefore, the number of shop cats is decreasing year by year, especially in Shanghai."

3. Where Did All the Dinosaurs Go? Answers in Genesis and the Problem of the Missing Evidence (June 12) "We have found, quite literally, billions of fossils in the layers that young-earth geology must assign to the post-Flood world. We have found the rhinos and the horses and the tapirs and the cave bears. Somehow every last one of two hundred kinds of the most charismatic animals that ever lived slipped through that net entirely, and left behind not a fragment."

4. On Christianity and aliens (part 2) (June 23) "But the fact of the matter is that the sin and/or salvation of other intelligent creatures on other planets or in other galaxies is their business and we have no idea. We do not have their Bible, only ours, and ours is about us, not about them."

Also from the Slacktivist: God’s wrath on the jerks (June 24) "God could send a tornado to destroy the house of such a preacher — and only their house, leaving the rest of the community unharmed. And God could have that tornado carve out the full text of Isaiah 1 in deep trench letters in the remnants of that house. But God knows that it wouldn’t help. That same preacher would be back on his cable TV station the next day, explaining that this extremely localized natural disaster was clearly evidence of God’s wrath over a Girl Scout troop welcoming a trans member three states away."

5. 'If you are alive, make any noise': Venezuela searches rubble on Day 4 (June 28) "On Saturday, the government said the death toll had reached 1,430, with nearly 3,500 injured."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Trump’s “Open-Border” Policy For Parasitic Worms (June 19) "So, what went wrong? Why is the average American now cursed to once again know what the [****] a screwworm is?"

2. The “Massive Human Consequences” of Ending Birthright Citizenship (March 31) "'The initial order gave the federal government a 30 day implementation window. This is the federal government that can’t even get TSA lines working at an airport. They’re going to figure out a new class of citizenship in 30 days?' He added: 'There would be really immediate and long term and probably irreversible harms to individuals, babies born here, their families, the services they they get, the quality of their lives, disrupted and impacted in ways that we can’t possibly even fathom right now. No one has ever really thought that the government could do this, and then for them to sort of cavalierly go and do it with no plan: massive human consequences.'"

From a Chinese perspective, this whole thing about "wow it would be an unimaginable bureaucratic nightmare if birthright citizenship ended" seems kind of... odd. China doesn't have birthright citizenship, and yet it's not a constant nightmare of citizens being unable to prove their citizenship. Chinese citizens all* have an ID card, that they have to show whenever they deal with bureaucracy stuff that requires real-name verification. As an immigrant, I have to show my passport instead. (This can be really annoying, though, when the systems are set up to require a Chinese ID card and they don't have an option to use other forms of ID instead.) Finding out that the US just doesn't have a way to easily verify who's a citizen sounds just unbelievable, from a Chinese perspective.

*I have heard of Chinese people who weren't able to get an ID card because of the one-child policy- ie, they were the 2nd child in their family, and so their parents just didn't report their birth anywhere official. (Apparently there are fines for violating the one-child policy. It's not in effect anymore though- it ended in 2016.) This sounds like an impossible situation to be in- you can't do much of anything if you don't have a Chinese ID card. 

(But also, I'm sure China has problems I'm not hearing about. Just because the system works fine for the people I know doesn't mean it's actually fine. What is the situation for undocumented immigrants/ stateless people in China?)

As for establishing babies' citizenship in China- well, when you apply for the baby's ID card or hukou, you have to show the parents' ID card or hukou. (I didn't even get into what a "hukou" is, basically Chinese citizens are all supposed to have a hukou, it's a document that says very officially what city you are a resident of- this may have little connection to what city you actually live in, which is fine but you have less rights when signing your kids up for public school and things like that. Having a hukou proves Chinese citizenship.)

My husband is Chinese, so our kids have Chinese citizenship through him. (Also US citizenship because of me.) *Not* birthright citizenship. If both parents are immigrants, then the kid will not have Chinese citizenship, even if they are born in China. This sounds annoying to deal with- you have to get your baby a Chinese visa, within some number of days (60 days? I'm not sure) after they're born, but they don't even have a passport yet- some countries don't issue passports to their citizens fast enough to meet China's deadline, but from what I've heard it's not really a big deal, China is okay with babies missing this deadline.

The thing is, though, the big thing that makes the overall situation in China completely different from the US: In China, no matter how long I live here, I can never *be* Chinese. And children who are born here, if both their parents are foreign, they can't *be* Chinese. It's like, no matter what, you're always *different*. The concept of being Chinese is very strongly associated with ethnicity and family heritage- if you don't have that, you aren't Chinese, no matter what you do. 

This is completely different than the concept of being American. And ending birthright citizenship would change that.

3. In reversal, Senate votes to block war powers resolution, delivering Trump a win (June 25)

4. The Supreme Court says the U.S. can turn away asylum seekers at the border (June 25) "The Obama administration was the first to try stemming the flow of asylum seekers that way. But the lower courts blocked the policy on grounds that it violated federal law by denying asylum to people who otherwise would have qualified for it, had they been permitted to literally put one foot over the border."

Because of an imaginary line.

5. 4 surprising things to know about abortion in America since Dobbs (June 25) "The number of abortions nationally has increased each year since the national right to abortion was overturned."

6. US Supreme Court rules against Haitian refugees who were given Temporary Protected Status (June 25) and Trump can begin deportations of Syrian, Haitian TPS holders, Supreme Court says (June 25) This is just so shocking and sad, why would you want to send people back to a place that's not safe for them?

7. A federal judge in Boston blocks key parts of Trump's order to limit voting by mail (June 25) "The judge also found USPS has no legal authority to control mail-in voting."

8. Does Trump Know How Passports Work? (June 27) Seems not!

(I did see a blog post that said it literally does say "Welcome, but be good" in this edition of the passport- but this has NOT been confirmed so don't believe everything you read on a blog.)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. George Washington praying for the return of his slaves (May 28) "She boarded a ship to New Hampshire and never looked back. George Washington sent slavecatchers and government officials after her to recapture his “stolen property,” but her neighbors in the free state of New Hampshire helped her elude those kidnappers. Bounties and rewards were offered for her capture and re-enslavement for years afterwards."

Also from the Slacktivist: A first person, extremely possessive pronoun (June 1) "The subject of this song is, rather, a smallish neighborhood God. This is a puny God who is not the God of Haitian refugees, not the God of second-generation immigrants — not the God of LGBT people, not the God of women, not the God of widows and orphans and the poor, not the God of the sick and the immunocompromised, not the God of any of the billions of people living in any of the other 194 countries of this world, let alone the God of any of the billions of other stars in our universe."

And: Flattening and collapsing, egad! (June 2) "'Love your neighbor' is both necessary and sufficient." Preach!

2. What will it take to get a vaccine for the Ebola strain driving the current outbreak? (June 4) The good news is there's already a lot of scientific research and some vaccines that are likely to be effective. It's just a matter of actually having the money and resources to make it happen.

3. Interesting Pitch: ICR Says NO to Plain Reading of Noah's Ark (June 1, 16-minute video) Young-earth creationism says that the whole fossil record was formed during the year of Noah's flood, when all the animals and plants were buried, rather than being formed by millions of years of slow normal processes. And, therefore, all of the world's oil deposits come from the organic material buried during the flood. 

But, here's a problem: In Genesis 6:14, when God instructs Noah to build an ark, he says to coat it with pitch. !!!! Pitch! Oh no! Pitch comes from oil! There was oil before the flood? How can this be?

Please note that the bible does *not* say that all of the world's oil was formed by the flood. That's a young-earth creationist fan theory. And some young-earth creationists have realized that their fan theory contradicts the bible verse that says Noah used pitch to waterproof the ark, so now they have to come up with another fan theory about how it didn't really mean pitch, it meant pine sap or something.

Anyway, this is a video from Joel Duff which takes these young-earth creationist fan theories very seriously and explains why they don't make sense.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Todd Blanche says DOJ ‘not moving forward’ with ‘anti-weaponization’ fund (June 3) Hooray! But also, I don't think this is the end of it- they're probably going to do a lot of other shockingly-corrupt things.

2. Musk Attacks Nyong’o For The Same Reason Hitler Attacked Jewish Art (May 26) "Musk is not just some asshole complaining about Hollywood casting choices. He is one of the most horrific mass murderers in history."

Also from Everything is Horrible: Fascists Lie (Even When They Seem To Be Confessing) (June 3) This quote from Vivian Wilson: "Him going further on the right, and I’m going to use the word ‘further’ — make sure you put ‘further’ in there — is not because of me. That’s insane."

3. Republicans' sweeping election overhaul fails in the Senate (June 4) "The SAVE America Act, a far-reaching Republican election overhaul that President Trump said should be his congressional allies' top priority, has officially failed in the Senate." This is good news for overseas voters like me.

4. House passes war powers resolution directing Trump to end hostilities with Iran (June 4) This is good, but it would still need to pass the Senate and also the antichrist would have to sign it, in order to become a real law, so that is unlikely.

5. You Can’t Raise Children to Obey and Expect Them to Defend Democracy (June 4, via) "It begins when a child learns that the person with power does not have to be truthful. Or when a child learns that obedience matters more than conscience. Or when a child learns that being hurt by someone who claims to love you is normal."

6. Screwworm In Texas Cattle Could Drive Up Beef Prices—After DOGE Axed Prevention Efforts (June 4)

7. The Side That Won the Civil War is Now Banning Books About Why the Civil War Was Fought (June 3, via) "Censorship often works like this—indirectly, requiring no specified demands but rather a vague climate of intimidation that encourages “an abundance of caution” when making decisions about what voices should be heard."

8. When U.S. foreign aid changed, AIDS workers in Africa felt it (June 7) "The program is often cited as the most effective public health campaign ever, and is estimated by the State Department to have saved roughly 26 million lives since its inception."

9. Pete Hegseth shrinks military's recognized religions list, erasing atheists and Humanists (June 5) "The Department of Defense/War, under Secretary Pete Hegseth, has just pared down the list of recognized religious labels in the military to a mere 31, making it harder for service members to use the proper identification. A decade ago, as part of a larger mission to be more welcoming to people outside traditional faiths, the list of labels had expanded to well over 200."

10. After D.C.'s Reflecting Pool gets repainted, visitors ask: What changed? (June 5)

11. Deported Filipino sailors say they were falsely linked to child sexual abuse material (June 6) "Soriano Versoza's organization, which helps Filipino sailors with paperwork and other support, documented hundreds of deportations of Filipino seafarers and all follow the same playbook: CBP agents board the ships in the morning at the dock, they round up a handful of Filipino mariners, take them off the cruise ship, and interrogate them."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Overton (April 8) From xkcd.

2. 'We are bonded forever': Artemis II astronauts speak about completing their historic moon mission (April 12) This is so cool!

3. National puppetry group faces backlash for platforming anti-LGBTQ Christian puppetry group (April 10) So, there's apparently a Christian puppet group, which requires its members to sign a statement saying marriage is "a man and a woman" and being trans isn't a real thing. I feel like... this kind of thing is extremely normal for conservative Christian organizations- requiring employees to agree to some kind of "statement of faith" which includes anti-LGBTQ beliefs. (Or at least it was normal 10 years ago and then I stopped paying attention?)

For me it's a dealbreaker because I'm queer. And I think it's a good thing that there was backlash against this. But also, this is really normal within that conservative Christian subculture, and groups that have these anti-LGBTQ "statements of faith" do have good people in them, doing good things. The anti-queer beliefs are just background noise, something you're required to believe if you're in that space, but not the front-and-center message the group is promoting. But still, it's not okay that they are discriminating in this way.

Anyway, glad Hemant Mehta's post is getting the word out that these nice-sounding Christian groups often explicitly bar queer people from working for them.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Birthright Citizenship: Supreme Court Could Create an Exploitable Noncitizen Class (March 30) "Trump’s bid to strip birthright citizenship from millions is a moral, administrative, and legal catastrophe that the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted to prevent. That’s why he’s pursuing it."

2. The ‘pedagogy of moral accommodation’ (April 7) "Belief in eternal hell deforms the moral imagination. It trains Christians to call evil good. It instructs them to bless what, under any other description, they would condemn as cruelty."

This is so spot-on, and it applies to a lot of things in evangelical Christian ideology. So many apologetics answers for why some horrific thing (genocide commanded by God in the bible, sending the majority of humans to suffer in hell forever, oppression of women and queer people, etc) is actually good, and how dare you question that.

3. Donald Trump Impeachment Backed by Most Americans: Poll (April 8) and Iran ceasefire fails to quash Dem calls for Trump's removal (April 7) via

4. Did Donald Trump threaten the Pope? Here is what we know (April 10) Fascinating how the pope's bland statements about how peace is good and war is bad, which is something popes say all the time, are being viewed as an extremely political statement against that felon.

Trump posts image of himself as Jesus after attacking Pope Leo (April 13) What on earth. That felon is really posting AI images of himself as Jesus.

5. Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán is ejected after 16 years in a European electoral earthquake (April 13, via) "It was a stunning blow for Orbán — a close ally of both U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin — who quickly conceded defeat after what he called a ″painful″ election result."

6. Judge dismisses Trump's $10B lawsuit over the Wall Street Journal's Epstein reporting (April 13) "Trump filed the lawsuit in July, following up on a promise to sue the paper almost immediately after it put a new spotlight on his well-documented relationship with Epstein by publishing an article that described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper said bore Trump's signature and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein's 50th birthday."

7. 2025 was one of most volatile years ever for U.S. naturalizations (April 13) "'What we see this administration doing is targeting even people who have followed all the rules. The administration is changing the rules on those folks,' said O'Herron, of the Brennan Center for Justice. 'That unpredictability creates a real sense of fear.'"

8. There's growing disquiet in the military. The Iran war made it worse (April 10) "'We've had a lot of calls from people who don't identify as nonviolent or pacifists,' says Woolford. 'They identify as everyday service members who are willing to defend the country but feel very unsettled and suspicious about the ways the military is being used now.'"

Blogaround

Photo of the earth, taken from the Artemis II space ship. Image source.

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. The Touch - Stan Bush (HD Restoration) A song from some 1986 transformers movie.

I watched this video with my son standing next to me telling me the Chinese names of all the transformers. None of the pregnancy books prepared me for how much transformers lore I would be required to learn as a parent.

2. Artemis II astronauts swung by the moon, broke an Apollo record, and saw an eclipse (April 7) "Just minutes later, the crew reached the mission's maximum distance from Earth at 252,756 miles, beating the previous record set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970 by 4,111 more miles."

3. These blind students say their college blocked their education. A new rule could help (April 6) "For many assignments – say a PDF document from a professor – most students simply click "download," and read it. But that same assignment is more complicated for students who are blind."

4. In 1978, they stopped buses — and helped launch a disability rights movement (April 3) "The Gang of 19, as they'd be called, demanded that the city install wheelchair lifts on more than 200 newly-ordered buses, so they could ride public transit. The protest lasted some 24 hours. At night, some of the protesters got out of their wheelchairs and slept on the hard asphalt."

5. Day Counter (April 3) From xkcd.

6. On The Enshittification of Audre Lorde: "The Master's Tools" in Tech Discourse (March 28, via) "A decolonial critique of technology is not simply "the internet was always bad." It is rather: the conditions that made the internet harmful to specific communities were never peripheral to its design; they're an integral part of it. And any politics that aims to restore something like the pre-enshittification internet without reckoning with those conditions is doomed to reproduce them."

7. When Genomes Fail: Serial Cloning, Mutation Accumulation, and the Case Against Creationist’ Genetic Entropy (April 6) "By the 57th generation, the mice carried approximately 3,700 single-nucleotide variants, 80 insertions or deletions, and at least 16 large structural variants that had not been present in the original donor. The birth rate declined steadily after generation 27, and the 58th generation was the last. Every mouse born in that final generation died within a day."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. The president is posting on social media to threaten genocide. He must be removed from office.

Trump post on Truth Social: "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to ​be brought back ​again. I don’t want that ‌to ⁠happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We ⁠will find out tonight, one of ​the most important ​moments ⁠in the long and complex history of ⁠the ​World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!"

We have the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. Now is the time to use it. (April 8) "Any federal official who does not respond to Tuesday’s threat in a manner befitting their own constitutional obligations in light of Trump’s past actions will bear a part of the responsibility for what follows."

2. Trump fires Pam Bondi as attorney general (April 2)

Pam Bondi is out — and that is a good thing. She was Trump's lawyer, and DOJ paid the price. (April 3) "She has caused incalculable harm to the Department, the rule of law, and the nation. All in service of Trump. That is, and will always be, her legacy."

3. She paid into Medicare for years. Trump's immigration policy will end her coverage (April 6) "She's contributed tens of thousands of dollars into Medicare and Social Security over 24 years, according to her Social Security Administration earnings record, reviewed by El Tímpano and KFF Health News. But Carranza and an estimated 100,000 other lawfully present immigrants will soon be cut out of Medicare."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. If AI’s Native Language Is English, Where Does That Leave China? (March 12) "Many non-English languages are often what researchers call low-resource (e.g., Swahili) or medium-resource (e.g., Vietnamese) languages. This means there might not be enough diverse and high-quality digital texts — such as scientific papers, business case studies, or legal documents — available in those languages to train AI models on."

2. Conquest Narrative // Good Relation (March 16) A Jewish take on the biblical story of Joshua. "We could stop here, read the Conquest Narrative as both warning and foreshadowing, and move on. But there’s something that sits wrong with me about this solution."

3. Apples, Oranges, and Genomes: A Critique of Dr. Carter’s Claims about Human-Chimpanzee Genetic Similarity (March 12) "Christians deserve better than to be told that the latest Nature paper confirms their faith when in reality that paper’s authors see nothing in their data that challenges the standard evolutionary framework, and when the data actually strengthen the evidence for common ancestry by providing a more complete picture of genomic evolution across the ape lineage."

4. Why Complementarianism Isn’t Actually About Men Really Leading (March 18) "Male leadership in complementarianism is not about men leading, but instead about men being free from accountability and responsibility." Yeah this is what happens when you have an ideology that says the husband is the leader because he's a *man*, so he just *is*, regardless of whether he actually has any qualities that fit any normal definitions of "leadership."

5. The structure of ideological abuse (March 9) "You must never require someone to share their inner life with you without their free, full, informed consent."

6. Cesar Chavez abused and raped women and girls, NYT investigation says (March 18) [content note: rape] "In a statement posted to Medium on Wednesday, Huerta wrote: 'I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.'"

7. Chuck Norris, martial arts master and actor whose toughness became internet lore, dies at 86 (March 21)

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. ICE agents reveal daily arrest quotas and surveillance app in rare court testimony (March 13, via) "In the hearing, an ICE agent identified as JB testified that his team was given a verbal order to target eight arrests a day."

2. Hypothetical Legal Advice to SecDef Hegseth on “No Quarter” Statement (from Office of General Counsel) (March 14, via) Hegseth keeps talking about how enthusiastically he wants to commit war crimes. WTF? Can we impeach him or something?

3. FCC chair threatens TV networks amid Iran war coverage — but his warning rings hollow (March 16) 

4. Top US counterterrorism official resigns over Iran war, urging Trump to 'reverse course' (March 18, via) "'This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States,' the letter continued. 'This was a lie.'"

5. One Year Later: The Effect of US ‘Chainsaw’ on Global Health (January 20, via) "To date, 757,314 people – the majority children – have died from the funding cuts, according to ImpactCounter, which tracks the effect of USAID cuts via sophisticated modelling tools."

6. Zionist Institutions Spread Antisemitic Propaganda (March 15) "Israel and Zionist orgs in the US have effectively been releasing huge amounts of antisemitic propaganda, linking Jews to the action of a violent nation state and its policies of sweeping censorship, apartheid, genocide, and war."

Also from Everything is Horrible: Dems’ No Tax Proposals Are Reactionary Garbage (March 17) "When people say that US society is not affordable, they are saying they’d like to pay less for groceries. But they are also very much saying that US society is constructed in a way that is inhuman, cruel, and un-navigable for everyone but the ultra-rich."

7. Judge ends asylum claims for Liam Conejo Ramos and his family, orders family's removal (March 18) "Attorney Danielle Molliver, with Nwokocha & Operana Law Offices, told MPR News on Wednesday that the firm is appealing the decision handed down by U.S. Immigration Judge John Burns. Molliver said an appeal could take months or years."

8. Trump is dismantling democracy at 'unprecedented' speed, global report finds (March 20)

9. ICE officers are taking DNA samples from protesters they've arrested (March 19) "'What you worry about is an officer making a decision in the field that a person committed a crime when they might not have. Maybe they were doing something protected under the First Amendment,' Kerr says. 'The officer says, 'I think you crossed the line, I'm going to arrest you.' It turns out the officer was wrong, but the DNA test has been conducted, and the information has been entered into the database. What then?'"

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Happily Never After: The Curious Case of Love and Respect (Deep Dive) (February 5, 1-hour-15-minute video) This is a deep dive into the book "Love and Respect," which is the best selling Christian marriage book. The overall thesis of the book is that women need love and men need respect. If your husband is not treating you right, you can solve all your marriage problems by respecting him more. By never disagreeing with him. By never bringing up any problems. As it turns out, this is extremely bad advice. (This is part 1 in a 3-part series.)

2. No ID, No Support, No Plan: Michigan's wrongfully convicted launch app to fill reentry gaps (March 5) "Unlike parolees, who often have months of notice before being released and access to reentry services, exonerees may be released with as little as a few hours' warning and no support at all."

3. New NHS England Review Excluded 97% Of All Trans Studies To Say Care Doesn't Work (March 11) "These 10 reviews are not science. They are the machinery of a government that has decided to eliminate transgender healthcare and is working backward from that conclusion."

4. Technical Debt Collectors: China’s Coders Count Cost of AI Errors (March 12) "When programmers point out an error, the AI will apologize and acknowledge the problem, Wei says. But the new code it produces often introduces new bugs somewhere else, and the process repeats."

5. What Do We Owe the Insufferable? (January 30, via) "Liberals and leftists, committed to deinstitutionalization and autonomy, respond by 'pretending that mental illness never results in antisocial behavior, much less violent crime.'"

6. Home Remedies (March 9) From xkcd.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Photos from Iran and across the Middle East as the war enters Week 2 (March 10)

2. Thousands in New York City must work to keep SNAP food benefits. ‘The pressure is on.’ (March 3, via) "But a measure pushed by Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration will require about 123,000 New Yorkers to prove that they are working, volunteering or in school beginning in March. This now includes veterans, homeless people, youth aging out of foster care, and parents with children older than 14. It also means that some seniors who had retired under the old rules will now have to go back to work to continue getting food benefits."

3. NYU Langone faces Wednesday deadline to resume gender-affirming care for minors (March 11) "But state officials said NYU Langone’s move violated New York’s sweeping human rights law, which bans discrimination based on an individual’s gender identity. Attorney General Letitia James’ office gave NYU Langone until March 11 to resume the procedures."

4. Statue depicting Trump, Epstein as Jack, Rose from 'Titanic' appears on National Mall (March 11)

5. The U.S. Built a Blueprint to Avoid Civilian War Casualties. Trump Officials Scrapped It. (March 10)

6. Is the US Military Trying to Bring Back Jesus? (March 14) "I absolutely 100% believe that some military leaders are using Evangelical Christian end times prophesy to generate excitement for troops to go into battle. That’s been happening for years, and they need it now more than ever considering that the past few wars in the Middle East were actually popular, while this one is not."

7. House GOP leadership silent as more members post anti-Muslim statements (March 14)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Cleft Lip: The Long Road to Repairing a Smile (March 5) "When I saw other children like me for the first time at the hospital, I began to feel less alone."

2. The Gender Politics of Abandoning Your Girlfriend on a Mountain (March 3) "For that reason, there’s a warning sign posted that tells climbers 'If it took you more than 3 hours to get here, turn back! Your life depends on it. Expect major difficulties from here on!' It took them nearly SEVEN hours to get there, but they decided to continue, as Plamberger stated they still felt fresh."

3.  The Mundane Misery of MAGA's Bluey Copycat (January 19, 1-hour-59-minute video) "No one in their right mind is going to be like, you know what I want my kids to watch? Something associated with political commentary. Conservative political commentary."

4. Why people fail at learning languages (January 3) "The goal in learning a language is to acquire so much of this tacit knowledge that the illusion becomes so strong that you can’t encounter these sounds or these symbols without associating them with a meaning."

I speak Mandarin Chinese as a second language, and I have some opinions about language learning and how American culture views language learning. Maybe I'll write about that some time. Basically the strategy I used was, talk to actual Chinese people, make a lot of embarrassing mistakes. If your goal is to be able to talk to people, you need to learn by talking to people. 

Contrast this with the French classes I took in high school, where I thought the point was to get everything correct and never make mistakes. Sure, you do well in class with that approach, but then the moment you encounter native speakers or a French movie or whatever, you feel like "they're talking too fast" and you understand nothing and have no confidence.

5. Here's a fun little game about how well you can remember colors (via)

6. We Know What’s Killing Loons and How to Stop It. So Why Are They Still Dying? (January 2, via) "In nearly every place—from the Maritimes to Minnesota to Washington State—lead poisoning is the leading cause of death for adult loons in freshwater habitat."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. How to Resist Like Minneapolis (February 6, via) "These will be the people in the encrypted chat."

2. Trump fires Homeland Security Secretary Noem after mounting criticism (March 6)

3. She’d Never Changed Her Gender Marker. Kansas Invalidated Her License Anyway. (March 3) "Once Ellis arrived at the DMV, she presented the letter to a confused employee."

4. Caught in the Middle East, Chinese Tourists Scramble for Way Out (March 6) 

5. A Courthouse Arrest, a Surprise Pregnancy, and One Family’s Shattered Dreams (January 7, via) "The other family members were determined to keep fighting for their asylum, but they’d already accepted that Daniela wasn’t coming back, and Andres’ little family would be separated before it could even begin."

6. Jan. 6 plaque honoring police officers is now displayed at the Capitol after a 3-year delay (March 7) "The plaque was placed on the Senate side of the hallway because that chamber voted unanimously in January to install it after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had delayed putting it up."

7. U.S. Tomahawk Hit Naval Base Beside Iranian School, Video Shows (March 8, via) "A newly released video adds to the evidence that an American missile likely hit an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reported killed."

8. Bodycam video contradicts ICE claims in fatal shooting of U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez in Texas (March 7)

9. Thrift-Store Bibles and the Execution of Renee Good (January 15, via) "Flipping through roughly 1,300 pages of pink-accented ancient Near Eastern religious literature reveals numerous quizzes, including one (image below) to help determine whether you’re a 'Diva, Doormat, or Dream Date.'"

This is so real- bible publishers make all these little niche bibles, targeted at different groups, usually gendered. It's the entire text of the actual bible, plus little text boxes inserted all throughout, to tell readers from that specific subgroup what the bible is supposed to mean for them. 

I've always interpreted the message of these bibles as, 'We don't read the actual text of the bible. That's boring. We have to print it all here, because Christians are supposed to own a bible, but we don't expect people to actually read it and notice how jarringly different it is from the cutesy little messages we've stuck in here.'

Like, take whatever message you want, and tack it onto the text of the bible. Nobody will notice it has nothing to do with the bible- Christians treat owning a bible as an identity marker, but it's not like they're actually going to spend time reading it.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Can Complementarians Please Stop Using the “You’re Equal to Your Boss” Analogy? (March 2) "When complementarians say, 'Well, that’s what the Bible says' it is fair to answer them back, 'Well, either you are wrong in your interpretation or God is sexist.'"

2. on the other trafficked girls in Esther (February 26) "All of them are captured by agents of the State— "deputies" – to take these girls from their families and get them to travel sometimes exceedingly far distances so that the king can decide if they "please" him."

3. Created to Die? Exploding Termites and the “Very Good” Creation (February 8) "It’s a familiar strategy: describe complexity, express incredulity, declare design."

4. The market for marriage (February 19) "The usual pattern is that pastoralists are inegalitarian, inequality drives polygyny, and polygyny drives male control of women."

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As a reminder, you don't have to read all the news links. But, *do* something. Check on your trans friends, protest, call your congress people, get connected to local groups, donate to groups that help immigrants.

Links related to the antichrist:

1. ACLU Files Lawsuit Against Kansas Trans Drivers License Revocations, Bathroom Bounty Hunter Law (February 27) "The lawsuit is being brought by two anonymous plaintiffs, both transgender men. Both hold driver's licenses with male gender markers. SB 244 retroactively invalidates those licenses, which will 'forcibly out Plaintiffs as transgender.'"

2. Trump administration drops suits against law firms after judges find president's orders unconstitutional (March 3) "'This episode will be remembered as demonstrating the difference between institutions that had the ethical courage to uphold the Constitution and fight bullying and then won, and those that compromised their ethics and gained nothing,' Gupta said in a statement Monday. 'Let’s hope that media companies, universities, and other organizations pay heed.'"

Oh but wait, DOJ is [not?] dropping its appeals of losses in the law firm order cases. What is going on? (March 3) 

3. Who attacked a girls' school in Iran, and will there be accountability? (March 3) "As the death toll in the conflict passes 175, calls rise for an investigation into potential human rights violations and war crimes."

4. Before you share that story about how troops were told the Iran War is for "Armageddon," read this (March 4) Yes, we should fact-check and not believe everything!

5. Why supporting a shelter for women is now 'kind of radioactive' (March 4) "A global survey by U.N. Women published in October 2025 found that more than 40% of organizations working to end violence against women and girls had to scale back life-saving services or shut down completely in the past year because of funding cuts."

These MAGAs talk about how they're the ones "protecting women" by discriminating against trans people, and at the same time they're massively cutting funding for women's shelters. It's another example of the ideology I talked about in my post about being right vs doing good.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. On 310 Yuan a Day, She Builds China’s Towers — and Streams the Struggle (February 25) "This is her sixth year bouncing between construction sites across China. As one of the few young women in a workforce dominated by middle-aged men, she stands out immediately — not just for her age or gender, but for her determination to survive."

2. Remembering the Mothers of Gynecology (February 28) "But like a lot of early heroes of medicine, Sims was an absolute monster."

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Image source.

Links related to the antichrist:

1. A Chance To Establish The Run Against Authoritarianism (February 12) This is something we can do to help the families who have been hiding for weeks in Minnesota. Donate to funds to help with rent.

2. The U.S. Men's Hockey Team Failed the Locker Room Test (February 25) "I can’t help but wonder how many of these players have daughters—and whether they’ve told them that they can be hockey players one day, too. How many have told them that the women’s game matters just as much? Do they think their girls will still believe them after they hear their dads laugh?"

3. Deadline looms as Anthropic rejects Pentagon demands it remove AI safeguards (February 26) "For months, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has insisted that Anthropic's AI model, Claude, must not be used for mass surveillance in the U.S. or to power entirely autonomous weapons, such as a drone that uses AI to kill targets without human approval. He has described those uses as 'entirely illegitimate' and says they are 'bright red lines' for the company."

OpenAI announces Pentagon deal after Trump bans Anthropic (February 28)

4. A nearly blind refugee is found dead after Border Patrol agents drop him at Buffalo doughnut shop (February 27) "'A vulnerable man — nearly blind and unable to speak English — was left alone on a cold winter night with no known attempt to leave him in a safe, secure location. That decision from U.S. Customs and Border Protection was unprofessional and inhumane,' Mayor Sean Ryan said in a statement."

5. Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, And The Construction Of Political Crisis (February 21) [content note: child sexual abuse] "The broad Epstein files scandal is already salient. But the questions of how it will ultimately be understood, and where political accountability will fall, are still up for grabs. Is this mostly a story about elite impunity, bipartisan failure, bureaucratic incompetence and/or corruption? Or will it be just as much a story about how the country was deceived into electing a sex predator angling to cover up his own crimes and got caught. Where we look back and say there was a specific moment when the government had to decide whether there would be any consequences for this depravity, and we, the public, got to see in real time who tried to do the right thing and who sided with the dregs of humanity?"

6. Vanderbilt To Drop Major Gender-Affirming Surgeries For Trans Adults (February 24) "It was only after reaching out to VUMC that she received a message in her patient portal—a pattern seen across the country, where hospital gender care rollbacks have often been haphazardly announced through terse press releases from nameless hospital bureaucrats."

Also from Erin in the Morning: Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The Immediate Surrender Of Drivers Licenses (February 26) "The Kansas letters arrive amid an accelerating nationwide campaign to strip transgender people of accurate identification documents."

7. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been killed (February 28)

3 American troops killed, and Trump says more 'likely,' in war against Iran (March 1)

8. Federal judge blocks new DHS policy that would allow arrest of thousands of legal refugees (February 28) "'The Government’s actions in this case beg the question: Why?' Tunheim wrote. 'The Government suggests that they are looking for terrorists, but there is not a shred of evidence in the record that the Named Plaintiffs or the putative Class they seek to represent pose serious national security risks.'"

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. On “Asexual” as umbrella term (February 22) "Sometimes I hear newbies propose that there should be a separate asexual community that is *not* inclusive of gray/demi/etc. folks. I would go so far as to say that this idea is totally pointless."

2. Eliminating the Impossible (February 20) Very good point from xkcd.

3. Fix Your Hearts or Die (February 22, via) "Meanwhile men are finding out that they'd rather suffer loneliness than learn how to treat women as human beings instead of possessions, because treating a woman as a possession is domination, which means that it is seen as not just masculine, but core to masculinity. Treating a woman as a human being is gay, which is the least masculine thing of all."

4. Gaza death toll for first 16 months of war far higher than reported, says peer-reviewed study (February 18) "'The combined evidence suggests that, as of 5 January 2025, 3-4% of the population of the Gaza Strip had been killed violently and there have been a substantial number of non-violent deaths caused indirectly by the conflict,' the authors of the study, a team including an economist, demographer, epidemiologist and survey specialists, wrote in the Lancet Global Health."

5. Does Waiting for Marriage for Sex Increase the Chance for Painful Sex? (February 23) "Because for so many women, the first sexual encounter doesn’t happen because her body wanted it—it happened because 'time’s up.'"

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Image source.

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Former top general calls military's removal of trans troops a costly mistake (February 21) "I'm completely qualified to serve. I'm good at my job. The Navy has paid for me to be good at this. If we really are preparing for deployment or combat, why can't we just focus on doing our jobs and doing them to the best of our abilities?"

2. The Battle Of Minneapolis (February 22) "Think about that: You now live in a country where volunteers deliver babies at home, in secret, off the books, because mothers fear that if they go to the hospital, they will be abducted by masked, armed agents of the state while giving birth."

3. In Crackdown On Worst Of Worst Children, ICE Raids Kids Who Wrote Letters, Deports Sick Two-Month-Old (February 20) "Besides, before going on to whatever job she’ll have at a right-wing think tank, or in Hell itself, departing DHS propaganda minister Tricia McLaughlin explained to the Independent that it’s perfectly normal to dump sick infants across the border in the middle of the night, especially if you can do it before an interfering federal judge can stop you."

4. I posted a link about this same story last time, but this one is also worth reading: A Presidents' Day lesson from Philadelphia (February 17) "Instead, she wrote, 'It is not disputed that President Washington owned slaves.'"

5. I Love Illinois. I Love America. I Refuse to Stop. (February 19, via) "I am begging my fellow politicians, my fellow Illinoisans, my fellow Americans to realize that right now in this country we are not fighting over policy or political party. We are fighting over whether we are going to be a civilization rooted in empathy and kindness — or one rooted in cruelty and rage." From Governor JB Pritzker.

6. UN experts condemn US executive order imposing fuel blockade on Cuba (February 12) "They expressed deep concern about the foreseeable humanitarian consequences of restricting fuel supplies to Cuba through the coercion of third States. 'Cuba is already experiencing severe energy shortages, due to previous U.S. sanctions, with blackouts lasting up to 20 hours in many areas, affecting refrigeration for food and medication, and contributing to public health crises.'"

7. Maine immigration observers sue over Trump admin "domestic terrorist watchlist" threats (February 24) "Addressing their interactions, the lawsuit put it bluntly, '[T]he message of intimidation was express and clear: Plaintiff Hilton’s lawfully protected First Amendment activity, and that of her fellow observer, would result in them having their personal data captured and being placed on a ‘domestic terrorist watchlist.’'"

8. ICE Whistle Blower (February 24) "'Never in my career had I ever received such a blatant unlawful order, nor one conveyed in such a troubling manner,' he said. 'Incredibly, I was being shown this memo in secret by my supervisor, who made sure that I understood that disobedience would cost me my job.'"

9. We Can Beat Gavin Newsom (February 18) "If you are committed to progressive policy, Newsom is shit. If you want a Democratic leader who will relentlessly fight the right, then Gavin 'I want to praise Charlie Kirk at every opportunity' Newsom is also shit."

10. A U.S. veteran adopted an orphan from Iran. Decades later, ICE is trying to deport her (February 24) "But in the eyes of the U.S. government, the woman, who's now in her 50s and lives in California, is not American. Instead, she's an immigrant who overstayed her visa since she was a toddler and therefore, subject to deportation. She spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because she fears speaking publicly will complicate her immigration case."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Social justice and empiricism (June 27) "Social justice could be understood, derogatorily, as a series of rules.  You can’t use this word as a noun, only as an adjective.  You can’t use that word, unless you have a certain ethnic identity.  Here’s a long list of things that must be marked with trigger warnings.  You must include representation of minority groups within any work of fiction, but you’re also not allowed to do that without getting input from the represented group.  I think this must feel constraining to people, like they’re not allowed to think and form their own opinion, they’re only allowed to give in to an inconsistent set of demands."

2. Impossible for Men, Unremarkable for Women (2022) "The assumption that women generally don’t experience sexual attraction (and therefore ace women are unremarkable) coexists with the assumption that women should (selectively) provide sex (to men)."

3. Wingnuts Exactly As Calm As You'd Expect Over Mamdani's NYC Primary Win (June 28) I saw this a few days ago and didn't really pay much attention to it, it's just the typical unhinged hate we always see from extremely-online MAGAs. But then I realized, these people are saying that no Muslim should ever be in a leadership position ever, because that would be the same thing as 9/11. This is absolutely bonkers and inexcusable. If you ever see any of these people's names in the future, in some kind of context where they're being presented as serious people worth listening to, well, don't forget this.

4. Supreme Court's conservatives give "defund" Planned Parenthood efforts a win (June 27) "On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservatives blocked Medicaid recipients from suing South Carolina over its decision to reject Planned Parenthood as a covered Medicaid provider."

Now is a good time to donate to Planned Parenthood.

5. Hard to imagine a worse time to deport Afghan refugees, human rights advocates say (June 28) "But this year, Iran and Pakistan have stepped up the deportations."

6. 200,000 March In Budapest Pride, Refusing To Capitulate To Anti-LGBTQ+ Law (June 29) "In the face of mounting attacks, it’s easy for LGBTQ+ people in the United States to feel crushed beneath the weight of it all. But moments like Budapest remind us that even under the most repressive regimes, our communities still rise."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. SCOTUS conservatives end "universal injunctions" in birthright citizenship cases (June 28) "The majority, Jackson wrote authorized a 'zone of lawlessness' with its ruling. In one zone, she wrote, 'law reigns' through court rulings protecting 'named plaintiffs.' In the second zone, however, the executive can enforce unconstitutional actions against 'those who lack the wherewithal or ability to go to court' — a reality that 'will disproportionately impact the poor, the uneducated, and the unpopular.'"

The Supreme Court did not actually rule on the question of birthright citizenship. They just ruled that the president can issue a blatantly unconstitutional order, which causes very real problems in people's lives, and federal courts can't block it, they can only say it doesn't apply to whoever brings a case to court about it.

We'll have to see how this goes. It seems untenable.

Also: What is birthright citizenship and what happens after the Supreme Court ruling? (June 27) "The strategic shift required three court filings: one to add class allegations to the initial complaint; a second to move for class certification; and a third asking a district court in Maryland to issue 'a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction asking for relief for that putative class,' Powell said."

2. The Trump administration is building a national citizenship data system (June 29) The claim is that this can help states check their voter rolls for any non-citizens trying to vote. On the one hand I'm like "yeah there *should* be a way to easily check if someone is a citizen, for voting" but on the other hand I don't trust these clowns.

Also, what happened to the subculture of conservative Christians who always come out in droves to protest any kind of centralized system like this, because it's "the mark of the beast" that the "antichrist" is forcing on everybody?

3. USAID cuts could lead to 14 million deaths over the next five years, researchers say (June 30, via) "'The numbers are striking, but we are not the only group that did this kind of analysis,' said Davide Rasella, a research professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, who coordinated the study. Other research groups, he said, 'came up with similar magnitudes — millions and millions of deaths that will be caused by the defunding of USAID.'"

4. DOJ announces plans to prioritize cases to revoke citizenship (June 30) The example in this article is someone who was convicted of distributing child sexual abuse material. Okay, I agree there is a case to be made for revoking citizenship for someone who committed a serious crime. But I don't trust these MAGAs at all. This plan to "prioritize" revoking citizenship, it's not about law or justice. It comes across like they're trying to come up with any reason they can to deport large numbers of people.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. The Court fails transgender youth (June 23) "If the law treats you differently than it treats someone else, there has to be a reason for it. And the reason can’t just be that the people who make the laws don’t like you."

2. Repentance Theater and the Evangelical Closet (June 24) [content note: sexual assault mention] "Let’s be honest. If Tait had come out years ago as a gay man, even one striving to live in harmony with his faith, he would’ve been excommunicated by CCM and booted off Christian radio so fast, his dreadlocks would’ve flown off." Very true.

3. GOP Lawmaker Nearly Dies Due to Abortion Ban—Then Blames the Left (June 24) "But Florida’s six-week abortion ban, which had just been enacted, made those medical professionals hesitant to save Cammack’s life because they feared they’d lose their licenses, or even be prosecuted and sent to jail."

4. Microbial evolution…in spaaaace! (June 21) "Anyway, they swabbed the crew quarters and discovered a novel bacterial species, Niallia tiangongensis."

5. Farads (June 23) From xkcd.

6. Zohran Mamdani Beats Andrew Cuomo for NY Mayoral Bid—Without Abandoning Trans People (June 25) "Mamdani is also the only mayoral candidate out of the crowded Democratic pool who appears to have participated in the protests against NYC hospitals complying in advance to Trump’s anti-trans health care legal threats."

7. Journal Club: Asexuality and Birth Order Effects (June 26) "We thought it might be too early read into the particulars of the results."

8. How many kids go to work instead of school? (June 26) "Asia has embraced that philosophy with positive results. The percentage of children who work has dropped from 13% in 2008 to just 3% in 2024 — from 114 million to 28 million."

9. “No War Here”: The Iranian Couple Who Escaped Conflict to Sell Out at China Expo (June 25) "'Everyone simply wanted to help a couple who had gone through so much to come here from a war-torn country,' Sun said. 'They just wanted to make a little money, and we were all willing to help fulfill that wish.'"

Also from Sixth Tone: Second Life: China’s Top Resale App Now Fuels Its Wildest Gig Market (June 27) "For 40 yuan ($6) an hour, Huang Mingyu hired a 25-year-old to roam the streets of a small city in eastern China, asking strangers if they’d seen her missing bird."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. What Should You Do if ICE Comes to Your Restaurant? (June 23, via) "While you’re recording, say all the things like You don’t have a warrant. We don’t authorize you to be here."

2. Stop asking the wrong question. Be a neighbor. (June 25) "Here, as ever and as always, the most important question is the one asked 2,000 years ago by an unnamed Bible scholar talking to Jesus of Nazareth: 'Who is my neighbor?'"

3. ICE is Helping Predators Scam Immigrants (June 18) "In the case of undocumented immigrants who sought out the con artists specifically because they do not – can not – trust American law enforcement officers to abide by the law and protect their rights, how can we expect them to go to the police, or the FBI, or even their local city council meetings? We as a society have abandoned them, and an abandoned person is just fresh meat for the next predator to come along."

4. ICE arrested a 6-year-old boy with leukemia at immigration court. His family is suing. (June 25) "'Hundreds, if not thousands, of law-abiding noncitizens have been arrested in immigration courts in recent weeks, despite a federal court ruling that the new ICE courthouse arrest policy is unlawful and unconstitutional,' she said. 'Targeting children under this policy is simply unconscionable.'"

5. Kilmar Abrego Garcia to stay in jail as lawyers spar over potential deportation if he is released pending trial (June 25) "At bottom, the government asks the court to save it from itself because it may suffer irreparable harm completely of its own making."