Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Here’s what’s in the opioid settlement against OxyContin maker Purdue and the Sackler family (November 19) "Most of the money will go to government entities to fight the opioid crisis, which has been linked to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999."

2. textual activism and the ancestral toolbox (October 20) This post is about the bible passage which says parents can claim their son is "rebellious" and have him stoned to death. Apparently there's an ancient Jewish tradition of rules-lawyering and malicious compliance in reading this passage, interpreting it so literally and narrowly that you would actually never end up having a real-life situation where all these requirements would be met. This is how the ancient rabbis turned something horrific into something more just.

I have a few thoughts about this... First of all, for the people who are doing this very narrow interpretation, it's obvious to them that this isn't what the passage was intended to mean, right? There are other bible passages where I've seen people claim "this is actually really progressive for that time period because what God really meant was [whatever]" (and I'm generally not on board with this) but surely in this case they don't *actually* think that what God meant was "you should execute a rebellious son, when all these complicated criteria are met, so actually, in practical terms, never." This reading of this bible passage feels like it's in conflict with the passage, rather than being a good-faith attempt to get at what the actual meaning was.

But if you're going to so strongly disagree with and fight against the actual intended meaning of the passage, why even pretend you're respecting and obeying it? Why not say "this bible passage is just wrong. Let's NOT obey this." I'm wondering what sort of circumstance this kind of interpretation could be useful in. It seems like it could only really work if you *know* the bible passage in question is teaching something abhorrent, and you strongly disagree with it, but there are societal pressures that force you to pretend that you are respecting and obeying it.

I think this also has to do with the differences between Judaism and evangelical Christianity in how we view the bible. From what I've seen, Judaism has a tradition of disagreeing with some parts of the bible, while at the same time taking it very seriously. Evangelical Christians, on the other hand, believe we can't ever disagree with something that God said or did in the bible.

3. Journal Club: Adults’ Perceptions of Sex Ed (November 21) "We noted many potential issues with the survey, including recollection errors (the mean age being 45), and leading questions (there weren’t any response options that allowed people to be negative about sex ed). The questions are asking about a counterfactual that people have no direct experience with."

4. Down the Toilet: Shanghai Bids Farewell to Chamber Pots (November 21) "The dense, labyrinthine layout of Shanghai’s shikumen or “stone-framed doorway” neighborhoods, as well as concern for preserving cultural sites, often meant that officials had to devise highly individualized solutions for each household."

I live in Shanghai but I had no idea there were homes here without actual flush toilets.

5. This post about how to turn off AI features in Gmail. (November 21)

6. The Trans Vibe of Lilo & Stitch (November 20, 33-minute video) "It might not be on the planet 'trans' or 'gay', but it's certainly orbiting the same solar system as those two."

7. Other people might just not have your problems (November 22) "I find this thought comforting. It’s not that I have failed to learn some trivially easy skill that everyone else managed to learn in kindergarten, and it’s not that everyone else has some cool lifehack that they’re hiding from me out of spite."

8. The female crash test dummy has been a long time coming — but she isn't here yet (November 21) "In the early 2000s, regulators added a small "female" dummy to tests — but it was just a scaled-down version of the male dummy, with breasts attached. That doesn't reflect the real anatomical differences between male and female bodies."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Slavery Was Defined by Sexual Violence (September 1) [content note: rape]

2. Trump Honors the Man Who Had Jamal Khashoggi Killed (November 19)

3. Lawrence: Humiliated Trump's dictatorship over Republicans is coming apart with the Epstein vote (November 19) 8-minute video

4. Some Democratic Congresspeople made a video to tell the military they should refuse illegal orders:

We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community.

The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution.

Don’t give up the ship. pic.twitter.com/N8lW0EpQ7r

— Sen. Elissa Slotkin (@SenatorSlotkin) November 18, 2025

Yes, just stating the unremarkable fact that the military is supposed to serve the Constitution and follow the law. Oh but it turns out I was wrong about this being an "unremarkable fact" because the MAGAs are treating it like it's extremely controversial and inflammatory.

Apparently that felon is out here posting on social media that these Congress members are guilty of "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!"

Outrage after Trump accuses Democrats of ‘seditious behavior, punishable by death’ (November 20)

5. These families' health care costs will balloon if Congress doesn't act on the ACA (November 20) "Bixon says he knew he'd have to pay for health care out of pocket after retiring from his career as a small business owner. 'But,' he says, 'in my wildest dreams, I never thought a number close to $70,000 a year would be the cost that I'd be facing.'"

6. Baby, teenagers allegedly caught in San Antonio immigration raid (November 21)

7. A Nazi Tattoo Exposes Democrats’ Greatest Weakness (October 29, via) "But don’t tell me that excusing that tattoo is good politics. It is the exact same politics that the right is selling, in a different outfit."

8. To Those Familiar with Purity Culture, Megyn Kelly’s Comments About Epstein and 15-Year-Old Girls isn’t Such a Surprise (November 18, via)

9. After unprecedented autism-vaccine messaging change, scientists, advocates say CDC no longer trustworthy (November 21, via) "Instead of a global leader in science, the CDC has devolved into 'a propaganda machine for RFK Jr.'s fixed, immutable, science-resistant theories,' said Paul Offit, MD, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine. 'The CDC is being weaponized to promote RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine point of view. So why should you trust it?'"

Blogaround

1. Voyager 1 Is Back! NASA Spacecraft Safely Resumes All Science Observations (June 14, via) "After more than six months of long-distance troubleshooting—Voyager 1 is more than 15 billion miles from Earth, and any signal takes more than 22.5 hours to travel from our planet to the spacecraft—mission personnel have finally coaxed Voyager 1 to gather and send home data with all its remaining science instruments, according to a NASA statement." This is so cool!

2. Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic (June 14, via) What the actual ****?! 

If you followed my blog during zero-covid, you know I was really unhappy with how western news organizations were covering the situation in China. (See: WTF, CNN? and Wow, the Anti-China Bias in Western News Media.) This article is about a disinformation campaign that the US created in the Philippines, because China exported vaccines to the Philippines and other Asian countries. So, a different thing than what I was mad about, but it makes me wonder if the biased news reporting on China was more deliberate than I thought.

3. Environmental impact of LLMs (June 16) "This comparison is unimpressive on its face, because a bottle of water is very obviously not that much?"

Also from Siggy: Journal Club: Mental health bias on asexuality, non-monogamy, and BDSM (June 20) "This article summarizes prior research on mental health provider bias for three groups–aces, consensual non-monogamy (CNM) practitioners, and BDSM practitioners–and suggests avenues for future research."

4. US sues Adobe for hiding termination fees and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions (June 17, via) "The government says Adobe pushed consumers toward the 'annual paid monthly' subscription without informing them that canceling the plan in the first year would cost hundreds of dollars."

5. Thailand passes historic bill recognising marriage equality (June 18) Awesome!

6. China to include Australia in visa waiver programme, Premier Li Qiang says (June 18) Good news if you're Australian and want to visit China.

7. Gilead’s twice-yearly shot to prevent HIV succeeds in late-stage trial (June 20, via) "None of the roughly 2,000 women in the trial who received the lenacapavir shot contracted HIV." Great!

8. Maybe They Should Post The 10 Commandments In Mega-Churches? (June 20) [content note: child sexual abuse] "I’m not sure what even the slickest or sleaziest 'crisis management' firm can accomplish here."

9. Hey What If We Let People's Undocumented Husbands And Wives Stay In America? — Joe Biden (June 18) Support all immigrants!

10. Hundreds of Muslim pilgrims died in heat-stricken Hajj (June 21)

11. Pascal's Wager Triangle (June 17) "In contrast to Pascal's Wager Triangle, Pascal's Triangle Wager argues that maybe God wants you to draw a triangle of numbers where each one is the sum of the two numbers above it, so you probably should, just in case."