Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Merry Christmas! Here's the song "Adoration" by the Newsboys.

2. Australia’s Social Media Ban is a Win for Gambling Companies (December 21)

3. Victory in New Zealand, For Now—Injunction Brings Puberty Blocker Ban to a Screeching Halt (December 18)

4. Funny Numbers (December 22) From xkcd.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Families Bring Legal Challenge Against Yale, CCMC For Capitulating To Trump On Trans Youth Care (December 18) "Critically, no law in the United States currently bans gender-affirming care for transgender youth, meaning the hospitals cannot credibly claim federal preemption of state law. Instead, the cessation of care appears to be driven solely by fear of retaliation from the Trump administration. This is particularly significant in Connecticut, which—like several other states where hospitals have dropped care—has strong statutory protections for transgender people, raising the possibility that these decisions violate state civil rights law, a question GLAD is now seeking to resolve."

I have a lot of links from Erin in the Morning: 

Nationwide Trans Youth Care Ban Incoming As Trump Admin Announces "Nuclear Option" Federal Rule (December 19) "These draft rules comprise a dangerous and unconstitutional attempt to undermine the longstanding right of states to ensure the health and well-being of their residents, the right of parents and caregivers to support and love trans and nonbinary young people, and the guidance of doctors and medical organizations on the well-established standard of care."

ACTION ITEM: You can submit a public comment here, Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Hospital Condition of Participation: Prohibiting Sex-Rejecting Procedures for Children. The comment period ends February 17, 2026.

Trans Youth Emergency Project Offers Families Guidance To Help Keep Getting Care After New Trump Anti-Trans Rule (December 21) "Adam Polaski explained, 'At every turn, we have been able to pivot and scale up and show people the reason that this is important. Folks have stepped up with their dollars, and also folks have requested support and spread the word. So right now, I don’t want folks to feel like they shouldn’t reach out because they ‘don’t really need it’ or someone else ‘needs it more than them.’ Everyone needs the support right now, and it’s ok. We have the capacity to take it on.'"

You can donate here: Trans Youth Emergency Project

ACLU Pledges To Challenge Trump Admin In Court Over National Trans Youth Care Ban Rule (December 23) 

2. Let's all watch the CECOT 60-Minutes segment that Bari Weiss doesn't want us to watch. 

[content note: torture]

60 Minus (December 22) "If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a “kill switch” for any reporting they find inconvenient."

Links where you can watch it: here, here, here

3. The year Trump broke the federal government (December 21, via) This is very long, and hard to read. I haven't read the whole thing. It's about the huge numbers of government workers who have been fired this year.

4. The Horns and Whistles Work (December 19, via) "Border Patrol might spend hours waiting to detain an immigrant, only to be thwarted by a united neighborhood effort."

5. Univ. of Oklahoma punishes instructor for failing Christian student who didn't do the assignment (December 23) "The only person who behaved with integrity in this saga was the graduate instructor who gave Fulnecky detailed, thoughtful feedback. And that’s the only person who was punished."

6. ICE officer accused of excessive force, then sent back to work despite active probe (December 24) "By the following Monday, Mojica was back on the job, without any further explanation from the agency."

7. Biden stopped the executions of 37 men. Trump's DOJ wants to punish them (December 23) "'These are new punishments,' said Maher. 'This is an additional punishment for these men who have already been sentenced.'"

Blogaround

1. If you've signed up for Bluesky, you've signed up for offloadable moderation. (January 1, via) "So instead of communicating, for instance, 'if you see a flagrantly racist post, report it to staff, and we'll take it down,' the BS stance on the matter is 'if you see a flagrantly racist post, use this optional feature to label it as racist, and other users can opt-in to your moderation judgment about that post while we as a platform continue to host it.'"

2. New Residency Based Tax Bill Introduced in the House of Representatives (December 18) Cool, this is a bill intended to help US citizens living abroad who don't owe US taxes but are still required to file every year.

Let me tell you a bit about what I have to do in terms of filing US taxes, as a US citizen living in China long-term: If you are a US citizen abroad, you have to file a US tax return every year, even if you don't owe anything. If you are outside the US for at least 330 days of the year (er, not exactly "the year", it's a bit more complicated than that, but to make it easier to understand I'll just say "330 days of the year"), then you can exclude all your foreign-earned income, and you do not have to pay US income tax on it. (I have an American friend in China who told me about how he had to carefully plan exactly how long his US vacations would be, otherwise he would owe tens of thousands of dollars in income tax, yikes. My US vacations have been short enough I haven't had to worry about this.) Anyway, I meet this requirement, so I don't owe any US income tax on my income from my job in China. I also have income in the US, just interest on bank accounts, nothing big, and that would be taxed but it's low enough that it's less than the standard deduction so I don't owe any tax on that either.

(I'm lucky since my parents have tax software and just do this for me. But I imagine it would be quite a pain to have to figure out how to file taxes on your own, and what's the point if you don't even owe anything.)

So, I'm glad to see this new bill which is aimed at simplifying all this for Americans living abroad. In practical terms, I'm not sure it will help *me* that much- looks like I will need to file anyway because I do have some US income, but at least I won't have to fill out the FBAR form, so that's nice. Seems like it will be most helpful for Americans who don't have any US income.

3. A Profile In Courage (December 18) "With so many terrible examples of how not to take on Trump, Judge Juan Merchan in Manhattan shines a light on the correct way forward."

4. All right, I have no idea what to make of this, but the orange antichrist said that any international student who graduates from a US college should automatically get a US green card (I found this link via Jay Kuo).

Various thoughts that I have about this:

• He says a lot of things. Just because he says something doesn't mean it has any connection to what he actually believes or plans to do. So we shouldn't view this like it's an actual serious policy which is going to happen.
• I like this! Think about it: International students graduating from college in the US. They've already lived in the US for several years. They already have their stuff here. They're likely already renting an apartment, and have a US bank account. They already have experience speaking English and interacting with American society. And then when they graduate, they have to worry about if they'll be able to find an employer who can sponsor them on a work visa- they have a limited amount of time before their current visa expires. Why not just give them a green card so they don't have to be stressed about whether or not they'll suddenly be kicked out of the country due to the unstable whims of their employer? That would really be a huge help.
• This would be a huge change in immigration policy. Does the orange antichrist realize that? (I very much don't think this will actually happen, because it's such a huge change.)
• This video (I don't know the original date of it) has surfaced now, in the context of the conflict between the "just really racist and anti-immigrant" faction of MAGA and the "US tech companies need to be able to hire highly educated immigrants from Asia" faction of MAGA. (Please note that ELON MUSK IS AN IMMIGRANT. On some level, I've always been baffled by his support of the MAGA movement. I guess he's just so incredibly confident that he will be seen as "one of the good ones.") I try not to care that much about these internal fights where both sides are terrible.

5. Biden Commutes 37 of 40 Federal Death Row Sentences: WTF? (December 23) This is a post from Rev. Jeff Hood. He is a spiritual advisor to inmates on death row, and an activist who believes the death penalty should be abolished. He is not happy with Biden for commuting 37 out of 40 death sentences- why not all 40? He calls this "a moral abyss of federal sentencing that only pursues death sentences in rare cases, prioritizing some murder victims above all others."

Well, yeah, I agree that it doesn't make sense to commute 37 out of 40. When I saw the news that Biden had commuted 37 out of 40 death sentences, I was happy to see it because it's better than not doing that, but I do feel it's weird to not commute all of them. Feels like 3 of them were not commuted simply because they're the ones we've all seen in the news, that we have feelings about- but the 37 whose sentences were commuted are also murderers. If you read about them, wow, they've done really horrific things, it's not like they're "not as bad" as the 3 that you had already heard about. I think commuting these death sentences should be about an ideological belief that it's immoral for a society to have a death penalty. It's not about "oh these criminals don't really deserve the death penalty, but those other ones do."

6. I'm Suing Honey (January 3) Wow! Legal Eagle is bringing a class action lawsuit against Honey for stealing affiliate commissions.

7. Siri “unintentionally” recorded private convos; Apple agrees to pay $95M (January 3, via) "The only clue that users seemingly had of Siri's alleged spying was eerily accurate targeted ads that appeared after they had just been talking about specific items like Air Jordans or brands like Olive Garden, Reuters noted (claims which remain disputed)."

8. As Trump rewrites history, victims of the Jan. 6 riot say they feel 'betrayed' (January 5) "'All these elected officials, they don't care about the officers - people like myself that put their lives on the line to protect them,' he said. 'We did our job and gave them the time to escape, to evacuate the building. And they seem to have forgotten the fear that Donald Trump's mob made them feel.'"

Blogaround

1. Carnival of Aces Round-Up: Sexual Healthcare (December 18) "As an adolescent and young adult, the messaging I heard was that these tests are very important, but that messaging seemed to take it for granted that all women are sexually active.  The messaging also claimed that the tests might be uncomfortable but wouldn’t be painful.  However, lots of women, especially in the asexual community, have never had sex.  And (as can be seen from the various posts about vaginismus), many women do find pelvic exams very painful."

2. Our Wedding, From The Woman Who Loves Zooey Zephyr (December 18) Congrats to Erin Reed and Zooey Zephyr!

3. Even if Voters ‘Get What They Asked For’ it’s More Likely to Cause a Fascist Death Spiral Than a Lesson Learned (November 18, via) Yeah... there's this narrative in response to the election, that in some sense it's right that people who voted for such a bad president will now have to live under such a bad president. And, some forms of this narrative go so far as to say they'll see how bad it is, and they'll see how wrong they were. 

I personally found this a little bit comforting at first, but I shouldn't have, because if you think about it for a few seconds, it totally falls apart. The ones who will suffer the most from the orange antichrist's presidency are NOT the people who voted for him. And yeah many of his voters will be worse off too, because he doesn't actually have any good plans for how to decrease the price of groceries, but they're not going to suddenly realize "oh we were so wrong to vote for him." 

January 6 happened, you guys. I really thought that would be the end of his popularity. I really thought that when he took a stand against the peaceful transfer of power- which, I learned in school, was one of the key things that makes America great- when he tried to overthrow the US government, for no real reason, just that he wanted to be president... I really thought he would be done after that. I really thought everyone would realize how bad he was right then. But no, here we are 4 years later. Did everybody forget about January 6? "They got what they wanted" isn't going to show these people how wrong they were, if January 6 couldn't do it.

4. Donald Trump and His Allies Don’t Really Care What Kind of Leftist You Are (December 11, via) "Being 'the right kind' of progressive or feminist or socialist can easily become its own goal, rather than winning concrete victories that match the values and goals behind these labels."

Yeah... after the election, I received so many emails from every liberal/social-justice organization I've ever donated to, and overall it made me really uncomfortable. The emails were all like "We're going to do everything we can to FIGHT against Trump" and yeah if that's true, then it's great, I want to support that- but is it really true? Are they just using this moment to get more donations and collect more names for their email lists? *I* don't know how to fight him, but suddenly every single organization is confidently assuring me that they're going to do a stellar job of it, if I just send them money? 

I'm really unhappy with this situation because we need to all work together to fight against the orange antichrist, but I can't trust that all these organizations "on our side" are really doing that- they might see it as an opportunity for themselves to profit off their donors who are scared and therefore more willing to give money.

And, I mean, if they're "just using this moment to get more donations" that's not necessarily a bad thing. If they are truly committed to fighting him, then they will need money, and now is a good opportunity to fundraise. That's not a bad thing.

I guess the issue is, different people have different opinions on what strategy to use to fight him, and just because some organization emails me to say "we're going to do everything we can to fight him" doesn't necessarily mean that their strategies are ones that I think will be effective and I would want to support.

Personally, the kinds of strategies I want to support are: 

• Directly working with people "on the ground" who are in danger because of conservative policies- ie, helping trans people in red states get health care, providing resources for immigrants to help them get housing and jobs, etc. I like this because it's local organizations who really understand people's needs and how to help them in practical ways.
• Lawyers challenging those policies in court. I like this because during the orange antichrist's first term, we did have a lot of success in the courts delaying or blocking his anti-human policies.

That's my thinking right now, but I am interested in learning about other strategies that might be effective- leave a comment if you have an opinion on this.

5. Protecting the Rights of Syrian Refugees (December 19) "Within twenty-four hours of the regime’s overthrow, nine European countries suspended asylum applications from Syrians."

6. Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam (December 22) [23-minute video] I remember seeing some youtube videos where Honey was advertised, a while ago- apparently a LOT of youtubers have done ads for this. They described it as a browser extension which finds coupon codes for you when you shop online- and it's free, there's no catch, you get free money. I remember thinking it sounded suspicious that it just gives you free money and there's no catch, but I couldn't figure out what was actually going on.

So, it turns out, here's what's shady about Honey:

• The way they make money is by getting the affiliate commission from the sale. (If you don't know what "affiliate commission" is: If you're a blogger or youtuber or whatever, and you share a link where someone can buy something, it could be an affiliate link, which means that if people click it and buy the thing, *you* get a cut of the money. [I do this here on the blog.] So what Honey is doing is replacing a cookie with its own cookie, so it will get the commission- possibly taking the affiliate commission away from whoever posted the affiliate link in the first place.)
• Also, Honey claims that it will always find the BEST coupon code for the buyer, but this is NOT true. Turns out, Honey makes deals with online stores about which coupon codes Honey will give to customers. In this way, it discourages the customers from searching for better coupon codes- Honey assures them that they're already getting the best price. Extremely shady!

(And I haven't used Honey, but my browser has a built-in tool that finds coupon codes, so now I'm wondering if that one that I use is equally shady.)

6. Biden commutes most federal death row sentences to life in prison before Trump takes office (December 23) 

Blogaround

1. The Many Faces of Sun Wukong (September 23) "Some critics complained that Game Science, developers of the wildly popular game 'Black Myth: Wukong,' did the Monkey King dirty. But the mischievous simian has always defied easy categorization."

Also from Sixth Tone: Throwing Shapes: The Rave Experience for Deaf Clubbers (September 25) "The biggest difference between BassBath and other clubbing experiences is that mid- and low- frequency music is played all night, using deep sounds to create somatosensory vibrations."

2. FTC Sues Prescription Drug Middlemen for Artificially Inflating Insulin Drug Prices (September 20) Interesting... When I hear people talk about how certain things are too expensive, like prescription drugs, or housing, etc, and they say it's because big corporations are greedy, I'm kind of skeptical- it must be more complicated than that. For prescription drugs, there's the cost of the research, right? While they're doing the research, they're not making any money from that, and then after they develop a drug, the drug is super cheap to make, but they need to charge a higher amount than that, to make up for the money they spent on research. If uninformed people on the internet are saying "it's so cheap to make, they are being immoral by not selling it for that exact cost", well, if they were required to do that, then it disincentivizes the research. Why spend money on researching new medicines if there's no way for that investment to pay off? Also, factor in the money they spend on research that's not successful- there's an element of risk, and it only makes financial sense for companies to spend money on medical research if then they're able to sell the successful ones for a higher price than simply the manufacturing cost.

I heard that line of reasoning a long time ago, and it came from a Republican perspective so maybe I need to revisit it and ask "Is that *really* how this works, financially, or is this just something people say because they don't want to change anything about the system?"

Because, actually, maybe we should take a closer look at the idea "if they have to sell these medicines at a low cost, then there's no way to make money off them" and ask, wait, should medicine be an area where private companies should expect to make money? Maybe it should be government-funded instead? Maybe that's actually the entire problem, how this line of thinking is locked into the assumption that there needs to be a business model that makes a lot of profits by developing medicines. Rather than thinking "wow it's so great that this medical technology exists, it means we can have a society where everyone has access to the medical treatment they need."

I've seen a lot of social media posts, on twitter and elsewhere, confidently offering ideas for how systems should work differently, and I pretty much roll my eyes at this because people who make these posts don't seem to be thinking it through at all- they have a very very oversimplified idea about how the economy works. Here's an example I saw a while ago- "rent should be lower in February because it only has 28 days." I mean, okay, I guess we could have a system that worked that way, but it wouldn't make a difference in the total amount you're paying over the course of a year- it would mean you paid an amount *higher* than your current rent in a month with 31 days. Like, I recognize that this person is making this social media post because of an actual real problem they are having, about not having enough money to pay rent- and that is a problem which society should take seriously and do something about- but the problem has nothing to do with the fact that the specific dates when your rent is due are not spaced at *exactly* equal intervals. (Or maybe I'm taking it too seriously and it was a joke rather than an actual policy proposal?)

Anyway, when I see people criticizing drug companies for raising prices just because they're greedy, I also feel skeptical about that- is it "just because they're greedy" or is there more to it than that? Surely the company would argue that it's just the cost of doing business, and they could show you a budget breakdown structured accordingly. It's not like they just have a giant pot of money and it's so much they don't even know what to do with it. It's not like they have a budget where one line says "overcharge by thousands of dollars just because we're greedy."

Yes, I do recognize that the price of prescription drugs is way higher than it should be- because other countries don't have this problem. But locating exactly where the problem is, that's gotta be more tricky.

So, the reason I'm sharing this link about the FTC is that this is an actual legal case. This isn't just people on social media complaining about the price of medicine (a very real problem, but I don't think people on social media have a good understanding of the causes or what should be done about it!). The fact that the FTC is suing over it makes me think there *is* a specific problem that they can point to and say that companies broke the law and made prices higher just because they wanted higher profits.

3. A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban (September 21, via) "Beyond the immediate dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, there is growing evidence that women living in states with strict abortion laws, such as Texas, are far more likely to go without prenatal care and much less likely to find an appointment with an OB-GYN." This is horrifying. 

4. DNA test helps identify sailor from doomed Arctic expedition (September 25, via) "Fitzjames was one of the captains of British explorer Sir John Franklin's two ships that went missing in the summer of 1845."

5. Tips for respecting microlabels (September 25) "Perhaps you’ve seen label stacks provided as a rhetorical example of someone worthy of respect, as if to say, 'yes, we even tolerate those people'."

6. Missouri executes Marcellus Williams despite prosecutors and the victim’s family asking that he be spared (September 25)

7. Chase Bank says it is aware of viral 'glitch' inviting people to commit check fraud (September 4, via) "But in this case, people online seem to be simply committing check fraud against themselves — making it relatively easy for a bank to catch on and hold them accountable." Like I said, people on social media who don't understand how financial institutions work.

8. Stem cells reverse woman’s diabetes — a world first (September 26, via) "They’ve completely reversed diabetes in the patient, who was requiring substantial amounts of insulin beforehand."

9. Maggie Smith, beloved ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Harry Potter’ star, dead at 89 (September 25)

Blogaround

A candy heart that says "Remember U R Dust" with caption "Ash Wednesday is on Valentine's Day. You can't spell Valentine without Lent. United Methodist Churches of Indiana." Image source.

1. Differing Weights And Differing Measures (January 31) "So if, for example, you’re trying to show that 'evangelical Christians' are a fearsome voting bloc that politicians are compelled to show deference to, then you want the largest, most expansive definition of 'evangelical Christians' that you can find. That’s going to include everybody you can plausibly toss into the category, including both Pentecostals and anti-Pentecostal fundamentalists, including every faith-healer and magician, snake-handler and tent-revival charlatan you can find. It’s even going to include evangelical Christians who aren’t even white." This is SPOT-ON.

2. ‘Rage’ abortion donations dry up, leaving funds struggling to meet demand (January 28, via) "But now, the fund needs to spend between $1000 to $1500 just for people who need an abortion before 12 weeks’ gestation. If they are further along, the costs are significantly higher."

There's a time and place for one-off donations because you see something in the news and have feelings about it. Yes, that should be part of one's donation budget. But more important is to give recurring donations- make a rational decision about which organizations you feel it's important to support, and then set up automatic monthly payments to them. This helps the charities plan their budgets much better.

Also from The Hill: The dangers of spotlighting the ‘perfect’ abortion patient (January 31, via) "Unfortunately, all too often only the most extreme stories with 'good' reasons for abortion — the horrific cases of sexual violence, life endangerment or fetal abnormalities — enter public discourse to highlight the 'perfect patient' whose story is easiest to sympathize with."

3. Florida barring gender changes on driver's license puts trans residents at risk, critics say (January 30) This is really bad.

4. Study: Abortion Bans Creating OBGYN Crisis (February 2) [content note: it's about the trauma that obgyn doctors are experiencing when they're not legally allowed to give patients the healthcare they need. This is hard to read.] "You have somebody hemorrhaging with an intrauterine pregnancy with a heartbeat…I [didn’t yet] have legal coverage for that, but there’s only so many times you can transfuse somebody and they’re begging for their life before you say, ‘This is unconscionable.’"

5. “It Was the Most Violent Thing I’ve Ever Seen” (February 1) [content note: death penalty] An interview with the Rev. Jeff Hood, spiritual advisor to Kenny Smith and other death row inmates.

6. Who is Alistair Begg, and why are American fundamentalists so upset with him? (February 1) A detailed article about why evangelicals want to "cancel" pastor Alistair Begg for not being mean enough to queer people.

7. Religious trauma still haunts millions of LGBTQ Americans (January 29)

8. Outdated Jackets Get a Second Life (February 5) 1-minute-37-second video. Making old down jackets into comforters in China.

Also from Sixth Tone: AI Game Mimicking Nosy Relatives Takes China by Storm (February 5)

9. An Ohio pastor was punished for opening his church to the homeless. He deserves it. (January 23) Okay so maybe this story is more nuanced than what I initially thought. "Imagine if there was an actual emergency in the building. A place like this would jeopardize the lives of the people inside because of these kinds of deficiencies. The Fire Chief gave Avell well over a month to fix the most serious of these problems, but follow-up checks on January 9 and 16 found '5 violations that had not been properly corrected.'"

10. Breaking bread: Houston tries to punish feeding the homeless—and fails (February 2, via) "So far, no matter how many tickets the city writes, they can’t find a jury willing to convict anyone over it."

11. Leonard Nimoy The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins FULL VERSION best quality (via) Wow, I can't believe I never knew this existed.

12. Relationship Advice (February 5) xkcd comic. !!!!! Oh my goodness, this is so real! I side-eye anyone who makes a big deal about "marriage is hard."

13. VeggieTales' cucumber star LarryBoy to get his own faith-based feature film in 2026 (February 6)

Here's what Phil Vischer has to say on it:

Apparently there's a new LarryBoy movie in development? Somewhere? By... someone? No idea who, where or how. https://t.co/62SRaYSoaL

— Phil Vischer (@philvischer) February 6, 2024

Not sure what to think of this- is it even real VeggieTales if Phil Vischer is not involved?

14. Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs Perform Fast Car at the Grammys (February 6) 

UPDATE: Here's the full video: Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs Deliver Gripping Performance Of "Fast Car" | 2024 GRAMMYs

Blogaround

1. Reach, Throw, Row, Go (January 18) "A lesson in 'How to Save a Drowning Person' that started with an argument for Why You Should Want To Do That would meet with a kind of puzzled anger." It's about this: Feds demand Texas stop blocking Border Patrol agents access to border 

Also from The Slacktivist: We Don’t Live In ‘Bubbles’ (January 25) "Heck, if Chester A. Arthur had even said something so completely stupid in such an arrogant tone, then that’s all he’d be remembered for today. Historians would refer to President Arthur as 'the magnets guy' instead of just as, um, one of those guys who came between Grant and Teddy and probably won’t be on the final."

2. The Lives of China’s Hidden Workers, Through Their Own Camera Lens (January 25) "Instead, it is narrated by the people Sun calls the documentary’s 'co-directors,' from truck drivers and construction workers to fishermen and rice farmers — typical users of Kuaishou, which is more popular in China’s smaller cities and countryside than rival platform Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok."

(One quibble there: Tiktok is the international version of Douyin. Not the other way around.)

Also from Sixth Tone: Endangered Xizang Cattle Cloned For the First Time (January 30) "The latest national survey of livestock found only 19 Zhangmu cattle and 39 Apeijiaza cattle left in the country, with just one breeding bull remaining. According to Xinhua, the breeds are considered strategic resources for the country due to their ability to live on the snowy plateau at altitudes of more than 3,500 meters."

3. China, Singapore agree visa-free deal for travel stays of up to 30 days (January 25) China keeps adding more countries to the list! Great news for people from Singapore who want to travel to China.

4. American Family Radio Drops Alistair Begg Following Controversial Remarks About LGBTQ+ Weddings (January 24) "After confirming that the woman’s grandson understood that she doesn’t affirm his choice to marry a trans person, Begg said, 'Well then, okay. As long as he knows that, then I suggest that you do go to the ceremony. And I suggest that you buy them a gift.'" Oh look, pastor Alistair Begg, who very much believes being trans is wrong, advises a grandma to go to her grandson's wedding to a trans person. Apparently this is not good enough for American Family Radio- what if someone thinks that attending the wedding means Grandma thinks being trans is okay? We can't have that!

Remember when I said that being evangelical means you have to throw queer people under the bus? This is exactly what I'm talking about.

5. Alabama man shook violently on gurney during first-ever nitrogen gas execution (January 27) [content note: death penalty]

6. From Scrooge McDuck to Zacchaeus to 21st century wealth inequality (January 29) "For far too long we’ve sequestered Zacchaeus inside a children’s song."

7. Brittany Watts, Ohio woman charged with felony after miscarriage at home, describes shock of her arrest (January 26) [content note: miscarriage] New details about how the hospital did not give her the medical care that she needed.

8. Uranus and Neptune are actually similar blues, 'true' color images reveal (January 5) Cool!

9. Red Lake considers a future without blood quantum (2023, via) "It's really not our traditional way. And in fact, it's a tool that was meant to divide our people to eliminate our people."

Blogaround

1. 2024 Arrives With A Sudoku Miracle (January 1) 1-hour-54-minute sudoku solve video. Wow, this ruleset is very complicated. I'm super impressed by Simon solving it.

2. If Trump Is Not an Insurrectionist, What Is He? (January 5) "The unspoken assumption behind the idea that Trump should be allowed on the ballot and that the public should have the chance to choose for or against him yet again is that he will respect the voice of the electorate. But we know this isn’t true. It wasn’t true after the 2016 presidential election — when, after winning the Electoral College, he sought to delegitimize the popular vote victory of his opponent as fraud — and it was put into stark relief after the 2020 presidential election."

3. 'Jane Roe' is anonymous no more. The very public fight against abortion bans in 2023 (December 31) "Now, it's different. 'Women and pregnant people in this country are so angry and so shocked at the treatment that they are receiving at the hands of the state that they have been compelled to tell their stories,' she says."

4. UN experts alarmed by Alabama plan to kill prisoner using untried gas method (January 3) [content note: death penalty] "In a joint statement released on Wednesday in Geneva, the four independent UN monitors call on the US government and Alabama to halt the execution scheduled for 25 January. They accuse the state of rushing ahead with an experimental execution technique that could inflict grave suffering on Smith in violation of the international ban on torture."

5. Epiphany: One Of Us (January 7) "And then God Almighty — God who laid the foundation of the earth, who determined its measurements when the morning stars sang together, God who commands the morning and causes the dawn to know its place, God who bound the chains of the Pleiades and loosed the cords of Orion — wept."

6. WHO Guideline for complementary feeding of infants and young children 6-23 months of age (October 16) New guidelines released by the World Health Organization, about how to feed babies, and WOW there are big changes here! This link has the very long report documents, I will try to see if I can find a shorter summary. But just to give you an idea of how big the changes are: They are now saying that babies can start having cow milk rather than formula at 6 months old (used to be 12 months!). Still saying breastfeeding is best, and recommending that you continue to breastfeed until the baby is 2 years old, and beyond, but wow big changes in the guidelines around formula.

7. Changing Course: Why More Chinese Students Are Eyeing Southeast Asia (January 9) "For instance, in Thailand, Chinese students comprised the majority of international students in 2022, with 21,419 enrollments, a 130% increase from 9,329 in 2012."

8. Who Gets to Be a Person? (January 4) [content note: miscarriage] "In pursuing the case, prosecutors deny Watts the full expression of her grief. They deny her the right to feel pain and shock at her miscarriage, to act like a traumatized human being. Even if the grand jury does not indict her, she has experienced hell."

And an update on that: Ohio woman who miscarried at home won’t be charged with corpse abuse, grand jury decides (January 12)

The main thing here is... a miscarriage at 22 weeks, that's horrible. That's devastating, to lose the baby when you're already 22 weeks into the pregnancy. Watts needs compassion and support; she needs to be allowed to grieve, because that's a terrible thing to go through. But instead she was treated like she had done something bad to her baby.

9. More delays for NASA’s astronaut moonshots, with crew landing off until 2026 (January 10)

10. Do pregnant women have a right to urgent medical care? No, according to a US court (January 10) This is just BONKERS. Doesn't the Texas abortion ban supposedly have an exception for "life of the mother"? So why is Texas now arguing that ERs shouldn't be required to do abortions which are necessary to save pregnant people's lives? So that whole "exception for life of the mother" thing was totally fake, then?

11. In Hottest Year On Record, US Cut Carbon Emissions. Good Start! (January 11)

12. China rolls out new measures to facilitate foreigners’ visit to country (January 11) I saw this in the news, but I don't understand what it actually means in practical terms (like, I'm an immigrant in China, is this gonna benefit me?). We'll see.

Blogaround

1. Alabama Acknowledges Dangers of Nitrogen Hypoxia Executions But Wants to Carry One Out Anyway (December 18) [content note: death penalty] "If it does so it will be the first time that this method has been used in an American execution."

2. Mickey, Disney, and the Public Domain: a 95-year Love Triangle "On January 1, 2024, after almost a century of copyright protection, Mickey Mouse, or at least a version of Mickey Mouse, will enter the United States public domain." Wow! This article has details on what *exactly* that means. It doesn't mean ALL versions of Mickey Mouse are in the public domain- only the 1928 version.

3. Ohio’s GOP governor vetoes ban on gender-affirming care and transgender athletes in girls’ sports (December 30) Good news for trans kids in Ohio.

Update: Oh no, but now there's a new set of proposed anti-trans rules in Ohio which are even worse: Governor DeWine Uses Anti-Abortion Tactic To Target Trans Adults With Defacto Ban (January 7) "On Friday, Governor DeWine announced a new set of rules that would severely limit trans care at any age."

4. U.S. Department of Justice sues Texas over state’s immigration enforcement bill (January 3) 

5. The Plaintiffs and Their Stories: Zurawski v. State of Texas (November 14) [content note: pregnancy loss, abortion] "Taylor and her husband still want a child, but she fears being pregnant again in Texas."

Blogaround

xkcd comic which shows "Figure 6.14 The Periodic Table of the Elements" which only has H, He, Li, and Be. The caption says, "You can spot an outdated science textbook by checking the bottom of the periodic table for missing elements. For example, mine was published half an hour after the big bang." Image source.

1. Deep Song Breakdown, “Pride” (“In the Name of Love”) by U2 (April 11) "Indeed, 'What more in the name of love' rings very close to John 15:13"

2. Trinity Moravian Church Forgives Medical Debt Costs Around $3.3 Million For Triad Families (March 25) This is literally the kingdom of heaven. This is exactly what Christians should be doing. 

And there's a video here:

The members of Trinity Moravian Church in North Carolina purchased nearly $3.3 million of local residents’ medical debt for just $15,048.

Then, they held a debt jubilee ceremony and burned up the debt, canceling it all. pic.twitter.com/AntlVKC0o2

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) April 11, 2023

3. Transgender Law Center - This is an organization that supports trans people with legal issues related to housing, discrimination, immigration, etc. Recently there have been a lot of US states passing laws to restrict the rights of trans people. I think right now it is important to support trans people by donating money to organizations that fight for their rights.

4. Does Higher Sex Drive Lead to Rape? Pushback as a Learning Tool (April 10) [content note: purity-culture myths about rape]

There’s a move evangelical men make a lot when they’re talking about pastoral sexual abuse or rape that involves coercion by non-physical means where they’re trying to find this elusive “third thing” between rape and sex. There’s rape (man forces woman), there’s sex (everyone wants it), and there’s this thing in the middle where a situation just gets out of control, who can say what really happened.

Okay, let me be clear about this.

THERE IS NO THIRD THING, PRESTON. There’s no Diet Rape! There is no situation where someone has sex with someone else against their will and there’s blame to go around! There’s no situation where someone doesn’t consent to sex but wasn’t raped!

5. Florida lawmakers pursue death penalty in child rapes (April 11) Whoa, okay, I'm really not comfortable with this. For one thing, isn't Florida one of the states where politicians have been claiming that supporting the rights of queer kids is "grooming"? So now they want the death penalty for sexual abuse, but they also believe that accurate sex ed is sexual abuse, so, uh, this is not good. Also, I don't think it helps victims when people push the idea that sexual abuse is The Worst Thing Ever and only the worst monsters would do it, because then if an abuser looks like a nice person, no one will believe the victim, and people will say "oh you want to ruin this man's life and let him be executed, just because of this little thing that only happened 1 time, how could you" etc. 

6. What is a 'Gray Rhino'? It's big, obvious, and headed straight for you. (2020) "The Gray Rhino is a metaphor for the threats that we can see and acknowledge yet do nothing about: the two ton thing that should be hard to ignore, but from which we look away even though it’s in our interest to get away before it charges."

7. A ‘City’ in the Nevada desert shows the glorious human-ness of art for its own sake (January 9) "As lasting art goes, City is perfectly human: one artist with an incredible idea and the wherewithal to make it happen. One artist creating something of this unimaginable scale out of the desert for no reason at all beyond the statement it makes to the vanishingly few people who will ever see it in the flesh."

Blogaround + Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year decoration with rabbits, for the year of the rabbit. Image source.

Happy Year of the Rabbit! 兔年大吉！

----------------

1. 'It was a beautiful moment': Moore County drag show goes on despite power outages (December 5) So, some conservatives were outraged about a drag show, and then there was a power outage- and then one of the people who opposed the drag show tweeted "The power is out in Moore County, and I know why." I find this SO FASCINATING, because yes, I have been in many situations where a Christian says something- something that if it was really true, would be very alarming and maybe we should get law enforcement involved- but nobody takes it that way. (The example that comes to mind is people saying, "I'm such a bad sinner, if you all knew what I've done, you wouldn't even want to be in the same room as me." Or a speaker I saw at a Christian event who said, "I've broken every one of the 10 commandments"- and immediately my brain was like "oh my goodness, she had sex???" and then my second thought was "WAIT, 'do not murder' is one of the 10 commandments" (!!!!!!!) and then my third thought was "well Jesus said that being angry at someone is as bad as murder, so I'm sure that's what she meant.")

So- "The power is out in Moore County, and I know why" and then she was so surprised when the police showed up at her house. Because, she meant it like, obviously God has heard our prayers to stop this drag show, and God has answered by causing this power outage, and this is such wonderful news, it's so exciting to see God working. She had no idea that, to normal people, it sounded like she was saying "I committed a crime." Her mistake was tweeting it where people outside of her Christian bubble could see it.

2. Wards of God (December 2022) "They have families. And those families are really struggling, maybe. And sometimes they’re struggling primarily because the state is intervening oppressively, but either way they exist."

3. Idaho’s ‘faith-healing’ exemption has led to more senseless child deaths (January 19) [content note: child death] So... I'm not sure if changing the law will help here. If "your kid might die" isn't a good enough reason for parents to go against their religious beliefs, then why would "your kid might die, and then you'll get arrested and charged with murder" be a good enough reason? I assume these are parents who love their kids and also really really believe that it's wrong to get real medical care, and that if they "obey God" then God will magically save their kids' lives. (Or, if God doesn't save them, well, it was "God's plan" so it's okay.)

I'd be interested to know if other states which do not have a "faith-healing exemption" have fewer children dying in these kinds of situations. Or, maybe if they arrest other people besides the parents- people who pressured the parents into refusing medical care, people who might fear "I'll get arrested" more than they fear "the kid might die."

But definitely some kind of action needs to be taken to stop this. Children have a right to real medical care.

4. Nonviolent Activism, Stress and a Major Victory in Oklahoma: On Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s Motion to Delay Executions (January 19) [content note: death penalty] "I don’t ever intend to sit back and let government killing of its’ citizens ever become an easy process."

5. The Humble Power Box That People Line Up To See (January 20) "A power box in Lujiazui, Shanghai's financial hub, has become a popular check-in spot."

Blogaround

1. Chicago’s “Race-Neutral” Traffic Cameras Ticket Black and Latino Drivers the Most (January) This is really interesting, because a very superficial view of the situation might say "it's actually true that Black and Latino drivers in these areas are running red lights/ breaking the speed limit at higher rates than white drivers, so yes they should get ticketed more; there is no problem here." But actually, the real issue is that the layout of the roads in Black and Latino areas of the city encourages drivers to break traffic laws (which can cause fatal accidents) while the layout of the roads in mostly-white areas naturally causes drivers to slow down/ drive carefully. So it's not just about "you, an individual, shouldn't be speeding"- though yes that's true- but there's more to it than that.

2. Feminism with YIMBY Characteristics (July 7) "But there is another picture here, one visible in the negative space of the above statistics: the people who don’t leave, or who can’t. The ones for whom the threat of homelessness functions as a chain, tying them to their abusers. This is queer kids, but it’s not just queer kids. It’s everyone stuck with a partner they can’t leave because they need to make the mortgage, or because they can’t afford rent alone. It’s everyone stuck in the closet because their partner would show them the door the minute they came out. It’s everyone who settles for patriarchy because we have made freedom unaffordable."

3. The Incarnation or the Resurrection? (December 13) I love this!

4. No, The Bible Does Not Say “Fear Not” 365 Times (December 13) Fact checking. Very important.

Also: The Great Laminin Hoax (2017) "Uhm…Err…uh…yeah. Well, that’s not very cross-like is it?"

5. Gov. Kate Brown commutes sentences of all 17 people on Oregon’s death row (December 13) [content note: the descriptions of the murders that these people on death row committed are pretty horrifying]

6. 12/14 Flashback: Thrice-told tales (December 14) "Now Moses is again being confronted, but not by clan leaders and respected well-known men. He’s being challenged by five sisters. The law, these sisters tell Moses, is not fair. God’s law is not fair."

7. The Repugnant Conclusion (April 18) This is a short story about a character who has vaginismus. (Also I read her as asexual.) Linking it here because I was so surprised to happen upon a story about vaginismus. Those parts of the story feel really spot-on.

8. Why Infinite Coin-Flipping is Bad (December 2) "But that’s very far from true if you’re donating millions or billions. When donating at large scale, you’re structurally changing the organizations you donate to. There aren’t plausibly organizations that will literally sop up a billion dollars just doing more of the exact same thing they were doing earlier."

9. Leopards, faces, etc. (December 17) "I only wanted to stop the indefensible forms of abortion that exist in my head. I didn’t intend for that to have anything to do with ectopic pregnancies, or with forcing responsible married women to carry dead fetuses to term, or with requiring an 11-year-old rape victim to bear a child her body is incapable of bearing safely!"

Blogaround

1. A North Carolina trial could change jury selection in death penalty trials (September 18) "For decades, courts have automatically disqualified opponents of capital punishment from serving on juries in death penalty trials. This has been accepted law and practice."

2. What Cracker Barrel can tell us about culture war (August 10) "Nowhere in that piece does Paul cite a single example of the word 'woman' being abandoned by any single person or organization."

3. I’m a Fertility Doctor in Texas. It’s Getting Bad Here. (September 23) "Methotrexate is used for many other conditions such as cancers and arthritis. A man with arthritis or lymphoma would not have an issue filling this medication. But how much does a woman have to suffer or be close to death so that we can properly care for them?"

4. Which Is More Dangerous–Moral Certainty or Moral Relativism? (September 25) "I believe in the existence of moral absolutes, but also believe that they are far more difficult to identify than most of us imagine. The lifelong search for moral clarity and certainty will often look and feel like relativism."

5. Man Jailed for 24 Years After Brutal Tangshan Restaurant Attack (September 23) [content note: misogynist violence] "In June, four women at a barbecue restaurant in Tangshan were brutally assaulted by a group of seven men and two women after one of the female diners objected to unwanted sexual advances. Surveillance footage from the restaurant showing a group of men beating, slapping, and kicking the diners soon went viral, raising concerns over women’s safety."

6. “I Just Wanted to Live”: Man Missing for 17 Days After Earthquake Leaves ICU (September 29) and Earthquake hero missing for 17 days found by rescuers (September 22)

7. Dr. Oz Mad John Fetterman Hired Wrongfully Convicted Men Instead Of Imprisoning Them Forever (September 2) "The super fun thing about our American 'justice' system is that you are in a better position to get out of prison if you actually committed a crime than if you didn't."

8. Analysis: What I unlearned about Roe v. Wade (May 18) [content note: miscarriage] "When I was 14 or 15 years old, I’d been among a small faction of evangelical Christians and Catholics who’d picketed outside this doctor’s suburban office and on the sidewalk outside the hospital entrance with signs that said 'Abortion is Murder' and 'Don’t Kill Your Baby,' or which simply featured poster-sized pictures of aborted fetuses."

9. The Great White Heist (2020) "Naturally, Black parents were outraged when they discovered the white children didn’t have to make the same daily trek as their children because the district had purchased 33 buses to chauffeur them to school. Incensed, a group of parents begged Clarendon County School Superintendent R.W. Elliot for just one bus, to serve the county’s Black students. He said no."

10. James Earl Jones Retires From Voicing Darth Vader (September 27)

11. Unboxing, bad baby and evil Santa: how YouTube got swamped with creepy content for kids (September 13)

12. Two Christian ranches, meant to help troubled teens, were hotbeds of abuse (September 10)

13. Are AI art programs ripping off human artists? (September 26) "One possibility is legislation to create a robot dividend. Artists whose work was included in the training corpus of an AI engine would be paid a small royalty whenever that engine’s art is used for commercial purposes."

14. Trust us: The problem with crypto-billionaires and effective altruism (July 10) "The logic is certainly compelling: make as much money as you can to do as much good as you can in this life. But a fundamental flaw of effective altruism is that it says nothing about the way that money is earned in the first place."

Blogaround

1. Afterlife: How Captain Cassidy Let Go of a False Belief [archive link] (posted January 22) [and follow-up posts here [archive link] and here [archive link]] Captain Cassidy wrote a few posts about no longer believing in any kind of "afterlife", and I wonder if she's right. One of my big things is "I believe in resurrection" but what she is saying makes sense.

2. The future of the middle class depends on student loan forgiveness (posted February 25) "It’s not about my loans, or your loans, or your lack thereof. It’s not about your personal stories or anyone else’s. It’s about restoring the path from education to financial stability and wealth building — and, this time, actually maintaining it, no matter who decides to start the journey."

3. Well, yes:

Software that sends your porn viewing history to an accountability partner is just such a fucked up concept and I don’t trust that anyone who endorses it understands healthy boundaries

— ready for spring already (@mxreese1701) March 20, 2021

4. Beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary dies at 104 (posted March 26)

5. Lil Nas X - MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) (Official Video) (posted March 26) This is extremely satanic and gay. I love it. It's like I said about Katy Perry in 2015: "Make a video that's as satanic as possible, and it's okay! Nothing can separate us from the love of God."

Lil Nas X has this to say:

i spent my entire teenage years hating myself because of the shit y’all preached would happen to me because i was gay. so i hope u are mad, stay mad, feel the same anger you teach us to have towards ourselves.

— nope 🏹 (@LilNasX) March 27, 2021

He knows EXACTLY what he's doing. PREACH.

6. Good news- here in Shanghai, starting around March 29 there's been a big push for people to get the COVID vaccine. I saw a bunch of articles on social media (WeChat) about how to register, there was a flyer posted on the 1st floor of our apartment building, somebody came door-to-door with the flyers too, and HR at work sent an email. (There is a separate system for foreign passport holders to register, because the main system requires a Chinese ID number.) I have an appointment in a few weeks for the first dose! Woo I love vaccines!

They are saying everyone who is age 18 to 75 and healthy should get vaccinated. Right now everyone in that range can go ahead and make an appointment, it's not broken down into different risk categories or anything like in the US. (People who are higher risk because they come into contact with international travelers etc have already been vaccinated.)

7. Is China Really Ready for Black Stories? (posted March 29) "Black-themed films can succeed in China — as long as their Blackness remains in the background."

8. Sentenced to death, but innocent: These are stories of justice gone wrong. (posted February 18) "Bloodsworth bore little resemblance to the suspect in the police sketch. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. He had no prior criminal record."

Blogaround

The kingdom of heaven is like a queer dance party in front of Mike Pence's house.

1. Congratulations Anti-Trafficking Activists, You Just Put The People You “Care” About In Danger (posted January 10) "No one impacted by this is celebrating."

2. If God Is So Pro-Death Penalty, What About Cain and Abel? (posted January 11) "Conservative Evangelicals have long told me that if we want to see God’s best, God’s original intent, than we need to go back to Genesis and use that as our standard."

3. Zhou Youguang, Who Made Writing Chinese as Simple as ABC, Dies at 111 (posted January 14) "Since then, Pinyin (the name can be translated as “spelled sounds”) has vastly increased literacy throughout the country; eased the classroom agonies of foreigners studying Chinese; afforded the blind a way to read the language in Braille; and, in a development Mr. Zhou could scarcely have foreseen, facilitated the rapid entry of Chinese on computer keyboards and cellphones."

4. The Evangelical Social Construction of Virginity (posted January 13) "In using virginity as a test of value, we perpetuate the notion that women in the church are not valuable because they are active agents leading in the Kingdom, but because they are sexual objects meant to be saved for and used by men."

5. Bob Jones U., a School That Banned Interracial Dating Until 2000, Is Finally Observing MLK Day (posted January 16)

6. The Pinkification of Girls’ Toys (posted January 18) "the Barbie Dream House [from the 1970s] is red and yellow."

7. This Former Evangelical Became an Atheist After Seeing Fellow Christians Fight Against Obamacare (posted January 18) "I began to realize that others around me despised the thought of allowing people like me the benefit of affordable health insurance."

8. Which Martin Luther King Are We Celebrating Today? (posted January 16) "It is easy to forget that, until fairly recently, many white Americans loathed Dr. King."

Blogaround

A dog and cat dressed like Dobby and Harry Potter, respectively. Image source.

1. Tangled Theory: How Rapunzel Got Her Powers (posted October 27) "Him being kidnapped looks exactly like the sundrop falling to earth."

2. I just realized that finding makeup would be a pain in the ass in the star wars universe (posted October 29)

3. Why I Lied About My Rape (posted October 24) [trigger warning]

4. The Death Penalty, Nearing Its End (posted October 24) "In fact the crimes of the people sentenced to death are no worse than those of many others who escape that fate. Rather, nearly all of last year’s death sentences came from a tiny fraction of counties with three common features: overzealous prosecutors; inadequate public defenders; and a pattern of racial bias and exclusion."

5. An Evangelical Deal With The Devil (posted October 9) "And the devil said unto them, 'I’ll make America great again, all you need do is reach out your hand and join me.'"

6. Male Contraceptive Injection Halted For Same Side Effects Women Have Suffered For Years (posted October 28)

7. Haw haw haw (posted October 24) "I do not believe that anyone ever converted to Christianity as a consequence of reading any of Jack Chick’s gospel tracts. But I do believe that thousands of Christians were converted by them into something else — something more like the ugly dishonesty and nasty triumphalism that were those tracts’ main attributes. He helped persuade such Christians that bearing false witness against their neighbors should be the hallmark and cornerstone of their religion."

8. So You Don’t Like Hillary (posted November 3) "I have a friend who works with underprivileged children, many of them Hispanic. She tells me that many of these children are deeply worried about their families’ futures. In some cases, their parents are making plans to leave, getting things lined up so that they can flee the country if it comes to that. Take a moment to absorb that."

Blogaround

A dog who has helpfully brought you a pillow. Image source.

1. Hi I’m Demisexual. Here’s What That Means (posted May 13) "Growing up, long before I had a word to explain why I felt the way I did, I felt isolated from other guys my age because our sexualities diverged so radically. Pornography never interested me because I felt no attachment to the people having sex on the screen in front of me. I told my best friend, 'Maybe if they made a pornography where the couple was shown to be in an intimate, loving relationship, it might interest me, but why would I want to watch two strangers having sex?'"

2. U.S. Directs Public Schools to Allow Transgender Access to Restrooms (posted May 12) "What you don’t do is go and tell a kid, ‘You know, there is something so freakishly different about you that you make other people uncomfortable, so we’re going to make you do something different’"

3. A Response to Russell Moore's article "The Real Meaning of Transgender Bathrooms" (posted May 13) "She actually spoke the very words I would hope trans people could hear from the church: 'But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.'" Amen.

(also: 7 trans Christian voices worth hearing)

4. What Delilah Deserves (posted May 10) "Seems to me that her options were: betray Samson, get filthy rich; or refuse to cooperate, and seal her and her family’s doom."

5. "How is Your Walk With God?" and Other Questions Jesus Never Asked (posted May 17) "It sounds like an open-ended question at first blush, but it feels to me heavy-laden with expectation. There is a right answer to this question."

6. Scalia’s Death Just Prevented Alabama From Executing A Man (posted May 13)

7. This cat slithering down the stairs

Blogaround

Image source.

First bunch of links is all about #Ferguson:

1. Things To Stop Being Distracted By When A Black Person Gets Murdered By Police (posted August 12) "... the right to walk down the street without being a target for murder by the police isn’t a right one should have to prove themselves worthy of."

2. Michael Brown. Ferguson. (posted August 18) Good summary of the facts up to last Monday. Lots of links.

3. Mike Brown: Facts and dog whistles (posted August 18) "In other words, by releasing the video of Mike Brown stealing cigars, the police chief said, 'White people. It's OK. You don't have to care.'"

4. Tear gas is a chemical weapon banned in war. But Ferguson police shoot it at protesters. (posted August 14) 

And a couple other miscellaneous links:

1. I was 17, on death row -- and innocent (posted July 13) "The system does not identify and sentence 'the worst of the worst' to death -- just the most powerless."

2. Be Not Deceived: There’s No Such Thing As A “Christian Banker” (posted June 20) "There is no 'third way' on this issue, and if you try to find one, it’s only because you’re ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus and would rather deny him before men than take a stand against banking."

3. Please enjoy the genie/Robin Williams singing "Friend Like Me":



4. The 614th Commandment (posted August 10) "When we suggest that God has replaced Israel with the Church, what we’re really saying is that God has broken his unconditional, no-strings-attached promise to Israel: ‘I will be your God and you will be my People.’"

5. The Hole in Noll: The whiteness of ‘[White] America’s God’ (posted August 21) "The important thing there — what should be, for all Christians, everywhere, the most astonishingly important thing — is that America’s black Christians were right."