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.  Toy Story 5 | Official Trailer | In Theaters June 19 (February 20) Part of me is like "why are they making another Toy Story movie" but also part of me is like "I'm going to watch it."

2. How the devil was disguised in the SBC and Paul Pressler's Conservative Resurgence (May 6, via) "By 1998, I had been so convinced of the rightness of the religious right and the conservative movement that when news of the Clinton-Lewinsky abuse case broke, I thought the leaders who spoke against Clinton and sought his impeachment actually cared about the immorality of it all." This is so real.

Add this to the "it was all fake" pile of evidence. All that talk about submitting your life to Jesus, every part of your life, every decision, even your thoughts, sitting in prayer and listening to God, willing to do whatever God wanted, no matter the cost, killing your sinful and selfish nature- and meanwhile, the leaders at the top are lying, sexually abusing people, and chasing political power.

Maybe this is the case any time you have religious people who totally believe "I have to do whatever God says, no matter how hard it is"- we are extremely vulnerable to any leader who comes along and claims "this is what God wants." Especially when they frame it as "I'm just simply telling you what the bible says- if you question or disagree with me, you're disagreeing with God" which I've heard so many times.

What to do about this? I guess if you're a religious person who believes "I have to do whatever God says, no matter how hard it is," you need to maintain some amount of independence, like "I'm going to use my own brain and only believe 'this is what God says' if there is a good reason *that makes sense to me*." You run the risk that you might refuse to obey something that turned out to be a valid command from God, but I think it's better to err on that side, rather than be manipulated by leaders who can claim anything is "what God said" and our feeble human minds aren't supposed to understand the reasons and that's why faith is so important.

3.  How terrible is this family? Family therapist takes on THE PARENT TRAP (May 22, 28-minute video) Yessss, I watched "The Parent Trap" on Disney channel so many times back in the day. 

"There's emotional realism in this film, which the actors kind of like, concoct out of thin air. ... there's no emotional realism in this premise. And everyone's just kind of like, well, your dad and I had a fight, so we got divorced, and we each took a kid, and then they're never gonna see each other. And I as a parent am not gonna see my other child. Ever."

"And apparently there are many adults in both of these adults' lives who know this and are cool with it."

4. Ancestral Genomes (May 29) From xkcd.

5. A cancer vaccine made just for you. mRNA is back and it's fighting melanoma (June 1) This is great news! Sounds like it's still being tested, but hopefully soon it will be widely available.

6. Enhanced Games claim ‘we changed the world’ but only one record broken and three clean athletes win (May 25) "While the vast majority of the 42 competing sprinters, swimmers and weightlifters were taking banned substances such as testosterone, EPO and anabolic steroids, three athletes who were competing clean also won."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Donald Trump’s Horribly Broken Propaganda Film (May 31, 31-minute video) "It's rare to see a bit of art that literally should not exist, that is, in and of itself, morally wrong." Oh good, Big Joel watched "Melania" so the rest of us don't have to.

2. Justice Department says it will abide by court order pausing its 'anti-weaponization' fund (June 1) "A federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia last week temporarily blocked the creation of the anti-weaponization fund after a lawsuit from Democracy Forward and others."

3. One by one, U.S. civil rights agency dismantles tools to fight discrimination (June 1) "Protecting U.S. workers from unlawful discrimination — already a hard task — could become significantly harder if the government no longer has that data within arm's reach, Gilbride says."

4. Federal judge ends Kennedy Center name change, bars two-year closure plans for now (May 30) "'Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,' Cooper, an Obama appointee, wrote of the federal law establishing the Kennedy Center in his 94-page opinion."

5. Immigrant detainees sue over 'horrific' conditions at Texas ICE facility (May 30) "'No human being should ever have to go through this,' Angye said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizations representing the detainees. 'I have already experienced torture in my home country of Cameroon and I never thought I would experience such severely violent treatment by guards here in the United States of America.'"

6. CA Gov Candidate Tom Steyer Calls Out Dems Capitulating On Trans People: "I'm Totally In Favor Of Trans Athletes" (May 28) "Steyer responded with a full-throated defense of transgender youth—and, specifically, of transgender athletes."

Also from Erin in the Morning: New York State Budget Released: $0 For Transgender Care Access (May 29) "'As the Trump administration continues to pose an existential threat to the transgender community, we are profoundly disappointed that the FY2027 New York State budget invests zero state dollars to support access to the health care many transgender, gender non-conforming, nonbinary, and intersex people rely on to live in their bodies with dignity and health -- a complete failure to meet the moment,' said Allie Bohm, NYCLU senior policy counsel about the lack of passage."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Well most of the links this time are depressing news, but I found a fun song for you guys to listen to:

Six13 - Uptown Passover (an "Uptown Funk" adaptation for Pesach) (2015)

2. Three Model Organisms For Taste (May 8) "Young children aren’t going to object to having to draw a lion with wings. Young children love drawing lions with wings. No child has ever said 'I hate lions with wings, I wish my country’s flag was something cool, like a red square on top of a white square.'"

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Tennessee Republicans pass a map to break up the state's lone Democratic House seat (May 7) "Tennessee Republicans on Thursday passed a new congressional map that would crack Shelby County — home to majority-Black Memphis — into three different districts, in an effort to eliminate the state's lone remaining Democratic-held seat."

TN Democrats Burn Confederate Flag in Dramatic Walkout Over Redistricting (May 8)

And more bad news from Virginia: Court rejects Virginia redistricting in a blow to Democrats' counter to Trump, GOP (May 8)

2. Stuck in limbo: millions of professionals risk losing legal status under Trump pause (April 28) "'Many of these people did everything they could to be on the right side of the law,' Bier said. "And simply because the government just decided one day that they're not going to process their applications and not give them a decision they have no idea, 'Should I leave the country? Is my status expired?''"

3. Republicans want to add $1 billion for Trump's ballroom security to ICE funding plan (May 6) 

4. Kids Are Being Harmed by Tear Gas, Pepper Spray Under Trump. There Could Be Long-Term Consequences. (May 7) "Families who live near an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, felt the effects inside their homes when officers tear-gassed the protesters who routinely gathered there. ... Each time the tear gas seeped in, the kids coughed, and their throats often burned. The eldest, a high school senior with asthma, would hide out in his second-floor bedroom."

5. Babies Are Bleeding to Death as Parents Reject a Vitamin Shot Given at Birth (May 6) "In almost every case, the babies’ deaths could have been prevented with a long-standard vitamin K shot. But across the country, families — first in smatterings, now in droves — are declining the single, inexpensive injection given at birth to newborns to help their blood clot." !!! Definitely get the vitamin K shot for your newborn baby! Hospitals all give this to newborn as a standard procedure, but now because of all the misinformation about vaccines, some parents are refusing it.

6. FBI Director Kash Patel sues the Atlantic claiming false reporting about drinking, absences (April 20) Wow pathetic.

7. 'Don Colossus' statue of Trump not a 'golden calf,' pastor insists (May 11) 

Sunday reading (May 10) "As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up."

This Is Not A Golden Calf! (May 12)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. They Didn’t Want to Have C-Sections. A Judge Would Decide How They Gave Birth. (March 14) "Pregnancy is the only condition where Florida courts have ruled that a patient can be forced to undergo unwanted treatment. Even a state prisoner on a hunger strike has more rights to make medical decisions."

2. The best cause will disappoint you: An intro to the optimisers curse (February 11, via) "This is a mathematical demonstration that, in our simple model, an approach of naively investing in the top apparent EV intervention is straight up wrong."

3. Yep, a mom's COVID shot during pregnancy protects her baby, a large study finds (March 25)

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. There is a No Kings protest on March 28. Go protest~

2. Robert Mueller, ex-FBI director who led 2016 Russia inquiry, dies at 81 (March 21) 

3. How one Minnesota school is bouncing back after the ICE surge (March 22) "In St. Paul, nearly two months of virtual learning ended just this week, but at the Spanish immersion school, not every student came back: One family is now in El Salvador, others are in Mexico, and others moved to Nebraska and California, states that felt safer for them. Another family is heading back to Venezuela soon."

4. He's one reason why aid cuts weren't as dire for the HIV population as predicted (March 20) "'The entire treatment ecosystem was sort of shredded,' she says. 'And then it becomes a question of like: Are we happy with providing the absolute bare minimum?'"

5. Flowing Against Fascism (March 17, via) "Standing with my rabbi, my friend, I was struck by how calm this moment was, despite the utter chaos surrounding us. Officer No-Name and his ilk—some 60 strong—created a barricade, kettling us observers and creating space for officers to drag our community members from the house. Local, state, and federal officers pressed out, with the weight and threat of a fascist administration behind them. A man and two women (one who looked like a teen) being perp-walked through the middle of the crowd, for no purpose but to impress upon us all that the state is powerful and we are not. That none of us are safe. That the raids will continue until polling improves."

6. The Crime of Witness (February 26, via) "Watchfulness is the most dangerous form of resistance because it obstructs the Trump regime’s project of habituation. Fascism works by making the extreme normal. Habit, as Samuel Beckett has it, is a great deadener. It has been obvious since the start of Trump’s second term that he is trying to make the sight of armed and masked men with virtually unlimited powers one to which Americans are accustomed."

7. Democrats flip seat in Florida state house in district that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago (March 24) Yesss.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. After 25 years, Wikipedia has proved that news doesn’t need to look like news (January 15, via) "Unless an article has been taken down entirely, just about every link to a Wikipedia page created in the past quarter-century still works. Its article on Nicolás Maduro is still in the same place it was when first created in 2006, 4,493 edits ago. How many news articles published online in 2006 still live at the same address? Vanishingly few."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. ‘Call to Unity’ re-enactors on MLK Day (January 21) "And those other bullet points? The ones about this church having a pastor who 'is also the acting field director' for the federal occupation of their community in the name of white supremacy and ethnic cleansing?"

2. ‘It’s a damn shame’: Park Service crews dismantle President’s House exhibit on slavery (January 22) "The signage was part of the exhibition 'The President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,' which was unveiled in December 2010. It provided information about the nine enslaved people who then-president George Washington brought with him to the Philadelphia presidential residence and Washington’s ties to slavery."

5-year-old Liam Ramos, a little boy with a little fluffy hat, being detained by ICE.

3. ICE detains 5-year-old Minnesota boy; school leader says agents used him as ‘bait’ (January 21) "According to Stenvik, masked agents apprehended 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in his driveway on Tuesday as he returned home from school with his father."

How an errand for a 12-year-old immigrant in Minneapolis became an underground operation (January 21) "He's a single father, and he told NPR that over the last few weeks he's been so afraid of being picked up by ICE that he isn't going outside unless a volunteer can take him where he needs to go. This is how he gets to work. It's why he couldn't rush home to help his daughter when she called him."

The ICE surge is fueling fear and anxiety among Twin Cities children (January 22) "'We haven't gone outside for anything in almost a month,' the mother, A, says in Spanish. NPR is only using her first initial because she is an asylum seeker, and is afraid Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, will deport her."

Videos and eyewitnesses refute federal account of Minneapolis shooting (January 25) "It's the second fatal shooting in Minneapolis by immigration agents this month, and once again Trump administration officials immediately defended the action as self-defense while blaming the victim — in this case claiming he was a 'domestic terrorist' intending to 'massacre' officers."

The ICE killing of Alex Pretti, the second in Minneapolis, prompts quick legal action (January 25) "It is an astounding order that reflects the Trump administration’s complete failure to govern for the people, a horrifying reality."

Thousands rally against immigration enforcement in subzero Minnesota temperatures (January 24) "Police arrested about 100 clergy demonstrating against immigration enforcement at Minnesota’s largest airport Friday, and several thousand gathered in downtown Minneapolis despite Arctic temperatures to protest the Trump administration’s crackdown."

4. Here's how 'shared decision making' for childhood vaccines could limit access (January 25) "'These vaccines have clear evidence of benefit for all children,' says Jake Scott, an infectious disease researcher at Stanford University. 'So moving them to shared decision-making doesn't reflect the scientific uncertainty that the category exists for. It manufactures this sort of uncertainty where no uncertainty really exists.'"

Blogaround

 Links not related to the antichrist:

1. 一隻哈巴狗 (2022) In case you are interested in what songs Chinese toddlers are listening to. This is a cute little song about a pug.

2. PHOTOS: Laundry is a chore but there's a beauty and serenity in the way it hangs out (January 10) "Castañeda Lee photographed locals in hopes of appreciating the invisible workers on the other side of Cambodian tourism, who spend hours each day doing the laundry of tourists."

3. Inside a Gaza medical clinic at risk of shutting down after an Israeli ban (January 11) "'I am trying to provide the best care to patients because I know they don't have any access to this kind of care elsewhere,' Harb says, adding there's a waitlist of people trying to get in."

4. Author Philip Yancey Confesses Affair, Withdraws from Ministry (January 6)

The Terrible Takes on Philip Yancey’s 8-Year Affair (January 12) "I don’t want to be married to someone whose only reason for not falling into bed with another woman is that Jesus performed a miracle."

Something I was thinking about this: So, the conservative Christian response to these kinds of scandals is 'don't judge, we are all sinners, we are all equally guilty, it could have been any of us falling to the temptation to cheat on our spouse [or sexually abuse children, or whatever the scandal is this time].' And then the progressive Christian response is like, 'hey, this sin-levelling is not cool, presenting it like the victims and the perpetrators are equally sinful, so we can't judge or hold people accountable. No, in reality we are NOT all just 1 bad decision away from having an affair, okay? That's not normal! You can say we're all sinners, but not like that, gosh. Some sins are way worse than others.'

So it's like... the conservative Christian point of view is that we're all horrible sinners, and the progressive Christian point of view is there are 2 types of people: 

1. Normal people who just sin in normal ways, like, you yelled at someone about something that wasn't their fault because you were in a bad mood. That's wrong, you should apologize for that. But we don't judge people as a Bad Person Forever if they do these kinds of little normal sins. We've all done things like that before.
2. People who do something really bad, that's totally beyond-the-pale. They are a completely different type of person from us normal people; we are very much NOT "all" susceptible to the temptation to do something so terrible. We shouldn't have empathy for these people, or think we can relate to them. They should be shunned from public life and we can never say any good things about them again.

This "2 types of people" perspective also seems bad. (To be clear, I haven't really seen it presented so explicitly like this- this is my own summary.) So I'm wondering what a better perspective would be. 

Maybe something like this: There's a spectrum of bad things that people might do, and at different points along the spectrum, we should respond with different levels of concern for the victims and for the perpetrators. Towards the lower end of the spectrum, it's like, well, that was wrong, but your victims are also imperfect people who have done similar things, so like, you have to apologize, and then all of us work together to become better people. Towards the higher end, our primary response should be to help and support the victims, and we shouldn't spend our efforts on caring about the perpetrator. But hopefully the perpetrator has somebody in their life who cares about them and will try to get them to be a better person. But that's not something that most people should care about- mostly we should care about helping the victims.

So rather than a clear line dividing the "2 types of people", it's a spectrum where the proportions of "how much we want to help the victims" vs "how much we want to help the perpetrator" gradually change.

See also, this post I wrote in 2015: "Christians Aren't Perfect" When It's Convenient

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Nationwide anti-ICE protests call for accountability after Renee Good's death (January 11) "At least 1,000 events across the U.S. were planned for Saturday and Sunday, according to Indivisible, a progressive grassroots coalition of activists helping coordinate the movement it calls 'ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action.'"

Photos: Protests grow over the fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis (January 8) 

January 10, 2026 (via) "In the case of the murder of Renee Good, the shooter and his protectors are clearly so isolated in their own authoritarian bubble they cannot see how regular Americans would react to the video of a woman smiling at a masked agent and saying: 'That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you,' only to have him shoot her in the face and then spit out 'F*cking b*tch' after he killed her."

2. National Park Service will void passes with stickers over Trump's face (January 9) "The use of an image of Trump on the 2026 pass — rather than the usual picture of nature — has sparked a backlash, sticker protests, and a lawsuit from a conservation group."

3. The CDC just sidelined these childhood vaccines. Here's what they prevent (January 9) "Before routine administration of the current rotavirus vaccines began in 2006, about 70,000 young children were hospitalized and 50 died every year from the virus."

4. Tomorrow never knows (January 7) "And then — because their lives are governed by the need for everyone, everywhere to always line up behind every mandatory Proper Christian Stance on everything — they probably would have guessed that you were testing them about their adherence to the PCS on something like melting glaciers and climate change."

Rep. Lieu Says Illegal for Military to Use Force Against Greenland Without Congress Authorization (January 8) "If any military member, including the generals on down...participate in the use of military force against Greenland without congressional authorization, they are following illegal orders."

5. Over 400,000 Transgender People Have Moved States Since Trump's Election (January 9)

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. The cookies that fueled votes for women (December 14) "Cookies, cakes, pies and treats like these little kiss cakes were sold at bake sales around Salt Lake City and all over the West. The proceeds helped suffragists crisscross the country to make their case for women's rights."

2. To 'graduate' from poverty, they can borrow to build a business. So why aren't they? (December 13) "'What we're seeing clearly is that it's deeper than you need money to make money,' he says. 'You also need to be able to take on risk to make money. And that's a double whammy for someone who's poor.'"

3. Questions of accuracy arise as Washington Post uses AI to create personalized podcasts (December 13) "In a statement, the Washington Post Guild — which represents newsroom employees and other staff — tells NPR, 'We are concerned about this new product and its rollout,' alleging that it undermines the Post's mission and its journalists' work." This sounds like a bad idea.

4. LET’S PLAY: ‘Text With Jesus’ (December 1) "That’s a nice dodging of the actual question. But real talk here: The chatbot can’t actually answer this question because no Christian can."

And Captain Cassidy's other posts on "Text With Jesus": AI meets Christianity in ‘Text with Jesus’ and Text With Jesus: Why an AI Satan scares some Christians 

So apparently there's this "Text With Jesus" app which uses Chat GPT to create chatbots of bible personalities, like Jesus. Okay, so, the first thought I had was, wouldn't it be something, to be able to pray and then get an actual response back? Whomst among us has not had the experience of desperately praying, asking God why, and never receiving any answer? But a chatbot- it *has* to reply. Wow, prayer would be a totally different thing if it came with a guarantee like that.

But as Captain Cassidy's investigation shows, the answers that "Jesus"/the other bible characters give are very boilerplate, Christian cliche answers. This is all stuff you can hear at church. Nothing new. Nothing real. And, I mean, of course it can't be anything new, it's just a chatbot. It's not real. 

(And apparently you can choose options about which denomination of Christianity you are in, and the chatbots will answer according to the beliefs of that denomination. I feel like that kinda breaks the illusion. Here, choose the set of things you already believe, and then this chatbot will regurgitate them back at you, in a quirky bible-character voice.)

If I had the real Jesus captive and required to answer me, I would ask extremely pointed and emotional questions about the problem of evil. I kinda wanted to try that on this chatbot, but you have to download it first, and that's too much trouble, also, it's just silly for me to treat this as if there's a possibility of actually getting new truths from it- it's a chatbot.

I wonder what kind of person uses this app and views it as helpful for their spiritual life. Are there people actually texting all their prayers into this app, and it feels better than just praying the normal way and "listening to God"? That seems... bad because it's fake. Like instead of experiencing the actual struggle of trying to "listen to God", looking for answers and getting nothing, overanalyzing your thoughts and "signs" you might have seen, you just get this easy-to-read AI response. 

But also, this seems quite limited in how much enjoyment you can get out of its responses. It's all very boilerplate, nice-sounding churchy language. Don't know how long one can stand to listen to that, when one wants *real* answers.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Trump administration's 'worst of the worst' includes pregnant, postpartum women (December 12) "In one Louisiana facility, according to a Senate report, at least 14 pregnant women were visible during the staff’s visit."

2. WHO expert group’s new analysis reaffirms there is no link between vaccines and autism (December 11, via) Can't believe we really have to keep talking about this.

3. The Trump administration's authoritarian house of cards is starting to fall down (December 12) "Kilmar Abrego Garcia is '[o]n his way home.' Another grand jury rejected DOJ's effort to indict Letitia James. And, Indiana Republicans said no to Trump's redistricting pressure."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Elon Musk’s Grok AI Is Doxxing Home Addresses of Everyday People (December 4, via) "In response to prompts as simple as “[name] address,” we found Grok repeatedly offered up accurate, up-to-date home addresses of everyday people, while offering astonishingly scant pushback."

2. The Most Hated Children's Book (December 4) [content note: the Holocaust, also spoilers for "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas"] "And so we're left with this kind of hollow story. A boy who spends a year, a full year, talking to a victim of the Holocaust, who does not learn one single thing about it."

I haven't read "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" but the first time I heard about the plot, I assumed that it was meant to make these 2 points:

1. A lot of people in Nazi Germany really had no idea what was going on in the death camps, even military families who lived right next to them. Uh... is there historical evidence of this? If this is not true, then yikes it's extremely irresponsible to write it in a book as if this was a real phenomenon. Sort of saying that the Holocaust just kinda happened and it wasn't really anyone's fault except maybe the leaders at the highest levels.
2. I thought the point of the ending was a judgment on the father- the father is overseeing mass murder throughout the whole book and thinks it's fine, but then when it's his own son getting murdered, then it's a horrible tragedy which wasn't supposed to happen. I assumed- not reading the book but just a summary of it- that the point was to teach the father a lesson about how wrong he was- that the father was getting what he deserved. But I've read criticism of this book which says this is basically just played straight- like the book makes you feel like the tragedy is that the son of a Nazi leader was killed, that's terrible and wasn't supposed to happen, whereas the constant mass murder of Jewish people is fine. I thought the point of the book would be exposing this way of thinking and showing how immoral it is, but ... apparently it doesn't? Like I said I haven't read it, and maybe it's open to interpretation how much the book just kinda goes along with this "it only became a tragedy when this one German child died" and how much it calls out that way of thinking.

3. Chinese Backstreet Boys - That Way (2005) My husband told me this video went viral in China 20 years ago. It's 2 goofy students lip-syncing to "I want it that way." I love this.

4. Vibecession: Much More Than You Wanted To Know (December 5) "Are the youth succumbing to a “negativity bias” where they see the past through “rose-colored glasses”? Are the economists looking at some ivory tower High Modernist metric that fails to capture real life? Or is there something more complicated going on?"

5. UN humanitarian chief: world needs to 'wake up' and help stop violence in Sudan (December 7) "The United Nations estimates around 200,000 civilians were trapped in el-Fasher when the army withdrew, and there is evidence that many were systematically killed, with thousands still unaccounted for."

6. Reality Bites: Meituan’s ‘Rosy’ Delivery Ad Hits a Nerve in China (December 8) "'It’s clear from the video that not only has the director never been a food delivery driver, but also that he has never ordered take-out,' one user said in a video response on Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, receiving more than 29,000 likes."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Trump to Disaster Victims: Drop Dead (December 3, via) "Whenever someone comes to him in need, whether its Volodomyr Zelensky, helpless African children dependent on USAID, or rural Michiganers, his cruelty is activated."

2. HHS changed the name of transgender health leader on her official portrait (December 5) "Levine told NPR that it was an honor to serve the American people as the assistant secretary for health 'and I'm not going to comment on this type of petty action.'"

3. CDC advisers vote to overturn decades-long policy on hepatitis B vaccine for infants (December 5) "'Our question is why? Why is there pressure today to change something that has been working, due to safety concerns that may be more theoretical than real?' asked Dr. Grant Paulsen during Thursday's meeting."

Blogaround

Movie poster for "Zootopia 2." Image source.

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. I saw "Zootopia 2" and I loved it! My favorite part was the whole dynamic between Nick and Judy. Also the animation is very good, and the action scenes were exciting. And the plot is about systemic injustice, like the first "Zootopia" movie.

2. It’s One of the Most Influential Social Psychology Studies Ever. Was It All a Lie? (November 25) "To the contrary, Kelly says, the Seekers were quick to disavow those beliefs. Even Martin herself rebranded, insisting to an interviewer that she had never believed she’d be taken away by an actual spaceship."

3. Inverted Catenaries (December 3) From xkcd.

4. Stuck in the Mud: Climate Chaos Deepens Divide on China’s Farmlands (December 4) "But this autumn, after weeks of rain turned Henan’s fields into mud, the usual wheeled harvesters bogged down at the field edges. In Jiaozuo, where the soil can trap water for days, Zhang’s treaded rig kept crawling through the muck, one of the few machines in the region that could move at all."

5. There’s a stain on my notebook where your coffee cup was (December 2) "But beyond that narrow sense of “political,” of course, everything about this is political because it’s all about what is and isn’t “normal” or normative, and who decides that, and how it is or ought to be enforced."

6. Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era (November 19, via) "The stories had the characteristic weirdness of articles written by a large language model—invented anecdotes from regular people who didn’t appear to exist accompanied by expert commentary from public figures who do, with some biographical details mangled, who are made to voice “quotes” that sound, broadly, like something they might say."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. For the first time since 1988, the U.S. is not officially commemorating World AIDS Day (December 1) "'I think it's emblematic of an administration that doesn't seem to care,' said Mitchell Warren, the executive director of AVAC, a global HIV prevention organization based in the U.S."

2. They’re doing to America what they did to Christianity (November 23) "We have watched over the years as rightwing evangelical churches turned the Jesus we grew up with into exactly the opposite of who we understood him to be." Hear, hear.

3. Ohio senator introduces measure to eliminate dual citizenship (December 2) !!! Not cool! This is just a bill so hopefully it doesn't get anywhere. But yikes.

4. The Summers-Epstein Emails’ ‘Yellow Peril’ Problem (December 3) "Harvard professor Larry Summers has been widely criticized for his extensive correspondence with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But the denigrating way he views Asian women hasn’t gotten enough attention."

5. Will Hegseth Face Consequences? (December 2) "Faced with a congressional inquiry, Trump, to protect himself, gave clear public orders to Hegseth not to murder survivors and commit war crimes. You may think this should go without saying. I may think this should go without saying. But obviously it does not go without saying—especially since the White House went on to maybe possibly contradict those orders."

And: 'Franklin' publisher slams Hegseth for his post of the turtle firing on drug boats (December 2) "'We strongly condemn any denigrating, violent or unauthorized use of Franklin's name or image, which directly contradicts these values,' it added."

Here’s what the Trump administration has said about the ‘double-tap’ strike on an alleged drug boat (December 3, via) A timeline.

Did Megyn Kelly say she wanted to see survivors of strike on alleged drug boat 'suffer'? (December 3) Oh my goodness.

6. As Trump's immigration raids hit New Orleans, a Chicago group shares resistance tips (December 3) "This, Gonzalez said, was always the goal of Protect RP: to make immigration enforcement operations in the neighborhood uncomfortable and inefficient. If they do that well enough, Gonzalez said, maybe enforcement agents would conclude that the cost of doing work in his neighborhood is simply too high."

7. She was deported after boarding a flight to Austin. Her attorney says that violates a judge's order. (December 2) "'At the end of the day, this is a college student who came here at 7 years old to seek asylum with her family,' Pomerleau said. 'She's not responsible under the law for any decisions her parents made about her. She was a child.'"

8. Doctors warn delaying hepatitis B shot for newborns could revive a deadly threat (December 3) [content note: child death] "'Liver cancer has disappeared in children,' McMahon said. 'We haven't seen a case since 1995. Nor do we have any children under 30 that have gotten infected that we know of.'"

9. 'Nobody wants to come': What if the U.S. can no longer attract immigrant physicians? (November 24) "Up until this year, it was a dream — a wish! — that you could get a job and you could come to the U.S. And now nobody wants to come."

10. GEOGRAPHY QUIZ: Can You Find 'Third' Countries Trump Bribing To Take Deportees On A Map? (December 4) "It’s corrupt, it’s wasteful, it’s inhumane, and also, if these deportees are truly the hardened criminals that Donald J. Trump claims they are, it is not justice to send them somewhere that will happily pocket the cash and then lose all track of them."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. China’s Security Guards Live Lives on the Margin (November 25) "According to the current regulations concerning security services in China, security guards are required to meet three basic conditions: be in good health, have at least a junior high school diploma, and have no more than three administrative detentions on their record. Despite not meeting any of these criteria, Xiao Bing has always managed to find his way back into the industry. The reason is simple: companies often struggle to recruit enough guards for residential communities, given the low pay, lack of career prospects, and low social status."

2. Freebirth Influencers are Killing Babies (November 29) [content note: child death] "All of this hasn’t happened in a vacuum. It’s a story that I’ve been talking about for decades now: remove agency from women. Add in societal pressures. In place of agency, tell women some fantasy about magical powers that allow them to transcend those challenges. Then blame them for suffering and dying because they didn’t use their magic the right way."

This article is about the "free birth movement" and MY GOODNESS I had heard of "free birth" but had no idea it was this bad. I know that "home birth" sort of spans a spectrum from 'pregnant people who are well-informed about their own pregnancy's risks of complications, and who have a good backup plan in case they need to be rushed to the hospital, can give birth at home and it's basically just as safe as a hospital birth' to 'doctors are bad, all you need is your feminine energy and everything will be okay'- well it turns out that "free birth" means going off the deep end of the "doctors are bad" side of that. 

Moms and babies used to die quite often in childbirth. Yes, giving birth is natural, and your body *probably* can do it and you won't die- but "probably" is not good enough. Know the risks, and get the medical help that makes sense for you. In my second pregnancy I had pre-eclampsia which is life-threatening, but I didn't really think it was a big deal because I didn't have any symptoms- but the doctors caught it early and took it extremely seriously, and everything turned out fine.

I totally agree that the reason women are drawn to these "free birth" influencers is because the medical system has traumatized them. So many women have experienced doctors doing all kinds of invasive things to them without their consent, during childbirth, and are pressured to accept it because "all that matters is the baby is healthy." Not cool! We need to prioritize consent in health care.

3. These Zika mothers went to battle — and their cry was heard (November 29) "It's a story that plays itself out all over the world, Brito says — in big ways and small. A health or natural disaster befalls a community and they are all that anyone talks about. But quickly, people turn to the next tragedy elsewhere. For that original community, though, the challenge has only just begun."

4. Young Girls Were Sexually Abused by a Church Member. They Were Told to Forgive and Forget. (November 20, via) [content note: child sexual abuse] "'I went back to the same preacher, which is Daryl [Bruckelmyer], and said, ‘Why is he still able to hold kids and whatever?’' she recalled to Kleffman in a recorded interview. 'And he’s like: ‘I don’t know. Like, we’ve told him that he’s not supposed to, but he still does.’'"

5. Bridge Clearance (November 28) From xkcd.

6. Take up wickedness again (November 30) "Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar."

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Links related to the antichrist:

(I don't really believe there's a specific prophesied "antichrist", but I just have to call him that because it's absurd how evangelicals, after spending so many years obsessing about which world leader might possibly be "the antichrist" and what traits such a person would have, are the ones selling their souls to him.)

1. MAGA’s Twin WTF Moments (November 25) "And that underscores a hard truth: MAGA is whatever Trump says it is at any given moment, even if that means abandoning everything it previously stood for."

2. Trump administration orders review of Biden-era refugees, memo shows (November 25) "The USCIS memo, dated November 21, said the agency will terminate the refugee status of people already in the U.S. if they are found to not meet refugee criteria."

Oh my god, they want to review 233,000 refugees and find whatever technicalities they can use as excuses to deport people. Refugees. My god. 

And: Trump administration pausing all asylum decisions after National Guard shooting (November 28)

3. House and Senate committees launch inquiries into second strike on alleged drug boat (November 30) "Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said Sunday on CNN that if the reporting on the second strike is true, “it seems to” constitute a war crime."

4. FDA to raise hurdles for vaccines, faulting COVID shots for 10 kids' deaths (November 29) Oh this is a terrible idea. Also, why isn't the public discourse highlighting the risks of *not* vaccinating your kids? *Not* vaccinating your kids can lead to measles and all kinds of other diseases.

5. Why clergy should risk assault to protest ICE (November 13, via) "For people wanting to experience God, we are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview facility than we ever were in church. I say that as someone who leads a church for a living. God does not live in our houses of worship, but instead chooses to dwell with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment." Preach.

6. ‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver’ Auction Raises More Than $1.5 Million for Public Broadcasting, Including New Record for a Bob Ross Painting (November 24, via) 

7. Crime in the Cabinet (December 1) "Even so, it was striking to hear two independent credible accusations of crimes by Trump cabinet officials in the same week."

Also: The Trump administration's lawlessness is front and center, on multiple fronts (November 30) "Despite the horrors and harm involved, all three stories show how important discussing lawlessness is to making accountability possible — now or in the future."

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

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Real Talk: Why China’s Deaf Creators Feel Pressured to Sell Out (September 15) "In this context, the recasting of deaf people as “cute, submissive, and longing for love” trivializes Deaf culture as something to be consumed rather than taken seriously."

Also from Sixth Tone: Street Smart: Why China’s 5-Star Hotels Are Now Cooking Curbside (September 18) "At Kang’s hotel in Henan, a 398-yuan set meal was quickly undercut by rivals offering similar packages for 358 — then 298 yuan. 'Now everyone’s on the street,' he said, 'selling even cheaper takeaway.'"

2. A humanitarian expert says civilians in Gaza City are facing an 'impossible choice' (September 17) "Right now, people in Gaza City are facing an impossible choice: live under bombardment and famine or risk the dangerous journey to the south, where they know that there are no services that can accommodate them, that there's no aid to be distributed to help them in their displacement.What we are witnessing is mass forcible transfer of Palestinians from Gaza City, which is a war crime and must be stopped."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause (September 16) "Can they truly be so ignorant to the words of a man they have so rushed to memorialize? I don’t know. But the most telling detail in Klein’s column was that, for all his praise, there was not a single word in the piece from Kirk himself."

And: Why did alleged assassin target Kirk? Evidence paints complicated picture (September 18, via) Yeah, the "leftist" parts of the internet are all taking this "he was a groyper! he was far-right!" and running with it, but I don't think we really know that for sure. Let's not spread misinformation. I don't like the idea (which both sides are promoting) that once we find the killer's motive and ideology, we can use it to make big sweeping statements about "the left" or "the right."

Sen. Chris Murphy warns Trump is exploiting Kirk's death to squash dissent (September 16)

2. Who Can Get a COVID Vaccine? (September 17) "So! I know that it’s all very confusing, but please don’t just get overwhelmed and give up."

3. GOP lawmaker pulls measure to allow Marco Rubio to revoke US passports (September 16) "But the new measure would have significantly escalated these efforts by targeting US citizens."

4. ABC pulls Jimmy Kimmel off air after comments made about the Charlie Kirk killing (September 18) In all the coverage I've seen of this, I haven't seen any actual comments from Kimmel saying anything bad about Charlie Kirk. He just said the right is politicizing it, that the killer is also far-right, and that the president doesn't seem to be mourning like a normal person.

WGA Statement on ABC’s Decision to Pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! (September 17) "Shame on those in government who forget this founding truth."

5. Trump moves to scrub national parks sites of signs that cast America in a 'negative light' (September 17) "Park employees also flagged a panel that reads: 'As the new federal government embraced the lofty concept of liberty, slavery in the President's House ... mocked the nation's pretense to be a beacon of liberty.'"

6. Most American Jews say Trump is using antisemitism as an 'excuse' to silence free speech at universities (September 17)

7. RFK Jr. wants to end mental health screenings in schools. Experts say it's a bad idea (September 16) "U.S. Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and Education Secretary Linda McMahon want schools to do away with mental health screenings and therapy. Instead, they argue in a Washington Post opinion piece that schools 'must return to the natural sources of mental well-being: strong families, nutrition and fitness, and hope for the future.'" Oh, so just telling everyone to try harder to be normal, instead of recognizing that mental health is a real thing.

This article does a good job explaining what school mental health screening is and why it's just a common-sense way to identify kids who might possibly need help. Not about labels and stigmas.

8. Judge criticizes Trump admin, blocks effort to quickly deport children to Guatemala (September 19) "The administration’s initial argument that the effort was all about reunifying children with their parents, Kelly wrote, 'crumbled like a house of cards about a week later.'"

9. Judge orders Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil to be deported to Algeria or Syria (September 18, via) "'It is no surprise that the Trump administration continues to retaliate against me for my exercise of free speech,' Khalil said in the statement. 'Their latest attempt, through a kangaroo immigration court, exposes their true colors once again.'"

His lawyers are still fighting this though. It's not over.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. First things first: Biblical priorities (September 4) "This is the first thing we hear God telling us — the first thing God has to say. Religion without justice is detestable." Preach.

2. Texas lawmakers approve letting private citizens sue abortion pill providers (September 4) "Opponents see it as not only another way to rein in abortion but intimidate providers outside Texas who are complying with the laws in their states. They also say it would encourage a form of vigilantism."

3. The Super-Weird Origins of the Right’s Hatred of the Smithsonian (August 21, via) "Childress relied on Victorian reports about large bones that Powell’s team, led by Cyrus Thomas, had dismissed in 1894 as unevidenced. Hundreds of such reports littered the papers in the late 1800s, and claiming to find the bones of giants became a popular appeal to “prove” the Bible’s superiority to Darwin. The Smithsonian politely informed inquirers that these bones did not belong to the mythical Nephilim."

I never heard about this "we found the bones of biblical giants" when I was a young-earth creationist, but I gotta say I'm 0% surprised. Like, OF COURSE there's some young-earth creationist crackpot out there claiming they found the bones of biblical giants, and that scientists are trying to cover it up because they hate the bible or whatever. I've definitely heard of YECs claiming "we found Noah's ark!" and this is basically the same genre.

4. Israel is blasting through Gaza City neighborhoods, but people have nowhere to go (September 5) "The International Committee of the Red Cross says the evacuation of Gaza City cannot be done in a safe or dignified manner, calling it "unfeasible and incomprehensible." It noted that people are starving, wounded and unable to relocate, and that no area in Gaza can handle an influx of displaced people due to extreme shortages of food, water, shelter and medical care across the territory."

5. Dimensional Lumber Tape Measure (September 5) From xkcd.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. President Trump plans to rename the Defense Department as the Department of War (September 4) Uh, wtf

2. Senators from both parties grilled RFK Jr. on vaccines and more (September 4) "Another Republican physician on the Senate Finance Committee, Dr. John Barrasso of Wyoming, joined Democrats in criticizing Kennedy for undermining vaccines."

3. How Trump's latest crypto launch enriches his family (September 3) Corruption.

4. 'Founders Museum' from White House and PragerU blurs history, AI-generated fiction (September 3) What on earth. What. They "used AI" to make videos of the founding fathers, and they're showing these at a museum? 

5. Trump keeps moving the U.S. closer to being the fascist war machine he wants (September 5) "Earlier this week, in one of the more alarming actions of this administration, Trump ordered the murder of 11 people that the Trump administration claims were drug traffickers on international waters."

Also from Law Dork: Holding vigil in "a post-USA America" as Trump orders the vigil gone (September 6) "As The Washington Post reported last month, 'The demonstration is widely considered to be the longest continuous act of political protest in U.S. history. It has survived seven presidents, countless global conflicts, hurricanes and blizzards, heat waves and floods. It has outlasted several U.S. wars, including the Cold War, the Persian Gulf War, the War on Drugs and the War on Terror.'"

6. Trump walks back Chicago 'war' threat, but vows to 'clean up' cities (September 7) "In response to the post, Illinois' Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, wrote on X that Trump was 'threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal.'"

7. In April NPR profiled people who couldn't get their HIV drugs. How are they faring now? (September 6)

8. Judge steps up to block ICE's kidnapping of Guatemalan kids (September 4) "It was a remarkable display of judicial tenacity. It was also a testament to how thoroughly the Justice Department has shredded its credibility with the courts in just eight months." I posted a link about this before, but this gives a lot more detail. It is just shocking to me how ICE got children out of their beds in the middle of the night, with only a few hours' notice, and was going to send them to Guatemala. How can people do that, to children? But I guess this kind of cruel, inhumane behavior is what ICE does every single day.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Cracker Barrel, Anglican Converts, and Tradition’s Aesthetic (August 25, via) "That draw into nostalgia—even or especially nostalgia for something we never experienced like the rural South of the 1930s or the high medieval English cathedral—can drive us to over-inflate continuities between ourselves and the past and to idealize rituals, expressions and—in the case of church and Cracker Barrel—aesthetics we think capture our imagined communities in their purest form."

Related to this is the idea that white people have a culture. I didn't get that when I was growing up- I thought the way I lived was just the regular way, and other people who ate weird food and celebrated weird holidays did so because it was their culture. The link talks about the misconception that the liturgical rituals in the Anglican church are the same as those from the very beginning of the church- the idea that these rituals are just neutral and normal and the way it always was- no, this is not true.

2. More Drowning Children (March 21) "God notices there is one extra spot in Heaven, and plans to give it to either you or your neighbor. He knows that you jump in the water and save one child per day, and your neighbor (if he were in the same situation) would save zero. He also knows that you are willing to pay 80% of the cost of a lifeguard, and your neighbor (who makes exactly the same amount of money as you) would pay 0%. However, in reality, the river and the drowning children are going by your house, not your neighbor’s house. Which of you should get the spot in Heaven?"

3. AI Companies’ Race for Engagement Has a Body Count (August 28, via) "Instead of providing meaningful safety measures, transparency, age assurance, and data privacy protections, Meta and others have chosen to build platforms that deliberately blur the line between human and machine."

The thing that really gets me about this is, I know that some people will respond by saying, well, that's just how an LLM is, you don't really know how it works internally or what it's going to do in every situation, so this is not anybody's fault, it's just the way it is. But I think this is the wrong way of looking at it- companies should be held accountable for making a product that will respond in unpredictable (and possibly dangerous) ways. There's no guarantee that this is safe, and yet they're selling it.

4. BREAKING: Eurgh, oh God, there’s a texture (August 29, via) "Even when you successfully manage to scrub away the last of the peanut butter, its memory will stain your hands, causing you to experience a level of anguish previously only felt by Lady Macbeth."

This is so real. This is exactly what it's like.

5. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Make Their First Public Appearance as an Engaged Couple—Just a Few Miles From NFL Star’s $6 Million Mansion (August 29) Aww that's great! (I am a Taylor Swift fan.)

6. Un-Reformed history (August 28) "Bai imagines that he’s positioning himself as a reasonable centrist and Serious Person because he’s rejecting “critical race theory,” but what he’s actually rejecting is total depravity and original sin."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Florida's 'Alligator Alcatraz' detention facility to be empty 'within a few days' (August 28) 

2. 2 firefighters arrested by Border Patrol at Washington’s Bear Gulch Fire (August 28) "In a statement Thursday, Sen. Patty Murray slammed the arrests as unnecessary, and demanded “immediate answers” as to why the men were arrested on the job, and what the immigration enforcement policy is during active wildfires."

3. Hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children can stay in the U.S. for now, judge says (August 31) "'In the dead of night on a holiday weekend, the Trump administration ripped vulnerable, frightened children from their beds and attempted to return them to danger in Guatemala,' said Efrén Olivares, a lead attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. 'We are heartened the Court prevented this injustice from occurring before hundreds of children suffered irreparable harm.'"

Also: A high schooler stays back as his family, separated by deportation, returns to Guatemala (April 26) "Two weeks after federal officials arrested his father, Alex drove his mom and siblings to the airport for their flight to Guatemala. He's faced with finishing his senior year of high school without his mom or dad and finding a way to make it on his own with his older brother. Alex just turned 18."

4. Michigan AG Warns UM Hospitals Not To Capitulate Over Trump's Trans Ban, Calls Decision Likely "Illegal" (August 27) "'This administration draws most of its power from the willingness of its targets to capitulate without a fight, abandoning their own principles and interests, and throwing disfavored populations under the bus,' Nessel continued. 'Despite repeated successful legal challenges to actions by this administration, UM has chosen instead to sacrifice the health, well-being, and likely the very lives of Michigan children, to protect itself from the ire of an administration who, oftentimes, engages in unlawful actions itself.'"

5. Another major medical association breaks from CDC as ob/gyn group recommends Covid-19  vaccines during pregnancy (August 23) "'While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently removed its recommendation that pregnant and lactating individuals receive updated COVID-19 vaccines, ACOG’s recommendations have not changed,' according to the updated practice advisory. 'The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists continues to recommend the use of updated COVID-19 vaccines in individuals contemplating pregnancy and in pregnant, recently pregnant, and lactating individuals.'"