JohnShirley2023

JohnShirley2023, 9 months ago to random

Evangelicals Are Now Rejecting JESUS as TOO LIBERAL (not a joke! Not The Onion!)

"Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount and...'Where did you get those liberal talking points?'"

"When the pastor would say, 'I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ' ... The response would be, 'Yes, but that doesn't work anymore.' "When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, we're in a crisis."
https://www.newsweek.com/evangelicals-rejecting-jesus-teachings-liberal-talking-points-pastor-1818706

JohnShirley2023, 1 year ago to random

Watched the Disney animated film STRANGE WORLD to see why a teacher got suspended in Florida for showing it. First, gay teenagers. That's the first point of MAGA outrage. Kid is also the product of a biracial marriage. And this film syncretizes progressive tropes & ideas into one movie. Sustainability vs manifest destiny, vast quantities of acceptance of difference in people, seeing the planet as one living organism. Gorgeous to look at, really cool twist at end...see it! THEY don't want you to!

JohnShirley2023, 11 months ago to random

We forget how relatively recently women had to fight for the simplest most basic rights.

"On this day in 1923, Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty pronounced it legal for women to wear trousers anywhere."

Now when will it be pronounced legal for women to take responsibility for their own bodies?

JohnShirley2023, 1 year ago to random

Naomi Klein:

Tech CEOs want us to believe that generative AI will benefit humanity. They are kidding themselves

...the wealthiest companies in history (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon …) unilaterally seizing the sum total of human knowledge that exists in digital, scrapable form and walling it off inside proprietary products, many of which will take direct aim at the humans whose lifetime of labor trained the machines...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/08/ai-machines-hallucinating-naomi-klein

JohnShirley2023, 10 months ago to random

Biden Administration FDA APPROVES FIRST OVER THE COUNTER BIRTH CONTROL PILL

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/hormonal-birth-control-fda-nonprescription-contraceptive-pill-rcna93958

JohnShirley2023, 1 year ago to science

Instant Future presents

AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES STROSS, Hugo and Locus and Prometheus Award winning author and science-fiction visionary. We grill him about the future of our world! His perspective is very distinctive indeed. Don't miss out.

Instant Future is always FREE.

https://instantfuture.org/optimism-optimized-pessimism-parsed/

@cstross #scifi #fantasy #sff #sciencefiction #science #future

JohnShirley2023, 11 months ago to random

Moms for Liberty newsletter quotes Adolf Hitler, complains about being labeled 'extremist'

As if to ensure that newsletter readers would not think the group had quoted Hitler accidentally, the quote appeared with attribution – the italicized words 'Adolf Hitler.' The quote is from a 1935 rally, and it appeared in the newsletter like this: “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2023/06/22/moms-for-liberty-quotes-hitler-newsletter/70347101007/

JohnShirley2023, 1 year ago to random

Elon Musk and others with popular Twitter accounts are spreading false rumors about the Texas gunman

Social media posts by the man who killed eight people at a mall in Texas show he was deep into neo-Nazi and far-right imagery and propaganda. But right-wing activists have tried to cast doubt on the authenticity of the posts. They're claiming - without evidence - that the material is somehow part of a "psychological operation" or that the social media account is "fake".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65539698

JohnShirley2023, 11 months ago to random

Here's a panel, from today's Doonesbury, that I think will be much shared and become legendary.

JohnShirley2023, 10 months ago to random

Cement emits as much CO2 as India. Why is it so hard to fix?

[also it emits mercury!]

"...Not only does the carbon dioxide from the reaction spill into the atmosphere, but cement producers also use huge amounts of coal or natural gas to heat the kiln."

As a result, the cement industry generates 8 percent of global carbon emissions — triple the emissions of the aviation industry.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/06/27/concrete-greenhouse-gas-emissions-cement/

JohnShirley2023, 10 months ago to trans

Tennessee launches a witch hunt target trans

#trans #transgender

"Both trans activists and private trans people... are weighing how much risk they are willing to live with in this state that clearly cannot protect them. One prominent trans activist, Roberto Che Espinoza, has already moved away. “I don’t feel safe leaving the house,” Dr. Espinoza told WPLN’s Marianna Baccallao. “It’s not a way to live.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/03/opinion/tennessee-trans-lgbtq-health-records-vanderbilt.html?unlocked_article_code=Q_yV7BcVoYQNU1_OaxWNny0Z1zqJoEoJ5gxSQ3rkeL8OL_ND9zFNoiwu_Sksrd7ce5VSZZafLIglDXzjxg0acq0tbBMKAOY4eLCDRvRbAypZMSVzWWr9mTsS0dvF-GisUDQlYIALMtaOmLiOQhzejmaBlmkK1qRaA9tFdiMGXFd3xwymCmQMDUBWa_cAh4n0nG8lce7QyB4KmVtx7kYUGv6JU80HMBVQ_GiAASIilmo8IH9YDpcuvp159opgSlzt2bauUjbiS6BFnUBGwrfuZ8CC2hAv1yZZW1OSKljSjyWjeLgWZHfcrTb-6MVhkwLj4o9A43vaJSevbQINZh0Scf8wUhfpRmn9r8OUbnKPzPVz8PL2MvpjIM8q&smid=url-share

JohnShirley2023, 10 months ago to literature

[Another reason books are going to increasingly suck--publishers are getting rid of most editors and copyeditors...and by the way I just saw "how to use chatgpt to copyedit your book" Oh...god...]

Several top editors at Penguin Random House accept buyout offers, layoffs also underway

Some of publishing’s most celebrated and enduring editors are leaving their posts at Penguin Random House after accepting buyout packages

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/top-editors-penguin-random-house-accept-buyout-offers-101361461

#bookstodon #literature #sff #books #editing

JohnShirley2023, 11 months ago to scifi

This book hits stores today!

Bookshop.org is the alternative to Amazon that supports independent bookstores, so when it offers something of mine, I provide their link to the book. The science-fiction / technothriller crossover, SUBORBITAL 7 is a paper book here (and at Amazon etc)--and is also an #ebook.

#thriller #scifi #sff #space

https://bookshop.org/p/books/suborbital-7/18871631?ean=9781803363820

JohnShirley2023, 11 months ago to random

Oregon County Sues Big Oil and 'Misinformation Agents' Over Deadly 2021 Heatwave

"The heat dome was a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants' decision to sell as many fossil fuel products over the last six decades as they could and to lie to the county, the public, and the scientific community."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/oregon-multnomah-county-fossil-fuels-heatwave

JohnShirley2023, 11 months ago to random

FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK

Check this cool doc about a group of young Filipina American women who formed a rock band called Fanny, and...what happened. "Fanny was an American rock band, active in the early to mid 1970s. They were one of the first all-female rock groups to achieve critical and commercial success, including two Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 singles." - they were the inspiration the Go Gos and the Bangles and the Runaways. Now they're back!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zspd9hFRtkw

#rock #hardrock

JohnShirley2023, 10 months ago to random

Monsters of the intergalactic deep stir the space-time we share

"...a gravitational wave? That’s a distortion of space-time itself — a stretching and squeezing of the fabric of reality, a wave of deformation tearing through the cosmos, warping everything in its path... When a gravitational wave moves through you, you are, for a moment, a different shape."

Free on Washington Post with this gifted link:

https://wapo.st/3NHUfop

JohnShirley2023, 11 months ago to random

Illinois set to become first state to end book bans

Governor JB Pritzker expected to sign bill that would block state funding for public libraries and schools that ban books

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/30/illinois-book-bans-bill-libraries-schools

JohnShirley2023, 1 year ago to random

[ethically, Musk really is very Donald Trumpean]

Apparently Elon Doesn’t Think He Needs To Pay Rent Because SF Is A ‘Shithole’; So Why Should We Pay For Twitter?

It’s no secret that Twitter isn’t paying many of its bills, including the rent for its headquarters. That was rumored last fall, but became much more clear when the landlords sued the company in January.

Now a new lawsuit, filed last week by six former employees, provides a lot more details...

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/22/apparently-elon-doesnt-think-he-needs-to-pay-rent-because-sf-is-a-shithole-so-why-should-we-pay-for-twitter/

JohnShirley2023, 10 months ago to random

PUBLIC SERVICE WARNING: AYN RAND POISONING. Causes of Ayn Rand poisoning include reading Ayn Rand’s novels & the rants of Austrian School of economics fanatics. Indications: hypertrophic selfishness, radical lack of empathy, indifference to poverty and human suffering, a willingness to elevate the law of Survival of the Fittest over all humanitarian concerns, an inability to perceive the consequences of environmental pollution, and an extreme reaction to the presence of unions...

JohnShirley2023, 10 months ago to random

Striking SAG Actors in Disbelief Over Studios’ Dystopian AI Proposal

During SAG-AFTRA negotiations, the studios allegedly demanded the ability to use AI on background actors for a day rate, owning their image forever

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/actors-strike-sag-artificial-intelligence-hollywood-studios-background-1234788191/

JohnShirley2023, 10 months ago to random

JohnShirley2023, 10 months ago to random

Alabama Anti-Abortion Leader Indicted on Child Sexual Abuse Charges

Marty Wagner once served as chair of the Alliance for a Pro-Life Alabama, the group that mobilized voters to support a fetal personhood ballot measure in 2018.

https://jezebel.com/alabama-anti-abortion-leader-indicted-on-child-sexual-a-1850669807

JohnShirley2023, 9 months ago to random

It has occurred to me that the unlikely organization of the world's nations to take care of billions of climate refugees in the coming years--might not be as unlikely as I'd first thought. They may make certain calculations, that will induce them to the herculean efforts necessary to rescue and relocate one to two billion refugees...I'll discuss why that is, tomorrow, at:

https://instantfuture.org/flash-forward-to-coping-with-climate-migration/

JohnShirley2023, 1 year ago to random

How to Raise $89 Million in Small Donations — And Make It Disappear

A group of conservative operatives using sophisticated robocalls raised millions of dollars from donors using pro-police and pro-veteran messages. But instead of using the money to promote issues and candidates, an analysis shows, nearly all the money went to pay the firms making the calls and the operatives themselves, highlighting a flaw in the regulation of political nonprofits.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217913696

JohnShirley2023, 9 months ago to random

Scientists Recreate Pink Floyd Song by Reading Brain Signals

"The audio sounds like it’s being played underwater. Still, it’s a first step toward creating more expressive devices to assist people who can’t speak.

"Scientists have trained a computer to analyze the brain activity of someone listening to music and, based only on those neuronal patterns, recreate the song...scientists hope to build new “speech prosthetics” for people with neurological diseases"

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/15/science/music-brain-pink-floyd.html