Today’s episode of “Not The Onion.”

h/t @soraaad.bsky.social

Yesterday in Apocalypse to Zombie we finished up discussing Timothy Beal's _The Book of Revelation: A Biography_. including James Hampton's The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly. americanart.si.edu/artwork/book... americanart.si.edu/blog/throne-...

Conservatism Cheat Sheet: "We can dictate how things are because..." Christian Nationalist -> "We've got the right God" Libertarian -> "We make more money" Intl. -> "We've got bombs" Burkean -> "We've always dictated them" Social -> "We're white" Bro -> "We're apex" MAGA -> "WTF are you gonna do?"

A Spring Break Eve Friday! The Infant and I wish everyone health, safety, and peace.

The Friday roundup is up a day early, with links to the podcast! I also wrote about that terrible feeling of dread I often feel due to the many evil events underway these days, and how it recalls the nightmarish stretch from 9/11 to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But there's an important difference.

I wrote about Trump’s delusions as both a massive weakness for the regime and a major impediment to the Right’s authoritarian project – but also a dangerous source of further radicalization, as the Trumpists are hellbent on imposing their unreality on the rest of us. MAGA Unreality vs the World:

Finally, an article about the real victims of this war: piles of money

Not to be THAT feminist, but I knew this was the case before opening the article. Men see fatherhood as an abstract milestone that's a proof of their virility, women see the associated costs. Not to mention that women not being locked into domesticity is the core of the antifeminist backlash today.

h/t @mpgphd.bsky.social

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This is a fragment from the oldest Hebrew Bible manuscript with a given date of production. It's the end of the book of Nehemiah, pointed with Babylonian vowel signs. A Jewish scribe named Joseph ben Nimorad completed it in 903/4 CE at Gunbad-i-Mallgan (modern Dogonbadan, Iran).

It’s a day ending in “y” so John Fetterman is finding new ways to be goddamn disgrace. Time for me to call his office back. Again. www.bbc.com/news/article...

the US right is completely dedicated to the proposition that children are chattel.

First book of the year, highly recommend! @greenwell.bsky.social #booksky

h/t @newsjennifer.bsky.social

Remember when Rep. Greg Gianforte, now the GOP governor of the state, body slammed a reporter into a table? We probably need to shut down the Montana Republican Party entirely until we can figure out where all this violent rage is coming from.

h/t @maiakotro.bsky.social

The child care block grant gets less than $9 billion a year for the entire country

h/t @soraaad.bsky.social

The United States is going to slaughter civilians en masse because a mediocre white dudebro thinks it makes him look tough.

h/t @tressiemcphd.bsky.social

Imaging a human saying to you, "i will only ever tell you what i think you want to hear, based on what i know about ppl like you, how you start our conversation, & what you say during it. Sometimes that will sound like truth, sometimes like errors or lies. Now: Let's talk about your medical history"

"From all appearances, neither Donald Trump nor any adviser knows the purpose of his strikes against Iran. (If one were being totally honest, the “purpose” likely is to soothe the narcissistic rage of a president headed for a massive defeat.)"

h/t @tressiemcphd.bsky.social

There's been a lot of debate within the Democratic establishment about what rhetoric to use via ICE. Well, an incumbent doesn't lose by 48 percentage points very often—and her vote on collaborating with ICE was the defining issue here.

okay, Ill bite. What do you think the point of reading for and writing a literature review is? The process of reading and writing is crucial for THINKING. Your ideas are shaped by all of this, offloading it to gAI, no matter how "good" you think gAI is at it defeats the purpose entirely.

“If [wealthy, powerful people] can get us to accept that the future’s already settled, AI is already here, the end is already here, then we will create that for them. My most daring idea is to refuse.” — @tressiemcphd.bsky.social

h/t @susanrinkunas.com

h/t @lee-in-iowa.bsky.social

This has always worked super well, just google “CIA Afghanistan 1979” to find out more!

h/t @berkeleyeve.bsky.social

"[Benjamin] held on to his briefcase not until it was too late but because it was too late. When the barbarians are past the gate, there is nothing to do but stand your ground." www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Chromebooks are going to close the achievement gap! Learn-to-code programs are going to close the achievement gap! AI is going to close the achievement gap! [This shiny new tech thing that is funded by VC] is going to close the achievement gap!

According to PEW, teens in households making under $75K are more likely to use chatbots for help with all or most schoolwork. I read a comment on another platform that said this is amazing news because we are "finally going to close the achievement gap." That is not how I would interpret this data.

This regime’s priorities are just completely ass backwards…

h/t @victorerikray.bsky.social

It pisses me off that this Ben Harper song is evergreen. youtu.be/FjkHBRoN1R0?...

Jesus... We're all just digital zombies (in the original Haitian conceptualization) in waiting to these wretched AI oligarchs.

Good thing some US colleges are closing their Religious Studies departments—definitively not “useful” at all or an area of expertise that might be relevant for understanding our present…

Though you wouldn’t know it to watch its invertebrate current members, Congress is the preeminent branch—that’s why it's established in Article I of the Constitution. Congress has the lion’s share of federal authority & it has more power over the other branches than they have over it. And yet...

Insert relevant meme

🗣️ New color family in the JECS cover rotation!! 🗣️

“In a pair of recent interviews with STAT, Plotkin expressed dismay at seeing the achievements of his career & his field slip away. He knows what lies ahead… “All I can say is that I’m beginning to regret having lived so long —because we’re going downhill,” Plotkin said” @jackiantonovich.bsky.social

h/t @siobhanmcelduff.bsky.social

I genuinely cannot get over him launching a war from his house in Palm Beach.

it'll take years to truly comprehend just how many norms Trump shattered during his gangster administration but man, if news got out that *any* other modern president turned their personal golf club's VIP suite into a "makeshift" Situation Room... i mean jesus fuck, man. c'mon.

h/t @tnflorvil.bsky.social

h/t @rcolesworthy.bsky.social