The Jewish Anti-Defamation League removes wepages critical of right-wing extremism, to appease its... right-wing allies. What do you call a group on the same side as fascism, again? Oh yes... www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Earlier studies "may be incorrectly associating certain religious practices ... such as attending church on a regular basis or participating in church-related events [with] a person's willingness to accept evolution when it may have more to do with how they are interpreting the Bible"

1/2 NZ Listener does Flat Earthism. www.nzherald.co.nz/the-listener... (sub reqired) A major reason many Flat Earthers believe is that they also believe the Bible - which likewise presents the earth as a large flat circular plane under a big dome (or 'firmament'). Flat Earthism provides coherence.

Not only magic, Hans Dieter Betz! All religion, all culture, all nationalisms, all social interactions, all conspiracy theories, etc etc. These are the objects of study of the new discipline of Foibology: the Academic Study of Human Foibles. I am the world's first Foibologist. (This is my foible.)

What is a Rapture anyway? Here is an explanation that I wrote at the time of the last big Rapture hysteria - back in 2011: remnantofgiants.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/t... #Rapture #Jesus #SecondComing #ThirdComing #FourthComing #Bible

Celebrating Antifa! Those who defeated fascism in WWII: China and Russia. consortiumnews.com/2025/09/23/c...

"What Israel is doing in Gaza City is not the tragic byproduct of chaotic events on the ground, but a well-calculated act of annihilation, executed in cold blood by 'the people’s army' — that is, the fathers, sons, brothers, and neighbors of us Israelis." www.972mag.com/israel-holoc...

My approach to metacriticism has been profitably taken up by Prof James Crossley, in his demonstration of the manner that theologian Jacob Phillips should be treated as a tool - for academic analysis of capitalism, class and the Bible. Read more here: www.google.co.nz/books/editio...

UN Independent Commission of Inquiry: GENOCIDE

UN Independent Commission finding: GENOCIDE www.ohchr.org/sites/defaul...

How Māori chiefs responded to a missionary's descriptions of Hell, as described during a Sunday sermon in 1827. The account is from Augustus Earle:

Wait, 'Outstanding Supporting Actress'? Hannah Einbinder is the central protagonist in Hacks. I don't understand anymore. But fuck ICE and free Palestine.

The Otago Newsroom covers my "Length" and my "Girth" - just released in the ‘Worlds Above and Below: Supernatural Worlds in Classics, Judaism, and Early Christianity’ Special Issue of the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroo...

Charlie Kirk was a white supremacist hatemonger. His death, like all deaths, is a tragic reminder how short and fragile life is for all of us. It’s not hard to acknowledge that political violence is a terrible thing—and that is what made Kirk’s rhetoric dangerous and vile.

Banger list of writers here …

New classes! There’s price options for everyone! Sign up!

Christian groups increasingly lack smart people, so are forced to consult fools as their 'experts'.

New Banksy artwork to be removed from Royal Courts of Justice

It's official: I have a great route on the way home from work! thespinoff.co.nz/society/08-0...

The best music was in my teenage years. I KNEW I was right! #confirmationbias

Mark Goodacre has been making some worthwhile short videos on matters Jesus and New Testament. In his latest one, he pushes back at the common conclusion that Paul does not seem to know much about the life of Jesus: www.youtube.com/shorts/bOCCS...

New pizza joint in Dunedin: Poikōpiko Auahitūroa [Comet Ping-Pong]: At ground level, it looks like an ordinary pizza joint, but if you order in te reo, you get taken to the secret underground level - for boil-up and fry bread.

NEWS: Israeli Fascist Fuck criticizes New Zealand. -> New Zealand Govt finally on the right side!

An Otago Student General Meeting just passed a BDS motion 200 Ayes to a single Nay! This after executive council voted to disregard a BDS referendum. The hero of the day Politics Rep Jett Groshinski who called the meeting in defiance of exec. Hats off to Otago Students for Justice in Palestine.

Anybody else see the dolphin in Otago Harbour on Tuesday? Spotted on the way home, after 5pm. I was driving, so didn't snap a pic.

Following my "Girth" article on the Millennium in Revelation, I am very happy to reveal my "Length" (fully open access). In it, I offer an explanation for the 1000-year duration of the Millennium. Robbie Williams even gets a citation. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Having had Whooping Cough for three months, I am now mildly traumatized by hearing the chorus of Starburster. #fontainesdc #pertussis www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHoc...

Which book would you have Rosie the Riveter tread under her feet - like a serpent - today? Camus's Great Replacement? Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged? Orange Fuhrer's Art of the Deal? #Antifa

Lawyer Kingi Snelgar on Māori spirituality: as holism, anti-anthropocentrism, and decolonization. "The resources of the earth do not belong to humankind; rather, humans belong to the earth” - Mānuka Hēnare

What GIF pops up when you type your username in? I did not suspect that.

“It is the final triumph of a system of domination when the dominated start singing its virtues.” ― Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Decolonising the Mind

"The Nat-Act-NZFirst Vichy Coalition"

ICYMI: @mythsbaby.bsky.social and I had a great convo earlier this year about the complex history of ancient Palestine (with a very very quick run-through of about 2000 years) open.spotify.com/episode/1v7Q...

1/2 This is a great succinct summary of how Israel met its political end over 2750 years ago, @nabalkattu.bsky.social. Totally agree that the Assyrian-Babylonian analogy is most productive, yet writing something on how "New Zealander" shifted from meaning "Māori" to "European" in the 19thC.

"This landscape of destruction looks otherworldly. Yet it’s not. It is this world. And what is happening may yet come to define one of its darkest eras, one that casts a stain on humanity which will endure for generations."

1/2 "The Matthew Effect" is a sociological theory that "the rich get richer" applied to academics. Its name is taken from the formulation found in the Parable of the Talents (Matt 25:29). But why "Matthew"? It is also found in Luke 19:26, with similarities in Mark 4:25, Luke 8:18 & Matt 13:11-12.

“The more I learn about genocide, the more shocked and embarrassed I am by my own ignorance. Once I actively tried to be better informed about genocide, the picture in Gaza became terrifyingly clear” — powerful and brave personal essay by my NYU colleague Lihi Ben Shitrit for @forward.com

Our kitchen sink this morning was having a hierophany. #EliadeanKitchenSink

"How is the ancient kingdom of Israel relevant today–can you still be a part of it? Politically, no–that horse left the barn in 722 BCE. Religiously yes–but only as a creative imaginative act..." sethlsanders.wordpress.com/2025/08/01/w...

What is the Meaning of Ancient Israel? The main question in the history of the ancient Levant today is whether the existence of ancient kingdoms in Judah and Israel has modern political implications. 🧵

Parsnip soup tonight! And tomorrow night... and tomorrow night... and tomorrow night... and tomorrow night... and tomorrow night... and tomorrow night... and tomorrow night... and tomorrow night!!

Himmler is orgasming in his grave: "Who said spirituality and ethnic cleansing don't go together? Israel is full of spiritual types who view the annihilation of the other as a form of personal growth" Destroying Gaza 'With Love': Israel's New YogiNazis www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025...

I’m teaching genocide this coming semester. The only way out is through. You teach what must be taught, as it must be taught, and manage crises as they emerge… Not being at an Ivy or flagship state R1 will help.

Kaimanawa Wall in the news: www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3607... “There’s none so blind as those who don’t want to see” - Bruce Hayward

Just when you thought the term "antisemitism" can't get any more meaningless in the face of Israeli genocide apologetics, I see Mark Leuchter's just had an article published that opens with someone joking that Chronicles is a bit of a useless book, and Mark has a wee rant that it's 'antisemitic'!

"In the fields, the bodies burning As the war machine keeps turning Death and hatred to mankind Poisoning their brainwashed minds" www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/...

Fuckin' A: Hunter Biden on immigrants

Conspiracy Theories and Religion! So this caught my attention. Just when I had thought Theology couldn't get any more ridiculous: doi.org/10.1515/opth... Apologist Nathan Rockwood seeks to disprove something that Jesus scholars show little interest in: that the resurrection is a conspiracy.

Hebrew and social identity. Thinking about extension of this to all 'Canaanite' (or Canaanitish) dialects in NW Semitic, too, incl esp Mesha & Ataruz, Deir 'Alla.