223 Easter 6: No! is an Instinct

“Oh, sing to the Lord a new song! For He has done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory.” ~ Psalm 98

No! is an Instinct

It is all too easy to do what you are told.

You’ve been programmed to obey your entire life.

Don’t ask those questions. Don’t explore other options. Accept the darkness. Go along to get along.

Learning to say, “No,” is one of the most important Christian virtues you can hone. The way to resist the wicked, the ignorant and the foolish is to not do what you’re told from the moment you know who they are. The same is true for the devil.

The Bible will help you with all of that, very much.

Be the boundary. Build a wall. Stick out and stand up. If you’ve got a whistle to blow, use it. If you’ve got a song in your heart, sing it. You have an ark to build.

Believe in it!

Being free to say, “No,” is a mindset. It is not politically correct. You will have to dare yourself to do it more often to even discover how poorly you do it. But the more you exercise the right to draw your own lines, the more you draw your lines with the Truth of the Bible, the more your capacity to imagine a hopeful future will blossom in unexpected joy of seeing the “Yes!” that matters more often once you’ve freed up your soul from everyone else’s projected expectations.

Till angel cry and trumpet sound,

The Mad Christian

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Race

Republicans in the House have responded to campus protests by pushing to adopt a new “anti-semitism” bill, which has thoughtful observers worried. Language in the bill to ban “hate speech” is overly broad, aiming to combat a “certain perception of Jews” but also aiming to curb criticism of Israel. (The Federalist)

The current bill is similar to one previously passed under President Trump and relies on a definition of anti-semitism set by a European human rights group. (FIRE)

Rumors that the Bill will criminalize the preaching of the Bible are likely overblown as this law applies to educational institutions. However, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition says “claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel” is “associated with classic antisemitism”. You may remember that Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” was branded as portraying Jews “unfavorably” and potentially fanning flames of hatred by the Anti-Defamation League. As some have warned, attacks on constitutionally-protected speech set a dangerous precedent that may spill into churches and elsewhere. (Kansas City Star, IHRA, ADL)

Coming to America

President Biden has expanded the Affordable Care Act to extend health coverage to recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as Daca. (The Guardian)

President Biden is also considering accepting refugees from Gaza, if they have American relatives. So it begins.. (The Telegraph)

Thunderdome 2024

The prosecution in Donald Trump’s New York “hush money” case has revealed that the lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels urged her to squeeze Trump for money before the 2016 election. Attorney Keith Davidson said he believed Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton and Daniels would waste her leverage. The prosecution have argued that money paid to Daniels was an effort to influence the presidential election. (PJ Media)

Judge Juan Merchan who is overseeing Trump’s New York prosecution has said that he may attend his son Barron Trump’s graduation this month. Judge Merchan has required Trump to be present every day the trial is in session or face arrest, limiting campaigning opportunities and such. Judge Merchan said that since the trial is proceeding as scheduled, Trump may attend the graduation later this month. (Epoch Times, Newsweek)

If you can’t beat them join ‘em? Republican “get out to vote” campaigns have persuaded thousands of “low-propensity” voters to sign up for absentee mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania. (The Federalist)

A new Rasmussen Reports poll claims a fifth of mail-in voters engaged in fraudulent practices in the 2020 presidential election. Respondents admitted to filling in ballots for others and voting in states where they no longer lived. (The Federalist)

Births, Deaths and Marriages

Texas, Louisiana, Nebraska and Florida have all said they will not comply with President Biden’s new Title IX rules. The change to the guidelines would see government funding stripped from educational institutions that refuse to allow boys to compete with girls. The law also reverts to Obama-era “kangaroo courts” on campuses where students accused of non-consensual sex have little recourse to defend themselves. (WNG)

Five elementary school girls in West Virginia have been punished for not competing against a boy in rural middle school athletics competition. This could come to your town. “Decent folks want to live and let live…It's much easier to complain about the decaying state of their country than to do anything about it. They don't have time to be on any committees anyway.” Start by praying for it to fail. (Not the Bee)

One in three babies born in the US in 2023 was delivered by C-section. There are a number of reasons cited: insurance claims and doctors defaulting to a repeat “if you have already had a C-section.” But mothers are also sicker with conditions like “gestational diabetes and hypertensive disorders in pregnancy on the rise.” A number of studies “already suggest that the presence of doulas” lowers the incidence of C-section. (Axios)

Two Arizona Republicans joined all Democrat Representatives to overturn a 1864 law which would have given nearly total protection to the unborn. The law will revert to abortion allowed after 15 weeks. (WNG)

Crime and Punishment

A new investigative report has uncovered that the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Kristin Clarke, lied under oath during her 2021 confirmation hearing. Clarke told Senators at the time that she had “never been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime” when she actually had been arrested in 2006 for attacking her then husband with a knife. Clarke oversees violations of the FACE act, which prohibits pro-life activists from standing too close to abortion mills. She has criticized pregnancy help centers and in 2022 charged nine pro-life protestors for blocking the entrance of a New York abortion facility. (Daily Signal, Washington Free Beacon)

Money, Markets and Jobs

Prop One, a bill that allocates billions to tackle fund housing and mental health services for homelessness Californians, has passed but only by a whisker. Homelessness has only grown worse under Governor Gavin Newsom’s watch and it appears Californians are seeing that “housing only” is a failed strategy. Michele Steeb who worked with charities for more than a decade says that unless housing is conditioned on sobriety and attending mental health services, it helps no one. (New York Times, The Federalist)

A second Boeing-linked whistleblower has died after a short illness. Joshua Dean, an engineer and quality auditor had testified to improper safety standards at Spirit AeroSystems, which works side-by-side on Boeing’s aircraft. After being hospitalized with breathing difficulties, Dean contracted pneumonia and MRSA bacterial infection. (Seattle Times, ZeroHedge)

The US Federal Reserve has decided to keep interest rates steady at the current two-decade high of 5.3%. (AP)

A new report has found that the best jobs at the moment are in mental health and engineering. They are also considered fairly safe from AI replacement which probably highlights some important differences between humans and robots! (Fast Company)

New survey finds one quarter of Americas over 50 expect to never retire. (ABC News)

Religion and the Church

The United Methodist church has reversed its doctrinal stance dispensing with the biblical definition of marriage. Voters overwhelmingly agreed to allow the ordination of homosexuals and to remove censures for clergy who perform same-sex weddings. Last year, the denomination lost over 7,000 congregations that left because they wanted to remain faithful to the word of God. An African bishop from Liberia chastised his church body for making every attempt “to alter that biblical truth” stating the obvious fact that a denomination cannot have two contradictory practices. (RNS, RNS, WNG, Not the Bee)

A great presentation of the history and importance of The Filioque. Dr Aaron Moldenhauer highlights how the ancient arguments continue in the light of feminism and other modern ideologies. (Issues Etc)

Monday and you’re ready for battle!

The Digital Age

A new study showed that when phones were banned from Norwegian schools, test grades rose. The study’s author also noted a drop in incidences of bullying as well as a “significant decline” in consultations “related to diagnosis and treatment for psychological symptoms and diseases”. The results were more pronounced for girls than for boys. (Norwegian Institute of Public Health)

Google has delayed phasing out third-party cookies yet again. Tech commentator Ben Evans said: “I'm starting to suspect that this will happen at the same time as autonomous cars and AGI - it's a couple of years away, and always will be. Regardless of Google’s muddling, companies are moving to collect first-party data directly from customers, which is seen as more valuable. (AdWeek, Ad Exchanger)

Google paid Apple $20bn in 2022 to be the default search engine for Safari. (MacRumors)

The Internet Archive seems to be digging its own grave after a flimsy defense against a copyright lawsuit. (Lunduke)

Large Language Models like ChatGPT need better use cases to be considered more than “automated interns”. Tech writer Ben Evans says “it’s not the user’s job to work out how a new tool is useful.” (Ben Evans)

Speaking of use cases, does anyone need “audio emoji”? (9to5 Google)

Are you human? Expect Captchas to become more intricate (and frustrating) as AI bots get smarter. (The Hustle)

LinkedIn, the networking site for professionals, has launched games to help people take a break and also connect to others. (The Hustle)

Fallout, but in Excel. (Storyteller blog)

Arts, History and Sport

Critics believe we’re experiencing a golden age of “mid-TV”. “It’s not dumb easy — it shows evidence that its writers have read books. But the story beats are familiar. Plot points and themes are repeated. You don’t have to immerse yourself single-mindedly the way you might have.” Although there is a big name cast, exotic locations and good dialogue, finding shows that you don’t actually just want “to fold laundry to” is proving difficult. We guess that’s easier to tune out the FOMO if you know there’s nothing on the tube, but it got us thinking about whether a society that prizes “feeling safe” can produce anything interesting. (Kottke, MadPx)

Printing music using CSS Grid. (Cruncher)

The NFL will allow padding on helmets to reduce risk of concussion. (The Blaze)

How silk helped Genghis Khan conquer Asia. Silk underclothes prevented the worst injuries from arrows but ancient Chinese artisans also knew that the fabric has healing properties when processed in a certain way. (Lit Hub)

Last week in history:

1997 London’s Big Ben clock was stuck at 12:11pm for 43 minutes. (History)

1999 The body of British mountaineer George Mallory was found on Mt Everest. It is uncertain whether Mallory made it to the summit during his climb in 1924, almost thirty years before Edmund Hilary. (The Guardian)

Health, Medicine and Food

The US Drug Enforcement Administration is moving to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug. Currently pot is a Schedule I drug, along with heroin and LSD but would be downgraded to Schedule III “alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids.” While the proposal has a couple more hurdles to overcome, President Biden has been keen to change the rules, saying in December that criminal records for use or possession “imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities.” The Associated Press also noted that the President was hoping to boost his popularity with young voters. (AP)

AstraZeneca has admitted in a UK High Court document that their covid vaccine causes blood clots in some people. (Epoch Times)

A US national advisory panel has recommended that women should begin breast cancer screenings from 40 years old rather than at 50. The new guidelines are “propelled in part by concern over rising rates of breast cancer among younger women.” (Stat News)

Life without eating: A man living with Crohn’s Disease writes about times when he was sustained via catheter. “In addition to sensory deprivation, not eating is social deprivation. In a survey of 51 patients on enteral nutrition, most patients complained that they were socially isolated and experienced a loss of identity. What you cook, how you cook for others, and when you eat provide structure to your days and a sense of self. Food is a form of communication. Without it, you are adrift and missing a functional language.” (Long Reads)

Baseball to put you to sleep? This podcast plays a full-length fake game for (Sleep Baseball)

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From the Mad☧Tank

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Science

“Scientists have long known that the brain plays a part in the immune system — but how it does so has been a mystery. Now, scientists have identified cells in the brain stem that sense immune cues from the periphery of the body and act as master regulators of the body’s inflammatory response.” (Nature)

China wants to be the first to bring rocks back from Mars. (Interesting Engineering)

The world’s highest observatory has begun operating at an altitude of around 18,000 feet in Chile’s Atacama Desert. “Thanks to the height and arid environment, TAO will be the only ground-based telescope in the world capable of clearly viewing mid-infrared wavelengths, [the] area of the spectrum is extremely good for studying the environments around stars, including planet-forming regions”. (Physics World)

Hearts and Minds

Creating habits in an age of distraction. (Intellectual Takeout)

Five stages of burnout. “We are often so goal-oriented and time-directed that we don't slow down and consider the aspects of our work and our lives that we do enjoy.” (Well + Good)

Always getting lost? Researchers say good navigators might be made not born. (Smithsonian)

God’s Green Earth

Sand is so hot right now.. The illegal trade in sand is on the rise and there are concerns that the world could run out of the essential material in concrete, glass and asphalt. Sea sand and desert sand are both unsuitable for building, “Using either can lead to weak structures, like those that exacerbated Turkey’s 2023 earthquake disaster.” (The Hustle)

Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear plant has fired up its fourth reactor. “The new Vogtle units are the first new commercial reactors built from scratch in the U.S. in more than three decades.” (Atlanta Journal-Constitiution)

A Canadian company is building large-scale compressed air batteries. (Wired)

Super rare Blue Rock Thrush spotted in Vancouver, Washington, and is only the second sighting ever in North America. (PetaPixel)

Scientists have discovered a new contender for deepest sinkhole in the ocean. (CBS)

A Nebraska conductor has films a tornado passing right over his train. (ViralHog)

War and Rumors of War

Finnair is suspending flights around the Baltic Sea due to GPS interference. GPS jamming and spoofing is presenting new hazards for shipping, aviation, and further afield. “Many do not realize that GNSS is not only used in your mobile phone for navigation, but is also a primary source of time synchronization for vital infrastructure: power grid systems, data centers, automatic train control systems, communication systems—especially 5G—financial services, and any distributed management and control systems.” (Finnair via X, Wired)

US secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged Hamas to accept a freshly-proposed ceasefire deal with Israel. (USA Today)

President Biden is looking to lock in America’s commitment to Ukraine war for ten years. (ZeroHedge)

Stories from Far Away

🇧🇷🇰🇪 Flooding in southern Brazil has claimed as many as 75 lives. Heavy rain has also brought floods to East African countries including Kenya where over 200 people have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes. (The Guardian, CNN)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousef has resigned. Corporate media chalked his failure to divisions in his coalition over climate change and transgender rules. However, Scots have been a bit miffed with Yousef’s woke policies including oppressive hate speech rules, which we wrote up previously. (AP, Sky News)

🇮🇪 Protests continue in Ireland over plans to house immigrants in small towns. (The Journal)

🇩🇰Denmark is restricting the use of weight loss drug, Ozempic only after patients had tried cheaper alternatives. (Semafor)

🇸🇻 El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele has announced investigations into every member of the executive branch to battle corruption. Bukele says he does not fear death but fears leaving a bad legacy. (Not the Bee)

🇷🇺 Old and rare Russian books are being stolen from European libraries. “Shelves of 19th-century Russian-language literature had been ransacked over two years across several countries and replaced with fakes.” (The Guardian)

🇬🇪 Georgians are divided over a new bill which would require organizations to disclose if they are funded by foreigners. Advocates say the bill will increase transparency, but others say it is something out of Russia’s playbook and will quash Tbilisi's ambitions of joining the EU. (BBC)

📽️ Live-action 1950s Simpsons

🖥️ An artist gets ChatGPT and Midjourney talking

🪿 Who was Mother Goose?

🧱 25 years of Star Wars Lego

🇬🇧…And teenager finds rare Lego octopus washed up from cargo ship which sank in 1997

🚄 A German teenager who lives on trains

🚘 A century of Oldsmobiles

🪡Shades of grey: cross-stitches of CCTV footage

🇦🇺Australia snake bite victims urged not to bring the reptile with them to hospital

📮 Utah cat returned home after being posted to California accidentally

⛪ Brutalist churches

🇺🇸Road trip: America’s most scenic drives

Jonathan and Meridith wore their hearts on their sleeves for Stop the White Noise (YouTube or Rumble) last week, discussing communication in marriage, trauma and identity and what to do when war is near.

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Our disclaimer: These are some resources the Fisks have found edifying, but when dealing with human-authored texts, apply discernment liberally!

This Week Preached:

Not Made Crooked

The End is Nigh

Podcast Release:

Seances and other Hoodoo – When America Talked to Ghosts

The Swarming of Past-Posers

Let us pray. O God, the giver of all that is good, by Your holy inspiration grant that we may think those things that are right and by Your merciful guiding accomplish them; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

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