Rev. AJ van Tine

There’s baaad theology behind this, too — focus on sinful nature and temptation, means men who wouldn’t still think they would/could, and men who might have a theological narrative for why they do (and how they might be forgiven anyway). Better to say: you’re capable of and responsible 4 being good.

When so many examples of so much inanity are out there, I'm stumped by the ongoing enthusiasm for substituting this for credible sources and actual thinking. (I use Duck Duck Go with the AI disabled as my search engine.)

A+ thread. UU Values as Anti-fascist theology. Read all 13 posts. Grateful for this cogent, succinct, but pretty exhaustive rendering.

Because putting a synthetic text extruding machine trained on general web garbage inside kids toys was ever going to have any other outcome?

Better to stick with extruding play-doh through plastic shapes.

The man who is unwilling to wear a flu mask usually is of the kind who expects everybody to listen to him when he speaks

Indianapolis Star, November 22, 1918

Anyway, going through and unsubscribing to a bunch of stuff with this submitted as the reason (other): “Turned off Gmail AI features, which apparently means they take away the sorted inboxes for marketing emails, etc. Mad about a bunch of sudden unsubscriptions? Blame Google.”

Well, since I turned off AI features & scraping on Gmail, it turns out they hold the “sort your emails into primary, social updates, advertisements” feature hostage. That feature has been around longer than the LLM slop era, so I call bs that they’re related. 1/2

Solidarity from Rochester on the headaches of HVAC systems that are 60+ years old. Will our remaining 4/5 heat zones that still work survive this winter, before we finally update it while simultaneously undertaking the capital campaign to pay for it in the spring? Let's find out!

I mean, I already can do that. But also what this product/device/whatever is promising to do… I am skeptical that’s what it actually does. So like, sure, assume the answer is yes — does your product actually do that or is it just a fancy chatbot?

"AI is the asbestos in the walls of our technological society, stuffed there with wild abandon by a finance sector and tech monopolists run amok. We will be excavating it for a generation or more." - Cory Doctorow

Entire speech is well worth reading.

pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...

Falling water, but the whole thing is a hobbit hole instead.

Barbarian (2022). I love well done horror. But this one too well done. Genuinely don’t recommend watching it, (though I do think it’s a well made movie) because you have to know you’re acting against your better interests by watching it.

Federal agents arrest citizen observer watching ICE detain neighbors on her north Minneapolis block Susan Tincher, a 55-year-old American citizen, appears to be the first observer arrested by federal immigration enforcement officers since the agency launched an immigration surge in the Twin Cities l...

“She has marks on her neck and wrist from where agents restrained her. Agents cut off her wedding ring and held her in leg shackles at Whipple Federal Building for about five hours.”

Her crime: witnessing ICE, from a distance.

Wilbur Rare Book Collection Donated to Harvard Divinity School Library | Harvard Divinity School Gift from Starr King School for the Ministry deepens Harvard Divinity School’s collection of early modern religious and Unitarian history.

We are thrilled to announce that Starr King School for the Ministry recently donated the Earl Morse Wilbur Rare Book Collection to our @hdslibrary.bsky.social.

The collection is comprised of approximately 1,300 volumes documenting the development of Unitarianism and Unitarian Universalism.

Folks might not know a lot of people are getting *very* upset that the materials they request are not available in the libraries/archives they're requesting from.

We're getting lots here at the Library of Virginia: requests of documents likely surfaced by large language models that *do not exist*.

It is newsworthy that the president of the United States is increasingly verbally abusive of women reporters and he should be asked about it.

I wrote “I am conscious” on a price of paper and put it in my photocopier. It printed out a paper that said “I am conscious.” Literally shaking rn does this mean my copier is sentient? (/sarcasm)

I wrote “I am conscious” on a price of paper and put it in my photocopier. It printed out a paper that said “I am conscious.” Literally shaking rn does this mean my copier is sentient? (/sarcasm)

Lethal force is the LAST option Coasties want to use. Here to save people, not to kill them.... it's not that hard honestly.

Interdictions like this happen all the time with no loss of life.

Interdiction has been part of the CG's mission for decades (since 1971, although really, since Prohibition) without making it the goal to sink boats & kill everyone onboard.

Kinda makes you wonder why the Pentagon couldn't take a lesson from the experts....

The saying in my family was always “you wanna blow something up? Call the navy. You wanna save someone’s life? Call the coast guard.” Guess that also goes for “rescuing” literal tons of drugs.

This thread up and down.

Also, I've been beating this drum about the danger to the information ecosystem for six and half years now. A few links below:

Never leave your house. Engage in no experience of community or locality. Screw your eyeballs to the advertising slop pump. My son read Grapes of Wrath in 5 flash cards. We can territorialize your every waking moment.

What kills me about this post and repost is that Anthony already cleared them both on this point in his excellent co-authored piece in the Cornell Law Review (online) just this summer. But Ilan is seeking a name for himself. And Barnett…well…
publications.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawreview/wp...

“ACIP has recommended a universal birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine since 1991, after realizing a risk-based strategy wasn’t working. Annual hepatitis B infections among infants and children have dropped 99% from 16,000 to less than 20.”

America is an idea, and anyone who believes in it should have a home here.

my paternal great grandparents got off a boat in Newark and were americans from the moment they touched american soil. my only objection to that pattern is that i think we should send a plane to pick up anyone who declares themselves an american.

It starts with knowing the truth. Don’t allow yourselves to be gaslit into believing this is a real question.

Seriously, if traditional religion isn’t your bag, but “humanistic moral revival” is, and you’re looking for values-centered community of meaning making…. Check us out!

Many of us are already! Unitarian Universalist clergy here. Whether the revival is particularly unified or coordinated yet may be another question, but I think it’s on its way.