Rev. AJ van Tine

When I was doing Clinical Pastoral Education at Brigham and Women’s in Boston, my cohort all thought a medial drama that focused on a diverse team of interfaith chaplains (both staff and interns, of course) at a large hospital would be a great concept for a show.

This is your regular reminder that whenever you watch a medical drama and a chaplain character just, like, never appears, that's weird.

Chaplains are a constant presence in hospitals. They're considered part of the care team, and it's super odd that (most) medical shows pretend that isn't the case.

This man does not intrinsically value human life. Maybe he values it as something to exploit for profit. But the way he talks about humans makes it clear her does not place inherent value on humanity.

This man very clearly does not intrinsically value human life

Let's try this again 👋

Hi Bluesky - I'm Massachusetts' Attorney General. You might know me from suing President Trump nearly 50 times, beating Uber and Lyft in court, or being the first woman of color elected to statewide office in MA.

I officially left X today - help me find my MA people?

Vatican News No to homilies prepared with Artificial Intelligence The Pope therefore invited the priests to enter into real life and called for vigilance when confronted with artificial intelligence and internet use. He warned against "the temptation to prepare homilies with Artificial Intelligence". "Like all the muscles in the body, if we do not use them, if we do not move them, they die. The brain needs to be used, so our intelligence must also be exercised a little so as not to lose this capacity," he said. Moreover, "to give a true homily is to share faith," and Al "will never be able to share faith," he insisted. "If we can offer a service that is inculturated in the place, in the parish where we are working, people want to see your faith, your experience of having known and loved Christ." vaticannews.va

PAPA LEONE YES

Incredible opinion. It holds that the common ICE tactic of jumping out of an unidentified rental vehicle and seizing suspected noncitizens while masked violates the Fourth Amendment because the *manner* of the seizure is incompatible with a free society governed by the rule of law.

begging everyone to read the excellent book “31 Days,” about the interval between Nixon’s resignation and the pardon, because Ford also knew this and that’s why he didn’t want to do it. the pressure on him to cave and say yes was so diabolical

(Though .com also redirects to their website) *resurfaces from rabbit hole dive* it’s a B corp, which I guess is something?

a cartoon character welcomes you to homestarrunner Alt: a cartoon character welcomes you to homestarrunner.net with the tagline “it’s dot com!”

Dot org, that is!

What Democrats Can Learn from the Struggles of Britain's Labor Party | Right Now With Perry Bacon In the latest episode, Perry speaks with US & UK politics writer, podcast host, and TNR contributor Toby Buckle.

abandoning immigrants & trans people won't save centre left parties

i chatted with @perrybaconjr.bsky.social on how uk labour proves appeasement is a dead-end

newrepublic.substack.com/p/what-democ...

IYKYK

chart from yougov showing americans estimate the proportion of basically any subgroup as 20-60% no matter the true proprotion (0-90%) https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/41556-americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population

i think about this chart all the time today.yougov.com/politics/art...

Whole Foods AI stores were entirely Indians watching on video feeds and ringing you up. Waymos have live human support partially driving them. And the AI that has “Hollywood shaking in its boots” is…stock footage. With face replacement.

Yeah. We are sooooooo cooked, AI bros. Call me when it works.

Do you hold the left-leaning non-voters more responsible than the voters who voted for Trump? If so, why? If it’s because they are more likely to voted/to be persuaded/organized to vote Blue, then… is the idea that blaming them is the best way to encourage them to vote next time? Genuinely curious.

So the question becomes, who is more at fault? I think electeds and therefore candidates serve the constituents, not the other way around, and so the responsibility lies more with the candidates. (And I agree with Toby that candidates should lead and frame the debate, not just follow polling)

To be clear, I say both sides are at fault, & I am not an abstainer. People who didn’t vote in 2016 and 2024 are at fault for letting Trump win. But also Clinton and Harris are at fault for running campaigns that *lost*. Campaigns win by mobilizing enough people to vote for them. That’s their job!

VBNMW is a terrible rallying cry because it literally says something doesn’t matter, and it just says to vote against a candidate rather than for a candidate.

Again, it is how I will chose to vote in a FPTP system (RCV would remove the need for it entirely), but imo it’s always premature rhetoric.

Like, saying the primaries don’t actually matter 2 years before it even happens seems like a bad way to engage voters in the primary or even general election.

I think there’s also another question, which is — who is responsible for winning over voters? By the time we come to Election Day I agree with the praxis of maximizing preferred outcomes, but any day before that candidates need to be earning votes and building their coalition.

Writing is thinking.

It's not some marginal boring task you can skip. It's the heart of it.

BROKE: debating deontological vs consequentialism implications of voter behavior

WOKE: debating deontology itself vs consequentialism itself

BESPOKE: virtue ethics

You Know What? Maybe the Time Is Right for an AOC Presidential Bid She’s only 36, and there’s a good argument that she should run for Senate and bide her time. But she also could be a formidable White House candidate.

from the perspective of someone who might want to be president, the best time to run for the white house is now, not later. so if AOC is thinking about it — if the white house is her ambition — then her best bet is to throw her hat in the ring

she'd be 39 on taking office - the youngest president, but not by *that* much

roosevelt & kennedy were 42 & 43 respectively

Literally millions of people believe ChatGPT is a search engine that has been improved by a thinking machine to ensure it only gives you the best, most accurate result.

It's horrifying.

It's the ultimate form of disconnect between elected and constituents -- forgetting (or actively rejecting) that everyone is always a constituent themselves, even if they become an elected (or pundit, or thought leader, or whatever). Saying "I'm a vacuum to be filled with public thought" is a lie.

transformative political movements, both on the left & right (reagan, thatcher, fdr, attlee) have always made & won an argument about what people *should* be voting on

it's a bit like we have this debate about *do* voters vote on protecting democracy vs more regular political issues

skipping straight over the question of what *should* people be voting on

the electorate isn't some inert thing, low-info swing voters did not fall from heaven fully-formed

“Vehemently anti-AI,” presumably. Who will speak for these students? Read the thread to see how we are failing them.