Depravity's Religious Tipping Point; MS Firing Squad; Free School for Non-Taxpayers; Snowden Russidout; Missiled Christians; The Amazon in Iran; Hamas Watch; Netanyahu Nears Indictment; Erdogan Forever; Hardy Crop Hope; Pollinating Drones; Medicine Maker; World's Daily Cheese; and Maybe Possibly a Picture of a Secret

Society

Most American Religious Groups Support Same-sex Marriage, Oppose Religiously Based Service Refusals prri.org

Overall, a majority (58 percent) of Americans support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. Among religious groups, Unitarian/Universalists (94 percent), Buddhists (85 percent), Jews (73 percent), Hindus (67 percent), white mainline Protestants (63 percent), white Catholics (63 percent), Hispanic Catholics (62 percent), and Orthodox Christians (59 percent) all have majorities supporting same-sex marriage. Black Protestants (45 percent), Muslims (44 percent), and Hispanic Protestants (41 percent) are somewhat divided. Only three religious groups–Mormons (37 percent favor, 55 percent oppose), white evangelical Protestants (31 percent favor, 61 percent oppose), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (25 percent favor, 53 percent oppose)–show majority opposition for same-sex marriage. Combined, these three religious groups comprise only 19 percent of the general population.

Trump's False Gospel; Sporting Pronoun Pins; The White People Problem; Life Programmer Wanted; Under the Sea; Lasering Plankton from Space; China's EmDrive; Robot Shopper; Amazon's Force; Kim Jung Un's 300+ Political Fears; and Fragments in a Cave

False Religion

Televangelist Paula White Joins Trump Inauguration Day Plans hollywoodreporter

Prosperity gospel preachers Paula White, a friend of Trump's, and Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, whose Detroit church hosted the Republican in September, will be among six faith leaders selected to participate in the Jan. 20 inauguration. It will be the first time preachers who spread the prosperity gospel will be included in the ceremony.

While the faith movement is widely popular, many Christians consider it heretical. Ministers in the tradition often hold up their own wealth as evidence their teachings work. Trump had campaigned in part on his record as a wealthy real estate developer and businessman.

For more on the heretical teachings of people like Paula White, see: The Devilish Puppet Master of the Word-Faith Movement (Justin Peters) gty.org

Holocaust Denial Result; Tunnel Tales; Declaring War on New Zealand; NK Sees Nuclear Opportunity; Secret Deals No Longer; China's Moon-Mars Hop; Position by the Centimeter; Mech Wars; Murder on Echo's Watch; Gene Drive Made EZ; Diamond Wires; Push, Pull, Power; AI Job Loss...or Not; The 3-Day Wait Free Speech; and Andy Stanely Opens His Mouth Again

Google

Holocaust Denial Article No Longer in Google’s Top Search Results forward

Now, when users search “Did the Holocaust happen?” they must first scroll through articles about the search controversy, two articles by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ushmm.org, and a wikipedia page on Holocaust denial before they arrive at the Stormfront article.

What's interesting about this is the potential ramifications if, say, people started complaining that the top results were "anti-homosexual" or promoted only one Way (John 14:16) or the like. I'm all for Holocaust denial (AKA anti-semetic) sites being treated as the "fake news" they are, but to intervene to control how specific results get sorted up (or down) seems to be a slipperly slope.

20 Too Many, Yet Better; Licensed Priest in Horns; Jews, Forever; Short-Term Government; 8 Secret Data Requests; Wet-Dry Military; Forget Your Troubles; Robotic Touch; The Uber Blow Off; Google Spin Out; and No...It's Amazon Air

Abortion

Ohio Gov. Kasich Signs 20-Week Abortion Limit, Rejects 'Heartbeat Bill' npr.org

The so-called heartbeat bill, which Kasich rejected, was considered more vulnerable to legal challenge. Provisions of the measure would have essentially limited the period during which women could get an abortion to about six weeks, when many women don't even realize they're pregnant, reports the Associated Press.

Pentagon's Wasted $125 B; Hate Speech Pull; Augmented Peep; Drop, Shop, and Roll; Try This and Call Me in the Morning; Growing Clusters; Jacob's Sheep Return; Burqa Merkel; and Syrian Truce Vetoed

Government

Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste washingtonpost

Pentagon leaders had requested the study to help make their enormous back-office bureaucracy more efficient and reinvest any savings in combat power. But after the project documented far more wasteful spending than expected, senior defense officials moved swiftly to kill it by discrediting and suppressing the results.

Christmas Unity; Globalization Rally Cry; The Failing Justice League; EU's Grip; RT Swipe; Red Square Drill; Bomb Rain; Settling Outposts; New Order in Town; Programming Required; Alt-Right All Twittered Out; Big Gas; Animals See Again; Satellite Palooza; Smart Men Hit Asteroid; Space Engine; Faster Than Concorde; and Plant Robots Dreams

False Unity

Amazon Christmas advert 2016: Imam and priest push festive message of friendship independent.co.uk v

A spokesman for Amazon told The Independent: "Our casting reflects this: the gentleman playing the vicar is a practising vicar in London, the gentleman playing the imam is a devout Muslim and the principal of a Muslim school. We used an actual church and mosque for our scenes within the places of worship."

Oh, Amazon...

Sloth Attack; Dead End; Mapping an Ancient Battle; Amazon's Minute of Human Interaction; The Spy Base Theory; Threats to Shoot; Afghan's Going AWOL; and Jailed Disturbing Inner Peace

Society

[OPINION] America’s ‘quiet catastrophe’: Millions of idle men washingtonpost

After 88 consecutive months of the economic expansion that began in June 2009, a smaller percentage of American males in the prime working years (ages 25 to 54) are working than were working near the end of the Great Depression illinois.edu in 1940, when the unemployment rate was above 14 percent. If the labor-force participation rate were as high today as it was as recently as 2000, nearly 10 million more Americans would have jobs.

Wells Fargo the First; Sanctioning Businesses; Duterte Goes Off the Defensive; Turkey Extension; Babi Yar; Hyper-elastic Bone; Only as Well as Your Tool; Working Bored; and Team AI

Banking

Wells Fargo’s Scandal Is a Harbinger of Doom time v

In the financial sector, scandal is the gift that keeps on giving. Publicly shamed by Senator Elizabeth Warren senate.gov after his bank opened as many as 2 million unauthorized accounts to goose profits, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, who had been reluctant to part with any of his own compensation following revelations of the scandal, has finally agreed to give up unvested equity worth about $41 million, and forgo his $2.8 million salary while the bank is being investigated. Warren called the act “a small step in the right direction, but nowhere near real accountability,” and said he should return every dime he’s made during the period where fraud was happening.

Also see California's Sanctions Against Wells Fargo theatlantic and Wells Fargo may not be the end: Clawbacks expected to become a bigger issue usatoday

Ohio's Abortion Wrestle; Mission Tennesse: Divide, Conqueror, Abort!; Pokemon Go Politician; Watching from Above; Obama's Illegal War Legacy; Singapore Taxi Bot; Pizza in the Sky With Dialings; Wearables for Wheelchairs; Unborn 3D; Squishy Bot; and Stretchy Sensor

Society

Attorney General Mike DeWine appeals ruling supporting Cleveland abortion clinic's fight cleveland

DeWine this week asked the Ohio Supreme Court to review a decision from a Cuyahoga County appeals court cuyahogacounty.us that allowed the case to proceed. In a 2-1 decision, the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals ruled that Preterm-Cleveland had standing to sue the state.

Also see Ohio AG Mike DeWine Files Appeal to Protect Pro-life Laws nationalrighttolifenews.org

Trudeau's Pride; Public Accommodating Churches; Social Justice VBS; Religions Unite in Munich; Search Paranoia; Italy's Chaos; 100,000 Missile Threat; Manhattan Cleanup; Plasma, Que Rica!; Dumb AI = Smart AI; Stocking Up; Juno's Jupiter; and Buddha's Maybe Skull

Society

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau marches and dances in Toronto Pride parade 9news.au v

Thunderous applause greeted Mr Trudeau as he paraded down a main Toronto street on Sunday local time, waving a Canadian maple-leaf flag bordered with a rainbow.

Also see Syrian refugee marches beside Justin Trudeau in Canadian pride parade

Pipe Flares; Google and BOFA Jump On-board; Military Suicide; NK in Semi-War Mode; Obama and Xi Shake Their Fist Some More; Resurrecting the Book of the Dead; Theology without Christ; Programming Cells; Smoking DNA; AI vs AI; Automated Lawyer; NASA Too Eager?; Amazon and Microsoft Joining the Street Fight; and Blockchain

Caution: Today is April 1st - I've done my best to watch out for prank articles, but if you find one that I fell for on this list, let me know!

Terrorism

Incendiary devices found hanging on Tyngsborough power lines   bostonglobe

Federal, state, and local authorities Thursday said they could find nothing to suggest the devices were installed as part of a terror plot. But they said the incident, which involved objects resembling pipe bombs, had targeted a key electrical link between Canada and the Northeastern United States.

Also Incendiary Devices Found On Power Lines In Tyngsboro

Society

Google Ventures Bans Investments in North Carolina   recode.net

Google Ventures, now known as GV, has joined a growing list of tech and corporate heavyweights speaking out against North Carolina’s HB 2, a law that the companies say discriminates against transgender people in the state.

They continue to line up. See also Bank of America Joins Backlash Against North Carolina LGBT Law

U.S. military suicides remain high for 7th year   usatoday

The Pentagon reported Friday that 265 active-duty service members killed themselves last year, continuing a trend of unusually high suicide rates that have plagued the U.S. military for at least seven years.

Heartbreaking.

North Korea

North Korea to pursue nuclear and missile programmes   uk.reuters

North Korea will pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile programme in defiance of the United States and its allies, a top Pyongyang envoy said on Friday, adding that a state of "semi-war" now existed on the divided Korean peninsula.

Obama and Xi agree to fully crack down on North Korea   businessinsider

"Both leaders committed... to strengthen coordination in addressing the shared threat presented by North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile systems," the White House said.

Also see North Korea fires another missile into sea

Paganism

Spanish Archaeologists Try to Reconstruct Fragments of the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead   ancient-origins

For the last 14 years, twenty archaeologists, Egyptologists, and Spanish specialists have been working on the southern foot of the hill of Dra Abu el-Naga with a team of over a hundred Egyptian workers. During this time, they have united their efforts and been studying every part of the area, and scrutinizing every centimeter of a vast necropolis which is overflowing with burials from different eras.

There seems to be a certain obsession with translating this book lately...

Apostasy

Christianity is no longer compulsory for Oxford Theology students   christiantoday

The reduction in compulsory modules for second and third year students will enable other papers to be taken, including "feminist approaches to religion and theology" and "Buddhism in space and time".

Biology

A programming language for living cells   mit.edu

MIT biological engineers have created a programming language that allows them to rapidly design complex, DNA-encoded circuits that give new functions to living cells.

Smoking During Pregnancy Seems to Alter Fetal DNA   webmd

For the study, researchers collected blood samples from newborns, mainly from the umbilical cord. Compared to babies of nonsmokers, those born to regular smokers had over 6,000 spots where DNA was chemically modified.

AI

China To Face Off Against AlphaGo With Own AI Team   androidheadlines

An A.I. development team out of China, called China Computer Go Team, has announced that they have their own Go-playing A.I. in development. While an A.I. capable of playing Go at all is an accomplishment, this team has decided that’s not quite enough. Instead, they intend to develop their A.I. with the goal of challenging AlphaGO at its own native game.

Appeal Parking Tickets Via Bot in New York City   fortune

A parking-lawyer web robot that has saved British drivers nearly $4 million in fines over the past several months is now ready to help Americans, starting with New Yorkers, by appealing their tickets for free.

Complete with creepy eye icon for the bot

Space

ASAP concerned NASA is taking risks to meet Orion schedule   nasaspaceflight

NASA’s key advisory body has warned the agency that schedule pressure, in combination with cost pressure, is causing compromises that carry additional risk. Focusing on the Orion spacecraft, NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) claimed NASA is “taking risk after risk” to meet the schedule for Orion’s opening missions.

Automation

Amazon, Microsoft look for big data role in self-driving cars   reuters

Amazon, Microsoft look for big data role in self-driving cars

Banking

Blockchain--What You Need to Know   prnewswire

Spearheaded by Bitcoin, blockchains achieve consensus among distributed nodes, allowing the transfer of digital goods without the need for centralized authorisation of transactions.

Other...

Scientists may have just uncovered an ancient Viking site in North America   businessinsider

HOW DID THE APOLLO COMMAND AND SERVICE MODULES SEPARATE?   popsci

Interesting videos about something you never even once wondered about