Reading Time: 6 minutes In the wake of 9/11, the world did not go gently into the US invasion of Iraq, but messaging around the “war on terror”, which had started with Afghanistan, certainly built momentum to that end. On the weekend of February 15, 2003, anti-war protests across 600 cities saw six to ten million protesters pushing back […]
News
The latest breaking news and journalistic reporting from a secular perspective at OnlySky, a secular community for nonreligious Americans.
Posted inLaw
SCOTUS agrees to rule on yet another Christian privilege demand
Reading Time: 4 minutes Here we go again. The endless campaign by devout Christians to get special treatment in American commerce and the public square continues unabated, despite, over decades, multiple court cases unequivocally rejecting most of these serial entreaties. But it’s a new day in the judiciary, notably at the top of the hierarchy: the Supreme Court of […]
Posted inThe Future
A deluge of artificial stories: The chatbot crisis at Clarkesworld
Reading Time: 5 minutes Two days ago, Clarkesworld shut its doors to tackle a rising tide of story submissions that had all the hallmarks of being generated by chatbots. The surge happened especially as ChatGPT functionality became more widely accessible in the last few months. Solutions have not yet emerged to this problem, but my industry of speculative writers, […]
Posted inNews
The Mormon Church hides $32 billion and is fined $5 million
Reading Time: 2 minutes The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fined the Mormon Church (Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS)) $5 million for hiding $32 billion from the federal government by using 13 shell companies. “We allege that the LDS Church’s investment manager, with the Church’s knowledge, went to great lengths to avoid disclosing the Church’s investments, depriving […]
Posted inEnvironment
Too many people
Reading Time: 2 minutes Wealthy, well-developed nations are nearing ZPG (zero population growth), which makes life better for everyone.
Posted inTechnology
Understanding Sen. John Fetterman’s struggle to understand
Reading Time: 4 minutes Note to readers: The New York Times reported February 16 that Sen. John Fetterman checked himself into a hospital the week before for treatment of his clinical depression, which has worsened as he adjusted to the rigors of US Senate work after suffering a life-threatening stroke last year. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman isn’t deaf, exactly, […]
Posted inSpace
Early black holes simplify the question of ‘dark energy’
Reading Time: 7 minutes The physics of our universe can be splendidly straightforward at times, even if it takes physicists a while to get there. That’s the current major takeaway from a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters on February 15, authored by 17 astronomers in collaboration across nine countries, led by the University of Hawai’i. You’re going to […]
Posted inIdentity
‘They’ll know we are Christians by our love’
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s been twenty years since the Supreme Court struck down anti-gay laws in Lawrence v. Texas. Same-sex marriage has been the law of the land since the Obergefell decision in 2015, and the sky hasn’t fallen. In December, Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act, codifying this decision into law, with a filibuster-proof bipartisan majority. […]
Posted inCulture
After the ‘miracles’: Turkey, Syria, and long-term recovery
Reading Time: 4 minutes After a week of rescue efforts in Turkey and Syria, the death counts are still rising from a 7.8 magnitude earthquake and over 125 aftershocks, including an M6.7 in close succession to the first hit, and an M7.7 nine hours later. Each on their own would have been devastating. Together, they’ve stretched old and poorly […]
Posted inPolitics
Soccer star Neymar and the politics of grievance
Reading Time: 4 minutes Diving (or flopping) in soccer is a form of lying—of using one’s actions to falsely declare, “I just got brutally fouled” in pursuit of an unmerited reward, paid for by an innocent opponent.
Faking a foul in soccer and supporting a political liar may seem disconnected. But their intersection in Neymar is no coincidence.