Author: nick

Image by Joshua Kettle. In an age when identity is policed by political tests and theological purity codes, the claim that no single tradition holds a monopoly on truth can sound subversive. Interfaith engagement presses precisely on that fault line. It does not dissolve conviction; it interrogates it. It does not flatten truth; it refracts it, revealing how different traditions illuminate distinct dimensions of the human search for meaning. My earliest formation already pointed me in that direction. My parents, to their everlasting credit, held strong convictions and were firmly rooted in the Baptist tradition. Yet they raised me to…

Trump’s rift with the pro-life movement dates back to before Source link

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Just before the Department of Government Efficiency closed its doors, it made a quiet move that may end up as its most lasting impact on the federal deficit.DOGE published a massive trove of data in February that, for the first time, lets the public see what companies are billing Medicaid for. For decades, the payouts have been shrouded in secrecy. One of the largest government programs was a black box.I’ve spent the past two months diving into the numbers. What I found was the most blatant waste of federal dollars that I have encountered in my two…

It is based on “exbodied intelligence,” where coordination arises from interacting with the environment rather than complex internal programming. Researchers at Harvard have developed a fleet of robotic ants that mimic the self-organizing behavior of social insects to build and dismantle structures without blueprints or central leadership. Dubbed “RAnts”, these robotic ants have been designed by researchers from the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).  These are simple, decentralized robots that can spontaneously organize to build — and just as easily destroy — complex structures. Instead of chemical pheromones, these robots use light fields (photormones) to…

On April 29, the Supreme Court decided Callais. That same day, the non-African American Plaintiffs asked the Court to issue the judgment immediately. This request should not have been surprising. Louisiana is in the middle of the election, and time is of the essence. Justice Alito called for a response to be filed on April 30. The NAACP filed a response. I suggested that the savvy strategic move would have been to file at the same time a motion for reconsideration. To be sure, the rules provide 25 days to file such a motion, but in a fast moving case it…

The Department of Defense announced Friday that it has signed agreements with seven major technology companies—Google parent Alphabet, OpenAI, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, SpaceX, and Reflection—to deploy artificial intelligence tools on classified military networks. Subscribe Today Get daily emails in your inbox The Pentagon said the deals will help establish the U.S. military as an “AI-first fighting force.”  The announcements come amid a continuing feud with Anthropic after the company said it objected to requests that would allow its technology to be used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons systems. In late February, President Donald Trump ordered…

Image by Unsplash+. Unlike every other TomDispatch piece, this one won’t be broken up with section titles for a simple reason. It’s all about Donald J. Trump and when it comes to him, in this strange world of ours, no one ever really gets a break. In that context, here’s my advice to you: Don’t get old. For years, I managed not to do so, but unfortunately that’s all over now and I’m increasingly an old man. In fact, I’m not quite two years older than Donald J. Trump. I was born on July 20, 1944, while World War II was still ongoing, and he…

U.S. officials insist that a ceasefire to the Iran War—which entered its 28th day on Tuesday—is still in effect after the truce was tested by several attacks reported in the Strait of Hormuz, with the U.S. and Iran continuing to dispute control over the waterway. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine told reporters on Tuesday morning that attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz have not crossed what the U.S. views as a threshold for terminating the ceasefire. “Since the ceasefire was announced, Iran has fired at commercial vessels nine times and seized two container…

The Declaration of Independence accused the king and Parliament of Great Britain of “exciting domestic insurrections” among the half-million people enslaved in the American colonies. This was a reference to the November 1775 proclamation by Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, that he would free “all indentured servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to rebels)” who were “able and willing to bear arms” against the American revolutionaries. Today’s readers often consider it hypocritical that the Founders denounced Britain for offering black Americans the same freedom for which they were themselves fighting. Some of the revolutionary era’s readers thought the same thing. In…

In one of the scariest moments in modern history, we’re doing our best at ScheerPost to pierce the fog of lies that conceal it but we need some help to pay our writers and staff. Please consider a tax-deductible donation. Gabrielle Principe, College of Charleston Hollywood loves a superpower. Not all involve capes or cosmic rays. Some are cognitive: characters who can remember everything. In movies and on TV, viewers repeatedly encounter those with extraordinary minds who glance once at a page, a room or a face – and later recreate every detail with surgical precision. You see it…