Facebook Moves to Block Ad Transparency Tools

What it all adds up to, said Knight First Amendment Institute senior attorney Alex Abdo, is “we cannot trust Facebook to be the gatekeeper to the information the public needs about Facebook.”

How Twitter could be the death of liberal democracy

What Twitter shows us is a real-time ultrasound of the souls of America’s cultural and intellectual elite and its most committed activists — the people in charge of disseminating knowledge and who take the lead in organizing political action in our society. The picture it reveals is ugly, vulgar, shrill, and intolerant, with souls exhibiting an incapacity to deliberate, weigh evidence, and judge judiciously. They display an impulsiveness and unhinged rage at political enemies that is incompatible with reasoned thinking about how we might go about governing ourselves, heal the divisions in our country, and avoid a collapse into civic violence that could usher in tyranny.

Here’s how crazy spam calls went in 2018

The biggest takeaway from the report: an out of control trend in robocalls, citing a 46% increase in 2018 for a total of 26.3 billion in the year.
Other key highlights show that on average, people are receiving 114 phone calls per month. Of that, an average of 61 are from numbers not in their contacts. Of those unidentified calls (not saved in contacts), only 24% are answered.

Releasing Resources: Diaspora & Dollars

We must dispel the myth that national churches from low to middle-income countries have no resources to contribute to the wide missions initiative of the global church. Consider this thought-experiment based on conservative figures from the Philippines, my own country of origin:
Operation World reportedthat 12.3% of the Philippine population identified as Evangelical Christians, and Joshua Project reportedthe Evangelical Christian population to be closer to 13.93% of Filipino nationals.
If 2.3 million Filipinos are Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), and we apply the percentage suggested by Operation World at 12.3% of Filipinos to the number of reported OFWs, we estimate that 282,900 migrant Filipinos would identify as Evangelical Christians. Now imagine if 282,900 OFWs sent a portion of the $33 billion (sent in remittances to the Philippines in 2017 alone) to the homeland church for intentional support of global missions. What a vast resource that would be.

How Evangelism Is Kind of Like Fishing

It’s really hard to get enthusiastic about fishing when you believe there are no fish in the lake. That’s where Simon was at, right? He was convinced there was nothing to catch. But God knew there was a tremendous haul awaiting him. And I wonder if we can think that way when we share the gospel.

How Patton Oswalt’s Feud With a Troll Ended With Him Paying the Man’s Medical Bills

Oswalt found a GoFundMe for Beatty’s hospital bills. The amount sat at barely $600. Oswalt dropped $2,000 into the campaign and then asked his followers to help. As of Thursday evening, the comedian’s efforts have raised over $20,000.

8 Days, 2 H-Bombs, And 1 Team That Stopped A Catastrophe

Nearly 60 years ago, a U.S. B-52 bomber carrying two hydrogen bombs broke apart over rural North Carolina.
The bombs fell into a tobacco field. They didn’t go off, but if they had, each 3.8-megaton weapon would’ve been 250 times more destructive than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Housekeeper stuck in elevator for 3 days

On Friday, Marites Fortaliza, 53, was cleaning floor by floor in the five-story private townhouse when she got stuck in the elevator between the second and third floor, according to a law enforcement official.
She was rescued Monday morning after a delivery man came to the house and was concerned when no one answered the door. The homeowners were away for the weekend, the law enforcement official said.

The CPR Episode of The Office Just Saved Someone’s Life

Scott had no prior first aid training, so he had to think quick. “I’ve never prepared myself for CPR in my life,” he told the Arizona Daily Star. “I had no idea what I was doing.”
But then he recalled the CPR scene in “Stress Relief.” As awful of an example as the scene was in how to save a person’s life, the one accurate aspect of it was using “Stayin’ Alive” as the correct tempo for chest compressions.

Justice is scarce

Never enough opportunity, fairness and connection. Never enough time for a student who needs it, or dignity for a person who deserves it. A chance to be seen and understood.
But just because we’re always running short doesn’t mean we can’t try.

One of the Most Dangerous Trends Today and 10 Tips to Counteract it

What makes you think you have impeccable understanding of each and everyone? What makes you think that you understand even one tenth of them well enough to render absolute judgments on them over and over again…all in one day or even an hour online?
Slow down.
Don’t rush to judgment.
Seek out the facts.

For Christian Women, Persecution Looks Like Rape

Of the 245 million Christians attacked for their faith last year, many are women and girls who are specifically and most frequently targeted through forced marriage, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. These are the findings of Gendered Persecution, an Open Doors report that examined the differences in persecution by gender in 33 countries for women and 30 countries for men.

6 Heretics Who Should Be Banned From Evangelicalism

So, maybe it’s time to extend a bit more loving kindness to the evolutionists, to those who reject inerrancy, to those who take the Bible literally when it says that God will redeem all people to Himself, to the Rob Bells and the World Visions.
And for those of us on the moderate-progressive side: maybe we can find it in ourselves to turn the other cheek and forgive those who wish us gone. Then, when we find someone who will accept us—“heresy” and all, let’s embrace and learn from them.

In 116th Congress, at least 13% of lawmakers are immigrants or the children of immigrants

These 14 immigrant lawmakers represent just 3% of all voting members in both chambers, a slight uptick from recent Congresses but substantially below the foreign-born share of Congresses many decades ago. (For example, about 10% of members in the first and much smaller Congress of 1789-91 were foreign born. About a century later, in the 50th Congress of 1887-89, 8% of members were born abroad, according to a previous analysis.) The current share of foreign-born lawmakers in Congress is also far below the foreign-born share of the United States as a whole, which was 13.5% as of 2016.

More than a quarter of the deaths in Holland are “induced,” report finds

In the article, journalist Christopher de Bellaigue traces the history of euthanasia in the Netherlands from when it was introduced for extreme cases (“unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement”) to the point where some are advocating for a legal pill that practically anyone can take in case they are tired of living.
“The process of bringing in euthanasia legislation began with a desire to deal with the most heartbreaking cases—really terrible forms of death,” said Theo Boer, who teaches ethics at the Theological University of Kampen. “But there have been important changes in the way the law is applied. We have put in motion something that we have now discovered has more consequences than we ever imagined.”

JUST Family Time

But when that was said, it just made me realize how long it had been since we had done anything like even an overnight trip JUST as a family. No speaking engagements. Not being on someone else’s schedule. No time separated because one or both of us has to look over notes.

The job interview approach

Why is it okay to act any less professionally than that for a meeting with a co-worker, a salesperson or an entrepreneur looking for funding?
It’s entirely possible that we can honor a reflexive property. When we are contributing we can show up with the same enthusiasm we use when we’re asking for something.

5-Year-Old Poses with Her Dad and Soon-to-Be Stepdad in Sweet Photos: She’s ‘Our Princess’

“No we are not a same-sex couple, but we do share a daughter,” Lenox wrote in the Facebook post, describing himself as the “bonus dad.”
“David is Sarah’s ex husband and I am the Fiancé. We have molded ourselves into one unique family, of only for the sake of our children to know the power of love. Not only did I gain a daughter, I gained a brother and a best friend.”

Gen Z More Likely to Head to College, Maybe Away From Church

College has become more attainable for Generation Z as more are finishing high school than previously—especially among Hispanic and black teens.
In 2002, 60 percent of Hispanic and 71 percent of black students finished high school. In 2017, those numbers had jumped to 76 percent among Hispanics and 77 percent among black teenagers.
In all, 8 in 10 students graduated from high school in 2017.

Learn How to ‘Adult’ Before You ‘Missionary’

While we challenge young people to live lives of eternal significance, our counsel must also include:

• Join a church. (As a member.) Submit to elders. Serve faithfully. Do jobs nobody else wants.
• Make a budget. Limit your expenditures. Live below your means.
• Get a job. Develop a good rapport before the watching world. Make yourself useful to other people. Contribute to society.
• Tithe. Give above a tithe. Save money. Pay off your loans.
• If you want to get married, stop playing juvenile dating games and get married. Learn to love a spouse, raise children, and die to self.
• Exercise. Eat right. Lose weight if you need to lose weight. Gain weight if you need to gain it. Pick a goal and strain to reach it.
• Read your Bible every day. Know it by heart. Master it, and be mastered by it. Abide in Christ.
• Pray fervently. Make disciples locally. Preach the gospel in your Jerusalem.

4 Practical Ways Your Church Can Be Pro-Life

Your pro-life voice will have more credibility if you have consistently, in your preaching, your church’s outreaches, and in the way you apply the Scripture, championed the human dignity of all vulnerable people groups. To be a pro-life church is not simply to communicate why abortion is wrong one Sunday a year, but it is to apply the sanctity and preciousness of human life all year long and wherever human life is threatened.

7 Secrets to Staying Employable Past Age 50

Here are SEVEN SECRETS for staying fit for employment after age 50. The best time to put these tips into practice is NOW, even if you are still fully employed in a job you plan to keep until the day you retire. That way, if the rug gets pulled out from under you, you will be ready for your new future.

Nearly three-quarters of Republicans say the news media don’t understand people like them

The deep divides between Republicans and Democrats in feeling misunderstood by news organizations is largely in line with partisan divides in trust in national media and perceived fairness in news coverage. As seen in previous findings, Republicans are far less likely than Democrats to say they have a lot of trust in the information they get from national news organizations and are more likely to think the news media tend to favor one side.

How Wrong Should You Be?

An article from a team led by University of Arizona cognitive scientist Robert Wilson provides an answer: 15 percent. The researchers argue that a test is optimally difficult if the test-taker gets 85 percent of the questions right, with 15 percent incorrect. Any more than that, the test was too easy. Any less, the test was too hard. They call it “The Eighty-Five Percent Rule for Optimal Learning.”

Twins get some ‘mystifying’ results when they put 5 DNA ancestry kits to the test

Last spring, Marketplace host Charlsie Agro and her twin sister, Carly, bought home kits from AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA and Living DNA, and mailed samples of their DNA to each company for analysis.
Despite having virtually identical DNA, the twins did not receive matching results from any of the companies.

Racism and The Dying American Church

Unfortunately, instead of fading away, slavery and the racist ideology that allowed it became more deeply entrenched into American’s daily lives, churches, and economic systems. The practice of slavery required decisive and dramatic action to end it. If we think that any sin, much less racism, will just fade away, whether in our individual lives or congregation, without identification, repentance, and continuous vigilance to remove it, we are kidding ourselves and do not understand the nature of sin.

7 Things Every Leader Needs to Quit Immediately

1. Measuring success compared to another’s success.
2. Pretending to have all the answers.
3. Trying to be popular.
4. Leading alone.
5. Acting like it doesn’t hurt.
6. Trying to control every outcome.
7. Ignoring the warning signs of burnout.

Where is Christianity headed? The view from 2019

If there is a theme in what lies ahead for the church as we enter a new year, it is that the white Western Christian bubble that has powerfully shaped Christianity for the past four centuries is now beginning to burst. Future expressions of Christian faith will be shaped by its interactions with non-Western and nonwhite cultures. This will present challenges to the established church in the U.S. but may hold the keys to its revitalization.

Hypocrite, Sinner, or Struggler… and how to tell the difference

When I sin, do I repent?
Do I confess (acknowledge) my sin to God and even to trusted others?
Do I make excuses for my sin? Blame others, or circumstances, or rationalize how it is not really my fault?
Do I commit to do better?
Do I have an action plan to overcome my sin? Plans from Scripture or developed with guidance from family, friends, or shepherds?
Do I work the plan?
Do I have accountability for how I am doing?
Am I getting better, making progress?

How Self-Compassion Supports Academic Motivation and Emotional Wellness

To make self-compassion a concrete idea for children, ask them to compare how they treat themselves to how they treat a friend. When we treat ourselves with the same kindness and care that we offer a good friend, we are practicing self-compassion. “By age 7, children have learned about the concept of friendship. A lot of their developmental energy is spent on learning how to be a good friend,” said Neff. So when students are feeling frustrated or upset, ask them, “What would you say to a friend in this situation?” This simple question can help students reflect on the situation and reframe their response.

Generation Z Looks a Lot Like Millennials on Key Social and Political Issues

On a range of issues, from Donald Trump’s presidency to the role of government to racial equality and climate change, the views of Gen Z – those ages 13 to 21 in 2018 – mirror those of Millennials. In each of these realms, the two younger generations hold views that differ significantly from those of their older counterparts. In most cases, members of the Silent Generation are at the opposite end, and Baby Boomers and Gen Xers fall in between.

Giant Kentucky snowman gives would-be vandal dose of instant karma

A driver tried to run over a 9-foot snowman – but the homeowners had used a massive tree stump as the snowman’s base!