On The Web

Created DefendingChristianity.com as a companion site to DebatingChristianity.com. It's purpose is to collate content I've posted in the forum into a single place for easy reference. The first set of posts in on the Shroud of Turin.

A series of protests against COVID-19 lockdowns began in mainland China in November 2022. he protests began in response to measures taken by the Chinese government to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the country, including implementing a zero-COVID policy. Discontent towards the policy has grown since the beginning of the pandemic, which confined many people to their homes without work and left some unable to purchase or receive daily necessities.

Wikipedia

Over the weekend, thousands in China took to the streets demanding an end to Covid lockdowns - with some even making rare calls for President Xi Jinping to stand down.

But on Monday, planned protests in Beijing did not happen after officers surrounded the assembly point. In Shanghai, large barriers were erected along the main protest route and police made several arrests.

The demonstrations began after a fire in a high-rise block in Urumqi, western China, killed 10 people on Thursday. Many Chinese believe Covid restrictions contributed to the deaths, although the authorities deny this.

BBC

China has moved quickly to suppress demonstrations that erupted across the country against the government’s zero-Covid policy on the weekend, deploying police forces at key protest sites and tightening online censorship.

On Tuesday, while defending the policy, top health officials appeared to acknowledge its impact and pledged to “reduce inconvenience” to the public by lifting lockdowns “as quickly as possible” following outbreaks.

However, it may not be enough to appease the protesters, who took to the streets of several major cities and university campuses to demand an end to the country’s increasingly costly lockdowns.

So far, CNN has verified 23 demonstrations that took place across 17 Chinese cities – including the capital Beijing and financial center Shanghai.

In Shanghai on Saturday, hundreds gathered for a candlelight vigil on Urumqi Road, named after the Xinjiang city, to mourn the fire victims. Many held up blank sheets of white paper – a symbolic protest against censorship – and chanted, “Need human rights, need freedom.”

Public protest is exceedingly rare in China, where the Communist Party has tightened its grip on all aspects of life, launched a sweeping crackdown on dissent, wiped out much of civil society and built a high-tech surveillance state.

While protests do occur in China, they rarely happen on this scale, nor take such direct aim at the central government and the nation’s leader, said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University who studies Chinese politics and media.

“This is a different type of protest from the more localized protests we have seen recurring over the past two decades that tend to focus their claims and demands on local officials and on very targeted societal and economic issues,” she said. Instead, this time the protests have expanded to include “the sharper expression of political grievances alongside with concerns about Covid-19 lockdowns.”

CNN

Protests have emerged across China in recent days amid rising public frustration at the government’s zero-COVID strategy, which has led to repeated lockdowns and severe restrictions on daily life.

Demonstrations and vigils have taken place in many cities, including the capital, Beijing, and the country’s biggest city and financial centre Shanghai.

Protests taking place across so many cities and coalesced around a single issue are unusual and come only a few weeks after President Xi Jinping was confirmed for a third term in office.

Some of the protesters in Shanghai have shouted slogans calling for him to go.

Meanwhile, the authorities announced on Monday that daily coronavirus cases across China had reached more than 40,000, a new record.

“It is definitely unusual that you have so many different cities all across China demonstrating right now,” Moritz Rudolf, a fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, told Al Jazeera. “You have students who are protesting, workers who are protesting and this is quite unusual to see at this point in time.”

Aljazeera


Twitter:

#ChinaProtest2022
#ChinaUprising
#%E6%96%B0%E7%96%86%E7%96%AB%E6%83%85

Reddit:

China

Youtube:

COVID lockdown protests sweep across China
Protests In China Live | Protests Erupt Against Zero Covid Policy In China
Protests erupt across China over zero-Covid policy

Released Simple Unique Bible Viewer. It's a React/Next app that is targeted for mobile devices to access UBA content.

UniqueBible.app is now available as a binary distribution on Windows. So, you can now just download, unzip, and run.

UBA Releases

I've released an open source version of Hymn Lyrics for Android - Open Hymn Lyrics. It has all the features of the ad supported version and the paid version, but is now free.

- Over 2000 public domain Christian hymns
- Less than 3 MB in size
- Support for adding your own songs to the app
- Filters/favorites
- Search YouTube for hymn
- Show chords for popular songs
- Custom hymn numbers
- Ability to delete all built-in songs (only show custom songs)

Code is hosted at:
https://gitlab.com/hymnlyrics/open-hymn-lyrics

Report issues at:
https://gitlab.com/hymnlyrics/open-hymn-lyrics/-/issues

Group discussion at:
https://groups.google.com/g/open-hymn-lyrics-support

Shinzo Abe, former Japanese prime minister, assassinated during campaign speech

Boris Johnson Resigns As Prime Minister After Government Collapses

"Worst Start Since 1788": A Closer Look At The Catastrophic First Half Performance

This was the worst first half for the market in 50 years and it’s all because of one thing — inflation

US stocks see worst first half drop in more than 50 years

JPM Warns US "Perilously Close To Recession" As Atlanta Fed Slashes Q2 GDP To -2.1%

58% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck after inflation spike

Tech stocks are having their worst year ever

"One Of The Worst Downturns In Recent History": Zuck Warns Facebook

Rationing Has Already Started In Europe As The Entire Globe Plunges Into A Horrific Economic Nightmare

Millions of Calif. families to get ‘inflation relief’ stimulus checks of up to $1,050: What we know about whether other states will follow

States are sending free money in place of federal stimulus checks — is inflation relief headed your way?

In a historic and far-reaching decision, the U.S. Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade on Friday, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists.

NPR

The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision — Planned Parenthood v. Casey — that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.

Politico

The Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion.

Almost half the states are expected to outlaw or severely restrict abortion as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision on a Mississippi case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, joined by four other conservatives. The three liberal justices opposed the decision. Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority to uphold the Mississippi abortion restrictions but did not approve of tossing out Roe altogether.

CNBC

Held: The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.

In recent years, a significant number of States have enacted abortion restrictions that directly conflict with Roe. Those laws cannot be dismissed as political stunts or as outlier laws. Those numerous state laws collectively represent the sincere and deeply held views of tens of millions of Americans who continue to fervently believe that allowing abortions up to 24 weeks is far too radical and far too extreme, and does not sufficiently account for what Roe itself recognized as the State's "important and legitimate interest" in protecting fetal life.

After today's decision, the nine Members of this Court will no longer decide the basic legality of pre-viability abortion for all 330 million Americans. That issue will be resolved by the people and their representatives in the democratic process in the States or Congress.

The Roe Court took sides on a consequential moral and policy issue that this Court had no constitutional authority to decide. By taking sides, the Roe Court distorted the Nation's understanding of this Court's proper role in the American constitutional system and thereby damaged the Court as an institution.

To be sure, many Americans will disagree with the Court's decision today. That would be true no matter how the Court decided this case. Both sides on the abortion issue believe sincerely and passionately in the rightness of their cause. Especially in those difficult and fraught circumstances, the Court must scrupulously adhere to the Constitution's neutral position on the issue of abortion.

In my judgment, on the issue of abortion, the Constitution is neither pro-life nor pro-choice. The Constitution is neutral, and this Court likewise must be scrupulously neutral. The Court today properly heeds the constitutional principle of judicial neutrality and returns the issue of abortion to the people and their elected representatives in the democratic process.

DOBBS, STATE HEALTH OFFICER OF THE MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ET AL. v. JACKSON WOMEN'S HEALTH ORGANIZATION ET AL.

US inflation hits 40-year high of 8.6% as food, gas and shelter costs rise

Inflated grocery prices and shrinking package sizes. The cost of food is rising at fastest pace since 1979

Fed hikes its benchmark interest rate by 0.75 percentage point, the biggest increase since 1994

S&P 500 tumbles nearly 4% to new low for the year, closes in bear market territory

Global stock markets head for steepest weekly fall since 2020 as recession fears rise – as it happened

World Bank Warns of Global Recession, Stagflation — 'This Is the Sharpest Slowdown in 80 Years'

The World Bank says most countries are headed for a recession, and warns of a possible return to 1970s ‘stagflation’

Bitcoin’s Price Sinks Closer to $20,000 As Crypto Crash Continues.

U.S. gas prices average hits $5 as summer of pain sets in

Mortgage rates surge to 5.78%, highest level since 2008

Here's 18 Signs That The Economic Meltdown We've Been Waiting For Has Already Begun

Coverage:
War in Ukraine
NBC News
Economist
BBC
CNN
Politico
Reuters
Wikipedia

Ukraine:
- 44 million people (8th most populous in Europe)
- 2nd largest land mass country in Europe after Russia
- 80% are Christian. 60% are Orthodox.
- 17% residents are Russian
- In 1986, Chernobyl plant disaster
- In 1991, nation formed after collapse of USSR
- World’s largest reserves of iron ore
- Mostly flat geography contributes to major agricultural industry
- Largest grain exporter in world
- Member of United Nations, but not EU
- History of political corruption
Wikipedia
Visual Capitalist
The Fact File

Orange Revolution:
- November 2004 to January 2005
- Protest of 2004 Ukrainian presidential election
Wikipedia

Revolution of Dignity:
- Maidan Revolution
- February 2014
- Protest of Yanukovych not signing EU agreement
- Ousted Yanukovych from power
Wikipedia

Russian invasion:
- Feb 24, 2022 - Russia invades Ukraine
Dmytro Kuleba
Aljazeera

Volodymyr Zelenskyy:
- Born in Jewish family
- Professional comedian
- Became president in 2019
Wikipedia
Zelenskyy’s unlikely journey, from comedy to wartime leader
Servant of the People party
Twitter account

Articles:
The increasingly complicated Russia-Ukraine crisis, explained
Russia’s war in Ukraine: complete guide in maps, video and pictures
Stop asking what Putin wants and start asking what Ukrainians want
I need ammunition, not a ride: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declines US offer to evacuate Kyiv

Movies:
Winter on Fire - Netflix

Videos:
“Prayer for Ukraine” performed by Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York

Photos:
Getty Images
NPR
The Times
Zeebiz

Twitter:
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Dmytro Kuleba - Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
Stratcom Centre UA