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By Selwyn Duke
When Orson Welles gave his suspenseful 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast, it caused a perhaps overblown but nonetheless real panic among Americans who mistook it for news reportage. And while “invaders from Mars” laying waste to the world now seems fanciful, scientists are worried that a similar broadcast in the future could be relating a real alien invasion — and not just across our porous southern border.
At issue is what could be called SETI 2.0.
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By Selwyn Duke
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” These words are probably the best known in the Declaration of Independence, but perhaps not by CNN anchor Chris Cuomo (shown). Either that, or he simply doesn’t believe them. Because while debating the constitutionality of faux marriage Thursday morning, he said that our rights do not come from God, but man.
Toward the end of a passionate exchange with Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore in which the latter asserted that rights cannot be a product of man, Cuomo made his remark, saying, “Our rights do not come from God. That’s your faith, that’s my faith, but that’s not our country. Our laws come from collective agreement and compromise.”
Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, might be surprised to hear this. And there may be some who’d lament that the Founding Fathers didn’t have Chris Cuomo around to set them straight before ol‘ Tom put pen to paper. But others might note that Cuomo’s opinion was a very shallow statement that gets at some very deep issues.
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By Selwyn Duke
The program may seem “crazy” to many, but don’t you dare call it that. Because this is just one of many words and phrases that Orwellian social engineers at the University of Michigan deem are, well, not at all doubleplusgood. It’s part of a sensitivity-oriented “Inclusive Language Campaign” (ILC) at the public institution — funded to the tune of $16,000.
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By Selwyn Duke
“I don’t deny your right to believe whatever you’d like; but I have the right to point out it’s ignorant and dangerous for as long as your baseless superstitions keep killing people.”
Craig Stephen Hicks may or may not embrace “baseless superstitions,” as he characterized religious faith in the above statement at the top of his Facebook page. The 46-year-old Chapel Hill resident nonetheless killed three people Tuesday in an act that may be what authorities call a “hate crime” or simply a dispute over noise and parking at his condominium complex.
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By Selwyn Duke
The university was prohibited by an arm of the Chinese Ministry of Education from hiring a professor who would discuss Tibet. So, instead, a classical Chinese poetry chairman who wouldn’t dare broach the topic was retained. Of course, this type of state control of teaching isn’t unusual in superficially Marxist and un-officially fascist China, where censorship is a ship-of-state staple.
Except that this didn’t happen in China, but the United States.
And the targeted institution was Stanford University.
How could this happen? It’s the result of a little-known exercise of Chinese soft power, via entities known as “Confucius Institutes.” Billed as being “dedicated to promoting the understanding of Chinese language and culture, and to fostering friendly relations between China and the world,” as a Webster University website reports, the institutes are a perfect fit with American “multiculturalist” education, in which all cultures are, ostensibly, deemed equal. But Confucius Institutes definitely have the goal of ensuring that one culture will be presented as more equal than others.
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By Selwyn Duke
It was a couple of decades ago now that Mattel got in trouble for making Barbie dolls that exclaimed, “Math class is tough!” The company had done market research, the story goes, and found the aforementioned was one of young girls’ laments. But it appears that changing toys hasn’t changed reality. Because almost a quarter century later, girls still are avoiding the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and math. And the social engineers (already a “diverse” group) are none too happy about it. Writes the AP:
Facebook and LinkedIn want to boost dwindling numbers of women studying engineering and computer science with a collaborative initiative announced Friday that they hope will eventually fill thousands of lucrative Silicon Valley jobs long dominated by men.
In an exclusive joint interview with The Associated Press, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and LinkedIn CEO Jeffrey Weiner said they're launching mentoring and support programs at colleges to get more women involved in studying technology in general, but also as future employees for their companies.
Fifteen percent of Facebook Inc.'s employees working in tech jobs and 31 percent of all employees are women, according to diversity figures the company released last year. At LinkedIn Corp., women comprise 17 percent of its tech employees and 39 percent of employees overall. Most Silicon Valley companies have similar demographics.
In other words, they want to institute more affirmative action and quotas for women. The problem with such initiatives is that they’re medicine forced on a healthy patient. After all, isn’t it possible that different groups have different interests and proclivities? Isn’t it possible that even with a perfectly level playing field, group outcomes will vary?
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By Selwyn Duke
What do you get when you combine copious amounts of government grant money, layers of dishonesty, the heat of environmental activism, a few dollops of ambition, and a glaze of science in a political pressure cooker?
It’s a recipe for enriching a few, impoverishing most, and serving up bad policy all around.
If you’ve ever wondered why you’re buried in snow but keep hearing about how we’ve experienced “officially, the second warmest year on record” (when we’re not being told it could be the warmest year on record), know that “officially” relates to the pronouncements of officials, and “official temperature records” have been “systematically ‘adjusted’ to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.”
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By Selwyn Duke
We’re a long way from TV depictions of corporal punishment, such as the spanking of the main character in the 1957 film The Invisible Boy (yes, he was invisible at the time). Now we live in an age when many want to make spanking disappear. And recent comments Pope Francis has made — in support of the practice — have once again brought the issue to the forefront.
During his general audience Wednesday in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope indicated that corporal punishment was a legitimate tool as long as a child isn’t robbed of his dignity. Reports CNN:
"I once heard at a wedding a father say, 'I sometimes have to hit my children a little but never in the face, so as to not demean them.' How nice, I thought, he has a sense of dignity," the Pope said.
"When he punishes, he does it right and moves on."
… "A good father knows how to wait and knows how to forgive from the bottom of his heart. Of course he can also discipline with a firm hand: he's not weak, submissive, sentimental," he said.
"This father knows how to discipline without demeaning; he knows how to protect without restraint."
The issue of corporal punishment for children is divisive in many countries, and the Pope's remarks prompted an outpouring of both support and criticism on social media.
One country attacking the Pope’s comments is Germany, where spanking — also known as “smacking” in much of the Anglosphere — is illegal.
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By Selwyn Duke
Barack Obama (shown at National Prayer Breakfast) certainly makes his share of mistakes, from believing there’s a language called “Austrian” to claiming to have been to “57 states” to pronouncing “corpsman” “corpse-man” three times in the space of one minute. But while many of his displays of ignorance hurt mainly his own credibility, this was not the case during his speech at yesterday’s National Prayer Breakfast.
Talking about “faith being twisted and distorted,” Obama condemned the Islamic State jihadists as a “brutal, vicious death cult” and cited various Muslim terrorist acts as examples of using “religion” for nefarious ends. He then also said, however, “And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”
It was entirely predictable. Political correctness demands we portray all religions as morally equal, and, when seeking to balance criticism of Islam with that of Christianity, the Crusades and the Inquisition are obvious whipping boys.
Of course, it is true that during the Crusades and the Inquisition (some) people committed terrible deeds, just as during WWII (some) Americans committed terrible deeds. Yet what’s implied, and certainly what will be inferred by most, is not that even during a justifiable event unjustifiable acts will occur. Obama was instead displaying — and trading upon — common misunderstandings of history.
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By Selwyn Duke
NBC newsman Brian Williams (shown) said that while covering the Iraq War in 2003, he’d come under fire. Now many are calling for him to be fired.
Because his story, which he has repeated more than once, is false.
Writes the Washington Post:
Williams said he was not aboard a helicopter that was hit by enemy fire and forced down — a story he retold as recently as last week during a televised tribute to a retired soldier during a New York Rangers hockey game.
On “NBC Nightly News” Wednesday evening, Williams read a 50-second statement apologizing for his characterization of the episode.
“After a groundfire incident in the desert during the Iraq war invasion, I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” he said. “It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in that desert. I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. I was instead in a following aircraft.... This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and, by extension, our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served while I did not.”
Williams emphasized his claim that his story was a mere error, saying in his statement, “I would not have chosen to make this mistake.” Yet many believe this strains credulity, especially since his aircraft was “following” perhaps 100 miles behind those that took the fire...
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