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University Perversity: College to Have “Whiteness Shaming” Month

By Selwyn Duke

You may think that, as Martin Luther King famously said, people should “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” But officials at Portland Community College (PCC) obviously don’t agree. The school has designated April “Whiteness History Month” (WHM), which, the initiative’swebsite informs, is not a “celebratory endeavor” as is “Black History Month” but seeks to challenge “the master narrative of race and racism through an exploration of the social construction of whiteness.” (yes, thems code words). SFGate.com provides more details on the program:

How much racism is baked into our society? Officials at an Oregon community college say the answer to that question may lie in studying "whiteness." … Diversity Council members have put out a call for contributions through panel discussion, film, lecture and seminar formats. They're looking for people to present on a broad array of topics, including "Who benefits from the consequences of whiteness? Who loses from whiteness?" and "What are the roles and responsibilities of white people and people of color in dismantling whiteness?"

Critics may note that who really benefit from “whiteness” are those getting paid to give courses and speeches about it. And what is “whiteness”? The WHM site is kind enough to explain...

Read the rest here. 

Trump, Cruz and New York Values

By Selwyn Duke

New York City values are going through the roof. And it’s not just real estate. A prime story the last many days has been the GOP debate dust-up between Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz. After the senator impugned “New York values” in an effort to call into question the businessman’s conservative bona fides, Trump responded with an impassioned defense of New Yorkers’ character. Trump won the exchange on style with rhetorical effectiveness, but, frankly, Cruz was right on substance.

This is not a commentary on whether Trump exemplifies NY values. In fact, I love most of what The Donald is saying; furthermore, while I have great respect for Cruz, the fact that no other candidate Thursday night could join Trump in supporting a halt to Muslim immigration — a common-sense measure — calls their qualifications for the presidency into question. But this isn’t a commentary on that, either, or on NY values, although I will touch on them. This article is about something far deeper.

Sweden Providing Marksmanship Training for Muslim Migrants

By Selwyn Duke

While Barack Obama is pushing gun control in the United States and it is the order of the day in Europe, Sweden is putting guns in the hands of Muslim migrants. It’s all part of a government-funded target-shooting program intended to facilitate “integration.”

The effort actually began two years ago, but is just now being reported by certain English-speaking news outlets. And not surprisingly given the recent jihadi attacks in San Bernardino, Paris, and elsewhere, it’s raising some eyebrows — which, in turn, are raising other eyebrows.

American Thinker’s Carol Brown, for instance, calls the program “certifiably insane” and characterizes it as “sniper training.”

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For Hillary, Sanders Is Ghost of Elections Past

By Selwyn Duke

“So what does it say about our country that a candidate who is a self-avowed socialist ... could be the Democratic nominee?” asked moderator Maria Bartiromo at Thursday’s GOP presidential debate. She was, of course, referring to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who now leads Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire primary polling. And his rise says nothing good about our country — or about Clinton.

As for Clinton, she just might be having flashbacks. In 2008, she was the presumptive Democrat nominee, poised to make history as our first female president. Instead, Barack Obama, four years after he said he was too inexperienced to run in four years, became the man the media was looking for and made some history of his own. Now Clinton’s dreams may be dashed again, this time by a candidate who’s as different from Obama superficially as he’s similar substantively. Sanders is old, more wizened than wise, in an age of youth; and he’s a white male, hailing from the whitest state in the nation, in an age of quota Democrat candidates. Yet ideologically they’re kissin’ cousins: Sanders is an out socialist, Obama a closeted one, having been a member of the socialist New Party in the 1990s. And a 2007 analysis of the most left-wing Senate voting records placed Obama at number one — ahead of even Sanders.

But the order of the day is anti-establishment fervor, and just as Donald Trump is that spirit’s choice on the GOP side, Sanders is capturing the imaginations of disenchanted Democrat millions. And, let’s face it, nothing smacks of the establishment old guard like the name Clinton (except the name Bush).

 

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Hollywood Second Amendment Hypocrisy: Guns for Me — but Not for Thee

By Selwyn Duke

What do you call someone who wants guns for his group but not for everyone else? Lenin? Any fearful and fear-inspiring dictator? Here’s another: Hollywood actor. After all, Tinseltown’s turpitudinous titillators love guns — just not in your hands.

In fact, People magazine just wrote of 113 stars who penned a letter to the president thanking him for issuing his unconstitutional executive orders on firearms and saying he was protecting their “rights” to “be safe” and “not to be afraid.” Perhaps they’re like actress Daniele Watts, who, after resisting a policeman’s lawful commands, screamed, "I know my rights.... I played a cop on TV!" Moreover, they must know just as much about guns, because they use them on TV.

And, boy, do they ever use them — just as their bodyguards carry them.

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Man-spreading: Muslim Migrants Turning Europe Toward Male Side

By Selwyn Duke

Eleven-point-three males for every female — that’s not a disastrous business model for a nightclub but the boy/girl ratio of 16 to 17-year-old Muslim migrants entering Sweden. It’s a sex imbalance so great it has actually altered, radically, that age group’s male/female ratio for the country as a whole. Sweden now has 123 boys in that cohort for every 100 girls; note that China’s corresponding imbalance of 117 boys for every girl was part of the reason that nation abandoned its “one-child policy.”

Overall, 71 percent of all 2015 “asylum seekers” entering Sweden were male, yet this isn’t just a Swedish phenomenon. As the Daily Mail writes, “More than 66 per cent of adult migrants arriving through Italy and Greece in the past year were male, according to the International Organization of Migration — along with 90 per cent of unaccompanied under-18s.”

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New Series "Lucifer": Putting a Positive Spin on Satan

By Selwyn Duke

If late radio legend Paul Harvey were around to update his famous commentary “If I were the Devil,” he might include on his demonic to-do list, “portray Satan as a nice fellow.” Because this is precisely what the Fox network is doing in its new series Lucifer, set to premiere January 25.

Starring actor Tom Ellis as Lucifer, reviewer Valerie David writes that he is a “Brit-accented rogue helping humans while being harassed by angels” and that the show is “redemption for the Devil.” Deadline.com presents the storyline, reporting, “The series follow the story of the original fallen angel. Bored and unhappy as the Lord of Hell, Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis) has abandoned his throne and retired to LA, where he owns Lux, an upscale nightclub. Charming, charismatic and devilishly handsome, Lucifer is enjoying his retirement, indulging in a few of his favorite things — wine, women and song — when a beautiful pop star is brutally murdered outside of Lux.” One thing leads to another, and Lucifer ends up helping the police solve crimes and working on the side of justice.

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Disarming the Alarmists: Climate-change Myth Takes Three More Hits

By Selwyn Duke

It’s no wonder climate alarmists are getting hot under the collar, proposing measures such as imprisoning climate realists. Because, increasingly, the facts are not intersecting with their agenda. And 2016 is providing no respite, with,reports Investor’s Business Daily (IBD), three more global-warming stories that no doubt put a chill on alarmists’ New Year’s revelry.

First up: Would you take a “hot stock tip” from a broker who’d been consistently wrong for more than a generation? That’s analogous to what alarmists are asking us to do, with scholars at the Cato Institute confirming “that climate models that warn of warming have been wrong for decades,” writes IBD. In fact and contrary to those models, temperatures have reportedly been stable now for approximately 18 years. And as Cato puts it stating the obvious, “If the known climate behavior cannot be well-captured by the models, no case can be made for the veracity of projections, from the same models, of the future evolution of our climate — the projections which underlie current climate/energy policy.” In other words, the best predictor of future predictions’ accuracy is past predictions’ accuracy.

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Debunking the Overpopulation Myth

By Selwyn Duke

One of today’s popular boogeymen, along with “climate change,” is overpopulation. It was a boogeyman centuries ago, too. The English cleric and scholar Thomas Malthus warned in 1798, “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.” Since then, the 1800 world population of one billion has risen to seven billion. And not surprisingly, the notion of an ever-burgeoning population as a clear and present danger has become a basic supposition, one creating perturbation and shaping policy.

On November 13, for instance, some celebrated “World Vasectomy Day” and held a “vasectomy-athon” in which men, many Western, trumpeted their newfound sterility. Precisely two weeks before, Bowdoin College associate professor of philosophy Sarah Conley, though doubtless a relativist, was quite absolutist in a Boston Globe op-ed entitled “Here’s why China’s one-child policy was a good thing.” Insisting “there is no moral right to have more than one child,” Conley wrings her hands as she warns that the “most recent estimate from the United Nations says we’ll reach a population of 9.7 billion by 2050” and justifies elimination of reproductive freedom by likening it to yelling “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater. It seems the rallying cry “My body, my choice!” only applies to killing children in the womb, not birthing them.

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Big Brother Watching You: When Spy Cameras are Everywhere

By Selwyn Duke

If you walk down the street in N.Y.C. or travel its subways, rest assured you’re being watched. This is unavoidable with the Big Apple’s untold thousands of security cameras, more than 17,000 of which are available for police scrutiny. Yet this is nothing. London’s notorious “Ring of Steel” comprises 1 camera for every 16 people, approximately half a million peering electronic eyes altogether. And while this may not seem a concern to many Americans, note that there are those who want to use London “as a model” for N.Y.C. — and perhaps beyond.

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