NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Deadly Rise of Scientism We All Suffer Once You Can No Longer Debate “The Science”

Posted By on January 3rd, 2024

https://johnhabelesmd.substack.com/p/an-essay-on-scientist?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=413102&post_id=140309584&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=8t06w&utm_medium=email

One of the greatest challenges each society faces is deciding what constitutes “truth.” Whoever holds that power wields enormous influence and steers the direction of the society for better or for worse.

For centuries, “truth” was delegated to the ruling institutions of the time, and hence truth was simply the narrative which conformed to their interests. Then, during the enlightenment period a new idea emerged—that truth could be determined empirically through experimentation and data.

This in turn gave birth to the scientific revolution, and while not perfect (as vested interests would still try to make their “narrative” be truth irrespective of what the scientific data showed), scientific inquiry began shaping the direction of Western Culture, and in a rocky fashion gradually moved society forward, giving us many of the benefits we take for granted today.

Sadly however, the tendency of ruling interests to want to monopolize the truth never went away and we’ve watched a curious phenomenon emerge where science, riding on the social credit earned by the success of its revolutionary discoveries, has gradually transformed into something not that different from a state religion. Given that science was originally meant to be a way to move beyond truth being monopolized by the dogmatic institutions which ran society, it is quite tragic that science has become one as well.

As a result, science has more and more become the practice of “trusting scientific experts” and not being allowed to question their interpretations of the data—or even see it. This is very different from what science was originally intended to be—the collective endeavor of scientists around the world to put forth ideas and have the ones that stand up to scrutiny become the generally accepted standard.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

Code red: DEI is in the ICU Opposition to programs based on racial discrimination is mounting Charles Lipson

Posted By on January 2nd, 2024

https://thespectator.com/topic/code-red-dei-is-in-the-icu/

One of the most important political developments of 2023 was the growing pushback against “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Those DEI programs and the ideology that underpin them are under siege politically and legally, and they are losing. They had grown rapidly, thanks to a mixture of support, indifference and timidity. But that began to ebb last year and will continue to recede in 2024.

The wounded patient was wheeled into the intensive care unit when the Supreme Court undermined a crucial foundation for DEI and related affirmative action programs. The decision came in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and a similar case against the University of North Carolina. SCOTUS ruled the universities were illegally discriminating when their admissions favored some minorities and effectively penalized others. Neither public nor private universities had the right to do that.

Those lawsuits were brought against universities on behalf of Asian-Americans, but their victory has reverberated through the world of corporations, non-profits and government agencies. That’s not surprising since those institutions have a host of programs and practices similar to those at Harvard and UNC. They, too, discriminate in hiring and promotion, in hopes their “affirmative” policies will create more inclusive, racially-diverse workplaces. One question sure to reach the High Court is whether these programs are illegal.

The programs also raise practical questions. One is whether they actually achieve their aim of creating more inclusive workplaces. Or do they create more hostile, racially-divided ones and wider public resentment beyond them? Another question is whether institutions committed to these programs can find ways to work around the court decisions and hide their efforts.

The policies used to pursue these goals are sometimes called “reverse discrimination” because they benefit groups, primarily African-Americans, who had long been subjects of pernicious discrimination, segregation, and, indeed, racial hatred.

The terminology of “reverse discrimination” is outdated and misleading. We live more than half a century after the tectonic changes of the mid-1960s, when President Lyndon Johnson and a supportive Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act and a series of massive government programs, many of them meant to assist historically-disadvantaged groups. After that long span, the beneficiaries today are the children and grandchildren of those who were harmed by segregation and Jim Crow laws.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

WHAT ARE THEY LEARNING? BRANDON POULTER !!!!????****!

Posted By on January 2nd, 2024

https://thedailybs.com/author/brandon-poulter/

Universities offered students in the U.S. the opportunity to enroll in many courses that push gender ideology and left-wing activism during the 2023-2024 school year.

Princeton University offered a class titled “Black + Queer in Leather: Black Leather/BDSM Material Culture” in the Spring 2023 semester, according to the university’s course catalog. The class will survey black BDSM culture via research available in libraries and individuals involved in the groups that participate in the culture.

“We will consider the fragility of archival engagement with these communities by surveying existing BDSM archives in research libraries, community groups, and individuals and their personal ephemera,” the course description reads.

Princeton made headlines in 2022 following the addition of this course to the catalog as well as “FAT: The F-Word and the Public Body” and “Anthropology of Religion: Fetishism and Decolonization.”

Tuition at Princeton costs more than $59,000 per year and can cost more than $76,000 including housing and food costs, according to the university’s website.

Westminster College in Salt Lake City offers a course titled “How to Be a Bitch,” according to their course catalog. Students are encouraged to “unpack” the words “bitch” and bossy,” which are “interesting but problematic.”

One course offered at Wesleyan University, titled “Queer Russia,” offers students an overview of the influence of queer people on Russian culture, according to the university’s 2023-2024 course catalog. The course “focuses on gender and sexuality in exploring an alternative cultural history of Russia, which highlights its queer legacy from the nineteenth century to the present.”

The university offered another class titled “Bad Sex” which debates the value of sex and questions if modesty in sexual relations is a worthwhile pursuit, according to the 2023-2024 course catalog.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Claudine Gay blames ‘personal attacks’ and ‘racial animus’ in Harvard resignation letter by Breccan F. Thies

Posted By on January 2nd, 2024

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/education/claudine-gay-personal-attacks-racial-animus-harvard

Claudine Gay, the embattled now-former president of Harvard University, blamed “personal attacks” and “racial animus” in her resignation letter to the university community.

Gay resigned her position Tuesday after facing mounting accusations of plagiarism, but in her resignation letter, she turned the focus to race in a move critics highlighted as an example of her commitment to controversial diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology.

“It has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus,” Gay, whose tenure atop the university is now the shortest in Harvard history, wrote in her letter.

Gay, who saw a last-ditch effort from former President Barack Obama to save her job, added that the future of Harvard will require a commitment to “combat bias and hate in all its forms” and to “create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion.”

“When my brief presidency is remembered, I hope it will be seen as a moment of reawakening to the importance of striving to find our common humanity — and of not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education,” she concluded.

Calls for Gay’s resignation have been growing as more allegations of plagiarism in her past published works have surfaced. The latest plagiarism claims emerged Monday in a report from the Washington Free Beacon, bringing the total number of allegations close to 50.

Gay was also one of several university presidents accused of allowing antisemitism on campus following their recent congressional testimonies, during which Gay and others refused to specify whether calls for genocide against Jews would violate their universities’ codes of conduct.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Why the ACLU is working with the NRA to protect Americans’ free speech rights A triumvirate of government, corporate and academic institutions are involved in efforts to control free speech by cutting off the funding for its exercise. Jonathan Turley

Posted By on January 2nd, 2024

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/01/02/aclu-nra-supreme-court-free-speech-case/72047487007/

Biden administration tries to censor free speech

Under the Biden administration, there has been a consistent attack on free speech through the censorship and blacklisting of opposing groups. Even facts are now deemed dangerous “malinformation,” if used in a way that the administration deems misleading or harmful. 

For example, according to an investigation by the Washington Examiner, the federal government helped to fund the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which discourages advertisers from supporting sites accused of promoting disinformation.

All 10 of the sites that GDI claimed were the riskiest are popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. GDI warned advertisers that they were accepting “reputational and brand risk” by “financially supporting disinformation online.”

The “risky” sites included Reason, a libertarian-oriented source of news and commentary about the government. Conversely, HuffPost, a far left media outlet, was included among the 10 sites at lowest risk of spreading disinformation. (GDI included USA TODAY in this group.)

A triumvirate of government, corporate and academic institutions are involved in efforts to control free speech by throttling the funding for its exercise. If you want to be heard in a large context, you either stay within the lines set by these groups or face pariah status. 

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Biden and the polls: He’s fallen and he can’t get up by Byron York

Posted By on January 2nd, 2024

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/biden-and-the-polls-hes-fallen-and-he-cant-get-up

BIDEN AND THE POLLS: HE’S FALLEN AND HE CAN’T GET UP. In an interview with the Financial Times, the longtime Washington political analyst Charlie Cook noted that President Joe Biden’s job approval rating has been stuck below 50% for a long time, 2 1/2 years, and shows no signs of rising above 50% anytime soon. “There seems to be virtually no elasticity there,” Cook said. “I wonder whether people have just changed the channel — they’ve just written him off.”

To understand what Cook said about “elasticity,” look at the Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center. Biden started his presidency, in January 2021, with a 57% approval rating. He stayed around that level until the beginning of the summer, and then the slide began. By July 2021, Biden fell below 50% for the first time and has never returned. He fell below 40% in July 2022 and is at 39% today.

For 2 1/2 years, Biden’s job approval has bounced in about an 8-point range between highs in the mid-40s and lows in the high 30s. That’s what Cook meant about lack of elasticity — Biden doesn’t seem to go up and down in relation to his accomplishments or lack of accomplishments. He just sort of sits there, like voters have written him off.

Some Biden supporters like to point out that former President Barack Obama had some tough times in the polls before he won reelection in 2012. Yes and no. Obama began his first term, in January 2009, on a huge high — 67% approval in the Gallup rating. But by November of that year, Obama had fallen below 50%. The difference between Obama and Biden is 1) Obama occasionally rose back to 50% or higher, as he did in February and April of 2010 and January and May of 2011, and 2) although Obama fell to 40% a few times, he never sank below that.

The great hope of Biden partisans is that he will rise in the polls as November’s election approaches, as Obama did in 2012. In late August of 2012, Obama sat at 44%. Then, as the general election campaign moved into high gear, Obama rose to 52% by October. That’s where he was when he defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney and won a second term.

So can Biden replicate that feat? It seems safe to say, although not guaranteed, that his polls will increase in September and October, no matter whom he is facing as a Republican opponent. That just generally happens as Democrats and Republicans dig into their partisan positions with an election approaching. But where will Biden start from? Obama rose from 44% to 52% to win. What if he had started at 34% or even 38%? It would have been a much tougher job.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Why Christian Leaders Ignore Attacks on Their Community by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on January 2nd, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20272/christian-leaders-ignore-attacks

As of this writing, no Christian leader had anything to say about Hezbollah’s missile attack on a church.

When Muslims commit such crimes against Christians in the Gaza Strip, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and other countries, no one, including the Western media, takes notice. Why? It is not about Israel. No Jews are at fault.

Where were the pope and other Christian organizations, one wonders, when Christians living under the terrorist group Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, were being systematically targeted and persecuted?

How ironic, then, that the latest attempt to label Israel as a country that targets Christians coincided with the massacre in Nigeria perpetrated against Christians celebrating Christmas. More than 160 Christians were murdered in coordinated attacks by Islamist militant groups that took place between December 23-25. Nigeria has been a hotbed for Christian persecution in recent years, with the country, in 2022, leading the world in Christians killed for their faith. When such atrocities are committed, we rarely hear the voices of those who claim to care about the well-being and safety of Christians around the world.

Worse, those who are ignoring the attacks on Christians are giving a green light to Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamists to destroy Christian holy sites and murder Christians.

On December 26, Iran’s Lebanese terror proxy Hezbollah attacked St. Mary’s Greek Catholic Church in Iqrit, northern Israel. An anti-tank guided missile fired from Lebanon directly hit the church, severely wounding an 85-year-old civilian. Nine Israeli soldiers who rushed to rescue the churchgoer were then wounded by a second missile strike. Hezbollah boasted about the attack and posted a video of its missiles hitting the church.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel wants UNRWA out of Gaza By David Isaac

Posted By on January 2nd, 2024

https://www.jns.org/israel-wants-unrwa-out-of-gaza/

 Israel’s Foreign Ministry has put together a classified report calling for the removal of UNRWA from the Gaza Strip in the long-term, noting that the U.N. relief agency works against Israel’s interests.

The report’s recommendations set out a three-stage process for shrinking and eventually eliminating UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, from the Strip: 1) Prepare a case detailing UNRWA’s cooperation with Hamas; 2) Reduce UNRWA’s field of activity and find replacement service providers; and 3) Transfer UNRWA’s responsibilities to another entity.

Channel 12, which revealed the existence of the secret report on Thursday, noted that Israel wants to move slowly, recognizing that the U.S. sees UNRWA as a positive player in humanitarian efforts in the Strip. The ministry hopes to gradually build the case for ousting the organization, linking that goal to discussions on “the day after” Hamas.

Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), supports dislodging UNRWA, telling JNS that “UNRWA was born in sin and exists in sin, therefore, it should be dismantled.

“It was established because of pressure by the Arab world as a platform to leverage the interests of Arab leaders against the State of Israel using the Palestinian [refugee] issue,” Michael said.

BOOKS Comments turned off

The Great Taking: You Really No Longer Own Your Securities, and You Could Also Lose Your Freedom By Janet Levy

Posted By on January 2nd, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/the_great_taking_you_really_no_longer_own_your_securities_and_you_could_also_lose_your_freedom.html

Under a veil of benevolence, the Great Reset engineered by the World Economic Forum (WEF), aims to shift wealth from individuals and small businesses to global organizations controlled by the elite.  As part of this agenda, a revamping of the financial system has been underway for – believe it or not – over half a century, says David Rogers Webb in his recent book The Great Taking and its accompanying documentary.

Webb’s research and insights demonstrate that the WEF’s dubious catchphrase You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy already has risky implications for investments in securities, mutual funds, pension funds, and the like. Investors, he shows, are no longer ‘owners’ of securities; they are only ‘unsecured creditors.’ Besides, investments are vulnerable to the vagaries of the opaque derivatives market.  If the system collapses – he says this is inevitable – investors will not only lose money, they will receive no compensation.

This is the ‘Great Taking’ of the title, the beginning of the end of property rights, deemed the bedrock of prosperity by our Founding Fathers and enshrined in the Constitution.  We no longer really own shares; soon, we no may longer own anything.

Having been an investment manager for decades, Webb has a keen understanding of the markets and the intricacies of the financial system.  He realized early on that Wall Street was out of sync with Main Street: money creation by the Federal Reserve, a privately owned institution controlled by large private banks, dwarfed real economic activity.  The movement of financial markets is in fact steered by private banks and big investment firms.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Re-Envisioning the University Cultivating a new breed of moral intellectual. Jason Hill

Posted By on January 2nd, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/re-envisioning-the-university/

A few weeks ago, a parent wrote to me asking if I could recommend at least a dozen non-woke and ideologically uncompromised schools for her son to attend in the United States. She, her husband, and her son had been researching for eighteen months. They found only three schools. I thought about her dilemma and began my own investigation.

After two weeks I told her, sadly, that I could not make any good-faith recommendations. Any school I might recommend today could and, in all likelihood, would go the corrupt route in a year’s time. I identified five schools I would have recommended enthusiastically two years ago. Predictably, they are as left-leaning, woke, and egregiously anti-American and anti-Western Civilization today as one could ever have imagined. The idea pathogens suffusing our culture and universities as of today have no fool-proof inoculants. I advised her to find a college whose faculty appeared to have consistently produced old-fashioned scholarly work over time. Look at the syllabi of professors in the discipline your son wants to pursue and keep your fingers crossed, I added. She thanked me, and then asked me if the universities were burning down that fast.

Yes, I responded. I’m afraid the institutions are burning at an unprecedented rate. The radical professoriate, the bloated and totalitarian bureaucratic administrators, and their ventriloquists—the student rebels—have already lit the fires. It is not a passionate creative fire that lights the way and inspires the soul to new and visionary heights; rather, it is a nihilistic and rageful fire that burns everything of value in its path because it is of value, and it is foundational and universal. That raging fire is selectively destructive.

And what is the goal of such intellectual arsonists? To annihilate the social goods, the values and the principles that make us virtuous, and human. The goal is not primarily the destruction of our republic or of Western civilization. It is the destruction of the humanity of each individual and the concomitant creation of the post-human or trans-human. Such creatures are existential antipodes to the concept of civilization (any civilization) as such. Civilization will not die apocalyptically, but it will be bled to death by thousands of tiny scratches via the death of each individual as his or her humanity is slowly eviscerated by the putrefaction, the rot, the corruption, the indoctrination, and the razed agency of those who will not think and dissent from received wisdom and codified orthodoxy.