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The Ignorance of Anti-human David Attenborough

By Selwyn Duke

Liberal icon Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “You’re entitled to your own opinions, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.” But that was decades ago, and today more leftists than ever have graduated from confusion to delusion and believe they’re entitled to their own fiction.

A good example is naturalist David Attenborough, who recently complained that man is a plague upon our planet. He warns that our burgeoning population will ensure that we consume the world’s resources like a sun-occluding swarm of high-tech locusts. Writes The Telegraph:

The Left Shows Its True, Violent Colors

By Selwyn Duke

It isn’t entirely true that, as Lord Acton said, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It’s often the case that power simply allows people the luxury of lowering façades and showing their true colors.

A good example is the recent behavior of many on the Left. Commentator Donald Kaul just wrote that he had no problem with guns being pried from their owners’ “cold, dead hands” and that Republican leaders should be dragged around a parking lot with a pick-up truck. A European college professor recommended the execution of “Climate Change Deniers” and the Pope. Closer to home, an American academic called for NRA president Wayne LaPierre’s “head on a stick” in some profanity laden tweets. And then there was voice of moderation Harry Belafonte; he didn’t ask for blood — only that Barack Obama arrest political opponents (prompting me to spoof a song in his honor).  

Ah, it’s a long way from Woodstock and peace and love, isn’t it?

Read the rest here.

Study: Women Have Trouble Handling Bad News

By Selwyn Duke

It seems as if no news really is good news — at least if you’re a woman. So says a study out of the University of Montreal (UM), which found that women experienced stress after reading negative news stories while men did not. Writes William Raillant-Clark in a UM press release:

The researchers asked 60 people divided into four groups to read actual news stories. In order to determine their stress levels, the researchers took samples of the participants' saliva and analyzed them for a hormone called cortisol. Higher levels of this bodily chemical indicate higher levels of stress. A group of men and a group of women read "neutral" news stories, about subjects such as the opening of a new park or the premiere of a new film, while the [other] two gender segregated groups read negative stories, about events such as murders or accidents.

CBS News reports on the findings, writing:

The day after the experiments, the subjects were called in and asked about what they had read.

While reading the stories alone did not increase stress levels, the researchers found that women who read negative news had higher stress levels after memory and intellect experiments compared to the women who read the neutral news.

"Moreover, the women were able to remember more of the details of the negative stories," [lead author and Ph.D. candidate Marie-France Marin] said. "It is interesting to note that we did not observe this phenomenon amongst the male participants."

In a case of uncanny timing....

Read the rest here.

Former Obama Aide: The President “Doesn’t Like People”

By Selwyn Duke

Do we have a misanthrope as president? According to a former aide to Barack Obama, Neera Tanden, the answer may be yes. Her comments were made when discussing the relationship between Obama and Bill Clinton and were reported by New York magazine, which wrote:

“People say the reason Obama wouldn’t call Clinton is because he doesn’t like him,” observes Tanden. “The truth is, Obama doesn’t call anyone, and he’s not close to almost anyone. It’s stunning that he’s in politics, because he really doesn’t like people. My analogy is that it’s like becoming Bill Gates without liking computers.”

I must correct Tanden: It would be stunning that Obama is in politics if liking people — which is, it is rumored, associated with wanting to help them — were the only reason, or even the main one, for entering politics.

Obama Image vs. Obama Reality

Obama may not like others, but that dislike isn’t generally returned. As polls have shown, the president’s “likeability” rating has been relatively high. Yet I heard years ago already through the grapevine — via journalist contacts who knew someone who had contact with Obama — that, far from likeable, he was arrogant to the point of being dismissive. So what is the reality?

Read the rest here.

No, We Can’t — Just Get Past Race

By Selwyn Duke

There is this idea among many that we can get past apparent differences by concluding they don’t exist. This is reflected in the now common belief that racial distinctions are mere “social constructs.” In non-egghead terms, that means race is actually imaginary.

This idea isn’t just espoused by liberals, but has become so mainstream that even many conservatives echo it. For example, just yesterday American Thinker writer Gregory Oatis asked if we could dispense with this “‘race’ nonsense, once and for all” and then explained, “Categorizing humanity by ‘race’ as has been happening for all these centuries is simply not a scientifically valid proposition. There is just one race of people on this planet, the human race.” Ah, yes, tell that to Barack Obama’s old pastor.

Now, the goal here isn’t to impugn Mr. Oatis; he seems like a very nice fellow with pure motives. And like so many others, he no doubt recognizes that racial and ethnic hatred has cost many millions of lives and seeks to eliminate it. But is the solution to try to eliminate our conception of race itself, which Mr. Oatis calls “the single most overrated scientific myth” but which to common people is just common sense?

Read the rest here.

Upset about Big Brother's ban on incandescent bulbs? Buy a heatball!

This is just too good.

Many of you know that the federal ban on conventional incandescent light bulbs recently went into effect. And while House Republicans included a provision in a recent spending bill that will block funding for the ban's enforcement, it's said that it will have little effect; manufacturers have prepared for the new standards and will no doubt abide by the law. So does this mean we'll be forced to buy more expensive LED (light emitting diode) or CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs, the latter being those squiggly things said to be loaded with mercury? Not if we follow the lead of German businessman Siegfried Rotthaeuser.

Mars Attacks: Scientists Say Aliens May Destroy Mankind Over Global Warming

By Selwyn Duke

Three years after the release of the remake The Day the Earth Stood Still, a team of American researchers has made the film’s theme a scientific theory: They are suggesting that an alien race might destroy man to stop our release of greenhouse-gas emissions and global warming.

Writes Fox News:

The thought-provoking scenario is one of many envisaged in a joint study by Penn State and the NASA Planetary Science Division, entitled "Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis."

It divides projected close encounters into "neutral," those that cause mankind "unintentional harm" and, more worryingly, those in which aliens do us "intentional harm."

While the idea of meeting our end at the green hands of anti-CO₂ aliens may be more laugh-provoking than thought-provoking, another scenario in the harmful category is only slightly less amusing. Writes The Guardian, “They [the extraterrestrials] might invite humanity to join the 'Galactic Club' only for the entry requirements to be too bureaucratic and tedious for humans to bother with.”

Call this the Barack Obama Scenario.

Read the rest here.

Defend It Like Beckham: Soccer Star Condemned for Having Too Many Children

By Selwyn Duke

Adorning an article in the Guardian is a picture you might think represented a prototypical family: a handsome couple standing behind three healthy, well-grown children. But according to the British paper, the parents — soccer star David Beckham and his wife, Victoria — are to be condemned. The problem is that, with the birth of a fourth child, the Beckhams have become “bad role models and environmentally irresponsible,” writes Guardian scribbler Tracy McVeigh.

In reality, though, the irresponsibility lies with McVeigh.

It’s hard to write an 850-word piece in which virtually every sentence serves to deceive, but McVeigh might have birthed just such an illegitimate bit of childishness. She quotes “campaigners,” environmentalists, a Green MP, and others who all bleat the same message: The sky is falling due to overpopulation. And we’ll all end up languishing in a Soylent Green sewer of endless humanity unless, as zoologist David Attenborough says, we eliminate the “absurd taboo” against discussing family size.

Okay, let’s discuss it.

Attenborough is right: There is a population problem in the world.

It is that birthrates have been collapsing for decades, a phenomenon that has grave implications for society.

Read the rest here.

Researchers Concerned About Creation of Human/Animal Hybrid "Monsters"

By Selwyn Duke

When we hear about the implantation of human genes in animals, it may conjure up images right out of the story The Island of Dr. Moreau. Of course, present-day experiments of this kind take a more modest form, such as the Chinese’s introduction of human stem cells into goat fetuses or U.S. scientists’ proposal to create a mouse infused with human brain cells. Yet the possibility that H.G. Wells’ nightmare could one day be made reality is troubling some researchers, prompting them to ask for new regulations governing the humanization of animals. Writes Reuters:

Scientific experiments that insert human genes or cells into animals need new rules to ensure they are ethically acceptable and do not lead to the creation of "monsters," a group of leading British researchers [from Britain's Academy of Medical Sciences] said on Friday.... Extreme scenarios, such as putting brain cells into primates to create talking apes, may remain science fiction, but researchers around the world are constantly pushing boundaries.

The academy also conducted a poll showing that the general public shares their concerns. As Reuters reports, “There were serious concerns voiced [by the respondents] about experiments involving the brain, the potential fertilization of human eggs or sperm in an animal, and giving animals human characteristics such as facial features or speech.”

Read the rest here.

The Great Race Deception

By Selwyn Duke

Just about two years ago, people were speaking of a new era: post-racial America. Well, it occurs to me that if we get any more post-racial, we’ll have a race war. And the latest on this front is a new exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science (MOS) called “RACE – Are we so different?” Reports American Thinker’s Peter Wilson:

The exhibit offers a fascinating window into the fun-house mirror world of race theorists, racial "scholars," and a good part of the anthropology profession.  Even a sympathetic reviewer in the Boston Globe admits that "there's a wearying didacticism to the show," and it's no surprise that the didactic lessons about race are all slanted toward the left.

As for that Globe reviewer, Mark Feeney, he writes: