Human zoo 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Is Darwinian evolution theory naturally racist? The answer coming from the interview below is, yes. 

It's not that some racist scientists happened to hold to evolution, but that Darwin's theory easily resulted in the racism that placed certain people in zoos. Evolutionary theory "provided the scientific justification that pushed racism."

If there is no Creator God who made us in His image, and human beings just evolved on a continuum from the lower animals, then it's no stretch to imagine that some human races are lower on that continuum.

Ota Benga from Africa was exhibited in the monkey cage at the Bronx Zoo. To many scientists, it just made sense that some humans were not as evolved as others.

 from Evolution News

Human zoo 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post) 

This shocking and painful story from history is told in "Human Zoos: America's Forgotten History of Scientific Racism," a film produced by Discovery Institute, the think tank where Dr. Stephen Meyer works (author of Return of the God Hypothesis).

"Leading men of science from Harvard and Princeton and Columbia University were saying that Africans were midway between an orangutan and a human being . . ."

Curious people created a big market for these "exhibits." Scientists told them that the human beings of today evolved from the lower animals, from apes. Who wouldn't want to see the proof of that, if the scientists were correct?

 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Human zoo 1

This may be hard to believe, but it happened. Human beings were exhibited in zoos in America as well as in European cities like Antwerp, London, Paris. 

 "After the emergence of Darwin’s theory of evolution, freak shows would often feature people purported to be 'missing links' between modern humans and their ape-like ancestors."

 

photo

Three months after Origin of Species was published, staff at P.T. Barnum's museum said that, according to scientists, a new creature in the circus called the man-monkey was a missing link between human beings and lower animals. But in reality, the exhibit was William Henry Johnson, an African-American man.

 from Human Zoos

 (cont'd tomorrow)

Helium 3 🎈

Follow-up to this post

It seems confirmed: northern Minnesota's newly discovered helium will put the state in a small group of global suppliers, competing with Russia, Qatar, and Tanzania. Analysis so far indicates "world class results" of the highest concentration the industry has ever seen, and a very large reserve underground.

Babbitt MN will profit from a new industry with new jobs, and America will have a wonderful access to this clean, non-renewable resource right within our own borders. 

 It will be great . . if and when the company (Pulsar Helium) and the state can put it together. Minnesota is working on regulations now, including where they want the state profits to go. Fortunately fracking won't be necessary, so that's one controversy that won't enter in.

Environmental impact is sure to be a mine field. There's only one comment to the video above on Youtube. Its writer describes this project's location as "an extremely sensitive and important ecosystem that connects to a huge area of pristine wilderness."

 from Hadco International

Price control

One of our candidates for president of the United States says she wants to start controlling prices in this country. She claims that food would be cheaper, for example, because greedy evil companies in the food business would be forced by the government to sell at low prices.

Would that be good for the people? Here's a report from National Public Radio about the outcomes in one nation where that plan has been done by the socialist government for years.

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Venezuelan citizen Anny can shop only on certain days and at government-run stores. She is limited in how much she can buy. She must prove her identity. And, of course, many shelves are empty and food shortages are common.

NPR published this article in 2015, nine years ago. I doubt that it would be published today.

from NPR, "The Nightmare of Food Shopping in Venezuela"

Space mining

Human beings are at home on planet Earth but not in space, where we can only go with much protection and at great cost.  SpaceX has been working hard to make it more accessible to us. 

As that happens, there will be business opportunities. Astro Forge is raising funds for that. What they do:

"At AstroForge, our mission is to make space resources accessible on Earth. We mine asteroids to extract valuable minerals in space at a lower cost and smaller carbon footprint than the current terrestrial mining methods [image]."

As of this month, a total of $55 million has been invested in this idea. Here's how their two missions have gone so far, and what they're working on.

from Space

Why mid-air catch

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

It looks harder to catch a rocket in mid-air, like SpaceX wants to do on its next test flight of Starship, than to just land it in the normal way (which they did in test flight #4).

So I had some questions:  what kind of super-precision is this operation going to take? can Super Heavy hover in the air? can the grid fins really support that huge rocket? 

If you wonder about these questions as well, and have more, you'll enjoy this video which answers this question: Why has SpaceX chosen to catch Super Heavy in mid-air, by the launch tower, before it can land on the ground?

Note: the video has commercial advertisement

h

Test #5 next

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

Both stages survived re-entry into Earth's atmosphere and made a successful splashdown: that was the biggest achievement of Starship's fourth test flight in June. 

SpaceX says they're ready for the next test flight, just waiting for the launch license from the FAA.

New on test flight #5 will be the spectacular catch of stage one Super Heavy booster by the new "chopstick" arms in mid-air when it returns to Earth. 

Here's an animation showing what that will (hopefully) look like:

Test flight #4

Starship's test flight #4 took place this summer already on June 6, advancing toward the goals of safe, rapidly reusable human transport to the moon and beyond.

A new summary video of its fourth test flight is out. It includes SpaceX team's live reaction to the safe splashdown of Starship's booster (Super Heavy) and the independent flight of "Ship" itself (Starship spacecraft) powered by its own six Raptor engines.

Terminology reminder: "Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, consists of two fully reusable elements — a huge first stage called Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship, or simply Ship."

Tomorrow: ready for test flight #5

from Space

Bigger moon

Moon rise today will not be just any old moon rise, but a Supermoon Blue Moon. 

A "supermoon" effect happens when the moon is 90+% of the closest distance it ever gets to earth. It's actually 30% brighter and 14% closer than normal, but may be hard for our unaided eyes to detect the difference. 

"Blue moon" simply refers to the unusual occurrence of two full moons in a single month.

This photo shows a supermoon rising over New York City last year. Why does it look huge? It's explained as a "moon illusion" created by our visual perception.

Extra: Enjoy a new 1-minute view of SpaceX rockets breaking the sound barrier along with the resulting sonic booms, here.

Prof fired

Freedom to speak your opinion even when it disagrees with the powerful, one of the American freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights in our Constitution, can't be assumed here in the U.S. anymore. Powerful people tell us that THEY hold the right to define truth.

Sadly, our colleges and universities have been bullying individuals for many years with regard to speech. A California professor with tenure was accused of immoral and unprofessional conduct and then fired in 2021. An official compared free speech advocates like him to "livestock that needed to be culled from the herd."

The prof said he was fired for speaking things the college didn't like, and filed a law suit.

 

 photo

The college claimed innocence but were willing to pay a hefty sum to avoid having to defend that claim in court. They settled for paying $2.4 million this summer.

Loss of free speech here in America and other places is what happens when those holding power don't want to go to the trouble of civil discussion with people who disagree. This example is the fourth one this week; the other examples of power denying freedom of speech were Venezuela (Tuesday), Britain (Wednesday), and Facebook (yesterday).

from Pen America

FB censors

 A famous British scientist lost his Facebook account, apparently because he posted his opinion:

 

In this case it's not a matter of posting something "false, threatening" (see yesterday's post) or hateful, and he was not arrested (just censored). It's simply a scientist posting his opinion -- an opinion which happens to be non-woke and not approved by left-wing social media. And it appears his account was eventually reinstated.

By the way, this scientist is a biologist and well-qualified to identify male chromosomes.  

"Stepping back and looking at the big picture, science — when it gets in the way of Woke culture — is beginning to get the same treatment as religion: ignored, mocked, rewritten, and eventually attacked."

from Mind Matters

Before you post

Maybe you've seen the videos of protest, mobs and riots taking place in Britain in the last week. As one Brit puts it, the UK has been on fire.

Their new Prime Minister wants to crack down on the turmoil. To squash the protests, he's going after freedom of speech. His government called on big tech firms to do more censoring. The owner of X doesn't feel compelled to comply.

Now they're warning all individual users of social media:  

"You may be committing a crime if you repost, repeat or amplify a message which is false, threatening, or stirs up racial / religious hatred." Wait, who is the judge of social media posts? Who decides what is false or hateful? They have police who scan for guilty posts and arrest the perp.

This author traces a pretty long decline in freedom of speech in Britain.

from Spiked

 (cont'd tomorrow)

Resisting 5

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Nicolas Maduro still holds power in Venezuela, in spite of losing July's election (in the view of many countries) and in spite of massive protests. We know his tactics include accusations and threats against his opposition, but that's not all.

A dictator cannot be too careful of allowing influencers to speak. So he has ordered X (former Twitter) to be blocked from the country for ten days as a punishment for X owner Elon Musk. Why? Because--shock--Elon has made mean statements about him, like calling him a dictator and a clown.

(Actually, I call him a dictator too, but for some reason Maduro's not coming after me 😄)

 

from Seattle Times

Resisting 4

Follow up to this post

Venezuela's fight for freedom from socialist dictator Maduro is not over. A fight for power is taking place right now, and the American government is taking sides in the outcome of that disputed election held a couple weeks ago.

According to the US Secretary of State, “Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that [the opposition party] won the most votes . . .”

His statement goes on to denounce Maduro's threats and accusations toward the opposition as "unsubstantiated,"  "an undemocratic attempt to repress political participation and retain power.”

Opposition leader Machado says she is in hiding, fearing the loss of her freedom and even her life. This is far from over.

from CNN

EV's in Norway 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

A wireless charging road in Oslo, Norway, is their first for electric vehicles. Built by a tech firm in Israel, Electreon Wireless, the pilot program is being tested on the city's bus routes.

Copper coils draw power from the electric grid and are positioned right beneath the asphalt. Electric busses charge automatically while being driven on the road. Durability will be an issue, considering Norway's severe winters.

In an interesting twist, government officials now question their strategy of promoting EV's. What they want more is to get people out of their cars and onto public transportation.

EV's in Norway

Norway leads the world in adopting the electric vehicle model with 87% of its new car sales being EV's (for comparison, in the US it's 7%). So they've earned the approval of the NYT, the World Economic Forum, and of course Elon Musk.

photo

With declining popularity in the US, you could wonder why Norway's embrace of EV's is all-in. In fact, some in my family suspect that cold weather like Norway's would seriously impact the usefulness of a battery-run car.

It turns out that government policy is the answer to the puzzle. "Eye-popping EV subsidies have flowed largely to the affluent." Well, that explains it. EV owners were exempted from paying big tax on car sales (averaging $27k today) and from paying for tolls, parking, and ferries.

Abundant hydropower is Norway's clean source of electricity, and it's relatively cheap. But climate change fear motivates them to reduce use of fossil fuels, as the prime minister said in 2019, “We want people to buy electric cars. It is the most important thing you can do personally and privately to help reduce climate emissions.”

from Vox

(cont'd tomorrow)

Open Doors 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Nigeria is sometimes called the "giant" of Africa for its relatively large population and economy. About half its people are Muslim and half Christian. It's also in the World Watch List, as one of the worst nations in the world for persecution.

It's hard to hear about the violence some of these people live through, their families and neighbors brutally killed and maimed by machete-wielding attackers. Homes and villages are burned, livestock killed, their living destroyed. The video relates their experience of a terrible attack last December.

Most of the targets are located in the area of largely Christian farmers. Amazingly, Wikipedia doesn't even mention this in their Nigeria article, in either the Crime or Human Rights sections. The attackers are usually Fulani herders (Muslim) or terror group Boko Haram (also Muslim).

Open Doors 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

For reasons related to their faith, 4,998 Christians across the world were actually murdered. An amazing 83% of those were located in Nigeria, "the deadliest place to follow Jesus." (Deadly danger is nothing new in Nigeria, as I've written about for years.)

Attacks on churches and Christian-run schools, hospitals, cemeteries "exploded" to 14,766 in 2023, six times the number in the previous year. That number includes the closing of churches in China (church bombed in 2019) and mob violence in India. The global number of believers forced to flee their homes because of war or extremism doubled last year to 295,120. 

Though not in the first ten of the World Watch List, the African country Congo (DRC) was the site just days ago of terrible violence on July 24. More than 57 Christian villagers were beheaded by Islamic State Central Africa Province.

Open Doors was founded to pay attention to these things around the world; to help them, and to inform the West where we know next to nothing of the price some Christians pay to follow Jesus.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Open Doors 1

Open Doors is a global ministry with 25 national bases, all identifying this way: We share one mission, to support persecuted Christians worldwide and strengthen what remains.

It's not safe to be known as Christian in many places. Their annual report, World Watch List, is their ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution. The worst ten on this current list are North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Meta settles

“Unbeknownst to most Texans, for more than a decade Meta ran facial recognition software on virtually every face contained in the photographs uploaded to Facebook, capturing records of the facial geometry of the people depicted,” according to the office of the attorney general of Texas. 

image

It's against Texas law to capture biometric identifiers without the person's consent. The attorney general filed suit in February of 2022, and it's just been settled. 

Meta is going to pay $1.4 billion to the state over five years, a deal negotiated through the lawyers nearly two months ago. Attorney General Paxton calls it a "victory for Texan privacy rights."

Google's owner, Alphabet, is being sued by Texas as well for "illegally collecting biometric data from millions of Texans."

Resisting 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

People of Venezuela, drawing courage from Maria Corina Machado, are taking to the streets to protest against Maduro's claim of election victory. Both sides say they have evidence to support their claim. Machado says her candidate received 73% of the vote.

.

"Venezuelan elections under Mr. Maduro have long ceased to be considered free or fair, beset by voter suppression and other irregularities." Some Latin American countries have downgraded their relationship to Venezuela in protest.

The NYT reports that the analysis of a non-government research group is consistent with an independent exit poll conducted on Election Day. Their conclusion? The opposition party beat Maduro by 66% to 31%.

A fight for power is taking place right now.

from New York Times