Monthly Archives: March 2014

News

Police rule that racist graffiti on dorm door is a fake hate crime

3 Comments

From The College Fix.

Excerpt:

The Grand Valley State University student who found racist graffiti on her dorm room door’s whiteboard in mid-February is the same person who put it there, police have determined.

[…]“When the incident was initially brought to the campus’s attention, several organizations and groups were highly alarmed, prompting assemblies, discussions in the classroom and a university-wide alert to the situation,” according to the Michigan-based college’s student newspaper, the Grand Valley Lanthorn.

Turns out, the incident joins the long and growing list of campus hate-crime hoaxes across the nation.

“The person believed to be responsible for the drawing and language written on the dry erase board is a Grand Valley student and the owner of the message board,” stated Grand Valley Police Department Chief Renee Freeman on Friday. “The incident has had a disruptive impact on the community and as a result, the student has been referred to the Dean of Students for a student code violation. University policy does not permit the release of his/her name.”

[…]Despite this development, a university-wide “Teach-In” prompted by bias incidents on campus is still set to take place at Grand Valley State on Wednesday, the Lanthorn reports, adding “the day-long event will feature student and faculty presentations about preventing discrimination and oppression on GVSU’s campuses.”

The College Fix article links to another half-dozen recent fake hate crimes.

Sometimes, I wonder if these college kids are learning anything useful at college. They learn how to be victims, how to censor others, how to complain and whine and blame. But I wonder if they are learning anything that they can use to serve others – like in a real job. They sure are paying a lot of tuition to learn how to call other people “racist”, “sexist”, “homophobe” and “Islamophobe”. And they can do it because the government is loaning them taxpayer dollars to do it.

News

Feminist professor who attacked pro-lifer charged with theft, battery and vandalism

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Update on the story from last week, courtesy of The College Fix.

Excerpt:

The College Fix reported on March 12 that department of feminist studies professor Mireille Miller-Young, whose research emphasis is black studies, pornography, and sex work, had been caught on camera assaulting a 16-year-old student, Thrin Short.

Miller-Young led a small mob that approached a group of pro-life demonstrators who were holding signs. The mob chanted “tear down the sign.” Miller-Young then grabbed one of the signs and stormed off with it, eventually engaging in a physical altercation with 16-year-old Short, one of the pro-life demonstrators, when Short tried to retrieve the stolen sign.

The confrontation took place in the university’s designated “free speech area.”

The 3 by 5 foot sign contained graphic images of aborted fetuses as well as statistics and facts about abortion. The scuffle left the 16-year-old Short with visible scars and scratches on her arms.

[…]Late last week, Santa Barbara officials announced that Miller-Young is being prosecuted for misdemeanor theft, battery, and vandalism in connection with her assault on Ms. Short.

Short says Miller-Young pushed her at least three times, stole her sign, then grabbed and attempted to restrain her while others made off with the sign.

Short’s father told Fox News that he hopes the prosecution of Miller-Young will serve as a lesson for those who seek to halt free speech on campus. “She was free to engage in a rational dialogue with them,” Mr. Short said. “Instead, she chose to bully them, steal and destroy their property, and hit and scratch my daughter.”

“I think the goal of this prosecution should be to set a good example for her students, one that will not only deter her from repeating this conduct, but will also deter those who approve of her actions from imitating her appalling behavior,” Mr. Short added.

This sort of stuff happens all the time, by the way. Sometimes the pro-abortion people run over signs:

And sometimes, they try to run over people.

And sometimes, they actually shoot people.

I have some friends in the pro-life movement, and I’m familiar with some of the horrors they have to endure. If you reason that people who are willing to kill innocent unborn babies are fine with committing lesser crimes against less innocent people, you’d be right. I think we should all agree that whatever you do in your life, you shouldn’t be taking innocent human lives in order to avoid having to take responsibility for your own actions. That’s just wrong.

News

New study: fruit fly DNA reveals unexpected complexity

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From Evolution News.

Excerpt:

You know about ENCODE, the project that found 80 percent or more of the human genome is transcribed and appears functional. Now, along comes modENCODE: the ENCODE project for model organisms. Results from the fruit fly are in, and Indiana University shares the surprises (for evolutionary theory, that is): “Study of complete RNA collection of fruit fly uncovers unprecedented complexity.”

The paper shows that the Drosophila genome is far more complex than previously suspected and suggests that the same will be true of the genomes of other higher organisms. The paper also reports a number of novel, particular results: that a small set of genes used in the nervous system are responsible for a disproportionate level of complexity; that long regulatory and so-called “antisense” RNAs are especially prominent during gonadal development; that “splicing factors” (proteins that control the maturation of RNAs by splicing) are themselves spliced in complex ways; and that theDrosophila transcriptome undergoes large and interesting changes in response to environmental stresses. (Emphasis added.)

Ten of the 41 researchers from 11 universities working on modENCODE came from IU. They found many genes transcribed only under stress, such as exposure to heat, cold, and toxins. “In total, 5,249 transcript models for 811 genes were revealed only under perturbed conditions,” they said. As if the “junk DNA” myth needed any more pounding, the lead author testifies:

“As usual in science, we’ve answered a number of questions and raised even more. For example, we identified 1,468 new genes, of which 536 were found to reside in previously uncharacterized gene-free zones.“

The post on Evolution News also talks about another study from the University of Vienna on the genome of the sea anemone.  Their genome was way more complex than expected, too.

So what is the best explanation for all this specified complexity that enables biological function?

Evolution News explains:

Intelligent design… knows how to explain the observations. Whenever we see a complex, functioning system (like a rollout of a software system), we know intelligence played a role in its origin. We also know that intelligence can explain multiple, independent instantiations of similar systems. We never see, however, complex, networked systems arising de novo by unguided natural processes.

Yes. In the company I work for, we have a release of functional code every month (at least). These explanation for the increase in specified complexity in our applications is that busy little software engineers have been carefully sequencing characters into lines of Java code, for  purpose. No rational person believes that you can get huge increases in specified complexity by random chance. Code is code is code. It all requires a coder, just like the Big Bang requires a Big Bang.