NewsWatch

Sometimes It Takes a Baby

IntellectualTakeout.org, 6/27/23, “Sometimes It Takes a Baby to Bring Out the Humanity in Us” [Excerpts]: Air travel today might be considered the triumph of individualism. It involves people in their own bubbles rushing to destinations with little human contact. It is a case of Hobbes’ “every man against every man” as all travelers compete with each other to navigate inside the lonely crowd.

However, something extraordinary occasionally breaks the isolation, and people come out of their worlds and communicate with others. Such rare moments give a glimpse into how interesting people can be.

The main character in this drama was an unassuming baby at the back of the plane. For a full ten minutes during the boarding process, the poor terrified infant could not stop crying at the top of his lungs despite the mother’s desperate attempts to calm him.

It seemed all but certain that the mother and child would be expelled as the minutes ticked by when something unexpected happened. About a dozen rows from the front, a voice rang out, “Miss, give the poor baby a break! We can take it! It’s no problem.”

That first lone voice unleashed a chorus of support from all over the plane. The cabin erupted in cries to let the baby stay. Everyone offered to put up with the crying. There was a certain joy in their offers of sacrifice.

https://bit.ly/46cSnvO

Court: No Protection from Gender Transition

FrontPageMag.com, 6/27/23, “Court Strikes Down State Law Protecting Minors from Gender Transition Medical Abuse” [Excerpts]:An Obama-appointed federal district court judge in Arkansas, District Court Judge James M. Moody Jr., struck down Arkansas’s ban on “gender transition procedures” performed on any individual under eighteen years of age. Judge Moody...claimed it violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses and the First Amendment.

For biological girls, radically transformative surgeries, preceded by testosterone replacement therapy, can include double mastectomy and what transgender activists like to call “bottom surgery.” The latter could entail removal of the uterus, removal of the vagina, and changing the clitoris into a penis. These surgical procedures often entail serious, long-term complications and are irreversible for the rest of the girl’s life.

For biological boys, radically transformative surgeries, preceded by chemical castration, can involve breast augmentation and penile inversion vaginoplasty.

Arkansas’s Attorney General Tim Griffin vowed to appeal Judge Moody’s decision. “I am disappointed in the decision that prevents our state from protecting our children against dangerous medical experimentation under the moniker of ‘gender transition,’” he said, [adding], “There is no scientific evidence that any child will benefit from these procedures, while the consequences are harmful and often permanent.”

https://bit.ly/3LkdpAj

“Prehistoric” Paddlefish?

ICR.org, 6/30/22, “‘Prehistoric’ Paddlefish?” [Excerpts]: Evolutionists consider the freshwater paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) of the class Actinopterygii to be a prehistoric creature, a primitive bony fish “50 million years” older than the dinosaurs—making the freshwater paddlefish “350 million years” old. They look bizarre, and they have always been paddlefish.

This alleged “prehistoric” creature is impressively designed with special cellular sensors called electroreceptors. These hair cells are contained in a structure called the ampullary organ located on the extension or beak-like process of the paddlefish’s snout (rostrum). The fish can detect steady (tonic) electrical discharges of zooplankton—their favorite food. God also designed the paddlefish with sensory pores covering much of the skin surface that extends from the rostrum to the gill or opercular flaps.

The paddlefish has made the news recently because decades ago its habitat in Texas (they are also found in the Mississippi River basin and China) was disrupted by a dam that was built upstream. The waterflow needed for the fish to survive was altered, causing the fish to die out in the 1970s.

But think of all the environmental disasters that would befall every square inch of the Earth’s surface during the supposed 350 million years. The calamities would be legion, including earthquakes, drought, natural pollution, volcanoes, extreme changes in salinity, pH, and oxygen concentration, continental drift, asteroid strikes, flooding, and freezing. But the robust little paddlefish was able to endure all of these apocalyptic events spanning many millions of years—until it encountered a dam in Texas.

https://bit.ly/44YLq01