In a study published in Current Biology in 2009, Dr. [Marina] Davila-Ross and colleagues compared the sounds that great apes made when they were tickled with the laughter that tickled humans produced. — Rebecca Morelle, BBC News, “Scientists Tickle Animals to Find Laughter Clues”, December 29, 2011

Of course they did — but does the “common ancestor” requirement of Darwinism explain it?

They found many acoustic similarities, which has led them to believe that laughter in great apes shared the same evolutionary origin as laughter in humans, suggesting a common ancestor that giggled when tickled. — BBC News

Similarity, an old saying cautions us, is not identity. Nevertheless:

Dr. Davila-Ross, who led the study, explains: “Based on the study, we can now say laughter is at least 30 million to 60 million years old.” — BBC News

Where did the good doctor get that “30 million to 60 million years” from? Since she doesn’t say, thin air comes to mind.

Dr. Davila-Ross says that although it may take time to gather data and assess the results, she hopes this study across the animal kingdom could begin to shed light on how laughter evolved.

“A direct comparison across a range of species will give us some interesting insights into the evolution and co-evolution of play vocalisations and positive animal emotion,” she says.

“I think it is important when one reconstructs evolutionary processes – particularly with positive expressions – that it is important to assess different types of animals.

“In this way we can assess in much detail how did these vocalisations emerge and why is it important for that animal to produce them.” — BBC News

The emergence of anything in the unobservable and irreproducible past must necessarily be the subject of speculation — a severe dearth of data, don’t you know.

A writer at ICR is justifiably skeptical of the whole thing:

With [Dr. Davila-Ross's] range of 30 million years … it’s safe to assume that evolutionists have no idea when laughter evolved.

The BBC reported that tickling a gorilla “sounds a lot like human laughter.” However, evolutionists maintain that people evolved from chimpanzees—not gorillas. Also, macaws, parrots, and other birds can mimic human laughter even more closely than any primate can, but evolutionists don’t suggest that people evolved from parrots.

And recent reports found that pigeons have numerical abilities like those of primates. Researchers observed pigeons employing “abstract numerical rules” that are “indistinguishable from that displayed by monkeys.” Does this mean that primates share the same evolutionary origin as pigeons? — Frank Sherwin, ICR, “Animal Laughter Study Doesn’t Help Evolution”

So let us respectfully lower the curtain on this gang of researchers as they systematically set about tickling the snot out of a bunch of defenseless animals.

(1) A man and his wife are in bed watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire when he says, “Wouldn’t you like to fool around?”

Without blinking, she says, “No.”

“Is that your final answer?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’d like to phone a friend …”

(2) A man takes his wife to a restaurant, but for some reason the waiter takes his order first.

“I’ll have the rump steak, very rare.”

The waiter’s eyebrow goes up. “Aren’t you worried about the mad cow?”

“Nah, she can order for herself …”

(3) A man and his wife are attending a high school reunion. She keeps staring at an obviously drunken man sitting all alone at a nearby table, swigging a drink.

“Do you know him?” asks the husband.

“Yes,” she sighs. “He’s my old boyfriend. I’ve heard he took to drinking right after we split up all those years ago and hasn’t been sober since.”

“My God!” exclaims her husband. “Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long …”

(4) After his lawnmower has broken down, a neglectful husband manages to find some excuse for not getting it repaired, so his wife thinks up a clever way to get his attention.

Arriving home one day, he finds her sitting in the tall grass, busily snipping away with a small pair of sewing scissors.

After watching her for a few minutes, he goes into the house and comes back out with a toothbrush.

“When you finish cutting the grass,” he says, “you might as well do the driveway …”

(5) The wife drops onto the couch next to her husband.

“What’s on TV?” she asks.

“It looks like dust …”

(6) Early on a Saturday morning, a husband gets quietly dressed, makes a lunch, and slips out to the garage. He hooks up the boat to his van and backs out, only to discover it’s raining buckets. The radio says it’ll be that way all day.

Dejectedly, he goes back into the house, quietly undresses, and slips back into bed.

“The weather out there is terrible,” he says to his wife.

“Yep,” she says from under the covers, “and can you believe my stupid husband is out fishing in that …?”

(7) There’s an upcoming wedding anniversary, and the wife is hinting about a gift.

She says, “I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds.”

So he buys her a bathroom scale …

(8) A wife is regarding herself in the bedroom mirror, and she isn’t happy.

“I feel horrible,” she moans to her husband. “I look old, fat, and ugly. I really need you to pay me a compliment.”

“Um, okay, your eyesight’s darn near perfect …”

(9) A car piles into another one, but nobody’s hurt. One driver is startled to see an indignant dwarf emerge from the other car.

“I’m NOT happy!” he says.

“Well, which one of the seven ARE you then …?”

He might be a whiz kid at creating computer software, but beyond that Bill Gates has proven time and again that he hasn’t a clue about why or how freedom works.

. . . Clearly Gates is a captive of his own wealth, suffering the usual rich man’s guilt over being rich – rushing full speed ahead to “give back to the world.” Funny how such giving back always seems to mean supporting socialist causes with money gained from the free market. Up till now, Gates has just been giving his own money voluntarily. Even if it’s to bad causes, he is certainly free to use his money anyway he chooses.

Now, however, his misguided meddling is about to involve the misdirecting of everyone’s income, and so the world’s richest useful idiot just became dangerous to freedom. — American Policy Center Report, “Global Poverty Act Is Back: Is Bill Gates the World’s Richest Useful Idiot?”

At first, it started out with innocuous moniker of “The Charter for Global Democracy”:

Specifically, the Charter for Global Democracy was intended to give the UN domain over all of the earth’s land, air and seas. In addition it would give the UN the power to control all natural resources, wild life, and energy sources, even radio waves. Such control would allow the UN to place taxes on everything from development; to fishing; to air travel; to shipping. Anything that could be defined as using the earth’s resources would be subject to UN use-taxes.

There was one major problem with the Charter for Global Democracy, at least as far as the UN was concerned. It was too honest and straightforward. Overt action displeases the high-order thinking skills of UN diplomats. The UN likes to keep things fuzzy and gray so as not to scare off the natives. That way there is less chance of screaming headlines of a pending takeover by the UN.” — American Policy Center Report

So the proposal was rebranded the “Millennium Declaration,” same bottle, different label.

Crucial to the implementation of the Declaration will be a Global Poverty Tax [a.k.a. the Tobin Tax] — 0.7% of each sovereign nation’s GDP — which was first promoted in Congress by then-Senator Barack Obama. The tax would be expected to net at least $845 billion over ten years, all of it going to the UN to promote “social justice” and “eliminate global poverty” by 2015:

[The "Millennium Goals" to be reached by the tax are] Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty; Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education; Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women; Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality; Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health; Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases; Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability; Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development. — American Policy Center Report

. . . and, as the APC report says, “Who could oppose such noble goals?” In the process, however, the UN will morph into the world’s largest collection agency . . .

. . . pressing to collect the promises the world leaders made at the Millennium Summit. The UN wants the cash . . . to establish its power over sovereign nations and to enforce the greatest redistribution of wealth scheme ever perpetrated on the world. — American Policy Center Report

And now we have billionaire Bill Gates, who

. . . proposes a financial transaction tax (FTT) on tobacco, aviation, fuel and carbon (energy), to be enforced by all members of the G20 nations. The financial transaction tax has been excitedly talked about in the halls of the UN for a decade. Called the Tobin Tax, named after a Yale economist who dreamed it up, FTT would give the UN almost unlimited funding by taxing every stock and monetary transaction in the world. — American Policy Center Report

“‘We Take Care of Our Own’ just doesn’t pass muster with the information readily available on any given day in any reputable news source.

“At some point in the past few decades, Springsteen began patterning his songwriting on the supposed social consciousness of folksingers Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs. Ochs once recorded an album titled All the News That’s Fit to Sing. Springsteen would perform a tremendous favor to the better-informed members of his enormous fan base – this writer included – by actually reading a newspaper.”

I’ve always thought of those who tend toward these mindsets as Utopians in some sense. Progressives, of course, are striving toward a Utopia of the future; pessimistic conservatives want to take us back to a supposed Utopia of the past. Certainly I generalize, but having read much these last three decades I think I’m on to something.

If you’re of my generation having grown up in the 60s and 70s, you listened to music on vinyl records. On the inevitable move away from vinyl we started with 8 track tapes, then cassette tapes, then CDs, all driven by convenience, not quality. By the 1990s vinyl was well on its way to the grave yard, or so we thought. Digital was the final death of records, or so we thought; add to convenience the ultimate in personalization. Who would want to listen to a record from beginning to end, just one artist or band? I might not like all the songs! And look at all the time and hassle of pulling out a big piece of plastic and putting it on a record player, having to actually manually put the needle on the record. What a hassle.

But something funny happened on the way to the vinyl funeral; it wouldn’t die! Eric Felton in the Wall Street Journal tells the story of vinyl’s comeback. The beauty of its resurgence is what it says about the inevitability of inevitability; no such thing. Back in the hay day of the turn of the millennium we were told the internet meant the end of brick and mortar, until it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. People like virtual, but they also like real. Now as everything goes digital we’re told books made of paper are on their way out, newspapers and magazines are passé, not to mention unprofitable. I really like Mr. Felton’s take on all this:

Substantial. That’s the word I keep hearing from the fans of vinyl. Records are admirably physical, the antithesis of the everywhere-and-nowhere airiness of “the cloud.”

The embrace of vinyl isn’t just some retro fad, but a push-back against the techno-triumphalism that insists there is no future for physical artifacts like books and newspapers. It’s a small declaration of independence, a refusal to let the march of progress stomp on one’s pleasures.

Vinyl is an assertion that efficiency isn’t everything. Cars may have done in the buggy, but there still are people who like horses. Engines on watercraft have long obviated the need to mess about with furling and unfurling canvas, luffing and gybing and all the other soggy inconveniences. And yet there are those who choose sailboats. Who needs wine corks when bottle-caps do the job?

Vinyl is decidedly inconvenient, which is the very reason it appeals.

Techno-triumphalism, I like that phrase. No matter how much things change, human beings never will, because we are more than a bunch of molecules and cells that fell together through millions of years and implausible, to say the least, coincidences. Rulers and philosophers have tried for millennia to make human beings fit into boxes of their choosing, and doggone if they don’t always find a way to break out.

President Eisenhower spoke of a military-industrial complex that could work against the imperatives of democratic government. Evidently a media-science establishment complex has evolved over time, as well, subverting the will of the people in multifarious ways.

(1) The “science” journal Nature “excoriated President Obama for backtracking on his promise to bring more ‘integrity’ to science (meaning, acquiescing to the views of the scientific establishment). What, in particular, were they complaining about? They were appalled that he would cave in to pressure from conservatives to backtrack on plans to distribute the ‘morning after’ pill to schoolgirls under 17.”

(2) “The news media uniformly supported the NCSE’s [National Center for Science Education] decision to add climate skeptics to their targets, along with evolution skeptics. New Scientist portrayed Eugenie Scott’s organization that fights for Darwin-only education as ‘US science education advocates,’ ignoring the fact that Scott has not only interfered with the voice of the people through their legislatures for years, but has also praised the institutions that have destroyed careers of evolution skeptics.”

(3) “What’s a science news site [PhysOrg] doing reporting a decision by the Huffington Post, the anti-conservative website, to go French? . . . If anyone has an example of a science news site celebrating the success of a conservative enterprise in such glowing terms, it would be an interesting search.”

(4) If you don’t believe all change is good, then you might be either a redneck or a borderline psycho: ”Psychologist Aaron C. Kay of Duke University got a one-way megaphone to portray those not wanting ‘social change’ as victims of irrational, psychological forces.”

(5) The National Science Foundation underwrote what can only be generously termed a “research project” that characterizes “evolution skeptics as hapless pawns of gut feelings instead of rationality. . . . ‘Research in neuroscience has shown that when there’s a conflict between facts and feeling in the brain, feeling wins,’ [the lead researcher] opined, speaking of those who have not yet gained the enlightenment that leads to ‘acceptance of evolution’.”

(6) Are there “psychological benefits” to being religious, such as higher self-esteem? A “new study” says: “In countries where most people aren’t religious, religious people didn’t have higher self-esteem.” CEH demurs: “This [conclusion] assumes that people embrace their faith only for what they can get out of it. It also assumes their highest value is self-esteem. If self-esteem happens to be low on the priority list among the millions of persecuted believers around the world, many who have been willing to die for their faith, these psychological experts did not seem to be aware of it or concerned about it.”

(7) The media-science establishment continues its relentless assault on traditional values: “It is well known that conservatives support traditional marriage and abstinence from sex outside marriage. They don’t get very good press among science reporters, who seem to be on a campaign to portray alternative lifestyles as blessed by science.” Among them:

(a) One media organ reports: “Same-sex marriage laws reduce doctor visits and health care costs for gay men. Gay men are able to lead healthier, less stress-filled lives when states offer legal protections to same-sex couples” — which provokes “the question [of] whether a stress-free life is the arbiter of morality.”

(b) Another “study finds few well-being advantages to marriage over cohabitation” — which, says CEH, “presumes that societal decisions about marriage are to be made entirely on the well-being of those choosing to engage in ‘other forms of romantic relationships,’ while ignoring the well-being of children, family members and society as a whole – points conservatives would undoubtedly rush to express, had they the reporters’ ear.”

Other like-minded “news” outlets touted this report, “calling the study on the blessings of cohabitation ’extremely valuable.’ Experts were quoted describing those holding to traditional marriage as having ‘an extremely naïve view’” — and concluded with this hardly objective exhortation: “Pass it on: Cohabitation may be just as good as marriage in promoting happiness and well-being.”

(c) As for Catholic nuns benefitting from contraception: “. . . two Australian ‘researchers’ speaking with the imprimatur of science . . . ended [their article] with this promotion: ‘Pass it on: The pill may reduce the risk of ovarian and uterine cancer in nuns . . .’”

CEH‘s conclusions regarding these developments are worth quoting in their entirety:

“Many scientists and science reporters, as these examples show, betray a liberal bias. Let us count the ways: (1) never giving equal time or emphasis to conservatives, (2) portraying conservative viewpoints, if even acknowledged, as out of step with the times, (3) portraying conservatives (especially those of religious faith) as irrational pawns of psychological urges, (4) using loaded words, (5) employing unargued assumptions embedded in suggestive euphemisms (like ‘marriage equality’), (6) assuming that ’researchers’ are infallible, (7) assuming that any scientific ‘study’ is authoritative, (8) rushing to sanctify the liberal viewpoint with the authority of ‘science,’ (9) considering all sciences, including psychology, as equally authoritative, and (10) never dealing with thorny issues of philosophy of science – i.e., what science is capable of knowing, proving, or preaching.” — CEH, “Liberal Bias Detected in Science Media”, January 19, 2012

As CEH has advised elsewhere: “Don’t be a dupe and merely assume that someone who calls himself or herself a scientist has a corner on objectivity. Scientists can be very adept at math, jargon and specialized fields of inquiry, but at the conclusion of any paper, every citizen has a responsibility to weigh evidence, evaluate reasoning, and consider influences that led to the conclusion.” — CEH, ”Objectivity of Science Undermined”, October 24, 2011

But this, not surprisingly, is a breathtakingly dishonest assessment of the state of American finance. In fact over the last 30 years or so the US tax system has become more progressive. This means that the “rich” are paying more of the total tax burden today than maybe ever. I don’t have time to look at all the charts and facts, but clearly, it is beyond dispute that the wealthiest Americans are paying more than their “fair share.” Obviously fair is in the eye of the beholder.

If this is not offensive and dishonest enough, we have the President of the United States claiming his Christian faith compels him to believe that charity begins with government coercion? This is pathetic reading of what Christian compassion means, and that the president would justify his progressive tax policy because of his Christian faith is beyond spurious.  It’s no wonder that study after study shows that conservatives, especially religious conservatives, give a whole lot more to charity than liberals, especially secular liberals. If the government is going to take my money in the name of compassion, why would I need to give whatever I have leftover to charity willingly? Everyone will be taken care of by Big Brother. God Forbid.

Radio formats of the 1970s were wide-ranging, bubblegum pop interspersed with everything from early heavy metal to soul, country, psychedelia, rhythm-and-blues and all sorts of hybrids and cross-pollinations right, left, and center of the dial. The exposure to the multi-various genres was certainly there, but what was missing for a kid like me growing up in rural, northern Michigan, was visual context.

The closest televised depictions of black urban culture in those days were Julia, the (original) Bill Cosby Show, Good Times, and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. Seldom did you see black youth totally immersed in FUBU culture. True, you could see the Motown acts on Ed Sullivan, and other variety programs, and Sonny and Cher even employed Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everyday People” each week on their program for a series of vignettes, but, in prime time, black music was relegated, as far as I remember, mostly to Ray Charles singing “America the Beautiful” on Independence Day specials.

Even though Dick Clark’s American Bandstand presented black music, it was a half-step in that the kids boogying to the beat were typically white. It wasn’t until Soul Train that television viewers were granted a glimpse into a larger slice of black culture, which included black kids dancing to music written and performed by blacks, commercials geared specifically to black kids, and – hot damn! – a black host exuding cool icier than a Curtis Mayfield guitar solo, Brother Don Cornelius.

Don Cornelius (r) of Soul Train

To a farm boy growing up in a predominantly all-white area in love with pop, rockabilly, country, and rock’n’roll, the experience was eye-opening – in a good way – and served not only as a primer in music previously underrepresented on the tube, but also provided a heavy dollop of background knowledge for the roots of some of the best white music. Man,  Billy Preston sure brought the funk to the Beatles and, later, the Stones, but his performances of his own material on Soul Train showed him performing pure F*U*N*K with a bit of gospel, jazz, and blues to boot.

To present a list of all the acts I witnessed on Soul Train would be showing off, but – trust me on this – it’s extensive, and even includes Elton John and David Bowie. As I noted above, the 1970s were a wonderful decade for music. Black audiences dug white English dudes playing soulful music, while white audiences learned to dig black music for its own sake, and also to mine for solid-ebony nuggets of amazing musicianship, songwriting, production, and solo and harmony singing.

And now the man who served as the Casey Jones of the Soul Train is dead, perhaps by his own hand, at 75, reputedly beset by physical and legal maladies. You were one helluva conductor, Brother Don. Thanks for the ride, and rest in peace.

. . . a major controversy developing as the latest altered Bibles are being created by organizations that most would think of as being more conservative and reasonable. At the forefront of the controversy are the Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Summer Institute of Linguistics and Frontiers, all of which are producing Bible translations that remove or modify terms which they have deemed offensive to Muslims.

That’s right: Muslim-friendly Bibles.

Passages from the Qu'ran (click on image to enlarge).

Included in the controversial development is the removal of any references to God as “Father,” to Jesus as the “Son” or “the Son of God.” One example of such a change can be seen in an Arabic version of the Gospel of Matthew produced and promoted by Frontiers and SIL. It changes Matthew 28:19 from this:

“baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”

to this:

“cleanse them by water in the name of Allah, his Messiah and his Holy Spirit.”

The specter of colonialism lurks behind this development:

While the organizations that are promoting these translations are adamant that replacing such terms as Father with Lord or Master best conveys the inspired meaning of the text, many of the indigenous Christian leaders from the countries where these translations are being promoted are broadly rejecting the translations.

The indigenous believers see the introduction of these American-made translations with which they so strongly disagree as a form of American cultural imperialism or colonialism.

One individual, Joshua Lingel, who opposes these new translations contends that

. . . the crisis in translation methodology is largely due to “a postmodern literary bias” that has crept into some translation circles in recent decades. Such translations would seem to demand that the divine author of the Bible change rather than the Muslim reader.

“But Jesus demanded that many of his listeners change,” says Lingel, explaining that instead of demanding that Muslim readers change their understanding of God, these translations seem to convey that God must accommodate the religious prejudices of Muslims.

According to Lingel, the term

. . . ‘Son of God’ is mistranslated ‘Messiah of God’ consistent with the Quran’s Isa al-Masih (Jesus the Messiah), which references the merely human Jesus.”

Read Richardson’s entire article here.

Wycliffe Bible