Tag: political correctness

Report finds cash-strapped NASA still spending MILLIONS on grants to DEI and “environmental justice” initiatives

Despite being severely underfunded, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) still spent millions of taxpayer dollars on grants to initiatives that focus on “environmental justice” and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Records indicate that much of NASA’s $10 million grant spending went to universities to help them study environmental justice in urban areas as well as other places with high concentrations of racial minorities.

For instance, the agency approved $150,000 in funding to Columbia University so it could pair “earth observations and socioeconomic data” and enable students to do environmental justice work in New York City.

Another grant, this time worth $250,000, was paid out to Los Angeles as part of NASA’s Predictive Environmental Analytics and Community Engagement for Equity and Environmental Justice (PEACE) program.

To remedy its observation that “people of color often face higher exposure to air pollutants,” NASA’s PEACE program paid the city to provide pollution data to its residents in “a way that works across communities and cultural differences and specifically analyzes, engages and responds to needs for environmental justice.”

NASA has provided over $5 million for “environmental justice” grants since 2022, according to federal records.

“The environmental justice movement focuses on ensuring communities receive equitable protection from natural and human-induced environmental hazards,” NASA’s webpage on equity and environmental justice reads. “It embodies the principle that all communities should be heard and represented in decision making.”

Keep reading

The Democracy Fund: Trudeau’s Online Harms Act could weaponize courts and stifle free speech

The Democracy Fund (TDF) has warned the public that the proposed Online Harms Act of the Canadian government could “weaponize” the courts and instill fear while doing little to curb social conflict and promote safety online.

In February, Minister of Justice and Attorney General Arif Virani proposed the Online Harms Act, also known as Bill C-63. The bill, which includes amendments to the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act, claims to protect children from online sexual abuse, cyberbullying and self-harm.

Bill C-63 seeks to reinstate Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, a “hate speech” provision abolished in 2013 by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The bill would enable the government to target and remove specific online content.

The bill aims to create a Digital Safety Commission, a digital safety ombudsperson and the Digital Safety Office, all tasked with monitoring and regulating internet content.

Additionally, a five-person government-appointed panel would monitor internet platforms and hold “secret commission hearings” against rule-breakers. Under the bill, those who commit hate speech online could face severe penalties, including life imprisonment or fines of up to CA$50,000 ($36,150).

However, in a 26-page legal brief, TDF argued that the proposed bill would grant excessive government power to clamp down on online speech.

“Historically, the power to censor has been a weapon of authoritarian regimes. This power inevitably expands and eventually eliminates the civic process by which society adapts and progresses,” the TDF wrote in the legal brief. “It will not reduce social conflict. On the contrary, it is likely to exacerbate the problem of social conflict, weaponize the courts and the human rights tribunal for political purposes, and introduce fear into the online social environment.”

Moreover, TDF stated that “open dialogue and education” are better alternative solutions to address harmful attitudes rather than censorship.

Keep reading

Microsoft’s “Inclusivity Checker” Sparks Fears of a Looming “Speech Police,” Flagging Terms Like “Mother” and “Father” for More “Gender-Neutral” Alternatives

Microsoft is busy inventing new phrases to make sure that, what the tech giant and its likes consider “inclusivity,” is properly reflected in Microsoft Word.

But at least as far as words, “mother” and “father” are concerned, this inclusivity seems to, paradoxically, work by exclusion.

Gone are the days when Word offered spelling and grammar checks. Now, for people who like their writing software to nudge and prod them during the writing process by suggesting “more suitable” replacements, Word has something called “Inclusivity Checker.”

The repository of terms contained in the tool, that are recommended to be replaced, is only growing.

A modern update takes a dim view of the expression “maternity leave” on “gender-inclusivity” grounds, and suggests that it be replaced with “birth-related leave,” “parental leave,” or “childbirth leave.”

Fathers who go on paternity leave should instead be described as taking “child-bonding leave,” Microsoft thinks. All this is explained as a way to make sure that the writer is inclusive of “all genders.”

Is all this really necessary? Microsoft thinks it is. According to the Free Speech Union, one of the terms writers who, for some reason, use Word are advised to replace is Postman Pat: it should be “Postal Worker Pat,” according to those behind this effort.

In that case, the intent is to avoid the possibility of gender bias. The same goes for “biologically female” – a phrase best avoided, according to Microsoft.

Keep reading

Neiman Marcus Scrubs the Word ‘Christmas’ From Iconic 98-Year-Old Holiday Gift Catalog

Department store chain Neiman Marcus has quietly scrubbed the word “Christmas” from its iconic, nearly 100-year-old holiday gift catalog.

The high-end retail company announced the change in a press release earlier this month.

The catalog is now called “The Holiday Book” instead of “The Christmas Book.”

When the Dallas Morning News asked about the name change, a spokesperson said it was done for “inclusion.”

The Holiday Book is a new name for what was formerly the Christmas Book, whose name was changed in the spirit of inclusivity as it welcomes customers of all backgrounds, religions and traditions to celebrate the season, a spokesperson said.

The “Holiday Book” will have over 100 pages of luxury goods.

“This year’s holiday activation and campaign is an invitation to embrace the magic of Neiman Marcus. The storytelling was inspired by the theatrical traditions and folklore during the period that the brand was founded,” said Nabil Aliffi, Chief Brand Officer, Neiman Marcus, in the press release.

Aliffi continued, “Through our comprehensive 360-degree marketing strategy, we will take our customers on a remarkable journey that transcends traditional shopping, immersing them in a world of fantasy both in-store and online. We invite our customers to step into this extraordinary realm, where every interaction is an opportunity to experience the excitement of the season, no matter how they choose to engage with us.”

An upset employee at the company’s Dallas headquarters complained to the New York Post that Neiman Marcus CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck is more focused on DEI than growth.

Keep reading

EU’s Věra Jourová Labels Elon Musk a “Promoter of Evil” for Permitting “Hate Speech” on X

Věra Jourová is not a psychologist but she decided to play one during an interview, by “diagnosing” X owner Elon Musk as a person unable to “recognize” good and evil.

But then, he apparently can, after all – because Jourová in the same breath accused him of being “a promoter of evil.”

Jourová is an EU bureaucrat on her way out, after serving as Vice President of the Commission for Values and Transparency for the past five years.

“Good riddance. If she wants to see evil, I suggest she use a mirror,” Musk shot back in a post on X, adding that Jourová is the “epitome of banal, bureaucratic evil.”

Jourová is known for pushing anti-free speech legislation such as enabling mass surveillance of private messages (which she claims is “privacy-preserving” and “not breaking encryption”), combating “disinformation and hate speech,” and even going after whoever the EU decides is a conspiracy theorist by using law enforcement.

Keep reading

Chemists rips ‘feminism’ STEM class proposal

An academic journal article about “feminism” and “dysconscious racism in STEM” never should have been published, according to two chemistry professors.

Professors John Landrum and Joseph Lichter questioned why the Journal of Chemical Education allowed a paper that vaguely touched on “white supremacy” to be published.

“Overlooking the obligation to provide clear definitions and valid evidence for such terms, especially ‘White Supremacy’ which was deemed sufficiently important to include in the abstract, is hard to rationalize for a journal that ascribes to upholding reasonable standards of scientific rigor,” the two Florida International University professors wrote.

They also called the paper a “deeply flawed work of scholarship.” Only two academic publications cited the paper – the Landrum (pictured, left) and Lichter (pictured, right) reply, and a subsequent response from the original author to these criticism.

The 2022 paper argued for “teaching science with a feminist framework.” “This article presents a pedagogical model for implementing a special topic class on science and feminism for chemistry students at East Carolina University,” Professor Michelle Reyes originally wrote. She teaches at ECU.

Landrum and Lichter criticized the proposed topics, saying they “have little to do with chemistry and more to do with medical or STEM-related historical events dealing with racial and gender inequality.”

Keep reading

Canada’s woke Stasi

Under other circumstances, former school trustee Barry Neufeld may have retired as one of your curmudgeonly, albeit amusing, elderly neighbours, equipped with a brash sense of humour, a glass of wine and a cigarette. Had he not introduced himself at a recent panel event I spoke on in Victoria, British Columbia (BC) about the harms of gender-identity ideology, I would never have pegged him as a supposed hate-monger. He seemed rather jovial, in fact. Yet the Canadian media and some of Canada’s most powerful unions see things differently. They have made Neufeld their nemesis.

Neufeld is now in his seventies. His troubles began in 2017. This was when he discovered a new gender-identity curriculum for kids coming down the pike in his school district of Chilliwack, BC. This was the year that the SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) 123 programme was implemented in public schools across the province, with the aim of making classrooms more ‘inclusive’ for LGBT-identified kids. That same year, Bill C-16 was passed by the national parliament, adding ‘gender identity’ to the list of protected characteristics under the Canadian Human Rights Act. Both pieces of legislation were introduced with little public debate and most Canadians were completely unaware of what was even happening.

But Neufeld noticed and spoke out on Facebook, criticising SOGI 123 for instructing ‘children that gender is not biologically determined, but is a social construct’. ‘At the risk of being labelled a bigoted homophobe’, he wrote, ‘I have to say that I support traditional family values and I agree with the [American College of Pediatricians] that allowing little children to choose to change gender is nothing short of child abuse’.

Keep reading

Heinz Pulls Two ‘Racist’ Ads After Backlash

In a world where everything is racist, you can’t have a black person in an ad for tomato ketchup without legions of snowflakes complaining it perpetuates negative stereotypes and demanding that it be cancelled.

Ketchup kings Heinz folded like a soggy burger bun when they became the target of the angry puritan mob, pulling not one but two adverts after some complaints, likely mostly from white people with deep set guilt complexes.

The first ad, for a ‘family size’ pasta sauce, appeared on the London Underground and depicted a black woman getting married to a white man, with family members also in the picture.

At the meal they are eating the pasta with the sauce.

Seems diverse, right? Wrong.

Because there is no ‘black father’ present it’s actually deeply racist… or something.

It’s “shocking” that there are only two black people(?) out of five in the ad.

The lighter skinned people are looking at the black girl stuffing her face with pasta in a disparaging way, so it’s even more racist… or something.

Keep reading

“White Guilt”: Absolution & Narcissism

A couple of nights ago I had a brief conversation with Allen West—who is currently serving as chairman of the Republican Party of Texas—about the subject of “White Guilt.” He expressed the opinion that affluent white women are being terribly manipulated by ruthless actors who harp on their feelings of guilt about the injustices suffered by black people in the past.

I replied that these women are not suffering from a genuinely guilty conscience, but enjoy congratulating themselves for the sense of moral superiority they obtain by ruminating on and discussing their “guilt.”

This feeling is akin to the genuine sense of relief and liberation we achieve when we confess and make amends for our true transgressions against others. Only, in the case of affluent white women indulging in feelings of “white guilt,” they get to enjoy this gratification not for the absolution of their own sins, but for the sins of other, less enlightened souls. Thus, the emotional exercise is not a form of humility, but of self-aggrandizement.

Oscar Wilde characterized this kind of self-indulgent emotion as sentimentality.

A sentimentalist is simply one who wants to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. We think we can have our emotions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing emotions have to be paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine.

In the 2001 film Storytelling, a dark satire directed by Todd Solondz, a young white female—a literary major at a prestigious university—puts herself in a life threatening situation with a literature professor (who happens to be black) in order to absolve herself of her white guilt. For her, the professor’s moral trait lies not in his character—which is obviously predatory and exploitative—but in his dark skin color. By yielding to his predatory conduct, she not only corrupts herself, but also contributes to the further moral corruption of her professor.

Keep reading

FEMA Doesn’t Care About Helping Americans After A Disaster, It Cares About ‘Disaster Equity’

What’s the point of a federal disaster agency if the chief priorities of said agency are not to save Americans from disaster?

In September last year, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell joined the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to sign the “Agreement to Advance Equity in Disaster Resilience.”

According to an NAACP press release, the group’s “Emergency Management Task Force … will meet regularly with FEMA leadership to advance progress on equity within disaster preparedness and resilience.”

“The signing comes on the heels of an Intergenerational Climate Resilience Roundtable recently hosted by NAACP and FEMA during NAACP’s Climate Week NYC activations,” the release read. “The roundtable focused on disaster preparedness, climate resilience and instilling equity in emergency management.”

FEMA’s website characterized the roundtable as a forum where “presenters shared their wealth of knowledge and information gleaned from their areas of expertise and personal experience regarding the intergenerational impacts of climate change and how disaster resilience can be improved.”

“At a time when we are experiencing some of the worst natural disasters, we need effective collaboration, communication and transparency of resources to help Black communities,” said the NAACP’s director for Environmental and Climate Justice.

Keep reading