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<\/a><\/p>\nRequiring schools to teach fetal development.\u00a0 Quantum computing and the end of cybersecurity.\u00a0 And Democrats trying to decide whether to fix public schools or defend them.<\/p>\n
Requiring Schools to Teach Fetal Development<\/h4>\n
Ending abortion will require changing hearts and minds.\u00a0 Iowa has does something practical towards that end.\u00a0 The state has passed a law<\/a> requiring schools to teach fetal development with the help of video and ultrasound.<\/p>\n Henry Olsen reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n That law requires schools to show students in grades five to twelve a video or ultrasound that depicts each stage of fetal development. Teenagers will learn about when the heart and brain develop, for example, and exactly how the unborn child goes from a fertilized egg to the crying human being that enters the world upon birth.<\/p>\n This strikes directly at the heart of pro-abortion-rights reasoning. For decades, those who favor abortion on demand have emphasized the centrality of a woman\u2019s right to do what she wants with her own body. That has a strong moral appeal, as anyone who believes in the right to individual liberty can grasp.<\/p>\n The problem has always been that abortion destroys another human being\u2019s body, that of the unborn child\u2019s. No one\u2019s right to liberty gives them an excuse to unjustifiably deprive another person of their right to liberty \u2014 or to life itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cFetal development laws like Iowa\u2019s put pictures with words,\u201d writes Olsen. \u201cThat can only help persuade the heart of what the head already knows \u2014 and thereby increase the resolve that even a fetus or embryo is a real human being deserving of our sympathy and legal protection.\u201d<\/p>\n Reportedly, pro-abortionists are outraged.\u00a0 But why?\u00a0 How can they be opposed to the presentation of simple facts?\u00a0 I have heard pro-abortion policies defended in the name of \u201cscience.\u201d\u00a0 So why not teach students what science tells us about fetal development?<\/p>\n The Iowa law should be a model for all states.\u00a0 The videos and ultrasounds should be part of every biology and sex-education curriculum.\u00a0 Olsen says that this policy should be defined and implemented carefully, so as to protect it from being politicized and overturned by a court:\u00a0 Be rigorously unbiased.\u00a0 Abortion should not so much as be\u00a0 mentioned.\u00a0 Just show the facts.\u00a0 That\u2019s all pro-lifers need to persuade the new generations that children in the womb are human beings who deserve protection and care.<\/p>\n The computer industry is on the verge of yet another breakthrough.\u00a0 Not just AI but another technology that brings with it still more unintended consequences: quantum computing<\/a>.<\/p>\n By taking advantage of quantum properties, such as superposition<\/a> and entanglement<\/a>, computers can be made to operate exponentially faster than current models.\u00a0 This would mean computers with the ability to make extremely complex calculations at a high rate of speed.<\/p>\n That would mean quantum computers could break every known encryption system.\u00a0 Politico<\/em>\u2018s Sam Clark<\/a> reports:<\/p>\n Modern-day digital communications, internet traffic and data collections are secured using a system called public key cryptography, which relies on complex mathematics that regular computers can\u2019t solve. But quantum computers \u2014 which are many times more powerful than today\u2019s computers \u2014 could crack those codes easily, experts have warned.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything breaks,\u201d said Nigel Smart, a professor with the computer security and industrial cryptography department at KU Leuven, a Belgian university. \u201cYour phone, the internet, everything breaks. Not break as in doesn\u2019t work, breaks as in, it\u2019s not secure.\u201d<\/p>\n Once quantum computers reach the inflection point, it would effectively mean that most of today\u2019s data zooming around on internet wires would be readable to anyone tapping in.<\/p>\n A particularly eerie problem is what\u2019s known as \u201cstore now, decrypt later,\u201d where threat actors \u2014 notably intelligence agencies \u2014 take data that\u2019s encrypted with public key cryptography, retain it and then unlock it once quantum computing technology is sufficiently advanced.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The European Union is trying to address this by developing guidelines, regulations, and technology that could provide quantum crypto-security.<\/p>\n Though it\u2019s good to prepare for this eventuality, in researching this post, I learned that quantum computing is presently mostly theory and experimentation. See the Wikipedia article on quantum computing<\/a> for the challenges, limitations, and skepticism about this technology.\u00a0 As always when it comes to technology, beware the hype!\u00a0 And, as always, beware the unintended consequences.<\/p>\n Public schools are in a bad way, with ever-declining test scores, safety issues, and the public\u2019s loss of confidence.\u00a0 Democrats, who are in charge of most big-city school systems, are reportedly debating what their policy should be:\u00a0 try to fix the schools or defend them as they are?<\/p>\n Matt Barnum writes about this in his Wall Street Journal<\/em> article, <\/span><\/span>Debate Over Improving Public Schools Is Dividing Democrats.<\/a>\u00a0 He writes,<\/p>\n An insurgent faction of Democrats\u2014including some elected officials and parents, nonprofit executives and wealthy donors\u2014says the party has lost its way on education, as\u00a0test scores have declined<\/a>\u00a0and Republicans\u00a0have made the issue their own<\/a>. These Democrats are pushing ideas more often advanced by conservatives, including accountability for test scores or alternatives to public schools. . . .<\/p>\n Advocates on the other side\u2014including teachers, their unions and some parents\u2014say progressives need to focus on defending and supporting public schooling. \u201cDemocrats should be championing public education and further investment in public education,\u201d Kentucky Gov.\u00a0Andy Beshear\u00a0said in an interview.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is odd on the face of it.\u00a0 Who could be opposed to improving schools?\u00a0 Most proven approaches have no political implications.\u00a0 If children learn how to read better using phonics as opposed to the whole language method\u2013as research<\/a> has established\u2013why not teach reading by means of phonics?\u00a0 Why would a Democrat be against that?<\/p>\n There seem to be two reasons:\u00a0 One, conservatives have been calling for many of these reforms, so that\u2019s reason enough for many liberals to oppose them.\u00a0 Second, the Democratic party is heavily in thrall to the teachers\u2019 unions, whose members don\u2019t like to be told that they have been doing some things wrong.<\/p>\n As we have blogged about<\/a>, in the case of teaching reading, phonics have been decisively proven to outperform other pedagogical approaches.\u00a0 To the point that the method of teaching children to read by attending to the sounds symbolized by the 26 letters of the alphabet and their combinations has been re-christened \u201cthe science of reading<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n And it\u2019s black families and other disadvantaged minorities, frustrated that the educational establishment has not taught their children even the most basic skills such as reading, who have been lobbying their school districts to make changes.\u00a0 Democrats keep claiming to be champions of the underprivileged, and yet many of them are resisting doing things to actually help the underprivileged.<\/p>\n Requiring schools to teach fetal development.\u00a0 Quantum computing and the end of cybersecurity.\u00a0 And Democrats trying to decide whether to fix public schools or defend them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":65538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,26,27,30,36,44],"tags":[3942,656,16703,831,16697,16700],"class_list":["post-83900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-law","category-life-issues","category-medicine","category-politics","category-technology","tag-cybersecurity","tag-democratic-party","tag-education-reform","tag-fetal-development","tag-iowa-fetal-development-education-law","tag-quantum-computing"],"yoast_head":"\nQuantum Computing and the End of Cybersecurity<\/h4>\n
Dems Trying to Decide Whether to Fix Public Schools or Defend Them<\/h4>\n
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