Weekend News Roundup

Note: This post also appears in my weekend newsletter.
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This week, the new Speaker of the House, Christian conservative Mike Johnson, came under fire for his past comments on homosexuality, notably his claim that gay marriage is a cancer that would lead to the collapse of Western civilization. But more humorously, CNN unearthed a 2008 clip this week that revealed that Johnson believes that “rampant homosexuality” was responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire: “Many historians, those who are objective, would look back and recognize and give some credit to the fall of Rome to, not only the deprivation of the society and the loss of morals, but also to the rampant homosexual behavior that was condoned by the society.” The Roman Empire fell, of course, when it was officially Christian and had Christian laws.
 
Meanwhile, Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, the Indonesian government-affiliated geologist who claims Gunung Padang in Indonesia is a prehistoric pyramid complex that coincidentally makes Indonesia the oldest civilization on Earth, published a new paper repeating the claim, to the delight of Graham Hancock, who claims it is “vindication” of his speculations. However, Natawidjaja only provided radiocarbon dates for organic material buried within the hill of Gunung Padang without providing evidence of human occupation at the time or of human deposition of the organic material.
 
Finally, the Daily Mail reported that Sean Kirkpatrick, the head of the Pentagon’s UFO office, will resign in the coming weeks following months of attacks from ufologists in the mainstream media and on social media that he is too closed to witnesses’ extraterrestrial claims, is hiding the “truth,” and is too willing to work with alleged conspirators hiding UFO evidence. He is rumored to be replaced with a candidate more open to space aliens.