Sex (inuendo), Lies and Videotape

I know it shoudn't but it does still surprise me at how far modern journalism has fallen from its lofty place. The death of many newspapers reflects this sorry state and news stations are not far behind. They days when journalism sought to be our watchdog, warning us when public figures lied and acting as the guardian of truth are fast going into the recycle bin, to meet a similar fate: we hope something good will be made of it, but suspect it will probably be found at the landfill with the other things of our lives we have no further use of.

So where to begin. first with the sexual inuendo:

Bozell: "Now the News Isn't Just Biased, It's R-Rated. MSNBC and CNN Owe the Public An Apology over at MRC.

Alexandria, VA – WARNING: The following contains material that parents may find unsuitable for younger children. It contains material that is apparently wholly appropriate from alleged “journalists” on MSNBC and CNN.

Rather than report the news, the networks were utterly derisive and dismissive of the TEA Parties and their participants. Worse still, both used the oral sex slang-term “tea-bagging” to disparagingly depict what ordinary Americans were said to be doing in attending them. (“Tea-bagging” in the sexual sense is inserting one’s testicles into someone’s mouth.)
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and her guest, liberal Air America’s Ana Marie Cox, combined to use the term “teabag” at least 51 times in a 13-minute segment. At one point, Cox said there’s “a lot of love in tea-bagging.”

Maddow’s MSNBC cohort, anchor David Shuster, also uttered the vulgar phrase and made a total of twelve separate oral-sexual puns in his April 13th attack on the event.
The next night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper twice interrupted his guest, analyst David Gergen, to gleefully declare “tea-bagging” while Gergen was stating that he thought Republicans had nothing to say, and then followed Gergen’s statement with the guttural “It’s hard to talk when you’re tea-bagging.”

Over at Powerline they have their own inuendos but make a good point:

There is something funny going on here, if not exactly where Cooper, Maddow and Sullivan find it. Cooper is widely reputed to be homosexual. Maddow and Sullivan are of course public homosexuals. It is funny in an ironic sort of way that these folks choose to disparage the tea party protesters from somewhere inside the homosexual subculture. Why not just call the protesters girly boys and let everyone in on the joke? Or would that spoil the fun?

There is not only something funny going on here, there is a story here. These supposed journalists and their networks (or publisher, in Sullivan's case) have rather seriously insulted the citizens who colorfully took to the streets to air respectable views in a most civil fashion. If they had any decency, Cooper et al. would apologize for their vile reference to sexual practices in the context of ordinary citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. (more)

Now for the lies.

Over at Fact Check we find that Obama (gasp!) may be playing a bit foot loose with the facts:

President Obama says 90 percent of Mexico's recovered crime guns come the U.S. Not true.

How about the widely (all the way down under) publisized lie that Obam is blazing new trails with the rest of the world. Not true,

"Imagine if, only a year ago, the President of the United States had visited Turkey, addressed its parliament, then kissed the Prime Minister on both cheeks.

"That might have been considered far-fetched, but so, too, would have been the President's affirmation that his country was not at war with Islam and that being Muslim in the US is part of the fabric of life.
"It is indeed unimaginable that George Bush would have embraced such thoughts, words and deeds."

Pardon? "Unimaginable?" Only to the spectacularly uninformed. (more)

Same Iraq strategy. Same kissing up to the Saudis (and it pissed us off then too)


Now for the videotape:

It's Staged. NBC News Washington's Tea Party Video On-Line Is a FAKE

From Vocal Minority: Folks, it's two days after the April 15 Tea Parties and the local page of NBC News Washington on-line still has this video of a Tea Party protest that took place across the street from the White House (mockingly entitled "Scenes from the Most Important Protest in Political History"): This is a fake, people. It's staged. These are not Tea Party protesters. It's a left-wing group called either The Billionaire Boys or Billionaires for Bush.


And finally we have this from Cairn H/T doctorbulldog:

CAIR Caught Selling Jihadist & Anti-Judeo-Christian Books to Public

Removal of Notre Dame President?

According to an article on CNSNews, Notre Dame alumni are urging their friends to stop contributing to the university until Fr. Michael Jenkins, the president who has invited President Obama not only to speak but to receive an honorary degree, has been replaced.

They have created a website, http://www.replacejenkins.com/, which has more information.

Intrinsically Disordered

A legal complaint has been filed against a Spanish bioethics professor who had the nerve to speak the truth.

LifeSite has the story but Secular Heretic has a number of good links including one speaking of the dangers of homosexuality to one's health and others outlining the dangers to the freedom of thought and religion that the homosexual activists pose to the rest of the world. Like this one:

David Booker an employee of the "English Churches Housing Group" has been suspended for answering questions about his faith to a colleague at work

Go over to Secular Heretic and have a look.

New Blog

To Eutychus and Friends,

I have at last launched my blog, Bedlam or Parnassus. Inspired particularly by Eutychus, Red Cardigan, and Euripides, I could no longer refrain from creating a venue to discuss the insanities (Bedlam) and the inspired wisdom (Parnassus) of our age.

Don't worry, Eutychus...I will continue to read and post here as well.

So, check out Bedlam or Parnassus. Let me know what you think. Post your comments and send me suggestions.

Oh, yeah...if you like, please link me on your blog as well.

Unreal: CNN reporter openly contemptuous of tea parties

Wow...I am speechless. Where does she think she is, MSNBC?

A tour de force of bias via TV Newser, from her sarcasm to her Fox-bashing to her badgering a guy who’ll be paying off Obama’s monstrous deficits for decades about why he isn’t satisfied with a $400 tax break this year. The title of the clip is “CNN Reporter Roughed Up at Chicago Tea-Party,” which, as you’ll see, is a transparent lie...

From HotAir

Texas A Terror State? -UPDATE

The DHS has issued a statement here

The administration has redefined Islamic extremists' acts of domestic terrorism were recently redefined by Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano and President Obama, as man-made disasters, and of course the "war on terror" has been renamed an "overseas contingency plan"

Now, according to a new Department of Homeland Security document Texas could be classified as a terrorist state.(or is it a "potential man-made disaster producer? Nevermind) It could well be and in which case, you can sign me up:

From American Thinker:

The DHS Intelligence Assessment Document marked "For Official Use Only" and entitled; Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, was released to law enforcement agencies nationwide. Its stated purpose was to "deter, prevent, preempt, or respond to terrorist attacks against the United States." Read the entire document here.

If this DHS Assessment is an example of the kind of analysis our decision makers receive from our intelligence agencies, we are in far worse straits than I had imagined. It is amateurish, poorly written and its logic is absurdly shallow. It sounds as if it was cobbled together from bits and pieces of dated research to quickly fill a short notice requirement. I suspect it was not intended to inform or educate law enforcement first responders and decision makers, so much as it was designed to shape their perceptions in the information war the Left is waging on the American people.

Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.

The statement "they have not yet turned to attack planning" has the ring of inevitability to it, an assumption that attacks will come because of race and that it is impossible to object to Obama simply because of his radical politics. We are presented no evidence or example of how "Rightwing extremists have capitalized" because I suspect that their evidence would fall firmly under protected speech, and rightly subject to criticism. More importantly it would reveal the ideological underpinnings of the authors.

Anti-American rhetoric, such as calls for revolution and hate speech from the Radical Left has been over the top for many decades, yet we endure another fabrication of "potential" rightist conspiracies. With tens of thousands of Islamic Jihadist attacks since 9-11, and less than half a dozen "right wing extremist" examples in the last 20 years, one wonders how much critical analysis went into this nonsensical report. By their admission the threat has been merely words, but unlike Islamic extremism where words often equate to action, the opposite has been true of America's fanatics. (more)

Surely Texas fits the bill and proudly so with the Governor attending the T.E.A. Party in Austin and reminding the federal government about the 10th amendment and telling them to step off:


It is the opposition of the "overreaching power of the federal government" that may have sealed Texas's fate as a terror state. Rick Perry's statement on the Governor's website, may have doomed the state of Texas by supporting HCR 50, which supports states' rights under the 10th Amendment. You know the 10th Amendment--the one that expounds on Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution and spells out explicitly the limits of the federal government, just in case the federal government became confused of their limits. Perry stated,
"I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state. That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states' rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union....Millions of Texans are tired of Washington, DC trying to come down here to tell us how to run Texas."
A number of recent federal proposals are not within the scope of the federal government's constitutionally designated powers and impede the states' right to govern itself. HCR 50 affirms that Texas claims sovereignty under the 10th Amendment over all powers not otherwise granted to the federal government.

It also designates that all compulsory federal legislation that requires states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties, or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding, be prohibited or repealed.

Let's test Texas's terror threat assessment capabilities based on voting habit:
Anti-abortion--check
Pro-Gun--check
Anti-gun control--check
Predominantly Christian--check
Military bases--check
Returning soldiers--check
Against high taxes (no state tax in Texas)--check, check
Anti-illegal immigration--check
Against an overreaching federal government--check
Conservative--check
Extreme right-wing (according to Democratic Party standards)--check
Understands Article 1, Section 8--check
Understands the 10th Amendment--check
Rejects federal authority in favor of state or local authority--check

That sums it up: Texas is most definitely a terror state in the eyes of Secretary Napolitano and her agency.

Some reaction:
Legion objects to vets as terror risk
Homeland Security told: 'Americans are not the enemy'

De-baptism

According to this Time magazine article, de-baptism is all the rage in England. In the article you can read all about how to download your very own de-baptism certificate to "Liberate yourself from the Original Mumbo-Jumbo that liberated you from the Original Sin you never had."

I will not get into a theological discussion here about whether the Holy Spirit enters a person's life at baptism or at some other time, but I do think signing a de-baptism certificate certainly has to come close to the so-called unpardonable sin of Mark 3:29 and Luke 12:10.

Yet there were two comments in the article that I simply cannot let go without remark. If and when I ever launch my own blog...I have it all set up...this would be the kind of thing I would comment on.

De-baptism certificates apparently were in high demand shortly after Pope Benedict XVI's comments about condoms on his way to visiting Africa recently. Time writes, "Public gaffes like that one may explain the anti-Catholic backlash driving similar movements elsewhere in the world." It is the opinion of Time that the Pope's comments constituted a gaffe. Yet this was not the opinion section of the magazine. A great many Christians, including this one, acknowledge the wisdom of the Pope's comments and the sheer lunacy of those who are outraged against them.

Secondly, the article states, "Given that God takes on different forms for different people," there have been requests from those of other faiths for a similar reversal of defining acts in their lives, such as a "de-bar mitzvah" certificate. It is far from given that God takes on different forms for different people. In fact, any orthodox Jew, Muslim, or Christian will state flatly that there is only one God for all people, whether or not anyone believes in Him. It is precisely because of this that, for example, Muslims and Christians cannot agree about the fundamental issue of their faith, however much western media outlets have tried to put all faiths into a blender and by hitting the puree button thus declare them one and the same.

What the Resurrection Proves

Good stuff over at STR.

R.A. Torrey, a prominent evangelist at the turn of the last century, published a book called The Bible and its Christ. Torrey opens his fourth chapter, on the resurrection, with a recap of the previous arguments, and then asks,

But suppose He did rise from the dead, what of it? What does His resurrection prove? It proves everything that most needs to be proved. It proves everything that is essential in Christianity.

There follow six points:

1. The resurrection of Christ from the dead proves that there is a God, and that the God of the Bible is the true God.

2. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves that Jesus is a teacher sent from God, who received His message from God, that He was absolutely inerrant, that He spoke the very words of God.

3. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves that He is the Son of God.

4. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves that there is a judgment day coming.

5. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves that every believer in Christ is justified from all things.

6. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves that all who are united to Christ by a living faith shall live again.

Fred Sanders at Biola University goes on to say,

The apologetic project of “proving the resurrection” is important, especially to demonstrate that the Christian faith is not a leap into the irrational or a retreat to personal commitment. But on its own, it’s a fairly tiresome business. Unless, that is, you keep the theological context in view: Christ as the revelation of God the Father, as the one judge whose claim on all humanity has been vindicated in a mighty act of divine self-demonstration, as the one whose sacrifice is salvation, and whose rising from the dead catches humanity up in its momentum. (more)

A Book For the Reading List

I am ashamed to say that I don't think I ever read, Dante's Inferno. I think I was supposed to but for one reason or another I did not.
Anthony Esolen, English professor at Providence College has a new translation out that I cannot put down. It has actually been out for quite some time but I just got around to giving it a look (another embarassing revelation)
"a substantive Introduction, extensive notes, and appendixes that reproduce Dante's key sources and influences," pretty much hits the nail on the head as a description.

I fell in love with Esolen's writing over at Mere Comments and really enjoyed his, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization," but while I enjoy poetry I was hesitant to take the chance on this book. My only regret is that I waited so long. I will never hesitate to buy another of his books. I think this is readable by anyone and most will enjoy it.

Judge Says Illegal Alien ID Thieves' Privacy Violated

The sign outside hell, in Dante's Inferno reads, "Abandon all hope, you who enter here"...I'm just sayin'....
H/T Judicial Watch
Get this:

More than 1,300 illegal immigrants who used fake or stolen Social Security numbers to file taxes will face no consequences because their privacy rights were violated by the local authorities who busted them.

A judge ruled this week that the search of a north central Colorado tax preparer suspected of having an unusually large illegal alien clientele was illegal. That means that at least 1,300 illegal immigrants who filed tax returns with fake or stolen Social Security numbers will not be charged. (more)

The sheriff and district attorney in Weld County caught the violators by searching thousands of federal income tax returns at the Greeley office of a tax preparer that caters to illegal aliens. Dozens have been arrested and charged with identity theft or criminal impersonation but this week’s ruling will likely set them free.

Obama looks at climate engineering

You really can't make this stuff up...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.
John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

"It's got to be looked at," he said. "We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table."

Holdren outlined several "tipping points" involving global warming that could be fast approaching. Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of "really intolerable consequences," he said. (more)

Really intolerable consequences- like a junior Senator from Illinois becoming President and spending trillions of dollars of our money and our children's to reflect the sun's rays with pollution particles? You mean it could be worse?

Studies and Stories on the Decline in American Christianity

There has been a spate of studies and stories on the decline in American Christianity lately. Well, it is the season after all. Whenever a major Christian holiday approaches the press drags out all the supposed dirty laundry and inuendo it can find. Over at MereComments some perspective is given on the subject:

...We happen to be in one of the periods when there is not a lot of social prestige or other benefit to being in the church and thus nominal members are dropping out. They have no desire to meet even modest demands of the church when they see no compensatory benefit. The drop off in the number of nominal Christians also results from the ascendancy of conservative Christianity in the United States. The more intensely the church stands for something, the less likely it is that people with low commitment will associate themselves with the church. This has always been the church's dilemma....

...What has happened in the last fifty years is that the mainline churches which had seemed to prevail during the fundamentalist-modernist controversy actually lost by becoming increasingly liberal. They became so liberal that their membership had nothing to attach themselves too other than being against conservative Christianity. They can do that just as easily on their own as they can in a liberal church. They end up in the "other" or "none" category when religionists are counted. ...

Over at GetReligion we get another perspective:

...The Trinity College survey, which you can find analyzed and linked to to in this article by Washington Post writer Michelle Boorstein, has some very interesting results. But as Trinity College’s Mark Silk asserts, these survey results show that the evangelical ranks are growing. GetReligionistas have said again and again that there is confusion (including, if one can judge by these results, among evangelicals themselves) over what constitutes an evangelical. While the number of self-declared Christians has declined, the survey doesn’t forecast the impending death of conservative Christianity....

...Infighting among conservative Christians is a sexy topic — and it is probably going on. There is considerable infighting going on in many segments of America’s religious populations. But what both Meacham and Spillius appear to assume that a decline in political influence equals defeat for religious conservatives. In his response to Meacham’s essay last week, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Moehler argues instead that his main concern is evangelism, not cultural influence. ...(more)

Green Stimulus Money Costs More Jobs Than It Creates

The example of Spain's "green job" plan touted by Obama as an example to be emulated here, is not coming up roses...
From CNSNews:

"Spain’s experience (cited by President Obama as a model) reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created,” wrote Calzada in his report: Study of the Effects on Employment of Public Aid to Renewable Energy Sources. (more)

Obama Pick Does Not Have Tax Problems

From the NY Times:

WASHINGTON — For the first time since settling into the White House, Obama made a selection that had no tax problems or criminal record...

OK it doesn't say that, but it could have..

Marriage: A Hill to Die On

Though the meat of the article focuses mainly on the political question of which I could give a rat's patootie, I agree with the sentiments expressed here. Namely, "the latest demand is never the last."
Said before but worth repeating-and often, the redefining of marriage has nothing to do with civil rights and is a radical social experiment that has disastrous consequences for our society and our children as well as our religious freedoms...

From the Spectator blog:

...Over and over, we find ourselves fighting what is essentially a defensive battle against the forces of organized radicalism who insist that "social justice" requires that we grant their latest demand.

We know, however, that their latest demand is never their last demand. Grant the radicals everything they demand today, and tomorrow they will return with new demands that they insist are urgently necessary to satisfy the requirements of social justice.

When they refer to themselves as "progressives," radicals express their own basic truth: Their method of operation is always to move steadily forward, seeking a progressive series of victories, each new gain exploited to lay the groundwork for the next advance, as the opposition progressively yields terrain. Such is the remorseless aggression of radicalism that conservatives forever find themselves contemplating the latest "progressive" demand and asking, "Is this a hill worth dying on?" ...

...Some conservatives are wholly persuaded by the arguments of same-sex marriage advocates. Others, however, are merely unprincipled cowards and defeatists. Concerned about maintaining their intellectual prestige, some elitists on the Right do not wish to associate themselves with Bible-thumping evangelicals. Or, disparaging the likelihood of successful opposition, they advocate pre-emptive surrender rather than waging a fight that will put conservatism on the losing side of the issue.

Yet if the defense of traditional marriage -- an ancient and honorable institution -- is not a "hill worth dying on," what is? ...

Terror suspects in 'Easter bomb plot' worked at Manchester airport

Funny how most stories on this side of the pond focused more on the fact that the head of security was sacked for having the classified info in view as he visited PM Browns office rather than on the terror plot itself...
From the Daily Mail:

Members of the alleged Al Qaeda cell suspected of plotting a Bank Holiday terror atrocity worked for a firm based at Manchester Airport.

At least one drove vans for a cargo company which has access to sensitive locations.

A further two had passed security industry checks which enabled them to guard premises overnight, further raising fears that members of the gang - all but one of them Pakistani students - were planning to infiltrate high-profile targets before an attack. (more)

Controlling the Press

Every Administration tried to control the message it put s out to the public and the press. In years past there has been a healthy tension between the press and the government to keep government "honest." With the demise of journalistic integrity and evenhandedness made painfully clear in the last election, it would seem these days are over. This has been at least one factor in the demise of many newspapers.

This disturbing trend seems likely to continue with the revelation by AmSpec that the Left has been trying to manipulate the message with its own website:

...A few weeks ago, it was revealed that the Left has been manipulating the national news media via an online communication loop called "JournoList." As someone who follows political blogs closely, I had noticed how successful the Left was at (a) getting its favorite narratives picked up by the national media, and (b) discouraging coverage of narratives unfavorable to Democrats. Conservatives have long speculated on the role of back-channel communications between "progressive" activists and sympathetic journalists in this sort of coordinated messaging operation. The JournoList revelation exposed one of those back channels; that there are many others is easily inferred....(more)

At least a few people think that a similar thing is happening with the latest "Easter Seals" dispatch of the Somali pirates.

The AP breathlessly reports that:

The operation, personally approved by President Barack Obama, quashed fears the saga could drag on for months and marked a victory for the U.S., which for days seemed powerless to resolve the crisis despite massing helicopter-equipped warships at the scene. (more)

Ahem-
Well, not exactly. Blackfive gives some clarification:

...He did affirm the military's authorization to use force if the captain's life was in danger, but they already would have had that authorization as part of their standard rules of engagement. If there are innocents about to be slaughtered the same reasoning that authorizes self defense also covers an imminent execution unless the ROE specifically forbid it.The AP is making it sound like there was an active rescue ordered by the President. It was not, there was an imminent threat and the local commander gave the order to fire. Good on Obama for ensuring their authorization was clear, but let's also be clear that he did not authorize or order an active rescue attempt...

(FYI- ROE stand sfor Rules of Engagement.)

At one point I would have thought I was making a mountain ourt of a mole hill, that I was becoming a bit of a conspiracy nut. I don't know anymore....

The Loss of Religious Freedom and Freedom of Speech

As a follow up to a previous post, also by the Washington Post, on what the redefining of marriage will cost. World wide, the freedom of speech, long a cherished bullwark of western civilization, is under assault and any many cases has been killed.

For years, the Western world has listened aghast to stories out of Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations of citizens being imprisoned or executed for questioning or offending Islam. Even the most seemingly minor infractions elicit draconian punishments. ...

...Among the new blasphemers is legendary French actress Brigitte Bardot, who was convicted last June of "inciting religious hatred" for a letter she wrote in 2006 to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, saying that Muslims were ruining France. It was her fourth criminal citation for expressing intolerant views of Muslims and homosexuals. Other Western countries, including Canada and Britain, are also cracking down on religious critics.

Emblematic of the assault is the effort to pass an international ban on religious defamation supported by United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. Brockmann is a suspended Roman Catholic priest who served as Nicaragua's foreign minister in the 1980s under the Sandinista regime, the socialist government that had a penchant for crushing civil liberties before it was tossed out of power in 1990.... (more)

Beetle has some examples of actual healthcare professionals who have been pressured to violate ethical standards.

And over at Get Religion they're also talking about the WaPo article and have pulled in a number of different viewpoints on the matter like this one from GayPatriot:

Ms. Salmon cites a number of examples where individuals, organizations and entrepreneurs were fired for, fimed for or barred from refusing service to or inclusion of gay people. Now, I personally think these groups are wrong to so exclude gays, but they’re not requiring me to buy their product or participate in their activities.

At the same time, if a gay group wanted to exclude Christians from its membership, it should be free to do so. Their right to do that would come from the First Amendment’s clause on “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” and also possibly the Ninth Amendment.

But, these constitutional protections don’t seem to be a barrier to gay groups in their zeal to reduce the freedom of private individuals and organizations. They are prevailing in courts according to Ms. Salmon “because an individual’s religious views about homosexuality cannot be used to violate gays’ right to equal treatment under the law.”

Say what? That’s not equal treatment under the law. That’s using the law to limit individuals’ freedom, just as it would be if Christians used the law to mandate that gay organizations include ex-gays or gay business serve the Christian Coalition. (more)

Our Lord is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

Easter

Rise, heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delays,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise,
That as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and, much more, just. (rest of the poem here)