Teaching Lefties a Lesson With the Discovery Wacko: Modeling v. Mirror

One failure of logic is to generalize from the anecdotal to the whole. Conservatives, who know rules of logic -- we have Thomas Sowell after all (see what I did there?) -- understand this. So, when it comes to rhetorical arguments or situations where some weirdo commits some random badness, they tend to blame...well, the perpetrator. It's also just fundamental fairness.The left, in contrast, has…

Ebert: To Not Publicly Declare Obama Is Not a Muslim Is a 'Crime Again

When you think of crimes against America, crimes so dangerous they strike out against the very existence of the country, what comes to mind? Espionage, terrorism, and treason perhaps top the list. But what about not publicly declaring that Barack Obama is in fact not a Muslim?Liberal Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger "Save the Republic from Palin" Ebert made a federal case out of the latter in…

Newsweek's Alter Blames Fox News, Conservatives for Birtherism, Obama

In an August 28 online column, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter ripped into Fox News and conservative Republican leaders for painting Barack Obama as a closet Muslim and potentially a foreign-born person illegible to hold the office of the presidency.But while he tarred the Left's usual bogeymen with the specious charges, Alter failed to produce documented evidence of any instance in which any…

Is Bloomberg Supporting Ground Zero Mosque for Business Reasons

In recent days, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has become a beloved press figure as a result of his unshaking support for the Ground Zero mosque.Isn't it fascinating how in this environment where rich people are being demonized at every turn all you need to do is a support a popular liberal cause and your financial sins are instantly forgiven? With this in mind, the good folks at Big Journalism…

Shirley Sherrod Rejects Return to USDA; Media Rejects Reporting Releva

The theater of the Sherrods continues. Earlier today, Shirley Sherrod, who, according to the current version of ruling class wisdom, was prematurely evacuated from the USDA by Director Tom Vilsack, decided not to accept an offer to return to the agency. Instead, according to Politico's Matt Negrin, "she hasn’t accepted the department’s offer to work there again, but that she wants 'some type of…

Time Celebrates Methodist Seminary's Move to Train Imams and Rabbis To

For centuries, theological seminaries minted trained and licensed ministers of their respective religious traditions. They took seriously their creedal and confessional commitments to their respective faiths and denominations. While comparative theology may have been taught, it was with a view to understand and critically evaluate them as rival truth claims, not equally valid truthful claims. But…

Time Compiles 'Best Viral Campaign Ads of 2010', Pans Most of the Repu

It was inevitable that someone with enough time on their hands would compile a list of the best viral campaign video ads of 2010. There sure have been some doozies this year, so I can't fault Time magazine for including hits like "Demon Sheep" and the Dale Peterson ad in their top 20 list. That said, of the 15 Republican ads in the list, most were panned by Time staffers. By contrast, two…

Sub-19 and Sub-5: Big Three Nets' Drew Under 19 Million Last Week; CBS

They'll have all sorts of excuses (but only if asked) about why it happened: It's because they had a lot of guest anchors last week, it was hot, summer vacation season is still on (though lots of kids around in Greater Cincinnati were already back in school by last Wednesday), cable is killing us, blah-blah, etc., etc. But the Big Three networks won't be able to avoid the fact that their ongoing…

Joe Klein's Latest Adventure in Missing the Point: Taking Bill Kristol

Time magazine's Joe Klein yesterday did what he does best: take one paragraph from a neoconservative's column and blow it out of proportion and out of context in order to go on an extended screed bashing conservatives in general and neocons in particular.Writing for his magazine's Swampland blog yesterday, Klein addressed Bill Kristol's editorial for the August 30 Weekly Standard print edition…

In July, LA School Officials Defended RFK Taj Mahal K-12 Complex as 'M

Well, it didn't take to much digging to find people who think that the $578 million cost of the new Taj Mahal complex known as the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles (pictured at right; noted last night at NewsBusters and BizzyBlog) isn't that big of a deal. What I found makes me wonder why it took so long for waste of this magnitude to become a national story. On July 9, at LA'…

Report: Shirley Sherrod to Meet with Vilsack on Tuesday; Will the Pres

The Theater of the Sherrod(s) is apparently not over. At AL.com last night, Mike Tomberlin of the Birmingham News reported the following: Former USDA employee Shirley Sherrod says she will meet Tuesday with agriculture secretary Shirley Sherrod, the former USDA rural development director for Georgia, said today she plans to meet Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to discuss…

CNN and Time Promote Accusation That 'Bigotry' is Driving Mosque Debat

CNN's American Morning and Newsroom programs on Thursday brought on Time magazine's Bobby Ghosh to highlight his "Is America Islamophobic?" article and help promote his accusation that "hate speech" and "bigotry" have "come out into the mainstream" during the course of the debate over the proposed New York City mosque near Ground Zero.During his American Morning appearance, anchor Kiran Chetry…

Newsweek 'Thought Experiment': Why Not Cut Alaska Loose From the Union

Back in September 2008, MSNBC's Chris Matthews floated a specious allegation that then-Governor Sarah Palin had ties to an advocate of Alaskan secession named Joe Vogler. Although the charge was roundly discredited, it was one of the many early attempts to smear Palin as a wacky extremist. Two years later, it appears at least one writer for a liberal magazine thinks Alaskan secession would be a…

USA Today Blogger Annoyed by Ground Zero Mosque/Auschwitz Convent Anal

"Ground Zero is not Auschwitz, so why all the analogies?"USA Today religion blogger Cathy Lynn Grossman asks that question with the headline of her August 18 Faith & Reason post. Grossman explained that the comparison stems from conservatives who pointed out an incident in the early 1990s when Pope John Paul II halted a planned convent near the Auschwitz concentration camp. The nuns had every…