Obama & His Loyal Follwers

in the MSM:

In Ye Olden Days, CBS Reported News:

These days they work for Barack Milhous Obama in his Dirty Tricks Unit.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Not News

To my jaundiced eye there is a never-ending drip, drip, drip confirming the blatant bias of the MSM. But once in a while I like to point it out:

:

The nice thing about having a Democrat in the White House is that there is never any bad news...

...for Democrats.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Lex Communis.)

Why Jesus is God: A Response to Bart Ehrman | Catholic World Report - Global Church news and views

Besides the brief critique of Hume's reasoning on miracles (circular) Father Barron uses a wonderful term: Semiotics.

Why Jesus is God: A Response to Bart Ehrman | Catholic World Report - Global Church news and views:

...In this most recent tome, Ehrman lays out what is actually a very old thesis, going back at least to the 18th century and repeated ad nauseam in skeptical circles ever since, namely, that Jesus was a simple itinerant preacher who never claimed to be divine and whose “resurrection” was in fact an invention of his disciples who experienced hallucinations of their master after his death. Of course Ehrman, like so many of his skeptical colleagues across the centuries, breathlessly presents this thesis as though he has made a brilliant discovery. But basically, it’s the same old story. When I was a teenager, I read British Biblical scholar Hugh Schonfield’s Passover Plot, which lays out the same narrative, and just a few months ago, I read Reza Aslan’s Zealot, which pursues a very similar line, and I’m sure next Christmas or Easter I will read still another iteration of the theory.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Insight Scoop|The Ignatius Press Blog.)

The Black Legend

as it is called by some, is beginning to disintegrate, at least among the educated and disinterested. The popularity of Monty Python's send-up of it might be a marker of the ebbing of that tide. Check out the video that is in the link below from (of all sources) the BBC. It's interesting and educational:

Cosmos in the Lost offers Praise…:

…for the Inquisition.  I always enjoy it when pseudoknowledge gets spanked.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

What Bias?

Father Z nails it:

Child violators get a pass from liberals when they are “gay” right activists:

From NewsBusters:

Pedophiles Are Not National News — When They’re Gay Rights Pioneers

Read the whole thing.

(Via WDTPRS.)

Gay Parents Are Just Like Other Parents?

Is there some room to express doubt about that?

Life on GLAAD’s Blacklist | LifeSiteNews.com:

America doesn't know that this is part of same-sex parenting, because Americans have been blocked from hearing from me, Dawn Stefanowicz, Jean-Dominique Bunel, "Janna," Manuel Half, Rivka Edelman, and the blogger known as "the Bigot" -- just some of the many people I've come to know over the last year and a half, who have the human stories to dispel the myth that all is well with "gay families." This scares the crap out of people at GLAAD. It scares the crap out of them that I'm a professor and fluent enough in the way research works to know that the "consensus" on same-sex parenting is a fraud. It scares the crap out of them that I have a scholarly record in African-American Studies and queer readings of Thoreau and Whitman, so they can't write me off as a wacko, unwashed homophobe.

Read the whole thing.

(Via LifeSiteNews.)

I Agree with Mark Shea

and Simcha Fisher:

Simcha Fisher Talks Sense…:

…to bedwetting panicmongers.

If some stranger came to me and said, “I thought I overheard your wife say that she is a Zoroastrian who spits on Jesus Christ” my first thought would not be, “Could this possibly be true? Is everything I know of her a lie? What do I do? O what do I do!!!!!”

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Mark Shea Does It Better

Ooh! Ooh! Me! Me! I Know!:

Because we are a Paris Hilton People in an Apocalyptic World?

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Truth in the News

I caught a brief news report on CNN about the annual March for Life which happened again today. Three things caught my attention:

The single camera shot was from below and only caught a couple of dozen participants.

The reporter referred to "thousands" attending the March. Yeah, right.

The reporter provided the background information about the original case Roe v. Wade, including the real name of "Roe" in this case: Norma L. McCorvey. Norma's conversion to the pro-life cause, of course, wasn't mentioned.

Lesson learned (again): if you want to know anything more than the most superficial and misleading things about causes that the political elite despises don't rely on the MSM.

A Follow-up on TLRJ

*The Latest Real Jesus:

Of Gnostics and Religion Professors:

In September, Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King ignited an international controversy when she claimed to have found a piece of what she claims is a fourth-century papyrus that refers to Jesus’ “wife”.[1] (To be fair, she doesn’t claim that she believes that Jesus was married, only that whomever wrote the scroll believed He was. Of course, most of the media coverage didn’t make the fine distinction and played it up as evidence that orthodox Christianity was wrong and/or hiding the truth.) There’s been plenty of criticism of King and her claim and even the way she went public about it.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Bettnet.com - Musings of Domenico Bettinelli.)

The Latest Real Jesus

There are a few lessons we can learn from this latest debacle:

First, scholars when working according to their professions standards:

thoroughly research their thesis

submit this thesis to a peer-reviewed journal

which is then reviewed by experts in the field before publication to avoid obvious problems

then it is published and submitted to general review by scholarship as a whole

From this it follows that something which is first announced in a press conference with a tv special on the Smithsonian channel being quickly organized you should prepare yourself for some blowback. Scholars don't like being ignored while the scandal-hungry press and money-grubbing media are feted.

The usual caveats are appropriate for Christmas and Easter-themed "Real Jesus" stories.

It's bad enough we have this shoddy stuff coming at us twice a year. Givest me a break!

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife…:

…is now a confirmed forgery. Replicates blunders from an online version of the gospel of Thomas it was ripped off from.

Will the media learn from this Latest Real Jesus incident not to instantly fall for the next Latest Real Jesus? Have fish, since the invention of fishing, ever learned not to bite a hook with bait on it?

It’s what they *do*.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

GroupThink Makes Objectivity Difficult

Take Climate Change for example: A story in the MSM that ballyhoos the "conversion" of a sceptic to a CACC(GW) believer is way overstated. Not only does he have a clear (Google-able) trail of belief in GW but at least one scholar seriously disagrees with the conclusions of his study.

With this kind of rah-rah journalism how do we sort out the conflicting claims? That the earth is warming is more or less given. How much is the earth warming and to what degree is this warming anthropogenic are the questions that need a sober, scholarly answer.

*More on that Global Warming "Convert" and his paper proving:

More on that Global Warming "Convert" and his paper proving Global Warming.

Like I noted yesterday, there is solid research that the temperature data for ground warming is systematically biased in favor of the "warmist" conclusion.

But - wait! - there's more:

I’ve reached Dr. Judith Curry of Georgia Tech, who was a co-author of the first four BEST papers but who declined to be listed as an author of this one.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Lex Communis.)

The God Particle

There was an interview on CNN with physicist Michio Kaku about the Higgs boson particle (the so-called "God Particle"). The some debatable pronouncements are slipped into this discussion.
The most egregious leap is made by Dr. Kaku when he seems to agree that this discovery could "disprove God". The HIggs Boson particle does nothing to advance the cause of atheism, ok? When qualified scientists start talking about philosophy you should be prepared to deduct 50 IQ points.

This and other misapprehensions are admirably dissected by William Lane Craig in his podcast "Reasonable Faith". One point that he makes fascinated me. The Borde Guth Vilenkin Theorem seems to invalidate appeals to an endless universe in physics whether through infinite regressions or endless expansions and contractions. A Google search shows that Dr. Craig's reliance on this theorem has sparked a mini-industry of atheist rebuttals. A more scientific and current evaluation is here. The summary is "Did the universe have a beginning? Probably yes."

Interesting.

Just Sayin'

It's a sad thing if the Internet or whatever is replacing the MSM isn't actually increasing knowledge and dialogue. But ideas have consequences:

Memo to NBC: What the hell is wrong with you?:

I’m tired. Truly. I’ve grown weary of trying to defend the indefensible and explain the inexplicable. For years, people have stomped their feet and pounded their fists and snorted “Liberal media bias!” and I’ve always tut-tutted and shooshed them and said, “No, no. Calm down. They meant well. It was just a misunderstanding. A mistake. These things happen.” I spent over 25 years working in the oft-reviled Mainstream Media and I saw up close and personal how the sausage was made. I knew the people who wielded the knives and wore the aprons, and could vouch (most of the time, anyway) for their good intentions.

Read the whole thing.

(Via New Advent.)

Speaking of Nuns

JImmy Akin has some interesting analysis of the apparent turnabout of the Catholic Health Association and Sister Keehan, their spokesnun. I'm intrigued by his concern that a too-detailed analysis of how the Administration can achieve it's immoral aims could be immoral itself (enabling). And the mention that late Friday news is ignored by the MMS, when convenient. Give it a read and see what you think.

A closer look at Sr. Carol Keehan's turnabout...:

The move is momentous because Keehan famously broke with the U.S. bishops to endorse the original passage of the administration's Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") and then broke with them again to endorse the Department of Health and Human Services abortion drug and contraception mandate, providing political cover for the administration. Both acts were widely criticized, and it appeared to many that Sr. Keehan was a willing tool of the administration's "divide and conquer" strategy for dealing with the Catholic community--playing the role of an alternative Catholic authority that could be pitted against and thus neutralize the voice of he bishops.

Read the whole thing.

(Via New Advent.)

Our Problem is

We have the attention spans of goldfish. If something is broadcast that confirms our beliefs or our suspicions we accept it without further thought. Actually investigating the basis for our beliefs and opinions risks disconfirmation, something we are ill-equipped to deal with.

The case in point is the Liberal/Moderate contempt for the Fox News network and it's viewers:

Are Fox News Viewers Misinformed?

This is a great example of:

Are Fox News Viewers Misinformed?

This is a great example of how the internet undermines the biased academic class.



Via Roger Ho.

(Via Lex Communis.)

More Evidence

that the MSM is heavily filtering the news to promote their world-view:

:

I did not know this stuff....

...which, apparently, is the point of the news media's practice of suppressing news reports about leftist violence:

While the media is all over the recent bombing attempt in Times Square, they quickly swept the 2008 bombing of the Times Square military recruiting station under the rug. The hometown New York Times relegated the terror attack to regional news, even

Read the whole thing.

(Via Lex Communis.)

A Summary

of the sex-abuse scandal in the Church and the MSM coverage of it:

Media's deadly ammunition of half-truths:

A retired Hollywood actor and Catholic convert whom I had the honor of sponsoring, regularly sends me clippings about the Catholic sex scandals from newspapers and news magazines -- his only source of news other than television, since he fastidiously eschews the world of computers. I do not know how much help he finds from his priest in sorting out fact from fiction in the daily media onslaught. One feels considerable sympathy for our priests, who doubtless feel besieged and confused by the anti-Catholic onslaught in the media and may prefer to ignore the issue in their homilies. The result, however, is the reinforcement of an unhealthy fortress mentality, where the Faith is increasingly isolated from the issues of the day and rendered irrelevant. Legions of parishioners like my actor friend need answers. Hence, the issues must be addressed.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Musings of a Pertinacious Papist.)

Any Stick to Beat a Dog With

seems to be the operating principle of the MSM these last few weeks:

Anti-Benedict Campaign Jumps Shark Again:

Okay, so today's headline in the "Benedict is a Stoopid Doodyhead" shark attack is "Vatican forgives The Beatles for 'bigger than Jesus' comment ". Some variations of this hot hot HOT story tell us the Pope or Rome or somebody "finally" forgives the whole "bigger than Jesus" remark.

Don't these guys even read their own copy? What about the *last* time the Vatican/pope/Rome/some guy in L'Osservatore Romano (they are all one and indistinguishable) forgave the bigger than Jesus remark? Heck! I wrote a whole piece about it at the time! And now they are playing that tape again? What? Are they running out of material?

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Whack-A-Pope

continues with interesting results. Now that the Vatican push-back is impossible to ignore, the MSM tries to fan the flames of a Catholic-Queer smackdown. A potentially entertaining tangle of absurdities results:

Card. Bertone in Chile strikes some sparks, MSM puffs on the fire:

From CBS/AP ... yes.. AP again…



My E & C.

SANTIAGO, Chile, April 12, 2010

Pope’s No. 2: Sex Abuse Tied to Homosexuality

Cardinal Bertone’s Remarks Cause Uproar; U.S. Priest Slams Vatican for "Incompetence and Irresponsibility"



(CBS/AP)   Updated at 7:15 a.m. Eastern.  [The original title seems to have been "Sex abuse not tied to celibacy"]



The Vatican’s second-highest authority says the sex scandals haunting the Roman Catholic Church are linked to homosexuality and not celibacy among priests. [There are the two points… homosexuality and celibacy.  But they shifted the title of the story.]

Read the whole thing.

(Via What Does The Prayer Really Say?.)