Turn Off That TV!

The network news’ long history of “If it bleeds, it leads” bears yet more fruit:

Via Talk Left I see that 44 percent of Americans think that we should limit the civil liberties of American Muslims. And, waddaya know:

The survey also examined the relation of religion to perceptions of Islam and Islamic countries and found the more religious a person described themselves, the more negative their views on Islam.

The amount of attention paid to TV news also had a bearing on how strongly a respondent favored restrictions.

“The more attention paid to television news, the more you fear terrorism, and you are more likely to favor restrictions on civil liberties,” said Erik Nisbet, a senior research associate with Cornell’s Survey Research Institute who helped design the survey

Merry [Bleeping] Xmas!

It’s gotten to that point in December where the incessant blasts of holiday music at work and elsewhere are starting to make me a little loopy. So this bit from No More Mr Nice Blog is particualrly apt:

The people who are complaining about the secularization of Christmas in contemporary America probably shouldn’t step into the Wayback Machine…

…looking into the past will not yield up any meaning of the Christmas holiday that most of us will recognize. The December date on the festive calendar two centuries ago was an occasion for public brawling by wandering crowds of inebriates.

Until Christmas was transformed in the 1830

Another red state attack on evolution

Seen in the NY Times today:

State Representative Cynthia Davis of Missouri prefiled two bills for the next session of the Legislature that she said “reflect what people want.” One … would require publishers that sell biology textbooks to Missouri to include at least one chapter with alternative theories to evolution.

“These are common-sense, grass-roots ideas from the people I represent, and I’d be very surprised if a majority of legislators didn’t feel they were the right solutions to these problems,” Ms. Davis said.

“It’s like when the hijackers took over those four planes on Sept. 11 and took people to a place where they didn’t want to go,” she added. “I think a lot of people feel that liberals have taken our country somewhere we don’t want to go. I think a lot more people realize this is our country and we’re going to take it back.”

So … people who promote evolution are terrorists? Teaching science is a place that people don’t want to go?

It’s The Evil Jews Again….

UPDATE 3/3/07: I am thoroughly tired of people coming to this page via Google searches on the phrase “evil jews” or variations thereof. If you’re coming here because you think this page gives you some reason to support your hatred of Jews, you’ve come to the wrong place. Kindly piss off and go back under the hate-filled rock you crawled out from.

ORIGINAL POST

Heard on Scarborough Country:

WILLIAM DONAHUE, PRESIDENT, CATHOLIC LEAGUE: We’ve already won.

Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It’s not a secret, OK? And I’m not afraid to say it. That’s why they hate this movie [Gibson’s The Passion]. It’s about Jesus Christ, and it’s about truth. It’s about the messiah.

Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost.

You have got secular Jews. You have got embittered ex-Catholics, including a lot of ex-Catholic priests who hate the Catholic Church, wacko Protestants in the same group, and these people are in the margins.

Anti-Semetism in prime time. No other way to describe it.

And a bit of good news

Fortune’s wheel is not without a sense of timing. On checking the mail on our way back from the SF SPCA’s clinic yesterday, I found my acceptance letter from USF. I’ll be starting my MBA program in about 6 weeks.