Month: December 2010
*ding*ding*ding* Krauthammer and Shields Spar Over Pelosi-Taliban Joke and Rush Limbaugh
Media Bias Against Religion versus Teacher Unions
I have written on this prior (see bottom), but NewsBusters did a bang-up job on bringing this issue to light again in order to show the “zeitgeist” behind these reporters:
1. “A [newly released] General Accountability Office (GAO) investigation has found that people with histories of sexual misconduct are still getting hired by school systems across the [United States] … The biggest problem may be ‘passing the trash.’ These were cases GAO found in which school systems just let suspected sexual offenders resign, and even wrote them glowing letters of recommendation, so they could find teaching jobs elsewhere.”
2. “The Dublin (Ireland) Archdiocese should have taken action years earlier against Tony Walsh, probably the most notorious child sexual abuser among its priests, according to [a] commission investigating clerical child sex allegations in the archdiocese.” The Church laicized Walsh (removed him as a priest) in 1995.
Which story did the New York Times completely ignore? Which story returns 110 results and 507 news articles on Google News, while the other returns only 6 results and 43 news articles?
Those who have been following this issue already know that the media gave far more attention to the decades-old case about the ex-priest across the Atlantic.
Here is my portion I include in some responses
NUMBER TWO, I wish to discuss this issue of molestation by priests that you intimated about.
School counselors, dentists, Buddhist monks, foster parents, and the like — all have abused children. Men who are pedophiles look for positions of AUTHORITY OVER [*not yelling, emphasizing*] children that afford MOMENTS OF PRIVACY with these same children. Dentists do not violate children or women in the name of dentistry. Buddhists monks do not sodomize children in the name of Siddhartha. School counselors in the name of psychology, foster parents in the name of Dr. Spock, etc, … you get the point. Likewise, priests do not violate children in the name of Christ. (The many terrorist attacks are in the name of something… can you tell me what Nora?)
So I hope you can see that mentioning churches next to schools is a non-sequitur, I think we can agree that any church moving priests (Catholicism) or pastors (Protestantism) from one parish or church to another is a problem that has to be dealt with. Just like teachers who have the same issues levied towards them are moved from district-to-district (N.E.A.).
Read more: RPT Discussing Mosques and Men
And this more in-depth listing as examples:
In hour one, near the beginning, Lobdell starts out with the sex abuse cases that have hit the Catholic church. He seems to be saying that these abuse cases made him begin to deconstruct his faith. I will deal with this issue in two ways: first, I will make the case that atheists, Buddhists (atheists), and others commit these crimes, which should make the skeptic ask if he or she is rejecting an ideology for this reason seems to be just as strong for atheism as it is for Christianity. In other words, if the rejection of Christianity is because of the evil it produces, then what about the evil seemingly produced by atheism. A deeper explanation of this will come shortly. Secondly, to judge an act “evil,” one would have to have a metaphysics, excuse me, a coherent – non-self-refuting – logical worldview in order to judge some act on a scale that says an act is morally wrong while expecting another person to know (inherently) this scale by which to judge an act and agree with said person. Okay, here we go with the critique.
Sexual Abuse — Catholic Church. Other religious and non-religious organizations practice this abuse… wherever there is a person of authority over children and the chance to be alone with such a person, you will find people who fill these positions for the direct purpose of abusing these young victims. For instance:
1) Religious News Online reports from an original India Times article, another source that cites this is Child Rights Sri Lanka:
Two Buddhist monks and eight other men were arrested on Wednesday, accused of sexually abusing 11 children orphaned by the island’s 19-year civil war, an official said.
Investigations revealed that the children, aged between nine and 13, had been sexually abused over a period of time at an orphanage where the men worked, said Prof. Harendra de Silva, head of the National Child Protection Authority….
2) Washington County Sheriff’s Office Media Information reported the following:
Mr. Tripp was arrested for sexually abusing a former 15-year-old foster care child.
The investigation started when the Oregon Department of Human Services was contacted by a school counselor who learned that there may be sexual abuse involving a student and Mr. Tripp. DHS workers then contacted Sheriff’s Detectives who took over the investigation.
Detectives learned that Mr. Tripp has been a foster parent since 1995 and has had at least 90 children placed in his home during that time. Sheriff’s Detectives are concerned that there may be more victims who have not yet reported sexual contact involving Mr. Tripp….
3) A therapist who worked at Booker T. Washington Middle School in Baltimore was arrested in Catonsville and charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy, Baltimore County police said yesterday.
Robert J. Stoever, 54, of the 1500 block of Park Ave. was arrested Sunday night after a county police officer saw him and the boy in a car in a parking lot at Edmondson Avenue and Academy Road, said Cpl. Michael Hill, a police spokesman.
Stoever was charged with a second-degree sex offense and perverted practice, according to court documents. He was sent to the Baltimore County Detention Center, Hill said….
4) A Bronx dentist was arrested yesterday on charges that he twice raped a 16-year-old patient whom he had placed under anesthesia during an office visit on Thursday, police said.
The girl, a patient of the dentist for several years, was hired for a summer job as his receptionist on Thursday, and had an appointment with him for treatment that afternoon, said Lieut. Hazel Stewart, commander of the Bronx Special Victims Squad.
[….]
“She went in and she changed into a little uniform that he gave to her, and he gave her some files to work on,” the lieutenant said. “Then he said that it was time to take a look at her teeth.”
At that point, Lieutenant Stewart said, “he used some type of anesthesia on her and he allegedly raped her.”
The young woman told officers that she was never fully anesthetized, Lieutenant Stewart said, but that “the effects of the anesthesia were strong enough to render her helpless to such a degree that he was able to rape her again.”
These folks are atheists, Christians, Buddhists (which are ontologically speaking, atheists), and every other ideology and stripe of life and culture in the world. The argument is as strong as this:
There have been many cases of dentists’ drugging men and women and groping them against their will, therefore, I do not believe in dentistry.
The conclusion just doesn’t follow the premise. In the case of religious comparisons, you would have to isolate the founders and their lives in order to properly judge a belief, not the followers. I would engender the reader to consider well this quote by Robert Hume:
The nine founders among the eleven living religions in the world had characters which attracted many devoted followers during their own lifetime, and still larger numbers during the centuries of subsequent history. They were humble in certain respects, yet they were also confident of a great religious mission. Two of the nine, Mahavira and Buddha, were men so strong-minded and self-reliant that, according to the records, they displayed no need of any divine help, though they both taught the inexorable cosmic law of Karma. They are not reported as having possessed any consciousness of a supreme personal deity. Yet they have been strangely deified by their followers. Indeed, they themselves have been worshipped, even with multitudinous idols.
All of the nine founders of religion, with the exception of Jesus Christ, are reported in their respective sacred scriptures as having passed through a preliminary period of uncertainty, or of searching for religious light. Confucius, late in life, confessed his own sense of shortcomings and his desire for further improvement in knowledge and character. All the founders of the non-Christian religions evinced inconsistencies in their personal character; some of them altered their practical policies under change of circumstances.
Jesus Christ alone is reported as having had a consistent God-consciousness, a consistent character himself, and a consistent program for his religion. The most remarkable and valuable aspect of the personality of Jesus Christ is the comprehensiveness and universal availability of his character, as well as its own loftiness, consistency, and sinlessness.
From, The World’s Living Religions (New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959), 285-286.
Read more: RPT “Love” ~ Mariano (TrueFreeThinker.com)
Some Raw Footage of B Company 1 26 Infantry-Kornegal Valley,Afghanistan
As we approach this most special of holidays, know that we have some brave men and women elsewhere in this world that never need a short supply of prayer as they fight Islamo-Fascism. Keep these men and women in your thoughts and prayers as we “non-combatants” gather around our Christmas trees:
Nanny of the YEAR Award
Michael Moore Bails Out Truth?
HotAir has one hellova UPDATE on this topic:
HotAir has a story about WikiLeaks’s Julian Assange, who was bailed out by Michael Moore. Unfortunately, his Wiki Leaks informed its readers of someething pretty damning to all the Moorisms out in the real world:
No foolin’. So fulsomely slavish to the cause have our progressive icons become that their propaganda now makes even the Castros blush. Keep on rocking, “reality-based community.”
Incidentally, this story comes from a Wikileaks document. Second look at Assange?
[T]he memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so “disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room”.
Castro’s government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it “knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.”…
The cable describes a visit made by the FSHP to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in October 2007. Built in 1982, the newly renovated hospital was used in Michael Moore’s film as evidence of the high-quality of healthcare available to all Cubans.
But according to the FSHP, the only way a Cuban can get access to the hospital is through a bribe or contacts inside the hospital administration. “Cubans are reportedly very resentful that the best hospital in Havana is ‘off-limits’ to them,” the memo reveals.
It’s no secret outside Cuba that their health-care system falls very, very short of its egalitarian pretensions — just watch the Stossel clip below — but apparently the government’s media channels have kept that fact well hidden on the island. Ah well. Pity poor Michael Moore, who in another time and place and in a different political system would be a prized minister of “truth.”
UK: Coldest December since records began
Global What?!
(Mail Online) Swathes of Britain skidded to a halt today as the big freeze returned – grounding flights, closing rail links and leaving traffic at a standstill.
And tonight the nation was braced for another 10in of snow and yet more sub-zero temperatures – with no let-up in the bitterly cold weather for at least a month, forecasters have warned.
The Arctic conditions are set to last through the Christmas and New Year bank holidays and beyond and as temperatures plummeted to -10c (14f) the Met Office said this December was ‘almost certain’ to become the coldest since records began in 1910.
Ayn Rand on Moral Positions of Capitalism
Breaking News! The Soviet Union Back Together! Thank God CNN Is On Top of This
Chavez To Rule by Decree for 18-months
CARACAS, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s parliament gave President Hugo Chavez decree powers for 18 months on Friday, outraging opposition parties that accused him of turning South America’s biggest oil producer into a dictatorship. [Who want’s to bet that this will never be undone – Editor]
The move consolidated the firebrand socialist leader’s hold on power after nearly 12 years in office, and raised the prospect of a fresh wave of nationalizations as the former paratrooper seeks to entrench his self-styled “revolution.”
Chavez had asked for the fast-track powers for one year, saying he needed them to deal with a national emergency caused by floods that drove nearly 140,000 people from their homes. [Oh yes there is always a crisis that leads to these things isn’t there – Editor]
But the Assembly, which is dominated by loyalists from his Socialist Party, decided to extend them for a year and a half.
That means the president can rule by decree until mid-2012, and can keep opposition parties out of the legislative process until his re-election campaign is well under way for Venezuela’s next presidential vote in December of that year. [Who want to bet that there will either be no election, or this will be the last one, or that the opposition gets “vanished” to the point where the election is pointless – Editor]
California Cap-n-Trade Set to Hurt the Middle-class and Poor
HotAir brings to the attention of all of its hot-heads this story that affects all Californians:
California regulators Thursday are expected to adopt the nation’s most comprehensive carbon trading regime, creating a market-based way to lower greenhouse gas emissions at a time when similar efforts have stalled in Congress.
The program is the centerpiece of the state’s 2006 global warming law, which aims to slash carbon dioxide and other planet-heating pollution to 1990 levels by 2020. That would amount to a 15% cut from today’s level.
The cap-and-trade system “will help drive innovation, create more green jobs and clean up our air and environment,” said California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary D. Nichols, adding that it “provides flexibility” to industry and takes “into consideration the current economic climate.”
LA TIMES
The ambitious program would cap most of the state’s greenhouse gases, including those from more than 600 power plants, refineries, cement plants and other big factories. It would allow companies to buy and sell emission allowances among themselves to reach an overall goal of cutting planet-warming pollutants 15% below today’s levels by 2020.
Well, states are the laboratories of democracy. An imposition of cap-and-trade would allow the rest of the country to see how well it works to lower carbon emissions, and just how much it “drives innovation” and “provides flexibility.” The only innovation this will likely produce will be the relocation of energy producers to neighboring states. Los Angeles, for instance, buys a significant amount of its power from Arizona, a trend that will likely intensify as the cost disparity for producers grows as a result of regulatory growth and mandated caps on production. Welcome back to rolling blackouts when energy production fails to grow with demand.
Nor will that be the only impact on California’s economy. The costs of cap-and-trade will get passed to consumers in the form of higher energy bills. As has been repeatedly shown, that will have a deeply regressive impact on California’s poor and working class. They will either have to spend more of their smaller discretionary funds on energy or cut back, forcing them to spend less on energy-consuming products and damaging the retail economy in California even more. Those who can move will relocate to other states, mainly the middle class, which will accelerate a trend already seen in California.
CO2 Insanity explains how this new regulatory increase in California that effects us all, especially the poor.
Sure it’s pretty but people and businesses are already moving out and it will get worse when this kicks in and everyone’s wallets start getting drained more than they already are. You can go here and read up on it if you want to.
Want a clue on how bad it already is? According to The Tax Foundation…..
California’s business climate ranks 49th out of 50 states (57 if you’re President Obama)(Soon to be 50!)
California’s top income tax rate is 4th highest in the nation (Soon to be #1)
California’s sales tax rate is the highest in the nation (See? We’re already #1)
As far as the Feds go we give up $1.00 and get 78 cents back, meaning we support other ‘vampire’ states. (THAT’S what that donor thing on my driver’s license means!)
Federal OSHA isn’t good enough, we get to support a redundant Cal-OSHA
Federal EPA isn’t good enough either, we get to support the California Air Resources Board giving us the ‘privilege’ of paying more redundancy. (They’re the ones that employ people with mail-order PhD’s and overestimate diesel pollution by 340% so they can screw us more than they already are)
Now thanks to the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Gates, James Cameron and other eco-loons, we failed to get enough voters with brains to reign in AB32 (actually, based on the last election, having enough voters with brains in California appears to be a statistical impossibility).
[….]
In a very short time everything you buy will suddenly cost more because just about everything and anything you buy uses power generated by fuel or electricity to be manufactured or delivered.
Your gas and electric bills will be rising because the gas and electric companies will now have to buy permits from the state and/or reduce their pollution. Think PG & E or Edison are going to eat this? If you do you’re dumber than a rock. And don’t give me that BS about the wind turbines and solar panels being subsidized because it’s your money (called taxes bonehead) that’s subsidizing it. Absent that no one would be installing them because they’re either unprofitable or they’d have to charge you $10,000 a month to turn the lights on in your home to pay for them.
Those higher power charges will result in ALL businesses in California having to raise the price of what they sell. Grocery stores, car dealers, restaurants, motels, hotels, movies, hospitals, doctors, lawyers, Indian Chiefs and everyone else in the state will have to either eat the rate increases or charge YOU more to make up for it. Guess which one’s going to happen?
Everything you buy is delivered by trains, planes, trucks, or steamships. They all run on diesel, gas or aviation fuel. Think they’re going to eat it? Nope! They’ll apply a fuel surcharge to everything including your airplane tickets to make up for the additional charges from the refineries so they can pay for their permits to pollute or invest more money to reduce their pollution. That money doesn’t grow on trees greentards! YOU get to pay for it.
Want a new house? Well wait until the price of lumber, nails, screws, roofing, stucco, cement, tile and everything else used in construction goes through the roof. That house that was a million last year will soon be a lot more.
Retired? I’d suggest you move to another state as soon as possible before a) you run out of money b) you can’t find anyone to buy your house because they’re all broke and c) the price to move out will be out of site because your mover spends 5 fortunes a year on diesel fuel for his trucks.
Think about it, even your crab will cost more once this starts because those boats run on diesel engines, they don’t row out to the Farallon Islands anymore folks. You can watch the price of your cable TV, cell phones, auto repairs, furniture, clothing, appliances and EVERYTHING go up.