Author: Papa Giorgio

Jon Stewart Is the One Who Is Consistently Wrong

Published by Papa Giorgio

“I’m a comedian first. My comedy is informed by an ideological background, there’s no question about that. But the thing that you will never understand…is that Hollywood, yeah, they’re liberal, but that’s not their primary motivating force. I’m not an activist. I am a comedian.”

Newsbusters has this correction of Jon Stewart:

There are certainly going to be a lot of very disappointed Jon Stewart fans when they hear the fact-checking folks over at PolitiFact found their hero to have been false when he accused Fox News watchers of being “the most consistently misinformed media viewers.”

Before we get there, here’s what NewsBusters’ Rich Noyes wrote on this subject just hours ago:

In his June 19 appearance on Fox News Sunday, Comedy Central’s Daily Show host Jon Stewart fiercely denounced the Fox News Channel as uniquely biased, and slammed those who watch Fox News as “the most consistently misinformed media viewers….Consistently — every poll.”

Unfortunately for Stewart, he was relying on a methodologically-flawed survey from the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) that in December trumpeted how “those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe….” and then listed a series of supposedly false statements.

PolitiFact strongly agreed with Noyes:

[W]e have three Pew studies that superficially rank Fox viewers low on the well-informed list, but in several of the surveys, Fox isn’t the lowest, and other general-interest media outlets — such as network news shows, network morning shows and even the other cable news networks — often score similarly low. Meanwhile, particular Fox shows — such as The O’Reilly Factor and Sean Hannity’s show — actually score consistently well, occasionally even outpacing Stewart’s own audience.

Meanwhile, the other set of knowledge surveys, from worldpublicopinion.org, offer mixed support for Stewart. The 2003 survey strikes us as pretty solid, but the 2010 survey has been critiqued for its methodology.

The way Stewart phrased the comment, it’s not enough to show a sliver of evidence that Fox News’ audience is ill-informed. The evidence needs to support the view that the data shows they are “consistently” misinformed — a term he used not once but three times. It’s simply not true that “every poll” shows that result. So we rate his claim False.

………

A Jewish Crisis Pregnancy Center Is Editorialized in the Washington Post

Published by Papa Giorgio

(March for Life – 2008 [poster from event below])

Newsbusters has this story about the only Crisis Pregnancy Center geared towards the Jewish faith.

On Saturday, the Washington Post’s religion page inside the Metro section highlighted a pro-life cause: what may be the only Jewish crisis-pregnancy center in the country, Erica Pelman’s group In Shifra’s Arms (ISA). Debra Rubin’s story for the Religion News Service relayed both sides and noted both Jewish law and Jewish public opinion. Liberal rabbis have railed against ISA, even for using the term “baby” instead of “fetus.

Rabbi Peter Stein of Temple Sinai in Cranston, R.I., is among ISA’s detractors, criticizing the group for its use of the term “your baby,” rather than the medical term “fetus.” That’s too narrow a perspective of Jewish law, he said.

“It doesn’t seem to recognize the challenges and reasons why some women would choose to end an unwanted pregnancy,” said Stein, who’s active in the Washington-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. He and others point to an ISA link to an abortion information page provided by the traditionalist group Aish HaTorah, which Rabbi Bonnie Margulis (who also is affiliated with RCRC) describes as an organization that “tries to convince non-Orthodox to become Orthodox.”

Aren’t liberals funny? It’s controversial to try to talk someone into keeping a baby, or getting more conservative in your approach to God. But advocate for abortion, or homosexuality, and try to tear conservatives away from ancient moral tradition? That’s apparently just another day at the synagogue.

…(read more)…

Margaret Sanger still a eugenicist in 1957:


Dr. Paul Nelson interviews Rabbi Moshe Averick (Plus More)

Published by Papa Giorgio

What is a rational response when you’re confronted with nonsense of a high order? On this episode of ID the Future, CSC fellow Paul Nelson interviews Rabbi Moshe Averick, who explains the rational course for countering the new atheists.

Rabbi Averick is the author of the new book, Nonsense of a High Order: The Confused and Illusory World of the Atheist. He ran educational programs at UCLA and Northridge University in Los Angeles, and then became one of the founding faculty members of Aish Toronto and later at the Shaalvim Rabbinical Seminary in Israel.

A Scientific Case for God >>>>>