News people often hedge on the accuracy of the existence of God, but National Public Radio showed an ease in declaring they were in the presence of a "goddess" (no quote marks for her) on Thursday's All Things Considered newscast. The "feminine divine" in question was 9-year-old Sajani Shakya. Anchor Michele Norris proclaimed "she is a goddess, or Kumari, venerated as a deity in the Kathmandu valley of Nepal," who was visiting Washington as part of the Silverdocs film festival. NPR reporter Neda Ulaby began:

ULABY: The goddess is, frankly, a little jet-lagged. But adorned with golden saffron robes and a ceremonial third eye painted on her forehead, she's the most majestic 9-year-old this classroom of American kids has ever met.

It appears that soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore isn’t only brainwashing America’s kids with global warming alarmism, for his daughter has co-written a documentary on the subject about to be released in Australia.

As reported Sunday by Variety (h/t John McLean):

Paramount Vantage is hoping auds will be as bullish on bears and walruses as they were on "March of the Penguins," although it remains to be seen if they will warm to "Arctic Tale," an expertly assembled docu with an underlying message about multiple species threatened by man's pigheaded behavior. National Geographic imprint ensures the pic will, in any case, have long, healthy life in tube and video preserves.

Certainly nice to have National Geographic in on the scam, dontcha think? The article continued:

Honestly, folks, when this first arrived in my inbox moments ago, I had to check multiple links to believe that this next example of Global Warming Derangement Syndrome was actually true. Alas, it was.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is blaming mass-murder in Darfur on – wait for it! – "global climate change."

I kid you not.

As reported Sunday by Agence France-Presse (h/t Willis Eschenbach, emphasis added):

The BBC likely has done two things no major American media organization would dare: go through an internal investigation of its reporting biases, and; share conceivably unpopular results with the public.

As amazingly reported Sunday by the British Telegraph (emphasis added throughout, h/t Glenn Reynolds):

The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded.

Shocking, yet refreshing, wouldn’t you agree? But that was just the beginning:

Here’s something you don’t see every day: an Arab leader complaining about Al-Jazeera being biased.

Yet, that's what happened Sunday according to Agence France-Presse (emphasis added throughout, h/t Charles at LGF):

A senior Palestinian official on Sunday accused pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television of favouring Hamas in its coverage of the battles between the Islamists and rival Fatah.

Al-Jazeera favoring a terrorist organization in its coverage? Somebody pinch me:

On Thursday's The O'Reilly Factor, FNC's Geraldo Rivera and conservative columnist Michelle Malkin sparred over controversial comments Rivera had made on the June 8 show attacking Malkin's support for enforcing immigration laws, which Rivera had called "un-American" and had compared to "pulling down the pants of Jews to see if they were circumcised." Rivera, from June 8: "If, in her America, in Michelle's America, when you look, is that Hispanic guy an illegal or is he legal? It reminds me so much of when they used to pull down the pants of Jews to see if they were circumcised or not. It is, it is so, so pathetic. It's so un-American." On the Thursday June 14 show, Rivera contended that the issue is being pushed because "wedge issues like gay marriage and abortion lost steam with the extreme right, they've now seized on this as a way to appeal to energize the base." Video of the June 8 segments can be viewed here and the June 14 segment here. (Transcripts are below)

On Saturday, NewsBusters asked two important questions: “Will Media Report Palestinians Fleeing Gaza For Israel,” and will they address the theft of Yasser Arafat’s Nobel Peace Prize by Hamas looters?

At this point, the answer to the latter is a resounding “No.” The answer to the former is “Not much.”

To be more specific, extensive searches of Google News and LexisNexis have identified that no major American media outlet with the exception of the New York Daily News bothered to report the theft of Yasser Arafat’s Noble Peace Prize:

To all the dads, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers out there, here's a brief video that you all deserve.

Happy Father's Day!

In an ideal world, a news consumer would get his or her essential facts from hard-news coverage, and would read op-ed columns solely to learn writers' opinions on particular topics of interest -- while perhaps being entertained in the process.

We clearly do not live in an ideal world. If fact, the "news" is all often turned upside-down, as journalists supposedly covering the hard news end up focusing on trivialities and personalities, while subtly (or not so subtly) injecting their own opinions into their work. This leaves the necessary work of substantively informing the audience to op-ed writers.

No one does the job Old Media hard-news reporters won't do better than Mark Steyn.

In his Chicago Sun-Times column today, Steyn, in his typical engaging style, does more in under 1,200 words to inform readers about the real-world implementation difficulties and disparate-treatment outrages in the immigration bill under consideration in Washington than all of Old Media's hard-news reporters have in several weeks.

Here are just a few of the nuggets in Steyn's piece that I was not aware of, and that you probably haven't seen or heard anywhere else:

Happy Father's Day.

On this Father's Day, while men across the land generate enthusiasm for a tie, or a clock in the form of a golf ball, illegal immigrants get a much juicier present from the New York Times in the form of a tear-jerker of an op-ed column. For the Times, there is, palpably, no subject that cannot be turned into an ode to illegality.

In Impounded Fathers, Edwidge Danticat tells the stories of various fathers arrested and deported in ways that separated them from their families.

• There is the father from Honduras who was imprisoned, then deported, after a routine traffic stop in Miami. He was forced to leave behind his wife, who was also detained by immigration officials, and his 5- and 7-year-old sons, who were placed in foster care.
• The father from Panama, a cleaning contractor in his 50s, who had lived and worked in the United States for more than 19 years. One morning, he woke to the sound of loud banging on his door. He went to answer it and was greeted by armed immigration agents. His 10-year asylum case had been denied without notice. He was handcuffed and brought to jail.
  
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The more I study this ReConquista issue, the more convinced I am that this country is in deeper trouble than even 95% of the conservatives realize. This quote is from a May 18,2006 article which contains an interview of a former US Border Patrol Supervisor named David J. Stoddard. He maintains that the current Border Patrol agents are not allowed to speak to the press without permission, but he maintains contact with them. He reports that he has now been told that "They are talking about how "anchor babies" are coming of age and being hired by the Border Patrol. Many of them are now in management positions and their loyalties are to Mexico and the Mexican government. Some of them have difficulty speaking and writing English. This is not surprising since the Border Patrol exam is given in Spanish." The Article can be found here:http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/zieve/060518 I will submit the link as a comment to this article. (this article, at the "renew America" website, is by Sher Zieve, dated May 18, 2006, entitled "Mexican government running US immigration policy--Part I" )

Original caption:

Barbara Walters (L) listens as Robert Iger, chief executive of The Walt Disney Co. (C), speaks at ceremonies before the unveiling of her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California June 14, 2007. Kathy Hilton (2nd R), mother of Paris Hilton, and Hilton's sister Nicky Hilton (R) are also shown attending the ceremony.