One could feel the disdain that Emma Jane Kirby felt toward Catholicism in a recent travel piece by BBC News. Her disgust and utter dismissal of the Catholic holy site at Lourdes, France was so thick it verged on hatred. Knocking the sentiment behind Lourdes, slamming the "fusty" feel to the place, mocking its religious sincerity and, finally, ending in condescension, Kirby was so disturbed by her visit that she exclaimed "Good God!" and did so "not in any laudatory way," as she points out. Her piece was a pure hit job on Lourdes in particular and Catholicism in general and provides another great example of European's hatred for religion and the BBC's campaign against traditional culture.

In "The challenge of finding peace in Lourdes," Kirby first negatively describes the holy city as a musty attic.

Lourdes is a massive Roman Catholic pilgrimage site with more hotels than any other French city, except Paris... It reminded me of my father's attic - small, overcrowded, fusty, and so stuffed full of junk that the minute I entered I used to panic, desperate to get out again.

Although you've likely heard, the AP reported within the hour (paragraph breaks removed):

Republican campaign dropout Mitt Romney endorsed John McCain for the party's presidential nomination and asked his national convention delegates to swing behind the likely nominee..."Even when the contest was close and our disagreements were debated, the caliber of the man was apparent," the former Massachusetts governor said, standing alongside his one-time rival at his now- defunct campaign's headquarters. "This is a man capable of leading our country at a dangerous hour."..."Primaries are tough," said McCain, referring to their earlier rancor. "We know it was a hard campaign and now we move forward, we move forward together for the good of our party and the nation."

How are NewsBusters members feeling about this?

It's questionable whether Herbert Hoover actually ever promised to put "a chicken in every pot." But even if Hoover did, he was a piker compared to Hillary Clinton. Check out her remarks in a campaign speech today, as aired on this afternoon's Hardball.

HILLARY CLINTON: Over the years, you've heard plenty of promises, from plenty of people in plenty of speeches. And some of those speeches were probably pretty good. But speeches don't put food on the table. Speeches don't fill up your tank. Speeches don't fill your prescriptions or do anything about that stack of bills that keeps you up at night. That's the difference between me and my Democratic opponent. My opponent makes speeches. I offer solutions.

View video here.

At least according to "Vagina Monologues" playwright Eve Ensler, and Jane Fonda.

Apparently the Today show had not had enough of this dynamic duo earlier in the program, when the fabulously classy Miss Fonda used another word for "vagina" that begins with the letter "c".

So they brought the pair back for the 10 o'clock hour, and America was again regaled with their brilliant and insightful perspective. A perspective, and a vernacular -- it must be noted -- that would get any man on the planet at the very least slapped silly.

The video, Miss Ensler's political genital declaration (which we think grossly underestimates the chronology and the total) and Miss Fonda's in-depth analysis of New Orleans' vagina-ness, follows below.

In some systems of Eastern thought, the doctrine of recurrence teaches that everything that has happened will happen again. Western philosophy of history drawing inspiration from a Biblical understanding of the universe does not share in the same exact idea since the Judeo-Christian worldview sees history as moving towards its ultimate conclusion in eternity. However,. traditional orthodox theism admits there is nothing new under the sun, meaning all the schemes and frauds have all been around the block a few times and will continue to plague the human condition until the good Lord decides to step and put an end to all this nonsense.

Leftist actress Susan Sarandon was a big backer of John Edwards, but now she's going to shift and endorse Barack Obama. On Monday's edition of the Tavis Smiley show on PBS, she likened Obama to a pregnant woman at an abortion rally:

Well, I'm going to back Obama. But I hope -- I think that he, as a symbol, has really excited people, and he's definitely confusing to everyone who really hates America for hating Muslims because a name like Obama and a black man, they're probably going to go "Oh, wait a minute -- What?" It's kind of like when you're out on the line for freedom to have an abortion and you're incredibly pregnant. They just can't quite figure it out.

So I think he definitely has convinced people that he stands for change and for hope, and I can't wait to see what he stands for.

CNN has fired producer Chez Pazienza after the network brass realized he had been blogging at his own left-wing site and several others over a period of years:

In a phone interview this morning, Mr. Pazienza, 38, said he joined CNN as a senior producer in January 2004 and has consistently received positive performance evaluations of his work. He spent his first year at CNN at the network’s headquarters in Atlanta, then moved to New York to work on “CNN Daybreak,” which has since been canceled, then “American Morning,” which is shown Monday through Friday, from 6 to 9 a.m.

Mr. Pazienza said he started his blog in May 2006 as a way to keep his mind occupied while he was on a medical leave of several months after an operation to remove a brain tumor. He got noticed by blogs like Drew Curtis’s FARK, a popular news-aggregation site, and Pajiba, a left-wing blog of movie and book reviews. [...]

A couple days ago, speculating that Contessa Brewer might be a closet conservative, I expressed the hope that I wasn't making trouble for her at MSNBC. Maybe I did. For the anchor now has gone out of her way to express PC sentiments that almost make you wonder whether she wasn't trying to prove her liberal bona fides to her MSNBC honchos.

 

Jesse Jackson would normally be the last person who'd need to be persuaded to take offense at any comment that could possibly be considered to have racial overtones. Usually, it's a case of duck meets junebug.

But for whatever reason, interviewed by Brewer on MSNBC this afternoon at 4:18 PM ET, Jackson was on his way to taking the high road regarding Ed Rendell's recent remark about some whites in Pennsylvania being unwilling to vote for blacks . . . until Contessa cut in to point out the possible racial slight. Jackson took the hint and proceeded to express the criticism Brewer had apparently been hoping for.

The Hollywood Reporter's Paul Gough reports that MSNBC reporter David Shuster's exile from the airwaves now has a scheduled end:

MSNBC correspondent David Shuster will serve a two-week suspension for comments that angered the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. NBC News President Steve Capus confirmed on Thursday that Shuster will be back to work on Feb. 22.

Hillary Clinton's campaign confirmed on Wednesday that she would show up for an MSNBC debate on February 26 in Ohio.

On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show," while covering Roger Clemens’ testimony before Congress, co-host Maggie Rodriguez talked to sports radio talk show host, Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, who said of the hearing: "I thought the panel for the most part did a pretty good job on the Democratic side. And I'm not really a party politic guy, but the Republicans did a terrible job." Russo went on to bash Republicans and praise Democrats "...they let Clemens off the hook. Waxman was great, Elijah Cummings was great from Maryland."

Without challenging that assessment, Rodriguez asked: "Why do you think, real quick, that they did a terrible job? There's some talk that maybe they were star struck?"

Russo then made this accusation:

I don't think they were star struck. I don't know why all of a sudden, maybe Clemens is friends with the Bush family, he's a Republican, whatever it might be, this came across on party lines. The Republican guys here did an atrocious job because they directed all their questions at Mcnamee and talked about his terrible job with credibility and laid -- let Clemens get off the hook. Terrible job.

ABC's "Good Morning America" should be commended for a segment on Thursday's show that actually turned attention to the face of radical Islamic fundamentalism on Arab television. GMA correspondent Lama Hasan reported on a Hamas children's program entitled "Tomorrow's Pioneers" that routinely "murders" cartoon look-alikes of Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse and blames their deaths on Jews.

Co-host Robin Roberts introduced the subject of "using cartoons to teach children to hate" and Hasan explained how the show features a vile-spewing Bugs Bunny character that threatening to kill Jews. She also noted that a previous episode featured a bumblebee who the series asserted "couldn't get to the hospital because it was blocked by the Israelis." This particular episode followed one in which a Mickey Mouse look-alike is stabbed to death by a Jew trying to buy his land. Hasan didn't mince words, labeling "Tomorrow's Pioneers" "Hamas's latest attempt to brainwash kids."

The Archbishop of Canterbury is coming under attack for his suggestion that Islamic Law be recognized in Britain. 

""However, Ralph Webb, the director of Anglican Action for the Institute on Religion and Democracy suggested it may not be so simple.

"Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is right to express concern over how religious freedom for all people of faith – whether Christians, Muslims, or adherents of any other religion – can best be protected in Western secular societies," he said. "But in this case he has downplayed the real-life concerns and experiences of Christians and others persecuted under sharia law in non-Western nations.

"Many Anglicans of the Global South have found that sharia law, even if initially implemented in part, will lead to atrocities as the law expands," Webb said. "Archbishop Ben Kwashi of the Diocese of Jos in Nigeria, recounting what has happened in several northern Nigeria states, recently said in a BBC News interview that any partial implementation of sharia law inevitably will lead to complete sharia law."

On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith introduced a fawning segment on Barack Obama: "On the campaign trail, Barack Obama is often treated like a rock star. People wait hours just to hear him speak." The segment did not focus on campaign strategy or policy, but rather it focused entirely on Obama’s rhetoric as correspondent Tracy Smith touted MSNBC’s Chris Matthews being "thrilled" by a speech from the Senator from Illinois:

TRACY SMITH: They come in droves, by the tens of thousands at times, to hear Barack Obama speak...With soaring rhetoric, Obama is moving his audiences not just politically, but emotionally. Even some political commentators who've seen it all can't help but gush.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: You hear Barack Obama's speech, my -- I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often.

Many people assume the Dear Abby column, which runs in 1400 newspapers worldwide and reaches 110 million people each day, is a trustworthy source of traditional advice on all topics.

However, a Culture and Media Institute analysis of Dear Abby's columns from 2007 reveal a different story. Thirty percent of Abby's columns in 2007 addressed sex and in more than half of those, she rejects traditional sexual morality.

As many as 20 million of Abby's readers are under the age of 18. Millions of young men and women are forming their views on sex and relationships under the influence of an advice columnist who is advancing anything but traditional values.

Yesterday, the Associated Press, in its ongoing campaign to make sure that readers get and stay downbeat about the economy, made sure that its story on January's retail sales had can't-miss gloom and doom in it:

Retail sales posted a surprising rebound in January following a dismal December, although much of the strength reflected rising gasoline prices. Economists saw the increase as a temporary blip rather than a sustained recovery.

..... The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that retail sales rose by 0.3 percent last month after having fallen by 0.4 percent in December.

Folks that question man's role in climate change are well aware of the fanaticism displayed by those preaching gloom and doom if we don't immediately stop burning fossil fuels.

Non-believers like to refer to such people as warm-mongers.

With this in mind, astrophysicist Dr. Sallie Baliunas gave a lecture about global warming at the University of Texas, Tyler, on Tuesday, deliciously equating warm-mongers to folks in 16th and 17th century Europe "where religious and political institutions blamed witches - mostly women - for poor growing periods or storms."

As reported by the Tyler Morning Telegraph Wednesday (h/t NBer wilbur747, emphasis added throughout):

The February 13th New York Times online contained fifteen "Pictures of the Day". Their #1, lead photograph was what you see to the right, with the following description (emphasis added):

Security officials in Lebanon said Imad Mugniyah, 45, a senior Hezbollah military commander, was killed by a car bomb on Tuesday night in Damascus, Syria. Mr. Mugniyah had been accused in a series of bombings, hijackings and kidnappings during the 1980s and 1990s, including the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American service members. Mr. Mugniyah's father, Fayez, left, and grandfather held each other during a wake in Beirut.

In another example of the belt-tightening of the old media, NBC has announced that they will be closing two of their long standing news bureaus. Gone will be the Chicago and Dallas bureaus to be replaced by "regional hubs."

TVNewser gives us the scoop:

Insiders tell TVNewser the current NBC News global news gathering system is in for an overhaul. Sources tell us a 9am ET conference call among News division execs and the bureau managers will announce that the current system will be replaced with regional hubs covering large areas of the U.S. and, in some cases, the world.

TVNewser reports that the Chicago office will now answer to the New York office and Dallas will report to Atlanta. No word on how many jobs are to be lost, but it is certain that some will go away.

On Tuesday, NewsBusters exposed the New York Times for using the death of a highly-regarded American scientist, Dr. Robert Jastrow, to advance global warming alarmism.

In response to my e-mail message concerning the matter, Dr. Albert Arking, the former colleague of Jastrow's quoted in the piece, stated, "The NY Times article came out of a long conversation (initiated by the writer, John Schwartz), and it may not have conveyed my thoughts precisely."

What follows is Arking's full answer to my query concerning this Times article, with emphasis added to highlight important points for the reader: