NYT Hilarity!

The editors of the NYT admit that people no longer trust their paper and say that this undermines democracy. What utter nitwits they are! I'll let the Pajama man fisk the nonsense:

What a self-serving pile of drivel. These clowns have the temerity to say because people are ignoring them in ever-increasing numbers that democracy is in peril.

Actually, democracy is threatened far more when the alleged paper of record spills national security secrets on its front page. Get a load of this pap:

It might seem a bit self-flagellating for the editorial board of the New York Times to bemoan the collapse of Americans' trust in the press over the last 30 years. But it seems that the media's fall from grace is undermining democracy.

Oh my. Now because people aren't getting their marching orders from this socialist rag, the bumpkins in flyover country may not vote the way the elitist snobs in Manhattan want them to. Perish the thought.

The news media is supposed to serve the voting public by providing information about candidates' positions, and thus help voters shape their preferences. But the function breaks down, apparently, when the voting public doesn't believe what the news media says.

No shit. Especially when what the news media says is seen through worldviews to the left of Joe Stalin. God, these people are blithering idiots.

Indeed, new research underscores how the unpopularity of America's traditional news media has promoted political polarization by disconnecting voters from reality, as it were, and thus leaving them to vote exclusively on the basis of ideology and partisan affiliation.

Wow, what a novel concept. People making up their own mind based on what they see from candidates and voting accordingly. Can't have that in a democracy. Not only do people no longer trust a large portion of the media, but it's this smug, condescending arrogance and supercilious pomposity that leads people to go elsewhere in search of information.

Let's hope they never figure it out.

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Are "Christian Seders" Inappropriate for Passover?

I am rather pleased that some Bible-oriented Christians are at last taking Christ's command seriously and celebrating the Passover instead of the pagan Easter. My entire Scripture blog was devoted to noting how far away most Christians have drifted from what the New Testament actually says. Michael Medved comments wisely below:

Rabbi Mark Glickman of the very liberal Reform branch of Judaism recently wrote a Seattle Times column decrying Christian congregations that celebrate their own Passover Seders. Rabbi Glickman claims the Seder was developed long after the Exodus events it commemorates, and was supposed to convey powerful anti-Christian messages, making Christian participation inappropriate.

In truth, there's nothing in the ancient formulation of the Passover Haggadah-the book of Seder liturgy-that disrespects or contradicts Christianity or Jesus, and most Jews passionately disagree with Rabbi Glickman. Retelling the story Exodus and affirming Jewish faith doesn't amount to an attack on Christianity - any more than affirming Christian faith amounts to an attack on the Old Testament or Judaism.

The two religions certainly disagree on key theological points, but share a commitment to remembering God's deliverance from Egyptian bondage as a liberating moment in human history. Christian rediscovery of the Jewish roots of Christianity is actually good for Jews, Christians and humanity.

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ELSEWHERE



The French don't like the truth: "An unusual warning has been added to a Paris exhibition that has shocked some visitors and media, despite the absence of sex, violence or religion. The photographic show has caused offence by depicting the French capital in the Second World War as a sunny place, where people enjoyed life alongside their Nazi occupiers. Bertrand Delanoe, the Mayor, ordered a notice, in French and English, to be handed out at the door of the municipal exhibition of colour photographs that have stirred ghosts that Paris preferred to forget. The 270 never-published pictures avoid the "reality of occupation and its tragic aspects", says the warning. In the French collective memory, early 1940s Paris was a black-and-white hell of hunger, Nazi round-ups, humiliation and resistance. Films and books have in recent decades modified the cliche. The breathtaking colour series by Andre Zucca, a French photographer, show as never before a gay Paris that got on with life without great hardship."

Bureaucratic Brits keep denying an old lady her social security payments: "A blind and deaf woman has been forced to live off her savings for almost a year because the Post Office will not let her withdraw her pension as her signature does not match the one in its records. Joan Hopton, who is deaf and blind, has not been able to collect her pension for over a year Joan Hopton, 81, of Cheltenham, Glos, lost her pension card in May last year. However, when she applied for a new one she was told by the company that it could not be issued because the name on the bottom of the letter did not match her original signature. She used to collect a pension of 104 pounds a week and is now owed about 4,000 pounds since she lost her card. Despite repeated attempts by members of her family to come to some arrangement with Post Office Ltd the company will not let her access the money"

Police those credit cards: "The burdensome, patronizing, new credit card regulations proposed in the wildly misnamed 'Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights' will hurt just about every type of U.S. consumer. Indeed, the new restrictions that self-styled 'consumer advocates' and their trial lawyer allies envision will result in immediate, sizeable interest rate and fee increases for the majority of Americans who pay their credit card bills on time."

Greedy Muslim country endangers us all: "Over nearly 60 years, the World Health Organization has developed sophisticated systems for monitoring the emergence of seasonal influenza and possible pandemics as well as arming scientists with the tools to develop vaccines. Now, one country is jeopardizing all that, putting itself and the rest of the world at risk. The culprit: Indonesia. Its Health Ministry refuses to give the WHO avian flu virus samples taken from Indonesian victims. This matters because sample sharing allows experts around the world to track mutations of the virus and spot dangerous mutations. Even more important, sharing allows researchers to develop vaccines. Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari asserts that Indonesian bird flu is a form of intellectual property, from which the country should benefit."

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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