Toxic to Democracy: Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, & Scapegoating
by Chip Berlet

[via PublicEye.org]

Failed to Report?

No matter what happens in this year’s election, the conservative blogosphere deserves to win a collective Pulitzer Prize for its election-year coverage. While the mainstream media has given Americans a very distorted picture of Barack Obama, portraying him as a thoughtful, intelligent, unflappable, decent family man who has the temperament and judgment to be President, the conservative blogosphere has been the only place where you can get the real story. Hampered by quaint, old-fashioned rules of journalism that require citing evidence and reputable sources, the mainstream media has failed to report a number of important stories about Obama and the conservative blogosphere has had to step up and do the media’s job for them. As a public service I have collected some of the most important of these stories in one place. Pulitzer Prize judges, take note! {continue...}

[via Jon Swift, HT: Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy]

The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

[via Wired, HT: IdeaJoy]

Humiliations

[HT: MUSE MACHINE, from this post]

For those of us who have read Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini's evocative book "The Kite Runner," the scene that sets the stage for the moral saga is a horrific one -- young Hassan, a boy from the despised Hazara tribe, is raped by vicious hoodlums while his privileged "best friend," Amir, runs away.

That quick but unforgettably shameful scene forms the center of the story that is both Amir's and Afghanistan's. Unable to face what he has done, Amir torments his friend until he is forced to leave the house and the city, while Amir himself wanders from Kabul to Peshawar to California, working out his guilt and finding finally a way to atone.

Now this most interesting and morally dangerous story has been made into an American film, and it was to be released early in November. Surely, since the story line will follow the book's, it will portray how the story illustrates traits that have too often characterized historic Afghanistan: cruelty toward one's fellow man, ethnic differences and hatreds, the search for a workable commune among so many different groups.

But something is happening with the film that is odd only to its self-absorbed American makers. The filmmakers, working with Afghan Film, the state-run film company, picked the boys to play Amir and Hassan from auditions of 5,000 young Afghans. And while the film itself was produced in China because of the tribal and sexual sensitivities involved in the story, no one seemed to think of what the Afghan response would be to the rape scene, even though it was relatively sensitively done.

The outcome today, according to press reports of the film and the Afghan response, is that parts of the film may be considered demeaning to the ethnic Hazaras, resulting in threats against the two child stars. The American studio has delayed the film's opening and offered to bring the boys to the United States this fall for the premieres and to later take them to the United Arab Emirates to live temporarily. Other members of the boys' families may also have to leave the country. {continue...}

[via Opinion - Georgie Anne Geyer, Yahoo News]

Your Future Has Detail

and

The Lens That Sees Its Flaws

[via Overcoming Bias]

The Elect Gene?

March 19, 2007

Joe Bob Briggs
Door Science Correspondent

After several years of research, scientists at the Clinical Molecular Genetics Laboratory at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico have isolated three genes that are believed to prove a biological basis for becoming a practicing Southern Baptist.

"We were stunned," said Jose Aguilar de la Estacionamiento, Director of Basic Research at the university, at a morning press conference. "We were actually looking for the determinant gene for sphincter occlusion. It's one of those inadvertent discoveries that sometimes occur when you're doing basic science."

Aguilar said the results were so shocking that he withheld publication for two years while the DNA was taken from every member of the Iglesia Bautista Hugo Chavez mega-church in San Miguel Allende. He found a 99.7 percent correlation between the genetic makeup of the Baptists in that congregation and the presence of the three mutated genes that normally identify people with a tendency toward stiff necks, rigid sphincter muscles, and early-pattern baldness. Given the overwhelming evidence, Aguilar said, there was no choice but to announce his findings to the scientific community.

Instantly, there were ethical issues raised as Mexican Catholics besieged parish priests with questions about whether it was possible that their infants could grow up to be Baptists. {continue...}

[via The Wittenburg Door Insider, HT: The Raging Paradoxidation]