Obama In Cairo: Barack The "Student Of History" Flunks Remedial Basic Islam

There isn't enough time to debunk the historical inaccuracies in Obama's Cairo speech, but a few have undertaken bits and pieces here and there. This is not an exhaustive list. First, some basic history that Obama simply blew. This Youtube video was compiled by an individual that got tired of debunking Obama's 55 minute speech and gave up after 10 minutes - apparently out of exhaustion (HT: moonbattery):

Later in Obama's speech, he hailed Islam for apparent technical achievements in engineering and science that are simply not true. First, see Obama's speech for yourself. The technical claims are made about 2 1/2 minutes in:

If you care not to see the video, here is the relevent transcript snippet:

"As a student of history, I also know civilisation’s debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality."

Gateway Pundit takes a good stab at the true facts:

Unfortunately, Dear Leader was once again repeating Far Left talking points and not facts. Here is what he forgot to mention:

** The compass- The use of a magnetic compass as a direction finder occurred sometime before 1044, but incontestable evidence for the use of the compass as a navigational device did not appear until 1119 in China. The earliest reference to an iron fish-like compass in the Islamic world occurs in a Persian talebook from 1232- Wikipedia.

** The pen- Ancient Egyptians developed writing on papyrus scrolls when scribes used thin reed brushes or reed pens. The quill pen was used in Qumran, Judea to write some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and then introduced into Europe by around 700 AD before the founding of Islam. Ma'ād al-Mu'izz, the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt, was provided a fountain pen 250 years later- Wikipedia.

** Printing- Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper- Wikipedia.

** Spread of disease and how it is healed- It's not clear how Islam contributed to the understanding of disease but today Muslim Sharia Councils in Nigeria and Pakistan have opposed vaccinations in their districts.

** Arches- Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture, but their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures- Wikipedia.

** Religious Tolerance- No churches or synagogues have been destroyed in Saudi Arabia since it was established in 1932 —because none are allowed. There is no declared Muslim state, which offers full civil rights to members of other religions. - Front Page.

** Racial Equality- Muhammad and many of his companions bought, sold, freed, and captured slaves. At the end of the 19th century, a shift in Muslim thought and interpretation of the Qur'an occurred, and slavery became seen as opposed to Islamic principles of justice and equality. This interpretation has not been accepted by the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. Slavery claiming the sanction of Islam is documented presently in the African republics of Chad, Mauritania, Niger, Mali and Sudan.- Wikipedia.

Related... Legal Insurrection wonders- "What about the right not to wear head covering?"

And that's about the entirety of his claims on the technical side in the Youtube video. Maybe he can register in an actual history class at a non-Ivy-League school and learn some real facts going back in time? Maybe??? Of course, the media will not report any of this. Thus, many trees have been felled in the forrest, but did they make a sound?

UPDATE: Frank Tipler has more (HT: Conservativegrapevine):

Obama is not much of a “student of history” if he believes this. Almost every advance he attributes to the Muslims was due to someone else.

The non-Muslim Chinese invented the magnetic compass and printing (Gutenberg invented not printing, but movable type). The non-Muslim Hindu Indians invented algebra and the decimal numbering system. The non-Muslim European Christians invented the university.

I can’t address advances in medicine, but I have studied the history of astronomy and physics. The Muslims contributed nothing.

All modern physics descends from Galileo (1564 -1642); all modern astronomy from Copernicus (1473-1543). If you study Galileo’s works carefully, as I have, you see that he started with the achievements of the Greek mathematical physicist Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287 BC - c. 212 BC). If you study Copernicus’ works carefully, as I have, you will see that Copernicus’ great book On the Revolutions is essentially a heliocentric re-working of the geocentric astronomy textbook by the Greek Ptolemy (c. 90 AD - 168 AD). Copernicus mostly used even Ptolemy’s data for the positions of the planets.

Note the dates for Archimedes/Galileo and Ptolemy/Copernicus. It is as if the Muslim world never existed. As far as their fundamental contributions to physics and astronomy, it did not.

If one reads history of science textbooks prior to about 1980, one will find very little mention of Muslim “contributions” to physics and astronomy. This is reasonable, because there weren’t any. In the past generation, however, political correctness has dictated that Muslims be given credit for discoveries they did not make.

Ouch!

Video: The Dead Animal Library

For the animal lover:

Oops. Wrong room. Here's the real one from Wired Science: Video Tour: The Library of Dead Animals

WS says this:

But, don’t pack your bags for California just yet, though, the MVZ is not open to the public.

But this video is the next best thing.

BERKELEY, California — Jim Patton walks to a cabinet and pulls open a drawer. Out slide two neat rows of chipmunks, impeccably preserved. Officious handwritten tags tell the story of each and every animal’s capture. In a screwtop container on the tray, a half-dozen chipmunk skulls rattle, picked clean of all their tissue by a beetle colony housed downstairs.

Just like in the movie The Mummy! Check this out:

Yikes!

Video: Sarah Palin Turns Out 20,000 At Stop In New York

HT: Gateway Pundit. The AP reports (HT: memorandum):

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin set aside politics only briefly Saturday to help Auburn officials celebrate their inaugural Founder's Day and raise money for a museum honoring William Seward, the 19th-century U.S. secretary of state who acquired Alaska for the United States.

More than 20,000 people turned out to see the former Republican vice presidential candidate lead a parade through downtown Auburn and sign a proclamation on the steps of City Hall honoring Seward as "the one person most responsible for Alaska."

But after spending a day and a half as a tourist visiting some of the upstate New York region's most historic sites, Palin turned back into a politician at a private fundraiser for the Seward House museum, where she had sharp words for President Barack Obama's national security and energy policies and his handling of the nation's economic crisis.

"It's clear to many that some of our priorities as a nation are reversed," Palin told the several hundred people who each paid $100 or more to attend a garden party on the museum grounds. "Alaskans get tired of hearing that Washington bureaucrats know what's best for us so we push and fight and challenge decisions made inside the Beltway when they are not in the best interests of the country, and we know that decisions that are being made recently are not in the country's best interests."

No doubt. Conservatives4Palin have a video of her speech up:

There's a lot more at the link, so go over and flip through the many good things she had to say. Go Saracuda!!!

Oakland Press: Auto Meldown Fault Of Management. Detroit Free Press: No It's Not!

It's somewhat amusing when the liberal MSM contradicts itself. Sometimes the narrative has blanks that need to be filled and the local libs haven't gotten their talking points down yet. Case in point this weekend is the incessant need to point fingers at the cause of the auto meltdown. The liberal narrative is that the problem is due to greedy capitalists. Outsourcing. The free market. Big SUVs. Not enough small, dangerous 'green' cars. Of course, that doesn't explain why Toyota has seen a huge decrease as well, but anyway. Contrary to the liberal narrative that is being spoon-fed to the populace, the Free Press let in a piece that contradicts the very foundation of those assertions. But first, from the Oakland Press: Corporate greed was the automakers' downfall. This is a special to the OP by Dave Cleveland. Not much special about it.

Corporations are graded by Wall Street for their ability to generate earnings that meet or exceed their projections. If they fall short, Wall Street befalls upon them and stock prices fall. Corporations are no more, and no less, than money-generating machines.

There is no such thing as “free trade,” except for business. To you and me, “free trade” is ripping the heart out of our economy by destroying the wealth, income and purchasing power of Americans.

GM was once the most powerful corporation in the U.S., with more than 850,000 employees. This once guaranteed that each of those employees and a large percentage of the American people would buy at least one, (maybe two) new cars a year!

Then the outsourcing began. Laid-off workers, suppliers and the marketplace quickly lose their brand loyalty and ability to buy cars as incomes decrease. GM and Chrysler have ultimately shot themselves in the foot, but at the demand of Wall Street to show increased earnings, that isn’t going to happen in a “mature economy.”

As a result, their scale of economy has radically changed in the economic downturn. They are now unable to cover their own costs.

Like dinosaurs, they have become too big for sustainability. The very governmental regulations that would have protected them were laid aside in the belief that they were too big to fail — except in a failing economy brought on by their own outsourcing.

The work can be brought back to the U.S. We are still the largest economy in the world, but it will require governmental regulation — in other words, tariffs — and an end to this totally fictional “free-trade policy.”

Funny that the solution to a company too big to be sustainable is regulation by a government that is now too big to be sustainable as we are going into debt of a scale previously unimagined. Funny that "tariffs" have come out as Canada is now imposing a "buy Canada" policy to counteract the "buy American" policy that Canadians are upset about. Yeah - that's really going to work well. In any case, the Detroit Free Press had this this morning: The real roots of the auto crisis. It perhaps unintentionally contradicts the Oakland Press piece.

Listening to Fox News' Greta Van Susteren talk about auto woes last week left David Cole grinding his teeth.

So, too, about a dozen other national reporters and anchors who have called the usually mild-mannered expert in recent weeks for his wisdom on the trials and tribulations of the Detroit Three and broader auto industry.

It's obvious from their questions and comments they just don't understand the reasons for the problems. More important, he said, is that collective lack of knowledge causes many people to get bad information.

"This entire conversation is about the industrial future of our country," Cole told me at the recent Detroit Regional Chamber Policy Conference on Mackinac Island.

"I was watching Greta Van Susteren and she was talking about how this is all management's fault. That just isn't so," said Cole. "She's a smart woman. She just doesn't know what she's talking about."

Cole, a scientist and engineer by training, is chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor and has been seen on nearly every national TV news program explaining the challenges, woes and perils of the troubled industry.

Cole said this auto crisis is not a result of a management problem, but is attributable to the massive collapse of financial markets.

There we have it. This is what we call hitting the nail on the head. Striking the fastener at the apex. The financial market collapsed due to housing. The wealth that people were making purchases with was seen for what it really was - debt. The boom was thus an illusion. A figment of our collective imagination. And in an instant, it was gone.

So the question is - why did the housing market crash? That's simple to answer as well, although it has not been widely reported. Just keep in mind that the federal government required sub-prime lending as basically an affirmative action policy. Here's the video:
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
There. In a nutshell. As for who caused the mortgage crisis, it was people like this: (Barney Frank Busted! Was Responsible For Housing Meltdown After All)

Q.E.D.

HD Video: The Moon (very good quality)

From Discover (HT: Doug Ross @ directorblue): Kaguya’s jaw-dropping Moon video. Kaguya is a Japanese spacecraft that has been orbiting the Moon since October 2007. It is equipped with several detectors, but also — brilliantly, in my opinion — two HD cameras. The footage below is not a simulation: it’s real imagery of the Moon! Make sure you click the HD button, or go to the YouTube page to see this in full resolution.


Discover has this too:

I was surprised to learn that the end of Kaguya’s mission will come next week, on June 10! At 18:30 GMT it will impact the lunar surface; this is on the near side of the Moon but in the unlit portion, so that the impact can be studied by ground-based telescopes.

That ought to be pretty cool to see. I'll be looking for a YouTube launch on that coming in a few days or so.

NPR: Eating Meat = "Slavery Of Our Time"

That's the gist of what appear over at NPR recently (HT: Climate Depot): Meat: The Slavery Of Our Time. It begins:

I have a prediction: Sooner than you might think, this will be a vegetarian world. Future generations will find the idea of eating meat both morally absurd and logistically impossible.

Uh huh. This guy is smoking PETA pixie dust, but let me address probably the biggest absurdity in just that opening salvo - the morality of eating meat. On what basis does writer Jim Motavalli claim moral absurdity in eating meat? And if that's the case, what does it say about lions, tigers, reptiles, amphibians and all the creatures of the planet that eat only meat? Should we just 'off' all the offenders? If he limits his outrage to just humans, then what is his moral standing based upon? Certainly not the Bible, as Jesus ate meat and encouraged others to do the same. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but here are just a few passages that involve Jesus (in many other places in both Testaments, God specifically commanded the eating of meat):

Luke 5:1-10 - Jesus enabled his Apostles to make a huge catch of fish after which they followed him.

Luke 11:11-13 - Jesus said a father gives good gifts to his children, including bread, fish and eggs.

Mark 6:35-44; 8:1-9 - Jesus fed the 5000 and later the 4000 by feeding them bread and fish (albeit a small number of fish were multiplied many times over)

Mark 14:12,18 - Jesus ate the Passover with His disciples. Passover involved killing and eating a lamb.

There are others but especially that last verse leaves absolutely no question that Jesus ate not just fish but land animals as well. Is Jesus immoral? According to the kook at NPR, the answer would be yes, which tells you everything you need to know about the moral high ground of this issue. The guy is standing on shifting sand. The NPR piece goes on:

...most people know that eating red meat is bad for their health and harmful for the planet. It's getting them to actually change their diet that's the hard part — and that's exactly why it won't happen by choice.

The environmental impact is also crystal clear — and similarly appalling. "Livestock's Long Shadow," a 2006 report by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organzation (FAO), found that livestock is a major player in climate change, accounting for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions (measured in carbon dioxide equivalents), or more than the entire global transportation system.

Meat will disappear — except as a luxury available to few — and the ethical issues will evolve, too. In the way that slavery, once a broad social norm, later became an unthinkable crime, we can expect to see a similar shift once meat-eating disappears from our planet. Perhaps, some day, the very idea of eating animal flesh will seem as remote as the idea of owning humans does now. So if you're a carnivore, enjoy now — before the inevitable vegetarian revolution begins.

He also blames meat for cancer, rather than the lifestyles that most people have chosen (most people eat meat). He doesn't mention, of course, that vegetables do not have a complete amino acid profile, leading to deficiencies in essential amino acids, or that vegans have to have B-12 shots because of deficiency in their diet. Since animal farts contribute more to mythical global warming than the entirety of transportation, shouldn't we be trying to cap-and-trade flatulence rather than killing the energy industry? Or just kill all carnivores and be done with it? How beyond the pale is it though to compare eating meat to slavery? It is far beyond ant bounds of reason, but when has that ever stopped liberals in the endless pursuit of empty moral relativism? Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to the meat:

Incompetence In The Oval Office: Govt. Forced Chrysler Deal With Minimal Knowledge of Fiat. SCOTUS Asked To Stop Sale!!!

This is bad. And it shows that the leadership in the Oval Office is an illusion. A mirage. A figment of the MSMs imagination. An empty suit sits there making things up as he goes along. Not ready to lead. Looks like Hillary was right. From NewsBusters (HT: memorandum): Shotgun Wedding: Court Docs Reveal Govt. Likely Forced Chrysler Deal With Minimal Knowledge of Fiat.

Even if they ultimately lose their last-minute court battle, the Indiana pension funds defending their rights as secured first-lien creditors of Chrysler have done a valuable deed.

We have learned, among many other things, how at least one government lawyer characterized the funds' lawyer, Thomas Lauria.

A $10,000 Democratic Party donor, Lauria, despite clear evidence of intimidation of his originally larger pool of clients by Barack Obama himself (in his April 30 speech announcing the company's bankruptcy filing) and his car guys, has nonetheless bravely pursued the important contract law and fiduciary duty issues involved in the shortchanging of his clients for several weeks.

Wait until you see the word the government lawyer used to describe Lauria.

I have posted on Lauria before. In fact, I was one of the first bloggers to upload the audio of Lauria on the Frank Beckmann show here in Detroit with the revelation that Obama himself threatened his clients (White House Threatens Bondholder With The "Full Power Of The White House Press Corps" (with Audio)). The revelation occurs at the 1:56 mark of Frank's interview with Lauria, which you can hear below:

What Lauria Says is:

"One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House. Uh... and in essence compelled to withdraw it's opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House Press Corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight."

Lauria revealed after some prodding by Beckmann that it was in fact Perella Weinberg that was directly threatened.NewsBusters goes:

As a result of Lauria's legal efforts, we have also learned of e-mails showing that the government drove the Chrysler-Fiat deal over Chrysler management concerns, and did so despite more than likely knowing very little about shotgun marriage partner Fiat.

All of this and more is in a report published last night in the Wall Street Journal by Neil King Jr. and Jeffrey McCracken.

Here are key paragraphs revealing containing items I expect most of the rest of the establishment media to ignore:

U.S. Pushed Fiat Deal on Chrysler

The Obama administration rushed an alliance between Chrysler LLC and Fiat SpA despite Chrysler's worries about Fiat's financial health and its willingness to share technology, according to internal company emails.

The emails show Fiat ignoring requests for documents and trying to change contract terms late in the talks. A Chrysler adviser at one point said the deal risked looking as if the U.S. auto maker and the Treasury Department, which helped broker the pact, were "in bed with a shady partner." In another note, an official referred to the Treasury Department as "God."

..... On Friday, a federal appeals court upheld Chrysler's Fiat deal, dismissing a challenge by dissident Chrysler debt holders. But the court also issued a stay until 4 p.m. Monday -- leaving a small window for Thomas Lauria, the lawyer pursuing the case, to appeal to the Supreme Court. One judge on the three-judge panel suggested the Supreme Court should have "a swing at this ball."

Mr. Lauria's persistence led one government lawyer in the Chrysler case to dub him a "terrorist" in an email to a Chrysler adviser.

..... The emails, which run from mid-March until early May, were put into the court record following a request by Mr. Lauria, the lawyer fighting the bankruptcy on behalf of various Indiana pension and investment funds that hold Chrysler bank debt. They argue that the case has trampled on established bankruptcy law.

..... Chrysler's advisers told the company their Italian counterparts were refusing to provide sufficient financial information to evaluate the deal. A team sent to Fiat headquarters in Turin, Italy, reported back on March 14 that "no financial due diligence ... has or can be performed."

An internal memo 13 days later from Chrysler's advisory team also said Fiat's "off-balance-sheet investments" in joint ventures around the world posed an economic risk and a political risk," including the appearance that "Treasury/Chrysler" was "in bed with a shady partner."

Eight days before President Barack Obama announced his support for the alliance in an April 30 speech, Chrysler officials were still bristling over what they considered Fiat's unwillingness to provide even basic information about its finances.

..... Fiat is putting in no cash.

..... Despite the push to do a deal with Fiat, Chrysler advisers continued into April urging the Treasury to think again about a potential merger with GM. Earlier talks between the two auto giants had broken down in November, and the Obama administration put little stock in the idea.

How did "Treasury/Chrysler" get from "lacking basic information" about Fiat's finances to completing sufficient due diligence to support making the deal with a very complex company in eight days? Additionally, Fiat's "off-balance-sheet investments" seem to have a whiff of Enron-like potential.

The two WSJ reporters also reveal how the government, despite the urgings of Chrysler management, refused to explore the viability of combining it with deeply troubled but at least financially transparent General Motors.

The funds are appealing to the Supreme Court. Bloomberg reports that "A creditor bid for Supreme Court intervention would likely go first to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who handles emergency matters from the New York-based federal appeals court that ruled yesterday. She could act on her own or refer the request to the full nine-member court." Justice Ginsurg's gatekeeper function would appear to indicate that the Indiana pension funds will see not see justice served.

The Detroit News and Free Press are both choosing to report this as a minor story. Both papers simply parrot the AP. Shouldn't the local media here in Detroit be more involved??? The freep has this: Supreme Court asked to block Chrysler sale to Fiat. The Detroit News has the exact same thing. And the local papers wonder why they are struggling....

Video: Gordon Brown Calls Omaha Beach "Obama" Beach

HT: HotAir

Detroit Free Press: Granholm Has Been A Nightmare

OK - that's not exactly what they said. It's more subtle but basically they let through a quote that said as much. The article is titled: State's economic recovery expected to start next year.

Comerica Bank's chief economist predicted Friday that Michigan's battered economy will finally start to recover next year, aided by a rebound in the national economy.

"This long nightmare now in its sixth year ... the end is going to be in 2010," Dana Johnson told a large crowd of the bank's business clients gathered at the Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills.

Johnson's forecast came despite a grim prognosis for the ailing state. He expects Michigan's real gross domestic product -- the inflation-adjusted value of all goods and services produced in the state -- to drop by 4% to 5% this year, compared with a 1.5% decline in 2008.

And Michigan could shed 50,000 to 60,000 more auto and auto parts manufacturing jobs, up from the 33,000 that were lost last year.

So many factories have closed that auto manufacturing jobs now only account for 2.9% of the state's total nonfarm jobs, compared with 6.9% at the start of the decade.

Johnson said it's important that the state create a business environment that nurtures growth, reminding the audience that innovative, job-creating companies like Google Inc. can spring up unexpectedly.

"This long nightmare now in its sixth year..." What happened around 6 years ago? Thinking... thinking... Oh yeah - the Granholm inauguration! This must have squeaked by the freep sensors, but what Comerica's chief economist basically said is that Granholm's handling of the economy had been a nightmare. And he's absolutely correct!

How does one create "a business environment that nurtures growth?" How about getting rid of the MBT and it's ugly cousin the MBT surcharge? How about getting rid of income taxes entirely, as it is a disincentive to generate income? All of these taxes can be replaced by a fair tax. MI Fair Tax has a decent website, so go check it out, but here's the gist of it:

Of course, it won't make as much of a difference as I would like without spending cuts. Spending has simply been out of control. During the last 6 'nightmare' years, spending has increased every single year at the same time as jobs have been lost, again every single year. You could just see the trainwreck developing. It was unsustainable then and it has come time to pay the piper.

That being said, it's hard to imagine Michigan coming out of this 6-year recession until Granholm leaves office. So we're talking 2011, not 2010. And that's at the earliest. Johnson seems to be under the illusion that Michigan's economy will follow the nations. that has proven not to be so the last 6 years as we have remained in recession during good economic times elsewhere. In addition, the national economic outlook is worsening. (U.S. jobless rate jumps to 9.4 percent; stimulus a proven failure; MSM whitewashing) The 2010 election cannot come soon enough!

Detroit Red Wings Take Pittsburgh Penguins Behind The Woodshed For A Beating! Win 5-0

Even though the 1st period was a bit of a nail biter, they scored and went into intermission with a 1-0 lead and about a minute and a half of power play time going into the 2nd. And did they lay it on thick! The Red Wings, who were abysmal in the last 2 games particularly on defense when they faced the power play, returned that favor and then some in the 2nd period. Pittsburgh got the penalties and the Wings capitalized almost at will. When all was said and done, the Wings were up all of 5-0 after 2. That's simply a beatdown. The Penguins were as hapless as penguins in nature facing a Killer Whale.

Unlike the video, there was no lifeboat for these Penguins to hop into tonight. They were in a foreign pond with a potent predator. The 3rd period was anticlimactic. The Pens lost whatever desire they had. The Wings were skating, the Pens were not. Their goose was cooked and they well knew it.

Game 6 will be on tap Tuesday. Can the Wings take their home-pond success and put in this kind of effort in Pittsburgh? As good as it would be to hoist the Cup on the home pond, in the end the Cup is all that matters. My prediction? They'll pull out a squeaker in OT Tuesday and bring the Cup back where it belongs - in Hockeytown. It will surely be the only good news that the D will get this year. Probably the only good news that Michigan will get as well.

MSM covers Tiller Funeral, Notes Protesters, Ignores Ceremony Of Murdered Soldier And Jihadi Protester

Nothing could illustrate the current state of media better than the dichotomy of how they have covered the back-to-back murders of late-term abortionist George "baby killer" Tiller and Pvt. William Long. For a backdrop, read my prior posts on these two:

Obama On Recent Murders: Baby Killer Abortionist Tiller - SHOCK AND OUTRAGE! Soldier and Recruiter: SAD...
Sarah Palin Making Sense: The Little Rock Soldier Murder Isn't Getting The Same Attention As That Of Tiller
Kook Murders An Abortionist - TERRORIST! Muslim Convert Murders A Soldier - CRICKETS CHIRPING!
Breaking: Abortionist George "Baby Killer" Tiller Shot Dead In Kansas

Now that that's out of the way, onto today's illustration of media bias. From the AP in the Detroit News: Slain abortion doctor eulogized as generous. The actual AP title was a bit different, as shown by FoxNews: Mourners Gather to Remember Slain Abortion Doctor as Small Group Protests Funeral. In any case,

Hundreds of people gathered Saturday to honor slain abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, eulogized by a longtime friend as a passionate and generous man who repeatedly overcame difficult challenges.

Tiller's funeral at College Hill United Methodist Church also drew small groups of protesters. Police and federal marshals provided heavy security.

Tiller, one of the nation's few providers of late-term abortions, was killed by a gunshot last Sunday in the foyer of his own church, Reformation Lutheran, while he was serving as an usher and his wife was singing in the choir. His family had the funeral at the Methodist church to accommodate the large number of mourners.

His son, Maury, said... "I struggle with the manner he was welcomed into heaven."

"Dear God, get heaven ready, because Mr. Enthusiasm is coming," said Larry Borcherding, of Overland Park, who first met Tiller a half-century ago when both were students at the University of Kansas. "Heaven will never be the same. It will be a better, better place with George in it."

About 700 people filled the church sanctuary and some 200 others watched a closed-circuit television broadcast in another room.

Most anti-abortion groups avoided the funeral, having denounced Tiller's shooting. But 17 demonstrators showed up from Westboro Baptist Church, known for picketing soldiers' funerals to present its message that their deaths are God's punishment for Americans' tolerance of homosexuality.

For the record, the Westboro Baptist Church is not really a baptist church, and is the one that goes around to military funerals basically castigating the dead soldiers' families and saying that their killing was justice for America's embracing of homosexuality. It is a rogue church not affiliated with any denomination. They are kooks, and are known as such. The AP, of course, doesn't point this out and in fact doesn't even mention the name of the church into late in the article. Just paints this as the pro-life community. Nothing is further from the truth.

That being said, what the heck are the doctrinal convictions of these people that believe that Tiller is somehow honored in heaven above most? I truly hope that before Tiller took his last breath that he truly repented for what he had done and asked for forgiveness, in which case the slate was wiped clean and into heaven he went. Otherwise, there is no Biblical way to go anywhere but judgement. It's not my opinion, nor my judgement, It is the Word of God, and it is consistent throughout. If anyone has a problem with that, then they have a problem with the Word, and not with me or my opinion.

Now onto the Remembrance Ceremony today for Pvt. William Long. The AP reports: ...uh, what AP report? Oh yeah - here it is:

Thankfully, we have the blogosphere today. Pamella Geller over at Atlas Shrugs who points to this first-person account:

Secure Arkansas organized a rally in remembrance of the first terrorist attack since 9/11. Pvt. William Long was killed and Pvt. Quinton I. Ezeagwula was wounded by Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad). Channel 11 was the only TV crew out there with a camera, and the AR Dem Gazette sent a reporter and a photographer. The event had several speakers who did a wonderful job. Video footage of them will be uploaded soon. However, the most shocking part of the event was when a muslim fanatic crashed the event. The fanatic drove by and yelled at us, then parked in the parking lot and stood out with a homemade sign yelling anti-American and later anti-Semetic comments. Had this been a ceremony for Tiller, this would have been the top story for both local and national media. Since it isn't a top story, it's up to you to send this to as many people as possible. In case youtube deletes the video or the account, here are multiple links to see and share the video footage.

Here's the video that you will not see in the MSM:

Pamella comments:

The hijab-clad fanatic in the video is vile. This is a memorial to a dead soldier and she is screaming "Jesus was Muslim" and talking about the religious freedom in Egypt. "Christian churches and Catholics in Egypt practice freely"."Jesus is not G-d's son!" "Jews are liars!" Obamanation.

Memorandum now has a linkaround thread on this. The bias in the MSM on this is way beyond the pale. The coverage should be the opposite of what it is.

Obama Nominates Head of Fake Catholic Pro-Life Group to Top HHS Post

The fake Catholic Pro-Life group is funded by rich leftie kook George Soros. From LifeNews:

President Barack Obama has rewarded the head of a fake pro-life Catholic group that was responsible for misleading voters about his abortion position to a top Health and Human Services post. The nomination is seen as political payback for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG).

Obama named former CACG executive director Alexia Kelley to head the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services.

CACG came under fire from pro-life groups for supporting Obama's presidential candidacy his pro-abortion policies that are at odds with Catholic pro-life teaching. it recently ran an advertisement defending Notre Dame's decision to award Obama and allow him to speak to graduates.

Kelley has also called for weakening pro-life laws on abortion, claiming they aren't sufficient to protect unborn children.

Speaking of Notre Dame, Gateway Pundit had a good roundup of the actions of CACG: Soros-Funded Bogus Catholic Group Attacks Pro-Life Protesters at Notre Dame In Newspaper Ad

After conservative Roman Catholics caused a stir over President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame this weekend, Catholics who support his visit are raising their voices. The liberal group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good is running a full-page ad in the South Bend Tribune this Saturday titled "Catholic Leaders and Theologians Welcome President Obamato Notre Dame."

For the record - Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) is a radical leftist group that twists Catholic Church teachings in order to win elections. The group is totally dishonest about church doctrine.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good is funded by George Soros.

GP also had this previously: As Promised... Obama's First Move-- Expand Abortion Rights

Do you remember Barack Obama's outrageous and dishonest mock "Pro-Life" websites paid for by George Soros?

...they were all a lie.

Yeah, and Alexia Kelley was at the center of it all. Now, she's getting her 30 pieces of silver while babies continue to be slaughtered.

At death camp, Obama says evil must be confronted. Funny that many say the same thing in front of abortion clinics...

As usual, Obama has exactly zero standing in talking about anything evil, as he is the biggest and most vicious protector of the abortion industry here in the States. Not only has he continually voted for abortion on demand throughput all nine months of pregnancy for any or no reason at all, he has also voted for infanticide. Not once but four times.

In any case, onto today's absurdity from The One. He says evil must be confronted when referring to the heinous murder of more than 6 million souls by the Nazis, but countenances and supports the murder of 50 million here at home since Roe v Wade. Go figure. From Sweetness and Light:

By Mark S. Smith, Associated Press Writer

President Barack Obama witnessed the Nazi ovens of the Buchenwald concentration camp Friday, its clock tower frozen at the time of liberation, and said the leaders of today must not rest against the spread of evil.

The president called the camp where an estimated 56,000 people died the "ultimate rebuke" to Holocaust deniers and skeptics. And he bluntly challenged one of them, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, to visit Buchenwald.

"These sites have not lost their horror with the passage of time," Obama said after seeing crematory ovens, barbed-wire fences, guard towers and the clock set at 3:15, marking the camp’s liberation in the afternoon of April 11, 1945. "More than half a century later, our grief and our outrage over what happened have not diminished."

Buchenwald "teaches us that we must be ever-vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time, that we must reject the false comfort that others’ suffering is not our problem, and commit ourselves to resisting those who would subjugate others to serve their own interests," Obama said.

Ironic that for the pro-life community, which is now a majority of the American people, "our outrage over what happened" has not diminished either. Here's Obama talking in Buchenwald:

He mention, as it has been reported that his great uncle never talked to Obama about any such thing. From Gateway Pundit: Obama's Great Uncle: "He's Using Buchenwald For Political Purposes".

SPIEGEL: Mr. Payne, early in June your great-nephew, President Barack Obama, will visit the former concentration camp Buchenwald, which you helped liberate at the end of the war. Will he be travelling in your footsteps?

Charles Payne: I don't buy that. I was quite surprised when the whole thing came up and Barack talked about my war experiences in Nazi Germany. We had never talked about that before. This is a trip that he chose, not because of me I'm sure, but for political reasons.

Charles Payne
Great Uncle of Barack Obama
Spiegel Magazine
May 29, 2009

Payne told Spiegel that he was shocked to see his war experience, especially his "liberation" of a concentration camp, used in campaign commercials. He said he had never spoke with his nephew about the matter, nor did Obama ever express any interest in Payne's experience.

What a class act that Obama is, no?

Shock: Liberal Writer Fired By AOL News For Reporting Vile Playboy List

I'm shocked. SHOCKED I say! I had no idea that AOL still reported news. How weird is that? Do they still have subscribers? AOL is so 90's, but anyway. As a backdrop for those of you that have been living under a rock this week: The Playboy website published just an absolutely hideous hit-piece on conservative women advocating their hate-rape. So vile was the piece, and so viral was the outrage, that they couldn't pull the article fast enough. The cached version has been saved however. Here are just a couple of snippets:

Obama promised us the dream of post-partisanship—a cuckoo land where party affiliation and factional animosity were forgotten. Turn on cable news or open any newspaper, however, and you’ll quickly discover that the dream has yet to materialize. But there is a way to reach across the aisle without letting principles fall by the wayside. We speak, naturally, of the hate f**k*. We may despise everything these women represent, but goddammit they’re hot. Let the healing begin.

Here were some observations on a few of the hits from around the blogosphere:

The hatred is certainly apparent on all ten of the entries on this list. The boss hits #1 on this list, Amanda Carpenter’s on it too, but perhaps the entry on Mary Katharine Ham demonstrates their misogynism best:

The Hate F**k Rating: You get this one pregnant, she stays pregnant. Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it?

This one on Megyn Kelly is too pricelessly ironic:

The Hate F**k Rating: You need to flagellate your genitals for wanting to f**k this woman.

Isn’t the entire Playboy empire based on self-flagellation of genitals?

Last I saw, Playboy’s losing so much money they have to cut back on the number of editions they print.

Now that you've been filled in, more breaking news. NewsBusters (HT: conservativegrapevine) reports:

AOL News has been bending over backwards lately to make sure that they do not cover the controversy surrounding Playboy.com writer Guy Cimbalo's vile attack on conservative women. AOL News has taken some drastic steps to censor any mention, let alone criticism, of Playboy's screed. They have deleted posts about the article, banned contributors from mentioning it, and even fired one of their liberal writers over it.

The fact that banning reporters from, well, reporting is so contrary to the purpose of a news organization it really is puzzling. It seems to be in direct contrast to their commitment to "traditional journalistic values".

The evidence is stacking up quite high that AOL News fired liberal writer Tommy Christopher today due to his repeated attempts to get coverage of the Playboy attack list on AOL's Politics Daily. Christopher had first attempted to post this criticism of Playboy's sick list the day it was published on their website. However, he was surprised to find that shortly after putting his article on Politics Daily it was deleted by an editor.

His surprise stemmed from the fact that in his two years of writing for the site not one other post had ever been deleted by an editor.

Another former Politics Daily writer NewsBusters spoke with, Caleb Howe, confirmed that fact. And while Tommy Christopher released a statement to NewsBusters criticizing AOL's decision to let him go Caleb Howe went further than Tommy in his opinion of AOL's motives.

"His coverage of the Playboy "hate f***" list must have had a lot to do with Tommy being fired, if not everything to do with it" Howe told NewsBusters. "It would be absurd to think the timing is coincidental" referring to the fact that Christopher was fired three days after his original Playboy story and only hours after pitching a new story on the same topic.

As Christopher notes in the statement he released to NewsBusters he was a productive and successful writer for AOL. He is a well respected, widely read, and widely linked writer. His stories and opinions have been featured on Bill O'Reilly, Hot Air, Red State, The College Politico, The Daily Kos, The Huffington Post, and even NewsBusters. It seems highly unlikely that AOL fired him for lack of performance and it is important to note that nobody has claimed that as of now.

Christopher has written in his own defense (HT: HotAir headlines): On Playboy and the Firing of Tommy Christopher.

I have a right to protect my reputation, and to disseminate facts relevant to that. I want people to know some things.

#1. There was no profanity in my original Playboy story for Politics Daily, although this was the reason given for its deletion. I embellished the reasoning when republishing it to shield my employer from criticism.

#2. My work for AOL has been consistently of high quality, and my role has been as much straight journalist as commentator.

#3. My work has driven the overwhelming share of AOL’s external traffic for the past year or so.

#4. Up until the minute I was fired, Politics Daily’s editorial staff was working actively to expand my role with the site, not end it.

I can’t say exactly why this happened, as none of the shifting rationales (publicly) given for my firing make any sense. Given the facts documented in the articles written on the subject, and facts that I can’t share on the record, I have no doubt that the Playboy article was the true catalyst for my firing.

Is there more of this story yet to come???

Previously:
Video: Megyn Kelly Skewers Playboy For Advocating For The Hate-Rape Of Conservative Women
Liberal Bonnie Erbe: Playboy Wrong To Advocate Rape Of Conservative Women, But They Were Asking For It!
Playboy (!) Goes Off The Deep End - Advises Hate-Raping Of Conservative Women

Video: Ronald Reagan On The 40th Anniversary Of D-Day

Way back in 1984, before I was politically aware. If you want to get technical, it was a few years before I graduated from High School, but anyway. We need another Reagan, rather than the narcissistic blowhard we have right now...

Liberal Bias: When Fossil Was Released, Google Honored That, But Can't Honor D-Day Anniversary UPDATE: Wikipedia Too!

Here was what Google looked like on May 20th, 2009, during the media Blitzkrieg of the fossil known as "Ida" that was supposed to squash all deniers of evolution under the weight of someones conjecture regarding some bones:Today, the anniversary of D-Day, Google looks like this:What gives, Google??? It's been bugging me all day as I have used Google throughout, as usual. Is this Tetris Day or something???

UPDATE: Moonbattery has more:

It seems today is also the 25th anniversary of Tetris, a Soviet video game. I had never heard of Tetris, but apparently it is much more significant than the sacrifices made on Omaha Beach, at least from Google's point of view.

Wikipedia offers an On This Day feature on its main page. Here it is for today:

Even the crowning of Gustav Vasa as King of Sweden in 1523 is more important than D-Day, according to the overseers of the online establishment.

If it were up to moonbats, the courage of D-Day's martyrs would be forgotten, as would be the cause they died for.

I am just shocked. Today really is Tetris Day?

McCain Unleashes The 300

Not that 300. Actually 300 words. And not that McCain, rather The Other McCain. A new site has been formed that is essentially a news reporting site, with every post limited to 300 words. No more! The site is NTCNews and is all of a week old, and already averages more visits than I get. Damn you McCain! Besides Stacy, there is Smitty and Jimmie (Jimaaay!) from Sundries Shack. Possibly others.

In honor of the newborn, I have limited this post on its arrival to less than 300 words. So there! On second thought, nah! Rescinding will give me a chance to post Stacy's invite:

Frequent Commenter Smitty (who has been known to wear bowties, alas) and Jimmie Bise Jr. of Sundries Shack are my partners in this latest insane project. Of the site's inspiration, Jimmie says:

Tucker made a big mistake in calling out the HuffPo before his site was anywhere close to being live. Three weeks is an eternity in the blogosphere and, by the time his site finally does make it to the masses, all the buzz will be gone.

I won't tell you which one of my partners described the Underpants Gnome business plan of NTCNews:

1. Post a metric ass-load of brief news pointers.
2. ? ? ? ?
3. Profit!

Don't try this at home kids. These men are professional bloggers. We're already showing up occasionally in the Memeorandum feed and being linked by Fisherville Mike, So It Goes In Shreveport and No Sheeples Here, among others.

If you want to be a guest contributor to the "300 Words or Less" series, please e-mail Smitty or e-mail Jimmie. Remember (a) the subject must be timely, (b) it must include linkage to articles and blogs about the topic, (c) your entry will be competing for publication against other offerings, and (d) it must be 300 words or less, including the title and you signature. (Try composing it as a Word document, which automatically counts the words.)

As payment for your contribution, you'll have your choice of three lucrative options:

• 100% of the cash value of the traffic generated by your entry, not to exceed $1 (one U.S. dollar);
• Reciprocral linkage to your blog at The Other McCain and NTCNews.com; or
• One cold beverage, if you are ever able to catch me, Smitty or Jimmie in a bar with cash in our pockets. (Good luck.)

What a deal, huh? At any rate, even if you don't decide to take us up on this offer, we invite you to visit NTCNews, where we strive to prove daily that you have to be a rich preppy to aggregate the news.

I'm in. But some unanswered lingering questions: if a picture is worth 1000 words, are pics not allowed? If not, then what about video which is just a bunch of pictures in succession? Without pics or video, I won't be functional. Especially South Park videos. those are necessities...

Newsweek Editor Evan Thomas: Obama Is "SORT OF GOD"!!! (with video)

I kid you not! He said exactly that! Here's the shocked video:

What a dilluded kook! NewsBusters reports:

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas brought adulation over President Obama’s Cairo speech to a whole new level on Friday, declaring on MSNBC: "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."

Thomas, appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews, was reacting to a preceding monologue in which Matthews praised Obama’s speech: "I think the President's speech yesterday was the reason we Americans elected him. It was grand. It was positive. Hopeful...But what I liked about the President's speech in Cairo was that it showed a complete humility...The question now is whether the President we elected and spoke for us so grandly yesterday can carry out the great vision he gave us and to the world."

Matthews discussed Obama’s upcoming speech marking the 65^th anniversary of D-Day and compared it to that of Ronald Reagan. He then turned to Thomas and asked: "Reagan and World War II and the sense of us as the good guys in the world, how are we doing?" Thomas replied: "Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial."

Thomas elaborated on Obama as God, patronizingly explaining: "He's going to bring all different sides together...Obama is trying to sort of tamper everything down. He doesn't even use the word terror. He uses extremism. He's all about let us reason together...He's the teacher. He is going to say, ‘now, children, stop fighting and quarreling with each other.’ And he has a kind of a moral authority that he – he can – he can do that." In response, Matthews wondered: "If there's a world election between him and Osama Bin Laden, he's running a good campaign." Thomas agreed: "Yes, he is."

Talk about a conversation within an echo chamber! And what kind of moral authority does anyone have who votes in favor of infanticide??? Other than these two kooks, normal people didn't take so kindly to Obama's Cairo speech:

HT: HotAir for the vid

UPDATE: American Thinker has this obserrvation:

This is the same guy who was honest enough to admit back in 2004 that liberal bias in the media was worth 15 percentage points to John Kerry.

This really isn't that much of a surprise when you consider that many media analysts are saying that Obama worship in the press is beyond anything yet seen in American politics. They like him. They agree with him politically. And because he's black, they badly want him to succeed.

What do we need a pro-American president for when we've got God on our side?

Ouch!

UPDATE #2: A linkaround has formed over at memorandum on this topic

Well that didn't take long! After New Hampshire passed gay marriage law, polygamists want the same - say NH plan "embeds bigotry into state law"

That sure sounds familiar, no? You know - I firmly recall the cries from gay activists and their ilk when Massechusetts enshrined gay marriage by judicial fiat a few years ago, and conservatives made slipper slope arguments that once get marriage is enshrined, every deviancy known to man will follow. Well - here it comes, using the same exact arguments used by gay activists. I can see the polygamists case too. If marriage isn't between one man and one woman, then open it for everyone and everything. Man marries 5 women, or visa versa, NAMBLA marries youg boys, PETA marries animals, etc. From WND: Next frontier? Polygamists demand multi-sex marriage.

A polygamy advocacy organization says the New Hampshire law that is intended to assure "equal access to marriage" for all instead specifically embeds in state statutes bigotry against polygamists.

According to a statement posted on the Pro-Polygamy website, when on Wednesday New Hampshire "became the sixth U.S. State to codify the legal construction of same sex marriage," it was hailed by homosexuals as a "civil rights victory."

"Declaring that the new law advances fairness and equality for all, they proclaimed that New Hampshire had supposedly 'ended discrimination' for everyone," the statement said.

"But the law did no such thing. Rather, it intentionally 'discriminates' against consenting adult polygamists – indeed, on purpose," the organization said.

The fact that polygamists, and indeed those with other sexual proclivities, would use the same "civil rights" and "equality" arguments forwarded by homosexuals seeking "marriage" rights has been predicted for years.

The polygamy activists said the new law now affirms the "right" of two individuals to marry.

"However, the new law then took the matter further, with intentional 'discrimination.' The new [law] now ends with a newly added anti-polygamy provision," the group said, citing the new statement: "No person shall be allowed to be married to more than one person at any given time."

That slope is a slippery one indeed, no?

Tom Brokaw Asks Obama: "What can the Israelis learn from your visit to Buchenwald?" (with video)

There is no other way to say this other than the question itself displays utter stupidity. Utter. Does Brokaw have a clue that Israelis know much better what happened at Buchenwald than he does? Curiously, Obama answered that there was no equivalence, but just the other day equated the entirety of the holocaust to Palestinian 'suffering.' (Obama In Cairo: 6 Million Jews Executed In Holocaust = Palestinian 'Suffering') So which is it, BHO? Here's the video: (the relevant question here ocurrs at the 4:06 mark)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

NewsBusters reports: Outrageous: Brokaw Wonders What Israel Can 'Learn' From Buchenwald And 'Their Treatment of Palestinians.'

The folks at Powerline realized the implications of an outrageous news clip featuring NBC's Tom Brokaw conducting an interview with the Obammessiah. Apparently, this hard news journalist thought he'd get deep and ask a pertinent question about Israel, the Palestinians, and just what it might be that the Jews can learn from Obama's visit to Buchenwald and how they should treat Palestinians and stuff about Nazis or something.

Seriously, what sort of historical ignorance does it take for someone to ask what Jews can learn about Buchenwald from a guy that has never visited the place before now, never had any intimate or even cultural connection to it, and wasn't even alive when it was a Nazi terror to the Jewish world? I mean, is Brokaw insinuating that the Jews did not learn anything from their own "visit" to Buchenwald?

And what sort of insensitive fool does it take to imagine that Jews have any new "lesson" to learn of Buchenwald that it has yet to learn? And how is it that Obama can be their teacher? The thought of it all is ludicrous.

But, let's get down to brass tacks, shall we? The singular point here is that Tom Brokaw just implied that Israel is treating the Palestinians just like the Nazis treated them! That is the true outrage here.

Indeed it is. HotAir chimes in:

For added disgust, note that this interview was conducted in Dresden, ground zero of the neo-Nazi revisionist movement to draw moral equivalence between Nazi atrocities and Allied bombings of German cities. You’ll fit right in at MSNBC, Tom.

Ouch! Allahpundit has a video up as well of a person who truly confronted evil. Obama's speeches are always short on substance. Compare Obama's speeches to this one which, it should be pointed out, was delivered sans teleprompter:

Be ashamed of yourself, Tom Brokaw! Be very ashamed!