The Ignorance of Fox News, Again…

Fox usually acts shamefully but this time it has outshamed itself.  As Richard reminds us

One does not expect much from Fox News at the best of times; but a recent interviewwith Reza Aslan has – deservedly – come under particular mockery for the interviewer’s ignorance and bad faith.

The interview was conducted by Lauren Green, who is described as being “a religion correspondent” for Fox, and it concerned Aslan’s new book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Green appeared to no know little of the book or of scholarship in general, and the segment consists exclusively of her demanding an explanation from Aslan about why a Muslim would write a book about Jesus.

Choosing the most egregiously stupid moment is tricky – Green accuses Aslan of failing to “disclose” that he is a Muslim, despite the facts he does so on the second page of his book and that he’s one of the better-known Muslim commentators in the USA; there’s also a bizarre analogy in which she compares Aslan to a Democrat writing a book about Ronald Reagan; but the lowest point I think was this:

You’re quoting yourself as a scholar, and I’ve interviewed scholars who have written books on the Resurrection, on the real Jesus, and who are looking at the same information that you’re saying… to say that your information is somehow different from theirs is really not being honest…

We all understand (at, least, over here in the UK) that a news interviewer’s job is often to take a hostile and sceptical line, even if that line is not particularly strong, but that’s not the same things appearing to be clueless. Throughout the interview, Aslan attempted patiently to convey to Green the nature of academic study. He made it very clear to her that his book is located within a scholarly debate, and that the book is not based on any kind of Islamic agenda. In particular, he stated that the book calls into question the historicity of the Virgin Birth, which is an Islamic as well as a Christian belief, and that the book rejects the Islamic teaching that Jesus was not really crucified.

Etc…

Fox, you lose.  Again.

What Next, Fired For Saying Wikipedia Isn’t a Reliable Research Source?

West Liberty University students and parents are questioning one professor after she reportedly issued a syllabus that filtered student’s research options.

Stephanie Wolfe’s syllabus highlights which sources students should use in a political science course. Among those, students are asked not to use are The Onion, an openly fictitious parody of real-life news, and Fox News, a professional news organization.

WLU President Robin Capehart was on Fox News Thursday afternoon to give his stance on the situation.

“This is a case where we obviously have a concern because as much as we will protect the academic freedom of the professor, we’ll also protect the academic freedom of our students to go out and find as many sources as possible,” said Capehart. “So obviously we were concerned.”

Oh the Stupid- IT BURNS!  (Thanks for the phrase, Scott Bailey).  Come on people, defending the use of clearly biased sources or purely fictional ones and calling it academic freedom?????  COME ON!  What next, firing a Prof for calling Wikipedia an unreliable research source because, you know, it is!

Oh the stupid… it burns…

Related Articles

• Lib West Virginia Prof Tells Students They Can’t Use FOX News in Her Class (thegatewaypundit.com)
• Professor bans Fox News as citing reference at West Liberty University (upi.com)
• Professor’s syllabus bars students from using Fox News for assignment (insidehighered.com)

Faux Fox News: Andrea Tantaros is as Indecent as Ever

Fox News host Andrea Tantaros on Wednesday seemed to be mocking the millions of hungry Americans who are forced to used food stamps when she suggested that the program would make for a great diet plan.  During a Thanksgiving-eve segment on Fox Business, host Stuart Varney noted that Newark Mayor Cory Booker had accepted a challenge to live on food stamps for a week.  “Could you like [sic!] on 133 bucks a month for food?” Varney asked Tantaros, who co-hosts Fox News’ The Five.  “I should try it because, do you know how fabulous I’d look?” she replied. “I mean, the camera adds ten pounds. It really does. I would be looking great.”

In other news, Ms Tantaros also touted the benefits of concentration camp diets and expressed her wish to be transported back in time to Auschwitz…

Every time, decent soul, that you buy something from a Fox sponsor, an angel rips off it’s own wings and stabs himself in the eyes with them.  Stop injuring the angels: stop patronizing any business that supports Fox News.

Wild-Eyed Crazy Speculation and the so Called ‘Samson Seal’

The other day when the object in question first appeared I remarked regarding the overblown claims even then being made by some in the press-

Stop this dreadful misrepresentation, press people. You’re embarrassing yourselves and misleading (i.e., lying to) the public. And when Fox News and World Net Daily and the others of their ilk pick up this story they’ll run it as ‘Proof of the Biblical Samson found in Israeli Excavation!!!!’ and the next thing you know, the dim Maximalists will publish an essay in BAR suggesting that the seal was made by an eyewitness to Samson’s slaying of the lion.

In spite of that warning, the ANE-2 list has been ablaze with the wildest sorts of speculations. Today, though, two sane remarks by two sane folk worth reading.

Others, of course, have noted the silliness- but Kletter and Lehmann say it so well it’s impossible to imagine that the craziness could continue. But I bet it does.

(NB- Note the link to Fr. Smuts page below.  The discovery has been transformed from ‘possible evidence’ in the Telegraph to ‘Seal Depicting Samson’.  From mere possibility to absolute reality… and that’s why the press needs to do a better job of highlighting the speculative nature of such claims when they come to the surface).

Related articles

• Israeli scholars claim possible evidence of Samson (telegraph.co.uk)
• Seal Depicting Samson Discovered (frstephensmuts.wordpress.com)

The Vatican and Fox News: Strange Bedfellows

The Vatican has brought in the Fox News correspondent in Rome to help improve its communications strategy as it tries to cope with years of communications blunders and one of its most serious scandals in decades, The Associated Press learned Saturday.  Greg Burke, 52, will leave Fox to become a senior communications adviser in the Vatican’s secretariat of state, the Vatican and Burke told the AP.

If the Vatican has hired someone from Fox, they aren’t interested in a communications adviser, they’re interested in a propagandist.

How Long Will it Be Before Fox News Jumps from ‘Pot Residue in Trayvon Martin’s Bag’ to ‘Pot Crazed Kid Tries to Kill Honest Gun Toter’

News from the AP that Trayvon Martin was suspended from school because pot residue was found in his bag.  I’d wager a month’s pay that before the day is out Fox News or one of the racists who has been panting to excuse Zimmerman will blame Martin for the attack and claim that he was high when he did it.

Let the immoral accusations commence (even though the fact remains that Martin is dead and Zimmerman, his murderer, continues to be free).

Related articles

• Fox News is Simply Beneath Contempt (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
• Video: Geraldo’s comment on Trayvon Martin Tradegy | cnbnews.net (gloucestercitynews.net)
• Did Fox News Stop Selling Hoodies After Trayvon Martin’s Death? (thinkprogress.org)
• Geraldo Rivera’s Son Ashamed Over Trayvon Martin Comments (theroot.com)
• Guns Don’t Kill (But Hoodies Do?) (jeffwinbush.com)

If Megyn Kelly Thinks Pepper Spray is a Food- She Should Eat Some

Fox News commentator Megyn Kelly appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show Monday night and seemed to downplay the impact of pepper spray while commenting on the UC Davis protests. She said of the substance, “it’s like a derivative of real pepper. It’s a food product essentially.”  Now, a petition is calling for Kelly to test her theory by ingesting pepper spray on television. More than 11,000 people have signed the pledge.

I’m signing.  I hope you will too.  I’m no fan of the occupy movement (for reasons stated numerous times) but such idiotic comments as Kelly made deserve to be derided and she should be forced to practice what she proclaims.

Related articles

• Fox News Host Megyn Kelly Says Pepper Spray Is “Like A Food Product, Essentially” (blisstree.com)

Fox News Is Quick to Believe a Lie

Because it loves falsehood.  It propagates falsehood constantly so when a juicy lie comes along it can’t resist it.

US NEWS ORGANISATION Fox News has fallen for a Pakistani satirical website’s report that Islamic clerics are campaigning to ban padded bras because they are “the devil’s cushions”.

Salon reports that the story originated on an Onion-like satirical site in Pakistan called Roznama Jawani.  Today Roznama Jawani carries headlines such as “Columbus Sends Message from Grave. Regrets Finding America” and “Intel’s latest AI Chip Inspired by Indian Prime Minister”.

Read the humorous rest.  And then ask yourself again, why does anyone believe anything Fox says?  They’re buffoons over there.  They wouldn’t know sarcasm if it spelled itself out for them.

Fox News and Friends Should Rename Themselves Fox Hypocrites and Liars

If you missed Jon Stewarts exposing the hypocrisy of Fox on the subject of ‘entitlements’ do yourself a favor and see it here.  Honestly I just don’t comprehend how anyone with so much as half a brain can believe Fox.  I’ve never seen such unbridled hypocrisy outside political circles (which probably explains it- Fox is the soapbox of the far right and never intends to be anything else).

If You Wonder What a ‘Sycophant’ is, Just Look at Bill O’Reilly

He is the perfect example of exactly what a sycophant is: he blindly follows his master incapable of considering any evidence which may cast a shadow across his lord’s face.  O’Reilly, you see, isn’t accusing Murdoch his master of any wrongdoing.  Quite the contrary: those who are pointing out the sins of News Corp. are the bad guys.

Bill, you’re a sycophant.  Just make confession and admit it to the world.  You might as well, everyone knows it (but you, apparently).

O’Reilly is just the latest News Corp employee to defend his employer. Fellow Fox News colleague Steve Doocy dismissed the scandal outright last week, and the Wall Street Journal issued a scathing rebuttal to the company’s critics in a Monday editorial.

No, actually Bill, you’re worse.  You and your friend Doocy and the WSJ are just brown-noser suck-ups.  And even more- you’re the sort who would sell your soul to the devil for a dollar.  And look, you really have!

Ann Coulter Spouts Ethics, But Doesn’t Live Them

Ann Coulter has found herself banned from Piers Morgan’s show “for life” after canceling on the CNN host and going on Fox News instead. Regular readers of Morgan’s Twitter feed saw the whole thing play out in real time on Wednesday night. Morgan had announced on Tuesday that Coulter had canceled her appearance on his Thursday show. (It would have been her second, following a delightfully awkward chat she had with Morgan in June.) Then, on Wednesday night, Coulter tweeted, “I’m on Hannity tonight! 9pm EST.” The Fox News host just happens to be a direct rival with Morgan, whose show also airs at 9.

So she first agreed to be on Morgan’s show. Then she backed out, breaking her word (which doesn’t seem to matter much at all- the sign of an unethical person if you need one) and then she brags that she’ll be on Rupert Murdoch’s station.  She should be banned. She’s unethical.  She’s a hypocrite.  The world doesn’t need to see such persons spewing claims of morality out of one side of their mouth and living unethical lives out of the other on decent tv.  Let her serve her unethical master Murdoch.  After all, birds of a feather…

Jon Stewart Should Have Known Fox Would Distort His Appearance…

So he has only himself to blame for appearing on the network.  If I know a deceiver wants an interview, I’m not going to grant it.  So Stewart, knowing how Fox loves to deceive, should never have agreed to go on Chris Wallace’s show.

Jon Stewart opened Monday night’s episode of “The Daily Show” by addressing his weekend appearance on “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.”  After a playful swipe at Huffington Post’s “YOU’RE INSANE” headline, Stewart went on to suggest that viewers watch the full, unedited interview online, which is the only place where one can see what Stewart termed, “the takeaway moment of the entire interview.” After asking Wallace if he truly believes that Fox News is “exactly the ideological equivalent of NBC News,” Wallace responded, “I think we’re the counterweight. I think they have a liberal agenda and we tell the other side of the story.”

Maybe he will think twice about going on again.  Unless he just enjoys being the victim of editorialization.

Related articles

• Jon Stewart on Fox News Sunday… (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
• Jon Stewart: Fox News Is The Purest Form Of Right Wing Resin (mediaite.com)

Why I’m Voting for Rick Santorum in 2012

Do you remember when you were a kid and you’d get a scrapped knee and your mom would rub alcohol on it and then drip lemon juice into it and then take sandpaper and smooth it down and then spray WD-40 on it and then spit on it and then put a band-aid on it?  After a few days she’d say ‘we need to take your band-aid off’.  ‘No’ you’d scream, it will hurt!

She always sweetly replied ‘if we pull it off quickly, it will only hurt for a second.  But if we do it slowly, it will hurt longer.’  So off she’d rip it, scab and all and it would bleed profusely and you’d cry and she’d pour boiling water on it and tell you not to be such a baby girl and then send you outside to play in the mudhole where the sewer water collected.  Oh for the good old days.

At any rate, this all connects to my decision to vote for Santorum in 2012.  America is doomed.  So we might as well rip the bandage off quickly and no one is better suited to end the American experiment than Santorum.  Why linger and limp along for a decade or so before the country completely and yet painfully slowly sinks into the abyss of third-world-ness?  Let’s just get it over with.  Santorum is our man.

Related Articles

• Santorum takes step toward 2012 presidential run (philly.com)
• Rick Santorum To Make Announcement Of Presidential Something-Or-Other Tonight (huffingtonpost.com)
• Santorum announces presidential fundraising effort (msnbc.msn.com)

Nic Robertson Shreds Fox ‘News’

Well deserved, since Fox loves to lie and sometimes when you’re the one being lied about you have to say so.

A senior reporter for CNN slammed Fox News for suggesting that he and other reporters who were given a tour of Muammar Gaddafi’s compound in Libya were used as human shields by the Libyan government.

Fox News’ defense correspondent, Jennifer Griffin, reported on Monday that the British army had been due to fire seven missiles at Gaddafi’s compound. But the attack was held off, she said, because Libya had brought journalists from CNN, Reuters, the AP, the Times of London and other news outlets to the compound for what, in the government’s words, was a press tour. According to Griffin, the actual reason for bringing the journalists to the compound was to “effectively use them as human shields.”  …

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer later on Monday, CNN’s senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, who was one of the reporters on the tour, lashed out at Fox News. He called the report “outrageous and absolutely hypocritical,” and said that, when you come to somewhere like Libya, you expect lies and deceit from the dictatorship here. You don’t expect it from the other journalists.”

He said that Fox News had in fact sent a non-editorial, non-technical member of its team to the tour. And he had harsh words for Harrigan himself. “If they had actually been there

“I see him more times at breakfast than I see him out on trips with government officials here,” he said. “…We very rarely see the Fox News team..if I sound angry, it’s because I am.”

Trusting Fox with the facts is like trusting Satan with providing cool water in hell.

2-1 He’s a Tea-Partier or a Limbaugh-ite or O’Reilly-an

Faux News

NPR reports

A 38-year-old Maine man is in custody after being indicted on charges of threatening to harm NPR hosts Melissa Block and Guy Raz.  John Crosby also faces a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm.  As The Smoking Gun, which broke the story, reports:  “According to an affidavit sworn by FBI Agent Nathan Jacobs, Crosby sent more than 20 bizarre, and often threatening, messages to NPR via a ‘Contact Us’ form on the organization’s web site.”  In two of the messages he allegedly threatened to kill Block and Raz.

What do you want to bet that when all the laundry is done, it turns out this nutter is a fan of Fox News?

I was watching Sports Center at the gym this morning while I was pretending to exert myself on the treadmill and in the bevvy of tv’s Fox was on (apparently so that people at the gym get so annoyed they run faster and push more weight, but I digress) and O’Reilly was on with the hobbit looking guy who’s name I don’t know but it starts with a K and the closed captioning indicated that they were lambasting NPR for taking public money.  What do you want to wager that the maniac who threatened the NPR employees is an avid viewer?  I’d say the chances are excellent.

Related Articles

• Bill O’Reilly: NPR must have liberal bias because Fox News has conservative bias (crooksandliars.com)
• Bill O’Reilly: The Media Is ‘Hyping The Nuke Situation In Japan’ Too Much (mediaite.com)

Bill O’Reilly Suggests Attorney General Eric Holder Should Commit Suicide Over Guantanamo Bay Decision (via The Fifth Column)

O’Reilly is a contemptibly loathsome and despicable human being who isn’t worthy of the adoration his sycophants heap on his wretched and vile head.

Once again, we have another candidate for  our “sorting out the crazies” list, Bill O’Reilly… News Hounds After persistently attacking the Obama administration for wanting to close Guantanamo Bay prison, now that President Obama has decided to keep it open, Fox News – rather than praise the decision – moved the target and is attacking Attorney General Eric Ho … Read More

via The Fifth Column

Fox Faux News Exposes Its Agenda, Again

It's a joke, right?

Fair and balanced indeed- if you’re as disconnected from reality as they are.

… how stupid does Fox News think you are if you watch them? Watch this short clip showing angry protestors while Bill O’Reilly talks about the outside agitators who are bussed in to the protests in Wisconsin. There’s just one problem. Last time I checked, there weren’t many palm trees in Wisconsin. … In order to further support their narrative about violent protests, a Fox News reporter has claimed that he was punched in the arm by a protestor, and that another protestor threatened to break his neck. Fortunately, a bystander had captured the entire event on video and it shows no punch or any other violence, just a light tap after the reporter swatted away a sign the protester was holding. And the most ironic thing? The protesters were chanting “Fox News lies”. How apropos.

And people still watch Bill O’Lie-lee.  Doomed we are.

Fox News… Expert at Pandering and Propaganda

Everything's special on Fox

As a column in today’s Washington Post makes regrettably clear.

When there’s an issue involving race or religion, Fox responds by giving airtime to cartoonish extremists who can confirm its viewers’ worst fears. Fox News’s use of Choudary hasn’t reached the saturation point of its coverage of the New Black Panther Party, which it has hosted more than 50 times over the past ten years despite the group’s total irrelevance, but it serves the same kind of purpose.  Giving airtime to these kinds of people is part of how Fox reinforces the drumbeat of stereotypes that permeates the rest of its coverage, and how it ensures its viewers subscribe to what Greg referred to as the “self-sustaining, self-perpetuating alternate reality” where America is on the verge of establishing sharia law and where an anti-white hate group has influence in the White House. As we saw from last week’s poll, it seems to work pretty well.

Masters of propaganda: your friends at ‘fair and balanced’ Fox News.

Fox News: Not News- Just Frauds

Fox News has been accused before ofpromoting Republican talking points.  Now, the Daily Beast reveals internal memos from Fox News executives that “echoed a key GOP talking point” during year’s health care debate.  In October 2009, as the Democrats introduced a public insurance option, Fox’s Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, issued a memo to staff about how to describe the plan.  “Please use the term ‘government-run health insurance,’ or, when brevity is a concern, ‘government option,’ whenever possible,” wrote Sammon, who also doubles as a conservative commentator when not overseeing news coverage.  “When it is necessary to use the term ‘public option’ (which is, after all, firmly ensconced in the nation’s lexicon), use the qualifier ‘so-called,’ as in ‘the so-called public option,'” he continued.  “Here’s another way to phrase it: ‘The public option, which is the government-run plan.'”  Michael Clemente, the network’s senior vice president for news, thanked Sammon for his instructions and told staff that the third example is the “preferred way” to describe the public option.

Not that Fox had any credibility to begin with- but here’s proof of their partisan bias that even the mindless drones following O’Reilly and company can dispute.  Fox is no more a news outlet than the RNC or the DNC.  They’re all spin doctors and nothing more.

Sarcasm is Lost on the Humorless and Witless

I.e., Fox.

Fox News subsidiary Fox Nation posted an excerpt from a satirical Onion article in the “culture” section of its site on Friday. The only problem: They didn’t tell anyone it was a joke.  As Mediaite notes, if you head on over to Fox Nation’s Culture page, you’ll see a bunch of real news articles: “Rush Outraged At Obama’s Thanksgiving Proclamation,” “Woman Wears Bikini to LAX,” “Adam Lambert Smokes Pot on Stage.” And then there’s “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail“

Poor things.  Bereft of sense AND humor.  But of course sarcasm and wit are dishes best served to an intelligent palate.  Which explains Fox’s inability to comprehend The Onion.  Expecting Fox to ‘get it’ is like expecting a blind man to understand ‘purple’ or Bill O’Reilly to understand society or Glenn Beck to understand theology or Rush Limbaugh to understand overindulgence.  Attempting to help them do so only shipwrecks one on the rock of despair.

Related Articles

• FoxNation.com Reposts Anti-Obama Article From The Onion, Doesn’t Mention It’s A Joke (mediaite.com)