Archive for the ‘Media’ Category
Frankenstein’s Chimera
This GOVERMENT WANTS TO CREATE MONSTERS AND POSSIBLY EAT YOUR CHILDREN Bill really is causing a ruckus isn’t it? As usual, the church hasn’t bothered to check the facts (or is better advantaged by actively misleading people), the constant use of dishonest and emotive language is sadly predicable. Calling the procedure ‘monstrous’, comparing it to creating Frankenstein’s monster and claiming that if this bill passes “extension of abortion laws, legalised raiding of a dead person’s tissue, legalised creation of babies whose sole purpose is to provide spare parts” will shortly follow should be called mindless fear-mongering. The fact for some reason the opinions of people who use texts written by people who thought the sun orbited the earth and then apply them to the cutting edge of modern medicine are given free access to the press and, bizarrely, some say over public matters should be something we’re more concerned with than these experiments.
Besides being unimaginative, the connotations of monsters and immoral Mad Science™ inherent in bringing up Frankenstein are clear. Archbishop Cramner lightly questions the Cardinal for using language like ‘Monstrous’, he then goes on a diatribe about the evils of creating chimera-like monsters, mixes of humans and animals. If Cramner had read the BBC article, let alone done some more in-depth research, he’d know that chimeras are not a possibility here. Essentially all these scientists are doing is taking an animal egg, scooping out the genetic material, sticking some human DNA and letting it grow a little, then stopping that and harvesting the cells it’s produced to research fixes for serious conditions. We are talking about small balls of cells that lack neurones, lack alone anything resembling a brain. There’s no chimera here, even if it were to develop it’s not going to come out with paws or a trunk, there is no non-human DNA present (ignoring the fact that most human DNA is animal DNA anyway). In fact there is no evidence these embryos are even capable of developing (which is one reason why implantation is forbidden). But those facts are inconvenient, these are immoral and monstrous scientists and politicians who have turned away from God and abusing the power they stole from him to create a mockery of life. Science Is Bad.
Something Cramner said caught my eye:
It really is impossible to win
44 Percent Vote Against Clinton - This was seriously the headline in the Washington Post about the Michigan Primary. An unbelievably blatant attempt to spin a win into a failure. Let’s highlight the words they want you to read:
About 44 percent of Michigan Democrats voted against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) yesterday in the party’s primary, with the vast majority of that group marking “uncommitted” on ballots that did not include any other major candidates.
So a vast majority of the minority who didn’t vote for Clinton voted uncommitted? A minority of the democratic voters prefered Anyone-But-Clinton to Clinton, now considering her two main competitors weren’t on the ballot that really is impressive (although you’d suspect that that would also have reduced Edwards and Obama voter turnout).
She won guys, you can say it’s meaningless because she was the only mainstream candidate standing but it only makes you look stupid to try to spin a lose out of it.
Who will win and who will lose?
I’m switching between The revived News At Ten and the Ten O’clock News. First story on ITV? An exclusive about Princess Diana! Quality and relevent journalism right from the start. Turn over to BBC? John Simpson is broadcasting live from inside Zimbabwe (where, remember the BBC is banned) and in addition to the sheer balls of that, the story was a real and important one.
So….on Day One? BBC 1 - ITV 0
The BBC Editors also got a little snip in earlier in the day on their blog:
But an inkling of potential differences might be found in a remark by an ITN senior executive, Deborah Turness. She said News at Ten’s “And finally…” item should have this effect, “‘We want people go to bed with a smile on their face or a tear in their eye”. I’d prefer to say that the BBC’s News is all made to make you think.
Ouche.
(Ooh, ITV did just raise the game by broadcasting LIVE AND IN LIVING COLOUR from under a glacier in Antarctica, which I guess is cool and all…but are they banned from Antarctica? Are there penguin death squads out searching for them? I think not! )
Obama didn’t always have his unity pony
Obama wasn’t always afraid of being a bitter partisan hack (i.e. a politician who thinks principles are more important than conceding to the other side for ‘bipartisan’ sound bytes), Asheesh Siddique on the Guardian’s excellent Deadline USA blog brings his commencement address at Knox College in 2005 to our attention:
In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it - Social Darwinism - every man or woman for him or herself. It’s a tempting idea, because it doesn’t require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say that those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford - tough luck. It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job: life isn’t fair. It let’s us say to the child who was born into poverty - pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes we will always be the winner in life’s lottery, that we’re the one who will be the next Donald Trump, or at least we won’t be the chump who Donald Trump says: “You’re fired!” But there is a problem. It won’t work . . .
Doubtless Obama today would be all in favour of inviting these Social Darwinists to the table to help him usher in a new era of Real Change™. Whilst it’s nice to think he’d give up the unity rhetoric if he reached office and govern as a progressive, the fact remains he’d have got there by trashing progressives and progressive values along the way.
And in other news, via Corrente we learn that CNN commissioned a poll which included Rudolph Giuliani but not John Edwards. Giuliani (whose campaign depends entirely on fear and riding on the coattails of a national tragedy) is currently 20 delegates behind the republican frontrunner (and has dropped to 10% in the national polls) whilst Edwards is only 6 delegates behind the front-runner and has a greater share of the Democratic delegates than any Republican except Romney. This isn’t even a Democratic Republican split, Ron Paul currently has four delegates (as opposed to Giuliani’s one) and was also absent in the poll. Now I’m not fan of Ron Paul, but this is a stark reminder on how little the actual votes sway the media narrative, if they’ve decided your campaign is hopeless they’ll ignore it and make sure it is. This leads us to the ridiculous situation where Rudolph “9/11″ Giuliani is a Real Candidate™ for President but John “Lookie, I can kick all the Republicans Asses in November” Edwards is not. Remember, especially in the primaries, it’s not who you vote for but how they choose to report your vote that matters.
When will you liberal extremists learn?
I’ve just read this article about how members of fringe Muslim groups tend to be over-represented in the media. I don’t doubt there’s truth in that and I can see there’s a good point in there somewhere, but the dressing just makes it hard to find. See, I’d have assumed mainstream Muslims would be angry that it’s the violent extremists that get so much press, turns out I’m wrong! It’s those nasty liberal, progressive Muslims that are spoiling it!
So, I am sick of Tarek Fatah’s tirades, the Communications Director of the fringe organization Muslim Canadian Congress. The fact is that most of his positions are outright unIslamic and unrepresenting of the vast majority of Muslims. For instance, his organization endorsed same-sex marriage, campaigned against Islamic family courts, and pretty much came out on the wrong side of every mainstream Muslim opinion. So, WHY, does any of the media give ANY credibility to this tiny group of fringe nut-cases?
Yes! Those nut-cases! They think that there’s nothing inherently evil about society recognising commitment in homosexual couples and that governments shouldn’t legitimise self-appointed courts passing down judgements that have no basis in actual law. Those guys are so wacky!
Damn you media! You’re portraying Muslims as far more reasonable than they really are! Wait…that doesn’t sound like the media I know and love….
