McBride, Again

Jessica McBride wants us to look at this paragraph.

MADISON, Wis. Republican legislative leaders asked Attorney General J-B Van Hollen today for his opinion on how a U-S Supreme Court decision might affect the state's ban on a procedure critics call partial-birth abortion.

She has this to say about that paragraph.

Let's see. Babies are partially born before they are killed in the procedure. Sounds like a factually-based description to me.

For our factually challenged quasi-journalist let’s clear this up: The actual name for the procedure is “intact dilation and evacuation.” The paragraph clearly states that critics, that is anti-abortion supporters, call the procedure partial birth abortion. News organizations are under no obligation to use the intentionally-created term designed to fool the foolish into voting against this medically sound and rarely used procedure, regardless of how the Supreme Court ruled.


Also posted at Whallah!

Go get a doggy bag and pick up your crap, Ms McBride.

McIlheran: Favors White Supremacists?

This is just a quick note about a blog post by Patrick McIlheran (already well-covered by Bert at folkbum). David Gaubatz, the fellow that Melanie Phillips and McIlheran rely on for the breaking news on WMDs is a member of a fascinating group that believes in wonderful, pro-American ideals like this (by way of Glenn Greenwald, h/t Bert):

White Christians were at the founding of this nation a distinct people and privileged as such. Men of means among this people were given the opportunity for representative government. This is, for those of you flinching, not a thesis or “viewpoint”; this is historical fact.

After the Civil War, this changed; with the move into the 20th century this change became a wholesale reformation. Today, you cannot speak of Christianity in the public sphere and if you mention “white” and “Christians” in the same sentence you will be set upon as a despicable racist by every “fair-minded” public person. And, this phenomenon extends far beyond race.

Then this:

It was of course the beloved Ronald Reagan, the David of conservatism against the Goliath of Liberalism, who was the first president in the history of the US to actually grant amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants with his support of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. And before that, it was the Great Society’s Lyndon B. Johnson who passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which eliminated nation-specific quotas, replacing them with just one overall quota. This meant of course that we had as a country effectively determined that we were not a white Christian nation, but would become a brownish-black nation of third world types who could barely speak our language, knew nothing of our culture and civilization, and indeed desired to be one of “us” predominantly for economic reasons.

And this:

Immigration is now at the front lines in the battle for America's national existence. Under assault by the Left, including the Libertarians, the fact that America was founded and made strong by immigrants from western European countries with Judeo-Christian roots is no longer part of the modern immigration "debate." The only question now is how do you secure your borders and establish the necessary factors for "assimilation." This "debate" of course ignores the most fundamental fact: is there not something unique about American national existence that is directly related to the fact that it was founded by white, mostly anglo-saxon, believing Christians? Does the modern charge of "racism" now preclude the observation and analysis of this fact?

McIlheran's friend Gaubatz is currently engaged in mapping every mosque and Islamic day school in America, attempting to come up with a “threat” picture.

I knew McIlheran was whacky. Who would have thought he had such weird fellow-travelers … well, easy to believe actually.

Back At It Again

Patrick McIlheran is at it again. At least he is consistent. Now he’s got a piece claiming the environment is not as bad as those nasty scientists say it is. Everyone has an opinion on this and that’s okay. It’s just that McIlheran keeps trotting out these conservative think tank groups that have a vested interest in saying everything is peachy keen, to back up his assertions, rather than use real science. For example:

American Enterprise Institute: The American Enterprise Institute is a neoconservative think tank, AEI has emerged as one of the leading architects of the second Bush administration's public policy. (Wikipedia)

Pacific Research Institute: Another think tank, which has been closely associated with the American Enterprise Institute. (SourceWatch)

Steven Hayward: Hayward studies the environment, law, political economy, and the presidency. He is author of the annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, published jointly by the American Enterprise Institute and the Pacific Research Institute. Hayward writes AEI's Environmental Policy Outlook and also recently authored The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980 (American Enterprise Institute).

Ah, a scientist devoted to the environment, NOT!

Look, McIlheran does point out that this is a different point of view. But, why oh why does he continue to abuse the intelligence of those who read his tripe. Just come out and admit it, Paddy, you don’t have a clue what you are writing about … you just do it to piss off the other half of the people who read your columns and blog entries, the ones who don’t take your writings at face value.