Clipping blog

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• The Bias and Bigotry of Bill Keller
• Clearing the Browser Tabs – Global What Now Saturday Edition
• Why Is Our Government Persecuting a Guitar Maker?

The Bias and Bigotry of Bill Keller Posted: 27 Aug 2011 07:00 AM PDT On Thursday, outgoing executive editor of the New York Times Bill Keller wrote one of the most proudly ignorant columns I have ever had the misfortune to read on the subject of religion and politics. In it, he strongly intimated that Presidential candidates — Republican Presidential candidates, actually, since he obviously didn’t feel that “God damn America” was worth serious news coverage — must set aside their personal beliefs or submit to his inquiry, likened the Catholic communion to the belief in space aliens, and labeled it “baggage”. I honestly don’t have the time or inclination to fisk such hypocritical bigotry, and it was both of those things, but a few other writers around the blogosphere such as Guy Benson and Mollie Hemingway did so convincingly. I will say two things, though. First, Keller’s use of the Dominionism bogeyman proves to me that he is neither honest nor objective about evangelical Christianity. It would have taken him perhaps 30 minutes to read this post or this one to learn that what some have claimed is a large and threatening movement among evangelicals is minuscule and well on the fringe of the fringe. Actually, he didn’t even have to do that much. The New York Times has an entire Religion section, presumably with a few writers who know a thing or two about evangelical Christianity. He could have called one of his own reporters and learned what he needed to know. He didn’t. There’s a bigger issue, though, about media bias to be made. If Keller had any evangelical Christian friends, he would never have written that piece. He doesn’t. He is surrounded by people who think like him all day, every day. Dr. Tim Groseclose, in his superlative book Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, found that journalists lean even more to the left than such progressive enclaves at Berkeley and Cambridge. There’s a very good chance that Keller spends less than an hour of conversation every week with someone who isn’t ideologically just like him and I can guarantee you he doesn’t spend that hour trying to learn something about the majority of Americans who have religious beliefs and try hard to live up to them. What’s worse, I’m sure it’s never occurred to him that he should.

Clearing the Browser Tabs – Global What Now Saturday Edition Posted: 27 Aug 2011 03:10 AM PDT The Cult of Global Warming suffered another fatal blow this week when CERN published the results of an experiment that prove the sun has a far greater effect on climate change than any of the AGW models have ever taken into account. This is a big deal because those models are what Global Warming proponents have used to scare us into surrendering control over large portions of our lives — everything from our choice of vehicle to what kind of lightbulb we are allowed to buy — to poliicians and bureaucrats who have assured us that they know what they’re talking about. They don’t, and they never have. Hopefully, a few progressive-minded lawmakers who know the value of actual science as opposed to Al Gore-ish voodoo, will take CERN’s findings and use them to push back against the encroaching green state that truly threatens to destroy some of our most essential liberties. And now, links! Hurricane Irene should have made landfall by now, on its way back into the Atlantic and a brush with the Tidewater, VA/DelMarVa peninsula area. Best updates, as usual, from Brendan Loy, Dr. Jeff Masters, the National Hurricane Center, and (if you’re in the DC Metro area) the Capital Weather Gang. Stephen Kruiser is a national treasure, but don’t tell him I said that. He’ll blush. Remember how the President said, as he crammed Obamacare down our throats, that we could keep our health care plans if we liked them, “period”? He was wrong, and we’re going to suffer for it. Bookworm Room has a great post on intelligence and what seems like intelligence but isn’t (via VodkaPundit). This is perhaps the best advice on how to become a professional writer I’ve ever seen. Nothing makes you a better writer like writing, revising, and writing some more. These days, getting your writing out there where people can see your skill (and also how you’ve improved over the years), is absolutely essential. Related to the last link, here is some equally-good career advice from Rob Long (and the late Phil Hartman). What if Major League Baseball held a game and hardly anyone showed up? Well, it happened, and if the league doens’t realize it has a serious problem, it sure as heck ought to now.

Why Is Our Government Persecuting a Guitar Maker? Posted: 26 Aug 2011 01:46 PM PDT I honestly have no idea what authority the Department of Justice has to raid two different Gibson Guitar factories twice in the past two years, shut it down for at least a day, seize files and real property, and hold that property for more than a year without one word of explanation to the rightful owners. Yet that is exactly what has happened. The only explanation our government — and let us be clear that it is our government, elected by us and with power that we explicitly grant to it — has given the CEO of the company is that the Department of Justice believes that Gibson has violated the laws of India or maybe Madagascar. This is important because, as John Hayward explains, the DoJ may be investigating Gibson under the Lacey Act, which states that Americans companies who buy products from foreign countries must comply with all the laws of that country. I say “may be” because our government has sealed the records and no one has bothered to explain to Gibson why it’s been under a federal investigation for more than a year. Henry Juszkiewicz, Gibson’s Chairman and CEO, has called out the Department of Justice publicly and claims the investigation is bunk. He has sworn statements and certifications from government officials who say that Gibson obeyed all of their country’s laws and certifications and that they have no complaint against his company whatever. So what we have is a case where the American government is persecuting an American company for apparent violations of the laws of another country even though the government officials of that country have sworn that no such violations occurred. This is unconscionable. Our government is holding an American company hostage over nothing at all. Attorney General Eric Holder needs to drop this case immediately and apologize to everyone at Gibson for his agency’s inexcusable overreach, that is, unless he’s too busy arming the Mexican drug cartels. With him, you never know. (I had hoped the guitar in the iconic Johnny Cash picture was a Gibson, but alas, it appears it is not. Cash used Martins almost exclusively throughout his career. However, were he alive today, I’m fairly sure he’d be on Gibson’s side.)

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