Stupid Attention-Whoring Filmmakers Get Attention

Brian Tierney’s ongoing quest to make the Inquirer and Daily News more corporate than when Knight-Ridder owned them is right on schedule. The newest evidence is a DVD included in certain copies of the Inquirer on Sunday called Obsession - Radical Islam’s War Against the West.

It was actually in a host of other papers, including the Bucks County Courier Times. It’s common knowledge: Newspapers print any ad if you pay them enough money. But this ad has the added intrigue of offending someone, so it makes the news.

Spokesman Gregory Ross says the group’s intent is strictly to educate Americans about terrorism: “We are not against Muslims. We are only against that 10 to 15 percent that are radical.”

In 2003, The American Conservative wrote that 99 percent of Muslims were moderate. But the magazine warned: “One percent of one billion is a lot.” Now after five years of war in Iraq, we have 10 to 15? Surely this film’s spokesman (spokesman??) is a fair and impartial judge.

If there are radical Muslims, surely there are tubular Muslims, too, right? I bet those guys are awesome.

Domelights Reaction Better Than Expected

Hey, let’s take a look and see what Domelights thinks about the police officer who wants to wear a Muslim headscarf on the job. I think we all know what they’re going to think, but who knew it would be this good. The first reply from the thread, I swear, is this:

I will personally punch this b*tch in her face. If she NEEDS to wear that scarf on her head, then go get a job a Burlington Coat Factory. We don’t need her.

I love when the first Domelights reply is the best so I don’t have to read any more. But poster CODE3 chimes in later with, “Maybe the threat of physical harm went too far, but I agree about the b1tch part.” That poster also notes he is surprised the Philly.com comments are going against her. Ha!

Shocker: Voters Are Stupid

Dick Polman has a blog post today that is absolutely hilarious and you must read it. Apparently, some dude did a focus group with 12 voters who didn’t follow politics much and wondered why the primary wasn’t over yet.

And, of course, they all think Obama is a Muslim, even though his Christian pastor’s comments about how America throws a ton of black people in prison for fun were all over the news a month or so ago. Let’s just quote the best parts:

For instance, here’s Dorita, opining about Obama: “I’m a little concerned. I don’t know enough about his Muslim background and their beliefs and how he views everything. I’m a little concerned. I need to check his background.”

Here’s Josh on Obama: “He’s representing a minority in more than one case. He is African American and he is Muslim. And in light of that…it does feel like we’re being judged or pounded down on because we want to carry a gun or we want to wear the American flag pin.”

Here’s Melinda, clearly the GOP’s dream voter: “I just really feel like he’s…not a people pleaser as in the Americans, but the other people who don’t necessarily need to be pleased, the other, the enemies if you will, I don’t know. I’m just not real positive on that.”

The comments then explode with people who love to read blogs they hate (for reasons I can’t understand, but whatever) attacking Polman for making fun of people who think Obama is a Muslim.

But, uh, this isn’t really surprising. Let’s generalize for a moment: Most people don’t really seem to care much about the truth; they care more about what they want to believe. If you want to believe Barack Obama is a Muslim, then you can probably find evidence that Obama is an evil Muslim who’s going to destroy America — whether it’s in a chain email or a Daniel Pipes column.

And if you need any evidence that people are stupid, then there are nearly 8,000 posts on this website that seem to confirm that. And then there’s me, who has written nearly a billion words on this stupidity, sometimes coming off rather stupid myself. In a word: Duh.

Equal time for the willfully ignorant [American Debate]

Santorum To Pen ‘Inquirer’ Column I Won’t Read

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week has been going great so far, in the sense that I haven’t had to write about it. (Now that I’m doing this post, it is going considerably less swimmingly.)

At Penn the event is actually called Terrorism Awareness Week, because the College Republicans wimped out and changed the name because some groups protested. (At Penn, people will protest anything, including — but not limited to — Harlem Globetrotters victories, the sun coming up and giant robots destroying buildings.)

Ex-Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum will be speaking at the event, but the real story is buried in this Inquirer article about him. It’s even in brackets!

[Santorum also will begin writing an op-ed column for The Inquirer next month, alternating weeks with George E. Curry, the former editor in chief of Emerge magazine and former Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.]

That’s 26 weeks a year of sweet, sweet Santorum, all over your Inquirer. (Ew.) This was originally reported on by Phillymag earlier this year, but it seemed unlikely Santorum would actually ever write this column.

In response to this new Santorum column, Michael Smerconish will begin writing new columns for three different newspapers a week until he has one in every single paper in the area.

After name conflict, groups begin events [Daily Pennsylvanian]
Santorum presses his case against Islamic extremism [Inquirer]
March 1: ‘Inquirer’ Unaware If We Were Still Interested In What Rick Santorum Had To Say, We Would Have Voted For Him

Turns Out We Were Attacked By Terrorists

That robber (Mustafa Ali, from right by Franklin Mills) who allegedly shot and killed (and, later, confessed to) shooting two armored truck guards: Totally doing it as a part of Islamic terrorism’s reign of terror in America.

Or so says a website with a lot of animated smilies and ads for curing your asthma in one week and, literally, I swear to God, a non-ironic usage of the crying bald eagle.

The families of Joseph Alullo and William Widmaier are grieving today as the so-called ‘religion of peace’ can lay claim to yet another vile act of murder on American soil.

A few days ago, two retired Philadelphia policemen lost their lives in a vicious attack while they were servicing an ATM for an armored truck company. As it turns out, the thug who murdered these two men was a black Muslim with a long criminal history.

It’s nice somebody figured out what kind of article you’d get if you combined the Daily News‘ crime writing with The Bulletin’s general right-wing ridiculousness. And be sure to read that link to the plot by Chairman Mao to reform the American media.

Muslim Monster Confesses To Killing Two Retired Philadelphia Cops [American Daily]

I Read Phillyblog So You Don’t Have To: Of Raj, Chris Brennan And Liberty County

Yeah, yeah, a day late. It’s going to be a short edition, too, with a couple of older threads in it, as it’s now Friday, and we’re three weeks into this IRPSYDHT thing, which means it’s time for yours truly to get a little tired of it. Hell, I haven’t even sent last week’s Thread! Of! The! Week! winner Mark B. Cohen his prize yet.

But, I’ll soldier on, continuing to read Phillyblog so you don’t have to. (Maybe next week, I’ll even make up a logo!) Come with me after the jump.

More »

And Here I Thought He Was Talking About Hamlet

The final paragraph of an Associated Press story in the Daily News today about the Christian convert in Afghanistan possibly facing death:

After saying he was ready to die, he told La Repubblica: “Somebody, a long time ago, did it for all of us,” in a clear reference to Jesus Christ.

Oh, Jesus Christ. I wasn’t quite sure.

Targeted convert leads solitary life [AP/Daily News]

Turn the other cheek (it’s a great setup for a sucker punch)

Today’s letter of the day comes from a man of the cloth:

To Signe: Good cartoon. Islam is a terrorist religion.

Rev. Donald Spitz, Philadelphia

How very Christian of you, “Reverend.”

Editor’s Note: This guy is apparently a real good Christian all around.

Cartoon controversy [DN, 4th letter]
One More Enemy [Southern Poverty Law Center]

Blogicized: Ivy League grind

• Ha. Will Bunch went to Brown. We so did not know that. And he wrote a column for the school paper. Anybody who can dig up those columns gets a cookie. [Attytood]

• Ha, again. Johnny Doc as mayor. Oh. Wait. [duh]

• Bill “Wilkes-Barre” Scranton has dropped out of the governor’s race, which means it’s the Lynn Swann and Ed Rendell show, all the way to November! [All Spin Zone]

• Oh, yes. The unofficial chronicler of Philadelphia’s sticker art, Albert Yee, has photographed graffiti of Muhammad. [dragonballyee]

Quickies: The one with the segues

• See, it’s not just priests who are pedophiles, it’s Catholic school janitors, too. Oh. Well, much better then, doncha think? [CBS 3]

• Speaking of Catholicism and scandal, a lawsuit filed by a priest-turned-activist alleges that Cardinal Edward Egan, the archbishop of the diocese of New York, practices in consensual homosexual sex with adults regularly. Also alleged to be gay? Albany bishop Howard Hubbard and Newark archbishop John Myers. Wow. [Village Voice]

• And speaking of alt-weeklies, the New York Press‘ editorial staff walked out after the paper’s publishers quashed the publication of the infamous Danish Muhammad cartoons. [The Politicker via Gawker]

• Annnnnnd, finally, speaking of quashing stories in newspapers, let’s just say if this anti-Tucker Max column in Penn’s newspaper wasn’t published, no one would have been all that upset. [Daily Pennsylvanian]