Michelle Malkin has a point. In response to the covereage, etc., that an artist is getting in choosing to make a chocolate Jesus sculpture around Easter, the holiest of Christian holidays, network news organizations have not chosen to exercise the same, erm, restraint and standards.

She quotes CNN, who chose not to run the Mohammed cartoons.

“CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for Islam.”

“CNN is not showing the negative caricatures of the likeness of Prophet Mohammed because the network believes its role is to cover the events surrounding the publication of the cartoons while not unnecessarily adding fuel to the controversy itself.”

[…]

“They wouldn’t meet our standards for what we publish in the paper,” said Leonard Downie, Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, which ran a front-page story on the issue Friday, but has not published the cartoons. “We have standards about language, religious sensitivity, racial sensitivity and general good taste.” …

At USA Today, deputy foreign editor Jim Michaels offered a similar explanation. “At this point, I’m not sure there would be a point to it,” he said about publishing the cartoons. “We have described them, but I am not sure running it would advance the story.” Although he acknowledged that the cartoons have news value, he said the offensive nature overshadows that.

The Boston Globe, while acknowledging the right of newspapers to print material that may offend, argues that “newspapers ought to refrain from publishing offensive caricatures of Mohammed in the name of the ultimate Enlightenment value: tolerance.”

Emphasis hers; links to CNN articles at MM’s site, above

Of course if this surprises you, you need to pay more attention.

In my ongoing global warming exposure post, which you can ever-so-conveniently find here, I wrote this:

In 2003, NASA sent up what was heralded as “the most perfect spheres ever created by humanity.” Without getting into the details, this experiment was set to test Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Einstein published his paper on relativity in 1905, yet nearly 100 years later, we are still physically testing the theory — a theory taken as fact for nearly a century.

That’s the nature of science. We hypothesize, test, and conclude. Then we repeat. And repeat again. Then we publish the works, all information, and the process, so other scientists can test. Then they do it again. And again and again. Politics, on the other hand, demands that science stick its collective finger in the air and conclude, without any doubt, that global warming, for example, is true and that it is humanity’s fault.

This is a comic from xkcd which sums up exactly what I’m talking about in a tongue-in-cheek way. Enjoy!

Iraqis: life is getting better — UK Times Online

A recent poll indicates that Iraqis feel quite different about the accomplishments of the war than our mainstream media would demand us believe. I’ve heard a few ignorant ultra-leftists argue that the Iraqis were better off under Saddam Hussein, but most Iraqis — that would be those whose lives we actually speak of here — appear to think otherwise.

Of course, that shouldn’t be hard for any rational-thinking person to believe; after all, it’s easy to sit back here in the comfort of the United States and propound frothing-at-the-mouth, irrational hatred of a President when, e.g., you aren’t the one who was forced to watch your twelve year-old daughter raped and murdered in front of you.

The survey of more than 5,000 Iraqis found the majority optimistic despite their suffering in sectarian violence since the American-led invasion four years ago this week.

One in four Iraqis has had a family member murdered, says the poll by Opinion Research Business. In Baghdad, the capital, one in four has had a relative kidnapped and one in three said members of their family had fled abroad. But when asked whether they preferred life under Saddam, the dictator who was executed last December, or under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, most replied that things were better for them today.

Only 27% think there is a civil war in Iraq, compared with 61% who do not, according to the survey carried out last month.

Those numbers are about flipped over here in the United States where most people’s biggest worry is whether their NCAA brackets are going to bust.

From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype

The New York Times has run a piece that casts Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in a light that it should have always been cast.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

Mr. Gore, in an e-mail exchange about the critics, said his work made “the most important and salient points” about climate change, if not “some nuances and distinctions” scientists might want. “The degree of scientific consensus on global warming has never been stronger,” he said, adding, “I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand.”

[…]

Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind.

Of course, those of you that even give my web site a cursory view have known these real truths for quite a while. And while I don’t expect that this will make much of an impact in this money-making scheme called “global warming,” it is nice to read.

If you want to see one page with a plethora of links to other articles, check out my ongoing global warming piece here.

Most of you that read this blog know that my operating system of choice is Linux, and for the most part, that means that I use the Firefox web browser. However, over the past few weeks, I have been toying with the Opera web browser. My biggest complaint with Firefox has become its poor implementation with “Web 2.0″ style websites. (I can’t speak for how it runs on Windows.)

In any event, Opera deals with these websites flawlessly. Also, Opera widgets are some of the best candies I’ve seen in a program. While I’m not ready to declare myself a switch, I’m not going to stick with Firefox for the sake of loyalty and nothing more. I feel more compelled to make the switch because of the overall sluggishness that comes with, what I believe is, Firefox’s dealings with Javascript.

The only thing I know for sure is that I’m not unhappy with Opera. I would like to see Firefox be rewritten in this area because I really like the “feel” of it. Nonetheless, should I need to switch to Opera either temporarily or permanently, I can’t say I’d hate it.