First the BBC, now PBS. Our brave public broadcasters, supposedly created to provide us with "edgy" fare that corporate broadcasters wouldn't, seem rather big on self-censorship.

This wasn't a pure hit piece on Muslims. The title was Islam vs. Islamism, and the documentary was about Muslims fighting for secular government, democracy, and all that good stuff against their fundamentalist brethren.

Would a similar piece on progressive-minded Christians fighting the Christian right have aired without a trace of internal debate? Of course.

But one must not challenge the official state religion. Different rules apply.

The producer of a tax-financed documentary on Islamic extremism claims his film has been dropped for political reasons from a television series that airs next week on more than 300 PBS stations nationwide.

Key portions of the documentary focus on Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser of Phoenix and his American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a non-profit organization of Muslim Americans who advocate patriotism, constitutional democracy and a separation of church and state.

Martyn Burke says that the Public Broadcasting Service and project managers at station WETA in Washington, D.C., excluded his documentary, Islam vs. Islamists, from the series America at a Crossroads after he refused to fire two co-producers affiliated with a conservative think tank.

"I was ordered to fire my two partners (who brought me into this project) on political grounds," Burke said in a complaint letter to PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supplied funds for the films.

Burke wrote that his documentary depicts the plight of moderate Muslims who are silenced by Islamic extremists, adding, "Now it appears to be PBS and CPB who are silencing them."

...

Mary Stewart, vice president of external affairs at WETA, said Burke's documentary was not completed on time to be among 11 documentaries that will be aired beginning Sunday. Stewart said the picture may be broadcast by PBS at a later date.

...

Jeff Bieber, WETA's executive producer for Crossroads, gave a substantially different explanation. He said Burke's film had "serious structural problems (and) . . . was irresponsible because the writing was alarmist, and it wasn't fair."

"They're crying foul, and there was no foul ball," Bieber added. "The problem is in their film."

...

Subtitled Voices From the Muslim Center, Burke says his film "attempts to answer the question: 'Where are the moderate Muslims?' The answer is, 'Wherever they are, they are reviled and sometimes attacked' " by extremists.

Michael Levy, a spokesman for CPB, said the corporation set up the Crossroads project and provided funding, but turned over management and content control to PBS and WETA 13 months ago.

After that, Burke says in his Feb. 23 complaint letter, he "consistently encountered actions by the PBS series producers that violate the basic tenets of journalism in America."

PBS officials turned down interview requests.

Posted by: Ace at 10:04 PM | Comments (26)
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Where do they go to get their reputations back?

The office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper will announce that he is dismissing all charges against three Duke Lacrosse players, ABC News has learned from sources close to the case.

...

The reasons that will be cited for the dismissal are not yet known, though the case has been riddled with criticism and colored by controversy since its early months. Defense attorneys released documents showing the accuser changed key details of her story in the weeks and months after the alleged assault.

Legal analysts and forensic experts have criticized what they call a critically flawed photo identification lineup — a lineup that led to the identification and indictment of Evans, Finnerty, Seligmann. No DNA evidence was found matching any lacrosse players with samples from the rape kit, while DNA from unidentified men was found on the accuser's body and clothing.

On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General confirmed to ABC News that his office had completed its investigation into the Duke lacrosse case. A press conference on the outcome of their inquiry is widely expected sometime this week, though members of that office have not yet revealed a date and time.

Note how deftly they reposition into "Of course this case wasa bunkum from the get-go" mode.

Via Goldstein, who got it off ESPN. Homo.

Posted by: Ace at 09:11 PM | Comments (22)
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Jeeze. I've been looking for this sort of announcement -of-an-announcement for two or three weeks now.

The North Carolina Attorney General's office has finished its interviews and could announce a decision on whether to drop all charges against the three former Duke students as early as tomorrow in a Raleigh news conference, ABC news has learned.

...

Two respected assistant attorneys general, James Coman and Mary D. Winstead, took over the case and re-interviewed many, if not all the witnesses in the case before the decision, which is expected to be announced as soon as tomorrow.

Last time I saw an ABC report on this, it seemed (IIRC) to downplay just how shaky the accuser's testimony was, and how damning the evidence against her allegation. Looks like they see where this train is heading and now want to be on the right side of the tracks. (Okay, that makes no sense. So what. You know what I mean.)

The case against Colin Finnety, Reade Seligmann and David Evans, the three Duke lacrosse players, has been heavily criticized.

Seligmann produced a credible alibi, and the accusing witness changed her story about what happened on March 13, 2006 several times.

Her back-and-forth testimony led to the dismissal of the rape charge in December of last year. But the young men remain charged with first-degree kidnapping and first-degree sexual offense.

Previous reports have been less willing to call her claims into question with those sorts of particulars.

Posted by: Ace at 04:43 PM | Comments (26)
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And by the right places, I mean the obvious places. The FBI decided from the get-go that the references to Allah and poor spelling and letter-writing were not legit, but were an attempt by a rightwing wacko or, even more preposterously, a civic-minded fellow who merely wished to demonstrate the danger anthrax posed and hence created an anthrax panic to wake the government up to this menace.

This unknown person just happened to have very finely milled of high technical sophistication ready to go on 9/11, and immediately began sending out his anthrax to take advantage of the cover 9/11 had given him.

Maybe the FBI should focus a little more on the obvious explanation that doesn't rely so much on chance and coincidence and strange motives: the letters were sent out by the 9/11 hijackers, or confederates who were instructed to send out the letters to coincide with the chaos.

Which leads to the next question: If Al Qaeda had anthrax in 2001, how come it doesn't seem to have any more now?

Maybe -- just maybe -- they got it from a state producer of WMDs, a state sponsor of terrorism who quickly destroyed its anthrax capability when it saw what bin Ladin had done, and realized the serious, deadly blowblack that would ensue for anyone connected to the mass slaughter of 9/11 and the anthrax terrorism that coincided with it.

Who -- who in the all the world -- could that possibly be?

A must read from Dr. Laurie Mylorie.

Thanks to Larwyn.

Posted by: Ace at 02:29 PM | Comments (45)
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I didn't notice this: B.C. cartoonist Johnny Hart died Easter Sunday. Michelle has a tribute.

Posted by: Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (6)
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Amanda Marcotte returns to discussing whether blowjobs are "degrading" or "empowering" yet again, like the swallows (ahem) returning to Capistrano.

How stupid is this discussion? And: I wonder where certified Marcotte Super Fan Elizabeth Edwards comes down on the subject?

Light Content Warning. This is mostly about sex. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:42 PM | Comments (247)
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Coupla points. First of all, of course women talk more about "women's issues," blacks talk about civil rights, and gays talk more about gay issues than do others not part of those groups. This is normal. It can lead to a ghettoization of thought, whereby minorities/women talk about such issues to the exclusion of all else, but doesn't need to.

And secondly, it's not really true. Gays talk about all sorts of issues. Some, like Andrew Sullivan, seem to always be talking about gay issues even when he's discussing an apparently unrelated issue, but that's not typical. Gay righties talk a lot about the war and taxes, as do gay lefties.

Which leads me to the third point: In our very PC culture, is this now considered hate speech? Certainly this is a far more considered and seriously-intended statement than Imus' "nappy-haired ho's" crack.

Never once in my 54 years have I ever once heard a gay or lesbian person who's politically active say one thing about anything that was not about them. They don't care about minimum wage, they don't care about any other group other than their own self because you know, some people say being gay and lesbian is a totally narcissistic thing and sometimes I wonder. I've never heard any of them say anything except for 'Accept me 'cause I'm gay.' It's just, it's screwed. It's no different than the evangelicals, it's the same mindset. They want you to accept Jesus and you guys want us to all believe it's ok to be gay. And a lot of us, a lot of them, I do, I don't give a damn who anybody has sex with, as long as they're not underage and an animal. I don't give a damn, it's none of my damn business. I'm just sick of all the divisiveness, it's not getting any of us anywhere.

I guess there's something of a point here. But there are ways to make a point without resorting to group libel.

Oh, and: This clearly isn't a joke. There's nothing at all here funny. She means it. She's a dedicated lefty but she's annoyed at the gay left making their (largely self-interested and largely unpopular) issues the core of the left's program, thus scaring off support for positions she thinks matter more (like the minimum wage).

And there's something to that, I guess. But to claim she's never known a gay who's had any political opinions on any matter except gay stuff? Please. This is gross overstatement kissing right up against "hate" (at least "hate" as the CW currently defines it).

Besides, it's not gay lefties who have pushed the left further and further from the old New Deal-ish focus on soft socialism and unionism and all that. It's pretty much lefties in general, including the feminists and their pussified male fellow travellers, who have dumbed down the left to make it so focused on sexual matters. The entire movement focuses on sex because it's so easy to have an opinion about sex. You don't need to be a policy wonk or do any homework at all to have a strong (gut) opinion about sexual attitudes.

Sex is natural, sex is fun, as George Michael sang, as a political topic because you don't need to know a goddamn thing at all to sound off about it.

Thanks to PetiteDov, who reads Perez Hilton so that you don't have to.

Posted by: Ace at 12:51 PM | Comments (52)
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A college? Investigating students, with possible expulsion if found guitly, for the medieval crime of blasphemy?

What kind of rightwing insanity is this? Who are these Dark Ages witch-hunters and medieval inquistors trying to expell students for blaspheming against Jesus Christ? Why isn't the media all over this rightwing extremist outrage? Did I just wake up in Salem, Massachusetts circa 1700?

Oh... I see. Because the alleged "blasphemy" was committed against the Muslim god, Allah.

The College Republicans at San Francisco State University recently found themselves under investigation for the offenses of flag desecration and blasphemy. While the disciplinary proceedings ended late last month with a decision not to punish the student group, the investigation itself points to a troubling trend.

The alleged blasphemy was directed at Islam, and the desecrated flag contained no stars or stripes. At a small anti-terrorism rally in October 2006, several members of the College Republicans stomped on pieces of paper they had painted to look like flags of the radical Islamic organizations Hezbollah and Hamas, copying the designs from images on the Internet. A few days later, a Muslim student filed a complaint, on the grounds that the Arabic script on the Hezbollah and Hamas flags contained the word "Allah." The university pressed charges, accusing the blasphemers of "incivility" and creating "a hostile environment."

In the end, the Student Organization Hearing Panel unanimously ruled that the students should be cleared of all charges. Yet as the pro-free-expression Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which repeatedly urged SFSU president Robert Corrigan to drop the case, has pointed out, this was hardly a glorious triumph for free speech. The students were dragged through an investigation for engaging in political expression at a public university. As UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh pointed out on his blog, "If SFSU responded to an allegation that some group had insulted the President, or opposed the war, or criticized Christianity, by putting them through an extended investigation and a hearing, I take it we'd be quite troubled even if ultimately SFSU exonerated the students."

Supposedly we don't have a state religion. Such a thing is forbidden by the Constitution. But increasingly, we do have a de facto state religion -- Islam.

Because when state-funded, quasi-governmental institutions protect one religion and punish those who insult it, but allow any other religion to be mocked, reviled, and even blasphemed against, what else would you call that?

How would a true official state religion be handled any differently? We'd see the exact same treatment -- the official religion would be protected by legal and quasi-legal measures, whereas other religions would be treated as inferior and therefore proper subjects for mockery and blasphemy.

Dhimmitude -- catch the fever.

Posted by: Ace at 12:13 PM | Comments (25)
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Eh, it's a little something. I guess this might be a freebie, because I don't know if he took a public position at the time, so he's free to claim whatever position is in his political interests.

Romney, meanwhile, was against efforts to intervene on Schiavo's behalf.

Ryan Sager is a libertarian sort, which means, as far as I can tell, he frequently takes positions on "libertarian" grounds but really out of reflexive distaste for social conservatives. So when he writes...

It's also a bad move if it's pure pandering. It's not going to gain him an inch with pro-lifers. At the same time, the Schiavo intervention marked a low point for the Bush administration, and was tremendously unpopular with swing voters and libertarian types.

... he may just be exhibiting more of that libertarian nuance.

How on earth Terri Schiavo became a "libertarian" cause I have no idea. No one questioned Schiavo's right to refuse heroic medical intervention, nor her right to express such a desire to be allowed to die in a living will. (Well, some might have, but it's unnecessary to even discuss that issue as the instant issue is what level of evidence is required of someone's intent to euthanize them.)

Of course, she did neither. She was incapable of articulating such a wish due to her brain damage, and she never signed such a living will. The only evidence we ever had she had mentioned a desire to be allowed to die was her husband's late-in-the-proceedings claim she had once said so.

It's not about the right to die. It's about the right of any person not to be put to death simply because, due to severe injury or disease, we've become inconvenient persons. We requre more rigorous standards of proof for someone's intent as to the disposition of their property upon their death than we now do, apparently, for their very lives.

Lacking a will, all of a deceased property will usually go to a spouse (and some to the children, depending on a state's law for intestate inheritance). Imagine if Terri Schiavo were rich, and her parents had claimed that she told them, and only them, "I'm not bothering with a written will, but if I should die, I'd really rather you have all my money than my husband."

No court in the land would take such self-interested testimony of an oral statement of intent as serious. It would be laughed out of court in five minutes. In order to overcome the built-in presumption that all property should be bequeathed to a living spouse, you need a written will specifying its disposition. Claims of oral "wills" by interested parties are just rejected as silliness.

And yet, when someone's life is on the line, the general presumption that a living person would like to remain alive can be overturned by the unprovable claims of an oral statement by an interested party.

It's "libertarian" to treat human life more cavalierly than a few acres of property? Really? When did that happen, exactly?

Posted by: Ace at 12:03 PM | Comments (45)
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If anyone cares, the Anna Niccole Smith love-baby paternity test results are about to be revealed.

I have no idea who's even in the running, or why I should care. It isn't me. That's about the extent of my interest in a paternity test.

I'll update when this important information is made public.

It's Larry Birkhead: He just walked out of the courthouse pumping his arm like he just scored a touchdown.

Asked what the first thing he'd now do, he replied, "I'm going to the toy store."

I'll bet he is.

In Brief: The Washington Times on the story.

Posted by: Ace at 11:47 AM | Comments (63)
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