The New York Review of Books: The Terri Schiavo Case: An Exchange: "As the pathologists who performed the autopsy stated clearly, the diagnosis of a persistent vegetative state is clinical, i.e., based on observation of a living patient, and so cannot be determined by autopsy."

Sometims, it is amazed to how hard for people, very intelligent people in this case, to recognize and accept what they do not want to see.

Even though the point of the autopsy statement is that all the evidences supported the clinical diagnosis, but distinction between clinical and pathological is used to back the bias, and to imply that the right to ignore all the pathological evidences.

Who cares about the LONG run?

China Unpegs Itself - New York Times: "In the long run, the economic effects of an end to China's dollar buying would even out. ... But as John Maynard Keynes pointed out, in the long run we are all dead."

[quote]village voice > books > Wander Woman by Joy Press: "The word lost derives from the old Norse term for 'disbanding an army,' and Solnit fears that 'many people never disband their armies, never go beyond what they know.' In Wanderlust she delved into the shrinkage of public space, and here she pursues the idea that children's lack of opportunity to roam freely—'Because of their parents' fear of the monstrous things that might happen (and do happen, but rarely)'—will strip away our culture's sense of adventure and imagination. Wildlife has returned to many American neighborhoods because, '[a]s far as the animals are concerned, the suburbs are an abandoned landscape.'"[/quote]

Getting lost is a luxury!

Leading Cardinal Redefines Church's View on Evolution - New York Times: "Mr. Ryland said the cardinal was well versed on these issues and had written the essay on his own."

The essay is encouraged (or misled), by the supporters of Intelligent Design, who claim that there is a scietific debate about theory of evolution, while there is none.

[quote] Mark Ryland, a vice president of the [Discovery I]nstitute, said in an interview that he had urged the cardinal to write the essay. Both Mr. Ryland and Cardinal Schönborn said that an essay in May in The Times about the compatibility of religion and evolutionary theory by Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, suggested to them that it was time to clarify the church's position on evolution.

The cardinal's essay was submitted to The Times by a Virginia public relations firm, Creative Response Concepts, which also represents the Discovery Institute. [/quote]

I would be suprised that if a biologist, even a catholic one, would change his/her view on evolution because of this, but very likely their view on Church may change.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/06/15/BL2005061500535_pf.html

[quote]

Josh Marshall is exercised about this front-page Washington Post article by Dan Eggen and Julie Tate.
"The upshot of the piece is fairly straightforward. In the push for the renewal of the Patriot Act, the president and other administration officials have been publicly and volubly claiming that the administration's tough anti-terrorism tactics have resulted in some 400 terrorism-related indictments, with more than half of those leading to convictions.
"Only, as Eggen and Tate point out, that's not true.
"The president is telling people his administration has nabbed some 400 terrorists. But actually the overwhelming majority of the cases don't involve terrorists in any way. They're people who got swept up in this or that terrorist investigation and then got nabbed for some immigration violation or false statement to investigators."
Marshall is concerned enough that he continues the conversation at his new TPM Cafe "The Post authors used the phrase 'misleading at best' to characterize a claim that really amounted to a deliberate misstatement of fact. In response I received this note from a staff writer at a well-known regional daily in the US. . . .
"This is a response to your criticism of journalists who don't call a lie a lie. As a journalist myself, I'm sensitive to this. I agree we can do better and not offer false equivalence, like saying there's a scientific debate over evolution and intelligent design when there is no scientific debate, only a political one. During the recent presidential campaign, reporters could have perhaps been more forceful in their language dealing with campaign statements and their factuality. But I think you're asking too much of reporters to label something as lies when its just misleading, even if highly so. In this case, George Bush's statement is factually defensible, but meant to give a false impression."

[/quote]

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/6/13/231126/424
[quote]Calling Lies Lies
By Joshua Micah Marshall
Section: Media
Earlier today over at TPM, I flagged a piece that ran in Sunday's Post and noted it as an example of the inability, within the current norms of newspaper journalism, to call lies 'lies'.

The Post authors used the phrase 'misleading at best' to characterize a claim that really amounted to a deliberate misstatement of fact.

In response I received this note from a staff writer at a well-known regional daily in the US ...


This is a response to your criticism of journalists who don't call a lie a lie. As a journalist myself, I'm sensitive to this. I agree we can do better and not offer false equivalence, like saying there's a scientific debate over evolution and intelligent design when there is no scientific debate, only a political one. During the recent presidential campaign, reporters could have perhaps been more forceful in their language dealing with campaign statements and their factuality. But I think you're asking too much of reporters to label something as lies when its just misleading, even if highly so. In this case, George Bush's statement is factually defensible, but meant to give a false impression. It appears that terrorism investigations have led to identifying 400 suspects, but that in the final analysis about half of the suspects aren't suspected of anything related to terrorism, and only one in 10 were convicted of terrorism activities. It's a sin of omission, more than commission. Bush did what politicians have done for years and phrased something in a factual, but highly misleading way. Newspapers routinely run ads that are of a similar nature because they are factually defensible, if only barely. The reporter could have perhaps tried to uncover information that Bush knew that his statement wasn't the whole truth. Then you could say he was intentially misleading the public. Calling such things lies is the job of pundits, editorialists and polemists such as yourself, not reporters.
On the specific word 'lie', I think the writer may have a point. It's a word deeply tied to motive.

But I think journalists shortchange the public, fail in their job, when they don't make much more clear than they now normally do when public officials are telling them things that are not only false but are knowingly false and conveyed in a way that is intended to deceive.

I'm curious to hear your opinion.
[/quote]

I would call it bullshit, or bullshitting.
http://www.slate.com/id/2114268

What happened to newsweek? was there abuse of koran? dig dig dig