A new FAIR study finds that torture defenders outnumbered critics of torture by nearly 2 to 1 in TV news coverage of the Senate Intelligence Committee report released on December 9.

FAIR surveyed the guests of nine news programs for the week of December 7 to December 14, when discussion of the torture report's findings was most prominent. The programs included the Sunday talk shows (NBC's Meet the Press, CBS's Face the Nation, ABC's This Week, Fox News Sunday and CNN's State of the Union) along with four weekday news shows (MSNBC's Hardball, Fox's Special Report, the first hour of CNN's Situation Room and the PBS NewsHour).

Of the 104 guests discussing the topic on these shows, 53 expressed a discernible opinion either for or against the use of torture. Thirty-five of those who took a position, or 66 percent, were supportive of torture. This included a few individuals who claimed to be against "torture," but defended interrogation methods such as waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" that are recognized as torture under US and international law.

Only 18 guests (34 percent) articulated clear opposition to the CIA's torture practices--about half as many as spoke up in defense of torture.

Okay, let's be clear. I am not Muslim. I oppose terrorism. I don't even support the death penalty. I loathe Takfirism. I oppose violence as a means to make a political or ethical point. I fully support freedom of speech, including critical speech and humor.

But this morning I am most definitely NOT Charlie.

In fact, I am disgusted and nauseated by the sick display of collective hypocrisy about the murders in France. Here is why:

Charlie Hebdo for the Darwin Awards

The folks at Charlie Hebdo had it coming. Here is what I wrote about them in September 2012 when they published their famous caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed: Worthy of the Darwin Awards, if you ask me. Excellent, the "gene pool" of the French "caviar-Left" badly needs some cleaning". Today I fully stand by my words.

Let me ask you this: what would be the point of, say, taking a nap on train tracks? You don't have to "agree" with the train which will run you over, but it still will, won't it? What about taking a nap on train tracks specifically to make a point? To prove that the train is bad? To dare it? To make fun of it? Would that not be the height of stupidity? And yet, that is *exactly* what Charlie Hebdo did. I would even argue that that his how Charlie Hebdo made it's money, daring the "Muslim train" to run them over. You think I am exaggerating?

Check out the caricature which one of the folks who got murdered yesterday had just posted. The text reads: "Still no terrorist attacks in France - Wait, we have until the end of January to send you are best wishes". The crazy person shown in the drawing is packing a Kalashnikov and wearing an Afghan "Pakol" - the typical "crazy Muslim" in Charlie Hebdo's world. Talk about a stupid dare...

Men who take more selfies have higher than average traits of narcissism and psychopathy, a study from academics at Ohio State University has found
The research, published in the journal of Personality and Individual Differences, looked at 800 men between the ages of 18-40 who completed an online survey about how many photos they posted on social media, and another questionnaire looking at their personality traits.

It also found men who edited their selfies before posting them were more likely to have traits of narcissism but editing selfies was not linked to psychopathic traits.

Professor Jesse Fox, the study's lead author, said while it may not be surprising that men who spend a lot of time posting selfies and editing them are more narcissistic, it had not yet been confirmed in a scientific research. For Fox, the "more interesting finding" was that selfie-obsessed men had more psychopathic traits and self-objectified, which means valuing oneself primarily on the basis of appearance.

"We know that self-objectification leads to a lot of terrible things, like depression and eating disorders in women," Fox said. "With the growing use of social networks, everyone is more concerned with their appearance. That means self-objectification may become a bigger problem for men, as well as for women."

Well, that didn't take long.

As one of its first orders of business upon convening Tuesday, the Republican House of Representatives approved a rule that will seriously undermine efforts to keep all of Social Security solvent.

The rule hampers an otherwise routine reallocation of Social Security payroll tax income from the old-age program to the disability program. Such a reallocation, in either direction, has taken place 11 times since 1968, according to Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

But it's especially urgent now, because the disability program's trust fund is expected to run dry as early as next year. At that point, disability benefits for 11 million beneficiaries would have to be cut 20%. Reallocating the income, however, would keep both the old-age and disability programs solvent until at least 2033, giving Congress plenty of time to assess the programs' needs and work out a long-term fix.

The college-educated Schlafly thinks colleges should reduce the number of women they admit

Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly is worried that college campuses are populated by too many women, a phenomenon she insinuated has contributed to increased sexual assault on campus.

In a Monday column for the far-right website World Net Daily, the longtime anti-feminist crusader lamented the declining portion of university enrollments accounted for by men. Schlafly - BA and JD, Washington University in St. Louis; MA, Radcliffe College - argued that it may even be time to implement quotas to ensure that men constitute at least half of a college's enrollment.

"Long ago when I went to college, campuses were about 70 percent male, and until 1970 it was still nearly 60 percent," Schlafly wrote. "Today, however, the male percentage has fallen to the low 40s on most campuses."

Never one to shirk victim-blaming, Schlafly proceeded to link the problem of campus sexual assault to the increased enrollment of women in postsecondary institutions.

"Boys are more likely than girls to look at the cost-benefit tradeoff of going to college," Schlafly asserted. "The imbalance of far more women than men at colleges has been a factor in the various sex scandals that have made news in the last couple of years."

With so many women around, what do you expect a college man to do - seek consent!?

While various CNBC anchors may be willing to say that the US is "growing gangbusters" yet again confusing the liquidity-oozing equity markets with the economy, there are a couple hundred million Americans who would bet to differ (which incidentally may also explain why the Comcast channel no longer wishes to have its viewership calculated by Nielsen): the reason is that according to the latest Bankrate survey released today, more than three in five Americans don't have money in their savings accounts to cover any unexpected bills such as a $500 car repair or a $1,000 emergency room visit.

In fact, only 38% of respondents said they have enough funds in their bank accounts to cover even the most mundane of spending emergencies... Most others would need to take on debtor cut back elsewhere.
As the WSJ reports, citing Bankrate banking analyst Claes Bell, "a solid majority of Americans say they have a household budget but too few have the ability to cover expenses outside their budget without going into debt or turning to family and friends for help."

The survey found that an unexpected bill would cause 26% to reduce spending elsewhere, while 16% would borrow from family or friends and 12% would put the expense on a credit card. The remainder didn't know what they would do or would make other arrangements.

Ok, so clearly more than half of Americans not only cannot budget more than a few months down the road, but is living pay-check to pay-check: hardly a surprise.

So, where's all the chaos and the murder and the children smoking meth?

We are constantly reminded by State institutions, from lecture halls to mainstream "news" organizations, that if it weren't for the police out there arresting everybody, society would break down immediately.

Oh there will be the motorcycle gangs with flamethrowers invading supermarkets, the wild-eyed adolescents disobeying teachers and leaving school, the religious conservatives forming new dictatorships, the horde of unwashed illegal immigrants urinating on our golf courses, the rabid murder parties and fornication spilling onto the streets, zoo animals escaping and mauling the children - the end of human civilization.

Well, there has finally been a "virtual stoppage" of police activity in New York, and the people there are... reading blogs, working, buying groceries, watching netflix, waiting in lines, saying hi to strangers, checking facebook. Same as usual. It looks like they haven't murdered each other yet.

Of course they haven't.

The bitterly cold weather may be to blame for a burst pipe that spilled dark-colored water onto part of Union Station Tuesday afternoon. Train service was not affected.

BREAKING: Mystery substance pouring out of ceiling in Union Station near Metra's south concourse. @OnTheMetrapic.twitter.com/GpvxZW0Bff

- Ben Bradley (@BenBradleyABC7) January 6, 2015

The pipe leading to a sprinkler in the south concourse of Union Station burst about 3:15 p.m., Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said.

"There was an issue perhaps related to the extreme cold in the station that caused the pipe to break," Magliari said.

Union Station leak has stopped, crews working to clean up "mystery liquid" in Metra's south concourse. pic.twitter.com/w5nhmX27WU

- Ben Bradley (@BenBradleyABC7) January 6, 2015

Crews cleaned up the spill within 15 minutes, and there was no impact on train service during the afternoon rush, he said.

A former cop-turned-evangelical pastor was arrested last week on dozens of sex crime charges.

James Worley, senior pastor at Powell Valley Church in Oregon, was arrested Dec. 30 on 37 counts - including two counts of rape, 20 counts of sexual abuse, 11 counts of sodomy, one count of attempted sodomy and three counts of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct.

An indictment filed Dec. 16 showed the alleged abuse took place between 2002 and 2004, when the victims were under the ages of 12 and 14 years old, reported KATU-TV.

Prosecutors said they don't believe Worley was a pastor at the time of the abuse, although they believe there are additional victims.

Worley was fired from the Tillamook, Oregon, Police Department in 2007 for ongoing misconduct - including unethical citation writing, destroying marijuana evidence in the field, excessive Internet use while on duty, creating sexually explicit advertisements, and making unwanted sexual advances to a woman at a 911 dispatch center.

He complained to city officials that he had been poorly trained and that supervisors never told him what he was doing wrong, the station reported.

Worley is active on social media and maintaining Pastor Jamie's Blog.

A New York family has been left homeless after law enforcement agencies effectively destroyed their entire house in the process of serving a warrant for a DUI.

The Ithaca Journal reported this week that 36-year-old David M. Cady Jr. had died after being barricaded in his home for three days.

After Cady missed court dates for a DUI over the summer, a warrant had been issued, and the Tompkins County Sheriff Ken Lansing said that the suspect was convinced that he would go to jail. Authorities said that they had reason to believe that Cady had been traveling to Pennsylvania to purchase ammunition so he would be ready when deputies arrived.

Deputies attempted to serve the warrant at around 7 p.m. on Dec. 30, which led to a three day standoff with Cady. Autopsy results later indicated that Cady died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The suspect's wife, Melissa, and two sons were not harmed.

Video that began circulating on Tuesday showed the damage caused to the Cady home when the 18 law enforcement agencies decided to go in after the suspect.


The home, which easily could be mistaken for one that had been destroyed by a tornado, appears to have no external walls intact in the video. Some walls are only partially missing, while others are completely gone. The yard is scattered with shards of wood, windows, insulation and family belonging. Inside the home, food can still be seen sitting on the stove, but the kitchen and most of the other rooms are open to the outside elements.

Up to 150 law enforcement and emergency personnel reportedly participated in the operation.


In a statement on Tuesday, the Tompkins County Sheriff's Department said little about the damage to the house.

"Eventually, law enforcement knew and anticipated needing to enter the residence, in order to take the subject into custody," the statement insisted. "Based upon the information being developed through interviews and practices used by other agencies in the past, it became necessary to breech part of the outside area of the house to ensure the safety of all involved."