Bill Moyers: What a Contemptible, Self-Righteous Lying Gasbag

He seems to be himself everything he accuses his political enemies of being.

Last week, Strib ran a despicable column, Jan. 30, by Bill Moyers — a rehash of his acceptance speech upon receiving Harvard Medical School's Global Environment Citizen Award, Dec. 1, 2004. (Strib requires registration after reading one part, so you might just want to read the acceptance speech.)

According to Moyers' hideously warped perceptions, the federal government is effectively controlled by supine cretins doing the will of right-wing fundamentalistic Christian fanatics who would like to see the environment destroyed to hasten the Parousia.

No kidding, Faithful Reader.

Moyers casually relates the following:

.... Remember James Watt, President Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." ....

As soon as I read that, I said to myself, Lie. You don't have to know very much about American politics & media (or am I repeating myself?) to know that if James Watt had ever said any such thing, everybody would have known about it two decades ago, and nobody would have been allowed to forget about it in the meantime.

For a moment, I thought about digging up the testimony. But, the Congressional Record that far back is not on line (yet).

Today, Power Line blogs the truth about Moyers' cavalier lies about Moyers and about Zell Miller.

It's appalling that such a paranoid, self-righteous, lying, hypocritical little demagogue like Bill Moyers was financed for so many years by tax dollars.

I want a refund.

[Follow-up: Re: What a Contemptible, Self-Righteous Lying Gasbag.]

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 02/07/05 07:35:21 PM
Categorized as Media & Political.

Easongate

Things like this will have to do, I suppose, until we get a new Sedition Act.

Vide.

Also, Bryan Preston, a friend of The Blog from the Core, reports over at JunkYardBlog that WaPo's Howard Kurtz has finally broached the Eason Jordan story. ;-)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 02/07/05 05:51:49 PM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff & Media.

Newman: Lent I

Sermons by Ven. John Henry Newman.

Lent begins this week: in the Eastern Churches, today; in the Roman Church, Wednesday.

Traditionally, I have blogged Newman's sermons on the given day, when possible. This year, to get them into the Catholic Carnival when they will still be timely, I'll blog them in advance.

Here are Cardinal Newman's sermons for Lent generally.

• Tears of Christ at the Grave of Lazarus
• Fasting a Source of Trial
• Life the Season of Repentance
• Apostolic Abstinence a Pattern for Christians
• Christ's Privations a Meditation for Christians
• Christ, the Son of God Made Man
• The Duty of Self-denial
• The Yoke of Christ
• Moses the Type of Christ
• Dangers to the Penitent
• Evangelical Sanctity the Perfection of Natural Virtue

Here, a sermon for the First Sunday of Lent.

• Fasting a Source of Trial

For further reading into Newman's sermons, see Newman Against the Liberals, Selection of Parochial & Plain Sermons, and Favorite Newman Sermons.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 02/07/05 07:52:13 AM
Categorized as Religious & Speeches and Suchlike.

Worldwide Kleptocracy

I haven't been paying much attention to the Oil-for-Graft UNSCAM. Thanks to Margaret for calling our attention to this article, Feb. 6, by the Inimitable One, who puts it all into perspective, as he usually does:

.... If I had $64 billion of my own money, I'd look after it carefully. But give someone $64 billion of other people's money to "process" and it would be surprising if some of it didn't get peeled off en route. Especially if that $64 billion gives you access to a unique supply of specially low-priced oil you can re-sell at market prices. Hire Third World bureaucrats to supervise the "processing" and you can kiss even more of it goodbye. Grant Saddam Hussein the right of approval over the bank that will run the scheme, and it's clear to all that nit-picky book-keeping will not be an overburdensome problem.

In other words, the system didn't fail. This is the transnational system, working as it usually works, just a little more so. One of the reasons I'm in favour of small government is because big government tends to be remote government, and remote government is unaccountable, and, as a wannabe world government, the UN is the remotest and most unaccountable of all. If the sentimental utopian blather ever came true and we wound up with one "world government", from an accounting department point of view, the model will be Nigeria rather than New Hampshire....

I'd be in favour of destroying the UN – or, failing that, at least moving its headquarters to Rwanda, but either of those options would require a level of political will hard to muster in modern sentimental democracies.

The best alternative to the transnational jet-set is nothing – or at least nothing formal. When the tsunami hit, the Americans and Australians had troops and relief supplies on the ground within hours and were coordinating their efforts without any global bureaucracy at all. Imagine that: an unprecedented disaster, and yet robust, efficient, compatible, results-oriented nations managed to accomplish more than the international system specifically set up to manage such events. Would it have helped to elect a steering committee with Sudan and Zimbabwe on it? Of course not. But, if the UN wants to hold meetings, hector Washington, steal money and give tacit approval to genocide, let it – and let it sink into irrelevance.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 02/07/05 07:31:32 AM
Categorized as International.

My Sandmen

Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 02/07/05 07:15:40 AM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff.