Evangelical Moonbattery is what I call it. It makes them feel better about themselves every time the attempt to "save" another lost soul. It's all about self-centered morons living in echo chambers trying to convert the unwashed.

Ace,

Don't be so hard on CNN. In their infantile minds, they have reached out to the other side since the election.

I mean we've got Sanjay Gupta doing a day in the life of NASCAR races. You get Nancy Grace everyday. And they try really hard not to make explosion noises or giggle when showing suicide bombings in Iraq.

This is reason #1 why I call a certain brand of Leftism a religion. It has all the characteristics -- in fact, it is an evangelical religious belief, because it not only rests on received truth, but also commands its followers to convert the heathen.

Any ism, if the belief is strong enough, can lead to this kind of thing. Take any subject at random -- taxes, Star Trek, baseball, the weather, or even (maybe especially) sex -- and you can pretty much guarantee that throngs of people adhere to it as a religious observance. So much so, in fact, that they are willing to do violence in the name of their cause.

All of which is why I think that people who say things like "Religion has caused more wars than anything else in history!" are idiots. Human beings, like our ape cousins, should be called "the believing animal". It is a kind of inherited madness, I suppose, but it is the same madness that leads to art, music, and literature. I've often thought that if humans ever totally renounce war, we also renounce Eine Kleine Nachtmusik; they spring from the same seed.

I went to a Weight Watchers meeting with Mrs. Zorachus one time, and one of the ladies there was going on (and on) about how hard it was to suppress the urge to eat something bad after seeing Fahrenheit 9/11.

Evangelical Moonbattery is a good name. It's what makes a person have to work in a reference to a liberal talking point during an otherwise apolitical event.

When I was a more evangelical Christian, that was a not-uncommon suggestion: work Jesus into something unexpected. Funny that the left will use a similar tactic to spread their religion.

Another way it resembles religion is that their views are almost *never* presented in a way that suggests or encourages debate. Rather, conclusive, sweeping generalization is used, with a hundred implicit assumptions underlying it.

Anybody who has an alternative viewpoint thus has to either argue against an entire worldview (a tiresome, fruitless endeavor) or be silent (and thus allow people to infer your agreement with their Speaking of Truth to Power.)

As someone who worked in television, I can tell you that it is utterly impossible for that to have been an accident. A complete accident, anyway. That overlay is called a luminance key. It had to have been set up in an effects bank. It might have been someone fooling around, and he or she or someone else accidentally switched it onto air, but it didn't just magically appear, trust me.

It drives me nuts, too.

People I barely know have launched into vulgar Bushitler tirades in bookstores and on street corners. Out of civility, I keep my mouth shut.

It used to surprise me that they started off so explosively, already frothing in mid-rant, spouting mindless cliches as if they just thought of them.

It also used to surprise me that their anti-Bushism was so inextricable from their anti-Americanism. They'd veer from denouncing Cheney, to denouncing capitalism, to imperialism, to this stupid fucking country... and then back again, in one seamless loop.

If any of them believe in anything positive, I have yet to detect it.

The Green/Environmentalist corner of the modern Democratic party in particular is basically a strange mix of Paganism, Wiccan and Luddism masquerading as science. This spirit of regressive Gaia-worship, socialism and anti-achievement has spread through the whole party is seems.

Political Calvinism is a term I have been using for some time to describe the more miserable of the leftists.

A case in point was the recent leftoid screed about how Thanksgiving should be changed into a "day of atonement". This embodies the typically dour Calvinist "HOW DARE YOU CELEBRATE WHEN THERE IS SO MUCH SIN IN THE WORLD" ethos.

The left is absolutely rife with this sort of rot. What a bunch of miserable gits.

By the way, you need to use metaphors accurately. The crowd that testify about their faith in your face and call out "can I get a witness?" are known as evangelicals, not Calvinists. Calvinists sit around drinking Scotch and complaining about using musical instruments in worship services. They don't give a damn about spreading their faith or what anyone else thinks. They're like Episcopalians in a bad mood.

Modern Environmentalism is a religion, complete with a Deity (Gaia, Mother Earth, or Man himself for the true Atheist), Saints (Muir, Thoreau, Ghandi et al), Sinners (Insert conservative Icon here) and most of all, Faith.

Faith that the Environmental Sciences Academy is not just a self-serving community requiring ongoing crises in order to fund more "Research".

Faith that Man is the cause of all eartly maladies, and not simply another player in a very large ecosystem. We are a native species to this planet, y'know.

Imagine if the EPA was to be abolished in order to preserve seperation between church and state. Heh.

Funny, I just spent a few minutes talking to a buddy who's a Cuban immigrant. Don't dare say anything bad about America to him.
I don't know what he thinks about the president/war/whatever. But I'm certain that if he has a dissenting opinion, it's about a policy or a choice, not about the whole country and it's multiple imagined evils.
Man, I wish the folks who are here and hate this country would go and make room for those who aren't here and would die to get in.

They're like Episcopalians in a bad mood.

Eh...more like Scotch Presbyterians. Dour, plain, and convinced that working yourself into an early grave is a dandy way to please God. The Dutch Reformed church (Wesleyans and Calvinists) tend to be a bit more sunny -- I have even seem some Wesleyan Methodist churches who admit a fondness for music during worship! (And not just a capella; they have an organ and everything!)

But seriously -- the Leftist "religion" posits a kind of absolutist morality that seems unanchored to any Divine revalation, which is what makes it so strange to me -- how can any morality be absolute without being Divine in nature? Where does this moral code come from? Is it intrinsic in Nature? If so, are all animals bound by it or only us shaved apes? If only us, why? If not, why not?

It's a very strange ethical world the Leftists live in.

OregonMuse,

I find your notions of Calvinism...amusing.

You know what really hacks me off about people like the Greenies? I actually believe in a lot of the things they pretend to be all about: preserving some wilderness areas, keeping an eye on animal populations and the wastes we produce and all that happy environmental stuff. But, you know, in a realistic way that leaves room for human beings and all their works.Can a capitalist, too, not shit in the woods?

But, no, the whole damn deal has been hijacked by guilt-ridden, people hating, anticapitalist, bus-riding, neopastoral, po-faced, unwashed smelly watermelons.

Can a capitalist, too, not shit in the woods?

You just described the difference between a Conservationist and an Environmentalist.

The Dutch Reformed church (Wesleyans and Calvinists)

This would have gotten me smacked in the head by my pastor back in the old days -- Dutch Reformed is actually a different sect than Wesleyans (Methodists) and Calvinists of all stripes. I believe that the American Amish and Mennonite sects are Dutch Reformed church offshoots.

I believe that the American Amish and Mennonite sects are Dutch Reformed church offshoots.

And we all know what party animals those guys are! Whoooeee!

Just last week at my son's parent-teacher conference his teacher was not at all shy about bragging on how she works "save the rainforest" into lesson plans. Again, not wanting a confrontation on the thing, I refrained from asking her if she ever works in the virtues of free-market economics into reading time.

The thing I don't get about the leftist religion is how some people have it who utterly reject most such things. I have a friend who's, in all other respects, totally rational, with a scientific mindset (i.e., what are the FACTS?) Like me, she's an atheist who rejects religious worldviews because they're unsupported by evidence.

But when it comes to the crimes of Bushitler, she becomes this totally gullible True Believer who won't let facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.

I believe that the American Amish and Mennonite sects are Dutch Reformed church offshoots.

Hmmm? I thought they were the spiritual descendants of the pacifist wing of the Anabaptist matrix. I doubt the Dutch Reformed would want to have anything to do with them.

> When I was a more evangelical Christian, that was a not-uncommon suggestion: work Jesus into something unexpected.

Ah, so that's what that Spanish Inquisition business was about...

OregonMuse:

Wikipedia (which I take with a large grain of salt on religious matters) agrees with you that the Amish and Mennonites are Anabaptist sects.

That's what I get for trying to be Mister Smarty!

Don't get Monty started on religious history and sects - we'll be here all day 'til he winds down.

And Monty - I liked your little entry on the evolution of your literary tastes, you commentless dweeb.

I've often thought that if humans ever totally renounce war, we also renounce Eine Kleine Nachtmusik; they spring from the same seed.

But not, I think, from the same seed that spawned Pierre Lunaire. Because that's one worthless-ass seed.

"But if I finish all of my chores and you finish thine
Then tonight we're gonna party like it's 1699."

Hmmmm,

Not one commenter noticed that the only person fired in this incident was a black man and that the CNN representative quoted by Drudge is Jewish.

I think it's noteworthy that CNN fired the person who got into an argument, not the person who committed the original misdeed.

I live in West Michigan. The Dutch Christian Reformed Church is the dominant church in the area, ecspecially the rural areas. They are made up of second and third generation Dutch immigrants, which are legion in this area. I grew up hearing "if you aint dutch you aint much".

I've always thought it was ironic that the dutchies in Michigan are the most uptight, judgemental, conservative (in a bad way) folks that I ever encountered. And the come from the land of the legal hookers, drugs, and needle freaks nodding out in the "coffee shops".

These people are the masters of voting themselves a "dry" county, then driving into my town to get drunk and buy porn. Bleh.

That overlay is called a luminance key. It had to have been set up in an effects bank.

Video switchers are an entirely different animal these days.

Newer models have 4 downstream keyers. It would be remarkably easy to make this mistake.

Check your reading comprehension. I said it could have been accidentally put on the air. My point was that the X didn't originally spring from nowhere. That's true no matter where it was keyed from.

I appreciate and am amused by the comments on religion. Religious is quite fascinating. I majored in it in university.

Good thing I don't have your email address, Monty, or I'd harrass you about religion.

Craig,

If you didn't write like a fucking 4th grader, you might be easier to follow.

That X might have been stored as a matte channel in the frame store for preproduction or a variety of other purposes. And you are aware that any source in a modern television station is accessible via router, right?

Apparently not.

Quite frankly, I don't give a shit about your market 120 teevee experience. My guess it that you haven't operated a switcher at all, as it's clear that you don't know what in the hell you're talking about.

But you know, luminance key and all that. Pfffffftt....

'Course, the garbage they teach at most institutions of higher learning, you couldn't tell a nickel's worth of difference between any of the major religions.

In the real world, there are real differences to adherants of the majors, but those differences are of no consequence to those who teach about them.

The switcher I learned on, circa 1964 (hey, I wasn't in school in 64, that's what WBAP gave my school), had a character generator that made all white letters. Last thing I remember seeing on it was

LIVE FROM THE MOON

Man, gotta love blogs, all this spontaneous knowledge bubbling up from the ground....

Good thing I don't have your email address, Monty, or I'd harrass you about religion.

Tedious, my good friend. Tedious.

Aquinas laid down the foundations, and Soren Kierkegaard pretty much said it all in Fear and Trembling. Hume and Jung tied up all the dangly bits. There's precious little to actually debate, in my view; it's far more interesting as history.

Monty: Indeed! I am primarily interested in religion as a sociological element, as a factor playing a large role in history and/or human society. Carlos said correctly that people, when learning about religion, tend to forget all what divides them all. The divisions are quite prevalent and influential. Each religion, indeed each religious movement and interpretation has its own world-view.

One example I liked was in The Life of Pi. In a village where Hindus, Muslims, and Christians lived together, the were three hills. Each hill had a place of worship: one had a Hindu mandir, one had a Muslim mosque, and one had a Christian church. Although everyone lived in peace with the others, they were still divided communities. No one knew or cared about what happened in the other communities. Pi would go to mandir (having come from a Hindu family), the mosque (fascinated with Sufi elements thereof), and the church (fascinated with Christianity). None of the religious leaders know about Pi's interfaith activities - until one day. When they found out, they were wroth. They scolded the other religious leaders of corrupting Pi, they scolded Pi for thinking he could worship in one place and worship in other places. One people, three religions, three hills - unconnected, separate, and rivals. (If someone has read the book--which I strongly recommend--please forgive me if I have messed up any of the details.)

I feel sad that in America people are wont to dismiss religion as irrelevant or unimportant. Although religion is not supposed to play an official role in government (as it does elsewhere), religion is still a very large component in society, and thereby contributes to politics and government. As enlightened or refined as we think we may be, our paradigms (or Weltanschauungen) are formed partly by religion (both those we're surrounded by and those we choose to incorporate into our lives). Even atheists and agnostics: instead of being a-religious, they are still religious but with a twist. Indeed, some atheists have made a religion out of denying God, just as evangelical, outspoken, intolerant, and proselytizing as Evangelical Christians.

I prefer to study religions from the perspective of its adherents rather than dry, academic, or scholarly treatises. Religion involves beliefs, faith, hope - in a word, emotion. Without this emotion to animate religion, religion is more or less dead.

Despite religion's major role in history, I should mention that I totally reject the notion that religion has caused more suffering or more wars than anything. Rather, the two major causes of war are ideologies (which may exploit religion) and greed. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam - some of the world's bloodiest leaders were motivated out of ideology and/or greed. Ideology =/= religion; religion =/= ideology; although the two are, undoubtedly, related.

Oy. I'm done now. I think Ace's is going to ban me.

My point was that the X didn't originally spring from nowhere.

It looks like there is text in that overlay below the X. Anybody able to make it out?

The first frame has been isolated here.

CNN has claimed that the X is essentially a cue point or place holder for a video clip parked in pause. My guess is that the video that is cued up is some sort of keyable animation with a traveling matte channel.
The technical director probably just punched up the wrong keyer during the broadcast.

"The technical director probably just punched up the wrong keyer during the broadcast."

Then why was the caller in question told it was free speech if it was just an accident?

CT: because the guy taking calls was just a contract worker who didn't know diddly about what happened.

Then why was the caller in question told it was free speech if it was just an accident?

Why would a lowly switchboard operator be let in on the big secret if CNN did it on purpose? A hateful lefty venting an opinion after taking complaints from right wingers all day sounds like a more reasonable explanation.

Warden, thanks for the link. All things considered, I'll buy this one as an innocent accident.

Then why was the caller in question told it was free speech if it was just an accident?

A switchboard operator doesn't know a video switcher from an audio board. She was just mouthing off, as rabid lefties do.

Look, it's possible someone was screwing around and had the X keyed over Cheney's face on a mix bank, but any decent director would have looked at his TD and said, "You better make that shit go away now or I'll find someone else to punch this broadcast."

Control room staff monkey around sometimes, but not while on air because they all know how easy it is to make a mistake when broadcasting live television.

The most likely and rational explanation here is that it was an innocent mistake, black X and all. I think it does us all a disservice to be screaming about it. There are plenty of legitimate examples of blatant media bias on the editorial side. Let's stick with that rather than the conspiracy stuff.

Should we put Xs over the faces of CINDY SHEEHAN and MICHEAL MOORE as well aas WOLF BLITZER,RAMSEY CLARK,JOHN KERRY,JANE FONDA,ALEC BALDWIN,GEORGE CLOONEY,TED RALL,AL GORE,BILL CLINTON,HILLARY CLINTON,and the rest of the infamous left?