A column by me about Hans Nielsen Hauge (about whom I’ve bored you frequently in this space) appears today in TASO.

“Less than half of Americans, regardless of partisanship, have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the mass media,” according to a Gallup poll.

You know, I suspect it is actually responsible for media outlets to simply repeat what officials have said. The other day I heard a brief report in which the Republicans said a bill extended its target audience and the Democrats said the bill did not. Is that not a matter for media investigation, something they can verify independent of the officials quoted? The bill either covers the same number or types of people as it did before or it covers more or less. And if it can’t be determined because of the murkiness of the bill’s language, then the lawmakers should be ridiculed. This is just one point of distrust I have for most media outlets.

Or do they get it already? I’d rather believe they are simply thoughtless, like many Americans–Not objective thinkers, but trusting responders. Watch Anatomy of a Smear

I love this story to death.

See, there’s this Czech speedway racer who got knocked unconscious in an accident. And when he regained consciousness, he was speaking perfect English, a language he was only beginning to learn at the time. (It faded, unfortunately.)

Does this bring the promise of a new (though painful) means of enhancing international communication?

Or does it just mean that all we English speakers are brain damaged?

Once again The American Spectator Online has fallen victim to my charm, and printed a column by me, just as if it came from a serious person.

This one is the the third, and probably the last, of the Pastoral Letters From the Future.

Sorry, nothing much tonight either. I gotta run around and do stuff, and give somebody a ride too. But here’s a link from Redstate, which amuses me. (Warning: it’s political.)

I promise I’ll try to post something tomorrow.

I have another column up at The American Spectator Online today. It’s about mainline Lutherans and diversity.

But that’s the New York Times for you. Opinion Journal points out an article on the NYT website by Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt, who asks, “If you were a terrorist, how would you attack?”

Now, that question alone is a little shocking, but more importantly, it’s the same type of question the Pentagon asked in 2003 to the Times’ harsh criticism. “The insensitivity of the idea boggles the mind. . . . The project’s theoretical underpinnings are equally absurd,” they said back then. Now they must think it’s an acceptable query.

James Taranto concludes, “Has the Times become more sensible since 2003? The question answers itself. Thus it must be that the Times has become more absurd, ridiculous and mind-bogglingly insensitive.”

The New Republic’s “Baghdad Diarist” wrote remarkable stories citing anonymous sources. Apparently, those stories were fantasy, not journalism. The “diarist” has even recanted under oath.

World Magazine founder Joel Belz writes on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s statements to the press, that they report like pack animals, if you can call it reporting. The modern press, Blair says, are scandal-mongers.