Newsquips daily news brief— Yesterday I spent half the day listening to various versions of Ave Maria on YouTube (see my results). Still got that theme running through my noggin. Today we’re all but snowed-in, and more snow is falling. So I might spend some time on the computer. That would be different. [Break for laughter] But seriously, listening to Christmas music sounds like a plan for today. Politics takes a back seat. Later, it’s rum ‘n egg nog.
1. NORAD has already started tracking Santa and the reindeer. Liberals are against that, citing “privacy” concerns and “civil rights”. CBC viewers are pissed that the military is involved, particularly the joint Canadian/American aspect of the NORAD military unit, pointing out “Hey! That ain’t liberal!”, and “America sucks!”, or something. … But anyway. … I’m thinking about live blogging Santa’s journey but I’m a little freaked out about sitting here blogging when he comes down our chimney. Seems wrong. Plus what if he reads my blog? Will he put me on his naughty list next year? Politics. See it’s complicated.
2. Rasmussen Reports did a survey on Christmas and attitudes…
No holiday season seems complete without legal battles over religious symbols displayed on public property, but 74% of American adults think such displays should be allowed.
Only 17% say religious symbols such as crèches and menorahs should not be allowed on public land, according to a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Nine percent (9%) are undecided.
Sixty-four percent (64%) say they will celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday honoring the birth of Jesus Christ. Another 27% will celebrate the holiday but in a more secular manner.
[…]
Well over 80% of those who earn $40,000 to 100,000 annually are in favor of religious displays on public property.
Eighty-seven percent of Republicans favor the display of religious symbols on public property, compared to 67% of Democrats. Twenty-three percent (23%) of Democrats and eight percent (8%) of Republicans disagree. Unaffiliated voters also overwhelmingly support the displays on public property by a 68% to 20% margin.
Opponents of religious displays on public property argue that they violate a constitutionally-guaranteed separation between church and state. But that guarantee is not specifically written in the U.S. Constitution and continues to be the subject of spirited legal debate.
3. More Rasmussen factoids: A survey found that when consumers do their shopping, 69% prefer to be greeted with “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays.”
4. Still more Rasmussen: Up to 20% of shoppers have shopping to do still on Christmas Eve day. Two days before Christmas, 20% haven’t STARTED shopping yet. Hi guys. Here’s to ya. See ya in the mall.
5. Economists—and MEDIA—Wrong Again… In another example of (A) how wrong those expert economists are at predicting their doom and gloom scenarios and (B) just how full of negativity and doom and gloom and how desperate liberals and their media are to promulgate and nurture and perpetuate a deep recession on us through sheer persuasion; and (C), how facts aren’t lining up with their economic Armageddon death star scenario, the mainstream media today preposterously cited the ONE-TENTH OF ONE PERCENT DROP in the gross domestic product for October as, well, a drop (!); and chose NOT to make a huge headline reading something like “HOLY CRAP! THE ECONOMY IS AS RESILIENT AS HELL AND HARDLY SHRANK AT ALL, DESPITE ALL OUR BLATHERING ABOUT ‘THE R-WORD’ and the DEATH OF CAPITALISM!”, with a sub-head reading “WE REALLY ARE IDIOTS”. … One-tenth of one percent is hardly measurable, and taken with September’s surprise .1% GAIN (which they all STRENUOUSLY called “barely measurable” and “hardly a gain” and “you can’t really call that a gain at all!”, it actually isn’t a drop at all. And moreover, it’s ONE-THIRD or 33% of the drop that the genius economists had predicted. That’s “miserably wrong”! The media is pissed that they can’t ruin your Christmas with terrible economic news and can’t even spin the facts to their liking, so in a rare move, they make a headline simply stating the bare-assed fact, for once: “Economy shrank 0.1% in October: StatsCan” (CBC); and “Economy shrank 0.1 per cent in October: StatsCan” (CTV). … NatPo (online) is slightly more realistic with their headline: “Economy shrinks slightly in October”. The far-left Toronto Star (online) reports succinctly: “Canadian economy shrinks”, and currently has a huge photo of their Barack Obama topless in Hawaii because that’s what really excites the boys and girls over there.
No, sorry Toronto Star and the rest of you: you once again failed in your jobs, and are misleading Canadians. The real news here is that the economy really didn’t shrink by anything but a barely measurable amount at all, despite y’all and your massive, historic efforts and your perfidy over the past years. That’s the real news. That’s the headline today. (Besides Christmas…)
6. Liberal mainstream media front page of the day award (no I won’t create a graphic for that) goes to National Post, for breaking all the rules in the Liberal Media Handbook, pissing off most of their “journalists” and staff, and much of their reader base in the process, and going with a religious-friendly theme—CHRISTIAN!—on their entire front page today, in honor of—get this—Christmas. Wow. Amazing. And beautiful.
Honorable mention goes to these others (below):
The other secular-“progressive” fundamentalists in the mainstream media, meanwhile, are in miserable, dour, and total denial. The Globe and Mail, for example, strains credulity with a front that wishes you a “Happy Holidays” greeting atop their paper, in deference to those rabid “Boxing Day” celebrants, I guess, since that’s the only other holiday going on in the next few days here in this country, and then deposits a picture of snowy trees to placate Christmas revelers. How Christian of them. The Regina Leader-Post did the same, as did several others.
UPDATE to #6:
Reader reminds me that I did create a PTBC Newspaper Cover of the Week Award graphic already (see left). I’m getting old.
National Post wins it this week. There you go. Globe and Mail gets the doofus newspaper of the week award, and I know there’s no graphic for that. There is this selection (see right)… 
7. EXCELLENT must-read of the day: Lorne Gunter’s always excellent column in the National Post: “Chipping away at Christmas”. Here’s a snippet:
Every year at about this time, there is a new batch of news stories detailing how the forces of political correctness and atheism are attempting to stamp out all public references to Christmas.
The same people behind turning your neighbourhood school’s Christmas concert into a Winter Family Festival would be appalled by the arrogance of any small band of Christians seeking to expunge all references to Diwali — the Hindu festival of lights — from public institutions in New Delhi or public mentions of Ramadan in Riyadh. Still, they cannot see the arrogance of their own attempts to impose minority secularist beliefs on the mainstream culture in Toronto or Regina or Halifax.
Typically, they explain away their actions as efforts to protect non-Christians from being offended by overt references to a distinctly Christian festival. But whether or not they will admit it, their campaigns are nearly always selfish attempts to shield themselves from messages and symbols they dislike. The feelings of non-Christians are typically nothing more than a cover.
[…]
The notion that these campaigns are altruistic efforts to shelter sensitive non-Christians from the theological imperialism of the dominant culture around them is just the latest excuse the intolerant minority is using to impose its own secular theology on the rest of us.
So here is an act of sedition: Merry Christmas. …
Go and read the whole thing—2 minutes
(Hat tip to Bill M.)
Also read “‘Merry Christmas’ and Other Offenses” by A.W.R. Hawkins at Human Events. Snippet:
[…]
Like Don Henley and Axel Rose, “I will not go quietly.” I will not be a secularist or a European, nor will I empty Christmas of its meaning by wishing you a happy holiday. If that offends a blogger or two on some kook website, I’m sure they’ll get over it in time, but that’s their problem not mine.“Merry Christmas” to every reader of HUMAN EVENTS. May this truly be “the most wonderful time of the year.”
8. Thomas Sowell, brilliant thinker. One of my favorite columnists, Thomas Sowell at Townhall.com, doing his own meandering thinking today:
• “One of the signs of how easily we are bullied by small and vocal groups is how many universities, among other institutions, dare not even refer to the Christmas vacation but instead refer to “the winter holiday.””
… And this thought:
• “A reader suggests that members of Congress should wear uniforms, like NASCAR drivers, so that we will know who their corporate sponsors are. Many of those in Congress should also wear logos representing the teachers’ unions, environmentalist extremists and other special interests.”
… And this one:
• “Wal-Mart has done more for poor people than any ten liberals, at least nine of whom are almost guaranteed to hate Wal-Mart.”
9. Just got in from shoveling the global warming. We have over a foot of global warming over here in Vancouver where we usually don’t get any snow g.w.. I also shoveled the lady across the street’s walkway for my good deed for the day. And I took this picture of our sun chairs in hibernation in front of the bird bath and the palm tree (duly wrapped in a blanket to protect it from the global warming).
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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