They gave us a republic: Conservative media has different aims and is held to different 'standards'

Wall St. Cheat Sheet: Exposing Top Secret America -INFOGRAPHIC

Informed Comment: British PM Cameron calls Gaza under Israeli blockade a 'prison camp'

The Rude Pundit: The anti-Moratorium rally ate our oily souls

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: Head of pro-legalization police group praises congressional action against "War on Drugs."

The Opposition Rebuttal To Morning Joe: Here's what happens when the show and the Rebuttal run out of ideas on the same day

James Cameron eat your heart out. Click here for the original poster.

Lots of us will be off to see Avatar this weekend; let's make this a movie thread. Which movies of the past year (or decade) are most memorable for you? [Paste Magazine has a list of their top 50 with trailers.]

Please keep spoilers from movies being released this week out of the thread. Thanks.

And it's an open thread...

KGBT4:

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS (AP) -- A Los Fresnos family is going to court to prevent a Cameron County justice of the peace from ordering spankings in his courtroom.

A lawsuit filed today alleges Justice of the Peace Gustavo "Gus" Garza told a 14-year-old girl's stepfather to strike her repeatedly on the buttocks in open court.

If he didn't, the judge said the girl would be found guilty and fined $500 for truancy.

The lawsuit by Mary Vasquez and her husband, Daniel Zurita, described the paddle provided by Garza as large and heavy and fashioned from a thick piece of lumber.

In an affidavit, Zurita says that when he was through, the judge told him he had not struck the girl hard enough. Read on...

The debate on spanking has been ongoing for years, but I think this takes things to a whole new level. Does a judge have the right to order a parent to repeatedly paddle their child -- at home or right in the courtroom? I personally don't believe physical violence is necessary in raising a child, and think this judge has either lost his capacity to be rational or gets off on watching children being spanked...or both.

Boy, is this sure to ruffle some Christian feathers. Paging Mr. Donohue... Mr. Donohue...

WaPo :

Filmmakers and researchers on Monday unveiled two ancient stone boxes they said may have once contained the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but several scholars derided the claims made in a new documentary as unfounded and contradictory to basic Christian beliefs.

"The Lost Tomb of Jesus," produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron and scheduled to air March 4 on the Discovery Channel, argues that 10 small caskets, called ossuaries, discovered in 1980 in a Jerusalem suburb may have held the bones of Jesus and his family.

One of the caskets even bears the title, "Judah, son of Jesus," hinting that Jesus may have had a son, according to the film. The claim that Jesus even had an ossuary contradicts the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven. Read more...

David Edwards of RawStory compares CNN and FOX's coverage of the story. For more about the show, visit the website at Discovery.com.

David Gegory: Did Karl Rove commit a crime?

Scotty: Again David, this is a question relating to an ongoing investigation...

Raw Story has a rush transcript available:

Download | play -WMP

Download | play -QT

Even Carl Cameron is jumping in. You know it's a bad day when FNC joins the fray.

Have they been reading blogs?

Eric has audio on an interview with Lawrence O'Donnell, who helped break the Rove -- Plame story.

AmericaBlog: MSM beating up on Karl Rove at the WH daily briefing today

Eschaton: Scotty Clams Up

Think Progress has much more: McClellan's Evasive Maneuvers

C-Span has the full briefing.

Arthur: Well, the wheels are coming off. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of bastards.

Talk Left: Cat and Mouse With McClellan

Oliver: McClellan Plays Dumb To Protect Rove

Armando has a nice round-up.

The Left Coaster: It took being lied to for two years about Karl Rove's involvement with the Plame outing for the media to shake off its shackles and go on the attack...

Bob Brigham: Scott McClellan's One Position

Anna: In any case, we suggest that if the press corps -- or "the American public" --- want a fuller explanation, they should aim a little higher than Scott to get it. Of course, he's the only one who will talk to them....on the record.

The Wall Street Journal writes an excellent article about Mr. Cameron's study:

Ms. Adams did get Dr. Cameron's results onto national television, but for the most part the mainstream press ignores him these days. That's because for two decades he has published studies critical of gays while openly espousing an antigay agenda. Speaking about his institute, Dr. Cameron told me, "We agree that homosexuality is one of the greatest public-health threats of our time, and that engaging in it ought to be discouraged to the same degree that we discourage illegal drug abuse." ...read on

Yet another example of the laziness that populates the 24/7 media. To help perpetuate and offer a platform for an obvious homophobe to spew unsubstantiated data againsts gays.

Dogged Blog has a nice piece that dissects the discredited Paul Cameron "Same Sex marriage" study that was cited on the Daily Show episode as trying to pass of as legitimate research.

Randall Ellis of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas was invited to respond, which he did, pointing out that no reputable research backed up this claim. Cut away to Stewart, who concurred, referring to the "study's" author as a "knucklehead" and mentioning the "research" was comprised of an Internet search and had been discredited. read on

This was on NBC.

I wonder if Fox showed any of the demonstrators?

I'm sure they did. Was Carl Cameron the commentator? Oh, that's right. He got a promotion.

Fox News has now posted a retraction and apology for the piece with the fabricated Kerry quotes ...

Earlier Friday, FOXNews.com posted an item purporting to contain quotations from Kerry. The item was based on a reporter’s partial script that had been written in jest and should not have been posted or broadcast. We regret the error, which occurred because of fatigue and bad judgment, not malice.

The only retraction doesn't name the reporter in question, Carl Cameron, which was noted in the statement Fox News gave TPM this afternoon.

-- Josh Marshall .

Late this afternoon I spoke to Fox spokesman Paul Schur who told me the following ...

“Carl [Cameron] made a stupid mistake which he regrets. And he has been reprimanded for his lapse in judgment. It was a poor attempt at humor.”

So the Fox reporter covering the Kerry campaign puts together this Kerry-bashing parody right out of the RNC playbook with phony quotes intended to peg him as girlish fool and somehow it found its way on the Fox website as a news item.

Imagine that.

More to follow

Thanks Mr. Marshall

Feministe: 9/11 Redux

David E’s Fablog: Lost in the rubble of Monday’s clusterf*ck of five-year-old news came this gem from Mr. Sheri Annis’ weekly “chat” with his readers.

The Osterley Times: In his first major foreign policy speech, Tory leader David Cameron criticized Bush for his "simplistic soundbites." Guess he's too polite to just say "lies."

Talk To Action: What about the terrorism, fundamentalism, and absolutist mentality in our own nation? Bush calls 'em his "base."

Common Cause: "Public broadcasting is just beginning to recover from the missteps of Ken Tomlinson," said Common Cause President Chellie Pingree. "The CPB cannot afford to replace Tomlinson with Warren Bell. He is the wrong man in the wrong job at the wrong time."

Wampum: Sovereign Immunity