Day: May 5, 2009

Mormons Posthumously Baptized Pres. Obama’s Mother

Jon Ponder

We can now add the name of Pres. Barack Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, to the list of deceased people who have been posthumously baptized by the Mormons, according to Helen Radkey, the Salt Lake City researcher whose revelation that Mormons had baptized Nazi hunter Simon Weisenthal ignited outrage among Jewish leaders in late 2006.

The president’s late mother was baptized during the presidential campaign last summer.

In an email on May 1 titled, “President Barack Obama’s Mother Is Now a Mormon,” Radkey wrote:

While Barack Hussein Obama, now president of our country, was hot on the presidential campaign trail in 2008, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posthumously baptized Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. Barack Obama’s mother was baptized on June 4, 2008 in the Provo Utah Temple, and “endowed” in the same LDS temple on June 11, 2008.

In March, Radkey reported that Mormons had also baptized serial killer Ted Bundy, who was a Mormon convert. (Bundy’s record was later scrubbed from the Mormon’s International Genealogical Index (IGI).)

Other deceased people baptized by the Mormons include Adolph Hitler, Eva Braun, Martin Bormann, Benito Mussolini, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, who was also Jewish.

Median Age of Fox News Viewers is 65 – Average Dittohead Is a 67 Year Old Man

Jon Ponder

About two-thirds of the way into media writer Michael Woolf’s Vanity Fair column, “The Man Who Ate the G.O.P.,” on the conundrum of Rush Limbaugh’s dual role as GOP party boss and hate radio megastar, this demographic nugget about the conservative media audience caught my eye:

“Among ad-supported cable nets, the news nets … sport the most gray, with Fox News Channel’s daytime and primetime skeds the absolute oldest, clocking in with a median age above 65.”
– Variety

Arguably no message apparatus like [Limbaugh’s show] exists in the nation, except, perhaps, at the White House (or in Oprah — whose position with American women is curiously analogous to Rush’s position with American conservatives). It is concentrated and extraordinary power.

Except that this power ought to be ending. It ought to all be on the wane. It is not just the Obama victory and the magnitude of his approval ratings. It is not just that the gravity of the economic crisis, with historic unemployment rates, means it’s a lot harder to get people excited about Reagan-and-Rush-esque hands-off government.

It is, rather, a crueler demographic point. The dirty little secret of conservative talk radio is that the average age of listeners is 67 and rising, according to [Jon Sinton, founding president of Air America] — the Fox News audience, likewise, is in its mid-60s: “What sort of continuing power do you have as your audience strokes out?”

Only dinosaurs listen to radio these days, and it’s doubtful many people under 50 even know AM radio exists, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the average age of right-wing radio listeners is 67. It’s also truly not shocking that this demographic is also predominantly male. According to a Pew study in February, 72 percent of Limbaugh’s elderly listeners are men and thus are statistically likely to “stroke out” sometime in Pres. Obama’s second term, assuming he wins one.

However, television viewership trounces radio audiences in every demographic, so the fact that the average age of FNC viewers is, well, retired could have huge ramifications on the political playing field over the next decade.

It took some googling but I found a reliable source that confirms that during the 2007-2008 television season, the most recent season for which figures are available, the average age of Fox News viewers was 65:

According to a study released by Magna Global’s Steve Sternberg, the five broadcast nets’ average live median age (in other words, not including delayed DVR viewing) was 50 last season. That’s the oldest ever since Sternberg started analyzing median age more than a decade ago — and the first time the nets’ median age was outside of the vaunted 18-49 demo…

Among ad-supported cable nets, the news nets (along with older-skewing Hallmark Channel, Golf Channel and GSN’s daytime sked) sport the most gray, with Fox News Channel’s daytime and primetime skeds the absolute oldest, clocking in with a median age above 65. (Emphasis added.)

By the way, MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” does the best in cable news primetime among the most desirable younger demographic, but according to numbers from last season, the average “Countdown” viewer is 59 years old, and 55 percent of its audience is male.

Update: Hollywood Reporter, August 10, 2010:

In a survey released by analyst Steve Sternberg, Fox News has the oldest audience among fully distributed cable networks. The network’s average viewer last season was 65 years old, according to Nielsen. Heck, it’s viewers are even older than viewers of Hallmark Channel, Military Channel and Golf Channel.

(Note Hollywood Reporter is owned by Nielsen.)

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

This is like getting interview lessons from Sarah Palin.

— Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, quoted by Politico, in response to Karl Rove who said President Obama “is failing to fulfill his bipartisan promise in Congress.”

Pensito Flu Update: May 5, 2009 — Mutant Virus

Buck Banks

Via ProMed:

******
[6] Strain displacement
Date: Mon 4 May 2009
Source: National Public Radio [edited]

Biologists say there’s a good chance that the emerging flu strain could establish itself as the dominant strain of influenza in future flu seasons. Three times in the last century, a substantially new flu virus has emerged and displaced the existing strains. That’s quite different from the usual pattern in which the circulating virus
mutates just enough to keep vaccine makers tweaking their annual product.

“You can think of those strains, that vary from year to year, as though they were cousins in the same family. They are variations on a theme,” says William Schaffner at Vanderbilt’s medical school. But he says the emergence of this new virus is different. This virus, which originated partly in pigs, could be a game-changer. “This one is completely new,” Schaffner says. “This one is a stranger in town. We’ve never seen one like this before.”

The new swine flu virus has continued to spread, with more than 1,000 confirmed cases and 20 deaths worldwide. All but one of the fatalities occurred in Mexico, where officials decided Monday [4 May 2009] to allow most businesses to reopen on Wednesday. In the U.S., the number of confirmed cases stood at 253 in 36 states early Monday.

The new swine flu virus is not merely a case of the usual gradual evolution. The big change scientists have seen with this strain is called a “shift” [The term shift has usually been applied to a change in antigenic type, e.g., from H1N1 to H2N2, etc., whereas the 2009 H1N1 is still H1N1-type. — Moderator CP]. The most infamous shift was the virus that appeared in 1917 and caused the deadly flu pandemic of 1918. That virus then became the dominant variety of flu for several decades. Then in 1957, it was displaced by another shift virus. There was yet another shift in 1968, says Stephen Morse at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

[…]

Some American Soldiers in Afghanistan are on the Wrong Mission

Trish

These guys are on a mission for Jesus

The Pentagon is refusing to comment on this report from Al Jazeera, which shows rabid evangelical soldiers in Afghanistan preparing to go out and proselytize. One little problem:

Pew Research: White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified

Trying to convert Muslims to any other faith is a crime in Afghanistan. The fact that the video footage is being broadcast on Al Jazeera guarantees that it will be seen throughout the Muslim world. It is likely to add more credence to the perception that the U.S. is engaging in a war on Islam with neo-crusader forces invading Muslim lands.

Gee, how could anyone say that? I mean, all the preacher in the video said was, “The special forces guys — they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down. Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the kingdom. Right? That’s what we do, that’s our business.”

And here I thought their business was serving in the military. That’s what we sent them there to, what they’re being paid to do, and what we need them to do. What we don’t need them to do is distribute copies of the New Testament printed in Farsi. But being on a mission for Jesus might not be that different in many minds. Jeremy Scahill on Alternet quotes a recent Pew Research study that showed a correlation between white evangelicals and torture.

“White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.”

Primary Colors: The 2009 Version

Trish

A new novel about behind-the-scenes presidential politics written under a pseudonym appears to be on the list for members of the White House Book Club.

Speaking at his prime-time press conference on April 29, President Barack Obama promised to lay a ‘New Foundation’ for growth.

But this was three weeks after New York publishing house Atlantic Monthly Press released ULTIMATUM, a debut political thriller by Matthew Glass in which a Democratic president is elected pledging a ‘New Foundation’ for America.

“It may be coincidence,” said Glass’s agent Ben Evans, “but it does seem interesting that the phrase ‘New Foundation’ appeared in the president’s speech so soon after ULTIMATUM was released.”

Refusing to reveal the true identity of Matthew Glass, which is a pseudonym, Evans added: “This is a fantastic thriller with all the hallmarks of being written by a political insider. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if people in the West Wing are reading it.”

I see a best seller in the making.