HOT5 Daily 1/6/2010

1. "Unionizing TSA Is A Security Mistake" There's an understatement.

Representative Sample:The TSA has avoided collective bargaining for good reason: the bureaucracy and delays of collective bargaining hurt the agency’s ability to defend Americans. The TSA needs the ability to rush screeners to high-risk locations and modify screening procedures at a moment’s notice.

2. "The God Fraud"A quick scathing rebuttal to Karen Armstrong.

Representative Sample: I can’t quite remember how we got it into our heads that jihad was linked to violence. (Might it have had something to do with the actual history and teachings of Islam?) And how could we have been so foolish as to connect the apparently inexhaustible supply of martyrs in the Muslim world to the Islamic doctrine of martyrdom?

3. "Shipper Hires Mercenary Pirate-Fighters" No, not Blackwater.

Representative Sample: in 2008 shipping firm Maersk hired a Tanzanian navy patrol boat and its crew. (Kenyan patrol boat pictured.) That move was only recently reported. “It’s a temporary solution that a shipper has hired a warship from another country, but there’s no alternative,” Jan Fritz Hansen, vice-president of the Danish Shipowners’ Association, told a reporter.

4. "Ten top lies fundamentalists tell about America." Debunking the list.

Representative Sample: A Right-wing group, that likes to pretend that the rights of fundamentalists are being violated all over the place, simply for believing in Jesus, has released a list of their top ten violations of said rights in the last year. So how bad was it?

5. "Sullivan's Credibility Escapes With A Literal "Woosh" - With Photo!" What credibility?

Representative Sample: Sullivan and his commentator are lining up with many others in the liberal commentariat to note that "terrorism really isn't that big a deal." That's a disastrous premise electorally, and it's deeply wrong.

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