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I’m looking to make a list of ten or fifteen historical lies, things that conventional wisdom holds to be obviously true, but upon research and analysis can be conclusively shown to be false. Four obvious ones are:

1. The Spanish Inquisition was an evil institution comparable to the Final Solution or the Black Death.

2. Abraham Lincoln was dedicated to human liberty and fought the Civil War to free the slaves.

3. Religion is the primary cause of most of the wars in human history.

4. Islam is a religion of peace.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on the matter. No cows are sacred; if there’s any examples beloved of the Left, I’d like to hear them too.

ENCOURAGING preliminary ratings for all-liberal Air America in New York have collapsed along with the fledgling radio network’s finances. An unofficial “extrapolation” of Arbitron data released last Friday — which Air America’s hosts crowed about last month but virtually ignored yesterday — showed WLIB’s ratings dropping back to their lowly levels before the net’s April launch.

Arbitron cautions stations and advertisers not to read too much into this interim monthly data — but that didn’t stop Air America star Al Franken from boasting last month that he’d beaten WABC’s Rush Limbaugh among the 25- to 54-year-old listeners chased by radio advertisers.

Being liberal means never remembering what you said yesterday.

Few studies provide an objective measure of the slant of news, and none has provided a way to link such a measure to ideological measures of other political actors. That is, none of the existing measures can say, for example, whether the New York Times is more liberal than Tom Daschle or whether Fox News is more conservative than Bill Frist. We provide such a measure. Namely, we compute an ADA score for various news outlets, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Drudge Report, Fox News’ Special Report, and all three networks’ nightly news shows.

Our results show a very significant liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News’ Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress. Moreover, by one of our measures all but three of these media outlets (Special Report, the Drudge Report, and ABC’s World News Tonight) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives. One of our measures found that the Drudge Report is the most centrist of all media outlets in our sample. Our other measure found that Fox News’ Special Report is the most centrist. These findings refer strictly to the news stories of the outlets. That is, we omitted editorials, book reviews, and letters to the editor from our sample….

11.2 Republican average

26.4 Fox News’ Special Report

40.0 Senate average

44.1 Drudge Report

44.5 House average

54.8 ABC World News

58.4 LA Times

62.5 NBC Nightly News

62.6 USA Today

64.5 CBS Evening News

64.6 New York Times

74.1 Democratic average

Of course, the fact that these are all big corporations trumps everything they are reporting, printing and broadcasting. If you’re Eric Alterman, or dumb enough to be mistaken for him, that is.

From Slashdot: Today the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that anybody can be compelled at any time to identify themselves, if a police officer asks. People who refuse to identify themselves, even if they are not suspected of a crime, will be arrested. Sound Orwellian? The Supreme Court also said people who are suspected of another crime might not be subject to arrest for not revealing their name. On this latter point, someone will have to bring a separate case. And the SCOTUS is at liberty not to hear any case it doesn’t like. The case is Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada.

What did Europe say after 9/11? We are all Americans? I think they had it backwards. Now, thanks to these black-robed defenders of our Constitutional rights, we are all to be good Chermans. It is now a crime to remain silent – so much for that right.

How long will it be before it becomes a crime to give a false name as well? Then, you will obviously be required to provide identification proving you are who you say you are. Thank goodness we can elect a Republican Congress and President to stop these egregious abuses of liberty! Wait a minute….

Jennifer Saba writes in Editor and Publisher: It’s been an embarrassing week for newspapers, especially for those in circulation departments at Newsday in Melville, N.Y. and at the Chicago Sun-Times. Both papers admitted, after markets closed for the day, to puffing circulation figures….

The ABC audit revealed the problems at Newsday and Hoy back in February, John Payne, senior vice president of communications for Audit Bureau of Circulations, told E&P. ABC plans to release its findings in July, though the Tribune Co., which owns Newsday and Hoy, essentially pre-empted ABC by announcing the overstated figures yesterday. “It’s very unusual to talk about an audit that has not been released,” Payne commented. Newsday had inflated its circulation figures for the period ending September 2003 by approximately 40,000 daily copies and 60,000 Sunday copies, while Hoy jacked up its numbers by 15,000 and 4,000 respectively….

Troubled by last week’s circulation scandals at Hollinger International’s Chicago Sun-Times and the Tribune Co.’s Newsday and Hoy, Merrill Lynch’s Lauren Rich Fine released a report today calling into question the reliability of circulation figures for the entire industry. “Our biggest fear,” the report said, “is that these two announcements may not be isolated incidents.”

As ever, I fail to be surprised by the reality that you cannot believe in the accuracy of anything printed in a newspaper. I spoke to an executive in the gold producing business a few days ago; he lamented that every single time he speaks to a reporter, they get something wrong in the subsequent story. I reminded him that the same is no doubt true of every other story in the paper – whatever you’re reading almost surely contains something false, the challenge is to determine precisely which part.

SI’s Excuse of the Week: “I had blisters on my heels at the end of the game. The thread that these socks were made with is too rough.” –Christian Panucci, Italian National Soccer Team defender, explaining his poor performance in their Euro 2004 opening game tie against Denmark.

You have to love the Azzurri. What other team would dare to put gold lame numbers on their jerseys? If they win Euro 2004, I’m hoping they show up for the World Cup with Armani-designed gold uniforms.

Many of Air America’s investors and executives say they thought the network had raised more than $30 million, based on assurances from its owners, Guam-based entrepreneurs Evan M. Cohen and Rex Sorensen. In fact, Air America had raised only $6 million, Mr. Cohen concedes. Within six weeks of the launch, those funds had been spent and the company owed creditors more than $2 million.

When the problems came to light, “we realized that we had all been duped,” says David Goodfriend, the company’s acting chief operating officer. Messrs. Cohen and Sorensen say they didn’t mislead anyone about the company’s finances. They say they planned to invest more over time but didn’t because of cultural differences with other managers. Both resigned in early May.

Five months before a presidential election, Air America should be on a roll. Instead, it’s grappling with a financial crisis. Creditors are lined up at the door, and it is off the air in two big markets, Los Angeles and Chicago.

How unfortunate….

From Monday Morning Quarterback (of all places): On a recent trip to the Chart House, a fine restaurant where the minimum dress code is business casual on the west bank of Hudson River in Weehawken, N.J., I became distressed. As I walked to my table with my lovely bride, I spied a twentysomething man sitting with a woman at a table, dressed in jeans, sneakers and a light blue T-shirt with these words in bold, large black letters: “YOU SUCK.”

[Correction] Ladies, this is the sort of thing I would strongly recommend that you avoid. If a man you are dating, or are considering dating, or with whom you even happen to make eye contact is wearing a shirt with this sort of message on it, run, do not walk, for the nearest exit.

I think the female equivalent would be something on the order of “MEN SUCK”.

I’m thinking that I should back up my assertion that Christianity is provably the most humane and civilizing force in human history. To do so, I need to compare it to other significant religions and ideologies, and I’m sure I’ll forget something. Here’s a short list of ten off the top of my head; if anyone can think of anything else that deserves an analytical comparison, please do so in the comments:

Liberal democracy

Islam

Buddhism

Judaism

Atheism

The Roman Empire

Technological advance

Capitalism

Socialism

Communism

My worst day of predictions was yesterday, when Spain embarrassed itself by flaming out of the tournament altogether and Greece, suddenly realizing that they might go through, had a panic attack and gave up a goal only 68 seconds into the match. Portugal played all right – except for Gomez and Ronaldo they were pretty average – but Spain was downright horrid. They played defensively throughout, and in my opinion, deserved to lose. Every major tournament, they “flatter to deceive” as the English soccer press likes to say. Why Morientes wasn’t playing, I’ll never understand. You’d think the Spaniards would have learned from Real Madrid’s experience earlier this year, as Torres and Raul did nothing.

So, Portugal and Greece stumble through the Group of Self-Asphyxiation, primarily because someone had to. I don’t expect much from either team in the quarterfinals, although Portugal could make it to the semis depending on who they draw.

Tonight, in the Group of Sudden and Unexpected Death At The Last Minute, France will have no trouble with the overmatched Swiss, and England should put away Croatia, though not without difficulty. It will be interesting to see if Michael Owen can get himself untracked or if Sven will bring Vasell on early. I don’t expect we’ll see Heskey again this tournament, barring injuries to the other strikers.