Is it live, or is it Memorex?

My good friend Pierre over at Loser's Guide posted this interesting comment today about a movie review he read at Salon (the name of this Tunisian movie is Satin Rouge). Pierre informs us that the review "... dutifully belabours the fact that many Tunisians are Muslim [...] even though this movie is about friendship, middle age and loneliness," and then presents us with this little chestnut of a quote (with "righteous parentheses"!):

(Even if Islam as a religion doesn't necessarily preach misogyny, if one of its cultural interpretations is that a woman should be sentenced to death by stoning for having a child out of wedlock, there's no other word to use.)

Now let me quote Pierre:

I don't know. What do you call a religion that demands the death penalty thusly (Deuteronomy 22:20-21):

But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:

Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die.

As Pierre informs us, "And there's a lot more where that came from."
And then we have this story from Media Matters for America (link via SIVACRACY):

For the second time in three days, CNN featured a segment on the potential coming of the Apocalypse, as indicated by current conflicts in the Middle East. The July 26 edition of CNN's Live From ... featured a nine-minute segment in which anchor Kyra Phillips discussed the Apocalypse and the Middle East with Christian authors Jerry Jenkins and Joel C. Rosenberg -- who share the view that the Rapture is nigh. At one point in the discussion, Phillips asked Rosenberg whether she needed "to start taking care of unfinished business and telling people that I love them and I'm sorry for all the evil things I've done," to which Rosenberg replied: "Well, that would be a good start." Throughout the segment, the onscreen text read: "Apocalypse Now?"

As Media Matters for America documented, the July 24 edition of CNN's Paula Zahn Now featured a segment examining what "the Book of Revelation tell[s] us about what's happening right now in the Middle East." CNN re-aired this segment the next day. Media Matters also noted that Rosenberg is just one of several conservative media figures who have identified and expounded upon the purported signs of the Apocalypse to be found in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. During his appearance on Live From ..., Rosenberg claimed that he had been invited to the White House, Capitol Hill, and the CIA to discuss the Rapture and the Middle East, and noted -- several times -- that the apocalyptic events described in his novels keep coming true.

So, CNN is giving serious coverage to the impending apocalypse? Is this what passes for news in the United States of America these days? Maybe the apocalypse ain't so far away after all... Japan seems saner the longer I live here...