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Self-proclaimed Biblical scholar Joseph Atwill has written a book in which he claims that Jesus was fabricated by a little-known group called the Flavians. He also claims he has some sort of “smoking gun” type of “confession” from these ancient people that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they entered into a conspiracy with the Roman government of the time to fabricate a character called Jesus as a “gentle Messiah” figure to wage psychological warfare on, and control, the masses so they would pay Caesar taxes without complaining. He is apparently going to present this evidence at a...

Killology.com KILLING FOR THEIR COUNTRY: A NEW LOOK AT “KILLOLOGY” by Robert Engen For more information on accessing this file, please visit our help page. “Patriots always talk of dying for their country, but never of killing for their country.” – Bertrand Russell Introduction Over a decade ago, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, a former US Army Ranger and military psychologist, published a book entitled On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. This work, along with its recent sequel, On Combat, have established Grossman’s reputation in military law enforcement circles in North America as an expert on the...

Teachers and scholars consider the unattributed use of someone else's words and ideas to be a very serious offense, but the public doesn't seem to mind much, at least when it comes to politics. The incidents of plagiarism and fabrication that forced Joe Biden to quit the 1988 presidential race have drawn little comment since his selection as Barack Obama's vice presidential running mate—just as revelations of plagiarism by Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin scarcely hurt their book sales. In 1987, before Biden quit the race, he called the incidents "a tempest in a teapot." Although most reporters disagreed...

For the past three months, Jonah Lehrer, science journalist, author of three books, and (former) New Yorker staff writer has been under siege. In mid-June, he was accused of recycling his old work and publishing it as new. Since then, a number of accounts assert that Lehrer committed the two mortal sins of journalism: fabrication and plagiarism. Before Lehrer joined The New Yorker, he was one of the premier bloggers at Wired.com; the site still boasts several hundred blog posts he wrote for his Frontal Cortex blog. Quite naturally, when the Lehrer scandal first broke, the editors at Wired.com worried...

A new biography of Barack Obama has established that his grandfather was not, as is related in the President’s own memoir, detained by the British in Kenya and found that claims that he was tortured were a fabrication. 'Barack Obama: The Story' by David Maraniss catalogues dozens of instances in which Obama deviated significantly from the truth in his book 'Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance'. The 641-page book punctures the carefully-crafted narrative of Obama’s life. One of the enduring myths of Obama’s ancestry is that his paternal grandfather Hussein Onyango Obama, who served as a...

A friend forwarded me a copy of a recent cover story in the San Diego Reader, the city’s alternative newspaper, profiling several members of a purported Christian card counting ring. The tale of Will and Shirley, who held Bible classes in their home for newly married members of their San Diego church, according to the story, and Nate and Faith, who were recruited by Will and Shirley, smells to me like fiction. It brings to mind the fabricated writings of Stephen Glass, former staffer for The New Republic. Among his more infamous articles was a completely made up tale, titled...

By the year 1000, the simple gospel had accumulated extensive ecclesiastical baggage. No longer was there only one mediator between God and man. The spiritually penitent had to seek the intervention of a priest — whether the priest was moral or not — by means of the confessional. And the priest, as the “representative of Christ,” assumed the right to “absolve” the sins of the sinner or — as an alternative — require acts of penance, often in the form of monetary gifts to the Church. Additionally, the priest might also require the spiritually penitent to seek the mediation of...

ABC News fabricates a report to make Joe Miller look like a loser. Yesterday, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl alleged in a now-discredited report that Alaska Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller had lost the confidence of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and was thought to be a loser by the NRSC. However, the only big problem with that report of yellow journalism was that none of it was true at all. Clearly, ABC News just fabricated the report to misrepresent that Miller was going to lose, that Lisa Murkowski had the upper hand, and that the trailing Democrat in the race,...

Jayson Blair knows his new profession — life coach — smacks some people in the face like a bad punchline. "People say, 'Wait a minute. You're a life coach?' That makes no sense,'" says Blair, the ex-journalist best known for foisting plagiarism and fabrications into the pages of The New York Times. "Then they think about my life experiences and what I've been through and they say 'Wait a minute. It does make sense.'" Blair, 33, resigned from the Times in 2003, leaving a journalistic scandal in his wake. The resulting furor led the paper's top two newsroom executives to...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Two white supremacists accused of plotting to assassinate Barack Obama are on lockdown in their Tennessee jail cell. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Sunday that 20-year-old Daniel Cowart of Tennessee and 18-year-old Paul Schlesselman of Arkansas are under the lockdown for their protection. Obion County Sheriff Jerry Vastbinder says they were separated from other inmates at the request of federal authorities.

A source close to the Obama campaign tells The Brody File that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama approached Trinity United Church Pastor Otis Moss III a couple months ago to discuss whether Obama should remain with the church. This person tells me that Senator Obama asked pastor Moss how the controversy was affecting the church and the discussion focused in on what would be best for the church and best for Obama. The initial conversation took place after the Jeremiah Wright sermons became widespread public knowledge but before Jeremiah Wright's speech to the National Press Club. Reverend Moss knew about...

Eminent historian debunks Scottish history as largely fabricationA book by the late Hugh Trevor-Roperand due to be published five years after his death argues that Scottish history is based on myths and falsehoods Stuart MacDonald SCOTLAND’S history is weaved from a “fraudulent” fabric of “myths and falsehoods”, according to an explosive new study by one of the world’s most eminent historians. The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History, is the last book, and one of the most controversial, written by the late Hugh Trevor-Roper. Now, five years after his death, the book is to be published at one of the...

University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill was fired by the Board of Regents in July. But that didn't stop Churchill from still teaching at CU this week. According to the Boulder Daily Camera, a group of student supporters rented out a classroom at CU's Eaton Humanities Building and invited Churchill to teach. The topic? "ReVisioning American History: Colonization, Genocide and Formation of the U.S. Settler State." And it appears this isn't a one-time-only event.

Fired University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill will return to the Boulder campus next week to begin teaching an unsanctioned course that's being organized by his student supporters. University officials have distanced themselves from the planned lecture series — slated to begin Tuesday night — and say that Churchill remains terminated. The students organizing Churchill's teachings say the series is intended for those who "missed out" on his years as an American Indian studies professor and as head of the ethnic studies department at CU. Churchill's supporters can hold the classes on campus because the university allows student groups to...

[from "Weathermen" terrorist Bill Ayers]: Ward Churchill is under a sustained, orchestrated, and determined attack because of his political beliefs and statements and activities, and nothing more. No one doubts his productivity or his accomplishments. But the attack on Churchill is neither isolated nor innocent— the high school history teacher on the west side of Chicago gets the message, and so does the English literature teacher in Detroit and the math teacher in an Oakland middle school: be careful what you say; stay close to the official story; stick to the authorized text. If someone of Ward Churchill’s stature and...

University of Colorado-Boulder Chancellor G.P. “Bud” Peterson ... the university is also in the process of overhauling its faculty termination procedures following the controversial firing of CU ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill. Churchill was fired for scholarly misconduct, but is still being paid pending a full review of his actions. A faculty committee reviewing Churchill’s conduct is expected to make a recommendation to Brown in about two weeks, Peterson said. Then, Brown will make a recommendation to the school’s Board of Regents. “I don’t think he’ll have to deliberate a terribly long time” over what he’ll recommend to the board,...

A journalist working for Arabic TV news channel al-Jazeera has been arrested in Egypt for allegedly fabricating videos of police torturing suspects. Huweida Taha Metwalli was stopped on her way to Qatar and 50 video tapes were found in her luggage, the Egyptian interior ministry said. She is reportedly charged with "tarnishing Egypt's reputation and harming Egyptian national interests". Al-Jazeera said the tapes showed a "documentary reconstruction" by actors.

A longtime aide to Jimmy Carter has resigned from the Carter Center think tank, calling the former president's new book on Israel and the Arabs one-sided and filled with errors. Kenneth Stein, the Carter Center's first executive director and founder of its Middle East program, sent a letter that bluntly criticized the book to Carter and others. Stein wrote that the book, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid," was replete with factual errors, material copied from other sources and "simply invented segments," according to an excerpt of the letter published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Deanna Congileo, Carter's spokeswoman, said the former president...

U.S. citizens went to the polls on Tuesday to elect 435 representatives, 33 senators, and 36 governors, and the votes are nearly all counted now. Democrats took control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994. The results from California and Washington indicate that the Democrats have actually polled more votes, despite the fact that the Republicans had done well in those states in recent years. In fact, the Iraq war was the decisive factor in the United States’ midterm congressional elections, which some Arab political analysts have called the “Iraqi congressional elections”. During the electoral campaigns,...

Professor's fate may not be decided until well into next year. The University of Colorado's efforts to fire Ward Churchill are on hold because of a dispute over whether the university has to come up with $20,000 in state funds for the professor's defense. Churchill's attorney, David Lane, said a lawsuit to get the money could be filed by next week. Meantime, there's been no progress on Churchill's appeal since August, and it could be well into 2007 before a final decision on his fate is made. CU spokeswoman Michele McKinney said the delay is outside of the administration's control....