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The New Testament is the story of stories, and it starts off all wrong. Most adventure stories begin with the wondrous “Once upon a time”, but Matthew starts his book with a genealogy. Why in the world would he do that? The greatest story ever told starts like a phone book with a long list of unpronounceable names. This is important, though. What makes this list amazing is that some names belong to people who had sketchy pasts. One of these names is Rahab from the Old Testament book of Joshua whose act of saving Hebrew spies got her inducted...

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace on Monday remembered the late former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his controversial speech before the United Nations in 2003 about weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq War began. "I think the low light of his career was in 2003, when he addressed the United Nations and made the case that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He didn't want to make that speech," Wallace said during Fox's coverage of Powell's death. "He took a lot of pressure from people in the Bush 43 white house including vice president Cheney who was...

The Lancet was founded in England in 1823 and was recently considered to be second only to The New England Journal of Medicine when it comes to the magazine’s impact in the medical field. Whether its reputation will survive its conduct relative to COVID remains questionable. In 2020, it led the charge to insist that it was a conspiracy theory to blame the Wuhan lab for COVID. Now, it’s emerged that The Lancet was complicit with China in suppressing early information showing that COVID could be spread by human-to-human transmission and was already moving beyond Wuhan.In early June, Vanity Fair,...

RUSH: Tom in Winona, Missouri. Tom, it’s great that you’re here. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: Thanks, sir. Good afternoon. I wanted to say that I think that states with Republican-controlled legislatures should inform the president of the Senate that they’re withholding their certification of election results pending further development of the situation, because they have no intention of participating in a proceeding that’s going to ratify a fraud, and that if this election is gonna be a Third World farce, then it ought to be a complete one with 100% vote for the winner. RUSH: You know,...

he George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum opened seven years ago and anchors the southeastern corner of campus at Southern Methodist University, where I teach history. In late November 2016, I took a tour of the facility with five college friends who were visiting from the East Coast. The recent presidential election was much on our minds as we wandered through the building, contemplating various artifacts from Bush’s two terms in office. Although we were hardly fans of his presidency, one of my pals—fearful, like everyone in our group, of a Trump administration—got misty-eyed when reflecting upon Bush’s obvious...

There is a growing feeling of distrust in governments and the media among the general population, according to the Edelman report. It states that there has been a 3 percent increase between 2018 and 2019 in the level of distrust towards the government and the media. Overall, the general feeling of distrust has hit a record high this year from 2017. There is also a clear difference between mass population and the informed public, with the return to the largest-ever trust gap between these two, since 2017. This trust gap is particularly evident in developed countries, including the U.K., Canada,...

How values, opinions and beliefs are controlled in democratic societies. Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. For the purposes of this essay, the central element is defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence and "insensitivity" or non-observance of taboos. It is different in...

Every now and then I’m reminded of just how clever Satan can be, especially during Lent.Consider, for example, a pernicious little sin that seems to have taken root and grown in the age of social media: detraction. I’ve been seeing it more and more. Nobody really talks about it or the harm it inflicts — though the pope has stressed, often, the inherent evil of its close cousin,  gossip. (The pontiff has even compared gossip to terrorism.)So what’s the big deal? Let me count the ways.First, the catechism teaches that detraction is a sin against the eighth commandment: 2477 Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and...

Iraq, Iran, and Russia find themselves in the headlines daily because of their ongoing military conflicts, human-rights violations, and oppressive regimes.Unsurprisingly, a report issued Thursday by the Reputation Institute ranks those countries among the least reputable countries in the world.On the other side are the most admired and reputable countries, of which Canada leads the pack.The Reputation Institute's Country Reptrak report "measures the reputation of 55 (largest by GDP) countries based on levels of trust, esteem, admiration and respect based on an online panel of more than 27,000 people representing the G8 countries."The report looks at 16 attributes for each...

PHILADELPHIA — DINNER with your children in 19th-century America often required some self-control. Berry stains in your daughter’s hair? Good for her. Raccoon bites running up your boy’s arms? Bet he had an interesting day. As this year’s summer vacation begins, many parents contemplate how to rein in their kids. But there was a time when Americans pushed in the opposite direction, preserved in Mark Twain’s cat-swinging scamps. Parents back then encouraged kids to get some wildness out of their system, to express the republic’s revolutionary values. American children of the 19th century had a reputation. Returning British visitors reported...

Safely Integrating Online Reputation Management, Social Media, SEO, PR By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency New York --- May 31, 2012 ... The most powerful marketing tool today is something called online reputation management. Online reputation management is the PR of 2012. It represents controlling both negative and positive content in the most potent and expanding communications media channel - the Internet. As we are wired today from our offices, homes and all between using iPads and Smartphones, we are constantly pushing information out about our personal and commercial lives. Whether it be through social media platforms such as Facebook,...

Reputation is a tricky business. And not just for politicians anymore. This year we're all worried about approval ratings—or should be. Reputation was once a qualitative measure of our behavior, vital but vague. Now it's getting quantitative. Soon there is likely to be an actual numerical reputation score for each of us, like a FICO credit score but for our whole lives.Ready? We've got the precursors now, whether or not we're aware of them. Companies such as PeerIndex, Twitalyzer, Talentag and PostRank (bought by Google) already apply online analytics to establish the heft of an individual's or business's "social capital."...

"Swift justice demands more than just swiftness." When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart penned those words from the bench in 1958, there wasn't much chance he could have envisioned how quick "swift" could be 53 years later. Nor could he have imagined that swiftness — not necessarily in a legal sense, but in one every bit as important: Reputation. The fact is, throughout history, it has always behooved people to rectify misconceptions or misrepresentations of their character or reputation as quickly as the message spreads. The longer a falsehood permeates the public discourse — even if the truth eventually...

Washington - Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said today that if Gadhafi remains in power in Libya, it will damage the prestige of the United States. He compared the possible scenario of Gadhafi staying in power in Tripoli to the U.S. and coalition forces not removing Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, though he refused to take a firm stand on whether U.S. military action in Libya was the correct move for the Obama administration. In an exclusive interview on "This Week" with ABC News' Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper, Rumsfeld said, "the fact is we are

WASHINGTON -- A government investigation into Toyota safety problems has found no electronic flaws to account for reports of sudden, unintentional acceleration.

Sluthood wasn't always considered a virtue. Most normal, rational people look at sleeping around as something sad and wrong. It's not healthy, physically or mentally, it can be damaging to a young girl's reputation, and it can also be incredibly dangerous. Women that sleep around oftentimes end up feeling used and regret their choices when they get older and decide to settle down. Other women end up contracting STDs, which may or may not be treatable. For these reasons and more, being a slut is understandably looked down upon -- it can be genuinely harmful. Today's pseudo-feminists, however, have...

Given Russia's reputation for excessive bureaucracy, it's only right that a company would exist to help businesspeople to set up, find the right translators, and also provide the right legal guidance to navigate the Byzantine direction of Russia's business bureaucracy. Center of Economic Planning consists of a professional team of skilled translators, auditors and IT specialists who will also not just help foreign businesses, but also help native Russians build their businesses.

By Tamara Gibbs DURHAM -- In a filing Tuesday in Federal Court, unindicted Duke Lacrosse players are suing Duke University, the City of Durham, Duke University professors, Mike Nifong and the DNA lab involved in the case. The suit also names doctors and nurses who treated the alleged victim the night she claimed she'd been raped at a party. The players are also suing City Manager Patrick Baker and former Durham Police Chief Stephen Chalmers. As part of the investigation, the unindicted players had to give up DNA samples and were named in the school paper. In the 404-page lawsuit,...

Few parts of the world are as loved and loathed with the intensity that is felt for the American South. Thanks to a long line of contributions to the popular culture from Gone with the Wind to Borat, via Deliverance, Dixie, the great muggy swath of the southeastern United States, from Washington DC to Texas, has a firm grip on the imagination of Americans and foreigners alike. To its detractors it is a terrifying and contemptible land full of racist rednecks, Bible-toting hypocrites and downtrodden blacks. To those of a more romantic disposition, and certainly to most of its inhabitants,...

Beyond food and toys, China struggles with its global reputation From climate change to Darfur, public opinion polls reveal a global unease with the growing superpower. By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Beijing As China prepares to celebrate its emergence as a global power at next year's Olympic Games, a rash of recent American and international opinion polls suggest that the Asian giant faces an uphill battle to convince the world it is worthy of its new status. And it is more than just a question of food or toys. Beijing's task is made harder,...