President Barack Obama on Tuesday called Fox News Network "ultimately destructive for the long-term growth" of the United States, reopening a long-running feud with the conservative cable network that has led the U.S. conservative media's opposition to his administration.
Photograph by: Win McNamee, Reuters
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Tuesday called Fox News Channel "ultimately destructive for the long-term growth" of the United States, reopening a long-running feud with the conservative cable network that has led the U.S. conservative media's opposition to his administration.
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Obama accused Australian-born Rupert Murdoch, Fox's chairman and chief executive, of being more concerned about profits than the well-being of the United States.
He also compared Murdoch to William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper baron whose sensational publications produced the term 'yellow' journalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Obama was asked in the Rolling Stone interview whether Fox was a good institution for America and democracy.
"Look, as president, I swore to uphold the Constitution, and part of that Constitution is a free press. We've got a tradition in this country of a press that oftentimes is opinionated. The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints," Obama said.
" I think Fox is part of that tradition — it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It's a point of view that I disagree with. It's a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world. But as an economic enterprise, it's been wildly successful. And I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his No. 1 concern is, it's that Fox is very successful."
BOULDER—The biblical account of the parting of the Red Sea has inspired and mystified people for millennia. A new computer modeling study by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) shows how the movement of wind as described in the book of Exodus could have parted the waters.
The computer simulations show that a strong east wind, blowing overnight, could have pushed water back at a bend where an ancient river is believed to have merged with a coastal lagoon along the Mediterranean Sea. With the water pushed back into both waterways, a land bridge would have opened at the bend, enabling people to walk across exposed mud flats to safety. As soon as the wind died down, the waters would have rushed back in.
The study is intended to present a possible scenario of events that are said to have taken place more than 3,000 years ago, although experts are uncertain whether they actually occurred. The research was based on a reconstruction of the likely locations and depths of Nile delta waterways, which have shifted considerably over time.
“The simulations match fairly closely with the account in Exodus,” says Carl Drews of NCAR, the lead author. “The parting of the waters can be understood through fluid dynamics. The wind moves the water in a way that’s in accordance with physical laws, creating a safe passage with water on two sides and then abruptly allowing the water to rush back in.”
