This time of year is ideal for reflecting on the miracle of Christmas 1914, that famous temporary truce and friendship between opposing sides in the midst of a war. Here was a new type of slaughter confronted with a new type of humanism, the leading edges of two opposing trends.

An op-ed in the New York Times last week by Steven Pinker and Joshua Goldstein argues that peace, rather than war, was the dominant development, and that over the millennia, centuries, decades, and right up to this moment, "War Really Is Going Out of Style."

Of course, war can potentially be eliminated, and that is already a very valuable point to be making. War isn't in our genes. We aren't doomed to always have it with us. Even more valuable would be a successful argument that all types of violence have been decreasing, including war. That is the argument Pinker attempts, with — I think — great but less complete success than he imagines, in his new book "The Better Angels of Our Nature."

It's that time of year again--when FAIR goes through the year's archives to collect a sampling of the worst moments of corporate media spin and malfeasance.

The competition was, as always, fierce. And in special recognition of the media's befuddled approach to the Occupy Wall Street movement, next week will see the release of a second round of OWS-related P.U.-litzers.

--Wacky Conspiracy Award: CBS's Steve Kroft

Kroft (60 Minutes, 1/30/11) explained the apparently demented worldview of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange:

Julian Assange is not your average journalist or publisher, and some have argued that he is not really a journalist at all. He is an anti-establishment ideologue with conspiratorial views. He believes large government institutions use secrecy to suppress the truth and he distrusts the mainstream media for playing along.

--Paul's Not Newt Award: Washington Post's Sarah Kaufman

Kaufman (12/15/11) puzzled over the lack of interest in Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul:

As you know if you've been awake the past several years, Bush began the unconstitutional practice of rewriting laws with signing statements, there was a little scandal when people found out, candidate Obama promised not to do it, Obama did it, Obama declared it OK in an executive order, and now it's all perfectly fine.

As you know if you give a damn about the future of this country, it isn't really perfectly fine. Here's Obama's latest. This is from a signing statement on a spending bill, not the "Defense" Authorization Act which is yet to come (perhaps on Christmas just to rub it in):

When I was asked to speak at Saturday’s rally at Fort Meade in support of Pvt. Bradley Manning, I wondered how I might provide some context around what Manning is alleged to have done.

(In my talk, so as not to think I had to insert the word “alleged” into every sentence, I asked for unanimous consent to using the indicative rather than the subjective.

What jumped into my mind was the letter Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from the Birmingham City jail in April 1963, from which I remembered this:

“Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up, but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”

I suggested that this is precisely what Bradley Manning did when he saw the need to uncover war crimes like the indiscriminate murder of civilians and torture he witnessed in Baghdad and read about in cables.