I've mentioned The Week here before - a weekly magazine that condenses news and opinions from hundreds of newspapers and magazines, not just in the US, but around the world. The editors seem to do a decent job of keeping it reflective of actual coverage - if six of eight columns excerpted on a particular issue tilt one way, it's usually because the overall coverage tilted that way.

The Week also doesn't try to connect the dots for you, which removes most possibility of bias, but also leaves you free to miss subtle connections. For example, in the recent Ten Commandments kerfuffle, the "Controversy of the Week" summary coverage starts with two paragraphs of fact-based analysis, followed by one of conservative spin, one of pro-separation of church and state spin, and one of George Will's fatuous argument that people shouldn't be offended by things that don't offend him. You can actually read this feature online, and I recommend doing so to see what I mean about The Week's tone.

Here's the conservative spin summary:

In other words, said John Podhoretz in the New York Post, public displays of religious symbols are fine if they’re not…religious. What kind of “witless” reasoning is that? Taken together, these two decisions are “nonsense on stilts.” They’re also proof that President Bush needs to fill future Supreme Court vacancies with true conservatives, said The Washington Times in an editorial. The current court, dominated by liberal secularists, has taken yet another step “toward the banishing of religion from the public square.” As Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent, the majority’s insistence that the Ten Commandments be displayed merely as historical documents is an affront to this country’s Judeo-Christian heritage, and “ratchets up this court’s hostility to religion.”

You can read the pro-separation arguments below that online if you want. What I want to point out, in the sense of not connecting the dots, is a paragraph that appears below this, in the eye-rolling "Only in America" feature, intended to highlight our country's lovable weirdness. It is not online, but the proximity to Justice Scalia's quote about "hostility to religion" makes it worth noting:

A South Carolina couple was pulled over after police noticed a bumper sticker identifying them as Druids. Debra Gainey, 47, a minister in the ancient, nature-centric religion, was issued tickets for license and insurance violations. But during the traffic stop, Gainey and her husband say, reserve officer Tony Stewart asked about their "It's a Druid Thing" bumper sticker, invited them to Bible class, and later sent a proselytizing letter to the couple's home. "God is callign you," the letter said. "If youd eny this, then you are pushing away the hand of God, and that would not be wise." Stewart is now under investigation.

The pro-Commandments forces argue that Officer Stewart must be "free" to pull over couples and proselytize them, or else the government is "hostile" to his religion. What would happen if a Druidic officer tried to do the same thing to a couple with Christian bumper sticker? We already have that answer:

U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson asked Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, "Would you acknowledge that Buddhism is a religion?"

Moore replied, "Buddhism was considered a false religion by the forefathers. It is not my definition of religion, no. It was not their definition of religion under the First Amendment of the Constitution."

"I wasn't really asking that," Thompson said. "I was just asking whether religion - within the confines of the First Amendment as you view it historically - [if] the term 'religion' includes Buddhists, the Islamic faith, the Hindus?"

"I don't think so, sir, that Buddhists and other faiths - and I won't speak to all faiths because I'm not a theologian - recognize the Creator, God," Moore replied. "Some might, but if they do, it's not the God of the Holy Scriptures. And that's why the Bible is used for the very foundation upon which we take our oaths."

--Roy Moore, during court testimony over the Ten Commandments monument he installed in the Alabama Judicial Building

They don't want to eliminate "hostility to religion." They want to enshrine hostility to every religion but their own.