A member of Democratic Underground sent Helen Thomas flowers, honoring her for "asking the President the questions all Americans want answered about Iraq!"

Thank you Ms. Thomas for bringing up the Project for a New American Century in the corporate media and for asking the President the questions all Americans want answered about Iraq! Thank you for always siding on the side of truth and asking for others to do the same! We've got your back! Thank you, Ms. Thomas.

Helen Thomas responded in a message posted on Democratic Underground.

A MESSAGE FROM HELEN!!!
Posted by helderheid
Added to homepage Fri Mar 31st 2006, 11:06 AM ET

A very tired and very cranky Al Franken appeared on the March 31 edition of the Today show. The segment, which aired at 7:12AM EST, saw Franken respond to a barb from fellow radio talk show host Michael Smerconish with this witty barb: "Screw you." Also, host Matt Lauer couldn’t find time to ask Franken about Air America’s dismal ratings or the "involuntary loan" that the radio network took from a children’s charity. He did, however, manage to note a happy event for the struggling state of liberal talk:

Lauer: "Al Franken is host of the Al Franken show on Air America radio, celebrating a second anniversary today, so congratulations."

A small-time member of Canada's parliament made headlines today by sending out and later retracting a column which called for jail time for reporters who "fabricate stories, or twist information and even falsely accuse citizens."

Colin Mayes, a Conservative from British Columbia, issued his remarks in a column sent out to newspapers in his district.

The Globe and Mail has a recap. Full text of the column is after the jump.

In a statement issued Friday, Mr. Mayes said he is retracting the comments "without reservation."

Mr. Mayes adds that he fully respects the freedom of the press and regrets making the earlier comments.

The column was e-mailed Thursday to nine small Okanagan papers, as well as the Vernon Daily Courier, by Wayne McGrath, Mr. Mayes's executive assistant.

"Maybe it is time that we hauled off in handcuffs reporters that fabricate stories, or twist information and even falsely accuse citizens," he writes.

The Courier recently decided not to publish the MP's regular columns.

On Wednesday, David Wylie, the paper's managing editor, published an editorial saying [Canada's new Conservative prime miniser J Harper's media policies were "mimicking the ploys of an authoritarian state ..."

In my latest article up at FreeMarketProject.org, I take a look at some movie reviews which praise Ice Age 2: The Meltdown for raising the concept of global warming to kids. You can find it here.

My colleague Geoff Dickens recorded Gene Shalit's similar take on NBC's Today show.

Doing some research for the story, I also found some far-left Canadian review which thought that the new cartoon feature was too conservative. For your amusement:

What could have been an interesting opportunity to educate kiddies about the sorry state of our planet and the dire need for all of us to preserve it is instead, incredibly, a fatalistic reaffirmation that, somehow, God will prevail.

On the March 27th edition of his Fox News syndicated program Geraldo At Large, Geraldo Rivera let loose on the Minutemen and other opponents of illegal immigration. During the final commentary portion of the show Rivera's slam included some violent imagery:

"And you can’t blame the illegals for worrying about what’s next. Will some politicians seeking the Minuteman vote order cops to shoot them wading across the Rio Grande River and for what? Wanting a job in a meat packing plant or an apple orchard?Do you know why those demonstrations over the weekend were so much larger than anyone including the organizers thought they’d be? It’s because many religious leaders feared that the various bills being considered today in Washington would make it a felony to feed, shelter or provide health care to illegals. They have an image of the migra busting at the churches and arresting the parish priest for running the free breakfast program. "

Investor's Business Daily reprints (this is at least the second time) British Prime Minister Tony Blair's March 21 speech at the Foreign Policy Center in London. See the whole thing at Real Clear Politics. This part about the media's characterization of insurgent attacks as coalition setbacks and not contemptible violence against innocents jumped out at me:

They have so much clearer a sense of what is at stake. They play our own media with a shrewdness that would be the envy of many a political party. Every act of carnage adds to the death toll. But somehow it serves to indicate our responsibility for disorder, rather than the act of wickedness that causes it. For us, so much of our opinion believes that what was done in Iraq in 2003 was so wrong, that it is reluctant to accept what is plainly right now.

Immigration Reform

Being a grape grower in California, I am deeply concerned that if a good reliable guest worker program is not implemented as part of the Immigration Reform ACT, we will be unable to get our fruit to market.

Lets be real frank here. The Mexican farm laborer works 10 hour days at minimum wage working six days a week. We contract their services through a licensed labor contractor who typically adds a 40% premium to that to cover Workers Comp, Insurance etc. They share housing and transportation to save money. They work about 8 months out of the year and then return home to Mexico.

MY INAUGUAL ADDRESS AT THE GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD                                                                                                    

                                                    

                                                          Alvin Miller

                                      
                                                     September, 2005

                http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman/
                                    

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is using the recent spate of immigration protests to remind their media bosses that it's very insensitive -- and inaccurate? -- to describe undocumented immigrants as "illegal aliens."

As protestors march in the streets and debate intensifies in Congress over how to fix the nation’s immigration laws, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists calls on our nation’s news media to use accurate terminology in its coverage of immigration and to stop dehumanizing undocumented immigrants.

NAHJ is concerned with the increasing use of pejorative terms to describe the estimated 11 million undocumented people living in the United States. NAHJ is particularly troubled with the growing trend of the news media to use the word "illegals" as a noun, shorthand for "illegal aliens". Using the word in this way is grammatically incorrect and crosses the line by criminalizing the person, not the action they are purported to have committed. NAHJ calls on the media to never use "illegals" in headlines.

Brian Maloney at the Radio Equalizer blog analyzes Air America Radio on their second anniversary:

--- Ratings are in the toilet (another update soon on the way).

--- Just to stay afloat, it requires constant cash infusions from Rob Glaser and George Soros.

--- To sustain a bloated management and staff structure, company spending remains outrageous, with lavish salaries, perks and other benefits. Franken and some of its other hosts are compensated at rates up to ten times industry norms.

--- Does the firm ever intend to make money, or is it merely a political operation?

--- From skits advocating violence against President Bush, to the Gloria Wise taxpayer funds transfer scandal, Air America has had a nearly endless knack for generating bad publicity.

In case you're wondering, the postings today are a little light as the MRC staff recover from hangovers from last night's party.

The annual DisHonors Awards were held yesterday, an event "roasting the most outrageously biased liberal reporters of 2005."

900 people were in attendance, with such luminaries as Cal Thomas, Larry Kudlow, Mark Levin, Tony Blankley and Linda Chavez.

The Quote of the Year went to Ted Turner, founder of CNN, for his less-than-insightful analysis of North Korea.

Ted Turner: "I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere. There’s really no reason for them to cheat [on nukes]....I looked them right in the eyes. And they looked like they meant the truth. I mean, you know, just because somebody’s done something wrong in the past doesn’t mean they can’t do right in the future or the present. That happens all the, all the time."
Wolf Blitzer: "But this is one of the most despotic regimes and Kim Jong-Il is one of the worst men on Earth. Isn’t that a fair assessment?"
Turner: "Well, I didn’t get to meet him, but he didn’t look — in the pictures that I’ve seen of him on CNN, he didn’t look too much different than most other people I’ve met."
Blitzer: "But, look at the way, look at the way he’s, look at the way he’s treating his own people."
Turner: "Well, hey, listen. I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars, but–"
Blitzer: "A lot of those people are starving."
Turner: "I didn’t see any, I didn’t see any brutality...."
— Exchange on CNN’s The Situation Room, September 19.

Find out who won the other awards.

Slate founding editor Michael Kinsley writes:

CNN says it is just thrilled by the transformation of Lou Dobbs—formerly a mild-mannered news anchor noted for his palsy-walsy interviews with corporate CEOs—into a raving populist xenophobe. Ratings are up. It's like watching one of those "makeover" shows that turn nerds into fops or bathrooms into ballrooms. According to the New York Times, this demonstrates "that what works in cable television news is not an objective analysis of the day's events," but "a specific point of view on a sizzling-hot topic."

But Kinsley says being objective is not a real goal.

Objectivity—the faith professed by American journalism and by its critics—is less an ideal than a conceit. It's not that all journalists are secretly biased, or even that perfect objectivity is an admirable but unachievable goal. In fact, most reporters work hard to be objective and the best come very close. The trouble is that objectivity is a muddled concept. Many of the world's most highly opinionated people believe with a passion that it is wrong for reporters to have any opinions at all about what they cover. These critics are people who could shed their own skins more easily than they could shed their opinions. But they expect it of journalists. It can't be done. Journalists who claim to have developed no opinions about what they cover are either lying or deeply incurious and unreflective about the world around them. In either case, they might be happier in another line of work.

Obadiah Shoher's Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict

Shoher basically says that morality is inapplicable to one's enemies, that terrorists are courageous enemy fighters, and should be treated as such - killed.

Google took it for "unacceptable content" and "advocating against a group." Sure it does.

Free review copies are available for download at www.SamsonBlinded.org

]

Click here for instructions on running Gaggle daily on your own site. There's also an archive of previous toons available here.

Here's what I believe to be true regarding some of the most important issues facing America today, and what most politicians apparently don't.

IMMIGRATION LAW ENFORCEMENT

I'm going to be as blunt as I can be with respect to the illegal alien problem in this country, while refraining from using the profane terms that routinely leap to my mind every time I think about our government's unrelenting failure to address this issue in any responsible way. To get right to the point, any person in this country who doesn't support (A) doing whatever is necessary to stop illegals from entering this country, (B) severely punishing individuals and businesses that knowingly hire illegals, and (C) immediately deporting anyone who is found to be in this country illegally, is either an illegal alien himself, an opportunistic politician, or an idiot.

On Comedy Central's South Park cartoon Wednesday, the world's environment is threatened by the impossible smugness of those driving hybrid cars. (The smug clouds are biggest over San Francisco, naturally.) The danger passes only when the people of South Park mash their hybrid cars into little aluminum cubes. And, just for fun, the animators named their hybrid the "Pious," a knock on Toyota's "Prius."

Funny enough, but the very next morning on NBC's Today, reporter Tom Costello was lauding the wonders of efficient, low emission hybrid cars (as opposed to those awful SUVs) when he showcased a smug driver who sounded like a South Park gag. MRC's Geoff Dickens caught this part of NBC's report:

Tom Costello: "Betsy Rosenberg didn't always drive a hybrid car but after getting fed up with 15 mpg in her SUVs she traded them both in for a Toyota Prius and 50 mpg."

Betsy Rosenberg: "I decided this was something that I would do to protect my kid, my country, my planet and be patriotic. I think that's the patriotic thing to do is to use less gas and not more."

Because of my job, I often visit the MediaTakeOut.com website.  It's a gossip site, and generally, I wouldn't pay their shenanigans any mind.  But today is different.  They took the initial story about McKinney's scuffle with Capitol Police and appropriately slugged it with a generic remark about a possible arrest.  That's much different than what's on the site now.  While the previous incarnation of the site referred to itself as having "all the latest gossip,"  just 24-hours later, the new version of the site has dubbed itself as featuring "All The Latest African-American News" -- and the McKinney story has gotten a makeover of its own.  The new headline?  "Officer Attacks Black Congresswoman."

Let's not forget that this is the fifth run-in McKinney has had with Capitol Police.   And when they tried to solve the problem by posting a picture of her at the security station so she would be recognized, she wasn't happy then either. Let's also not ignore the fact that neither the officer involved nor the Congresswoman are pressing charges.  This was a simple misunderstanding -- she wasn't wearing the lapel pin that would have allowed her to pass without having to go through the metal detector.  The officer involved called for her to stop a number of times, she ignored him and he took her arm to stop her.  She says she didn't hear him. Would she and those choosing to make this a racial incident have preferred that she was tackled? 

When Hillary Clinton charged that the House Republican immigration bill would "criminalize...Jesus himself," there was national-media notice – if not criticism. Even Hillary’s "hometown" newspaper The New York Times reported on March 23 that Senator Clinton intensified her criticism of Republican immigration proposals, albeit on page B-5. But no one in the story criticized Hillary for her harsh attack. Instead, reporter Nina Bernstein noted only critics to Hillary’s left: "Mrs. Clinton had been criticized by some immigrant activists for saying little about the issue until March 8, and then speaking at an Irish-only rally, rather than at a forum more representative of immigrants. But yesterday all seemed forgiven." Bernstein’s story, headlined, "Mrs. Clinton Says GOP Immigration Plan Is At Odds With The Bible," began:

Kidnapped journalist Jill Carroll is now safe, thank God for that. But the mainstream media is playing this story completely different than they would if it were a non-journalist.

Remember when the New York Times violated our safety by printing classified information, all because it is the right of the people to know everything? Remember how every MSM talking head and editorial criticized the White House for being secretive? Do you recall the MSM ranting that nothing is so important that it should be kept from the public?

Read this quote from Editor and Publisher: "

But new speculation arose today that money might have been the initial demand... Cook would not comment, and other reporters in Baghdad said only that such speculation had been growing. "There are indications that [the demand] was for money, but we don't know if any changed hands," said Steve Butler, Knight Ridder foreign editor who had been in touch with his reporters in Baghdad today. He said learning too much about what occurred behind the scenes could be harmful. "These things are sometimes better left unresolved," he added. "It could harm the next one or close off options in the future if too much is known."

So in this case MSM thinks it is best that the public not know anything about the actions behind this story, because they might be able to do the same thing again in the future, whatever it is that this was. Perfect. By the way, that doesn't count for US secrets that might save the lives of US soldiers or average citizens.

It reminds me that here we are two months after Bob Woodruff was blown up while the cameras were rolling, and we still haven't seen the footage. I've seen lots of US soldiers being blown up, I've seen other victims barely clothed, barely alive, tubes out of their arms and faces in the most visually vulnerable way, but no Bob Woodruff. I bet there hasn't been hundreds of TV remote trucks parked on the front lawn of Woodruff's house either, waiting for the family to take the garbage out and give a soundbite.

It must be nice to be a journalist with all the special rights afforded to them that the rest of us somehow don't deserve.

The LA Times reports the "folks at third-place MSNBC have something to smile about."

For the first time in almost five years, the third-place cable news channel had a prime-time victory to crow about, albeit a small one: "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" beat CNN's "Paula Zahn Now" in the key 25- to 54-year-old advertising demographic in the first quarter of 2006, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The MSNBC show drew an average of 164,000 viewers in that demographic to CNN's 156,000, as Olbermann, who has been engaged in a colorful feud with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, enjoyed an increase of 25% in total viewers compared with this point last year.

In a conversation about gas mileage, Charles Gibson showed he does have some understanding of how when a pie gets bigger, predictions done with static scoring, instead of dynamic scoring, are wildly inaccurate. Unfortunately, he doesn’t apply the same common sense to the affect of tax cuts on the federal deficit.

On this morning’s "Good Morning America" Gibson quizzed GMA financial contributor Mellody Hobson about the new fuel efficiency standards, "Mellody, when you do the math, first of all, we've had increases in mileage requirements in the past and I don't know that it's done anything to break our addiction to foreign oil. And secondly, if you run the math, they're increasing the requirements by 2.4 miles per gallon for SUVs and light pickup trucks over five years. That's an 11 percent improvement over five years. That's not much, is it?"

Drudge links to an AP story about two national book chains who are apparently afraid of having their coffee bars blown up.

Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries.

"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday.