According to a newspaper story this past weekend, the Los Angeles Times, which the Tribune Company has owned since 2000, is not for sale. One must assume the report is accurate, given that it appeared in the Times itself, under the byline of two of the paper's staff writers.

The story also indicates, however, that Tribune's position on unloading the Times may have changed from "no" to "not yet." Moreover, it states that three longtime Democratic moneybags -- David Geffen, Ron Burkle, and Eli Broad, each of whom lives in the L.A. area -- have asked Tribune if it might sell the Times. (Forbes magazine estimates the combined wealth of the three at $12.6 billion.)

On last night's Hardball, leftist and Pacifica radio talk show host Amy Goodman patted Chris Matthews on his back for his long held anti-war stance. Prior to a big anniversary celebration at Rockfeller Center, Goodman started to congratulate Matthews on MSNBC's 10th year in business but then took the moment to slam its executives for firing Phil Donahue for his anti-war stance. Goodman roared: "they didn't want him to be the face of this network, an anti-war face at a time when the other networks were waving the flag." However when Matthews reminded Goodman that: "if being against the war was a problem here, I'd have been out of here about four years ago, " the Democracy Now host quickly realized her error and made good by congratulating Matthews.

On yesterday's "Evening News," CBS reporter Bob Orr's story on a global warming link to the heat wave was cut short due to an overheated satellite truck.

“Just to underline how hot it is, the remote truck that Bob Orr was broadcasting from just overheated and we had to shut it down,” anchor Bob Schieffer explained as the story ended abruptly.

Were I a conspiracy theorist I'd think it was just a gimmick to highlight CBS's slanted coverage of global warming as settled science. While Orr possibly could have included a dissenting view somewhere later in his half-aired report, I somehow doubt it.

Before his report cut off, Orr cited Pew Center climatologist Jay Gulledge, who he said argues there "no longer any serious debate" on global warming.Gulledge also argues that it was pollution that staved off global warming in the 1970s.

As the totalitarian communist dictator of Cuba for 47 years, Fidel Castro repressed those who worked for democracy, human rights and a free press. Yet through the decades, many in the American media have maintained their romanticized mythology of Castro as a progressive revolutionary icon, provider of “free” health care, a Latin American David vs. the Goliath of the United States.

In contrast to their coverage of right-wing dictators, like Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, journalists do not often mention those killed, imprisoned or exiled by Castro’s ruthless “revolution,” but treat him as a celebrity head of state. Just a few years ago, ABC’s Barbara Walters trekked to Havana to produce yet another soft feature on the dictator.

“For Castro, freedom starts with education,” Walters oozed on the October 11, 2002 "20/20." “And if literacy alone is any yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth.”

Now that Fidel’s reign may have ended, it was interesting to see that the New York Times Web site included a sidebar "From the Archives," with links to PDF versions of their own coverage of Castro’s rise to power in the late 1950s. I didn’t read them all, but one that I clicked on showed an incredible pro-Castro bias, with the Times justifying Castro’s executions of political opponents, touting his genius and insisting that his new government wasn’t communist but “conservative.”

Ms. Magazine is inviting girls and women who’ve had abortions to submit their names for publication, to sign a pro-abortion petition to the president that the magazine will deliver and – of course – to donate money to the publisher’s pro-abortion advocacy campaign.  If that’s not media bias, what is?

The magazine’s promotion celebrates 33 years of abortions since Ms. Magazine first printed a petition in which “53 well-known U.S. women declared that they had undergone abortions—despite state laws rendering the procedure illegal.” 

Israel Insider says the Qana incident shows all the classic signs of a staged Israeli "massacre." There is even a term for such fiction, "Pallywood," as NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard reported today.

In the Qana incident, the media reports that a building collapsed and the Israeli Air Force is to blame for dozens of civilian deaths. Israel Insider, a daily Israeli newsmagazine, says they've seen this all before.

The setting was also perfect: Kana was again being used as a primary site for launching rockets against Israeli cities. The IDF reported that more than 150 rockets had been launched from Qana and its vicinity at Israeli civilians, wreaking destruction in Kiryat Shmona, Maalot, Nahariya and Haifa. It was only a matter of time before the Israeli Air Force would come for a visit, using pinpoint targeting of the sites used to launch rockets, Hezbollah logistical centers and weapon storage facilities.

On the morning of July 30, according to the IDF, the air force came in three waves. In the first, between midnight and one in the morning, there was a strike at or near the building that eventually collapsed.

In 1938, the leaders of Europe got together in Munich to, for all intents and purposes, give Czechoslovakia to Germany in exchange for peace in the region. Given the recent events in the Middle East, it quite appears that Israel – though well-intentioned – has performed the same act of appeasement with its enemies, and sadly with the same results.

Take for example the following revelation from an Associated Press article published on July 23:

Syria said it will press for a cease-fire to end the fighting but only in the framework of a broader Middle East peace initiative that would include the return of the Golan Heights.

On Tuesday’s "The Early Show" on CBS, substitute co-host and regular weatherman Dave Price alluded to global warming as the cause of the heat wave that has moved into the Northeast and Mid Atlantic regions:

Dave Price: "Temperatures are hotter and they're longer-lasting and farther reaching. Experts are saying it's historic and global warming may be to blame."

Price cited Jay Gulledge of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change as someone who believes Global warming is to blame:

"According to Gulledge, global warming is the most likely culprit but he says whatever's causing it, the prognosis isn't good."

Middle East-based reporter Neil MacFarquhar appeared on the Charlie Rose show Monday night and made anti-Bush comments regarding Israel’s war against the terrorist group Hezbollah. (All quotes courtesy of Nexis).

When Rose asks MacFarquhar if the Israel-Hezbollah war had increased hatred of the United States among Arabs, MacFarquhar became disconsolate, regretting the U.S. was expediting its supplying of weaponry to Israel and longing for the innocent milkmen of the Kennedy years:

We're #156! Cuba, that is, in this CIA ranking of per capita income of the world's countries. Cuba trails such economic powerhouses as Guyana, Micronesia and, of course, Niue. But, hey, it's a full $200 ahead of basket-case Angola!

But economic beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. To the Associated Press, the Cuban economy, with a litle help from designated Fidel-successor Raul, is 'successful.' Here's an excerpt from an AP article of today [hat tip to Drudge]:

"Raul has been deeply involved . . . with the military's successful peacetime efforts to help rescue Cuba's economy following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991."

Matt Drudge linked to a CBS News story that warned of the Big One. It hasn't happened since 1938, but that doesn't mean that this isn't the very year for a hurricane that would "cripple the U.S. economy" and cause "$200 billion in damages and lost business." This type of hurricane, of course, is three times more likely to occur during Republican administrations.

The story is about the potential of a hurricane hitting New York City. Just how bad would the hurricane be?

Economic losses would be twice that of the 9-11 attacks, and three times larger than Hurricane Katrina. When it comes to a northeast hurricane, experts say forget what you know. They're much bigger than their southern cousins.

So apparently, this storm will be worse than anything that's ever hit Florida.

In light of recent revelations of possible media manipulation in Qana, Lebanon, as reported by NewsBusters Monday, a 2005 video has been circulating throughout the Internet (hat tip to Ms. Underestimated with extraordinary video link to follow). In reality, this is an almost unbelievable look at how film footage from Israel that made national news after the Second Intifada began in September 2000 (including CBS’s “60 Minutes”) appears to have been staged, choreographed, and produced rather than real events that transpired in front of video cameras. 

The film's producer, Dr. Richard Landes, teaches history at Boston University, and is the co-founder and Director of the Center for Millennial Studies. He also is the proprietor of The Second Draft, a website “devoted to exploring some of the problems and issues that plague modern journalism”:

In the news: Castro gives power to brother, Raul during period of poor health. Mel Gibson ABC series about Holocaust jeopardized by anti-Jewish comments. Myspace no longer top American internet site (Alexa ratings). Kos payola blogger Jerome Armstrong, defends himself. Conservative bloggers create fund-raising group called "Rightroots" to give money to preferred GOP candidates.

On the 4pm hour of Monday's The Situation Room, anchor Wolf Blitzer highlighted several political news stories, including Republican candidate for president, Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA)'s use of the term "tar baby". To some, the term is a racial epithet, however the true meaning of the word is a "sticky situation," hence the term 'tar'.

CNN's Jack Cafferty joined the program Blitzer was finished reading the headlines with his 'Cafferty File' segment. Cafferty, who is known for his unscripted remarks, opined on the 'tar baby' situation and applied Romney meant the comment in a racist sense. However, Cafferty did not make the audience aware of his racist past (video link to follow):

High on the list of annoying media tics is their tendency to call murderous totalitarian dictators "presidents." That ought to be an honorific reserved for elected leaders. But here's the AP dispatch that ran in Tuesday's Washington Post:

Fidel Castro temporarily relinquished his presidential powers to his brother Raul on Monday night and told Cubans he underwent surgery...

Castro said he was temporarily relinquishing the presidency to his younger brother and successor Raul, the defense minister, but said the move was of "a provisional character."

Not only is this inaccurate, but if one can imagine someone who does not know who Fidel Castro is (I once had a brother-in-law who thought he ruled Jamaica), they might actually think he's a democratic leader from the tone of AP's report.

In Miami, Cuban-Americans were literally dancing in the street at the prospect that the repressive regime of Fidel Castro might finally be drawing to an end. But back in Cuba, people greeted the news of the great liberator's illness with dismay. At least, they did according to CBS News' woman-on-the-spot.

On this morning's Early Show, CBS ran a brief clip of a phone interview with Portia Siegelbaum, a CBS News producer based in Cuba. Here is the entirety of her report:

"The news of Castro's illness was most unexpected. I spoke to half-a-dozen people last night and they seemed most shook up by his handing over power, even if provisionally, to his younger brother Raul."

Tim Russert used his Today show appearance this morning to paint a bleak tour d'horizon of Bush foreign policy, expressing the fond wish - in guise of a question - that the American people might come to their senses and throw the bums out at the mid-term elections.

Interviewed by co-host Campbell Brown, Russert first asked: "What's the end game? The concern among Republicans I've talked to is how are the American people viewing this? Is this blind allegiance to Israel or is this standing by the only ally we have in the region? They don't know how much longer there will be patience with the American people."

Russert later made the electoral connection, after casting matters in their darkest light. Rather than speaking of nascent democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the current opportunity to defang Hezbollah, Russert portrayed things this way:

When the Allies faced fascist foes in WWII, they called for unconditional surrender. Confronted today by the new face of facism, the Boston Globe calls for 'unconditional, immediate cease-fire.'

By its editorial of this morning, the Globe would reward Hezbollah for its barbarous use of human shields. On the one hand, it acknowledges that the terror group 'has placed its rocket-launchers . . . unconscionably close to settled areas.' But since the result are the very civilian casualties that Hezbollah was looking to provoke, the Globe criticizes the Bush administration for its 'failure to restrain Israel.'