Three weeks after ABC's World News aired the first of three stories then and since about significant declines in violence and improving living conditions in Iraq, NBC Nightly News caught up Wednesday night as anchor Brian Williams acknowledged: “We are all hearing more and more these days about a significant drop in violence and deaths in Iraq, even though 2007 some time ago became the bloodiest year of the war, yet for U.S. forces these new stats show a different trend.”

From Iraq, reporter Tom Aspell illustrated how life has improved:

A few months ago, Ali Hamid could not have sold balloons here on Jadriyah Street. He might have been kidnaped or killed. A few blocks away, Azar Habud might have been shot for giving Western-style haircuts in his barbershop. And nearby, Mohammed Hassan's ice cream shop is still busy, even though it was bombed twice in April, killing nine customers. Back then, explosions were a horrifying part of everyday life. Now, the U.S. military says rocket and mortar attacks in Iraq have dropped sharply in the last few months from 1,000 in June to fewer than 400 in October. And so have civilian deaths.

A trip to the United States from Pope Benedict is still nearly six months away (April 2008), but the Los Angeles Times is already in a tizzy. An editorial in Wednesday's Times (11/14/07) advises the Pope to shun "hard-liners" and "conservative Catholics" and listen to "other Catholics." The Times is concerned with the issue of whether or not abortion-friendly politicians who claim they are Catholic should receive Holy Communion. As they so often do, the Times avoided the "liberal" tag for these "other Catholics":

Hollywood's Variety is wounded. They are upset that their buddies across the lines of the Hollyweird writer's strike have written some mean things about them on the Internet and they are just cut to the quick over it all. Aghast, really. So, instead of dealing with this criticism, Variety decided that it's all Rush Limbaugh's fault because he has made "modern politics" so "poisonous." I guess they really are so used to creating their own reality in La La Land that they don't know their creation from God's creation!

As the networks try to ignore the good news coming out of Iraq, conservatives may soon believe it's time to revisit the Left's swaggering notion that they alone were living in Reality and the stay-the-course Iraq-liberation movement was living in Fantasyland. So now with all the bias by omission, which side is in danger of looking like it's sticking its fingers in its ears and singing "la la la"? (Frank Rich, to name just one Reality Riverdancer, is still too busy applying Nazi metaphors to the Bush team to notice any good news.)

On the Swampland blog, Time correspondent Jay Carney responds to the Michael Crowley New Republic piece by noting that while Hillary's people use to admire the Bush team's manhandling of the press, they are now wise enough to avoid "losing touch with reality" by emulating them too closely. 

Captain Renault would be shocked: Hillary Clinton's campaign put pressure on Eliot Spitzer to drop his disastrous licenses-for-illegals plan.

The word came from crack NY Post Albany reporter Fred Dicker [pictured here], appearing on this afternoon's Hardball.

View video here.

As oil flirts with $100 a barrel, guess who is getting gold stars for reporting ... NPR.

National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" stories on $100 a barrel oil this week have featured some underreported views on the industry: The economy is surviving the higher costs, and the oil companies are using the profits for future exploration.

Reporter Jim Zarroli told NPR listeners what was supposed to happen, saying, "Time and again, economists from Alan Greenspan on down have warned that oil prices are inflationary ... Interest rates go up, borrowing becomes more difficult, and growth slows."

But, Zarroli also pointed out the unique trend that gets little coverage: Despite the rise in oil prices since March 2007, the economy has continued to grow at a strong pace.

There's more than one way to survive the rising cost of oil.

After Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) reported higher third-quarter earnings and predictions of a "strong" holiday shopping season, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) surged 320 points after taking a battering over the previous week.

But you had to know that somewhere, someone in the media would be able to find a downside.

TVNewser has an item today about MSNBC's David Shuster blasting Rudy Giuliani and Fox News brass while announcing a lawsuit involving the rival news channel (h/t Ian Schwartz):

This is how MSNBC's David Shuster, who once worked for FNC, reported the story in the 9amET hour:

"This is bad news, perhaps not just for Rudy Giuliani, but also for Fox News Channel. Roger Ailes who is in charge of Fox News, a close friend of Rupert Murdoch, he's been close friends with Rudy Giuliani for 20 years. Fox News commentator Sean Hannity led a Giuliani fund-raiser."

"Here you have a $100 million lawsuit in which Judith Regan is alleging that there was a smear campaign against her to protect the political agenda of Fox News of News Corp. and that that political agenda was to protect Rudy Giuliani"

Video (3:36): Real (2.64) or Windows (2.21 MB) and MP3 audio (1.64 MB).

Origins, Science and Philosophy 

The prevailing view among what is called the ‘scientific community’ is that Creation is religious and not scientific, whereas Evolution is purely scientific.  This idea is used to promote Evolution as “true” and Creation as “false,” which provides a convenient excuse for those who want to keep Creation out of the classroom, and to ridicule anyone who says Creation is at least as scientifically valid as Evolution. 

On CBS’s "Sunday Morning" this past weekend, reporter Martha Teichner did a profile of recently deceased ultra left-wing author, Norman Mailer, who she described as "... a hell of a big man for a short guy, scrappy, brilliant, controversial. Slugging away at life and letters until the very end." Of course, this was the same Norman Mailer that said of the World Trade Center in October 2001: "Everything wrong with America led to the point where the country built that tower of Babel, which consequently had to be destroyed."

Later Teichner remarked that "Mailer was unapologetically liberal, anti-war, anti-Nixon, anti-establishment." Well, he certainly was "anti-establishment" when he said to a "London Telegraph" reporter in February 2002, "America has an almost obscene infatuation with itself...The right wing benefitted so much from September 11 that, if I were still a conspiratorialist, I would believe they'd done it."

At another point, Teichner observed that "Norman Mailer loved playing the political provocateur." That proved true when in 2003, Mailer asserted to the "London Times" that, "Bush thought white American men needed to know they were still good at something. That's where Iraq came in...."

It seems appropriate that the person who wrote the following will now be writing for Newsweek (HT to NB's John Stephenson, who posted on this Tuesday evening):

Yes, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga ("Kos") apologized the next day; you can decide for yourself whether it suffices.

Gas prices have been going up, and at least one grandmother is upset.

"Why am I spending my grandchildren's college money so I can drive this car? Why? What is - what is the reason for this?" she asked on the November 14 "Good Morning America."

To answer her question, the ABC morning show pressed the president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister.

Co-anchor Robin Roberts asked what Hofmeister himself could offer those customers "who are really hurting."

"The View’s" Joy Behar considers prayer a "distraction" from achieving scientific results. On the November 14 edition of "The View," the co-hosts discussed Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue’s prayer service for drought relief. Whoopi Goldberg, surprisingly defended the governor, but Joy Behar, just like Rosie O’Donnell, fretted about the "separation of church and state," and hinted the Georgia residents should be praying to Al Gore instead.

"Well, they need to be praying to people who will fix global warming and take care of the environment because that's more realistic."

In an Andy Rooneyesque rant about how his latest movie-going experience "left much to be desired," CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller hinted he wouldn't mind seeing liberal consumers groups tackle hefty snack prices at the nation's movie theaters. He even suggested the short titles for two bills Congress could draft on that front.

From Knoller's November 12 Couric & Co. blog post (emphasis mine):

The fact is, most movie theaters are glorified snack bars. On average, they keep only 50% or less of the ticket price, far less for blockbusters in their opening weeks. Much of a theater’s profit comes from the concession stand.

Regal, one of the nation’s largest multiplex chains, reported the 3rd quarter profit margin at its snack bars exceeded 86%.

And the markup – especially on popcorn – is eye-popping. The Los Angeles Times last year calculated that just $30 of raw popcorn can translate into as much as $3,000 in sales at the snack bar.

That sounds like a markup that would make the oil industry blush.

[...]

The torture never stops!

As if the failure of Al Gore's Live Earth concerts in July wasn't enough, a musical fiesta is being prepared to honor the new Nobel Laureate after he receives his Peace prize in December.

I don't know about you, but I can't wait!

As hysterically announced by Star Pulse Wednesday (h/t Ecorazzi, emphasis added):

My mother is a feminist. A die-hard, take no prisoners, true-blue feminist. Armed with a hard-won PhD., she has made her life's work the counselling of the transgendered, the gay and the sexually confused. Honest work in which she is passionately invested. The only fly in the ointment is me, her conservative daughter.
 
I am as passionate a conservative as my mother is a feminist. It's hard to imagine two more diametrically opposing viewpoints. I view the current state of feminism as doing more harm than good. As undermining the traditional and family values that I consider the backbone of our country. On the other hand, my mother considers conservative values as outdated, invalid, and as having absolutely no intrinsic value.
 
I understand how mom came to be such an ardent feminist. Though I thoroughly disagree with her views, I respect and admire the courage and sacrifices she made in attaining them.
 

Is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration filled with climate change deniers?

Such seems likely to be alleged by hysterical alarmists in the press when and if they read a new study out of NASA which determined that "not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming."

Goes quite counter to all the recent media reports, as well as assertions by Nobel Laureate Al Gore, that low ice conditions in the Arctic are all the fault of that despicable -- albeit essential to life and naturally occurring! -- gas carbon dioxide.

Of course, it's quite unlikely many climate alarmists will even hear about this study, for today's green media wouldn't want to do anything that destroys their illusion that there's a scientific consensus regarding this matter.

As such, consider yourself fortunate to be apprised of the highlights (emphasis added throughout):

In a recent CBN News report by Melissa Charbonneau on the Fairness Doctrine, jaws dropped across the conservative-Christian segment of America at this section:

Liberals, such as radio host Bill Press, say it's only fair for government to rein in right-wing broadcasters who dominate the airwaves licensed by the government.

"Conservatives rule talk radio," Press said. "Conservatives have their own powerful television network: the only one, the most powerful in the country, the most watched. Liberals have none. Conservatives rule the op-ed pages of all the newspapers."

I was invited in to discuss our PBS Special Report on how there's not exactly a Fairness Doctrine ruling the increasingly liberal taxpayer-funded network. It's a good thing I wasn't in the middle of a glass of water when that quote aired.

Anchor Lee Webb asked me to respond to Press, and I simply said that's not the way conservatives see it. Maybe I should have just said "Bill Press knows better."

Thanks to changes being implemented by the newspaper industry's Audit Board of Circulations (ABC), it may be, as I suspected in a previous post (NewsBusters; BizzyBlog) that the 30-month analysis of newspaper print circulation drops I did last week (NewsBusters; BizzyBlog) is the last "clean" one I'll be able to do.

The ABC announcement is here. Editor and Publisher's Jennifer Saba describes the changes that appear likely to prevent meaningful comparisons of new circulation figures to those in prior reports (bolds are mine; HT to Recovering Journalist, whose post on the topic is hysterical, though I always thought that CPAs were the ones who answered "What do you want it to be?" when asked "What is 2 + 2?" :-->):