The CBS Evening News, which has aired only one full story on the scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton's fugitive donor Norman Hsu, on Friday night ran its second full story on the impact on Rudy Giuliani of Bernard Kerik's indictments as Byron Pitts told Kerik that “people” say you're “a poster child as to why Giuliani shouldn't be President.” Back on August 31, in the newscast's only full story on Hsu, fill-in anchor Harry Smith didn't even mention Hillary Clinton's name in his introduction, but on Friday Katie Couric put Giuliani front and center: “Kerik isn't the only one who could face trouble. It's also bad news for his friend and mentor, Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani.”

In the Hsu story, CBS reporter Sandra Hughes didn't warn about any negative impact on the Hillary Clinton campaign or speculate about what Hillary Clinton knew about Hsu's criminal past or suspect bundling. But in the Giuliani piece, Pitts predicted: “Kerik's legal problems could mean political problems for Giuliani and the inevitable questions of the presidential candidate: What did he know and when did he know it?” In an exchange with Kerik, Pitts proposed: “There are people who say that you, forgive me, are a poster child as to why Giuliani shouldn't be President, because of your own troubles.”

Liberals wouldn't lift a finger to stop the torturing to death of an unborn child. But put a terrorist [or a baby seal, for that matter] in the block and watch them spring into sensitive-soul mode.

Rosa Brooks epitomizes the mindset in her current LA Times column, "Torture: the new abortion." Her notion is that among Republicans, the new litmus test for presidential candidates is not opposition to abortion but support for U.S. officials who order the "torture of prisoners."

An intrusion of Reality
By Patrick J. Buchanan

"Inaction at this moment is suicide for Pakistan, and I cannot allow the country to commit suicide."

Thus did President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declare a state of emergency and invoke martial law.

The Supreme Court has been dismissed, the chief justice put under house arrest. A thousand lawyers and political opponents have been incarcerated. Human rights organizations have been shut down. Independent news media have been silenced.

Musharraf has effected a second coup, the first being his takeover in 1999. Doing so, he invoked Abraham Lincoln: "By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life."

Indeed, Lincoln, too, impeded elections in Maryland, ordered Chief Justice Roger Taney arrested, shut newspapers, suspended habeas corpus, arrested thousands who sympathized with the South's right to independence and ordered a blockade of Southern ports.

What has been the reaction of the great evangelist of Wilsonian democracy in the White House to its suspension in Pakistan?

Military aid to the regime and army will continue.

The Washington Post front page on Friday morning highlighted a "Historically Low Tally" in the Senate to confirm Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Reporters Dan Eggen and Paul Kane, who pounded away at the U.S. Attorney scandal that undid former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, highlighted his narrow (hollow?) victory in gloomy terms:

The final tally gave Mukasey the lowest number of yes votes for any attorney general since 1952, just weeks after lawmakers of both parties had predicted his easy confirmation. Mukasey takes the place of Alberto R. Gonzales, who left under a cloud of scandal in September.

He avoided defeat only because a half-dozen Democrats voted in favor of the appointment along with Republicans and Democrat-turned-independentJoseph I. Lieberman (Conn.).

Speaking of Britain: 

"Sharia courts now operate in most larger cities, with different sectarian and ethnic groups operating their own courts that cater to their specific needs according to their traditions," he says. These are based on sharia councils, set up in Britain to help Muslims solve family and personal problems..."

""...Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi, a barrister and principal of Hijaz College Islamic University, near Nuneaton, Warwicks, said this type of court had advantages for Muslims. "It operates on a low budget, it operates on very small timescales and the process and the laws of evidence are far more lenient and it's less awesome an environment than the English courts," he said.

Mr Siddiqi predicted that there would be a formal network of Muslim courts within a decade.

"I was speaking to a police officer who said we no longer have the bobby on the beat who will give somebody a slap on the wrist."

On Thursday, all of NBC's entertainment programs pushed liberal environmental themes, but "30 Rock" -- a satirical take on the inner workings of NBC -- was the pushiest, featuring a scene in which Al Gore suggested to fictional NBC executive Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) that the network go green for a week (as NBC has done in real life). "If your network really wants to demonstrate a commitment to the environment, why don't you start by, for example, having an entire week with nothing but environmental themes on all the programs," Gore recommended. "Use entertainment for substance. You could have a character in prime time making a passionate argument to the American people that we need CO2 taxes to replace the payroll taxes. Your parent company could lobby congress and the President to pass the treaty and save the climate."

Ann Curry affixes NBC News sticker to ceremonial South Pole during visit to Antarctica for NBC's "Green Week." November 8, 2007.

Is it time for more businesses to ‘go green'? Not so fast, says Director of the Business & Media Institute Dan Gainor.

Gainor appeared on CNBC's "Power Lunch" November 9 to discuss business investment in green products, a popular story on many news programs.

"The problem is companies are spending tons of green, going green...for some things, Wal-Mart has found some solutions that make a lot of sense, but then you look at Fed-Ex, they found that just going to hybrid trucks...were 75% more expensive," said Gainor.

You can watch the YouTube video after the break.

How do you like your iPod earbud cord – scrambled, sunny-side up or over-easy?

That sounds like a weird question, but apparently CNN’s “American Morning” thinks eating your iPhone or earphone cord is a possibility.

In a segment with an on-screen caption – “IPOD & IPHONE DANGER – CAN THEY HURT YOU?” – CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta reported that the cord connecting the earbuds to your iPod contain phthalates, according to the litigious Center for Environmental Health.

Phthalates are a substance often used for increasing the flexibility of plastics, but according to an article on macnn.com, a Web site devoted to news on Apple products, phthalates “may hinder the sexual development of mammals.”

See YouTube video below.

In the past six years, any time someone wrote a tell-all book about George W. Bush or a member of his administration, they were given the royal treatment by the press with lavish interviews offering them the perfect platform to market their work as well as their politically charged opinions.

Consider for example all the attention given to Valerie Plame Wilson just recently when her book "Fair Game" was released, or the focus on George Tenet and his "At the Center of the Storm" exposé back in April.

With this in mind, if a former female White House aide published a new book implicating a former president -- whose wife just so happens to be the frontrunner for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2008 -- in rape and other possible crimes, shouldn't she be welcomed with open arms by evening television magazines like "60 Minutes" and morning shows like "Today?"

After all, given Kathleen Willey's shocking statements about her new book "Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton" to WOR radio's Steve Malzberg Thursday, one would think such programs would be all over this like white on rice, assuming of course their goal was journalism and not political activism (audio in two parts available here and here, highlights of the interview follow):

Time editor Richard Stengel pronounced at the annual Person of the Year debate luncheon that he’d like a winner with a face, not some nebulous concept, like last year’s "You" mirror cover. WWD.com reports "Most attendees at the event felt the same way, save for NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, who has served on the panel for several years, and The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg. Both backed Mother Earth and the word "green," respectively." You can’t say Brian isn’t a good "Green Is Universal" company man.

Time's "10 Questions" feature has readers question former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw about his new book on the 1960s. Brokaw's historic hero is apparently still Gorbachev:

Who was the most influential person of the past 40 years? —Heath Urie, Boulder, Colo.

Mikhail Gorbachev, internationally, was critically important. Ronald Reagan had a big impact on American life. So did Osama bin Laden. You can't ignore that.

NPR personage Garrison Keillor loans his public-radio voice – hailed by liberals at Slate as "a breathy baritone that seems precision-engineered to narrate a documentary about glaciers" – to a feature called "The Writer’s Almanac," which usually features a poem and and some literary and historical notes of the day. On Thursday, Keillor recounted how Democrats once regretted demands for an early withdrawal and ended up looking like the party of surrender:

It was on this day in 1864 that Abraham Lincoln was elected to his second term as president of the United States, one of the few elections in world history to be held in the middle of a civil war. Lincoln might have tried to cancel or postpone the election until the war was over, but he said, "If the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us."

For general debate and discussion. Possible talking point: The current bearishness for the dollar is like nothing I've ever seen. Honestly, is there ANYBODY bullish on the dollar?

With that in mind, could ALL these people be right, and the dollar is going MUCH lower? Or, as contrarian analysis dictates, when so many people agree on the future direction of an asset, it has to start going the other way?

Also, are you concerned about a low dollar? How is it impacting you, your business, or your personal finances if at all?

http://www.youtube.c...

"A certain level of anxiety" indeed...Someone's telling the truth! Stop that man!!!
JMR

"Green Week" at "Today" came in with an Al Gore roar but went out with a travelogue whimper. What happened?

View video [from MSNBC site] here.

On Monday, "Today" kicked off Green Week with an Al Gore interview in which he proclaimed there was no room for dissenting voices on global warming. Over at MSNBC the same day, an NBC environmental "correspondent" urged viewers to vote for candidates with an environmentalist agenda.

But this morning, "Green Week" at "Today" went out on a mysteriously innocuous note. Gone, at least during the crucial first-half hour, was the environmentalist crusading, replaced by little more than a travelogue. Instead of global warming, the focus was Ann Curry's personal accomplishment in Antarctica [note the screen graphic].

Being against the war after she was for it, could it be soon be time for Hillary to be for it again?

The question arises in light of the findings by Charles Franklin [pictured here] at Pollster.com. According to his November 6th Pollster.com analysis, there has been a "remarkable" shift, in a positive direction, in public opinion on the war in Iraq.

Excerpts from Franklin's Ten Months of Opinion Change on War and More [emphasis added]:

In the November 15 Rolling Stone, the hippie mag interviews a pile of politicians, media stars, and rockers to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, was interviewed by Jeff Sharlet of The Revealer. In a strange interview he unloaded the usual criticism on Ann Coulter, but praised old American socialists Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas. Coulter came up as Stewart tried to say that no one mocking the government today is a "Soviet dissident," that our discourse is free enough that "It's very difficult to shock anybody any more. I'm not even sure what the subversive edge is." This exchange followed:

ROLLING STONE: Ann Coulter suffered repercussions from calling John Edwards a faggot.

JON STEWART: As a businessperson, she has made a choice: "Even if I narrow my audience to true believers, there’s enough money there. I have to keep pushing until it’s just me and one other crazy person with a lot of money." Maybe she’ll be hired by a crazy billionaire, just her and him, and he’ll go, "Say something about lesbians! Heh-heh! 9/11 widows! Gimme another!"

On Thursday, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet picked up on a story related by the Atlantic Monthly's Marc Ambinder that claims that a few months ago the Barack Obama campaign sought to place the Norman Hsu scandal in the press in an effort to create anti-Hillary buzz in the MSM. Such a political "dirty trick" would seem to be a juice story for members of the MSM, wouldn't it? So, why is Lynn Sweet the only one focusing on this one, anyway? With the sneaky actions of the Obama campaign, one would think that the MSM would be in an uproar for having been used so badly by a political candidate. And, were this a GOP "dirty trick," it would be sure that news creators the nation over would be wagging their fingers and clucking their tongues at this violation of their purported integrity and independence for being used so by a mere political campaign. But, so far the condemnation of the Obama campaign is nearly nonexistent with this barely even causing a raised eyebrow. Don't you wonder why that is?

Reuters tried to make a mountain out of a molehill Thursday with its story "Hoax Bacteria Study Tricks Climate Skeptics."

The story, and a related post on the Reuters blog, implied that a noteworthy number of so-called global warming skeptics had been fooled by a fake "study" purporting disprove the manmade global warming theory.

Said Reuters:

A hoax scientific study pointing to ocean bacteria as the overwhelming cause of global warming fooled some skeptics on Thursday who doubt growing evidence that human activities are to blame.

Laden with scientific jargon and published online in the previously unknown "Journal of Geoclimatic Studies" based in Japan, the report suggested the findings could be "the death of manmade global warming theory."