Just how crazy, you ask? Think of the wackiest global warming "fix" you can imagine. Then compile as many of those crazy ideas as you can and you'll have this AP wire report: Crazy ideas to combat global warming.

If anyone had any doubts how nuts the media has gone over global warming, let this article put those doubts to rest:

Crazy-sounding ideas for saving the planet are getting a serious look from top scientists, a sign of their fears about global warming and the desire for an insurance policy in case things get worse.

How crazy?

Looks like "Couric & Co." are looking for summer interns for CBS's "Springboard" program. And college journalism students are in luck, they can write up an original story on global warming to get the job:

Here is how it works. First, create an original story based on one of three topics: climate change; the American Spirit; or Iraq war veterans. These are issues that have all received extensive coverage on the CBS Evening News and at CBSNews.com – but we want to hear YOUR take.

But wait, there's more. The "best submissions will be posted online." I'm curious just how balanced those "best submissions" will be. I for one am relishing the possibility of MRC summer interns dissecting the bias of CBS summer interns. [continued...]

On Monday's The Situation Room, CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty expressed frustration that the Democratic Congress has not yet passed a minimum wage increase, even lamenting that the increase could not be made retroactive.

After Blitzer seemed to seriously ask if the minimum wage increase could be made retroactive to November, Cafferty rhetorically exclaimed that it should be "retroactive to ten years ago."

Blitzer: "I guess they can't make the increase in the minimum wage retroactive to back November, huh, Jack?"

Cafferty: "They ought to make it retroactive to ten years ago. That's the last time anybody addressed these folks."

Blitzer: "Don't hold your breath on that one." (Transcript follows)

Found this story from a link posted at the Drudge Report. Just too good to pass over.

According to the story, Oprah’s school for girls in Africa is run along the lines of a prison camp as students are barred from calling home but once a week and are forbidden from “unhealthy snacks” even though Winfrey has no doubt gorged herself over the years as evidenced by her see-sawing weight.

This should cause anyone thinking this broadcast personality should be granted power beyond that of her daily gabfest (such as elected office) to pause and ponder for a moment just how authoritarian and intrusive she would be in the lives of average Americans.

For while her highness and her closest acolytes will continue to enjoy the lives of luxury to which they think they are entitled, in terms of the proposals being considered now to curb and monitor the diets of the lower classes, it would not be too much of a theoretical jump to suggest that an Oprah administration would view the American people as children in need of strongarm guidance not all that different than these destitute pupils.

ABC anchor Charles Gibson led on Monday night, the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, with the results of a door-to-door survey of more than 2,000 Iraqis conducted for ABC News (and USA Today). Gibson started the “sobering report” with how “fewer than half the Iraqis, just 42 percent, said life was better now than it was under Saddam Hussein.” Gibson, however, failed to explain that when asked, “compared to the time before the war in spring 2003, are things overall in your life much better now, somewhat better, about the same, somewhat worse or much worse?”, fewer than 42 percent -- 36 percent -- said worse and 22 thought things are the same. A poll of 5,000 Iraqis reported in the Times of London discovered, as highlighted by FNC's Brit Hume, that “49 percent said life is better under the current Iraqi government” and “just 26 percent preferred life under Saddam Hussein.”

NBC anchor Brian Williams opened by emphasizing the length and cost of the war: “U.S. involvement in this war is now longer in duration than the Korean War, longer than World War I or World War II. And here are the numbers of great importance to all Americans. So far, at least 3,218 Americans have died. At least 24,000 have been wounded. Estimates of Iraqi dead are close to 60,000...” CBS's Katie Couric began with how “the war goes on, there is no end or victory in sight, thousands of Americans are dead, but the President says victory is still possible.” Reporter Allen Pizzey, who on The Early Show had insisted that “Iraqis have very little to be thankful for,” also delivered a dire assessment on the Evening News: “And so four weary and blood-soaked years on, the so-called coalition of the willing has become the coalition of those who are stuck with it.”

Has Rosie O'Donnell gone from being just another vociferous media liberal to a full-blown 9-11 conspiracy theorist? It would appear so. Have a look at Rosie's recent blog entry, wherein she serves up an array of controlled-demolition eccentricity. Turns out, according to O'Donnell, 9-11 was all a big plot to do away with FBI and other investigative files on Smith Barney, WorldCom and . . . Enron. What, no Halliburton?

H/t reader M.R.

Writes Rosie:

For the third time in history fire brought down a steel building reducing it to rubble. Hold on folks here we go.

Citing the investigator and one student who "says he trusted NYU, but now he wonders if his trust may have been misplaced," ABC's "World News" on March 18 attacked universities and lending companies and did not include representatives from either.

Anchor Dan Harris only presented New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's view that students are being taken advantage with the practice of preferred lending. Cuomo faulted schools and lenders for "illegal, deceptive business practices."

Harris did not include an on-air interview with any college, university, loan company or industry expert, rather he only said several major lenders "all denied wrongdoing."

On the Friday edition of "Nightline," "20/20" anchor Barbara Walters appeared again to plug her sycophantic interview with Hugo Chavez, the virulently anti-American leader of Venezuela.

According to the ABC host, Chavez, who has called President Bush a murderer and a killer, simply likes to "poke fun at American leaders." During a discussion with "Nightline" host Martin Bashir, she also described the Venezuelan President in glowing, even flowery terms:

MARTIN BASHIR : "You've met him in person, you interviewed him, you spent time for him, for all the kind of brash things that he's actually said, how did you find him as an individual, as a man?"

BARBARA WALTERS: "Well, he was not what I expected. He was very dignified. He was warm, friendly. He likes the U.S. It's George Bush that he doesn't like. He also was very personal. He talked about how hard his life was, that he wished he could be in love but you can't be when you are heading a country."

Baghdad-based correspondent Edward Wong is the eternally pessimistic New York Times reporter who was itching to declare Iraq in "civil war" over a year before the rest of the liberal media. Friday's "Attack on Sadr City Mayor Hinders Antimilitia Effort" was co-written by Wong and Damien Cave and contained this painfully obvious attempt to mask potential good news from the troop "surge" in Iraq, which may actually be having a positive effect on the ground in Baghdad.

CBS took the occasion of the four year anniversary for Operation Iraqi Freedom to report on nearly everything negative related to the war's outcome and reconstruction.

Despite word from the troops that the media do not report the whole picture, reporter Allen Pizzey accentuated the negatives.

On the March 19 edition of "The Early Show," Pizzey insisted that "Iraqis have little to be thankful for." He  briefly mentioned that an Iraqi general is declaring some success, but quickly countered with reports of recent attacks. With all of the negative coverage, Allen Pizzey did not bother to mention reports that insurgent attacks dropped 80 percent since President Bush announced the surge. The transcript is below.

On the March 19 edition of "The View," Barbara Walters returned from Venezuela where she conducted a puffy interview with President Hugo Chavez.

Walters insisted that "he is not crazy" and "he does not hate the United States" but "hates George Bush." The veteran ABC journalist, however, felt the discount oil Chavez provided to Hurricane Katrina victims is "a good thing to do."

Yet in 2001, ABC described American aid to the Afghan poor as merely "propaganda."

Although Barbara said he is a socialist and mentioned in passing that "he’s got a lot of things that are not so wonderful," there was not even a murmur about Chavez’s assault on the free press. Rosie O’Donnell, who rants against the PATRIOT Act’s alleged assault on civil liberties, did not bother to raise that concern. They even displayed some love for the Venezuelan dictator when Rosie coddled a talking Hugo Chavez doll. Ironically, on the next subject on patriotism, Rosie and Joy exclaimed that dissent is patriotic. The transcript is below.

On the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion, "Good Morning America" anchor Diane Sawyer interviewed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about Iraq's progress. Sawyer chose to cite the liberal, America-bashing British paper The Guardian as a source for a question and also indicated that it was the United States, not insurgents, that was responsible for Iraq’s declining electricity supply.

Early in the interview, Sawyer quoted from a Guardian article that claimed the United States occupation is worse than Stalin:

March 2007 might go down in science history as the month the global warming skeptics struck back.

From a British documentary debunking myths currently being advanced by the alarmists to Al Gore being challenged to a debate, scientists across the questionably warming globe have clearly thrown down the gauntlet.

The most recent event transpired at a conference in Oxford today, where some noted scientists stated that Hollywood is not doing the world a service by overstating and exaggerating the risks of climate change.

As reported by the Daily Mail (emphasis added throughout):

From time to time we here at the MRC get emails from troops grateful for the work we do here in exposing the bias in the media's coverage of the Iraq war and their failure to report all the good things the servicemen and women there have seen for themselves. Well to those who've sent those emails we thank you but if you're looking for a morale boost you may want to avert your eyes from what was on this morning's "Today" show as NBC's war correspondents Richard Engel and Tom Aspell painted a bleak picture of the troops' resolve and even, without comment, relayed insurgent propaganda.

During the first half hour of this morning's "Today," Matt Lauer asked Engel for his take on troop morale, to which Engel responded the number of those who believe in the mission is "dwindling," and "that there are others who don't really believe in the war any more."

As I've mentioned before on NewsBusters, I subscribe to e-mailed "breaking news" alerts from both Fox News and CNN.

Today I got this from Fox News, sent at 10:52 EDT Eastern:

GUANTANAMO SUSPECT HAS CONFESSED TO PLANNING USS COLE ATTACK, U.S. EMBASSY BOMBINGS, PENTAGON SAYS

**Watch FOX News Channel or go to http://foxnews.com for more

No such update from CNN. I checked both CNN.com and FoxNews.com at 12:30 EDT and found nothing on CNN's front page, but found this as the second-from-top headline over at FoxNews.com:

Interviewing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on this morning's Today show, NBC's Matt Lauer suggested Iraqis were less fearful of violence under Saddam Hussein than they are now. The Today co-host citing a poll of Iraqis asked the following:

Lauer: "Let, let me tell you about a current poll. Iraqis were asked about their lives today, Madame Secretary. Listen to these results. Nearly nine in 10 people said that they live in fear, that the violence is ravaging their country will strike them or the people that they live with. That's startling. 90 percent fear that they'll fall victim to the violence in that country right now. Don't you have to wonder what that percentage would have been under Saddam?"

Viewers tuning into this morning's Today show for their 4th year anniversary coverage the Iraq war were assaulted with doom and gloom from the news team at Today beginning with its host Matt Lauer who opened the show asking: "Is the war worth it?" At the top of the show Lauer teased Today's look back on the war this way: 

Lauer: "Good morning, Iraq: Four years later. On this date in 2003, the start of Shock and Awe. Then the fall of Saddam but was it Mission Accomplished?"

George W. Bush: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

Lauer: "As the war enters its fifth year America is shell-shocked, the casualties staggering, the price tag in the hundreds of billions. Is the war worth it? And is there still a chance for victory? A look back and a look forward today, Monday, March 19th, 2007."

Discuss, debate, pontificate...

In Monday's Los Angeles Times, reporter James Rainey raised the issue of a conflict between political reporting and family ties: "Some of America's most prominent political journalists are, quite literally, wedded to the 2008 presidential race: Their spouses work for one of the candidates." Rainey made a short list of four of the conflicted:

It’s put up or shut up time for soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore who was formally challenged to defend his well-publicized global warming theories in a debate with a former advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

As reported by PR Newswire (emphasis added throughout):

In a formal invitation sent to former Vice-President Al Gore's Tennessee address and released to the public, Lord Monckton has thrown down the gauntlet to challenge Gore to what he terms "the Second Great Debate," an internationally televised, head-to-head, nation-unto-nation confrontation on the question, "That our effect on climate is not dangerous."

How marvelous. The press release continued:

After his comments this morning, if Don Imus ever gets invited to a party on the terrace of Katie Couric's midtown apartment overlooking Central Park, he would be well advised not to get too close to the ledge.

Chatting with Imus on MSNBC at 8:45 ET this morning about the travails of the CBS Evening News and the advent of Rick Kaplan as its executive producer, media maven Howard Kurtz observed: "I don't know if this is attributable to Rick, but it seems to me that in the last week the show has a little bit of a harder edge, a little bit of a faster pace."

That set Imus off on an anti-Couric tirade: "It's unwatchable. And it's unwatchable because she's unwatchable. I'm sure she's a nice lady, but I mean . . ."

View video here.