Well, sports fans, the Democrats are afraid to debate on Fox News, but they sure aren’t above using segments from the network’s top show to discredit political opponents.

To set this up, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) was Bill O’Reilly’s guest on “The Factor” Wednesday, and the two got into quite a discussion about the proposed immigration bill (video available here).

Thursday morning, Michael Link posted the video at the Democratic Party’s website with the headline “O’Reilly Defends “White, Christian, Male Power Structure;” McCain Smiles and Nods” (h/t Pajamas Media).

Unfortunately, that’s clearly not what occurred (partial transcript to follow), and someone at the DNC wisely changed the headline to:

Today Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass explains his theory that Rosie O'Donnell is secretly working for Karl Rove.

Moreover, Kass claims that Rosie's tactics are comparable to those espoused by the late Senator Joseph McCarthy:

According to Kass, "McCarthy was famous for his vicious conspiracy theories. He kept opening his mouth, too, just like Rosie. But instead of yelling about 9/11, he insisted that Soviet spies were crawling under every rock in Washington."

Really? That's the party line advanced by Commies, pinkos, socialists, leftists, liberals, and their lackeys and handmaidens for the past half century. The reality is quite different.

Reporting how President Bush “called on 15 other nations to join the U.S. in taking new steps to reverse climate change” by reducing “greenhouse gas emissions,” the NBC Nightly News demonstrated how caving in to liberal demands will not generate positive press coverage as NBC focused on those who complained Bush's plan “doesn't go far enough.” From Chicago, anchor Brian Williams marveled Thursday night at how “President Bush today underwent something of a conversion. He called for new action on global warming, something he resisted doing for a long time.” Williams proceeded to devote an entire report to how “the reaction to the President's global warming speech today was cold in some quarters.” Anne Thompson, identified as NBC's “chief environmental correspondent,” relayed how “environmental leaders I talked to today certainly weren't impressed. One said it was worse than too little, too late, and several agreed that it was a PR strategy, designed to keep President Bush from looking like an obstructionist at next week's G-8 meeting.”

http://www.brookscol...

This appears to be for a college class. With it were 7 questions and I included one of them at the end.

February 6, 2003

What does al Qaeda want?

This is an important question. Perhaps, if an answer could be found, a way could be found to either defeat this organization, or to address the root causes of its existence in such a way that it would no longer have a reason to exist. Here we will look at the question mainly from the inside, examining what al Qaeda says it wants. Of great interest to us is that the answer may be fundamentally a geographical one.

To begin, it is useful to know what al Qaeda is. Al Qaeda (“the Base” in Arabic) is a transnational organization that seeks to unite Islamist militant groups worldwide in a common effort to achieve its goals (for more background on militant Islam, see your textbook page 237). An Islamist or jihadist organization is one that employs Islamic faith, culture and history to legitimize its philosophy and actions.1 The principal sources Islamists cite are the Qur’an (the holy book of Islam; see your textbook page 234); the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), and the writings of earlier Islamic militants such as Ibn Taymiyya, Sayyid Qutb, and Muhammad al-Faraj. According to Rohan Gunaratna, the leading academic authority on the organization, al Qaeda is “above all else a secret, almost virtual, organization, one that denies its existence in order to remain in the shadows.”2 This desire for secrecy explains why we do not see al Qaeda taking direct responsibility for terrorist acts. Instead, these are attributed to the other names and identities employed by al Qaeda, particularly the “World Islamic Front for the Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders,” a coalition of seven Islamist militant groups (three Egyptian, two Pakistani, one Bangladeshi and one Afghan). The figurehead of this organization, and of al Qaeda, is Osama bin Laden, formerly a Saudi national and now thought to be in hiding in western Pakistan.

On Tuesday, Chris Matthews made clear his displeasure with the Mexicans who booed the American entrant at the Miss Universe pageant. Matthews was back on the conservative side of the cultural divide today, letting Air America's Mark Green know in no uncertain terms that he didn't appreciate being classified a bigot because he does not support gay marriage.

View video here.

Green, a perennial candidate for office in New York who now with his multi-millionaire brother has bought Air America out of bankruptcy, was Matthews' guest on this afternoon's Hardball along with GOP consultant Ed Rogers.

At about 5:38 pm EDT, the topic turned to gay marriage.

David Fenton and his public relations firm are “left-leaning,” according to the May 31 Washington Post. But the glowing 1,856-word profile of Fenton revealed more than just a left-leaning tilt.

In the story “Putting the Progressive in PR” by Linton Weeks, the Post depicted Fenton, now head of Fenton Communications, as an entrepreneurial Mahatma Gandhi figure – furthering causes deemed pure and wholesome by the Post, from the protection of swordfish to abolishing the death penalty.

On Thursday’s "Good Morning America," the ABC program repeated anti-Wal-Mart talking points from the liberal group Wake-up Wal-Mart. Reporter Bianna Golodryga explained that the segment, which discussed recent company woes, was based on a confidential memo given to the network:

Bianna Golodryga: "...Wake-Up Wal-Mart, a union financed group highly critical of the retailer has provided ABC News with a confidential memo from a former ad agency with a dire warning."

The memo, which is six months old and amounts to nothing more than an embarrassing behind the scenes discussion of Wal-Mart’s strategy to market high-end goods, seemed to simply be a pretext for GMA to bash the company. Golodryga piled on, noting that "the leaked memo is just another blow to a company which has experienced its share of blunders this year, ranging from sexual discrimination lawsuits to a recent war of words with a fired ad executive." The segment also featured a representative from the left-wing Wake up Wal-Mart group slamming the company’s "poor values," while having nobody on to defend it:

NewsBusters draws attention on the Left, and some of it is very amusing to read. On today's Huffington Post, Al Gore devotees Dave Johnson and James Boyce are so angry with Brent Bozell's column on Gore that they claim the MRC can't find a single example the media are liberal. (Are they sure they've read this blog?) Their unfavorite line was Brent comparing Gore's censoriousness toward global-warming skeptics with a certain Venezuelan autocrat:

Al Gore and Hugo Chavez? That's a pathetic, stupid pairing right out of the high school playground. But look at their web site, we wouldn't expect more. One thing that is interesting is Conservatives love to claim that the media is liberal. But ask for a single example and it stuns them into silence.

Alexander Cockburn of Counterpunch and The Nation recently published another article highly skeptical of man’s role in global warming.

Wonderfully titled “Explosion of the Fearmongers; Greenhousers Strike Back, and Strike Out,” the piece started with a great introduction to the real problem facing our nation (emphasis added throughout):

I began this series of critiques of the greenhouse fearmongers with an evocation of the papal indulgences of the Middle Ages as precursors of the "carbon credits"-ready relief for carbon sinners, burdened, because all humans exhale carbon, with original sin. In the Middle Ages they burned heretics, and after reading through the hefty pile of abusive comments and supposed refutations of my initial article on global warming I'm fairly sure that the critics would be only to happy to cash in whatever carbon credits they have and torch me without further ado.

Yes, Alex, it is quite certain that the fearmongers as you aptly refer to them would happily burn all of the skeptics around the world at the stake. Then they’d really have the consensus they regularly attest to:

This has bugged me for some time now. “Begging the question” is a form of logical fallacy. It’s a kind of circular argument. However, in recent years, I’ve seen and heard tons of people using it to mean something like “invites the questions” or “suggests the question”.

I know that language evolves and all that. Fine. But I was just wondering if this has bothered other people or if maybe I should just lighten up.

It's generally bad for business to have a flippant employee who insults your loyal customers. Now if someone could just give that newsflash to the Associated Press.

The AP today picked up on the plight of one David Noordeweir, who was fired in late February from a Michigan Wal-Mart for an entry on his MySpace page that insulted the intelligence of Wal-Mart shoppers. Here's the lede.:

A former Wal-Mart cashier says he was fired for joking on his MySpace page that the average IQ would increase if a bomb were dropped on the company's stores.

Gee, nothing insulting or inflammatory there.

The AP story stocked up reader's shopping cart with Noordeweir's fine whine:

It seems almost a metaphysical certitude that the following will not be raised in this evening’s nightly newscasts, or the headlines of tomorrow’s papers.

Regardless, Dr. Michael Griffin, the Administrator of NASA since April 2005, told NPR Thursday morning, “I am not sure that it is fair to say that [global warming] is a problem we must wrestle with” (audio available here).

As ABCNews.com reported Thursday, this has drawn “the ire of his agency's preeminent climate scientists,” in particular, global warming alarmist James Hansen (h/t NBer Sick-n-Tired).

More on that later. First, here are some of Griffin’s remarks as reported by NPR.com (emphasis added throughout):

It’s déjà vu all over again. Rising gas prices and oil companies’ “record profits” fuel an almost yearly call for investigations into “price gouging.” The media then complain of alleged wrongdoing and fail to ask intelligent questions about the issue.

Rising gas prices are “[k]inda suspicious,” according to CBS “Early Show” co-host Julie Chen on May 23.

Co-host Harry Smith agreed saying, “It makes you wonder at least a little bit.”

On Thursday, all three network morning shows covered the announcement that former Senator Fred Thompson would be entering the 2008 race for the White House. And while CBS downplayed the news and NBC’s Chris Matthews wondered if Thompson "has the stuff" to run for the White House, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos was the only individual to introduce what will apparently be a new Democratic talking point. Appearing on "Good Morning America," the "This Week" anchor claimed Thompson "can also expect questions about his one term in the Senate, whether it’s a thin record or not. Democrats are already raising questions about that."

Who would those Democrats be? Will Barack Obama, who, until 2004 was an Illinois state senator, broach the issue? Or perhaps Hillary Clinton, who only gained her Senate seat in 2000, will bring up the subject of experience. Thompson, despite Stephanopoulos’ claims, was not a one term Senator. He won a special election in 1994 and a full term in 1996. He served longer than both those candidates and also Republicans such as Mitt Romney, who can claim just one term as governor of Massachusetts. Perhaps Obama and Clinton assume that the media will simply ignore such facts.

Castro's censors like CNN in Spanish. That's one of the nuggets that makes today's "Public Eye" interview with Havana-based CBS producer Portia Siegelbaum a worthwhile read. It's particularly timely in light of dictator Fidel Castro's comrades in ideology running roughshod over the free press in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia.

[Update/related MRC study: Rich Noyes reminded me of his 2002 study of CNN's favorable coverage of the Cuban regime.]

My only complaint with Siegelbaum is her describing the Cuban state media as an "information service," that pedals "information" handed it by the Castro regime. When many biased, liberal journalists skeptically eye anything coming from the White House or Pentagon as "spin," it becomes all the more annoying that Cuban state media are seen as relaying "information."

Here's the relevant excerpt from the interview:

A funny thing happened during the search for gun control.

Entering the keywords “gun control” at the search engine Dogpile returned the warning: “You've entered a Web search term that is likely to contain adult content.” From there, you have two choices: click on the link which allows you to “View Unfiltered Dogpile Web results with Adult Content” or select the link with “No Adult Content”.1

An examination of “adult content” results does bring up a message at the top of the page: “View adult results provided by DestinationXXX.com.”2 The search also returned 76 links on May 28, 2007, none of which, besides this reference to Destination XXX, were adult content. An inquiry to Dogpile resulted in this response:

On May 24, a NewsBusters’ headline asked, “Will Media Report Al Qaeda Torture Manual With Same Zeal as Abu Ghraib?”

Now, a week later, a press release from the Media Research Center answered the question:

To their credit, CNN and Fox News Channel ran stories on the declassified material. Yet nine days since the material was released, neither ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times nor The Washington Post has run a story with the photos of this shocking evidence of al-Qaeda’s barbarism.

MRC President Brent Bozell issued the following statement regarding this matter:

Update: SEE Editor's Note at bottom of post for related MRC content.

1Q07 Home Prices Up 0.5%, 4.3% Over 12 Months Ago

Those looking for a pervasive and severe nationwide decline in home prices are going to have to keep looking.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) just released its House Price Index (PDF) for the first quarter of 2007. This most comprehensive of home-price reports shows that nationwide prices increased 0.45% (rounded to 0.5% in the announcement) in the first quarter of this year, and went up 4.25% (rounded to 4.3% in the announcement) in the past four quarters.

Core inflation during those two time periods was 0.6% and 2.5%, respectively. OFHEO says that inflation excluding only shelter costs only rose 1.6% during the past year.

Context (from Pages 4 and 5 of the report):

• From 1990 through 1997, reported four-quarter appreciation was less than the 4.25% just reported 28 out of 32 times.
• During that same time period, individual-quarter appreciation was less than the 0.45% just reported 14 out of 32 times -- including six nationwide quarterly declines.

I recall no discussions of pervasive real estate "bubbles" or fears of steep, widespread declines during the 1990s.

ABC’s Bill Blakemore wrote an article posted at the network’s website Tuesday citing global warming alarmist and NASA scientist James Hansen as stating that the earth is at a tipping point “with dangerous consequences to the planet” (emphasis added):

With just 10 more years of "business as usual" emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas, says the NASA/Columbia paper, "it becomes impractical" to avoid "disastrous effects."

Unfortunately, Blakemore chose to completely ignore decades of hysterical predictions by Hansen that have already proven wrong, and that this is not the first time the NASA scientist has referred to ten years before disaster strikes.

For instance, here is what the Washington Post reported last January (emphasis added):

Cease-fire eyed to stop violence in Iraq

By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer 14 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - U.S. military commanders are talking with Iraqi militants about cease-fires and other arrangements to try to stop the violence, the No. 2 American commander said Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno said he has authorized commanders to reach out to militants, tribes, religious leaders and others in the country that has been gripped by violence from a range of fronts including insurgents, sectarian rivals and common criminals.

"We are talking about cease-fires, and maybe signing some things that say they won't conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces.," Odierno told Pentagon reporters in a video conference from Baghdad.

"It's just the beginning, so we have a lot of work to do on this," he said. "But we have restructured ourselves to organize to work this issue."

Ball room blitz! Okay, not really, just another open thread.

Discuss, debate, pontificate, tell us your favorite glam rock song, offer NB editors your suggestions. Whatever's on your mind.

Name and town not needed if you wish to opine.