It's so easy, the cave men did it? LiveScience.com staff writer, Dave Mosher, wrote an article on Yahoo.com titled "Climate Change, Not Humans, Trounced Neanderthals" about Francisco Jimenez-Espejo, a University of Granada paleoclimatologist who “says a lack of evidence has left climate change weakly supported—until now. 'We put data behind the theory,' he said, filling in a large gap in European climate records when Neanderthals faded out of existence.”

He concluded from a detailed examination of evidence that Neanderthals disappeared from Earth more than 20,000 years ago at least partially because of climate change. As in global cooling.

U.S. News & World Report is traditionally known as the staid sister of Time and Newsweek, so it’s a little shocking to see these harsh words on the cover this week: "Bush’s Last Stand: He’s plagued by a hostile CONGRESS, sinking POLLS, and an unending WAR. IS HE RESOLUTE OR DELUSIONAL?" (Capitals theirs.) The cover story by Kenneth T. Walsh is loaded with Bush-bashing quotes from named and anonymous sources. Walsh began by noting Bush has compared his trials to those of Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman, and the diagnosis that Bush is mentally ill emerges from DNC chairman Dr. Howard Dean: "This is delusional – comparing yourself to two of our greatest presidents!" Liberal historian Robert Dallek added, "a great majority see him as stubborn and unyielding...And everything he touches turns to dust."

On Tuesday night, following a week in which the CBS Evening News attracted the fewest viewers in decades, the producers decided the Katie Couric-anchored newscast needed an injection of an Olbermann-esque twist: The arrests of six Islamists, for plotting to use automatic weapons to murder troops at Fort Dix, matches the hype around previous captures which fizzled. Armen Keteyian framed his story around how since 9/11 “more than 400,000 names have come under one form of government surveillance or another -- from watch lists to wiretaps. But only a handful of terrorists have been convicted in cases with concrete ties to al-Qaeda.” Keteyian highlighted how cases that “start out as larger, bolder terrorism cases, turn into lesser offenses. According to a study by the NYU Center on Law and Security, of the 550 terrorism cases since 9/11, only 163 individuals have been prosecuted on terrorism charges.” The group's Karen Greenburg then asserted: “The conclusion would be that we've made a lot of hoopla about a number of cases on the grounds of terrorism at the beginning, and they haven't panned out to be terrorism cases.”

But Keteyian didn't bother to alert viewers to the Center for Law and Security's agenda. Greenberg, the Executive Director featured in a soundbite, is “co-editor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib” and “she is a former Vice President of the Soros Foundation/Open Society Institute,” according to her online bio. Amongst the Fellows at the organization: infamous Clinton sycophant and conservative-basher Sidney Blumenthal and on the Board of Advisers: Dana Priest, the Washington Post reporter who exposed the secret overseas CIA sites to interrogate terrorists. The topic of the group's most recent forum, “The Hidden Roots of War: Christian Zionism and the Neocon Fundamentalist Alliance in America.”

The Katie Couric as “CBS Evening News” anchor experiment appears to be failing, and failing miserably.

As TV Week reported Tuesday (h/t TVNewser): “The news is not good for third-place ‘CBS Evening News With Katie Couric,’ which in the week of April 30 hit its lowest total viewership since at least 1987.”

According to TVNewser’s Brian Stelter, the “at least 1987” qualifier refers to Nielsen ratings not going back any further.

The news wasn’t any better for one of Couric’s competitors either:

Earlier today I wondered if MSNBC.com was bored with the Fort Dix terror plot story.

Well, here's an update. It appears they still are.

As of 7:00 p.m. EDT tonight, both FoxNews.com and CNN give the Fort Dix terror plot story prime real estate. Not so for MSNBC. See MSNBC screencap below and check here and here for Fox and CNN screencaps respectively.

A new study by my alma mater, the University of Maryland, looked at the online divisions of 19 major traditional print and broadcast media:

... to see which ones gave the users of their RSS feeds the same number of stories, the same range of news sources, in as timely a fashion as could be gotten if those users went to the individual website.

The Los Angeles Times, ABCNews.com, and Foxnews.com fared among the best RSS providers while the New York Times was among the worst. But the bottom line, the study concluded, was that:

... if a user wants specific news on any subject from any of the 19 news outlets the research team looked at, he or she must still track the news down website by website.

The main reason? The paucity of information RSS feeds give the reader:

Tonight's (May 8) episode of ABC's “Boston Legal,” the 10pm EDT/PDT drama set in an unorthodox Boston law firm, will seemingly take up the topic of a man “tortured” by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay. The ABC.com summary of the plot relays that attorney “Alan Shore,” played by James Spader, “sues the United States on behalf of a client who was tortured for two years at a detention camp.” The title of the episode: “Guantanamo by the Bay.”

This will hardly be the first time the ABC show, starring William Shatner and Candice Bergen, has centered episodes around advancing liberal causes. See the January 17 NewsBusters posting: “ABC's 'Boston Legal' Takes Cheap Shots to the Right.” Also check a NewsBusters posting from March of 2006, “ABC's 'Boston Legal' Airs Anti-Bush Tirade, Takes Shot at FNC & Raises McCarthy Era,” which features two video clips.

We’ve now finished the first two presidential debates, both on MSNBC. Pundits are debating whether they will make a difference in the race, but one thing is very clear: it’s business as usual for the media moderating these things. The Democrats were treated to an amiable chit-chat among friends. The Republicans took round after round of hostile fire from enemies. Nothing ever changes. The Democrats are spoiled like rotten kids, and the Republicans are invited to sleep on a bed of nails, and do so willingly.

But the dynamic now has been made even worse by the petulant petitions and protests of the censorious left, the ones who claim to be "democrats" but want to remove Fox News Channel from the news media. Leftists believe in a media strategy with all the sophistication of holding your breath and turning blue. Fox hatred is required. On the Huffington Post, author Carol Hoenig argued the Democrats should debate on Fox. Even so, her article was headlined "Fox News: A Cancer On Society."

Apparently, CNN can't get enough of Kathleen Sebelius, the Democrat governor of Kansas. She made two appearances on CNN on Monday, once on "American Morning," and the other time on "The Situation Room." Both times, she tried to blame the Iraq war for any hampered reactions to the devastation caused by a tornado in Greensburg, Kansas. The same evening, the "Paula Zahn Now" program featured another segment on the supposed equipment shortages Governor Sibelius has highlighted in her media appearances. Even though the segment's sound bytes supported the governor's line, CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre and Major General Tod Bunting of the Kansas National Guard made several points that reveal the truth of the situation.

One thing that was missing from all 3 CNN programs were any Republican responses to the governor's line. Both the White House and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (who is also a Republican candidate for president) both disputed Sebelius's claims that there was a shortage of National Guard resources

Just part of the lates info on Illegal Immigration. Perhaps I am overreacting but I feel there is not enough interest here at NB.
We will be SH** out of luck soon. I have excerpted the first few paragraphs:

"Legislative Update
May 7, 2007

Senate to Fast-Track Guest Worker Amnesty Legislation

Sources on Capitol Hill are reporting that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will be sending a guest worker amnesty bill straight to the Senate Floor during the week of May 14th. In doing so, Senator Leadership will invoke Senate Rule 14, which allows the Senate to bypass the regular committee process. Such a move would reduce the time opponents have to scrutinize the bill and keep the legislation on a fast track for passage.

Negotiations between the White House and Senators continue with regard to provisions that will ultimately be included in the legislation, and observers are waiting to see whether a compromise between the White House, Senate Republicans, and Senate Democrats can be reached. Sources now indicate Senate Leadership may use "place holder" legislation to get the guest worker amnesty passed. This means Senate Leadership would introduce either last year's Senate bill or a Senate version of the Flake-Gutierrez legislation (H.R.1645) and then use Rule 14 to bring the legislation directly to the floor. The legislation could then be voted on as-is, amended, or entirely stripped and amended with new compromise language hammered out with the White House. According to CongressDaily, Senator Specter has indicated this will take place using last year's Senate bill as a "place holder".

The Greensburg tornado disaster was just the perfect excuse for another global warming item on ABCNews.com.

After all, the Associated Press and CNN have focused on an Iraq angle to devastating tornado damage, but finding an Iraq angle to everything is so, I dunno, 2004.

At any rate, on his "Science and Society" blog at ABCNews.com yesterday, reporter Ned Potter set out to find why tornado touchdowns have increased in the past few years.

I called the National Weather Service, which says that as of today it knows of 69 dead in tornadoes since Jan. 1, compared to 49 up to this point last year, and 38 deaths for all of 2005. It's worth looking around NOAA's Storm Prediction Center site; find it HERE.

Is there a reason? Shifting weather patterns? Shifting population patterns? Global climate change? Clayton Sandell was asked to put together some notes.

With Rosie O’Donnell’s announced departure of "The View" other networks such as NBC and CBS are apparently interested in the very controversial comedienne. Broadcastingcable.com reports that Rosie may offer commentary on "The Early Show" in an effort to boost its third place ratings.

"Sources say O'Donnell will meet with CBS brass soon to discuss its offer, which could open the door to regular guest appearances on The Early Show. Her views have generated the type of buzz that could allow CBS to finally lift the perennial third-place program out of the morning-show cellar."

http://video.google....

Dr. Graham, Chief Judiciary for Clinton Impeachment David Schippers, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer & Able Danger, FBI Operative Randy Glass, FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds, Indira Singh & P-Tech, Republican representative Curt Wheldon.

*Silly rabbits! Cover-ups are for kids!

The New York Times is still adjusting badly to conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy's big win in the French presidential election over Socialist candidate Segolene Royal, judging by reporter Craig Smith's report from Paris on the thuggish violence that occurred after Sarkozy's big win ("Hundreds Are Arrested in Post-Election Riots Across France").

Instead of blaming the rioters, Smith implied that furthur violence could be blamed on Sarkozy keeping his campaign promises.

"Violent protests against the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France ended early Monday after hundreds of people were arrested, hundreds of cars gutted, and hundreds of windows smashed in several cities across France.

Anti-conservative bias in the media is not unique to America. Agence France-Presse (AFP) practically portrayed French President-elect Nicolas Sarkozy as a modern day, Gallic incarnation of Nero, fiddling while France burns (emphasis mine).:

France's next president Nicolas Sarkozy holidayed Tuesday in Malta ahead of launching a radical reform programme, while back home cities across the country were hit by more violent "anti-Sarko" protests.

A few paragraphs later, the AFP article --bearing the loaded headline "Sarkozy rests as France braces for reform -- continued to hold Sarkozy in a sinister light.:

Last night, CBS "Evening News" and ABC "World News with Charles Gibson" hyped rising gas prices, saying that the national average price was "just two cents short of the record."

Too bad they were both wrong because they didn't factor in inflation. The national average on May 7 was actually 17 cents below the inflation adjusted record high price from March 1981: $3.22 per gallon.

Anthony Mason's CBS report also proved he needs a calculator and possibly a math tutor.

Mason interviewed Mike Gorgia of Staten Island who regularly tracks his area's gas prices for GasBuddy.com. Mason said Gorgia saves a whopping $500 a year by shopping around for his gasoline.

Hold on -- $500? That doesn't exactly sound like a representative example.

The average American uses 500 gallons of gas each year, according to the Energy Information Administration. So if Gorgia is an "average American" he must be saving a full dollar on every gallon of gasoline.

Update below (May 9, 23:30 EDT)

First Time magazine drops the President from the '100 Most Influential' list, and now this: The big front-page photo in Tuesday's New York Times was of Queen Elizabeth (who did make Time's list of important movers and shakers) with President Bush walking past a row of photographers at the White House after her official welcome. But the photo cropped off the top third of Bush's head, and the caption whimsically referred to him only as the Queen's "American escort," as if he was a security guard or State Department flunkie.

Under the headline "Focus Group" (a play on all the cameras present), the Times summarized: "Before an A-list, white-tie dinner, the masses had a chance to see Queen Elizabeth II, with an American escort, at the White House. Page A19."

Don’t you find it amazing how liberal media members just can’t stand it whenever former President Ronald Reagan’s name is raised in conversation?

It’s one thing when the currently unhinged host of HBO’s “Real Time” Bill Maher complains that Republicans “love Ronald Reagan in a way that’s just gay.”

But when CBS and U.S. News & World Report’s Gloria Borger calls for a “moratorium on invoking the memory of Ronald Reagan” in a column about the recent Republican presidential debates held at a library named in his honor, this Gipper envy has clearly gotten way out of hand (emphasis added throughout):

Hours after her first appearance on CNN’s "American Morning," Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D) made a second network appearance on Monday’s "The Situation Room," where she repeated her Iraq-ruined-tornado-recovery line, that "what really is hampering our reactions like this and our opportunity to clean up quickly is the equipment shortage."

Prior to her interview, CNN correspondent Brian Todd gave a report that was meant to reenforce Sebelius's claims. The report featured sound bytes from the governor and from the National Guard officials, who all claimed that the equipment shortages have had a detrimental effect. However, Todd also reported that "Kansas National Guard officials tell us they can manage this disaster with the equipment they have, and the shortage has had not effect on deaths or injuries in Greensburg."

As already noted on NewsBusters, Diane Sawyer made an absurd comparison on Tuesday’s "Good Morning America" when she linked the current rising stock markets with the period of time before the historic 1929 market crash. The GMA host, talking to ABC analyst Mellody Hobson, fearfully wondered, "Did you know that the stock market has hit a milestone reminiscent of what happened before the big crash?"

Except, it’s not at all reminiscent of the "big crash." From 2000, through 2007, the Dow rose from 10, 577 to 13, 312. That’s an average annual increase of 3.7 percent. In the seven years prior to the 1929 crash, the market spiked from 100 to 381, growing over 40 percent yearly. The rate of increase is over 10 times more than the current levels. So, when Sawyer concluded that "1929 was the big crash and this is reminiscent of what happened before that," her comparison isn't just wrong, it's also nonsensical.

Following the election of conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy to France's presidency, there have been a series of riots from angry protesters upset at his victory. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to know much about the rioters due to the French government's passing a law that makes it a crime to report on riots unless you are a professional journalist:

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

The council c