While some people (and you know who you are) waste their time with a poorly scripted, acted, and produced HBO series (as seen Here: http://newsbusters.o...) the more important news of CBS renewing Jericho for a 2nd season has been overlooked.

CBS had originally canceled this series, but after fans mailed some 25 tons (yes, 50,000 lbs) of peanuts to CBS HQ in protest, the network re-thought their hasty decission and has ordered 8 new epsisodes for a mid-season replacement.

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Learn about the show here: www.whodroppedthebom...

See how fans got CBS to re-think their decission: www.jericholives.com

I was wondering when the New Republic Magazine began to delve into comedy? I guess it's all the rage with the comedic stylings of Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and John Kerry, but I had always thought the New Republic fashioned itself a magazine of "serious" political commentary. After reading a fawning, nay slobberingly sycophantic, assessment of the career of David Gregory, NBC News' White House correspondent, I have my doubts about TNR’s claims to serious analysis. The title even seems a stab at humor, or at least wild hyperbole, as they absurdly seem to think that Gregory "Saved the Press Corps". (Registration required for the New Republic)

I mean, this thing might have been written by the best The Simpsons writers or the inventive crew from the joke-shop operated by that red-headed rake, Conan O'Brien.

Sadly, I believe the magazine published this in all seriousness. I mean, imagine? They truly are positing that this ill tempered, easily provoked, admittedly "showboating", loudmouth of a reporter is something to admire and emulate!

Click here for instructions on running Gaggle daily on your own site. There's also an archive of previous toons available here.

Alexander Cockburn is certainly on a mission, albeit one that is shocking the folks at The Nation are tolerating.

After all, in his current article posted at both The Nation and Counterpunch, Cockburn indirectly castigated his own readers as he accused the left of having “been swept along, entranced by the allure of weather as revolutionary agent, naïvely conceiving of global warming as a crisis that will force radical social changes on capitalism by the weight of the global emergency.”

Powerful stuff to publish in one of the most liberal magazines in the country, wouldn’t you agree?

Strap your seatbelts tightly, for Cockburn was hunting alarmists, and came loaded for bear (emphasis added throughout):

NewsBusters readers, meet our second fabulous fifteen-year-old, Miss Lizzie Palmer.

For those that missed it, Chris Wallace aired an absolutely astounding military tribute video (available here) at the end of today’s “Fox News Sunday” that should be required viewing for all Americans.

At its conclusion, Wallace stated the following:

Lizzie Palmer said she put the video on YouTube as her way of honoring the troops. And after graduating from high school, she plans to join the army herself.

Last month, Military Mom at Home posted the following autobiography of Lizzie:

Forget the banter about Paris Hilton among the panelists on last evening's Fox News Watch. A deadly-serious matter later arose. Conservative columnist Jim Pinkerton flatly alleged that to promote multiculturalism and allay Americans' concerns about immigration, the MSM and the Department of Homeland Security spiked a story about a terrorist dry run by 12 Syrians.

View video here.

Pinkerton had discussed the story in a recent Newsday column:

Discussing the matter on Fox News Watch last evening at 6:43 pm EDT, Pinkerton observed:

                                                          

The last episode of "The Sopranos" is tonight. Please feel free to discuss your predictions and post facto thoughts.

Given the American media’s fascination with spreading global warming alarmism, how likely would it be to see the following headline in one of our papers:

Top Scientist Says Biofuels Are Scam.

Not very likely, right?

Well, such was the headline in England’s Sunday Times today (emphasis added throughout, h/t Alister McFarquhar):

Happy Sunday.

Are you sick and tired of Paris Hilton and all the attention given to this wealthy debutant when there are so many more important issues facing the nation?

Well, if so, you’re in good company, for in a commencement address at Williams College last Sunday, CBS “Evening News” anchor Katie Couric accurately stated that this “fluff…can rot your mind and distort your values.”

Yet, just four days later, Couric actually gave more airtime to Paris Hilton’s brief departure from jail than every other story that evening with the exception of the opening piece about growing tensions between Russian President Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush and the final segment dealing with a retirement home for champion racehorses.

To set this up, here is the relevant text from Couric’s commencement speech:

It has become clear to anyone with eyes and an open mind that the worldwide ban on DDT that is just now in the process of too-slowly being lifted has caused massive loss of human life over a period of decades that could, and should, have been avoided.

So you would think that the person who began the DDT scare in the early 1960s would be discredited, or her work at least shunted to the background. You would be wrong (link may require free registration; HT Instapundit):

For Rachel Carson admirers, it has not been a silent spring. They’ve been celebrating the centennial of her birthday with paeans to her saintliness. A new generation is reading her book in school — and mostly learning the wrong lesson from it.

The real "lesson" is that "Silent Spring" was perhaps the first successful use of junk science paired with corporation-bashing media hype to fool the general public:

Also: See this related NewsBusters post from Wednesday by Ken Shepherd.

Wednesday, reporter Nicholas Wade of the New York Times covered an important development in stem-cell research, opening with the following (bold is mine; link probably requires registration; HT Instapundit):

Biologists Make Skin Cells Work Like Stem Cells

In a surprising advance that could sidestep the ethical debates surrounding stem cell biology, researchers have come much closer to a major goal of regenerative medicine, the conversion of a patient’s cells into specialized tissues that might replace those lost to disease.

National Public Radio boasted an "evangelical Christian" commentary on Wednesday night's All Things Considered newscast – and that voice is conveniently trashing conservatives. Fresh from his last NPR commentary dancing on Jerry Falwell’s grave, turncoat former Bush aide David Kuo went at it again. Exploiting CNN’s biased decision to air a special with the leftist magazine Sojourners giving the Democrats an hour to proclaim their faith, Kuo declared that partisan lines are blurring on religion, that Democrats are conducting a "Jesus fair" and Republicans have "no compassion for anyone."

Last night in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidates were long on conservatism and short on compassion. On immigration, on Iraq, on virtually every issue, the consensus was that America hasn't been tough enough. No compassion for anyone — particularly those 12 million Americans who got here illegally.

This was a rare treat. Seeing a self-described liberal hitting the Washington Post for liberal bias. In this case the writer, one Philip Evans of Kensington, Md., sees the bias stemming from a case of lazy reporting: