As oil and gas prices have risen over the past few years, more and more Americans have become familiar with the name Trilby Lundberg.

For those that aren’t, the Lundberg Survey has been the source for information related to fuel prices, fuel taxes, and all things petroleum for over fifty years.

With that in mind, Lundberg was interviewed by the folks at CNN.com last Wednesday, and the never shy energy maven spoke candidly about a variety of issues that most in the media would be afraid to share with the citizenry (emphasis added throughout):

Newsweek writer Jerry Adler penned an environmental-extremist quote for the ages in the last issue of 1990, writing "It's a morbid observation, but if everyone on earth just stopped breathing for an hour, the greenhouse effect would no longer be a problem." More than 16 years later, Adler’s on the morbid anti-human bandwagon again in this week’s Newsweek with an entire page-long article reporting "If humans were evacuated, the Earth would flourish." The hatred for man’s apparent ruination of the Earth comes right through in his coldly casual discussion of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement:

Environmentalists have their own eschatology—a vision of a world not consumed by holy fire but returned to ecological balance by the removal of the most disruptive species in history. That, of course, would be us, the 6 billion furiously metabolizing and reproducing human beings polluting its surface.

Appearing from Baghdad on Tuesday's Situation Room to discuss the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), CNN correspondent Michael Ware strayed from reporting into opinion-making as he rued “the smoke and mirrors from the administration” trying to make Iraq about al Qaeda to invoke a “Pavlovian response from the American public.” He also mocked General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for lacking the knowledge to see a “sea change” in better security.

In the segment aired near the top of the 5pm EDT hour, and re-run during the 7pm EDT hour of The Situation Room, anchor Wolf Blitzer relayed how the NIE “suggests that al Qaeda is seeking to leverage al Qaeda in Iraq for attacks against U.S. targets outside of the Iraq.” In a lengthy response, Ware cautioned: “We must be aware of the spin -- the smoke and mirrors from the administration, trying to reshape the message on Iraq being specifically about al Qaeda, America's lingering, most familiar fear, trying to invoke some Pavlovian response from the American public, to fear them into again supporting the war.” As for Pace, Ware was dismissive: “I think the General, unfortunately, is suffering from the luxury of distance. And I think he's expecting far too much to be able to peer through the U.S. bubble of protection in which he operates in his brief fleeting visit to Iraq.”

Is global warming caused by greenhouse gases or ozone depletion? A comedian who simply calls himself Chick doesn’t think so.

In fact, Chick has created a video that offers his own side-splitting take on this controversial subject that is sure to thrill conservatives while angering liberals.

Obviously, the latter is just a scrumptious ancillary benefit.

That said, readers should be warned that the content, though clearly satirical, might be perceived as a bit sexist, albeit for those that are either members of the ACLU, or thoroughly devoid of a sense of humor, assuming there’s a difference (video available here).

For those interested in a little background on Chick, his MySpace states:

“Private” must be the new cuss word, because “CBS Evening News” sure made it sound dirty on July 16.

“It was the winter of 2003, when Congress, in the dead of night, overhauled Medicare … [Medicare Advantage] and it put a large part of a government-run program into the hands of private insurance companies,” said investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian.

New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Steven Erlanger has long been known for his pro-Palestinian reporting, and his Sunday magazine profile of Gaza's Khaled Abu Hilal, who went from the "mainstream" Palestinian group Fatah to the overtly anti-Israeli terrorist group Hamas, certainly fit the pattern.

Erlanger began with this cloying, sorrowful harangue:

"Palestinians never used to do these things to one another. Putting bullets in the back of the heads of men on their knees. Shooting up hospitals. Killing patients. Knee-capping doctors. Executing clerics. Throwing handcuffed prisoners to their deaths from Gaza’s highest (and most expensive) apartment buildings. There is a madness in Gaza now."

While interviewing far-left antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, "Hardball" host Chris Matthews said he sympathized with her point of view that enough money should be appropriated to bring the troops home and end the war in Iraq. Video of the exchange is available here.

In the wake of the dismal failure of Al Gore’s Live Earth concerts, an Australian journalist has written a deliciously satirical look at anthropogenic global warming.

Published at Australia’s The Age Wednesday, Jim Schembri’s “Global Warming Now World’s Most Boring Topic: Report” offered readers a much-needed chuckle about this issue by presenting results of a study, “conducted by a non-partisan think tank located somewhere between the small township of Tibooburra and the NSW border,” with some truly hysterical conclusions.

Schembri set the joke up wonderfully (emphasis added throughout, h/t NBer Sick-n-Tired):

On Monday night, CNN aired a special hour promoting the upcoming "CNN/YouTube" presidential debates. CNN is encouraging viewers to record their questions for the presidential candidates and post them on YouTube.com. In anticipation of this historic event, hosts John Roberts and Kiran Chetry shared just a few of the thousands of video submissions CNN has already received. Of the videos aired on Monday, a disproportionate number were distinctly liberal. Of the 19 individual videos shown (excluding some brief, zany clips), 10 were politically neutral, 8 were liberal or critical of conservative and/or Republican policies, and only 1 was clearly conservative.

Video (1:54): Real (1.39 MB) or Windows (1.16 MB), plus MP3 audio (652 kB) 

At a conservative Web activist happy hour yesterday, I learned about a new Web site that's a great resource for press and public alike, although I doubt many in the liberal media will catch on quickly, if at all.

WashingtonWatch.com is a Web site "maintained by Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, in his spare time, as a public service." Harper puts a dollar figure on the bright (or frankly mostly not-so-bright) ideas that Congress toys with day in and day out.

Here's but a sample from today:

H.R. 3043
Making appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes
Costs $5,868.73 per family

Let’s be blunt: Michael Moore is one ungrateful leftist hack. CNN had showered him with three hours and ten minutes of face time (repeats included) on "Larry King Live" and "The Situation Room," helping him sell his latest socialist film "Sicko." That kind of attention would make a conservative drool. But when CNN aired a "fact check" piece on his documentary, adding a fraction of balance, he declared jihad, promising in a letter to be CNN’s "worst nightmare."

As NewsBusters reported Monday, Bill O’Reilly isn’t pleased about airliner JetBlue sponsoring the upcoming convention of Daily Kos devotees and Democrat presidential candidates referred to by the netroots as YearlyKos.

In fact, Monday’s “O’Reilly Factor” began with the host observing:

What do you think of someone who says the following: the world would be better off without him? That after Tony Snow announced his cancer had returned. The pope is a primate. Evangelicals are nut cases. Better luck next time after an assassination plot against Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan. And some attacks against coalition forces in Iraq are legitimate.

Fox and Friends anchors Gretchen Carlson and Steve Doocy, along with author C. David Heymann (there to discuss his new book on the death of JFK Jr.), fawned over the eighth anniversary of the plane-crash death of John F. Kennedy Jr. Meanwhile, by comparison, CBS, CNN, NBC, and ABC were silent about JFK Jr. Monday morning.

Call it killing two birds with one stone. The mainstream media tries to keep the recovery from Hurricane Katrina in the public consciousness, while highlighting one of their favorite sons. That was the gist of a segment on Monday's "Anderson Cooper 360" on CNN. Host Anderson Cooper has consistently played-up the government's poor response to Hurricane Katrina (his appearance on ‘Oprah' as a prime example). At the same time, he gave John Edwards the silk glove treatment. Cooper, who at one point, labeled Edwards's stop in New Orleans a "political photo-op," went on to report, "Edwards insists this not a campaign swing. There are no rallies, no cheering crowds. A small gaggle of reporters follows him from stop to stop as he struggles for traction." Overall, his segment follows ABC's "heaping helping" of Edwards's townhall meeting in New Orleans.

Two parts involving Elizabeth Edwards highlighted the absurdity of the segment. Cooper gave this syrupy-sweet take on her involvement in her husband's campaign.

COOPER (voice-over): With him much of the time, his wife, Elizabeth, a celebrity in her own right, fighting a personal and public battle with cancer. She's a top adviser and her husband's chief defender.

COOPER (on camera): How angry do you get when you read about his $400 haircut or criticism of the house you guys are building?

Reporting on Mayor Adrian Fenty (D-D.C.) and his decision to appeal a gun rights case to the Supreme Court, the Washington Post failed to consult any of the half-dozen citizens of the District of Columbia who won the lawsuit in federal Circuit Court four months earlier.

Reporter David Nakamura quickly revealed to readers that the liberal mayor was couching his appeal as an effort to protect the citizens of the gun-crime-plagued city.

The District will ask the Supreme Court to uphold its strict 30-year handgun ban, setting up what legal experts said could be a test of the Second Amendment with broad ramifications.

The high court has not ruled on the Second Amendment protection of the right to keep and bear arms since 1939. But at a morning news conference yesterday, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and Attorney General Linda Singer said they expect the court to hear a case they called crucial to public safety.

A few grafs later, Nakamura quoted Fenty, who heads the city government that was the losing party to Parker v. District of Columbia. That's fair enough, Fenty is the guy taking the case to the High Court, he should be quoted first. But what about this Parker fellow?

He was nowhere to be found in Nakamura's article, although Post reporter Paul Duggan gave readers of the Post a glimpse into Palmer's plight in a March 18 article. Of the six plaintiffs on the case, libertarian and Cato Institute constitutional lawyer Robert Levy knew just one:

"[O]pting out can come back to haunt some women."

And haunt it does in this piece designed to scare the bejeebers out of women who are considering leaving the workforce in order to stay at home with their children. MSNBC contributor Eve Tahmincioglu warns us that women who leave lucrative careers in order to change diapers and arrange playdates may receive a nasty surprise if and when they need to go back to work.

She includes anecdotes from women whose circumstances demanded that they go back to work, but were unable to simply pick up from where they left off, taking jobs they had to in order to make ends meet.

For professional backup, Tahmincioglu turns to Leslie Bennetts, author of the recent tome "The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?"

Please report bugs you see in the new NB here. Thanks!

As NBC's Matt Lauer advertised Harry Reid’s "all-nighter" to debate Iraq's funding, his colleague, Jim Miklaszewski, buttressed Reid's theatrics by showcasing military families, whose "anger over the war is growing," and even highlighted a group calling for the war's defunding. On this morning's 'Today' show, Miklaszewki, aired soundbites from three war opponents but he didn’t gave any air-time to supporters of the war effort.

The following is the full, unbalanced, segment as it occurred the July 17th Today show:

We're converting...

When Matt Lauer introduced a segment on the booming stock market by asking "is the rising tide lifting all boats?" I braced myself for another MSM excursion into class warfare. But surprise, surprise . . .

CNBC's Erin Burnett narrated the segment, and her opening also made me figure we were in for more bash-the-rich rhetoric. "Another day, another record on Wall Street . . . As stocks rise, it is time to finally ask, who is really making all the money? Who are the winners of the global economic boom?"

Cut to clips of the Dem presidential contenders, including Hillary offering up this bit of class warfare at its pandering worst: "while productivity and corporate profits are up, the fruits of that success just hasn't [sic] reached many of our families. It's like trickle-down economics but without the trickle."

But then came the surprising shift of gears.

CNBC'S ERIN BURNETT: But while the rich are getting richer, you may be too. Here's why: more than half of Americans are invested in the market, whether through a 401(k) plan or buying stocks or mutual funds, and many of those investments are surging. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 12% so far this year, and if your retirement plan invested in oil, that alone is up 21%. It's also worth noting that while politicians talk about "two Americas" [get ready to duck, John Edwards] virtually all Americans are seeing wages rise, and unemployment is at an historic low.

Mother Teresa might be allowed to oppose gay marriage.  But those falling short of saintliness have forfeited their right to do so. 

That, in a nutshell, is the logic that "Morning Joe" panelist John Ridley espoused on today's show. His comments came in the course of a dialogue with host Joe Scarborough in the wake of the public statement that Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and his wife made yesterday.

Apparently, airing 75 hours of free coverage of Al Gore's Live Earth global-panic concerts (complete with children shedding tears over the impending end of blue skies and green grass) was just the beginning of on-air liberal activism by NBC-Universal. They're touting another week of on-air activism this November (during the week of Election Day) for their "pro-social cause" of environmental alarmism. As Glenn Garvin of the Miami Herald notes on his blog Changing Channels, "The company press release pointedly includes NBC News and CNBC on the list of company divisions that are participating, not that there's any systematic ideological bias in network news, no sir." The trade magazine Multichannel News adds more detail:

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