The State of Texas easily has the highest execution rate in the United States. That is part of the reason why you "don't mess with Texas." And why is it exactly that Texas stands alone in implemeting the death penalty? According to Reuters, the answer is evangelical Christians.

In its article "Religion and culture behind Texas execution tally," Reuters states:

Like his predecessor, Governor Perry is a devout Christian, highlighting one key factor in Texas’ enthusiasm for the death penalty that many outsiders find puzzling — the support it gets from conservative evangelical churches.

This is in line with their emphasis on individuals taking responsibility for their own salvation, and they also find justification in scripture.

ABC7 Chicago's Andy Shaw reported today on a Democratic rally at the Illinois State Fair. Speaking was former steelworker Steve Skvara, who the mainstream media made an instant celebrity, not to mention health care authority, after he tearfully asked "What's wrong with America? And what will you do to change it?" at last week's AFL-CIO debate.

Shaw reports:

The governor's rally on a sweltering afternoon with a heat index above 100 attracted hundreds of Democrats, including a steelworker from Indiana who lost his job and health care and repeated an emotional plea that highlighted a presidential debate in Chicago last week.

"I want to hear a roar! Who's going to change America? Who's America is it? Is it the corporations' America or is it the citizens that vote?" said Stephen Skvara, former steelworker.

Katie Couric found it newsworthy Wednesday night that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's resignation letter from nine months ago did not include the words “war” or “Iraq.” Picking up on a story from the Associated Press on how “the deadly and much-criticized conflict that eventually drummed him out of office comes up only in vague references” in the November 6, 2006 letter the AP obtained by filing Freedom of Information Act requests, Couric failed to credit the AP as she relayed this brief item on the CBS Evening News:

“There's news tonight involving the former Pentagon chief. Donald Rumsfeld's resignation letter has surfaced and it's notable for what it doesn't contain. Rumsfeld refers to 'a critical time in our history' and a 'challenging time for our country,' but the two words he doesn't use? 'War' or 'Iraq.'”

What's in a name? For Chris Matthews, a lot.

Discussing foreign policy on this afternoon's "Hardball," host Matthews advanced this astonishing theory.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Do you have a sense, though, well certainly I have it, that just by his name, Barack, ah, Barack Hussein Obama, by his background, having grown up in Indonesia which is a largely Muslim country, that he would have a feel perhaps other presidential candidates don't have of how to connect with that part of the world, the billion people, that we seem to have such a problem connecting with and avoiding war with.

View video here.

Following in the footsteps of Newsweek Magazine, and CNN's Miles O'Brien's recent claim that the debate is over, NBC News further degraded the global warming debate this evening. In a report on global warming "deniers", Ann Thompson declared the debate over anthropogenic global warming "over".

In a segment that was spun against skeptics from the start (including the requisite repeated referral to those who question the human impact on climate change by using the derogatory and historically-loaded "deniers" label), Patrick Michaels was given just a few seconds of air time to point out a primary tenet of skeptics: while the Earth is indeed likely warming, the human connection cannot be quantified. But from there, the segment took the usual left turn, immediately vilifying the "deniers".

As an example that the media can't learn from the mistakes of others, a BBC IP address has been tracked down to a recent Wikipedia edit that changed the name of George Walker Bush to George Wanker Bush.

While that kind of activity in the States might cause you to get a warning email from the executive editor, at the BBC it might just get you promoted. 

As climate change legislation hopefully gets bogged down in a do-nothing Congress that continually punts on major issues of the day - keep your fingers crossed! - America's courts are likely to become the real battleground where the war over anthropogenic global warming is waged.

With this in mind, all eyes are on a United States district court in Mississippi where a class action lawsuit was filed last year against most of America's oil, coal, and electric power companies claiming that their actions which exacerbate global warming were responsible for Hurricane Katrina and, therefore, plaintiffs' physical and monetary damages caused by that tropical storm.

I kid you not.

As reported by the International Herald Tribune Wednesday (emphasis added):

As the stock market went up and down over the past few weeks, media coverage also bounced from end-of-the-world rhetoric to rational analysis.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer went on an impassioned rant August 6 calling for the Fed to reduce interest rates.

“Bernanke needs to open the discount window. That is how bad things are out there … in the fixed income markets we have Armageddon,” said Cramer on “Stop Trading!” Following Cramers’ rant, NBC brought him on “Today” to analyze the economy August 10.

NBC’s Meredith Vieira asked “Are the markets about to crash?” on the August 10 “Today” show.

Contrast that with CNN's Ali Velshi on August 13:

Hot on the heels of Barack Hussein Obama claiming U.S. troops are "killing civilians", Yahoo! News runs a AFP picture (right) taken by Wissam al-Okaili showing a woman with two bullets that purportedly "hit her house" during a coalition forces raid.

I won't even insult you by pointing out what's wrong with this picture. One photographer on a forum asks "How would any photo editor ever allow such a photo to be published?" I offer two answers; 1. Because they want to believe. 2. Because they don't know the first thing about guns or bullets.

In a completely Clintonesque defense (depends what the meaning of 'is' is), some are claiming that the bullets could have "hit her house" -- had they been thrown at it. '

(Ken Shepherd's take on the story.)

It seems that some folks at the Seattle Times got a bit giddy when they heard news of Karl Rove's resignation.

The paper's David Postman clarified in an August 14 "Postman on Politics" blog post that while it "sounds like a conservative's parody of how a news meeting would be run... It was only a couple of people who cheered [Rove's resignation] and they, thankfully, are not among the people who get a say in news play."

Nevertheless, Postman noted that executive editor David Boardman has issued a warning to Seattle Times staff:

As we head into a major political year, now's a good time to remember: Please keep your personal politics to yourself.

Kudos to Boardman for reminding his staffers to check their politics at the door.

See also Editor & Publisher's story and NewsBusters contributor Mithridate Ombud for a related post.

Starbucks shops across the U.S. today are hosting global warming discussions in 60 cities nationwide - and touting a new global warming movie by the studio that distributed Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."

The new movie, "Arctic Tale," which follows a polar bear and walrus "as their beautiful icebound world" "melts beneath them." will be promoted during today's Starbucks "National Day of Discussion" at stores nationwide.

"We can spark discussion on this issue and impact change from right inside our stores," Starbucks Entertainment president Ken Lombard says.

So, a new survey shows that only 22% of consumers think they can make a difference regarding the environment – and that they’re far more knowledgeable on the subject than typically thought. You'd think that'd be news, given the way the mainstream media seems to love proclaiming man's suicidal assault on Mother Earth. Apparently not, if you trust Lexis or Google News to track media coverage.

So, why haven't the left-wing media's Big Guns been reporting the story? Perhaps, it's because the findings suggest that consumers aren't as "green" (in either sense) as they'd like the public to believe.

Whether it’s comparisons between the United States and the Soviet Union or George Bush and Saddam Hussein, the far left has always specialized in false moral equivalence.

In the latest example of this, Daily Kos proprietor Markos Moulitsas has been trying to shift the spotlight that’s now being shined on the numerous vulgar and hateful remarks for which his site is famous over to conservative sites, implying that the right is just as full of hate as his followers.

Trouble is, that’s just not the case. As NewsBusters pointed out earlier, left-wing blogs and their commenters are much more likely to use profanity than conservative blogs.

Brushing aside those pesky facts, Moulitsas launched a false attack on Maine senator Susan Collins today implying that “Arthur Frain,” a commenter on Maine Web Report, a site run by her online communications director was speaking for Republicans when he/she wrote the following:

Today's New York Times "Political Memo" by reporter Michael Luo, "Question of Sons' Choices Dogs Romney Campaign," reached into Michael Moore territory in relaying criticism of Republican candidate Mitt Romney for his sons' failure to serve in the military during the Iraq War.

"Mitt Romney has been asked before on the campaign trail if his sons have served in the military, and he usually has dispatched the question easily enough.

"But an awkward response last week in Iowa, in which Mr. Romney said in part that 'one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected,' forced him several days later to say he misspoke and injected a discordant note into his otherwise triumphant few days after he won the state’s Republican straw poll.

“Do you fly to San Francisco by any chance?...OK, I have to go out there, are you going to promise me, guarantee me, that if I buy a ticket at the end of August you won’t cancel that flight?”

That was NBC “Today” show host Meredith Vieira’s final question in an interview with Northwest Airlines CEO Douglas Steenland. Vieira phrased the question as though it was Steenland’s fault that a high number of flights had been cancelled earlier in the summer. To Vieira weather, mechanical problems, and Air Traffic Control apparently played no part in it.

Vieira spent almost the entire five-and-a-half-minute interview berating Steenland.

I'm no expert on firearms or anything, but I'm pretty sure spent ammunition doesn't look shiny and pristine. So why did the AFP (and Yahoo!, which syndicated the photo) swallow that notion hook, line, and sinker?

See Ace for more. Here's an excerpt:

Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who's got the lowest carbon footprint of them all? The "eco-conscious" one, says Marie Claire magazine.

An "urban hipster," a "mountain maven" and a "globe-trotter" competed to see who "[was] earth-friendly and whose carbon footprint [was] to blame for drowning polar bears and worse" in the September 2007 issue of Marie Claire.

The article, entitled, "Whose Carbon Footprint is the Smallest," found that globe-trotter "Josie," who "considers herself more eco-conscious than most people," had the largest carbon footprint.

In this second installment, we take a break from our usual program of pointing out the absurdity of liberal bias in the press to let you get to know some of the people who provide the news for public consumption.

Meet Mario Anthony Orlikoff, formerly a Daily Press Sports Editor, now an alleged bank robber. After being followed by a drive-through bank customer, Mario was pulled out of a river by police and his toy gun was taken away, which will no doubt lead to calls for a three day waiting period for toy guns. The big tip-off was that the note he handed the bank teller in the robbery was written in perfect AP Style.

In other news, Seattle Times staffers showed their true colors this week. Editor & Publisher reports that when news staffers at the Seattle Times learned of Karl Rove's resignation, they cheered. It led Executive Editor Dave Boardman to send a note to the staffers telling them to keep their politics to themselves, which apparently means keep doing what you're doing but don't cheer out loud about it.

Update: Seattle Times stock "losing value dramatically." Down 12% in six months.

I think its time NewsBusters does a thrity minute or 1 hour TV show.

Perhaps you can start out as a pod cast and then get picked up by Fox or CSPAN.  Or if hell freezes over you can get picked up by CNN or MSNBC.

 You already have a pretty good format for what the show is gonna be about.  Just pick the hottest blog posts and talk about them on the air with scheduled guests.  It would be kinda of hard to tell the guests what they will be talking about because of the fast nature of which you report on the bias.

 I think the MSM would have a major COW if there was a news show that Focused exclusively on their Bias.

Just my 2 cents.

Not surprising, but the Time magazine contri