In today's "Can You Believe The Arrogance On Display" segment, the leaders of the G8 nations Wednesday vowed to -- get this! -- stop global temperatures from rising more than they believe is acceptable.

I'm not kidding.

As reported by Britain's Times:

In January, NBC News couldn't breathe a single word about the thousands of pro-lifers who came to Washington for the annual March for Life. But Brian Williams hailed 12 hard-left Greenpeace activists illegally hanging a banner at Mount Rushmore on Wednesday's Nightly News and showed their banner on screen for a full 15 seconds. Williams announced:

Look at what they did to [Mount] Rushmore and Abe Lincoln today. Three Greenpeace climbers rappelled down to hang a 65-foot-tall banner featuring President Obama's face. There were 12 arrests in all of environmental activists. They say they timed their message to coincide with that G-8 conference going on in Italy, and to remind the president that great presidents show leadership.

The banner read "America honors leaders, not politicians. Stop global warming." Obama's eyes and nose appeared between the sentences. Note Williams never even called Greenpeace "liberal."

Maybe the "Saturday Night Live" character immortalized by the late Chris Farley -- Matt Foley, motivational speaker -- is not the dominant influence to liberal bombthrower Ed Schultz.

Given Schultz's tendency to open wide and insert feet, perhaps comedian Norm Crosby and his signature shtich of inventive malapropisms is Schultz's actual guiding spirit.

One of my favorite Schultz gaffes came on April 16, back when liberals were atwitter about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's alleged secessionist tendencies (click here for audio) --

Wednesday’s Situation Room program on CNN devoted nearly three times as much time to clips from advocates of overturning the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy than the one sound bite from a proponent of keeping the policy. The two advocates- Democratic Representative Patrick Murphy and a female Iraq war veteran had 33 seconds of air time, compared to the 12 seconds from a conservative spokesman.

Correspondent Chris Lawrence’s report, which aired 38 minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program, focused on a tour led Rep. Murphy to overturn “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which is “targeting districts where military families live, trying to drum up enough popular support to get the needed votes in Congress” to repeal the policy. After playing the 12 second sound bite from the Democrat, Lawrence featured the first clip from Staff Sargent Genevieve Chase, an Iraq war veteran, who is among the tour’s “straight soldiers and veterans” who are trying to “reach other troops and their families.”

What the CNN correspondent didn’t mention during his report is how two homosexual advocacy groups- the Human Rights Campaign and Servicemembers United, helped organize this tour with Rep. Murphy.

There's no doubt about it. Celebrity is the media's top priority.

Michael Jackson's June 25 death overshadowed all other news for almost two weeks.

Nightly news programs on ABC, CBS and NBC featured at least one story each night about Jackson since his death. More than half of those broadcasts aired since June 25 lead with a story about Jackson. A Pew poll found cable news devoted 93 percent of its coverage to Jackson on June 25 and 26. The broadcast networks joined CNN, MSNBC and Fox News in airing Jackson's July 7 memorial from Los Angeles' Staples Center.

Despite a separate Pew poll that found 64 percent of people believe there was too much coverage of Jackson, the media continue to hit the story hard. CNN's Don Lemon even labeled critics of the coverage "elitist," and said, "Michael Jackson is an accidental civil rights leader, an accidental pioneer. He broke ground and barriers in so many different realms in artistry, in pictures, in movies, in music, you name it. So, no, I don't think it's overkill."

Ah, Twitter.

The fast-moving microblogging technology has become a household name.  It is the technology that aided the recent Iranian uprising, that gave the global supporters of freedom and justice a way to communicate with the people on the ground in Iran – those poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.

Like much of the Internet, it is also sometimes a hive-mind of absurdity.

Case in point: MSNBC’s David Shuster.  At approximately 4 p.m., July 7, Shuster graced the Twitterverse with this nugget:

By the way, for all of you watching on DirectTV and wondering why MSNBC is not in HD, ask mr. Murdoch/newscorps, the owner of DirectTV.

Ah yes, the wonderful figurehead of evil corporate moneymongers – the poster-child for all that is wrong (right?) with capitalism, Rupert Murdoch.  Surely the mighty Murdoch has decreed that MSNBC be broadcast only in low-resolution on his company’s satellites.

Gov. Sarah Palin had something to do with the death of pop star Michael Jackson. That's an interesting theory proclaims radio host and Jackson eulogizer opportunist Rev. Al Sharpton.

Our friend Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer has the story. Embedded at right is the audio of the program in question. I've pasted Maloney's transcript below:

FEMALE CALLER (31:50): He (Michael Jackson) is truly the soundtrack of my life. I also have a theory about Sarah Palin as well and I'm going to put it out there on radio, hopefully someone can investigate.

As President Obama headed to Russia, the American news media highlighted the negative views many Russians feel toward America, and left the impression that this trend started during the Bush administration. But conveniently forgotten was that Russian views toward America were just as negative toward the end of President Clinton's time in office. Even recent poll numbers on Russian public opinion are similar those measured in 1999.

In the June 23, 1999, Washington Times article, Janine Wedel wrote:

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" That's a saying once bungled by President George W. Bush, to the loud delight of the liberal media. But that same media should keep it in mind as Washington mulls a second round of stimulus spending.

A July 7 Bloomberg story by Shamim Adam reported that Laura Tyson, an economic advisor to the Obama administration, had put forward the notion that the $787 billion approved in February was "a bit too small," and that government should consider a second stimulus package "focusing on infrastructure projects."

Although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., maintains there is "no showing that a second stimulus is needed," other members, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in a July 7 Politico article, say it shouldn't be taken off the table.  

Good Morning America's David Wright on Saturday continued his habit of dropping insulting comments into stories about Sarah Palin, snidely asserting that the Alaska governor "lacked seasoning and, some would say, a firm grasp of the issues." Wright, who was reporting on Palin's announcement that she would be resigning her office, also speculated that far more serious motives could be behind the move.

He darkly intoned, "It is difficult to ignore the timing of this announcement, late on a Friday afternoon, on a holiday weekend. Many Americans bound to be tuned out. That suggests that the reasons are not good ones." And although the ABC journalist also commented that many in the Republican Party saw Palin as a "fresh face" in the GOP, Wright has a long history of adding demeaning comments to his stories on the 2008 vice presidential nominee.

The other day I was driving behind a car with a “Friend of Tibet” Virginia license plate. That’s great and I’d like to be a “Friend” myself, but with the job and the family and cutting the lawn … Can I just become a “Facebook Friend of Tibet?” If so, am I entitled to the same preening as Tibet’s actual Friends?

It got me wondering whether we’d see “Free Iran” paraphernalia anytime soon, and whether we’d see it on the same Volvos and Priuses as those “Free Tibet” bumper stickers. Somehow I doubt it, since Obama could barely fit any “concern” for Iran among the puffs of “hope” and billows of “change.” If he doesn’t care, the media doesn’t care, and the bumper sticker-industrial complex can concentrate on that cuddly Dalai Lama.

Not that freeing Tibet isn’t desirable. It should be free. In fact, we should also help free China (and Cuba and North Korea, while we’re at it), and make sure that Taiwan remains free. You don’t see many bumper stickers about those countries, though. And small wonder – if they really expected anyone to care about their plight, they would have had the foresight to stock up on skinny bald guys in saffron robes.

The network news divisions are enjoying the unprecedented coverage they're providing President Obama, not just because they support him, but because White House specials are cheap and do well in the ratings. "Obama should change his middle name from Hussein to Nielsen," quipped longtime TV reporter Gail Shister in a story by David Bauder of the Associated Press. It seems like a never-ending spin cycle: laudatory coverage leads to popularity, which leads to higher TV ratings, which leads to more laudatory coverage.

But it's not working any more. Behind the glittery curtains, Obama's polls are falling. Worse, some ink-stained wretches are getting a little sick of the propaganda merry-go-round. Helen Thomas and CBS reporter Chip Reid both slammed press secretary Robert Gibbs on the hermetically sealed "town hall" meeting on health care in Annandale, Virginia, where all the questions and questioners (and president-huggers) were carefully screened to make sure no one burst the bubble of Barack's astonishing cool.

But the network chieftains continue to be unapologetic, even insulting when questioned about their laudatory coverage of the White House.

Previewing Barack Obama's trip to Italy for the G8 summit, on Wednesday's "Today" show, NBC's Matt Lauer asked Savannah Guthrie what kind of reaction the President will receive as Lauer noted the President got a "chilly reception" in Russia. Guthrie responded that "It was a real contrast," because she is used to seeing, "really swooning Europeans who are very excited about Mr. Obama." [audio excerpt here]

MATT LAUER: And, and what kind of reception will the President receive from the Italian people? We all know that it was a rather chilly reception when he went to Russia the other day.

The mainstream media loves to tell the public about how "unreliable" the blogosphere is as an information source. However, there is a huge story out there that is only being covered by the blogosphere, in particular at Watts Up With That?, which is currently being completely ignored by the MSM.

It is about a significant disagreement between the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Energy Secretary Steven Chu over the amount of worldwide CO2 emissions if the United States acts alone should a climate bill pass in both Houses of Congress. Basically EPA's Jackson says that such a bill, if passed, would have very little effect on global CO2 emissions while Chu disagrees with that assessment.

You can see the EPA chart below the fold followed by the transcript of a video of both these Obama administration officials responding at complete odds with each other under questioning from Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe at the Senate hearing yesterday on a climate bill:

Salon's Camille Paglia has regularly chided the press for their obvious Palin Derangement Syndrome, and on Wednesday tried to once again explain the malady:

As a Democrat, I detest the partisan machinations that have become standard in Northeastern news management and that are detectable in editorial decisions at major metropolitan newspapers nationwide. It's why I, like a host of others, have shifted my news gathering to the Web.

Responding to a reader's question about the Alaska governor, Paglia referred to the "Northeastern media" as "vultures and harpies" as well as "preening bullies, cackling witches, twisted cynics and pompous windbags" as she took on Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum for the "faux objectivity" throughout his recent Palin hit piece. 

Paglia also attacked the "vicious double standard" concerning how Palin's family have been regular media targets compared to the respect accorded Chelsea Clinton:

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Palin says Obamanomics is immoral!

President Obama is growing government outrageously, and it's immoral and it's uneconomic, his plan that he tries to sell America. His plan to "put America on the right track" economically, incurring the debt that our nation is incurring, trillions of dollars that we're passing on to our kids, expecting them to pay off for us, is immoral and doesn't even make economic sense. So his growth of government agenda needs to be ratcheted back, and it's going to take good people who have the guts to stand up to him, stand up to him and debate policy, not personalities, not partisan politics, but policy to effect the change that we need there. And allow free enterprise and the industrious Americans who run our small businesses and want to raise a family, allowing our families to grow and prosper and thrive, Americans who still believe in those ideals to get in there and effect change.

Thoughts?

In this report we get a nice one-two punch. Not only are we seeing Democrats once again refusing even a tiny compromise with Republicans on Obama's takeover of nearly 20% of our economy with his healthcare plans, but we also get to see another example of why Huffington Post is not journalism. I like a nice one-two punch for a Wednesday.

For one thing, the HuffPo article hilariously calls Democrat pitbull Rahm Emanuel a “conservative Democrat.” But let's start with the more important political point and deal with the HuffPo chicanery second.

Noted free-speech champion Keith Olbermann has declared that we have to "legally stop" Glenn Beck. The Fox News host's crime? Not reacting strongly enough for Olbermann's taste when a guest made an over-the-top remark.  [H/t reader JKF.]

On the June 30 editon of Beck's show, former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer said: "the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to detonate a major weapon in the United States." Apparently Scheuer thinks that's what it would take to shock the country and its leaders back to their senses. Olbermann was infuriated that Beck didn't "scream at him" or otherwise jump down Scheuer's throat, choosing instead to nod gravely while suggesting that would be the last thing OBL would do.

View video here if player not visible.

In Olbermann's eyes, nodding in the third degree is a crime warranting legal action to "stop" Beck.