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According to the UK's Life Style Extra, a majority of 4,000 people surveyed believe global warming is a natural occurrence, as opposed to being caused by mankind, despite a scientific consensus claimed by the article:

ALMOST three quarters of people believe global warming is a 'natural occurrence' and not a result of carbon emissions, a survey claimed today.

This goes against the views of the vast majority of scientists who believe the rise in the earth's temperatures is due to pollution.

[...]

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which represents most scientists, stated earlier that the increase in global temperatures is 'very likely due to the observed increase of man-made greenhouse gas concentrations'.

They define very likely as 'more than 90 percent certain'.

 

Ubergizmo.com, a “trendy web magazine dedicated to consumer electronics news and reviews,” such as a $2,650 Fujitsu Tablet PC and a “Wiener Dog Accent Lamp,” had a puzzling entry last week that discussed an amazing new sleeping tent, then surprisingly slammed the free-market system by whining about glorifying “the excesses of capitalism.“ Basically, the Water Shelter tent is an easily portable tent that also collects rainwater and can even be dropped in by air, which would be a lifesaver for flood refugees.

At the end of the blurb, the author threw in a comment that is strange for a site that is filled with small articles designed to highlight and promote capitalist goods. Was this an unclear joke or yet another anti-capitalist dig from an unlikely source?

Here's the whole blurb:

By now you should know the drill concerning potables, combustibles, and sharp objects…

American heartthrob Tom Cruise has been prevented from filming scenes to a new movie about the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler at German military sites due to the actor’s connection with Scientology.

I kid you not.

As reported by Reuters Monday (emphasis added throughout):

And now for something completely insipid…

As the media and their alarmists like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore have shamefully convinced enough of the population that man can actually impact the climate, law firms around the nation are gearing up to sue possible offenders.

I kid you not.

As reported in Monday’s Dallas Morning News (h/t NBer alamojb, emphasis added throughout):

Mika Brzezinski is at it again. As noted here and here, the daughter of Jimmy Carter's former National Security Advisor is inclined to inject her personal political views into her MSNBC newsreading role.

At 6:10 am EDT on today's "Morning Joe," Mika read an item reporting that Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) had called for a change of course in Iraq and expressed support for the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker and Lugar's fellow Hoosier, Lee Hamilton.

Mika couldn't restrain herself, archly asking:

MSNBC NEWSREADER MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Whatever happened to the Iraq Study Group, because I believe President Bush asked for those pieces of advice, correct?

Host Joe Scarborough immediately called Mika on her editorializing.

MSNBC HOST JOE SCARBOROUGH: The thing is, Mika, if you write for the front page of the New York Times, they don't let you go into the editorial room.

View video here.

On Monday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams highlighted a "surprise" letter presented to President Bush by high school students visiting the White House who wanted the President to "stop the practice of torture." Williams: "When they got there, 50 of them [out of 141] presented him with a handwritten letter that they had signed demanding that the United States stop the practice of torture."

During the 37-second segment, Williams recounted the story and at one point showed a copy of the letter on-screen with the sentence "We do not want America to represent torture" blown up so it was readable to viewers. The NBC anchor concluded by relaying the President's response. Williams: "The President told them the United States does not practice torture, the very same thing the President has said publicly in the past." (Transcript follows)

Despite the seemingly ad nauseum claims by alarmists in the media of a consensus amongst scientists that man is responsible for global warming, it now seems that virtually every week, another highly-credentialed individual comes forward to profess a skeptical view.

With that in mind, a significant paper concerning the relationship between sunspot activity and rainfall was published this month in the Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering refuting a number of positions held by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Though highly technical, the work of these five scientists acts to further discredit alarmists’ assertions that the anthropogenic global warming debate is over (emphasis added throughout):

The Supreme Court on Monday issued two rulings related to free speech, but CBS was more concerned by the court's move “to the right,” while ABC deplored the impact of the ruling striking down of a ban on advocacy advertising 60 days before an election. In the other case, the court upheld the right of school officials to ban student signs advocating illegal behavior. Substitute CBS Evening News anchor Harry Smith, however, saw only one of the cases as involving free speech as he stressed the ideological direction of the court: “Today the justices ruled on a broad range of issues, including campaign finance reform and free speech for students. The rulings illustrate a distinct turn to the right due in part to the court's newest members.” Instead of seeing a victory for free speech, Wyatt Andrews described it as “part of a trend in which the Roberts court generally has moved to the right.” Andrews soon touted how “often the court's only woman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, would verbally strike back,” such as when “she said the partial-birth abortion decision reflects ancient notions about women's place in the family, and this was out loud in open court.”

Over on ABC, anchor Charles Gibson relayed how both of the big rulings “involved freedom of speech,” but only in the school case did ABC put “free speech” on screen. With “Campaign Ads” on screen, Gibson rued the triumph for free speech: “The court weakened a key provision of the campaign finance reform law, opening the way for many more groups to run many more political ads.” Gibson told Stephanopoulos that campaign spending “is out of control” and Stephanopoulos lamented how groups can now “run TV ads right up until election day praising candidates, criticizing candidates, as long as you don't use the words 'vote for' or 'vote against.' And it's very easy to get around that.”

The MSNBC report about 144 journalists donating to leftwing causes 9 to 1 over conservative causes has resulted in news staffers being let go, including a reporter and a cartoonist.

KTPM Omaha fired reporter Calvert Collins, who had posted her photo with a congressional candidate on her Facebook page with the caption, "Vote for him Tuesday, November 7!"

"In a way, I'm glad this happened to me at age 23, and not 33," Collins said, "and I will learn from it."

Being fired is probably not the lesson she expected to learn.

Freelance editorial cartoonist Paul Fell will no longer be drawing cartoons for the Lincoln, Nebraska "Journal Star" due in large part to snide comments he made when it was disclosed that he had donated $450 to Maxine Moul, a Democrat candidate for Congress. Editor Kathleen Rutledge wrote,

TV Newser has a speculative piece that Rosie O'Donnell may be headed to NBC/MSNBC as part of a daytime/night-time deal that will allow the former co-host of The View to play nice during the day with a celebrity-focused show and then spew her liberal rants, ala Keith Olbermann, in the evenings. The following is the article inspired by FoxNews.com's Roger Friedman.

Rosie: Proud As A Peacock?

FoxNews.com's Roger Friedman "guesses" Rosie O'Donnell is going to NBC/MSNBC.

Have you ever wondered what makes liberals so full of…hate?

After all, it seems that regardless of the venue or the setting, someone on the far left side of the dial is going to say something bad about Republicans, George W. Bush, Fox News, or all of the above.

Such was certainly the case when former Air America host Janeane Garofalo sat down to discuss her new animated feature “Ratatouille” with the Boston Herald (h/t Brian Maloney).

In the end, it didn’t take long for Garofalo to lob her first surface-to-conservative missile (emphasis added throughout):

Make a crazy eco-rule that affects thousands and the mainstream media finds critics – who said it doesn’t go far enough.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome banned city departments from purchasing bottled water, even for water coolers. But that wasn’t good enough for Greenpeace Energy Policy analyst Samantha Rogers.

Rogers told CNN’s “American Morning” fill-in host Rob Marciano she wanted to see the mayor do more than just ban plastic bottles, but to sign a plan championed by global warming doomsayers that would force the city to have more than 50 percent of its energy come from renewable resources by the year 2017.

CBS legal analyst Andrew Cohen found the rulings from the Supreme Court today to be a boon for conservatives, but he couldn't resist hinting about his personal opinions about those cases. He didn't seem to agree with any of them. (emphasis mine):

Conservatives go 4-4 today at the Supreme Court

Let's stay with our baseball theme today.

Legal and political conservatives hit for the cycle Monday morning when they "won" four long-awaited rulings from the United States Supreme Court. The Justices further chipped away at the wall that separates church and state, took some of the steam out of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, neutered federal regulators in environmental cases to the benefit of developers and slammed a high school kid who had the temerity to put up a silly sign near his high school.

Just when you think the loony left can't get any more deranged and hateful toward George W. Bush, someone comes along and further lowers the bar.

Former Washington Post sportswriter, "Seinfeld" writer and executive co-producer Peter Mehlman did just that today in a Huffington Post article (h/t Ace) which said that President Bush is actually worse than Hitler because at least the German dictator meant well when he was trying to exterminate Jewish people.

Yahoo has a copy which I reproduce here in full just in case someone yanks it from both sites. As is often the case with liberals, Mehlman is incapable of expressing himself without using profanity:

On Monday’s "Good Morning America," for the second time in less than two months, the ABC program featured a gushing segment on a liberal environmentalist’s "noble experiment" of forgoing toilet paper and all other modern amenities in order to have "no impact" on the Earth.

GMA weatherman Sam Champion, who is himself a promoter of extremist environmental beliefs, touted how the year-long project could be "fun." Co-anchor Chris Cuomo marveled at how Colin Beavan, or No Impact Man, as he likes to be called, is trying to "do nothing to hurt the environment." "Ooh, respect that," he murmured in a tease for the segment. In an unintentionally funny moment, when Cuomo noted that he couldn’t "go without" toilet paper, this exchange followed:

Chris Cuomo: "Can’t go without [toilet paper]. Can’t be that green, Sam. Can’t be that green."

Sam Champion: "I want to help you."

Help how?

Here's how USA Today's Joan Biskupic started her June 25 article on the Supreme Court's ruling in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, the case in which the Court struck down a televised ad ban in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. (emphasis mine)

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday opened the door to corporate and union financing of broadcast ads subtly attacking candidates for federal office before an election, in a 5-4 decision that is likely to make it harder for Congress to regulate campaign financing in the future.

The decision also could bring about a new flood of corporate and big-money spending on the 2008 elections.

If I didn't know better I'd think she were auditioning for a PR job with the John McCain for President campaign.

Here's how Biskupic colleague Jill Lawrence of the paper's "On Politics" blog tracked McCain's reaction to the ruling (emphasis mine):

Last week, author Salman Rushdie was made a knight by Queen Elizabeth, setting off many in the Islamic world on account of his authorship of a novel which made fun of Mohammad and implied he manufactured his religion. Since its publication, The Satanic Verses has earned Rushdie death threats and even bounties for anyone who could kill the author or those who helped publish the novel; his knighting reignited those flames of hatred.

Curiously absent in all this has been the American press which is quick to condemn outbursts of intolerance (on a much smaller and less violent nature) when they come from the Christian community. L.A. Times media reporter Tim Rutten picked up on this (h/t Patterico):

If you're wondering why you haven't been able to follow all the columns and editorials in the American press denouncing all this homicidal nonsense, it's because there haven't been any. And, in that great silence, is a great scandal.

In a piece that analyzes New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's chances for a successful presidential run, CNN contributor Roland Martin doesn't think that the country is clamoring for him in the way Ross Perot was in demand back in 1992. In particular, Martin doesn't think the Republican base would back him in part because he's Jewish:

Who is Bloomberg's constituency? Is it Republicans who are desperate for a standard-bearer in the mold of Ronald Reagan? Bloomberg doesn't appeal to the GOP base -- he's liberal, from New York and is Jewish. (Be honest, if he was a hard-core conservative and a Baptist, they would be falling over him.)

Emphasis mine. His reasoning doesn't explain Rudy Giuliani's popularity. While he isn't Jewish, Giuliani is from New York, he is not a hard-core conservative with regard to social issues, and he is Catholic, not Baptist.

Could it be that Bloomberg's policies on their own are enough to turn off Republicans? Or that they don't believe he has what it takes to be president? Why bring his religion into it?

Carrying the left's water, on this morning's 'Today' show, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell furthered the liberal spin of Dick Cheney as a dark and sinister force inside the White House. While refusing to label Melanie Sloan and Michael Blanton as the known liberals that they are, O'Donnell cited them, along with the Washington Post's Barton Gellman, in a segment that portrayed Cheney as a "master of stealth." In the story about Cheney withholding documents from the National Archives, O'Donnell aired three soundbites opposed to Cheney but only aired one from a Cheney advocate, White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino. 

Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to ban interest groups from running issue ads close to an election. The McCain-Feingold Act bans any issue ads by interest groups that mention a candidate running for reelection from airing within 60 days of a general election (and 30 days before a primary), even if the ad does not expressly advocate voting for or against the named candidate.

The way Ariane de Vogue of ABCNews.com reports it, the ruling is not a victory for free speech and political participation, but a blow to "reform." (emphasis mine):

Reigniting the debate over campaign finance regulation, the Supreme Court struck down a part of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act on Monday.

That legislation, also known as the McCain-Feingold law, restricts corporations and labor unions from broadcasting ads at election time using general funds. Proponents of campaign finance reform fear Monday's ruling will create a major loophole in the legislation and cause an influx of so-called "sham issue" ads that McCain-Feingold was created in part to combat.

The big New York Times expose hyped on Drudge over the weekend on Rupert Murdoch, media mogul (and worst from the Times' perspective, the creator of Fox News) appeared on Monday's front-page in the off-lead position. The Times put four bylines on the beat for its attempted hit piece: Jo Becker was the lead writer, with help from media reporter Richard Siklos, Jane Perlez and Raymond Bonner, for "An Empire Builder, Still Playing Tough."

What's they find? Not much new, but at least presented with that special, hostile Times' spin.

"His vast media holdings give him a gamut of tools -- not just campaign contributions, but also jobs for former government officials and media exposure that promotes allies while attacking adversaries, sometimes viciously -- all of which he has used to further his financial interests and establish his legitimacy in the United States, interviews and government records show.

Monday, Monday!

Portland's NBC television affiliate, KGW, today carries on its Web site an Associated Press story about a county sheriff. It's now alleged he "knew of the child abuse problems that drove former Governor Neil Goldschmidt from an active public life in 2004."

The child abuse "problem" was detailed in the May 7, 2004 Seattle Times:

"Former Oregon Gov. Neil Goldschmidt admitted yesterday he had a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl when he was 35 and mayor of Portland, and said he is resigning all his public and private positions to 'rebuild my life.'"

The Times article noted Goldschmidt "became the nation's youngest big-city mayor, going on to become transportation secretary for the Carter administration and Oregon governor from 1986 to 1990."

Al Gore is at it again, blaming all the world’s environmental problems on others, in particular, George W. Bush, while revising history to suggest that he did more to solve anthropogenic global warming when he was Vice President, and would have done more if elected president in 2000.

Sadly, American media choose to give him a pass for his historical revisions, allowing him to say whatever he wants with total impunity.

After all, he’s a Democrat, and America’s press adore him.

Fortunately, the British press aren’t so beholden to the Global Warmingist-in-Chief, and don’t feel the need to bow at the altar he so arrogantly deigns to put himself on.

With that in mind, the British Independent published a piece about soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore Monday which included two paragraphs you’ll never see in a mainstream paper here (emphasis added):

Michael Moore's new documentary, Sicko, challenges U.S. healthcare. Yet in the coverage of the film, some interesting facts about Moore appear to be ignored. These facts are addressed on page 53 of the bestselling book by Peter Schweizer, Do As I Say (Not As I Do):

[Moore's] IRS forms make for interesting reading. Over the past five years, Moore's "savings account" has included such evil pharmaceutical and medical companies as Pfizer, Merck, Genzyme, Elan PLC, Eli Lilly, Becton Dickinson, and Boston Scientific. "Being screwed by your HMO and ill-served by pharmaceutical companies is a shared American experience," he recently told the Detroit News ... He may savage HMOs in his film Sicko, but he has also owned shares of Pharmacia Corporation and Tenet Healthcare. He may have liked their price-to-earnings ratio.

What do you call a guy who leaves the priesthood, rejects fundamental doctrine of the Catholic Church, and propagates egregious falsehoods about Catholics? If you're the Los Angeles Times, you call him a "Devout Catholic" - in your headline. Un·be·liev·a·ble.

The subject in a fawning article in the Times is James Carroll. A new documentary film is based on his 2001 book, Constantine's Sword, an awful work that advances the premise that anti-Semitism is central to Catholicism and Christianity.

Even when the Washington Post is covering a Marxist, they have trouble putting an ideological label in the headline. On the front page of Monday’s Style section is a profile of Marxist rock guitarist Tom Morello, but the headline was bland: "Tom Morello, on Tour and on Message: Folk-Rock’s Nightwatchman Plays True to His Roots." Inside, the headline was simply "Tom Morello, Refocusing His Political Rage." Neither headline reflected that he prayed for President Bush’s death:

Onstage, when the Nightwatchman sang, "I pray that God himself will come and drown the president if the levees break again," the Jammin' Java crowd's attitude was chilling. People were praying.

So why isn’t that death-wish directly reflected in the headline, instead of simply being vaguely "On Message" with "Rage"?

On Sunday's NBC Nightly News, reporter John Yang distorted Pat Buchanan's point about the level of crime committed by illegal immigrants as he impugned Rush Limbaugh for helping to “fan” such “ugly emotions.” Previewing the expected Senate vote Tuesday on whether to revive the immigration bill, Yang asserted that “the outcome is uncertain, largely because of the heated debate over how to treat people illegally in the country.” Yang charged: “On NBC's Meet the Press today, that debate turned ugly.” Viewers then saw a soundbite from Buchanan: “Many of them are child molesters or drunk drivers, they're rapists, they're robbers, they've got a variety of crimes but they commit a felony by being here.” After a clip of Democratic Congressman Luis Guttierrez, on the same show, condemning Buchanan for casting “aspersions” and reasonably insisting that “the vast, overwhelming majority of immigrants that come here to this country come here to work hard, sweat, toil, and make our country a better place,” Yang, presumably referring back to Buchanan, alleged: “Those emotions are being fanned by conservative radio talk show hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh.” Yang played an audio clip of Limbaugh: “They want low-skilled, uneducated, cheap labor in the country -- because that's their next class of victims.” Yang proceeded to segue to a clip, of Newt Gingrich, by adding: “And TV ads.”

Two major problems with Yang's presentation in which he tried to characterize conservative analysis as illegitimate: First, the soundbite selected of Buchanan suggested he was making a generalization about how most illegal aliens are criminals, but his previous sentence (transcript) made clear he was referring only to a sub-set who have committed crimes: “You go after, in deportation, the 600,000 who’ve been ordered deported who are now criminal felons who have stayed in this country. Many of them are child molesters, they’re drunk drivers...” Buchanan also cited “the gang members who don’t belong in the country,” a well-known problem to anyone in a major urban area. Second, the soundbite featured from Limbaugh hardly supported the contention Limbaugh and other conservative talk hosts have “fanned” irrational fear of illegal aliens. In the bite Limbaugh was clearly making a claim about the motivation of liberals.

 

There is yet another example of the mythology of Michael Moore growing with the complicity of the media. Time's article by S. James Snyder, “Michael Moore: 'I'm Mainstream Now' ” read like another example of an incurious journalist who bought into Moore's PR and joined in with some covert activism. For the past month or so, finding bias in an article about Michael Moore has been about as easy as it is to find "creative editing" in Moore's films, and this article was no exception.

The most significant untruth in this article was Moore's carefully vague and misleading claim that he didn't intend to go to Cuba “in the first place,” and only after being turned away from his real destination, the Guantanamo Bay detention center, by that heartless US military, did he go to communist Cuba (bold mine throughout):

On ABC's World News Sunday, during a story about the release of classified information regarding the CIA's "cloak and dagger" past, correspondent Liz Marlantes suggested that the Bush administration engages in abuses that are worse than the illegal activities detailed in the documents. Marlantes: "But this all comes when the CIA is under fire for an alleged array of current abuses, including the use of secret prisons and torture. Some say the activities of the past may look mild by comparison."

As anchor Dan Harris set up the report, he conveyed that the documents "detail 30 years of illegal CIA operations, from assassination plots to experiments on humans." Marlantes listed some of the activities that included "assassination conspiracies against foreign leaders like Fidel Castro, the infiltration of anti-war groups, and screening of private mail, including letters to actress and antiwar activist Jane Fonda," and "putting journalists under surveillance." (Transcipt follows)