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One of the primary solutions for climate change being touted by global warming alarmists is the purchase and sale of carbon credits. Put simply, companies, countries, and individuals could balance their CO2 output by purchasing credits from others that are emitting less greenhouse gases than prescribed maximums.

The concept is that this would give companies, countries, and individuals a financial incentive to produce less CO2. Readers might recall that during a debate on “Hannity’s America” this past Sunday evening, the two liberal guests firmly avowed that there wasn’t anything wrong with Al Gore’s use of private planes because he was offsetting his massive emission of CO2 with purchases of carbon credits.

Unfortunately, there’s a hitch in this scheme that threatens to totally derail it: carbon prices are plummeting due to an excess supply. I realize this might be a bit complex, but an article published in Green Business News wonderfully detailed the problems inherent in this scheme (emphasis mine throughout):  

So if campaign staffers for a prominent presidential candidate make hateful and bigoted remarks about Christians that's big news right? Not according to NBC's Meredith Vieira. The Today show co-anchor failed to question John Edwards about his former bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan calling Christianity a "mythology" and depicting Bush supporters as his "wingnut Christofascist base." Instead Vieira focused her questions from the left on Iraq, as first noted here, and his opinion of the dust-up between rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The following are all of Vieira's questions to John Edwards on the February 22, Today show:

On Wednesday’s "Situation Room," reporter Bill Schneider, in a piece on minorities in America, very casually alleged that African Americans don’t vote for Republicans because of "the perception of racism."

He also claimed that blacks have no reason to distrust the federal government because, after all, that institution rescued them from slavery. (Apparently conservatives just don’t appreciate this point.) After noting the losses by several African American GOP candidates in 2006, Schneider made his point about racism:

Bill Schneider: "President Bush appointed two African-American secretaries of state. Republicans nominated three African-Americans for important statewide offices last year. None of them came close to carrying black voters, which suggests it's not just the perception of racism that drives most black voters away from the Republican Party. There's something else. Distrust of the federal government is a core issue for Republicans."

And now for something completely disgusting…

The March issue of Gentlemen’s Quarterly contained a rather lengthy article by correspondent Wil Hylton detailing the reasons why Vice President Dick Cheney should be impeached.

I kid you not.

Here’s the disgraceful introduction (emphasis mine throughout): “Over the past six years, as the country has spiraled into military misadventure, fiscal madness, and environmental meltdown, the vice president has not merely been wrong about the issues; he has been duplicitous, deceitful, and deliberately destructive to the American democracy.”

Nice, huh? The author despicably continued:

Talk about a blatant attempt to mislead with a headline! We have no better example of such an effort than one by the AP today. It is a textbook case of a headline that does not fit the facts of the story.

Here is the headline:

R.I. to recognize gay unions performed in Mass.

Wow! It would be big news, indeed, if legislation had been passed wherein Gay Unions from Massachusetts were to be officially recognized by Rhode Island. And, if one were to read this AP headline and move on, one would be left with the impression that it had. Even the sub head doesn't really tell the whole truth.

State’s attorney general says there’s no reason to deny them recognition

With Hillary and Barack flailing away at each other, third-man-out John Edwards turned up on this morning's "Today." But while claiming he wanted to stay above the fray, he certainly came close to calling Hillary dishonest, all the while laughing off the notion that he might be.

Norah O'Donnell played a clip of Edwards saying: "We need a leader who will be open and honest with you, and with the American people. Who will tell the truth. Who will tell the truth when they've made a mistake."

Wow. John pulls off a reverse "open and honest" with a double-twisting "tell the truth." Wonder whom he might have had in mind?

When Meredith Vieira interviewed the ex-senator from North Carolina a moment later, she wasted no time in putting the question to him: "in addition to the comments we heard from you criticizing Senator Clinton for not taking responsibility for her vote authorizing the war, you also said yesterday 'we need a leader who is honest, open and decent.' Are you suggesting at all that Senator Clinton is not honest, open or decent?"

Edwards: "Oh no, nothing of the kind." Right.

View video here.

As I discussed here, yesterday's clash between Hillary and Barack Obama was perhaps the most bitter and open infighting between Dem presidential candidates in many an election cycle. Particularly given that it was comments by David Geffen quoted in a column by the New York Times' own Maureen Dowd that touched off the fracas, you would have thought the Times would have gone out of it way to highlight the intra-Dem battle. So . . . how did the New York Times portray the matter in its headline this morning? In Both Parties, 2008 Politeness Falls to Infighting.

That's right, this isn't a problem unique to Dems. "Both parties" have suffered a failure of "politeness." Now it's true that over the last couple days, John McCain has taken verbal shots at Vice-President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and also criticized the Bush administration on the environment. But those were substantive critiques of policy. In contrast, Geffen's comments, with which Obama pointedly chose not to disassociate himself, could not have been more personal, calling the Clinton couple liars and Bill "reckless."

The Times furthered the moral equivalency with this helpful chart, documenting the barbs aimed by the respective Dems and Republicans.

Thursday night's edition of "30 Rock" will feature the character of Jenna (played by Jane Krakowski) appearing on an episode of "Hardball" with Chris Matthews. Matthews is no stranger to entertainment. Last year, he appeared in the Robin Williams movie "Man of the Year" and also showed up in another citizen/politician movie, "Dave" with Kevin Kline, in 1993. He's also been around the NBC-TV carousel before, with "The West Wing" and with the short-lived young-senator drama "Mister Sterling." Tucker Carlson will also appear on the sitcom's promotion of MSNBC.

Over at Fox News, "The Half-Hour News Hour" bagged 1.48 million viewers in its Sunday night debut, landing it on the ratings "Winners" list at the Washington Post, which noted "That's about 80 percent more viewers than FNC has averaged in that slot in the first quarter." The Post also noted its competition, "The Daily Show," averaged 1.57 million viewers from last Monday to Thursday.

Al-Ahram is an Egyptian newspaper founded in 1828, and apparently is the second-oldest daily in the Arab world. Recently, it published the following absolutely horrible cartoon (h/t LGF):

                                              

For those that can stand it, the caption at the top reads (please be advised that this is pretty offensive):

Here’s a story guaranteed to make every conservative in America instantly happy: when the newly renovated White House pressroom opens for business, Helen Thomas will not be sitting in the front row.

As reported by Politico (h/t Hot Air, emphasis mine throughout):

The press corps is scheduled to move from temporary facilities back into the spiffed-up, rewired briefing room in May or June. [Helen] Thomas, who has been questioning presidents and press secretaries for 46 years, plans to be there. But her front-row seat won’t be. Plans call for her to be moved to the second row to make room for a cable news channel – a sign of Washington’s changing pecking order, and of the new ways that Americans get their news.

I think that deserves a standing ovation! Yet, the fun wasn’t over:

NewsBusters' mission is that of exposing and combating liberal media bias, and that's what I spend the great majority of my time here doing. But I hope our readers -- and my editors -- will indulge me when I offer a bit of personal analysis here.

The outbreak of nastiness between the Obama and Hillary camps -- initiated by comments made by Obama supporter David Geffen and quoted by Maureen Dowd in her column today -- is stunning. For the Obama camp to come out this early -- and this hard -- against Hillary has riveted the attention of the political world.

For those who didn't catch it, David Geffen -- certified member of the liberal Hollywood elite, billionaire producer and co-founder of DreamWorks, and former avid and generous Clinton supporter and donor turned major Barack backer -- told Dowd:

• "I don’t think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is — and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? — can bring the country together."
• “I don’t think anybody believes that in the last six years, all of a sudden Bill Clinton has become a different person, [in terms of his personal proclivities] . . . I think [Republicans] believe she’s the easiest to defeat.”
• Most damning was this: "Everybody in politics lies, but they [Bill and Hillary] do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

CBS's Bob Schieffer just can't resist making analogies to Vietnam, especially when it comes to a setback in Iraq. In the wake of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to start withdrawing his nation's troops from Iraq, which CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric paired with Denmark's decision to withdraw its 400 soldiers to form her lead story Wednesday night about “the shrinking U.S.-led coalition in Iraq,” Bob Schieffer came aboard via satellite from Washington, DC to compare the Iraq situation to Vietnam: “I think what we're seeing here, Katie, is what happened back during the Vietnam era when things were going badly and the crusty old Senator from Vermont, George Aiken, said 'there's only one way out there, that's to declare victory and just leave.'”

Schieffer often sees the world through the prism of Vietnam. This was at least the third time just this year he has raised the comparison:

Sen. Barack Obama visited Los Angeles yesterday (Tuesday, February 20, 2007), and the Los Angeles Times wanted to make sure that everyone knew about it. Check out the huge, 38-square-inch, full-color, awash-in-red-white-and-blue, front-page photo on the cover of the Times today. (See it here; btw, I had to reduce the size to fit the page.) Good grief! Oh, yeah. There is yet another flattering photo of Obama inside on page A12; the black-and-white photo of the senator surrounded by fans is very generous as well, covering a large 35 square inches.

One simple question: Can you imagine the Times giving such a fawning, glowing treatment to a McCain, Giuliani, Romney, or Brownback? I didn't think so.

We have reported on the Times' ongoing love affair with Barack Obama and its disparate treatment so far in the 2008 campaign here, here, here, here, here, and here.

So asked James Taranto in his Wednesday “Best of the Web Today” column for OpinionJournal.com. Taranto highlighted a Sunday Los Angeles Times story, “Pilots traced to CIA renditions: The Times identifies three fliers facing kidnapping charges in Germany related to a 2003 counter-terrorism mission,” which though it did not list their real names, identified the aliases and enough information about each to help anyone trying to find them, including how they all live within 30 miles of a certain rural airport. One “drives a Toyota Previa minivan and keeps a collection of model trains in a glass display case near a large bubbling aquarium in his living room,” another “is a bearded man of 35 who lives with his father and two dogs in a separate subdivision” and a third “is 46, drives a Ford Explorer and has a 17-foot aluminum fishing boat” where he lives “in a house that backs onto a private golf course here." (Taranto explained: “In a town of 13,000 the Times identifies in its dateline.”)

Taranto ruminated: “Remember all the outrage when Robert Novak 'outed' Valerie Plame, who apparently worked a desk job at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.? Here the L.A. Times is publishing extensive personal details on three men who have actually done dangerous work defending the country. Where's the outrage?” Good question.

If you make more money than I do is that anyone’s problem? 

The news media made a big deal out of “income inequality” especially “out of control” CEO pay as NBC’s Carl Quintanilla called it on Oct. 20, 2006 during the “Today” show. Robin Roberts took aim at the same topic: “Now to the golden parachute that has a lot of people seeing red,” during “Good Morning America” on January 4. 

But the reports on the income gap missed two alternative perspectives from economists: that the widening income gap is an illusion and that in either case the gap really doesn’t matter. Read the full Business & Media Institute report here.

On the Wednesday edition of "Good Morning America," ABC correspondent Jake Tapper reported on the power of Hollywood in presidential politics and the pitfalls of accepting celebrity support. However, while GMA found the time to gush over Barack Obama’s celebrity status, going so far as to include a graphic of an Oscar statue with Obama’s head on it, Tapper didn’t mention that Hollywood’s fund-raising is almost exclusively for liberals and Democrats:

Chris Cuomo: "Now, to the power of Hollywood on presidential politics. Candidate Barack Obama raked in $1.3 million by going Hollywood. It's a deep pocket that more and more are trying to reach into. Here's senior national correspondent Jake Tapper."

Jake Tapper: "Last night, at the Beverly Hills Hilton, the stars came out for another million dollar affair, honoring a thin, statuesque idol of color. No, not Oscar, Obama. Barack Obama."

Actor George Clooney: "He's the most charismatic person I've been in a room with in a long time."

The New York Times surprised on Wednesday with a front-page article by James McKinley Jr. suggesting that tougher border security in the form of new barriers and more guards was actually reducing illegal immigration along the Mexican border ("Tougher Tactics Deter Migrants At U.S. Border").

"All along the border, there are signs that the measures the Border Patrol and other federal agencies have taken over the last year, from erecting new barriers to posting 6,000 National Guardsmen as armed sentinels, are beginning to slow the flow of illegal immigrants.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, NBC’s David Gregory, Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe, and others gathered on Tuesday at the National Press Club to discuss a variety of issues including media reporting of political events (video available here).

As the conversation ensued, Gregory made the following observations:

Because it- it's the Internet, and the blogs, that have really used this White House press conference to somehow support positions out in America- political views- and they- and they- uh- they will clip, and digitize portions of these briefings to fit into their particular argument and I think people try to divine motives of the questioners and- and certainly draw conclusions about, uh, the answers, or- or non-answers, uh, based on their, their, their own political views.

Snow then gave his own rather negative impression of blogs:

Having gotten myself and others into a spot of bother when I wondered awhile ago whether there might have been some "trickeration" involved in an image appearing on Hillary's campaign website, far be it from me to suggest that there's anything altered in the photo displayed here. It turned up today in a Clinton fundraising email I received. Yes, I'm a duly member-registered member at HillaryClinton.com.

But I do believe the photo raises another issue. Chris Matthews recently and repeatedly raised concerns that Bill's failure to "behave" could cause problems for Hillary's campaign. Hillary has now chosen an image making an implicit statement about the nature of her relationship with Bill. Since she has put the matter on the table, will the MSM do anything to verify -- or debunk -- the photo's unstated but unmistakable suggestion?

A British hospital conducted a study recently that I doubt will get much coverage here in the States considering its erosion of a left-wing feminist myth that men are sexual predators. According to the study, none of 75 women who came in for treatment of "date rape" drugs had actually been given them. In fact, they'd just drank too much. Too bad the study didn't come out in time for V-Day, the radical left's attempt to ruin Valentine's Day.

Here's an excerpt from a London Evening Standard summary of the report:

Women who claim to be victims of 'date-rape' drugs such as Rohypnol have in fact been rendered helpless by binge-drinking, says a study by doctors.

They found no evidence that any woman seeking help from emergency doctors because their drinks were allegedly spiked had actually been given these drugs.

Around one in five tested positive for recreational drugs while two-thirds had been drinking heavily.

Last Thursday, I provided Associated Press Media Relations Director Linda Wagner with confirmation that a January 4 Steven R. Hurst article appears to be 180-degrees from the truth. To date, neither Wagner nor any other AP contact has deemed to provide any sort of response. Frankly, I didn't expect one. The Hurst article was a CYA piece written to provide cover for shoddy Associated Press reporting, and it is not in their personal interests to admit that they've been caught apparently fabricating that story from the ground up.

I've thus resorted to contacting several members of the AP Board of Directors with the following letter sent out just moments ago, hoping that they will display the integrity that neither AP reporters nor senior management seem to have any interest in maintaining.

If they decline to investigate this extended "Jayson Blair" moment, then their integrity and credibility as a news organization, to put it mildly, is shot.

Here is a copy of the letter, with links added for context and HTML formatting added:

So, you think the global warming alarmists are actually concerned about the environment or the future of the planet? Think again, for a recent funds request from the World Bank to solve this “problem” should clue you in as to what is really going on with those advancing theories emanating from junk science.

As reported by Reuters (emphasis mine throughout): “The World Bank wants to breathe life back into a mooted $10 billion-plus fund to combat climate change which would need public and private sector backing, its Chief Scientist Robert Watson told Reuters on Tuesday.”

What’s the money needed for, you ask:

Nothing for the MSM like dumping a little pre-emptive cold water on the Bush administration and the situation in Iraq. Introducing his interview with Vice-President Cheney this morning, ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl claimed:

"It would appear that the British announcement [of a partial withdrawal of forces from Iraq] is bad news for the Bush administration, but in the first official reaction from the United States, Vice-President Cheney told ABC News that he thinks that the announcement is actually good news -- a sign of progress in Iraq."

ABC then ran the clip of VP Cheney making his case: "I look at it, and what I see is an affirmation that in parts of Iraq things are going pretty well. I talked to a friend who just the other day had driven from Baghdad down to Basra [in the Shia-dominated south], seven hours. Found the situation dramatically improved from the way it was a year or so ago. Sort of validated the British view that they have made progress in southern Iraq and that they can therefore afford to reduce their force levels."

Today's starter: Consider this newest delight of the left-wing blogosphere: Bush wanted to O-sodomize bin Laden?

Got a problem you can’t solve? A flu bug you can’t kick? Financial woes? Unfulfilling love life?

Forget about seeing a doctor, psychiatrist, or financial consultant. After all, your problems could all be linked to global warming!

Such seems certainly the case in Japan and France where a recent rise in head lice and hornets respectively have actually been tied to the planetary ailment being studied by soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore.

I kid you not.

As reported by the Mainichi Daily News (emphasis mine throughout):

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." -- Bill Clinton

"He had no sexual relationships with that woman, Anna Nicole Smith." -- Debra Opri, attorney for Larry Birkhead, alleged father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter

Same raised finger. Virtually identical line.

View video here.

You might have thought the sad soap opera that has been the life and death of Anna Nicole Smith would have offered a safe haven for those seeking respite from presidential politics. But Hillary cannot be pleased that echoes of a low point of her husband's presidency managed to work their way into the three-ring circus yesterday and onto this morning's "Today" show.

Lawyer Opri uttered her line outside the courthouse where Judge Larry Seidlin was auditioning for a TV show in the guise of conducting a trial. She was asserting that Howard K. Stern, Smith's companion, could not possibly be the father of her infant daughter.

On his blog Changing Channels, Miami Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin warned that Oprah Winfrey will appear on the Ellen DeGeneres daytime chatfest on Thursday, and it's not exactly an intellectual Clash Of The Titans. He cited this exchange on the presidential race:

Ellen: Hillary and Barack ... That’s very interesting, right?
Oprah: Very interesting.
Ellen: Very interesting.  Anyone that you’re feeling right now?
Oprah: (nodding yes) Um hum.
Ellen: Yeah, you want to say or no?
Oprah: I’m feeling Barack.
Ellen: You’re feeling Barack
Oprah: I’m feeling Barack.
Oprah: I know it’s tough -- the thing about it is, it doesn’t make the other candidate any less.  I’m just feeling Barack.
Ellen: ....I’m really torn because I love him. I really love him.
Oprah: I don’t just love him.  I respect him.

To laughter, cheers and applause from the Burbank audience of NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Bill Maher on Tuesday night issued a litany of denigrating insults at the intelligence of President George W. Bush, as if his decisions are not in accord with many experienced experts. Maher pointed out how MSNBC's “Joe Scarborough did a whole week of panel discussions on whether he was an idiot.” Maher elaborated: “The people who were defending him were saying, 'well, he's just inarticulate.' But inarticulate doesn't explain foreign policy. I mean, it's not that complicated. The man is a rube. He is a dolt. He is a yokel on the world stage. He is a Gilligan who cannot find his ass with two hands. He is a vain half-wit who interrupts one incoherent sentence with another incoherent sentence.”

Maher appeared as a guest to plug his weekly Friday night HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher, which returned last week to the pay-cable channel. On his program the Friday before the 2006 election, Maher warned his viewers that if they vote Republican then “you vote to enable George Bush to keep ruling as an emperor -- a retarded child emperor, but an emperor.” (NewsBusters item with video)

Video clip of Maher's litany of insults for Bush (1:00): Real (1.8 MB) or Windows Media (2.1 MB), plus MP3 audio (365 KB)