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For those that are unfamiliar, one of the finest writers on the political landscape today is Mark Steyn. His piece Sunday concerning the absurdity of global warming hysteria is a fine example (h/t NB member aero).

First, Steyn mocked statements by the media about how solid the science surrounding this illusion is (emphasis mine throughout):

Indeed. If the science is so solid, maybe they could drag it out to the Arctic for the poor polar bears to live on now that the ice is melting faster than a coed's heart at an Al Gore lecture.

Great idea, Mark. I'd happily pay to see that. He wonderfully continued:

In the midst of the media's global warming panic, an interesting thing is happening in Iceland: the amount of pack ice has increased to levels not seen in decades.

As reported by the Telegraph (h/t Drudge, emphasis mine throughout):

The oceans may be warming and air temperatures rising, but in recent days Iceland has bucked the global climate trend.

Thick pack ice, the like of which has not been seen for decades, stretched into the western fjords as temperatures plummeted and a bitter wind blew in from -Greenland.

The article continued:

Despite the media and Al Gore’s ad nauseum contention that there is actually a scientific consensus for the existence of anthropogenic global warming, the facts speak otherwise. Conveniently, the media never interview folks who disagree with their fantasy, thereby making it easy to promote.

Of course, those interested in the truth know of many outspoken members of the scientific community who are not being bullied by the politics of the situation. Another in a growing list of such skeptics is Israeli astrophysicist Nir Shaviv who has been doing research for years to identify if there is any connection between rising levels of CO2 and rising temperatures. As reported by the National Post, Shaviv’s studies suggest otherwise (h/t Drudge), leading him to actually recant his previous position on this issue:

On Friday, NewsBuster Justin McCarthy reported the interesting discussion that ensued on ABC’s “The View” concerning Nazi-style censorship of entertainers such as the Dixie Chicks. During this segment, Whoopi Goldberg shed some light on what really happened at a DNC fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall in 2004 (video available here courtesy of our friend at Ms Underestimated).

It seems her much reported remark about President Bush and a part of the female anatomy might have been taken a bit out of context, and that nobody seemed willing to stand up for the comedienne to straighten it out. Oddly, this included Democrats, who Whoopi stated, “Disappeared like cockroaches in the night.”

Maybe even more shocking, Rosie O’Donnell agreed with Whoopi’s assertion:

Images available here.

h/t Instapundit - Ann Althouse calls attention to an image of Polar Bears making the rounds, again - it was allegedly taken by Dan Crosbie in 2004 and is currently number one on Yahoo's photo list. The image I have up at right also involves Dan Crosbie from the same period in 2004 during a scientific trip during which they carried rifles to run off polar bears while planting equipment in the ice - ice that was much thicker than they expected it to be. (pertinent excerpted text at bottom)

Ain't technology wunnerful? I mean, it saves all that wear and tear on the VW Mini-Bus, saves the trees that would otherwise be cut down for anti-war signs, the paint, the tye-dying of shirts, the buying of sandals... heck all sorts of things and time can be saved because the World Wide Web has brought technology to leftist activism!

I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

It's also a great thing that those evil, rotten, Nazi, CONSERVATIVES have not discovered the WWW as a place to gather their forces. It's so heart warming that the left can, at long last, use technology for good instead of evil.

Or so it seems the Washington Post imagines the world has been set to rights because today a charming article has appeared in their paper letting us know that hey have found the "perfect example of how antiwar is waged in the Internet age." Or at least so says Jennifer Earl in "Where Have All the Protests Gone? Online".

Not that there was ever much doubt where Tim Russert aligns, but it was nice to get concrete confirmation on today's Meet the Press. Grilling John Edwards over his vote to authorize the war and his expression of support for it as late as 2004, Russert pointed out that Obama had staked out a firmly anti-Iraq war position before the conflict began.

Russert displayed a two-part graphic of Obama's 2002 statement, which concluded with the words: "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."

Russert then shot at Edwards: "His judgment was on the money."

For the MSM, there's nothing like the occasion of a natural disaster to challenge the faith of religious believers.

On today's Good Morning America, Kate Snow interviewed the Rev. Larry Lynn, Pastor of the Lady Lake Church of God, whose buildings were totally levelled by the tornadoes that recently struck central Florida.

A minute or so into the interview, Snow asked a question that challenged the core of the pastor's religious belief: "How do you reconcile your faith with the enormity of this tragedy?"

On the front page of Sunday's Style section in the Washington Post is an article headlined "No I-Told-You-Sos." Reporter Lynne Duke hailed anti-war voices and their predictions of doom as correct, but there is "no gloating" among them. But there's one nagging issue for readers. Duke never quotes an actual prediction from 2002 or 2003. Among her heroic non-gloaters were skeptical hawks (William Odom, Anthony Zinni), but she also focused on doves: Jimmy Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski (they did so well in Iran?) and, most egregiously, leftist Rep. Barbara Lee (pictured with actress Susan Sarandon), who wouldn't even vote for war after September 11. Is she vindicated? Duke hailed how Lee "saw it coming" in 2001 and had the foresight to oppose the entire military War on Terror.

"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo comic strip, 1971

Nicholas Kristof has apparently embraced the Walt Kelly view of America. When it comes to the war in Iraq, the only evildoers the New York Times columnist seems to see are Americans.

At the foot of his pay-to-play of column of January 23rd, Kristof invited readers to submit their literary analogies for President Bush and Iraq. In today's columnn, Kristof mentions having received over 400 reader responses.

And which entry does Kristof choose to feature at the column's beginning and that might fairly be taken as his unofficial winner? One that analogizes the various actors in the play to characters from Harry Potter. I set forth below the reader's analogies, followed by a description of the character as culled from their Wikipedia entries.

Actual caption:

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning is surrounded by reporters and photographers as he answers questions at a media availability at the team's hotel in Ft.

There's a growing blog debate going on as regards peace activists spitting on returning veterans during the Vietnam era. It begins here at Slate in an article claiming the charges are false.

The myth of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran refuses to die.

At Volokh, Jim Lindgren points out some weaknesses in search mechanisms that could lead to the stories not showing up in contemporaneous reports, leading to the assumption that it didn't happen.

Always up for a Google challenge, I decided to take a look and can confirm that spitting and more did in fact take place. Stored on a government server found via advanced Google, there's this first person account - also available in pdf.

I just caught this, originally posted on February 1 to the Web page for People's Weekly World. It's from a diatribe against the Fox television program "24" by PWW's John Wojcik.

Notice how the writer goes on to explain just why terrorism is such a bad thing. I mean, Stalin was just so much better at systematically killing people than some rinky dink terrorists. </sarcasm>

MSNBC commentator Keith Oberman [sic] rightly described "24" as "naked brainwashing."

All people of good will, of course, oppose terrorism. The Communist Party USA has often pointed out that terrorism substitutes individual acts of violence for the mass action essential for real progressive change.

Wojcik also cited NewsBusters as evidence of why "24" is an evil neo-conservative/Bush White House agitprop:

How far will reporters go to get a juicy story: How low will they go? How many rules will they break? How many sacred cows will they make into hamburger? Reporter Riccardo Bocca of L'Espresso is attracting worldwide attention from Catholic media outlets and bloggers. Bocca stealthily visited confessionals at 24 Catholic churches in Rome, Turin, Naples, Milan and Palermo, and lied to each priest he visited, manufacturing false confessions for various sins. He said he wanted to show the disparity between what the church teaches and what priests do. Would they conform to Catholic teaching or slip out of orthodoxy to show sympathy? Bocca found priests who would step away from orthodoxy, although not on abortion.

Fox News explained that the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, was furious: "Shame! There is no other word to express our distress toward an operation that was disgusting, worthless, disrespectful and particularly offensive," the Vatican's paper said in an editorial headlined "Fake confessions in search of a shameful scoop." (Philip Pullella at Reuters also had a story.) I can't imagine even many  "secular progressive" reporters finding it ethical to lie your face off in a supposedly sacred ritual.

"We're on a mission from God." -- Dan Aykroyd as Elwood, "The Blues Brothers"

NBC is on a mission -- from Gore.

NBC announced its allegiance to Al Gore's stop-global-warming mission on this morning's "Today." With Tom Costello narrating, Today first ran a glowing piece on Timberland shoe company, famous for its boots, which has announced that, you guessed it, it's on a "mission" to become "carbon neutral." To achieve that, it will among other things be using wind farms and solar panels to power its factories. Costello emphasized an expert's opinion that "it's up to each one of us to cut our own carbon emissions."

Costello then stated as unquestioned fact that the carbon that each of us is responsible for by flying, driving or running our homes "adds to a layer of greenhouse gases that is warming the planet." No indication of how much current climate changes are caused by non-human factors, the kinds that caused the Ice Age and subsequent warmer period thousands of years ago.

Costello closed his segment by quipping "it's all about treading lightly." Boots. Treading lightly -- we get it.

Host Campbell Brown teased the next segment by saying "You've seen how several companies are going carbon-neutral to limit damage to the atmosphere. Up next on Today, you'll see how easy it is for all of us to help in that effort."

Jennifer Harper finds this scary phenomenon in Saturday's Washington Times:

    There's a culture rising among those who could not care less about tomorrow's Super Bowl. Just ask Amy McCloskey, owner of Madame X, a Manhattan nightspot that will be the scene of the Ladies-Only Anti-Super Bowl, complete with manicures and psychic romance readings.
    "This is our own tiny stadium of girly things. It's the estrogen answer to Super Bowl testosterone," Miss McCloskey said. "We'll feature lots of little attractions for women seeking a pleasant night out. No hordes, no yelling."
    It's enough to scare most men to death: Aromatherapy, air brush tans, makeovers, chocolate fondue, dainty cocktails. Men, in fact, will not be admitted until 11 p.m., after the game has ended.

Yesterday's Employment Situation Summary from the Bureaus of Labor Statistics told us that reports 111,000 net new jobs were added in January. Additionally, significant upward revisions were made to the previously reported job-increase figures from November (up 42,000 to 196,000 from last month’s revised 154,000) and December (up 39,000 to 206,000 from last month’s originally reported 167,000). So with revisions, there were 192,000 more people working (111+42+39) at the end of January than were thought to be working as of the end of December, and 513,000 more (111+196+206) than three months ago.

It gets better.

In that same Employment Situation Summary released yesterday, the BLS reported on its "Annual Revisions to Establishment Survey Data." Doesn't sound like much, but read the fine print:

In accordance with annual practice, the establishment survey data have been revised to reflect comprehensive universe counts of payroll jobs, or benchmarks. These counts are derived principally from unemployment insurance tax records for March 2006. As a result of the benchmark process, all not seasonally adjusted data series were subject to revision from April 2005 forward, the time period since the last benchmark was established.

The total nonfarm employment level for March 2006 was revised upward by 752,000 (754,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis). The previously published level for December 2006 was revised upward by 981,000 (933,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis).

In other words, BLS "found" well over 900,000 more jobs, most of which (averaging about 63,000 per month) were added between April 2005 and March 2006. This was a time during which the "weak job growth" meme still had life in it. BLS's Annual Revision shows that the meme had no validity during that time.

So how does job growth during the Bush years look after incorporating the Annual Revision? Well, even more "Clintonian" than when I last looked at it a month ago:

Does Chris Matthews know something about what Bill Clinton's been up to, so to speak?

Not once, not twice, but no fewer than 12 times in under two minutes on Friday's Hardball, Matthews raised the question of whether the former president would "behave himself," not cause "distractions" with his "private life," etc. Chris' guest was Hillary confidant and campaign aide Ann Lewis, who is also sister to Rep. Barney Frank.

View video here.

Here's how it went:

Matthews: "Is Bill Clinton going to be a problem in this campaign? Is he going to behave himself?

Hillary has gone John Kerry one better. The junior senator from Massachusetts of baleful Gallic mien merely voted for the $87 billion . . . before he voted against it.

That's nothing. Hillary Clinton fired up the Time Machine, travelled back to 2002, and assured her fellow Dems that had she been president, the war in Iraq would never have happened.

On this afternoon's Hardball, Chris Matthews played the clip of an angry Hillary saying this today to the winter meeting of the DNC:

"If I had been president in October of 2002, I would not have started this war. I would not!"

View video here.

Good to know! Most excellent adventure, Hillary Dude! And the fact that you voted to authorize President Bush to start the war? No problem! You can fix that during your next travel back in time.

Mark was in Iraq in November. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net

As NewsBuster Mark Finkelstein reported, Hillary Clinton, speaking at the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting, talked about a Hugo Chavez-like plan to take profits away from America’s oil companies for a “strategic energy fund.” At the same event, Hillary was heckled by the crowd for her position on the Iraq war.

Think that might be covered by the broadcast networks during their evening news programs tonight?

As reported by the liberal blog Raw Story:

Rosie O’Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg seem to forget that the freedom of speech is a two way street. On Friday’s The View, guest co-host Whoopi Goldberg discussed her crude remarks at a 2004 Democratic National Committee fund raiser, which prompted a discussion on the fallout from the Dixie Chicks’ repeated criticisms of President Bush and his handling of the War on Terror. Rosie O’Donnell asserted that there is "sort of a McCarthy era-esque feeling about entertainers speaking out against the government in any capacity."

Token non-liberal Elisabeth Hasselbeck reminded Rosie that freedom of speech includes not only the Dixie Chicks but, those who speak out against them. Hasselbeck posed the question "why don’t I have the right not to buy their records and say you shouldn’t either?"

On Friday’s "Good Morning America," reporter Elizabeth Vargas openly lobbied for the passage of legislation that would require employers to offer six weeks of paid time off to workers for maternity, illness, or the care of a loved one. In addition, the ABC correspondent bashed America for not having "flexible, family friendly polices." According to Vargas, a new Harvard University study places the United States near the bottom among countries that provide paid maternity leave. She also offered only token opposition to the idea that all employers should be forced to give six weeks, plus the standard sick time and vacation. For the most part, the segment came across as a stinging indictment of the U.S.:

Robin Roberts: "Now to a new study from Harvard about paid maternity leave all around the world. It ranks countries based on how generous or stingy their benefits were. And the bottom five countries may have you scratching your head and saying, 'You must be kidding.' ABC's Elizabeth Vargas is here with the details. And we did see this and we were like, no, no, no. This cannot be right."

Elizabeth Vargas: "Everybody has that reaction, Robin. 26 million mothers in this country work. The vast majority say to make ends meet, they must. With that many moms in the workforce, you'd think the U.S. would lead the way in flexible, family-friendly policies. Think again. For millions of working moms, those first weeks after giving birth are a time to take off, recover, and bond with your new baby. But increasingly, the question is who pays?"

Hillary has let her sticky fingers show again. Will the MSM pay attention?

We're all familiar with her statement from 2004: "the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

Speaking today at the DNC's winter meeting, she let that same Hillary-knows-best side show:

"The other day the oil companies recorded the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits. And I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will actually begin to move us in the direction of independence.

Actual caption:

Former vice-president Al Gore stops briefly to speak with reporters as he enters Taco Bell Arena at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho, Monday, Jan. 22, 2007. Gore was in town to speak about global warming. (AP Photo/Troy Maben)

The sessions may not have been televised, but as a judge for the Miss America pageant, Chris Matthews decided to play "Hardball" with the contestants. One woman was asked where bin Laden is.

Reports the Washington Examiner:

As one of the key judges at the Miss America pageant in Las Vegas this weekend, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews pulled out his “Hardball” best when it came time to question each of the contestants.

“Why did Mississippi seem to do a better job than” Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina?” he asked Miss Mississippi.

“If you had a long plane ride, who would you rather sit next to, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush?” he queried another.

Economic gloomsayer (and New York Times reporter) Vikas Bajaj has made something of a specialty in finding dark clouds in economic silver linings, and Thursday's hypothetical hand-wringing on the front-page of the Business section is no different ("What Could Bog Down the Bull -- Slowing Earnings Threaten to Turn the Easy Going Into a Slog Through Mud").

"Stocks surged yesterday afternoon, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to within a hair of a new high, after the Federal Reserve pointed to strength in the economy and a moderation in inflation.

"Investors may want to enjoy it while they can.

"The road ahead promises to be a long, hard slog as corporate profits are starting to slow."

Meanwhile, actual good economic news (as opposed to Bajaj's hypothetical bad news) was relegated to page C-10, in Jeremy Peters' "Vigorous Consumer Spending Helped Economy Grow 3.5% at the End of 2006."

It's a few days old now, but still timely given today's release of the IPCC report on global warming. It's CNN's Lou Dobbs conceding that while there are scientists who disagree with the premise that global warming is anthropogenic, he's tired of their voices in the debate. So he's picking a winner. No word on if Lou is on the invite list for Al Gore's Oscar night after-party.

I clipped the relevant portions. Total run time of 0:55

Audio (MP3) | Video (Real Player) | Video (Windows Media Player) (cont'd...)

Sometimes, a line just jumps out of a transcript. To me, this is just a Line of the Week. On Thursday's GMA, George Stephanopoulos was assessing the fallout from Sen. Joe Biden describing Barack Obama as "clean" and "articulate." In trying to explain how it helped Obama, George declared: "He was doing poorly among the African American community because a lot of them didn't know he was black."

Here's the line with more context around it:

Roberts: "But who's counting?"  But with a woman, a Hispanic, an African American in the race, is this just the beginning of a really charged race?"

Well that certainly didn’t take long, did it? I hope everyone is safely tucked in their bomb shelters, for the war of the cable networks is in full swing, and shrapnel is now dangerously flying in all directions.

In response to Fox News’s ad attacking Anderson Cooper while promoting Greta Van Susteren as reported by NewsBusters here, CNN has now released its own ad.

In it is are couple of strikes right at those claiming to be “fair and balanced”: