Europe

We better hope there are some big-time technological advances in the science of home air conditioning by the year 2040. According to the outlook offered by Dr. James Lovelock in the March 22 issue of The Daily Mail (U.K.), we're in for some dire consequences.

Sarah Sands of The Daily Mail (U.K.) (h/t Marc Morano of The Inhofe EPW Press Blog) reported Lovelock is forecasting the end of humanity due to global warming ... again.

"By 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine," Sands wrote. "The people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain. We will, he says, have to set up encampments in this country, like those established for the hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the conflict in East Africa. Lovelock believes the subsequent ethnic tensions could lead to civil war."

In a speech on Iraq policy delivered Monday at George Washington University, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recalled facing “sniper fire” on her 1996 trip to Bosnia to visit U.S. troops on a peacekeeping mission. But reporters traveling with the then-First Lady made no reference to any “sniper fire” at the time, and pictures of Clinton arriving at the main air base in Tuzla (see attached video) don’t show anyone ducking or covering.

Here’s how Clinton began her speech:

Good morning. I want to thank Secretary West for his years of service, not only as Secretary of the Army, but also to the Veteran's Administration, to our men and women in uniform, to our country. I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That's where we went.

I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base. But it was a moment of great pride for me to visit our troops, not only in our main base as Tuzla, but also at two outposts where they were serving in so many capacities to deactivate and remove landmines, to hunt and seek out those who had not complied with the Dayton Accords and put down their arms, and to build relationships with the people that might lead to a peace for them and their children.

Could Western environmentalists hinder the economic development of the newly independent nation of Kosovo? They could, if the media trend of siding with environmentalists continues.

The greatest challenge facing Kosovo - which declared independence from Serbia two weeks ago - may not be opposition from Russia and Serbia, but may come from Western environmental groups opposed to mining what The New York Times on March 5 called the nation's "vast amount of minerals."

Currently, the country's largest export is scrap metal. Accessing the extensive resources - including an estimated 14 billion tons of coal - in Kosovo will require restructuring of its "outdated" mining systems, but the mining industry has faced fierce opposition from Western environmental activists.

While it is currently conventional wisdom in the media that there was no Al-Qaeda presence in Iraq before the 2003 invasion, as evidenced by the media's failure to correct Barack Obama's recent claim that "there was no such thing as Al-Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq," for several years dating back before the Iraq invasion, there have been media reports of former Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's connections to Osama bin Laden, and his use of Iraq as a base to plot terror attacks against other countries before the war. In fact, four years ago, the NBC Nightly News claimed not only that there was an Al-Qaeda presence in Iraq before the invasion, busy plotting attacks against Europe, but that the Bush administration intentionally "passed up several opportunities" to attack terrorist bases in Iraq "long before the war" in 2002 because of fear it would "undercut its case" for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. (Transcripts follow)

Fretting over how “Americans give back 438 million vacation days a year” when they could be “sitting on a beach,” ABC anchor Charles Gibson concluded the Presidents’ Day World News by channeling envy of European socialist rules as he complained that “America is the only major country in the world that has no government-mandated time off.” Citing how “psychologists say people are better workers, less stressed, if they take their time,” he helpfully suggested “you might consider moving to France. There, the government requires 31 vacation days plus holidays.” No mention, of course, of how that (plus a 35-hour work week) hurts French productivity and job creation, to say nothing of requiring significant immigration.

The anchor of the newscast on the network owned by Disney showed a picture of smiling vacationers with Mickey Mouse before he ended by noting: “And someone asked me today, ‘Why are you making a big deal of this? You're at work today.’ Good point.”

On Sunday’s "60 Minutes," anchor Morley Safer did a segment on Demark being ranked the happiest country in world consistently for the past three decades and wondered: "What makes a Dane so happy? And why isn't he wallowing in misery and self doubt like so many of the rest of us?" Later in the segment, Safer discovered that low expectations of the Danish people was the key to their happiness and he concluded that:

Wanting it all is a bacterium that stays with us from youth to old age -- wanting a bigger house, fancier car, more stuff. And when we get more, there's always someone with even more stuff who's just as unhappy. Some suggest that the unhappiest zip codes in the country are the wealthiest, like the Upper East Side of New York.

It’s interesting that many liberal media figures reside in New York’s Upper East Side.

The British newswire that strenuously avoids calling a terrorist a terrorist also has trouble identifying the radical religious motivations for rioters setting Denmark ablaze.

Roger Kimball of Pajamas Media has the story:

Consider the opening of this story from Reuters about the latest rash of rioting in Copenhagen:

Danish youths riot for sixth night [Update: make that the seventh straight night]

Gangs of rioters set fire to cars and garbage trucks in northern Copenhagen on Friday, the sixth night of rioting and vandalism that has spread from the capital to other Danish cities, police said on Saturday.

[...]

Perhaps the strangest question fielded during a live chat last night by Washington Post assistant managing editor Robert Kaiser came from a Dutch citizen wanting to vote in our election for President of the United States (or POTUS, to use DC lingo). Even Kaiser said no way, Van der Sloot:

Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Americans are now excercising their power to decide their prefered candidate. By doing so they are influencing the fate and direction of the U.S. and, while at it, the whole world. This is a heavy burden for the Americans alone. I think citizens from other nations, like myself, should be allowed to "side-vote," so as to make clear their prefered candidate. Are we not all Americans?  

Robert G. Kaiser: No you're not. Sorry!

Through the pessimistically, penumbrous pen of Parag Khanna, the New York Times has declared that the U.S.A. is finished. Yes, we have lost our "global hegemony" and we will find that by 2016, "America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline." Boy, it looks bad the for the good 'ol U.S. of A., as far as the Times is concerned. My guess is that the news of our demise is being greatly exaggerated.

So, who is this Parag Khanna to whom the Times has given all this space? Well, he's a "senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation" and guess who this organization is linked with? You guessed it: George Soros. Jonathan Soros, son of George Soros is one of those listed on the "Leadership council." In fact, the larger portion of the Board members and other associates are journalists and left leaning activists. With a few token and so-called right leaning folks -- like Francis Fukuyama and Christine Todd Whitman, neither of whom are conservatives -- the Board of directors also sports such well-known names as the leftie Google king Eric Schmidt and Bernard L. Schwartz, the man responsible for transferring restricted technology to China during Clinton's lamentable years in office.

No wonder Khanna thinks the U.S.A. is finished, look who he hangs out with!

On Friday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Jim Maceda reported that Europeans have an unusually high interest in this year's presidential election as "they say they'd be very happy with anyone who makes a clean break with the past eight years. In a word, change." Maceda also suggested that Hillary Clinton reminds some of President Bush because of her "talking tough on Iran and terrorism." Notably, while liberals have long criticized Bush for his "You're either with us or against us" line after the September 11th attacks, according to USA Today, Senator Clinton, a week before Bush's speech, used similar words as she argued that Bush should articulate "to every nation in this world, you're either with us or you're not, and there will be consequences." And, appearing on the CBS Evening News the same day, she spoke approvingly of Bush's plan to "make it clear that every nation has to either be with us or against us." (Partial audio available here.)

They hate us, they love us, but they want us to comply with "Yankee go home," and leave them alone. Yet they crave our cash, our military protection, our cash, our leadership, our cash, our culture, oh, and our cash. Now they want to vote in our elections, too. To that end, a Brussels newspaper called De Standaard has issued the call for liberal Europeans to vote in our elections. And, WHY does Evita Neefs of De Standaard think she should be allowed to vote in our elections? Is it because we have such a great system, one she is dying to be a part of? No, it's because she wants a chance to vote into office candidates that will restrict the U.S. on the international scene, that's why. In other words, she wants the right to vote so that she might use that privilege to materially cripple U.S. interests. Well, at least she has the same goal as our own Democrat Party!

Once again, those class-warring liberals are organizing a luxury cruise. This time, it's National Public Radio talk show host Diane Rehm, who's syndicated in more than 80 markets through D.C. affiliate WAMU at American University:

This intimate travel experience with Diane Rehm gives you the opportunity to meet the people and experience the culture that most tourists miss. Even better, you'll do it all in the best way possible--on a luxurious river cruise ship. Unpack just once and settle into your outside cabin.

For 14 nights, you'll cruise through the very heart of Europe on this incredible voyage between Budapest and Amsterdam.

One of the benefits of the Danube River trip is three two-hour chats with Diane Rehm. She has an online letter of invitation to potential WAMU donors:

Media watchdog website Honest Reporting has awarded their annual Dishonest Reporter Awards. Some of these stories you know and some you don't--probably because they were ignored by the media. Some were even covered here at NewsBusters.

The "winners" included Christiane Amanpour for “God's Warriors,” the BBC for covering up an internal investigation into its Mid East reporting, US government funded Al-Hurra TV's former 'director Larry Register for dhimmitude, a UNC Daily Tar Heel article about breaking up with a boyfriend because of Israel and of course Charles Enderlin and the Mohammad Al Dura Fautography that launched the Second Intifida. See how many of the stories over at Honest Reporting you know:

Dishonest Reporter of the Year (Christiane Amanpour)

This year's Dishonest Reporter voting marks a change for HonestReporting readers. Previous awards went to large, impersonal news services, but not so this year. One journalist made herself such a lightning rod in 2007 she easily defeated BBC and Reuters – the traditional disfavorites.

Who is the biggest climate sinner? Not China, says the AP.

The Associated Press reported November 7 an interest group's findings that Saudi Arabia and the United States are the worst "climate sinners" for not taking drastic attempts to cut carbon emissions. But it accepted the group's "relatively positive" assertion that China's emission growth will slow in the future.

The news wire story picked up by USA Today reported that Saudi Arabia was the biggest sinner because its policies block attempts to curb greenhouse gases and the U.S. was second because it refuses to sign the Kyoto Treaty.

Where did China rank? 17th.

All the co-hosts of "The View," a show intended to advance women’s voices, do not get offended by women’s persecution in the Islamic world. On the November 30 edition, in discussing the British woman charged for naming a class teddy bear Muhammad, the co-hosts did not direct any anger at the Sudanese government, but rather blamed the woman for not adapting to their culture.

Co-host Sherri Shepherd opined "you would think that with her being in Sudan, she would know the rules and customs." Whoopi Goldberg said Europeans and Americans are "not as anxious to learn the customs before we go places." And of course that’s why we’re called "ugly Americans."

The show was recorded before news of the woman’s 15 day sentence. The entire transcript is below.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Now in the Sudan, there’s a British teacher who is possibly going to be stoned or lashed.

JOY BEHAR: A woman.

There have been a number of stories in the press in recent months about Geographically Challenged America. None tops the report about Miami Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder confessing he hadn't known that people spoke English in London.

"I couldn't find London on a map if they didn't have the names of the countries," he explained. "I swear to God. I don't know what nothing is. I know Italy looks like a boot."

I suppose we'd all have another chuckle if Crowder were asked to find Estonia on a map, but in truth how many can? And for those of us who can, how many of us know anything of significance about this seemingly insignificant little country?

How many of us know that Estonia, one of the smallest countries on the face of this earth, is responsible for one of the most extraordinary, and certainly the most unique, revolutions in modern history? How many of us know that this tiny Baltic nation defeated the Soviet Union -- with a song? This is not meant as hyperbole. It is literal truth.

CBS’s 60 Minutes repeatedly promoted in its ads for the October 28 program how Lesley Stahl pressed French president Nicholas Sarkozy into tearing off his microphone and walking out as she quizzed him about how "Paris was buzzing with rumors" about whether his wife Cecelia had left him again. This is hardly the dainty 60 Minutes style that Steve Kroft used asking Bill and Hillary Clinton about marital "mistakes" in 1992. By asking pointed personal questions about a collapsing marriage, CBS wanted viewers to know that Sarkozy was explosive, "tempestuous," and perhaps too pro-American for their tastes. Stahl asked about his election-night acceptance speech: "Why did he go that far as to mention how much he likes America on that occasion?"

Start with how Stahl played up the troubles between Sarkozy and his spouse:

What a difference a year makes. The publishing of Muhammed cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllends-Posten caused an uproar among Muslims worldwide last year. Despite the newsworthiness of the cartoons as they related to the unfolding story of violent riots throughout Europe and the Middle East, many news outlets reporting on the story refused to publish or show the cartoons out of, um, respect for Muslim sensibilities.

Now, the outcome of a lawsuit resulting from the fracas is left floating somewhere in a media backwater, as journalists seek more lucrative prey. A Muslim group based in Denmark that filed a libel lawsuit against a Danish political party leader has lost. They sued because Pia Kjaersgaard, leader of the Danish People's Party (DPP), accused some members of the Islamic Faith Community of treason for traveling to the Middle East in order to publicize the drawings, thus fanning the flames of violent dissent. The court found the term "treason" non-libelous "because it was used extensively in public debate."

BusinessWeek says the U.S. should learn a lesson from France about how to run health care. According to the July 9 issue:

“France also demonstrates that you can deliver stellar results with this mix of public and private financing,” wrote correspondent Kerry Capell.

Capell also called the French universal system “generous” and stated that it “offers valuable lessons for would-be health-care reformers in the U.S.”

Specifically referencing Michael Moore’s propaganda-mentary, Capell said the French system is not “quite as superb as Sicko maintains, but it’s pretty good.”

Keith Olbermann, the same guy that pooh-poohed the seriousness of the terror plot of the so-called Fort Dix Six, hinted on his "The News Hole" blog last night that he had a similarly dismissive attitude about the London bomb attempts of June 29.

[Olbermann covered the story on his program, but I have not had a chance to review the tape]

Here's the pearl of moonbattery from Olbermann's blog last night (portion in bold my emphasis):

Fox News Channel's late-night host Greg Gutfeld has a blog entry up at Huffington Post (also cross-posted to his DailyGut.com Web site) that mocks the insane moonbattery of leftist blog commenters who can't possibly accept that today's attempted bombings in London were part of a terrorist plot.

Gutfeld has a wicked sense of humor, so I snipped a little excerpt below. You can catch "Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld" at 2:00 a.m. EDT on the Fox News Channel:

Folks, I just spent three hours surfing the net and did I learn a lot! Did you know that most of the news we get is controlled by the Bu$hies? Let me enlighten you about today's so-called terrorist bombing attempt in London:

Our friends at Townhall.com and Human Events have some good posts on this the 20th anniversary of the "Tear Down This Wall" speech.

Stephen Bird takes a look at "What the press saw at the Brandenburg Gate" while Human Events write Michelle Oddis recalls watching the Wall fall on TV as a child, and looking back on it with a deeper appreciation for its significance in her post "Tear Down This Wall."

For a flavor of each piece, check the excerpts below the fold.

On the June 12 "Early Show," anchor Harry Smith again pounded Tony Snow, and Tony Snow again responded with a reprimand. Smith, who recently offered a puffy interview of Al Gore, continued his harsh interrogation of the White House press secretary. When discussing the G-8 summit, Snow asserted that Bush has "taken the lead" on initiatives such as climate change. Smith interrupted Snow like wise.

Video (0:37): Real (0.99 MB) or Windows (1.11 MB), plus MP3 (167 kB).

French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his political party are pretty popular these days. He's only enjoying a landslide parliamentary election a month after he routed Socialist Segolene Royal to gain the keys to the Élysée Palace.

But the way you read it in the Associated Press, it almost sounds as if Sarkozy is a latter day Robespierre, at least in that there's some Reign of Terror just waiting to break out all over the Fifth Republic. [Emphasis mine]

PARIS -- President Nicolas Sarkozy appears to have won a mandate for change after his party swept first-round parliamentary elections, and he is picking up speed in his plans to overhaul France's welfare state. But rivals say he should watch out.

[...]

A major misstep, critics warn, and the streets again could explode in anger.

Earlier today, Mark Finkelstein found that NBC thought the reaction to President Bush in eastern Europe was "over the top," which suggests their own dismissive judgment of his worth. "Over the top" was not a designation NBC used when President Clinton was hailed by large, adulatory crowds in eastern Europe. On June 22, 1999, as Brent Baker noted at the time, the NBC Nightly News featured the late reporter David Bloom touting how Clinton was greeted as a "liberator" – unlike President Bush?

BLOOM: In a refugee camp filled with mud and misery, but also today, hope, President Clinton, with his wife and daughter, walked hand-in-hand with children who escaped Kosovo's hell, but who cannot escape their own nightmares. 'The children,' Mr. Clinton says, 'have a glazed-over look in their eyes, full of hurt and terror and loss.' This woman tells the president, "My little boy has seen people killed. He's still afraid." But with the war over, these refugees, many still afraid to go home, fearing the unknown, greet the president like a liberator.

Can you remember the last time you heard "Today" or other MSM outlets describe, in terms such as "over the top," rabid anti-Bush protests by the likes of the Cindy Sheehan crowd, the Code Pink girls, or the folks pictured below ?  Neither can I. Conversely, when Bill Clinton receives enthusiastic receptions overseas, the MSM breaks out the "rock-star" analogies, with no sarcasm in sight.

But let President Bush receive a warm welcome from Eastern European crowds who appreciate his leadership on behalf of their freedom, and "Today" just can't take it.

On this morning's "Today" at 7:04 am EDT, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reported from Bulgaria on the president's European trip, in which crowds in Bulgaria and notably in Albania greeted him very enthusiastically.

NBC CORRESPONDENT KELLY O'DONNELL: We've seen the president get a warm, sometimes over-the-top reaction here in Eastern Europe where countries send troops to Iraq and also generally back the president. So he may not be all that anxious to get back to Washington."

View video here

More headline editorializing, this time on Yahoo. A June 5 Reuters article titled, “Bush bashes Putin on democracy on eve of G8 summit” sounds like Bush attacked Russian president Vladimir Putin, but the body of the article clearly did not support that view.

The headline told a very different story than the article. Editors not reporters are generally responsible for headlines, and they can greatly influence opinions about the news. The importance of a bias-free headline is that most people don’t read every word of every article; they often just skim the headlines. That meant the people who read just the headline got a very different impression from those who read the entire article (emphasis mine throughout):

"Russia is not our enemy," Bush said after meeting Czech leaders on a visit aimed at highlighting the country's emergence from Soviet domination.

He said he would urge Putin at the summit to cooperate with the U.S. plan to deploy a radar system in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland, but later in a speech took a dig at Moscow's record on democracy.

"In Russia reforms that once promised to empower citizens have been derailed, with troubling implications for democratic development," Bush said.

On Thursday's The Situation Room, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer seemed to worry that the recently announced G-8 plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions was "full of hot air" because it is not strict enough in requiring cuts. Blitzer introduced a story filed by correspondent Brian Todd: "President Bush joined other G-8 leaders today and forged an agreement to try to fight global warming, but is that agreement full of hot air?"

The CNN anchor then set up Todd's story: "Is there less to this deal, Brian, than meets the eye?" Todd thought there was some "substance" to the plan, but cited "experts" who accused G-8 leaders of "over the top rhetoric." After a clip of British Prime Minister Tony Blair contending that it was "a huge thing" that they were "considering" cutting emissions in half by 2050, Todd made his own clarification: "'Considering' cutting emissions in half by 2050, not actually agreeing to that hard target for cutting them, as the German chancellor and other European leaders had hoped." (Transcript follows)

In an almost surreal but sympathetic account of radical leftist protesters of the Group of Eight Summit in Germany, Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock is forwarding the protester’s outrage of the moment: German police have taken "scent samples" of protest organizers for police dogs to locate them in a crowd. For those of you who suspect protesters are easily smelled at 50 feet, Whitlock explained:

The German government has spared no expense -- spending upward of $100 million -- to safeguard this week's summit, which brings together leaders of the industrial countries known as the Group of Eight. German authorities have taken an offensive-minded approach, using a variety of tactics that critics say conjure bad memories of the country's totalitarian past.

On Wednesday's The Situation Room on CNN, during his regular "Cafferty File" segment, Jack Cafferty quoted Mikhail Gorbachev's recent attack on the Bush Administration in which the former Soviet leader accused the U.S. of "arrogance" and of having "lost credibility" in response to President Bush's plans to deploy a missile defense system in Europe. Cafferty asked viewers to email him with a response to the question of whether Bush was "reigniting the Cold War with Russia." Cafferty: "This is just swell, don't you think? We've got trouble with Russia now, which we haven't had for a number of years. The question is this: Is President Bush reigniting the Cold War with Russia?" (Transcript follows)