California

We'll have to keep Patterico in mind for hosting duties if we ever decide to throw a NewsBusters game show (although be warned, we're fiscally conservative, so the prize would probably be a cheap Rosie O'Donnell doll).

The blogger unveils the latest round of a game he likes to call "Spot the L.A. Times Article!":

Which one of these articles about L.A.’s phone tax is from the L.A. Weekly — and which is from the L.A. Times?

Article One:

If you ask the voters to reinstate a tax after it’s been thrown out by the courts, it’s a new tax. But if you beat the courts to it — by convincing voters to approve a slightly lower tax before the higher one is invalidated — is it a tax “reduction”?

Despite much photographic evidence of defacement and criminal graffiti by far left, anti-war, group Code Pink at a U.S. Marine Recruitment Center, The Berkeley Daily Planet ran the headline, "Code Pink Protests Marine Recruitment Center." It was more than hanging up pink posters that said "RECRUITERS LIE, CHILDREN DIE" and chanting anti-war cheers. As is often the case with this radical leftist group, things went overboard into the criminal realm of property defacement and damage. Yet, even beyond the lacking headline tag, one would never know if reading the Berkely Daily Planet.

Considering the mainstream media's penchant for highlighting negative aspects of our involvement in Iraq and for shining a positive light on anyone who protests the war in any way, how is it we didn't hear about this guy? (hat tip: Moonbattery)

Bill McDannell, 58, of Lakeside, California, quit his job and sold nearly all his possessions (including his home) in order to trek across the country on foot to protest Iraq. It took him about nine months.

Returning to normal life won't be easy, either. He's broke now. He's got no place to call his own. And he didn't garner the national attention he had hoped for.

Apparently when he arrived in Washington D.C., there were no reporters and no cameras. Perhaps his problem is that he didn't walk in the nude or on his hands or something similarly outrageous. Just walking? With today's 24-hour news cycle, you have to do something nutty in order to get the attention-span-challenged producer's eye. Just ask Code Pink.

A popular San Francisco news anchor inexplicably made a joke on a Wednesday evening newscast suggesting NASCAR superstar Dale Earnhardt Jr. “should marry his stepmother.”

First, some background: Preceding the quip by KPIX news anchor Dana King was a flawed report from sports anchor Dennis O’Donnell about the unveiling of the stock car Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be racing with his new team next season. Dale Jr., son of the late NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Sr., is in his final season with Dale Earnhardt Inc., the racing team his father founded and left to Dale Jr.’s stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt. Dale Jr. and Teresa have been publicly at odds about the direction and management of DEI.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is NASCAR’s most popular driver, and his millions of fans have purchased merchandise emblazoned with his #8, which is the property of DEI. Negotiations with Teresa to allow Dale Jr. to race under #8 on his new team broke down, forcing him to choose a new number. 88 is the number he selected (he purchased the right to use the number from another driver).

Bob Filner, the San Diego representative who got into an altercation with an airport security official really must have a great press staff. At least he'd have to if he were a Republican since almost no GOPer could ever get CNN to omit his party affiliation from a news report.

Turns out, though, this isn't the first time that Filner has been getting pushy with security staff. That's not exactly a surprise. What is a surprise, and disgrace for that matter, is that the last time Filner had such an altercation, he did so in the presence of two reporters who declined to report on the event:

Rep. Bob Filner's alleged altercation with an airline employee in Virginia on Sunday, which led to an assault-and-battery charge against the San Diego Democrat, wasn't his first such run-in, according to a 2003 Justice Department incident report.

Here's a headline you'd never expect to see:

Global Warming Watchdog Invests in Oil, Coal, Utilities

Think I'm kidding? Well, check the link.

Making the issue that much more delicious, it was the leading front-page story in Saturday's San Francisco Chronicle (emphasis added throughout):

In light of Matt Sheffield's latest post, I found it a bit funny that this article is featured on the front page of USAToday.com this morning (see screenshot to the right).

SAN FRANCISCO — Brooke Brodack remembers her first online "hater."

Nearly two years ago, the person posted rude comments about a video she had posted on YouTube, says Brodack, 21, of San Francisco, whose videos show her lip-syncing and creating characters. "It was shocking to me. Why would someone want to be so mean for no reason?"

Why, indeed? Nasty comments, sometimes even death threats, have become ubiquitous on virtually any website that seeks to engage readers in discussion.

"Ur ugly u suk and u should die," says a typical comment beneath one of Brodack's many videos. Such vulgar messages have inspired heated discussions, and video responses, on YouTube.

Reporter Janet Kornblum later brought the topic around to how mainstream media Web sites have taken to banning comments after persistent problems:

Dateline: San Francisco. A city which HumanEvents.com ranked as the "most liberal city in America" is taking another shot at business and consumer rights and another step towards socialism with it's most recent ban. This week’s victim? The plastic shopping bag.

Jane Meredith Adams, a contributing editor to Parenting Magazine penned this June 25 special to the Chicago Tribune in which she ignores the impact of the law’s demands on businesses and consumers but instead highlights the fashionable nature of "eco-chic grocery totes."

The Los Angeles Times is on the case of mean government bureaucrats who are making poor, innocent kids cry in their lunch milk.

CHULA VISTA, CALIF. — When too many parents fell behind on paying for school lunches, the Chula Vista Elementary School District decided to get tough — on the children.

They told students with deadbeat parents that they had only one lunch choice: a cheese sandwich.

The sandwich, served on whole wheat bread, came with a clear message: Tell your parents to pay up — or no more pizza and burgers for you.

Cheese sandwiches and other "alternate meals" have been added to menus in school districts across the country as they try to take a bite out ofparents' lunch debts.

The strategy worked in Chula Vista: Lunch debts in the district fell from about $300,000 in 2004 to $67,000 in 2006. Some angry parents say success came at too high a cost, however.

A May 7 article by Los Angeles Times reporter Jordan Rau tiptoed around selfish motivations that a big business coalition may have for pushing more government involvement in healthcare. Indeed, Rau presented the political manuever as a break from business reticence to "healthcare reform."

What's more, nowhere in his article did the Times reporter label the government mandate-heavy plan a "liberal" policy nor did he seek experts to quantify the direct cost to taxpayers nor the indirect cost to consumers (in increased prices for goods and services).

"Abandoning the business lobby's traditional resistance to healthcare reform, a new coalition of 36 major companies plans to launch a political campaign today calling for medical insurance to be expanded to everyone along lines Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing for California," Rau began his article, referring to a coalition led by Safeway grocery chain chairman Steve Burd.

Liberal media outlets aren't usually sympathetic to the story of people growing upset at the changing shape of their neighborhoods, often at the arrival of new Hispanic or Asian immigrants. But AP reporter Lisa Leff reports sensitively from San Francisco that the distraught natives who dislike the invaders are gay men are upset at the arrival of -- gasp -- people with baby strollers:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Even on a weekday in winter, the Castro district vibrates with energy, most of it male. Men holding hands, walking dogs and lounging at cafes have long been the main attraction in a neighborhood known as a gay mecca the world over.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to be campaigning to be the liberal media’s favorite Republican office-holder. On Tuesday, ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today publicized his "bold" new plan to offer billions in new state government subsidies to provide "universal" health coverage, even to millions of illegal immigrants. ABC co-host Robin Roberts openly endorsed it: "there is definitely a crisis, and it's good to see at least trying something, something, especially to help those that are uninsured." While ABC seemed to offer no opposition, except to frame it briefly as a potential "budget buster," NBC at least noted critics in small business and opponents of subsidizing (and attracting) illegal immigrants.

MRC’s Justin McCarthy reported that ABC promoted the California health plan as a challenge to President Bush and the new Democratic Congress to follow up and do something similar nationwide:

The San Francisco Chronicle has finally found a "hate crime" it can write about.

No, it isn't the hate crime of self-proclaimed terrorist, Omeed Aziz Popal, who drove his SUV into pedestrians throughout San Francisco, killing one, paralyzing another, and injuring many... no not that story. Why Omeed was just a poor, sick-in-the-head fellow, not an Islamist terrorist despite that he claimed to be to all who would listen to him.

I have looked at quite a few San Francisco Chronicle articles, and none of them have used the words "hate crime" in connection with the Aziz Popal story. (Here is a typical oneFamily cites history of mental problems, where the Chronicle never seems to get around to accusing hate crimes, but does feel sorry for the perpetrator)

The Chronicle today has published a piece titled "Border fences -- and fantasies", that claims that illegal immigration has increased because of the California border fence project (Called operation Vanguard) and calls the larger border fence approved by Congress recently "tomfoolery".

The piece, though, is contradictory and filled with absurd reasoning in its desire to torpedo a larger border fence idea. On one hand the Chronicle claims that the current fence has not stopped immigration and is useless, yet on the other has caused immigrant's to bring their entire families because the fence keeps them inside.

San Diego talk-radio host Mark Larson blogs on a typical newspaper fumble on religious sensitivities with the San Diego Union-Tribune. They ran an advertisement for the "GLAAD-Award-Winning Masterpiece" play called "Southern Baptist Sissies" (starring Delta Burke!) The ad features a photo of a man in some kind of skimpy black underwear with his arms outstretched in front of a cross. Might that offend a few Christians? The Union-Tribune issued a statement that they would review the decision to accept the ad. Here's the latest from Larson:  

I offer a case study in the way journalists serve the cause of global warming alarmists -- in this particular case, by claiming scientists are associated with the fossil fuel industry using "evidence" even a superficial investigation would have rendered void, and by misleading readers in other ways.

In June, columnist Tom Hennessy of the Long Beach Press-Telegram wrote a laudatory column about Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." Two readers whose critical letters were published by the newspaper included the Australian scientist Dr. Bob Carter (letter published June 29), and Canadian scientist Dr. Tim Ball (letter published June 26).

Hennessy responded with another column, "Sense Wins in Heated Debate," published July 5, in which he ignored the substance of both scientists' letters, preferring instead to lead readers to believe two things for which he had scant-to-zero evidence: 1) both scientists had received funds from the energy industry, and 2) in exchange for these funds, the scientists have agreed to espouse views they otherwise would not.

The Nation magazine is trying to soft sell the election in California's 50th District of Republican Brian Bilbray who is now replacing disgraced Republican, Randy "Duke" Cunningham. And they aren’t the only one’s trying to blow off the importance to the Democratic Party’s immediate future at the polls that this election might portend.

"Busby lost to Republican Brian Bilbray in a special election last night by 49 to 45 percent, in (a) heavily Republican district(s)."

But this claim of a "heavily Republican district" is not really the correct, up-to-date analysis of the district's voting trends.

50th District polling results over last week of the race show that the numbers did not move very much between Busby and Bilbray, but it does show one thing clearly. The district was competitive in that the candidates were never separated by more than 10 points most of the time.

On Wednesday’s Good Morning America, news reader Bill Weir offered two widely different ways of describing the legal case involving the delayed execution of convicted killer Michael Morales in California. Weir’s second blurb on the story came at 8:32 AM and was attention catching:

Bill Weir: "New debate this morning over the death penalty after a last minute decision in the case of convicted killer Michael Morales. California prison officials postponed his execution indefinitely when doctors refused to administer a new court ordered method of lethal injection. Morales is on death row for torturing, raping and killing a 17 year-old girl. He claims lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment."

In an earlier take on the story in the 7:00 half hour, Weir offered scant context as to who Michael Morales is and what he did that caused a jury to sentence him to death:

California’s upcoming GOP primary just got interesting. Former U.S. Rep. and decorated veteran Paul "Pete" McCloskey recently announced that he will challenge Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Tracy) in June.

Often described as a "maverick Republican" (code word for liberal) by the mainstream media (MSM), McCloskey is being lauded as a "moderate" who will restore the conservative principles of small government to a scandal-plagued Washington. To drive the point home, Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay’s names are invoked frequently in articles on the subject.

McCloskey ran against President Richard Nixon in 1972 as an antiwar candidate and testified in congress along with Vietnam Veterans Against the War organizer John Kerry, who he also endorsed for president in 2004. All this, combined with having been co-chairman of the first Earth Day in 1970 and one of the authors of the Endangered Species Act, makes McCloskey a "good" Republican in the eyes of the media.

The New York Times' California-based correspondent John Broder is usually happy to relay bad news about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Friday’s story from Sacramento doesn’t disappoint: “Humbled Schwarzenegger Apologizes for ’04 Election, and Then Proposes a Centrist Agenda.”

Catch the headline goof? That’s how TimesWatch's hard copy reads. (Online, the year has been corrected to ‘05.) The “election” in question was the ambitious slate of special election ballot measures Schwarzenegger put on a state ballot (and which were rejected last November).

Broder prefers the new “uncharacteristically humble” governor.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger apologized to the voters of California on Thursday night and proposed a series of policies that represent a dramatic return to the political center after an ill-fated lurch to the right last year….In his annual State of the State message, Mr. Schwarzenegger said he had gone against the people's will by sponsoring a costly special election in November that was widely seen as an effort to punish public employees and Democratic lawmakers.”

It's hard to believe this story actually ran, front page (online) no less, but a little easier to believe when you realize it was the San Francisco Chronicle. Let me recap some of the highlights:

Stop It, Breeders
"We can't be breeding right now," says Les Knight. "It's obvious that the intentional creation of another [human being] by anyone anywhere can't be justified today."

"As long as there's one breeding couple," he says cheerfully, "we're in danger of being right back here again. Wherever humans live, not much else lives. It isn't that we're evil and want to kill everything -- it's just how we live."

Knight's position might sound extreme at first blush, but there's an undeniable logic to it: Human activities -- from development to travel, from farming to just turning on the lights at night -- are damaging the biosphere. More people means more damage. So if fewer people means less destruction, wouldn't no people at all be the best solution for the planet?

I may be a little late to the linking party, but InstaPundit brought many to this fascinating "Anatomy of a Photograph" from the Zombietime blog about a San Francisco Chronicle photograph from the local "peace" rally on September 24. If you haven't seen it, take a look. Every step back adds what Dan Rather loves to call "context and perspective." The truth about the "peace" organizers and marchers gets clearer. Many are vulgar. Many are not exactly geopolitically in sync with the USA (especially the girl in the Vietnam flag shirt).

The Chronicle got enough complaints, so they felt they had to respond on Sunday:

There are some who would argue journalists don't do serious stories about religion. The respect for a higher power cherished by the majority in this country is not a voice represented in the newsroom. Some might think that even when religion is approached in a story, it is treated like wacky antics of the criminally insane.

Well that just isn't true. You obviously don't care about black people and want to send the children of others to die in Iraq funded on the lunch money of the poor if you believe that.

Take this local CBS News story from the network's San Francisco affiliate. Sure it didn't bump Cindy Sheehan off the front page, but it did pay respect to religion with this hard hitting investigation titled "Interview with a Vampire".

• It starts off with the US military purging evil spirits from a New Orleans building with holy water, in the name of Jesus Christ.
• It has a US soldier talking about New Orleans being "ingrained in voodoo, cannibalism, and witchcraft."
• The reporter herself sees a ghost, but apparently doesn't consider it worthy of getting on tape.
• US soldier says "We're bringing the light. Wherever soldiers go, there goes the word of God."
• US soldiers cite Hurricane Katrina as prophecy from Revelations. Twice.

Is it sweeps already, or are the haunted houses, crusades and voodoo just the 'diversity' angle of religion coverage?

Watch the whole segment here.

While today's Cyber Alert details the media coverage the networks have given Cindy Sheehan---a California woman who lost her son in the war in Iraq last year---Sheehan's previously positive comments about her visit with President Bush last year has caught the attention of the Drudge Report and prompted a reprint by The Reporter newspaper of Vacaville, California, in order to clear up concerns by left-wing bloggers that Drudge simply lifted comments out of context to "smear" Sheehan.

The newspaper's editor was concerned that comments were lifted out of context which presented Sheehan as having a very positive regard for President Bush last year: