If it bleeds it leads. Progress in Iraq can be accurately tracked by the inverse relationship between events on the ground and the amount of press coverage.
Progress goes up, coverage comes down.
MRC Study:
As Surge Succeeds and Casualty Rates Fall, ABC, CBS and NBC Lose Interest In Iraq War
Good News = Less News on Iraq War
Vanishing War. Back in September, as reporters voiced skepticism of General Petraeus’ progress report, the networks aired a total of 178 Iraq stories, or just under two per network per night. (See chart.) About one-fourth of those stories (42) were filed from Iraq itself, with most of the rest originating in Washington.
In October, TV’s war news fell by about 40 percent, to 108 stories, with the number of reports filed from Iraq itself falling to just 20, or less than one-fifth of all Iraq stories. By November, the networks aired a mere 68 stories, with only eleven (16%) actually from the war zone itself.
If this keeps up, I might start to wonder whether the MSM has an agenda or something.
The Pope condemns the climate change prophets of doom
Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.
The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.
The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement.
As a follow-up to this post, here are three more reasons why I’m not writing off Fred Thompson yet. Bottom line, I like his positions. I like his honesty and integrity, his unwillingness to pander. I like his style.
On these BS debates
On education
and my personal favorite, on global warming.
Romney Hoax Fails To Fool Evangelicals That He Is a Conservative
By Gregg Jackson
Tuesday, December 11, 2007The Mitt Romney candidacy is in its own surreal way like a re-enactment of the O.J. trial. Most of the major talk radio hosts are like O.J.’s legal team, led by Mitt’s John the Baptist, Hugh Hewitt. Hugh declared in his commentary on the speech that anyone who doesn’t agree with him that Mitt is the Republican Savior is “not to be trusted.” Trusted?
It’s like the O.J. trial in one simple way: Mitt’s “lawyers” are turning reality upside down in the court of public opinion. Republican primary voters are the O.J. jury and they will decide whom to believe: (1) Romniacs who believe Mitt is the conservative messiah or (2) Mitt’s political record, which is the most liberal of any presidential candidate on stage – Republican or Democrat.
Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney greets a shopper at a mall in downtown Des Moines, December 11, 2007. Romney campaigned in Des Moines before the January 3 Iowa caucuses. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES) The biggest question after Romney’s religion speech is: How long can right wing talk radio deceive Americans that Mitt is the victim of a vast right wing conspiracy of bigots attacking him for his religion? The next biggest question is: how long can Americans accept the irrational idea that Mitt is the alpha and omega of the political spectrum – John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan?
And finally, how long can this enormous political hoax that Romney is The Conservative Dragon-Lady Slayer be sustained when his Hillary-like governor’s record is right out there for all to see?
My friend Sandy Rios, former president of Concerned Women of America and Salem Radio Talk Show host in Chicago has written a powerful piece in today’s Townhall.com entitled, “Mitt Romney May Have Had No Choice, But I Do.”
I met with Governor Romney earlier this year with about 10 other people from Chicago. Impeccably dressed, he sat at the head of the table and gave a powerful presentation on his healthcare policies, taxes and, of course, how much he opposed homosexual marriage and its bad effects on children. When it came time to ask questions, I politely asked him why, in spite of his claims of opposition and concern, he had in fact been the one who began homosexual marriage in Massachusetts? —How was it that he ordered the rewording of marriage certificates and threatened state and local officials with firing if they did not comply?
He erupted in anger. He asked if I were an attorney and then volunteered emphatically: “I am a graduate of Harvard Law School!†An aide tried to calm him down, but he continued to accuse me of lying. “She’s not telling the truth,†he said. Those are the moments you are glad your reputation for honesty is firmly in tact—and that you have all the documents necessary to prove your accusation.
Prose from the Pros
Usually before 650-251, additional credits like 642-533 or 642-426 are asked. That is why it is better to first go for 156-215 before any other advanced credit.
December 10, 2007
Gore accepts Nobel Peace Prize
OSLO, Norway — Saying it’s “time to make peace with the planet,” Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday with a call for humanity to rise up against a looming climate crisis and stop waging war on the environment…
“Without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the Earth itself,” Gore said in his acceptance speech. “Now, we and the Earth’s climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: ‘Mutually assured destruction.’ It is time to make peace with the planet.”
December 10, 2007
New Peer-Reviewed Study Finds ‘Warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence’
Climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia report that observed patterns of temperature changes (‘fingerprints’) over the last thirty years are not in accord with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability. Therefore, climate change is ‘unstoppable’ and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.
Prose from the Pros
EX0-101 as well as EX0-100 exempt one from 70-526. Students can straight away proceed to 642-372.
When told the facts and implications away from the spotlight, the Democrats had no problem with waterboarding as an interrigation technique.
When the media lights went on, it instantly became torture.
Democrats wonder why people don’t trust them with national security. I don’t wonder, it makes perfect sense.
Washington Post
Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
In Meetings, Spy Panels’ Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
Jules Crittenden observes,
Yeah, well, that was then. Back when war was easier, less messy. More popular. Before polls suggested there was an advantage to stating that invading Iraq wasn’t a good idea anymore. Before Bush lied, people got waterboarded … excuse me, I mean “died.â€
The reason the CIA briefs the selected few on highly classified covert matters is not to get a rubber stamp on their activities, but to allow oversight and get approval for their covert activities. If Congress couldn’t find it objectionable when waterboarding was employed, they have little to complain about years afterward.