Crossposted at Daily Kos. If you choose to recommend it there, the Rec Button may have been pushed to the bottom after the last diary comment made.
THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS
This weekly diary takes a look at the past week's important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.
When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:
1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?
2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?
3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?
The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist's message.
:: ::
Chris Britt, see reader comments in the State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)
To corporate media hacks, there are no objective facts. Because they are incapable of either researching or comprehending what can be demonstrably proved, they dumb down all issues to mere partisan controversies. There is no scientific method. There are no historical contexts. There are two sides to every story, even when there really aren't. Everything can be a legitimate source of bickering.
It's not just juvenile, and it's not just unprofessional; it is, in fact, dangerous. If a prominent Republican went flat-earther, Wolf Blitzer, David Broder and their ilk would reliably report on the new controversy over the shape of the earth. Andrea Mitchell just proved her credentials as an upstanding member of this upsidedown cult of unreality. On the eve of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, she interviewed Al Gore. Did she ask him about the science of climate change? Did she ask him about the politics? Did she ask him if the politics was dangerous, given the science? Of course not. As reported by Steve Benen:
This morning, Gore appeared on MSNBC, where Andrea Mitchell read from Sarah Palin's Facebook page to ask the former vice president questions about climate change.
Let's think about that, for a moment. Al Gore may be an imperfect messenger, but his understanding of climate change is steeped in science. He's written books about it. Books that he not only read, but actually wrote. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work explaining climate change and trying to get the world to deal with it. In contrast, Sarah Palin has no understanding of climate change, whatsoever. Not only does she not understand the science of climate change, she doesn't appear to understand science. Nothing in her resume credibly qualifies her to discuss climate change. To be kind, one could say that her best and most consistent professional qualification is that of a quitter. She's not very good at it, but she does have plenty of experience.
But even more surreal is the context of Mitchell's question. A supposedly serious supposed journalist asks a Nobel Prize winning expert what he thinks of the nitwit ramblings of an ignorant anti-intellectual that were posted to a Facebook page? Has the corporate media really dumbed itself that far down?
Apparently without laughing in her face or being stupefied into horrified silence, Gore gave Mitchell a succinct response:
"Well, you know, the global warming deniers persist in this air of unreality," Gore explained. "After all, the entire north polar icecap, which has been there for most of the last 3 million years, is disappearing before our eyes. Forty percent is already gone. The rest is expected to go completely within the next decade. What do they think is causing this?"
MITCHELL: Palin calls it "junk science." She says, "The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won't change the weather, but they would change our economy for the worst."
The Globe and Mail reports that the cover-up is usually worse than the crime. University of East Anglia CRU climate scientist Mike Hulme worries that denying the academic dishonesty and shabby efforts of fellow climate scientists to destroy CRU data will "set back climate science back twenty years". Phee-yew! And that's criticism from inside the tent.
The first thing I did this morning was grab a bucket and scoop the water out of the bathtub and pour it by hand in the washing machine. My wife ordinarily does this and has, cheerfully, for years. She's the heavy-lifter environmentalist chez kidneystones. The temperature inside our new home in Tokyo right now in December is about 55 degrees. The windows are open to let in the sunshine. I'm wearing a turtleneck and a warm-up jacket as I type. We don't own a car, don't own an air-conditioner and turn on the electric heat in winter only when a hat and extra sweater won't suffice. We recycle assiduously whenever we can. In short: we're into environmentalism.
We defend environmentalism easily. The savings from recycling water appear on our water bill. We have hard data we share willingly with neighbors. The work I do in the social sciences includes history of science. That, too, I publish and share. Good work withstands scrutiny. A few people I respect, however, are currently making the case that science cannot withstand scrutiny and that breaking into computers to get access to data matters more than what is discovered.
The break-insare very likely part of a larger effort to discredit climate science. Why? Because climate science appears to be pure bullshit and there appears to be clear evidence of collusion to control access to core data. For years, climate science skeptics, critics, deniers: call them what you will, have petitioned the CRU for access to the raw data. They were stone-walled at every turn. Fact or fiction?
Prof. Jones wrote that climate skeptics "have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send it to anyone."
How can anyone defend Jones? We shouldn't need to remind anyone of the Bush efforts to conceal WH email, or the challenges critics of the war have faced trying to get information about who knew what and when. Real questions exist about the core samples and the methodology underpinning climate science claims.
Rather than bring the data to the light of day, climate scientists threatened to destroy or delete their work. Had Jones and company simply allowed all-comers access to the core data underpinning their claims there would have been no 'criminal' hack. Why wouldn't Jones and company let others see their core work? The only plausible explanation, IMHO, is Jones et al knew their work would not stand up to aggressive examination.
When so-called 'progressives' defend stonewalling, data-deletion, and academic dis-honesty, environmentalists know that there's even more reason to bring the facts, all of them, to the public. The cover-up and the CRU fraud both stink.
Congratulations to buhdy for making the site work. Really. No thanks to me. I pulled out right about the time I was predicting that "occupant" could not possibly win, no matter what. Well, there you have it. Never underestimate the importance of the novelty factor which (it would be churlish to dwell on) appears to have pretty much worn-off.
But that's not why I'm here. I'm back to congratulate the winners and to wish one and all well. I sincerely do hope that rationality and critical thinking will prevail as we learn more and more about the cobbled-together pseudo-science underpinning Al Gore's awkward adventure, otherwise known (cruelly) as the 'dog ate my data'. The environment is in trouble and devoting so much time and energy away from real problems, like the amount of plastic we produce and ingest, has cost enough already.
You folks elected McCain-lite and for that I'm sure you're all suitably proud. I would have much preferred the real thing and a frank statement confirming the US would stay in Afghanistan and Iraq for as long as it takes to bring stability to both countries.
You've opted for the worst of both worlds, instead: a pack of Bush-like promises to 'Finish the job', whatever the fuck that might mean on any given day, with enough cannon-fodder to piss off all the locals but not provide any real security, all under the command of a general who sees little wrong with outsourcing rendition, assassination and 'snatch and grab' teams to Blackwater.
Good thing, McCain lost. Because there's not much chance he would have done much more than build a few nuclear power plants and allow the climate-science cranks to perpetuate their lies a few years longer. Take a bow.
In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S.
...
in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world's largest media corporation.
In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.
Brrrrrr!!!! It sure has been cold out lately, doncha think? Even Florida is havin' trouble keepin' their crops from freezin' and lots of record low temperatures were observed there in the Midwest last week. What the heck ever happened to that Global Warming that Al Gore promised us? I was lookin' forward to it! Nobody gets to see my best political assets if I'm all bundled up in a parka.
I ain't the only one who thinks it's cold out. A local businessman here in Fairbanks, Craig Compeau, is teachin' Al Gore a lesson in meteorology. Compeau and local artist Steve Dean unveiled an ice sculpture of Al, over 8 feet tall, shiverin' and lookin' like a fool from bein' so cold. Al is gonna have a lot of explainin' to do when he testifies about climate change in the Senate next week. Gosh darn it, if only Uncle Ted was still in the Senate! He could grill Al about how the heck this giant sculpture can exist if the earth is really warmin' up.
In essence they argued that the plant was doing damage to other property through its greenhouse gas emissions on such a scale as to justify their damaging it.
Kipling is the only English writer of our time who has added phrases to the language. The phrases and neologisms which we take over and use without remembering their origin do not always come from writers we admire.
One of Kipling's most famous poems offers lessons to Hillary Clinton on how she ought to conduct herself as this marathon, bruising fight for the 2008 Democratic nomination draws to a close. And the need for party unity becomes paramount to coalesce behind a once-in-a-generation candidate who is poised to succeed in the General Election in November.
The choice is obvious: either we succeed collectively or fail individually -- only to see a continuation of the most destructive domestic and foreign policies in the post-WW II era.
The Urban Dictionary has accepted my definition for Fauxrage.
Cross-posted at Kos
Fauxrage: n. fo-rage., fô r?j?
Frenzy created by media or blogs to inflate a usually minor, perceived offense into a major scandal or continuing political event.
Congress, in a fit of fauxrage, passed a resolution condemning a newspaper ad about a General. The fauxrage was stoked primarily by Faux News.
We now observe fauxrage almost daily. The endless loops of the good Rev. Wright provided the uber fauxrage of the campaign so far, but just recently, we had Republican and media fauxrage at:
Obama [compassionately] saying he wouldn't punish his daughters by forcing them to have a baby.
Ed Schultz [accurately] calling McCain a "warmonger."
A 16-year-old who [justifiably] asked McCain a question and was called a "heckler."
Obama [sociologically] saying that bitter people cling to guns or religion.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every ying there is a yang, for every neo-con there is a neo-lib. When the global war of terror becomes unpalatable by the masses it's replacement shall be the global war on your assumption of your right to use energy and maintain a modern lifestyle. More people should own horses because it is the source of horse sense.
Anyway, this one is from Kurt Nimmo. He speaks to the carbon tax scam well. I have also openly told people here I work for a global company. The company over a year ago started promoting future life scenarios that included "mega-cities. I still view it as the delusions of a very small percentage of people who think it is their manifest destiny to screw up the lives of as many people as they can. It is as simple as good vs evil so the best hope we have is that the electronic information grid will be the first casualty in the post modern world.
Former vice president Al Gore will launch a three-year, $300 million campaign Wednesday aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, a move that ranks as one of the most ambitious and costly public advocacy campaigns in U.S. history.
Gore sees a need to educate the public about what is needed to address the climate crisis. I am quite impressed at the plans for various ways of getting the information out to the public. The key need is to have real policy changes be enacted.
The Alliance for Climate Protection's "we" campaign will employ online organizing and television advertisements on shows ranging from "American Idol" to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." It highlights the extent to which Americans' growing awareness of global warming has yet to translate into national policy changes, Gore said in an hour-long phone interview last week. He said the campaign, which Gore is helping to fund, was undertaken in large part because of his fear that U.S. lawmakers are unwilling to curb the human-generated emissions linked to climate change.
http://www.infowars.com/?p=1140 I am looking at the "Say no to Beijing 2008" ad in the upper left corner and find it related to global warming also. Yea, we are screwing up the enviornment but the marketing effort via Big Al and this CO2 shit is only aimed at getting the peasants in chains.
MURFREESBORO - Former Vice President Al Gore said Thursday that he expects the Democratic nomination fight will "resolve itself" before the party's convention in late August.
Gore told The Associated Press that he sees no urgency in endorsing a presidential candidate.
"What have we got, five months left?" he said in a brief interview after a speech at Middle Tennessee State University.
When pressed that several prominent Democrats, including Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, have expressed hope for an earlier decision on the nomination, Gore said: "I think it's going to resolve itself. But we'll see."
Sort of disappointed to see Howard Dean doing something a little different ..
"If we have an ugly, divided convention, we will lose. John McCain is not a strong candidate for president. The only way we lose is if we are divided."
I think Gore's got the right frame here, the correct vision to adopt. Dean should be backing away from even giving the appearance that Democrats will be anything but united, come August.
Now, look, I understand stereotypes are hard to defeat. People get an image planted in their head, and sometimes it causes them not to listen to the facts. But America is in the lead when it comes to energy independence; we're in the lead when it comes to new technologies; we're in the lead when it comes to global climate change - and we'll stay that way.
(h/t Plutonium Page)
A brief review...
A strong start
Just two months into his first term, CBS News reported:
The White House said Wednesday that President Bush would not implement the climate treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, but would seek an alternative that would "include the world" in the effort to reduce pollution.
In mid-March, George W. Bush made a stunning reversal of a campaign pledge to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, a culprit in global warming--and immediately found himself on the hot seat. Predictably, environmental groups are mobilizing to flood the White House with letters demanding that Bush stick to his promise. Bush may pay little attention to them, but in the weeks to come he will face pressure from others who will be much tougher to ignore.
It will come from European leaders, CEOs who favor action on global warming, and members of his own party in Congress.
But, of course, he did ignore them. And his alternative "strategy" was play-acting. The honor system. As New Scientist reported, in February 2002:
George W Bush unveiled the details of his alternative strategy for halting global warming in an address to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday.
He made no promises to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, but instead set a national target of reducing by 18 per cent the amount of greenhouse gases the country produces for every unit of GDP.
Targets without promises. Toothless. Worthless. And he continued to deny the very existence of human-caused global warming. From CBS News, in June 2003:
(From The Environmentalist Managing Editor - reprinted by permission)
Al Gore, addressing a United Nations summit on green investment, warned business leaders about the consequences of investment in technologies that did not reduce the carbon footprint, given the associated costs to both society and business of climate change:
UNITED NATIONS - Al Gore advised Wall Street leaders and institutional investors Thursday to ditch businesses too reliant on carbon-intensive energy - or prepare for huge losses down the road.
"You need to really scrub your investment portfolios, because I guarantee you - as my longtime good redneck friends in Tennessee say, I guarandamntee you - that if you really take a fine-tooth comb and go through your portfolios, many of you are going to find them chock-full of subprime carbon assets," the former vice president said.
I stand by my pessimism that Hillary Clinton can be driven out of the race prior to substantial losses in the likes of North Carolina, Indiana, and Kentucky in May. I stand by my pessimism that the Clintons would be better positioned to twist arms in a brokered convention, and that Hillary would win in part by offering Obama the poisoned apple of the Vice-Presidency, which he will turn down. But it has occurred to me that there is one way that Obama would be able to win over a brokered convention, and it would coincidentally lead to the best ticket and the best government we could rightfully expect.
He can convince Al Gore to become his Vice-President.
In a stunning political development this evening according to the Associated Press, the Florida Supreme Court has intervened in the Florida Republican Primary and declared George W. Bush the winner over Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Huckabee.
Senator John McCain, ever the patriot and loyal soldier, had this response
I knew in my heart of hearts that I'd never be able to win in a state full of geezers. Even so, I'm delighted that the prize deservedly went to President Bush. In anticipation of this development, I hopped on a plane to Washington, DC and personally congratulated the President. The voters of Florida have chosen wisely.
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
