Bad Deeds for 2-2-07

Right-wing think tank offers $10,000 to dispute climate study – Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered $10,000 for articles that emphasize the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI’s board of trustees. (Note that the AEI is paying for people to agree with them, regardless of the facts.)

Boston thrown into a panic because of over-reaction of city officials to Lite-Brite-type displays – Boston highways, bridges and river traffic were shut down in several areas while police checked out Lite-Brite-type signs that were part of a nationwide marketing campaign for the Cartoon Network. The Mayor and the rest of the city government threw the city into a panic when they could’ve solved the “crisis” by talking to a ten-year-old. Wait until somebody leaves a Speak and Spell lying around. They’ll probably send in a hostage team to negotiate with it. Has the Bush Administration and Fox News conditioned us to be in a perpetual state of hysteria? Here’s a photo of the thing that scared the authorities so much.

FOX Hosts Drool Over Prospect of Time Warner Execs in Jail – FOX News, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, covered the “explosive” story of a “botched publicity stunt” engineered by those nefarious nabobs of anti-Americanism, the Cartoon Network! The Studio B show spent the whole hour on it. ‘Fox and Friends‘ and FOX News Live were going ape over it. The FOX hosts were almost salivating as they interviewed various legal experts and discussed possible prison sentences for big wigs at Turner Broadcasting and its parent company, Time Warner. As everyone knows, Time Warner is one of News Corporation’s biggest rivals in the media business. Shades of the famous Orson Welles’ broadcast of the War of the Worlds!

Fox News’ and Bill O’Reilly’s version of an expert – Julie Banderas, a media expert on the “O’Reilly Factor,” commented that Peter Jennings had stepped down as anchor of ABC News, apparently ignorant of the fact that Jennings had died.

Fox News showing plenty of sex-laden videos while saying tsk, tsk, isn’t that just awful
O’Reilly shows “coffee shop babes” with videos shot from all the right angles
O’Reilly does a segment on naked parties at Brown University
O’Reilly shows bikini-clad female for a plastic surgery segment
Cavuto does “Girls Gone Wild” segments (disguised as business news)
Cavuto interviews a group of Hooter’s waitresses (to understand the business, of course)
Morning of 2/1/07, Fox female weather-person was hounded by the guy hosting the morning program about doing the weather in a bikini, then they showed her head pasted on a photo of a girl in a bikini.

All Fox segments about the troubles of Miss USA feature videos of her in a bikini
Here is what you can find on the Fox News web site today (2/2/07):
– Jennifer’s ‘new’ nose, Timberlake’s love triangle and Mary Kate’s cover-up in this week’s Lips & Ears
– Round-the-clock parties; where will Carmen Electra be?
– ‘Harry’ in the buff
– We spot Britney shopping for underwear
– Another Sex Teacher!
– More Hooters!
– Game Day Girls – Learn what it takes to be a sexy sideliner!
(Fox will do anything to alarm you, and show anything to get ratings)

Fox News’ Fair and Balanced Report on AL Gore’s Oscar and Nobel Nominations – John Gibson couldn’t bring himself to be respectful, never mind congratulatory, to the former Vice-president and majority presidential vote-getter as he announced that Al Gore has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. No, he had to be juvenile and grudging in his reporting of this national story.

“It appears global warming is good for somebody. It’s given Gore’s career a much-needed boost. First his documentary on climate change, “An Inconvenient Truth”, was nominated for an Oscar, and now the former vice-president’s head may swell to match the rest of his growing body because he’s been nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Gore was nominated this morning by a Norwegian lawmaker who said Gore has done more than anyone else to draw attention to the dangers of global warming.

If he’s going to borrow Michael Moore’s triple-X tuxedo for the Oscars, he might as well keep it a bit longer. He may need it in Sweden to pick up his Nobel.”

What an ungracious, unprofessional, biased, hateful piece of garbage

Here’s that list of Fox News’ advertiser’s again so you can write more letters.

Bush Low-Balled the Number of New Troops to Iraq – President Bush’s plan to send 21,500 more combat troops to Iraq might require a total troop increase of 48,000 troops to provide critical support during the deployment, making the “surge” in US military forces far larger than previously revealed, according to an analysis released yesterday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO also predicted that the increase could cost up to $27 billion to sustain over the next year – more than three times the largest estimate of the troop expansion’s cost provided by the Bush administration.

Video: What’s Happening in Iraq – “Battle for Haifa Street” is a piece of first-rate journalism but one that only appears on the CBS News website–and has never been broadcast. It is a gritty, realistic look at life on the very mean streets of Baghdad.

Republicans Halt Ethics Legislation – Senate Republicans scuttled broad legislation last night to curtail lobbyists’ influence and tighten congressional ethics rules, refusing to let the bill pass without a vote on an unrelated measure that would give President Bush virtual line-item-veto power.

Bob Perry’s son has filed suit against Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace – Wallace allegedly conspired with others to create a fraudulent contract showing that W.C. Perry Brokerage Service Group LLC, general partner of Perry Properties, owes Tanner for real estate commissions on 38 properties, the lawsuit says. Perry’s lawsuit could conceivably have political implications. His father is local homebuilder Bob Perry, one of the nation’s top contributors to Republican candidates and causes.

Regards

Jim