Media and Technology

Provocative commentary on TV, film, print, radio; bloggers and journalists, truth and spin; plus media reform, news bias, Net Neutrality, corporate media control. Comprehensive coverage on Media & Technology here.

Right-Wing Junior Sleuth Discovers Climate Science Skulduggery!
Posted by Tintin, Sadly, No! on December 10, 2009 at 7:39 AM.

The announcement at Copenhagen by the World Meteorological Organization that the current decade will be the warmest on record and that 2009 will be the fifth hottest year since 1850 has been met by, well, deafening silence in Wingnutlandia. Jonah the Whale and some of the other Cornerdomites are busy speculating on the geopolitical significance of a black golfer schtupping white, blonde women. Mark Steyn is, naturally, still complaining about the excessive number of brown people in Europe. Poor Mona Charen, bless her heart, having apparently decided to completely ignore the dispatches from Copenhagen, is still declaring that global warming is over.

So it truly takes a brave wingnut to stride directly into the coliseum and take on the lions with his bare Funyun-encrusted hands. Sadlynauts, meet Terry Trippany, who, when he’s not out on a Geek Squad call, keeps himself busy as a super-duper NewsBuster.

The media that couldn’t bring themselves to report on the growing scandal surrounding falsified data is all on board with reporting this latest news. Yet it is clear that the Huffington Post, CBS News, the New York Times and others didn’t even bother to check the data that was released from the the UK MET (UK Government Department of Climate and Weather Change).

Uh oh. It looks like little Terry has whipped out his Captain Bozell’s Funtime Sleuthing Set, complete with kerning scale, decoder ring, magnifying glass, snub-nosed junior detective scissors, invisible ink revealer, mini-flashlight and rear-view glasses.

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Peak Wingnuttia: Far-Right "News" Site Accuses Obama of Targetting the Baby Jesus
Posted by Terry Krepel, Media Matters for America on December 10, 2009 at 5:55 AM.

A December 4 New York Times article on White House social secretary Desirée Rogers reported that the Obama administration had apparently considered a "non-religious Christmas" celebration in the White House as a way to reach out to other faiths and that, according to the Times, there was a debate about whether to display the traditional nativity scene. In the end, the article added, "tradition won out; the executive mansion is now decorated for the Christmas holiday, and the crèche is in its usual East Room spot."

Run that story through WorldNetDaily's looking glass -- heavily distorted by right-wing partisanship and sheer, unreasonable hatred of Barack Obama -- and you get a December 8 WND article by Chelsea Schilling, headlined "Obama's latest target: Ousting baby Jesus" and carrying this lede:

The Obama administration sought to ban baby Jesus from the executive mansion as part of its plans for a "non-religious Christmas," according to a participant at a White House luncheon.

Briefly considering not erecting a nativity scene means you "sought to ban baby Jesus"? Really?

Does the WorldNetDaily store sell these looking glasses so the rest of us can take part in this same mind-bending distortion? Or is the experience open only to those who hate Obama with a burning passion like Joseph Farah and Co. do?

Alan Grayson to Dick Cheney: STFU
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 10, 2009 at 4:29 AM.

Entertaining political theater, courtesy of Tweety and Alan Grayson. Enjoy [ht: Oliver Willis] ...

Chuck Norris: Climate Scientists Totally Suck Ass at Climate Science!
Posted by Thers, Whiskey Fire on December 9, 2009 at 6:16 PM.

Hmmm. The Schafly-dropping who inflicted Conservipedia upon the world was on Colbert tonight. This person claimed as one of the Fantastic Milestones of Conservipedia that it has gotten 140 MILLION PAGE VIEWS. Which is impressive. Of course, this absurd blog you are right now reading, or, more likely, are right now blinking at stupidly with malfocused bacon-veined, baseball sized yellowish spheres of malarial gristle (try to deny it, redsnouts), currently has about three million page views. Which clearly means that Jesus likes us better.

In other exciting news that signifies something important, Chuck Norris has an opinion on the opinions of professional climate scientists, and in Chuck Norris's expert opinion as a guy who knows karate, can't act, and writes barely literate Townhall columns, climate scientists totally suck ass at climate science. 

Copenhagen is on fire this week, and there's far more heating up than just the climate.

Heads of state and others are gathering this week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, but bonfires already have been blazing for weeks on that European front.

Let me see whether I can summarize the chestnuts roasting on that Copenhagen fire.

It is axiomatic that chestnuts cannot be summarized, no matter how much heat is applied to them for whatever number of weeks. (Honestly. Go find a chestnut. Pick it up. Roast it. Now, summarize it. We're waiting!) Chuck Norris is welcome to the attempt, but the outlook is grim for him making sense.

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Andrew Breitbart Raves: ACORN Pseudo-Scandal the "Abu Ghraib of Great Society"
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 1:29 PM.

Big Hollywood's Andrew Breitbart, mastermind of the ACORN "investigation" videos (for which he is being sued), took umbrage at the Village Voice's coverage of a report that cleared ACORN of any wrong-doing in the matter.

Roy Edroso managed to snag an interview with Breitbart. He says it was, "boiled down from what was pretty much a 45-minute harangue." The man who made hating Hollywood a career, was in fine form:

Throughout our interview, Breitbart railed against ACORN ("they don't help the poor, they keep them dependent on a completely corrupt system"), the "false standard" of mainstream media journalism that he finds unfairly applied to O'Keefe's reporting ("when Morley Safer does an investigation, do you see every minute, every second that they shot? They edit it for effect"), and the media's attempt to "whitewash" ACORN. He compared his reporters to Upton Sinclair, and called the ACORN scandal "the Abu Ghraib of the Great Society."

Breitbart promises more ACORN coverage, and that it will not be pretty: "The L.A. [ACORN] guy didn't help [Hannah and James]. Didn't kick them out, but he wasn't very helpful. That's the closest thing to an exculpatory video. There will be no more exculpatory video. The rest is just like the rest."

I may be mistaken, but that last bit seems like Andrew Breitbart promising less balanced reporting on ACORN's nefarious plots in the future. Which is about the funniest thing I've heard all day.

Thomas Friedman Can't Stop Comparing Afghanistan to a "Special Needs Baby"
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on December 7, 2009 at 11:30 AM.

If you haven't heard -- and that's a big "if," considering it's everywhere -- New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has come up with a neat new way to understand the situation in Afghanistan. As Friedman metaphors go, it's sure to be a classic, a true stand-out even alongside his most mangled, ridiculous stabs at using figurative language to describe foreign policy. (Consider the time he wrote, about Iraq, “It’s OK to throw out your steering wheel, as long as you remember you’re driving without one.")

Friedman, anyway, is very proud of it. So proud, in fact, he has rolled it out at least twice in the past week.

"I tried to put this in a broader strategic context," he told Chris Matthews on "Hardball" on December 3rd. And where did that lead him?

Chris, as a country, we're like two out-of-work parents who just adopted a special-needs baby.

... Yikes.

So, maybe it a poor choice of words. Maybe after the segment, someone took Friedman aside and whispered that comparing whole countries to disabled infants is just a wee bit offensive -- especially when it comes from a supposed foreign policy expert from the country currently occupying it, a man whose ideas are so Important and Influential, he recently played a round of golf with the president of said occupying country.

Then again, maybe not.

Appearing on the Sunday news programs, Friedman again rolled out his Afghanistan-as-special-needs-baby metaphor, telling CNN's Fareed Zakaria:

I feel like we're like an unemployed couple who just went out and decided to adopt a special needs baby. You know, I mean, that's really kind of what we're doing. And that's like, whoa, you know. That terrifies me.

Yes, Friedman apparently gave it some thought after his "Hardball" episode and decided his metaphor is just right, it IS "kind of what we're doing."

Later, appearing on "Meet the Press" with David Gregory alongside another much-respected journalist, the Bush-chronicling Bob Woodward, Friedman gave the metaphor a rest, instead engaging in a little bit wordplay about the 2011 so-called withdrawal date.

MR. GREGORY:  Does a withdrawal date give the enemy an advantage?  Your analysis on what you've heard the answer on that.

MR. WOODWARD:  But I think, I mean, it's pretty clear that's a non-withdrawal withdrawal date.  Other words, they were talking about...

MR. GREGORY:  A non-denial denial.

MR. WOODWARD:  A non-denial denial.

MR. FRIEDMAN:  It's a known unknown.

MR. WOODWARD:  It, it's a starting point.

MR. GREGORY:  Yeah.

Two Pulitzer Prize winners at work here, folks. Be amazed.

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Glenn Beck's Holiday Film is a Box Office Flop
Posted by Space Cowboy, Shakesville on December 7, 2009 at 6:55 AM.

At $20 per ticket, Glenn thought he could get all of his fans and 9/12'ers to buy him a new condo by rallying to the movie theaters to see the film adaptation (i.e. a stage performance with one actor) of his book The Christmas Sweater -- A Return To Redemption. It looks like most people have better things to spend their money on:

In New York, Beck sold 17 tickets. In Boston, another 17. And in Washington, D.C., the hotbed of political activism, his tearful film drew only 30. [...]

The viewing in Lynnwood, WA -- the closest one to Beck's Mount Vernon hometown -- sold out several hours before the show began. Ten miles south, 70 out of 415 seats had been snagged in Seattle, a better turnout than other cities.

Excuse me for a second while I laugh hysterically.

OK. I'm back.

In case anyone is curious what kind of performance art Glenn is capable of, here's a review excerpt:

The Christmas Sweater may seem to be the same kind of run-of-the-mill holiday tale of redemption and hope that we see every year about this time. But considering that the climax involves right-wing talk-show host Glenn Beck, in the guise of a 12 year old version of himself, crying on the stage floor in the fetal position while a large black woman sings hymns to him, I think it might leave viewers with a few more questions than the usual family fare. [...]

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Ramesh Ponnurru: Defender of Blastocyst-Americans
Posted by Tintin, Sadly, No! on December 6, 2009 at 6:22 PM.

Blastocyst-worshiping radical Catholicist Ramesh Ponnurru is over at America’s Shittiest Website™ in full-metal-chasuble mode, slinging his rosary at everyone in sight, because the Center for American Progress had the utter temerity to suggest that legislation that would make health care more available might actually be consistent with Catholic theology. Apparently when Jesus healed the sick, he asked for an insurance card first and extracted a promise from all women that he healed that they wouldn’t run out and get an abortion afterwards.

Naturally Ponnuru’s biggest concern is that health care reform might facilitate access to abortions, and he is perfectly willing to see actual human beings die to protect the lives of some innocent blastocysts. In order to get to that result he’s willing to say just about anything, including this splendidly retarded piece of incomprehensibility:

And when the bishops say that all people should have “ready access to quality, comprehensive, and affordable health care,” that doesn’t even mean that they have endorsed universal coverage, let alone a specific legislative attempt to come closer to it. Still less does it mean that Catholic social teaching requires us to support that attempt.

Don’t bother reading that again and trying to make more sense of it on the second go-round. It’s just as preposterous on subsequent readings. According to Ramesh, just because the Bishops say that all people should have health care doesn’t mean that the Bishops are arguing for universal coverage. This might make sense, I suppose, if the universe in universal coverage includes pets and farm animals. Moreover, according to Ramesh, just because Bishops might say that health care is good doesn’t mean that Catholics need to support health care. Of course, when the Bishops say that abortion is bad that is a mandate to oppose abortion. It obviously can be confusing at times to be a radical Catholicist.

UPDATED: Defense Contractor Makes Up Wild Islamic Terrorism Fantasy; Right-Wingers Act Like it's 9/11 All Over Again
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 6, 2009 at 11:34 AM.

True story. A right-winger who obviously reads too many of those really hard-core Islamophobic blogs emailed around a detailed account of how he had heroically thwarted a terrorist attack on a flight from Atlanta to Houston.

According to the story, which proliferated on conservative blogs and rose as high up the wingnut food chain as Glenn Beck's website, Ted Petruna was on the AirTrans flight waiting to taxi when he saw a bunch of "Muslims" acting suspiciously. They spoke to each other covertly on their cell phones from different locations within the plane. In Arabic, of course. They refused the crew's orders to turn off the phones; instead, they started watching pornographic films (this is what religious fundamentalists tend to do before launching suicide attacks, according to Petruna). When the group stood up and started walking towards the flight deck, Petruna and a brave fellow Texan who had also noted the suspicious doings of the men took action. They manhandled the outclassed young Muslims into compliance and secured them until Air Marshals boarded the plane and took the group into custody.

Then, shockingly, the airline -- no doubt entirely staffed by PC liberals -- tried to allow the men to board again and resume their journey. But Petruna and a bunch of other fine upstanding Americans had had enough. They threatened airline personnel with violence if they weren't re-booked on other flights. The airline relented, and the flight was canceled.

All of this was of course covered up, as usual, by the terror-loving liberal media.

BradBlog offers a sampling of that feverish meme from Debbie Schlussel, who, when referred to at all, is almost ubiquitously dubbed the "poor man's Ann Coulter":

... she notes that she's spoken to Petruna, so she now knows that [her bold] "it's all true. WAKE. UP. AMERICA. We are under siege."

"As we know," the delightful Schlussel informs us, "authorities think we shouldn’t know about these things. They don’t want us to panic or to be suspicious of Muslims, when they’re busy doing outreach over shawarmeh at 'Ahmed’s Falafel Hut.'"

You know where this is all going, right?

Petruna was never on the airplane in question. He had had a reservation, but missed a connection and couldn't make the flight. There was in fact a group of brown people on the flight Petruna missed. But they were speaking Spanish. One of them didn't understand the crew's instructions to turn off his cell-phone. Crew members asked him and a companion to step off the plane and speak to security personnel, which they did without fuss. There was no altercation. No other passengers had to get involved. No air marshals boarded the plane.

Everything got straightened out, the men got back on and the flight continued to Texas without incident after a 2-hour delay.

Detailed story here, here and here.

It's a typically funny tale of conservative bravery! And I want to highlight a couple of what I think are key chunks  ...

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Krauthammer: My Pants Don't Tingle When Obama Gets On His War-Talk!
Posted by Brad Reed, Sadly, No! on December 5, 2009 at 11:33 AM.

Shorter Chuckles Krauthammer:

Uncertain trumpet

• Obama was insufficiently enthusiastic about escalating a war. Now brown people will laugh at the size of the American penis.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

This is, in a lot of ways, the quintessential neoconservative column. It isn’t enough that Obama send 30,000 troops over to fight the Taliban. No, Obama must provide the neocons with emotional gratification in the form of wanton blood lust. Look at this:

Nonetheless, most supporters of the Afghanistan war were satisfied. They got the policy; the liberals got the speech. The hawks got three-quarters of what Gen. Stanley McChrystal wanted — 30,000 additional U.S. troops — and the doves got a few soothing words. Big deal, say the hawks.

But it is a big deal. Words matter because will matters.

And this is why the neocons will never warm to Obama, no matter how many wars he eventually decides to start. It’s a personality thing, really — Obama likes to give off the air of someone who makes decisions only after careful deliberation and weighing the costs and benefits. The neocons, however, only respect fellow travelers who get funny feelings in their pants when they think about war, people who really get off on the idea of watching other people get blown up. For them, war isn’t merely an act of national defense but an emotional gratification and a validation of their personal strength.

To be fair, I can sympathize with them in some ways. When I used to play StarCraft back in the day, I’d really enjoy sending in a platoon of siege tanks to blow up Zerg encampments. But mercifully for the rest of the world, I learned to get out my primordial thirst for blood through computer games and not through becoming a member of the American foreign policy establishment. If only I’d applied to work at the American Enterprise Institute instead, I could have made quite a name for myself. What could have been and so forth.

Unfriendly Fire: Michael Tomasky Attacks Michael Moore on Afghanistan
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Majikthise on December 5, 2009 at 10:00 AM.

Micahel Tomasky accuses Michael Moore of being a fatuous blowhard for criticizing the war in Afghanistan as a doomed imperial adventure. Now, Moore can be a fatuous blowhard, but Tomasky doesn't make the charge stick this time. 

In his open letter to President Obama, Moore warns that Afghanistan has been nicknamed "the graveyard of empires."

Tomasky sneers:

I really don't see what America's mission in Afghanistan has to do with what the British did or what the Soviets did. People love lazy historical parallels, and have a tendency to have over-learned the famous Santayana maxim and believe that invoking it makes them sound smart. But every historical situation is different. Why wouldn't someone with Moore's lefty politics be righteous in the conviction that we owe it to the Afghan people to try to help them establish a proper nation-state for the first time in their history?

Moore doesn't spell out the historical analogy, but the common threads seem obvious to me: The Afghan people have historically been implacably opposed to foreign occupation of any kind and they've been very good at resisting it.

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December Is National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give It to Somebody Not Black Month
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on December 4, 2009 at 3:14 PM.

Just when you thought there was a month for everything! Blogging for Poets & Writers, author Carleen Brice explains why she created National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give It to Somebody Not Black Month last year:

After all, it's hard for anyone--of any color--to make it as a novelist without the support of a wide audience, which, for black authors, means the support of white folks. That's why I, a black author, started the blog White Readers Meet Black Authors and launched this annual awareness campaign. Whether it's because of a lack of media exposure or the absence of word of mouth, I don't think white readers hear much about black novelists, except for Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Colson Whitehead, and a few others, so they don't know which of our books they may like.

She's even created a handy guide. If you like Toni Morrison's A Mercy, then try The Book of Night Women by Marlon James. Or if you're a fan of Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, check out Big Machine by Victor LaValle.

You can find more info on her blog here.  And here's her mission:

Because if you like to read, you should know about all the good books that are out there. I'm telling you: You like it, we write it! I'm not interested in doing any "favors" for authors who write bad books. This isn't about quotas or affirmative action or liberal guilt. This blog isn't about begging for attention from white people. My mission is to spread the word that there are plenty, PLENTY, of great books that not enough people are hearing about. That's my reason.

I'm all for finding great new books and supporting amazing authors. Anyone have other suggestions?

'Demonstrable Idiot Conservative Liar' Pushes Climate Science Pseudo-Scandal
Posted by Thers, Whiskey Fire on December 4, 2009 at 1:51 PM.

In a startling and indeed shocking development, Jonah Goldberg -- of all people! -- writes a pompous column full of stupid lies.

In a long string of embarrassing e-mail exchanges, CRU scientists discuss with friendly outside colleagues, including Penn State University's Michael Mann, how to manipulate the data they want to show the world, and how to hide the often flawed data they don't. In one exchange, they discuss the "trick" of how to "hide the decline" in global temperatures since the 1960s.

That's just a pack of dumb lies. First, global temperatures have not dropped since the 1960s, as highly advanced thermometer technology and sophisticated mathematics of the "this number is higher than that other number" class reveal. Second, the trick was not an attempt to deceive, but to do with an attempt to consider an anomaly in tree ring temperature data. Third, fuck you Jonah Goldberg, you ass.

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This Week in Right-Wing Media Crazy
Posted by Staff, Media Matters for America on December 4, 2009 at 12:58 PM.

The video to your right comes to us from the good folks at Media Matters.

Can You Say Irony? Glenn Beck Offers Insight Into Conspiracy Theories
Posted by Simon Maloy, Media Matters for America on December 2, 2009 at 1:32 PM.