Tag Archives: fareed-zakaria

An Alien Invasion Would Boost the Economy…Says Paul Krugman

http://www.youtube.com/v/E1Fzzs7oVaA

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Paul Krugman

Let’s start out by saying that Paul Krugman probably doesn’t really think the government should lie to the country about alien invaders attacking the world just to boost the economy and create jobs. Still, that’s the analogy he used while appearing with Fareed Zakaria on CNN and trying to explain the brilliance… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The Blaze Discovery Date : 15/08/2011 19:32 Number of articles : 2

An Alien Invasion Would Boost the Economy…Says Paul Krugman

Fareed Zakaria Calls Out Glenn Beck’s Math Skills On Muslim Terrorist Claim

Fareed Zakaria, who occasionally throws fairly well-disguised bombs from his perches at CNN and Time in a manner so serene many fail to notice– is taking on his cable news stylistic opposite, Glenn Beck– or at the very least, his math skills. In his trademark soothing tones, Zakaria gave Beck a math lesson on those 10%, or 157 million, “Muslim terrorists” Beck claimed were plotting to attack America– namely, that that figure is “1000% wrong.” Zakaria opens up his segment, aptly titled “What in the world?,” by simply following through on the 10% math to figure out just how many people 10% of the international Muslim community would be. Zakaria’s lesson even included a virtual chalkboard, just to make sure Beck got the message, one must assume. He correctly points out would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 157,000,000 Muslim terrorists, and notes Beck’s laments of “why, oh why wasn’t this receiving any media coverage?” Zakaria’s answer? “Well, let me suggest one reason: it is total nonsense– a figure made up by Glenn Beck with absolutely no basis in fact.” He also uses U.S. State Department figures to negate Beck’s, which claim there were 11,000 total terrorist attacks around the world in 2009, including every act of terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, and testimony from terror expert Peter Bergen, who emailed Zakaria to tell him Beck’s figures were “1000% wrong.” It doesn’t get much better for Beck during Zakaria’s semi-out of character deconstructing of his argument. Team Beck, meanwhile, has already put together a comprehensive retort to Zakaria, with data showing, among other things, that support for Osama Bin Laden “ranges from 4% in Azerbaijan to 56% in the Palestinian territories.” added by: TimALoftis

Bill Maher calls Obama Wimpy and Wussy!

Bill Maher expressed disappointment and frustration with President Obama on CNN's “Fareed Zakaria GPS” on Sunday. The president, he said, has been too timid in pursuing the Democratic agenda. “I thought, when we elected the first black president, as a comedian, I thought two years in, I'd be making jokes about what a gangsta he was, you know?” Maher said. Instead, Maher said we've got “President Wayne Brady.” “For him to be talking about compromising with the Republicans on the Bush tax cuts, where — where are they going to draw a line in the sand? When are they going to remember who they are?” “I'm so disappointed.,” Maher said. “And I still like him and still think there's hope he could get it yet, but I'm so disappointed that he just seems to be another in a long line of Democrats that come across as wimpy and wussy … and of not standing up for what they believe in enough.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/05/bill-maher-obama-cnn_n_792223.html added by: congoboy

Fareed Zakaria: ‘Bill Maher One of the Sharpest Observers of American Politics Out There’

As NewsBusters previously reported , Fareed Zakaria on November 5 marvelously

CNN’s Zakaria Paints Hezbollah as Tolerant of Jews as Lesson for Ground Zero Mosque Opponents

Catching up on an item from the August 22, Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN, host Zakaria — formerly of Newsweek — ended his show with commentary in which he ridiculously suggested that Americans who oppose construction of a mosque near Ground Zero could learn a lesson about tolerance from the terrorist group Hezbollah, and cited the group as being accepting of diverse religions – including Judaism – in Lebanon in light of the restoration of a synagogue in Beirut. Without informing viewers of the history of viciously anti-Semitic speech from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other leading figures within the anti-Israel group, the CNN anchor quoted Hezbollah’s claim that, rather than being anti-Semitic, they are simply opposed to “Israel’s occupation of Arab lands.” Zakaria: The project is said to have found support in many parts of the community, not just from the few remaining Jews there, but also Christians and Muslims and Hezbollah. Yes, Hezbollah, the one that the United States has designated a foreign terrorist organization. Hezbollah’s view on the renovation goes like this: Quote, “We respect divine religions, including the Jewish religion. The problem is with Israel’s occupation of Arab lands, not with the Jews.” Food for thought. But, as recounted by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), Hezbollah members not only desire to take over all of Israel which they consider to be occupied, but the group’s leader Nasrallah has been very direct in his anti-Semitic speech, once even declaring that if the Jewish people “all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Sunday, August 22, Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN: And now for the “Last Look.” With all the talk about places of worship and where they do and don’t belong, I wanted you to see this. This is the Magen Abraham synagogue. It’s not in Miami. It’s not in Tel Aviv. It’s in Beirut. That’s right, Beirut, Lebanon. The synagogue is just now emerging from a painstaking restoration project. When the repairs began over a year ago, the temple was literally a shell of its former self. So why did this nation, often teetering on the brink of religious hostilities and hostilities with Israel, restore a Jewish house of worship? To show that Lebanon is an open and tolerant country. And indeed, the project is said to have found support in many parts of the community, not just from the few remaining Jews there, but also Christians and Muslims and Hezbollah. Yes, Hezbollah, the one that the United States has designated a foreign terrorist organization. Hezbollah’s view on the renovation goes like this: Quote, “We respect divine religions, including the Jewish religion. The problem is with Israel’s occupation of Arab lands, not with the Jews.” Food for thought. Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

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CNN’s Zakaria Paints Hezbollah as Tolerant of Jews as Lesson for Ground Zero Mosque Opponents

Never Forget – But Have We?

Never forget. Those are the two most prevalent words uttered or typed on this tragically historic day.  Never.  Forget. For many, September 11, 2001, was a day that will forever be seared into the minds of those who were witness.  On that day, the nation was awoken by a harsh reality that some people want nothing more than to destroy our freedom, our way of life.  It was a day that 19 hijackers, four airplanes, two towers, and one deranged ideology brought the threat of terrorism to the forefront in our country. But a mere nine years after 9/11, has the leadership of this nation, both administrative and media related, already forgotten? Yesterday, on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11, the President of the United States of America had the tone deaf audacity to ignore the concept of time and place, choosing to defend the building of the Ground Zero victory mosque.  In his news conference, President Obama said that the proposed New York City mosque has run up against the “extraordinary sensitivities around 9/11.”  In other words, he hears the sensitivities, he simply does not care.  Obama elaborates: “As somebody who relies heavily on my Christian faith in my job, I understand the passions that religious faith can raise.  But I’m also respectful that people of different faiths can practice their religion, even if they don’t subscribe to the exact same notions that I do…” This demonstrates Obama’s willingness to cling to the concept that the mosque controversy is based on freedom of religion.  It is not.  Controversy surrounding this building has nothing to do with religious tolerance.  Muslims are not being prohibited from practicing their religion.  They are simply being asked to display a sense of decency by building the mosque in an area not directly involved in such an emotional event for our nation; away from the site where thousands of lives ended in a declaration of war from radical Islam. Americans overwhelmingly oppose this project, because they understand common sense and decency.  It appears our president does not.  And on the eve of 9/11, Obama wasted a major opportunity to stand up and actually play the role of a leader.  To stand up and say, ‘I’m with the American people, not against them .’  Essentially, to start acting like a President.  Instead, he chose to lecture Americans on the legal right for Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to build his mosque.  Unfortunately Mr. President, part of your job is to guide a country still healing from the emotional scars of 9/11.  You’re not teaching Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago anymore.  You’re no longer a community organizer. Most of us remember 9/11 a little differently than our liberal leaders.  We remember being attacked on that day.  We remember watching over 3,000 of our friends and family dying that day.  We remember the screams of the heroes on Flight 93, the screams of women and men, mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, who desperately made an attempt to take back a plane scheduled for a suicide mission which surely would have killed many more. Yet the President would prefer to stand up for the rights of an imam with questionable motives, planning to build a mosque practically on the gravesite of those killed on 9/11.  This isn’t the only example however, of a forgotten tragedy. In 2003, this same imam of current fame, Abdul Rauf, said in the midst of a training session with the FBI that “the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks could be considered a jihad.” Along those same lines, Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek recently penned a steaming column in which he claimed the American response to 9/11 was an overreaction. Zakaria claims that, “September 11 was a shock to the American psyche and the American system. As a result, we overreacted.” Susan Crawford , Convening Authority for the Guantanamo military commissions, claimed in 2009 that some prisoners complicit in the murder of over 3,000 people were (gasp) tortured, and what she discovered in that job left her aghast. What torture tactics left her aghast? Standing naked in front of a female agent; Strip searches; Insults to the detainee’s mother and sister; Threatened (not attacked) with a dog; Forced to wear a woman’s bra; Having a thong placed on the head during interrogation. The BBC portrayed two inmates at Guantanamo Bay, one of whom had confessed to attending an Islamist training camp where he learned how to operate an AK-47, as a real-life Harold and Kumar, innocently sightseeing and smoking dope. Both the media and the administration spent a great deal of effort in trying to portray Nidal Malik Hasan , a man who had contact with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, carried a business card with the acronym SoA (Soldier of Allah), shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’, and subsequently murdered 13 soldiers and an unborn child, as anything but a terrorist. This is but a short list that calls to question the liberal administration and liberal media’s remembrance of 9/11.  Imagine being privy to the knowledge of the above referenced events just days after the actual attack.  You would say that it would be impossible.  It would be impossible, because it would mean that we had forgotten.  Have we? Crossposted at The Mental Recession

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Never Forget – But Have We?

Kurtz Asks TIME Editor Why He Doesn’t Have Any Conservative Columnists

Howard Kurtz on Sunday asked the editor of Time magazine why he doesn’t have any conservative columnists.  “Rick [Stengel], you’ve just hired Fareed Zakaria, whose “GPS” program on CNN precedes mine,” said Kurtz on CNN’s “Reliable Sources. “And you have, of course, Joe Klein, well-known liberal writer and columnist,” continued Kurtz. “Now, with all the hiring that you’ve done, how have you not managed to find a conservative columnist?” Most humorously, after giving what he must have thought was a cute answer, Stengel quickly contradicted himself (video follows with transcript and commentary):  HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Rick, you’ve just hired Fareed Zakaria, whose “GPS” program on CNN precedes mine. And you have, of course, Joe Klein, well-known liberal writer and columnist. Now, with all the hiring that you’ve done, how have you not managed to find a conservative columnist? RICHARD STENGEL, TIME EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: I would love to find one. So I’m talking — if you’re listening and you’re a fantastic conservative columnist, and you want to write for “TIME,” give me a call. Cute answer, but pretty pathetic when you think about it. After all, there are many conservative writers out there. If Stengel wanted to hire one, it wouldn’t be too difficult. Unfortunately, Kurtz gave him a pass on this and moved on:  KURTZ: And you know, you have Nancy Gibbs writing the back page column, but at times I look at “TIME” magazine and it seems like a bit of a boys club. You have a lot of prominent male writers. Is that an area you need to work on as well? Here comes the truly delicious contradiction:  STENGEL: Of course it’s an area we need to work on. I mean, we do a lot of stories that actually are focused on a female audience and female readers. You know, I do think that just the way “TIME” in many ways is actually a snapshot, a mirror of America — you know, we’re red and blue, we’re in the center of the country, we’re on the coasts — I mean, we should also mirror the way America is too in terms of diversity, gender, all of that. How can a magazine be “red” without one  conservative contributor? Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Sadly, Kurtz gave him a pass on this as well. 

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Kurtz Asks TIME Editor Why He Doesn’t Have Any Conservative Columnists

Randi Rhodes: Senate Dem Hopeful Alvin Greene Facing Obscenity Charges ‘Still Better than Jim DeMint’

While lefties are foaming at the mouth over what Republican Senate candidates like Sharon Angle and Rand Paul have to say, they’re not quite willing to publicly embrace or defend the antics of their own duly elected nominee, South Carolina U.S. Senate Democratic nominee Alvin Greene. That is, they weren’t until now.  On the Aug. 17 broadcast of her radio show , Randi Rhodes went to bat for Greene. According to Rhodes, the indiscretions that brought Greene indictments, in which he allegedly showed obscene photos to a University of South Carolina student and then talked about going to her dorm room, weren’t really that bad. Although it’s not clear if Rhodes was being serious, and it’s difficult to tell, she claimed he was “sharing a wonderful moment of pornography” with this student and bewildered why such an approach warranted criminal charges. “Let me tell you – you know my candidate for Senate in South Carolina is Alvin Greene,” Rhodes said. “I left off where he was supposedly indicted for you know sharing a wonderful moment of pornography with a girl who was over 18 in a college library – in a college library where he had attended college by the way, so he still has his ID card to get on the campus, so. I don’t know what law he broke, but apparently they say he did and they indicted him. And so the local TV went over to his house to see what his comments were about the indictment.” Rhodes then played that infamous clip of Greene howling at a reporter from North Carolina station WCNC. And her conclusion – even with this abnormal behavior from an individual that represents the Democratic Party for the South Carolina, he’s still better than the incumbent, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. and lamented the idea he has been unable to raise any money. “He’s still better than Jim DeMint,” Rhodes said. “I don’t give a rat’s – that’s why he’s my candidate. He’s still better than Jim DeMint, OK? A guy that’s howling in his house, ‘Nooooooo, goooooooo,’ is still better than Jim DeMint. And that’s why Alvin Greene will always be my candidate for senator from South Carolina. I love this guy. I think – he’s fabulous. I mean, if they can have the nut bags they have, why can’t I have Alvin Greene? And why aren’t we supporting him? I think the guy has raised $1,000 since this whole thing started.” But Rhodes used those peculiar circumstances surrounding Greene, which have likely hindered this hopeful from raising money to level attacks against Koch Industries and NewsCorp for giving money to the Republican Governors Association, chaired by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. “That’s wrong. You know you got the Koch Industries people give a million dollars Haley Barbour in Mississippi,” Rhodes protested. “[Y]ou know oil and chemicals – the Koch family, Americans For Prosperity, the Koch family, the fake grassroots Tea Party, the Koch family – giving a million dollars to Haley Barbour. Fox News gave a million dollars, News Corp. to Haley Barbour!”

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Randi Rhodes: Senate Dem Hopeful Alvin Greene Facing Obscenity Charges ‘Still Better than Jim DeMint’

Media Use Crazy Weather to Hype Global Warming, Despite Admissions Weather Isn’t Climate

Last winter, as blizzard snowfalls piled up into several feet in the nation’s capital, conservatives mocked global warming alarmists for trying to link weather incidents to global warming. But as summer heat waves, volcanoes and sinkholes have appeared recently, climate alarmists proved they missed the point . A top Obama administration scientist attacked global warming skeptics during the winter by pointing out that “weather is not the same thing as climate.” ABC’s Bill Blakemore argued the same thing in order to defend the existence of manmade global warming on Jan. 8, 2010. But Associated Press, USA Today , The New York Times and The Washington Post have all promoted a connection between the extreme heat and weather around the world this summer and global warming. One CNN host asked if the events were the “apocalypse” or global warming. The Huffington Post proposed naming hurricanes and other disasters after climate change “deniers.” “Floods, fires, melting ice and feverish heat: From smoke-choked Moscow to water-soaked Iowa and the High Arctic, the planet seems to be having a midsummer breakdown. It’s not just a portent of things to come, scientists say, but a sign of troubling climate change already under way,” the AP wrote, sounding more like Al Gore than an objective news agency. AP cited the World Meteorological Organization, NASA and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) saying that “extremes” were expected in a warming scenario. But its report didn’t include any other viewpoints or propose other possible reasons for the weather events. And it failed to point out the scandals connected to IPCC, NASA and the warming movement as a whole. The 2009 ClimateGate scandal and subsequent scandals undermined the very credibility of the climate alarmist movement , but were underreported by the network news media. AP left out meteorologists who explained some of those events based on jet stream activity. According to New Scientist magazine, the jet stream is being blocked right now and has consequently slowed down. Meteorologists say that the jet stream’s slower movements are responsible for the deadly fires in Russia, the floods in Pakistan and other rare weather events. “The unusual weather in the US and Canada last month also has a similar case,” New Scientist wrote. Discover Magazine expounded on the New Scientist article saying “this happens from time to time, and it sets the stage for extreme conditions when weather systems hover over the same area.” Despite other explanations and viewpoints, The New York Times also linked weather to climate saying, “the collective answer of the scientific community [whether global warming is causing more weather extremes]” is “probably.” Like the Times, many news outlets promoted the connection between warming and weather, but were careful to briefly note that individual weather events cannot be proven to have been caused by global warming. Out of the Times’ 1,302 word article, only 113 words were used to offer a caveat saying it is difficult to link “specific weather events” to climate change and to quote a NASA scientist who admitted he hasn’t “proved it” yet. Semantics aside, those mainstream stories were nearly as biased in their coverage as blatantly left-wing websites like the Huffington Post. Huffington Post argued that ” global weirding ” incidents such as landslides, sinkholes and volcanoes are “consistent” with global warming. The site interviewed David Orr, a professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin College, who said, “you ask is this evidence of climate destabilization, the only scientific answer you can give is: It is consistent with what we can expect.” The complete list of “weird” stuff was heat waves, floods, landslides, wildfires, ice islands, sinkholes, volcanoes, dead fish and oyster herpes. Dead fish and oyster herpes? Huffington Post said, “These are certainly stories to be filed under weird: Although climate change can’t necessarily be held responsible, some scientists are suggesting it as the instigator of strange ocean occurrences.” The fact is that the alarmists and the news media will find someone to support claims that just about everything is correlated to man-made global warming. MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan even claimed that Snowpocalypse (the nickname for the blizzard activity on parts of the East Coast) was consistent with global warming. Media Says Warming Predictions ‘Supported’ by Weather Events, Push Government Action It has been a summer of wild weather and related disasters from fires in Russia, to giant sinkholes, to floods in Pakistan and Europe. All of this has sparked the news media’s desire to reignite the climate alarmist movement after a scandal-filled winter. The headlines said it all: “In Weather Chaos, a Case for Global Warming,” proclaimed one Times header. The USA Today warned, “Think this summer is hot? Get used to it.” The AP story hyping weather disasters’ correlation to warming was called, “Climate Change Predictions Supported By Summer of Fires, Floods And Heat Waves: IPCC.” “The weather-related cataclysms of July and August fit patterns predicted by climate scientists,” AP declared. The story criticized the U.S. unwillingness to cap carbon emissions. “The U.S. remains the only major industrialized nation not to have legislated caps on carbon emissions, after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last week withdrew climate legislation in the face of resistance from Republicans and some Democrats,” AP said. A bit later, they quoted a UN “specialist” who argued “much more needs to be done.” Perhaps under the strain of working at CNN, meteorologist Chad Myers actually switched views since 2008, when he said “to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant.” But on Aug. 10, Myers said “Yes,” when asked if the weather phenomena were manmade. Myers, however, offered this qualification: “Is it 100 percent caused by man? No. There are other things involved. We are now in the sunspot cycle. We are now in a very hot sun cycle. We are, we are – many other things going on …” CNN host Fareed Zakaria also used the crazy weather to promote legislative action on emissions – pushing Cato Institute’s senior fellow Pat Michaels to accept the idea of a carbon tax. After another guest warned of devastation if we fail to act on the issue of global warming, Zakaria turned to Michaels and said: “You hear all this. Doesn’t it worry you? I mean, I understand your position, which is, you know, we don’t have a substitute for fossil fuels right now. But surely that isn’t an argument for stand pattism?” MICHAELS: No. ZAKARIA: Don’t you want to do something about this? MICHAELS: What I worry about more is the concept of opportunity cost. We had legislation, again, that went through the House last summer which would have cost a lot and been futile. And when you, when you take that away, or when the government favors certain technologies and politicizes technologies, you’re doing worse than nothing. You’re actually impairing your ability to respond in the long run, and that’s my major concern along this issue. ZAKARIA: But if you were to have a carbon tax, if you were to have a gas tax – MICHAELS: YOU, can put in the carbon tax… Zakaria pushed Michaels further, arguing that it is a “simple” law of economics to tax a behavior if you want less of it. But Michaels stressed that the problem is how high the tax would have to be to reduce carbon dioxide enough to make a difference, and the “political acceptability” of such a tax.” The CNN host’s biased segment, which included three panelists (Michaels included), used the apocalyptic weather as a set up: “It has been a scorcher of a summer. Record high temperatures all over the United States, huge chunks of glacier the size of four Manhattan islands breaking off Greenland. One-third of Pakistan is now under water. Fires burning out of control in Russia. Floods in Europe,” Zakaria said on Aug. 15. “So is this just another summer on planet Earth? Or is it the apocalypse? Or is it global warming?” His panel of guests was stacked 2-to-1 (3-to-1 if Zakaria is counted) in favor of legislative action to stop global warming and failed to consider that weather is not climate. NASA’s Gavin Schmidt and Jeffrey Sachs , director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, were on the panel with Michaels. Zakaria accepted Schmidt’s views unquestioningingly, but then challenged and argued with Michaels’ points, going so far as to ask about his research funding. Schmidt is a favorite climate change expert for many news outlets, including the Times. He told the paper, “If you ask me as a person, do I think the Russian heat wave has to do with climate change, the answer is yes. If you ask me as a scientist whether I have proved it, the answer is no – at least not yet.” Environmental studies professor Roger Pielke, Jr. responded to that on his blog saying: “This neatly sums up the first of two reasons why I think that the current debate over whether greenhouse gas emissions caused/exacerbated/influenced recent disasters around the world is a fruitless debate.  It is not a debate that can be resolved empirically, but rather depends upon hunches, speculation and beliefs. Debates that cannot be resolved empirically necessarily involve extra-scientific factors.” In another post, Pielke criticized the World Meteorological Organization (which was cited by AP) for issuing a statement saying that the severe weather events “matches IPCC projections.” ” The WMO statement is (yet) another example of scientifically unsupportable nonsense in the climate debate. Such nonsense is of course not going away anytime soon,” Pielke said, noting that the IPCC didn’t make any projections for 2010. MSNBC Snows Viewers, Along with the rest of the Media During the winter, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., poked fun at alarmists when his grandchildren built an igloo on the National Mall and called it “Al Gore’s New Home.” Fox News host Glenn Beck sarcastically made fun of an Al Gore “disappearance” (implying that since the snow started falling Gore wasn’t publicly warning about climate change) and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy wrote in 2008 that global warming had resulted in “anemic winters” in Washington, D.C. The 2009-2010 winter and its multiple blizzards contradicted Kennedy’s claims, Beck noted. Despite media and lefty claims , conservatives weren’t trying to say that the snowy winter disproved global warming. Rather they were arguing that strange weather should not be used as evidence to support climate change (summer or winter). But that was exactly what the left and the news media had been doing, and it is what they are doing again this summer. Alarmists like Al Gore, Bill Nye “The Science Guy,” and MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan had claimed the severe weather was “consistent” with global warming. Gore blamed three straight days of rain on warming saying, “Just look at what has been happening for the last three days,” Gore said. “The so-called skeptics haven’t noted it because it’s not snow. But the downpours and heavy winds are consistent with what the scientists have long warned about.” Ratigan claimed that “these ‘ snowpocalypses ‘ that have been going through DC and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming.” His rant continued: “Why is that? The thinking that warmer air temperatures on the earth – a higher air temperature – has a greater capacity to hold moisture at any temperature,” Ratigan said. “And then as winter comes in, that warm air cools full of water, and you get heavier precipitation on a more regular basis. In fact, you could argue these storms are not evidence of a lack of global warming, but are evidence of global warming – thus the 26 inches of snowfall in the DC area and the second giant storm this year.” [Emphasis added] Ratigan also criticized a TV spot by Virginia Republicans designed to ridicule proposed climate change policies that could hurt the state’s job situation. Global warming alarmists in the media and academia proved last winter that they want it both ways: weather can “support” their opinions about global warming, but weather cannot disprove or discredit those same opinions. So they continue to link everything, even seemingly contradictory weather events like droughts and floods, to the problem of climate change. UN Climate Conference May Have Trouble in Mexico The recent media hype over unusual weather events may be designed to counter declining public fears over global warming. After all, unless the public thinks global warming is a threat they are unlikely to support costly government intervention or make drastic changes in their lives. After the flop at Copenhagen, proponents of global warming alarmism wanted the next UN Climate Change Conference, coming up this November/December, to move forward toward curbing emissions. But recent news reports indicate the Mexico meeting may not be as successful as they’d hoped . According to The Christian Science Monitor, the Cancun meeting scheduled to begin Nov. 29 and run through Dec. 10 seems “to have been thrown into reverse – at least for now.” “Unfortunately, what we have seen over and over this week is that some countries are walking back from the progress made in Copenhagen and what was agreed there,” Jonathan Pershing, leader of the U.S. negotiating team, said according to the Monitor. Like this article? Then sign up for our newsletter, The Balance Sheet .

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Media Use Crazy Weather to Hype Global Warming, Despite Admissions Weather Isn’t Climate

Fareed Zakaria Defends Obama’s Oil Spill Response: ‘What Does the Media Want the President to Do?’

Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday worked overtime trying to defend Barack Obama’s pathetic response to the Gulf Coast oil spill while chastising his colleagues in the media for having the nerve to criticize the president. In the opening segment of his “Fareed Zakaria GPS” aired on CNN, Zakaria asked, “Have we all gone crazy?”  He continued, “In dealing with the serious problem involving technical breakdown, engineering malfunctions, environmental fallout, regulatory mishaps, the media has decided to hone in on one central issue above all others: presidential emotion.” With a chyron at the bottom of the screen asking, “What does the media want the President to do,” Zakaria told viewers, “The truth is that what’s happening in the Gulf is a terrible tragedy, but there is very little the federal government can do in the short-term to actually stop the spill” (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):   FAREED ZAKARIA: Have we all gone crazy? I don’t mean you, I mean us, the media. In dealing with the serious problem involving technical breakdown, engineering malfunctions, environmental fallout, regulatory mishaps, the media has decided to hone in on one central issue above all others: presidential emotion. The overriding need of the hour, we have decided, is not a cleanup plan, not a regulatory overhaul, not a new energy policy, but the image of the president visibly enraged. At this point in the complete segment that aired Sunday, Zakaria showed a clip of a video created by the Huffington Post that included snippets of media coverage asking the president to show more emotion on this subject. For some reason the folks at CNN.com chose to edit out this portion in the video it published Saturday evening. Maybe they didn’t want people to know that Zakaria was channeling the view of one of the most liberal websites in the nation. But I digress:  ZAKARIA: And what exactly is the point of all this? What purpose would be served by having the president scream or cry or whatever it is he’s supposed to do to show emotion? Would it plug the hole? The truth is that what’s happening in the Gulf is a terrible tragedy, but there is very little the federal government can do in the short-term to actually stop the spill. This is either staggering ignorance or shameful dishonesty. After all, there ARE things the federal government could have done from the beginning which would have limited the amount of oil now slamming into the Gulf states and possibly the entire eastern seaboard in the coming months. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has been asking the feds for weeks to allow him to do a variety of procedures to achieve this goal. Unfortunately, he’s still waiting for EPA environmental assessment reports. Beyond this, the Obama administration at the early stages of this crisis completely ignored emergency procedures granted the White House by Congress decades ago.   The reality is that America is likely facing its biggest non-war related catastrophe in its history, and the federal government has appeared totally inept at facing the challenge. As a result, Americans are rightfully discouraged by what they’ve seen from this president the past seven weeks and counting, and the idea that Zakaria is trying to minimize this criticism is disgusting:  ZAKARIA: This whole discussion is a terrible example of how the media can trivialize political discussion. The presidency is a serious job, the most serious job in the country. And here we are asking the man to dress the part, to play-act emotions, to give us satisfaction by just doing something even if it’s all phony stuff just designed to give the impression of action. And we’ve managed to succeed. We’ve managed to force the president to cancel his trip to Asia, demean himself by trash-talking about the CEO of British Petroleum, hold lots of pointless meetings and press conferences, have admirals give make-work briefings. The federal government is now consumed with pretending it’s doing something about a situation it actually can’t do much about…But thank goodness the president is now talking about kicking some ass. So what SHOULD the president be doing, Fareed? Nothing? Would you tolerate such inaction if George W. Bush was still in the White House? Would you be defending the president’s lack of action and emotion if there was an “R” after his name? The answers to those questions are certainly “No,” which means that James Carville was quite right when he said about Zakaria on Thursday, “I don’t think that he understands exactly what is going on down here.” That’s putting it nicely, James. 

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Fareed Zakaria Defends Obama’s Oil Spill Response: ‘What Does the Media Want the President to Do?’