Media Boosting Myth About OffShore Drilling Potential – Paper

SustainableBusiness.com News

The media has played a significant role in convincing Americans that offshore drilling for oil in the United States could significantly lower the price of gasoline, according to an analysis released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Even though the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy Information Agency has stated that the benefits from such drilling would be too small to have any significant effect on oil prices, the media has overwhelmingly conveyed the impression that it could. Media coverage of the issue may have influenced public opinion, with a majority now favoring expanded drilling.
"This is a clear case where the overwhelming majority of the media has not done its job," said CEPR Co-Director and co-author of the paper, Mark Weisbrot.
The paper, "Oil Drilling In Environmentally Sensitive Areas: The Role of the Media," finds that in 267 television news broadcasts, the Energy Information Agency data was cited only once. Also, in 91% of the news programs in this sample, there was not even an opposing opinion presented.
"There really isn't any excuse for the media to ignore the official data on this issue," said Weisbrot. "It's like reporting on the economy and ignoring the official data on GDP growth, unemployment, or inflation. No wonder the public is confused."

Read more- http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/16702

Jesus Endorses Obama/Biden Ticket

“I don’t usually endorse a candidate, or even a party, despite what some say. But this election is just too important. You can’t survive four more years of the same old politics. John McCain will continue the failed policies of George Bush. He’s said so already by admitting that he voted with the president over 90% of the time, when he shouts about off-shore drilling, and when he prattles on about the “success” of “the surge,” as if the last year was the whole story of the war in Iraq.”

The freakishly Western-European-featured Semitic savior added, “And that shrew of a running mate will do her best to erode women’s Me-given right to choose what is best for their bodies and their future. She wants to foist prayer on people in public schools. What did I say about praying like the Pharisees? And Creationism? Lady, please. Do I really need to go back and add a new foreword explaining the subtleties of metaphor and parables? Come on people! For My sake! What will it take for you all to wake up?”

McCain Campaign: "We meant to do that!"

As McCain droned on about his POW experience and co-opted the Obama campaign's message of change, a powerful image of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which has famously cared for so many wounded military men and women (and infamously ignored many others) served as his backdrop. Oh wait, that's not the WRAMC in Virginia! That's Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California!

It could have been worse. That poor staffer could have used another of the many Google images she collected while surfing for a suitable tableau, like this one of the little cabin that Walter Reed was born in (right)-

This is the place (left) that they meant to exploit, er... use to underscore their proprietary, arrogant attitude and specious contention that they are the "real" patriots. Someone's getting fired.

The principal of Walter Reed Middle School, Donna Tobin, released a statement on the school's website saying that the school had not given permission for the footage to be used, "nor is the use of our school’s picture an endorsement of any political party or view."

McCain's McMortgage McCrisis McWoes

As a U.S. senator, Phil Gramm shepherded a law easing regulation of energy-commodity trading, and California experienced a sharp run-up in energy costs. Some of you may recall that California’s Democratic governor, Gray Davis, was scape-goated over this debacle and subsequently removed from office in a controversial recall election won by current Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Energy-trading giant, Enron, was blamed for the gouging and fraud and soon went down in a hail of subpoenas and indictments.
In 1999, Gramm lobbied successfully to have Congress revoke the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, removing the decades-old wall between commercial banking, which was heavily regulated, and investment banking, which was not. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act did not extend significant new regulation to investment banking. Some economists point to Gramm’s deregulatory efforts like these, along with poor oversight and lax enforcement, for not only the current crisis in the subprime mortgage industry, but for the cascading crises in other finance sectors.

And we must keep in mind, or rather, Obama and Biden must keep reminding us-

1. that Phil Gramm and the Republican party are responsible for the grave recession we find ourselves in;
2. that John McCain still relies on Gramm’s counsel and has hinted that he would appoint Gramm Secretary of the Treasury if he gets elected;
3. and that Phil Gramm said, as recently as July of this year, that America’s financial troubles are all in our minds. I believe he said it is a “mental recession,” and that we’re all a bunch of “whiners.”
   

As Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute told the Washington Post, “McCain is counting on people having very short memories and not connecting some pretty obvious dots here.”

Palin Haiku(s)

Big oil governor
forty-seventh largest state
by population
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
O pious Christian
Please tell us whom we may fuck
And whom we may not
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I must now admit
Liking the looks and the style
But that voice cracks glass
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lie, Dragon Lady
Do distort the facts some more
Works most ev'ry time

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Caribou Barbi
I heard that nickname somewhere
I do like it so

Yes, Her Teenaged Daughter's Pregnancy Is Relevant

Here's why: Governor Sarah Palin is a staunch advocate of abstinence-only programs. She opposes sex education in public schools (while supporting creationism in public schools). She opposes making contraceptives accessible to teenagers. Palin, and right-wingers like her, believe that the only thing teenagers need to hear about sex is: DON'T DO IT! Yeah, see how well that works?

It's not that she must be a bad mom, or that she can't manage her own family, let alone a nation. Seriously. These things do happen to real families of all political stripes. It is not a personal issue. It's a relevant political issue. If she has her way, she will snip out any and all sex ed your kid might get in school. If she has her way, anyone under eighteen won't even be able to purchase a condom without parental consent. If she has her way, all young women who have been denied the facts of reproduction and access to contraceptives will also be denied the right to decide for themselves what to do with their own bodies, and their own lives. Governor Palin's 17-yr old daughter's pregnancy serves to underscore the utter futility and ridiculousness of the "just say no" approach to teen sex.

Newsflash! Young people really like fucking. And, as with all enticing yet forbidden things, the more they are denied it, the more they gotta have it. Particularly if "it" is fucking. I'm quite fond of fucking, myself [sad, but true, if unintended pun]. Evangelicals are asking our hormone-overloaded teens to deny their biological imperative; a biological imperative forged by millions of years of evolutionary processes. Oh, right... she doesn't believe in evolution. She thinks "God" poofed everything into existence a few thousand years ago. Who's the one with the pregnant teen, again?

RNC Morphs into Jerry Lewis-Style Telethon

From The Huffington Post today:

September 1, 2008 at 07:01 PM
"The PR push by the GOP to present itself as the party that puts "country first" was already broken by the first night of Republican National Convention.
Fearful of "Katrina deja-vu," GOP officials worked furiously to prove to voters that they could manage a disaster in a way the Bush administration failed to do three years ago.
The convention opened Monday night with a video presentation of Gulf Coast governors introduced by Cindy McCain and Laura Bush. "This is a time when we take off our Republican hats."

Yes, it is the Republican Party that really cares about the downtrodden. If anyone can respond to a natural disaster that threatens the poor and the middle class, it is Buch-Cheney-McCain-Palin. Afterall, they were so sensitive during the aftermath of Katrina-

"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." –Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the hurricane evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 5, 2005

John McCain cautioned against overspending in support of Katrina victims: "We also have to be concerned about future generations of Americans," he said. "We're going to end up with the highest deficit, probably, in the history of this country." Right. Because of helping victims. Not at all because of Iraq or any of the other examples of gross mismanagement by the Bush administration.

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." –President Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, while touring hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, Sept. 2, 2005