Fresh Pickings from the Political Grapevine

Also known as, "I Stole These From the Fox News Segment with the Same Lead-in":

No News or Good News?

The Chinese government has told its media to report only positive news and is barring reporters from covering some stories altogether. The Guardian newspaper reports the increased censorship comes ahead of an important Communist Party meeting.

The media have been banned from investigating the ongoing problems with Chinese exports. Most state media have been kept from reporting on the bridge collapse in southern China that killed 41 people. And coverage of new traffic control measures — including the ordering of 1 million cars off the roads — has been severely limited. Reporters are forbidden from talking with inconvenienced commuters or showing images of overcrowded buses.

Mind Games

The American Psychological Association is barring its members not only from participating but even witnessing interrogation techniques used against terror suspects at U.S. facilities.

The Washington Post reports the techniques include sleep deprivation, putting hoods over the head and the threat of such actions. The association says the methods are immoral, psychologically damaging and counterproductive in getting useful information.

Psychologists may witness such techniques while monitoring treatment of the detainee for research. Those who have their membership in the association revoked can lose their licenses to practice.

Dust Up

A Nation of Islam school that is using city land in San Francisco is demanding that a nearby housing development be halted because it is throwing naturally occurring asbestos dust into the air.

But now the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the 5-year-old school has never paid its agreed-upon rent of $2,000-a-month to use that property. The head of the city's housing authority, which controls the buildings the school uses, says he has never asked for the rent because the school district has never billed his agency.

Former Friends?

The American Civil Liberties Union is planning to run a critical ad in the hometown papers of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The ad depicts Pelosi and Reid as sheep and says they have "caved in to yet another Bush assault on our freedoms."

It says the revised Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act gives "new powers" to the attorney general and new eavesdropping powers to the government without meaningful court or congressional oversight. It concludes: "We don't need sheep protecting the Bill of Rights."
The FISA revision authorizes surveillance on suspected foreign terrorists believed to be outside the U.S.

An ACLU spokeswoman tells FOX News that the group wants to hold Democrats accountable now that they control Congress. The ads will run in the next few weeks.

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Done Deal?

Many media outlets — such as the recent Newsweek magazine cover story — portray man-made global warming as fact and those who deny it as conspirators. But skeptics are increasingly certain that the scare is vastly overblown.

A new study by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz contends that the Earth's climate is only about one-third as sensitive to carbon dioxide as the United Nations' recent climate study claims. Schwarz's work will be published in The Journal of Geophysical Research.
The study is just one of several peer-reviewed scientific studies challenging global warming alarmism:

The Belgian Weather Institute concludes that carbon dioxide does not have a decisive role in global warming.

A study by two Chinese scientists says CO2's role in warming is "vastly exaggerated."

And new research by University of Washington mathematicians shows a correlation between high solar activity and periods of warming.

Meanwhile, what is billed as the first comprehensive analysis of global biofuel impact has concluded that their use may release between two and nine times more carbon gases than fossil fuels.

The study published in the journal Science says the clearing of forest land to grow biofuel crops will produce immediate carbon gas releases and also destroy habitats, wildlife and jobs. It says that while biofuels look good from a Western perspective, they will be harmful on a global scale. The study contends it will take about 40 percent of American and European agricultural land to grow enough biofuel crops to replace only 10 percent of fossil fuel use.

Rewrite Ordered

The BBC's plans for a storyline about Islamic suicide bombers in one of its popular dramatic shows have been overruled by the corporation's leaders, over fears of offending Muslims. British media report the episodes of the long-running medical series "Casualty" will substitute animal rights activists as the villains.

The Guardian newspaper reports the BBC's Editorial and Ethical Standards Department said the original storyline would have perpetuated stereotypes of young Muslims in Britain.

Rooms Available

We hear about jail overcrowding in many places. But in Norway it's the other way around: Too many empty beds in prison. That's because 20 percent of convicted criminals simply fail to show up to serve their sentences.

The news service Aftenposten reports almost 1,800 convicts were no-shows last year. One of the problems: It is not illegal in Norway to skip your prison time. Norway's parliament has passed a new law making it a criminal offense to blow off a sentence, but so far it has not been implemented.

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Me again.

I want to start with the last story there because it's just good fun. Showing up for your jail sentence in Norway is left on the honor system, and 80% of people still show up. Yes, if you sentence someone to a jail term, you want them there, so the 20% skipping out on it needs to be fixed. But there is no penalty for not actually going to prison, and 80% of Norwegians (sp?) still go. If anyone wonders why Europe doesn't have a superpower anymore, it's because only 20% of criminal skip out on jail sentences. That is, 80% of the criminals are either (a) too stupid to take advantage of this loop hole or (b) actually want to spend time in jail, also indicating their stupidity. Silly Europeans.

I also like the school that hasn't been paying any type of rent on a property complaining about the nearby construction. I'm not sure what the point of that story was - it doesn't really matter if they're paying rent or not. They had permission to be there and paid every bill they'd received. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near asbestos, natural or not. The "demanding" part of that is a little strong, but I'd assume that's just some artistic license for "have requested in the strongest terms possible." They aren't really making a demand: "stop the construction or we'll stop paying ren - oh, um, we'll . . . stop the construction or else."

China is just doing what China does. Media outlets here are complaining about being censored (not sure why, really, it just seems to be a standard claim, much like global warming, but I'm getting ahead of myself). I wonder what they'd say in China. Nothing, that's what. Or they wouldn't be saying it very long. And I'll bet the Chinese Psychological Association would let their members watch, video tape, and offer suggestions for improving the methods used on the reporters who dared challenge the government.

I've said it before - I love it when liberal groups try to out-liberal each other. Before, it was PETA and Al Gore's climate change concert. Now, it's the ACLU squaring off against the Democratic congressional leaders. Baaaaaaa.

Won't the animal rights activists be mad then? Or is it that we just aren't worried about them actually strapping bombs on themselves? There's political correctness, then there's not picking on someone who might actually hit back. Not all Muslims are suicide bombers, but most of the suicide bombers have been Muslim. Animal rights activists are usually happy with red paint.

And my favorite topic: global warming, er, climate change, er, the greenhouse effect, no, it's climate change these days. Climate change, then. The term "peer reviewed" is tossed around like it means something. It really means that the article was read by some people and had no grammatical errors and was the correct length and format. No one actually verifies content in a peer-reviewed article. That said, the Journal mentioned sounds legit enough to me, and since I agree with the findings, I'll continue to believe what I was going to believe anyway and cite this thing like it's gold. Just like the people on the other side do with the U.N. report. And biofuels are evil, too. I actually liked that as a possible way to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. I'm not interested in that so much from a "green" perspective as I am from a security perspective. If we need to get into a fight with Saudi Arabia or another oil giant, or when we finally grow a pair and do something about Venezuela, we're going to need all the domestic production of fuels we can get. That means ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refoogee). That means biofuels. That means hydrogen, if we can get that to work. Solar, wind, hydroelectric. I'm kind of surprised ANWR has disappeared from the news recently. The Russians are making claims up that way. We already have the land, why don't we suck out all the oil and ignore their claims? They won't be able to stop us. I know people pitch a fit about drilling up there, but have you ever been up there? Has anyone you know? The answer is no. It's cold, and there is nothing there except some caribou. Not even the eskimos go that far north. And eskimos live in igloos. They live in houses made of ice, and ANWR is too cold for them. Let that sink in for a minute . . . done considering that? Good. I've made my points.