Posted on 02/21/2006 11:41:54 AM PST by Phsstpok
Hunting for a Story
Radical Islam and democracy. Plus the press corps takes a hit in covering Dick Cheney's hunting accident and more.
Monday, February 20, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
Paul Gigot: This week on "The Journal Editorial Report," uncertainty in the Middle East. Israel contemplates new sanctions as Hamas takes the helm of the Palestinian Authority. Will radical Islam derail Bush's democracy agenda in the region? The fallout from Dick Cheney's hunting accident, whose reputation is taking a bigger beating, the vice president's or the White House Press Corps'. The panel weighs in on those topics and our "Hits and Misses" of the week.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
My best memory is that the WSJ, and thus this transcript, must be excerpted, so I've pulled the intro paragraph and added the link.
Thank YOU for saying that.
I've started a thread with a link to the transcript of the talking head show, The Journal Editorial Report, hosted by Paul Gigot.
Looking at the transcript I thought it seemed that you folks might find it interesting. Since I don't have a social life (I'm married, old and damned near blind) I'll probably be home Saturday nights, when this is on, and I think I want to start watching this. Central time it's on at 10 PM Saturday night, and repeated 5 AM on Sunday morning. Sad to say I'm much more likely to already be asleep for the first showing and awake for the second...
LOL. I was thinking just that before I even got to your remark.
LOL. Thanks for starting this thread. I'll try and catch the show on Saturday nights since I'm such a news junkie. And I think the WSJ does an outstanding job reporting on national security matters.
Me TOO! I've seen the program early Sunday morning, never on Saturday night. LOL
Gigot: Dan, has the White House Press Corps had a kind of collective nervous breakdown here?
Henninger: No, I don't think so. I think it was malice aforethought. I mean, let's face it, Dick Cheney is, for a lot of the media, the biggest Republican quail in the political sky. And if they see a sighting, they come out with the shotguns.
I have watched this show every week...I LOVE it...no screaming or talking over each other...and I really LEARN things..
I saw a poster had posted a link the other day to a blog site that was TRASHING this show up and down...so, that is good news...because I am sure it was a lib site.
What makes the libs mad...makes me happy!!
Thanks for the transcript and thread...
The first show was about the NSA program...and the guests explained a lot about it..that I haven't heard on any of the other media...and enough for me to be pretty calm about any hearings and such...
The Journal Editorial Report for 2/18/06
Topics:
Participants:
That's good. I think the press are having second thoughts but it's too late, they have to now justify their lunacy after the fact.
I'm assuming the global warming segment was in the losers column :-)
Gigot: Winners and losers, picks and pans, "Hits and Misses," it's our way of calling attention to the best and the worst of the week. Item one, Greenland takes center stage in the global warming debate. Dan?
Henninger: Yes, the global warming wars are back. And Greenland is the battlefield. Greenland is the world's largest island. It's basically a huge block of ice up to two miles thick in places. Well, this week, some NASA scientists are reporting that something called, glacier ice floe, is increasing and, therefore, Greenland is melting fast. But wait a minute. Some equally imminent scientists from Norway, which I would say is on the front line if Greenland is melting, reported just recently that the interior of Greenland is getting colder and bigger, which would confound the idea of global warming. So what is one to do? My advice is pull up the covers and get a long winter's nap.
Per Einarsson was shaking with anger. He raised his fists. “I tell you, no!” he yelled, and pounded the table.
Standing opposite him, Drake was very red in the face, clenching his teeth. “Per,” he said, “I am asking you to consider the realities.”
“You are not!” Einarsson said, pounding the table again. “The reality is what you do not want me to publish!”
“Now, Per—”
“The reality,” he said, “is that in Iceland the first half of the twentieth century was warmer than the second half, as in Greenland.* The reality is that in Iceland, most glaciers lost mass after 1930 because summers warmed by .6 degrees Celsius, but since then the climate has become colder. The reality is that since 1970 these glaciers have been steadily advancing. They have regained half the ground that was lost earlier. Right now, eleven are surging. That is the reality, Nicholas! And I will not lie about it.”
“No one has suggested you do,” Drake said, lowering his voice and glancing at his newly arrived audience. “I am merely discussing how you word your paper, Per.”
Einarsson raised a sheet of paper. “Yes, and you have suggested some wording—”
“Merely a suggestion—”
“That twists truth!”
“Per, with due respect, I feel you are exaggerating—”
“Am I?” Einarsson turned to the others and began to read. “This is what he wants me to say: ‘The threat of global warming has melted glaciers throughout the world, and in Iceland as well. Many glaciers are shrinking dramatically, although paradoxically others are growing. However, in all cases recent extremes in climate variability seem to be the cause…blah…blah…blah…og svo framvegis.’ ” He threw the paper down. “That is simply not true.”
“It’s just the opening paragraph. The rest of your paper will amplify.”
“The opening paragraph is not true.”
“Of course it is. It refers to ‘extremes in climate variability.’ No one can object to such vague wording.”
“Recent extremes. But in Iceland these effects are not recent.”
“Then take out ‘recent.’”
“That is not adequate,” Einarsson said, “because the implication of this paragraph is that we are observing the effects of global warming from greenhouse gases. Whereas in fact we are observing local climate patterns that are rather specific to Iceland and are unlikely to be related to any global pattern.”
“And you can say so in your conclusion.”
“But this opening paragraph will be a big joke among Arctic researchers. You think Motoyama or Sigurosson will not see through this paragraph? Or Hicks? Watanabe? Ísaksson? They will laugh and call me compromised. They will say I did it for grants.”
Whether the Greenland glaciers (and Icelandic glaciers, along with others) are really melting is a big part of the science that Crichton has researched very well for this book. The above is an exchange from characters in this novel, but he's using them to put forward the actual data that he's gathered. And he provides the footnotes, citations and even links to the papers he drew from during his research. This is the only science fiction novel I've ever read with a bibliography!
Thanks for the thread. It will be nice to see the feedback.
Pollock: Yes. Johnny Weir hasn't made any secret this Olympiad about his likes and dislikes, the latter of which appear to include southerners and Republicans. But there's one red state Johnny does appear to like and that's the Soviet Union. He showed up at a practice session wearing a jersey with the Cyrillic letters for USSR written on it. Now, Johnny said he did this out of respect for the Russians. But, given the track record of the Soviet Union, that something Ronald Reagan justifiably called the evil empire, that sounds like to me a lot like, you know, showing your respect for the Germans by wearing a swastika.
And I should add that Johnny is a skater of obvious talents. And I'm wondering now if he isn't thinking, given his performance, that he would have been better off letting his skating do the talking for him.
Gigot: Well, just one more sign, if you ask me, of the decline of the American educational system. He doesn't even recall what the Cold War was all about. I think we need a Cold War museum in this country to remind people.
----
Johnny Weir or johnny weird?
Now I know what the term "flaming idiot" is to be used for...
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