Media Matters for America, [ http://mediamatters.org/ ] who is always on guard and on the ball against conservative disinformation in the mass media, and the ones who broke the study that the so-called “liberal bias” in media is a provable myth: [ See: So Much for the Liberal Media… Highlighting “If It’s Sunday, It’s Conservative…” ] have come to the fore again highlighting the actions of CNN, who has recently hired Glenn Beck, far-right conservative hatemonger, to host a show on CNN Headline News.

CNN has one of the most lucrative and accessable news networks in the world, and one would have thought that they would have more journalistic integrity and forethought than to allow a man on the air who has called illegal immigrants “terrorists,” or “people who can’t make a living in their own dirtbag country,” carte blanche to bring his not-at-all unique brand of hatred and ignorance to the airwaves and into millions of homes. I’m sure he’s dancing a jig to have the opportunity to make his horrible beliefs mainstream, but Media Matters (and I) won’t let him if we have anything to say about it.

Just in case you don’t know the oozing scab on the face of mass media that is Glenn Beck, allow me to give you some of his statements, highlighted thanks to Media Matters, and then we’ll finish up on how to contact CNN and let them know you hate him as much as the rest of America does:

(more…)

From the “thanks for what we all knew, seriously” department, a new federal study finally puts the nail in the coffin of global warming skeptics like the Bush Administration that have been forced to admit that warming is a reality but that there are no significant ties between that warming and human activity, specifically the emission of greenhouse gases into the lower atmosphere. The study has stated that there is “clear evidence of human influences on the climate system,” which eliminates that final sticking point that auto industry lobbyists and press folks as well as Administration press folks have used to decry the problem of climate change as possibly something mythical that’s occuring naturally somehow.

Even so, White House officials tried to pass off the study as being “inconclusive” and only the first in a set of forthcoming studies, even though the scientists involved in this and other studies signed off on it as being essentially conclusive, in line with their expectations, predictions, and computer simulations, and in the end leading to an accord among climatologists that global warming is not only real, but definitely at the very least in part due to human gas emissions, pollution, and real effects on the global ecosystem.

[Federal Study Finds Accord on Warming ]
Source: The New York Times

In probably the most underreported breakthrough story of the day (probably because of the involvement of the Clinton foundation, without a doubt) the Clinton Foundation along with Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Cadbury Schweppes (who combined essentially dominate the softdrink market, and all own the most popular brands of beverage) have come to an agreement to stop selling the kinds of sugary sodas and softdrinks in schools that have been partially credited with increasing rates of childhood malnutrition, diabetes, and obesity among American children. In elementary and middle schools, soda won’t be sold at all, and in high schools the carbonated soft drink (CSD) companies will sell diet options.

Personally, I think this is a significant achievement that’s very obviously a win-win for everyone involved. The social libertarians and the pro-business-at-any-cost folks will cry “personal responsibility” and question “where the parents are,” and whatnot and make the slippery slope argument about “what’s next,” and so on and so forth, but the medical effects of the easy, no-question, no-warning access of soda to children can’t really be debated. But that’s not my point here. For a long time now, the CSD industry companies have known that there’s less and less money overall in softdrinks. The spending has changed directions to bottled water and fashionable hybrid drinks, like vitamin water, flavored waters, and sport drinks. This new agreement, which is additionally remarkable because it requires no government mandate and no governmental regulation or oversight and is completely voluntary on the part of the CSD companies, also allows the CSD industry participants to remove their sugary sweet drinks and replace them with higher margin bottled water, tasty fruit-flavored waters, and other drinks that make the companies more money while simultaneously giving schoolchildren healthier beverage options.

My congratulations go out to the Clinton Foundation for brokering this deal and all of their continuing work, and I give definite praise to Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Cadbury Schweppes for realizing that sometimes corporate social responsibility and sustainability doesn’t have to equate “unprofitable,” to the contrary, there’s much money to be made in helping America along a healthier path, and quite a lot of good publicity to be gained as well.

[ Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Cadbury Schweppes Ban Soda in Schools in Clinton Deal ]
Source: Bloomberg