Via Newbusters;

KATE SNOW, HOST: So, things are certainly bad for a lot of Americans. I don’t think we want to discount that. But you say this is a psychological recession. What do you mean by that?
KIT YARROW, PSYCHOLOGIST: It’s a snowball, really. I think the way that consumers feel about things is very emotional. And those emotions are trumping reality, creating this snowball where they’re pulling back on spending which is then making our economy worse. It’s not quite as bad as consumers feel like it is.
SNOW: How so? How is it not as bad as we think?
YARROW: Well, you know, we’ve had really great prosperity for the last few years. We’ve had very cheap gas. We’ve had a lot of increase in our home values. We’ve had it really pretty good as stock market increases. And, emotion is always caused by this mismatch between what we perceive and reality. Right now, I think there’s a big mismatch between what we perceive should be, basically our expectations of the economy and now what we’re getting. And that’s causing people to feel fearful, and upset and angry. And, really, it’s that emotion, the psychology that’s contributing to our economy right now in a negative way.
SNOW: To fall on our sword here a little bit, do you think part of it’s our fault, the media’s fault for constantly talking about how bad things are?
YARROW: I do actually. Yeah, I have to say some of it does there. Everything is described as a crisis. And you know there’s been a preponderance of information coming at consumers, I think just the volume of it. And, it’s described in anecdotal terms as well, which causes consumers I think to feel especially fearful. When you describe an individual’s personal situation, I think people empathize with that, and it makes them feel really afraid for their security as well.
SNOW: How much is about expectations though also, in terms of, things have been going so well for so long, do we sort of think that’s what we deserved, and now things aren’t going maybe quite as well, we suddenly think it’s terrible?
YARROW: Absolutely. It’s very well put. So I think we’ve become quite entitled to a sense that we’re going to have continued prosperity, and, you know, if we hadn’t had it so good for so long, I don’t think there would be this level of emotion that’s causing us to drawback on our spending. It’s really more like, we expect it to be great growth, and you know any sort of normal growth is considered a catastrophe now.

h/t

“America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character,” CNN

(Note – the first link I looked at for this post was this tasteless smear job, courtesy of Douglass K. Daniel of the Associated Press. Newbusters has more.)

“Most Canadians still want aggressive government action to fight climate change, in spite of skyrocketing fuel costs” – Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll suggests!

Respondents were given two options: Did they support a more cautious policy approach “so that we don’t drive up the cost of fuel and the cost of living even further?” Or would they subscribe to the view that “the rising price of fossil fuels is a reason we must move even more aggressively to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. . . .”

I think this could use a bit of tweaking…

Which Of These Climate Change Solutions Do You Most Favour?
	A more cautious policy approach so we don’t drive up the cost of fuel further
	We must move even more aggressively to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels
	We should round up every elected member of the Liberal Party of Canada and render them into biofuel
pollcode.com free polls

(h/t to Mike Brock)

Delightfully plainspoken: Earth begins to kill people for changing its climate.
h/t.

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The Los Angeles Times plans to cut 250 positions, including 150 jobs in the print and Web news departments, amid a continuing industrywide slump in ad sales…

“Holy s**t! That’s basically half of the newsroom/second floor! How in the hell are they going to continue daily operations?”

Because there’s precious little evidence of “think”.
Maz2 notes the “Deluge of Propaganda”, via National Newswatch headlines this morning;

“Canadians want TV debate on Liberals’ carbon tax, poll finds”
“Can `green shift’ alter Quebec climate?”
“Dion’s carbon tax the fairest option for Canada”
“Canada deserves green debate”
OK, Alberta oil producers, start thinking carbon taxes”
“Dion’s green anti-poverty plan”
“Canada can lead on greener path”
“The Green Shift is good for Canada”
“Green Dion: refreshing but flawed”
“Timely warning on climate change”
“Liberals stand fast on shift to green”

Dear media pundits and editorial boards;
The blue square represents the atmosphere. The red/black line represents the total percentage (about 380 ppm) of C02 in the atmosphere. The black portion represents C02 said to result from human activities* (clarification – meaning, burning of fossil fuels).

The yellow square represents the total anthropogenic C02 produced each year by Canadians.
I hope this helps.
(updated – the first version had lines that were much too bold. This version is still about twice as thick as it should be, but you get the drift. thanks, Ural).

Goes horribly wrong.

“Newspaper advertising revenue growth slowed in Q1 2008 by the largest amount since the Newspaper Association of America began measuring ad results back in 1971.”

I wonder if the liberal editorial community even paused to consider what consequences might await before they embarked on the negativity campaign against the US economy in their efforts to damage Bush? Did they really think they could pull that off without slitting their own advertising throats?
The answers are “no” and “yes”, of course.

When it comes to equal opportunity slagging regarding financial matters, Andrew Coyne is as non-partisan as it gets.

Coyne says:

Altogether, these actual, honest-to-goodness tax cuts sum to about $9-billion, the bulk of it focused on the bottom tax brackets, where it will do the least good — in terms of raising productivity, I mean. The rest of what the Liberals call “tax cuts” are mostly for tax credits, ie spending programs by another name: $465 million for an “Improved Working Income Tax Benefit,” $397-million for an “Improved Employment Credit and Refundable Disability Credit,” and fully $2.9-billion for an entirely new Universal Child Benefit, on top of all the existing child benefits.

It’s not remotely “revenue neutral,” in other words. The Liberals have used the carbon tax to fund their spending ambitions. The productivity agenda has once again been ignored.

As anyone with a brain had already concluded, it isn’t about carbon, it’s about Canadians paying for a Liberal election platform.

Cheers,
lance

Of an apparent heart attack.
(Update: link now indicates cause of death was “sudden coronary thrombosis”.)

“The perception that reporters are advocates rather than observers is held by 82% of Republicans, 56% of Democrats, and 69% of voters not affiliated with either major party. The skepticism about reporters cuts across income, racial, gender, and age barriers.”
Michael Crichton flashback: Mediasaurus

By CTV “news” staff;

The Maclean’s article presents a relatively convoluted claim about a future dominated by Muslims. It jumps from arguing about the ordered achievements of colonialism on “Injun” countries to a possible apocalyptic future envisioned in such novels as P.D. James,’ “The Children of Men.”
Unlike Africa — which Steyn dismissed as a “tribal” continent “riddled with AIDS” — the Islamic world, he argued, poses a threat to the West because it is younger and more energetic. The article — entitled “The Future Belongs to Islam” — then quotes a European imam who allegedly said Muslims are reproducing like “mosquitoes.”

I suppose we’re supposed to be grateful that the story – which by rights should be ranked as a national scandal – has broken the surface from Duffy to CTV news proper. (The broadcast version is better).
And by the way – Africa is a tribal continent riddled with AIDS, and despite the best efforts of make believe journalism, scare quotes have been sadly ineffective in changing that.

And save the useful fools the trouble of crossing over one at a time?

Originally a successful radio and television producer, Phillips, who is English, worked in America, Canada, Italy, Russia and the UK for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), before accepting her new role as Al Jazeera English director of foreign bureau and development in Doha, Qatar.

h/t MIssissauga Matt
Damian Penny in the comments: “Why would Al-Jazeera risk being tarnished by the CBC’s legendary anti-American, anti-Israel bias?”

You have a paper (as all of you know, the IHT is owned by the NYT) that is in crisis.
In a big crisis.
For many years.
Losing money.
Losing readers.
Losing advertising.
Losing market share …
And what your bosses do?

Heh.

For the 77th consecutive month, FNC finished first in total day and prime time ratings during May. FNC was the sixth highest rated cable network on all of basic cable during prime time for the month (CNN and MSNBC finished 19th and 26th) and the seventh rated network in total day (CNN and MSNBC were 19th and 27th).
FNC also had 11 out of the top 13 programs in cable during the month in Total Viewers. The O’Reilly Factor was the #1 program in cable news for the 90th consecutive month, and saw gains in Total Viewers year-to-year (26%).

The US economy continues to resist media efforts at sabotage;

Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket manufactured goods fell by a smaller-than-anticipated amount in April with many sectors outside of transportation showing unexpected strength.
The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that orders for durable goods dropped 0.5 percent, dragged down by big declines in demand for commercial aircraft and autos.
However, excluding transportation, orders rose by 2.5 percent last month, the biggest gain in 9 months. Orders for electrical equipment and appliances surged by 27.8 percent, the biggest increase on record, with strong demand also registered for primary metals, machinery and communications equipment.

Of course, folks don’t tune in the mainstream mouthpieces like they used to, either. Speaking of which – how are those share prices doing, anyway?

*
More paper cuts…

While his ATV’s cargo of meat rotted in the January cold;

When Ken Hildebrand found himself stuck out in the Canadian wilderness, the good news was that he had everything with him which would ensure his survival. The bad news was that it was all beyond his reach.
Mr Hildebrand was forced to spend the next three nights trapped under his all-terrain vehicle as temperatures dropped and a hungry pack of wolves circled nearby. “I had everything I needed, but I just couldn’t get to it,” said the 55-year-old, whose ordeal happened in January as he was collecting animal traps from the woods, south of Calgary.
His truck had rolled over, pinning him underneath. He survived by eating rotten animal meat and dirt, and kept warm by using the corpses of the dead animals he had been collecting. He managed to scare off the hyenas and wolves by blowing on a whistle, and was eventually found by hikers.

On his way to referee a hockey game.
This great moment in fact-checking brought to you by reader “hardboiled”.