MSNBC "Lean Forward" Campaign Publicly Declares Progressive Base

The slick campaign that started last fall has the network finally coming out of its progressive closet.  Since I've embarked on my journey at the start of 2011, comparing Morning Joe with Fox and Friends, I've occasionally seen MSNBC's current campaign of "Lean Forward."  For example:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I decided to get the scoop on the network's campaign, and it turns out that they're going after FoxNews' #1 slot.  From MSNBC's own website (emphasis added):

Msnbc to ‘lean forward’ in two-year brand campaign

Cable television network hopes to boost ratings, audience awareness 

Cable news network msnbc said Tuesday it is launching a two-year, multimillion-dollar marketing campaign, embracing its politically progressive identity with the new tagline “Lean Forward.” 

The network hopes the campaign, featuring television ads directed by Spike Lee, will lift brand awareness and boost ratings, building on recent audience gains that have lifted it to the No. 2 news channel, ahead of CNN and behind industry leader Fox News. 

“We’ve taken on CNN and we beat them,” msnbc President Phil Griffin told employees at a series of celebratory “town hall” meetings Monday. “Now it’s time to take on Fox.”

[Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.  Msnbc cable is a wholly owned division of NBC Universal.]

The network has struggled to define itself with its audience since it launched in 1996. In the runup to the 2008 presidential election, network programming began to coalesce around primetime anchors Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews. It branded itself as “The Place for Politics” — a description given by Tim Russert, then NBC News Washington Bureau Chief and "Meet the Press" moderator.

With the addition of left-leaning anchors including Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz, the network increasingly became identified with a rising tide of progressive political sentiment. The new branding campaign, while not overtly political, implicitly embraces the network’s progressive identity.
...

The campaign, which also includes print and online components, takes a swipe at the nation’s strident and divisive political culture with lines like, "Celebrate the best ideas, no matter where they come from," and "One nation, in progress." 
...

So, with its slick ads MSNBC is finally publicly acknowledging its leftist leanings.  I wonder why they just didn't fess up even more and simply make the campaign "Lean Left."

TSA Pat Downs: Gotta Have a Little Humor

... well, if the terrorists are laughin' their asses off at us having to go through the security procedures, we might as well be, too.  The company ECHO definitely has a sense of humor about it all:

Spike the Football

[h/t: Black & Right]

Cell Phones: Could They Be Causing the Death of Bees?

I remember a while ago the claims that global warming was causing the death of our world's precious bees.  Then, the deaths were linked to some sort of pandemic disease and/or pesticides.  Now, a researcher in Switzerland is proposing that cell phones might be a culprit (emphasis added):

Cell Phones Caused Mysterious Worldwide Bee Deaths, Study Finds

Cellphone transmissions may be responsible for a mysterious, worldwide die off in bees that has mystified scientists.

Dr. Daniel Favre, a former biologist with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, carefully placed a mobile phone underneath a beehive and then monitored the reaction of the workers.

According to a story in The Daily Mail, the bees were able to tell when the handsets were making and receiving calls. They responded by making the high pitched squeaks that usually signal the start of swarming.

"This study shows that the presence of an active mobile phone disturbs bees -- and has a dramatic effect," Favre told the Daily Mail.

Favre believes this to be evidence of something other scientists have suggested: Signals from mobile phones are contributing to the decline of honeybees. Favre thinks more research could help confirm the link between cell signals and "colony collapse disorder" -- the sudden disappearance of entire colonies over winter -- which has halved the bee population, according to some estimates.

Last June, researchers from Chandigarh's Punjab University in India came to a similar conclusion, recording a decrease in the population of a hive fitted with a mobile phone and a decrease in the egg output of the queen in that hive.

Other bee experts blame the vanishing honeybees on changes in farming, the decline of wild flowers and pesticides, and the final cause of the dramatic die-off remains unclear. 

Even the size of the problem is hard to determine.

A recent three-year study analyzed the geographic distribution and genetic diversity of eight species of bumble bees in the U.S., relying on historical records and repeated surveys of about 400 sites, to ascertain precisely how many bees have vanished. The researchers compiled a database of more than 73,000 museum records and compared them with current sampling based on intensive national surveys of more than 16,000 specimens.

The national analysis found that the relative abundances of four of the eight species analyzed have declined by as much as 96 percent and that their surveyed geographic ranges have shrunk by 23 to 87 percent. Some of these contractions have occurred in the last two decades.

"We have 50 species of bumble bees in North America. We've studied eight of them and four of these are significantly in trouble," said University of Illinois entomology professor Sydney Cameron, who led the study. "They could potentially recover; some of them might. But we only studied eight. This could be the tip of the iceberg," she said.

Very frightening when we all remember our biology classes and the lessons about bees: they are our crops' pollinators!  

 

Bill Clinton Calling for of Govt Internet Monitoring Agency ... and Rumor Control

This a rather laughable ... read Clinton's words closely ... they seem like a bit of a criticism of various media outlets who claim to be non-biased ... ironically from evil FoxNews (emphasis added):

Bill Clinton Muses About Creating Internet Agency to Combat Falsehoods

If Bill Clinton had his way, there would be an Internet agency created by the U.S. government or United Nations to debunk malicious rumors that originate and spread online.

"I think it would be a legitimate thing to do," Clinton told CNBC in an interview that aired Friday. He was interviewed alongside Mati Kochavi, a cybersecurity entrepreneur.

But Clinton added that if such an agency were ever created, it would have to be "totally transparent" about where its funding came from and would have to be independent.

"Let's just say the U.S. did it. It would have to be an independent federal agency that no president could countermand or anything else because people wouldn't think you were just censoring the news and giving a different falsehood out," he said. 

"That is, it would be like, I don't know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions, and their mandate would be narrowly confined to identifying relevant factual errors," he said.

Clinton said the agency would have to have citations so it could be checked in case it made a mistake.

"Somebody needs to be doing it, and maybe it's a worthy expenditure of taxpayer money," he said. "But if it's a government agency in a traditional sense, it would have no credibility whatever, particularly with a lot of the people who are most active on the Internet."  [Yeah, no shit, Sherlock!]


Click here to read the entire transcript.

Does this not just absolutely reek of Orwellian bullcrap?  He suggests that The UNITED NATIONS, too, be involved in debunking rumors?!?  Now, that's a reputable organization, isn't it?  And, can a federal agency be truly "independent?"

Don't you just love what he says about NPR and the BBC?: "That is, it would be like, I don't know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions."  Why, what is Bill implying about those fine and unbiased meda outlets, hmmm?

 

Gee, I can't imagine why Bill would be interested in controlling rumors, can you?

War Dogs: Freakin' Amazing!

A friend of mine recently sent me this fabulous photo essay about war dogs from Foreign Policy.  It has numerous photos with each having background information on the raising and training of our brave canine companions.  Be careful, though -- there are very cute soldiers to look at, and then the next photo and story might blindside you with a sad story, sending you running for the Kleenex.

Here are a few excerpts: 

War Dog: There's A Reason They Brought One to Get Osama bin Laden

Dogs have been fighting alongside U.S. soldiers for more than 100 years, seeing combat in the Civil War and World War I. But their service was informal; only in 1942 were canines officially inducted into the U.S. Army. Today, they're a central part of U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan -- as of early 2010 the U.S. Army had 2,800 active-duty dogs deployed (the largest canine contingent in the world). And these numbers will continue to grow as these dogs become an ever-more-vital military asset.

So it should come as no surprise that among the 79 commandos involved in Operation Neptune Spear that resulted in Osama bin Laden's killing, there was one dog -- the elite of the four-legged variety. And though the dog in question remains an enigma -- another mysterious detail of the still-unfolding narrative of that historic mission -- there should be little reason to speculate about why there was a dog involved: Man's best friend is a pretty fearsome warrior.

Above, a U.S. soldier with the 10th Special Forces Group and his dog leap off the ramp of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter during water training over the Gulf of Mexico as part of exercise Emerald Warrior on March 1.

There's a beautiful second part to the photo essay ... including PUPPIES!

War Dog II: The Legend of bin Laden Hunter Continues

The dog that started it all has been identified -- or so we think. The canine member of the U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 that took down Osama bin Laden -- a Belgian Malinois who answers to the name of Cairo -- reportedly met with President Barack Obama behind closed doors last week. But even as that burning question now appears to have been answered, the excitement over war dogs abounds. Speculation and rumors have been flying, from titanium teeth to canine parachute jumps to just how a dog might've brought down bin Laden. Here's some more war-dog fodder to chew on.

Above, Staff Sgt. Philip Mendoza and his military working dog, Rico, wearing specially made goggles, train aboard a helicopter at Joint Base Balad, Iraq.

And here's another heart-warming story that was linked off of one of the photos/stories:

Canine combatants and those not so combatant (but in war zones nonetheless)

And that begs the question, can ‘military working dogs' be just what they are supposed to be -- tools of warfare, always coldly utilized and employed like M16s or armored troop carriers? I don't think so.

During my most recent embed, which took place in the Helmand Province of southwestern Afghanistan in the month of February, 2011, I came in contact with both military working dogs and local dogs. Contrary to many news stories, not all military dogs are ultra-efficient machines, ruthlessly sniffing out explosives and weapons where they are hidden. At one far-flung patrol base housing just a squad of Marines, I met a military working dog -- its name I won't disclose -- who never went out on any patrols. She had accompanied Marines on a few during the beginning of their deployment, but when the Taliban engaged the Marines in a firefight she flipped out and ran away. A long search ensued; she finally wandered back into base hours later -- hungry and exhausted. "She's got doggy PTSD now," one of the Marines told me. Of course, she still served the Marines well -- she gave them company, and they gave her the food and attention all dogs crave. At that same patrol base, a small fur-ball of a puppy had wandered inside the perimeter one day, separated from its mother either by death or abandonment. Yes -- the puppy represented a potential hygiene problem, but he was welcome nonetheless. The puppy saw the Marines off during each patrol, and welcomed them back as they crossed safely back inside the wire after each potentially deadly, and always exhausting mission. 
....

Without exception -- at least that I saw -- all of these dogs are well cared for. And the dogs, whether they are military working dogs brought over from the United States like Copper and Lotty, found and used in-country like Hamchuck and Henryetta, or just adopted pets like Alf, pay this back in spades. Even in the very worst of the world's war zones, dogs still wag their tails.

Ed Darack is an independent writer and photographer. His book Victory Point (www.victorypoint.info), now out in paperback and chosen as one of the best books of 2009 by the Naval Institute, details Operations Red Wings and Whalers-including the roles Hamchuck and Henrietta played. His website is www.darack.com

Big SNIFF here after reading these!  Yep, I'm a schmaltzy dog lover, and such stories of bravery and devotion only reinforce my belief and feelings. 

Health Care: The Dutch Changing Tack in Tough Financial Times

Here's an interesting opinion piece I found by Richard Saltman in The Washington Post this past weekend (emphasis added) ...

A Dutch model for Medicare

The debate over Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposed changes for Medicare — replacing guaranteed payment for services with a voucher for most of the cost of purchasing private insurance — is generating a lot of heat. The Dutch might be able to shed a little light.

In 2006, the Netherlands shifted its entire population — elderly and sick as well as young and healthy — to a premium-support-based arrangement. The complex, multi-payment approach had three basic elements.

The first — to ensure equity — involved attaching a risk-adjusted payment to each individual, paid by a national social insurance pool, ensuring that the size of each person’s voucher would make him or her attractive to private insurers.

The second — to ensure competition on price and quality — was to allow people to band together in “collectives” (interest- or Internet-based) to negotiate with insurers over price and extra services (core benefits were fixed by law).

The third element — to ensure that private insurers served the public interest — was heavy regulation of insurers, including requirements that they take all applicants, even at the door of the hospital emergency room.

The Dutch undertook this radical reform because they understood that history had changed. Like other small European countries, they realized that global competition and the rise of Asia created a fundamental threat to their economic survival, and that welfare-state-style benefits were no longer viable. 

Most senior Dutch policymakers are reasonably pleased with the new system. Cost increases have stabilized, and the risk-adjustment mechanism has resulted in private commercial insurers using billboard ads to woo sick patients: “Do you have diabetes? Get your insurance from us.” While there still are problems — only “listed illnesses” have additional risk-adjustment payments, and some people still haven’t enrolled — the Dutch argue that they have a balanced system of individual and collective responsibility that is sustainable for the next several decades.

Financial sustainability is at the center of health policy in many European countries today. A senior Norwegian health official, speaking of his country’s completely government-funded system, said recently at a public meeting that “our present system of government-funded health care is not sustainable.” This is an oil-producing nation that has no debt and is putting its substantial oil earnings into what is now a $400 billion sovereign wealth fund (for a population of only 5 million people) to meet future health and pension obligations.

For the United States, a key issue is trust — specifically willingness to trust the decisions of the federal government. Each side in the debate has been less than honest. Democrats made political hay by saying that the federal government cannot be trusted to raise the value of Medicare insurance vouchers as health-care costs increase, thus shifting more of the costs onto household budgets. They also argue that private insurers will raise rates and try to cheat the elderly on the services provided to them.

Yet Democrats established, in the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a 15-member panel — appointed by the president with no congressional participation or oversight — that they clearly trust to make decisions about potential reductions in Medicare services. Moreover, the law’s new insurance entitlement for uninsured people is itself a “premium support” program to help households with incomes of as much as 400 percent of the poverty level buy private commercial insurance — exactly what the Democrats claim the federal government cannot be trusted to do for those eligible for Medicare.

The Republicans commit the same rhetorical sin. They argue that it’s okay to trust the federal government to maintain the proposed Medicare vouchers at a reasonable level, especially for sick elderly people (who will get additional supplements), but that it’s not okay to trust the federal government to make rationing decisions through a presidentially appointed panel.

Both Democrats and Republicans distrust the federal government, but only when it comes to implementing the other party’s proposal.

As the European experience indicates, the world has changed since 1965, when Medicare was enacted. An effective policy to reduce the long-term drag of federal health entitlements on our economic competitiveness is badly needed and overdue. To get it right, however, it’s imperative that the debate focus on facts, not hyperbole.

Richard B. Saltman is professor of health policy and management at Emory University and a co-founder of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies in Brussels.

Again, we see that socialism is quite expensive ... which the Europeans seem to gradually abandoning.

Bin Laden Dead: An Uneasy Feeling

Anybody else out there getting an odd feeling about this whole "Bin Laden Is Dead!" thing?  Have I become so paranoid about the Obama administration and its concubine the Press that I am more troubled at the news than I am rejoicing?  Of course, OBL was "Enemy #1" for close to 10 years, and I am thrilled that that scum bag is dead.  I was touched and pleasantly surprised to see impromptu celebrations break out all around the country as Americans celebrated his long overdue demise.

But, when I think back over the course of this lame Obama administration, I can't help but wonder if this isn't all just manufactured ... Chicago-style politics at play.  Here are some of the thoughts that make me skeptically say "Hmmmmm ...":

- President Indecisive able to make a decision so quickly?!?  Really?  What gives?  I can't help but reflect back on how long it took Obama to give McCrystal an answer about troop reinforcements.  Wasn't it something like four months he kept McC waiting while Obama continued in campaign mode, jetting around the globe meeting with everyone else.  I recall McCrystal getting only 20 minutes of Obama's time on Air Force One while the President was on a return flight from Sweden where Obama pressed to get the Olympics brought to the U.S.  And, didn't Obama take several weeks before he visited the coasts that were hit with the BP oil spill?  Hmmm ...  Of course, if Obama truly is anti-military and anti-oil, then his actions are to be expected.  He's pro-Obama ... so the killing of OBL would make him look good.

- Interesting how we find Bin Laden after all the rioting and uprising in the Middle East.  A way for the Obama administration to defend its position on Libya?  A way to make The Community Organizer in Chief look tough?  But, could this be construed as another attack of the U.S. on an Arab and/or Arab country/group?

- Again, is this just a move to make spineless Obama look tough, this time to the American public in the wake of the dust-up with Donald Trump?  Whatever you might think of Trump's pressing for Obama's birth certificate, it did wind up making Obama look weak -- Obama jumped through Trump's hoop and looked pathetic.   (I dying to see if Trump can follow through with the push for Obama's transcripts and papers ... but, that would be "racist.")  Is the OBL news a way to deflect all this negativity away from Obama and the upcoming qualifications issue?  Having given the kill decree, I wonder if that's why Obama was so over-the-top nasty in his "humor" aimed at Trump a the White House correspondents' dinner over the weekend?  He was feeling uber-cocky.

- Is OBL really dead?  It would be good Chicago-style politics to make the public think you've vanquished your opponent.  Was there some kind of deal made?  Maybe OBL was captured / killed a while ago, but this bit of news was kept until a more expedient and beneficial time.  What about when Obama's ratings are low, thus jeopardizing his re-election?  Snagging OBL would make Obama a shoe-in for re-election. 

- I am sad that OBL wasn't captured during Bush's administration ... I hope in some way the Obama gang is gracious enough to give Bush some credit.  But, that would involve class.  And, on the flip side, what if Obama had been captured back when Bush was president?  I'm sure it would not have gotten the glowing, orgasmic media blitzkrieg Obama is enjoying presently.  I'm sure it would have gotten some pretty negative blow-back for Bush.

- The GatewayPundit has some nice pieces showing Obama's hipocrisy, such as now praising Navy SEALs for killing Bin Laden after he criticized them for slapping a terrorist, as well as Obama's apparent flipflop on the issue of using intel produced from waterboarding.

- Are you like me, finding the "burial at sea" a bit fishy? (Oh, sorry about that -- no pun intended!)  Is there DNA evidence?  Are there pictures?  Do the pictures prove OBL is dead?


I really do hope the SEALs got Bin Laden ... but, I wouldn't be surprised if another one of those pictures surfaces soon ... the kind showing Bin Laden holding a newspaper published post his supposed death.