Darylsurat

People from foreign states don’t fully recognize the importance of high school football in small Texas towns.

I remember about 20 years ago when the Democratic National Committee sent some Yankee yahoo to my area of Texas to teach us how to win elections. He planned the first big fundraiser on the same night as the high school homecoming game. We tried to explain to him that homecoming involved parking lot barbeques, big ole honker corsages, booked hotel rooms, and enough enough noise to be heard a mile against the breeze. Everybody in town shows up for homecoming.

“Awww…. it’s just a football game,” he argued and proceeded to have the fundraiser that night. Two people showed up – one drunk and one lost. I determined then and there to never give another dime to the DNC and I haven’t.

It appears that high school football in Texas has become so big that God has taken an interest and is picking sides.

Personally, I’m kinda disappointed that God waited so long to do this. I mean, I’m not questioning God, but wouldn’t a better time to pick sides is when Christians were being fed to the lions?

Better late than never, I guess, because God is right here right now. In Texas.

A judge ruled Wednesday that cheerleaders at a Southeast Texas high school can display banners emblazoned with Bible verses at football games.

State District Judge Steven Thomas determined the Kountze High School cheerleaders’ banners are constitutionally permissible. In the ruling, Thomas determined that no law “prohibits cheerleaders from using religious-themed banners at school sporting events.”

And by religious, the judge means Christian. And not just any Christian either – just the Super DeLux Fancy Grade A ones.The place they want to put religious messages is on something called a run-through banner.

At the beginning of the game, the cheerleaders hold up a giant banner and team runs through it, destroying it viciously, on their way on the field.

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These are the same people who would pitch a walleyed snot nosed hissy fit if someone destroyed a flag, but violently tearing up Bible verses seems to have meaning for them I’d rather not psychologically explore because it would probably freak me out.

But just to be real clear about which God we are talking about, it ain’t one of them lesser gods —.

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Now people have asked me why there’s not this craziness over basketball, baseball, or track. Well, duh. Those pansy sports do not involve getting to hurt another person. God likes that hurting people stuff and we know God does because why else would a judge in Texas answer our prayers to invoke His name at football games.

See, this is not complicated.

Juanita Jean blogs at the World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc.

The Wall Street Journal once again published an op-ed disputing climate science by authors with no peer-reviewed papers on the topic and ties to groups funded by the oil industry. The op-ed argues that we should be "clamoring for more" carbon dioxide because it is a "boon to plant life," ignoring scientific research establishing that our excessive carbon dioxide emissions are rapidly changing the climate, which will have significant negative impacts for plants and humans.

WSJ Conceals Negative Impacts Of CO2 For Plants And Humans

WSJ Op-Ed Suggests We Should Be "Clamoring For More" CO2 As It Is A "Boon To Plant Life." In an op-ed titled "In Defense of Carbon Dioxide," former astronaut and Republican Senator Harrison Schmitt and physics professor William Happer write that the "demonized chemical compound is a boon to plant life" and thus "increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet." They add, "[t]here isn't the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide has caused more extreme weather" and conclude that "in an age of rising population and scarcities of food and water in some regions, it's a wonder that humanitarians aren't clamoring for more atmospheric carbon dioxide. Instead, some are denouncing it." [Wall Street Journal, 5/8/13]

Skeptical Science: This Argument Relies On The Fallacy Of Exclusion. Skeptical Science explains that while carbon dioxide stimulates plant growth, our excessive emissions are changing precipitation patterns in ways that can hurt plant growth:

A quick look at the science behind this argument demonstrates its inherent weaknesses. In closed, controlled environments, like greenhouses and plant nurseries, an increase in CO2 does indeed spur plant growth. However, the globe is not a controlled environment, and its incredible sensitivity to a variety of factors is something that is often taken for granted when such narrow arguments are proffered. A rise in CO2 levels is not the only consequence of climate change, and it is these other effects that have had and will have more abiding adverse effects on plant growth around the world.

While CO2 is an important element that stimulates plant growth, the planet's flora requires a cocktail of elements to maintain its health. Arguably the most important of these elements is water. With the global increase in temperature caused by the various factors affecting our climate's balance, increased evaporation means decreased soil moisture. Another effect of global climate change is erratic precipitation patterns. This causes extreme weather in certain geographic locations only sporadically, with overall, balanced rainfall drastically reduced.

[...]

[A]t its most basic level, the CO2 plant food argument rests on a simple logical fallacy--the fallacy of exclusion, which focuses on one cause-and-effect (in this case, more CO2 means more plants) to the exclusion of all other cause-and-effect chains. [Skeptical Science, 7/1/2010]

IPCC: Rising Temps. Put About "20-30% Of Plant And Animal Species" At "Increased Risk Of Extinction." The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 4th Assessment Report concludes:

Approximately 20-30% of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5-2.5°C.

For increase in global average temperature exceeding 1.5-2.5°C and in concomitant atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, there are projected to be major changes in ecosystem structure and function, species; ecological interactions, and species; geographical ranges, with predominantly negative consequences for biodiversity, and ecosystem goods and services e.g., water and food supply. [IPCC 4^th Assessment Report, Summary for Policymakers, 2007]

Research Indicates Climate Change Will Lead To More Floods And Droughts, Hurting Agriculture. A recent NASA study added to evidence that climate change will increase the risk of extreme rainfall and drought, according to a NASA press release:

A NASA-led modeling study provides new evidence that global warming may increase the risk for extreme rainfall and drought.

The study shows for the first time how rising carbon dioxide concentrations could affect the entire range of rainfall types on Earth.

Analysis of computer simulations from 14 climate models indicates wet regions of the world, such as the equatorial Pacific Ocean and Asian monsoon regions, will see increases in heavy precipitation because of warming resulting from projected increases in carbon dioxide levels. Arid land areas outside the tropics and many regions with moderate rainfall could become drier. [NASA, 5/3/13]

The World Bank notes that these changes may lead to "severe crop yield reductions" unless there are "strong adaptation measures":

Climate change will affect agriculture through higher temperatures, greater crop water demand, more variable rainfall and extreme climate events such as heat waves, floods and droughts. Many impact studies point to severe crop yield reductions in the next decades without strong adaptation measures--particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. These are areas where rural households are highly dependent on agriculture and farming systems are highly sensitive to volatile climate. One assessment, estimates that by the 2080s world agricultural productivity will decline by 3-16 percent. The loss in Africa could be 17-28 percent (Cline 2007). [World Bank, accessed 5/9/13]

National Research Council: Effects Of Climate Change "Pose Significant Risks To Both Human And Ecological Systems." From a 2010 report by the National Research Council:

Scientific evidence that the Earth is warming is now overwhelming. There is also a multitude of evidence that this warming results primarily from human activities, especially burning fossil fuels and other activities that release heat-trapping greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere. Projections of future climate change indicate that Earth will continue to warm unless significant and sustained actions are taken to limit emissions of GHGs. Increasing temperatures and GHG concentrations are driving a multitude of related and interacting changes in the Earth system, including decreases in the amounts of ice stored in mountain glaciers and polar regions, increases in sea level, changes in ocean chemistry, and changes in the frequency and intensity of heat waves, precipitation events, and droughts. These changes in turn pose significant risks to both human and ecological systems. Although the details of how the future impacts of climate change will unfold are not as well understood as the basic causes and mechanisms of climate change, we can reasonably expect that the consequences of climate change will be more severe if actions are not taken to limit its magnitude and adapt to its impacts. [National Research Council, 2010]

WSJ Portrays Highest CO2 Levels In Human History As "Low"

WSJ Op-Ed: Current CO2 Levels "Are Low By The Standards Of Geological And Plant Evolutionary History." The op-ed claims that carbon dioxide levels have "little correlation" with temperatures and that current carbon dioxide levels are "low by the standards of geological and plant evolutionary history," pointing to CO2 levels over 65 million years ago:

The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how exaggerated NASA's and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming have been--and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. As many scientists have pointed out, variations in global temperature correlate much better with solar activity and with complicated cycles of the oceans and atmosphere. 

[...]

The current levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, approaching 400 parts per million, are low by the standards of geological and plant evolutionary history. Levels were 3,000 ppm, or more, until the Paleogene period (beginning about 65 million years ago). [Wall Street Journal, 5/8/13]

Scientist: CO2 Has Never Risen "So Much So Rapidly" Without "A Mass Extinction Event." Ken Caldeira, a scientist at the Carnegie Institute for Science at Stanford University who has specialized in paleoclimate issues, wrote in an email to Media Matters that it is the rate of increasing carbon dioxide levels that is worrying:

Yes, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been high in the past, but those high levels were achieved over many millions of years.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have never risen so much so rapidly as they are today without being accompanied by a mass extinction event. The geologic record gives us no reason to be sanguine about current rates and amounts of CO2 increase.

100 million years ago when atmospheric CO2 concentrations were high, volcanoes and other natural sources were probably emitting twice as much CO2 as they are today.

We, in contrast, are emitting about 100 times more CO2 than all the volcanoes of the world put together. We are so far beyond what the natural world does in terms of rates, it isn't even funny.

Atmospheric CO2 is increasing today about 100 times faster than it did after the last ice age.

We are not sure how the Earth will respond to these rates of change, because there are no real examples of similar rates of change except for the big mass extinction events.

Michael Mann, a paleoclimatologist and a professor at Penn State University, echoed Caldeira, saying that the "claim is at best deceptive" because "[t]he problem isn't the levels of CO2 per se, but the rate at which we are increasing them." And Ethan Grossman, a professor at Texas A&M who has published paleoclimate research, noted that the high CO2 period that the op-ed refers to -- the late Cretaceous period, which was the tail-end of the age of the dinosaurs -- experienced warm temperatures with essentially ice-free polar regions and higher sea levels:

Periods of high CO2 coincide with warm intervals (greenhouse climate mode) such as the late Cretaceous ( ~85 million years ago [myr]).

[...]

During greenhouse climate intervals, there were essentially no continental glaciers at the poles ("ice-free" condition), and subtropical plants sometimes extended into the Arctic Circle (such as in the Eocene, ~50 myr). Sea levels of course were much higher. [Email exchanges, 5/9/13]

CO2 Levels Are Higher Than Any Time In Human History. As Smithsonian Magazine wrote, we are poised to exceed atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of over 400 parts per million, which is higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years according to ice core records:

For the first time in human history, later this month the world's atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide will likely exceed 400 parts per million, according to a study conducted by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The researchers monitor CO2 concentrations from a station in Hawaii, and those levels usually peak in May. Right now, levels are teetering at 399 ppm. If they do not exceed 400 ppm this year, the researchers say, they almost certainly will next year.

In March 1958, when the first measurements of atmospheric CO2 were made, the northern hemisphere stood at 316 ppm. Researchers project that the pre-industrial atmosphere was around 280 ppm. For the past 800,000 years prior to the industrial revolution, Scripps points out, CO2 levels never exceeded 300 ppm. [Smithsonian Magazine, 5/7/13]

Caldeira added in an email to Media Matters that most species alive today have "never existed in a world with CO2 levels substantially higher than today's":

[T]here is no evidence that CO2 concentrations have been higher than today's concentration in the past 20 million years.

The average species lives something like 6 million years, so the species that are alive today never existed in a world with CO2 levels substantially higher than today's. [Email exchange, 5/9/13]

CO2 Levels Are Indeed Closely Correlated With Warming. While the op-ed claims that carbon dioxide levels have "little correlation" with temperatures, The New York Times reported that scientists have actually found a "close association" between the two:

The basic physics of the atmosphere, worked out more than a century ago, show that carbon dioxide plays a powerful role in maintaining the earth's climate.

[...]

In recent years, researchers have been able to put the Keeling measurements [of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels since the 1950s] into a broader context. Bubbles of ancient air trapped by glaciers and ice sheets have been tested, and they show that over the past 800,000 years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air oscillated between roughly 200 and 300 parts per million. Just before the Industrial Revolution, the level was about 280 parts per million and had been there for several thousand years.

That amount of the gas, in other words, produced the equable climate in which human civilization flourished.

Other studies, covering many millions of years, show a close association between carbon dioxide and the temperature of the earth. The gas seemingly played a major role in amplifying the effects of the ice ages, which were caused by wobbles in the earth's orbit.

The geologic record suggests that as the earth began cooling, the amount of carbon dioxide fell, probably because much of it got locked up in the ocean, and that fall amplified the initial cooling. Conversely, when the orbital wobble caused the earth to begin warming, a great deal of carbon dioxide escaped from the ocean, amplifying the warming.

Richard B. Alley, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, refers to carbon dioxide as the master control knob of the earth's climate. He said that because the wobbles in the earth's orbit were not, by themselves, big enough to cause the large changes of the ice ages, the situation made sense only when the amplification from carbon dioxide was factored in.

"What the ice ages tell us is that our physical understanding of CO2 explains what happened and nothing else does," Dr. Alley said.

The article included the following graphics:

[The New York Times, 12/21/10]

Who Are Harrison Schmitt And William Happer?

Neither Have Written Peer-Reviewed Climate Research. Harrison Schmitt has a Ph.D in Geology, and served as an astronaut at NASA from 1965 to 1975. After resigning from NASA, Schmitt was a one-term Republican Senator from New Mexico. William Happer is a physics professor at Princeton University. Neither Schmitt nor Happer has published peer-reviewed climate research. William Happer wrote a paper titled "Climate Science and Policy: Making the Connection" that was published by the oil industry-funded George C. Marshall Institute, but not any peer-reviewed journal. Several surveys have shown that the vast majority of climate scientists agree that humans are warming the planet and that the public should be concerned about the effects. [Skeptical Science, accessed 5/9/13] [DeSmogBlog, accessed 5/9/13] [DeSmogBlog, accessed 5/9/13] [Media Matters,

[Media Matters, 9/24/12]

This summer's anime adaptation of Spike Chunsoft's (Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi) Danganronpa: The Academy of Hope and the High School Students of Despair, takes a host of student character types, exaggerates the hell out of them, pairs them with all-star voice actors, and puts them into a devilishly convoluted life and death situation. We've now gotten a preview of the first half of the cast. Check it out after the jump.

Besides UFC reaching an agreement with You Tube for a monthly subscription channel, so has TNA.

TNA will be charging $4.99 per month for a service that allows subscribers unlimited access a number of past PPV shows.

WWE had one of You Tube's most popular channels, but moved from You Tube to Yahoo! when You Tube was attempted to monetize their channels as subscription services.

New Jack debuts on The Daily Show tonight on Comedy Central as a recurring comedy character.

This Sunday's episode of 60 Minutes was a brilliant case study in the media's ability to manipulate the public mind. The entire hour is worth studying, if only as one of the most illuminating and sophisticated examples of media manipulation in recent memory.

Who, What, When, Where ...

The most important editorial decision may not be how to cover a story, but which stories will be covered at all. But once a story is assigned, however that happens, the journalist's responsibility is to inform readers - or the audience - of its meaning and context.

60 Minutes failed both tests.

The old journalistic maximum said a good journalist had to answer five questions in every story: Who, what, when, where, and why?  Of those, "why" is the most important questions of all. Without it, stories are more likely to misinform than inform.

In this case, the misinformation seems deliberate. The intended message seems to be government can't help us. We must militarize or cities and depend on the generosity of billionaires, or we don't stand a chance.

... and Why

Three stories were aired Sunday night: Counterinsurgency Cops, Robin Hood, and Invisible Wounds. The first two pieces advanced the anti-government billionaires' agenda with almost Orwellian efficiency. The third was less driven by that agenda, although it also reflected the biases which big-money interests have built into the institutions of journalism and politics.

Counterinsurgency Cops covered, as the name suggests, the adoption of military counterinsurgency techniques by urban police forces. It's a controversial topic: Do we really want our cities subjected to the same occupation-style military tactics as neighborhoods in Kandahar and Mazal-i-Sharif? One might expect both sides of the argument to be covered in a story like this.

One would be wrong.

The War Comes Home

The Cops episode featured footage of urban police in full military gear, carrying rifles with night scopes and kicking down the door of an American home.  Those scenes might have disturbed Americans across the political spectrum, from anti-government right-wingers to civil-liberties-loving liberals, except for the fact thag the footage appeared late in the story.

By then Lesley Stahl had led the audience through a manipulative exercise which began with her telling the audience that foreign counterinsurgency casts soldiers as "warriors and community builders, going village to village driving out insurgents while winning the hearts and minds of the population" with 'mixed results at best." But, Stahl continues, "we met a Green Beret who is finding out -- in his job as a police officer -- that the strategy might actually have a better chance of working, right here at home, in the USA."

The next paragraph in the official CBS script reads as follows:

"Call him and his fellow officers counterinsurgency cops! They're not fighting al Qaeda or the Taliban, but street gangs and drug dealers in one of the most crime ridden cities in New England."

The chirpy exclamation point is CBS's, not ours. And as much as intuition might tell you otherwise, CBS finds nothing controversial about fighting suspected gang members or drug dealers (legally they're only suspects, although the word is never used by Stahl) with the same techniques used to fight those who are presumably enemy combatants in a foreign field of battle.

Spiritual Ammunition

The Green Beret in question - actually  he's a former Green Beret, although this goes curiously unsaid - is a charming and affable state trooper named Mike Cutone.  We're told that, in Stahl's words,

"... after returning from Iraq (Cutone) had an "aha moment" when he was talking to a gas station manager in Springfield ... The similarities to the Iraqi town he had lived in and defended were so striking, that he sat down and wrote out an action plan for Springfield ... He proposed his plan, a counterinsurgency program, to Springfield's deputy police chief, John Barbieri."

After being reassured that the plan wouldn't involve "helicopters" and "checkpoints," we're told that Barbieri gave the young former Green Beret the green light to proceed with his 'counterinsurgency" program.  Except that Mike Cutone didn't think of it all by himself. The American Civil Liberties Union has been studying the militarization of American police forces for years. So has author Radley Balko, whose book Rise of the Warrior Cop tracks this militarization process from Reagan's war on drugs, through Clinton's COPS programs, and into the present. Among other things, this process has given defense contractors billions in domestic sales they would not otherwise have enjoyed.

To hear 60 Minutes tell the story, the use of countinsurgency tactics by US police forces began with an "aha moment" in Cutone's head. His program was initiated in 2009. But military scholars were writing about the topic as far back as January 2007, in papers with titles like "Using Counter Insurgency Tactics, Techniques and Procedures to Defeat Gangs in U.S. Cities," when Cutone appears to still have been overseas. And the flow hasn't just gone one way; the military's been studying police anti-gang techniques, too.

60 Minutes viewers heard nothing about that. Nor did they learn that the seemingly self-effacing Cutone has a second career as a religiously-based motivational speaker (video here) who has authored a book called The Leadership of Jesus: Ten Fundamentals of Leadership. He describes his program as "spiritual ammunition."

That doesn't necessarily invalidate his counterinsurgency work, but it provides some context for what may well be self-promotion on Cutone's part. It's also an insight into Cutone's personality that the audience deserved to know so that it could form its own judgments.

The Untold Story

Here's a critical exchange between Stahl and her subject, from the CBS transcript. It takes place after Cutone appears to be helping neighborhood kids find jobs:

Lesley Stahl: But let me ask you something. Those functions that you are performing, that sounds to me like a social service job instead of a police job.

Mike Cutone: If the government is not going to do it, or individuals aren't going to do it, why can't the police provide leadership or partner up with the community and say, "Hey, here's a plan. This is what we want to do to help." Because the status quo of traditional policing, it ain't just gonna work. It's not gonna work.

The "why" in this part of the story is, "Why isn't the government going to do it?"  One reason is because it's not collecting enough in tax revenue to create those jobs. Another reason is that billions of dollars have been spent convincing the media that our most urgent need is to cut government spending, rather than use it to create those much-needed jobs.

Behind the Curtain

One organization has outspent all others in an attempt to lower taxes for the wealthy and corporations, while also pushing an anti-government agenda that emphasizes cuts to Medicare and Social Security along with downsizing of most other government functions.  That organization is the Peterson Foundation, which has funded some worthy ventures but spent a half-billion dollars in one five-year period alone on this government-cutting agenda.

The Foundation is financed by conservative anti-government billionaire Pete Peterson, whose views dominate the Republican Party and are the primary influence for the Democrats' Clinton/Obama wing. Peterson has financed a number of such ventures, and is deeply involved with Fix the Debt. That's an organization of corporate CEOs which is heavily dominated by the defense industry ... the same industry that is benefiting so richly by the militarization of US police forces.

Remember, Counterinsurgency Cops argues that these tactics - tactics which are so beneficial to the CEOs of Fix the Debt - are useful in part because "government is not going to do it."

And who is a Board member of the Peterson Foundation, a relationship which was not disclosed during the broadcast of Counterinsurgency Cops (or on any other 60 Minutes broadcast)?

None other than Lesley Stahl.

In Part Two we address the remaining stories: "Robin Hood" and "Invisible Wounds."

From the May 8 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

Previously:

Conservative Media Misread Data To Declare Gun Violence Epidemic Over

Limbaugh: Scientists Who Accept Global Warming Consensus Are "Political Advocates" Spreading "Misinformation"

Limbaugh: Global Warming Is "A Hoax. It's Already Been Established There Is No Man-Made Global Warming"

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A California mother says that she was forced to pay spousal support to her ex-husband after he raped her daughter for years.

Carol Abar told KCBS that her former husband, Ed Abar, began raping her then-9-year-old daughter soon after she married him in 1991.

But the daughter, who did not wish to be identified, said she did not tell her mother for 16 years because she was terrified of her stepfather.

"He had threatened me that he would kill my mom; he would kill my stepbrothers; he would kill me," she recalled.

When Carol Abar found out, she filed for divorce. Because she made more money than her husband, a judge ordered her to pay alimony of $1,300 a month.

"The judge told me I had no proof. It was my word against him," she explained. “He had been raping her since she was little. Since I got married to him.”

Just last year, Ed Abar finally pleaded guilty to one of four rape charges and was sentenced to over a year in jail. After Carol Abar had paid about $22,000 in support, a judge temporarily halted the payments.

But now that he's out of prison, Carol Abar's ex-husband is asking the court to force her to resume the payments.

"He’s asking not just to resume the existing support of $1,300 a month, but he’s asking for what amounts to approximately $33,000 in past due support and that too is a miscarriage of justice," attorney Brian Uhl, who is representing Carol Abar, said.

Sherry Collins, an attorney for Ed Abar, insisted to KCBS that, her client was "entitled to some relief from the higher income producing spouse, so that the marital standard of living can be maintained."

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) last year signed Assembly Bill 1522 to close a loophole that required some victims of domestic abuse to pay spousal support to their attackers. There is no California law that prevents child abusers from receiving spousal support, but a court could take any history of domestic violence into consideration.

Although Ed Abar is a registered sex offender, a plea deal prevents information about his case from being released to the public. He insisted through his lawyer that he was not guilty and that he only agreed to the plea deal to reduce jail time.

For their part, Carol Abar and her daughter still feel like they are being victimized.

"He victimized a little girl all these years and I have to pay him for that behavior," she lamented. "It just doesn’t make sense to me."

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During what was otherwise a week of really good news when it comes to the LGBT community gaining acceptance and equal rights in states across the country, Rachel Maddow took another shot at PolitiFact during the final segment of her show this Tuesday evening -- for once again ruining the term "fact-checking."

Tennis star Martina Navratilova appeared on Face the Nation this Sunday and discussed the fact that twenty nine states still allow someone to be fired just for being gay, or if their employer believes they are gay, which is true, but PolitiFact decided to rate her claim as only half-true due to other protections or some "exceptions to the rule" as they called them.

As Rachel pointed out in her rant, that doesn't make what Navratilova said "half-true."

MADDOW: And this is why the very important concept of fact-checking has become pointless at a time in our country when we really need it to mean something. Because PolitiFact exists and has branded themselves the generic arbiter of facts and the paragon of fact-checking, and they are terrible at it.

They are terrible. They fact-checked about state law, found it to be true and decided it didn't seem seem seemly or whatever to actually just call it true. Then they researched other unrelated information about how there are other kinds of things besides states, like some companies decide they don't want to discriminate... and doesn't that count for something? No. Because that is not the statement you were fact-checking.

The statement you were supposed to be fact-checking is true, and until somebody figures out how to sue you in order to retrieve the meaning of the word fact from the dark and airless hole you have stuffed it into, Politifact, then no, it is not okay to just make this stuff up. You are truly terrible. Fact-checking has to count for something, and Politifact, you are ruining it for everyone.

As we've already noted here, some of Rachel's beefs with the outlet are by no means the worst we've seen from PolitiFact.

Break out your Tumblr bingo card, because Scott Pilgrim vs the World may not be the Greatest Movie EVER!

Click on the movie poster or the title above to download our review of the film, featuring Tom and Rachel Pandich.

Review in a Nutshell: A technically adept film with outstanding visual composition and moments of genuine humor, Scott Pilgrim vs the World is nonetheless dragged under by an onslaught of unsympathetic characters. It is the triumph of style over substance.

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The man who is being hailed as a hero for rescuing the lives of three women kidnapped for a decade says that he would like any reward money to be turned over to the victims.

Charles Ramsey became an instant Internet sensation on Monday when he helped free Amanda Berry, Georgina DeJesus and Michele Knight from the house next to his where they had been trapped for around 10 years.

"Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little, pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms," he told WEWS following the rescue. "Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway."

On Tuesday, CNN host Anderson Cooper asked Ramsey what it felt like to find out that he had been living next to kidnapping victims.

"See, that's why now I'm having trouble sleeping," he explained. "See, up until yesterday, the only thing that kept me from losing sleep was the lack of money. See what I'm saying? So now that that's going on, and I could have done this last year, not this hero stuff, just do the right thing."

"Because there's a lot of people, they're saying you're a hero," the CNN host noted.

"No, no, no. Bro, I'm a Christian, an American, and just like you," Ramsey insisted. "We bleed same blood, put our pants on the same way. It's just that you got to put that - being a coward, and I don't want to get in nobody's business. You got to put that away for a minute. You have to have cajones, bro."

Cooper noted that the FBI had offered a reward for at least two of the victims.

"I tell you what you do, give it to them," Ramsey said. "Because if folks been following this case since last night, you been following me since last night, you know I got a job anyway."

"Just went picked it up, paycheck," he added, producing an envelope from his pocket. "What that address say?"

"Where are them girls living? Right next door to this paycheck. So yes, take that reward and give it to -- that little girl came out the house and she was crying."

The Midwest has experienced near record flooding this spring, resulting in four deaths, extensive property damage, and disruptions of agriculture and transportation. Evidence suggests that manmade climate change has increased the frequency of heavy downpours, and will continue to increase flooding risks. But in their ample coverage of Midwestern flooding, major media outlets rarely mentioned climate change.

Less Than 3 Percent Of Midwest Flood Stories Mention Climate Change

ABC, NBC And CNN Entirely Ignore Climate Connection. ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN devoted 74 full segments to flooding in the Midwest, but only one -- on CBS Evening News -- alluded to the fact that heavy downpours have increased (one percent of coverage). That segment did not explain that scientists have attributed this to climate change, and did not feature any scientists. MSNBC and Fox News were not included in this analysis because transcripts of their daytime coverage are not available in Nexis. [CBS News, 5/2/13]

USA TODAY Only National Print Outlet To Mention Climate Context Of Floods. USA TODAY, which recently launched a year-long series on the impacts of climate change, was the only national print outlet in our study that mentioned climate change in its reporting on Midwestern floods. The Associated Press, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal never mentioned climate change in a total of 35 articles on the floods. The Washington Post did not cover the flooding independently. In total, only 3 percent of national print coverage mentioned climate change. [USA TODAY, 4/22/13] [Media Matters, major paper of its kind, the researchers used elaborate computer programs that simulate the climate to analyze whether the rise in severe rainstorms, heavy snowfalls and similar events could be explained by natural variability in the atmosphere. They found that it could not, and that the increase made sense only when the computers factored in the effects of greenhouse gases released by human activities like the burning of fossil fuels.

[...]

Scientists have long been reluctant to attribute any specific weather event to global warming, but a handful of papers that do so are beginning to appear in the scientific literature. One such installment is being published on Thursday in Nature as a companion piece to the broader paper. It finds that severe rains that flooded England and Wales in 2000, the wettest autumn since record-keeping began there in 1766, were made substantially more likely by the greenhouse gases released by human activity. [New York Times, 2/16/11]

Climate Models Indicate That Heavy Downpours Will Increase In Midwest. The 2009 National Climate Assessment stated that climate models have projected that the heaviest downpours will increase in North America, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast:

Climate models project continued increases in the heaviest downpours during this century, while the lightest precipitation is projected to decrease. Heavy downpours that are now 1-in-20-year occurrences are projected to occur about every 4 to 15 years by the end of this century, depending on location, and the intensity of heavy downpours is also expected to increase. The 1-in-20-year heavy downpour is expected to be between 10 and 25 percent heavier by the end of the century than it is now.

[...]

[T]he Midwest and Northeast, where total precipitation is expected to increase the most, would also experience the largest increases in heavy precipitation events.

A more recent draft National Climate Assessment similarly found that in the Midwest "[e]xtreme rainfall events and flooding have increased during the last century, and these trends are expected to continue, causing erosion, declining water quality, and negative impacts on transportation, agriculture, human health, and infrastructure." That report included the following map showing the heaviest precipitation (top 2 percent of all rainfalls) is projected to increase by 2041-2070 relative to 1971-2000:

The 2009 report also included the following chart showing that the heavy rainfall is projected to increase compared to 1990s averages, based on climate models used in the IPCC's 2007 assessment report: 

[National Climate Assessment, 2009, in-text citations removed for clarity] [Draft National Climate Assessment, 1/11/13]

Uncertainties Remain About Future Precipitation Patterns. The University of Iowa's page on the "impacts of global climate change on the Midwest" cautions that precipitation projections are more complicated than temperature projections:

Precipitation is much more difficult for climate models to simulate [than temperature]. So we have less confidence in the predictions of changes in precipitation due to climate change (more "mediums" and fewer "highs" in the confidence levels). A complicating issue of assessing changes in precipitation in the Midwest is that we are located close to regions of high precipitation gradients. That is, annual precipitation is much less in western Iowa than eastern Iowa and less in northern Iowa than southern Iowa. In Illinois, there is less in the north than the south, but east-west differences are small. So if precipitation patterns shift eastward, for instance, in a future climate, Iowa will be more affected than Illinois, but both will be affected by a northward shift of higher rainfall. [University of Iowa, accessed 5/1/13]

However, Experts Warn It Is "Irresponsible" To Let Uncertainties Delay Adaptation. A report on "Flood Management In A Changing Climate" by the World Meteorological Organization and the Global Water Partnership warned policymakers and municipal authorities against letting uncertainties delay adaptation:

[T]he scientific knowledge about the climate change and its impacts on the hydro-meteorological extremes such as floods and droughts is far from fully understood thereby making it difficult to assess future risks. Due to this uncertainty; managers can no longer have confidence in single projections of the future. It will also be difficult to detect a clear climate change effect within the next couple of decades, even with an underlying trend. Therefore, use of an adaptive management strategy is essential.

However, it is an irresponsible strategy to wait for less uncertain assessments before implementing adaptation measures, since climate change and its impacts are already taking place. Furthermore, waiting for less uncertain scenarios is a treacherous hope; the results will remain uncertain in future even with increased refinement of scientific methods. [World Meteorological Organization and the Global Water Partnership, August 2009]

Experts Urge Journalists To Incorporate Climate Change Into Flood Coverage

Seven Out Of Eight Scientists Agreed It Is Apt To Mention Climate Change In Flood Coverage. Of eight scientists who responded to inquiries from Media Matters, seven agreed that it is "appropriate" or "advisable" for journalists to explain how manmade climate change could worsen flood risks in the Midwestern United States. One emphasized uncertainty about future precipitation patterns.

Scavia: Media Are "Missing" That This Is The "New Normal." When told of the preliminary results of our analysis, Don Scavia, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Michigan and a lead convening author of the Midwest chapter of the draft National Climate Assessment, stated, "I think they're missing an important piece of information and if you don't make the point that these intense storms are occurring more often, each one looks like a one off event." He said that if you mention the historical trend, "you get a better sense of whether these are just rare and unusual events or a new normal, which is what they really are." He stated that in his view, "it's been actually good to see some of the reporting, such as on The Weather Channel, talk about how these storms are consistent with climate models -- in the past, they never made those observations." Scavia added that this "new normal" "should influence policies associated with building and development, "such as FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) flood plain maps that affect insurance rates and building codes. [Phone conversation, 5/6/13]

Oppenheimer: It Is "Advisable" For The Press To Mention Climate Change Connection. In a phone conversation with Media Matters, Princeton University climate scientist and IPCC lead author Michael Oppenheimer stated that "if [he] were the press," he would state that rainstorms in the Midwest are increasing in frequency, the "models suggest this trend will continue," and "heavy precipitation, all other things being equal, will generally lead to more flooding." Oppenheimer concluded that it would be "not only appropriate, but advisable for the press to include such statements." Oppenheimer cautioned that "it's almost impossible in most situations to connect climate change in a cause and effect way to a particular episode," although some heat waves and other events have been attributed to climate change through modeling. He added that human management practices such as damming have a great influence over whether heavy precipitation leads to flooding. [Phone conversation, 5/1/13]

Trenberth: "Insights As To Why The Flooding Occurs" Are "Welcome." Kevin Trenberth, a Distinguished Senior Scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, wrote in an email to Media Matters:

Yes I think any insights as to why the flooding occurs is always welcome. Of course it is easy to say it is "weather", but the weather occurs in a changed environment: one that has more moisture in the atmosphere overall by about 4 to 5% compared with 30 to 40 years ago, and associated with global warming. More moisture means more rain where and when it does rain: and so greater risk of floods. This affects decisions on what to do subsequently: whether to redo whatever damage was done or redo differently to take account of changing risk? Maybe not build in the flood plain? Etc.

In a subsequent email, Trenberth wrote that there is a trend of the media ignoring climate change even when events that have been made more likely by climate change occur, which is "disappointing and even irresponsible":

What I would add is that coverage of this sort has been dwindling. Last year with all the wild fires and exceptional heat there were very few media reports that mentioned the drought and connections to climate change. The coverage was disappointing and even irresponsible. [Email exchanges, 4/30/13]

Fasullo: It's "Certainly Appropriate To Frame" Midwest Floods In The Context Of Climate Change. John Fasullo, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, wrote in an email to Media Matters:

I think it's reasonable to frame the event in the broader context of recent extremes, especially extreme drought transitioning to flooding from 2010 to 2012 across large portions of the US. In fact, we currently see simultaneous wide-spread flooding and drought conditions in the central of the country (http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu).

Of course the question people are going to reflexively pose is "Is it caused by climate change?" But I think it is much more appropriate to ask whether climate change has influenced these types of events. Clearly the odd behavior we are witnessing, both at the moment and over the past several years, is consistent with the modulating influence of climate change. Quantifying exactly how much of an influence is a complicated task, one that is likely to have considerable uncertainty given the state of current models. I'd await some well-designed targeted studies to address that question (to date I have not seen one) but it is certainly appropriate to frame the topic in the context of climate change's broader influence. [Email exchange, 4/30/13]

Kunkel: Not Understanding How Climate Change Is Impacting Floods May Lead To A "False Sense Of Security" About Infrastructure. When asked whether the press should include statements such as "heavy rainstorms in the Midwest are increasing in frequency and climate change models suggest this trend will continue," Ken Kunkel, a scientist at NOAA's National Climatic Data center who specializes in extreme events, responded "A statement like the one you quote is a reasonable one and does not overstate the scientific understanding about historical trends and possible future changes." He added that we need to understand how climate change is impacting floods so that we do not have a "false sense of security about the adequacy of infrastructure currently being planned and built":

When infrastructure that needs to be resilient to runoff from heavy rain is planned, the design engineers are typically required to use design values for heavy rain, for example, the 100-yr storm. Such design values have been determined by the National Weather Service and are available in a series of publications. However, these design values are based entirely on historical storms and do not incorporate possible future changes due to anthropogenic climate change. One reason this has not been done is that there is no generally-accepted methodology for inclusion of possible future anthropogenically-forced changes. In my own personal research, I am exploring this issue and I personally think we need to provide decision-makers with some guidelines. Otherwise, we may have a false sense of security about the adequacy of infrastructure currently being planned and built. But, there is much research and development that needs to be done to develop guidelines. [Email exchange, 5/3/13]

Meehl: Climate Change Has Increased The "Odds For Flooding" In Midwest. Jerry Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a lead IPCC author, told Media Matters that "it's hard to attribute a particular event to a particular cause, and the way I always try to present it is you've shifted the odds for these precipitation and flooding events." He added that it's become "difficult to have any kind of rational discussion" of climate change, which is "discouraging to me because climate change is a science issue not a political issue" and "if I would have one thing to say, it would be let's talk about this as a science issue, climate change is a science issue that affects everyone."

In an earlier email to Media Matters, he explained that "higher levels of greenhouse gases increase the odds for flooding events such as the ones we're seeing now in the upper midwest":

Observations have shown that the northern tier of states has been getting wetter, and the southern tier drier. This is consistent with climate model simulations of the effects of increasing greenhouse gases (basically the wet areas get wetter, the dry get dryer). Observations also show that precipitation intensity has been increasing, and models show this as a signature of increasing temperatures (warmer air holds more moisture, so for a given precipitation event, more rain or snow falls--when it rains it pours). These atmospheric responses to higher levels of greenhouse gases increase the odds for flooding events such as the ones we're seeing now in the upper midwest. [Email exchange, 5/1/13]

Budikova: "I'm Not Sure" Why Media Are Not Tying In Climate Context Of Floods.  Dagmar Budikova, a scientist at Illinois State University who has published research about climate change and Midwestern flooding, stated in a phone conversation that "you can tie it in, but you have to do it very carefully." She said that journalists "could be doing that and I'm not sure why they wouldn't be." She added they may simply be "trying to be very careful" as "reporting on climate change is not a simple task" and it is "dangerous" to "assume that anything anomalous is related to climate change." However, she stated, in the case of Midwestern flooding, "the literature is definitely converging to this idea" that flooding is increasing, and "more and more evidence is mounting to suggest that it may have to do with anthropogenic climate change." When asked whether it was important for the media to mention the climate context of the floods to make the public more aware, she said "I would think that probably the more aware people are about anything really, the better we are off" and that it is most likely that "the media would be the vehicle" to bring it to the public's attention. [E-mail, 5/1/13] [Phone conversation, 5/6/13]

Hirsch: It's A "Reasonable Hypothesis" But "Evidence Is Unclear" On Whether Precipitation Will Continue To Increase. Robert Hirsch, a research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, wrote in an email to Media Matters that while it's a "reasonable hypothesis that anthropogenic climate change could change flooding risks," the increase in precipitation may not continue. In a phone conversation, Hirsch added that while climate models have projected further precipitation of the region, "there's been very little testing," which is done through hindcasting, of whether these models are skillful. From his email:

I think it is a reasonable hypothesis that anthropogenic climate change could change flooding risks. However, the evidence to date is very unclear about this, and we know that the climate models, while they may be able to project changes in temperature fairly well do not do well at all when it comes to the kind of heavy precipitation events that produce floods. What we know when we look at the last 140 years or so in the midwest, that there have been some pretty large swings in the size of floods, and much of that is probably not related to anthropogenic climate change. There were very large floods in the last half of the 19th century, much smaller floods generally in the first half of the 20th century, and now we seem to be in another period of larger floods. We don't think this can be explained by greenhouse forcing, but may be a normal periodic oscillation in the climate.

I would say that human activities on the landscape may be as big a factor or bigger than climate change when it comes to changing the size of floods in this region. Urbanization and land drainage can be significant contributors to increased flooding. [Email exchange, 4/30/13] [Phone conversation, 5/1/13]

Methodology

We searched Nexis and Factiva databases for articles and segments on "flood!" between April 1 and May 3, 2013. Our results include four major television outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN), seven national print outlets (Associated Press, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, USA TODAY, New York Times,  Washington Post, and  Wall Street Journal), and eight local newspapers (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Des Moines Register, Detroit Free Press, Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Indianapolis Star).

New York Daily News and Politico are reporting that Rush Limbaugh's distribution deal with Cumulus Media may soon be over.

Currently, Cumulus Media carries Limbaugh's show on 40 of its stations, including Limbaugh's flagship WABC in New York as well as stations in Chicago, Washington DC and Dallas. If Limbaugh and Cumulus part ways, it would represent a significant reduction in Limbaugh's overall footprint and serve as yet another reminder that Limbaugh's brand is bad for business.

Limbaugh doesn't appreciate how Cumulus' CEO keeps telling investors that the radio host is hurting ad sales and costing the company millions. So, the weekend before Cumulus' first quarter investor meeting, "a source close to" Limbaugh's show went public with word that Limbaugh will walk if Cumulus' CEO continues to speak about the host's negative impact on business.

Indeed. If I were Limbaugh, I wouldn't want the CEO of one of my major affiliates consistently informing the business community that my show is causing millions of dollars in losses every quarter.

This Limbaugh source argues that Cumulus' problems begin and end with Cumulus and insists that Limbaugh's show is not causing any issues in the revenue department. But, reality and Limbaugh's own words demonstrate otherwise.

Cumulus isn't the only radio company reporting significant losses attributable to Limbaugh. Dial Global has also attributed millions in losses to Limbaugh. Many others in the industry report negative consequences resulting from Limbaugh's recklessness. Consequently, this Limbaugh source's contention that Cumulus' advertising problems have nothing to do with Limbaugh falls apart when we look at the rest of the industry. What would this source say in response to the ills faced by other companies in connection to Limbaugh's show? That it's all their fault too?

Additionally, Mediaite reports that "the vast majority of national advertisers now refuse to air their ads during Rush Limbaugh's show." This is consistent with what industry observers have been saying for months as well as my own experience.

Further, Limbaugh himself recently complained about his advertising troubles. Although, Limbaugh blames his advertising woes on mainstream media buyers "trying to harm" him, warning that they "are young women fresh out of college, liberal feminists who hate conservatism."

So, on the one hand, we have multiple radio companies reporting losses directly attributable to Limbaugh's show as well as Limbaugh himself complaining about media buyers. On the other hand, we have an unnamed source close to Limbaugh's show denying reality about Limbaugh's advertiser woes and attacking one of the host's biggest affiliates.

At this point, it doesn't really matter who you believe. The fact that Limbaugh's affiliates are consistently reporting losses and that Limbaugh is now attacking them is evidence of the one thing that has become undeniable: Rush Limbaugh is bad for business.

Onward we go...

You may have heard some recent complaints—or even issued some of your own—regarding Sentai Filmworks' Blu-ray release of Shinichirō Watanabe's Kids on the Slope. To those affected by audio issues on the Japanese language track of episode 11, Sentai is listening, and released details regarding a replacement program. More after the jump.

Make your decisions in the space of seven breaths, because

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is the Greatest Movie EVER!

Click on the movie poster or the title above to download our review of the film,

featuring Sean ‘Hollywood’ Hunting.

Review in a Nutshell: I think I pronounce Jim Jarmusch’s last name about ten different ways in this recording about a movie involving urban samurai, aging gangsters, icecream, and a boat on a roof. I don’t even know who I am any more. What year is this?

This movie contains:

Henry Silva, keeping it real.

Click here to view this media

I'd say these members of Congress ought to be ashamed of their behavior and taking care of themselves first when it comes to fixing any of this budget sequester debacle that's causing real pain and economic harm to many of the most vulnerable among us, but as Jon Stewart noted in his opening segment this Monday, they really do have no shame.

Jon Stewart: Congress doesn’t care about meals-on-wheels unless it is rolling down an aisle:

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart took Congress to task on Monday night for funding air traffic controllers because they were personally affected by flight delays.

“We all know that if you look up Congress in the dictionary it says, ‘Do-nothing fucktards who couldn’t solve a problem if it was eating them alive anus first,’ he said. ”

Congress failed to avert across-the-board budget cuts known as the sequester earlier this year. The indiscriminate cuts have wrought havoc on a number of federal programs, particularly those that provide aid to the poor and needy.

But faced with having to personally experience flight delays at airports because of the cuts, Congress moved fast to remedy the problem.

“Congress doesn’t care about meals-on-wheels unless it is rolling down an aisle,” Stewart joked.

He noted legislators were not even embarrassed to have so plainly acted in their own self-interest. In fact, they congratulated themselves, leading Stewart to coin the new term, “congratsturbating.”

Correspondent Aasif Mandvi followed up with some "man on the street" interviews with some less powerful victims of these sequester cuts, such as soup kitchens and cancer treatment centers, where he discovered these cuts weren't quite the joke that some of the pundits in our media have been making them out to be.

Click here to view this media

Otaku mecca Akihabara was bustling last week for the home video debut of Evangelion 3.33. Lammtarra Media World Akiba, a shop known for its character and idol goods, along with plenty of more ero merchandise, had a particular way of getting noticed. Namely, the sales woman for the launch was model Luna Amemiya in Rei cosplay. get a look after the jump.

If you were into Japanese movies in the early '00s, you likely couldn't escape the hype of Ryuhei Kitamura's low-budget, gory action flick Versus. With Tak Sakaguchi in the lead, it was all everyone talked about for a while, and now Kitamura recently announced plans to film a sequel next year. Read on for more.

A special Killer is Dead TV episode features Zappa's boss Vivian Squall and assistant Mika Takekawa showing off the Gigolo Glasses and more. It's not subtitled, but you'll also be able to catch some fresh gameplay footage in the video after the jump.

Voting has come to an end for the third Skullgirls DLC character, and the winner is… Eliza! Lab Zero Games announced the results earlier, and there's still one more character left for fans to choose. More after the jump.

As we walked down the hallways of NERV Headquarters inside Evangelion World at the Fuji-Q Highland theme park in Japan, we saw a series of doors with peepholes installed in them.  We noticed other folks looking in, so we did the same.  The peepholes were clever views into rooms where NERV staff (Misato, Kaji, etc.) were “working” on various things.  One door, though, seemed somewhat odd for the fact that the peephole what LOWER than normal.  I bent over, curious, and looked into it:

What I saw inside was EXACTLY what you expected in an Evangelion theme park attraction.

Yup. It was there so you could look up Misato’s skirt.

Welcome to Japan.

Keeping “in theme” with the exciting entertainment this attraction was providing, we came across a changing room where Rei was getting into her pilot suit.  Shannon sat there and waited for her.

Did I mention we were in Japan?

After navigating through Evangelion World, we came to the FINALE of the attraction…

But more on that tomorrow…

Yesterday saw the release of Before Watchmen: Comedian #6, ending this big experiment and going out on a whimper. The whole Before Watchmen concept was announced 15 months ago to a tornado of controversy and online arguments. One of the things that kept it so prominent in the internet news cycle was how many talking points it brought up. Some were mad because DC Comics screwed Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons out of the rights to the series. Some were annoyed because Watchmen was such a self-contained classic that you can’t really add to it. Some felt that even if you did add to it, what’s left to be said? Some noted how desperate for money DC came off as when a 12-issue series was prequelized into 37 issues, plus a backup.

(Sorry, it’s my nature.)

The announcement appeared to be one of the straws that broke the camel’s back for David. David’s since stopped reading any and all new Marvel and DC titles and hasn’t looked back. I’m not so affected by the im-Moore-ality of DC’s actions and I’m more enthralled by the circus of this move than the comics themselves. As a comic blogger, my own philosophy is that I would love for every comic I read to be good, but if it isn’t, I hope to God it’s at least interesting because that can sometimes be even better. Whether you loved or hated the idea of more Watchmen comics, you have to admit that the audacity of it is interesting as all hell, else nobody would be talking about it.

I decided to give it a fair enough shake. I didn’t read every single comic. I didn’t even read every single series. After the fact, they announced a one-shot of Dollar Bill (which I merely flipped through) and a two-part Moloch story. From what I understand, the Moloch one wasn’t bad.

Nite Owl by JMS and Joe Kubert was something I gave up on two issues in. It had its moments, but it just didn’t grab me. I guess it lost me because the origin aspects of the character are pretty good, but then JMS rushes through that so he could get to Nite Owl and Rorschach being a team. If anything, I did like an idea introduced about how Nite Owl and Rorschach don’t see eye-to-eye because of the way they remember their mothers affecting how they see women. I just found the series pretty boring and I was already feeling anti-JMS from his more recent DC work.

I didn’t feel the need to pick up Dr. Manhattan by JMS and Adam Hughes because I just didn’t have any faith in JMS at this point. I’ve heard mixed reviews swaying towards negative, but the art is apparently pretty.

Comedian by Brian Azzarello and JG Jones got a lot of flak in its first issue for its ending. In it, we discover that not only was Comedian NOT involved with the assassination of JFK, but he genuinely loved the guy and was broken up over it. This got criticism, since the main series shows Blake making a joke about being the one who pulled the trigger while the movie outright shows that he did it. If anything, that ending was one of my favorite things about this miniseries, mainly with how it ties into the final issue, where we see Blake’s involvement in the other Kennedy assassination. It strengthens the series by making it the journey of a man who is 90% corrupt becoming 99% corrupt. That said, while I like the bookends of the mini, as a whole it wasn’t my bag. Seeing the Comedian be a scummy dickhead in Vietnam isn’t a good time.

Azzarello also wrote Rorschach with Lee Bermejo on art. On paper, this sounded awesome. This is a creative team that gave us Joker and Lex Luthor: Man of Steel. Surely, they could do something with the series’ most popular character. What we got was a story about Rorschach being a gritty badass, which I can see the appeal of, but it just didn’t engage me enough to keep paying attention. The only thing that got me to come back was the hilarious situation in the third issue where Rorschach gets into a cab driven by Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver. It’s a decision that’s both fitting and surreal and I have to take a second and smile at its existence.

My buddy Nawid was telling me last night that both Azzarello books were really bad. I disagree. I think they were both pretty bad. Thing is, Before Watchmen couldn’t afford to be pretty bad. It had huge shoes to fill and while it would never be able to fill said shoes in the eyes of many, it at least had to make enough of an effort.

Ozymandias by Len Wein and Jae Lee is something I read in its entirety because I love Lee’s art. Too bad it’s the worst comic of the whole lot. To the credit of all the other Before Watchmen comics, at least they try to do their own thing. They tell their own stories. They may not be the best stories, but at least the writers were trying something. Ozymandias is a Wikipedia article that’s nice to look at. It was just a lengthy explanation of how Adrian Veidt came to be and how he set up the events in Watchmen. There’s no great character moments or, really, any character moments at all. He appears incredibly robotic compared to his Watchmen self and even situations that could be interesting are muted by his complete lack of emotion. For instance, we see an origin story for how he started fighting crime as Ozymandias due to his girlfriend being killed by Moloch’s drugs. This would be great if there was any indication that he actually felt anything for her at any point.

Then we have Silk Spectre by Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Connor. This one is a fun ride. Beautiful and funny, this miniseries actually suffers from being part of the Watchmen universe and not the other way around. As good as it is, once the final issue hits, the series remembers that, oh yeah, Watchmen happens and has to put all of its toys back in the box. It’s frustrating, but otherwise, the four-issue mini is totally worth checking out.

Finally, there’s Minutemen by Darwyn Cooke. I haven’t really checked out the sales for Before Watchmen, but I know that Minutemen was at the bottom. That’s a shame, since it’s the only Before Watchmen title that truly works. Cooke walks the walk and somehow pulls off a six-issue series that is brilliant on its own, yet deserves to be accepted as the little brother of Watchmen. I’d say that if you ever wanted to give the prequels a shot, just go with this miniseries and Silk Spectre. Luckily, the two are put together in the first hardcover Before Watchmen trade.

I think it’s telling of what worked and what didn’t. One of the big criticisms of the prequel concept was, “Didn’t they say everything that needed to be said in Watchmen?” That came to be true, in a sense. Rorschach, Nite Owl, Ozymandias and to a lesser extent Comedian were too defined with their histories. There wasn’t much newness that could be tossed into the mix, which made it seem pointless outside of the blatant cash grab. Silk Spectre was arguably underused in the main series, never truly existing on her own but more in response to other characters. The Minutemen and Moloch were supporting characters with vaguely defined histories. There was easily enough wiggle room to create a world within that didn’t cause cracks in what Moore and Gibbons built.

Oh yeah, there was also the Crimson Corsair backup stories, but I didn’t read any of those. To anyone who did pay attention: Was there any point to them at all? The pirate story in the original book was meant to be a metaphor for Ozymandias’ actions. Was the backup supposed to represent something similar or was it just pirates cutting each other?

Anyway, with Before Watchmen having come and gone, my feeling is this: I wish they would have just gone with Minutemen. It wouldn’t have made them nearly as much money, but it probably would have been the best scenario for PR and quality outside of never doing any of this in the first place. Less people would be angry, DC would come off far less greedy and desperate and we’d have a better batting average under the Watchmen banner. There would still be criticism for Moore and Gibbons’ treatment, but I don’t think it would have looked like such a massive railing against the company as it turned out to be.

Despite the bad comics and decisions that may have come from this, I still say it’s less hurtful to the original story than the Sam Hamm movie we almost got in the 80′s. At least nobody in Ozymandias yelled, “CHRIST ALMIGHTY, IT’S THE GODDAMN WATCHMEN!”Similar Posts:

• 25 Jokes About Kevin Smith’s Before Watchmen
• This Week in Panels: Week 145
• The Watchmen That Almost Was
• if newsarama knew better, it would do better
• This Week in Panels: Week 100 SUPER SPECIAL EXTRAVAGANZA! (Part 2)

Did you know that inside the Fuji-Q Highland theme park there’s a section dedicated to the anime, manga, and movies of Neon Genesis Evangelion?  NOW YOU DO:

That’s right, fellow anime nerds. There is an entire theme park attraction designed around the popular franchise in Japan featuring a walk through full of amazing statues, photo ops, and production material. This is the first thing you see in the first room of the attraction:

The statue, on a pedestal, is about four to five feet tall. SO AWESOME. As you walk further in, you come across a replica of the SEELE conference room where Gendo would meet and discuss (audio only!) evil, evil things.  You know, this room:

Yup. THAT room.

NERDGASM!!!

Here’s a photo of Shannon next to one of the pillars for size:

As you probably guessed, since it’s themed around Neon Genesis Evangelion, all of the photo ops they had set up were 100% pleasant and designed to make you feel wonderful about life.

YES I AM LYING.

Here’s a creepy photo of me as Lilith, the second angel.

Not creepy enough for you? Well picture this: the photo taken right before me was from a couple with their infant AND THEY PUT THE INFANT’S FACE IN THE PHOTO. (I tried to covertly get a pic of this but failed.)

More to come.

Pictured are Rep. Paul Ryan (left) and former intern Adam Savader (right).

Um, Republican family values?

Adam Savader, reportedly a former intern for Paul Ryan, was arrested and charged with Internet extortion and cyber stalking by the FBI on Tuesday. Savader apparently sent anonymous text messages to 15 women saying he had nude photographs and threatening to distribute them unless he was sent more photographs. If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in prison.

FBI:

A 21-year-old Great Neck, New York man was charged in a criminal complaint in the Eastern District of Michigan with Internet extortion and cyber stalking, announced United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade.

Joining in the announcement were Special Agent in Charge Robert D. Foley, III, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Chief John Seto, Ann Arbor Police Department.

According to the affidavit, from May 2012 through February 2013, Adam Paul Savader sent anonymous text messages using Google Voice numbers to 15 women stating that he had nude photographs of the women and threatening to distribute the nude photographs to the women’s friends and family members unless the women sent him more nude photographs of themselves. Savader sent some of the victims links to a photo-sharing website where nude pictures of the victims had been posted.

The case was brought to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation by detectives from the Ann Arbor Police Department, who received a complaint from a victim stating that she had received threatening messages from a person who had illegally obtained nude photographs of her from her e-mail account. Detectives with the Ann Arbor P.D. partnered with FBI agents to investigate the case and together identified 15 victims in Detroit; Washington, D.C.; and Long Island, New York.

If convicted on these charges, Savader faces a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.

Savader is currently in federal custody in New York awaiting removal to Michigan.

Savader was also a former campaign intern for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney , as well as an intern for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

He allegedly preyed on women from Michigan, Washington, D.C., and Long Island, prosecutors said, many of whom he knew from high school.

The tech-savvy GOP member has a presence on various social media networks including Facebook and Twitter, reports the Daily News, where he has more than 17,000 followers.

Pictured are failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney (left) and former campaign intern, Adam Savader (right).

No surprises here, but in a new study the Bloomberg administration has found that half the residents of New York City are "poor" or "near-poor," meaning that they were "making less than 150 percent of the poverty threshold." A small increase in the number of poor-- 3 percent since 2009 -- yet again, a telling marker in the city with the billionaire mayor and over 50,000 homeless men, women and children sleeping in shelters each night.

The city’s analysis warned that cutbacks in federal programs could threaten any recovery and place pressure on the next mayor to maintain or expand public assistance.

“The recent increase in the state minimum wage affects the working poor and near-poor, and paid sick days are important, but missing rungs in the ladder make it really hard to climb out of poverty,” said Nancy Rankin, vice president for policy research and advocacy at the Community Service Society, which lobbies on behalf of the poor.

New York City's billionaire mayor, btw, opposed both the minimum wage increase and paid sick days.

America’s most iconic city now has the same inequality index as Swaziland, note the editors at The Nation.