![irony-meter[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/irony-meter1.jpg?quality=83)
Middle East “Big Oil” funded media outlet buys Al Gore’s CURRENT TV with plans to infiltrate offer the English Al Jazeera channel into American homes – my Irony Meter pegged.
Will it be the “All Al” channel now?
Some details…
From NYT’s Media decoder
9:16 p.m. | Updated Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news giant, has long tried to convince Americans that it is a legitimate news organization, not a parrot of Middle Eastern propaganda or something more sinister.
It just bought itself 40 million more chances to make its case.
Al Jazeera on Wednesday announced a deal to take over Current TV, the low-rated cable channel that was founded by Al Gore, a former vice president, and his business partners seven years ago. Al Jazeera plans to shut Current and start an English-language channel, which will be available in more than 40 million homes, with newscasts emanating from both New York and Doha, Qatar.
For Al Jazeera, which is financed by the government of Qatar, the acquisition is a coming of age moment. A decade ago, Al Jazeera’s flagship Arabic-language channel was reviled by American politicians for showing videotapes from Al Qaeda members and sympathizers. Now the news operation is buying an American channel, having convinced Mr. Gore and the other owners of Current that it has the journalistic muscle and the money to compete head-to-head with CNN and other news channels in the United States.
Al Jazeera did not disclose the purchase price, but people with direct knowledge of the deal pegged it at around $500 million, indicating a $100 million payout for Mr. Gore, who owned 20 percent of Current.
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Al Jazeera apparently has been looking for ways to sneak in for some time. Al Gore provided them the key.
In thinking of what I’d like to say to Mr. Gore about this, I’m reminded of House Speaker Boehner’s missive to Harry Reid making the news today.
There’s a silver lining though, next time Gore bloviates about climate skeptics “being in the pay of big oil”, we can hit him upside the head with his own pathetic hypocrisy.
As for cable TV subscribers, I’d say the best way to exercise your rights of protest is to not pay your bill, and/or disconnect. That will be my choice should it show up in my home.
UPDATES: (via Tom Graves in comments)
“Glenn Beck Tried to Buy Current TV But Was Rejected”
http://news.yahoo.com/glenn-beck-tried-buy-current-tv-rejected-032853589–finance.html
“Time Warner Cable Drops Al Gore’s Current TV Due To Purchase By Al Jazeera”
@richardscourtney Richard. I read your comment soon after it was posted but wanted to take a little time to consider my response. I went for a walk and requisitioned two fine bottles of Chardonnay. everything tastes better with wine? Right?
As you Richard, are no doubt aware I am an infrequent poster on WUWT although I have tried recently to alter that with more posting. The fact is I’m not nearly as academically qualified as many such as yourself here, although I am sick of being told “you are not a scientist, what do you know?” in arguments elsewhere so am starting a bachelors in environmental sciences this month. it won’t make me a scientist but it might give me a little to fight back with and who knows later?
My comments are more provoked by experience or the comments of others touching on areas where i do have some expertise, such as construction and boatbuilding, to name a couple. I find myself often not commenting on a WUWT post because i don’t feel qualified to add to the discussion but I try to chime in when i can as I believe this is a very important time for the topic we all share a passion for and I’d like to say that I was a small part of it at the forefront of the discussion. Time will tell on that count.
my initial comments may have been a little clumsy, but were intended to suggest that people of America especially, open their minds to more sources of information. can you ever have too much data?
Perhaps i goofed. It’s been a difficult day since then. My comments are usually glossed over and ignored as well they might be but today there was some interest and i think it’s courteous to at least acknowledge those that address you if not always reply.
I knew that I had chosen a particularly awkward example for my case but could not think of a better one. i expected some feedback. ( as i type I notice I’m not always capitalising letters, please forgive this as it is a quirk of my keyboard and so laborious to correct later ) I didn’t however expect some of the accusations which followed,especially after I made my position quite clear. maybe that was naive but i am a man who you will hear described as “rough”, “hard”, “forthright” and i’m sure you will understand when i say that i don’t need anyone to jump to my defence. I feel i have that in hand.
yet here i was after a particularly difficult day feeling not a little annoyed at some commentators and their willingness to misconstrue or twist my words to their own agenda and throw in a little insult to boot.
You Richard are amongst a number of contributors to this site whom I hold in the highest regard. Not only for your academic ability but for you wisdom and plain old common sense. So it was with some surprise that i read your comment to me above and became a little emotional, hence the walk.
As mentioned, i didn’t need anyone in my corner but it was no small comfort to read that you were anyway.
for those words Richard you have my gratitude and humility.
Regards,
Craig Frier.
@TomR,Worc,MA,USA
Tom, please don’t be overly concerned. For reasons given above i have been a little snappy today. thank you for your response and there is certainly no need for an apology. I just hope that I’ve made myself understood, eventually, and I’ve made no long-term enemies
News is data. Lets welcome all new datasets that allow us to come to the best conclusion.
@Zoot.
If Israel lays down all its arms, will it’s enemies as well? Peace is all they want, right?
Al Jazeera may be as credible as any USA media, which is still saying they are far less than adequate or what is needed in our media worldwide. Additionally, the overwhelming majority of Middle Eastern citizens are not free to criticize their govt, media, or religion. Forgive me if I keep their reporting in the proper perspective.
George E. Smith says:
January 2, 2013 at 10:02 pm
“”””…..nga Din says:
January 2, 2013 at 8:53 pm
January 2, 2013 at 8:01 pm
(Zoot) I would urge you, America to be careful of how you discuss this simply to avoid looking foolish. Yes the USA prides itself on being the land of the free but for the majority of us looking in we can see the falsity of this especially with regard to your media and especially with regard to middle east reporting about Israel.
Your media, the big newspapers especially are incredibly biased with reporting about , Israel and whilst you will hear atrocious stories of how filthy Arab terrorist murdered a poor schoolgirl you won’t read about the 100′s of Palestinian children killed in sweeping missile attacks every month.
============================================================================
(Me) “They have smart bombs that only target children? The “filthy Arab terrorist” have smart rockets that avoid children?……”””””
(George) Well I don’t know who said what here Gunga, but, if it was you, then you are being deceived……
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Sorry about the mix up , George. When I copied zootcadilac’s comment I missed his name so it looks like I was the author of the entire comment. The top part was his. The part under the “=========” was my response to him.
Zoot, your initial post received the response it did because of your propensity for calling out others for being biased and hypocritical, yet the post (apparently inadvertantly) highlighted the fact that that is precisely what YOU are.
Perhaps before pointing out the mote in your neighbor’s eye, you first locate the timber in your own.
You know what they say Zoot…the flak is heaviest when you’re right over the target!
ZootCadillac;
I just hope that I’ve made myself understood, eventually, and I’ve made no long-term enemies
>>>>>>>>>>>>
There are other kinds?
If you want to make a point, I suggest that you find another topic to use as an example in the future.
Given the option of being locked in a room for the purpose of simultaneously teaching a pig to fly, a crocodile not to bite, and to confiscate a salmon from a hungry grizzly bear OR being tasked with sorting out mid east politics, I would choose the former. The latter is a much more difficult problem with considerably more hazards to life and limb and a lower chance of success.
Well, if Anthony is going to host posts about the media as well as about science, that’s fine by me. I haven’t watched Al Jazeera often enough to have an opinion, but I have to agree with Adam when he writes (January 2, 2013 at 7:34 pm):
“It will be good to see some balance in the news reporting. CNN FOX SKY et al are not exactly giving Americans a true picture of what is going on in the world. US Citizens should be watching PressTV and Russia Today to get a bit of balance.”
ZootCadillac;
I just hope that I’ve made myself understood, eventually, and I’ve made no long-term enemies
=============================================================================
No enemy here.
And just to be clear, when I asked you if you condemned 9/11, that was an honest question. From what you had said I wasn’t sure.
As far as Al Jazzy goes, I stand by my first comment, “I wish Al all the success with Current TV that Al had.”
ZootCadillac says: By contrast the Palestinians are using home made rockets with no targeting electronics. they calculate the fuel needed to reach a certain area and point and hope. The Israelis choose their targets with American weapons, the Palestinians just fire their darts in angry retribution at an occupying nation.
The Palestinians allow Hamas to operate within their borders. They allow them to indiscriminately fire thousands or rockets at Israeli’s and have for many years. They allow Hamas to hide behind women and children, businesses, hospitals and religious institutions in firing those weapons.
Hamas does not care, nor do the Palestinians that allow them, about who they target or who they kill.
You note Israel’s sophisticated and accurate weapons. They DO work and when used are designed and targeted to minimize collateral damage. When Hamas cowardly surrounds themselves with innocents – and the Palestinians let them – they bear the responsibility for the collateral damage – the unnecessary deaths of women, children and civilians.
You ignore Israel’s remarkable restraint and denigrate their limited and measured use of their sophisticated and powerful weapons, and decry innocent casualties. While minimizing the impact of tens of thousands of Hamas rockets indiscriminately fired at Israel, and that it is directly as a result of Hamas hiding behind innocents that they are at risk.
I would be predisposed and likely to support the Palestinians in a normal situation. But they have made very clear they have little real interest in peace.
I am quite certain that a share of the military assistance to Israel, with their blessing, would gladly be turned in to “butter” for Palestine if they truly wanted peace – if they committed to wiping out Hamas and the like once and for all. Hamas however lives and thrives on hate, so I see it as highly unlikely things will change.
And we are quite well informed here as well. Intelligent folks understand the limitations of the MSM – we have this thing called the internet, that Windbag in Chief Al Gore claims to have invented. We can find out all sorts of things there.
ZootCadillac says…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
From the untangling I have tried to do, I would say when it comes to war you have to look at who is going to make money. The ordinary citizens are always given various reasons most of which are propaganda. There is really only two reasons leaders actually go to war.
# 1. The resources acquired are greater than the resources spent.
# 2. Someone else has the goal of acquiring your resources.
Historically kings had to pay for war out of their own pockets, booty and through taxes. This put a cap on war because the peasants would only put up with so much tax before revolting and the king faced war on two fronts. With fractional reserve banking the bankers could print money for the government to spend and the ‘peasants’ unknowingly paid for it through the tax called wage-devaluation/price-inflation. This allowed taxes to be raised way passed where the peasants would normally allow. That is where we are now with real tax rates ~80% in the USA.
Hyper-inflation is the terminal stage of any fiat currency and the west is built on fiat currencies. So there is now a concerted effort by the bankers to switch from the US dollar as the World Reserve Currency to a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund or a carbon-based international reserve currency This allows the system to be reset and the game to start all over again.
Because fractional reserve banking allows a disconnect between cause and effect, wars can now be fought so a certain segment of the population gains even though the country as a whole is impoverished. This is why “Follow the Money” has become so important and there is nothing like a variety of news sources to help you ‘follow the money’
ZootCadillac,
I went back and read your posts, and I didn’t really see anything too extreme. I’ve certainly seen worse. You did a good job explaining your comments, so I wouldn’t worry about it. Internet rules require that comment amnesia takes over within about 72 hours. A week from now almost no one will remember who said what.
One thing I would like to correct about your perception of U.S. media. You write: “I’ve seen US media often, it still amazes me that many posters here see Fox news as a legitimate source as opposed to the far-right political activist mouthpiece it has become.”
From the perspective of most Americans, Fox is not “far right”. It only appears that way because the rest of the mainstream media is so far left. Americans consistently self-identify in Gallup polls as “conservatives” at double the numbers that they self-identify as “liberals”.
I shot my TV many years ago. But I know that Americans have made Fox their #1 media outlet because Fox reflects their views. But to my perspective, Fox is too liberal. I am an original Constitution and Bill of Rights kinda guy. Most changes since then have made things worse. We used to be the United States. No longer. Now we are subjects of the Federal Government.
Anyway, I used to see the print and television media as a good thing. No more. Now it is a propaganda operation intent on telling Americans what to think. So thank goodness for the internet!
Hmm …maybe I could sell them Air America?
Perhaps Al Gore selling out to Big Oil will result in death to “the deniers are funded by Big Oil” line of argument.
“ZootCadillac says:
January 2, 2013 at 8:01 pm
I would urge you, America to be careful of how you discuss this simply to avoid looking foolish. Yes the USA prides itself on being the land of the free but for the majority of us looking in we can see the falsity of this especially with regard to your media and especially with regard to middle east reporting about Israel.
Your media, the big newspapers especially are incredibly biased with reporting about , Israel and whilst you will hear atrocious stories of how filthy Arab terrorist murdered a poor schoolgirl you won’t read about the 100′s of Palestinian children killed in sweeping missile attacks every month.”
————————————————————————————————————————————
The word “LIAR” comes to mind. You should be blaming you comrades like Hamas for this (and we all know that “100’s” is total exaggeration) It’s well known that groups like Hamas setup rocket launchers in neighborhoods in and around schools and hospitals well knowing that if Israel is forced to retaliate; innocent people may get killed. Israel doesn’t put offensive weapons in neighborhoods, so why does Hamas fire rockets into Israel’s neighborhoods?
Crawl back into your hole Zootcadillac!
I shall go out on a limb and state that the most reliable news source I’ve found on television is Beck’s new station The Blaze.
I know some of you will roll your eyes; some of you think Beck is nuts; some of you may even consider my position to be in poor taste or undeserving of serious consideration.
But you should judge for yourself rather than swallow the MSM’s estimation (they do have a vested interest in their disparagement of Beck, you know).
Should you want a face-to-face evaluation, The Blaze can be found on Dish Network, channel 212 and while it costs something like $5 a month as a Dish add-on, I’ve found the information there to be spot-on and refreshingly devoid of ideological filtering or bias (One of Beck’s main reasons for leaving CNN and later for leaving Fox, by the way).
And I predict someday The Blaze with be a substantial player in reporting the news with a reputation for accuracy and hard-hitting analysis.
D Böehm says:
January 3, 2013 at 2:24 pm
You in particular would be happy watching The Blaze–the only station I know that is in line with your “original Constitution and Bill of Rights” identity. Or you can catch segments of The Blaze TV on the Internet if your TV is dead.
A. Scott says:
January 3, 2013 at 2:09 pm
“…….they have made very clear they have little real interest in peace. …”
You too would have little interest in peace if your country had been systematically dismembered during your lifetime:
Maps of Israeli settlements: (most will not bother to look, but take a few seconds… that is all it takes to see on one page what has happened to the Palestinians)
http://inpursuitofjustice.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/new-un-map-chart-west-bank-reality/
I know right from wrong, and I do recognize someone who is saying one thing, yet doing another.
Rocky Road,
The Blaze is one of my bookmarks.
markx;
Maps of Israeli settlements: (most will not bother to look, but take a few seconds… that is all it takes to see on one page what has happened to the Palestinians)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You can no more understand what has happened to the Palestinians by looking at that map than you can understand CO2’s effect on climate by looking at GISS. Much ill has befallen those poor people, but staring at a frozen moment in time will tell you nearly nothing about why.
BradProp1 says: January 3, 2013 at 5:36 pm
“ZootCadillac says: ………
and Brad replies…. “The word “LIAR” comes to mind. …”
Brad, I’ll be kinder in my choice of words. In your case, the phrase “fully indoctrinated” comes to mind. Like me you were probably raised in a western world awash with stories about the heroic Israelis standing up to a world of hostile Arabs who seem to object to them settling in some unused desert.
Unfortunately, we did not hear the rest of the story, in that every bit of fertile land in that region was already occupied, and had been owned by generations of farmers who saw it as their own land. Israeli force, and brutality was strongly evident in those early stages. Plenty of history here, for those who are interested: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/origin.html
The Palestinian cause was done a huge disservice in the 70s when extremists hijacked airliners to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians, which they unsurprisingly failed to do, and in the event managed to label the whole of the cause as terrorists.
It never hurts to see the other man’s viewpoint, and to those in here who dread the advent of media and news that has NOT been entirely pre-filtered through a USA/Western society viewpoint, I ask what is it that you fear? There are some “other truths” out there, and the more information we have and the more viewpoints we see the better we are able to make up our own minds.
davidmhoffer says: January 3, 2013 at 6:35 pm
“… Much ill has befallen those poor people, but staring at a frozen moment in time will tell you nearly nothing about why….”
David, I very much respect your viewpoint.
But does that “forsen moment in time” not tell you everything about why the young and fiery are wanting to fight as their land disappears meter by meter, as the all powerful western world picks its nose and looks the other way? As Israeli settlements of 25,000 are approved and built, and dividing roads that they cannot “legally” cross without a permit divide farmers from their land, and family from family?
davidmhoffer says: January 3, 2013 at 6:35 pm
“….You can no more understand what has happened to the Palestinians by looking at that map than you can understand CO2′s effect on climate by looking at GISS. Much ill has befallen those poor people, but staring at a frozen moment in time will tell you nearly nothing about why….”
David, I thought a little more about your statement, and went back and read it again.
It astounds me, perhaps because I respect your factual style.
With all due respect, you are having a Skeptical Science moment there. It was one reference to ably illustrate one point. Surely you do not expect nor wish me to publish here all I have read on the entire history of the Palestine/Israel conflict?
Hummmmmmm…….
markx: If Israel had the same “foreign policy” towards the Palestinians that the Palestinians had toward Israel, there would be NO Palestinians. Assymetric hatred to the point of genocide isn’t a viable foreign policy for any civilized nation; hatred simply destroys–generation after generation for millenia. Someday somebody will realize death (or its equivalent) isn’t a solution.
RS says: January 3, 2013 at 11:35 am
“Wow. $500 MILLION for 47,000 viewers.
Big Al must have done someone a VERY special favor for that…”
RS makes a very good point here. Decades in the SE Asia have taught me the rich and powerful everywhere create many clever ways to get paid for favours.