“You can fool all the people half the time, and half the people all the time.” That quote has been attributed to everyone from Abe Lincoln to P.T. Barnum. Whoever said it doesn’t matter. It’s true. Polls show that about half the people still believe in man-made global warming, despite Climategate and despite an avalanche of evidence to the contrary.

What we found in our movie “An Inconsistent Truth” is that belief in man-made global warming is wide but very shallow. Ask people on the street, as we did, if they believe in global warming and you’re likely to get a confident affirmation. Ask them why they believe it and you’re likely to get the dull stare of a dairy cow or the puzzled and confused gaze of Edith Bunker.

The trouble is most people have been spoon-fed only half the story and as Thomas B. Macaulay once said, “Half knowledge is worse than ignorance.” Indeed. People have taken Al Gore’s claims of global calamity at face value despite his propensity to lie. Remember, he’s the man who once claimed to have created the Internet.

It’s a shame but most people are simply incurious creatures. Some may call it intellectual laziness but the fact is people are just too busy living their own lives to devote any serious study to global warming. Being a talk radio host I do nothing but study the issues, and we spent two-and-a-half years researching and filming “An Inconsistent Truth.” We learned there was actually more time spent by the global warming alarmists trying to scare away the curious than actually cementing their argument. Phrases like “settled science” and “consensus” are the parlance of
politicians and political hacks, not scientists.

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NIRVANA’S “NEVERMIND” IS 20 YEARS OLD?

All I remember about this album is that it ushered in the grunge era which in turn forced me to stop wearing flannel shirts because I’d rather be dead than trendy. Yep, it’s been two decades since I wore flannel.

Is it safe now?

That music was so depressing, though. I used to call it “Songs to Kill Yourself By.” It seemed like all the fun went out of popular music as it became narcissistic and  angst-driven. Laugh all you want at the music of the 80s, the big-haired metal bands and all that, but at least thet music  was about living, about being young and in love and free. Rebellion is a much more attractive message than wallowing.

KIRSTEN DUNST: ‘PEOPLE WHO DON’T GET DEPRESSED ARE WEIRD’

Actually, people who think it’s weird to not get depressed are weird.

‘PEOPLE FLEE A POLLUTED EARTH BY GOING BACK 85 MILLION YEARS…’

We open in 2149 and things are going just as badly as ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ predicted.

This L.A. Times review of ‘Terra Nova’ lost me with that nonsense until…

…yes, there will be rampaging voracious dinosaurs….

Why didn’t you say so to begin with?

(more…)

The sin here is not so much the left-wing politics as it is the potentially heavy-handed storytelling. What sounds like a fascinating concept – a fascinating device to explore the human condition — is seemingly going to be intruded upon by a stupidly divisive enviro-message.

Via Reuters:

“We all know we’re going to die every moment of every day,” [director Abel Ferrara] told reporters after a press screening of the movie in Venice. “What you do in the meantime is what life is all about.”

News footage, including a real interview by environmental campaigner and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, makes clear that the cause of Earth’s demise is man-made.

“This film is about man’s destruction of the Earth,” Ferrara said.

“It’s on us. It’s our responsibility. We did it. This isn’t an accident, or an act of God as they say in the insurance claim. This is an act of man.

“That’s a nightmare. That’s part of the anguish. There’s a lot more further advanced civilizations than ours that have bit the dust … it’s not like: ‘Oh my God, this could never happen’.” …

Asked whether Gore was officially attached to the film, the director said he had “reached out” to the former U.S. vice president and that he was “definitely pro,” although he had not seen it.

Ferrara is responsible for two of my favorite films of the ’90s: “Bad Lieutenant” and “King of New York.” Twenty years later, both still resonate thanks to two amazing central performances that bring to life complicated characters living in Ferrara’s thematically-driven world. Because of the explicit subject matter, these aren’t films I would recommend to everyone, but if you want to learn how to deliver a compelling character study to the screen, you won’t find better examples. The key to their success, however, is the word “theme.” There’s no agenda at work, nothing preachy, no divisive message. Of all directors, you would think Ferrara would know better.

When you create a fantasy world where Al Gore’s nonsense, lies and hypocrisy are proven correct, how does that add to your story?  

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In an effort to further promote the message of love, peace, and the type of compassion intrinsic to all dedicated liberals, Alec Baldwin, a paunchy comedian with anger issues, called attention to what he feels is Michele Bachmann’s inability to articulate by inarticulately spewing obscenities in the Minnesota congresswoman’s direction by way of Twitter.

Within seconds of Michele announcing she’d decided to launch a bid for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, it became clear that not one iota of liberal negativity toward conservatives has abated.

Over the past few days, the rock world has joined the fun by publicly stepping forward in an effort to send a message to the latest object of targeted political ridicule, Michele Bachmann. The goal is to drive home the point that liberal rock musicians disapprove of both Bachmann’s politics and her audacity in thinking she actually has a chance to send honorary rock star Barack Obama back to Chicago.

Following Alec Baldwin’s Twitter tirade, Tom Petty, a Mad Hatter in sunglasses, decided it was his turn to deny Bachmann, without explanation, the use of one of his hit songs. Petty is so anti-GOP he forbade Michele Bachmann from playing  “American Girl” as a musical backdrop to her announcement to run for president.

Apparently, the last thing Tom Petty wants to be associated with is writing the signature anthem that could accompany a female Republican candidate on the trip from Minnesota to the White House.  So, to prevent that from happening, the rocker sent a three-word message to Michele: “Cease and desist.” (more…)

Apparently, instead of just wallowing in the misery that must have attended getting canned by MSNBC back in January, Olbermann has spent part of his hiatus from the public eye rubbing elbows with “top progressive…voices” like Richard Lewis, Ken Burns, and the always adorable Michael Moore (yes, the same Moore who helped raise $50,000 for the ground zero mosque and who still believes universal healthcare will work in America regardless of its miserable showing in Europe and Canada).

Moreover, Olbermann recently announced that Lewis, Burns, and Moore, will all be part of his new show, set to premier on Al Gore’s Current TV on June 20, 2011.

As it concerns Moore, this announcement is very timely because it comes on the heels of Moore’s incredibly ignorant op-ed scribbling – incredibly ignorant even for him – about our actions against the recently deceased Osama bin Laden. It appears that Moore believes our country’s image would have been better served had we captured Osama and brought him back for trial instead of just killing him on the spot.

Yet Moore’s thoughts are so incongruous that in the same op-ed in which he makes his case for a trial, he also wrote that he’s against the death penalty. By extrapolation, this can only mean that if we had in fact brought Osama back for trial, even upon finding him guilty, the most Moore would have wanted us to do for punishment would have been to sentence him to life in prison. (more…)

When Bruce Springsteen recently traded his lyricist pen for an op-ed pen, which he used to criticize New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie, a collective yawn arose throughout the land. After all, it’s long been evident that Springsteen writes and sings about the struggles of the common man, but in real life, and in politics, he’s completely out of touch.

It seems Springsteen is upset with Christie’s ongoing battle against government expenditures, particularly public entitlements. And as liberals and hard left ideologues like Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon have done against Republican Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, so Springsteen is now doing against Christie in New Jersey.

Wrote Springsteen: “[Christie’s] cuts are eating away at the lower edges of the middle class, not just those already classified as in poverty, and are likely to continue to get worse over the next few years.” (If you’re like me, when you read Springsteen’s words all you see is “blah, blah, blah, and blah.”)

Honestly folks, I’m beginning to get embarrassed for him in the way I’ve come to be embarrassed for Larry Hagman’s family and Al Gore apologists. (more…)

For nearly two decades now, people have been arguing about climate change and getting nowhere. Right-wingers argue that global warming is a hoax based on unsubstantiated science, while left-wingers insist that not only is it real but unless we spend everything we have and more trying to stop it, the world will end tomorrow.

To which I say, “Stop—you’re both wrong!”

This, in a nutshell, is the message of the new documentary about me and my work that opens nationwide on Nov. 12. It’s called “Cool It” and, yes, the title is meant to be clever. The idea is that we do need to cool down the planet, but in order to do it sensibly we first need to cool it ourselves. That is, we need to dispense with both the anti-scientific denialism and the Al Gore-ish fear-mongering. Instead, what we should be doing is facing facts—and responding to them not with rhetoric but with smarter, more rational policies.

The first fact we need to acknowledge is the reality of global warming. Like it or not, the data is abundantly clear that man-made greenhouse gases have been building up in the atmosphere for decades if not centuries, with the result that global temperatures are rising. Yes, the “Climate-gate” emails and the disclosure of funny business at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change exposed some deeply disturbing academic chicanery and prejudice at some supposedly prestigious institutions. However, these revelations did nothing to undermine the fundamental scientific basis of global warming. What they did call into question were many of the more extreme predictions about global warming’s likely impact—such as the idea that all the Himalayan glaciers were about to disappear (they’re not) or that half the Amazon rain forest would soon be destroyed (not likely).

Of course, these extreme predictions are at the heart of the mainstream environmental movement’s position on climate policy. And this brings us to another set of facts we need to face: that while global warming is real, it is not quite the imminent catastrophe so many climate activists would have us believe. There may be some truth to the notion that in order to get people to focus on a problem, you need to scare the pants off them. But while worst-case scenarios may be a great way to get the public’s attention, they are a terrible basis for making public policy. If you believe that the southwest U.S. is about to become another dustbowl (as Paul Krugman has insisted) or that Greenland and Antarctica are on the verge of becoming huge piles of slush (as Al Gore would have us believe), of course you’re going to argue that we should do everything we can to eliminate carbon emissions as quickly as possible—even if that means amazingly costly and ineffective government policies. (more…)

When I saw that Charlton Heston’s former publicist, Michael Levine, had started a petition to let “the Citizen Stamp Advisory Commission [know] that Heston deserves to be placed on a postage stamp,” I emailed Big Hollywood’s Editor John Nolte and jumped at the chance to write this post.

I did so because to honest students of Hollywood’s history, the very name Charlton Heston conjures up visions of greatness. He filled every room he entered, and spoke with a voice that commanded audience after audience, generation after generation.

Although he’s remembered for staring roles in “The Ten Commandments” (1956), “Ben-Hur” (1959), and the “Planet of the Apes” (1968), those are just the tip of the iceberg. During his lifetime he “earned two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, three Emmy Award nominations, …the Kennedy Center Honors: Lifetime Achievement Award.” He “was a six-time president of the Screen Actors Guild, president of the American Film Institute,” and he “received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George Bush [in 2003].”

A renaissance man if ever there was one, Heston is also famous for marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963, for serving as president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) from 1998 to 2003, and for being an unapologetic warrior for decency and tradition in America’s “cultural war.”

And let’s not forgot that he was also a veteran of World War II. That’s right: he not only talked the talk, he walked the walk as well. (more…)

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The Dennis Miller Show is now accepting submissions for its “Time Capsule Accountability Project.”

Tired of certain celebrities and politicians making outlandish, baseless claims (Al Gore, we’re looking at you), Dennis Miller has decided to archive these proclamations for posterity.

“We need to put together the most outlandish, overstated arguments from the Left,” Miller said of the time capsule during his talk radio program, “and bury them in a safe for 100 years.”

Sarah Ricard, Digital Content Manager of the Dennis Miller Show, writes: (more…)

So you may have heard that school officials have named an L.A. school after two greenies: Al Gore, and Rachel Carson, the dead author known for birthing the modern environmental movement.

The public school costs nearly 80 million bucks, and should open in days, for about 600 students. But there’s a prob: it’s located on a pile of toxic goo. Yep, according to activists, the soil there contained more than “a dozen underground storage tanks serving light industrial businesses,” and even more ooze may have come from tanks of a nearby gas station.

So the fact that this enviro-church sits on a vast mound of chemical poison may sound pretty ironic, at least to bloggers who might say, “hey, this sounds pretty ironic.”

But that would be an incorrect usage of the word irony.

Because, Rachel Carson’s ideology is poison, responsible in part for the deaths of millions of children worldwide. It seems only fitting that a structure named after her SHOULD be the cherry on the contaminated cake.

Carson, if you remember, wrote about DDT in her book , “Silent Spring,” back in 1962. In it she falsely wrote that the chemical – which kills malaria-carrying mosquitoes – caused harm to birds. She also linked it to cancer (more b.s.), and it was this alarmism that led to a DDT ban in 1972. (more…)

At a gut level most left-wing environmentalists know that they’re liars. Intellectually they might have somehow convinced themselves that Mother Earth is in some sort of man-made peril, but deep down inside where the truth won’t be denied, these liars know they’re lying — know that the “green movement” is all about a sinister political agenda to put them in the position of insect overlords in charge of we rubes who stubbornly refuse to let go of the idea that Marxism is a bad thing.

This isn’t true for all of them. Ed Begley Jr. walks the walk, and there are everyday tree-huggers scattered throughout America quietly attempting to make work a sustainable lifestyle. You can smell them from here. But most environmentalists are lying liars who know they’re lying. Because if you honestly believe man is destroying the planet, that the apocalypse is nigh, you prepare for it. Most coastal elites are Global Warming believers and yet Global Warming, we’re told, will make the oceans rise to the point that will someday put much of the coast, especially Manhattan underwater. So why aren’t coastal elites moving inland? Why aren’t they pulling a Lex Luthor and buying up all that cheap property that will someday be the new coast? And why do they continue to burn fossil fuels, enjoy air conditioning, and otherwise consume? Because deep down inside they know what we know: it’s all bull shit Socialism disguised as nonsense.

People who believe, truly believe that an environmental apocalypse – be it through increased temperatures, a rise in sea levels, or super-hurricanes — is imminent, act as though it’s imminent. They don’t live in big, fancy, air-conditioned homes propped precariously on the side of the Hollywood Hills and purchased through the dividends of an unnecessary energy-burning, landfill-filling industry. They don’t run up incredible electric bills. They don’t purchase second homes large enough to house Michelle Obama’s entourage.

However, after an “awakening,” courtesy of former Vice President Al Gore’s wildly inaccurate propaganda-horror film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” James J. Lee believed. (more…)

Recent news about Levi Johnston’s possible reality show, “Loving Levi: The Road to the Mayor’s Office,” proved once more that Sarah Palin scares the Left to death. How so?

For starters, Johnston is the former almost son-in-law of Palin. It was he who fathered a child with Palin’s daughter out of wedlock and provided the mainstream media with the opportunity to attach the “bad parent” moniker to the then-Republican Vice Presidential candidate during the 2008 election cycle.

Furthermore, Johnston added fodder to the media’s coverage by promising to marry Palin’s daughter, only to call it off (after learning that one of his former girlfriends had become pregnant) and then posing naked in Playgirl. After all this, he threw gasoline on the media fire by badmouthing Sarah Palin and announcing that he himself desires to be Mayor of Wasilla, AK.

With headlines like those, it’s just hard to look at a proposed reality show centering on Johnston as anything other than an attack on Palin. Were this not so, then tell me why we haven’t seen a reality show on Al Gore’s son (busted for drugs) or John Kerry’s daughter (DUI), or even Congressman Barney Frank? (more…)

On July 1, 2010, I wrote a post for Big Hollywood that demonstrated how Sheryl Crow was both reaching out to Country Music fans and insulting them at the same time.  She was reaching out to them through her work with Kid Rock, her cameo appearance at the Country Music Awards, and the home she purchased in Nashville. She was insulting them by railing against “giant cars” (like the 4×4 pickups and Hummers country artists love to drive), and calling Tea Partiers “ignorant” and “angry.”

Suffice it to say, Crow couldn’t have insulted Country Music fans more without calling them by name.  She apparently doesn’t know (or doesn’t care to know) that Country Music fans put the heart in heartland America: that they are loyal to those whom they see as being loyal to American ideals but couldn’t care less about those who go against them.

These things not withstanding, as Crow undertakes the American leg of her latest tour, her backstage rider for venue owners reads more like the musings of a speech writer for Al Gore than a would-be country artist. For instance, the rider contains an “environmental portion” which clearly states that Crow wishes to “minimize the overall environmental impact of the tour.” And while there’s nothing wrong with this on the surface, the problems arise when her to-do list for achieving this lowered environmental impact is fleshed out. (more…)

According to Variety, the amount of political money from the entertainment industry is split about 73-27, with the majority going to the Democrats. That is a startling statistic. 27% of showbiz dollars go to REPUBLICANS? Are there really that many of us? Either something screwy is going on, or there are a LOT of Industry Republicans hiding out.

By raw statistics, that would indicate over a quarter of the entertainment business is Republican. Now it could just be that Republicans are more generous.  Democrats are notoriously cheaper than a Barney Frank ferry ride. Al Gore spent more money on harassable masseuses than he gives to charity. Bill Clinton’s idea of charity is giving away used underwear (though in fairness, some of the clothing he soiled is now considered museum quality). Joe Biden spends more on polishing his tooth marks out of his shoes than he routinely gives away.

Democrats are as hypocritical as Leonardo DiCaprio’s private jet. They talk all the time about the uncaring rich not helping the poor, but come tax time, the charitable giving recorded on their Schedule As is dwarfed by their mortgage interest on their luxurious abodes. Democrats think their public service and undying support of a powerful state is tantamount to charity. (more…)

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“Let’s cut to twenty-five years later, I’m still married – none of my kids have been busted for drug possession. Can Al and Tipper Gore say the same thing? I don’t think so – oh, snap!” — Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider

Journalists love whistleblowers. Just not when the whistle is blown on them.

Journalists love transparency. As long as they’re not the ones being exposed.

No steadfast journalism rule is unbendable when it comes to justifying and protecting the racket that is modern journalism, specifically, political journalism in the United States today. The ends justify the means for the Democrat Media Complex. They lie when they claim to be objective. They lie when they claim to be unbiased, because these so called “truth seekers” are guilty of engaging in open political warfare. And when the whistle is blown, they simply double down. “Journolist” — like Media Matters, but more insidious, if that’s possible — is an attempt to put the genie back in the bottle, technology and “the masses” uncovered the conspiracy:

Talk radio and the Internet have allowed outsiders the ability to challenge a multiple generational shift from journalism being about the story, to journalism being crafted toward a partisan end. From Newsweek killing the Lewinsky story to the Swift Boat veterans (until the undermedia pressure got too big) to the Dan Rather implosion to the open attempt to keep the Al Gore masseuse story under wraps to the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter debacle to the Van Jones admission of missing the story to the networks ignoring the ACORN video footage to the media playing up trumped up charges of racism in the Tea Party — while ignoring exculpatory evidence — to the mother of all media-as-political weaponry: the non-vetting of candidate Obama, the mainstream media has shown that it is in an ideological death spiral. And the ground is right here.

American journalism died a long time ago; today Tucker Carlson got around to running the obituary. What The Daily Caller has unearthed proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that most media organizations are either complicit by participation in the treachery that is Journolist, or are guilty of sitting back and watching Alinsky warfare being waged against all that challenged the progressive orthodoxy. The scandal predictably involves journalists posing as professors posing as experts. But dressed down they are nothing but street thugs. They deserve the deepest levels of public consternation. We must demand that they do. (more…)

I don’t know about you, but for me, the Fourth of July goes with war movies — you know, like Al Gore and happy endings.

Maybe it’s the “bombs bursting” in the Star Spangled Banner, or the evening fireworks, or simply that the smell of barbeque in the afternoon reminds me of napalm (actually, it’s either victory, or lighter fluid).

—–

So when the wiener hits the grill, I’m hankering for some Heartbreak Ridge.  I’m weak-kneed for a little Where Eagles Dare.  I’m jonesing for a piece o’ that… Johnny Tremain.  (You try and find a good war movie that starts with a “J.”)

Most of all, I pine for Patton.  Few celluloid moments can top that iconic opening scene for patriotic bliss.  First off, you’ve got that humongous American flag backdrop.  And you’ve got the general himself in full fruit-salad regalia, delivering the greatest pep talk since Henry V’s St. Crispin’s Day speech. (more…)

I was reading Pam Meister’s excellent piece here on Big Hollywood about Hollywood’s lack of attention to the continuing ecological disaster in the Gulf. In it she echoed my sentiments from a month ago when I wrote about the lack of Hollywood’s attention to the floods in the home of country music.

This would seem a disaster custom made for Hollywood liberal involvement. Look at the elements: A Big Ugly Corporation, the environment, animals suffering, and a chance to jump up and down and say we were right about off-shore drilling.

However speaking out on this disaster would perhaps mean taking a position where one might have to criticize the President. I have also noticed that most of Hollywood’s liberal elite’s never seem to take a position in opposition to the current administration. For example, how much outrage have we heard about Guantanamo lately? Answer: none. How many anti-war demonstrations have we seen since President Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan? Answer: very few. Now that I’m thinking about it, how much media coverage do we see about far left true believers like Cindy Sheehan who are still protesting since the new administration took over? Answer: darn little. (more…)

The more I read scripts that come out of Hollywood, the more I wonder how Tinseltown manages to make money. Oh wait, I remember – the Palace Guards hype the tripe so that the peasants don’t realize what’s about to hit them until it’s too late to demand a refund.

That’s not to say there are no good movies made anymore  (The Blind Side is a recent example). Even when movies are bad, we expect them to be bad because of a poor script, poor directing or poor acting – or a combination of all three. What we are sick and tired of are movies with a “message” that Hollywoodists deem acceptable, wrapped up in the guise of innocent entertainment. And we are even more sick and tired of those movies being aimed at our children.

Take Furry Vengeance. Please. Ba dum bum. Coming out on April 30, this “family film” follows the adventures of Dan Sanders (Brendan Fraser), along with his wife Terry (Brooke Shields) and son Tyler (Matt Prokop), whom Dan has temporarily moved from Chicago to Oregon to oversee the building of a housing development in Rocky Springs. (more…)