Duluth meteorologist calls Gore a “left-wing nut.” As a scientist, you might think Karl Spring would have an informed opinion on Al Gore’s work on climate change. He’s got opinions, but they don’t come from watching the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s film “An Inconvenient Truth.” In a discussion about global warming on Wisconsin Public Radio’s KUWS on October 16, the meteorologist for Duluth’s KBJR-TV said, “I wouldn’t pay a dime to see it for many reasons,” he said. “Politically. He’s a left-wing nut. And he does things for other agendas.” Audio to appear here soon.

Codpiece2: Forget the “conservative of the day” at the Star Tribune: today the paper features two opinion pieces by conservatives, and both from Center of the American Experiment bigwigs. In an ironic twist, conservative columnist and former CAE director (but conveniently, never a reporter) Katherine Kersten defines “media bias” for us, while Mitch Pearlstein, founder and president of the thinktank, counters a previous essay claiming that college campuses today are less tolerant than they were in the ’80s (the author, Grant Smith, cites the recent flap over Desmond Tutu at St. Thomas). His claim: Conservatives have historically been treated worse than liberals on college campuses

FCC reveals deregulation plan: Kevin Martin, head of the FCC, has circulated a plan that would ease media ownership rules, including pulling the restriction that prevents a media company from owning a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same market.

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