I suppose this could be posted in the Media bias thread, but I feel like giving it its own thread. It comes from WND, a site which often hyperventilates and IMHO sometimes plays fast and loose with the facts and with data, but often is worth keeping an eye on. So with those caveats in place , , ,
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Here, with our readers' help, are WorldNetDaily editors' picks for the 10 most underreported stories of 2007:
1. Developments moving U.S. and continent closer to a North American Union: President Bush ridiculed any talk of a continental merger as conspiracy theory, and recent articles published in The Nation and Newsweek magazines have attempted to characterize "NAFTA Superhighways" the same way, but numerous developments and admissions by officials this past year indicate otherwise.
The leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico conferred over the Security and Prosperity Partnership
Last month, for example, Canada announced a plan to complete a continental highway grid designed to accommodate an anticipated tsunami of containers from China and the Far East.
Meanwhile, state lawmakers in Oklahoma and Texas continued to battle plans for a "NAFTA Superhighway and North American Union" as threats to the sovereignty of the U.S.
A number of influential voices raised the possibility the U.S. dollar might be replaced by a regional currency called the amero.
Stephen Jarislowsky, known as the Canadian Warren Buffet, told a parliamentary committee that Canada and the U.S. should abandon their dollars and move to a regional North American currency as soon as possible.
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox confirmed the existence of a plan conceived with President Bush to create a new regional currency in the Americas.
Fox admitted to CNN's Larry King he had agreed with Bush to pursue the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas – a trade zone extending throughout the Western Hemisphere – suggesting part of the plan was to institute a regional currency.
Much of the concern about incremental moves toward a continental merger centered on the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, an agreement Bush entered after secret discussions with Mexico's then-president Vicente Fox and Canada's then-prime minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, March 23, 2005.
An insider who presented a paper at a recent North American Forum meeting in Mexico, however, says public exposure has sparked opposition to North American integration, stalling SPP efforts, .
2. Bush's refusal to pardon imprisoned Border Patrol Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were prosecuted by the president's friend, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton: Last month, a bi-partisan resolution was introduced into the House of Representatives calling on President Bush to commute the former agents' sentences immediately, allowing them to be home with their families by Christmas.
But Ramos and Compean continue to serve 11- and 12-year federal prison sentences for shooting an admitted drug smuggler as he fled across the border after smuggling into the U.S. a load of 750 pounds of marijuana in a van.
A Border Patrol activist group accused Sutton of protecting the drug smuggler, Osvaldo Adrete-Davila, from facing perjury charges, calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the U.S. attorney for subornation of perjury for allowing Aldrete-Davila to take the stand under "false pretenses."
Former U.S. Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos embraced his wife, Monica Ramos, two days before he was sentenced to 11 years in prison (Courtesy El Paso Times)
Aldrete-Davila was arrested at the Mexican border in November for alleged drug offenses committed while under immunity to testify as the star witness in the case.
WND also reported a long list of lies Aldrete-Davila told under oath, including the claim he committed a single drug offense because he was under duress to get money to buy medicine for his sick mother after he lost his commercial driver's license in Mexico.
Last month, the three judges hearing the Ramos and Compean appeal for the 5th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans were harshly critical of the prosecution in their questions and comments from the bench. Remarkably, the U.S. government admitted in federal court that Aldrete-Davila lied under oath. One judge said the "government overreacted" in applying a law that requires an additional 10-year minimum prison sentence if felons in the act of committing crimes such as rape or burglary carry a weapon.
WND reported on the intervention of Mexican consulates demanding the law enforcement agents be prosecuted for using force, even against illegal aliens committing crimes in the U.S. The demands were a major factor leading to prosecution not only of Ramos and Compean but others, including deputy sheriff Gilmer Hernandez of Rocksprings, Texas, who was convicted for shooting a fleeing van of illegal aliens who tried to run him over.
Sutton also prosecuted former Border Patrol agent Gary Brugman, who served a 24-month sentence in federal prison for a minor scuffle with an illegal alien at the U.S. border in January 2001. Brugman told WND, "For many years after what happened to me, I lost faith in the United States of America."
3. Research refuting man-made global warming: Former Vice President Al Gore won a Nobel prize in 2007 for his global warming campaigning to add to the Oscar for the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth. But numerous reports were issued throughout the year challenging the mainstream media's oft-repeated contention that the debate is settled over whether or not humans are causing global warming.
A new U.S. Senate report documented hundreds of prominent scientists – experts in dozens of fields of study worldwide – who say global warming and cooling is a cycle of nature and cannot legitimately be connected to man's activities.
An analysis of peer-reviewed literature by the Hudson Institute found more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting the current man-made global warming scare.
After an investigation, a veteran meteorologist found dire "global warming" predictions were based on bad science from the very start, pointing out surface temperatures recorded throughout the U.S. are done with almost no regard to scientific standards.
Anthony Watts found temperature monitoring stations used by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were constructed and placed without regard to achieving accurate recordings of natural temperatures.
The assessment supports another study on which WND reported, revealing carbon dioxide levels were largely irrelevant to global warming. Those results prompted Reid Bryson, founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, to quip, "You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide."
WND also reported on a NASA-funded study that noted some climate forecasts might be exaggerating estimations of global warming. Taking aim at Gore and other "climate change" activists, the founder of the Weather Channel said the campaign to promote the theory of man-made global warming is "the greatest scam in history."
John Coleman, now a meteorologist for San Diego TV station KUSI, called it a "manufactured crisis" by "dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives" who have "manipulated long-term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming."
Muriel Newman, director of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research called for Gore's Nobel to be rescinded after British High Court judge Michael Burton concluded "An Inconvenient Truth" should be shown in British schools only with guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination. The decision followed a lawsuit by a father, Stewart Dimmock, who claimed the film contained "serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush." The British court pointed to 11 inaccuracies in the production.
A cover story in Newsweek reported a "denial machine," bought and paid for by big industry, was preventing critical government action to stop global warming. But the following week's issue of Newsweek contained a scathing report by longtime contributing editor Robert J. Samuelson characterizing the previous cover story as "highly contrived" and "fundamentally misleading."
A dramatic documentary produced by the UK's Channel 4 TV deviated from the dire presentations on impending global-warming disaster. In "The Great Global Warming Swindle," British TV director Martin Durkin interviewed scientist after scientist who claim the current hysteria over global warming is, in a word, nonsense.
4. Lack of action on border fence mandated by Congress: The Secure Fence Act of 2006 required the construction of a double-layered barrier covering 854 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, but Democrats led efforts to squelch the plan.
Republican presidential hopeful Duncan Hunter blasted a Democrat-sponsored House bill that would prevent the fence from being built.
"By eliminating the double fence requirement, the Democratic Congress is going to make it easier for drug and human smugglers to cross our Southern land border," said Hunter. "This goes against the interests of any family that has been touched by illegal drugs or any American who has seen their job taken by an illegal alien."
Also, in the Senate, as WND reported , an amendment submitted by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and co-sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, for the Department of Homeland Security 2008 budget was aimed at gutting the already-approved Secure Fence Act.
The Hutchison amendment would allow the secretary of homeland security to use discretion in deciding whether a fence was the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control along the border with Mexico.
5. California bill introducing homosexuality to young children: Children as young as two years of age are in the bull's-eye of coming changes in California's school curriculum, which "gay rights" advocates now admit will alter the very foundation of information presented to public school classrooms.
Opponents of a new state law that bars "discriminatory bias" in public schools because of a "characteristic," including "perceived gender," argued before its passage that it would foster a pro-homosexual bias that would eliminate references to "mom" and "dad" or "husband" and "wife."
Supporters steadfastly maintained the bill only clarified anti-discrimination laws already on the books. But, already, demands by homosexual advocacy groups such as Equality California indicate the new law actually paves the way for editing of all school curricula in the state.
A list of school resources, sponsored by a homosexual-advocacy group called Safe Schools Coalition, suggests "Felicia's Favorite Story," which tells how a girl was "adopted by her two mothers." It also promotes a book called "Are You a Girl or a Boy?" for children ages 4-8 that advocates homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism and other lifestyles. Other resources promoted in the wake of California's new law include books authored by officials with Planned Parenthood and the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network.
One book, called "Tackling Gay Issues in School," is for kindergarten through grade 12, and features recommended "extracurricular" activities for classes.
WND also reported how thousands of requests for information about homeschooling organizations and Christian schools have been bombarded with requests for information.
A grass-roots advocacy group is working on a referendum and the non-profit Advocates for Faith and Freedom is filing a lawsuit challenging the law.
