GREG-STRANGE.COM
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Strange Observations
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Going gonzo in Gitmo --
A recent headline in the International Herald
Tribune (IHT) read: "Guantanamo drives
prisoners insane, lawyers say."  Different
people will respond to such a headline in
different ways.  For instance, liberal
peacenik types won't be able to get through
the article without an ample supply of
Kleenex.  Heartless conservatives on the
other hand may read it with gleeful
abandon.  And pragmatists may wonder
why they should believe anything lawyers
say.  My own personal reaction to the
headline is, yeah, and your point is what
exactly?  Okay, obviously, the point is to
make us all feel sorry for the poor
detainees, all of whom claim to be guilty of
nothing more than having been caught in
the wrong place at the wrong time and been
swept up by infidel crusaders out to
conquer their land.  But most of us have
sense enough to know better than that.  
Anyway, a certain well-known Guantanamo
detainee is one of the focal points of the
new insanity claims being made by
lawyers.  That would be one Salim Ahmed
Hamdan, a Yemeni who once happened to
be Osama bin Laden's personal driver and
who could soon become the first detainee
to be tried for war crimes at Gitmo.  Right
now, he should be busily working on his
defense, but alas, say his lawyers, he can't
because he has been driven insane by his
confinement.  He is suicidal, hears voices,
has flashbacks, talks to himself and says
the restrictions of his imprisonment "boil his
mind."  Further, in a letter to his lawyers in
February, he complained that, "Conditions
are asphalt, excrement and worse.  Why,
why, why?"  Well, because, because,
because, Salim, you were the personal
driver for the world's most wanted terrorist
who is responsible for the deaths of
thousands of innocents.  That sorta makes
you an accessory, doesn't it?  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Carter to hobnob with Hamas--
Is there simply no way of preventing a
hopelessly misguided ex-president from
traveling the world and thwarting current
American policy whenever he pleases?  
Apparently not.  That would be Jimmy
Carter, by the way, whose current Middle
East tour is slated to include a “very
important” meeting with Hamas, an
organization which is universally considered
a terrorist group and with whom, therefore,
American policy says no negotiations
should be conducted.  No worries, says
Carter, it’s not a negotiation, it’s just a
friendly little meet-and-greet for the purpose
of information sharing and he feels “quite at
ease in doing this.”  The problem with
having such a meeting between a
bloodthirsty band of terrorists and an
American ex-president is that it lends a
certain degree of legitimacy to Hamas and
says that, hey, they’re just like any other
elected government and we ought to deal
with them even though we don’t think they’
re particularly swell.  In Carter’s own
words:  “I think that it’s very important that
at least someone meet with the Hamas
leaders to express their views, to ascertain
what flexibility they have, to try to induce
them to stop all attacks against innocent
civilians in Israel . . . and things of this
kind.”  It all sounds so beguilingly
commonsensical--unless you know
anything at all about Hamas.  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ted Turner predicts mankind will be
reduced to cannibalism by global
warming--
Just when you think Ted Turner can't
possibly get any crazier than the wack job
he's always been, he spits out a lulu that
absolutely blows you away.  Case in point,
in a recent interview with PBS's Charlie
Rose the topic of global warming came up
and Turner's outlook about what will
happen if something isn't done was rather
unhinged:  "We'll be eight degrees hotter in
30 or 40 years and basically none of the
crops will grow.  Most of the people will
have died and the rest of us will be
cannibals.  Civilization will have broken
down.  The few people left will be living in
a failed state -- like Somalia or Sudan -- and
living conditions will be intolerable."  Holy
cow!  Compared to this guy, Al Gore is
seeing the world through rose-colored
glasses.  "An Inconvenient Truth" never
even mentions the prospect of cannibalism.  
Later in the interview, Turner admitted to
Rose that he's "always suffered from foot-
in-the-mouth disease," and then he added,
"I've gotten a lot better, though.  It's been a
long time since anybody caught me saying
something stupid."  Huh?  Hel-lo-o!  Earth
to Ted.  You just said that in a few decades
the world will lay in post-apocalyptic ruin
where most of humanity will have perished
and the ones left will have become
cannibals, all because of anthropogenic
global warming.  I can't scream this loud
enough:  That qualifies as stupid!  It is
unimaginable, inconceivable stupidity on a
perversely grandiloquent scale.  It makes
every stupid thing you've ever said sound
like the epitome of carefully measured
prudence.  You’re busted, again, and you’re
too clueless to even know you’re busted.
Continued . . .
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Another Iraq war movie, "Stop Loss,"
headed for dustbin of cinematic history--
Let me get this straight.  You mean
Hollywood just released "Stop Loss," yet
another in a recent spate of Iraq war
movies, and as usual, attendance was
dismal?  Gee, I wonder why nobody's
going to see these movies?  According to
Nikki Finke in his "Deadline Hollywood"
column, an anonymous "studio source"
provided this answer:  "It's a function of the
marketplace not being ready to address this
conflict in a dramatic way because the war
itself is something that's unresolved yet."  
Are you buying that?  Okay, that might
conceivably be a small part of it, but the
studio source left out the other part, the
more glaringly obvious part, the part that's
like the elephant standing in the middle of
the lobby of the studio's main office, whose
presence no one can bear to acknowledge
even as the line on the profit/loss chart
continues to plummet.  And that part is --
hang on to your hat for a startling revelation
-- that the Iraq war movies that have been
released so far have been overwhelmingly
negative in their portrayals of American
soldiers and the American mission in Iraq.  
"Redacted," "Lions For Lambs," "In the
Valley of Elah."  They've all been relentless
downers and they've all been unmitigated
flops.  But wait a minute.  Is "Stop Loss" as
bad as all the others?  Well, admittedly, no,
and that's even according to some
conservative reviewers.  The movie actually
deals with a very legitimate issue that is
worthy of debate.  The title "Stop Loss"
refers to . . .  Continued
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Geraldine Ferraro stirs up another
racial imbroglio for the Democrat Party--
It's funny the things some Democrats will
say about other Democrats, particularly
about those who happen to be black and
running for president.  Take Geraldine
Ferraro, for instance.  Remember her?  She
was the first serious female vice presidential
candidate in our nation's history, stuck on a
doomed ticket with Walter Mondale as he
went up against a monolithic Ronald
Reagan.  Before the ticket was annihilated in
the general election, you may recall there
was a vice presidential debate between
Ferraro and George H.W. Bush, after which
an open microphone caught Bush saying
that he had "kicked a little ass."  Funny, the
things some Republicans will say about
their female Democrat debating opponents.  
But returning to the current campaign
season and my original point, take a wide-
eyed gander at what Ferraro said in a recent
interview with the Daily Breeze of
Torrance, Ca.:  "If Obama was a white
man, he would not be in this position.  And
if he was a woman of any color he would
not be in this position.  He happens to be
very lucky to be who he is.  And the
country is caught up in the concept."  
Wow!  It kinda, sorta sounds like Ferraro is
saying that Obama is basically an
affirmative action kind of candidate, which
is to say he isn't particularly qualified and
probably doesn't have the necessary skills
to be president, but it's all being handed to
him because he's black.  Now, does this
make Ferraro a racist?  No, of course not.  
She's a Democrat and, as everybody
knows, the Democrat Party is the party of
diversity and inclusion.  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Saturday Night Live "Fauxbama" skit
getting flak from race-conscience
killjoys--
Recently, "Saturday Night Live" did a skit
about a CNN debate between Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton.  Problem was,
the only African-American male cast
member they had available couldn't
reasonably portray Obama because he has a
very different body type and it just wouldn't
have worked.  So, do you know what they
did?  Okay, you may want to be sitting
when you hear this so you won't fall
down.  Are you ready?  Here goes.  Fred
Armisen, a non-African-American, played
Obama.  Oh my god!  This is outrageous
and blatantly racist!  A white man in
blackface.  "Saturday Night Live" is now a
gaudy minstrel show.  It's a return to Jim
Crow.  All the gains of the civil rights
movement wiped out in one fell swoop
thanks to the white supremacists at SNL.  
Where's Jesse Jackson?  Al Sharpton?  
Why no demonstrations?  Why no
boycotts?  Where's the justice?  No justice,
no peace!  Wait a minute.  You mean you
haven't actually heard about this?  Well, the
Internet is absolutely abuzz with debate, we
are told, over this perceived outrage.  
Chicago Tribune columnist, Maureen Ryan,
has written a piece entitled "'SNL' can do
better than Armisen's Obama."  The column
begins:  "Call me crazy, but shouldn't
'Saturday Night Live's' fictional Sen. Barack
Obama be played by an African-
American?"  I won't call her crazy, I'll just
call her dumb.  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg: We're
all gonna die! --
If they gave out an award for the most
addleheaded statement ever made by a
politician in the long and eventful history of
civilization, it just might go to New York
City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for the
following:  "Terrorists kill people.  Weapons
of mass destruction have the potential to kill
an enormous amount of people. . . [but]
global warming in the long term has the
potential to kill everybody."  Holy cow!  
Think of the enormity of this statement!  
No, think of the enormity of the idiocy of
this statement because it is truly
gargantuan.  If the temperature of the earth
heats up a few degrees as predicted by the
worst case global warming scenarios, then
according to hizzoner, the human race
doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of
surviving.  We're all dead, kaput, turn out
the lights, the party's over.  To say that the
mayor doesn't believe in the adaptability of
man is the understatement of this young
century, and maybe any other.  Global
warming has the potential to kill every last
person?  Really?  Let's examine this a bit.  
Let's say you live in North Dakota and the
temperature rises by several degrees.  Why
would you die?  Let me repeat that.  Why
would you die?  Why wouldn't you instead
be jumping for joy?  In fact, I'd hazard to
say that just about anybody living north or
south of, say, 40 degrees latitude north or
south, respectively, would welcome a
warmer climate.  Continued . . .

I Went To Super Tuesday and All I Got
Was This Lousy . . .
Actually, all I got was this lousy headache.  
Well, that, and the unwanted sense of the
increasingly looming inevitability of a
McCain nomination.  Now hold on just a
minute.  I'll have everyone know I'm not
suffering from McCain Derangement
Syndrome.  Not like the desperate caller I
heard just moments ago on C-Span who
wondered if maybe McCain could be
disqualified as a presidential candidate
because he wasn't born in the United States.
 (He was actually born in the Panama Canal
Zone.)  Nice try, buddy.  But don't you
think that might have come up a while ago
if it was a legitimate disqualifier?  I'd say it
was all tongue-in-cheek on the part of the
caller, but he sounded as serious as a heart
attack.  Granted, it is a bizarre thing that the
candidate who disagrees with the
Republican base on more major issues than
any other is, barring some disaster (or
miracle, depending on how you look at it),
apparently going to be the Republican
nominee.  How does such a thing happen?  
By the way, in the interest of full
disclosure, I was a Giuliani guy from the
very beginning.  Admittedly, he had his own
problems with the base, but for months he
was the national frontrunner.  And then a
funny thing happened on the way to his
master plan for victory.  He basically sat
out all the early primaries and by the time
Florida rolled around, voters from the
retiree state put him into retirement
himself.  I'll bet no serious candidate ever
does that again.  In the meantime, McCain,
who had been written off for dead back in
the summer when his approval ratings
languished around six percent, went to the
early primaries, pulled off a victory in
quirky New Hampshire, and came roaring
back to become the party's frontrunner.  
Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Blowing up retarded women for Allah --
While well-intentioned Americans continue
to argue over the morality of using the
interrogation technique of waterboarding
even in rare circumstances against some of
the worst beings to ever walk upright on
the planet, al-Qaida in Iraq continues to find
new ways of plumbing the depths of human
depravity in its bid to prevent Iraqis from
being free.  A while back, one of their more
inventive methods of instilling fear in local
populations involved ripping people's faces
off, literally, with a piano wire.  But in any
given block of time, you can only rip off so
many faces.  In other words, it's slow and
tedious work, far less efficient than
bombings that take out scores at a time.  
But since the surge, bombings have
decreased dramatically and al-Qaida has
been on the run.  So it had to find a way to
infiltrate the vastly improved security in
order to continue the mayhem that would in
turn create political fallout and hopefully
prevent stability in the country.  Obviously
inspired by Allah, creator of the infinite
universe, someone in the organization must
have had a eureka moment.  If we're going
to step up the bombings again, someone
reasoned, we need people who will arouse
less suspicion than the usual martyr types.  
So how's about we go out and find mentally
defective people -- those with Down
syndrome, for instance -- and preferably
women, and strap bombs on them and send
them into crowded marketplaces.   
Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
John Edwards to quit presidential race, a
real cause for celebration --
Here's a headline that's like music to my
ears:  "John Edwards to Quit Presidential
Race."  It's the kind of news that makes me
feel like getting up and dancing a jig.  No
more will we have to suffer his
disingenuous pandering about "two
Americas."  No more of his class warfare
buncombe.  No more of his perfectly
quaffed hair.  Just begone already.  There
are plenty of politicians out there with
whom I can cheerfully disagree without
rancor, but when it comes to Edwards, I
have to admit to one of the most visceral
dislikes I've ever had for a public figure.  If
I had to listen to one more of his "two
Americas" sob stories about how the deck
is permanently stacked against the poor, I
think I would have--  Well, I'll spare you
the unpleasant regurgitative details.  Suffice
it to say the guy is a sleazy, slimy shyster
who pushed a negative economic view of
this country that is so utterly and
demonstrably false that it is infuriating in its
mendacity.  For complete details, see my
column "John Edwards, You're No Bobby
Kennedy."  In a nutshell, though, his own
personal story, which is that he is the son
of a poor ol' mill worker who goes on to
become rich and run for president, belies all
the class warfare claptrap on which his
campaign has been based.  The fact is, if
you are of reasonably sound mind and body
and you can't make it in this country which
is the greatest engine of prosperity in the
history of civilization, then there's
something wrong with you, not with the
country itself.  But even in his bowing out
of the presidential race, Edwards will sicken
us one last time . . .  Continued . . .
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A different kind of bin Laden --
It's not everyday you see a plethora of
headlines like the following:  "Bin Laden son
wants to be peace activist."  "Bin Laden's
son in horse ride for peace."  "Osama's son
wants British visa to live with granny bride."
What the heck is up with all that?  Well,
let's just say it appears that the apple doesn't
necessarily fall near the tree after all.  One
of Osama bin Laden's 19 children (that he
knows of, anyway), Omar bin Laden has
decided not to follow in his father's
footsteps as the ultimate holy warrior for
radical Islam.  In a recent interview in
Cairo, the 26-year-old, who bears a striking
resemblance to his dad, was sporting a
black leather biker jacket and dreadlocks
that dangled halfway down his back.  This
dude is obviously way too cool to get hung
up on his old man's bad trips and has opted
out of a lifestyle of fomenting apocalyptic
Islamic terrorism against Western
civilization.  Omar once lived with his father
in Sudan and then moved with him to
Afghanistan where he trained at an al-Qaida
camp.  In 2000, he says he basically
decided the whole Islamic terror thing was
a total drag and he walked away from it all.
"I don't want to be in that situation to just
fight," he said.  "I like to find another way
and this other way may be like we do now,
talking."  Omar suggested that his father
didn't oppose his leaving, but it had to be a
pretty gutsy move nonetheless.  The words
"honor killing" had to have crossed his mind
before he split.  But apparently, at least in
terms of their personal relationship, the old
guy wasn't a total bummer.  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
McCain's "Straight Talk" Express
Derails in Michigan --
So much for the conventional wisdom
which said that the thing people liked so
much about John McCain was his
propensity to deliver "straight talk" even
when it was stuff nobody wanted to hear.  
Straight talk is supposed to be a good thing
because it's another way of saying honest
talk and honesty is a rare thing among
politicians and therefore McCain is good.  
But a funny thing happened in Michigan,
which has the highest unemployment of any
state in the union.  Mitt Romney promised
voters he would do everything humanly
possible to help their situation while
McCain, on the other hand, with some of
the most sobering straight talk imaginable,
basically said sorry, folks, but those jobs
that have disappeared with the decline of
the local auto industry ain't coming back so
you best stop whining and just get used to it.
Apparently Michiganders aren't quite as
quirky or accepting of the maverick
senator's straight talk as their New
Hampshire cousins and their basic
response, electorally speaking, was to tell
him to take a long walk off a short pier.  It
would be sort of like going to the North
Slope of Alaska and telling the indigenous
coastal villagers that because of
uncontrollable, runaway, anthropogenic
global warming, their villages, along with
their culture and very identity, will soon fall
into the sea and that while he, if elected
president, will do everything he can to fight
global warming, it's too late for them and
they best start seeking out higher ground
elsewhere.  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Snow in Baghdad, but global warming
rages on --
It's not often that it snows in Baghdad.  In
fact, no one can remember the last time it
happened.  But just because it has now
snowed in Baghdad for the first time in
anyone's memory doesn't mean that global
warming isn't raging on unabated, killjoy
climate experts are rushing to tell us.  Don't
let this one little cold weather anomaly get
you too excited because it doesn't mean a
thing and mankind is still rushing headlong
toward planetary catastrophe.  Nonetheless,
that didn't stop locals from taking delight in
the beautiful and unheard of sight and
declaring it an omen of peace.  "It is the
first time we've seen snow in Baghdad,"
said 60-year-old Hassan Zahar.  "A few
minutes ago, I was covered with
snowflakes.  In my hair, on my shoulders.  
I invite all the people to enjoy peace,
because the snow means peace," he said.  
It's a lovely sentiment and if you believe
many climatologists, peace in the Middle
East is a much more likely scenario than a
reversal of the runaway train of
catastrophic global warming.  Sure, the
warmest year for the planet was back in
1998, a full ten years ago, but that is
nothing more than a nattering detail.  
"Global warming has not stopped," said
Amir Delju, senior scientific coordinator of
the World Meteorological Organization's
(WMO) climate program.  He went on to
say that climate change, primarily caused
by human emissions of greenhouse gases,
would bring bigger swings in the weather
alongside a continuing warming trend.
Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Clinton comeback contradicts
conventional wisdom --
What can one say other than, never count
out a Clinton.  Apparently, and
spectacularly, rumors of Hillary's political
demise were premature and greatly
exaggerated.  After the Iowa debacle, the
only thing remaining was the formal
canonization of Obama and a potential
lengthy stay for Hillary in a sanatorium for
washed up power junkies.  Headlines on
Drudge had declared "Talk of Hillary exit
engulfs campaigns."  Dejection,
despondency and demoralization had
reportedly set in.  The first-gentleman-to-be
had resorted to telling a crowd that he
couldn't make his wife "younger" or "taller"
or "male" or -- I don't know -- better able to
wear something other than dowdy pantsuits.
Obama mania was raging like a prairie fire
and polls were giving him double digit leads
in New Hampshire.  So what happened to
turn it all around?  Was it the Clinton attack
machine?  Dirty tricks?  No, it was her
weekend display of vulnerability after the
Iowa loss during which she choked up,
albeit ever so slightly and not at all like the
"breakdown" some described it as.  But it
was a rather blatantly emotional appeal to
the public to give her another chance.  And
lo and behold, that's exactly what they did
in New Hampshire, especially the women,
the absolutely indispensable women, who
reappeared in droves after she had been
hung out to dry in Iowa.  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
More exorcisms not a good idea for
Vatican PR --
When you see a headline like "Pope's
exorcist squads will wage war on Satan,"
you have to wonder who, if anybody, is
running the PR department down at the
Vatican.  Granted, this particular headline,
which appeared in Britain's Daily Mail, is a
wee bit sensational, but that's what the Brit
broadsheets tend to do when red meat is
served up on a silver platter.  And one of
the many forms of journalistic red meat is
anything that makes religious people look
like superstitious primitives.  On the other
hand, in this particular case, if the shoe
fits . . . Reportedly, each of the Pope's
bishops have been told to have in his
diocese a number of priests who are trained
to fight demonic possession.  This so-called
"exorcist squad" initiative was revealed by
82-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth --
widely considered an exorcism "expert" --
to the online Catholic news service Petrus.  
"Thanks be to God, we have a Pope who
has decided to fight the Devil head-on," the
feisty father said.  "Too many bishops are
not taking this seriously and are not
delegating their priests in the fight against
the Devil.  You have to hunt high and low
for a properly trained exorcist."  Yep, I'm
sure a "properly trained exorcist" is as hard
to find these days as a good alchemist or
catapult repairman, which must be rather
disheartening to old school demon casters-
out like Father Amorth.  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ridding New Jersey of the death
penalty -- (Severe sarcasm alert!)
Congratulations, New Jersey, for joining in
with most of the rest of Western civilization
-- and going against most of your fellow
American states -- and abolishing the
barbaric practice of capital punishment.  
Kudos all around for the brave lawmakers
who slogged through the trenches and
pounded out the legislation for New
Jersey's enlightened governor, Jon Corzine,
to sign.  Corzine, who signed the ban
December 17, said, "I think it is the winning
side, because it is moral, in my heart and in
my soul, and that's why I feel the way I do."
Well, okay, so after rereading that sentence
three times it still doesn't make any logical
sense, but it's the all-important feelings of
the governor, and of all death penalty
opponents, that really matter, right?
Granted, their feelings are a bit different
than those of, say, Richard Kanka, the
father of a young girl whose brutal rape and
murder led to the passage of Megan's Law.  
Rather than experiencing the warm and
fuzzy sensations that usually accompany
human enlightenment, he instead only feels
unenlightened outrage, which he voiced to
New Jersey lawmakers thusly:  "She was
suffocated, she was raped post-mortem,
her body was dumped in a park.  Now if
that doesn't constitute gross and heinous, I
don't know what you people are thinking."
We can certainly understand how this poor
man must feel, but death penalty opponents
would want us to understand that his desire
for vengeance is itself immoral and
unbecoming, and is something which no
modern, civilized society should ever
indulge by executing human beings who,
for whatever reasons, have fallen from
grace.  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Teddy bear tantrum in Khartoum --
If you happened to come in on the middle
of a news report and saw an angry club-
and knife-wielding mob of thousands in a
city somewhere and they were chanting
"No tolerance: Execution" and "Kill her, kill
her by firing squad," and you knew
absolutely nothing about the circumstances,
what would you think?  You would
probably, and rightly, be quite puzzled.  But
then if you heard that the woman in
question was British and that her alleged
crime was allowing her seven-year-old
Sudanese pupils to name a teddy bear
Mohammed, the revelation would be
instantaneous.  Of course, sure, now I get
it.  It's just another case of fanatical
Muslims choosing to be grossly offended
over a meaningless trifle and demanding the
death of an infidel.  The scene is Khartoum,
Sudan, but it could have been almost
anywhere in the Islamic world.  The
specific charges were insulting Islam,
inciting hatred (Huh?!) and showing
contempt for religious beliefs.  For that,
Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old British
woman who teaches in Sudan, was facing
40 lashes, a year in jail and a fine.  After a
trial, which may have been influenced by
escalating international tensions, she was
sentenced to 15 days in prison, after which
she would be deported.  Call it Islamic
leniency.  But bloodthirsty Islamic mobs
aren't about leniency.  Mrs. Gibbons moved
to Khartoum in August to fulfill her dream
of teaching abroad after her marriage fell
apart.  Hey, everybody deserves to follow
their dreams, but . . .  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Babies: Bundles of joy or planet-
destroyers?
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the women
(and the men who love them) who utterly
disdain the idea of having children because--
Well, best to let them explain it in their own
words:  "Having children is selfish.  It's all
about maintaining your genetic line at the
expense of the planet."  "I realized then
that a baby would pollute the planet and
that never having a child was the most
environmentally friendly thing I could do."  
"In short, we do everything we can to
reduce our carbon footprint.  But all this
would be undone if we had a child.  That's
why I had a vasectomy.  It would be
morally wrong for me to add to climate
change and the destruction of Earth."  
"Every person who is born uses more food,
more water, more land, more fossil fuels,
more trees and produces more rubbish,
more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and
adds to the problem of over-population."
"Sarah and I don't need children to feel
complete.  What makes us happy is knowing
that we are doing our bit to save our
precious planet."  What we are witnessing
here is the tragic human cost of the
mainstreaming of environmental extremist
propaganda and global warming doomsday
scenarios.  There is in some people, quite
literally, a melt-down of the human ability to
reason.  The eyeball-popping quotes from
above were made by women and men who
were featured in an article in Britain's Daily
Mail.  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dennis Kucinich still trying to impeach
Dick Cheney --
Could there possibly be anything more
absurd than the presidential candidacy of
congressional munchkin, Dennis Kucinich?  
Actually, yes, there is.  It is his tireless --
and brainless -- campaign to impeach Vice
President Dick Cheney (also known as
Darth Vader in paranoid liberal circles).  
And what exactly are the charges with
which Kukucinich hopes to nail the
malevolent vice president?  Well, according
to a congressional resolution offered up on
Nov. 6, he accused Cheney of being "in
violation of his constitutional oath to
faithfully execute the office of vice
president" and said that Cheney had
"purposely manipulated the intelligence
process to deceive the citizens and
Congress of the United States by fabricating
a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction to justify the use of the U.S.
Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a
manner damaging to our national security
interests."  Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo.  
Where are the men in the white suits with
the butterfly nets when you need them?  
And by the way, why Cheney and not
Bush?  Because everyone knows Cheney is
the evil puppet master and the real power in
this administration.  A president who can't
put together two consecutive grammatically
correct sentences couldn't possibly have
conceived and orchestrated the plot himself.
Back on Planet Earth, these lame charges of
lying, fabricating and manipulating continue
to strain the credulity of all sentient beings
not afflicted with Cheney Derangement
Syndrome.  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Representative Pete Stark goes raving
mad on the floor of Congress --
It's pretty amazing what some unhinged
members of the U.S. Congress will say on
the floor of the House of Representatives in
front of television cameras, God and
everybody.  Take ultra, ultra-liberal Rep.
Fortney "Pete" Stark (raving mad) (D-
Calif.), for instance, who veered far off
course during recent debate over a
children's health program.  In something
less than a masterpiece of rhetorical
elegance and logic, Stark had this to say:
"The Republicans are worried that they
can't pay for insuring an additional 10
million children.  They sure don't care about
finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in
Iraq.  Where are you going to get that
money?  Are you going to tell us lies like
you're telling us today?  Is that how you're
going to fund the war?  You don't have
money to fund the war or children.  But
you're going to spend it to blow up innocent
people if he can get enough kids to grow
old enough for you to send to Iraq to get
their heads blown off for the President's
amusement."  Wow!  Getting "their heads
blown off for the President's amusement?"  
In terms of pure evil, that would basically
put Bush right up there with -- and please
forgive the utterly cliched comparison --
Hitler, wouldn't it?  But even Hitler wasn't
waging war against the civilized world just
for his own amusement.  He had very
specific goals in mind.  Therefore, Bush
must be in a category all his own.  Hey,
Hugo Chavez must have been right when he
pegged President Bush as "the devil" in his
famous 2006 UN speech.  You can almost
smell the sulfur, can't you?  But wait, Stark
had even more to say.  Continued . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Al Gore, the man with a messianic
complex, wins his Nobel --
Only in an alternate universe should Al Gore
be able to win a Nobel Peace Prize for his
relentless ravings about man-made global
warming and the potential for planetary
doom.  And yet . . .  And yet he just did.  
Well, okay, he won it jointly with the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change.  But c'mon, this is all about Al
because without his interminable climatic
scaremongering, there probably wouldn't
have been a UN panel.  So it goes without
saying that the Nobel folks are impressed
by ponderous sounding claptrap such as,
"We face a true planetary emergency.  It is
a moral and spiritual challenge to all of
humanity.  It is also our greatest
opportunity to lift global consciousness to a
higher level."  Whatever.  But what does his
messianic posturing about global warming
have to do with "peace," anyway?  As I said
when he was first nominated for the Peace
Prize, if he can get some of the world's
most violent people to lay down their arms
and live in peace, then I'm all for it.  But the
last time I checked, Islamic radicals don't
give a damn about global warming or other
such infidel nonsense.  They've got their
own apocalyptic scenarios in mind and if
they ever get their hands on a nuclear
weapon, we're all going to forget about
global warming so fast it'll make Al Gore's
head spin right off.  Continued . . .
Urgent News Flash!  Global warming
debate not over after all -- Despite the recent
alarmist report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, and despite what people like Al
Gore and The Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen say,
the National Post of Canada presents a 10-part series
on global warming skepticism.  It seems there are
plenty of scientists out there with a variety of beliefs
that differ from what we have been told is
incontrovertible and unassailable evidence for
apocalyptic global warming. Here are links to the
entire series:

Part 1: Statistics needed
Part 2: Warming is real -- and has benefits
Part 3: The hurricane expert who stood up to UN
junk science
Part 4: Polar scientists on thin ice
Part 5: The original denier: into the cold
Part 6: The sun moves climate change
Part 7: Will the sun cool us?
Part 8: The limits of predictability
Part 9: Look to Mars for the truth on global warming
Part 10: Limited role for CO2

Are the skeptics all just a bunch of right-wing
crackpots whose sympathies lie with planet-raping
profiteers or do they have valuable points to make
about the pitfalls of buying into unproven doomsday
scenarios?  You be the judge -- but at least get both
sides of the story.
Pajamas Media BlogRoll Member
Weather Channel
founder, John Coleman,
calls global warming
"the greatest scam in
history" -- Link

It is the greatest scam in history.
I am amazed, appalled and
highly offended by it. Global
Warming; It is a SCAM. Some
dastardly scientists with
environmental and political
motives manipulated long term
scientific data to create an
illusion of rapid global warming.
Other scientists of the same
environmental whacko type
jumped into the circle to support
and broaden the “research” to
further enhance the totally
slanted, bogus global warming
claims. Their friends in
government steered huge
research grants their way to keep
the movement going. Soon they
claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremists,
notable politicians among them,
then teamed up with movie,
media and other liberal,
environmentalist journalists to
create this wild “scientific”
scenario of the civilization
threatening environmental
consequences from Global
Warming unless we adhere to
their radical agenda. Now their
ridiculous manipulated science
has been accepted as fact and
become a cornerstone issue for
CNN, CBS, NBC, the
Democratic Political Party, the
Governor of California, school
teachers and, in many cases, well
informed but very gullible
environmentally conscientious
citizens. Only one reporter at
ABC has been allowed to counter
the Global Warming frenzy with
one 15 minute documentary
segment.

I do not oppose
environmentalism. I do not
oppose the political positions of
either party. However, Global
Warming, i.e. Climate Change,
is not about environmentalism
or politics. It is not a religion. It
is not something you “believe
in.” It is science; the science of
meteorology. This is my field of
life-long expertise. And I am
telling you Global Warming is a
non-event, a manufactured crisis
and a total scam. I say this
knowing you probably won’t
believe a me, a mere TV
weatherman, challenging a
Nobel Prize, Academy Award
and Emmy Award winning
former Vice President of United
States. So be it.

This stands in marked
contrast, of course, to The
Weather Channel's official
position on man-caused global
warming, which says that "any
meaningful debate on the topic
amongst climate experts is
over."

That's funny.  I keep hearing
debate about it all over the
place.  If you're interested in
any of it, here's a good place to
start.  Also here.

Is it possible that The Weather
Channel could have some sort
of ulterior motive for hitching
its horse to the man-caused
global warming bandwagon?  
Like "scaring up" lagging
ratings?  Sensationalism has
been known to perform
wonders in that department.  
You know that to be true if
you've ever watched their
hyperbolic coverage of
hurricane season (the past two
of which, by the way and
contrary to bug-eyed
predictions right after Katrina,
have been pathetic duds).
Antiwar billionaire George Soros said to
have secretly funded study which inflated
Iraqi casualty figures -- Link

A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a
result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the
antiwar billionaire George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the
research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical
journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus
estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar
campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster
caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and
President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal
of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a
quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the
invasion in 2003.

“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros]
donation and for many people that would have been a
disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the
research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at
Royal Holloway, University of London.
Happy Roe v. Wade 35th anniversary
day! -- Link --

Does anyone see the irony in the Martin Luther
King holiday being followed the very next day by the
anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark
Roe v. Wade decision?  Talk about a stark moral
juxtaposition.

King Day celebrates the life of a man who spurred a
national movement to grant oppressed and
disenfranchised citizens the same rights that other
Americans took for granted.  That's certainly
something to celebrate as it made America a better
place, not just for blacks, but for everyone.  As King
once said, "many of our white brothers . . . have
come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our
destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to
our freedom."

Roe v. Wade, on the other hand . . .  Well, exactly
why, or how, do you celebrate a woman's right to
destroy her unborn child?  Even if the mother was a
victim of rape or incest, rubbing out the innocent
child is not exactly cause for jubilation.  Of course,
the overwhelming majority of abortions are gotten
because somebody was too irresponsible to use birth
control or because, hey, my life is just way too hectic
right now to, like, deal with the inconvenience of
becoming a mother.  Continued . . .
Caroline Kennedy endorses Obama,
compares him to her father -- Link --

In a recent column I theorized that the somewhat
puzzling appeal of Barack Obama as a presidential
candidate had to do with his admirers' happy-headed
fantasies of a return to something resembling the
"Camelot" years of the JFK administration.  I
argued that Obama was being seen as a kind of 21st
century, multicultural reincarnation of the youthful,
handsome, charismatic JFK and reigniting people's
hopes for a brighter future for the nation and for
mankind.

Well, lo and behold, and as if to officially confirm my
thesis, JFK's daughter, Caroline, has now come out
with an endorsement of Obama in an op-ed piece in
the New York Times entitled "A President Like My
Father."

Okay, I'm not going to crow too much about my
incisive analysis since I was hardly the first to
compare the appeal of Obama to the appeal of JFK.
Continued . . .
More national and
international news:
Obama wants summit with Muslim
countries --  Link --

This is what will happen if America makes a
left-wing multiculturalist its president.  Barack
Obama told a French magazine that if he is elected,
he will hold a summit with Muslim countries in order
to try and improve the United States' image around
the world.

Hmm, this sounds vaguely familiar.  Oh yeah, now I
remember.  A few months ago he said if he was
elected he would have face-to-face meetings with
every deranged, enemy dictator on the planet,
presumably to show how open-minded an Obama-led
America would be and presumably to show that if
you just sit down and talk to your enemies,
everything can easily be straightened out to
everyone's liking.  Continued . . .
Mini-Iranian news round-up (none of it
good) . . .

Iran to have nuclear weapon in three
years: Mossad -- Link

Iran launches rocket, opens space center --
Link

Iranian sisters face stoning for adultery --
Link

What a country, huh?  Developing nukes, launching
rockets and satellites, and still stoning its women to
death for sexual dalliances.  Fabulous!
Global warming link-o-thon --

Study: Ethanol may add to global
warming -- Link

Canadian scientists concerned about
global cooling due to solar activity -- Link

Hottest year on record for Shanghai,
China in 2007 -- Link

China battles 'coldest winter in 100
years' -- Link

Is it any wonder that a person with even a modicum
of normal healthy skepticism about predictions of
disaster would have difficulty knowing what to
believe about global warming?
Pelosi: Iraq a "failure" -- Link
But of course the troops are just marvelous and we
love them to pieces!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said twice
Sunday that Iraq “is a failure,” adding that President
Bush’s troop surge has “not produced the desired
effect.”

“The purpose of the surge was to create a secure time
for the government of Iraq to make the political change
to bring reconciliation to Iraq,” Pelosi said on CNN’s
“Late Edition.” “They have not done that.”  The
speaker hastened to add: “The troops have succeeded,
God bless them.”

On the other hand . . .

Al-Qaeda in Iraq is facing an
"extraordinary crisis" -- Link

These are the words not of al-Qaeda's enemies but of
one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the
group's stronghold. They were set down last summer in
a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda
base near Samarra in November.

The terrorist group's security structure suffered “total
collapse”.
If you like it when evil
terrorist masterminds get
what's coming to them,
yesterday was a stellar day.  
Imad Mughniyeh, one of the
world's most elusive and
wanted terrorists, took one for
the glorious Islamist cause
when he and his car were
blown to kingdom come.  The
only thing that could have
made it better would have been
if it had happened the next
day, Valentine's Day, but you
can't have everything.  In case
the name Mughniyeh isn't
ringing any bells, he was a
one-time Hezbollah "security
chief" who was suspected of
masterminding attacks that,
among other things, killed
hundreds of Americans.  All
decent people should be
thrilled that Mughniyeh is
gone.  But not all people are
decent . . .
Bill would require California science
curriculum to cover climate change --
Link

Reading, writing and . . . global warming?  A Silicon
Valley lawmaker is gaining momentum with a bill that
would require "climate change" to be among the
science topics that all California public school students
are taught.

The measure, by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto,
also would mandate that future science textbooks
approved for California public schools include climate
change.

"You can't have a science curriculum that is relevant
and current if it doesn't deal with the science behind
climate change," Simitian said. "This is a
phenomenon of global importance and our kids ought
to understand the science behind that phenomenon."

The only problem with that logic is that scientists
themselves don't fully understand climate change, as
can be seen here.  But that won't stop leftist
lawmakers from trying to indoctrinate a captive
audience of school children.  Not that it even
matters, though, since we're all being bombarded
with global warming propaganda anyway.
Castro resigns after 49 years of
tyranny; hands squalid communist
dictatorship over to younger brother --
Link

HAVANA (AP) - An ailing, 81-year-old Fidel Castro
resigned as Cuba's president Tuesday after nearly a
half-century in power, saying he will not accept a new
term when parliament meets Sunday.

The end of Castro's rule - the longest in the world for a
head of government - frees his 76-year-old brother Raul
to implement reforms he has hinted at since taking
over as acting president when Fidel Castro fell ill in
July 2006. President Bush said he hopes the resignation
signals the beginning of a democratic transition.

"My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to
my last breath," Castro wrote in a letter published
Tuesday in the online edition of the Communist Party
daily Granma. But, he wrote, "it would be a betrayal to
my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more
mobility and dedication than I am physically able to
offer."

How magnanimous of the bearded one, relinquishing
power after only a half century.  But it's all for the
good of the beloved Cuban people.  And though no
one could truthfully say that Cuba is anyone's idea
of a great place to live, compared to another Stalinist
holdout, North Korea, it's an absolute paradise.

Suggestion for Castro's tombstone:  "We're not as
bad as that other paranoid communist dictatorship!"

Nostalgic Castro links here, here and here.
February surprise?  New York Times
trying to gin up scandal on McCain --
Link

WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s
first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of
anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at
fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him
on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship
had become romantic, some of his top advisers
intervened to protect the candidate from himself —
instructing staff members to block the woman’s access,
privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting
him, several people involved in the campaign said on
the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain
had written letters to government regulators on behalf
of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates
said, some aides feared for a time that attention would
fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40,
both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to
his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a
lobbyist whose clients often had business before the
Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story
of redemption and rectitude that defined his political
identity.

You get the idea.  The NYT got the Republican
candidate it hoped for, now it's time to tear him
down, paving the way for Obama's coronation.  Yes,
the Times endorsed Hillary back in January, but
that's ancient history and umpteen Obama primary
victories ago, the country having since gone ga-ga
over the charismatic Illinois senator's mesmerizing
"change" mantra.

But is there anything to this alleged scandal story,
shot through with innuendo and thinly sourced?  Not
according to attorney Bob Bennett, the registered
Democrat who is representing McCain. You may also
remember that he represented President Clinton in
the Lewinsky scandal, so he's not exactly a member
of the vast right-wing conspiracy.  See the video of
him debunking the NYT allegations.

Also check out ALLAHPUNDIT's complete coverage
of the "sex scandal that may not be a scandal tucked
inside an ethics scandal that was a genuine scandal
20 years ago, an