Flash: Brush Fires Cause More Political Stupidity Than Global Warming

Where, sobs Bill Richardson, is the National Guard? The Governor of New Mexico, already distracted from governing his own state by a hopeless try for the Democratic nomination for President of the US, distracts himself further by whining about the lack of California National Guard units to fight the fires in the southern part of the state.

But as someone who believes the war in Iraq is a complete disaster and that we need to get our troops out now (http://www.getourtroopsout.com/), I look at the natural disaster in California and feel compelled to also ask President Bush and every candidate who thinks it is okay for our troops to remain in Iraq until 2013 or longer - where is our National Guard?

It is a sad irony that yesterday, the very day I sent fire crews to California, 300 more New Mexico National Guard members were sent to Iraq. Just when we need them most at home, more of our brave men and women, true public servants, are sent away to a war we cannot win.

Never before in our history has our National Guard, a group of dedicated men and women who serve our country and provide critical aid in the time of natural disasters been used, and re-used, for so long to fight a war tens of thousands of miles away.

In California, the Guard force is authorized to have over 21,000 members. Today, that number is just under 15,000. Why the decline? I believe it has nothing to do with a diminished commitment to service, but rather is a frustration with having that commitment abused, and families turned upside down, just so President Bush can continue to pretend his war can succeed.

Well, wah, Billy. It helps if you are not ignoring the facts. California is the only state in the Union that denies tuition aid to National Guard troops:

Via ABC7/KGO-TV in May - thanks to liberal Democrats, CA doesn't offer a full range of benefits making recruiting difficult. Money quote bumped to the top.

Assemblyman DeVore thinks it has been difficult to get tuition benefits approved in this Democratic-led state Legislature in recent years because it could be viewed as support for the Iraq War

Lt. Col. Jon Siepmann, CA National Guard: "This is a problem we've seen really over the past twenty years but most noticeably in the past ten years, even before the war started."

A decade ago, California was authorized to have 21,000 in its guard force. Today it's down by 5000, the size of an entire infantry brigade. The unit that responded to the Northridge earthquake no longer exists.

Lt. Col. Jon Siepmann: "We think that providing an educational benefit will go a long way towards recruiting and retaining quality soldiers here in California."

California is the only state in the nation that does not provide any college tuition help for its guardsmen. The Guard believes it can swell its numbers by 10,000 with a tuition benefit.

Harry Reid is virtually drained of IQ over global warming. Bill Richardson is even further arounf the bend.

Another Leftourette Moment

My friend Jim Lynch calls it Leftourette Syndrome. That's the propensity of the Democrats to , for the children, shout out at odd moments, for the children, on whatever matter may be under discussion, for the children, the phrase "for the children'. So it was today when Harry Reid and his lead flak, Dick "Useless" Durbin tried to ram the DREAM Act through the Senate - for the children. Albeit for the children who should not have been here in the first place. The effort failed - and for good reason. Senate Democrats up for reelection helped vote it down, knowing it was pure poison back home. Tom Curry at MSNBC points out that there are lessons in the defeat. If the Republicans are smart enough to listen.

The vote was a significant leading indicator for 2008 of the potency of illegal immigration as an election issue.

Illegal immigration remains at a legislative impasse — and that may be a good thing for GOP chances since the party’s base in the South and West tends to be vehemently opposed to any accommodation with illegal immigrants.

In his post-vote assessment, the Dream Act’s chief sponsor, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said, “In a campaign year, it is a very difficult issue. If it’s tough this year, it’s tougher next year.”

Some senators, he said, “are running scared” on the illegal immigrant issue.

“Switchboards light up, the hates starts spewing, and people get concerned, to say the least,” Durbin told reporters.

Twelve Republicans joined most Democrats in voting to proceed.

Two of the Republican senators in competitive races next year, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Susan Collins of Maine, voted to push ahead with the bill.

But two other GOP senators in tight races, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Gordon Smith of Oregon, voted against it.

Curry points to a real problem for politicians up for reelection in 2008. The voters are angry about illegal immigration. Very angry. Why? Because, quite simply, the Senate was trying to give people who came here illegally better benefits than people who were born here.

The bill would have allowed illegal immigrants, if they passed background checks and became permanent legal residents, to qualify for lower in-state tuition rates at state colleges and universities, a point cited by Sen. Kent Conrad, D- N.D, who voted “no.”

Conrad explained that from his constituents in North Dakota, “I was hearing, ‘wait a minute, this is more generous than what we’re doing for people who were born in this country.’ And it’s certainly commendable to want to give this kind of educational assistance to people. But how can you justify that when we don’t do it for people who were raised in our country?”

I said last year that the first party to get control of illegal immigration would win. The Republicans did not do it in 2006 - if they get their act together, they can have a winner of an issue in 2008. If they are smart about it, they can present it as a high fence with a wide gate that helps protect legal immigrants from the undermining efforts of illegal immigrants.

There is no reason at all that we cannot have a secure border and a welcoming legal immigration system. All it takes is political will - and votes. The message from today's DREAM Act rejection is that the votes are there. For a party smart enough to collect them.

So Cal Arson Update 2

CBS News is reporting that one of the massive fires has been officially declared to have been started intentionally and authorities are offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of the arsonist(s). The Santiago fire has cased at least $10 million in damage so far.

(CBS/AP) CBS News has learned a task force of agencies, including the FBI, ATF, the Orange County Fire Authority and the California Department of Forestry will announce shortly that the massive Santiago Canyon Fire - which has caused an estimated $10 million in damage - is being officially declared an arson, and a $50,000 reward is being offered to find the arsonist.

Investigators have identified two separate "points of origin" where they believe the fire was set, CBS News has learned. FBI agents secured the scene to "maintain its integrity."

The Santiago Fire has burned about 19,200 acres east of Irvine, officials said, and it is around 30 percent contained. Six homes and eight outbuildings have been destroyed, with another eight homes and 12 outbuildings damaged. Four firefighters have been injured fighting the blaze and about 3,000 people evacuated.

The devastating wildfires in Southern California have caused at least $1 billion in damage in San Diego County alone, officials said Wednesday.

The second guessing, however, is on full display already. One official said that not enough air resources were available. This turns out not to be true, despite the lurid comments:

The state's top firefighter said Prather misstated the availability of firefighters and equipment. Eight of the state's nine water-dumping helicopters were in Southern California by Sunday, when the first fires began, along with 13 air tankers, said Ruben Grijalva, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Grijalva said the fires, spread by wind that at times topped 100 mph, would have overwhelmed most efforts to fight them.

They had everything available. And if some or many of the fires were being set intentionally, there would not be enough equipment no matter what. So that kind of talk is counterproductive and unprofessional.

SoCal Arson Update

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that authorities have arrested one suspect and have shot and killed another person who may have been involved in setting fires in Southern California. (earlier post about arson suspicions here.)

Amid worries of new blazes adding to the firestorm already afflicting the region, a man in Hesperia has been arrested on suspicion of arson, and police reported shooting and killing another arson suspect after chasing him out of scrub behind Cal State San Bernardino.

Law enforcement officials said today that they didn't know whether either of the men had started any of the more than a dozen large fires that have devastated Southern California in recent days, including the nearby Lake Arrowhead blaze. The brush fire in Hesperia was quickly extinguished by residents.

Investigators have said that at least two of the huge wildfires, one in Orange County and the other in Temecula, were the work of arsonists.

The confrontation that ended in the shooting death started about 6 p.m. Tuesday when San Bernardino university police spotted a man in a rural area of flood channels and scrub near the campus. University police tried to detain the man, but he got into his car and fled, authorities said. When he began to ram officers' vehicle, they shot him.

The suspect is described as a 27-year-old man with a home address in Arizona. Sheriff's investigators will search his impounded pickup truck pending a search warrant, Lt. Scott Patterson of the San Bernardino Police Department said this afternoon.

No additional information, including his identity will be released until Thursday.

From Arizona? If it was arson, this doesn't sound like a spur of the moment thing or an accident. This would indicate premeditation. Note that they are not saying this man was definitely an arsonist at this point. The other man, however was seen actually lighting a fire near a road.

About three hours later in Hesperia, a man was seen by a female motorist squatting along the side of Highway 173 just south of Arrowhead Lake Road. Sheriff's officials say John Alfred Rund, 48, of Hesperia had just started a fire along the flat, isolated, scrubby road.

The woman called police, and Highway Patrol and sheriff's deputies were soon looking for the suspect, who witnesses said took off on a Honda motorcycle, wearing a red-and-white-striped helmet.

Local residents managed to put out the fire with shovels and dirt. This at least partly explains the sudden, almost simultaneous fire outbreaks.

Pointless News Continues

Well, the pointless story from the other day continues to dominate some people's minds. You'll recall that JK Rowling announced that a completely fictional character was fictionally gay. Well, the LA Times couldn't let that pass without getting someone to tell them what "hints" could be found in the Harry Potter books using 20/20 hindsight vision.

1. His pet. "Fawkes, the many-colored phoenix, is 'flaming.'"

It is also a "phoenix" which could mean he's really from Arizona.

2. His name. "While the anagram to 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' is 'I am Lord Voldemort,' as my good friend pointed out, 'Albus Dumbledore' becomes 'Male bods rule, bud!'"

Another anagram for Albus Dumbledore is Bermuda bull dose. We shudder.

You get the picture.

FBI Investigating Possible Arson In SoCal Fires

The FBI has sent special teams to investigate possible arson in the sudden outbreak of fires in Souther California. At this time they have not searched anyone's home, contradicting the earliest reports of this. But they are gathering material as evidence.

FBI evidence response teams recovered materials they hoped would identify the source of the fires that have burned for four days. The FBI said a house was not searched, correcting earlier reports from a law enforcement official.

Richard Kolko, an FBI spokesman in Washington, said the evidence response teams "have been working with other federal, state and local authorities" to identify the source of the fires.

The fires have destroyed 1,500 homes and caused at least a half-million people to flee, in what has become the largest evacuation in state history. San Diego County accounted for at least 1,200 damaged homes, and officials believe that number will rise.

Twenty-one firefighters and at least 24 other people have been injured. One person was killed by the flames, and the San Diego medical examiner's officer listed five other deaths as connected to the blazes.

If this pans out, the whole story narrative may change. If they actually find that someone - or some group of people - started these intentionally, I hope they catch them and convict them of murder.

Moonbat Ejection System

A "war protester" who appears to be affiliated with Code Pink charged toward Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a hearing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing room. The New York Post calls it an "attack" but it is not clear whether physical contact was made. It certainly was aggressive and illegal, however. That protester and several other Code Pink people were then forcibly ejected from the room.

October 24, 2007 — An anti-war protestor, whose hands were painted red to look like blood, stormed up to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as she arrived to testify on Capitol Hill this morning, shouting "war criminal" before being hauled away by bodyguards.

Guards were as gentle as possible given the resistance of the protesters and the crowded conditions of the room. But it is only a matter of time until someone is seriously injured as a result of this kind of behavior. The Post has the video of the entire incident so you can judge for yourself. But consider for a moment the treatment of the Code Pink idiots. Then recall the actions of the military junta in Burma when dealing with protests that were actually less confrontational. How long would the Code Pink people survive in a real police state?

Drudging Up The Muck On TNR

UPDATE: The document links on Drudge are dead (AllahPundit has extensive screen caps, though.). The Corner has a post up quoting a TNR editor as saying the evidence is "not as damning" as Drudge claims. Meanwhile, Franklin Foer's biography is missing from TNR and searches are not working (may be a technical glitch):

http://www.tnr.com/showBio.mhtml?pid=50&sa=1

What does it all mean? Haven't a clue.

Matt Drudge has PDF copies of documents that prove The New Republic and editor Franklin Foer have known - conclusively - that Scott Thomas Beauchamp flat out refused to stand by his own story. They have known since September 7th. Drudge also has copies of the official investigations that prove Beauchamp made all of the stories up in order to present himself as the next Hemingway.

THE NEW REPUBLIC has been standing behind the stories from their Baghdad Diarist, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, since questions were first raised about their accuracy over the summer. On August 10, the editors at TNR accused the Army of "stonewalling" their investigation into the stories by preventing them from speaking with Beauchamp. The DRUDGE REPORT has since obtained the transcript of a September 7 call between TNR editor Frank Foer, TNR executive editor Peter Scoblic, and Private Beauchamp. During the call, Beauchamp declines to stand by his stories, telling his editors that "I just want it to end. I'm not going to talk to anyone about anything really." The editors respond that "we just can't, in good conscience, continue to defend the piece" without an explanation, but Beauchamp responds only that he "doesn't care what the public thinks." The editors then ask Beauchamp to cancel scheduled interviews with the WASHINGTON POST and NEWSWEEK.

Read the entire transcript. It is actually worse than Drudge makes it sound. Foer and Peter Scoblic make it quite clear that they know they have a problem and that they should retract the stories. They knew that on September 7th.

They still have not done so.

Others already savaging TNR (the list WILL grow): Instapundit, Power Line, Captain's Quarters, Little Green Footballs, Confederate Yankee, Neocon News, A Blog For All, Hot Air, Bookworm Room, Macsmind, Wizbang, mediabistro.com, Dean's World, Sister Toldjah, BitsBlog, The American Mind, Riehl World View, Flopping Aces, Ace of Spades HQ, protein wisdom, LGF, The Nose On Your Face, BLACKFIVE, Wake up America, Redstate, Take Our Country Back,  Gina Cobb, Suitably Flip, Gates of Vienna, Jim Rose,

San Diego Gets Some Good News

And Still I Persist is back on line after a 10+ hour server outage. Bruce Henderson posts some really good news: the wind has nearly stopped, giving the heroic fire crews a chance to contain them.

As mentioned earlier the winds have calmed significantly and in some cases we are reading zero on the wind gauges for many cities that have been under threat of burn, or under the smoke plumes. I cannot stress enough how this fundamentally changes the fight against these fires, as it allows full deployment of air drops and enables the fire crews to work much closer to the head of the blaze to set backfires and create fire breaks.

Bruce has nothing but praise for the fire crews and their efforts. He thinks they deserve a parade when this is all over. I think that sounds like a plan. There is a lot more coverage on the main page, with lots of maps and photographs.

Meanwhile, Lex is also reporting the dead calm conditions and that his house is apparently safe at this point. But he also is thinking about those less fortunate:

A thousand people have lost their homes, and of the 500,000 who were evacuated most remain displaced.  I’ve lived here now for a bit over 6 years but - having seen San Diegans facing adversity - can say that I see them now in a new light. Qualcomm Stadium was one of our principal evacuation centers and had to actually turn away donations of bedding and supplies. I’m proud of this city in a way I wasn’t before.

Still, people will need help and if anyone is interested in making a cash donation, the local branch of the American Red Cross will gratefully put your generosity to work.

That also sounds like a plan.

Southwick Confirmed

The US Senate has just voted 59-38 to confirm Judge Leslie Southwick to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Opponents had singled out two of the 7,000 opinions Southwick has written throughout his career as objectionable, then tried to hang the history of the entire 5th circuit on him.

The nomination tested a fragile agreement in the Senate to block President Bush's judicial nominations only in "extraordinary" circumstances. Some Democratic opponents said Southwick's writings, combined with the troubled racial history of the circuit, met this amorphous standard. But Democrats did not have the votes to sustain a filibuster.

Urged by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the AFL-CIO and the Congressional Black Caucus, some Senate Democrats who opposed the nomination made their case nonetheless. They said they didn't believe he is a bigot, but that the 5th Circuit could not afford a judge who has less than an "exemplary" record on civil rights.

"When it comes to the area of race and racism, we have to bend over backwards," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"I certainly don't think he's a racist," Schumer added. "His words have to be seen in context. Like it or not when he's nominated to the Fifth Circuit he's carrying 200 and some odd years…on his back. That is the issue here."

At issue were two cases he was involved in as a state appeals court judge in Mississippi. One was a 1998 decision that upheld the reinstatement of a social worker who used a racial slur in reference to a co-worker. Three years later, Southwick joined a ruling against a bisexual mother in a custody case. He also joined what some activists said was an anti-gay concurring opinion.

Southwick's supporters pointed out that those were among 7,000 opinions across the nominee's career and that none of those facts addressed his qualifications. Conservative legal groups began pressuring Democrats from traditionally Republican states to at least give Southwick an up-or-down vote.

It's the courts folks. That is what is at issue in 2008. The courts.

DREAM A Little Nightmare For Me….

UPDATE: Cloture fails 52-44. DREAM is dead again.

Harry Reid and his pals, especially Dick Durbin (who was once my Senator and who was the most useless elected official I ever dealt with) are pushing to invoke cloture on the DREAM Act. DREAM, which stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, is nothing more than an amnesty for people who are here illegally. Estimates on how many people would get a green card out of this range from 1 to over 2 million. That is only the direct ones - there would be additional ones as well.

the Migration Policy Institute has estimated that 360,000 illegals would get amnesty right away, with another 715,000 benefiting in the future, for a total of over 1 million amnestied. Using a different data source, we looked at the same question and estimated that the total number of potential beneficiaries of the amnesty is 2.1 million. What's more, there are another 1.4 million parents and young siblings of the under-18 amnesty recipients who do not themselves qualify for the amnesty, but whom the government is likely to let stay once their family members get legalized. (Ed. Note: CIS study is here.)

The people pushing for DREAM are trying to target the following list of Senators. I have already called my Senators - both of them - and registered my objections to this sneak amnesty. Have you called you Senators?

Why not?

Hutchison, Kay Bailey- (R - TX) (202) 224-5922
Thad Cochran (202) 224- 5054
Norm Coleman(202) 224-5641
John Sununu (202) 224-2841
Olympia Snowe (202) 224-5344
Jon Tester (202) 224-2644
Richard Burr (202) 224-3154
John Warner (202) 224-2023
Lindsey Graham (202) 224-5972
Judd Gregg (202) 224-3324
Chuck Grassley (202) 224-3744
Tim Johnson (202) 224-5842
Robert Byrd (202) 224-3954
Byron Dorgan (202) 224-2551
Pete Domenici (202) 224-6621
Max Baucus (202) 224-2651
Larry Craig (202) 224-2752
Ted Stevens (202) 224-3004
George Voinovich (202) 224-3353
Lisa Murkowski (202) 224-6665
Claire McCaskill (202) 224-6154
Benjamin Nelson (202) 224-6551
John Barrasso (202) - 224-6441
Susan Collins (202) 224-2523
Crapo (202) 224-6142
Bennet (202) 224-5444
Martinez (202) 224-3041
Sen Brownback, Sam [KS] - (202) 224-6521
Sen Landrieu, Mary L. [LA] - (202) 224-5824
Sen Ensign (202) 224-6244

(List courtesy of Michelle Malkin)

Dirty Money, Dirty Diapers

How dirty is some of the money being raised for political campaigns this year? Well, at least some of it may have come out of a well-used diaper. You be the judge.

Elrick Williams's toddler niece Carlyn may be one of the youngest contributors to this year's presidential campaign. The 2-year-old gave $2,300 to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

So did her sister and brother, Imara, 13, and Ishmael, 9, and her cousins Chan and Alexis, both 13. Altogether, according to newly released campaign finance reports, the extended family of Williams, a wealthy Chicago financier, handed over nearly a dozen checks in March for the maximum allowed under federal law to Obama.

Such campaign donations from young children would almost certainly run afoul of campaign finance regulations, several campaign lawyers said. But as bundlers seek to raise higher and higher sums for presidential contenders this year, the number who are turning to checks from underage givers appears to be on the rise.

"It's not difficult for a banker or a trial lawyer or a hedge fund manager to come up with $2,300, and they're often left wanting to do more," said Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. "That's when they look across the dinner table at their children and see an opportunity."

Asked about the Williams family giving, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, "As a policy, we don't take donations from anyone under the age of 15." After being asked by The Post about the matter, he said the children's donations will be returned.

Although campaign finance laws set a limit of $2,300 per donor per campaign, they do not explicitly bar donors based on age. And young donors abound in the fundraising reports filed by presidential contenders this year.

That is a loophole that should be closed. While I fully agree that people should be able to donate, only people who are legally qualified to vote should be allowed to. I don't care which party is involved, either, this is something that should not be tolerated. (As the article points out this is a bipartisan problem). The article goes on to describe the attempts to close this loophole over the years.

Congress tried to outlaw political contributions from those under age 18 as part of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002, but the Supreme Court struck down that provision as an infringement on the constitutional rights of minors. With that ruling in mind, the Federal Election Commission wrote new regulations two years ago that tried to balance what it considered a legitimate desire among some children to make political contributions against the possibility that parents would seek to pad their donations by funneling money through children.

The regulations established a three-step test to determine whether a contribution is acceptable: It must be made with the child's money, the parent cannot reimburse the child for making the donation and the contribution has to be knowing and voluntary.

I'm no fan of McCain-Feingold, but I really don't see how someone who is not legally entitled to vote should be legally entitled to give money. Jim Addison over at Wizbang takes a somewhat different tack:

No matter how many times we've changed those laws and "tightened up the loopholes," donors keep finding new and different ways to evade the limits, which are completely arbitrary. Of course they do - with the federal government spending $3 trillion every year and Presidents and Senators and Congressmen having a big say in who gets what of it, there are thousands of people and groups who wish to cultivate friendships with elected officials, and one of the best ways to ensure a politician remembers your name is to write his/her campaign a honkin' big check.

That's why I'm against limits of any kind. The only restriction on donations to federal candidates should be that they come from American sources - citizens, or corporations headquartered in America - and be instantly and fully disclosed before the money can be used by the campaign. If George Soros wants to give Dennis Kucinich $1 billion to run for Moonbat-in-Chief, let him - so long as it's publicly posted before it can be spent. If Halliburton wants to underwrite a Cheney campaign, why not? - as long as we know where his money comes from, we can take that into consideration before voting.

I agree that the more byzantine the donation restrictions become, the more convoluted the methods determined people use to find some way around them. I also think it is not unreasonable to simply ask that only people who are entitled to vote should be entitled to donate. (That doesn't mean the donor has to actually even be registered to vote, incidentally - just eligible.)

The Lonely Fight

Dana Milbank writes about the stand taken by Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) yesterday. He tried to force the Senate to strip $400 million worth of pork out of a spending bill. The final vote tally against the amendment: 68 to 26.

The United States Senate yesterday was confronted with a stark choice: health care for children, or pet projects for lawmakers' home states.

The final tally?

Pet Projects 68, Kids 26.

In truth, the children never had a chance. "I predicted 24," the measure's sponsor, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said cheerfully after his defeat.

It was, Coburn's many opponents grumbled, a political stunt. But, as stunts go, this one was particularly revealing. The Oklahoma physician, a foe of the unhealthy cut of congressional pork known as "earmarks," proposed an amendment to a major health spending bill that said no lawmakers' pet projects would be funded until "all children in the U.S. under the age of 18 years are insured by a private or public health insurance plan."

Among the earmarks this jeopardized:

• $130,000 for the National First Ladies' Library in Ohio.
• $500,000 for a "Virtual Herbarium" in New York.
• $400,000 for the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa.  (Ed Note: WaPo formatting problem fixed.)

Coburn is not well liked by his fellow Senators. They were insufferably rude to him while he was trying to speak. But he fought his lonely fight anyway. Regardless of your political affiliation, you should be able to see that pork-barrel earmarking is bad for the country.

Global Warming Death Threats?

John Stossel's column today at Real Clear Politics looks at the false prophet of global warming and highlights some scientists who are very skeptical about man's role in global warming - and are being threatened by true believers.

Gore also talks about drowning polar bears. He doesn't mention that the World Conservation Union and the U.S. Geological Survey say that today most populations of polar bears are stable or increasing.

And while man's greenhouse gasses may increase warming, it's not certain that man caused it. The most impressive demonstration in Gore's movie is the big graph of carbon-dioxide levels, which suggests that carbon levels control temperature. But the movie doesn't tell you that the carbon increases came after temperatures rose, hundreds of years later.

There's much more. A British court ruled that U.K. teachers could show Gore's documentary to students only if they also explain nine errors in the movie.

I wanted to ask Gore about that and other things, but he wouldn't talk to me. Why should he? He says "the debate is over."

"It's absurd for people to say that sort of thing," says Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute.

John Christy and Roy Spencer, who won NASA's Medal for Exceptional Achievement for figuring out how to get temperature data from satellites, agree that Earth has warmed. "The thing that we dispute is, is it because of mankind?" Spencer says.

Some scientists say the warming may be caused by changes in the sun, or ocean currents, or changes in cloud cover, or other things we don't understand. If it's all man's fault, why did the Arctic go through a warm period early last century? Why did Greenland's temperatures rise 50 percent faster in the 1920s than they are rising now?

The media rarely ask such questions.

All of the skeptics are routinely being bullied, called "deniers" or accused of being funded by oil companies. One researcher, Tim Ball, who heads the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, received an email that informed him that, "You will not live long enough to see global warming!" Classy.

Frankly, the authoritarian - actually totalitarian - attitudes of the true believers speak volumes about how dangerous the hysterical pronouncements of Al Gore are. Vaclav Klaus has been warning about the threat the Gorezealots really represent - to freedom.

The threat I have in mind is the irrationality with which the world has accepted the climate change (or global warming) as a real danger to the future of mankind and the irrationality of suggested and partly already implemented measures because they will fatally endanger our freedom and prosperity, the two goals we consider – I do believe – our priorities.

Many of the "solutions" the zealots are pushing are either dreadfully expensive, useless or downright harmful to the environment. It is not time to shut off debate. It is time to start having a meaningful conversation - not to be shouted down by thugs.

The Piñata Wore Pantsuits

Jonah Goldberg points out a simple fact: Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee for president gives the Republicans their best shot at defeating the Democrats in 2008.

The most interesting thing to come out of the umpteenth Republican debate Sunday is confirmation that the GOP is dying to run against Hillary Clinton. Like Don Rickles flaying a heckler, each candidate whacked at Clinton as if she were a pants-suited piñata. When they were done with their one-liners, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee deadpanned: "Look, I like to be funny. There's nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being president."

No, but there's something deeply advantageous about having her as an opponent. So far, the commentary about the Republican offensive against Hillary has focused mostly on how it reflects poorly on the GOP (those Clinton-hating wing nuts are at it again!). What's not been fully grasped is how Hillary gives the GOP its best chance at being the party of change…….

……..What most independents and swing voters want is an end to the acrimony and bitterness in Washington — and a candidate they like. Whether that's right or not is irrelevant. That's what they want.

Which Democratic candidate would be most likely to give those voters what they want? Not Hillary, it's safe to say.

Right now, during the primaries, she can get away with boasting about her tenure in the Clinton administration. Party activists are drunk with Clinton nostalgia. On the stump in Iowa, Bill Clinton responded to the claim that Hillary was "yesterday's news" by saying, yeah, but "yesterday's news was pretty good."

In the general election, audiences will remember Whitewater, travelgate, illegal fundraising, bimbo eruptions and impeachment. If they don't, you can be sure Republicans will remind them. Fair or not, the Republicans' intense dislike of Hillary will underscore the idea that a vote for her is a vote for more of the same rancor.

Clinton is triangulating like mad and blatantly attempting to pander - or buy votes outright - in every direction. The voters can see that. The Republicans can, with a decent platform and an intense dislike of Clinton, beat her. Just whacking the piñata in pantsuits will not do it- that will just be more of the same thing that cost Kerry in 2004. But Clinton, with her astronomical unfavorable ratings gives Republicans a real edge. And remember - candidates can have coattails.

So get that platform working, guys.