GORE'S GLOBAL WARNING RELIGION

by Ann Coulter

No matter how much liberals try to dress up their nutty superstitions about global warming as "science," which only six-fingered lunatics could doubt, scratch a global warming "scientist" and you get a religious fanatic.

These days, new religions are barely up and running before they seize upon the worst aspects of the God-based religions.

First, there's the hypocrisy and corruption. At the 1992 Democratic Convention in New York, Al Gore said: "The central organizing principle of governments everywhere must be the environment." The environment would not, however, be the central organizing principle of Gore's own life.

The only place Al Gore conserves energy these days is on the treadmill. I don't want to suggest that Al's getting big, but the last time I saw him on TV I thought, "That reminds me -- we have to do something about saving the polar bears."

Never mind his carbon footprint -- have you seen the size of Al Gore's regular footprint lately? It's almost as deep as Janet Reno's.

But I digress. As has been widely reported, Gore's Tennessee mansion consumes 20 times the energy of the average home in that state. But it's OK, according to the priests of global warming. Gore has purchased "carbon offsets."

It took the Catholic Church hundreds of years to develop corrupt practices such as papal indulgences. The global warming religion has barely been around for 20 years, and yet its devotees are allowed to pollute by the simple expedient of paying for papal indulgences called "carbon offsets."

Americans spend an extra $2.2 billion on gas a year because they're overweight, requiring more fuel in cars to carry the extra pounds. So even with all those papal indulgences, Gore may have a small carbon footprint, but he has a huge carbon butt-print.

Further proving that liberalism is a religion, its practitioners respond with the zeal of Torquemada to any dissent from the faith in global warming.

A few years ago, Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg wrote a book titled "The Skeptical Environmentalist," disputing the hysteria surrounding global warming and other environmentalist scares. Lomborg is a Greenpeace anti-war protester -- or, as he is described on liberal websites, he is a "young, gay vegetarian Dane with tight T-shirts." His book was cited favorably in The New York Times.

But for questioning the "science" behind global warming, Lomborg was brought up on charges of "scientific misconduct" by Denmark's Inquisition Court, called the "Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation." I take it Denmark's Ministry of Truth was booked solid that day.

The moment anyone diverges from official church doctrine on global warming, he is threatened with destruction. Heretics would be burnt at the stake if liberals could figure out how to do it in a "carbon neutral" way.

Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball is featured in the new documentary debunking global warming, titled "The Great Global Warming Swindle." For this heresy, Ball has received hate mail with such messages as, "If you continue to speak out, you won't live to see further global warming."

I'm against political writers whining about their hate mail because it makes them sound like Paul Krugman. But that's political writers arguing about ideology.

Global warming is supposed to be "science." It's hard to imagine Niels Bohr responding to Albert Einstein's letter questioning quantum mechanics with a statement like: "If you continue to speak out, you won't live to see further quantum mechanics."

Come to think of it, one can't imagine the pope writing a letter to Jerry Falwell saying, "If you continue to speak out, you won't live to see further infallibility."

If this is how global warming devotees defend their scientific theory, it may be a few tweaks short of a scientific theory. Scientific facts are not subject to liberal bullying -- which, by the way, is precisely why liberals hate science.

A few years ago, The New York Times ran an article about the continuing furious debates among physicists about quantum mechanics, which differs from global warming in the sense that it is supported by physical evidence and it doesn't make you feel good inside to "do something" about quantum mechanics. It is, in short, science.

Though he helped develop the theory of quantum mechanics, Einstein immediately set to work attacking it. MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark called the constant testing and arguing about quantum mechanics "a 75-year war."

That's how a real scientific theory operates. That's even how a real religion operates. Only a false religion needs hate mail, threats, courts of inquisition and Hollywood movies to sustain it.

LET THE SUBPOENAS FLY

The showdown is beginning between the Congress and the administration over these U.S. Attorney firings. Soon they Democrats say they will actually issue subpoenas to White House officials. The president will claim executive privilege and it will be thrown into the courts. All over nothing. So far, there is absolutely no charge that anything illegal took place. There is no crime in firing U.S. Attorneys for political reasons. These are political jobs. Maybe what President Bush should have done was fire all 93 like Bill Clinton did. Then nobody would have noticed.

This really has nothing to do with the U.S. Attorneys. It's all about the Democrats #1 agenda: embarrassing the White House and diverting attention from their empty agenda. Really..what have Democrats done since taking over Capitol Hill in January? Does anybody remember any landmark legislation from their first 100 days? Raising the minimum wage, well there was that. Yawn.

So now the White House says if the House issues subpoenas for Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, the deal of being able to meet with them both in private is off. Still, there are signs Democrats may be backing down, just a bit. John Conyers and Chuck Schumer say they are continuing to negotiate with the administration. Is this because they know their subpoenas won't hold up in court? Perhaps.

This is just like the Valerie Plame non-affair. A lengthy, expensive investigation into...nothing. Welcome to the Democratic Washington.

CNN CHEERS BARBARA BOXER

By Michelle Malkin

At the Goracle hearing, Sen. Barbara Boxer cattily lorded her power over Sen. James Inhofe during Inhofe's questioning.

Transcript:

(After Boxer squabbles about the length of Inhofe's questions to Gore...)

Inhofe: Why don't we do this? At the end, you can have as much time as you want to answer all of the questions...

Boxer: No, that isn't the rule. You're not making the rules. You used to when you had this (holding up the gavel). You don't do this anymore. Elections have consequences. (Audience cheers)

Now, it's one thing for the audience to cheer.

But CNN anchor Don Lemon couldn't help chiming in, too (click to watch):

Reported Lemon: "Good for her."

***

Despite Boxer's valiant attempts to cover for Gore, she couldn't save him from revealing his "Do As I Say" stripes. Here's the vid of Gore refusing to take an energy ethics pledge.

IRAQ: CONSEQUENCES OF WITHDRAWL

by Chuck Freilich

With the current partisan debate on Iraq raging in Congress, it is time to consider the reality there and consequent United States' options as they truly are, not as many wish. In broad terms, the U.S. has three options:

1. Staying the course, i.e. more of the same, with only limited changes in U.S. strategy. This option leads to inexorable defeat and to a pointless loss of lives. It is not clear that the President's "surge" is sufficient to avoid this.
   
2. Withdrawal, on the assumption that the U.S. has done what it could, but should now cut its losses. The harsh reality, however, is that the U.S. can not really disengage from Iraq and the Middle East, no matter how much it may want to, because the region's deep seated and violent ills will follow it back home. The Jihadis' and other "crazies'" hatred of the U.S. did not begin with the invasion of Iraq and will not end if it leaves.
   
3. Staying for the long haul, but with realistic objectives, recognizing that failure to achieve even a minimalist, bare bones, definition of "success" (a unified, stable and peaceful Iraq, no more), may lead to severe ramifications for the region and U.S. This approach would require a comprehensive strategy and for the Bush administration to tell it as it is: that the U.S. will have to remain in Iraq for the long haul, because the alternatives are even worse.

If the U.S. withdraws without achieving even this minimalist definition of "success", Iraq will deteriorate into ever worsening violence and may splinter into its component parts. Turkey may then invade Kurdistan, whose possible independence it views as a threat to its own territorial integrity. Iran will become not only a primary player in Iraq, but the primary one, possibly even annexing Shiite areas outright. The Saudis, already threatened by rising Shiite influence in the region, petrified by a possible Iranian presence right on their border, may similarly choose to preempt this by grabbing parts of Iraq. Jordan, with an Iranian controlled Iraq on its border, might collapse. For Israel, the consequences will be severe.

If the U.S. can be driven out, the Islamist fundamentalists, Jihadis, insurgents and other dark forces in the region, will have won. There will simply be no one to prevent them from using terror, WMD, subversion and religious fanaticism to pursue their aims. No one. The radicals of the Moslem world will be triumphant -- Iran, al Qaeda, Hamas, Hizballah and more.

Iran will end up the big victor, the regional hegemon, whose ambitions and nuclear program, will become unstoppable. As things look, there is a very real possibility that Iran will announce, within a few years, that it has achieved an operational nuclear capability, threaten to destroy Israel and to rain fire and destruction on other U.S. interests and allies in the region.

A nuclear Iran is a dire threat for nearly all countries in the region. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others already feel threatened and have announced their intentions to begin "civil" nuclear programs, which, as we all know, tend to "morph" into military ones. It is unclear that the U.S. can effectively cope with a nuclear Iran, but far worse, a multi-nuclear Middle East now looms. The U.S.-Soviet nuclear rivalry may pale in combustibility.

Is the U.S. -- are you -- willing to have the entire Middle East, the world's primary source of energy, under the threat of Iranian nukes? Not a "biggie," just the future of the western economy and way of life. Think about it the next time you take a drive, or turn up the heat.

In the even more radicalized Middle East that will follow a U.S. failure in Iraq, we can abandon any hopes for reform in the region and for any change in the root causes of its ills. The existing regimes will heighten oppression to retain power, the radical camp will be emboldened, the prospects for the "peace process" even dimmer than now. If the Middle East looks bad today, it will look wonderful in comparison and it will again engulf the U.S., no matter how much it wishes to disengage.

The administration has it right when it contends that failure in Iraq entails unacceptable risks. The question, however, is not whether 21,500 more troops are needed, or some other figure, but what the overall goals are and what strategy is needed to achieve them. A minimalist success -- a unified, stable and peaceful Iraq -- would require:

• A U.S. commitment to stay for the long haul and to deploy sufficient military force to make the difference on the ground. The administration will have to recognize that transfer of authority to the Iraqi government and forces is largely an illusion, for a long time. People divided by ethnic hatreds and biding their time in anticipation of a U.S. withdrawal, do not constitute an effective military force, or responsible government. A U.S. commitment for the long haul could provide the reassurance and stability necessary for political and economic reconstruction.

• Massive economic aid, not the token $1 billion announced. The U.S. spends over $500 billion a year on defense: a 1% cut could yield $5 billion in economic aid annually, 2% $10 billion. The bureaucracy has yet to be established that can not tolerate a 1-2% cut, no matter how stretched.

• Real political reform, with clear benchmarks for the Maliki government, coupled with a harsh warning that if it fails to deliver, the U.S. will not pack up and go home, but send the Iraqi regime packing and impose a new political process of U.S. choosing.

It is not clear that this, or any other strategy, can achieve even the minimalist "success" outlined above. Only one thing is certain: Getting out before this happens guarantees failure and many, if not all, of the ramifications, presented above.

THIS MANUFACTURED SCANDAL IS GETTING A BIT TIRING

Now the Democrats are talking about subpoenas for Bush staffers. Democrats couldn't be more thrilled that the media has really glommed on to their manufactured scandal over the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. That partisan fool Patrick Leahy wants show hearings on Capital Hill.

Hearings for what? There has been no crime here. There has been no wrongdoing. The president is clearly permitted to fire U.S. Attorneys whenever he decides he wants to. He hires them, he fires them. Clinton fired every one of them. That had never happened before. He even fired the U.S. attorney who was in charge of the investigation of his wrongdoings with his pals at Madison Guaranty Federal Savings & Loan. Did Leahy demand hearings? Of course not! Leahy had no desire to manufacture a scandal a crisis in the Clinton administration .. but with an evil Republican in the White house, things are, of course, different.

Leahy and the media are trying to tell us that most Americans are on the edge of their seats virtually every day waiting to get to the bottom of the story with these U.S. Attorneys. NOT SO! If Americans were concerned about these attorneys being fired I would be hearing about it from my callers. I'm not. People don't care.

It's time for Bush to stand his ground. If he gives in to Leahy and crowd on this one ... it's just a matter of days or weeks before the Democrats come up with another manufactured scandal to push to their buddies in the media. Remember ... the Democrat plan is to have some sort of working Bush scandal on the front pages of the nation's liberal newspapers right up to election day 2008.

Here's something for you to ponder. OK ... so the Democrats hate Bush. They've vowed revenge since the 2000 elections. They wanted a selective recount in Florida -- a recount of only heavily Democrat counties. They wanted the votes of our military personnel overseas tossed out. They didn't care that thousands of military votes in the Florida panhandle were lost when the major networks declared the polls closed and Bush the winner with one hour left to vote in the heavily Republican areas of Florida. Bush won ... and the Democrats just can't stand it. They've been dedicated to the destruction of all things Bush ever since --- even to the point of weakening America by working against Bush's efforts to fight Islamic Fascism. Now ... think of how things might have gone with the Democrats scandal-a-week strategy if the mainstream media hadn't been in the Democrats pockets for the past six years!

By the way ... wouldn't it be nice if these Democrats were demanding answers to the mystery of how that $90,000 in cold hard bribery money was found in the freezer of Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson? Oh, wait. Excuse me. I almost forgot. He's a Democrat. When a Democrat takes bribes he ends up on the Homeland Security Committee. When a Republican takes bribes he ends up in jail.

DEMOCRATS LOADING UP ON PORK

Democrats, who supposedly oppose the war in Iraq with such vigor, are having absolutely no problem loading up an emergency funding bill with their pet pork projects. How much is being thrown down the proverbial pork barrel? Try $10 billion dollars. That's right...billion...with a 'B.' Let's look at just a few of the examples, shall we?

Among the war spending: $3.7 billion in farm subsidies. How this benefits our fighting men and women in Iraq, who knows. Another $2.9 billion is thrown in for good measure, this time for Gulf Coast rebuilding...you know, Katrina and all. Topping off the list is $2.4 billion for things like money for school districts, health insurance for the poor and such. But what's even more comical is that Democrats are defending it.

They say the money is needed and can't wait for the new fiscal year. This is just amazing...here you have all these Democrats opposed to the war, who say it's wrong, who want it to end...but they have no problem larding up the spending bill that will be used to fund the war they so despise. Hypocrisy doesn't even begin to describe this charade.

Oh, and don't forget the $1 billion for bird flu vaccines...and $500 million for wildfire suppression...sounds like war spending to me!