This Is Really Stupid

Isn't Stephen Hawking supposed to be one of the most brilliant human beings on the planet? What, then, could possibly have inspired him to lay this verbal turd:

Asked about the environment, Hawking, who suffers from a degenerative disease, uses a wheelchair and speaks through a computerized voice synthesizer, said he was "very worried about global warming."

He said he was afraid that Earth "might end up like Venus, at 250 degrees centigrade and raining sulfuric acid."

During an overdose of hallucinogens, perhaps. In my nightmares I'm usually about to get it on with Jessica Alba when she suddenly and tragically morphs into Martha Rae, denture-wearer. Hey, it happens, but it isn't, you know, REAL or anything.

Maybe Dr. Hawking was trying to impress the chicks. He did also add this comment:

Before an audience of five hundred at a seminar in Beijing, the celebrity cosmologist said, "I like Chinese culture, Chinese food and above all Chinese women. They are beautiful."

The audience of mostly university students and professors and a smattering of journalists laughed and applauded.

Let him make that lusting comment anywhere in the Western world and he'd be brought up on harassment charges, non-functional equipment or no non-functional equipment. I guess the Chinese thought he was "cute" or something. Of course, had he taken pains to point out that Red China is pumping even more CO2 into the atmosphere than we are, tying them in to complicity for his Venusian hell imagery, "cuteness" might not have kept him from "disappearing."

Incidentally, the words "celebrity" and "cosmologist" have never been combined into one phrase before in human history. But the definition, in case you ever wonder about it, is, "holographic poker buddy of Lieutenant-Commander Data."

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Al Gore's greensteria flick, Chicken Little II: The Out-Gassing, has won something called the "Humanitas" prize. This is a piece of hardware awarded to screenwriters who "liberate, enrich and unify society." Given that Fat Albert's dark vision would enslave and impoverish society, and that he spent the 1990s doing everything in his power to divide it, I can only conclude that John Edwards' stem-cell-derived cloning experiments have tragically succeeded.

Oh, yes, and there's that small matter of his entire "global warming" dogma being utter and complete horsecrap - which is, ironically, a contributor to greenhouse gases. One can see the depth of his pagan creed and the mental wattage of the intellect that conjured it in what passed for his attempted self-defense against his markedly more learned critics:

In an unprecedented, uninterrupted eight-minute monologue [i.e. tirade] on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown, [oooh, THAT was a challenging venue...] Gore characterized those scientists who dispute the reality of global warming as part of a lunatic fringe.

Later, on Charlie Rose’s show, Gore went further. Asked by Rose "Do you know any credible scientist who says ‘wait a minute – this hasn’t been proven,’ is there still a debate?” Gore replied, "The debate’s over. The people who dispute the international consensus on global warming are in the same category now with the people who think the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona.”

Spoken like a true authoritarian. And a man who wants to declare the debate "over" because he's getting his ass kicked in it. There was no even oblique attempt at refutation of professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia:

Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention.

Or famed climatologist and internationally renowned hurricane expert Dr. William Gray of the atmospheric-science department at Colorado State University:

[T]he scientific "consensus" on global warming [is] one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people.

Or Oxford professor David Bellamy:

[T]he world's politicians and policy makers ... have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credo of the environmental movement. Humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide – the principal so-called greenhouse gas – into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up.

They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock. Unfortunately, for the time being, it is their view that prevails.

As a result of their ignorance, the world's economy may be about to divert billions, nay trillions of pounds, dollars and rubles into solving a problem that actually doesn't exist....

If we signed up to these scaremongers, we could be about to waste a gargantuan amount of money on a problem that doesn't exist – money that could be used in umpteen better ways: Fighting world hunger, providing clean water, developing alternative energy sources, improving our environment, creating jobs.

The link between the burning of fossil fuels and global warming is a myth. It is time the world's leaders, their scientific advisers and many environmental pressure groups woke up to the fact.

Or any of the other 19,000 climatologists who have signed a joint declaring proclaiming Al Gore and his "scientific consensus" (which, to the extent that it does exist, is discredited by the fact that virtually none of his purported "scientist" supporters even know the first thing about climatology) to be full of cow flatulence.

Gore's tirade was nothing more than another of his religiopolitical catechisms, topped off by his unique brand of abrasive, hubristic charm - the kind that would give you an uncontrollable compulsion to put your hands around his fleshy neck if it wasn't too fat for your fingertips to connect.

Let's see Ozone Man go on Fox and debate Iain Murray. He's got twenty-five more truths that the self-proclaimed "once and future king" would find a lot more than just inconvenient.

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John Murtha is a crook.

Well, he certainly is by the standards of his party's "culture of corruption" meme as applied to majority Republicans:

Last June, the Los Angeles Times reported how the ranking member on the defense appropriations subcommittee has a brother, Robert Murtha, whose lobbying firm represents 10 companies that received more than $20 million from last year's defense spending bill. "Clients of the lobbying firm KSA Consulting - whose top officials also include former congressional aide Carmen V. Scialabba, who worked for Representative Murtha as a congressional aide for twenty-seven years - received a total of $20.8 million from the bill," the L.A. Times reported.

In early 2004, according to Roll Call, Mr. Murtha "reportedly leaned on U.S. Navy officials to sign a contract to transfer the Hunters Point Shipyard to the city of San Francisco." Laurence Pelosi, nephew of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, at the time was an executive of the company which owned the rights to the land. The same article also reported how Mr. Murtha has been behind millions of dollars worth of earmarks in defense appropriations bills that went to companies owned by the children of fellow Pennsylvania Democrat, Representative Paul Kanjorski. Meanwhile, the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign-finance watchdog group, lists Mr. Murtha as the top recipient of defense industry dollars in the current 2006 election cycle.

As Representative Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, has said, "If there is a potential pattern where Congressman Murtha has helped other Democrats secure appropriations that also benefited relatives of those members, I believe this would be something that merits further review by the ethics committee."

And, just to show that Congressman Haw-Haw's corruption isn't as newly minted as his fame, he was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1980 Abscam scandal. No word on when he actually did accept his payoff, but it appears he was either canny or lucky enough not to do that on-camera (my money's on lucky).

With notoriety comes scrutiny - sometimes even for Donks. But if Murtha's nascient majority leadership decays into resignation and flight instead (i.e. "cutting and running"), he can always seek asylum on Okinawa.

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And on how ignominius a nadir did the Democrats' latest "Flight From Victory" tour finish? Well, for one thing, John Kerry was given floor time:

I went to serve in Vietnam....

Ah, enough of him.

Ali Dickbar al-Durbini, bless his flinty black heart, turned his speech in favor of a terminal resolution to surrender to a corpse into, ghoulishly appropriately enough, a(nother) eulogy:

That vote ended late at night, near midnight. I stayed on the floor because I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep when I got home. Senator Wellstone was going back home to Minnesota to face reelection. I remember saying to him, "Paul, I hope this doesn't cost you the election." And you know what he said to me, Senator Byrd? "It doesn't matter. This is what I believe, this is who I am." That was the last conversation I ever had with Paul Wellstone. He died in a plane crash just a few days later. I've thought about him ever since, I miss him, I miss his voice. I wish he were here today. If he were here today I know what he would be doing, he would be joining me in supporting the Kerry amendment.

No offense intended to the dearly departed, but forget Wellstone. Let the man rest in peace, for heaven's sake. Why can't Durbini be honest for a change, cut out the middle man, and urge his colleagues to support the Kerry amendment in memory of the man who'd have most directly benefitted from it: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. If, you know, we hadn't blown him into a stack of little Jordanian faux sausages.

Come on, Dick, let us hear you say it: "I miss Zarqawi, I miss his voice, I miss his decapitation videos. His assassination was a war crime, and the first step toward bringing our Nazi storm trooper soldiers to justice is to support the Kerry amendment. Will you do it for Zarqawi? Say yes! Say yes!"

Seriously. It'll take Zarqawi's mind off the tragic fact that all seventy-two of his virgins look like Martha Rae, denture-wearer.

UPDATE: A Powerline emailer points out even more Lurchian hypocrisy:

The line that made John Kerry famous, said in connection with the Vietnam War, was: "How can you ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake?"

It is, of course, the reason he was not able to say that his Iraq War Resolution vote was a mistake during the 2004 campaign - because then he'd be hoist on his own petard and have to have called for withdrawal....

But he's not off the hook now...his proposal(s) call for withdrawal...but not for six months or a year!...How many U.S. deaths will there be between now and his deadlines(s)?...several hundred based on recent history....this is the very basis for his proposal(s) in the first place!!...so what is really saying? ....... ISN'T HE ASKING THEM ALL TO DIE FOR - WHAT HE SAYS!! - IS A MISTAKE??!!!

Brother Hinderaker says it's impossible to take the Democrats seriously. I disagree in this sense: we can take them lightly - all the way until they actually manage to regain power. The consequences of that would be serious as a heart attack.