Unbelievable. Heather Mills seals her reputation as a barking moonbat with the comment that people should start drinking rat milk.** My reaction is something along the lines of a) Stop talking, now, Heather. Just shut up and say no more, and b) You first, toots.

Interesting side note that I know other bloggers have picked up on. Reading down the article about Vegan nutjob (Paul, count yourself lucky she’s out of your house, mate.) Mills’ rantings, I saw this bit:

Viva! director Juliet Gellatley said; “Livestock are the second biggest cause of greenhouse gasses at 18 per cent compared to 13.5 per cent from all the world’s different modes of transport combined.

Wasn’t this derided in the 80s? Now vegans are what, co-opting the global warming hysteria to guilt people into not eating dairy?

** You heard right, Simpson fans. Heather Mills takes a page out of Fat Tony’s playbook.

This image below is the screenshot I made of the the news headlines on FoxNews.com this evening. Maybe it’s just Friday night and the interns are manning the watch. Can we be lucky?

“Human ashes dumped from Disneyland ride?” “8 Dead puppies found freezer during child porn raid?” “1 Killed when Montana prison bus hits deer, flips?”

Is there not anything else of importance going on in the world? Pakistan, the typhoon in Bangladesh, the drought in the South, the economy, IAEA bumblings in Iran, the 9th Circuit’s decision on wiretapping. Those are just a few ideas that might, might warrant higher placement than “High School Cheerleaders Suspended for Flashing Crowd.”

Mark Steyn writes in the Corner:

“Humanity is the greatest challenge,” says Colorado environmental activist John Feeney in “The Green Room” at BBC News. It’s not enough to reduce emissions, we have to reduce the folks doing the emitting:

And a quick look over at the Beeb’s “Green Room” shows us Mr. Feeney-mo-meaney’s views on humanity:

We must end world population growth, then reduce population size. That means lowering population numbers in industrialised as well as developing nations.

End population growth. Fine. Mr. Feeney can do two things. First, go on a speaking tour in any of the countries with the highest birth rates:

1. Democratic Republic of the Congo
2. Guinea-Bissau
3. Liberia
4. Niger
5. Afghanistan
6. Mali
7. Angola
8. Burundi
9. Uganda
10. Sierra Leone

and tell them to stop breeding. See how well that goes over. Second, he can lead in his quest to reduce the world’s populations by example. I believe the colloquialism goes something like, “S**t or get off the pot.” If that’s too abrasive, Glenn Reynolds’ saying is, “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who say it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.“

It’s a simple question of supply and demand. In poor countries where money speaks louder than the cries of the disenfranchised, more money always wins. Britain’s Guardian has this report about the not-so-hidden costs of food-based fuel:

It doesn’t get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the district of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks. Doubtless a team of development consultants is already doing the sums.

Increasing demand for ethanol strains the supply of corn. In this country, we don’t grow enough corn for the demand, so it’s going to come from somewhere else. And we’re not the only country on the block wanting it, so now we’re looking at a global increase in demand for ethanol sources. Increased demand raises prices which give more incentive to those with the fuel sources to sell more, taking away from food needs of the starving and disenfranchised.

How clean is your ride, really? I’d rather not have the fuel for my car coming from someone’s dinner plate.

Gore wins it for his film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” This ranks up there with giving it to Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat for their peace efforts. From the Times Online:

Mr Justice Burton identified nine significant errors within the former presidential candidate’s documentary as he assessed whether it should be shown to school children. He agreed that Mr Gore’s film was “broadly accurate” in its presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change but said that some of the claims were wrong and had arisen in “the context of alarmism and exaggeration”.

Alarmism and exaggeration, eh? Kinda’ like saying, “The science is over on this” when asked about the film? Mr. Burton goes on:

“It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film – although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion – but that it is a political film.”

The ruling in London found a few inconvenient truths in the film:

The Telegraph reports that prosecutions of gun crimes committed by those under the age of 21 have risen some 20 percent in a four-year period. How does the stiff upper lip of Britannia respond? By pushing for laws that make it a crime to not come forward and testify against those committing the crimes. That’s like punishing the rape victim for not coming forward and testifying against her assailant. Count me alongside Ed Morrissey in not understanding Britain’s aversion to allowing individuals the right of self-defense.

Why don’t British men just castrate themselves now and get it over with? You’ve given up. Britannia’s bulldog is neutered. Are you trying to make Burgess and Kubrick look prescient?

• 1996, Pulitzer Prize finalist.
• 1998 Deadline Club Award.
• 1995 and 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for Cartoons.

F— you, Ted Rall.

Found it at Michelle’s site.

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Nobel Peace Prize winner Betty Williams expressed a desire to kill President Bush, or to at least remove him from office. And the Vice President. Guess she can’t wait till January 2009. From the story:

Betty Williams, photo from wikipedia

Right now, she could kill George Bush. Nice. This at the International Women’s Peace Conference, too. She wants a non-violent means of committing a violent act. I’ll take a double-dip of selfishness and top it with a scoop of hypocrisy. Add a side of entitlement, too, would ya?

This isn’t the first time Williams has said this, either. Last year she sparked some discussion with these remarks made in Australia in front of school children at an Earth Dialogue forum:

“I have a very hard time with this word ‘non-violence,’ because I don’t believe that I am non-violent.” She went on to say, “Right now, I would love to kill George Bush”, blaming him for the deaths of children, particularly in the Middle East. “I don’t know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die the anger in me is just beyond belief. It’s our duty as human beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life.”

The quotes appeared in The Australian but the article is no longer available online.

Betty, once is a mistake. Twice is no accident. I believe she truly wishes for the death of this President. And, I’m curious how many other times she’s said it in front of people. To hell with Democratic procedure, rule of law and the wishes of the American people and the American legal & political system. Just get rid of him. And Cheney, too. (Is it funny or pathetic how Bush haters froth at the mouth about impeachment until someone reminds them of who would become President afterwards? Why do you think Sheehan is talking about running for Pelosi’s office? But that’s a whole other can of nuts.)

Quips from Live Earth, the narcissistic ineffective strokefest excuse for a concert that thinks it’s saving the planet:

From the Associated Press article by Rebecca Santana: “Of course we’re here to enjoy the music,” said Trudie Styler, wife of Police frontman Sting. But the concerts also show that “people are finally taking this precious planet seriously,” she said.

Ha! No, it doesn’t, Trudie. If people were taking the planet seriously, they wouldn’t be endorsing the wasteful shameless act you’re attending. How much electricity and jetfuel is being used to put on thie spectacle? How much litter, heat, and CO2 is being generated? Sanctimonious twits.

Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas was among a handful of stars to write a song specifically about the climate crisis for Live Earth. “The world is dying,” he rapped. “If people say it’s all right, they’re lying.”

Pro.ve.it, Billy. Prove it. (How high is that song going to climb the charts?) And then there’s Gore:

“Global warming is the greatest challenge facing our planet, and the gravest we’ve ever faced,” said Gore, who in his holographic appearance wore the only suit in sight. “But it’s one problem we can solve if we come together as one and take action and drive our neighbors, businesses and governments to act as well. That’s what Live Earth is all about.”

The gravest threat we face is a 25 mile rock in space on a collision course with Earth. Something like that could spank the carbon footprints right out of us. Climate change, the real name for shifts in the plant’s environment, is real and is, somewhat contradictorily, constant. Climate, by it’s very nature, changes. The question is how much does man’s activities impact it, and Mr. Gore is a fool if he thinks we know, definitively one way or the other, the answer to that.

If Live Earth is a massive mega-concert “designed to use the global reach of music to engage people on a mass scale to combat our climate crisis,” why are organizations sponsoring contests to fly winners to the concert? MSN and Treehugger have a Live Earth video contest running:

We want you to be there for this historic event, and so we’re teaming up with MSN to give away five pairs of tickets, along with air travel and lodging. MSN and Treehugger’s “Green Theatre” contest challenges you to (you guessed it) make a 1-2 minute video in which you answer the question “What are you doing in your own backyard to help fight climate change?”

Will that be a green flight, powered by solar panels? Or is someone buying carbon credits to offset the flights?

Tim Blair notes a contest Down Under that is also sponsoring flights for the winners. And these are flights from Australia to the U.S.!

I’ve filtered the rhetoric from the past week on illegal immigration and I think I’ve found the best idea yet. A poster on a discussion board I frequent came up with a novel idea. It’s an efficient solution to this illegal immigration problem that won’t necessitate a growing of the federal government or will it require a physical barrier to be constructed. Interested?

If there will always be illegal immigration, as the talking point goes, then why shouldn’t we work to make it a manageable amount? Then, of that manageable amount, we ensure as best as we can, that those coming in are not criminals or terrorists.

To stem the flow, remove the welfare system that illegal immigrants are currently enjoying. No more free healthcare, food stamps, schooling, etc. Cut ‘em off. If you can’t vote in this country, or produce some legal documentation that you belong here, you can’t enjoy the benefits of this country. This removes the incentive for coming here in the first place.

Second, install a handful of border checkpoints complete with water, food, etc. and also complete with facial mapping software, surveillance nets, etc. to identify felons, terror suspects, etc. The flow of illegal immigrants to this country will dwindle as the welfare is cut off. The border checkpoints will begin to serve as magnets and crossing points for those still willing to try and make it across. For the areas inbetween checkpoints, we continue to patrol and pickup illegals.

Now we have a manageable amount of people wanting to come to America to better their life. The removal of the welfare system takes away the artificially cheaper labor force that’s currently in place. Phasing in the removal prevents a sudden shock to the markets. The border checkpoints bottleneck the remaining flow of illegal immigrants to the point where we can handle the security aspects, keeps people from dying, helps cut out “coyotes,” etc..

Is there a politician out there that can sack up and propose such a thing? A solution that involves either minimal or no government growth? A markets-based solution to immigration?