This morning on Don Imus’ show on MSNBC, Don’s wife Deirdre made some disparaging remarks about pigs. She said that pigs pollute and cause cancer. The fact that she used the juvenile term for swine instead of the adult term is a dead giveaway that she knows nothing about hogs.

I don’t know how hogs cause cancer. Perhaps there is some way that people cause cancer by eating pork. Does Deirdre think that hogs are on some kind of jihad? That by being composed of very tasty meat they can do their part to annihilate humans?

Hogs may create some pollution in their immediate area but there is one thing for certain: No hog has ever created more than a small fraction of the pollution that Deirdre Imus has created — or will create in the remainder of her life. The average lifespan of a hog is about two years. Deirdre could easily live well past 80 years. Few, if any, hogs jet frequently between their homes in New York and New Mexico. Deirdre could do more to reduce pollution by taking her own life than by trying to prevent hogs from having a life.

All the preachers of radical environmentalism could do more for the environment by ending their lives — or by just staying home — than they do by jetting around the country and world.

The PROTECT Act became law in 2003. PROTECT stands for Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today. It has numerous provisions but the one that caught my eye is the one called the ‘pandering provision’. It conferred criminal liability on anyone who knowingly:

… advertises, promotes, presents, distributes, or solicits through the mails, or in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe, that the material or purported material is, or contains (i) an obscene visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or (ii) a visual depiction of an actual minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

On this blog, Akismet traps spam comments promoting child porn sites most every day. What if one gets past Akismet and appears on my blog for the public to view? Does that make me a criminal? Does the fact that it is there on my blog satisfy the ‘knowingly’ qualifier?

Some think this provision is overly broad and have challenged it in court. The Supreme Court has taken a case regarding the Act, but I couldn’t find any details on the case. I don’t know if they are looking at the pandering provision.

Jonah Goldberg asks a good question in a recent column:  “Isn’t it interesting how the same people who think “dissent is the highest form of patriotism” when it comes to the war think that dissent when it comes to global warming is evil and troglodytic?” If the global warming alarmists were truly confident in their position they wouldn’t mind dissent. The reason they want to stifle dissent is exactly because they know their position is weak.

Glowarm (I’m tired of typing the whole phrase) is looking more and more like a religion. It has its prophet. You have to take it mostly on faith. Non-believers are labeled heretics and publicly ridiculed. It promises an apocalypse. You have to repent now and change your ways in order to stave off the apocalypse. You’re allowed to compensate for your sins (using ‘dirty’ energy) by performing good works (purchasing carbon offsets).

My aim of course is to firmly establish Glowarm as a religion so that government won’t be able to touch it. You know, the ‘Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion’ thing.

Senator Mel Martinez vows to fight a proposal to drill for oil and natural gas off Florida’s coast. Here is his press release:

March 13, 2007 – Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) today issued the following statement in response to the announcement of a new effort to open oil and natural gas drilling off of Florida’s coastline. Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Larry Craig (R-ID) have announced legislation to open offshore drilling as close as 45 miles to Florida’s coast, including Cuban waters for U.S. competition.

Senator Martinez said:  “This is bad policy. It attacks Florida’s protections, it violates the embargo with Cuba, and it would put drilling rigs in the Gulf military training area. This proposal goes back on everything the Congress dealt with last year – everything we did to create a long-term buffer for Florida. I will fight this proposal every step of the way.”

The bad policy is Martinez’s ‘not in my back yard’ policy. Florida uses oil and natural gas so why shouldn’t it bear it’s share of the burden of producing it? There’s a lot of talk about becoming less dependent on oil from the middle-eastern countries but very little action.

How many people want an embargo with Cuba to stand in the way of less expensive fuel? Does Martinez think that relations with Cuba are more important than the availability of energy?

The “Gulf military training area” is not a critical issue. The military can continue most of the training and testing exercises in the presence of oil rigs and move the others farther into the Gulf. Anyway, the Air Force wants to move much of the testing now done at Eglin AFB to California.

Most of those who oppose off-shore drilling say that it will spoil the beautiful coastline. They talk about the chance of oil spills and the ugly, polluting industry that supports the drilling and processes the oil and gas from the off-shore wells. They want you to believe that all the tourists that now visit Florida will immediately leave and never return if we allow the oil and gas industry to come in. This is just a smokescreen for their real agenda: thwarting all new industrialization in general and energy production in particular. I say ‘energy production in particular’ because it supports other industries.

Florida also discourages on-shore drilling. An exploration company is planning to drill a well here in Northwest Florida about 25 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. A company representative told me that they have encountered a lot of roadblocks in the state permitting process. He said that process has become one of the major expenses in exploring for new oil and gas fields in Florida.

(Full disclosure: I have a very small financial interest in the proposed inland well. My only interest in the off-shore drilling is to keep oil and gas available at the lowest possible prices.)

Sweetness & Light has an excellent timeline on the Plame-Wilson fiasco.  It contains evidence that Wilson himself was the first person to publicly disclose that his wife worked for the CIA.  It also shows the inconsistencies in Wilson’s positions and statements regarding the findings from his trip to Niger.

In an Associated Press article on White House veto threats, Representative Rahm Emanuel, D-IL, said: “My view is that the country paid a huge price for a Congress that acted like it was not an equal branch of government.” He was referring to the premise that President Bush used his veto power only once in his first six years because the Republican Congress was cooperative.

Be that as it may, what I’m calling Emanuel on is his implication that Congress is an equal branch of government. We could debate forever the relative powers of the three branches of the federal government, but one thing is certain: none of them are equal. Their separate functions are much too complex for there to be any chance that any two are equal. To say that the legislative and executive branches are equal is like saying that cows and horses on a pioneer era farm are of equal importance to the farmer.

I consider Congress to be more powerful than the executive and judicial branches. Congress has the power to pass legislation over the President’s veto. The constitution cannot be ammended without Congress’ approval. The President can’t spend money without Congress’ approval. Congress can even remove the President from office. Congress can pass legislation that effectively overturns decisions of the Supreme Court. Congress should have the most power because it most directly represents the people (at least that’s what is intended).

OK, I know that Emanuel just didn’t choose his words carefully; he probably understands that they aren’t equal branches. He should have said ’separate branch’ instead of ‘equal branch’. I just wanted to point out that Democrats also misspeak.

… is the title of a film that attempts to rebut Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth.  You can view the video here.  I got this link from a Steven Milloy column at FoxNews.com.  I haven’t had time to view the complete video yet.  When I do I might post a review.

Update:  Milloy covers the film quite well so I won’t bother to repeat what he has already said.  If you are interested in the global warming debate (no, the debate is not over), then I recommend that you take the time to watch the video.

About a month ago I posted an article about complaints from private advocacy groups that government scientists were being subjected to pressure from their superiors. I pointed out how disingenuous it is to suggest that any employee should not be subject to pressure from above. Now the Democrats are all aghast that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fired eight federal prosecutors.

The Associated Press reports that:

Gonzales, expected to meet with lawmakers this week, has been fending off Democratic demands that he resign over the ousters of eight U.S. attorneys – dismissals Democrats have characterized as a politically motivated purge.

A politically motivated purge? Never mind that Bill Clinton fired every federal prosecutor except one when he took office. In the unique logic of Democrats and their media minions, that is different. It is somehow alright for Democrats to be free to select their own appointees, but not for Republicans. How would they characterize the Clinton purge? The long-awaited replacement of mean-spirited Republican prosecutors with fair-and-square Democrat prosecutors?

So, how do the Democrats get away with these kinds of attacks? There are two reasons: (1) They have most of the media on their side. (2) Republicans are spineless and weak-kneed. The pattern is always the same. Some Democrat makes a charge. The liberal media pick it up and run with it. The Republicans cave.

The Democrats and the media are looking past this simple fact: U.S. attorneys are the federal government’s prosecutors and serve at the pleasure of the president. They can be hired or fired for any reason, or none at all.

I’m no big fan of Gonzales but he shouldn’t be replaced for his handling of the firing of the eight prosecutors.  Bush should fire him for prosecuting the two Border Patrol agents for shooting a drug smuggler and for his role in the whole border control fiasco.

Senator Mel Martinez clearly believes that the federal government should be in the housing business. On March 8 he released this announcement:

U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) today joined Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) in introducing the reauthorization of HOPE VI – a program that works to eliminate dilapidated and dangerous public housing, replacing it with new mixed income communities.

The senators should have taken a clue from their own announcement: “dilapidated and dangerous public housing.” Do you suppose they gave any thought to why public housing is dilapidated and dangerous? Let me offer a little help. There are two principal reasons. First, it’s run by government bureaucrats — the same kind of bureaucrats that operate the VA hospitals and try to keep illegal drugs and immigrants out of the country. Second, it’s inhabited mostly by deadbeats. That’s the reason they needed housing assistance in the first place. Putting a deadbeat in a new house is not going to mend his or her ways.

If the senators did take a clue, it seems to be that if we mix in a few non-deadbeats the deadbeats won’t be so obvious to the general public. They seem to want to hide the deadbeats among more responsible residents. But where are they going to find responsible residents who want to live on the same street with a bunch of deadbeats? Do they plan to bribe them? Perhaps they intend to integrate the deadbeats into existing neighborhoods. It’s not clear from the announcement.

“This reauthorization builds on the current program and makes it better,” said Martinez. “This isn’t just about funding the creation of public housing, it’s about community involvement. This bill requires a greater community commitment so that we’re not just rebuilding housing; we’re revitalizing neighborhoods and making them sustainable communities.”

Alright Mel! You go guy! Actually Mel, you’re beginning to look a little bufoonish. Do you really believe that a few assertions from you are going to make this happen? Have you ever seen a public housing area that didn’t turn into a ghetto within a few years? It will take more than pipe dreams to make this work.

With 14 HOPE VI grants, Florida ranks 2nd in the number of grants awarded in the nation and 10th in the amount of award dollars. Through grant awards and leveraged dollars, HOPE VI has generated over $736 million for the state of Florida.

Oh, I can see clearly now. This is about pork. You’re bringing home the bacon. The program doesn’t have to have any real chance of working as intended. It doesn’t matter if it’s unconstitutional. It has worked for you when it is approved and funded.

Before becoming a senator Martinez was the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. That is, he has previous experience at creating ghettos. I don’t know why we even have a Department of Housing and Urban Development. Nothing in the constitution permits the federal government to provide housing to private citizens. Don’t bother pointing out the ‘provide for the general welfare’ thing. The emphasis there is on ‘general’; it doesn’t say ‘provide for the welfare of specific individuals’.

USA Today has an article titled: Experts Close the Lid on ‘Suitcase Nukes’. It quotes a few experts in making the point that a nuclear bomb that can be carried in a suitcase by one man is highly unlikely. I suppose the article was prompted by the currently running “24″ season in which Jack Bauer is trying to catch some terrorists with suitcase nukes.

The experts are probably right, but so what if they are? Do they think terrorists are going to abandon their mission because they can’t fit their bomb into a suitcase? They don’t have to get a nuke inside a building to wreak havoc; they just have to get it inside or very near a city. They can transport it inside a small truck or large SUV. Today the size of the device is not the limiting issue. The limiting issue is the availability of the materials and expertise.

The suitcase nuke threat is a creation of Hollywood and the media. It is not a real-world issue. Don’t feel safer because you know that nuclear bombs can’t be carried in suitcases.