Oh, Now They Tell Us: Global Warming Could Stop Naturally Within 10 Years

Not that I ever bought into the scam to begin with.

Global warming may stop over the next decade because of natural climate cooling, scientists now claim.

German scientists behind the study have warned Governments looking to save money not to use it as an excuse to cut back on preventative action.

Noel Keenlyside, a climate researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Germany who led the study, said: "The natural variations change climate on this timescale and policy makers may either think mitigation is working or that there is no global warming at all."

Climate researchers have long predicted more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would spur a general warming trend over the next 100 years.

But the latest research study in the journal Nature claim natural variations will overwhelm any human warming effects in the short-term.

The German team made a computer model that takes into account natural phenomena such as sea surface temperatures and ocean circulation patterns.

They checked their work by producing a set of forecasts using data recorded over the past 50 years and found the retrospective forecasts were accurate.

Mr Keenlyside said: "This is important because policies are made in the short term.

"Our results show we might not have as much change in climate over the next 10 years."

The incredibly wealthy noted climatologist Algore was unavailable for comment.

Thanks to Ace for the link!

Obamas Sit Down for Hard-Hitting Interview

See, not everyone in America is mean.

You may want to keep the barfbag handy.

If that's not enough, there's more fluff to follow.

Trying to rebuild Michelle Obama's image is going to be a tough sell, to say the least. Now with this news, Obama is facing a world of trouble.

Meanwhile, Jeremiah Wright is pretty much radioactive. Michelle doesn't have anything to say about him.

Makes one wonder: Why didn't the media do its job the past 15 months? Would have been nice to know about Wright back when Obama first threw him down the stairs before his presidential announcement.

'It's the Definitive Battle of the Sexes'

Finally, some research you can use.

MEN are more likely to find a woman sexy at her most fertile time of the month, and the sway of her hips isn't the only allure, new research shows.

A study by New York scientists has revealed that a woman's voice is most attractive to a man when she is ovulating.

Australian experts say the find is further proof that women become "different" at this point in their menstrual cycle as they come under the effects of sex hormones.

Research has shown the female lap dancers make more tips during their cycle peak, and another study rated a woman's walk most sexy to men when she is ovulating.

Who said we don't provide useful information?

Professor Rob Brooks, an evolutionary biologist at the University of NSW, said the findings, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, supported growing evidence that women changed when they were "in heat", otherwise known as oestrus.

"There is a well-established theory known as the battle of the sexes," Prof Brooks said.

"In an evolutionary sense, men with a short-term copulation strategy want to know exactly when a woman is most fertile so they can dip into the action at the last possible moment and get out at the first possible moment."

It is in a female's best interest, however, to conceal her ovulation so they have more control over keeping a man interested long term, he said.

"There's only a handful of days in a women's lifetime when she need a man's sperm but she will potentially need his material resources and parental support for the offspring for many, many years," Prof Brooks said.

"The potential challenge for women is keeping men interested ... so it's understandable that they try to conceal this while men, all the while, try to pick up the signals.

"It's the definitive battle of the sexes."

Druglord Slain, Evil Twin Survives

We finally have a real-life case of the dreaded evil twin.

A COLOMBIAN drug lord gunned down in a shootout with police this week was in fact the man's twin brother, officials say.

The dead man was also one of the country's most wanted cocaine traffickers.

Authorities on Tuesday said Miguel Angel Mejia was killed at a farm in northern Colombia but on Wednesday officials said fingerprints showed the slain man was Victor Manuel Mejia, also wanted for extradition to the United States on drug charges.

"At the moment he was shot by the police, Victor Mejia was carrying documents of his twin brother," the police said in a statement. "This was a strategy they often used to confuse even the members of their own security teams."

The brothers had been members of a paramilitary group that disbanded under a peace deal with President Alvaro Uribe. The Mejia twins refused to surrender to serve prison terms under the agreement and continued drug trafficking, officials say.

Washington offering a $5 million reward for their capture.

Lame Photo Op of the Day: Hillary Visits a Gas Station Accompanied by Six Gas-Guzzling, Taxpayer-Funded Suburbans

Wow, is this ever cheesy.

Naturally, AP dutifully laps it up as if they've writing a press release for Mrs. Clinton, who probably hasn't set foot at a gas station in 25 years.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, a former first lady who hasn't driven a car or pumped gas in many years because of Secret Service restrictions, joined a blue-collar worker at a filling station Wednesday to illustrate how the high price of gasoline is squeezing consumers.

The Democratic presidential candidate and sheet metal worker Jason Wilfing, 33, pulled into the station in a large white Ford 250 pickup truck, Clinton riding shotgun. Never mind that it wasn't even Wilfing's truck — he had borrowed his boss's larger vehicle to accommodate Clinton's security agent and personal assistant, who rode in the back.

Trailing Wilfing and Clinton was a Secret Service motorcade consisting of six gas-guzzling Suburbans, two squad cars and a green SUV bearing photographers and TV cameras. Several other reporters and cameramen stood shivering in unseasonably cold temperatures, ready to capture the multi-vehicle arrival.

No mention was made of the fact the price of gas has doubled since Democrats have controlled the House and Senate.

The tank filled, Clinton looked at the price recorded at the pump and shook her head.

"Sixty-three dollars," she said. "For just about half a tank."

Shutters clicked, cameras whirred. Point made.

What point? That she travels around with six gas-guzzling Suburbans at taxpayer expense? That despite it being April 30 reporters were shivering?

That the AP reporter is a willing dupe for a lame photo-op?

Kilpatrick Text Messages Revealed: AP Still in the Dark On His Party Affiliation

The Kwame Kilpatrick saga in Detroit takes an almost comical turn today as the AP obtains a series of explicit text messages between him and his girlfriend (oh, sorry, alleged girlfriend) Christine Beatty.

Naturally, AP omits his party affiliation (hint: he's a Democrat).

A series of often explicit text messages from Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's former chief of staff appear to show she had a long-term romantic relationship with the mayor and that he played a role in the firing of a police officer who sued the city.

The embarrassing messages between Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty from 2002 and 2003 appear in an 18-page document released Tuesday on the orders of Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Colombo Jr. in response to a lawsuit by the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News.

The document was obtained from the computer of Michael Stefani, an attorney who represented three police officers in whistle-blowers' lawsuits against the city that were settled last year for $8.4 million. The text messages were taken from Beatty's city-issued pagers.

The messages could prove damaging to Kilpatrick and Beatty, who are accused of lying under oath in one of the lawsuits by denying they had an intimate relationship. They are charged with perjury, misconduct and obstruction of justice. Both have denied wrongdoing.

Could prove damaging? Sure, if there was a literacy requirement to hold office.

The document released Tuesday includes descriptions of sexual trysts, the frequent use of the N-word by the mayor and Beatty as a term of endearment, and discussions of marriage.

On Sept. 15, 2002, Beatty described a sex act she wanted to perform on the mayor but said she didn't know how to approach him about it. He replied: "Next time, just tell me to sit down, shut up and do your thing!"

Later that month, the pair appeared to arrange a sexual encounter in Beatty's office. On Sept. 19, 2002, Beatty wrote to Kilpatrick: "I have wanted to hold you so badly all day, but I was trying to stay focused on work. So, I promise, not to keep you longer than 15 minutes."

Kilpatrick replied: "Don't promise (N-word.)"

Beatty said: "I'm in my office. Do you want me to come to yours or you coming to mine?"

Kilpatrick said: "I'm coming down there ... LOL ditto. Freaky Chris!"

It gets better.

On April 8, 2003, Beatty wrote: "You told me that you would be my boyfriend everyday until I was your wife. Are you renigging?"

Kilpatrick replied: "Hell no! Don't start none. Won't be none ...! LOL".

Renigging?

Update: Thanks to Gateway Pundit for the link. He makes a great point: Whatever happened to burying the n-word?

Gaza Taxis Now Running on 'Falafel Fuel'

No word on how this affects the environment, of course, because the poor Palestinians aren't responsible for anything.

Obviously, this is Israel's fault, so when we find out how much damage this does--and you just know there's an inevitable global warming angle--Israel will take the blame.

You see, if it weren't for the Israelis cutting off fuel, these poor guys wouldn't be reduced to using used cooking oil to power their vehicles.

When Hassan Amin al-Bana gingerly steps on the gas pedal of his bright yellow taxi, a strange smell wafts from the exhaust: deep-fried fast food.

Faced with chronic fuel shortages due to an Israeli blockade and a strike by Palestinian distributors protesting supply caps, taxi drivers in the Gaza Strip are filling their tanks with cooking oil, often scrounging leftover fat from street vendors.

"It's not like driving with diesel -- it takes time to get it going in the morning," said Bana, 40, at Gaza City's main taxi stand. "I know it's bad for my car, but I have to pay for food for my kids so what can I do?"

The pumps at Gaza's petrol stations have been deserted for several weeks but brightly-colored cartons of soya bean cooking oil, some smuggled from Egypt, are piled high at the taxi rank in the impoverished territory's main city.

The drivers say they mix the oil with turpentine before filling up. Used oil is better than the fresh stuff so they often beg or buy leftovers from street vendors who sell falafel -- a fried chick-pea snack popular in the Middle East.

Next thing you know we'll hear about a chick-pea shortage.

Ahmed al-Beltaji, who runs a falafel stall at the taxi rank, started selling his leftover oil to drivers about 10 days ago.

"It makes the cars smell like a kitchen -- you feel like falafel is following you," said Beltaji, crinkling his nose. "Next week they'll be putting water in there."

New Obama Pastor a Devotee of Tupac Shakur and Spike Lee

While it's unclear whether Barack Obama will be setting foot in his church again, if he does, his new pastor will be Otis Moss III.

"He's an outstanding preacher," said Presbyterian's president, John Griffith. "The way he exegetes scripture, it's done extremely well. His diction, his presentation, it's dignified, yet powerful."

In his Easter sermon at Trinity, Moss stood in front of the choir and talked of "ghetto prophets."

He recited lyrics from Shakur's "Thugz Mansion," calling the late rapper "neither a saint nor demon, but all human."

He mocked those who dismiss rap music, saying it isn't "neatly packaged for our middle-class digestion" and rappers shouldn't be overlooked because of "coarse language and ragged subject-verb agreement" or a "proclivity for ghetto-istic conduct."

Over the next hour, he weaved in the Gospel of Luke and current events, his smooth, deep voice erupting twice with shouting in the stadium-like church.

Despite his ease at the pulpit, Moss didn't always want to be a pastor.

His childhood ambition, influenced by Spike Lee, was to become a filmmaker, said his father, pastor at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland.

Great. Obama now goes from the insane Jeremiah Wright to a guy who's preaches gangsta rap.

Future Darwin Award Winners

Check out these maniacs. Hard to tell how fast they're going, but this is some crazy stuff.

It's apparently out of the Middle East, to no surprise.

Economy Grows in First Quarter: Media, Democrats Hardest Hit

Granted, it's only a 0.6% GDP growth, but considering the 24/7 nonstop gloom and doom coming from the media and Democrats, who'd have you believe it's 1932 all over again, it's a promising sign.

Naturally, the experts are confounded.

The U.S. economy grew at a slightly stronger pace than forecast as 2008 began, helped by inventory-building that tempered a steadily deteriorating housing sector and less vigorous consumer spending.

The Commerce Department said on Wednesday that gross domestic product or GDP expanded at a 0.6 percent annual rate in the first quarter, matching the fourth quarter's advance and handily topping a forecast for 0.2 percent growth in an advance poll of economists by Reuters.

GDP is the broadest measure of total economic activity within U.S. borders and, despite a better-than-expected first-quarter performance, details of the report reflect widespread weakening that many analysts fear will lead to a recession.

The GDP figures are an initial measure of first-quarter performance and will be revised twice in coming months.

The report was issued just before Federal Reserve policy-makers began a second day of deliberations that is expected to result in a decision to trim official interest rates another quarter percentage point to try to keep expansion going.

A depressed Chucky Schumer was unavailable for comment.

Consumer spending that fuels two-thirds of economic activity through consumption of goods and services, grew at the weakest rate since the second quarter of 2001, when the economy was last in recession. It rose at a 1 percent rate after growing 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter.

Oh, so we're not in a recession?

The AP, meanwhile, is sure we'll be in a recession by the second quarter.

Many analysts were predicting that the gross domestic product (GDP) would weaken a bit more — to a pace of just 0.5 percent — in the first quarter. Earlier this year, some economists thought the economy would actually lurch into reverse during the opening quarter. Now, they say they believe that will likely happen during the current April-to-June period.

The Final Trip: LSD Inventor Dies at 102

The man who had the first-ever bad trip has died.

Deadheads are in mourning around the globe.

Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered the hallucinogenic drug LSD, has died aged 102, the organisation that republished his book on the mind-altering substance revealed today.

Hofmann, who advocated the medicinal properties of the drug he termed his "problem child", died from a heart attack at his home in Basel, Switzerland yesterda.

Born January 11, 1906, Hofmann discovered LSD - lysergic acid diethylamide, which later became the favoured drug of the 1960s counter-culture - when a tiny quantity leaked on to his hand during a laboratory experiment in 1943.

He noted a "remarkable restlessness, combined with slight dizziness" that made him stop his work. "At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxication-like condition, characterised by an extremely stimulated imagination," Hofmann said of the experience.

"In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight too unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours," Hofmann wrote in his book LSD - My Problem Child.

"After some two hours this condition faded away."

A few days later Hofmann intentionally took a dose of LSD and experienced the world's first "bad trip" - slang for when the user suffers a disturbed reaction.

"On the way home, my condition began to assume threatening forms. Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen in a curved mirror," he said.

Once home, the LSD continued to warp Hofmann's mind: "My surroundings had now transformed themselves in more terrifying ways," he wrote.

"A demon had invaded me, had taken possession of my body, mind, and soul. I jumped up and screamed, trying to free myself from him, but then sank down again and lay helpless on the sofa. The substance, with which I had wanted to experiment, had vanquished me."

BBC Slobbers Over Raul Castro

The BBC cheers the Cuban Communist government as they decide to raise some pensions. I mention the Cuban government is Communist for informational purposes only as the BBC editors somehow forgot to mention that in their article.

Cuban president Raul Castro has said he will raise state pensions by up to 20% and increase wages for court employees.

Raul Castro said the increases, which will come into effect next month, were "fair recognition" of workers' effort.

The BBC then break out the pom-poms for the new Communist leader in Cuba

Since taking over the presidency from his brother Fidel in February, Raul Castro has introduced a series of liberalising economic measures.

They include an easing of restrictions on the ownership of mobile phones, lifting a ban on Cubans staying at major hotels, and allowing private farmers more involvement in how they use their land.

So, how much is this wonderful bounty in the workers paradise?

Under the scheme, according to the newspaper, more than 2.1m pensioners will receive increases of about $2 (£1) a month, raising minimum monthly pensions to $9.50 (£4.70).

Two dollars a month, raising the minimum monthly pension to $9.50 ... wow. That works out to a total income of $114 a year.

I invite all American leftwing wackos such as Sean Penn, Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins and Rev. Jeremiah Wright to move to Cuba if they hate America so much and try living on $114 a year.

Wright: He's a 'Barack-Stabber!'

Psycho preacher Jeremiah Wright isn't too happy Barack Obama tossed him under the bus, and apparently has been seething since January 2007 when Obama dis-invited him from his announcement that he was running for president.

Is it any wonder this maniac has seemingly been undermining Obama the past few months?

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright would be happy to see Barack Obama's presidential campaign derailed because the pastor is fuming that his former congregant has "betrayed" their 20-year relationship, The Post has learned.

"After 20 years of loving Barack like he was a member of his own family, for Jeremiah to see Barack saying over and over that he didn't know about Jeremiah's views during those years, that he wasn't familiar with what Jeremiah had said, that he may have missed church on this day or that and didn't hear what Jeremiah said, this is seen by Jeremiah as nonsense and betrayal," said the source, who has deep roots in Wright's Chicago community and is familiar with his thinking on the matter.

"Jeremiah is trying to defend his congregation and the work of his ministry by saying what he is saying now," the source added.

"Jeremiah doesn't care if he derails Obama's candidacy or not . . . He knows what he's doing. Obviously, he's not a dumb man. He knows he's not helping."

The source spoke yesterday about Wright's motivation for thrusting himself back into the news, the day after the pastor appeared at the National Press Club on Monday and embarrassed Obama by accusing the United States of terrorism.

Wright has said the reason he has begun granting interviews and making public appearances now is that he wants to defend black churches.

But the source said the preacher's motivation is much more personal.

The source noted that the roots of Wright's disillusionment with Obama began last year after the Illinois senator unexpectedly yanked him from participating in the public announcement of his presidential campaign.

"That's why Jeremiah revealed . . . that he had actually been at the [announcement] hotel and prayed privately with the Obama family before the official declaration," the source told The Post.

"Rev. Wright, as well as other senior members of his church, believe that Obama has betrayed over 20 years of their supposed friendship."

Obama comes off looking incredibly weak and it's fair game to question his judgment as to how he could sit there in Wright's church for 20 years and see nothing wrong with the demented views of this America-hating loon.

Ralph Peters has a look at the cult of victim-hood (hello, Michelle Obama), while Michelle Malkin has a look at the Jive-Talk Express.

Commentary from far and wide here.

In what has to be one of the lamest attempts at changing the subject, on the day Obama denounces his buddy of 20 years, what does the Associated Press do?

Their chief political correspondent files an item on how much Obama loves to play basketball. What is this, some pathetic attempt to shore up his cred with the peeps in the 'hood?

He's confident and competitive. Superstitious and silly. Admits his mistakes. Shares credit. Always in control. That's Barack Obama on the basketball court, the hardwood hideaway that helped him adjust to a white world as a racially mixed teenager — and now stands as a sweaty platform for his Democratic presidential campaign.

Hillary may have Bill. But Barack's got game.

For months, the Illinois senator kept his "first love" under wraps, but suddenly basketball is center court as a political strategy. It's no accident: Obama needs something — anything — to deflect attention from the re-emergence of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his bombastic former pastor whose racially charged opinions threaten to widen the disconnect between the Illinois senator and white working-class voters.

Obama needs anything to distract from Wright, and Ron Fournier willingly complies, by talking about ... basketball.

Unreal.

Update: Thanks to Dan Collins at protein wisdom for the link.

Groundbreaking Research Reveals Drinking Can Lead to Barfights

Where would we be without such findings?

DRINKING alcohol dulls the brain's ability to detect threats, US researchers said today in a study that helps explain why drunk people get into bar fights and drive their cars.

The researchers said the study was the first to show how alcohol affected the human brain as it responded to threats.

"You see this all the time. People get into confrontations when they are intoxicated that they probably wouldn't get into when they are sober," said Jodi Gilman of the National Institutes on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, whose study appears in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Ms Gilman studied 12 people who were given intravenous infusions of alcohol and then monitored their brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they looked at pictures of frightened and neutral faces.

And this is just from a study of moderate drinkers. They'll get to the heavy drinkers later.

People in the study were social drinkers, not heavy drinkers.

Ms Gilman said the research team planned to conduct the study in heavy drinkers next.

Expect that to unearth evidence that excessive drinking can lead to puking, slurred speech and unexpected memory loss.

Sanity Prevails: Omar bin Laden Banned From Britain

We recently noted the efforts by the spawn of Osama bin Laden to gain residence in Great Britain. Well, in a rare bout with sanity, officials have told Omar bin Laden he can cancel any plans to lay down roots there.

Oh well. I guess he'll have to become a peace envoy elsewhere.

The son of Osama bin Laden has been banned from entering Britain to live with his new wife because of fears that his presence would cause “considerable public concern”.

Officials have told Omar Ossama bin Laden that there is evidence that he is still loyal to his father, who is held responsible for the deaths of 52 innocent people in the London bombings of July 7, 2005.

Mr bin Laden, 27, is appealing against the refusal to grant him a visa and says that it is wrong to ban him from Britain on the basis of his parentage and inaccurate media reports about his beliefs.

He wants to live in Cheshire with his British wife, Zaina Alsabah bin Laden, 52, formerly known as Jane Felix-Browne. The couple were married in Saudi Arabia last year after a holiday romance but have been living in Egypt while waiting for Mr bin Laden’s visa application to be processed.

His application was refused by an entry clearance officer at the British Embassy in Cairo. The embassy said that the decision had been made on the ground that “exclusion from the United Kingdom is conducive to the public good . . . in the light of the character, conduct or association of the person seeking leave to enter it is undesirable to give him leave to enter”.

The officer added: “I note that statements made during recent media interviews indicate evidence of continuing loyalty to your father, and your presence in the UK could, therefore, cause considerable public concern.”

This piece of garbage knows well what his father has done, yet continues to give mealy-mouthed double-talk when asked about his actions.

Since being thrust into the public spotlight after becoming the first of bin Laden’s children to marry a Westerner, Mr bin Laden has repeatedly condemned the attacks on America and London. He said he could not condemn his father because he had no evidence of his involvement in terrorism.

Mr bin Laden said: “Who can know 100 per cent that my father is behind 9/11 or 7/7? I am not a judge and jury. I do not know if my father is a terrorist or was involved in the attacks.

That statement alone is enough to be banned from the UK.

Smart move.

Want a Chance to Interact With a Soldier in Iraq Tonight?

You can do just that tonight at 11 PM EST courtesy of Blog Talk Radio.

Think you have a hard time finding yarn? Join The Knitgrrl Show as we talk to US Army specialist Lorie Jewell live from Baghdad, where Lorie and her knitting friends will talk to us about knitting -- and life -- in the Green Zone.

BTR is a unique experience. Beside listening to a live radio show you can also interact with the host and participants via a live chat room and you can call in also.



To fully participate you will need to register and then when it is show time log in. If the audio portion doesn't work right away simply refresh.

So for those that would like a chance to get information first hand from somebody who is there and maybe get some knitting tips make time to tune in and if you feel inclined ask questions.

Really Old Shit Up for Auction

Some people will buy anything.

It may look like a geologic find, but a three-pound red and white fossil heading for auction Wednesday is actually a pile of dinosaur dung.

Bonhams New York is putting the prehistoric deposit up for sale along with a 30,000-year-old woolly mammoth tusk, expected to sell for up to $50,000. The auction house predicts the 50,000-year-old skull and jaws of a giant beaver will sell for about $20,000.

The dinosaur dung, identified by the auction house as Jurassic era coprolite, looks like a rock on the outside and a colorful mineral inside. It is 130 million years old and is expected to sell for between $350 and $450. It has lost any original odor.

Well, now that's a selling point.

Kos Kid: 'Uncle Tom' Obama

Of course, we can't call any of this racist, right? I mean, progressives can't be racist after all.

Psst. Dirty little secret. They're the biggest racists of all.

Anyway, this is pure hilarity.

I have been a huge supporter of Barack. He is the guy I've been behind for quite awhile now. Check my older diaries if you wonder about that. And while I've been steeling myself for a Barack loss in November, because I think the Repug machine is too good for him to beat, I had resigned myself to still working hard for him and for the Progressive cause!

But today something changed for me...

Today, the scales fell from my eyes and I saw Barack Obama for what he truly is: a weak man and a standard politician. I really never thought I would say this...

But I am disgusted with him!

This has been a strange year. From fighting against our staying in Iraq, to trying to find a way to get Al Gore to run for President, to despairing of the "inevitability" of Hillary, to finding Barack and feeling very invigorated by his message.

To today.

I just watched Barack throw someone who has been a huge part of his life overboard because a bunch of white-bread advisors told him he had to.

And why? Because white America was freaked out by a black preacher!

I thought Barack was going to lead us past that. I thought he was bigger than that. I thought he was different.

But NNNOOOOOOO! Now he is engaged in the worst kind of pandering. He has told us, in no uncertain terms, that he is no different than the Clintons: anyone who interferes with what you are doing gets thrown to the wolves.

And Barack didn't stop there. He threw every black man, woman and child overboard too! What Rev Wright has to say is what every black American believes: that racism is alive and well and living in white middle class America.

It goes on...

Just pathetic.

H/T Killgore Trout from LGF.

Battle of the Lesbians

Now it's personal.

RESIDENTS of the Greek island synonymous with the love verses of an ancient woman poet have launched a legal case against a gay group insisting that they are the real Lesbians.

Two inhabitants of the island of Lesbos along with a member of a nationalist pagan association today launched a legal case to ban the Greek Gay and Lesbian Union (OLKE) from bearing the name "lesbian".

Lesbos was the home of the poet Sappho, who expressed her love of other women in lyric verses written in the early sixth century BC.

Lesbos residents now suffer "psychological and moral rape" from the "seizure" of their island's name by gays, said the activist Dimitris Lambrou, in a text titled The Misfortune of Being Lesbian, published on his website.

Lambrou believes the case will be judged in Athens in June.

"This affair is totally ridiculous," said OLKE spokeswoman Evangelia Vlami. "But if we are summoned by the courts, we will be heard."

Just What Pennsylvania Needs: An Oddball Whose Leg Tingles at the Sight of Obama

Hey, if they're dumb enough to vote for this guy, it's their problem.

After all, Minnesota may vote for a failed comedian/radio host this year, so apparently the Democrat electorate has been sufficiently dumbed down.

The possibility of the host of MSNBC's "Hardball" Christopher Matthews, running against Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, a Republican, for Mr. Specter's senate seat in Pennsylvania is intensifying.

Although Mr. Matthews said to Bill Maher of HBO that he's "not getting involved in it" when asked about whether he would seek the position in 2010, it is odd to employ his television program in a way that would make him a favorable candidate to run for senator of Pennsylvania as a Democrat.

Mr. Matthews, who is from the Philadelphia area, broadcasted his show from Philadelphia during the week of the Pennsylvania primary. Political figures that appeared on his national show were the mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, and an African-American congressman of Philadelphia, Chaka Fattah. In addition, Mr. Matthews interviewed on "Hardball" the chairmen of the Democratic committees of Allegheny, Montgomery, and Lackawanna counties, James Burn Jr., Marcel Groen, and Harry McGrath, local figures vital to any statewide candidacy.

The "Hardball" host would not be a complete neophyte to politics. He was a former staffer to President Carter and the speaker of the House, Thomas O'Neill. In 1974, he ran for congress in Pennsylvania. His brother, James, a Mongtomery County Commissioner, ran for lieutenant governor as a Republican in 2006.

Doesn't he just give you that tingly feeling?

Having worked for Jimmy Carter should be a permanent disqualification to ever running for office.

Trust me, I have no love lost for Arlen Specter and believe he needs to retire. But does hyperventilating daily on an extremely low-rated cable show qualify someone for office?

Profess a View That Global Warming is a Hoax and Lose your Job

Or at least Dr William Gray of Colorado State University is being sent that message.

A pioneering expert on hurricane forecasting says he may soon lose funding due to his skepticism about man-made global warming, according to a report in the Houston Chronicle.

Dr. William Gray, who once said that pro-global warming scientists are "brainwashing our children," claims that Colorado State University will no longer promote his yearly North Atlantic hurricane forecasts due to his controversial views.

The Gore-bots who are acting like sharks in a feeding frenzy at the trough of the Global Warming hysteria act like all good little liberals when they run into an opinion or facts that run counter to their gospel, they attempt to silence it.

While parts of the country are still covered in inches of the white global warming stuff here late into April those diehard, sold-their-souls to the apostle Al Gore and worship on the altar of Global Warming are finding it harder and harder to support their position or their cause. They have tried to link global warming to everything from male urinary disease to missing honey bees in the Arctic and each time the arguments get shot full of holes.

Gore, on the other hand, is making out quite well as the possibly the first American Vice President to successfully hoodwink an entire world and earn millions in the process. Between setting up businesses which sell "Carbon Credits" to speaking engagements and numerous awards, I would love to see his 2008 tax returns. He is probably in a position to rival Bill Gates in the wealth category.

Do I think there is climate change? Well, duhhhh, there always has been. Ask any geologists or anthropologist and they will confirm that. Do I think man is the root of evil when it comes to changing weather patterns on the planet? No. You are ascribing far more power to humans then they should be given credit for.

I do believe this whole climate change, global warming, enviro-wacko stuff has turned into mass hysteria for many of the feeble-minded and others anxious to be able to tie they favorite cause to it in an attempt to gain some sort of credibility.

People, snap out of it. The world ain't going to end tomorrow, and when it does, I doubt very seriously humans are going to have an impact one way or the other.

Besides, the Mayans give us until December 2012.

Good News: French More Miserable Than Ever

If you want to kick them while they're down, just call them liberals and watch them whine some more.

The French are more miserable than at any time since records began, a new survey has revealed.

Soaring inflation, unemployment and widespread dissatisfaction with their daily lives have plunged the nation to historic low of gloominess, researchers found.

The study into happiness levels in French households showed that on a scale of plus 100 points for "total contentment" to minus 100 for "utter misery", the average French man and woman scored "minus 37".

Of course, Nicolas Sarkozy is doing his level best to lift them out of their doldrums, but I suspect having languished in an unproductive socialist system for so many years has had a deleterious effect.

It could be worse. They could be angry leftwing bloggers.

So You Meet a Guy Through a Site Called Vampire Freaks: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Plenty could go wrong, of course, if you show up to meet your dream date and he's upset with the fact you're 16.

I pray the young lady will be OK, but these kids (and their parents) need to be exercising some better judgment to prevent getting into such situations.

AN ADELAIDE man accused of biting, whipping and having unlawful sex with a girl he met via a vampire website has told a court he was furious when he learned she was underage.

Warwick Harold Acott, 39, of Seaton, told the South Australian District Court today he met the girl, who cannot be named, after she saw a profile he posted on the website vampirefreaks.com in 2004 or 2005, and emailed him.

Acott is accused of pushing his way into the girl's house on June 18, 2006, when she was aged 16, and slapping her, biting her on the breast and forcing her to perform fellatio.

He allegedly whipped her bottom with a cat o' nine tails before leaving.

His trial has been told Acott contacted the girl after seeing her profile on the website and began sending her messages that swung between friendly and sexually violent - including telling her he liked to rape people.

OK, isn't that a fairly clear signal you may not want to go meet with this, um, freak?

Acott has pleaded not guilty.

Giving evidence for the first time today, Acott said the girl initiated email contact, saying she thought pictures on his vampirefreaks.com profile were "gorgeous''.

She said she was "19, horny (and) do you want to hook up?'', he said, adding a photograph of her showed an attractive "Goth'' with black eye makeup and lips.

Two weeks later, they met in the centre of Adelaide where the heavily made up girl told him she was a "pain junkie" into bondage and discipline.

"And she thought I was absolutely gorgeous and she wanted to be my slut and whore,'' he said.

"To be honest, I thought that was absolutely fantastic.''

Just days later, there was another email from her, he said.

"She was expressing a very keen interest in being my whore.

"Telling me I was the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life. She would do anything I wanted.''

They met again in central Adelaide - but this time she was conservatively dressed and looked much younger.

Acott says he confronted her about her age in a Hungry Jacks diner - and she winked and told him she was only 15.

Latest Grim News: Global Warming Will Increase AIDS Cases

At least they're being creative. I have to admit I hadn't heard this one yet.

CLIMATE change is the latest threat to the world's growing HIV epidemic, say Australian experts who warn of the "grim" outlook in the fight against the infectious disease.

A leading professor of health and human rights, Daniel Tarantola, has cautioned that global warming will indirectly make citizens of developing countries even more vulnerable to death and severe ill health from HIV/AIDS.

"It was clear soon after the emergence of the HIV epidemic that discrimination, gender inequality and lack of access to essential services have made some populations more vulnerable than others,'' said Prof Tarantola, of the University of NSW.

Of course we've poured untold billions into fighting AIDS and HIV. But of course, it's never enough. Now they're working in some food shortage hysteria.

They're playing on our fears!

Those problems had not gone away, he said, and today extra threats were lurking on the horizon "as the global economic situation deteriorates, food scarcity worsens and climate change begins to affect those who were already dependent on survival economies''.

"Climate change will trigger a chain of events which is likely to increase the stress on society and result in higher vulnerability to diseases including HIV,'' said Prof Tarantola, due to address an HIV forum in Sydney tonight.

Prominent HIV scientist Professor David Cooper, director of the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, agreed environmental change would have a negative impact on HIV sufferers.

"Climate change will lead to food scarcity and poorer nutrition, putting people with perilous immune systems at more risk of dying of HIV, as well as contracting and transmitting new and unusual infections,'' Prof Cooper said.

"And this would effect Australia too, because these infections could potentially spread. Just look at the horror that SARS and avian flu have caused.''

The specialist said the HIV landscape was grim, with 16,000 new infections worldwide each day and the failure of research to produce a much-needed cure or vaccine.

He echoed the deep pessimism of 35 top British and US scientists who predicted this week that a vaccine would be at least 10 years and maybe even 20 years away.

"It's a pretty grim situation,'' Prof Cooper said.

Thanks to Ace for the link.

Reader CoquimboJoe passed along this link of things allegedly caused by global warming. Well, we have a new addition.

Now He'll Test Positive for Viagra

Hi Rog, remember me?

When we noted Roger Clemens had a long affair with country singer Mindy McCready yesterday, little did we know the women would come crawling out of the woodwork.

Well, this idiot should have just fessed up when the Mitchell Report came out that he'd taken steroids and by now everyone would've forgotten about it.

No, can't do that. He's got to embarrass himself before Congress and filed suit against Brian McNamee. Of course, Clemens is too stupid to realize McNamee's attorneys like to play hardball and they managed to dig up a treasure trove of dirt on the idiot.

Now we have McCready confirming their relationship and a couple more women linked to Clemens. Frankly, outside of the psychotic Jeremiah Wright, nobody has less credibility today.

Country singer Mindy McCready "spilled the beans" about her decade-long, secret relationship with pitching ace Roger Clemens because she has moved on and is intent on reigniting her once-hot career, her father told The Post.

"She's working on a documentary, a reality show and a new album; she knew everything was going to come out. She's very career-minded right now," doting dad Tim McCready said, noting that he supports his daughter and also "feels really bad" for Clemens, whom he described as "a gentleman."

McCready spoke from his Florida home yesterday in the wake of published reports that Mindy and Clemens, then married with two kids, had struck up the 10-year relationship in 1990, when she was just 15.

But Tim McCready insisted there was "nothing physical" between his little girl and the hurler until "years later" - when, in 1998, Mindy ended a yearlong engagement to Dean Cain, who played Superman on TV's "Lois & Clark."

"I've been talking to Mindy about this a lot, and I can assure you that nothing went on between them physically until well after she had moved to Nashville and broken up with Dean," he said.

"With Roger, there was a definite attraction between them. But it was an on-again, off-again thing," Tim McCready added, noting that his daughter traveled with Clemens to Las Vegas and New York. "For Roger, once spring training comes around and the season starts, he is dedicated to baseball. So they had about three months a year when they could see each other."

Meanwhile, sources yesterday revealed that Clemens also struck up relationships with at least two other women during his career, including former Manhattan bartender Angela Moyers.

Sources said the Rocket helped pay the rent on the pretty brunette's Houston apartment and continued to pal around with her after she moved to New York and landed the bar gig in 2000.

Moyers, now 30 and a Pennsylvania real-estate agent, declined to comment on whether Clemens helped foot her housing bills. Asked about the nature of their relationship, she said, "No comment."

Mrs. Clemens was also unavailable for comment. If she has half a brain, she's meeting with an attorney herself, unless for some reason she's OK with all this nonsense.

Update: Thanks to Ace for the link.

Now, If They'd Just Do Something About Those Baggy Pants

Newsflash: the Saudis are still acting like cavemen, in more ways than one.

A governor in northern Saudi Arabia has ordered authorities to punish men who flirt with women in public places by cutting their hair, local media said Tuesday.

Prince Fahd bin Badr, governor of the northern al-Jof region, ordered police to carry out the punishment after seeing a group of men with long hair pestering female students as they left school in the northern al-Qurayat province, Al-Hayat newspaper said.

It said the prince told a gathering at his palace in the northern town of Skaka on Sunday he has instructed police to apply the punishment to all youths guilty of flirting, including "the sons of senior military and civil officials."

"The decision doesn't include men who spend their free time in public places without hurting anyone," the paper quoted the prince as saying.

Saudi Arabia has long imposed a strict Islamic lifestyle in which men and women are segregated in public. That lifestyle is enforced by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, a government body that runs the country's powerful religious police.

Its members patrol public places to make sure women are covered and not wearing make up, the sexes don't mingle, shops close five times a day for Muslim prayers and men go to the mosque and worship.

Is it OK to hit on the ladies if you already have short hair?

Moonbat McDermott Pays $1 Million to Boehner

I wonder how the knuckleheads who contribute money to this Saddam Hussein-loving nitwit feel about their campaign contributions now going to help elect Republicans.

The wheels of justice turned very slowly in this case, but the bum finally paid up.

Rep. Jim McDermott has paid more than $1 million to House Minority Leader John Boehner, ending a decade-long dispute over an illegally taped telephone call.

McDermott, a Seattle Democrat, paid $1,093,297 to the Ohio Republican's campaign committee earlier this month, spokesman for the two men said Monday.

The payment is in addition to $64,000 McDermott paid Boehner in January, as part of court-ordered punitive damages in the long-running case.

A federal judge ordered McDermott to compensate Boehner for attorney's fees after Boehner sued McDermott for leaking the contents of a cell phone call that was illegally recorded in 1996.

A federal court found last year that McDermott had no right to release the call, in which Republican leaders discussed an ethics case against then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

A Florida couple recorded the cell phone call on a radio scanner and gave the tape to McDermott, who at the time was a senior member of the House ethics committee. McDermott leaked the tape to two newspapers, which published articles on the case in January 1997.

The Supreme Court decided in December not to revisit the case.

Boehner's spokesman, Kevin Smith, said the $1.09 million payment includes $628,000 from McDermott's campaign account, and about $465,000 from McDermott's legal expense trust fund.

"Every last penny will be used to help elect Republicans," Smith said, calling it ironic that McDermott — an outspoken partisan — "is helping fund the defeat of his fellow Democrats. I wouldn't expect he'll receive a lot of thank you's come November."

His sub-moronic constituency will no doubt reward him with another term.

A sad irony on the GOP end is this is probably one of their largest campaign hauls this political season.

Update: Thanks to Gateway Pundit for the link! Thanks also to The Jawa Report for the link.

You May Now Kick the Bride

Must have been a nice day for a white trash wedding.

What a happy couple.

A newlywed couple spent the night in separate jail cells — she in her wedding gown — after police said they brawled with each other, then members of another wedding party, at a suburban Pittsburgh hotel.

The fight started Saturday night after a reception when he knocked her to the floor with a karate kick in the seventh-floor hallway of a Holiday Inn — and escalated when she attacked two guests from another wedding party who came to her aid, police said.

The melee moved to an elevator and then to the lobby, where the couple threw metal planters at the two good Samaritans, causing minor injuries, police charged.

"It was pretty wild," Ross police Sgt. Dave Syska said.

Dentist David W. Wielechowski, 32, of Shaler, and Christa Vattimo, 25, had married a month earlier in the Bahamas but repeated their vows Saturday at a reception for 150 guests. They were checking into their room when the argument began, police said.

Police arrived to find the dentist lying on the lobby floor and his bride, seemingly highly intoxicated, screaming.

Who said it wouldn't last?

Sounds like the groom got worked over pretty good.

The couple declined comment upon their release Sunday morning.

She left with her father, still dressed in her white gown.

Wielechowski left alone, sporting a swollen eye, tuxedo pants, a bloody T-shirt and one shoe.

Update: Hmm. That headline at CNN looks awfully familiar.

Sleazefest! Spitzer Hooker Sues 'Girls Gone Wild' Founder

Apparently that singing career isn't quite panning out and since Eliot Spitzer is out of business, I guess a girl needs to make a living.

So Ashley Alexandra Dupre does what any normal girl would do at this juncture of her, um, career: sue somebody!

The call girl who triggered the downfall of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer sued the founder of the racy "Girls Gone Wild" videos today for $10 million, claiming her image and name are being exploited.

Oh, the irony, a professional whore complaining of being exploited.

Ashley Alexandra Dupre also contended in the lawsuit that she was only 17 -- too young to sign legally binding contracts -- and drunk on spring break in 2003 when she agreed to be filmed for "Girls Gone Wild" in Miami Beach.

Dupre "did not understand the magnitude of her actions, nor that her image and likeness would be displayed in videos and DVDs," says the lawsuit filed by Miami attorney Richard C. Wolfe.

Sure, she had no idea. That's why she was slutting it up while drunk at age 17.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Miami names as defendants "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis, two of his companies and a man purportedly involved in creation of two Internet sites the lawsuit contends improperly use Dupre to sell DVDs and other products.

Francis, 35, has built a soft porn empire filming and marketing videos of young women exposing their breasts and being shown in other sexually provocative situations often at public events such as Mardi Gras or beach spring break locales.

Obama's Chicken Comes to Washington

The insane Jeremiah Wright slithered into Washington today and a few folks braved the inclement weather outside the National Press Club to have their say.

Jonn Lilyea from This Ain't Hell was there to get some photos.

Michelle Malkin has a rundown of the lunacy that went on inside.

Horror! Indiana Voters Must Show Photo ID

A regular constitutional crisis.

Now if we can only get this enforced in the other 49 states, there'd be a lot of dead Democrats no longer voting.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.

In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana's strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to deter fraud.

It was the most important voting rights case since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush mirrored.

The law "is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy.

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also agreed with the outcome, but wrote separately.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.

mean old Republicans. How dare they want to enforce a common-sense law!

Update: Predictable reaction from one of the Kos Kidz.

In a case reflecting a solution truly in search of a problem, and opening the door to all sorts of harassment for minority, elderly and other traditionally Democratic voters, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 today that Indiana could legally require all voters to present photo identification cards in order to vote.

In other words, you better let us continue ballot fraud.

Assorted adult reaction here.

Steroids May Be The Least of His Problems

The problems continue to mount for Roger Clemens. Absolutely buried in the steroid mess, now he has to contend with news that he carried on a ten-year affair with a country singer that began when she was 15.

Roger Clemens carried on a decade-long affair with country star Mindy McCready, a romance that began when McCready was a 15-year-old aspiring singer performing in a karaoke bar and Clemens was a 28-year-old Red Sox ace and married father of two, several sources have told the Daily News.

The revelations could torpedo claims of an unsullied character that are central to the defamation suit Clemens filed Jan. 6 against his former personal trainer Brian McNamee. Vivid details of the affair could surface in several media projects that McCready is involved with - including a documentary that begins filming today in Nashville, a new album and a reality show.

McCready, who lives on a quiet, tree-lined street in Nashville, is attempting a career comeback following a string of legal and personal woes.

Contacted by the Daily News Sunday through his lawyer Rusty Hardin, Clemens confirmed a long-term relationship but denied that it was of a sexual nature.

"He flatly denies having had any kind of an inappropriate relationship with her," Hardin said. "He's considered her a close family friend. ... He has never had a sexual relationship with her."

Sure. And he never did any steroids.

What a guy.

Mrs. Clemens was unavailable for comment.

How Do You Get the Media Interested in the Tony Rezko Trial? Mention Karl Rove

This is like that dog who keeps chasing his tail. He gets bored at the fruitlessness of it all after awhile and goes back to sleep. Of course he always wakes up having forgotten how silly he looked and proceeds to resume the pointless activity.

Today's installment of Rove Derangement Syndrome comes courtesy of Newsweek's Michael Isikoff. This should make for interesting conversation at Newsweek since Karl Rove is on the payroll over there. Maybe Isikoff is annoyed about that. Who knows, but this seems incredibily flimsy to run with.

The trial of Chicago developer and political fixer Antoin "Tony" Rezko has been closely watched for any mention of the defendant's onetime friend, Barack Obama. But last week, prosecutors threw a curveball, telling the judge that one of their witnesses is prepared to raise the name of another prominent Washington hand: Karl Rove. Former Illinois state official Ali Ata is expected to testify about a conversation he had with Rezko in which the developer alleged Rove was "working with" a top Illinois Republican to remove the Chicago U.S. attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald.

The allegation, which Rove denies, quickly reverberated in Washington. Democrats in Congress now want to question Ata. They believe he can help buttress their theory that Rove played a key role in discussions that led to the firings of U.S. attorneys at the Justice Department in 2006. The House Judiciary Committee "intends to investigate the facts and circumstances alleged in this testimony," panel chairman Rep. John Conyers of Michigan said in a statement to NEWSWEEK.

Not a shred of evidence to back up the claim, but let's throw it out there and see what sticks.

Investigators are intrigued by the timing of the alleged conversation about Fitzgerald. According to the Rezko prosecutors, it took place in November 2004—weeks after Fitzgerald had subpoenaed Rove to testify for the third time in another matter he was aggressively investigating, the Valerie Plame CIA leak case. A source familiar with Ata's testimony (who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters) said that Ata was meeting regularly with Rezko that fall. The two men shared a concern about Fitzgerald's ongoing probe of Illinois public officials. In one of those conversations, the developer allegedly told Ata that Bob Kjellander, a prominent GOP state lobbyist, was talking to Rove about getting rid of Fitzgerald. The reason: to "get a new U.S. attorney" who would not pursue the Illinois corruption probe, the source said. Ata, who has pleaded guilty to corruption-related charges and is now cooperating with the Feds, has no evidence that the conversation took place other than what Rezko allegedly told him, the source says.

No evidence, just allegations.

But that's all you need for Michael Isikoff.

Shameless.

Kjellander denies that he told Rezko anything of the kind. "I never had a discussion with Karl Rove or any other person on the White House staff" about firing Fitzgerald, said Kjellander, now a top GOP official in charge of this summer's convention. Rove's lawyer, Bob Luskin, told NEWSWEEK that Rove "does not recall" a conversation with Kjellander about Fitzgerald. He added that Rove "never talked to anybody in the White House about removing Fitzgerald."

The dog has awoken and is ready to chase his tail again.

Good News: NYT Circulation Plummets

More grim news for our friends at the NY Times.

It's not just them. Other leftwing Big Media outlets such as the Washington Post, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Boston Globe also dropped.

Of course, they'll probably blame Bush rather than looking in the mirror. There was a slight increase at the Wall Street Journal with a larger increase at USA Today.

Print circulation continues on its steep downward slide, the Audit Bureau of Circulations revealed this morning in releasing the latest numbers for some of the country's largest dailies for the six-month period ending March 31, 2008. When a full analysis appears it is expected to find, according to sources, the biggest dip yet, about 3.5% daily and 4.5 for Sunday.

The following circulation compares the new data to the same period a year ago. Daily circulation is the Monday-Friday average.

--The New York Times lost more than 150,000 copies on Sunday. Circulation on that day fell a whopping 9.2% to 1,476,400. The paper's daily circulation declined 3.8% to 1,077,256.

--At the Washington Post, daily circulation decreased 3.5% to 673,180 and Sunday dropped 4.3% to 890,163.

--Meanwhile daily circulation at The Wall Street Journal grew a fraction of a percent, up 0.3% to 2,069,463 copies. USA Today experienced a greater increase. Circulation was up at the national daily 2.7% to 2,284,219.

--Daily circulation at The Orange County Register plunged 11.9% to 250,724 and Sunday fell 5.3% to 311,982.

--In Los Angeles, the Times lost more than 40,000 daily copies. Daily circulation there was down 5.1% to 773,884. Sunday declined 6.0% to 1,101,981.

--The San Francisco Chronicle reported that daily circulation dropped 4.2% to 370,345 while Sunday dropped 3.0% to 424,603.

--The Boston Globe's daily circulation fell 8.3% to 350,605. Sunday declined 6.4% to 525,959.

--The Miami Herald reported daily circulation lost more than 11% with 240,223 copies while Sunday dropped 9% to 311,245.

--Daily circulation at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution declined 8.5% to 326,907 while Sunday fell 5.0% to 497,149.

See if you can figure out what all those papers who lost readers have in common.

Hefty Prisoner Sheds 100 Pounds, Sues Because He's Not Getting Enough Food

You'd think this slob would be grateful enforced exercise and a reasonable diet helped him lose 100 pounds. Guess again.

An Arkansas inmate awaiting trial on a murder charge is suing the county, complaining he has lost more than 100 pounds because of the jailhouse menu. Broderick Lloyd Laswell says he isn't happy that he's down to 308 pounds after eight months in the Benton County Jail. He has filed a federal lawsuit complaining the jail doesn't provide inmates with enough food.

More from the BBC.

He claims his vision has gone blurry while trying to exercise.

The prison says the meals average 3,000 calories a day - more than the US recommended daily intake for adults.

Laswell has filed a federal law suit complaining Benton County jail does not provide inmates with enough food.

According to the suit, Laswell weighed 29 stone (187kg) when he was jailed in September.

Police say he has been charged with fatally beating and stabbing a man, the Associated Press news agency reported.

"On several occasions I have started to do some exercising and my vision went blurry and I felt like I was going to pass out," he wrote in his complaint.

"About an hour after each meal my stomach starts to hurt and growl. I feel hungry again."

Aww, the poor thing. Maybe he should have thought about his hungry belly before he killed a man.

Hypocrisy From Obama? Bank On It

Barack Obama has been blaming bankers for causing a lot of the current economic slowdown. Well, guess who Obama has in charge of his campaign finances? Penny Pritzker, former Chairwoman of a failed bank that burned 1,400 customers.

One of the banks that went under after making a lot of subprime loans -- leaving 1,400 of its customers without part of their savings -- was Chicago's Superior Bank.

At the helm of Superior Bank at least some of the time was Obama's national finance chairwoman, Penny Pritzker, an heiress to the Pritzker fortune.

Obama's campaign excuses all that as being long ago and far away, just like all those pesky Jeremiah Wright sermons he never heard and his ring-kissing of terror pal William Ayers.

Obama's campaign notes that Pritzker stepped down as chairwoman of the bank's board in 1994, seven years before it failed. She then went on the board of the bank's holding company.

However, it appears that Pritzker later took a much more active role.

But a letter obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times shows that until the end, Pritzker appeared to be taking a leadership role in trying to revive the bank with an expanded push into subprime loans.

Pritzker wrote in May 2001 that her family was recapitalizing the bank, and she pledged to "once again restore Superior's leadership position in subprime lending." The bank shut down in July 2001.

So, how much did the Pritzker's make out of this deal?

The Pritzkers put up $460 million, which federal regulators said absolved them of any further liability in the collapse.

That's less than the $645 million the Pritzkers got to take the thrift, Ely and Anderson note.

By my math, that's a $185 million gross profit. But not everbody made out quite so well in the deal.

They still owe me $113,000," said Fran Sweet, 63, of Downers Grove, who deposited her $480,000 retirement account at Superior a month before it collapsed. "To the Pritzkers, this is nothing. They probably think, 'Why pay her back?' That's nothing. But we're all upset that someone who made these decisions could be in that position.

Yet Obama still calls himself the candidate for change.

Think Food Prices Are High? Wait Until the UN Gets Involved

You can count on the UN to further screw up an already difficult situation. Now the UN, ever eager to regulate the free market, wants to get deeper into the food business.

Wonderful.

Key United Nations development agencies are meeting in Switzerland to try to develop solutions to ease the escalating global food crisis.

Led by secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, officials want to mitigate the impact of the steep rise in staple food prices and prevent food shortages worsening.

The only real "solutions" are to stop taking food out of the supply chain to make ethanol (might want to check with Saint Algore on that one) and increase the overall production of food. The food production aspect of this will happen due to the free market impact of higher profits due to the increased prices. Of course, neither of these solutions are within the purview of the UN, but it sounds good.

Others are also recognizing the reality that the UN can't do much.

But the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva said it was less clear how more deep-seated problems could be addressed.

These include the current impasse in global trade talks, general economic weakness and profound differences over the use of agricultural land for biofuels.

However, it's always a nice way to justify asking for more money, which is what this is really all about.

The WFP has launched a massive fund-raising appeal, saying it needs an extra $755m to purchase the necessary food to meet its obligations.

I bet very little extra food gets to anybody who is hungry. But it's also a good excuse to go after investors.

The authorities in Vietnam, meanwhile, have warned that market speculators forcing up the price of rice would face "severe punishment".

Speculators including food suppliers, commodity trading houses and other investors have started to buy rice, before selling it on for considerable profits or holding back supplies, thereby distorting the market further.

Understand this: somebody will make money on these higher prices. My take is the UN just wants to make sure that the "somebody" is them.

No More 'Happy Hookers' for FDNY

Welcome to Michael Bloomberg's nanny state. No more smoking, you better count your calories, say anything out of line and his boss Al Sharpton will be coming after you, and whatever you do, don't have a sense of humor.

MESSAGE to the Fire Department: Bring back the Hookers!

For a mom who lost her son on Sept. 11, 2001, it was the final straw.

In a blatant fit of political correctness, the brass in charge of the FDNY has won a three-year battle with a firehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn - whose men were forever known as the "Happy Hookers."

After much resistance, the department painted over the "Hookers" slogan, which had graced the firehouse forever.

Now, the mother of a fireman killed in the line of duty wants to paint it back.

"This is like putting another hole in my heart," said Dee Ragusa, whose firefighter son, Michael, was killed on Sept. 11.

"Nobody cares about 9/11 anymore. They [the firemen] are just denoted as a bunch of bums. That's what hurts."

She has written to Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, to no avail. Now, Dee is contemplating taking matters into her own hands.

Read the rest.

These guys lay it all on the line and 343 of them made the ultimate sacrifice on 9/11. But the brass and Bloomberg treat them like little kids.

Way to pay them back for all they've done.

Gruesome 'Honor' Killing in Iraq

Wow, this story is just sickening. What's also sickening is they call this an honor killing. There's nothing honorable about hacking your daughter to death.

A teenage Iraqi girl who fell in love with a British soldier when he was in Basra was murdered by her father in an "honour killing", it was revealed today.

Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, was suffocated and then hacked at with a knife after her family discovered she was friends with the 22-year-old soldier who she knew only as Paul.

The pair first met when Rand was working on an aid project for displaced families but it is thought the soldier is unaware of the girl's fate.

She was stamped on, suffocated and stabbed - leaving her with puncture wounds all over her body, including her face.

Her own mother, Leila Hussein, has spoken out about the crime, revealing how her husband called out that he was cleansing "his honour" as he carried out the murder.

She told the Observer he was arrested after the brutal murder but was released without charge two hours later because it was an "honour killing".

"He was released two hours later because it was an 'honour killing'. And unfortunately that is something to be proud of for any Iraqi man," she told the paper.

These people are absolute cavemen.

Sgt Ali Jabbar of Basra police said: "Not much can be done when we have an 'honour killing'. You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws."

Unconscionable! McCain's Wife Let Him Use Her Plane

Why, we can't have any of this in 2008 America!

Seriously, these New York Times hitpieces get lamer by the day.

The senator was able to fly so inexpensively because the law specifically exempts aircraft owned by a candidate or his family or by a privately held company they control. The Federal Election Commission adopted rules in December to close the loophole — rules that would have required substantial payments by candidates using family-owned planes — but the agency soon lost the requisite number of commissioners needed to complete the rule making.

Because that exemption remains, Mr. McCain’s campaign was able to use his wife’s corporate plane like a charter jet while paying first-class rates, several campaign finance experts said. Several of those experts, however, added that his campaign’s actions, while keeping with the letter of law, did not reflect its spirit.

“This amounts to a subsidy for his campaign, which is notable given how badly they were struggling last year,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that collects and analyzes campaign data.

Really, they've got to have more dirt on him that this, right? Do they think such incredibly lame stories are going to have any impact?

No Thugs Left To Pander To

What is it with all these Democrats and their freelance diplomacy? You had that fossil Jimmy Carter over being emasculated by the terror goons of Hamas last week (how'd that work out, Jimmah?) and now you have failed presidential contender and Barack Obama's new best buddy Guillermo Richardson slobbering over Hugo Chavez.

Why do I get the feeling Democrats would be lining up for dialogue with Osama bin Laden if he were still alive?

The governor of New Mexico met on Saturday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in an effort to restart talks with neighboring Colombia to secure the release of hostages held by leftist rebels.

Chavez this year helped free six hostages held for years by the Marxist FARC rebels in Colombia's four-decade old civil war, but talks have sputtered amid continued bickering between Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

"I've had a good meeting with President Chavez ... (he) has told me that he is willing to help in this situation," Gov. Bill Richardson told reporters after the meeting.

"Many times in a conflict like this we forget the human side, that human beings are being held hostage."

You ever notice how Democrats treat anti-American thugs with such reverence but view Republicans as if they were evil incarnate?

'I Think Having a 'Rush Limbaugh' Vote is Disgusting'

Operation Chaos is succeeding beyond Rush Limbaugh's wildest dream.

The moonbats in the Bay Area are up in arms.

"I hate him. I think having a 'Rush Limbaugh' vote is disgusting," sighs Democratic Party activist Gloria Nieto, who heads the Silicon Valley Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Democratic Club. "What kind of model is that for our democracy - that people would hear someone on the radio saying, 'Go screw with the Democrats!' "

Hate?

Why, I thought the left was all about love, tolerance and getting along?

Well, Maybe There's a Larger Truth

Never underestimate Hollywood's ability to churn out anti-war flicks that bomb at the box office.

Between Redacted and Lions for Lambs, one might think the message has been clearly delivered: Nobody much cares for this genre of films. Call it war fatigue, Bush fatigue, whatever, people just aren't interested.

Well, that isn't stopping one Nick Broomfield from coming out with a completely fictionalized version of events at Haditha, the alleged massacre where John Murtha declared the Marines guilty long before the facts were in.

The problem with Broomfield's upcoming film is a nagging little fact that the events he portrays are a complete fake.

The flick, opening May 7 at Film Forum, features former enlisted Marines portraying the killers in explicit reenactments of what some call "Bush's My Lai," and is being slammed as a smear job. One group, Defend Our Marines, states on its Web site that British-born Broomfield claimed he'd show the world the "unflinching truth" about Haditha, but instead had actors improvise phony, obscenity-filled dialogue as they shot innocent civilians. One scene in which an Iraqi is gunned down as he flees through a field is said to be completely fictional. Charges against five of eight Marines involved have been dropped so far.

Maybe Broomfield ought to put things on hold until all the charges are adjudicated.

But why do that when you can slander the troops? The left gets away with it every day, so why not just continue the assault?

Why, he must do it, as his only cause is, ahem, helping change the world.

'A film can have either a very specific result or a vaguer attitudinal one,' says Nick Broomfield. 'The fact that the result isn't easily quantifiable has no bearing on the film's importance.' Early Broomfield exposés were directed at specific abuses. Battle for Haditha, which was shown on Channel 4 recently, is a fictionalised account of a massacre in which non-actors play the Marines involved and the Iraqi victims and insurgents. 'People say to you, "That's what is happening in Iraq." Marines appreciate it because it shows what they went through. So do Iraqis,' says Broomfield. 'But you can't say, except in the most general terms of altering views about the conflict, that the film has had a tangible effect.'

When you pull back the covers, it all comes back to one factor: Bashing Bush.

But the flight from television to cinema has already happened in the United States, where television has been risk-averse and entertainment-based for many years. Activist Hollywood comes squeaky clean and earnest, with a desire to save the world. 'We all owe George Bush tremendously,' says film-maker Eugene Jarecki. 'Hollywood hasn't changed fundamentally. But you can be taken seriously now - you're more than a lunchbreak item. George Bush has become a get-out-of-jail card for political film-makers.'

Profits and smart business be damned. They have a political axe to grind.

Saudi Blogger Freed

The oil ticks are so compassionate.

At least we bloggers in the west have freedom.

For now.

A SAUDI blogger detained without charge for more than four months after expressing pro-reform opinions has been released, a colleague says.

Fouad Farhan was detained in early December after running an online campaign over 10 men arrested since February 2007 on suspicion of financing militant groups, but whose supporters say they are being punished for pro-democracy activity.

"I received a mobile phone message from his wife at 5.30 this morning saying he was released," said Ahmed al-Omran, who published the news on his website (www.saudijeans.org).

"It was surprising. After blocking his website, I thought his detention would go on longer. It's good news."

Saudi authorities blocked Farhan's website (www.alfarhan.org) earlier this month.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said he would not confirm Farhan's release. The ministry had declined to say on what charges he was arrested, but said it was not security related.

Racist Democrats Fear Racial Divide

Well, it's about time. Considering how liberals are the biggest racists on the planet and conveniently play the race card any chance they get, it's good to see them get a little taste of their own medicine.

Sadly, the black vote will still overwhelmingly go their way this fall, but there's hope that some day that may change.

The protracted and increasingly acrimonious fight for the Democratic presidential nomination is unnerving core constituencies -- African Americans and wealthy liberals -- who are becoming convinced that the party could suffer irreversible harm if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton maintains her sharp line of attack against Sen. Barack Obama.

Clinton's solid win in the Pennsylvania primary exposed a quandary for the party. Her backers may be convinced that only she can win the white, working-class voters that the Democratic nominee will need in the general election, but many African American leaders say a Clinton nomination -- handed to her by superdelegates -- would result in a disastrous breach with black voters.

Yes, we can't have that. Heaven knows what would happen if blacks left the Democrat plantation. Why, they might not be taken for granted any more.

"If this party is perceived by people as having gone into a back room somewhere and brokered a nominee, that would not be good for our party," House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the highest ranking African American in Congress, warned yesterday. "I'm telling you, if this continues on its current course, [the damage] is going to be irreparable."