Hang 'em High...

Guilty…and he’ll hang…but we kinda sorta knew that, didn’t we? I happened to be awake in the wee small hours this morning when news of the verdict and subsequent sentencing came in. I watched the mini-drama unfold on Fox News, where the “overnight” crew appeared to be out of their element. Not a particularly inspiring performance by the anchor person, and that’s being kind. The folks “on the ground” in Baghdad turned in credible performances, but the anchor person? Not so much. But, on the other hand, at least Fox News provided coverage. MSNBC and CNN didn’t. Not all that important, then, I guess. What was FNC thinking, anyway?

So, I did a little surfing on the Lefty blogs this morning to see what the reaction is/was, and apart from the general “I question the timing” crap and other BS, I found this in one of the comment sections:

I can only hope that this trial is a preview or GWB’s future war crimes trial at the Hague……or, even better, in a free and independent Baghdad.

After all, W long passed Saddam’s record for number of Iraqis killed.

Another member of the reality-based clue-free community speaks.

I suppose your perspective depends, in large part, upon where you sit. Wanna guess where this writer is sitting?

Right now volleys of bullets ring not far from where I sit, some are fired to express joy while others are fired in a desperate expression of denial but I have no doubt who is going to prevail. Although the road is long but we are walking forward and will not look back.

I salute the honorable special tribunal that challenged threats and risks and insisted on keeping up the work until the end, and today it brought back the pride of the land that wrote the world’s first laws.

I salute the witnesses who risked their lives to reveal the truth and expose the crimes of the dictator.

I salute the brave men and women of the coalition who came to this land and made this day possible.

Congratulations to all my Iraqi brothers and sisters on this glorious day.

Why is it the Left absolutely, positively cannot accept, let alone celebrate, any good news coming out of Iraq? Rhetorical question… we all know the answer.

Another Green Wacko update, by Christopher Monckton, in the Sunday Telegraph (UK):

Sir Nicholas Stern's report on the economics of climate change, which was published last week, says that the debate is over. It isn't.

[…]

This week, I'll show how the UN undervalued the sun's effects on historical and contemporary climate, slashed the natural greenhouse effect, overstated the past century's temperature increase, repealed a fundamental law of physics and tripled the man-made greenhouse effect.

Next week, I'll demonstrate the atrocious economic, political and environmental cost of the high-tax, zero-freedom, bureaucratic centralism implicit in Stern's report; I'll compare the global-warming scare with previous sci-fi alarums; and I'll show how the environmentalists' "precautionary principle" (get the state to interfere now, just in case) is killing people.

It’s good to see the debate continuing, despite the best efforts of those individuals who stridently maintain there is no argument, like our buddy AlGore:

Taking a similar tack, former US vice president-turned-green-warrior Al Gore recently declared: ‘Fifteen per cent of the population believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona and somewhat fewer still believe the Earth is flat. I think they all get together with the global warming deniers on a Saturday night and party.’

I got that particular quote from a lengthy essay by Australian columnist Brendan O’Neill, who wrote a piece in Spike titled “Global Warming: the chilling effect on free speech.” Here’s another excerpt:

Whatever the truth about our warming planet, it is clear there is a tidal wave of intolerance in the debate about climate change which is eroding free speech and melting rational debate. There has been no decree from on high or piece of legislation outlawing climate change denial, and indeed there is no need to criminalise it, as the Australian columnist suggests. Because in recent months it has been turned into a taboo, chased out of polite society by a wink and a nod, letters of complaint, newspaper articles continually comparing climate change denial to Holocaust denial. An attitude of ‘You can’t say that!’ now surrounds debates about climate change, which in many ways is more powerful and pernicious than an outright ban. I am not a scientist or an expert on climate change, but I know what I don’t like - and this demonisation of certain words and ideas is an affront to freedom of speech and open, rational debate.

What he said.

Today’s “Preaching to the Choir” editorial, courtesy of the San Diego Union Tribune:

Voters seemingly poised to hand control of the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate to Democrats should be thinking hard about the consequences on an array of defining issues. The most reliable guide to those consequences is not what Democrats are saying on the campaign stump – or mostly not saying, witness the suddenly missing Nancy Pelosi – but how they have actually voted in Congress again and again on core issues.

Bluntly put, there is ample reason to conclude that the prospective Democratic majorities in Congress would, in fact, be weak on national security, defeatist on Iraq, prone to raise taxes and would lean well to the left on cultural values.

Too harsh a judgment, you say? Consider the record.

“Consider the record.” Yes, please DO. And vote accordingly.

Today’s Pic: Inside the Butterfly Conservatory in Seattle, WA. June, 2000.