More from Bob Stapler.

Assuming your liberal friends remain unconvinced ethanol is the reason their grocery tab has jumped, have them read this article in which the Guardian admits corn conversion is the cause while alleging a Bush conspiracy to cover it up.  About the only thing secret about the World Bank report is WB’s reluctance to admit its role, with the Guardian shamelessly shifting all blame for said mess onto America’s President.  Does the Guardian realize Bush would never have given in to ethanol had not special interests (incl. WB) and liberal-media (including the Guardian) been pushing him in that direction?  Of course they do, but the Guardian is a Green supporter unlikely to assign blame objectively, much less honestly.  The more logical solution to energy independence (the one supported by Bush’s base) is domestic drilling and refineries.  Bush caved the other way in part because of the ethanol-lobby (led by Archer-Daniels-Midland), but mainly because of the enormous public hostility to oil and climate hysteria, fanned by rags like the Guardian, radical-environmentalists, and the kind of wobbly-science and wobblier-economics favored by WB.  World Bank’s Center for Global Development and Clean Technology Fund has solidly supported the push for renewables, including ethanol, since the early 1990s when they joined the Al Gore express; long before Bush grudgingly joined the chorus.  Admittedly, the World Bank has been drawing fire recently from Greens over coal-fired power plant investments, but the WB has been among those railroading Bush; not the other way around.  And, if that isn’t bad enough, Dennis Avery says Britain is about to cave to demands for a crop-pesticide ban favoring "organic foods;" cutting British food production roughly in half.  No doubt, the Guardian will find an excuse to pin that on Bush too.

Sore winners (whiners?) at the NYT are carping that the most recent commitment by the G-8 to cut greenhouse emissions "does not go far enough."  It does not matter and will never matter to environmentalists, because we can never go far enough to satisfy them short of reverting to a pre-bronze-age lifestyle.  However, it is not all bad news on the global warming front.  The NYT is back-peddling somewhat on the crisis du jour glacial-meltdown scare, so I guess the heat’s off selling that beachfront property just now.  Good thing, considering the chilly real-estate market.

Every once in awhile, I feel I must hold my nose and take a walk on the "wild-side" of politics & culture, if only to stay au current with what goes on "over there."  Of course I’m talking about the liberal intellectual counterparts to NRO.  Not to say liberal sites lack any intellectual content; rather, they prefer entertainment over content and resort to drivel and irreverence with which to deflect solid argument.  Unsurprisingly, Salon.com’s current recommended links include feminist web-zine www.Jezebel.com; hip & sassy purveyor of girl-kink.  Common themes at Jezebel include: venerating the retro-Madonna hedonist lifestyle, slamming Planned Parenthood for having (just once) offered actual "choices" other than abortion, hoax-promotion, and slandering men whenever wherever possible.  The editors make a cause of attacking anything deemed "too conservative," be it politics, faith or fashion.  In fact, if Jezebel can be summed up in a word, it would be "derisive."

At a St. Louis rally, Barack Obama "preached" individual responsibility – moments before declaring it "government's duty" to address "moral problems" such as war, poverty, joblessness, homelessness, violent streets and crumbling schools . . ..” (Give me a second to compose myself after putting Obama and ‘individual responsibility’ in the same sentence.)  Okay Obama-mama-lama, which is it – individual or collective?  War is certainly a moral dilemma for most people, but these others are collectively moral only to the extent they are of our collective making.  Most poverty, joblessness, homelessness, and violence are "personal failures," not collective failures; and Obama has sidestepped the difference with all the skill of a used-car salesman (say it fast and move on to something else before the customer notices the rust).  Declaring any dilemma, moral or otherwise, a "duty of government" is nonsense, right up there with "corporate responsibility."  Anyone with half a brain can tell you collective responsibility begets personal irresponsibility.  People, not governments and corporations, have duties and responsibilities; and the confusing of the two pretty much explains why the Left gets so much wrong.  Fortunately (for Obama), he’s not dealing with people who ordinarily reference said brains and prefer someone else do the thinking.  You might as well hold Ireland’s Blarney Stone responsible for the gift of gab, as hold government responsible for personal shortcomings.  As for "crumbling" schools, I should have had such nice schools when I was a kid.  Oh, Bama, get a clue.  The problem with our schools is they don’t teach anything but that drivel you preach!  Finally, Obama said he’s “puzzled by the frenzy . . . set off by what I thought was a pretty innocuous statement . . . I am absolutely committed to ending the war.”  Gosh, can anyone here think of a single reason that might cause a stir?

If you’ve been to your local auto-parts store recently, you may have noticed some nifty gasoline siphoning devices on the rack.  With gas prices this high, is it any wonder there’d be a surge in gasoline siphoning from, say, your tank to your neighbor’s . . . without your knowledge?  The Washington Post has so noted this stealthy enterprise.  It might be a good time to invest in that anti-siphoning kit.  You’ll find it at your auto-parts store – alongside the clever siphoning gadget.  However, some thieves are so determined they may simply bypass that deterrent to get at your $4-gas .  And, just in case you missed it, a Hyattsville man stole a whole truck load last October and another led police on a wild chase through Albuquerque hauling 100 gallons of stolen gasoline last April.

Now that terrorists have been guaranteed their day in court, is it any wonder the media is only now noticing these guys have priors on U.S. soil; including some pretty suspicious activities?  I, for one, would like to know just how much of this the AP knew and when did they know it.  I guess, from their usual parsing, this is the only way of making certain these guys are brought to justice – not!

Maureen Dowd, who once asked, “Are Men Necessary?”, and thinks most men just want/need a mommy, is once again handing out advice on whom to marry.   She gives as raison du entrée, the Christie Brinkley breakup; citing the increasingly popular (and unbelievably lame), “I just didn’t know who he was [anymore]” lament.  20-years of togetherness and it occurs only now she ought to have figured him out long ago!?  Even your typical Dear Abby loser gets that much.  Dowd manages to eliminate most normal (as well as abnormal) men from the gene pool, and insults men generally into the bargain.   Her formula for a good match is a perfect match, perhaps explaining why at 56 (and despite a liberal-babe rep) she’s never actually tried it.  Most of us know the perfect mate is so rare that, for all practically purposes, he does not exist.  We settle for companionable, reasonable, and interesting; and build from there.  Marriage, like life, is hard work and compromise; and, if you never take the plunge, it makes little difference how well you choose.

Don’t want to have to listen to us global-warming anti-hype deniers any more?  Now you can self-censor your Internet input using a content filter like a good little Gore-monkey (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil).  That way you can keep right on believing the world is 80-feet under water even as you dive down Santa Monica Boulevard in your bumper-sticker emblazoned righteousness proclaiming (if somewhat cramped) two-seater whilst paying astronomic carbon-taxes that will magically halt the mega-meltdown (in, say, another 750-years).   Personally I don’t get the attraction; but, it seems some people can only be happy knowing to a dead certainty they are doomed, and don’t want anyone spoiling Armageddon.

John Kerry is back and declaring the McCain-Democrat love-fest at an end.  Of course, we knew this was coming even if McCain is still in denial.  What makes it preposterous is Kerry has the chutzpah to accuse McCain of flip-flops greater than his own.  He’s right McCain has flipped (hopefully for the better), but quantity is hardly quality; and the enormity of some Kerry reversals (and frequent denials) bear reiteration.  Kerry volunteered for a dangerous swift-boat assignment (aka, résumé enhancement) before beating a hasty retreat stateside, doctored his service record before accusing the entire military of unlimited war crimes, threw away war medals he probably hadn’t earned before denying ever ditching them, snubbed Hanoi before embracing and abetting NV peace initiatives, and voted for the Iraq invasion before pulling the plug on operational spending (leaving soldiers unfunded in a combat area).   Kerry’s official bio is so full of holes it is an embarrassment to Vietnam-era veterans generally.  By contrast, McCain (a bona fide war hero) is supposed by Kerry to be “dangerous” because he flipped on tax cuts, flipped on Social Security, and admits we’re not exactly losing in Iraq.  The difference is McCain is capable of admitting when he’s been wrong.  Has anyone ever heard Kerry admit to even the possibility of being wrong on anything?  Ever hear him admit to padding his résumé?  Some of us are still waiting to hear (from his lips) what really happened on that gunboat and why he thought it in his unit’s tactical interest to beat a hasty retreat while the other boats stayed engaged.  Senator Kerry, you aren’t fit to carry McCain’s water much less remark on his shortcomings.

Lest you think conservatives immune to delusion, an item finds conservative writer/blogger Cliff Kincaid (Accuracy In Media) objecting that Matt Drudge has gone over to the dark-side on the sole basis Drudge turned down a paid-for article of Kincaids' in which he makes some potentially libelous Obama revelations.  Kincaid takes minimally connected communists and communist endorsement of Obama as proof that Obama’s mysterious "Frank" (referenced in his book) can be none other than CPUSA’s Frank Marshall Davis; and makes Davis a defining force in Obama’s political evolution.  Kincaid gives as confirming source for this claim one Alan Maki (a slightly demented CPUSA non-entity with one PWW article to his credit who otherwise rails against his own leadership); who gets his information secondhand from blogs.  Kincaid pads Maki’s résumé with the datum Maki has been a sometimes contributor to Obama’s (open to all) community blog (as if to say Obama concurs in Maki’s assessment).  While I have no doubt Maki and Obama have much to agree on, the Maki opinion of the Obama-Davis connection appears no more than that; as is Drudge’s disinclination to join Kincaid’s web of supposition.  AIM has done some good work exposing liberal-media bias, but maybe needs to rethink how far they’ll go nailing a nemesis.  I prefer an Obama defeat, but let’s not lose objectivity in the pursuit.  Let’s also give Obama some credit for embracing his chosen ideology, with or without the many mentors we conservatives think necessary to such an addiction.

Never let a good deed go un-mocked.  The Las Vegas Review Journal assures us the three U.S. contractors held prisoner by FARC rebels for five years (just rescued) had it coming to them.  LVRJ alleges Columbian "freedom-fighters" were merely defending their country’s main cash crop against free-market hating gringos.  Prior to the drug-explosion of the 1970s, Columbia was one of the more successful South American countries; with growing industries, diverse crops, and ample resources – and no need of illegal drugs to sustain its economy.  Today, much of Columbia’s trade is negatively impacted by cartel terror, and would still be if made legal.  The drug trade (legal and illegal) represents less than 10% of Columbia’s economy; contradicting the oft made assertion that interdicting illegal drug traffic seriously deprives Columbianos of their livelihood.  The problem of cocaine is no where near as simplistic as LVRJ makes it; and the interdiction is not against all production, only that fraction representing "street" product.   Even the Netherlands (that most liberal of addict-enabling societies) acknowledges cocaine and opioids represent a special class of drugs needing control over distribution.  These three Americans, at no small risk to themselves and considerable worry to their families, knowingly put themselves in harm's way for a mission they believed and still believe in – keeping cocaine and crack off our streets at the point of interdiction least harmful to all.  People who think these traffickers are innocent ought to take a closer look at the lives of crack-addicts, at the close relations between FARC, the cartels, and vicious Central American and Mexican drug-spawned gangs now pouring across our border.  They should also ask the millions of Columbianos (those not engaged in the trade) how they feel about the blessings of this "best" of cash-crops, cartel-terrorism, and what it has done for their nation’s industry, security, families, and esteem before speaking on their behalf.

It seems the Queen of Mean’s estate has gone to the dogs – literally.  Her will dictates everything be split between her own mutt and an as yet to be named doggie charity.  Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed to the extent two grandkids were given portions before leaving the remnants to pit bulls.  That still leaves a hefty $8-million chunk for PETA and The Humane Society (both notorious for spending next to nothing on animals) to snarl over.  Elsewhere it is revealed PETA’s real agenda is controlling human-behavior, radicalizing our kids unbeknownst, and turning the planet into an animal sanctuary unfit for human habitation (and not particularly animal-friendly either).   It’s equally clear that PETA’s finances could use some airing.  The Humane Society is little better and HSUS’s miserable 3% return-on-contributions is positively scandalous.  Earlier this year, PETA had a beef with Al Gore’s steak-a-day habit – putting me in the unenviable and possibly unpardonable position of defending a moron.   All I can say in Gore’s defense is – pass the A-1.

And while I’m on the topic of Gore, it seems he’s lost some of his following.  NRO reports he’s getting snubbed by past cronies, and even a fair number of the global-warming faithful have realized he’s scamming them.  Well Al, looks like your 15 minutes in the spotlight are nearly up.

That’s the news from Absurdistan.  I hope the news, where you are, is all good and you’re immunized against the muttering of the masses another week.