HALF-FULL REPORT 053008

Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that the HFR was trying to shake a couple of drops out of its far-from-even-half-full glass?  Well, fill up the flagon, barkeep, we're going to hoist a few this week.

We have a selection of heroes to toast.  Let's start with a tankard of Pilsner Urquell for the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, the only leader of a country anywhere in the world with the courage to denounce glowarming environmentalism as the new communism.  TTP is proud to publish his article, Blue Planet In Green Shackles. 

We follow that with a chalice of Brennan 2006 Viognier with its bouquet of bluebonnets and West Texas crude to that good ol' boy from Wichita Falls, Rex Tillerson, chairman of Exxon-Mobil.  The head of the world's largest privately-owned oil-and-gas company refuses to apologize for his existence, announcing this week that it is Exxon's "corporate social responsibility" to produce as much fossil fuels as possible.

Chairman Tillerson has as much disdain for environmental fascists as President Klaus – and what makes them special in HFR's eyes is that they are not afraid to proclaim it.

Finally, a tumbler of Glen Morangie single-malt (no defiling it with ice or water – the Scots consider that a "mixed drink") to a spy coming in from the cold, CIA Director Michael Hayden.  Heretofore allergic to proclaiming success, Hayden caused headlines this morning – in the Washington Post! – by declaring that Al Qaeda has been militarily and ideologically defeated in Iraq, substantially so through much of the world, and is even on its heels in the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands.

Could you follow that with putting Osama's and Zawahiri's corpses on display, please, Michael?  And then get on with covertly precipitating regime change in Iran?  The HFR will send you an entire bottle of Glen Morangie if you do.

***

That's the last of the good stuff for now.   The HFR pours instead a cup of contempt for bimbo-airhead actress Sharon Stone.  Last week at the Cannes film festival, she had the moxie to say the Sichuan earthquake was "bad karma" for China's murderous oppression of Tibet.  She folded like a Gypsy's cheap accordion when denounced by Beijing as a "public enemy of mankind."  Today (5/30), she issued a groveling apology, saying how "deeply sorry" she was for her "erroneous words and deeds."

This, of course, satisfied not one single Chinese Nazi-nationalist on the Net.  The outpouring of rage towards her continues on the Chinese blogs unabated.  If she wasn't such a total ditz she would have foreseen this and taken advantage of it.

Instead of apologizing, she would have doubled down, demanding an apology from the Chinese people for defending their dictatorship government's tyranny in Tibet:

"Yes, it is an absolute tragedy that 70,000 Chinese died in the Sichuan earthquake, and my heart goes out to them all.  But seventy thousand as a number is a small fraction of two million.  That's how many Tibetans have been murdered by Chinese soldiers and Red Guards and the Chinese government over the last 50 years of Chinese colonial rule.  The Chinese people demand the world feel sympathy for the Chinese victims of this earthquake.  They demand the world feel no sympathy at all for the Tibetan victims of their imperialism.  Instead of expressing outrage at me, they should be outraged by what is in their own souls."

That would have made her a human rights hero – and generated a gigantic bonanza of headlines.  Instead, her cowardice has resulted in her being dissed by everyone on the globe.  Smart she ain't.

***

Now for the fun episode of the week.  The HFR guzzles a goblet of glee over Obambi's latest embarrassment, Father Michael Pfleger.

As ABC's Jake Tapper explains, the white priest has had a relationship with Obambi for decades.  This past Sunday (5/25), Father Pfleger gave a sermon at Obambi's Trinity Church in Chicago, having been introduced by Jeremiah Wright's successor Otis Moss.  The sermon's level of self-hating white guilt is so unhinged, so over-the-top deranged you've got to really prepare yourself when you watch it.

Prepare yourself also for the black churchgoers standing up and cheering Pfleger's racist rant, and Moss afterwards thanking God for his message.

Obambi's subsequent denouncement of Pfleger once the video got out on YouTube, and Pleger's Sharon Stone "I'm deeply sorry" impersonation doesn't quite cut it, does it?  Given that they've been best buds for over 20 years.  Another nutcase racist pastor, another nail in Obambi's political coffin.

***

Let's close with a potpourri of good news, because if drank to each one we'd get seriously wasted.  There's the disclosure that slimy weasel Scott McClellan was paid by George Soros to write his phony book of lies.  There's the wonderful death of Colombian terrorist Manuel Marulanda, mourned by Danny Ortega, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Teddy Kennedy, and all members of MoveOn.org and Code Pink.

Equally mourned by Democrats is that the US economy still refuses to be in recession.  First quarter GDP grew at just under 1% and unemployment remains under 5%.  How will Dems get people to vote for them if they're not poor and broke?  The HFR expects the Dems to redouble their efforts to continue damaging the US economy as much as possible.

We've had a sip from the HFR beaker of booze for each of these, but let's hold it high and drain it down in honor of Carbon Belch Day.  The good-hearted folks at Grassfire.org are holding a celebration of carbon on June 12, challenging people to use as much energy as they possibly can.

Host a barbeque, run your air conditioner all night, go for a drive, leave lights on, use carbon-based energy with no guilt whatsoever – for it serves a quite serious purpose:  mockery.  Ridiculing the religion of environmentalism and its medieval practice of carbon-credit indulgences is one of the most effective ways to combat glowarm lunacy.

Besides, it's important to have fun fighting for freedom.   Make every day a Carbon Belch Day!  That's the HFR's advice.

***

One last item.  Your humble HFR author takes personal satisfaction in the new movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  For it was left-wing journalist Sydney Blumenthal who dubbed him "The Indiana Jones of the Right," and told him that he'd learned from Steven Spielberg that he was part of the "construct" of the Jones character.

(Among others:  Roy Chapman Andrews who found dinosaur eggs in the Gobi, and Howard Carter, discoverer of King Tut's tomb)

The movie is more fantasy-absurd than ever – Jones never loses his hat even going over the Devil's Throat waterfall of Iguazu in Brazil.  The satisfaction comes from the movie's infuriating the Left.  In previous Jones movies, the evil enemies were Nazis.  In this one, they are Soviet Communists.  Cate Blanchett, as a Soviet KGB agent proud of her being awarded the Order of Lenin, is the arch-fiend.

Most upset of all are Russians still nostalgic for the Soviet Union.  They have denounced the film as "an insult to the Soviet and Russian people," called Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett "capitalist puppets," and threatened that if they ever came to Russia they would be "beaten up."

The movie is making history.  For once, one of Hollywood's great action heroes fights Soviet Communists.  Now that's thrilling.  Thanks, Indie!