HALF-FULL REPORT 06/06/08

It's pretty obvious what most needs to be celebrated this week:  that unless she manages to have Obambi rubbed out in the next few months, the nightmare of President Pantsuit has been postponed to at least 2012.

The absolute best thing about this Dem campaign circus is the exposure of such Billary ugliness that it even disgusted millions of Democrats.  The couple that perfected the politics of personal destruction performed it upon themselves.  Now that's karma!

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We need to celebrate something else that crashed and burned like the Clintons this week:  the greatest piece of fascist legislation since the 16^th Amendment, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. 

The Wall Street Journal notes today that with the Senate's rejection, the Dems and the greenie groups are "stunned that their global warming agenda is in collapse," and "now look as politically intimidating as the skinny kid on the beach who gets sand kicked in his face."

The is full-glass news.  The only hope the eco-fascists have now is an Obambi victory in November coupled with a huge gain in Senate seats.  Possible, but not probable.  The Dems can now kiss the "Cap ‘n Trade" power seizure goodbye, as they'll never get it past a President McCain.  He pays political lip service to it, while vowing to block it until China and India sign on too – a killer poison pill.

We need to follow this victory up now with a Pro-CO2 Movement, extolling the extraordinary benefits of more CO2 in our atmosphere – such as wiping out hunger.  As we discussed in Solar Warming back in September 2005:

The more CO2, the less water crops need. All crops with a "waxy cuticle" (a waxy coating on their leaves to resist water loss) such as wheat and corn have tiny pores called "stoma" that absorb CO2 and let water vapor out. The more CO2, the more the stomata (plural of stoma) shrink, thus the more water retained. Doubling atmospheric CO2 available to a plant halves the amount of water the plant requires.

Increasing the "greenhouse gas" of carbon dioxide would thus have a huge positive effect on world agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions. Such dry regions would be able to grow a lot more food.

Thus the HFR raises its glass in praise for CO2 in hopes for more.

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The best way to produce more CO2 is to produce more of what we need more of most:  oil, oil and gas, oil and gas and coal.  Thus the HFR is grateful to the US Geological Survey and the Minerals Management Service (USGS/MMS) of the Interior Department for releasing its current assessment of our country's oil and gas resources.

It turns out that the US – our country – has the third largest oil reserves of any country in the world, behind only Saudi Arabia and Canada, with 139 billion barrels of "technically recoverable" (meaning we can get them with current technology) oil.

It also turns out that we have the second largest natural gas reserves on any country on earth, behind only Russia, with over one quadrillion cubic feet.

And, as everyone knows, we have by far the world's largest coal reserves.

The problem, of course, is that politicians prevent us from using it.  So the HFR salutes with contempt the hypocrisy of voters who complain about $4 gas while keeping in office those responsible for it.  But at least with this new USGS/MMS report, we know how much of what we have that we can't use.

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Nonetheless, there are politicians the HFR is pleased to raise a congratulatory glass to – those who comprise the City Council of Elk Point, South Dakota.  They voted this week to approve zoning for the first all-new oil refinery in America in 32 years.  It will bring billions of dollars of investment and create thousands of new jobs for the area in southeast South Dakota.

Naturally, the greenie-wackos launched a lawsuit and vowed to block it.  Regardless, HFR salutes Elk Point.  America needs a lot more Elk Points.

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One thing the world needs a lot more of is Moslems converting to Christianity.  Which is why a shocked HFR hoists an amazed glass to the Church of England, which announced it is launching a campaign specifically targeting Moslem for conversion.

The torrent of Moslem immigrants from Pakistan and other Islamic countries into Britain over the last decades is steadily Moslemizing the once-Christian country.  It's good to see there are some Englishmen who are still actual Christians.

However, this is not called the Half-Full Report for nothing.  Moslems in Britain are now arguing that attempts to convert them to Christianity be legally prosecuted as a hate crime.  This is happening in Birmingham and elsewhere, where Christian missionaries are told they will be "beaten up" by Moslem thugs. 

Maybe England has become a half-empty pint of stale warm beer after all.

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No more warm beer.  How about a full flute of chilled bubbly to toast this headline?  Taliban bombed to ‘brink of defeat'.  It opens with:  "Missions by coalition forces and air strikes by unmanned drones have ‘decapitated' the Taliban and brought the terror movement to the brink of defeat in Afghanistan."

Taliban terrorists are being killed by the boatload all over Afghanistan now, from Helmand in the south to Badakhshan in the north.  Desertions have left their ranks bereft of native Afghans.  Most of the Taliban dead now are foreigners – Chechens, Uzbeks, Arabs. 

Where they are truly being decapitated is right across the border in Pakistan by US Predator drones and Hellfire missiles, systematically targeting the leadership.  Looks like another Bush victory, similar to that being achieved in Iraq, is on the way.  Bush-haters can cry in their stale warm beer.  The HFR happily quaffs champagne in celebration.

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We need to fill the champagne flute up to the brim once more in honor of a great advocate of freedom, a true Libertarian, the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in 1972, the former Chairman of the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California and your humble HFR author's mentor while in graduate school there, philosophy professor John Hospers on his 90^th birthday on June 9.

John is a philosopher of world-rank.  His Introduction to Philosophical Analysis remains the classic for clarity and reason.  His treatise on Libertarianism established it as a serious political philosophy.  Tragically, it was never read seriously by folks who took over the Libertarian Party and turned it into an anti-American cult.

Which is precisely why libertarianism has been such a political failure. 

John loved reason, freedom, and America.  He was – is – a pro-defense pro-America libertarian.  Not many of them around nowadays.  He is a great man, about whom his friends have created a website, johnhospers.com.  If you would like to send your congratulations on John's 90^th, email Barbara Branden at [email protected]. 

Whatever capacity for clear thought your HFR author has, he learned it from Professor John Hospers.  Happy 90^th, John!

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We close the HFR with your author confessing to a secret.  Looking frighteningly young while still in college too many decades ago, he appeared on a national TV show called I've Got A Secret.  Somehow it was recently broadcast on cable, where eagle-eyed TTP'ers spotted it – so it's now up on the TTP Video Gallery.

Your author finds himself embarrassed to ask, was he really that young once?  This is evidently proof that he was indeed.  But the video is also proof that America was younger once.  Note the cheerful, playful innocence of the show.  It's something those of us who lived back then are nostalgic for and wish we had again.  The innocence, the lack of cultural coarseness and cynicism – we wish it somehow could return.

The HFR raises its glass in thanks that we did have it once, and in hopes, perhaps not entirely forlorn, that America will be young, be reborn, once again.