According to the idiot who wrote it, Klaus is waging “a frontal attack on the science of global warming.” Klaus is great, but he is the only prominent leader I know willing to take on this thankless, but quite mandatory task. Most have been cowed into a sort of helpless submission.

“I don't think that there is any global warming,” he said bluntly. “Environmentalism and the global warming alarmism is challenging our freedom.”

And he cited Al Gore as an important person in the campaign.

“I'm afraid that the current crisis will be misused for radically constraining the functioning of the markets and market economy all around the world,” he said. “I'm more afraid of the consequences of the crisis than the crisis itself.”

We need more enlistments! We need more attacking!

AJH

A story via Bloomberg by Julianna Goldman (“White House Lawyers Look to Limit Commercial Use of President”) exposes a group in the White House, including a team of lawyers, trying to limit Obama's image.

Where were these people during the non-stop campaigning of spin? Obama has been “overexposed” for at least a year. Especially after officially winning the Dem primary, there was, and sadly still is, really no way of avoiding him and his fan base. All of this “commercialism” did not bother them then.

Meanwhile, Peggy Noonan warns the Obama groupies of serious market saturation, actually oversaturation.

AJH

For God and Country,

AJH

The Wall Street Journal has a story (“U.S. Deserter 'Having Time of My Life' as He Seeks Asylum in Germany”) on a pathetic little man who is AWOL. European peace activists are fawning all over him.

"He's our poster boy."

This is the bottom line for peaceniks like Tim Huber of the so-called Military Counseling Network, a dubious part of the German Mennonite Peace Committee. This group is helping U.S. Army deserter André Shepherd and has been for some time. (I have taken all references to Mr. out of this summary because he doesn't deserve the title.)

Shepherd has requested political asylum from Germany. An Army spokesman said that the case, for now at least, is "completely in German hands." However, if the Germans return Shepherd to U.S. custody, he would likely face military justice and perhaps as much as five years in prison.

A native of Cleveland, he has been homeless and destitute at times.

Shepherd was again living in a car ... in December 2003 when he walked into an Army recruitment center in Lakewood and signed up. The new recruit was deployed to Camp Speicher in northern Iraq in September 2004, where he helped repair Apache helicopters. He didn't see action but had some contact with Iraqis who worked on the base.

In February 2005 he was sent to Katterbach in southern Germany and given a cushy desk job, where he apparently sat for long hours just browsing websites, and anti-war propaganda ones at that. While surfing the Net, Shepherd was brainwashed by the Left, convincing him that the “U.S. occupation was harmful — and that he had been contributing to civilian deaths by servicing armed Apaches.”

Shockingly his marriage to a German who he met online lasted less than a year. Did he marry this German girl merely to stay in the country, safe from the war zones? The man is a deadbeat with an obvious aversion to commitment who likes German socialism and the modern welfare state.

Shepherd has his own room and bunk bed at a sprawling refugee center. The German government provides him with meals and allows him to move freely around the Karlsruhe area. He stays in touch with German friends by mobile phone and takes language classes offered by an asylum support group.

But he doesn't limit himself to mere state benefits: Shepherd likes taking money from naive idealists. A German man named Ulli Thiel, a 65-year-old activist in Karlsruhe, and his wife recently helped Shepherd open a bank account. The couple deposits around 200 euros (about 262 dollars) every month “so he has spending money.”

Alexander Zmijewski, Shepherd's best friend back in Ohio, doesn't appear to support what he's done. Zmijewski questioned Shepherd's decision to desert. "If I put my name on something, I like to honor that," he said. He is "lucky to be working" with a family to support.

Shepherd said he planned on finishing a university degree in Karlsruhe if he wins asylum and that he could happily spend the rest of his life in Germany. Who doesn't like other people paying the bills?

"It's just amazing here," he said one morning in Thiel's living room as his host poured him some coffee.

Where is Patton when you need him?

AJH

Why this was before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is beyond me, besides the obvious political points the lefties want to make. One of our favorite wackjobs, John Forbes Kerry, presided as chairman. Kerry is even crazier than Gore. Gore appeared to be somewhat subdued given his doom-and-gloom scenario for us.

Senator Risch of Idaho asked, "What does your modeling tell you about how long we're going to be around as a species?"

"I don't claim the expertise to answer a question like that,” Gore replied.

Yet, he does claim to know the weather years from now, though the local weatherman has serious problems trying to tell us if it will rain seven days out. He can certainly guess, based on certain calculations and models, much like Gore and other alarmists do. Of course, this all depends on how good these models actually are. And I am not convinced of anything they say.

Senator Corker then went on to use his time seemingly as a commercial for Tennessee tourism, thanking Gore for his sense of humor.

Gore, apparently at the top of his game, then retorted, "I benefit from low expectations.”

Milbank's description on the glowing bipartisan reception for a former colleague show how Washington hasn't reformed even with the hope and change election of Obama and probably never will. “[T]he Goracle, even when questioned, was shown great deference.”

Idiot Senator Menendez of Jersey thanked Gore for being such a modern-day prophet, emoting about his “incredible leadership” and declaring, “you make this crystalline for those who don't either understand it or want to understand it.” (The other spelling for the word—profit—makes one wonder how much Tipper and Al are spending on their Tennessee mansion electric and gas bills these days.)

And word of one of the coldest winters in thirty or forty years need not dissuade anyone. "The little snow in Washington does nothing to diminish the reality of the crisis," Kerry said at the outset. Thank God I wasn't stuck in that hearing room.

AJH

The paper is entitled "Association of Y chromosome haplogroup I with HIV progression, and HAART outcome" and the authors “suggest that one or more loci on the Y chromosome found on haplogroup Y-I have an effect on AIDS progression and treatment responses in European Americans” based on their research.

AJH

In a piece with the headline “Superintendent warns against 'inappropriate comments'” the Dayton Daily News reports on a school official in Ohio warning against criticizing Obama.

The Left only likes the First Amendment when it's convenient. I, for one, am so over Obama and ready to rumble. Bring it you liberal punks!

Here are some quotes from an email message to parents:

"Inappropriate comments that may make other students, staff or families feel unwelcome or uncomfortable in school or on the bus will not be tolerated," Superintendent Kevin (Not-So-)Bright wrote.

Just read this section: "while the election is a competitive process, our nation's greatness is displayed when all sides come together for a united country." So much for protected dissent.

"There were groups of students that were worked up over the results of the election," a school psychologist, who is a member of the district's “racial equity committee” and curriculum organizer of “Freshman Diversity” Week, said.

AJH