December 29, 2004 -

KILLER WATER WAVES. DUMB BRAIN WAVES.

---

Now, details...

I wonder when American Democrats and the other leftist nutballs in the world will begin blaming President George W. Bush for the mammoth earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands upon thousands. Since it's difficult to contend, with a straight face, that an American president started an earthquake, maybe Bush's detractors will work an oblique route. Maybe by asserting that global warming might have had something to do with the quake. Or it could have been Halliburton, maybe, moving the earth's tectonic plates in quest of oil.

Maybe it will go this way. A joint press conference between Massachusetts Swimming Coach/Senator Ted Kennedy and Texas left-wing Rep. Lloyd Doggett. They will call, indeed, they'll whine for an investigation. "We know that every third female in Crawford, Texas is named Sue something-or-other," Kennedy will say, adding: "Check Crawford and you'll find women named Sue Beth or Sue Pat. It is worth investigating to see if there is a link, since this killer event was Sue Namee." Kennedy will leave briefly to get his third drink of the morning while Doggett says, earnestly, that most of the victims could have been saved if the evil Republicans in the Bush administration had provided flotation devices.

One of the more depressing of American media phenomena is the desire to get a piece of the action. As in, "maybe it could happen here." Well, maybe. There is also the scant possibility that there is a dormant volcano under New York City will come to life and disturb filming of the next Donald Trump "reality" show scam.

The horror of the tsunami hadn't abated a whit when a highly paid fool at the United Nations tweaked the United States for being "stingy" in its response to the disaster. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell quickly put him in his place, more or less, and the dimwit said he had been "misquoted." He, of course, had been quoted correctly. Jan Egeland, United Nations undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, complained that the United States gives only 0.14 percent of its gross domestic product to foreign development aid, compared with 0.92 percent from given by his native Norway. The Norwegian socialist didn't bother to point out that Uncle Sugar forked over $15.8 billion, more than any other nation, to development aid last year, compared to $2 billion for Norway. And private giving for disasters in the U.S.A. is huge, while the allegedly enlightened citizens of European socialist countries do almost none of that.

The United States provides more than 20 percent of the funding that keeps fools like Egeland in their United Nations limousines. It's time to cut that to, say, two percent. Tops.

There is some form of a natural law that holds that disasters bring out the fools. How else could we explain the comments from Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace in Great Britain. Silly Stevie says the tsunami was caused by global warming. I hadn't stopped snorting when I read the assent from Friends of the Earth Director Tony Juniper, who said the tsunami and other disasters "...are consistent with climate change predictions."

Yeh, sure. Geologists tell us that giant earthquakes hit Sumatra every 230 years or so. The last quakes there were in 1797 and 1833, making Sunday's quake pretty much on schedule. Do Stevie and Tony really believe that greenhouse gases – which they claim causes global warming – really made those happen?

Our liberal friends are going to HATE these figures. Sixty-three percent of active-duty military people responding to a Military Times Poll approve of the way President Bush is handling the Iraq war, and 60 percent remain convinced the war is worth fighting. Support for the war is even greater among those who have served longest in the combat zone: Two-thirds of combat vets say the war is worth fighting.

It gets worse for the Bush-haters. Eighty-seven percent of military people say they are satisfied with their jobs. And, proving that our military people are brighter than our reporters, 60 percent of people in uniform blame Congress for the shortage of body armor in the combat zone.

And the lefties will hate this one, too. Sixty-two percent of American adults support the death penalty, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

There was another salutary development for former Presidential Disaster Jimmuh Carter, who completed yet another week without doing, or saying, anything truly stupid.

Not so for a fool of a reporter at Bush's Crawford news conference on Wednesday. The reporter asked if progress is being made on "arming" our troops in Iraq. Always too nice a guy, Bush answered about "armoring" troops and vehicles.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: Does the idiot who asked about "arming" our troops think John Kerry won?