The rumours about my love child may be true, says Gore Vidal
By Joy Lo Dico and Andrew Johnson, The Independent

The author and screenwriter Gore Vidal, one of the last giants of an American literary scene that included Norman Mailer, Truman Capote and Joseph Heller, has admitted that he may once have fathered a love child, but refused to be part of her upbringing because he had paid for the mother to have an abortion.

Vidal, renowned for his waspish put-downs and his unabashed elitism, is more famous for his homosexual liaisons. He had a brief relationship with Jack Kerouac and lived with a male partner for 53 years. (link)

"For about 300 years Jupiter’s banded atmosphere has shown a remarkable feature to telescopic viewers, a large swirling storm system known as The Great Red Spot. In 2006, another red storm system appeared, actually seen to form as smaller whitish oval-shaped storms merged and then developed the curious reddish hue. Now, Jupiter has a third red spot ... Jupiter’s recent outbreak of red spots is likely related to large scale climate change as the gas giant planet is getting warmer near the equator."

Well, gee …. what could be causing that global warming? Has Exxon-Mobil used its 8.3% profit margin to start refining oil on the solar system’s largest planet? Perhaps Jupiterians have bought too many SUVs over the last few years. Jupiter may also have an epidemic of bovine flatulence causing these storms.

Or, just maybe, the sun has affected Jupiter in a similar fashion as it has Mars and Pluto, and that the negligible warming Earth has experienced comes from the same
source.

Kanjorski says Dems were insincere about ending war
By Aaron Blake, The Hill

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) is seen in a video that has surfaced on the Web saying that Democrats “sort of stretched the facts” in the 2006 elections about their ability to end the Iraq war.

In a video , posted to YouTube on Thursday, Kanjorski reflects on the Democrats’ approach to the war in 2006 and said they pushed the rhetoric “as far as we can to the end of the fleet — didn’t say it, but we implied it — that if we won the congressional elections, we could stop the war.

“Now, anybody who’s a good student of government would know it wasn't true,” he said. “But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress — we sort of stretched the facts.” (link)

On September 24, 2004, while a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Illinois, you suggested that “surgical missile strikes” on Iran may become necessary. “Launching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position for us to be in” given the ongoing war in Iraq, you told the Chicago Tribune. You continued: “On the other hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse”.

Your change in approach is now stunning for many Iranians. It is not that we want our country to be bombed, but the point is, why did you so suddenly and without explanation go from that extreme to the extreme of “unconditional dialogue”?

Column: We must work toward reducing our environmental impact
Jon Phelan, regular columnist, Collegiate Times [jf: Virginia Tech's
student newspaper]

I think it is fitting that my last piece of the year is on something that means quite a bit to me.

I think it is appropriate to talk about the environment and what we need to do to improve the current situation on campus as well as nationwide.

It may be important to realize that as citizens, we each consume, individually, more than any other person in any other country. Our ecological footprint is ... [blah blah blah] (link)

Kaine campaigns for transportation plan in Marion
By Stephanie Porter-Nichols, Richlands News Press

“I acknowledge that this is a tough time to talk about more money for anything,” Kaine said. “Families are stretched, businesses are stretched, governments are stretched. But ..." (link)

Virginian Eyed As Obama Veep
By Robert Novak, writing in the New York Post

Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a strong favorite to be elected to the Senate this year, has told as sociates that he is being considered as Barack Obama's vice-presidential running mate. He didn't indicate whether he would be receptive to such an offer.

Removing Warner from the campaign for the seat now Held by retiring Republican Sen. John Warner (no relation) would turn a sure Democratic takeover to a question mark. (link)

Soldier killed in Iraq to get Medal of Honor
The Associated Press

Washington - The White House announced Friday that a Pennsylvania soldier who jumped on top of a grenade in Iraq and saved the lives of his comrades will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor.

The nation's highest military honor will be given to 19-year-old Army Pfc. Ross McGinnis of Knox, Pa., on June 2.

McGinnis "distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism," said White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto.

McGinnis was perched in the gunner's hatch of a Humvee when a grenade sailed past him and into the truck where four other soldiers sat. He shouted a warning to the others, then jumped on the grenade. The grenade, which was lodged near the vehicle's radio, blew up and killed him.

Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, an Army spokeswoman, said McGinnis easily could have jumped out of the truck and saved himself. (link)

A Poll Finds Californians Still Oppose Gay Marriage
By Jesse McKinley, The New York Times

San Drancisco — More than half of Californians support a proposed ballot measure that would overturn a recent ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in the state, a poll has found.

Fifty-four percent of registered voters would back the measure, according to the survey by The Los Angeles Times and KTLA-TV. Thirty-five percent oppose the proposed measure, which is expected to be on the November ballot.

The measure, sponsored by a coalition of groups that favor traditional marriage, would define marriage as “between a man and a woman,” and effectively overturn a May 15 decision by the California Supreme Court that voided two state laws that forbade recognition of same-sex marriages. The poll, published on Friday, found 52 percent disagreed with that decision while 41 percent agreed. (link)

This case requires, at a minimum, two findings from the Supreme Court: First, the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep and bear arms - not a right limited to people engaged in state militia service. Second, the district's ban on all functional firearms violates that individual right and is, therefore, unconstitutional.

An outpouring of modern scholarship - much of it coming from liberal constitutional scholars, like Laurence Tribe at Harvard University and Akhil Amar at Yale University - supports the view that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. After all, the Second Amendment is in the Bill of Rights, the part of the Constitution explicitly designed to secure individual rights. And the text of the amendment refers to the "right of the people" - the same people mentioned in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments. It is inconceivable that the framers - seeking to provide Americans with a means to resist tyrannical government - would fashion a right that can be exercised only in the context of a militia that is under government control. (link)

A Bloomberg lede:

"Fewer Americans than forecast applied for unemployment benefits last week, indicating companies are reluctant to fire more workers even as the economy slows."

Hmmm. Next consumers will be unexpectedly reluctant to cut back on purchases even as the economy slows. And manufacturers will be unexpectedly reluctant to cut production even as the economy slows. ... Slowly, the realization may dawn that the economy is not slowing anymore! ... But reporters will be not-unexpectedly reluctant to stop reporting that it is. ... (link)

Chill out on global warming
Washington D.C. Examiner editorial

Washington - Al Gore’s cinematic sermons on inconvenient truths to the contrary notwithstanding, it is becoming clearer by the day that major cracks are appearing in the supposed consensus among scientists that global warming caused by carbon emissions is an urgent problem that government must address with drastic measures. Among the most significant cracks are these:

- New data produced by more than 3,000 sophisticated ocean buoys scattered across the world’s oceans indicate average water temperatures have been decreasing since 2003, not increasing as would be the case in Gore’s globally warming world. NASA’s Josh Willis, who studies the output of the sophisticated buoys that take temperature readings from thousands of feet below the surface, says the significance of the new data is unclear.

- The average land temperature of the globe dropped precipitously last year, according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. The temperature drop — more than enough to “wipe out most of the global warming of the past 100 years,” according to the online technology publication Daily Tech — was also recorded by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

- The severity of this global temperature drop was reflected in the fact the average U.S. temperature in January was lower than the average for the previous century, according to the U.S. Climactic Data Center. Also, the Canadian Ice Service reports the Arctic ice pack is 10 to 20 centimeters thicker in many places this year than it was in 2007.

- Professor Oleg Sorokhtin of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences is advising people “to stock up on fur coats” because he expects an extended period of global cooling, an assessment that is echoed by Kenneth Tapping of the U.S. National Academy of Science’s National Research Council. Both scientists contend solar activity explains most of the temperature variation in the Earth’s atmosphere.

At the very least, these developments ought to give pause to legislators and policymakers who are otherwise hell-bent on accepting Gore’s apocalyptic warnings and imposing on the U.S. draconian measures designed to stall or reduce economic growth; forcing widespread conversion to unproven alternative fuels for transportation, home and commercial uses; and severely limiting or even stopping suburban new-home construction. Adopting such measures would mean the loss of millions of jobs and a significantly reduced standard of living for most Americans. It’s time to take a step back on this issue. (link)

Bay at risk from global warming
By Lawrence Latane III, Richmond Times-Dispatch

The National Wildlife Federation predicts that rising sea levels caused by global warming could drown half the Chesapeake Bay's beaches and swamps by 2100.

A report released yesterday by the Reston-based conservation group endorses the United Nations' call to cut worldwide greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050.

Patty Glick, the federation's senior global warming specialist ... said the computer model the group used provides what she calls the most comprehensive and detailed analysis to date on how global warming will affect the region. (link)

Map from 1830s aids research, excavation
By Carlos Santos, Richmond Times-Dispatch Staff Writer

With the help of an early-19th-century insurance map, archaeologists are having an easier time than usual in excavating an important historical site near Montpelier.

The researchers, including 17 students from James Madison University, are unearthing the South Yard, a residential complex where President James Madison's domestic slaves lived and worked.

The insurance map, which came to light in 2002, is proving invaluable.

"It was a perfect roadmap for us," said Jennifer Gullette, a spokeswoman for Montpelier. "The map basically gave us the site's dimensions and location from the house measured out in feet."

About one year after Madison's 1836 death, his wife, Dolley, insured the 27-room mansion and nearby outbuildings. The map detailed the location of the South Yard's two smokehouses and three residences -- each a duplex for two slave families. The slave complex also included a kitchen and a stable. (link)

Farm-Bill Veto Overridden Despite Glitch
By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer

With an overwhelming 82 to 13 vote, the Senate yesterday completed the override of President Bush's veto of a comprehensive farm bill, shrugging off Republican concerns about an embarrassing legislative glitch to make the $307 billion bill the law of the land.

House GOP leaders continued to grumble that Democrats had violated the Constitution by pressing forward with the veto override after they discovered that a whole section of the bill on trade policy had been inadvertently dropped from the version vetoed Wednesday.

But Democratic leaders said ... (link)

When the House of Representatives takes up arms against $4 gas by voting 324-84 to sue OPEC, you know that election-year discourse has entered the realm of the surreal. Another unmistakable sign is when a presidential candidate makes a gaffe, then, realizing it is too egregious to take back without suffering humiliation, decides to make it a centerpiece of his foreign policy.

Before the Democratic debate of July 23, Barack Obama had never expounded upon the wisdom of meeting, without precondition, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chávez, Kim Jong Il or the Castro brothers. But in that debate, he was asked about doing exactly that. Unprepared, he said sure -- then got fancy, declaring the Bush administration's refusal to do so not just "ridiculous" but "a disgrace."

After that, there was no going back. So he doubled down. What started as a gaffe became policy. By now, it has become doctrine. Yet it remains today what it was on the day he blurted it out: an absurdity.

In 1988, Democrats denounced Dan Quayle for serving in the National Guard.

In 1992 and 1996, Democrats praised Bill Clinton for not serving.

In 2000, Democrats praised Al Gore for his Vietnam service while, again, ridiculing the National Guard, which Geeorge Bush served in.

In 2004, Democrats praised John Kerry for his Silver Star in Vietnam.

In 2008, Democrats mock John McCain for his 5 1/2 years in a North Vietnamese prison. Jay Rockefeller said (and apologized for) McCain lacks compassion for people because he was a jet pilot. Tell that to Bridget McCain. Tom Harkin called McCain too militaristic.

I wish they’d make up their minds.