How stupid is Wesley Clark?

Well, DUH, I hope so. But it’s not like they tell everybody this stuff, you know. It’s supposed to be a secret.

Seymour Hersh, however, would have us believe a whole bunch of anonymous military, intel, and political people are eager to confirm to him that we’re doing something new and secret over there.

The thing about Hersh’s rambling is that if Iran believes it, they could crack down on those minority groups and dissidents that Hersh claims we’re funding. And Iran isn’t exactly bound by Boumediene v. Bush in their interrogations, you know?

For that matter, if there is any truth to what Hersh has written, it may compromise operations enough that we have to go to Plan B.

I hope it was worth it, Sy.

UPDATE: More on “Plan B” at Israel Insider.

Good news! Gasoline supply to be increased, with seven new refineries!

Bad news! They’re in Iran.

A senior Iranian official said the refineries would increase capacity by more than 1.5 million barrels per day and end gasoline imports.

The official said all seven refineries would begin operations by 2012.

While I was stuck in traffic on the way to UStream’s Mountain View offices for the From the Frontlines web-a-thon yesterday, I tuned into the Gitmo interrogation hearing by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. Serving as human voo-doo dolls: Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who served in the Office of Legal Counsel and authored the so-called “torture memos,” and the Vice President’s chief of staff, David Addington. (Hearing info here.)

Far left radio station Pacifica carried the proceedings live–with unhinged commentators and callers griping afterwards that Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and his fellow witch-hunters didn’t stab their pins in far enough.

The two-hour hearing was an absolute travesty. Nadler and the Dems shamelessly badgered and harangued the witnesses; Yoo, polite to a fault, repeatedly attempted to answer questions, only to be cut off by foaming jerks who twisted his words or indignantly claimed he was “conceding” some point that he had just established himself.

One of the most hostile and ignorant questioners was Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA)–who is not even a member of the subcommittee. When subcommittee member Steve King (R-Iowa) politely objected that Nadler had not followed the rules in obtaining unanimous consent for Delahunt’s questioning (King did not object to his presence, just the failure to follow House rules), Nadler obnoxiously acknowledged the point of order, regretting that he had been called out. Later, after King had left the hearing room, Nadler personally attacked King and snarked that he must not have cared about the rules enough to stay. (At the end of the hearing, Nadler withdrew those remarks with all the sincerity of a, well, Democrat politician.)

I almost drove off the road when Delahunt sarcastically told Addington that he was “glad” al Qaeda finally got the chance to watch him on TV. He can spin it all he wants, but the gloat in his voice is unmistakable.

Rep. King rightly called Delahunt on the carpet: “Congressman Delahunt’s live, televised statement to Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff was an invitation to Al-Qaeda to target him. I wonder if Bill Delahunt is ready to guard Mr. Addington’s home and family.”

Delahunt went on to grill Yoo about the torture memos. When Yoo referred to an appendix in the 2003 memo, Delahunt interrupted that he had not read the memo and barreled ahead with his kabuki interrogation.

What else do you need to know about the utter lack of seriousness, character, and good faith of your clown Congress at work?

When we call them 9/10 Democrats, 9/10 is not just a date. It’s the estimate of their mental and emotional ages.

Great Moments In Alarmism - Apparently a number of papers are "commemorating" today the 20th anniversary of James Hansen's speech before Congress warning of catastrophic man-made global warming. So let's indeed commemorate it. Here is the chart from the appendices of Hansen's speech showing his predictions for man-made global warming: (Climate Skeptic)

Let’s Revisit Katrina, Again - Are we ever going to put Katrina to bed? We have covered no end of articles clearly showing that hurricane activity is not increasing and likely will not increase in frequency or intensity due to the ongoing buildup of greenhouse gases. Virtually every prominent scientist involved in hurricane research agrees that it is brutally unfair to blame any one event on global warming, and yet to this day, almost every global warming presenter hints around that we caused Katrina, or at least we substantially added to its strength. As time passes, you would think this storyline would die. However, the recent tragedy in Myanmar associated with Cyclone Nargis left tens of thousands dead and reinvigorated the “global warming equals bigger hurricane” crusade. (WCR)

A Better Way Than Cap and Trade - The bitter arguments in the Senate this month over the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill, which would have required major emitters to pay for the right to discharge greenhouse gases, proved that climate change caused by humans has come to the fore of U.S. policy debates. This fact may comfort those who believe that future generations will judge us on the zeal with which we face the challenge. It may even assuage the fears of those who believe that warming will end life as we know it. But political rhetoric is unlikely to put us on a path toward solving the problem of climate change in the best possible way. (Bjorn Lomborg, Washington Post)

Dissent in Canada: Our premier could wind up with his carbon footprint in his mouth - If the cheerleading section for Gordon Campbell's gas tax will sit quiet for a moment, I'd like you to meet some smart folks who think the premier's plan is pure madness.

They call themselves the International Climate Science Coalition, whose chairman is Tim Patterson, Earth Sciences Professor at Ottawa's Carleton University. They got together in New York in March to hammer out a response to what they considered to be unnecessary global panic over climate change.

What came out of their meeting was a document called the Manhattan Declaration, a blistering indictment of the received wisdom on global warming.

What heresies does it contain? The kind to make David Suzuki's toes curl. (Alan Ferguson, The Vancouver Province)

Letter of the moment: Just another cycle - There is an unfortunate misconception that reducing carbon dioxide now would stop the Arctic ice from melting and would stop climate change. Nothing could be further from the truth. The earth's climate has gone through warm and cold cycles for its entire geological history of over four billion years. The present warm phase is no more than one of those naturally driven cycles. The global-warming science as espoused by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is being questioned by a large number of scientists. It is time to take a closer look at the reality of climate change in Canada, and not be overly concerned about increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide.
Dr. M. L. Khandekar,
IPCC Expert Reviewer 2007
Markham, Ont. (The Vancouver Province)

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That's the approach the Democratic Congress is taking to political speech on the airwaves: You as an American don't know what's good for you. If you listen mostly to conservative talk radio, or watch Fox News, then you should be force-fed things you don't want. (It takes government force because, as the Air America debacle proved, people don't listen to liberal talk radio.)

Yet Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have Uncle Sam again become speech policeman — because in the free market of mass communication, her party's message is losing.

Well, they aren't. Yes, it's true, a doubling of oil prices in the last year and double-digit drops in home sales and prices aren't exactly happy times. Many people, especially the middle class and the poor, are feeling the pinch.

But a little perspective is in order. The long-term trends are positive — overwhelmingly so. They are so positive, in fact, it's remarkable they're not commented on more.

We do have one big problem: We've become so rich that obesity, not starvation, is a leading cause of disease among Americans — including the poor.

As for the "troubled middle class," their real incomes are rising too, and according to a recent study by Congress, the tax burden on middle-income families has been declining for six years.

Put another way, a bit more than one-quarter of all the wealth created in America since our founding was created in the last seven years.