• Guest: Climate skeptic Marc Morano. Do Climate bills harm the economy?
• Guest: Greg Palast. Exxon Shipping v. Baker: What's at Stake?
• Guest: Mike Adams. "Feminists Say the Darndest Things".
• Guest: Kathryn Joyce. Demographic Winter and the Christian Right.

Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.

Tuesday 26 February '08 National show

• Tonight there is a big democratic debate, perhaps the final one.
• Thom apologized for his comment yesterday about people on the fringe suggesting that Hillary should drop out.
• Guest: Climate skeptic Marc Morano, communications director for Senator James Inhofe, minority leader of the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Do Climate bills harm the economy? Man made CO2, plateau in temperature rise. BBC on the cost of global warming. Is it time to stop manufacturing buggy whips?
• Article: Publication of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate change, 30 October 2006.
  "The conclusion of the Review is essentially optimistic. There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we act now and act internationally. Governments, businesses and individuals all need to work together to respond to the challenge. Strong, deliberate policy choices by governments are essential to motivate change.

  But the task is urgent. Delaying action, even by a decade or two, will take us into dangerous territory. We must not let this window of opportunity close.

  "
  Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the Government Economic Service and former World Bank Chief Economist.
• Dan Abrams and Keith Olbermann covered the Siegelman story last night. Look at the lawyers who kept their jobs. People need to keep on it; it's out there.
• "Over two hundred 9/11 First Responders, family members, and supporters will be rallying on Capitol Hill today. The rally is being conducted to draw attention to the health issues that the 9/11 rescue workers currently face."
  ThinkFast: February 26, 2008.
• Bumper Music: Walk Tall, John Mellencamp.
• Bumper Music: What a Friend we have in W, Jim Terr, The Mornin' Pumpernickel Choir, Blue Canyon Productions.
• Article: Saudis Arrested for Flirting With Women.
• Laura Flanders will be guest hosting for the rest of the week as Thom is joining the Air America Cruise on Wednesday.
• Bumper Music: Pokin' the Bear, Jim Terr, Blue Canyon Productions.
• Guest: Greg Palast. "Armed Madhouse". Exxon Shipping v. Baker: What's at Stake? It's 19 years in a couple of week since the Exxon Valdez, they have still not paid up. He was investigator for the Indians. The radar was turned off. There were no booms. There was no emergency ship - it was in dry dock, its equipment under ice, so they should not have run any tanker. Because there was less oil afterwards the price went up so they profited. So we need punitive damages. The case goes before the Supreme Court tomorrow. The court decided punitive damages should be a maximum of 3 times actual damages. That is 1ow, and they already chiseled it down to $5 million. Exxon is waiting until every native is dead.
• What is the state of women and feminism in America and the world? Men get put in prison for flirting; women get stoned. They used to kill "witches" in America. Three waves of feminism; one starting with 's 1851 speech, the 1960's wave, and the 1990s wave which is broadening into other issues.
• Guest: Mike Adams, criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and a regular columnist for Townhall.com. Critic of the "diversity" movement in academia. Author, Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" on Campus.
  "The highly opinionated professor of criminal justice at the University of North Carolina–Wilmington explains his reason for targeting feminists: I want to find out why they hate us. Unleashing salvos of sarcasm, he collects his correspondence addressed to feminist students, professors, activists and administrators, including some letters never mailed (probably for the best). Claiming that feminist scholar is an oxymoron, Adams asserts that feminists have no sense of humor, are the biggest censors on college campuses, lack the courage to act as individuals, engage in widespread academic and personal dishonesty and attempt to solve problems by changing society rather than their own behavior. Ridiculing feminist-sponsored masturbation workshops, he notes, Men are fully capable of masturbating without taking a seminar.... For campus feminists, it's another excuse to seek funding from the university administration."
  Why take a series of admittedly absurd statements by women who claim to be feminists and use them as a way of painting an entire movement, when still in the United States women are earning less than men for the same work?
• Bumper Music: Strangers on the Right (Strangers in the Night), The Freedom Toast.
• Bumper Music: So Serious, ELO.
• Article: EPA Staff Urged Administrator To Resign If He Denied California Emissions Waiver.
• Bumper Music: Have a Nice Day Bon Jovi.
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. She's in Ohio for the debate. She thinks the state will go for Hillary. Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones is for her though her district may go for Obama. It should be interesting. Conyers went after the Department of Justice for poor enforcement on voter suppression. The Department of Justice sent a letter to ten states urging them to purge their voter rolls. The consumer confidence index is the lowest it has been in 15 years. The Department of Labor said there as been an increase in the producer price index, which excludes food and fuel. Darfur trip. Ohio. Armed services committee today, the army chief of staff wants to reduce tours to 12 months, at least; it's pushing the service, causing strain. Senate Democrats, foreclosure prevention act. Senate Environment committee, Boxer about the EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson denying California a waiver; he may have to resign. The White House is not impressed with North Korea, Rice was in China, expects China to have influence. Siegelman.
• Clip:
  "Do your duty. Make more babies. That's a lesson drawn out of two interesting stories over the last couple of days... So far, we are doing our part here in America but Hispanics can't carry the whole load. The rest of you, get busy. Make babies, or put another way -- a slogan for our times: "procreation not recreation."
  Gibson: "Make more babies" because in "twenty-five years ... the majority of the population is Hispanic". John Gibson, Fox News, May 11 2006.
• Feminism. There are some very strange memes running around right wing culture around the world, related to power relationships between men and women. Womens' rights and population growth. Racist undertone, population. "Procreation not recreation" clip.
• Article: Missing: The 'Right' Babies, Kathryn Joyce.
• Guest: Kathryn Joyce. Demographic Winter and the Christian Right...Christian conservatives predict a looming catastrophe as birthrates fall in Europe and Muslim immigration rises. Her forthcoming book, "Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement". "Missing, the right babies". How would it be a disaster to go back to former population levels? Subtext. "Demographic winter". The middle class is mostly experiencing zero population growth among whites, with immigrants increasing, who happen to be mostly dark skinned. It used to be the Irish, then Italians. People used to be against papists. After a few generations new waves of immigrants tend to be assimilated. The argument is made that because of zero population growth, there are more old proportionately, and the young won't be able to care for them. If the population drops, for example because of Spanish flu, the price of labor goes up, and there is a new middle class.
• Bumper Music: Last DJ, The, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (from The Last DJ album).
• Ralph Nader is a spoiler? David Cobb's example. Thom does not share concerns about Nader; he has been too marginalized. Libertarians will pull more votes from Republicans.
• Bumper Music: A Working Man's Wage, Trace Adkins.
• mcjoan is covering FISA over on Daily Kos.
• Article: Rove confronted with ‘Free Don Siegelman’ banner.