Thursday, September 08, 2005

Ben Stein is a *Real* Celebrity

We've all had a good little laugh at the misguided attempts by celebs such as Sean Penn to help out in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Anyone who takes a photog along on a 'rescue mission' needs a major lesson in effective use of resources.

But there are people out there in celebrity land with a head on their shoulders. Ben Stein is one of them, and this is a fine piece of leadership ...

Get Off His Back
By Ben Stein


A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the truth:

1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying.

2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one.

3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There have been far worse hurricanes than this before George Bush was born.

4.) There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a man-made phenomenon. There is no clear-cut evidence that global warming even exists. There is no clear evidence that if it does exist it makes hurricanes more powerful or makes them aim at cities with large numbers of poor people. If global warming is a real phenomenon, which it may well be, it started long before George Bush was inaugurated, and would not have been affected at all by the Kyoto treaty, considering that Kyoto does not cover the world's worst polluters -- China, India, and Brazil. In a word, George Bush had zero to do with causing this hurricane. To speculate otherwise is belief in sorcery.


I encourage you to read the rest, it's great stuff!