1115.org

(1)
The word is that Freddie Thompson is planning to show us his this week.

The campaign of Fred D. Thompson, who has been running for president for months, formally announced yesterday that he would formally announce his bid for the Republican nomination for president next Thursday.

That’s as effective and succinct a statement as I have ever seen about the willing suspension of disbelief involved in formal announcements of candidacy in presidential elections.

Also, this may not qualify as a fearless prediction, but I’ll go ahead and make it anyway: “I don’t think America is going to be too impressed with Freddie’s.”

(2)
July brought us Republican Florida state Rep. Bob Allen, in a public restroom, offering to pay to perform oral sex on a undercover officer, and now August has produced Larry “The Wide” Craig, performing sordid-gay-sex mating dance shenanigans in a public restroom.

Somebody’s going to ask this question sooner or later, so it may as well be me: “Why, oh why, are law enforcement authorities throughout the land expending scarce resources to set up these elaborate undercover stings in public restrooms in order to entrap Republicans?”

(3)
The Communist regime in China has embarked on a major PR campaign in preparation for the 2008 Olympics:

China has launched a major drive to present a good image next year.

Spitting, littering and bad driving have all been targeted in a bid to stamp out bad habits in the Chinese capital ahead of the Olympic Games.

Shouldn’t we try something similar to revamp our image in Iraq?

(4)
On the subject of greenhouse gas emissions, here’s what Bush’s speaking orifice emitted Monday of last week:

But I want to tell you something that’s interesting, and something you probably haven’t spent much time reading about — do you realize that the United States is the only major industrialized nation that cut greenhouse gases last year? We grew our economy by 3.4 percent in the second quarter and we cut greenhouse gases.

Monday of this week, WaPo’s Michael Abramowitz reported:

Kristen A. Hellmer, the spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, acknowledged afterward that the White House was unable to substantiate the claim.

It’s not as bad as that might sound:

“While it’s very likely to be the case that we are the only industrialized nation that cut absolute emissions, there is not directly comparable data because not all other nations take such a measurement,” she said by e-mail. “We are making sure the president is aware of that.”

We did, in fact, cut emissions in 2006 (by 1.3%). “That represents the first drop in emissions since 2001, when a slowdown in the economy and the Sept. 11 attacks affected the numbers.” However:

Environmentalists are (not too) impressed, pointing out that carbon dioxide emissions are up during the whole of the Bush presidency. “It’s the equivalent of someone saying that he lost three pounds after gaining 25 pounds,” said Daniel J. Weiss, the director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress.

(Note that Bush said “major industrialized nation”, which Hellmer changed to “industrialized nation”. Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that, in today’s environmentally conscious world, every major industrialized nation does indeed “take such a measurement”? And that at least one or more major industrialized nations also showed a decline in 2006?)