First, a word to "google maps."

Hey, save a tree ok? Start directions on #5 or later - I know how to get out of my driveway, onto my own street, and out of my own neighborhood, thank you very much. Alright ...

... now about saving those trees. I have a new favorite Irish woman (after Scarlet O'Hara of course): Ann McElhinney. As I was traversing the less then inspiring service streets of Las Vegas, Nevada on my way home this morning, I found so little to listen to on radio, the entire broadcast spectrum so bare, that I finally rested upon a faint little signal high into the 1100's on Marchony's dial, which in fact turned out to be ESPN. 10 minutes into whether LeBron James will go to New York or Chicago the hour ends and without my really noticing, at 6am on Sunday, it turned into gospel programming. And the first program up was a cross section between faith and politics. A promising description, I thought, until I heard the program's title: "Woman to Woman" hosted by whomever from somewhere. Man kind has yet to develop a mechanism capable of measuring the speed at which my hand lept for that radio dial. But just before I was able to offer a successful twist of the knob, a pleasant Irish accent came across the waves ... and it was Mrs. McElhinney. As a guest in the first segment she was there to discuss the "disastrous" effect of global warming hysteria, and I released the clutched knob.

What a treat.

The most basic, effective, devastating approach to addressing the subject I have encountered. She discussed things we are all aware of such as the 40 million deaths directly related to prohibiting DDT disbursement; but her approach was entirely one of a human rights activist, of which she's been her entire life. She went on, "The fundamental truth of the human experience that environmentalists fail to grasp is that to be a human right's advocate is to be defender of capitalism. 200 million people in India have been lifted from poverty in the last ten years, a remarkable achievement of mankind on any scale in history, all due to one word - capitalism."

She started as a liberal journalist doing environmental pieces for the BBC. And was sent to do a story on the "evils" of mining in Romania. And while she went up that mountain with one notion, she came down with another. It became readily apparent to her that the organized environmentalist movements of the world, while supported by well meaning good hearted donors back at home, are in truth hostile to human rights. Personally I have long touted the various ulterior motives of the green crowd: a convenient home for those hostile to capitalism (i.e. they're "watermelons" - green on the outside, red on the inside) for some, while the rest see the movement as an article of faith, a new religion for which the moral code of conduct contains no wrath, no hard choices, no depth, just recycling. But the human rights argument, I'm embarrassed to say, is one I hadn't made (not directly anyway). She went on to describe how first hand experience awakened her to ugly truths such as Green Peace and others being obsessed with the environmental impact of Western nations, but not at all with "communist mining", as she puts it. Real, measurable pollution goes on within nations such as China, yet the focus of green venom remains the US. They oppose progress in the most basic of forms. And as I sit here in my home watching G20 protesters vandalize, riot, and loot store fronts and financial institutions in Toronto, her message strikes a particularly relevant tone.

It turns out she has offered the counter film to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." As you may already be aware it became required viewing for every school child in Britain, which spawned a headline grabbing court battle. One parent stood up, proclaimed it science fiction, not science fact and in a land mark ruling the British high court found 9 factual errors in Gore's ode to mother earth and ordered it be shown only with a disclaimer attached, such as one would find on a packet of cigarettes. She exposes those 9 errors in depth in her film, the sort of Farenhype 911 of global warming if you will. You can see a trailer for the film, purchase it and read her bio all at Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria.

Perhaps Titus' book How the Irish Saved Civilization (on loan to me low these many years) will require an additional chapter in its' next printing.