Praise for Man Who Threw Shoes at Bush?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The latest pickings from the Political Grapevine:
Sole Attacker
As we noted earlier, that Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President Bush Sunday is being hailed as a hero in parts of the Arab world. And now colleagues in the Mideast media are also coming to his defense. The editor of a Jordanian newspaper says, "Throwing the shoes at Bush was the best goodbye kiss ever."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A Lebanese-American professor at Stanislaus University in California writes, "The flying shoe speaks more for Arab public opinion than all the despots-puppets that Bush meets with during his travels."
And the attacker's employer released a statement saying, "Any measures against (him) will be considered the acts of a dictatorial regime."
Case Closed?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Associated Press has decided that any discussion of global warming — and its facts — is over. The AP's Seth Borenstein writes, "The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton’s second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out."
But he does go on to mention the inconvenient fact that recent data indicates the earth is actually cooling. The guy then says that this cooling is actually proof of global warming.
"2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line...while skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}That, you see, is because everything has gotten so much warmer overall.
Environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg — who does not dispute global warming but questions the value of many proposed remedies — is taking President-elect Obama to task. Lomborg writes in The Australian newspaper that Mr. Obama is getting some of his facts wrong.
Last month the president-elect said, "Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger." That's a sentiment he reiterated late today.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But Lomborg says, "Actually we've seen a sea-level fall during the past two years...in that period, many coastlines have increased."
Lomborg says studies also show an increase in global soil moisture and not drought. "Famine has declined rapidly in the past century."
He then ads, "A policy of reducing CO2 emissions would have had zero consequence on Katrina’s devastating effect."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Too PC?
And finally, the Conservative Young America's Foundation has released its list of Politically Correct Abuses of 2008.
Topping the list is California’s Yuba College, which banned a student from handing out gospel literature or face possible expulsion. The school also limits free speech to just two hours each week in designated free-speech areas.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The list includes Minnesota’s University of Saint Thomas which banned a pro-life speaker but hosted a transgendered activist who believes God is a black lesbian.
Then there is Deerfield High School in Illinois which required literature students to read the book "Angels in America: a Gay Fantasia on National Themes."
Also included is a Claremont, California Elementary School that barred students from dressing like pilgrims and Indians during Thanksgiving to avoid racial stereotypes, Florida's Gulf Coast University which tried to do away with Christmas activities in favor of an ugly-sweater competition and Columbia University for its handling of a student election on the question of returning the Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps to campus.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}— FOX News Channel's Zachary Kenworthy contributed to this report.