Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says Alaska will sue the federal government to challenge the Interior Department’s listing of polar bears as a threatened species. She notes the paucity of evidence to support Interior’s listing — adding that polar bears in Alaska are well-managed and during the past three decades polar bear numbers in Alaska have dramatically increased. Fact: The world polar-bear population (24,000) stands at a modern-day high, up 40 percent since 1974.
Officials at Milan’s La Scala have announced (according to The Washington Post) they have commissioned composer Giorgio Battistelli to turn Al Gore’s “global-warming book/lecture/movie (‘An Inconvient Truth’) into an opera for their 2011 season.” Makes you feel warm all over, doesn’t it?
Romania’s parliament has passed a law requiring newspapers and television stations to report equal amounts of news “good” and “bad.” An excess of bad news is dangerous for the nation’s health — or something. Opponents are hoping for the good news of a presidential veto.
Susan Sarandon, each day challenging Jane Fonda and Barbra Streisand for the Oscar for Idiocy, has proclaimed, in “this critical time,” her “faith in the American people.” To do what? To elect Barack Obama, of course. If the voters should prove so misguided and immature as to elect the dread John McCain, she says, she’ll hop the first plane out for Canada or Italy — there to take up permanent residence. Which would be yet another benefit of a McCain presidential victory.
Finally, this: A Wall Street Journal piece about Internet religious start-ups discovers the marvelously named “Church of the Latter-Day Dude.” According to the church’s 40-year-old founder, who lives in Thailand, Dudists (The Journal notes) practice “a modified version of Taoism and principles from the movie ‘The Big Lebowski.’ ” Let the record show that – probably – they also have more fun.