THE TENSION: The Decline and Fall of Western Civ. for 20 Sep

Heads up diablos, this news burns as it goes down.

AP and the Washington Post report Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez appeared to have taken a cue from liberal blogs and Democrat talking points and called President Bush "the devil" in a speech to the United Nations on Wednesday, making the sign of the cross in a dramatic gesture and accusing him of "talking as if he owned the world." John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, summed up the US position by asking if folks in Venezuela would have the same rights to express themselves as Chavez had in New York, adding, "We're not going to address that kind of comic strip approach to international affairs." According to the Post and AP reports:

"Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world," Chavez told the General Assembly. "I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States," Chavez said, referring to Bush's address before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. "Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of."

California sues six carmakers in global warming suit. California filed a global warming lawsuit on Wednesday against Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and three other automakers, charging that greenhouse gases from their vehicles have cost the state millions of dollars, according to Bloomberg and Reuters. I have to ask what type of car California State Attorney General Bill Lockyer drives to work or if anyone clued him into the notion that it has yet to be proven that global warming is actually caused by humans? The suit couldn't come at a worse time for automakers and the move appears to be nothing more than a money grab. It scares me to think that San-Fran-Nan (Nancy Pelosi) may soon be the House Majority Leader. Folks east of the Rockies should consider the ramifications of this kind of foolishness imported on a national level.

Playing election season politics to avoid presenting an Iraq plan they clearly do not have, Senate Democrats on Wednesday announced their own series of hearings into what they called a failed Iraq policy, reports Reuters.

The Hill reports Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe has told business associates and Democratic donors that he will chair Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign next year, according to several Democratic sources.

The Israeli foreign minister on Wednesday warned that Iranian leaders pose the biggest threat to international values as they "speak proudly" of their wish to destroy Israel and pursue weapons to achieve that objective, according to AP.

ABC News reports Bill O'Reilly says his outspoken broadcast style has led to death threats on a daily basis. He says the FBI has even warned him and a few other people at Fox News that al Qaeda has them on a death list.

In the Tin-Foil-Hat segment, Fox News reports brain stimulation triggers paranoia and a sense of alien presence. Geeze, all this time I thought those were side effects of hallucinogenics.

In last-ditch efforts to slow the fall of Western Civilization, the House voted Wednesday to require Americans to show proof of citizenship in order to vote, and the Senate moved to build a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border as Republicans sharpened attacks on illegal immigration before the midterm elections, according to AP.