THE TENSION: The Decline and Fall of Western Civ for 8 Mar.

The Decline and Fall of Western Civ.: Barbarians have Crashed the Gate

It's the end of the world as we know it...

NOAA reports the average temperature in February 2007 was 32.9 F. This was -1.8 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 34th coolest February in 113 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. Details.

In other news conflicting with the so-called global consensus on catastrophic climate change, AFP reports natural and man-made disasters caused a relatively light 48.8 billion dollars (37.2 billion euros) in economic losses last year, one-third of which was covered by insurance, the re-insurer Swiss Re said Thursday.

The world's largest reinsurance firm said in a study that the overall economic losses were below the long term trend.

Trying to hitch a ride on the crisis change train, Sports Illustrated goes green. As global warming changes the planet, it is changing the sports world. To counter the looming environmental crisis, surprising and innovative ideas are already helping sports adapt.

The next time a ball game gets rained out during the September stretch run, you can curse the momentary worthlessness of those tickets in your pocket. Or you can wonder why it got rained out -- and ask yourself why practice had to be called off last summer on a day when there wasn't a cloud in the sky; and why that Gulf Coast wharf where you used to reel in mackerel and flounder no longer exists; and why it's been more than one winter since you pulled those titanium skis out of the garage.

Global warming is not coming; it is here.
Right.

Homeland Security officials are testing a super-snoop computer system that sifts through personal information on U.S. citizens to detect possible terrorist attacks, prompting concerns from lawmakers who have called for investigations, reports the Washington Times.

The Associated Press and the Washington Post report, in a direct challenge to President Bush, House Democrats unveiled legislation Thursday requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the fall of next year.

Within an hour of Pelosi's news conference, House Republican Leader John Boehner attacked the measure. He said Democrats were proposing legislation that amounted to "establishing and telegraphing to our enemy a timetable" that would result in failure of the U.S. military mission in Iraq.

"Gen. (David) Petraeus should be the one making the decisions on what happens on the ground in Iraq, not Nancy Pelosi or John Murtha," the Ohio Republican added. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, has been heavily involved in crafting legislation designed to end U.S., participation in the war.

The measure emerged from days of private talks among Democrats following the collapse of Rep. John Murtha's original proposal, which would have required the Pentagon to meet readiness and training standards without the possibility of a waiver.

Murtha, D-Pa., and chairman of a House Appropriations military subcommittee, said its implementation would have starved the war effort of troops because the Pentagon would not have been able to find enough fully rested, trained and equipped units to meet its needs.

Several moderate Democrats spoke out against it, though. And Republicans sharply attacked it as the abandonment of troops already in the war zone.
AFP reports President Bush would veto the legislation calling for a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by late 2008, the White House said Thursday.

Earlier today I reported that John Edwards decided to to cut and run from the Nevada debate hosted by Democrats and Fox News.

Josh Gerstein, writing in the New York Sun, asks "Could Edwards become the first woman president?"

The candidate being touted as a torchbearer for women is not Senator Clinton, but one of her former colleagues, John Edwards. At a rally near the University of California, Berkeley campus this week, a veteran of the abortion-rights movement, Kate Michelman, asked and answered the question she gets most frequently about her decision to back the male former senator from North Carolina.

Key House Democrats plan to insist the Pentagon shut down the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and are contemplating the relocation of many of the 385 or so remaining terrorist suspects to military brigs along the East Coast -- including Quantico, Va., and Charleston, S.C, reports the Politico.

A Democratic official involved in developing the Guantanamo strategy said the Democrats, who control the new Congress, expect Republicans to object to bringing the detainees onto U.S. soil because their attorneys would surely argue they were entitled to myriad new rights.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Democrats are planning hearings in April or May to "build a record" that closing Guantanamo would be beneficial and that it would be legal, as well as logistically feasible, to bring its detainees to the United States. The hearings would start with panels of lawyers, some of whom are convinced the plan is workable and some of whom represent detainees now at Guantanamo.

A senior administration official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he was puzzled by the Democrats' frequent discussion of closing Guantanamo.

"While we want to bring these guys to trial as quickly as possible, where do Democrats believe we should keep Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 plot?" the official asked. "Which American city will they choose to place America's most wanted terrorists?"