The Decline and Fall of Western Civ for 16 May

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

• The Associated Press reports environmental activists are building a replica of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat - where the biblical vessel is said to have landed after the great flood - in an appeal for action on global warming, Greenpeace said Wednesday.
  
  

  "Climate change is real, it's happening now and unless world leaders take urgent, decisive and far-reaching action, the next decades will see human misery on a scale not experienced in modern times," said Greenpeace activist Hilal Atici. "Those leaders have a mandate from the people ... to massively cut greenhouse gas emissions and to do it now."

  The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) warns governments have until 2012 to "plant the seeds of change" and make positive moves to limit carbon emissions, reports Sky News.
  
  Reuters reports a remote chain of Arctic islands is advertising itself as a showcase of bad things to come from global warming.
  
  Forget that January is actually a summer month in the southern hemisphere, LiveScience wants you to worry about news that some ice that melted in January 2005 in western Antarctica adds up to a chunk the size of California .

• However, there are still mature, rational voices above the alarmist din. The EPW Press Blog reports prominent scientists have reversed their belief in man-made global warming.
  
  The Associate Press reports Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Wednesday called for a rational debate on global warming, rejecting what he called "hysteria" driven by environmentalists.
  
  The average temperature in April 2007 was 51.7 F. This was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 47th coolest April in 113 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, according to NOAA.

• Unable for the third time to support the claim that they are expressing the voice of the American people (without having to buy that support with earmarks), The Associated Press reports the Senate on Wednesday rejected legislation that would cut off money for combat operations in Iraq after March 31, 2008.
  
  Despite the fact that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama voted for the measure, the Senate obviously doesn't have the guts to simply defund the war. More from The Washington Post.

• WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional Democrats Wednesday announced agreement on a $2.9 trillion (that's a whopping $2,900,000,000,000.00) budget blowout for 2008, promising a budget surplus in five years but only by allowing some of President Bush's tax cuts to expire, according to The Associated Press.
  
  

  The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, said the Democratic plan would produce "the largest tax increase in U.S. history, billions in new spending, and no attempt to address the long-term fiscal crisis" looming in federal retirement programs and the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled.

• According to TVNEWSER, Democrats have officially announced "the dates, media sponsors and cities for the six DNC sanctioned debates." Democrats are sticking to "safe" forums where hard questions will probably not be asked. In other words, the Dems have decided to dis Fox and their voting audience.

• Senate Democrats and Republicans are working feverishly with the White House to put the finishing touches on an immigration proposal that could be announced later today or tomorrow, reads a post on the blog, REDSTATE. The deal would give illegal aliens living in the United States amnesty, according to confidential sources. It would also allow illegal aliens to bring their parents, spouses and children into the United States.

• And finally, here's a story that embodies the fall of the West. AFP reports Battling against a deeply patriarchal society, Arab Israeli and Palestinian lesbians are uniting to break the taboo of homosexuality and politicise the right to be female and gay.
  
  And how does that define the fall of Western Civilization? If you have to ask....

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