Jeremy Piven is UnAmerican! That Damn Global Warming Is Pissing People Off! (And More Wild Newz of the Day)

Today’s “Political Grapevine” with a “guess who’s delivering the annual Christmas message on a prominent British TV channel?” [you'll be astonished] plus some amusing stats on the over-zealous global warming types. I’m a radical, misanthropic environmental and wildlife advocate, but sometimes even I have to chuckle at some of the claims. But, yeah, I know that Fox News cherry-picks these stories to poo-poo environmentalism, so boo-hiss back at ya, Fox News.

From the Seattle Times AP regional wire:

In Spokane, tempers were starting to fray, with police reporting that a 53-year-old man was arrested for investigation of felony harassment after he allegedly threatened snow plow drivers.

Officers said the man was armed with a gun Tuesday when he came out of his house and yelled at a driver not to block his house with a snow berm. A few minutes later, an anonymous call was made to the city’s Street Department saying that any plow driver that came down that street would be shot. Police said the call was traced to the man’s house.

As you’ll see below the fold, when you have Seattleites praying for rain, you know somethin’s not good … and there’s more NEWZZZZ that God is not gonna be winkin’ at that Rick Warren, and that we have an “EVIL ILLEGAL ALIEN” living among us(!)

First, here’s more global warming fall-out in Seattle/Tacoma:

At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, more than two dozen people were treated for eye irritation Wednesday after deicing fumes entered the cabin of a Boeing 737-800 waiting at an airport gate, Sea-Tac spokeswoman Terri-Ann Betancourt said.

The plane, Alaska Airlines flight 528 to Burbank, Calif., with 143 passengers and five crew members on board, was being deiced for departure, she said. “Some deicing fumes made their way into the plane and it’s a pretty good eye irritant.”

Airline spokeswoman Caroline Boren said 26 people were treated or checked for eye irritation, and that seven people, all crew members or airline employees, were being taken to hospitals for further possible treatment. She said all the passengers were being put aboard another plane[...]

… More snow was falling at the airport south of Seattle, but Betancourt said the only delays or cancellations were because of problems at other airports.

Like many in the state, she was tired of the snow.

“I’ve lived here 16 years and this is the first time I’ve thought, ‘I wish it would rain,’” she said. ...

God’s Gonna Get You, Rick Warren, For Consorting with that Evil Illegal Alien!

BUENA PARK — Southern Baptist Pastor Wiley Drake bashed Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren this week, saying “God will punish” Warren for agreeing to give the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration next month.

“I pray He is kind to you in this punishment that is coming,” Drake wrote in a widely-released e-mail. In it, the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park pastor criticizes Warren’s “recent plan to invoke the presence of almighty God on this evil illegal alien,” a reference to Obama.

Drake, who made last November’s ballot as a vice-presidential candidate for the American Independent party, is a party to a lawsuit claiming Obama was born outside of the U.S., and is therefore ineligible to serve as president. Obama has a Hawaiian birth certificate, which Hawaiian officials have said is genuine.

Drake said Warren, also a Southern Baptist minister, is “hurting our denomination, and the Lord’s work.”

He continued: “God will deal with you on this … God will not wink at this.”

Warren did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

“It’s an abomination before God and God’s going to deal with that,” Drake, in an interview, said about Warren’s role in the inauguration. “I’ve gotten several e-mails in response, and overwhelmingly, they have been supportive.” … (Read all at the O.C. Register)

Oh, man, what on God’s green earth is going on with the human race?!?!?!? Oh, the humanity!

I offer the following proof:

• Joshua Neuman: What Happened to Kwanzaa?
  Whether it’s gone because nobody knew how to sell it, or because nobody wanted to buy it, Kwanzaa is now nowhere to be found.
• Tom Gregory: Jeremy Piven: The Un-American Cop-Out
  Piven’s abrupt departure from Speed the Plow was a low in the history of Broadway. Every actor who ever uttered the edict “the show must go on” rolled his eyes, or rolled over in his grave.

Oh Jeremy, oh Jeremy. Say it’s not so!

Did you know that HuffyPoop would forever tar you as “UNAMERICAN”?!?!?!?

That’ll teach you!

And HuffyPoop oughta know. They’re the world top-most experts at judging people “unAmerican.” ’specially anyone who did not join in the anointing of “The One.”

Grab a hankie, and read. And, yes, in case you get confused or wonder if I pasted the wrong article below, this is indeed an article about Jeremy Piven. It just takes the author a while to get wound up.

2008 has stressed America’s morale in unimaginable ways. Growing jobless numbers, astronomical fuel costs, a senseless war, and the worst economy in decades have challenged the family budget as employees have been forced to make more and more concessions just to keep bread on the table. An American worker who was wise enough to only take the mortgage he could afford and lucky enough to keep a job that was supposed to be his career, bites his nails as he nervously waits for the next shoe to drop.

We’ve watched the big guys get a free pass at taxpayer’s expense. Responsibility for our economic crisis is not just pushed aside but rewarded by bailouts that make the Iraq War look like the receipt from a 99-cent store. If the beleaguered worker were to give in to the popular fashion of throwing in the towel, our country would go into an economic freefall that would destroy what America has sweat and bled for throughout her history.

Each one of us owes a debt of servitude towards our fellow countrymen who — despite daunting external forces — continue to make America work. …

[...]

Don’t quit yet. NOW comes the part about Jeremy’s “unAmerican” behavior!

When David Mamet’s Speed the Plow opened at the Barrymore Theater this fall, Entourage alumni Jeremy Piven was a natural choice for the role of the fast-talking agent who weighs art against a sure thing. New York Times critic Ben Brantley lauded praises on Piven and the cast. Speed the Plow was a success. Subsequent offers would likely follow for everyone involved in the show.

Just because you play a role doesn’t mean you have any character. Last week Jeremy Piven abruptly left the production claiming mercury poisoning resulting from eating sushi. His physician ran damage control, making TV appearances on his patient’s behalf. It was a low in the history of Broadway. Every actor who ever uttered the edict “the show must go on” rolled his eyes, or rolled over in his grave.

Susan waves her hand. “‘Author, Author!’ [that was clever, don't you think?!].” Susan asks Tom Gregory (he’s the HuffyPoop author), “How do we KNOW that Jeremy was faking, which is what I gather you’re assuming?”

Never mind, Mr. Gregory indicates. That subject has been discussed, and Mr. Piven’s fate decided. So much for due process, and the testimony of his own physician.

Grab the hankie again:

As the fiasco unfolded, I thought about all the Americans who fight against backaches, headaches, and unhappiness working at jobs they barely tolerate to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. I thought the summer I spent in South Florida. Road crews were working tirelessly through the August heat to finish a drawbridge for the winter season. I’d sit at the traffic break in my air-conditioned car watching older men shoveling hot asphalt onto the road; to me that was work, and none of them were loafing.

America will pull out of this economic spiral, but only through leadership, hard choices, self-sacrifice, and probably a healthy does of inflation. Make no doubt about it; Piven offered an explanation for his departure, but it was no excuse. I can only hope the producers of Entourage end Piven’s contract before he gets his hand on another California roll.

Wow. No more sushi! It doesn’t get more serious than that!

Had I been Mr. Gregory, I would have eschewed the “California roll” line, which tends to MOCK the entire article, and instead used this line which all unAmerican actors like Mr. Piven will no doubt recall. From Wikipedia’s biography of Joseph McCarthy:

The most famous incident in the hearings was an exchange between McCarthy and the army’s chief legal representative, Joseph Nye Welch. On June 9, the 30th day of the hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr. with McCarthy’s list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants “before the sun goes down.” McCarthy stepped in and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, which Attorney General Brownell had called “the legal mouthpiece of the Communist Party.”[78] In an impassioned defense of Fisher that some have suggested he had prepared in advance and had hoped not to have to make,[79] Welch responded, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or your recklessness[...]” When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted him: “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” When McCarthy once again persisted, Welch cut him off and demanded the chairman “call the next witness.” At that point, the gallery erupted in applause and a recess was called.[80]

To guard myself against the distinct possibility that Mr. Gregory was writing some shabby satire — given the loose standards for writing at Huffington Post, one is often not sure if the article is satirical or serious — I looked up the story at Google News. Alas, it is true.

I am fond of the ScienceBlogs headline: