What are "birthers?" People who give birth to children, instead of--what?--automatically aborting them?

Regarding Obama and race, it's clear to anyone who has read "Dreams From My Father" that Obama has deep obsessions about race. That's why he he summarily announced the Cambridge cop acted "stupidly" in the Henry Gates arrest case, even though he, Obama, didn't know the facts. He didn't need no stinkin' facts. For decades now he has had these racial profile loops that run through his mind, ready to be called up for instant use.Henry Gates has them too. A cop comes to investigate a possible break-in at Gates's house. Does it occur to Gates to identify himself and thank the cop for his concern? Naw, his reaction, the sum of all this thinking and study about race, is to denounce the cop as a racist and then for good measure to also insult the cop's mother. Class acts, these professional Harvard race baiters.

Howard Bess says his book was on a list which Sarah Palin wanted banned. I wish Bess would produce the list. In the past people have offered lists of books that Palin supposedly wanted banned and they were obvious fakes (some of them included names like the four Harry Potter books which weren't even written at the time). If Bess is sure his book was on the list he ought to produce it for us.

Some polar bears starve and drown every year. It has nothing to do with global warming. That's the way nature works. It makes no sense to put an animal whose numbers have increased 400% in the last 40 years on the endangered species list. If you want to do something anyway, outlaw hunting. It won't save the polar bears, given that they're not endangered in any case, but at least you will feel a lot better.

As for the notion that polar bears might go extinct, there have been four previous warming periods in the last 1,500 years. Polar bears survived those warmer times and will survive the current warming period too.

A final point, people like to say that polar bears eat seals and if the ice cap melts, they can't hunt seals and they will starve. Polar bears, like the grizzlies from whom they are descended and with whom they interbreed, are omnivorous. If they can't eat seals they will eat what grizzlies eat. Or are grizzlies endangered too?

Edward McClelland (twice) says in his column that, since Hillary is the only woman running for president, if you vote against her you're against a woman president. McClelland's logic is lousy. No wonder he lost his job.