I was Abdus Salam

After the September 11, 2001, attacks by Al Qaida the US reacted by invading Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden escaped via Tora  Bora into Pakistan, and there he hid for many years. Meanwhile, the neocons orchestrated the major blunder in Iraq, which led to the mess we see today in the Middle East and Africa. It used to be North Africa, but nowadays the Al Qaida clones are found as far as Nigeria,  Kenya, and France. Therefore today we can say US and EU policy has failed, and Al Qaida and its clones have spread all over.

Anyhow, the Iraq war was based on false premises. At first it was the unfound “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD for short). Later, when the WMD weren´t even close to being found, Bush started peddling “we liberated Iraq for democracy”. So the idea was to send several hundred thousand troops into a Muslim country (with borders drawn up by the British to have serious internal conflicts),  to fight for freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people. And this, of course, the USA was doing out of love for freedom loving Iraqis, who would turn out to be raving mad Muslim mad killers after US troops followed the neocon recipe from 2003 to 2009.

And meanwhile we saw really ugly Muslim hatred emerging in the USA (hurrah, thought the neocons). Being a confirmed atheist as far as major homo sapiens religions are concerned, I didn´t think the intense hatred being fueled by the media (like Fox News and the Liberty radio network) was the right approach. The flames of hate burned hot in chat rooms in those days, oh yeah.

I sure wish I had kept a record, because that shit was really gross. The hatred being spewed was so heavy I decided to do something about it: I became Abdus Salam.

President Obombo will visit Cabo Caballo

Waziria´s president Patrice Obombo has announced that he will visit the slave island nation of Cabo Caballo next month. This step follows the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Kambo regime in 2015.

Wazirian president Obombo at his press conference

 explaining plans to visit Cabo Caballo´s dictator

Many in Waziria´s capital, Kumbasi, have been critical of Obombo´s move. They point out the opening of friendly relations with the Kambo dictatorship was neither urgent nor necessary, Their consensus is that president Obombo felt it would polish his rather tarnished accomplishments before the end of his term later this year. 

Thus the Kambo family  dictatorship has managed to parlay a prisoner swap (the murderous Caballoan “Operation Wasp” spies for a Wazirian spy who went by the code name “Sarraf”,  a Jewish tourist was tossed in as a side dish) into full diplomatic relations and now a visit by President Obombo himself. This has been a motive of celebration, including a monster party thrown to celebrate "the Day of Victory over Waziria". 

Cabo Caballo´s Kambo brothers have been a thorn on the side of Wazirian strategic interests for half a century. First elder brother Fabuloso Kambo, and now Ernesto Kambo, have been actively undermining Wazirian business interests in nearby countries, as well as causing uproars in the Caballoan immigrant population, known as Caballo-Wazirians. This group is rabidly opposed to the Kambo dictatorship, and has traditionally backed political parties willing to play hardball with the Kambos.

Richard Tol's paper about climate change impact

I just read a paper by Richard Tol about the impact of climate change on the world economy and humanity at large. The paper reviews the IPCC conclusions on impacts, which appear to be quite sloppy and unsupported.

This is Richard Tol

After reading this and other papers and looking over the fossil fuel resource limits we face, whereas we also know the climate sensitivity to greenhouse gas concentration is lower than postulated "by the consensus", I conclude global warming is a secondary problem which doesn't deserve half the ink it's getting. I must also conclude that President Obama isn't nearly as smart as he thinks.

Tol's paper is here: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=wps-78-2015.pdf&site=24

I interview Donald Trump

The following interview took place thanks to Pope Francis, who had asked me to fly to Havana to meet him and the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, and serve as a mediator as they begin merger negotiations. 

As it turned out NY was having the mother of all snow storms and so I ran into Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as he too waited for the airport to reopen and fly to his next campaign stop. By sheer luck, we got seated next to each other at the VIP lounge, and after I explained I had done famous celebrities, he agreed to a quick on-the-spot interview.

Donald Trump at the VIP Airport Lounge in NY

FERNANDO: Mr. Trump, we´ll make this as fast as painless as possible. Remember I don´t usually pull punches, but tonight I´m a bit tired so I´ll take it easy on you.

DONALD: Thank you.

FERNANDO: The American people are fed up with politicians, most of them think you are a pompous ass, you wear a wig, and you are as offensive as they come, yet you seem to be getting 30 % of the Republican vote. How did you connect with them, was it the discontent, frustration with the system, and the way white folk feel isolated from Washington?

TRUMP: I felt it. I mean I felt it from within. I´m white.  We have tremendous discontent in the country. We have tremendous problems in the country.

FERNANDO: So would you be willing to shut down the government in order to defund Planned Parenthood?

TRUMP: I won´t answer that, because I want to show unpredictability. But Planned Parenthood should absolutely be defunded. That´s going to get me votes.

FERNANDO: Do you like affirmative action?

TRUMP: I'm fine with it, we have it, it's there. But it's coming to a time when maybe we don't need it. Take you, are you Mexican?

I interview Leonardo DiCaprio

Watching the opening of Leonardo DiCaprio ´s “The Revenant”, all I could think was, “That looks like Man in the Wilderness.”   The Revenant was good, but as far as I´m concerned, the DiCaprio legend begins with a delightful movie about a large ship named Titanic – the budding star does a great job but dies at the end, frozen to a wooden pallet.

Leonardo DiCaprio

But I digress.  I interviewed DiCaprio aboard his posh yacht as we sailed from Gibraltar to Patroklos, his Greek island,  because he is credited with doing more for global warming scientific literacy than any other actor on the planet. It’s true that I inflated his already large ego with some questions about his acting, but the real focus was his concern for the planet’s temperature.

Fernando: So, this is the first time we’ve met.

DICAPRIO: Yes, it is. Please have some tartalettes, I had them flown in from Paris this morning.

Fernando: Thanks (I grab a couple), the French sure know now to make pastries. But tell me about your last movie, the one where you play the fur trapper.

DICAPRIO: It was physically grueling. And I had to spend hours getting made up. They made me get into a cold river. But they had warm towels. That´s in my contract.

Fernando: What drew you to the role of Hugh Glass?

DICAPRIO: it was epic in every sense of the word. I was pretty sure it would get me close to an Oscar.

Fernando: I heard you had problems with snow.

DICAPRIO: We had a lot of complications…it was the hottest year in recorded history. But one day we were trying to do a scene and it turned out to be 40 below zero, so the gears of the camera didn’t work.

Fernando: Yeah, it´s an El Niño year. The climate can be crazy.

DiCaprio:  It´s global warming.

Fernando: Do you check the weather forecast before you go make a cold weather movie in June?