IT’S OFFICIAL: AL’S IN

It’s official, Progressive radio host and former Saturday Night Live funnyman, Al Franken, will run for the US Senate from Minnesota, targeting the seat currently occupied by Republican incumbent, Norman Coleman.

The announcement, earlier today, confirmed what had been a topic of much speculation in the weeks since the 55-year-old Franken had announced that he was leaving progressive broadcaster, Air America, where he has hosted the Noon – 3pm Est. slot for the past three years.

Mr. Franken, while born in New York City, was raised in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park. Following his graduation from Harvard University in 1973, the multi-talented writer- comedian joined the writing staff of “Saturday Night Live” where he remained a fixture of the show until the 1990’s, creating such memorable features as Stewart Smiley, Limo for the Lamo, and for his dead-on portrayals of Henry Kissinger, Pat Robertson, Senator Paul Simon and arch villain, Lex Luther.

Mr. Franken began his migration to serious politics with the publication, in 1996, of “Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations.”

This he followed up in August 2003, with the Penguin book, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right”.

In a marketing coup most authors could only dream of, “Lies and the Lying Liars” was the target of a lawsuit brought the Rupert Murdock owned, Fox News Corp., claiming that Franken, in his dust jacket copy, had infringed upon their trademark of the phrase, “Fair and Balanced.”

The controversy drove sales of the book to the top of Amazon best-seller list, before, in Franken’s words, being “literally laughed out of court,” by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who deemed the Fox News action, “wholly without merit”.

Franken’s most recent book, The Truth (with jokes), was released on October 25, 2005 and is now in trade paperback.

Franken’s entry into the race guarantees that the Minnesota Senatorial race will enjoy a high national profile. Whether this translates to success at the ballot box for Franken, is unknown.

One thing is certain; Mr. Franken faces an uphill climb convincing his fellow Minnesotans of his sincerity and qualifications for the position.

We here at the LIB wish Al Franken well in his exciting new adventure. As a regular listener to his show, I am confident that he will make a great senator, as he possesses the energy and character to, in the words of the immortal Bobby Kennedy, “dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

It is this sort of CITIZEN POLITICIAN that we need more of in this country. Men and women, for whom politics is a way to give back for the blessings that they have received, and not just a job to be milked for all that it is worth.

We have too many of this latter group, already. Hopefully the 2008 elections will help thin the herd sending many of them off to where ever it is that old politicians go to when they are no longer effective.

This is my wish for America.

LIB – Editor

Related Video: See Al announce on YouTube

“YOU DON’T BELIEVE WE’RE ON THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION” - P.F. Sloan

The ink had hardly dried on the leading international network of climate change scientists latest status report on the environment, a report that among other things said that global warming has already begun, is “very likely” caused by man, and will be unstoppable for centuries, when the word came crashing across the wires of the latest Global Superstorm to strike landfall, this time, in the troubled state of Florida.

As of this writing, 14 people are believed to be dead from the combination of inordinately severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, which slammed through Lake, Seminole, Sumter and Volusia counties overnight, spreading devastation and trapping untold numbers beneath the remains of their now collapsed houses.

It will take days to know the full extent of those killed and maimed by the storm, a storm which according to the aforementioned report was probably made more severe by Global Warming in much the same way as was Hurricane Katrina was.

In other environmental news, President Shithead, in commenting on this latest climate report, once again confirmed that it will have no effect on his administration’s environmental policy, you know the one drawn up by Dick Cheney and the oil executives.

Speaking of the oil exec’s, arch villain, Lee Raymond, of ExxonMobil fame, who in retirement sits on the board of the American Enterprise Institute and chairs the Bush created committee on America’s Alternative Energy Future, has organized a slush fund to pay ten thousand dollar stipends to any climate scientist willing to submerge his ethics and make the case that Global Warming is not made worse by the burning of fossil fuels.

How any scientist, in the face of the mountains of irrefutable documentation on this matter, could support such scientific hogwash is beyond all belief. But, I am sure that there will be no shortage of hacks lining up for the blood money stipend.

According to the Associated Press, the 20-page report, which is due to be officially released later today, represents the “most authoritative science on global warming”.

Additionally, the new language “marks an escalation from the panel’s last report in 2001”.

Well, you can’t say that we haven’t been warned.

LIB – Editor