The 20th Century provided filmmakers with countless stories of heroism in the face of tyranny, hope in the midst of despair, and courage in the presence of brutality: Schindler’s List, Hotel Rwanda, The Killing Fields... The list can go on and on.

Hollywood has impeccably documented man’s cruelty to man in the 20th Century.

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As we begin the second decade of the 21st century with Sudan at the brink of a return to civil war and genocide, I’m reminded of a “Great Crime” at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Armenian genocide foreshadowed all other crimes which took place in the 20th Century: indiscriminate killing, the wholesale massacre of men, women and children, forced deportations, the systematic destruction of a population based on ethnicity, organized killing in the service of ideology. The Armenian genocide, the “Great Crime,” was the first milestone on the road into a century of genocide, democide, and war.

January 9, 2011 will be remembered as an important milestone in the 21st Century. If the planned date for a referendum on independence for Southern Sudan becomes a return to war and mass slaughter and enslavement of defenseless refugees, women and children, we have to ask what hope we have for our century. (more…)

For nearly two decades now, people have been arguing about climate change and getting nowhere. Right-wingers argue that global warming is a hoax based on unsubstantiated science, while left-wingers insist that not only is it real but unless we spend everything we have and more trying to stop it, the world will end tomorrow.

To which I say, “Stop—you’re both wrong!”

This, in a nutshell, is the message of the new documentary about me and my work that opens nationwide on Nov. 12. It’s called “Cool It” and, yes, the title is meant to be clever. The idea is that we do need to cool down the planet, but in order to do it sensibly we first need to cool it ourselves. That is, we need to dispense with both the anti-scientific denialism and the Al Gore-ish fear-mongering. Instead, what we should be doing is facing facts—and responding to them not with rhetoric but with smarter, more rational policies.

The first fact we need to acknowledge is the reality of global warming. Like it or not, the data is abundantly clear that man-made greenhouse gases have been building up in the atmosphere for decades if not centuries, with the result that global temperatures are rising. Yes, the “Climate-gate” emails and the disclosure of funny business at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change exposed some deeply disturbing academic chicanery and prejudice at some supposedly prestigious institutions. However, these revelations did nothing to undermine the fundamental scientific basis of global warming. What they did call into question were many of the more extreme predictions about global warming’s likely impact—such as the idea that all the Himalayan glaciers were about to disappear (they’re not) or that half the Amazon rain forest would soon be destroyed (not likely).

Of course, these extreme predictions are at the heart of the mainstream environmental movement’s position on climate policy. And this brings us to another set of facts we need to face: that while global warming is real, it is not quite the imminent catastrophe so many climate activists would have us believe. There may be some truth to the notion that in order to get people to focus on a problem, you need to scare the pants off them. But while worst-case scenarios may be a great way to get the public’s attention, they are a terrible basis for making public policy. If you believe that the southwest U.S. is about to become another dustbowl (as Paul Krugman has insisted) or that Greenland and Antarctica are on the verge of becoming huge piles of slush (as Al Gore would have us believe), of course you’re going to argue that we should do everything we can to eliminate carbon emissions as quickly as possible—even if that means amazingly costly and ineffective government policies. (more…)

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When I received the call from Raul Niño Zambrano from the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, known internationally as IDFA, asking us if we would screen our film U.N. Me  in competition, I was unsure how to receive this news.  See, this is my first film and I haven’t really been involved in the documentary community until recently.  As such I was unaware of the pecking order of documentary film festivals.  But, as I soon came to find out that IDFA is Mecca for documentary film makers and enthusiasts, in fact, it is the largest and most prestigious documentary film festival in the world.  Having your film in competition in the festival automatically brushes your movie with an imprimatur of legitimacy within the documentary film world. 

So with that knowledge I happily accepted the invitation and jetted off for a week in Amsterdam with my co–producer, agent and publicist.  It wasn’t quite “Entourage,” but for our purposes it worked.

To truly understand the atmosphere of a film festival, you have to understand the bubble that is the film festival generally, and documentary film festival in particular. This is not to pass judgment on it, but rather to simply point out the fact that they live in an inviolable envelope of political homogeneity and when something shakes their world view the tremors are felt throughout the festival. That is exactly what we did. (more…)

Despite the darkening clouds of increasingly Marxist/Islamic sympathies in the White House (“This is no longer just a Christian nation …”, said the President) and regardless of the Obama Nation’s success at “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” into the Obama Nation … Americans are still celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah.

Such a time of profoundly important Judeo-Christian sacredness, with our pride in its significance increasingly muzzled by “Progressively political correctness”, should and, I believe, will be honored more deeply because of the inferential shame our New World Order leadership would like to immerse it in.

Apparently, and for the entire history of America, its Judeo-Christian roots have been, in the eyes of Progressives, one of our nation’s incessant problems, and the main reason the United States has found it impossible to join the … uh … “community of nations”.

“Is this another diatribe, another imbecilic slap at the United Nations, Mr. Moriarty?!”

Yes … among other shots at the Progressive certainty over the apparently incontestable New World Order. (more…)

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Nicole Kidman is a fine actress. I’ve enjoyed her work over the years, and heartily congratulate her for her long and storied career. I also congratulate her for getting out of her marriage to Tom Cruise, but that’s another story.

Now Kidman, like many Hollywood stars who want to prove that they’re more than just pretty faces, is involved in A Cause. Like Meryl Streep’s concern about healthy produce and Heather Graham for ObamaCare, Kidman wants to Save Something. To that end, she is the goodwill ambassador for the UN Development Fund for Women, known as UNIFEM and in that capacity, recently testified before Congress to plead for more support for the program (read: cold, hard cash).

The big story that came out of that appearance was Kidman’s concession that the film industry might play a role in violence toward women by portraying them as weak. That may be true, but it’s a topic for another day.

 Kidman’s desire to help women in need is admirable. But she might want to consider an outlet other than the UN to do this good work. (more…)

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[ed. note: republished and amended from a 2007 post]

Dear   BARACK OBAMA  :

Congratulations! On behalf of the selection committee, I am pleased to announce that you have been named a 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of your tireless efforts to   STRENGTHEN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY AND COOPERATION    .

I am also pleased to tell you that as a winner, you have been pre-approved for membership in the Nobel Peace Player’s Club, offering exclusive money-saving benefits available only to laureates like you. Please take a few minutes to look over the enclosed enrollment materials. At only $299.95 per year, I’m sure you’ll agree that membership is a bargain at twice the price! Here are just some of the benefits you’ll receive:

• A handsome 14-karat gold membership crest badge to display proudly on the grille of your limousine or official state aircraft
• A framed, hand-calligraphed certificate (add $19.95 for gold leaf)
• Special discount shopping bargains for for you and your family
• Great travel packages to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro
• Listing in “Who’s Who of Global Salvation” ($49.95 per copy)
• Great coupons for Olive Garden, P.F. Chang’s, Six Flags Theme Parks, and more!

Plus, you’ll receive the exclusive Nobel Peace Player’s Club GoldCard entitling you to discount air travel and 5-star hotel accommodations from Kyoto to Darfur. But don’t take our word for it! Listen to these testimonials from some of our current members: (more…)

For forty years, GI Joe has been a bellweather for America’s view of the military.  If the new GI Joe movie is any indicator, we’re headed for a dry spell for pro-military sentiment under President Obama. 

Originally launched in 1963 as a male version of the Barbie doll, GI Joe’s creators intended for the “action figures” to be a tribute to the armed services (prototypes included “Rocky,” the Army soldier, “Skip,” the sailor, and “Ace,” the pilot). GI Joe wore WWII or Korean War issue uniforms.  For the next five years, GI Joes (including black GI Joe figures in particular areas) would dominate the market. 

During the Vietnam era, Hasbro, GI Joe’s maker and distributor, decided to tone down the action figure’s military theme as a result of the Vietnam War. Instead, Hasbro shifted the marketing to “Adventure Team,” which included turning GI Joes into superheroes and having them fight “The Intruders: Strong Men from Another World.” 

With the coming of Reagan, GI Joe regained his footing. Hasbro began marketing the product again as “GI Joe: A Real American Hero.” The action figure even spawned a successful TV series, which touted GI Joe as “the code name for America’s daring, highly trained special mission force. Its purpose: to defend freedom against Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world.”  (more…)

Cap and Trade, the biggest tax increase in American History, sailed through Congress without anybody even bothering to read it. What will prove to be perhaps the biggest historical change to the American way of life seemed nothing more than a Congressional mouse click, the Terms of Service Agreement on a new software installation. What is it about Democrats that they have such trust in other Democrats?

There was no debate, no discussion; in fact the bill wasn’t even finished when they started voting on it. Yet they all knew they would like everything in the bill, and rushed the vote. I’m somewhat envious of the common goal they all seem to share, but I’m also suspicious of why nobody bothered to read it. Granted it was fifteen hundred pages, Fourth of July recess, and the deposit on the Martha’s Vineyard cottage wasn’t refundable.

I think there is also something else at work here: Democrats tend to have more faith in the system than they have in the individual. When President Reagan tried to close the Department of Education, he was considered to be against education. It’s not just spin, Democrats really think that way. They feel it’s important to keep the Department of Education, because without it, there will be no education. Without the Department of Health, we would all be sick; without the Department of Commerce, the economy would fold. Ditto for the FDA, the FCC, FAA, and the rest of the alphabet soup. (more…)

I’m putting the finishing touches on my feature film coming out later this year called “U.N. Me”  (unmemovie.com), a satirical documentary on the profound failures of the United Nations. Here’s the second of three clips that very much represent the flavor of my upcoming film. Hope you enjoy … ”Guns Don’t Kill People, Climate Change Does.”

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I’m putting the finishing touches on my feature film coming out later this year called “U.N. Me”  (unmemovie.com), a satirical documentary on the profound failures of the United Nations.  Over the next three days, I’ll be presenting clips that represent the flavor of the film. Part one is “Swag Bag.”

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The tin-pot dictator, Kim Jong-Il (who has turned his entire country into a Communist Gulag) has snatched a couple of American journalists, dragging them across the border from China to be tried on trumped-up spy charges and sentenced to twelve years of hard labor.  Here is how the North Korean news agency reported it: “The trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing as they had already been indicted and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor.” Isn’t that a great line, “Reform through labor…”?   Given that almost everyone in North Korea is already starving, I suspect that Euna Lee and Laura Ling are not likely to survive twelve years of “reforming” big rocks into gravel.

At the same time, dictator Kim Jong-Il rattles his puny saber and threatens that if any of his ships carrying nuclear materials to other rogue nations are stopped on the high seas, he will consider it an “act of war.”  Well, gee… There was a time not too long ago when the kidnapping of American nationals would have, in itself, been considered an “act of war.”  I imagine that had Teddy Roosevelt or even Ronald Reagan been at the helm when Kim Jong-Il took two American nationals hostage, the response would be quite different.   More likely it would have gone along the lines of: “You have 24 hours to return our citizens before we start obliterating your military bases – one every hour until the hostages are set free.  If we run out of military bases and you still continue to hold them then, unfortunately, we’ll have to start on your cities.  Have a nice day.”  Then, like any good parent, we would follow through with our pledge. (more…)

(Thundering tympanies, swirling spotlights)

Announcer

Live! From the fabulous Turtle Bay Ballroom at United Nations Headquarters, it’s the Rat Pack of Evil All-Star International Celebrity Roast of President Barack Obama!

(orchestra fanfare: ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’)

With Pyongyang funnyman Kim Jong-Il! Borscht Belt headliner Vlady Putin! Queen of Mean Liz Windsor! Saudi Sheik of Schtick King Abdullah! Beijing jokeslinger Hu Jintao! Wacky al Qaeda Caveman Ayman al-Zawahiri! Nick ‘the Knife’ Sarkozy! Sassy Wanda Sykes! South-of-the-border slapstick team Hugo Chavez and the Castro Brothers! Taliban Madman Mullah Omar! Jon Stewart! Lovable Libyan lush Muammar al-Ghadaffi! Grovelin’ Guvner Gordy Brown! Bashar “The Chin” al-Assad! The Hamas Fattah Dancers! And starring your Master of Ceremonies — that suntan man with a plan from Iran — that Persian with a nuclear perversion — Sheckyyyyyy Ahmedinejad!

(applause)

Shecky Ahmedinejad

Okay, okay, pipe down. Let’s get this thing over with, this straitjacket is a rental and my magic carpet is double-parked on East 43rd. Mohamed H. Prophet, will you get a load of the evil on the stage tonight? I haven’t seen this many bombs since Janeane Garofalo played the American Legion convention. (more…)

If anyone wrote a script like this, no one would believe it.

But I already read the book.

That they even went to Iran in the first place was an abomination, especially given their three-hour gay rights infomercial called The Oscars just five days earlier.

And it only kept getting worse. (more…)

Most 12-step programs start out by requiring that people understand that they’re powerless over their addiction and that only by turning their lives over to a Power greater than themselves can they be restored to sanity.  Far be it for me to suggest that I am that Power, but clearly someone has to step in and try to rescue these poor liberal souls.  Even the most harebrained among them deserves that much.

First, though, they have to acknowledge that Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Dick Durbin, Charles Rangel, Harry Reid and Charles Schumer, are not moderates, but, rather, leftists with a Socialist agenda.  Furthermore, they must recognize that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, CNN, the three major networks, the news magazines and the New Yorker, are not objective in their reporting of political events, and neither are Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher, in their commentary.  If these entities and individuals are not on the payroll of the DNC, they certainly should be.  They certainly put in longer hours than Howard Dean. (more…)

George Clooney wasn’t at the Oscars Sunday night.  Where was he?  Apparently, Clooney was in Darfur – and he was planning to report back to President Obama about his trip.  So far, so good; there are many issues in Darfur that need to be addressed right now.  There’s only one problem: Clooney and the Hollywood phonies don’t want to address the real problems in the region.

If you’ve ever heard my radio show (which is heard on 260+ radio stations as well as XM and Sirius), you know that I respect intellectual honesty.  If Harry Reid does something right, I praise him.  When George W. Bush was wrong, I showed little mercy.  But being fair-minded doesn’t mean spreading criticism equally.  When I watch the left engage in their politics, it is more often than not wrought with intellectual dishonesty, for which I have little patience.

Hollywood loves to spout off about Darfur.  They plaster “SAVE DARFUR!” bumper stickers on their Priuses.  They shout “SAVE DARFUR!” at rallies.  It’s become the battle cry of the left.  But do they really understand what saving Darfur entails?  Do they really understand what’s happening on the ground in Darfur?

Last year, I decided to find out the truth about Darfur.  I had the opportunity to go to the region to help with humanitarian aid.  It was an eye-opening, horrendous experience. (more…)