Quick Hits Page

RUSH: This is from South Africa, News 24.  I love this story and you will soon find out why.  This story is about sea turtles.  Ready for this?  The headline is:  “Turtle-Eating Sharks Help Slow Global Warming, Scientist Says.” Isn’t that interesting?  Sharks that eat sea turtles are saving planet.  I’m sure you’re wondering how.  So here we go.  Sydney, Australia. It’s actually reported in South Africa, but Sydney, Australia.

“Sharks help to reduce global warming by eating sea turtles and other creatures that consume carbon-rich sea grasses, an Australian scientist said on Tuesday. Marine ecologist Peter Macreadie of Deakin University in Melbourne examined the effect on sea grasses in Shark Bay, Western Australia, after an extensive local shark culling programme. Fewer sharks meant their normal prey such as sea turtles flourished, and sea turtles’ favourite food is sea grass,” and that’s not good because sea grass absorbs all the CO2. So the sea turtles, what they naturally feed on, is harming global warming, anything that comes along and kills the sea turtles is saving the planet, according to this guy, Peter Macreadie.

He says: “Sea grass store vast reserves of carbon within sediments and with more sea grass being consumed the carbon is unlocked and can be released into the earth’s atmosphere accelerating climate change.”  Who freaking knew this?  Who freaking knew that sea turtles are leading to climate change?  So I say this.  Why wait for sharks to come eat them?  Why not let me turn on my outside lights for nine months a year?  I now have to turn them off, as does everyone who lives on the East Coast.  Can’t have any lights on at night ’cause sea turtle babies just hatched from the eggs might not go to the ocean. They might go inward, and we don’t want ’em to go inland, we want ’em to go to the ocean. If they go to the ocean, they might survive.  If they go inland, they will die.

Now this guy says we want the sea turtles to die.  Sharks eating them is a good thing.  Regular listeners in this audience recall that we had a story about sea turtles just a few weeks ago, and that story blamed the increase in the sea turtle population for the increase in shark attacks on surfers and swimmers along the southeast coast of the US.

Sea turtles are a favorite food of sharks, and the presence of sea turtles near the beaches is causing more sharks to show up and thus attack people.  So it’s not been a good couple of weeks for sea turtles.  Sea turtles are being blamed for shark attacks on people.  Now they’re being blamed for global warming.  And a scientist has now said that sharks eating sea turtles saves the planet.

Well, let me do my part by turning on my lights at night now.  Who knew that the day would one day come where I and others could turn on simple landscape lights. I’m not talking about spotlights lighting up the beach. I’m just talking about landscape lights.  They even try to get us to turn off our inside lights on the second floor.  That failed, but they tried.  Who knew that turning on lights could save the planet?  Why, this one story might make me a temporary convert.

RUSH: Try this.  You know, people keep statistics on a lot of things.  CBS Sports.  “NFL Goes a Month Without a Player Arrest for First Time Since 2009.” How about it? Let’s give it up for Roger Goodell, folks! There’s no question his stringent player policy is working: A full month and not a single player arrest.  That doesn’t mean there haven’t been any allegations.  But not a single player has been arrested in a whole month for the first time since 2009.  I mean, that’s six years.  Hubba hubba.  Now, if the Steelers could just get a kicker.

RUSH: Polling news. Weekly Standard has the latest Pew Center poll. It shows that Jeb Bush is falling and has fallen to 4% in the Republican field. Trump leads the field 25%, Ben Carson next at 16%. Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio are tied for third at 8% Republican Party field. If you look closely, if you listen carefully to the right people, you will detect that there are rumblings within the RNC and the Republican establishment of maybe turning to Marco Rubio.

If this downward trajectory for Jeb Bush continues, the establishment’s going to have to “do something,” and it is thought that if and when they do “do something,” the something will be to shift to Marco Rubio. “When Republican and Republican-leaning voters are asked in an open-ended format,” no names provided them, no multiple choices, just: Name the guy you’re for, name the candidate you’re for, “none of the 15 GOP candidates are named by more than 25% of those who may vote in the primary.”

Now, that’s a classic, classic Drive-By Media way to write a statistic up. This is a good lesson. Let me read this to you again. This from the Pew Center. “When Republican and Republican-leaning voters are asked in an open-ended format,” no names provided, “for their first choice for the nomination, none of the 15 candidates are named by more than 25% of those who may vote.” What are you supposed to think when you hear that? You’re supposed to hear that nobody wants any of them. None of them are popular.

“My God! Only 20%? Gee whiz! What a loser bunch!” That’s what you’re supposed to say. You’re supposed to ignore that the entire total is being divvied up by 15 people, and for one of the 15 to have 25% is pretty huge, and in that case that’d be the Trumpster. Trump at 25%, 16% is Ben Carson, Rubio and Fiorina at 8%, 6% named Ted Cruz, and 4% name Jeb Bush.