Coral reefs around the world are suffering badly from overfishing and various forms of pollution. Yet many experts argue that the greatest threat to them is the acidification of the oceans from the dissolving of man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

The effect of acidification, according to J.E.N. Veron, an Australian coral scientist, will be "nothing less than catastrophic.... What were once thriving coral gardens that supported the greatest biodiversity of the marine realm will become red-black bacterial slime, and they will stay that way."

This is a common view. The Natural Resources Defense Council has called ocean acidification "the scariest environmental problem you've never heard of." Sigourney Weaver, who narrated a film about the issue, said that "the scientists are freaked out." The head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls it global warming's "equally evil twin."

But do the scientific data support such alarm?

he Federal Reserve is supposed to maintain the value of the currency and keep the banking system sound and stable - which it has not done (more on that below). Yet, in 1978, Congress passed the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, which, in part, also gave the Fed some explicit responsibility for maintaining full employment but did not provide the tools to do so.

The Fed does have the tools to increase or decrease the money supply, which means it can control the rate of inflation or deflation. However, the Fed has done a poor job of maintaining the value of the currency, as the dollar is now worth only about one-twenty-second of its 1913 value.

The Fed also was supposed to maintain a sound and stable banking system; however, since the Fed was created in 1913, bank failures have been at a higher rate than during the pre-Fed period.

Despite its record of failure, the Fed (as noted) was given the additional responsibility to maintain full employment. Washington operates differently from the real world, where failures are punished. In Washington, failure deserves a promotion.

I'm trying to think of good reasons why Rick Santorum did so well in the Iowa caucus, only losing to Romney by 8 votes. So far all I can come up with is:

1. He's not Mitt Romney.

2. He's not Newt Gingrich.

3. Iowans feel more intellectual voting for the only candidate with a surname which sounds like a Latin genitive plural.

What this doesn't mean, though, is that we're going to end up with President Santorum. Or, if we do, it will be a disaster. Santorum is the very opposite of what the US wants or needs right now. He's a big government conservative.

First, an apology for the fake "OBL Dead" photo.  You'd think, having been taught by the master himself, I'd follow Ronald Reagan's advice to "trust but verify."  But I didn't this time, being caught up in the excitement of getting what I thought was a pic of OBL shot in the head in the arms of a Navy SEAL.

If you knew who my source was and his bona fides, you'd be blown away.  But even he got suckered - the pic was photoshopped from the movie Blackhawk Down - and forgot RR's advice as well.  So I screwed up and am really sheepish. Sorry about this.  I'll never forget Reagan's words ever again.

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One good way to recover from too much cheap tequila celebrating Cinco de Mayo last night is to read Cinco de Reality (May 2010).  It will sober you up for sure.  (Plus it's a great nutshell history of the creation of Mexico.)

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Back to the Obama-Osama Saga.  What Jack Kelly calls a "botch" is getting more farcical and fun by the hour.  Through his sheer incompetent perversity in refusing to release the OBL death photos, Zero has manufactured this ridiculous "deather" controversy that's taken off like wildfire.

The quote of the week:  "Obama killed Osama and we got 72 versions."

Here's the essay question for today's exam, class:  Are Members of Congress and their staffers the ultimate insiders, making money off advance economic knowledge?  Discuss.

Stock or commodity trading on "inside information" has been illegal since the early 1960s. Yet there is one group that frequently has access to nonpublic information that can greatly affect stock prices, to the extent of making or breaking a company or even an industry, and these "insiders" are considered exempt from prosecution by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The insiders I refer to are members of Congress and their staffs. They have prior knowledge about which companies or industries will or will not be "bailed out," have their taxes raised or lowered, be subject to costly new regulations or exempted from such regulations, receive government contracts, etc.

However, because the members of Congress and their staffs do not obtain their information from employees of the companies affected, they are not considered insiders.

Several new polls come as a jolt as they reflect the dismal state of mind of the American people.

As USA Today's Susan Page sums up the latest USA Today/Gallup poll: the nation is "more downbeat, more dissatisfied with its political leadership and more concerned about the country's direction than at almost any point in modern times."

New Pew Research Center polling shows a whopping 67 percent saying that most members of Congress should not be re-elected. This compared to 51 percent saying this in October 2010 before the last congressional election.

From what I see, there are serious reasons why Republicans should be worried.  Some conclude this all means that Republicans must water down the conservative message and nominate a moderate.

But Americans crave answers, clarity and leadership. This call will not be answered by ambiguity.

Obama is no moderate. If Democrats can nominate a hard core liberal, why can't Republicans offer a clear conservative alternative?

This was the week Zero changed his middle name from Hussein to Pandora.  And it wasn't due to Trump, as the Cajun Clown James Carville is claiming, but to my buddy Jerry Corsi.

In fact, Jerry was set to write my biography - How We Won The Cold War:  The Greatest Adventure of Modern Times - when Joseph Farah prevailed upon him to write Where's The Birth Certificate? instead.  Go for it, I told Jerry - helping to save America is infinitely more important than telling my story.

Jerry's book zooming to best-seller status the instant its publication was announced on Drudge last week (4/20) is what prompted Zero to release - finally! -  his long form BC exactly one week later (4/27) and becoming Pandora Obama thereby.

Yet here is the real issue with Zero.  It's not where he was born or who his parents were or whether he was adopted in Indonesia, etc.  It's that he's not an American in his soul.  There are millions upon millions of naturalized U.S. citizens far more genuinely American than him.

Zero is Anti-American in a fundamental way, far more deeply than the superficiality of where he was born.  He means us harm, he has already done grave damage to our culture, our economy, our military and national security, our future as a nation.

Thus anything that delegitimizes his presidency in the eyes of voters is a move in the right direction.  He may well be a fraud in the circumstances of his birth, his school accomplishments, his entire curriculum vitae.  Much more importantly, he is a fraud as an American.  That's why he is Not My President, nor is he truly America's.

Treating variables as constants is a sign of a damaged brain.

In the real world, almost any action taken by government is going to cause a behavioral response - and often one that is not intended. Wise people think through what is likely to happen with any given action. Unfortunately, the ongoing lame-duck Congress and the administration are again demonstrating the shortage of wise people.

Many Democrats, including many lame ducks, are still demanding that tax rates for entrepreneurs be increased under the absurd claim that not to do so will "cost" the government "almost $2 trillion over the 2011-20 period" in lost tax revenues.

To believe these bogus numbers that the Joint Tax Committee staff and the administration put out about the revenue loss, one needs to believe these variables are constant:

The anti-capitalist of the "Occupy" movement have a point: capitalism is proving unfair. But I would like to try to persuade them that the reason is because it is not free-market enough.

The market, when allowed to flourish, tears apart monopoly and generates freedom and fairness better than any other human institution. Today's private sector, by contrast, is increasingly dominated by companies that are privileged by government through cozy contract, soft subsidy, convenient regulation, and crony conversation. That is why it is producing such unfair outcomes.

For example, the finance industry upon which the Occupiers focus their fury, are protected from upstart competition by high regulatory barriers to entry, and handles the supply and demand of a good - money - that is priced by government fiat. For doing so, it pockets big bonuses even when arranging the issuance of bonds to pay for the bailing out of itself. It may be called capitalism, but it's not a free market, capitalism for real.