JIM CRAMER AND MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD BOTH AGREE: WORLD NEEDS TO SWITCH TO NATURAL GAS

Loud-mouthed Jim Cramer of CNBC often has moments of intelligent lucidity, such as his promotion of the virtues of natural gas: cheap, plentiful and clean-burning. So when Exxon recently made an offer to take over XTO, a natural gas driller, Cramer thought it was a smart move.

I bet Cramer would be surprised to find that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad agrees with him on the desirability of natural gas as one step in curbing man-made green houses gasses and global warming.

Juan Cole in his Informed Comment quotes Ahmadinejad's speech to the U.N. assembly in Copenhagen in a translation by the USG Open Source Center.

Ahmadinejad says:

"Every year millions of people lose their lives as a result of pollution, and skin and respiratory illnesses are on the increase. If greenhouse-gases continue to increase at the present speed, they will reach twice the level of gases before industrialization. In other words, instead of a reduction of 50 per cent, they will increase by 50 per cent and will pose a real challenge to the natural environment."

Ahmadinejad offers several concrete solutions, including ending the purposeless war in Afghanistan and spending the billions of dollars on Afghanistan's infrastructure and economic development:

"The so-called industrialized countries should fulfill their international commitments. At the same time, clear and feasible mechanisms should be drawn up which bring the disobedient governments and economic sectors under control and obligates them to pay fines to the countries which have experienced a loss. It has been said that more than 250 billion dollars has been spent on the expedition to Afghanistan and around 1,000 billion dollars has been the cost of the war in Iraq. Wouldn't 50 billion dollars spent on Afghanistan's infrastructure and economic development have turned this country into a developed country? And wouldn't 200 billion dollars on developing new technology and suitable use of fossil fuel have returned the pollution level to the period before industrialization?"

Ahmadinejad says that Iran is pursuing reduction of green-house gasses and global warming on different levels:

"And to this end the government has focused on the following plans:

- Reduction in energy consumption through improving standards in industries and productions,

- The management of consumption and elimination of energy subsidies in a planned and scheduled program,

- Extensive conversion of vehicles, industries and power plant to run on gas,

- Provision of access to natural gas for more than 90 per cent of cities and many villages,

- Extensive research on the use of clean energy including wind, solar, as well as plans for the production of nuclear fuel and 20,000 mw nuclear electricity."

Note Ahmadinejad's tress on natural gas. As I said above, Jim Cramer would love these proposals. And rightly so.

WHY DOES ABC'S CHARLES GIBSON PUT DOWN EARLY VOTING?

I saw Charles Gibson of ABC News argue last night that early voting was a bad idea, because early voters would cast their votes without complete information.

Oh, yeah! Gibson's argument sounds to me much like the Republican line that too many Democrats are voting early and therefore the government should prohibit early voting.

This campaign has been going on for the last two years. Why Gibson would ever imagine that voters deprive themselves of essential information by voting two weeks early is beyond me.

I voted for Barach Obama and have a pretty good idea of what Obama means for the political future. Nothing John McCain could say in the last week is going to change my mind.

I want a progressive change where tax policy is built upon sensible foundations. Where the government does something about global warming. Where health care is provided for all Americans. And above all, where the war in Iraq is brought to a speedy close.

Gibson wants to restrain people like me from voting early. I sense a partisan reason behind his argument. Maybe because he knows that most of the early voters favor Obama.

NOBEL PRIZE SHOWS UP GEORGE BUSH FOR HIS MANIPULATION OF SCIENTIFIC DATA ON GLOBAL WARMING

The awarding of the Nobel peace price to former VP Al Gore is well deserved, but I sense that the award is also a way for the Nobel committee to criticize George W. Bush for his head-in-the-sand attitude about global warming. So the Nobel prize awarded to Al Gore is also an "anti-Nobel prize" awarded to Mr. Bush for his manipulation of science and his stubborn refusal to recognize the problem because of his preconceived political views.