Outcome of Al Gore’s Live Earth Rock Concert

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Beamed to Two Billion

Organizers for Al Gore's Live Earth environmental rock concerts bragged that it would be beamed to two billion people worldwide — but many of those people chose not to watch.

In the U.S., NBC had about 2.7 million viewers for its primetime coverage — virtually the same as for a typical Saturday evening in the summer.

In Britain, the primetime audience peaked at 4.5 million — only one-third the audience of the Princess Diana tribute concert six days earlier.

Critical reviews were not much better. The London Daily Mail called it "a foul-mouthed flop." The London Daily Telegraph said it was "a dismal affair." The Washington Post wrote the London show had "a clunky rhythm."

Ice Cap Melting?

One of the major claims by global warming proponents is that Greenland's ice cap will melt and cause sea levels to rise up to 20 feet.

But the journal "Science" reports an international team of scientists has found that the ice shield remained frozen during the last major warming period 120,000 years ago.

This suggests computer models predicting a massive meltdown may be incorrect. Scientists found DNA from ancient spiders and trees more than a mile beneath the surface — indicating the ice did not melt during what is called earth's last "interglacial period" — when average temperatures were nine degrees Fahrenheit warmer than they are now.

"Lynching"

NAACP National Board Chairman Julian Bond says the possibility that New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward will never be rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina is comparable to a "lynching."

Bond told the group's annual convention that President Bush has done little to help African Americans and said — "It can be said that Katrina, like lynching, not only destroyed the work of generations in a single day, but is resulting in a deliberate effort to dispossess black landholders."

Bond said Katrina showed that the president's prosecution of the Iraq war has weakened not only the country's defenses, but the levees around New Orleans.

Breaking the Rules

And Chinese government officials in Hunan Province are openly defying the country's one-child-per-couple rule — and getting away with it.

The BBC reports nearly 2,000 officials broke the rule from the year 2000 to 2005. That's because the government leaders can afford the fines levied as punishment.

One legislator had four children by four different mistresses.

The official Chinese news agency says some officials have not been adequately punished for their crimes — and that has hurt the government's ability to enforce its own birth control policy.

—FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.