You Want Fries with Him?

The "Mouth of the South" Ted Turner is weighing in on several subjects today in the AJC. On the environment he says;

If steps aren't taken to stem global warming, "We'll be eight degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow," Turner said during a wide-ranging, hour-long interview with PBS's Charlie Rose that aired Tuesday.

"Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals," said Turner, 69. "Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state — like Somalia or Sudan — and living conditions will be intolerable."

On the U.S. military budget;

"Right now, the U.S. is spending $500 billion a year on the military, which is more than all 190 countries in the world put together," he said.

"The two countries that the military industrial complex and some of our politicians would like to demonize and make enemies are Russia and China," Turner said. "China just wants to sell us shoes. They're not building landing craft to attack the United States, and Russia wants to be our friends, too."

Even with the huge military we have he says "We can't win in Iraq";

"We're being beaten by insurgents who don't even have any tanks, they don't have a headquarters, they don't have a Pentagon, we don't even know if they have any generals," Turner told Rose.

Turner called the Iraqi insurgents "patriots" who "don't like us because we invaded their country and occupied it. Nobody likes to be invaded."

Ted Turner never minces his words. The CNN founder also said he thinks his old network has veered too far away from serious news, instead favoring lighter stories delivered by attractive female "chickies" and opinion-based news such as Lou Dobbs' show.