Global warming

Not that President Bush will read, or pay any attention to a just released report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Climatic Data Center that determined:

The 2006 average annual temperature for the contiguous U.S. was the warmest on record....

A contributing factor to the unusually warm temperatures throughout 2006 also is the long-term warming trend, which has been linked to increases in greenhouse gases.

Thankfully, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is now the Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, replacing Senator James Inhofe (Grumpy Old Pendejo-OK) who preaches that global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." (Actually, Senator, the myth of an Intelligent Designer by far remains the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people--but that's the topic of another post to come.) (And in case anyone should doubt that Inhofe is a certified pendejo, recall these two examples: in December of 2002 Inhofe said that Senator Trent Lott's expression of regret for having opposed a national Martin Luther King Jr. holiday was "a stupid statement" and had he been a senator at the time of that vote that he would have voted "the same way" ; and, on the day after the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Inhofe told CNN, "We are not sure how many federal employees are missing because we don't know how many were playing hooky." )

But unlike Inhofe, Boxer has been and remains a terrific advocate for environmental issues. Right out of the box from the November election she promised major policy shifts on global warming, air quality and toxic-waste cleanup. Boxer calls global warming a dire threat to the nation and she plans to hold in-depth hearings on the issue (as does Rep. John Dingell, D-MI, the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee). Inhofe (whose term, thankfully, expires in 2008) refused to acknowledge that the clear consensus among scientist is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities. Bush, whose impeccable scientific credentials leads him to believe that both evolution and so-called intelligent design should be taught in schools so that people can understand what the debate is about (ahh, George, wake up, there ain't no real debate you pinche pendejo !), will still try and ignore accepted scientific evidence on global warming, but Boxer and Dingell are certain to provide this matter the full and fair hearings it deserves.