homo sapiens: earth's version of herpes

i'm not sure what it is, but every time i read the news i get a little terrified about the fate of the world. it used to be ok when i'd just read this kind of stuff on crank blogs (thank you very much, reddit). now, mainstream media is in the act. an op-ed from sunday's edition of the west coast's foremost liberal rag, the los angeles times, has officially reached chicken little status with regard to climate change. the sky is fucking falling:

[fixing the problem] means no more new coal-fired power plants anywhere, and plans to quickly close the ones already in operation. (Coal-fired power plants operating the way they're supposed to are, in global warming terms, as dangerous as nuclear plants melting down.) It means making car factories turn out efficient hybrids next year, just the way U.S. automakers made them turn out tanks in six months at the start of World War II. It means making trains an absolute priority and planes a taboo.

It means making every decision wisely because we have so little time and so little money, at least relative to the task at hand. And hardest of all, it means the rich countries of the world sharing resources and technology freely with the poorest ones so that they can develop dignified lives without burning their cheap coal.

this kind of thing used to look like alarmism. back when kerry was the great hope for the democrats, i used to feel like a complete crank even bringing up the worst-case scenarios regarding climate change, the economy, america's future, or anything else that's completely falling apart in 2008. thankfully, these days there are now fewer people left who refuse to accept the danger of the situation. the problem? the people who deny it are oil executives and their shit-for-brains cronies in washington.

meet senator james inhofe (r-oklahoma). he represents his constituency well, honoring the family values and so forth that they hold so dear. his website invites you to "help save america! beat back the status quo." truly, he is the candidate of change. he's a staunch supporter of israel's right to exist ("I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel; that it has a right to the land. This is the most important reason: Because God said so."), and traditional families ("I'm really proud to say that in the recorded history of our family, we've never had a divorce or any kind of homosexual relationship.")

this may sound surprising, but sen. inhofe has trouble coming to grips with reality, and is an avid climate change denier. he has compared 'an inconvenient truth' to 'mein kampf' (funny, i don't remember hitler winning the nobel peace prize), and climate change zealots to nazis.

so what's the big deal, you ask? why is this one asshole a problem?

SENATOR JAMES INHOFE IS THE RANKING MINORITY MEMBER OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS.

before the democrats took back the senate in '06, he was the fucking chairman. this means, roughly speaking, that any scientific data that comes through that senate committee gets filtered by way of a literal interpretation of the bible. coincidentally, he takes a lot of cash from the oil and gas industries.

if you still think that this election cycle is not important, think again. the reason myself and others are alarmists about this is because alarmism is the rational outlook in this day and age. the clock is ticking, and ignorant zealots like james inhofe absolutely must be marginalized while there's still time.