This is what happens when the VP is the former head of an Oil company.

When the movie The Day After Tomorrow came out, right-wingers were FURIOUS because the evil Vice President guy who refused to hear all warnings from the paleoclimatologist about climate changes looked too much like Dick Cheney.

I say to them, in my best Texan oilman's accent, "ya'll deserve it, and more."

U.S. is trying to weaken the G-8 Climate Plan so that this wonderful planet of ours lasts a little longer than Dubya Bush's presidency.

Under U.S. pressure, negotiators in the past month have agreed to delete language that would detail how rising temperatures are affecting the globe, set ambitious targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions and set stricter environmental standards for World Bank-funded power projects, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Negotiators met this week in London to work out details of the document, which is slated to be adopted next month at the Group of Eight's annual meeting in Scotland.

Let's go through this piece by piece.

Rising temperatures affecting the globe? Isn't that like something we all learn in the first grade? Ah, maybe you gas-guzzling Americans don't, but in Korea... we do. Well, it's also because there's no oil produced in my lovely native country, so it's almost a good thing that Korea's comparatively small.

Cutting carbon-dioxide emissions. Is this so terrible? I know that much of America, sadly enough, cares more about jobs being shipped overseas by countries trying to escape the pathetic U.S. excuse for environmental laws than the quality of the air. It's like the SNL sketch, when they show the first Idiot Bush describing his achievements, including semi-decent air to breathe.

Setting strict environmental standards on World-bank funded power projects. We're in the 21st century. Digging for oil was soooooooooo 20th century. It's as if we're limiting ourselves to what we can accomplish. Dubya's message then is that we can't make scientific advancements without killing the environment. That we have made impossibly heavy objects (including ourselves) fly, discovered the Internet (or at least Al Gore did), but we can't create power without significant damage to nature. That is bullshit (or bullchip, whichever you prefer). And we all know it. He should know it. (Then again, after reading the first essay in Royce Flippin's The Best American Political Writing 2004, I'm inclined to think that there isn't much that Dubya knows)

Why are we being such pompous jerks when it comes to global environment?

The wording of the international document, titled "Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development," will help determine what, if any, action the G-8 countries will take as a group to combat global warming. Every member nation except the United States has pledged to bring its greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels by 2012 as part of the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- who currently heads the G-8 -- is trying to coax the United States into adopting stricter climate controls.

You know, when I first came to this country, I was amazed at the blue skies and pure, white clouds. Then I realized that my port of entry happened to be northern California. Maybe that's why our government is being so arrogant. Oh wait... that's just how they are.