Congressional Power Grabs and Scientific Fraud

Meteorologist Brian Sussman has a piece over at American Thinker on the global warming hysteria gripping the more excitable portions of the Republic, where he highlights a memorable image called up by author Michael Crichton:

In his must-read eco-thriller, State of Fear, Michael Crichton creates a brilliant visual to assist us in wrapping our minds around the components of Earth's atmosphere. On page 387, he likens the atmosphere to a football field. The goal line to the 78 yard-line contains nothing but nitrogen. Oxygen fills the next 21 yards to the 99 yard-line. The final yard, except for four inches, is argon, a wonderfully mysterious inert gas useful for putting out electronic fires. Three of the remaining four inches is crammed with a variety of minor, but essential, gases like neon, helium, hydrogen and methane. And the last inch? Carbon dioxide. One inch out of a hundred-yard field! At this point I like to add, if you were in the stands looking down on the action, you would need binoculars to see the width of that line. And the most important point-how much of that last inch is contributed by man-made activities? Envision a line about as thin as a dime standing on edge.
Are you still worried about the dangers of CO2?

These are the basic scientific facts which must inform your thinking as the hard Left elements in Congress, led by Barbara Boxer, make their run at jamming us with the Lieberman-Warner travesty.

Using the cover of imminent environmental catastrophe, they hope to gain the control they have been striving for since the 1930's. Comparisons with the constitutional changes wrought by the New Deal are apt, except that this monstrosity actually dwarfs the New Deal's intrusions. Even though it has no chance of passing even the Senate, let alone the House, be aware that this is only the first attempt, establishing the rhetorical benchmark, if you will, for future efforts--think health care here. The totalitarian excesses which doomed HillaryCare to failure the first time through have actually raised the bar for what "health care reform" will entail as we continue to wrestle with it. It is a time-honored political tactic of the Left, one which has served them well. There is an unmistakable leftward arc in our country's direction, as if the tiller on the Ship of State has been lashed, preventing even a straight course, let alone a rightward turn. Sigh.

Here is a graphic representation of the bill, helpfully provided by the US Chamber of Commerce. This is a working diagram of totalitarianism. (see an expandable version at http://powerlineblog.com/). Read it and weep.