Two days ago Tony Blair declared that George Bush would make some gracious concessions on climate emissions during the next G-8 summit. Yesterday I argued that the soon-to-be former British PM must be be insane to expect our president to start respecting him as a lame duck. I don’t even know how many times Blair tried to leverage his loyalty into concessions from his special friend across the Atlantic. Sometimes it involved war planning, for example the Brits frantically asked for contingency planning in case the major post-hostilities problem proved to be something more serious than finding a place for all the candy and flowers. More often Blair asked for even the smallest concession on carbon emissions. Blair came home empty handed every single time. For some reason the guy who lives under a queen never figured out the difference between loyalty and fealty.
Oh yeah, the G8 summit. You know how that turned out.
U.S. officials have raised a second round of unusually bluntly worded objections to a proposed global-warming declaration that Germany prepared for next month’s Group of Eight summit, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Representatives from the world’s leading industrial nations met the past two days in Heiligendamm, Germany, to negotiate over German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposed statement, which calls for limiting the worldwide temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit and cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
The climate issue is more important to our petrogovernment than abortion times the death tax to the power of Terry Schiavo. They will never give an inch, and for the life of me I cannot figure out why Blair keeps trying.
r€nato
Robot Chicken is the best!
Keith
“which calls for limiting the worldwide temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees”
And how the hell do they plan on doing that? Snapping their fingers? That’s the end, not the means.
srv
Poodles really aren’t that smart.
Rome Again
In the end, Blair’s “friend” Bush was only looking for a way to say “fuck you” to him too. Look out loyal Bushies, this is what YOU can expect as well. When it happens, don’t forget, we told you so.
Rome Again
That’s an awesome line, Tim.
DougJ
Off topic, but I watched Apocalypse Now recently and I was really struck by the Bush/Kurtz similarities. Check this out, does it now sound like Fred Barnes talking about George Bush?
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Yeah, because governments can do that. Suckers!
CaseyL
There’s so much about wingnuts that floors me. One example is their five year old mentality that responds to anything “lefties” say or suggest by automatically advocating and doing the opposite – regardless of the merits of the case.
Take GCC. The things we need to do to mitigate some of it are things that would be a good idea anyway: cut down on pollution, change to less toxic manufacturing and transportation technologies, wean ourselves from using petroleum for energy (when we need it a lot more for things like medical equipment, consumer goods, and building materials), and generally come up with more efficient and less wasteful ways of doing things.
Be smarter, in other words.
Keep innovating, in other words.
Create new technologies that create new industries and thus are engines of economic growth, in other words.
But no. In order to heap scorn and derision on “lefties,” the Right winds up opposing smart policies, innovative technologies, and new ways to make money.
Obviously, they never stop to think how dumb that is. Probably because they’re too dumb to realize how dumb they are.
conumbdrum
After the recent revelations concerning Dick Cheney’s hot-blooded pursuit of war-with-Iran-whether-the-president-likes-it-or-not, I’ve been obsessing about the resemblance between Dick and General Jack D. Ripper from Dr. Strangelove.
For some reason, the comparison isn’t as funny as one might think…
Zombie Santa Claus
I’ll paraphrase my favorite exchange from that movie.
President Muffley: I will not go down in history as the greatest mass murderer since Adolf Hitler!
General Turgidson: It might be better if you were more concerned about the welfare of the American people than about your image in a history book.
In this scenario, Bush is Genera Turgidson. He knows what’s best for us. Who cares what those snot-nosed great-grandkids of our read in history class 75 years from now? The important thing is spreading freedom!
Zifnab
Well, not the Bush Government. They can’t even properly screen for highly toxic pet food with a billion-dollar bearocracy FDA. They couldn’t predict a Hurricane, record oil prices, catastrophy in Iraq, or the worst terrorist attack in history when people were practically screaming warnings in their collective faces. I can only imagine how a Bush Government pro-actively fighting climate change would systematically fuck it up.
All I can think is that President Hillary is going to have to bust her white woman Thatchers if she’s going to bring us up to where we were in ’00 by the end of her eight year term.
Punchy
For some reason, this is just really, really fucking funny. I foresee Timmah jettisoning his science career (after all, all real science is really Jesus In a Labcoat) and doing bits on the Daily Show. His verbosity and penchant for lexiconic juxtapositionings would be a smash hit.
BIRDZILLA
Why should we make consessions on something that is not happening? THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING
Zombie Santa Claus
Well, I guess that settles it, then.