Environmentally sensitive Suburban drivers? Yeah, sure

That’s what Dallas-area GOP Congressman Kenny Marchant says about his constituents.

“People are angry,” he said. “They just can't get their brains around $3-plus. ... Colleyville, Coppell – my constituents are very green. They're all environmentally sensitive, although they all drive SUVs.”

What next from Kenny Boy?

“My clients run the water on their lawns 10 hours a day, but they’re environmentally sensitive! or “My clients run the AC with their doors and windows open, but they’re environmentally sensitive!

Of course, Marchant’s stock answer to the problem is:

“We should drill in Alaska. We should look at every opportunity to explore and add to the supply.”

In other words, Kenny Boy is saying: I want to destroy nature, but I’m environmentally sensitive!

Meanwhile, meet Mr. Clueless/Denial about Peak Oil, Congressman Smokey Joe Barton.

The Texan with the biggest role in energy policy is House Energy Chairman Joe Barton, R-Ennis. He said he’s puzzled and dismayed by the price spike, given that supply and demand are roughly where they were a year ago.

Roughly does NOT equal precisely, and if you don’t have a clue that the supply and demand are so nearly balanced as to put prices on a knife’s edge, you are an idiot par excellence.

BushCo finally owns up to reality of global warming, well, sort of

The Gray Lady reports:

A scientific study commissioned by the Bush administration concluded yesterday that the lower atmosphere was indeed growing warmer and that there was ‘clear evidence of human influences on the climate system.’

Of course, BushCo immediately played that down.

White House officials noted that this was just the first of 21 assessments planned by the federal Climate Change Science Program, which was created by the administration in 2002 to address what it called unresolved questions.

Knowing BushCo and the No. 2 OilSlimeBlack Eminence, those remaining studies will be done oh, about 2020 if this administration can help it.

Would a Democratic president really be that much better for unions?

I agree with Kevin Drum that card checks for unionization drives beat National Labor Relations Board elections, but the NLRB’s decline into the National Management Relations Board hasn’t been an all-Republican affair.

Let’s remember that, although the “rightening” of the NLRB began already back with Reagan, this was another thing that techie wonk Clinton continued on his own eight-year watch.

While Gore, or Kerry, might have given lip service to unionism, how friendly to modern unionization efforts are most Democrats today, anyway, unless a revitalized Farm Workers gives them the chance to score points with Hispanics?

For that matter, I’d wager that a fair chunk of traditional heavy-industries union members are selfish enough they might not look totally favorably on the SEIU/HERE breakaway group's efforts to unionize retail worers.

I’m sorry, but unionization is an area where I’m the most cynical about most modern Democrats. Besides Bill Clinton, one only need look at a Dick Gephardt to see why.