Via Gus Van Horn, I learned that Al Gore considers cigarette smoking to be "a 'significant' contributor to global warming."

Actually, Gus already says everything I would have on this matter.

I'd just like to add that Gore's continued existence on the political landscape is a sort of reverse-canary-in-the-mineshaft indicator of just how far gone the political left is. If reason was even a faint part of their worldview, they would have thrown a wack-job like him out years ago.

Probably the instant he grew that beard.

-Inspector

Perhaps we should use his scaremongering statements to tell people about just how ridiculous the left is today. The fact is, and socialists like to ignore it due to fear of members of their movement, that "environmentalism" is nothing more than destroying our freedoms. Of course, giving the "environmentalists" powers which laws these days are doing, they would care little or nothing for the environment.

Strangely enough, the best thing that has happened to the environment in recent history is the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Good point, especially considering that "The Environment," as it is imagined by Environmentalists, does not exist. Ecological systems are never in a total state of "balance;" things are always evolving, changing, and going extinct. The idea that things, as they are at an arbitrarily chosen point in time, are "sacred," and that any action of ours to change them from that state, is the premise that they're working on. But scientifically, it is ridiculous on its face.

Michael Crichton makes this point well; their idea of "The Environment" is closer to the mythical Garden of Eden than any actual biome.

Since when did reality enter into the picture?

These people work from a mythical model with everything they do. And it is their M.O. to just add whatever catches their eye to the cause of the sky falling. If they aren't trying to hamper you with chicken little logic then they are hammering you with completely ridicules legislation about things NOBODY gives a crap about. Example

My point is that Viros have no more grasp on reality then the fly sitting on a pile of poop.

It really does show you where the left's priorities are. Rather than tending to their duties, they'd rather sit around all day disclaiming responsibility for errors.

Okay, this begs comment:

Oh, so the foie gras ban was "correct in principle" but it makes people laugh at them. And that's why they're repealing it?

That's even more evil than the "thinking" responsible for the ban in the first place.

Oh but this guy is super-awesome, and I'd go eat at his restaurant just to meet him in person, if I still lived in Chicago:

Also I love how people are eating it just to defy the ban. Chicagoans are many things, but food pansies they are not. Having now lived in other parts of the country, I can tell you that we Chicago natives are set apart by our love of good food.