Hopefully later this week, I'll get back to posting more than just links.

House Repubs Vote That Earth Is Not Warming
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=house-repubs-vo...
Congress has finally acted on global warming—by denying it exists. It’s in the grand lawmaking tradition of the Indiana state legislature’s 1897 attempt to redefine the value of pi.

... Rep. Ed Markey, Democrat from Massachusetts, had this to say:

"I rise in opposition to a bill that repeals the scientific finding that pollution is harming our people and our planet. However, I won’t rise physically, because I’m worried that Republicans will overturn the law of gravity, sending us floating."

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The NPR 'emergency'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the_npr_emergency/2011/03/18/ABcz...
House Republicans called an “emergency meeting” last week, suspending the usual procedures to rush an urgent piece of legislation to the floor.

Had the new majority finally come up with a job-creation bill? A compromise with Democrats to rein in the deficit?

Not quite. This particular emergency involved the lower end of the FM-radio dial. Republicans, in an urgent budget-cutting maneuver, were voting to cut off funding for National Public Radio. All $5 million of it — or one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of the federal budget.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office ran the numbers and calculated the impact this emergency measure would have on government spending: “No effect.”

Five minutes after acting on this budgetary emergency, House Republicans voted to continue the war in Afghanistan — which costs about $10 billion. Per month. They then flew home for a vacation.

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