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Are you enjoying your summer here in the northern hemisphere?

I live in the DC metro area, and I've been wearing tee shirts, no jacket, all week, when I'm not sporting my monkey office duds.

This scientific assessment just this past week comes from across the pond:

2007 is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998, say climate-change experts at the Met Office.

Each January the Met Office, in conjunction with the University of East Anglia, issues a forecast of the global surface temperature for the coming year. The forecast takes into account known contributing factors, such as solar effects, El Niño, greenhouse gases concentrations and other multi-decadal influences. Over the previous seven years, the Met Office forecast of annual global temperature has proved remarkably accurate, with a mean forecast error size of just 0.06 °C.

Ski resorts have been struggling to survive in Europe.  There's no snow, though Vermont just got a welcome boost.  Still, the trends now are impossible to ignore.  It all just feels wrong now, and you don't need a scientist to tell you about it.  Someone just told me the cherry blossoms on the DC tidal basin are starting to bud already, this week.  I haven't seen it myself but my friend is pretty reliable.  What's the weather like where you are?

Fortunately, the criminally insane Republican leadership in Congress is no longer in charge:

Boxer said legislation on climate change will be her No. 1 priority as committee chairwoman. She plans to conduct hearings early next year with scientists, environmentalists and religious leaders who want to address climate change. She also will ask business leaders to testify about their efforts to limit greenhouse gases.

The California Democrat blasted the Bush administration and the GOP Congress for failing to address global warming, citing a new report by Germanwatch, a German environmental group, which found that among 56 industrialized nations, the United States ranked third-worst in dealing with climate change. China and Saudi Arabia were rated worse.

"It's actually worse than dismal, it's disastrous," said Boxer, who said she has been taking calls from officials in other countries asking if the new Democratic Congress will take action to combat greenhouse gases.

"The answer is, we are," she said. "If America is to be a leader in the world, we must act. We cannot expect others to act if we don't."

Pull up a chair, gang.  Let's talk about the weather, and thank Mother Nature that the drunk ass loon crazy Republican sociopathic send-your-kid-for-cannon fodder "daddy party" is about to get spanked while the rest of us try to save the planet. 

Of course, given the kinky authoritarian sexual deviancy of the right wing, they'll howl and holler under the lash but secretly crave it all the more.  They hate government and don't like governing, so, even when they're in charge, They. Just. Don't.  If you ask me, a fringe party belongs on the fringe, where it can enjoy the biting sting of the crop in peace. 

Don't get me wrong:  I have nothing against the BDSM community or leather fetishists, but Republicans just can't seem to conceive of truly egalitarian relationships in any sphere of their lives, from what I can tell.  Kind of a prerequisite for democracy, dontcha think?  Good, consensual BDSM folks do not abuse people, or for that matter, the friggin' earth that birthed us.  

So, on behalf of Mother Nature, what say we give them the unforgettable beating they so desperately deserve?