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The year is 20XX (you are not Mega Man.)

Times are tough; following a horrendous global disaster, you emerge from your hidey-hole to find that you and everyone close to you (including friends, lovers, family, but not casual acquaintances or random coworkers) has survived the holocaust. For some bizarre reason, you appear to have emerged relatively unscathed. Others in your group have suffered some injuries, and some seem to have mild ailments of various types: radiation burns, infections, but nothing fatal.

Unfortunately, mother earth has not fared quite as well as you have. Massive portions of the earth's surface are unlivable, resources and infrastructure have been destroyed/polluted/corrupted, and the human race is in quite the tough spot.

(Sound interesting? Read More for Fun in the Future!)

According to the Washington Post it didn't take Sharon but five days from the election of Abu Mazin before he's cut off all ties with him (until the terror ends, of course). Now that's what you call a small window of opportunity. To all those thinking the election was going to radically change the dynamic: I'm sorry.

I might have been able to gloss over Reuters' latest ignorance-fest on global climate change if it hadn't been for the following paragraph:

Scientists differ as to whether global warming is caused by man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gases, by natural climate cycles or if it exists at all.

This is the stock disclaimer that you'll see in just about any article about climate change. I assume it's mandated by Rupert Murdoch and his corporate peers. It is also only the beginning of the inaccuracies that characterize this article.

Since Christmas is the time of year that we cut down trees, the Bush administration has decided to celebrate by pushing through an "administrative rewrite" of Forest Service regulations regarding habitat protection and environmental impact statements.

The first [change] drops the 25-year-old requirement that managers prepare environmental impact statements — a cornerstone of public involvement in environmental decisions — when they develop or revise management plans for individual national forests.

The new rule directs forest managers to involve the public in the planning process but leaves the "methods and timing of public involvement opportunities" up to forest officials.

The argument for such a change is based on the assertion that environmental impact statements (EISs) are so much red tape, and that they "don't get used or don't get read and are rapidly obsolete" (to quote Fred Norbury, associate deputy chief of the national forest system). This is patently false -- while EISs are almost never read by the general public due to their density and length, they are regularly pored over by private environmental interest groups seeking to delay or halt federal actions that might violate environmental statutes (such as the Endangered Species Act).

Three Forest Service employees are being sued by a would-be developer under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for doing their jobs.

[The developer's] project came to a halt last May when a federal judge in Riverside issued a preliminary injunction saying that two activist groups, Friends of Fawnskin and the Center for Biological Diversity, had demonstrated that the development had "the potential to both harass and harm the bald eagle," which is protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. The plaintiffs have shown that "a violation of the Endangered Species Act is at least likely in the future," U.S. District Judge Robert Timlin said in a written ruling.

Frank Fraley, a Los Angeles lawyer representing the Forest Service employees, said the suit against his clients was filed in retaliation.

I find it ironic that both RICO - the law under which the Forest Service employees are being sued - and the ESA - the law that they were trying to uphold - were authorized by Congress under the constitutional power of the Commerce Clause.