When Max walked in, he asked, “Did you hear what the Environmental Protection Agency said about the Waxman-Markey cap and tax bill?”

“Yes, I heard they said it was entirely pointless,” I replied, “or words to that effect.”

“Exactly,” Max responded. “Last week, Inhofe of Oklahoma produced an EPA chart that shows it makes little difference what developed countries do to limit greenhouse gas emissions if China and India don’t do the same. And then, I’ll be darned if Lisa Jackson from the EPA didn’t confirm it! She said what everyone else in the civilized world knows, other than Obama and Energy Secretary Chu apparently, China has replaced our CO2 output all by itself. So whatever cuts we make here will make absolutely no difference to the world. Chu equivocated by merely saying he didn’t believe the chart.”

“Just for the record, Max, MIT said the same thing that Ms Jackson said,” I offered. “A study they did recently concluded that whatever U. S. policies we implement will have relatively small effects on the CO2 concentration if the other regions don’t follow the U. S. lead.”

“What makes this whole dodge so damned laughable is that India and China both told the G8 conference, which Obama attended, that they had no intention of reducing carbon output,” Max grumbled. “The G8 people wanted the world to agree to reduce emissions enough to keep the Earth’s temperature from rising more than 2 degrees centigrade by 2050. That would require cutting emissions only by 80%. Yeah sure, everyone is going to impoverish their own countries to do that!”

“Maybe Obama thought Reverend Wright was talking so he didn’t pay attention and missed the juicy parts,” I mused aloud.

“And you say I'm sarcastic?” Max laughed. “Anyway, the pols seem determined to pass the bill even if it means nothing at all. Somebody is blowing smoke up our skirts, man!”

“You mean you don’t think their motives are pure?”

“No, I sure as hell don’t. In fact, I think Al Gore tipped his hand when he made that speech in England when he said that laws like Waxman-Markey would be a boost for something he called, ‘global governance.’”

“Global governance?” I whispered. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“I don’t either. It sounds to me that this so-called struggle with global warming they keep talking about is no more than a beard for elitists who have their own plans for the world and that doesn’t include the climate.”

“You’re scaring me, Max. You’ve never been one for conspiracy theories,” I said uneasily.

“Up to now, I haven’t been,” he replied.

You Republicans are still getting out-maneuvered at the polls and in the propaganda machine,” Max announced when I walked into his kitchen to get a cup of coffee. “LBJ lives!” he added with a guffaw.

“What are you talking about?” I groaned.

“That clown Al Franken pulled it off in Minnesota just like I predicted he would,” Max replied. “When are you going to learn you can’t win a vote recount where the Democrats control the precincts?”

“They obviously have divine power, Max, they just don’t like to admit any association with the almighty.”

“What you’re calling divine power is called chutzpah by my Jewish friends,” Max chuckled. “When you get away with counting previously rejected absentee ballots from non-existent addresses and those cast by non-resident pop singers, it takes real cajones and a complete lack of shame. They know the whole world knows they cheated and they don’t give a damn because their own party is in power and no one can do anything about it.”

“I suppose the 2000 election should have been the wake-up call,” I said. “They were changing Florida ’s election laws after the fact and would’ve gotten away with it if the Supremes hadn’t stopped them.”

“Poor Norm Coleman tried to tell the judges that he wasn’t getting equal protection under state laws and they ignored him, just as I predicted,” Max boasted. “But of course, I had the 2004 gubernatorial election in Washington State as a predictor if you will. They had three recounts there and someone ‘accidentally’ came across a box full of ballots that had been ‘mysteriously’ stored in a warehouse without being counted and the Republican got his ass kicked.”

“And I suppose the mainstream press will do their best to ignore the whole thing in Minnesota ,” I mused.

“That’s why I say you’re losing the propaganda war as well,” Max said. “Which reminds me, do you remember Aleister Crowley?”

“Of course,” I answered. “He was one of the biggest frauds of all time, exploited peoples’ belief in the supernatural. Tried to make people believe he was a god. I recall somebody dubbed him ‘The Wickedest Person in the World.’”

Max gathered himself and smiled as he does when he is about to make a great pronouncement. “He was successful in that godhood thing. One of the things he pulled was preserving his own excrement, having it dried and made into capsules which he sold to his worshippers to take on a regular basis.”

“You don’t mean that!” I muttered, shocked.

“Oh I do mean it. The current worship by the press recalled that fact to mind. Odd that I would think of that, isn’t it?”