Bush Fights Global Warming

Bush Fights Global Warming
by Buff Whitman-Bradley

(Washington, DC) In what appears to be a dramatic reversal of a long-standing administration position. President George W. Bush announced today at a press conference on the beach in front of the White House (formerly Pennsylvania Avenue), that, after long and prayerful consultation with his friend, God, he now believes that there might be some truth to the dire warnings from every reputable scientist in the world about the dangers of global warming.

According to Mr. Bush, the two old friends began to rethink their dismissal of climate change as "junk science" and "Democratic fear-mongering," when the state of Florida turned up missing. "As you know," said the President, "the state of Florida has a very special place in my heart, and when I heard on Fox News that it had disappeared, well, frankly, I began to worry. Right away, I thought about my good friend, Tony "The Buzz Saw" Scalia, and how hard he'd work to make sure I won Florida. And now I'd gone and lost it."

The President said he sent a team of the "smartest guys in the White House" to go out and look for Florida, and after several weeks of searching all over the country, they found the "Sunshine State" right where it used to be, only under thirty feet of water. "Dang!" said Mr. Bush, "That was a real surprise." But still, he didn't attribute the disappearance of Florida to global warming. "I asked my friend the Almighty about it, and He said the rising waters were probably due to some kind of long-term natural cycle, although He couldn't be absolutely sure."

What finally got the President and God to change their minds, Mr. Bush said, was when early one Sunday morning, a White House aide reported to both of them that the state of Ohio had turned up at the bottom of a vastly expanded Lake Erie. "Dang!" said Mr. Bush. "That was another real surprise. As you know, the state of Ohio has a special place in my heart. Right away, I thought about my good friend Ken "The Fixer" Blackwell, and how hard he'd worked to make sure I'd won Ohio. And now all those electoral votes were at the bottom of a lake."

Mr. Bush said that this time when he talked with "my pal Jehovah" about the inundation of the two States, "He seemed a little worried. He said to me, 'Dang, George! I'm beginning to think there might be something to this global warming talk after all. Lately I've been spending more time at the North and South Poles, and the ice is melting pretty darn fast. I suppose that could account for the current absence of Florida and Ohio.'"

"I don't mind telling you," the President went on, "that my good friend the Lord of Hosts, looked mighty worried. He said to me, 'What about my base? I promised a fire, not a flood, next time. My numbers are way down, and if I don't deliver on my promises, I'm History. We either have to get going on a fiery, nuclear Armageddon ASAP, or figure out a way to stop this global warming business."

The President said that after this chat with God, he next went to his mentor Dick, "Gepetto" Cheney. Mr. Cheney advised him that now would not be the best time for nuclear holocaust, since Halliburton, along with the corporations run by many of his closest friends, were positioned to make record profits in the next several quarters. "So Dick and I decided we needed to come up with a way to stop global warming," Mr. Bush explained. "But we wanted a good, Republican solution, not some kind of climate entitlement program where we just threw money at the problem and created a massive Federal bureaucracy that would make the climate dependent on the government for generations into the future. And, with God's help, we have found the answer."

That answer, President Bush announced after a dramatic pause, is to be called, in honor of his father, former President George H.W. Bush, A Thousand Points of Ice -- Fighting Global Warming One Cube at a Time. "Here's the way it works," said the President. "It's really neat. First, it will be a strictly voluntary program, managed by faith-based organizations, not a Federal agency. Those organizations that qualify will receive Federal funds for the collection of ice cubes. It's an incentive-based program, see? The more ice cubes they collect, they more money they'll receive."

The government, the President explained, will supply those organizations with high-tech insulated containers created especially for the
Thousand Points of Ice program by "our good friends at Bechtel." "In fact, we've already awarded them a $3 billion contract for the Ice Boxes," Mr. Bush said.

Once the Ice Boxes are filled with cubes, according to the President, they will be "rendered" on special charter flights to the Arctic or the Antarctic, where they will be deposited on glaciers, ice bergs, and ice floes. "My friend the Good Lord loves it," Mr. Bush enthused. "He said it's just like
when He thought up natural cycles. The ice melts up there, turns into water and comes down here. We put it into ice cube trays, freeze it, and send it right back. What could be simpler?"

Immediately after the President's press conference, the stocks of corporations that manufacture refrigerators and freezers tripled in price. Frigidaire announced its new corporate motto: Frigidaire: On the Frontlines in the War Against Climate Change. And groups opposed to gay marriage flooded Federal offices with phone calls inquiring how they could apply for the faith-based program.

Republicans in the House and Senate expressed great enthusiasm for the President's new initiative. "It's good old American ingenuity," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert. "It's the right thing to do," commented Sen. John Warner of Virginia, "and the money will get into the right hands." Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania said the program seemed good on first look, but he wanted to be certain that there would be safeguards to prevent "stealth homosexual organizations" from using ice money to "promote their agenda."

Democrats could not be found.