The global warming "debate" is not what the right wing portrays it as. Long ago a solid, overwhelming consensus was reached among scientists that a.) global warming is happening, b.) that humans are contributing to warming, and c.) warming will seriously impact our civilization in the near future...maybe already is.

The debate among scientists has shifted to details. Will there be localized cooling in the North Atlantic? Where will there be droughts and where flooding? How rapidly and how bumpy will the changes be? But the main question for all of society is whether it is too late to do anything. THAT is the new global warming debate. I have two answers to this: we sure had BETTER be able to do something about it and YES, WE CAN!

It was predictable as clockwork.  Even while the votes were being tallied, Tom Delay was on the air saying that the Democrats were going to have a lame duck majority.  Despite Bush's stumbling words of "bipartisanship," his first action was to try and shove John Bolton's nomination back through the pipe.  And now insiders like James Carville are trying to stave off irrelevance by joining themselves at the hip with Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly to pick at the Democratic victory.

Republicans will be doing everything they can to make Democrats look as ineffective as Republicans themselves have been over the last twelve years.  Unfortunately for  the would-be congressional monkey wrench gang, they've spent the last decade putting in place rules and procedures that make the minority party all but irrelevant.  They can shout all they want, but their voices are going to sound funny coming from that deep, deep well of impotence.

Nice as it is to see the Republicans hoist on their own hubris-powered petard, we have to do more than just enjoy the irony if we want to still be laughing at Delay in 2008, 2010, 2012.  We have to not only pass bills, we have to do so in a way that fundamentally changes... well, everything.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (ah, that was fun to write) has put forward a "hundred hour plan" for the first weeks of Democratic control of the house.  During the first hundred hours, Democrats will:

• Raise the minimum wage.

• Put in place an ethics plan that "breaks the link" between lobbyists and legislation.  

• Protect the nation by implementing the recommendations of the independent 9/11 Commission.

• Eliminate the clause that prohibits the government for bargaining over drug prices.

• Promote stem cell research.

• Cut interest rates for student loans.

• Roll back subsidies for oil companies.

• Protect Social Security.

It's a good start, and if we do this, it will show not only Democrats, but Independents and Republicans that this congress puts the people first.  However, if you don't mind, Madam Speaker, I have some suggestions for the first hundred hours... and the second.