These photos are too damn cute.

Color me surprised.  “Last year was the warmest on record for the United States, with readings pushed over higher than normal by the unusual and unseasonably warm weather during the last half of December. Preliminary data from the National Climatic Data Center listed the average temperature for the 48 contiguous states last year as 55 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s 2.2 degrees warmer than average and 0.07 degree warmer than 1998, the previous warmest year on record. Worldwide, the agency said, it was the sixth warmest year on record.”

And again, color me surprised.  “Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush’s tax cuts, according to a new Congressional study. The study, by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, also shows that tax rates for middle-income earners edged up in 2004, the most recent year for which data was available, while rates for people at the very top continued to decline.”  So give the shaft to those who drive the economy while the rich get richer.  And don’t feed me the line about how they pay more taxes anyway, so they deserve a break.  I don’t buy it.  With all that money, they should pay more.  But this is like giving the oil companies tax breaks and financial incentives—essentially allowing them to drill for free on public lands that the people own—while those same companies report quarter after quarter of record-breaking profits.  This government isn’t for the people.  At all.