In order to explain why everything is getting colder when we are supposed to be on the precipice of a global warming catastrophe, Al Gore has turned to Venus for inspiration.

Al Gore has a new argument for why carbon dioxide is the global warming boogeyman – and it’s simply out of this world.

Testifying last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with yet another one of his infamous slide shows, Al Gore observed that the carbon dioxide (CO2) in Venus’ atmosphere supercharges the second-planet-from-the-sun’s greenhouse effect resulting in surface temperatures of about 870 degrees Fahrenheit. Gore added that it’s not Venus’ proximity to the Sun that makes the planet much warmer than the Earth because Mercury, which is even closer to the Sun, is cooler than Venus. Based on this rationale, then, Gore warned that we need to stop emitting CO2 into our own atmosphere.

In order to distract Anglicans worried about the disintegration of their church, Rowan Williams looks to global warming for inspiration:

On the evening of Feb. 3, the primates heard a presentation about global warming, in which the Most Rev. David Moxon, co-Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, suggested lifestyle changes to address climate change, such as reducing travel and promoting eco-friendly congregations. “The church has biblical, practical and moral obligation to cut down carbon emissions,” he told the media Feb. 4.

Richard Dawkins, in order to explain how life can appear spontaneously from inert matter, posits the intervention of aliens, possibly the same ones causing the global warming on Venus.

To distract American taxpayers from the suspicion that the stimulus is largely bogus, Obama encourages green space exploration, presumably with the intention of assisting the Venusians currently imperilling their planet.

One theme in this bill is superfluous spending items coated with green sugar to make them more palatable. Both NASA and NOAA come in for appropriations that properly belong in the regular budget, but this spending apparently qualifies for the stimulus bill because part of the money from each allocation is reserved for climate-change research. For instance, the bill grants NASA $450 million, but it states that the agency must spend at least $200 million on “climate-research missions,” which raises the question: Is there global warming in space?

Normal service will resume when it gets a little warmer.

After the dog question is settled, the next question is, where will Obama worship?

Without doubt, here:

The class system in Britain is all but gone; which in some ways is a shame since it gave us Vanity Fair, The Eustace Diamonds, Brideshead Revisited and Bertie Wooster among other things.

Fear not, the spirit of Bertie Wooster and Reginald Jeeves lives on in the colonies: in the unlikely personas of Barack Obama and his tastelessly modernised, unimproved version of Jeeves,  Reggie Love.

Love is expected to shadow the President at all times, rarely straying more than a body length away from him during his waking hours.

It is Reggie who holds Mr Obama’s BlackBerry, dials the numbers on his mobile phone, briefs the White House chef on what the President would like for lunch and what he would like to drink.

Every time Mr Obama leaves for a meeting, Reggie hands him his suit jacket and dabs any spots on his tie with a stain removal pen.

Until Reggie Love, bodymen tended to be regarded as glorified butlers, hired for their self-effacing manners and efficiency at managing their employers’ schedules.

Their most public job was handing out souvenir cufflinks engraved with the Presidential seal to White House visitors.

But Mr Obama promises to be a different kind of President – with a different kind of bodyman.

Reggie, who even the notably cool Mr Obama acknowledges is super-cool, has a suitably pithy phrase for his role. He is the White House Chief of Stuff.

The real Jeeves would, to his credit, not understand the concept of ‘cool’; but if he did, he would assiduously shun even the faintest hint of such an abomination.

Obama has acquired all the elitism of the British upper class while managing to avoid any vestige of its unassuming charm, humour and the humility bred from an  awareness of the intrinsic limitations of privilege.

Update: Here are a couple of interesting perspectives from Melanie Phillips and Andrew Roberts.

On the face of it, sending aid to people in Gaza who need it must be a good thing, mustn’t it? The BBC – an organisation renowned for its leftist tilt on life – decided not to  broadcast a Gaza humanitarian appeal on the grounds that its reputation for impartiality would be dented. I’ll repeat that: its reputation for impartiality would be dented.

In fact, it appears that they did this for an entirely different, but nevertheless equally worthy reason: to annoy the play-socialist aristocrat, Tony Benn, one time BBC employee. Here Benn  denounces the BBC with weeping and gnashing of teeth:

Benn’s interviewer questioned whether the aid would actually reach its intended recipients or be diverted to Hamas; a nonplussed Anthony Wedgwood Benn characteristically ignored the question and started spouting propaganda. When pressed, he admited that money could end up going to Hamas – something that he would welcome considering his anti-Israel proclivities.

Those denouncing the BBC are legion, including, naturally, Rowan Williams.

All of which leads me to think that, for a change, the BBC might be doing something right.