Fires of the Mind

Steven Chu, President Obama's Secretary of Energy, worried, out loud, to the press, that California farms and vineyards are in peril from global "warming."

Keep in mind, this was not the leaked transcript of a counseling session. We have it on good authority that Chu was sober when he made this observation, and close friends are certain he is not joking. He gives every appearance of being hallucinogen-free, even earnest, when he whispers, with child-like sincerity, "we're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California."

We repeat, this was not recorded at any federal mental health-care facility. There is no need to adjust your set.

But if you see a little pod fall down from the sky, and rock gently before sending out its little tentacles--and you sense close kin start seeming humorless, glassy-eyed, distant, be careful. If you see them staring soulfully at Chu's image on the television set, nodding in feverish agreement to the weird notion that ten years of cooling is really ten years of warming, then watch out..

..the invasion is under way.