Global warming, climate change – however your political gurus “frame” it – is a global issue. Yes, it’s a moral issue. Yes, it’s a political issue. It’s also a survival issue.

Wake up.

I applaud Al Gore. Thank you for not giving up.

Go see An Inconvenient Truth.

Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom — think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man’s fervent crusade to halt global warming’s deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his “traveling global warming show,” Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media – funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our “planetary emergency” out to ordinary citizens before it’s too late.

With 2005, the worst storm season ever experienced in America just behind us, it seems we may be reaching a tipping point – and Gore pulls no punches in explaining the dire situation. Interspersed with the bracing facts and future predictions is the story of Gore’s personal journey: from an idealistic college student who first saw a massive environmental crisis looming; to a young Senator facing a harrowing family tragedy that altered his perspective, to the man who almost became President but instead returned to the most important cause of his life – convinced that there is still time to make a difference.

Hayden’s involvement in the NSA domestic spying program does not recommend him. I find Hayden very personable, and he seems also to be a very capable man, but there are gaps in his statements – especially about the timeline of the spying program – that bother me.

I am even more troubled by what he represents in the context of the continuing militarization of our government and the erosion of our system of checks and balances.

It’s odd, but I find myself in the position of wanting to defend the CIA.

The CIA has been ignored and then blamed by this administration, threatened with further “outings” (and their consequences in the field – wonder what the death toll from Plame was?), disrupted further by Goss, restructured, and is now expected to follow “detention, torture, and death squard” Negroponte.

How about giving them a chance to do their jobs in service to this country? Don’t they deserve someone better than this? The American people desperately need field intelligence, cultural insight, and analysis that isn’t cherry-picked for the wish fulfillment of the corrupt.

When the Senators meet to decide on Hayden’s confirmation, they must hear the voices of their constituents. I have joined the Democrat’s petition, which would like to deliver the voices of at least 100,000 Americans who oppose this nomination.

Add your name now…