When dinosaurs ruled the nation

Another dinosaur/politician from Wyoming, V.P. Dick Cheney, finds himself staring into the past rather than gazing into the future.

On Wednesday, Cheney spoke to the very conservative U.S. Chamber of Congress. He proposed revolutionary solutions to America's problems. They included tax cuts, unlimited free trade, and drilling for dead dinosaur goop in untrammeled places, such as the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and, if necessary, the property of any Democrats who could be located in Wyoming.

He blamed the "recent headwinds" from skyrocketing gas and food prices to "the turmoil in the credit and housing markets." The phases of the moon are also to blame, as well as wars that have mysteriously broken out in the Middle East.

Here are some actual quotes from an AP story:

Cheney said the recent tax rebates sent to about 130 million households should help, but he also urged Congress to take swift action to extend President Bush's first-term tax cuts, some of which are set to expire in 2010.

Letting the tax cuts expire, Cheney said, would be huge blow to all Americans. "The tax rate for every single income tax bracket would be increased," he said.

Not one to take such nonsense lying down, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded (for real):

"The Republicans' answer to the real, deep, serious economic pain American families are feeling is to continue the Bush-Cheney economic policies that are destroying the middle class... At a time when Americans are facing so much economic uncertainty in their lives, George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain want to give more tax cuts to the top 1 percent of the wealthiest people among us."

To help ease gas prices, Cheney advocated increased U.S. oil exploration and called on Congress to allow it. He said he also would consider using his super-secret time machine to send all imprisoned Islamicists 60 million years into the past, bury them along Wyoming's ancient sea bed where they would burble and suppurate, forming new deposits of crude which 21st century oil companies could then pull out of the ground and sell for ridiculously high prices, adding to Cheney's already incredible wealth.

"It's a grandiose plan, but difficult times call for grandiosity," roared Wyoming's favorite (son) dinosaur.