WASHINGTON (AP) — A powerful House committee chairman with a central role in President Barack Obama’s global warming and health care legislation has been hospitalized.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., was not feeling well Tuesday and was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for “routine testing,” spokeswoman Karen Lightfoot said Wednesday.

She said that Waxman, 69, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is “feeling much better now.” She said his office had no further details to release.

Waxman just finished steering the climate change legislation through a close House vote and has been gearing up to tackle health care later this summer.

Now, I find this very upsetting. After all, if Congressman Waxman wants a single-payer, socialistic healthcare system, why didn’t he give it a try now? I say he shouldn’t have received any medical attention today. He should have waited at least 3 months, if not longer, to even get to see a doctor.

As a matter of fact, I know a way to get me to support socialized healthcare. I say we force every elected official and government worker to give up their current plan and make them live under the new government plan. Somehow, I doubt that any of them will actually want to live under the system they are advocating for.

Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.4 trillion,

Destroy 844,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 1,900,000 jobs,

Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation,

Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent,

Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent,

Raise an average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500, and

Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent, or $33,400 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

Sound like change you can believe in?

Read the rest of the heritage analysis here: The Economic Impact of Waxman-Markey

Don’t believe me? Well Obama and Al Gore say so – and the AP ran a story on it – so it must be true.  

“The time for delay is over; the time for denial is over,” he [Obama] said on Tuesday after meeting with former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming. “We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now that this is a matter of urgency and national security and it has to be dealt with in a serious way.”

Gore goes on…

“We need to start in January making significant changes,” Gore said in a recent telephone interview with The Associated Press. “This year coming up is the most important opportunity the world has ever had to make progress in really solving the climate crisis.”

Scientists are increasingly anxious, talking more often and more urgently about exceeding “tipping points.”

“We’re out of time,” Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. “Things are going extinct.”

Scientists are increasingly anxious? Well, apparently only those in Gore’s circle of friends because apparently these credible scientists must all be frauds (Hat tip to Conservatives with Attitude!).

“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” – Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” – Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”

Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,” – Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.

The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC “are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” – Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico

“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?” – Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.

“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” – Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” – Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another….Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.” – Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.

“The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds.” – Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.

But what is the global warming alarmists’ solution to stopping this pending environmental catastrophe, you might ask?

Obama is stacking his Cabinet and inner circle with advocates who have pushed for deep mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas pollution and even with government officials who have achieved results at the local level.

The President-elect has said that one of the first things he will do when he gets to Washington is grant California and other states permission to control car tailpipe emissions, something the Bush administration denied.

And though congressional action may take time, the incoming Congress will be more inclined to act on global warming. In the House, liberal California Democrat Henry Waxman’s unseating of Michigan Rep. John Dingell – a staunch defender of Detroit automakers – as head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was a sign that global warming will be on the fast track.

Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., vowed to push two global warming bills starting in January: one to promote energy efficiency as an economic stimulus and the other to create a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from utilities. “The time is now,” she wrote in a Dec. 8 letter to Obama.

Sounds reasonable, right? It’s the least we can do you might think. Just stop spewing so much of that bad old CO2 stuff – you know that pesky gas that comes from things like trees and plants - into the air and everything will be just dandy. And I’m sure it won’t affect our economy much, right?

Well, wrong.

Most econometric studies agree that restricting greenhouse-gas emissions would slow our already sluggish economy.

A study by the National Association of Manufacturers projected that emissions caps similar to those rejected earlier this year by the U.S. Senate calling for a 63-percent cut in emissions by 2050, would reduce U.S. gross domestic product by up to $269 billion and cost 850,000 jobs by 2014.

The Heritage Foundation estimated such restrictions would result in cumulative GDP losses of up to $4.8 trillion and employment losses of more than 500,000 a year by 2030.

Other studies suggest smaller economic costs: Duke University’s Nicholas Institute estimates a GDP loss of $245 billion by 2030 while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates a GDP drop of $238 billion to $983 billion.

Sharp emissions restrictions would also push the costs of energy and other consumer products higher. According to a study conducted by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the restrictions could raise gasoline prices 29 percent, electricity prices 55 percent and natural-gas prices 15 percent by 2015.

Further…

And it appears that all this economic pain would be an utterly meaningless gesture. Patrick Michaels, former president of the American Association of State Climatologists, who is now with the Cato Institute, says reducing U.S. emissions 63 percent would prevent a mere 0.013 degrees Celsius in warming. With emissions from China, India and other developing nations growing at breakneck speed, even this modest benefit would be completely erased.

In the meantime, there’s just one other little thing. Temeratures are actually starting to cool.

Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government’s machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it’s thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

Yes, you see cooling actually means warming. Got that?

Well, I don’t know about you but I think I won’t be suckered in by all this fear-mongering and global warming hot air. I’d much prefer that we let Mother Nature do her thing and not interfere – and not have politicians sticking their hands in our pockets and lowering our standard of living all in the name of some made-up environmental crisis.