Oxygen Takes on Carbon

Legal representation from the element Oxygen has filed a class-action lawsuit against Carbon, claiming it has been unfairly left out of pending Cap and Trade legislation. "Why should a greenhouse gas that is bad for the environment gain exclusivity in the pending climate legislation?" postulated Oxygen's lawyer, Dufus R. Schmuckman. "Is there any more important element than oxygen? The entire planet depends on my client and we feel that our clients elemental rights have been violated. It's down right discrimination. Everyone knows that Chicago is a "carbon" town."

Carbon spokesman Alberto Gorleone, fresh off a 3 martini lunch with enterprising enviro politicos, laughed off the lawsuit, "Oxygen is known for inflammatory rhetoric that is not backed up with facts. Besides, everyone knows that oxygen is overrated and often totally dependent on other elements like hydrogen. My client is the building block of the universe which makes it the logical choice upon which to build an environmental racquet-er, legislation... well, you know what I mean."

Schmuckman later countered that Oxygen would not go away so easily with this ominous warning, "We can prove that this legislation was totally biased against Oxygen from day one. Our investigational probe will reveal that a majority of the legislators have been convicted in the past of various Oxygen-related thefts which clearly prejudiced them against our client."

Gorleone described these accusations as "outrageous" and "mean-spirited". He closed with somewhat melodramatic sigh, "You know it is really sad that it has come to this... calling the honorable body of environmental reform leaders-- oxygen thieves. The nerve of these people!"