Coke machines in the desert

To say the last two weeks have been "hot" would be to call the Hundred Years War "a brief misunderstanding," or the Pacific Ocean "a place to store some water," or the Devil Rays "not the best team in baseball." It's been humid day after triple-digit day of an unspeakably dense, choking heat, the kind that permeates your very being and saps your ability -- and sometimes even your will -- to move, or think, or breathe.

Apparently it plays tricks on your senses, too, because I've had some strange visions lately:

• Political master Karl Rove resigning after his nation-
  polarizing, divide-and-conquer, "50 percent plus one" house of cards collapsed in a Democratic takeover of Congress last year? Can't be, not with the "permanent Republican majority" in place.
• Horrific bombings killing more than 500 people in one day in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, which heretofore had been perhaps the stablest part of the country? Not with the mission already accomplished.
• The highly touted September report from Gen. David Petraeus on the troop surge actually being written by White House officials? Nah, not even the Bush crew is that brazen.
• Joe Reed, the No. 2 guy at the Alabama Education Association, calling the state's new community college chancellor, Bradley Byrne, "the fuhrer," and in writing, no less? Too ridiculous for words.
  
• Alabama senators pushing, in the face of a $20 billion liability for state employee and retiree health benefits in the next 30 years, to give themselves state-subsidized health insurance? OK, that one I actually can believe.
  

Just imagine the hallucinations we'd have if global warming were anything more than an excuse for lazy polar bears that refuse to take personal responsibility and learn to swim.