Bozo Baird should know a JATO [rocket-assisted] takeoff is not kind to the environment - what a maroon!

For about a year, this guy was a refreshing change from Linda Smith, who makes Sarah Palin seem like a calm Nobel Prize winning scientist. But he went native fast, junked the wife and became a DC pol whose primary concern (oops, bad turn of phrase there) ... whose MAIN concern is ferrying the pork and racking up the contributions in return. There was a minute where he looked like a decent guy, but he recovered fast and is now set in gerrymandered concrete for as long as he wants the gig.

At least now he has a reason why he has to have dial-ins instead of actually appearing at Town Halls. Of course, there are no brown shirts at the SOuth Pole.

I don't agree that trips of this nature are a bad idea. Our leaders need to be informed about what is going on in the world. No one criticizes the fact finding trips to Iraq or Afghanistan for instance. Global warming is a huge issue, and our country is a pivotal player in the climate change arena. In my opinion it gives a leader more credibility when they weigh in on an issue and can say "I was there and I saw it with my eyes".

Trips to Maui funded by the beer and wine industry to learn about Oregon liquor laws, or trips to Scotland to play golf funded by Jack Abramoff's slush fund are a completely different issue because they are more in the nature of a bribe than anything else.

I haven't paid a lot of attention to Brian Baird and what he's all about. I've read criticism directed at him in the past on this blog that didn't pan out with me either. It would take a lot more than climate change fact finding trips to convince me that he's a bad apple that needs to be plucked out of the proverbial barrel.

If you believe that taxpayer funded sight-seeing trip was really about "climate change," I've got some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you.

Usual Kevin - The proof of Pat Malach's statement is that these trips don't ever seem to go to unattractive places. Global warming is, after all, global, so if what you assert is true, there ought to occasionally be a trip over, for example, the trans-Siberian railway from Vladivostok to Moscow.

A scuba dive at the Great Barrier Reef? Sorry, Brian, but that's way beyond fact-finding. Bringing the spouses is also b.s. I hope the IRS is paying attention.

Well...Summer here is winter there.

I certainly would not go to Antarctica in the middle of its winter.

And, Mongolia? Have you been to Mongolia? Tropical paradise, it ain't. I could show you pix of the Gobi Desert from a only a few miles south of the Mongolian border. It looks like the world's largest future gravel pit with outrageous temperatures and very little rainfall. It's where much of the dust suspended in the air of the northern hemisphere originates.

Scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef with family members is definitely 'out', tho....

Was he checking on the rate of coral die-off? Up close and personal? Like...helping it along?

If these trips are so God-awful, why are the spouses in tow? I don't care if they're fun or not, the taxpayers need clowns like Brian Baird and Greg Walden gallivanting around the world like they need a hole in the head.