14  G R E G O R Y J A M E S Fuzzy-Nocturnal-Rodent-Friend-Inside-a-Spinny-Wheel. Well, at least for a while. All was well and good again until a certain politician/ama- teur-self-proclaimed scientist discovered that hamsters do in fact produce carbon dioxide. The government again pleaded igno- rance and blamed the hamster farming industry for keeping this fact a secret. There were two outcomes from this simple discov- ery: first, the certain politician/amateur-self-proclaimed scien- tist received a Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution in the fight against global warming. Second, hamster power was declared an unacceptable source of power and all hamsters a blight on soci- ety. Congress quickly passed a bill to exterminate all hamsters on American soil. Other nations rapidly followed suit, and soon the hamster went the way of the dodo bird. Good-bye Mr. Fuzzy- Nocturnal-Rodent-Friend-Inside-a-Spinny-Wheel. Hello Mr. We-Are-Now-Out-of-Options. And out of options we were. With the government in full control of the auto industry and no eco-friendly fuel alterna- tives left, America ground to a halt as people were now forced to walk or bike to work (if they had work to walk or bike to). We had become—for a lack of a better word—barbarians. The federal government had no choice but to allow gasoline-powered vehicles back into existence. However, there was now a catch. It was decided for us that the true problem was not the internal combustion engine but the number of people using the internal combustion engine. The EPA made regulations that prohibited citizens from car ownership but graciously provided us with gov- ernment-controlled public transportation. If you worked for the government or were fabulously rich and gave money to the gov- ernment, then you could magically drive SUVs and fly in private jets. Meanwhile, everyone else was now at the mercy of Uncle Sam. He controlled where you went, when you went, who you saw, how long you saw them, and how often you went and saw them. And all this great loss of freedom was justified in the name