Drought takes its toll on the western U.S.

If the nationwide hellish temperatures of late aren't a clue to the uninformed, then perhaps a slew of recent articles in regional papers might highlight a looming nightmare for the country.  Global warming is real and it is kicking our asses.

Fifty-nine Colorado counties have been declared federal agriculture disaster areas; Montana crops are failing; Kansas corn withers in the heat; Ranchers in Wyoming and Nebraska are thinning their herds due to poor grazing, while South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds has asked the feds to grant an extension to livestock replacement purchases due to the severity of the drought; and the mighty Mississippi and Missouri rivers are now barely navigable.  I could go on but you get the point.

Even Doubting Dumbass himself, the Right Rev. Pat Robertson, has changed his mind about global warming, but that's probably because he's found some way to financially exploit it.  Maybe he'll leg press a few hundred famished Kansans for shits, giggles and beaucoup donations.

It's not all doom and gloom; Arizona, for example, is getting some lucky breaks to help its parched rivers, and the drought isn't all to blame for its water woes—checking liquid greed is in order.  But the big picture is that over five years of increasingly higher temperatures and diminished rainfall, no matter the causes, portend an environmental disaster to rival the Dust Bowl days of the 1930's.