The Bell Curve:

Some migrant thoughts while surfing last week beyond health care and presidential pitches for the under-age vote on what is left of our print media:

When the U.S. Chamber of Commerce makes news, it is unfailingly cheerful. But some of that cheer is being washed away in the wake of the chamber’s strong opposition to proposed climate change legislation. The latest of its members to withdraw from the national chamber is Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation, whose top executive could no longer be a party to the “obstructionist tactics” of what he called the chamber’s “extremist position on climate change.”

In a letter to the chamber made public by the corporation, Chief Executive Peter Darbee wrote that company employees “find it dismaying that the chamber neglects the indisputable fact that a decisive majority of experts have said the data on global warming are compelling and point to a threat that cannot be ignored.”

This view, which promises a rift in the chamber’s unified front on global warming, is also shared by the Public Service Company of New Mexico and Exelon Corp., the largest nuclear-power operator in America.

I called Richard Luehrs, who heads the Newport Harbor Area C, to find out whether the locals are going along with the national or the disaffected on this issue. He replied that nothing I was reading him had crossed his desk and that there were more pressing matters demanding his attention. So, locally, that leaves this particular ball in the lap of Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who sees the world in two parts: those who buy global warming and want to do something about it, and everyone else, including Rohrabacher.

Quotes on the front page of the Pilot, which were attributed last week to Alexandria Coronado, president of the Orange County Board of Education, and Elizabeth Parker, longtime member of that board, spoke firmly but carried very different sticks. They were explaining a unanimous vote to oppose the statewide proclamation of Harvey Milk Day, in honor of the San Francisco city councilman who was assassinated by one of his associates.

Milk, who was openly gay, was canonized by a movie last year that followed his determined efforts to remove sexual orientation as a factor in public life, or any other activity open to all of our citizens.

The state Senate bill creating this commemorative day has already passed the state legislature, and awaits the governor’s signature. Meanwhile, although the Orange County board cited only two reasons for its unanimous opposition to the bill — increased costs and reduced instructional time — the comments from the two board members quoted suggested there may have been other unspoken issues.

“If you want that lifestyle, don’t make my tax dollars pay for it, and don’t make me teach it to my children,” Coronado said.

“It truly represents a disingenuous effort on all sides of the issue,” Parker said. “It has nothing to do with who this gentleman is, or what he did.”

There are good reasons for opposing the Harvey Milk bill. And then there are others.

And, finally, we have the ubiquitous Congressman Joe Wilson, who, almost daily, is offering us new morality by which to live — and prosper. According to the most recent score card, several million dollars has poured into his political coffers in gratitude for his sticking it to the president in the middle of a speech.

Typical of his new fame is a GOP fundraiser in Michigan, where Wilson, the guest of honor, will sit for a picture with attendees for $150 a shot. What a contrast to a week ago when he was getting heat from his own party leaders for his “disrespectable and unacceptable” behavior.

It’s wonderful how a few million bucks can change one’s perspective.

A GOP national spokesman named Andy Sere explained to an Associated Press reporter that this is all ethically sound because Wilson is now a “national figure (and) the substance of his argument is correct. That’s why we’re working in tangent with him to raise money.”

That’s the good news. The bad news is that Wilson’s 15 minutes of fame have also translated into a windfall for his opponent, heretofore unknown, in the next election.

JOSEPH N. BELL lives in Newport Beach. His column runs Thursdays.