Earth Days, Cheryl Crow, and Global Cooling

Is it Friday already?  Where has the week gone... 

I've been doing some searching, and the only source I can find is "Newsweek" for pouring soot on the polar ice caps.  I suppose I wouldn't consider "Newsweek" nor Sheryl Crow as representative of every respected scientist in the world, but to each his own.

How about checking out the EPA website for suggestions?

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/actionsteps.html

Using less energy!  Reduce waste, reuse materials!  Use cars with better fuel efficiency or, heaven forbid the inconvenience - public transportation!

Silly, indeed.  If we're going to point out strawmen from one side of the argument, we better take a look at those on the other.  Global warming caused by daylight savings time?  A random letter to the editor said so, so this definitely is representative of all non-believers in global warming!

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/187608

Joan,

You do know that Sagan based his fears of global cooling on nuclear war, right?  That nuclear war was inevitable and the resulting dust clouds would result in an increase in planetary albedo (reflectivity) and thus a cooling effect.

He also later recognized global warming as being the real threat in his book "The Demon-Haunted World".

Finally, Sagan was a brilliant mind, but he was never a climatologist, he was a pop-culture astronomer.  Asimov wasn't a climatologist either, he was a pop-culture science fiction writer who dabbled in robotics.

"The whatever comment refers to the media, not the issue of global warming. Sheesh."

Since "whatever" follows directly on the heels of  "It seems that they now contend this time there is more consensus among scientists", I must disagree.  But really, unless you're Joan, how do you know? 

It seemed to me that the main point of her post was to offer that since we were wrong about the impending ice age in the '70s, we're wrong about global warming now.

I am honestly surprised that this is still a debatable subject.  I wonder what it would take for some conservatives to finally give it up and agree that human actions are negatively changing our planet?

Would it take a report from the world's top scientists?

Would it require the military establishment to believe it first?

Would it take public consensus?

I honestly don't understand what the problem is.  What is it that you folks are looking for?

As a prof once explained: even if climate change isn't real, it is still like standing on the edge of a cliff.  You might not fall over the side, but doesn't it make sense to take a step back anyway?

Yeah, I think that the "whatever" comment is getting a little overblown.  I remember being taught in the 70s about the impending ice age, and that colors my thinking.  I realize that the vast majority of scientists are on board with the global warming idea, but could some of them please explain what the thinking was in the 1970s, why that was wrong (or at least that's what people think now - hell, it may not be), and in what ways the global warming people are not repeating those mistakes.  I know that someone went back and found articles from major newspapers, where every 20 years or so they came to a different conclusion - the earth is warming, the earth is cooling - and the attendant alarmist conclusion - North America will be a desert / giant glacier.  I am largely convinced about the global warming thing, but you have got to tell me why this time it's different, and why you won't be talking about another ice age in 20 years.  As GWB says, "fool me once, shame on...shame on you.  Fool me twice...uh....we won't get fooled again."  Wise words, poor delivery.

I do agree that the naysayers get dismissed too easily.  I think about two parts of An Inconvenient Truth - the first where Al Gore cites 900-some peer reviewed articles, and that all agree with him.  Wow, Al, do they all agree with you that the average yearly temperature is going up (which can be deduced from looking at the data), or do they agree that this is caused by human activity and that it will have catestrophic consequences if not changed?  'Cause you know, there's a big difference.  The other great scene is where he puts up his straw-man slide of the earth on a scale, with gold on the other side, and gives you one of those classic uncomfortable, Al Gore-esque moments - he sounds like he wants to eat the gold, or perhaps have sex with it.  "Look at that gold, mmmm, boy that gold, mmmm, it sure looks good, mmmm, mmmm, I sure would like to get some of that gold, mmmmm."  That was pretty much the entirety of his argument on the issue of whether we can afford to follow his advice.  Kind of makes you realize why couldn't even carry his home state.

"There are many models of climate that don't look to man made causes (or man made to any statistical degree).  "And now for som" should research them. Oh wait, I forgot, any climatologists that disagree are discredited."

"Also pointed out was our excellant resouces right here in CU for those interested beyond their political bias. "

Oil Man, thanks for repeating my suggestion about consulting the UI Atmospheric Sciences specialists.  Skeptical, I don't recall predicting what those specialists at UI would say, nor would I discredit a scientist if research supported his or her position.  As far as doing my own research -- well, that's why I mentioned the UI scientists.

In fact, the faculty member I know in that department believes general consensus exists among the atmospheric sciences community about the reality of global warming, but not about its primary causes.

Best to take things slow, tread carefully, and figure things out before we go sprinting in any particular direction.

Right.  But I would argue that IF the scientific community is correct (and I think we can all agree that a climatologist knows more about this than we do) then we are already sprinting in a particular direction.  Basically toward that cliff.

I am actually not interested in supporting the sources I posted.  Anyone with a search engine can find a plethora of resources on climate change, most of which (if not funded by Exxon/Mobil) will support the same basic ideas.  What I AM interested in is my original question:

I wonder what it would take for some conservatives to finally give it up and agree that human actions are negatively changing our planet?

Any takers?

Yeah, when one of the possibilities is "destroying our entire planet's ecosystem", I would think that as stewards of the Earth or at least as the Bible says, we might consider what "sprinting in a direction means"...

Obviously, we need to do more research, but sometimes it's best to be actually conservative before you have enough data to make a definitive determination.

IP,

I'm in the sciences, and I definitely think anthropogenic global warming is occurring--but I agree with you that a nuclear-based energy economy is probably the best next step, until truly renewable (water/wind/solar) power sources become cost-effective to deploy in a large scale. (Personally, I'd be all for carpeting Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona completely with solar panels and hygrosaline energy tanks (aka "solar ponds") to provide all the current energy needs of North America, but that's politically dead.)

Pebble-bed nuclear reactors are probably the best hope given current technology - the risk of meltdown is many orders of magnitude lower than that of a standard fuel-rod reactor.  Plus, if the US permitted reprocessing of waste, like France does, the amount of high-level waste is dramatically reduced.

The problems, of course, are politics and NIMBY.

Yo, there's not going to be any new nuclear plants built in this country for many, many years.  It doesn't matter if they are safer than Three Mile Island, or Chernobyl, or if they reprocess their spent fuel to create less waste.  Those arguments appeal to reason, but the fear of a Chernobyl-like accident has nothing to do with reason.  We can't even get new oil refineries built in this country because of NIMBY and environmental concerns - nuclear just is not going to happen, even if it should.

Just to be clear my argument was for change to help the environment, reducing pollutants and more efficient use of resources, included.  But the point was that these are sound ideas even if the current temperature increases have more to do with solar activity than human activity.  I just believe you will have a hard time convincing any conservative to take drastic measures to do this as opposed to small reasoned steps at a time due to the potential economic devestation that could result.  Our history has also taught us the neglecting the environment can also have serious economic and living standard problems that we have fortunately been doing more and more to fix.  The economy will be in just in much trouble if needed resources are no longer available or the labor force and productivity is reduced by disease.  China is currently having one hell of a time with both issues, resource depletion and dangerous levels of toxins making their living standards quite low in many parts of the country.

So there is already plenty of reason, historical and pragmatic, to keep improving our environmental policy.  But the idea that mankind may be contributing to global warming is only part of that reason.  There is a great deal of reason that says we should not take potentially economically devestating action to avoid "what-if" doomsday scenarios that have absolutely not been agreed up by scientists yet, even those who believe that mankind is contributing to the latest warming trend.

I'd consider the Iraq War discussion to be slightly jumping topic, but it was tied into the argument a bit too well to dismiss out of hand.

Second, where was this skepticism on the eve of the Iraq War?  Here we had very minimal proof that Iraq was any sort of threat, a large group of diplomats and UN officials telling us that there were no WMDs, and Colin Powell holding up fictional drawings of truck beds.  Yet most of these same writers undoubtedly bent over backwards to declare war inevitable, and to believe the lies being fed to us by the President.

Right away you are jumping from the reality of the situation in the lead up to war to the revised democratic history edition of the Iraq War.  The probleme wasn't that we have very minimal proof that Iraq was any sort of threat.  The problem was that we had very minimal proof that Iraq was no longer any sort of threat.  The ceasefire agreement didn't put the onus of proof on the U.S. or anyone else other than Iraq.  Their lack of full cooperation was casus belli.  "The JUST causes of war, for the most part, arise either from violation of treaties or from direct violence." - John Jay, Federalist #3.

Then you take yet another chapter out of that same book by trying to imply that we were somehow alone in this thinking prior to the invasion as opposed to merely having less backing to take this much action to address it.  The UN Security Council agreed with that Iraq was in violation of the ceasefire agreement and noted its consistent violations and evading over the prior 12 years to live up to its commitments.  Many of the estimates on what Iraq had were directly taken from the UN's figures matched with some of Iraq's own admissions in the mid-1990s.  Further you try to imply that the Bush Administration was somehow alone in believing this right here in the United States when the prior Administration also openly believed the same as well as many key figures in the current Democratic Party who openly believed the same even before Bush was ever President.  As Hillary noted in 2004, "The consensus was the same, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.  It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared."  Even people who claim to have been misled, like House Speaker Pelosi, were the same people saying that Saddam had WMDs, was a threat, and was violating the ceasefire agreement back in 1998.   This revised history goes over well on the short attention spans of the general public, but is truly frustrating to watch time and time again when it absolutely contradicts with facts.

Furthermore I'm becoming a bit disturbed by the general acceptance of some Iraq War myths being regurgitated without question.  The mobile chemical labs is a popular one used as a dig against the Administration's argument but it is one of the key violations that helped legally justify the war.  The mobile labs that we obtained satelite pictures of, defector descriptions of, and after the war found still existing were believed to have a dual or violating purpose and it was Iraq's duty to present them for inspection to ensure they were not in fact dual use equipment.  We were able to do this after the invasion, finding that they mobile labs were not particularly well suited for bio-weapons development or their alleged purpose of hydrogen production for weather balloons, leaving them still suspicious, though relatively harmless.  The problem of course is that to avoid the war Iraq was required to cooperate with these kind of investigations to ensure they had disarmed.  Not make us guess and assume from satelites and defectors.  The mobile labs were not a key to the war argument because of the threat they posed, but because they were further evidence of Iraq's violation of the ceasefire agreement which demanded they present them for inspection to ensure they were not for bioweapons use.

And once again we here about the lies of the Administration, set in a context trying to imply that there were widespread lies about WMDs.  Strangely enough I've found that almost every commonly accepted Bush "lie" has been pretty well shown to have been an accurate statement, or merely a hyped up statement that, while technically true, could be construed as being a bit more alarmist in order to keep building support for the war.  Such alarmist comments, while not necessarily ethical, are used in pretty much every other political argument as well.  If we let the "assault weapons" ban expire the streets will be flooded with them.  If we don't act now on global warming billions will die!  If we don't stop Iraq the threat will continue to grow until someday it could be a mushroom cloud!  Granted these dire predictions aren't the epitome of honesty in politics, but they hardly constitute lies as much as some pundits' actually fears at the time.

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http://glock21.blogspot.com

Teacher Man... I tried to address your concerns in my last post.  I forgot to say "Hey, Teacher Man..." first though. 

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http://glock21.blogspot.com

"And IP I wasn't thinking of you when I wrote the Invisible Hand stuff.  And I don't mean leasing a hybrid, I mean dropping investment dollars into alternative energy products: green building suppliers, etc.  Science is influencing the market, as it often does.  You can fight it because it is the issue of the opposing party, or you can trust the market, trust capitalism, and make a mint."

Well, I invested as I could - by being a consumer.  If I had a spare million bucks (not all of us conservatives have trust funds, you know) laying around, I agree that investing in green companies would be a great place to make money - not because of some moral crusade being pushed by Al Gore and Sheryl Crow, but because I think the media hysteria over global warming, justified or not, is going to drive demand. 

But the fact that I think it's a good investment doesn't remove my skepticism about the causes and consequeces of climate change.  Frankly, the fact that people feel the need to talk about global warming as if it's some sort of religious dogma that must be accepted increases my skeptcism.  Frankly, it just feels like a snow job, like a media whitewash designed to push an agenda and promote the Democratic Party.

That said, I've read the research and the "consensus," and I still don't care - there are thousands of good reasons to reduce usage of fossil fuels.  There doesn't have to be some sort of believer/non-believer test to advance good public policy.

I'm on your side on this issue, just for different reasons.  But everytime someone yells the equivalent of "Heathen!" or "Nonbeliever" at a skeptic, they're driving people away.  It's an awful lot like how I imagine you feel about the religious right.

Glock - I seem to remember several arguments being made about Iraq at the time that had nothing to do with any previous administration.  "Smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud?"  Point me in the direction of a Clinton official who believed Iraq was "months away" from producing a nuke. 

The recurring them of both Administrations was that he was still attempting to acquire nuclear weapons and maintained a nuclear weapons program.  The arguments also included the fact that that it was not believed that he already had a nuclear warhead, but that the estimates of when he might acquire them were clouded by the fact that we did not have full cooperation to verify what, if any significant progress, Iraq had made to that end.  Both used intelligence that estimated the development at least a year or years away but there was doubt about how accurate those estimates could be in light of the lack of reliable information on the subject.  Still in spite of the Clinton Administration's estimates also putting such development further in the future, they described Iraq as a current threat and Madeline Albright described the scenario as one of  the greatest security threats we faced.  Bush's primary argument was based on the fact that we still believed he was actively working towards obtaining a nuclear weapon and that waiting may result in learning, via an attack,  that our estimates were off due to lack of reliable information.  You'll notice that both of the widely quoted smoking gun/mushroom cloud comments were in the context of Iraq not having nuclear weapons yet, but there being doubts of how far away the may be from obtaining them given the situation.  This part of your response seems to be based mainly on the headlines as opposed to the context of the statements in question.

"Al Qaeda stronghold?"  Again ... which Clinton official spent time explaining that Saddam was allowing members of Al Qaeda to train in Iraq?

As I said earlier, this is one of the few "lies" that holds any water.  The ties to al Qaeda turned out to be weak at best and it is apparent that the Administration wanted to believe that they were somehow in cahoots when there turned out to be no collaborative relationship in spite of some known al Qaeda members seeking refuge in the country, though mostly outside of Saddam's reach.  Though the Administration was rightly criticized for their heavy reliance on this for their argument, the idea that Iraq was additionally a threat due to its willingness to aid terrorists and terrorist groups was a shared theme by both the Clinton and Bush Administration which was accurate generally, but inaccurate with the claims of strong ties to al Qaeda by the Bush Administration.  Once again though it wasn't so much a lie as drawing poor incorrect conclusions from the evidence available.

Should I go on?  Remember Powell's assertion that there were aluminum tubes?  Remember the image they downloaded off the internet - from a grad students report?  Minimal proof that they were no threat?  We knew they didn't have nukes, and they couldn't possibly make one any time soon.  We had UN inspectors covering every corner of Iraq and finding nothing.  Where's the minimal proof?  What we actually had was minimal proof that Iraq was any threat at all.

First and foremost the argument for the war was the consistent violations of the ceasefire agreement.  Secondly was the evidence of what those violations were amounting to as far as a threat to our national security, which turned out to be highly inaccurate.  This second part of the argument was where we find most of the "lies" which mostly ended up being incorrect conclusions drawn from inaccurate or incomplete intelligence.  The aluminum tube issue, though way down the list as far as being critical to the war argument, is often cited as somehow a key reason the argument was entirely wrong, which is just a baffling conclusion in itself. 

We were almost entirely sure they did not have nuclear weapons yet.  We could not say how many years away they might be from acquiring or developing one, and the lack of intelligence meant that even our 1 or more years estimates could have been off in the more unsettling direction and we could honestly have no idea until we learn the hard way.  For obvious reasons we were not willing to wait around until we found out that they were very close to or already had pulled this off.

And we did not have UN inspectors covering every corner of the country.  We had many inspectors trying to visit as many suspicious sites as possible while still getting some run around and still not getting full cooperation which is hardly in the realm of sweeping the whole nation, roughly the size of California, and only then after looking in every nook and cranny finding nothing.  It was not there job, ever, to do so.  The Iraqis were required to fully cooperate with the inspectors so no such endeavor, as logistically impossible as it would be, would be necessary.

The intelligence on Iraq before and after Bush came into power were obviously full of inaccuracies for both Administrations to come to the same wrong conclusions on Iraq's WMD capability, threat it posed, and the belief that Saddam was still attempting to acquire nuclear weapons.  You can blame Bush for his far more decisive actions to try to end the 12 year stand off, but putting trying to single him out as being the source of the belief that Iraq had WMDs, was a threat, and was trying to acquire nuclear weapons not only predates him but was shared by his political opponents even before he was in office.  You can try to nit pick each little piece of evidence for either one, but it does not change the fact that both drew the same basic conclusions from the information available at the time.  And while Bush took action that went beyond previous policy, the timeline of U.S. policy on Iraq shows a continuous escalation of diplomatic and military measures taken to enforce the ceasefire agreement.  12 years later that esclation naturally led to the invasion to end the stand off once and for all.

So, just so I don't stay completely off topic here, I'd argue that the lead up to the Iraq invasion is fairly far removed from the argument that we should jump on board with drastic plans to combat an environmental issue that is still far from conclusive on what actions are necessary or possible to thwart a warming trend that people may or may not have a significant impact on.  The Iraq War decision was well grounded in the idea of enforcing the ceasefire agreement in spite of the assumptions and estimates based on the limited information available on the actual weapon capabilities, which were primarily inaccuate due to the violations of the ceasefire agreement.  Nobody is arguing that Iraq was in compliance with the ceasefire agreement, but plenty of people are arguing how much global warming is affected by human activity and what kind of steps can be taken to reduce that impact.  I must reiterate my belief that most environmentally friendly solutions should be considered for other important reasons, however, such as the critial importance of ensuring access to resources in the future and maintaining safe living conditions for people generally while not attempting any drastic plans that could have equally devestating results through economic chaos.

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http://glock21.blogspot.com

 Nonetheless, the interesting issue is the willingness to believe.  This is fascinating.  I remember watching Colin Powell at the UN and thinking "this is the biggest load of crap I have ever heard".  Yet my conservative buddy down the hall at school came in the next day talking about what an "important" and "convincing" speech it was.  How could we have possibly seen things so differently?

The Powell Presentation was fairly straghit foward so I could see how someone could believe it to be important and convincing.  As for it being a "load of crap," which is a bit harder to quantify I'm not sure how to address it.

The report meticulously went through the various intercepted messages, and photos of clean up projects prior to the expected arrival of inspectors at certain sites, at which nothing was of course found.  It went over incident after incident of the tactics being used by Iraq to keep documents and information away from the inspectors and then moved on to to the big discrenpancies between what Iraq had admitted to, what it was admitting to now, and the massive gaps of unaccounted for weapons that had neither been shown to be destroyed or handed over.  It delved into the known history of the nuclear weapons program there and possible signs that they were attempting to acquire the equipment necessay to produce the  fissile material needed to create a bomb. His infamous report on the aluminum tubes that they were attempting to smuggle in from numerous countries were believed to be for use in equipment as part of that nuclear program, though he noted that there was some disagreement between experts whether they would be wellsuited for the task over conventional use.  What they did agree on of course was that they could be used for banned activities, and were with out a doubt banned from import because of that.  The rest of the report focused on their delivery systems capabilities, some of which was in violation of the agreement.  And the rest attempted show ties between al Qaeda members and Iraq, which was, arguably weak at best.

Pehaps you had access to critical documents needed to show that many of these claims were somehow fabricated, and that's why you were able to come out and think it was the bigges "load of crap" you've ever heard.

Perhaps all this pondering on why people will buy into a politically charged viewpoint or not has a great deal to do with whether or not that viewpoint fits in well with your pre-established views and biases.  Perhaps if your buddy had been a conservative doubter of global warming you could test this thory by watching "An Inconvenient Truth" together, which I'm sure has a similar mix of facts, errors, and conclusions drawn on sketchy evidence here and there as well.  I'd wager that the roles would be refersed on who would claim it was big "load of crap."

It's fairly easy to poke holes in the weakest parts of an argument and then claim some sort of victory out of the deal.  But if the strong points that remained unscathed are still sitting there watching the victory dance are never debunked, who has really won?  People who merely want to score the easy points, display those partial victories often and loudly, until that big nagging loose end disappears from the public consciousness and all that is remembered is 'dumb powell and his mobile labs and aluminum tubes, what was he thinking?'

Similarly it would not be enough to prance around with the old global cooling nonsense out of the 70's yet ignore the other major evidence and arguments of the current warming trend and other environmental stressors that both require our scientific attention and when and where appropriate, actions to remedy any problems.

Of the big three claims that got Bush the most heat in his 2003 State of the Union Address... none involved the primary argument he led the discussion with on the violations of the ceasefire agreement, the reasons behind that aggreement, what is required of Iraq under them, and why the current situation just was not being successful in ensuring compliance.  None involved the litany of weapons estimates that contained a combination of UN and US estimates on their potential stockpiles.  None involved the tactics of hiding documents and evidence, blocking arial imagery, and so on in order to cover up potentially damning information.  None involved the post-9/11 foreign policy change that essentially nullified containment as a feasible option.

Instead the big three were that the British claims cited were inaccurate, though the British intelligence services still maintain they are accurate in spite of rumors that they may had been based on forged documents, which investigations found to be irrelevant to the veracity of the British claim.  Also the infamous Mr. Wilson who's own contribution to the pre-war intelligence showed that Iraqi agents did in fact contact the Nigerian government in what was believed to be an attempt to acquire new sources of uranium.  This of course was dismissed for the better story that such acquisitions would have been impossible even if they tried.  Somehow this was supposed to negate the fact that they were trying as even Mr. Wilson's report suggests.  A true work of political art to negate a point by supporting it, and focusing on another point that gets more attention but still does not negate the original point in question.  Thrown on top of this was the further information by other euro intelligence agencies confirming that Iraqi agents were attempting to work with smugglers on finding a way to acquire uranium.  This of course immediately by passed the government being unable to and the "magic negation" effect it had on whether or not they were trying in the first place.

Then there were the mobile labs.  The pictures were laughed at, pointed at like oddities in a freakshow, and quickly dismissed as pure propaganda.  Except for the pesky problem with the fact that they did exist, though apparently not provable that they were used for biological weapons, but the fact that they were not brought forth to be inspected in order to uphold to their end of the ceasefire agreement, let alone the fact that they claimed they didn't even exist, merely ends up helping the Bush argument again.

And finally those aluminum tubes.  The story that stuck was that they were for missiles, not nuke development.  But the public argument had been almost entirely that they could be used for nuke development, even though they had a suspiciuosly pricey dual use as simple rocket casings that would just happen to be made for extremes and budgets far beyond necessary to do so.  And in the end it didn't really matter because their ability to be used for nuke development, regardless of any absurd conventional use they might have, made them still prohibited for import into Iraq which they attempted to violate numerous times.

But in the end, the ADD audience out there remembers that Bush lied!  Detalis are sketchy on how, but he lied!  And trying to jump start their brain into remembering all the nitty-gritty in the 12 years prior can be a week long endeavor if they even care to be threatened with such nonsense for more than a few minutes. 

Maybe the environmentalists feel the same way sometimes.  I'm sure some of the argument tactics and scenarios are the same where you constantly have to fight the inane misrepresentations that stray far from the base of the argument that is solid, only for the person you're trying to convince to bail out of the conversation before the solid arguments can be fully explained.  A style of debate analagous to harrassment fire in military operations.  Wear down the opponent by targeting smaller weak points and avoid the central core of strenght until it is pretty well ready to give up anyways.

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Glock21 Op/Ed

yes, because he who wins the argument (whether they are actually right or not) will set the policy

We also have "opponents" and want to "win" discussions when we discuss unborn children, the future of Iraq, tax policy and smoking bans.

Actually, there were A LOT of people who didn't believe Iraq had WMD.  Including the UN inspectors who had spent months looking in hundreds of the best locations the US Intelligence Service could provide.  Do you really think everybody believed something that was so wrong?  Of course not.  But what did happen is the media (yes, those bleeding heart Commies) didn't report any of the dissent.  They simply bent over and regurgitated the lies coming from 1600.

Glock - I am not able to keep going with this, though I find this quote to be interesting:

None involved the post-9/11 foreign policy change that essentially nullified containment as a feasible option.

Do you seriously believe that containment is no longer an option?  When is the assault across the DMZ into North Korea planned?  When should we expect boots on the ground in Iran?  Are we firing up the jets to bomb Syria now, or will that be next week?

Come on, man.  This is foolishness.  As much as I admire your willingness to believe, you are spending your energies defending one of the most corrupt, incompetent group of morons that have ever led this country.  The Bush Doctrine is made of straw.  The Iraq War is so far lost even our politicians are trying on the phrase "lost" to see how much damage it will do.  Mr. Bush, Mr. Powell, and Mr. Cheney will go down as some of the worst bunglers of American power this country has ever seen.  I just wish Teddy Roosevelt was still alive so he could kick a couple of these fellas in the pants.

But either way I am going to have to insist that you stop saying that Clinton believed all the same BS that Bush pushed.  It's not true.  And please, please, PLEASE stop trying to tell us that everyone thought Saddam was a threat.  I didn't.  My wife didn't, and pretty much everyone I know didn't either.  We all knew we were being conned from Day One.  The evidence is in, the truth is out.  We were right.  It's a scam.

The sooner it's over the better!  The last word is yours.

Peace.