Surgeon General Describes Censorship From Bush Administration

UniversalVM writes "The NY Times is reporting that the former Surgeon General in damaging testimony given to the senate describes how he was repeatedly censored by the Bush administration while speaking out about topics such as global warming, Stem cell research and so on. The effort was to 'water down' or weaken reports on important issues to suit Republican Agenda. He describes how he attended one meeting where Global Warming was being described as a 'Liberal Agenda' and being dismissed. He tried to intervene thinking that the people there did not understand the science so he set about explaining it to them, the result? He was never invited back."

Comments

Hmmm...

[Cervantes]

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

Bush at work again, I see....

Re:Hmmm...

[DoraLives]

> Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches.

Absolutely breathtaking!

These are the methods of a tin pot dictator, not the leader of a great and worthy nation.

That Bush & Crew would put their own puffed up egos ahead of the health and well-being of their own countrymen says it all. Sigh.

Re:Hmmm...

[TrippTDF]

This sounds like something a Marketing Executive would say- "Make sure you mention the brand as many times as possible."

And that, friends, is how W got elected, and how every other president we ever have will get elected... through superior marketing.

Re:Hmmm...

[iluvcapra]

Because some of us, deep down, believe that with hard work, determination, and a little luck, we just might be the lucky guy stealing BILLIONS of dollars someday. I think many Americans, your correspondent not included, see such a transaction as nothing more than a prerogative of one in power. To the victor go the spoils; of course, George and Dick are certainly testing the extremes of the principle.

Re:Hmmm...

[Onan]

The problem is not with Americans--you'll note that somewhere in the neighborhood of 78% of them are displeased with George II. The problem, I'm afraid, is a number of traits of the American electoral system.

1) Plurality voting (and stacked plurality voting, even worse) essentially guarantees having only two parties, and that those two parties will actually be very structurally similar to one another. Of necessity, the two parties differ only minorly on a few of their positions, and any third party cannot be adequately served by the electoral system. Third-party candidates in fact act only as spoilers for the major-party candidate who is closer to their positions, and thus there is a strong disincentive for them to even try.

2) Gerrymandering has successfully been used to turn the overwhelming majority of legislative positions into "safe seats". ie, that that party which will win that seat is absolutely certain. This means that the only real election of significance is the primary that will choose the particular member of that party who gets the seat. Given that primaries are voted in only by members of that party, this means that the most extreme and partisan candidates are the ones who have the greatest chance of success.

3) Legislation that passes with 50%+1 of congressional support is exactly as much a law as legislation that passes with 100% support. This, unfortunately, incentivises those two parties being an intentionally divisive as possible. Reaching across the aisle and finding compromises does not strengthen your bill, it only weakens your ability to campaign as an extremist next time around. Legislation is therefore frequently given radioactive riders that make it intentionally diffcult for members of the opposing party to support it. For example, the bill that created the Department of Homeland Security was intentionally saddled with some aggressive union-busting provisions, to discourage Democrat legislators from voting for it; this allowed Republicans to brand Democrats as anti-security, and served their purposes far better than actual bipartisan cooperation would have.

Unfortuately, changing these fairly fundamental structural things about the American electoral and legislative systems would require action by exactly the set of people who have figured out how to profit from the current broken systems. So we're deadlocked.

Re:Hmmm...

[Onan]

Campaign funding is unfortunately a whole different set of problems. The incredible power of advertising is something that the US's architects never considered, so the structure of the government does not deal with it well. And while I'm flattered, I don't think I have any great insight into the solutions to that problem.

The problems I enumerated would be largely addressed by moving to a better voting methodology. Plurality voting does a terrible job of expressing the will of the electorate, and, just like layering lossy compression, stacking multiple plurality votes only gets worse. By the time we've made it through gerrymandering, primaries, general elections, and the electoral college, the outcome bears very little relationship to the general desires of voters.

Two substantially better systems are approval voting (in which you vote yes or no on every candidate, and whomever gets the most yesses wins) or a Borda count (in which you rank candidates in your order of preference, and the candidate with the highest total ranking wins). Both of these allow voters to express their desires much more concretely, including allowing a vote for a third-party candidate to be meaningful and not threaten the success of a still-acceptable and more viable candidate. So everyone really could vote meaningfully for Nader or Perot without taking votes away from Bush or Gore, for example.

I wish I could dig it up, but around 2001 I saw a study in which someone had attempted to reconstruct from polling data what the outcome of the 2000 presidential election would have been if either of these methods had been in place. And the answer was that we would fairly likely have elected John McCain.

Now, I'm not a huge McCain fan. I disagree with him about some significant issues. But I am confident that he would be a much better choice for the job than George W. Bush.

The reason this is interesting is that if you asked a Bush voter for their opinion on this outcome, a lot of them would say something like, "I'm not a huge McCain fan. I disagree with him about some significant issues. But I am confident that he would be a much better choice for the job than Al Gore."

A candidate who is everybody's second choice is a much better electee than a candidate who is 50% of voters' first choice and 50% of voters' over-my-dead-body choice.

Well It's About Time!

[eldavojohn]

Surgeon General Describes Censorship From Bush Administration Why is he speaking out? Because the Surgeon General's job is to warn me of things that are dangerous to my health.

I can't wait until Bush has to get a tattoo on his back that reads: "SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING! Election of this individual may result in death and will increase the risk of the rest of the world hating you."

Re:Well It's About Time!

[GizmoToy]

If this is true, and it seems pretty likely it is, it's a pretty serious matter in my opinion.

From the article:
The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues.

That's quite a list of important issues he wasn't allowed to speak about. Things like this shouldn't be allowed to happen. It's the guy's job to discuss these things.

Re:Well It's About Time!

[sammy baby]

Wow! And the Clinton administration would let Dr. Carmona speak out of needle sharing programs for drug users. Remember Joycelyn Elders?

Say it with me: "Clinton did it too."

Look, it's for damn sure that I'd rather have Bubba back in the White House than Dubya, any day of the week, twice on Sunday. That doesn't mean that we agree with everything he did, especially where something like this is concerned.

Nevertheless, I think it's pretty obvious that you haven't read the article, because:

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization's longtime ties to a "prominent family" that he refused to name.

"I was specifically told by a senior person, 'Why would you want to help those people?' " Dr. Carmona said.

The Special Olympics is one of the nation's premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.

When asked after the hearing if that "prominent family" was the Kennedys, Dr. Carmona responded, "You said it. I didn't."

You know what? That's it. Messing with the Special Olympics? Screw you guys. I already thought that this administration was severely morally challenged, but I had no idea they could be so, abso-fucking-lutely small.

Re:Well It's About Time!

[Darby]

What happened to the Republicans of old? When exactly did they turn into what is in power now?

Is this seriously not really fucking obvious to you?
It was 1980 when the Republicans rejected Barry Goldwater (Republican) in favor of Ronald Reagan (fascist). They'd already fallen pretty far (Nixon's treason and Ford's folly), but that was their chance to save their party. They chose instead to brutally rape it in the ass until it was dead.

There's really nothing particularly complicated or even non-obvious about it.

I like cutting of taxes, but, it has to go with smaller govt. spending too!! I want a candidate that is for that, that fiscally conservative, slightly liberal socially....and most of all, respects and honors the Constitution.

Vote Libertarian then. They're the only party that believes in anything of the sort.

Seriously, if you're asking these sorts of questions now then you've obviously never put any thought into it at all.
This shit ain't new and it ain't difficult to figure out with an hour of research tops.

Ron Paul is a Libertarian who runs as a Republican, but I personally wouldn't vote for him if he did win the Republican nomination (ha! the douchebag republicans booed him at the debate for stating simple facts and cheered Giuliani for spouting idiotic lies. That's the state of that party in a nutshell right there) as that would lend support to the Republicans. As I'm not a fan of big government I'm certainly not voting for the party of biggest government. However, if you can stand to vote Republican, Ron Paul is the only one who believes in *any* of the things you say you do.

Re:Well It's About Time!

[LunaticTippy]

I disagree. I've had plenty of jobs where I didn't agree with management's policies. Some of them I even did things that were distasteful to me, such as pressuring customers for profitable add-ons or giving the partially bogus company response to a valid complaint. Depending on how much I needed the job and how good the job was, I've done things that were unquestionably wrong. It was easier to live with since it wasn't my decision, since my supervisor was forcing my hand, since the alternative was unemployment.

I don't do these things anymore, but there's no certainty that I won't have to again. If the tech sector collapses again and I find myself doing tech support again (Please, no! not a 3rd time!) I may well find myself in that unpleasant situation again. And who knows, if I luck into a situation where I'm making millions I might hesitate to let my scruples ruin an otherwise good thing.

What I'm saying is this: Here is a man in the most high-profile position possible in his line of work. He can make a difference within the boundaries set for him. If he stands up for his beliefs, the administration will simply replace him with a less competent and more pliable subject. How does that help the public? And it sure hurts the individual. I don't think anyone can judge his actions unless they've been in a similar situation and done the "right thing," besides the fact that I don't think the ethical choice is clear.

Sometimes you can do more good as a reluctant part of the problem than you can as a noble but sidelined martyr.

Re:Well It's About Time!

[twifosp]

Wow! And the Clinton administration would let Dr. Carmona speak out of needle sharing programs for drug users. Remember Joycelyn Elders?

In the spirit of the Godwin's Law meme, I suggest a new meme for use on slashdot.

The law states: As a discussion addressing the topic of the Bush administration grows in size, the probability of comparing the Clinton administration activities to excuse Bush administration activities grows to one.

Following the traditional use of Godwin's law, I suggest that any mention of the Clinton administration when discussion the Bush administration results in automatic loss of the debate for the person bringing up the Clinton administration.

I also suggest that person have their head examined and study the process of logic. Repeat after me friends: Past mistakes do NOT excuse current mistakes.

As an aside, it's sad that we have to define these types of laws, and that our public education system does not encourage the type of thinking where everyone shares this mentality. Us vs Them groupthink is very damaging to any society.

Even slashdot is in on the act

[also-rr]

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

On a more serious note, even if you think that global warming is a pile of horse manure, why would anyone object to the measures that are being suggested? Unless they owned a coal mine of course...

There's a lot of sense in heavy investment in nuclear, solar and wind power plus hybrid, diesel and electric vehicles even in a situation where the world isn't going wrong. Same with switching to CFLs and generally improving efficiency of resource usage etc... it's not like there are people who find clean air offensive... or at least I hope not.

Re:Even slashdot is in on the act

[also-rr]

it costs money for companies to reduce emissions and for the government to enforce standards.

It costs money to keep beaches free of sewage, breakfast free of weevils, jobs free of twenty hour days, students in school, Iraq free of terrorists, criminals in jail and hospitals free of credit card readers at the emergency room doors.

The fact that it might cost money, and that some of that money might need to come from taxes, doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea. It doesn't make it a good idea either - consideration is required in all things.

Grrrrrr.

[SatanicPuppy]

Science should never bow to political pressures. Bush is guilty of this, obviously...This is hardly the first evidence.

But, especially in the area of health care, he's far from the only one who has gotten involved in a negative manner. Reagan tried to squash talk about AIDS, Clinton poo poo'd needle exchange programs, Bush Jr. jumped on everything just as part of the administrations obsession about managing information.

This stuff really needs to be separate and non-partisan...I am so freaking tired of this or that issue being batted around because of peoples inborn prejudices. A reputable expert with actual facts puts together a well thought-out, scientific report, and they get defunded, their speeches are edited and pre-reviewed. People from within the administration work to discredit their testimony. It's just ridiculous, and there is no way good science or good policy is coming out of it.

Hell, while they're at it, they should add a scientist general, and do the same damn thing. This stuff isn't about opinion. There is a right answer.

Re:Grrrrrr.

[gstoddart]

Science should never bow to political pressures.

Unfortunately, when your funding is managed by a bunch of people who simply don't believe the science, and who have no interest in different points of view, you can't really succeed at this. No matter how noble a sentiment it is.

It's just ridiculous, and there is no way good science or good policy is coming out of it.

Well, 'good' policy is subjective -- if your goal is to have a policy which starts with the supposition that homosexuality is bad, or Intelligent Design is valid, or abstinence only sex education isn't an oxymoron ... then it's good to be able to control the agenda and information coming out of your agencies. Then you can act like you have 'truth and goodness' on your side.

This stuff isn't about opinion. There is a right answer.

Not when you can convince people of such silly things as "our lives would be easier if Pi was 3". And, in the case of global warming, while there seems to be a majority of people who agree, as long as someone dissents you can claim that it's not fact, but opinion and theory and muddy the waters. An uncritical/uneducated public (who has been fed what you wanted them) won't be able to tell the difference.

Sadly, nowadays, politically inconvenient basically means you get shut down. Especially in the current administration which has the attitude that "what we say is right, no matter what the truth is". They're not interested in truth -- they're interested in their position, and pandering to their base. Reality be damned.

Cheers

Ugh...

[MeanderingMind]

I'm not sure 2008 can come quickly enough.

I don't for a moment think that any of the potential presidential candidates and their future administrations will not be rife with corruption and political mumbo jumbo. However, the constant news of abuses of power and position to make hideously bad decisions has me regretting the past 7 years thoroughly.

We need Mr. T for president, or at least Secretary of Defense.

Story of my life

[soloport]

Try explaining anything scientific to your friends -- you soon won't have any.

Re:Story of my life

[SatanicPuppy]

How does that follow? If you frequently go off on some weird ass jargon-filled tangent about some obscure scientific esoterica that no normal person would ever care about, then sure, that's going to put a crimp in your social life, because it demonstrates a lack of social skills.

But if you give a layman a reasonable overview of some issue that's actually relevant to the discussion, while restraining your tendency to sneer at stupid questions, and patronize people just because they don't already know what you're talking about, then you might find that some people are actually capable of being interested.

Feynman did a lecture series on quantum electrodynamics that was specifically geared toward people who didn't know what the hell quantum electrodynamics was. If you want to see an example of someone explaining a hard to understand topic to a bunch of people who have no background in a manner that is both accurate and entertaining, I highly recommend picking it up.

Re:Story of my life

[Hijacked Public]

But Feynman was gifted when it came to that sort of thing, the ice water / o-ring demonstration to Congress being another beautiful example.

I think the problem our former Surgeon General ran into was both that he didn't have Feynman's skills and that his audience not only didn't care about the science in question but they were actively seeking ways to discredit it.

Re:Story of my life

[NeutronCowboy]

Who the hell modded this informative??

#1 Local weather stations aren't the only input.
#2 Very few are actually at airports - and airports (aerodromes) were tarmac based since after WW1.
#3 Being within 30 feet of an AC exhaust (especially small window based ones) means squat for the local temperature.
#4 Local encroachment does not yield a small but systematic increase in temperature - it yields spikes.
#5 Average temperature readings from a population of sensors cancel out local variations.
#6 A systematic temperature increase is a systematic temperature increase, regardless of source.

Yes, the individual sensors record the heat-island effect that is found in urban environments. Congratulations. You found out something that is 15 years old. Yes, urban environments are warmer than non-urban environments.

However, you are an idiot if you believe that you are the first to think of this. Not only that, but carefully check the trend of both graphs shown on the homepage: after 1950, they both trend upward. And that's the key part: regardless of where you are, where you look at, temperature trends are on the up tick. Steadily. Some parts see heavier up ticks than others. But the end result is the same: things are getting warmer.

Local construction does play a part, but it merely exacerbates a trend that shows up everywhere you look.

Anybody doing and Accounting of the ...

[3seas]

...Bush Administration And at what point does the meter raise to impeachment of the clan?

Re:Anybody doing and Accounting of the ...

[Kamots]

I notice that you very carefully leave off the real issues.

Like Guatanamo and the whole imprisonment without due process thing.

Or like illegally spying on US citizens.

Or...

You mention only the things that noone who's seriously talking impeachment would mention. I applaud you for attacking those that talk impeachment out of a knee-jerk political stance, however, you don't seem to realize that there's a relatively strong case for it.

Re:Anybody doing and Accounting of the ...

[Jeremi]

Funny how everyone wants to impeach Bush for doing things that Clinton got away with[...]

What a strange ethical logic you conservatives have. O.J. Simpson got away with murder (apparently), does that mean I am allowed to murder now also, and nobody can object because O.J. did it first?

For the party that is always yelling about "traditional values", and "strict constructionalism", you are starting to sound an awful lot like the moral relativists you like to condemn.

Re:Anybody doing and Accounting of the ...

[node 3]

Funny how everyone wants to impeach Bush for doing things that Clinton got away with:
Going to war with a country that was not a threat....CHECK!
Lying to the country....CHECK!
Claiming Iraq had WMDs....CHECK!
Censoring the SG....CHECK!
Firing attorneys....CHECK! ... Funny how conservatives are so quick to ignore qualitative differences so long as they can find some intersection in the actions of others.

Going to war with a country that was not a threat....CHECK! We did not go to war with any nation under President Clinton. We did attack a few nations, and we did participate in NATO actions. But, even if you equate that with war, you can't possibly fail see the difference between the "wars" we fought under Clinton and the Iraq war.

Lying to the country....CHECK! About? What were the consequences of that lie? Lying is bad, to be sure, but the consequences and nature of the lie are important as well, and the difference here is severe.

Claiming Iraq had WMDs....CHECK! Yes, and Iraq actually *had* them then. That's why Clinton bombed those weapons. I don't see anyone claiming it was a lie back then, but it's extremely obvious it was a lie in 2003.

Censoring the SG....CHECK! Certainly, that's bad, but again, the scope and excess of censorship under Bush is like a supernova compared to the matchstick censorship of Clinton.

Firing attorneys....CHECK! Hrm... It's customary and accepted for the President to shuffle his cabinet and various offices around when he takes office, and also during re-election. What Bush did was unprecedented. Worse, he didn't do it for general political purposes (which is to be expected), he did it for for extremely political and highly partisan reasons, and he lied about the records of the people he fired. The firings were because the prosecutors wouldn't charge Democrats, and instead were going after Republicans. It doesn't matter that the prosecutors investigated Dems and found no grounds for prosecution, yet found Republicans who were extremely corrupt. In other words, these people were FIRED FOR DOING THEIR JOB.

It's astonishing that people who claim to be so preoccupied with morality would be so quick to abandon any semblance of morality for political ends.

You're like whiney little kids. You saw one kid shoplift a candy bar and instead of going to jail, he was sent home to his parents. So you decided you could rob a bank at gunpoint, and cry "foul" that, once caught, you're not simply being sent home as well.

Pathetic, really.

(+5, Funny)

[Rob T Firefly]

Bill Hall, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said that the administration disagreed with Dr. Carmona's statements. "It has always been this administration's position that public health policy should be rooted in sound science," Mr. Hall said.

BWAHAHAHAHA.... wait, he's serious?

If you want to help

[Lord Ender]

Join Scientists and Engineers for America. They are "a non-profit organization dedicated to renewing respect for evidence-based debate and decision-making in politics and at all levels of government."

If groups like that had the same sort of clout that religious groups have, America could remain the economic and philosophical leader of the world.

Of course, if we continue to elect politicians who make decisions based on theology instead of science, it may be time to start looking for jobs in western europe.

You forgot to mention Bush three times...

[VidEdit]

Sorry, the parent is not a valid, Bush Administration Surgeon General position. You only mentioned Bush only once and you full well know the standard for any proper scientific position is that President Bush must be mentioned in glowing terms 3 times per page. Please edit and resubmit your paper accordingly.

(If only that wasn't **actually true**!!!)

Re:You forgot to mention Bush three times...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me, what is the normal function of the anus?

To post on Slashdot as "operagost", evidently.

Re:You forgot to mention Bush three times...

[bfields]

The current candidate is criticized because he called homosexual intercourse unhealthy and unnatural. Excuse me, but are there any reproductive structures in the anus?

Erm.

1. Two men can have sex without having anal sex.
2. Heterosexual couples can have anal sex.
3. Anal sex isn't necessarily unhealthy.
4. Sexual practices that don't involve "reproductive structures" aren't necessarily unhealthy.
5. Sexual practices that don't lead to reproduction aren't necessarily unhealthy.

(And I don't even know what's meant by "unnatural" here--that's not the sort of word that would make sense in a scientific hypothesis. If you mean "occurs in nature"--since when are people not part of nature? Or is it just homosexuals that aren't part of nature? (That'd be circular reasoning if I've ever heard any.) And if by "natural" you mean "occurs in animals other than humans"--lots of other animals have homosexual sex.)

So, yes, the statement that "homosexual intercourse" is "unhealthy and unnatural" suggests someone that puts their personal prejudices ahead of any sort of clear-headed thinking about health.

Re:That happened to me....

[Rob T Firefly]

(I was imbibed) Somebody drank you?
Sounds unpleasant.

Ok this guy gets away with everything

[VEGETA_GT]

Look Clinton had a BJ and they tried to get him out of office. Bush has been screwing up a war form day one, went in when the evidence said no WMD's. Hell he even tried to pion sept 11 on Iraq, tho the evidence just was not there. Toss in things like the wire tapping issue where illegal wire tapping's occurred even tho getting a warrant to do it was basically a rubber stamp, and nothing happened. This is not the first time someone has said bushes gang tried to change the facts, and force bad info down on the public. In the end Bush is a oil guy, he don't care about the environment or anything, just making his own cash. Yet some how he is still in office, and Clinton who ya was not perfect almost got tossed out because of a BJ, give me a break.

Re:That happened to me....

[jollyreaper]

(I was imbibed) Somebody drank you? [reference.com]
Sounds unpleasant. Or really, really pleasant. Ask him how he feels a few hours later. Beer will be the urination of us all.

Lots of warming-related health issues

[PIPBoy3000]

There's quite a few health-related issues:

• Malaria and other diseases
• heatwave deaths
• water quality

It sure would have been helpful to have talked about them over the last seven years.

Remember the Nuremberg Trials?

[Sara Chan]

After World WarII, several Nazi leaders were tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Not everyone wanted to do that. Winston Churchill, for example, just wanted to execute those Nazis. But the USA insisted on fair trials, saying that it was important to establish the principle of the rule of law.

Back then, the USA had leadership that demonstrated to the world how even the most heinous crimes (particularly the Holocaust)—in which many millions of people died—can and should be handled according to law and principle.

Compare that with what George W. does today.

Re:Global warming?

[musicon]

Perhaps he was discussing the migration of diseases (and their carriers) that occur in warmer climates such as malaria / mosquitoes? Or the changes in heath that could occur in Inuit populations as that region warms? Or more cases of heat-exhaustion?

There are any number of legitimate health-related topics that could spawn a discussion of global warming.

Re:Global warming?

[Glog]

Why is the Surgeon General talking about global warming? What a patently silly question! Have we forgotten the hundreds if not thousands of people who died of the heat waves in the last few years in Europe. How about the coal plants spewing toxic gases - this not only contributes to the heating of the atmosphere but is a public health menace of significant proportions.

Do we even need to point out how global weather is closely related to the public health of individuals?

Re:Horse Manure

[MightyMartian]

Yeah, all those climatologists are really liars. What do they know? A small number of inactive researchers, oil company shills and White Office spokespeople weigh a lot more than the climatological community.

Big Brother

[ev1lcanuck]

medreport 3.12.06 reporting gw globalwarming doubleplusungood refs unthings rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

(+5, Informative)

[Scrameustache]

Bill Hall, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said that the administration disagreed with Dr. Carmona's statements. "It has always been this administration's position that public health policy should be rooted in sound science," Mr. Hall said.

BWAHAHAHAHA.... wait, he's serious? "sound science" is a codeword, it doesn't mean what you think it means:
"The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), an organization that was covertly created by Philip Morris for the express purpose of generating scientific controversy regarding the link between secondhand smoke and cancer."

They have recently been mostly funded by the oil lobby for the express purpose of... well, you can deduce that last bit.

Indeed.

[hey!]

I often hold forth in a pithy and informative way on a variety of scientific topics, and usually find my audience struck dumb with admiration.

I was concerned at first by the fact that they never seem to have any questions. But I learned to ask, "I'm not boring you, am I?" They never are. Clearly I have enlightened them in such a lucid manner that questions are superfluous.

Re:We should...

[TapeCutter]

Al Gore did not come up with the information in his movie, the IPCC did. What I would like to know is who do people who poo-poo Gore think we should listen too?

Jim Hansen does know a thing or two about climate, yet he also recieved similar treatment.

For the record: Gore originally attacked Hansen's assertions on climate change in the senate, Hansen and NOAA are both contributors to the IPCC reports.

"...we should question why anybody listens to Al Gore on the subject"

No we shouldn't, I listened to you and you have ZERO credibility. Science has no political or personal boundries, that is what TFA is all about.

Re:We are slowly losing our freedoms in this natio

[Fantastic Lad]

f the liberals have their way, this will become a Nanny State or a Prison Nation in that we are told what to eat, how to behave, and how to act.

180 degree double take. A Prison Nation where we are highly controled through fear? How on earth can you blame liberals for the things the Bush administration is working like mad to implement right now? Have you not been paying attention to the play by play? Need proof? Try taking a walk through downtown New York wearing a head scarf and take a bunch of tourist photos sometime. Try lighting up in a public place and see what happens. Try preventing your kids from being immunized in some states. Try owning a gun in others. Try getting an abortion for your girlfriend. Try wearing a teeshirt which says "Impeach Bush" to the Whitehouse. Heck, try buying Organic food, (the Bush government just made it legal for non-organic food producers to use the Organic label.) Try taking a book out of the library about how to blow stuff up. Try making a phone call through AT&T and expecting privacy. And on and on.

In this case the Surgeon General took money from the pro-global warming lobbyists [. . .]

Give me a break. You can't back that up. The Surgeon General doesn't even have the power to do anything about fossil fuel emissions. Heck, the major sticking point had more to do with Stem Cell research than anything else.

I don't think Wester Medicine is all too great, and I'm not even a liberal. (I don't play the tweedle dee and tweedle dum political division game.) --But I have noticed that people who cleave to the conservative side often exist in a state of perpetual delusion and anger.

Take a deep breath and rethink your statements because they don't make sense.

-FL