"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda."
"We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ?90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization."
Now assuming we both understand English... can you tell me where in either of those quotes anyone said that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11? The only thing I see is a possible connection or "protection" of Al Qaeda within Iraq and that Iraq may have provided bomb-making advice to Al Qaeda. Considering bombs weren't even used on 9/11 I fail to see how you think this links Iraq to 9/11.
You discredit yourself every time you post. I, on the other hand, back up my posts with objective, verifiable facts.
You provided citations, that I'll grant you. But they do absolutely nothing to reinforce your assertion that anyone in the administration said Iraq was responsible for involved in 9/11. They didn't say it and your quotes haven't proven it.
That's not liberal arrogance, that's just smarter than you.
Considering you haven't proven what you set out to prove I fail to see how that makes you smarter than me.
I feel pity for you that you cannot rise above your limited powers of reasoning and understand that some of us do know better.
Then show me a citation that backups up the assertion that has been made by liberals that the administration has stated that Iraq was responsible or involved in 9/11. You make an assertion, provide quotes that talk about something completely different, and somehow feel that you've made your case.
Your stunning use of the Chewbacca defense is most impressive. It is clear you've had practice using the Chewbacca defense because you are so good at appearing to actually believe it yourself.:)
Then again, lying about a joint, or who did what with which part of your anatomy is, imho, not really a matter worthy of public debate.
Maybe not. But once it becomes part of public debate it is entirely illegal to lie about it in court.
I think we can all agree that virtually all politicians lie about something sometime. You are certainly deceiving yourself if you really believe those Clinton lies were Clinton's only or most serious lies. They just happened to be the ones he was stupid enough to utter under oath.
Hello, McFly? Liberals lose their Democratic party membership if they don't bash Bush at least once a day. In the wake of the Democrats' crushing and resounding defeat in the presidential, Senate, and House races this quota has been upped to a minimum of twice per day.
In other words, if everyone in the country thought war was the right thing, but you didn't, would you blindly march off to die, or would you stand on your moral convictions, and object?
Of course I would stand by my moral convictions. I'm not suggesting anyone do otherwise. I am suggesting that if the majority of the country disagrees with such people that it's entirely possible that those people are wrong. There is a difference between a moral conviction and being right/wrong.
Was invading Iraq the right thing to do? A brutal dictator has been removed. A threat to regional stability has been eliminated. Millions of people are no longer the subject of crippling economic sanctions. Millions of people will enjoy democracy once the terrorists have been eliminated. And the new democracy may lead to additional freedom and democracy in an area of the world that is in desperate need of both. Yes, it seems that invading Iraq was the right thing to do.
Does that mean that someone who has a moral conviction against war and killing necessarily have to participate in it? No. But they should at least be able to recognize the benefit of the action even if they have a moral problem with participating in it.
And perhaps I should mention here that I do not need to have my "moral convictions" thrust upon me from on high. I'm quite capable of making moral distinctions without the dubious beneficience of an imaginary deity.
Actually you didn't need to mention that at all since it had absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. But it's good to know you're completely in-step with the Democratic party-line that wants to completely eliminate religion everywhere.
There are those among us who have a greater power of intelligence than yourself.
Thank you for clearly illustrating my point regarding arrogance in liberals.
We understand that you fear us.
Understand that you are dilusional and your ongoing dilusion and denial is now quite entertaining.
You may call us arrogant.
We don't need permission.
This does not make us less right, less good, or less moral.
No, but it makes it much harder for you to win elections.:)
The turnout among "evangelical/fundamentalist Christians", driven by a plethora of Hateful Referenda was the deciding factor--a group of people who, I might point out, certainly cannot be characterized as "thinking" people,
You will find that many such people are thinking people. They just happen to think differently than liberals. It's the arrogance of the liberals that causes them to think that anyone that believes differently than they do is uneducated or incapable of indepednent thought.
If you'll recall, the vast majority of the "terrorists" in Iraq weren't there until we invaded. Then they flocked from all over to defend Iraq/attack the US.
Better they flock to Iraq then flock to the U.S.
Give me a break? The right isn't arrogant and condescending? Have you listened to any of the conservative mouthpieces? Limbaugh? O'Reilly? Coulter? They don't get anymore arrogant, condescending and downright venemous than those people. Could you possibly be any more hypocritical?
Perhaps, but those people aren't the people in the trenches and in the campaigns. They are talk show hosts. That's their business. The difference is that rank and file liberals are seriously arrogant and think they are somehow superior just because they don't like Bush. Likewise they think people who voted for Bush were duped, corporate pawns, etc. You need look no further than some of the responses to my posts here to see what I'm talking about. Then there's the bozo that keeps moderating me as "troll" just because he disagrees with my politics.:Sigh:
Bullshit. The US has violated quite a few UN resolutions as well. Don't see anyone invading us.
So now you are comparing the U.S. to Iraq? Sorry, I don't follow your logic...
And which resolution, exactly, authorized an invasion?
He picked and chose the people he wanted to listen to. He took just the interpretations of data that supported his desire to invade Iraq. He didn't listen to those that gave contradictory info and interpretations (that surprise surprise, turned out to be correct in many cases).
There is no evidence he ignored evidence for or against. On balance he decided that it would be prudent to move forward.
Iran has an active nuke program.
That is known now. But they were under no U.N. sanctions nor had they been non-cooperative with WMD inspectors. I agree Iran is now a country we need to deal with.
Saudi Arabia is the place where most of the 9-11 hijackers came from and that we know funds a lot of terrorist organizations.
So we should attack every country from which people who commit crimes against the U.S. come? Should we attack Mexico because dozens of Mexicans have killed dozens of Americans? That sounds even more irrational than what you accuse Bush of.
Oh yeah, but Bush is buddies with the Saudis.
Can you provide evidence that Bush is any more a buddy with the Saudis than any other recent president, including Clinton?
Yet another ridiculous statement. You act as if no group that is in the wrong ever lasts very long. History can prove that statement wrong over and over and over.
History can certainly provide even more examples where what the majority believes is right. Yes, there are exceptions. But they are the exception not the rule. Perhaps 50 years from now history will prove you were right... but statistically speaking it's a safe bet that you are probably wrong.
There are numerous, well-documented examples of administration officials (including Dr. Rice, Mr. Cheney, and Mr. Bush) stating explicitly that there was a connection.
And you omitted providing even a single documented example.
I suspect that like so many other people who wish Michael Moore would just go away, you have not even bothered to see the movie.
I saw it twice. Once to debate some idiot that believed its lies and the second time to further debate the idiot that was in denial and wouldn't even believe that the doctored Pantagraph article was actually in the movie (but wouldn't herself see the movie again to prove it to herself). The movie should be nominated for "Best Comedy," though maybe not because it's certainly not the best comedy. It's quite boring.
While I think Mr. Moore has been wrong about many things in the past, he hit the nail dead on this time with Fahrenheit 9/11.
You discredited yourself with that statement making it unnecessary to even read the rest of your post. Sorry, do some real research and talk politics with the adults when you've gone past the liberal propaganda. Anyone that believes Michael Moore needs to conduct a serious reality check.
Me: No-one ever said there was a connection between the two despite what Michael Moore would have you believe... As for 9/11 being the cause of the Iraq war, I won't deny that.
You: WTF? There's no connection but I'm right anyway?
Yes. Did you read my post? 9/11 wasn't the justification to attack Iraq since there was no link between Iraq and 9/11. But 9/11 is what lit a fire under our *ss and got us looking seriously at potential threats. Thanks to Iraq's behavior over the last decade they were at the top of the list.
You're right that nobody ever made an explicit connection, but they sure implied it as often as possible.
I've never seen any implied connection closer than that Iraq may have had contact with Al Qaeda (they may have) and Al Qaeda had something to do with 9/11 (they did). I see no problem with either of those statements. If people jumped to conclusions about what those two statements meant, that's their fault, not the administration's. Heck, even the quote Moore used in his movie where Rice is saying "Of course there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11" actually goes on to say "It's not that Iraq was involved in 9/11, but the same mindset that lead to 9/11 exists in Iraq" or something like that (I'm not going to look up the exact quote right now, but that's the basic idea). So I'm suspecting that even a lot of the "quotes" that people heard going into Iraq that caused them to believe that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 may be due to selective quoting.
After all, Condi Rice dropped the ball on the Bin laden memo.
How so?
The only conflicting signals I was hearing were between Hans Blix and the Administration.
The conflict was Iraq claiming that they had no WMDs but not cooperating with the international community for nearly half a decade and, when they were threatened with war, offering just enough cooperation to (they thought) avoid a war. Either Saddam didn't take the U.N. seriously or he didn't take the U.S. seriously.
I've also never understood the whole WMD rationale. Even if Saddam had what intel said he had, shouldn't Pyonyang be a smoking crater now too?
I agree. North Korea should be taken out and maybe should have been taken out before Iraq. That doesn't mean Iraq was a bad move, though. After all, those that are actively attacking us are terrorists from the Arab world. First order of business is to take care of those that are actively attacking us. No, Saddam wasn't threatening the U.S. homeland but he was an ongoing issue taking daily shots at U.N.-authorized patrol aircraft right in the middle of terrorist-land, plotting to kill ex-presidents of the United States, with a history of invading Kuwait, fighting Iran, and lobbing Scuds on Israel in a desperate attempt to start a regional war. Even if North Korea has a few nukes and even recognizing the instability that creates, it doesn't compare to the instability and actual threat that Saddam has and did present to a very delicate region.
Jesus, not that old chestnut again. Israel's broken more resolutions than everyone else combined and they haven't had so much as a slap on the wrist.
Ah, so now we get into the boring old Israel vs. Arab/Palestine bickering.
Israel hasn't invaded its neighbors, though it has kicked butt when threatened. Israel hasn't used WMDs on its own people or on Palestinians.
But that doesn't matter anyway. Suggesting that just because some country gets away with something that that means that everyone should get away with it is bogus. Quite frankly, I would have no trouble sleeping at night knowing that Israel has a hundred nukes. I would be very worried if I had known that Saddam had 100 nukes.
See, shit like this, not being consistent, is what makes this President the world's laughingstock.
International politics isn't always consistent, one size doesn't fit all, and those that think it should will always see a politician
Progressive taxes are just another form of redistribution. When you tax people at different rates, some end up with greater buying power than they had before (relative to the others).
Yep, and that's a good argument for a flat tax and ditching the entire unfair progressive tax system.
I'm guessing you don't have a passport?
Not only do I have a passport, I'm an American that has been living overseas for the last 9 years.
Me: Those in poverty pay no federal taxes.
You: Bush says a national sales tax is worth exploring....
So do I and so do lots of people. Will that effect the poor? Not if necessities such as food, medicine, and basic utilities are made tax-free. Those that profess that a national sales tax is automatically bad for the poor are dweebs with an agenda that want to frighten people. Normally those that want to frighten people are Democrats. There's your answer.
I just visited a Best Buy for the first time in about 9 months (I live outside the country) last week to pick up a cable for my Palm. I was surprised to find that there was virtually nothing PDA-related. Not just Palm, pretty much everything PDA-related was gone. They had a few token devices but virtually no peripherals or accessories.
Is this representative of a trend away from PDAs, perhaps as a result of more-capable cell phones? Or has Best Buy just decided there isn't enough money to be made in this market?
I left without buying anything. I used to go to Best Buy because, in a pinch, I could find just about anything I needed. If this is part of a trend away from that "we have everything" approach I'm willing to bet that they're going to lose a lot of traffic in their stores.
If all they're interested in is selling $10,000 home theaters I think you're going to see a lot of Best Buys closing down within a few years. Sure, there's a lot of margin on those big-tickets but the volume isn't there to support stores of the size that Best Buy runs.
Nope, got the false pretenses right I'm afraid. The Iraq war happened as a direct result of 9/11, no matter what anybody says. It's just a shame there's no connection between the two.
No-one ever said there was a connection between the two despite what Michael Moore would have you believe.
As for 9/11 being the cause of the Iraq war, I won't deny that. We got stung and Bush rightly (in my opinion) decided it was time to clean house and take care of all current and future threats. So 9/11 pushed us into action but it wasn't the justification for the war.
And if your intel is that bad, maybe it would have made sense to spend a little more time letting the UN inspectors poke around?
Unfortunately we didn't know the intel was bad until after. Saddam was sending conflicting signals. Some now think that he was trying to tell the world that he didn't have WMDs while trying to make Iran think he did. Unfortunately his conflicting signals got him into trouble. Lack of cooperation with the U.N. for the better part of a decade followed by less-than-stellar cooperation in the months before the Iraq war didn't give us any reason to believe we were wrong.
But, as I already said, even if we knew he didn't have WMDs it was still a valid action. He had violated the terms of the cease-fire of the first Gulf War and numerous U.N. resolutions.
And you wonder why I use terms like 'sick fuck'. I also love the 'hornet's nest' bit. What, did you get that from a Tom Clancy novel?
I've never read a Tom Clancy novel, though I do admit I enjoyed the Clancy movies with Harrison Ford. But what is so sick about what I said? Just that I'd rather the terrorists be busy in Iraq than in the U.S.? Nothing sick about that. It's called survival. It's called hitting them at home while they're on the other side of the world rather than waiting for them to come here. Completely logical and strategically sound.
Those that call things like Iraq "pre-emptive war" are not being entirely honest. It's a proactive response to terrorism. We don't wait for them to attack us, we take the fight to them. And based on the amount of insurgents/terrorists in Iraq it looks like we hit the bullseye.
Far too true, from a statisticial point of view. But, the problem is, I have been consistently proved right in the end. So, unlike the average American voter, I use past performance to make judgements.
I'd be interested in what you were in the minority on and were later proved right on?
And I'm sure there are plenty of Bush voters who know exactly what's going on, but they're just sick fucks if you ask me.
That kind of condescending extremism is also part of why Bush won.
But remember, you still voted for a guy who illegally invaded a sovereign country on false pretenses
1. The invasion wasn't illegal. It was supported by previous U.N. resolutions stretching back over a decade. 2. It has been shown that Bush received information that was incorrect and based his decisions on that bad information. Hence the allegation that he invaded based on "false pretenses" is simply false. I'll accept "he invaded based on bad information", but even so it was fully legal and warranted under previous U.N. resolutions.
Worst of all, its impact on making Americans safer from terrorism has been completely negative, serving only to speed up the process of breeding new terror cells.
Do you have any evidence of that? I haven't seen a terrorist attack in the U.S. in 3 years. Sure, there's a problem with terrorists in Iraq but I'd rather the terrorists be busy there than in our country. Plus that is to be expected when you hit the hornet's nest.
So I might be arrogant, but at least I'm not short-sighted or confused.
Actually I think you're all three.
Oh, and I've been in the minority all my life and I'm quite happy, thank you. But it doesn't mean I'm not right.
Of course it doesn't mean you're not right, but if you find yourself in the minority over a great many years it is a strong indication that you very well may be wrong. The electorate is made up of both thinking and non-thinking individuals--but if we assume that there about as many sheep on each side of the political spectrum then we still come to the conclusion that the majority of thinking individuals voted for Bush.
You could be right but the longer you are in the minority the more statistically improbable that becomes.
When less than 20% of the nation holds 80% of the income
Stop right there. We're talking about taxes, not income. If you're talking about redistributing income then, again, you're pushing your way into socialism. That's an economic system that has basically been rejected by the world.
roll back the progressive taxes on them before dropping the taxes on those in poverty to nothing, what does that say about their love and compassion for the lower class?
Those in poverty already don't pay federal taxes. So your rhetorical question makes no sense to start with.
Everybody hides behind "well if they cut the taxes for the lower class on the federal level there wouldn't be anythign left!"
No-one says that because it isn't true. Those in poverty pay no federal taxes. You can't reduce the taxes on someone that already doesn't pay any.
The problem isn't fundies voting for Bush, that's to be expected. The problem is for notionally rational and educated people such as yourself being completely and utterly hoodwinked.
The even bigger problem is the arrogance of some people who seem to think that if someone voted for Bush he was deceived, conned, stupid, irrational, non-educated, a sheep, or a Bible-thumper when in fact many people simply do not agree with liberals and Democrats. It's this disconnect with reality and mainstream America that cost the liberals the election.
As long as you--and people like you--continue to engage in this arrogance and deny the reality that your political preferences are in the minority you will continue to lose elections.
The working poor still pay payroll taxes for Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance. If I understand correctly, that amounts to about 7-10% of every dollar they earn.
Of course they do. The alternative is that not only do the poor not have to pay taxes but that they also get their medical care and retirement savings paid for by others? Come on. One thing is to have a progressive tax code. Aiming for outright socialism is going too far.
I have written a number of documents in OOo, printed them, exported them to Word and PDF and no-one's ever complained.
Same here. I do all my work in OO and just output my documents to PDF. I haven't received a single complaint. And the 200+ page document that used to crash Word works great in OO.
Do you raelly believe that urban legend? Those two slightly longer bars are not numeric, they are references bars to tell the barcode where it starts and stops (and where the middle is). And the encoding for "6" is a skinny bar, a skinny space, a skinny bar, and a wide space. Any two random skinny bars do not represent the number 6.
Admit it, you don't know anybody. Or, if you do, the guy "you know" is yanking your chain.
We don't have satellite records from 100, 1000, or 10,000 years ago, so even if satellites unambiguously said that the world had warmed up significantly in the last 20 years, this information would not tell us whether the warming was part of a trend that correlates with CO2 concentrations or merely a coincidence.
Logiacl conclusion: We have insufficient data to make a rational recommendation. I don't subscribe to the belief that "Even if we're wrong about global warming, drastic cuts in CO2 production is the right thing to do anyway." The impact on humans of significant reduction in CO2 could be as drastic as the worst fears of global warming. We should not embark on major policy changes based on insufficient data.
For this reason, we use both instrumental records (which do suffer from the urban heat island effect you discuss) as well as indirect records (dendrochronology, hydrogen isotope ratios from ice cores, etc.).
My understanding is that the information taken from ice cores, etc. is significantly less alarming then what we would be made to believe from the instrumental record. And I believe that the effects of heat islands, etc. on the instrumental record are so severe and the impacts are impossible to know with certainty that the data should be pretty much thrown out. Certainly not used as a basis for recommending draconian CO2 reductions and rationing.
So we have a satellite record that is too short to be helpful and an instrument record that is too inaccurate to be helpful. We don't have enough information.
The 75% of the earth's surface covered by water is measured, albeit incompletely, by water samples drawn by ships crossing the oceans. We have a few hundred years of data from this, but just as with urban heat islands, there are problems comparing old data with new (e.g., evaporative cooling of water sampled in canvas buckets on old sailing ships vs. measurements at subsurface water intakes on modern vessels).
Of course we have samples from ships at see but they are incomplete and generally only cover the major shipping lanes. If you're lucky instead of missing 75% of the planet covered by water we're only missing 74%.
The IPCC actually does discuss the uncertainties in depth and has an extensive bibliography.
But did they actually read any of the material cited in the bibliography? And, more importantly, did the politicians who made policy recommendations read the bibliographic material or even the the full IPCC report?
I doubt it. And I can understand that. Most politicians don't have time to read hundreds of pages of dry climate information. They read the summaries and while it's been awhile since I've engaged in this discussion (and as a result I don't have links ready and I don't have time right now to dig them all up again) it has been my observation in the past that even the full report doesn't give adequate time to the reservations. They talk about the results of climate models and, last time I checked, essentially devote a single sentence that effectively says that the climate models aren't necessarily accurate and are "always improving." Considering the more the climate models improve the lower the global warming predictions become, basing policy decisions on these models is premature. And the IPCC full report addressing this absolutely paramount concern with a single sentence tells me just how much science there is to be found in the IPCC full report and how much politics.
If you can find otherwise please let me know. I'd be glad to be proven wrong. But in the past I did read a large portion of the full report and specifically scanned for comments on the accuracy of the models and was dismayed at how that whole topic was pretty much ignored.
I also find it strange that you would assert that over the past 20 years the Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 governments would have cut funding for scientists who found that the world was not warming up ("many of them depend on ongoing funding that would be in jeapordy if they were to massage the data a little more conservatively"). I can see this charge against the Clinton/Gore administration, but for most of the last 20 years we've had conservative Republican administrations. Can you substantiate this claim?
It's not that the government would cut funding for those that find that the world is not warming up. It's simply that the much academic research is government-funded and funds tend to not be forthcoming when you say nothing is happening. If a scientist says "We did this investigation and found that human-induced global warming is not happening" then he's not going to get any more funding. Not for any political reason but simply because if they've already said the global warming isn't happening, why give them more money to investigate global warming? Ongoing funds are insured by investigating the theory and either reaching alarming conclusions or leaving the investigation inconclusive to warrant more research.
It's like the idea of building a light-bulb that lasts forever. Not a good financial idea for the light-bulb makers because they'll make one sale and then they're done. Likewise scientists that conclude that human-induced global warming is not happening are eliminating their possibility of getting more global warming research funds in the future.
Uh huh. The IPCC. The largest, most international group of politically-oriented people in the world. Yes, many are scientists. But IPCC is certainly not a model of scientific investigation and reporting. It is an international political organization with an agenda. They got together to prescribe a "solution," not to honestly evaluate whether or not there was really a problem. They already knew going in that the only question was what the recommendation would be. You don't organize a meeting that big with the potential control on international economies and then say, "Oops, we were wrong. There is no conclusive data yet."
And forgive me if I don't trust the people that have been massaging the data for 15 or 20 years since many of them depend on ongoing funding that would be in jeapordy if they were to massage the data a little more conservatively. Just like some people don't trust global warming skeptic scientists as pawns of some industry, I don't trust pro-global warming scientists when their potential source of investigative funding is at stake.
Rather than trying to fudge an inherently inaccurate and incomplete surface record, these scientists should focus on resolving any problems they have with the satellite record which is the only truly global temperature record we have. After all this is supposedly global warming. You're being naive if you think we're going to be able to adequately monitor it by some strategically placed thermometers in heat islands of urban sprawl and generally ignore the 75% of the earth's surface that is covered by water.
Great. And can you point me to a paper that points out the difficulty in calculating an accurate, unbiased adjustment to reasonably adjust the measured temperature in heat islands due to expanding urban areas around the temperature station? Or are there only studies into the potential difficulties of measuring techniques that question global warming?
Regardless of potential difficulties involved in satellite temperature readings, I'll take an unbiased satellite reading that is calculated by a computer to a collection of hundreds or thousands of individual station readings that are manually massaged by what can only be called a "fudge factor" to compensate for local urban heat island effects.
Yes, it does need an explanation. You need to explain how your graph questions in any way what I wrote above. It doesn't prove that temperatures have risen in the last two decades and it doesn't prove that all the increase in CO2 is because of humans.
Clearly, since the industrial revolution, CO2 levels have risen (and almost at an exponential rate). If our carbon sinks weren't maxed out, we would probably be seeing a naerly linear increase. Oh and by the way you forgot an italic tag ender thingy
So I noticed. And you forgot to close your A tag, unless you make it standard practive to create links that are three lines long.
Me: How on earth can you possibly presume to know that? Perhaps we're still on the upward slope aiming for a temperature peak before temperatures come down. On what science are you basing your assumption that temperatures should, on average, be coming down?"
Anonymous Fool: Take a basic climatology/environment course... They can sample ice cores and such to find climate trends over time.
The question remains. How can you presume to know where we are on the cool/heat cycle? The idea that "our temperature should be going down" has not been proven. And your anonymous post has gotten us no closer to proving it.
There have been attempts to reconcile the two sets of data, mostly having to do with the difficulty of maintaining calibration of the satellites.
Hmmmm... Difficulty in maintaining the satellites is the problem? Or perhaps its the weird and subjective fudge factors that are applied to the service record to compensate for heat islands?
Someone else said: Yeah, well we've proven that CO2 causes a greenhouse effect, and that our carbon sinks aren't soaking it up as fast as we pull it out of the earth and burn it.
I said: We have? I've seen that asserted. I've seen that theorized But I havent' seen that proof. Can you link to it please?
You said: C02 has physical properties such that it creates a heat retaining insulating blanket around the globe. And it is beyond dispute that both CO2 levels and temperature are rising.
1. It's not beyond dispute that temperature is rising. The satellite record indicates quite the opposite.
2. Neither you nor anyone else has provided a link showing that our carbon sinks aren't soaking up what we burn. While you can point to an increasing CO2 level and conclude that the carbon sinks aren't keeping up with CO2 production, you can't say that that is only humans' fault.
There is no proof that humans are increasing the temperature of the earth. There isn't even conclusive proof that temperatures are still rising. They haven't in the 2+ decades of the satellite record. Maybe they did at the beginning of the century but that doesn't seem to be an ongoing trend.
Slashdot Mirror
"We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ?90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization."
Now assuming we both understand English... can you tell me where in either of those quotes anyone said that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11? The only thing I see is a possible connection or "protection" of Al Qaeda within Iraq and that Iraq may have provided bomb-making advice to Al Qaeda. Considering bombs weren't even used on 9/11 I fail to see how you think this links Iraq to 9/11.
You discredit yourself every time you post. I, on the other hand, back up my posts with objective, verifiable facts.
You provided citations, that I'll grant you. But they do absolutely nothing to reinforce your assertion that anyone in the administration said Iraq was responsible for involved in 9/11. They didn't say it and your quotes haven't proven it.
That's not liberal arrogance, that's just smarter than you.
Considering you haven't proven what you set out to prove I fail to see how that makes you smarter than me.
I feel pity for you that you cannot rise above your limited powers of reasoning and understand that some of us do know better.
Then show me a citation that backups up the assertion that has been made by liberals that the administration has stated that Iraq was responsible or involved in 9/11. You make an assertion, provide quotes that talk about something completely different, and somehow feel that you've made your case.
Your stunning use of the Chewbacca defense is most impressive. It is clear you've had practice using the Chewbacca defense because you are so good at appearing to actually believe it yourself. :)
Maybe not. But once it becomes part of public debate it is entirely illegal to lie about it in court.
I think we can all agree that virtually all politicians lie about something sometime. You are certainly deceiving yourself if you really believe those Clinton lies were Clinton's only or most serious lies. They just happened to be the ones he was stupid enough to utter under oath.
Hello, McFly? Liberals lose their Democratic party membership if they don't bash Bush at least once a day. In the wake of the Democrats' crushing and resounding defeat in the presidential, Senate, and House races this quota has been upped to a minimum of twice per day.
Of course I would stand by my moral convictions. I'm not suggesting anyone do otherwise. I am suggesting that if the majority of the country disagrees with such people that it's entirely possible that those people are wrong. There is a difference between a moral conviction and being right/wrong.
Was invading Iraq the right thing to do? A brutal dictator has been removed. A threat to regional stability has been eliminated. Millions of people are no longer the subject of crippling economic sanctions. Millions of people will enjoy democracy once the terrorists have been eliminated. And the new democracy may lead to additional freedom and democracy in an area of the world that is in desperate need of both. Yes, it seems that invading Iraq was the right thing to do.
Does that mean that someone who has a moral conviction against war and killing necessarily have to participate in it? No. But they should at least be able to recognize the benefit of the action even if they have a moral problem with participating in it.
And perhaps I should mention here that I do not need to have my "moral convictions" thrust upon me from on high. I'm quite capable of making moral distinctions without the dubious beneficience of an imaginary deity.
Actually you didn't need to mention that at all since it had absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. But it's good to know you're completely in-step with the Democratic party-line that wants to completely eliminate religion everywhere.
There are those among us who have a greater power of intelligence than yourself.
Thank you for clearly illustrating my point regarding arrogance in liberals.
We understand that you fear us.
Understand that you are dilusional and your ongoing dilusion and denial is now quite entertaining.
You may call us arrogant.
We don't need permission.
This does not make us less right, less good, or less moral.
No, but it makes it much harder for you to win elections. :)
The turnout among "evangelical/fundamentalist Christians", driven by a plethora of Hateful Referenda was the deciding factor--a group of people who, I might point out, certainly cannot be characterized as "thinking" people,
You will find that many such people are thinking people. They just happen to think differently than liberals. It's the arrogance of the liberals that causes them to think that anyone that believes differently than they do is uneducated or incapable of indepednent thought.
Better they flock to Iraq then flock to the U.S.
Give me a break? The right isn't arrogant and condescending? Have you listened to any of the conservative mouthpieces? Limbaugh? O'Reilly? Coulter? They don't get anymore arrogant, condescending and downright venemous than those people. Could you possibly be any more hypocritical?
Perhaps, but those people aren't the people in the trenches and in the campaigns. They are talk show hosts. That's their business. The difference is that rank and file liberals are seriously arrogant and think they are somehow superior just because they don't like Bush. Likewise they think people who voted for Bush were duped, corporate pawns, etc. You need look no further than some of the responses to my posts here to see what I'm talking about. Then there's the bozo that keeps moderating me as "troll" just because he disagrees with my politics. :Sigh:
Bullshit. The US has violated quite a few UN resolutions as well. Don't see anyone invading us.
So now you are comparing the U.S. to Iraq? Sorry, I don't follow your logic...
And which resolution, exactly, authorized an invasion?
678 and 687. More information here.
He picked and chose the people he wanted to listen to. He took just the interpretations of data that supported his desire to invade Iraq. He didn't listen to those that gave contradictory info and interpretations (that surprise surprise, turned out to be correct in many cases).
There is no evidence he ignored evidence for or against. On balance he decided that it would be prudent to move forward.
Iran has an active nuke program.
That is known now. But they were under no U.N. sanctions nor had they been non-cooperative with WMD inspectors. I agree Iran is now a country we need to deal with.
Saudi Arabia is the place where most of the 9-11 hijackers came from and that we know funds a lot of terrorist organizations.
So we should attack every country from which people who commit crimes against the U.S. come? Should we attack Mexico because dozens of Mexicans have killed dozens of Americans? That sounds even more irrational than what you accuse Bush of.
Oh yeah, but Bush is buddies with the Saudis.
Can you provide evidence that Bush is any more a buddy with the Saudis than any other recent president, including Clinton?
Yet another ridiculous statement. You act as if no group that is in the wrong ever lasts very long. History can prove that statement wrong over and over and over.
History can certainly provide even more examples where what the majority believes is right. Yes, there are exceptions. But they are the exception not the rule. Perhaps 50 years from now history will prove you were right... but statistically speaking it's a safe bet that you are probably wrong.
And you omitted providing even a single documented example.
I suspect that like so many other people who wish Michael Moore would just go away, you have not even bothered to see the movie.
I saw it twice. Once to debate some idiot that believed its lies and the second time to further debate the idiot that was in denial and wouldn't even believe that the doctored Pantagraph article was actually in the movie (but wouldn't herself see the movie again to prove it to herself). The movie should be nominated for "Best Comedy," though maybe not because it's certainly not the best comedy. It's quite boring.
While I think Mr. Moore has been wrong about many things in the past, he hit the nail dead on this time with Fahrenheit 9/11.
You discredited yourself with that statement making it unnecessary to even read the rest of your post. Sorry, do some real research and talk politics with the adults when you've gone past the liberal propaganda. Anyone that believes Michael Moore needs to conduct a serious reality check.
You: WTF? There's no connection but I'm right anyway?
Yes. Did you read my post? 9/11 wasn't the justification to attack Iraq since there was no link between Iraq and 9/11. But 9/11 is what lit a fire under our *ss and got us looking seriously at potential threats. Thanks to Iraq's behavior over the last decade they were at the top of the list.
You're right that nobody ever made an explicit connection, but they sure implied it as often as possible.
I've never seen any implied connection closer than that Iraq may have had contact with Al Qaeda (they may have) and Al Qaeda had something to do with 9/11 (they did). I see no problem with either of those statements. If people jumped to conclusions about what those two statements meant, that's their fault, not the administration's. Heck, even the quote Moore used in his movie where Rice is saying "Of course there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11" actually goes on to say "It's not that Iraq was involved in 9/11, but the same mindset that lead to 9/11 exists in Iraq" or something like that (I'm not going to look up the exact quote right now, but that's the basic idea). So I'm suspecting that even a lot of the "quotes" that people heard going into Iraq that caused them to believe that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 may be due to selective quoting.
After all, Condi Rice dropped the ball on the Bin laden memo.
How so?
The only conflicting signals I was hearing were between Hans Blix and the Administration.
The conflict was Iraq claiming that they had no WMDs but not cooperating with the international community for nearly half a decade and, when they were threatened with war, offering just enough cooperation to (they thought) avoid a war. Either Saddam didn't take the U.N. seriously or he didn't take the U.S. seriously.
I've also never understood the whole WMD rationale. Even if Saddam had what intel said he had, shouldn't Pyonyang be a smoking crater now too?
I agree. North Korea should be taken out and maybe should have been taken out before Iraq. That doesn't mean Iraq was a bad move, though. After all, those that are actively attacking us are terrorists from the Arab world. First order of business is to take care of those that are actively attacking us. No, Saddam wasn't threatening the U.S. homeland but he was an ongoing issue taking daily shots at U.N.-authorized patrol aircraft right in the middle of terrorist-land, plotting to kill ex-presidents of the United States, with a history of invading Kuwait, fighting Iran, and lobbing Scuds on Israel in a desperate attempt to start a regional war. Even if North Korea has a few nukes and even recognizing the instability that creates, it doesn't compare to the instability and actual threat that Saddam has and did present to a very delicate region.
Jesus, not that old chestnut again. Israel's broken more resolutions than everyone else combined and they haven't had so much as a slap on the wrist.
Ah, so now we get into the boring old Israel vs. Arab/Palestine bickering.
Israel hasn't invaded its neighbors, though it has kicked butt when threatened. Israel hasn't used WMDs on its own people or on Palestinians.
But that doesn't matter anyway. Suggesting that just because some country gets away with something that that means that everyone should get away with it is bogus. Quite frankly, I would have no trouble sleeping at night knowing that Israel has a hundred nukes. I would be very worried if I had known that Saddam had 100 nukes.
See, shit like this, not being consistent, is what makes this President the world's laughingstock.
International politics isn't always consistent, one size doesn't fit all, and those that think it should will always see a politician
Yep, and that's a good argument for a flat tax and ditching the entire unfair progressive tax system.
I'm guessing you don't have a passport?
Not only do I have a passport, I'm an American that has been living overseas for the last 9 years.
Me: Those in poverty pay no federal taxes.
You: Bush says a national sales tax is worth exploring....
So do I and so do lots of people. Will that effect the poor? Not if necessities such as food, medicine, and basic utilities are made tax-free. Those that profess that a national sales tax is automatically bad for the poor are dweebs with an agenda that want to frighten people. Normally those that want to frighten people are Democrats. There's your answer.
Is this representative of a trend away from PDAs, perhaps as a result of more-capable cell phones? Or has Best Buy just decided there isn't enough money to be made in this market?
I left without buying anything. I used to go to Best Buy because, in a pinch, I could find just about anything I needed. If this is part of a trend away from that "we have everything" approach I'm willing to bet that they're going to lose a lot of traffic in their stores.
If all they're interested in is selling $10,000 home theaters I think you're going to see a lot of Best Buys closing down within a few years. Sure, there's a lot of margin on those big-tickets but the volume isn't there to support stores of the size that Best Buy runs.
No-one ever said there was a connection between the two despite what Michael Moore would have you believe.
As for 9/11 being the cause of the Iraq war, I won't deny that. We got stung and Bush rightly (in my opinion) decided it was time to clean house and take care of all current and future threats. So 9/11 pushed us into action but it wasn't the justification for the war.
And if your intel is that bad, maybe it would have made sense to spend a little more time letting the UN inspectors poke around?
Unfortunately we didn't know the intel was bad until after. Saddam was sending conflicting signals. Some now think that he was trying to tell the world that he didn't have WMDs while trying to make Iran think he did. Unfortunately his conflicting signals got him into trouble. Lack of cooperation with the U.N. for the better part of a decade followed by less-than-stellar cooperation in the months before the Iraq war didn't give us any reason to believe we were wrong.
But, as I already said, even if we knew he didn't have WMDs it was still a valid action. He had violated the terms of the cease-fire of the first Gulf War and numerous U.N. resolutions.
And you wonder why I use terms like 'sick fuck'. I also love the 'hornet's nest' bit. What, did you get that from a Tom Clancy novel?
I've never read a Tom Clancy novel, though I do admit I enjoyed the Clancy movies with Harrison Ford. But what is so sick about what I said? Just that I'd rather the terrorists be busy in Iraq than in the U.S.? Nothing sick about that. It's called survival. It's called hitting them at home while they're on the other side of the world rather than waiting for them to come here. Completely logical and strategically sound.
Those that call things like Iraq "pre-emptive war" are not being entirely honest. It's a proactive response to terrorism. We don't wait for them to attack us, we take the fight to them. And based on the amount of insurgents/terrorists in Iraq it looks like we hit the bullseye.
Far too true, from a statisticial point of view. But, the problem is, I have been consistently proved right in the end. So, unlike the average American voter, I use past performance to make judgements.
I'd be interested in what you were in the minority on and were later proved right on?
That kind of condescending extremism is also part of why Bush won.
But remember, you still voted for a guy who illegally invaded a sovereign country on false pretenses
1. The invasion wasn't illegal. It was supported by previous U.N. resolutions stretching back over a decade. 2. It has been shown that Bush received information that was incorrect and based his decisions on that bad information. Hence the allegation that he invaded based on "false pretenses" is simply false. I'll accept "he invaded based on bad information", but even so it was fully legal and warranted under previous U.N. resolutions.
Worst of all, its impact on making Americans safer from terrorism has been completely negative, serving only to speed up the process of breeding new terror cells.
Do you have any evidence of that? I haven't seen a terrorist attack in the U.S. in 3 years. Sure, there's a problem with terrorists in Iraq but I'd rather the terrorists be busy there than in our country. Plus that is to be expected when you hit the hornet's nest.
So I might be arrogant, but at least I'm not short-sighted or confused.
Actually I think you're all three.
Oh, and I've been in the minority all my life and I'm quite happy, thank you. But it doesn't mean I'm not right.
Of course it doesn't mean you're not right, but if you find yourself in the minority over a great many years it is a strong indication that you very well may be wrong. The electorate is made up of both thinking and non-thinking individuals--but if we assume that there about as many sheep on each side of the political spectrum then we still come to the conclusion that the majority of thinking individuals voted for Bush.
You could be right but the longer you are in the minority the more statistically improbable that becomes.
Stop right there. We're talking about taxes, not income. If you're talking about redistributing income then, again, you're pushing your way into socialism. That's an economic system that has basically been rejected by the world.
roll back the progressive taxes on them before dropping the taxes on those in poverty to nothing, what does that say about their love and compassion for the lower class?
Those in poverty already don't pay federal taxes. So your rhetorical question makes no sense to start with.
Everybody hides behind "well if they cut the taxes for the lower class on the federal level there wouldn't be anythign left!"
No-one says that because it isn't true. Those in poverty pay no federal taxes. You can't reduce the taxes on someone that already doesn't pay any.
The even bigger problem is the arrogance of some people who seem to think that if someone voted for Bush he was deceived, conned, stupid, irrational, non-educated, a sheep, or a Bible-thumper when in fact many people simply do not agree with liberals and Democrats. It's this disconnect with reality and mainstream America that cost the liberals the election.
As long as you--and people like you--continue to engage in this arrogance and deny the reality that your political preferences are in the minority you will continue to lose elections.
Can you provide any proof for that lie?
Of course they do. The alternative is that not only do the poor not have to pay taxes but that they also get their medical care and retirement savings paid for by others? Come on. One thing is to have a progressive tax code. Aiming for outright socialism is going too far.
Same here. I do all my work in OO and just output my documents to PDF. I haven't received a single complaint. And the 200+ page document that used to crash Word works great in OO.
Admit it, you don't know anybody. Or, if you do, the guy "you know" is yanking your chain.
Logiacl conclusion: We have insufficient data to make a rational recommendation. I don't subscribe to the belief that "Even if we're wrong about global warming, drastic cuts in CO2 production is the right thing to do anyway." The impact on humans of significant reduction in CO2 could be as drastic as the worst fears of global warming. We should not embark on major policy changes based on insufficient data.
For this reason, we use both instrumental records (which do suffer from the urban heat island effect you discuss) as well as indirect records (dendrochronology, hydrogen isotope ratios from ice cores, etc.).
My understanding is that the information taken from ice cores, etc. is significantly less alarming then what we would be made to believe from the instrumental record. And I believe that the effects of heat islands, etc. on the instrumental record are so severe and the impacts are impossible to know with certainty that the data should be pretty much thrown out. Certainly not used as a basis for recommending draconian CO2 reductions and rationing.
So we have a satellite record that is too short to be helpful and an instrument record that is too inaccurate to be helpful. We don't have enough information.
The 75% of the earth's surface covered by water is measured, albeit incompletely, by water samples drawn by ships crossing the oceans. We have a few hundred years of data from this, but just as with urban heat islands, there are problems comparing old data with new (e.g., evaporative cooling of water sampled in canvas buckets on old sailing ships vs. measurements at subsurface water intakes on modern vessels).
Of course we have samples from ships at see but they are incomplete and generally only cover the major shipping lanes. If you're lucky instead of missing 75% of the planet covered by water we're only missing 74%.
But did they actually read any of the material cited in the bibliography? And, more importantly, did the politicians who made policy recommendations read the bibliographic material or even the the full IPCC report?
I doubt it. And I can understand that. Most politicians don't have time to read hundreds of pages of dry climate information. They read the summaries and while it's been awhile since I've engaged in this discussion (and as a result I don't have links ready and I don't have time right now to dig them all up again) it has been my observation in the past that even the full report doesn't give adequate time to the reservations. They talk about the results of climate models and, last time I checked, essentially devote a single sentence that effectively says that the climate models aren't necessarily accurate and are "always improving." Considering the more the climate models improve the lower the global warming predictions become, basing policy decisions on these models is premature. And the IPCC full report addressing this absolutely paramount concern with a single sentence tells me just how much science there is to be found in the IPCC full report and how much politics.
If you can find otherwise please let me know. I'd be glad to be proven wrong. But in the past I did read a large portion of the full report and specifically scanned for comments on the accuracy of the models and was dismayed at how that whole topic was pretty much ignored.
I also find it strange that you would assert that over the past 20 years the Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 governments would have cut funding for scientists who found that the world was not warming up ("many of them depend on ongoing funding that would be in jeapordy if they were to massage the data a little more conservatively"). I can see this charge against the Clinton/Gore administration, but for most of the last 20 years we've had conservative Republican administrations. Can you substantiate this claim?
It's not that the government would cut funding for those that find that the world is not warming up. It's simply that the much academic research is government-funded and funds tend to not be forthcoming when you say nothing is happening. If a scientist says "We did this investigation and found that human-induced global warming is not happening" then he's not going to get any more funding. Not for any political reason but simply because if they've already said the global warming isn't happening, why give them more money to investigate global warming? Ongoing funds are insured by investigating the theory and either reaching alarming conclusions or leaving the investigation inconclusive to warrant more research.
It's like the idea of building a light-bulb that lasts forever. Not a good financial idea for the light-bulb makers because they'll make one sale and then they're done. Likewise scientists that conclude that human-induced global warming is not happening are eliminating their possibility of getting more global warming research funds in the future.
And forgive me if I don't trust the people that have been massaging the data for 15 or 20 years since many of them depend on ongoing funding that would be in jeapordy if they were to massage the data a little more conservatively. Just like some people don't trust global warming skeptic scientists as pawns of some industry, I don't trust pro-global warming scientists when their potential source of investigative funding is at stake.
Rather than trying to fudge an inherently inaccurate and incomplete surface record, these scientists should focus on resolving any problems they have with the satellite record which is the only truly global temperature record we have. After all this is supposedly global warming. You're being naive if you think we're going to be able to adequately monitor it by some strategically placed thermometers in heat islands of urban sprawl and generally ignore the 75% of the earth's surface that is covered by water.
Regardless of potential difficulties involved in satellite temperature readings, I'll take an unbiased satellite reading that is calculated by a computer to a collection of hundreds or thousands of individual station readings that are manually massaged by what can only be called a "fudge factor" to compensate for local urban heat island effects.
Yes, it does need an explanation. You need to explain how your graph questions in any way what I wrote above. It doesn't prove that temperatures have risen in the last two decades and it doesn't prove that all the increase in CO2 is because of humans.
Clearly, since the industrial revolution, CO2 levels have risen (and almost at an exponential rate). If our carbon sinks weren't maxed out, we would probably be seeing a naerly linear increase. Oh and by the way you forgot an italic tag ender thingy
So I noticed. And you forgot to close your A tag, unless you make it standard practive to create links that are three lines long.
Anonymous Fool: Take a basic climatology/environment course... They can sample ice cores and such to find climate trends over time.
The question remains. How can you presume to know where we are on the cool/heat cycle? The idea that "our temperature should be going down" has not been proven. And your anonymous post has gotten us no closer to proving it.
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Hmmmm... Difficulty in maintaining the satellites is the problem? Or perhaps its the weird and subjective fudge factors that are applied to the service record to compensate for heat islands?
Sorry, I trust the satellites. You should too.
I said: We have? I've seen that asserted. I've seen that theorized But I havent' seen that proof. Can you link to it please?
You said: C02 has physical properties such that it creates a heat retaining insulating blanket around the globe. And it is beyond dispute that both CO2 levels and temperature are rising.
1. It's not beyond dispute that temperature is rising. The satellite record indicates quite the opposite.2. Neither you nor anyone else has provided a link showing that our carbon sinks aren't soaking up what we burn. While you can point to an increasing CO2 level and conclude that the carbon sinks aren't keeping up with CO2 production, you can't say that that is only humans' fault.
There is no proof that humans are increasing the temperature of the earth. There isn't even conclusive proof that temperatures are still rising. They haven't in the 2+ decades of the satellite record. Maybe they did at the beginning of the century but that doesn't seem to be an ongoing trend.