I was reading an op-ed from the Washington Post (http://tinyurl.com/b4w48) and feelings of déjà vu and dread came over me. I couldn’t help recall all the rhetoric from the left when the President was beating the drums of war against Iraq. They were all for it. The loudest voices against it now were the loudest voices for it then. Most of these hot-air bags had already given long-winded speeches back in 1998 stating that Saddam had to go, that his use and possession of WMDs was an intolerable situation, yadda, yadda, yadda. Now they are all calling Bush a liar for saying the Saddam had WMDs. F**cking hypocrites, all; and now they are all saying the same things about Iran. “the idea of a nuclear armed Iran is intolerable, yadda, yadda, yadda. (I wonder if they have their ‘Bush is a liar’ speeches ready to go for after (if) we go and take out Iran’s nuclear facilities?
What say you liberals out there? Care to go on record now, before the ‘fun’ begins, as to what the President should or shouldn’t do? According to the op-ed, “Republican John McCain and Democrat Joe Lieberman, have this month faced the Iranian Choice -- and both endorsed military action.” Of course, ever the one to avoid taking a real stand, John Kerry said we should take the problem to the UN if diplomacy fails. Right, like that has ever done any good. The UN was rattling their empty saber sheath for over ten years before we went into Iraq; can we wait ten years for the Iranians to stop doing what they’re doing and ‘play nice’ with their neighbors?
John Kerry, the war hero, figures if we dump it on the UN and Iran blows up Tel Aviv, well the UN can be blamed and we’re in the clear. Never mind the actual people killed in Israel, just as long as he can ‘blame’ somebody else, that’s good enough for him. The amount of courage it must have taken for him to state that publicly is amazing, isn’t it? Just make it somebody else’s problem. He would make a President that Jimmy Carter could look up to.
Is there anyone out there foolish enough to think it’ll be more than three or four years before Iran is ‘testing’ their new toys in Tel Aviv? They are building a bomb and that is exactly what they said they’d do with it.
So the Democrats are putting the President into a lose-lose scenario and demanding he act. He’ll be blamed for all the deaths resulting from an Iranian bomb, if he doesn’t do anything about it; and he’ll be called a nuclear madman, if he does what needs doing.
What exactly can he do? Invade Iran? That’ll be costly in lives and money way beyond what we’ve incurred to date with Afghanistan and Iraq combined. Who would help us? Sanctions won’t work because China will supply Iran with whatever they need, in order to get their oil, as may Russia.
What about my favorite solution: nuke their nuclear facilities with cruise missiles before an invasion? The biggest problem with that, of course, is the response from China and Russia. Are we prepared for another cold-war? How could we even be sure that we got all of them without invading afterwards? They have been digging deeper and deeper, burying their facilities in order to hide their activity.
So, think about it. I’m pretty sure I know what the conservatives on this list would want: follow the cruise missiles with the Marines, Air Force, Army, and Navy (they have a lot of coastline). What do my liberal friends think we should do? That’s what I’d like to know and have on record for after its begun.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Sunday, January 29, 2006
The Sky is Falling, the Sky is Falling!
Global Warming
January 29, 2006
There was a long article today in the Washington Post about global warming entitled, “Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change” [http://tinyurl.com/dkyts], screaming that the sky is falling, once again. They use the term “most scientist agree” as though that means anything at all, which it doesn’t. There are actually a small minority of so-called scientists that agree with the position stated in this article. First of all, is global warming happening; and if so, what is causing it?
It does seem as though some of the worlds largest and oldest glaciers are receding. Weather patterns also seem to be changing, insofar as we can tell what a normal weather pattern is. So, perhaps there is some reason to think that the Earth is going through some change. OK, so what? The Earth has been going through changes for eons and probably will continue to do so for eons to come. It’s done that before people walked the Earth and has done it several times since. In fact, change seems to be the norm for the climate if the Earth. Why would people start thinking that we have anything to do with it now; and why do they think we can do anything about it at all? Greenhouse emissions are down considerably (at least in this and other Western industrial countries) since the sixties, yet whatever is changing continues unabated.
The first thing we need to understand about all these changes is that it is the sun that drives them. Our sun, Sol, goes through all sorts of changes, sometimes involving cycles that last tens, even hundreds of thousands of years. We cannot possibly do anything to affect the cycles of the sun. Only the severest megalomaniac would think otherwise. That this (possible) current climatic change is originating from the sun is evidenced by the fact that even Mars is experiencing the same phenomenon. NASA has reported that, since measurements started some decades ago, the Martian ice-caps have been receding by 10-20 meters per Martian year (about two Earth years). Are the ‘Chicken Littles’ of the Washington Times intimating that the greenhouse gasses produced here also affecting the Martian climate? That is blatantly preposterous!
While it is true that a continued warming trend here on Earth would be catastrophic, especially for the coastal regions of the world; it is simply silly to say that we, or any group of countries, are to blame. Were we to discontinue the burning of any fuels and huddle in caves, the sun would continue to cycle through its current phase and the world will, or will not, continue to get warmer depending on the length of the solar cycle. The glaciers would continue to melt and the coasts will be flooded if the sun continues to warm. What would be gained but ceasing to be warm and mobil?
What we need to do is get realistic about what is happening, and especially why it’s happening, and make plans to salvage what can be salvaged from the threatened areas. Plans for evacuating the coastal cities of the world should be made now, before it’s too late. The task will be monumental and costly beyond anything ever undertaken by mankind since Noah built his ark. So monumental, in fact, that people are refusing to see the obvious and will continue to blame the industrial Nations of the world until it’s too late and millions of people are displaced, drowned, and/or world-wide panic ensues.
Going around saying that the sky is falling will be as effective as it was for Chicken Little.
That's what I think; and I'm Ichabod Crane!
January 29, 2006
There was a long article today in the Washington Post about global warming entitled, “Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change” [http://tinyurl.com/dkyts], screaming that the sky is falling, once again. They use the term “most scientist agree” as though that means anything at all, which it doesn’t. There are actually a small minority of so-called scientists that agree with the position stated in this article. First of all, is global warming happening; and if so, what is causing it?
It does seem as though some of the worlds largest and oldest glaciers are receding. Weather patterns also seem to be changing, insofar as we can tell what a normal weather pattern is. So, perhaps there is some reason to think that the Earth is going through some change. OK, so what? The Earth has been going through changes for eons and probably will continue to do so for eons to come. It’s done that before people walked the Earth and has done it several times since. In fact, change seems to be the norm for the climate if the Earth. Why would people start thinking that we have anything to do with it now; and why do they think we can do anything about it at all? Greenhouse emissions are down considerably (at least in this and other Western industrial countries) since the sixties, yet whatever is changing continues unabated.
The first thing we need to understand about all these changes is that it is the sun that drives them. Our sun, Sol, goes through all sorts of changes, sometimes involving cycles that last tens, even hundreds of thousands of years. We cannot possibly do anything to affect the cycles of the sun. Only the severest megalomaniac would think otherwise. That this (possible) current climatic change is originating from the sun is evidenced by the fact that even Mars is experiencing the same phenomenon. NASA has reported that, since measurements started some decades ago, the Martian ice-caps have been receding by 10-20 meters per Martian year (about two Earth years). Are the ‘Chicken Littles’ of the Washington Times intimating that the greenhouse gasses produced here also affecting the Martian climate? That is blatantly preposterous!
While it is true that a continued warming trend here on Earth would be catastrophic, especially for the coastal regions of the world; it is simply silly to say that we, or any group of countries, are to blame. Were we to discontinue the burning of any fuels and huddle in caves, the sun would continue to cycle through its current phase and the world will, or will not, continue to get warmer depending on the length of the solar cycle. The glaciers would continue to melt and the coasts will be flooded if the sun continues to warm. What would be gained but ceasing to be warm and mobil?
What we need to do is get realistic about what is happening, and especially why it’s happening, and make plans to salvage what can be salvaged from the threatened areas. Plans for evacuating the coastal cities of the world should be made now, before it’s too late. The task will be monumental and costly beyond anything ever undertaken by mankind since Noah built his ark. So monumental, in fact, that people are refusing to see the obvious and will continue to blame the industrial Nations of the world until it’s too late and millions of people are displaced, drowned, and/or world-wide panic ensues.
Going around saying that the sky is falling will be as effective as it was for Chicken Little.
That's what I think; and I'm Ichabod Crane!
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