Say Anything Blog

Thanks, I re-sized.  Forgot to do that before I uploaded.

I’ll agree 100% if there’s any other evidence besides a picture from a freeper.

At the link in the post Malkin says she called the Sierra Club and they admitted that this was Huff’s ride.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I’ll agree 100% if there’s any other evidence besides a picture from a freeper.

Might want to re-size the image, it’s pushing the left nav off the page.

If anyone wants to contact Sierra Club and ask for an explanation of this blatant hypocrisy, their e-mail address is .

Strawman,
Hypocrite:Yes
Invalidate opinion:Yes

So what? My ride gets 45 MPG on post-consumer vegetable oil, but I still take rides in other people’s cars occassionally.

Does that make me a hypocrite? Does that invalidate my opinions?

Huffington should have refused to get in it.

And what - make a big stink about this issue so anti-environmentalists could bash the Sierra Club more? Perhaps she could have made a big statement about the hypocrisy of the Sierra Club that would have made the papers. I don’t think that would have served her cause.

Forget SUVs, what about flying to an environmental conference in a jet? What about the environmental damage caused by manfacturing computers that simulate climate change, or model the migation of endangered species?

The world’s economy is currently powered by non-renewable resources. We can’t shift to renewables overnight, and we can’t get there without burning a few fossil fuel-sourced hydrocarbons. The idea that because it’s nearly impossible to be environmentally pure that no one should be able to speak on environmental issues is pretty weak.

But I’m taking this way too seriously - this is just some rightwingers with a funny photo. Have fun with your outrage, kids.

MI,

The incident was confirmed by a Sierra Club spokesman.  What more evidence do you need?

I just emailed Huffington and Sierra Club and criticized them for their astounding stupidity in this matter.  SC should not have used SUVs to transport speakers, and Huffington should have refused to get in it.

I took the photo.  It is absolutely real.  Had the light changed quickly enough, I would have run across the street and gotten a closeup.

Unfortunately, I was unable to borrow a camera in time on Friday, Sept. 9, to get a photo of Algore leaving in his gigantic planet-killing CADILLAC ESCALADE.  No, that was not a Secret Service requirement for security.  The SS verified the Gore had SS protection no longer than 6 months after leaving office.  He was a private citizen; the vehicle was his decision.

None of this should surprise anyone.  Liberals are not only hypocrites and liars, they are elitists.  They think they are entitled to live in a way the rest of us can’t.  It is the core of their philosophy.  “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Strawman:  all she had to do was take one of the cabs that was right there at the airport.  She chose to get in the vehicle and not only take it to the Moscone Center, but take it back to the airport after her speech.

You bet we will have fun with it.  We have had it with liberal hypocrites who tell us how to live.  I think her house is about 9,000 square feet.  It uses four or five times the energy of an average house. 

This bearded, Birkenstock-wearing right winger is a vegetarian who believes in hybrid and fuel cell technology.  I want our businesses to benefit from the technology.  This right winger challenged the president at a town hall meeting about our dependence on foreign oil.  It is in our national interest to solve that problem as quickly as possible.  This right winger spent the entire weekend walking up and down the 57 stairs to the convention floor.  What did the rest of the Sierra Clubbers do?  They used the escalators almost exclusively.

I am tired of them telling us what to do while they waste resources.  Arianna and her gang can STFU.  Robert Redford, maybe it is time for you to shut down Sundance.  Let the trees grow back.  Stop the polluting vehicles from driving up the mountain.  And don’t get me started on Streisand.  We are encouraged to hang our laundry on a clothesline.  Babs especially can STFU!

Strawman:  after the “Detroit Project,” I will not be lectured to by Arianna Huffington.  This might be a cheap shot on some others, but not on her.  There were thousands of people at the convention.  Hundreds and hundreds of members.  Someone else could have given her a ride.  Arianna deserves every bit of this.  It is not a position being discredited.  It is her.

I will not listen to Ted Kennedy talk about water torture; Jesse Jackson talk about morality; Hillary Clinton talk about women’s and children’s rights.  She did not say one word about her husband’s rape of Juanita Broaddrick.  Prostitution king (including the use of children) Ng Lap Seng made 10+ trips to the Clinton White House and gave them big bucks.

On a brighter note, the Camry hybrid comes out next year as well as the great Honda Civic hybrid.  Diesel is going to be making a big comeback—this time it is clean.  That’s a good thing.

Doug - we’re in the same camp. I wish you the best of luck getting your message across.

I personally live in a 700 square foot house with solar panels on the roof.

I’d like to see fuel economy standards raised by order of the government, which I suppose makes me a liberal who wants to tell other people what to do. But I’m not a hypocrite.

I don’t know what the circumstances are with this SUV. Perhaps the Sierra Club has a large vehicle because they often carry many people in it. I’ve ridden in buses where I’m the only passenger, but that doesn’t make buses necessarily bad on the whole. Perhaps they made an error in judgement.

What I do know is that using a photo to discredit a political position is the epitome of a cheap shot.

davidO --- nice name calling ...."neocon scum”..... that really wins arguments.  I defer to your superior intellect.  On another forum, someone brought into this event a charge that the Israelis were Nazis.  That was amusing.

Good try, but a very weak defense of Arianna.  Both left and right can certainly agree that there are good uses of large vehicles.  One of those uses, however, is not picking up a single rider who was keynote speaker at a showcase convention of the Sierra Club.  If you bothered to read their argument, they claimed it was an outside group that provided the vehicle.  Anyone looking at their statement logically would concluded that it wasn’t their designated airport vehicle.  But you are free to embarrass yourself and the make that argument.

The SwiftVets and Sean Penn have nothing to do with this.  Changing the argument does not strengthen your case.  A bicycle rikshaw is just silly.  I’m sorry you have no argument.  But, whether intended, you have a reasonable sense of humor.

I will accept Sean Penn as a pacifist.  But as long as you raised it, I don’t know that a pacifist would be carrying a shotgun with him in New Orleans.  Or, didn’t you know he did that?  A pacifist would not kill someone.  Okay, make the argument that it was to kill the crocs or the snakes.  That would be fine.

If you happen to be a defense attorney, sorry, but I will never be calling you if I get into trouble.

To david0:  Of course there are legitimate uses for large vehicles.  The question is:  Who decides what is legitimate?  If it’s the toxic Left, then I’m against it.  If it’s the individual, then I’m for it.  After all, I’m an American.
As far as that idiot Sean Penn is concerned, it was the photo of him carrying a shotgun down in New Orleans that showed his commitment to “pacifism”.

The Sierra Club definitely should have sent a bicycle rikshaw to pick up Arianna and her luggage at the airport.

Really, there ARE legitimate uses of large capacity vehicles. And if there is any organization that uses them wisely, it’s the nation’s number one outdoor activity organization - the Sierra Club. They use their large vehicles to take people hiking, rafting, etc. They fill the vehicles with people and gear when they do it. The Suburban they picked Arianna in may well have been the Sierra Club’s designated airport vehicle - with features for handicapped (something the Sierra Club is known for) and airpor parking sticker. It’s amazing the hunger for fresh liberal blood. You suck, neocon scum, but you’ll have to take your fangs elsewhere. The Sierra Club has their ass pretty well coveredon this one. But just like the Swiftboat Vets smear. By the time the undamming truth comes out, you won’t be interested in hearing. Heck, someone thinks they just saw Sean Penn practicing archery somewhere so he has dashed his credibility as a pacifist.

David’s just pasting that “Neoncon scum” message everywhere. Yes Huffington is a hypocrite, she’s telling others they are supporting terrorism by driving such cars. She even sponsored a commercial stating exactly that very message. As far as her not getting in one - that’s called setting an example. It’s called practicing what you preach. It’s called eating one’s own cooking. It’s called many things and practiced by people worthy of respect. When it’s instead explained away with abuse and sad, tired name-calling - that’s called hypocrisy. And the real problem with this incident is that it is far from isolated. It’s a lifestyle for Huffington and her associates.

Doug, if you ran for office, you’d probably get my vote. But you wouldn’t likely to win high office because you’d have to compromise your ideals to raise the $$$.

I support leaders who seem most likely to promote the issues I consider the most important, and I accept that they will be flawed. They also will always appear more flawed than they really are, simply because they have more enemies and more connections.

Strawman—politics is about power and money.  Unless you compromise some of your beliefs, you cannot win.  It is a sad fact but it is the way of the world.  It is not for me.  I’m actually busy on a documentary film about Hillary Clinton.  She will not like it.

david0 said, It’s amazing the hunger for fresh liberal blood. You suck, neocon scum, but you’ll have to take your fangs elsewhere. The Sierra Club has their ass pretty well coveredon this one. But just like the Swiftboat Vets smear.

Care to explain this comment or are you just a paste and run kind of commentator? Care to explain how the Swiftboat Vets were “smearing”?

What I do know is that using a photo to discredit a political position is the epitome of a cheap shot.

You mean like when a major news org takes a photo of the POTUS telling the Secretary of State he needs a break while at an important meeting with the United Nations?  No cheap shot there?

This act of stupidity does not invalidate the overall message: gas-guzzling vehicles not only add to the environmental damage we are doing, but deepen our dependence on foreign oil.

Arianna and her friends always tell us “Do what we say, you poor pathetic dahlings, not what WE do!”

Always teach by example!

Well said, Modern Instances. Now, write Adrianna’s good friend and supporter Paul Newman, who owns a good number of gas-guzzling cars as well as race cars - yet tells the rest of us how we must drive to save the planet. He seems to have missed your message - and his own. And tell Sierra Club National Spokesman Eric Antebi, who says the choice of cars we drive should be a “personal decision”, that he is wrong.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1486892/posts

It’s almost as if the attitude is “we know Bush and company are anti-environmentalist, anti-science and pro-oil, let’s see what dirt we can dig up on the other guys.”

You need to brush up on your comprehension skills and stop projecting your biases and misunderstandings upon people.

I do find it telling that you put “anti-environmentalist” and “anti-science” into the same boat with “pro-oil”. Why...it’s almost as if you are against oil.

The difference seems to be that Cheney gets a free ride because he doesn’t believe in conservation. What sense does this make?

Why, he’s not a friggin’ hypocrite who goes on at length about the evils of SUVs one minute and then hop into one the next. Did I really have to spell that out for you?

Given that politics involves compromise and that there’s always dirt you can dig up on any public figure, my tendency is not to attack the (potential) leaders whose views more closely align with my own. Sure, there’s dirt on Gore and his investments, but I would rather have him bringing global warming and alternative energy to the fore rather than have Dick “conservation doesn’t work” Cheney running the show.

It’s almost as if the attitude is “we know Bush and company are anti-environmentalist, anti-science and pro-oil, let’s see what dirt we can dig up on the other guys.”

Does Arianna in fact drive a Prius? Good for her. As I’ve occasionally used disposable plates, I don’t feel qualified to cast stones for her not being 100% pure. If she accepted a ride in an SUV, my feeling is that it released no more greenhouse gases than if Cheney were in the back. The difference seems to be that Cheney gets a free ride because he doesn’t believe in conservation. What sense does this make?

The science would indicate that atmospheric CO2 is linked with global temperatures:
“>http://www.agu.org/eos_elec/99148e.html

Yes, of course plant food is linked with global temperatures in some way. But this is germane to the thread how?

The fact that I eat some food that was transported from far away doesn’t negate my positive impact on the world.

Heh. Naw...that is left for the rest of us philistines. You’re okay though, because you bring the message. The fact that you eat food that takes what could be described as an extraordinary amount of energy to bring to market? Doesn’t matter. You drive biodiesel.

The science would indicate that atmospheric CO2 is linked with global temperatures:
http://www.agu.org/eos_elec/99148e.html

I’m against the policies that our dependence on oil have lead us into.

Oil is an important, but limited natural resource. T. Bone Pickens, of all people, believes we’re past the peak, meaning we’ve used over 50% of the remaining supples. The remaining 50% is going to be more difficult to extract. Demand is accelerating. I see the remaining oil as the resources we need to survive until we can shift to renewables.

Okay, there’s some hypocrisy in some major figures who promote environmental issues. Although I try to lead a fairly low-impact life with an emphasis on renewables, I’m far from perfect myself. On balance, I think I do good - for example, I’ve convinced at least one other person to run on biodiesel. The fact that I eat some food that was transported from far away doesn’t negate my positive impact on the world.

I’d agree that it’s not settled fact that human activity has contributed to global warming. It is undeniable fact that humans have substantially contributed to atmospheric CO2 and the Vostok core samples are the smoking gun that link atmospheric CO2 to global temperatures over many centuries.

This may not prove causation, but it should be enough to suggest that we should raise fuel economy standards, rejoin Kyoto and provide economic incentives for other countries to stop cutting down their forests.

Nobody said that anybody has to be the unobtainable pure.

Don’t you?

The fact that you eat food that takes what could be described as an extraordinary amount of energy to bring to market? Doesn’t matter. You drive biodiesel.

Please. I’m not defending hypocrisy, I just believe that it’s less harmful on the balance than the anti-environmental positions taken by those currently in power.

Yeah, I do have a lot of beliefs on this matter. I’ve researched it, and I’ve acted on what I’ve learned. I’ve gone into debt putting panels on my roof - they’re not cheap, but my hope is that the costs will come down if there’s a proven market.

Frankly, this is my major issue. You can have your school vouchers, your no-bid contracts to Halliburton, whatever. This is an issue we need to take seriously.

Glaciers form in layers, much like a tree - every year a new layer is added. The thickness of the layer indicates the temperature at the time the layer was formed. Inside each layer are bubbles containing trapped air. The Vostok core samples showed that the temperature at each layer corresponded with the amount of CO2 in the trapped air bubbles, pretty much exactly. See the graph in the link.

Joining the Kyoto Protocol wouldn’t solve the problem by any means. I’m not sure the problem can be solved at this point. However, this issue can’t be solved by the US alone, considering that developing countries are more to blame for CO2 emmissions at this point (if you ignore the flow of their produced goods to the US).

It’s germane, because the Bush administration has been denying the link between greenhouse gases and global warming - or at least saying it needs “more study”. I’d say that this is qualifies as anti-science, anti-environment and pro-oil.

I was born into a world that is highly dependent on fossil fuels. This seems to be a major problem. If I were to avoid using any fossil fuels, I would remove myself from the debate. I could not use a computer, for example. Instead, I accept my necessary hypocrisy - which in part stems from a situation created from before I was born - and push for a switch to renewable resources that don’t contribute to global warming.

Did I say that my occasional consumption of food transported from far away doesn’t matter? No, I’m aware that it’s part of the problem and I in fact brought it up. I just reject the argument that if you are aware of your environmental impact you need to become 100% pure or you’re a complete hypocrite, or that being willfully unaware is somehow better than having moral principles and not quite living up to them.

It is undeniable fact that humans have substantially contributed to atmospheric CO2 and the Vostok core samples are the smoking gun that link atmospheric CO2 to global temperatures over many centuries.

Wait...how is it the “smoking gun”?

This may not prove causation, but it should be enough to suggest that we should raise fuel economy standards, rejoin Kyoto and provide economic incentives for other countries to stop cutting down their forests.

What is joining the Kyoto Protocol going to do?

Don’t you?

Don’t I what? What are you talking about?

Please. I’m not defending hypocrisy, I just believe that it’s less harmful on the balance than the anti-environmental positions taken by those currently in power.

You sure do seem to have a lot of beliefs in this matter.

It’s germane, because the Bush administration has been denying the link between greenhouse gases and global warming - or at least saying it needs “more study”. I’d say that this is qualifies as anti-science, anti-environment and pro-oil.

Where have they said that? As far as I know, they have said that the theory of man-made global is far from answered and needs more study.

I just reject the argument that if you are aware of your environmental impact you need to become 100% pure or you’re a complete hypocrite, or that being willfully unaware is somehow better than having moral principles and not quite living up to them.

Naw. We just don’t like it when someone takes a private jet to go to a “global warming conference” or complains about and demonizes SUVs and then hops into one. That just smacks of hypocrisy and elitism. Nobody said that anybody has to be the unobtainable pure. That was a strawman attempt by you, Mr. Aptly Named “strawman”.

might pick one who can answer this question: If Hurricane Katrina’s real name is global warming, why did we have an above-average number of hurricanes in the 50s and 60s, when the Earth was cooling?  Bonus extras: (a) Check out Michelle Malkin and/or Say Anything to see what sort of vehicle the Sierra Club sent to pick up Arianna Huffington so she could give the abovementioned speech to the Sierra Club.  (b) This paper explains why it makes no sense to attribute every newsworthy weather event to global warming.

This is an issue we need to take seriously.

Take seriously? Sure. Institute a global tax trading scheme on carbon to be watched over and administrated by the U.N.? Not a chance.

You still didn’t answer how it is the “smoking gun”. You want a smoking gun? Try this one. Now what is your argument? Even the same time span you are going back. Imagine that…

The Vostok core samples show conclusively that when atmospheric CO2 goes up, temperatures go up. They are a “smoking gun” in terms of the link between the two.

Now either:
1) Increases in global temperature lead to increased CO2, which is possible. The oceans hold less absorbed CO2 as they warm (which has some scary implications).

or

2) Increases in atmospheric CO2 lead to increased temperatures through the greenhouse effect.

It’s possible that both are true, in which case global warming could really run away on us as the oceans release more CO2 as they warm and so on. Solar activity is also a factor, and could even dwarf the effects of human-caused climate change. However, even your rebuttal argues that “this trend is being amplified by gases from fossil fuel burning.”

Now I’ll admit, I have real problems with Kyoto, particularly the exemptions for developing countries. It was, however, a start. Where is the alternative for dealing with global warming - wait and see? I though Bush believed in the policy of preemption.

The “policy” advocated by Huffington, Kennedy, Newman, et al is to somehow force the public to do something they WON’T do. There’s more than hyocricy there, far more. It indicates that in if fact a politician actually tried to ban, say, SUVs, it would be political suicide. The public would wail about its unfairness. And who would be standing at the ramparts, screaming about the Nazi policies dictating what the public can and cannot buy and the curtailmnt of their rights? Huffington, Kennedy, Newman, political opportunists all - who love their SUVs, race cars, stretch limos and private planes.

Strawman is an idealist. He wants to believe this ‘activist’ bunch is made up of idealists as well. He could not be more wrong. Who said the choice of cars we drive should be a “personal decision”? Is that the Bush administration’s laissiez-faire, free-market policy toward global warming? Is it the demonized Chaney? Sorry - that is from Sierra Club National Spokesman Eric Antebi, reflecting the reality of this world.

What’s going to change things? NOT telling the public it’s VW Beetles or nothing. Won’t ever happen. What will change things is what has always changed things: The free market, technology, and economics. We could encourage change in fossil fuel dependence by taking another look at rejected ideas such as nuclear power, but that is unpopular with the same crowd that wants to end global warming (even though the technology of nukes has changed radically). They want windmills - just not in their backyard (Right, Bobby?). The fact that windmills don’t meet actual energy demands doesn’t matter.

Once again, it is the spokesman for the Sierra Club who is reminding us that the car you drive is your personal choice. That means no one can or should make that decision for you or me, or even Paul “Big Engine” Newman. Go argue with him.

Many celebrities and many more politicians are certainly hypocrites. I cut Arianna a little slack, I suppose, because she is a recovering Republican. And she does usually drive a Prius, which is something. Not that it’s all about the car you drive.

I don’t cut any slack for Cheney, because he is setting our energy policy, and he is a smart man who should know better.

Perhaps my defense of the Sierra Club is a bit kneejerk. They have positions I agree with and positions I don’t. My point is that it’s very easy to call environmentalists hypocrites simply because they are trying to stake out a high moral ground.

What free market? Doesn’t the government play a huge role in getting the American consumer cheap gas, from giving tax incentives for new oil exploration to military actions? The government needs to mandate higher efficiency, just as it mandated phasing out leaded gasoline. The free market had nothing to do with that.

There is a definite relationship between the two. Graph global temperatures and CO2 levels and you have almost the same graph. This doesn’t prove causality, but it should make us cautious about adding more CO2 to the atmosphere while depleting carbon sinks - cutting down the Amazon’s forests, for example.

I’ve read elsewhere that we’re partially shielded from the effects of global warming by sunlight bouncing off all the pollutants we’ve put in the atmosphere, so tackling this problem is going to take finesse, good science and international cooperation.

strawman said, The Vostok core samples show conclusively that when atmospheric CO2 goes up, temperatures go up. They are a “smoking gun” in terms of the link between the two.

Explain.

strawman said, There is a definite relationship between the two. Graph global temperatures and CO2 levels and you have almost the same graph.

And yet this suggests that there are a lot more variables in this equation.

I’ve read elsewhere that we’re partially shielded from the effects of global warming by sunlight bouncing off all the pollutants we’ve put in the atmosphere, so tackling this problem is going to take finesse, good science and international cooperation.

Why do you assume that it is a problem? Serious question.

There are undeniable problems associated with a warming globe, but is that enough to say that we have to somehow “correct” the Earth’s balance? Any possibility of a net positive effect of a warming globe in your opinion?

Yes, there are other variables involved and the question isn’t settled. Still, I’d argue that the smart thing to do is to work to limit greenhouse gas emissions while we’re trying to decide who is right. This also has the benefit of preparing us for the end of oil and obviates our need to fight wars over natural resources in other countries.

You raise some good questions. Yes, a warming globe (although the predictions has Europe cooling, so it’s more like climate change with a general warming trend) will benefit some. It will be very disruptive, though. Given what the end of cheap oil will likely do to our food supply on top of the effects on agricultural output from climate change, I’d say we really need to start working on this now.

Also, trying to reduce human impact might also help with the current mass extinction we seem to be causing. Benefits all around.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/23/green.century.mass.extinction/index.html

Sorry, I didn’t notice you had a link there.

I won’t argue that solar activity and continental drift can have a larger effect on global temperatures than the greenhouse effect. Heck, a comet could hit the Earth and make all of this moot. But the Vostok core samples show, on a much finer scale than the graph you posted, the connection between CO2 and temperature.

My spending habits are correlated with my bank balance. The more I spend, the less I have. If I win the lottery, that might seem to disprove the connection, but it’s still there.

Damn Global Warming! I blame the rise of mammals with their warm blood for raising the temperature of the Earth for 10’s of thousands of years! Let’s put in a plan for Global Cooling and get those glaciers back in the American breadbasket!

Seriously, who is to say what temperature the Earth should be?

If the oil runs out, like is was supposed to in the 70’s (oops, it didn’t) then we will HAVE to find alternatives. Hmmm, like Nuclear! Gee, that’ll really please the Sierra Club. How about Hydroelectric from dams? Nope, they hate those man-made lakes ruining the ecosystem. Wind power? Well, considering even Teddy Kennedy is opposed to them off the coast where they won’t be in anyone’s way cuz they’ll ruin his view, good luck finding a backyard big enough. (Not In My Backyard! WAAAHHH!) Solar? Let’s do it! Who cares if you need to clearcut hundreds of acres and fill the area with hundreds of panels to power a small town. Lets bulldoze Pennsylvania to power New York City!

Wait, isn’t all that sunlight that’s hitting the panels not heating the Earth? Well, maybe that will stop Global Warming. Problem solved, until the next one.

Thus Huffington and the Sierra Club are, by their own standards (not mine), supporters of terrorism

Spoon, you pretty much nailed it. The loudest environmentalists don’t actually support anything when they’re examined closely. Newman wants YOU to use less gas. Kennedy wants YOU to put up a windmill. The Sierra Club spokesman wants HIS CLUB MEMBERS to retain the right to vehicles of their choosing.

And the manufactured crises. Remember the Population Bomb? Best-selling book. By now we were supposed to have so many people on the planet that we would be starving. What happened? Market forces took over. People found reasons to have fewer kids - no laws had to be passed to force them. Remember the blackened cities and lifeless waterways of the 70’s? What happened? Marketplace changes brought cleaner industries to developed nations. New, cleaner technologies came about. Waterways such as the Hudson became used less for transport and dumping of industrial waste. Real estate on urban coastlines became more valuable. Cleaning up water and air became more desirable and possible.

What will happen with oil? Auto manufacturers and oil companies already see the end coming. Hydrogen cars are selling. As oil becomes more scarce, more difficult and expensive drilling sites will become practical. As the price of oil and gas goes up, alternatives will become more cost-competitive. Nuclear plants are being built in China using new technology. They won’t blow up, they won’t melt down. China will export nuclear-produced hydrogen to the US for our cars. Some far-looking US thinkers will say we should produce it here to lessen our reliance on energy produced in a still-totalitarian state. Huffington and Kennedy will of course oppose this, citing the dangers of nuclear, saying we should build more windmills (nowhere near them, of course) and use less fuel.

Will we see climate shifts? Maybe. They happened long before man, long before fire. They will happen again. Then what? That depends. If we have means of cheap, plentiful energy and a robust economy we will probably find ways to survive them. If we follow the advice of political opportunists, we’re screwed. And it will be all Bush’s fault, too.

Counterpoints.

Dire predictions about the end of oil? Not wrong, simply a few decades late.

Population bomb? Big in the third world. The idea of the average person in China and India adopting our lifestyle is scary.

Free market solving these problems? Sure, impose heavy fuel taxes and the free market will produce fuel efficient cars. The free market did not phase out leaded gas. The free market did not ban fluorocarbons to restore the ozone layer.

Gore was pro-nuclear. I think it’s probably part of the solution myself, although it does rank as a last resort in my book.

You can always find individuals who are identified with the environmental movement to prove your case.

Population bomb was supposed to be big EVERYWHERE. As the “third world” develops, the problem is lessened.

Imposing taxes is not free marketplace (it’s the opposite). Although I would not mind gas tax increases to speed things along. Points about phasing out of lead in gas, etc., well taken. Such things are possible when political factions work together, rather than demonize each other, to determine what is possible and what is not. Same thing with nuclear power. Gore was a very intelligent guy. Not a very savvy politician but bright in many respects. (Let’s face it, Bush has Rove, Gore doesn’t.) Electric power uplifts the human race (economically). We will use more of it, not less. (That’s why the Oracle of Omaha -Buffet- has been big into buying energy-related companies the last few years.) All energy sources have to be examined for strengths and weaknesses. We should encourage those that are the lesser of all evils. Oil isn’t. We should use less of it. But that won’t happen by forcing people to drive less or drive smaller cars. Nor will it happen by telling them to use less electricity, be colder in winter or warmer in summer. That goes straight against the grain of human nature. Might as well tell water to run uphill.

It’s not a question of “finding people” in the environmental movement to prove a case. The loudest people in that movement are doing that. No finding whatsoever is necessary to prove my case - it’s finding people to DISprove it, that’s where the digging comes in.

And yeah, Huffington has said (again and again, actually) that driving big cars and so on supports terrorism. But if you’re (not talking to you Straw) going to claim that every time she does so it’s a “parody”, well then you have an out. And hey you may be right. It may well be that all the woman is, is a parody.

I thought that inferring a causal relationship between the rise of atmospheric CO2 and global temps has not been established.  Until it is, global warming as a human-caused event is nothing more than superstition.  In the ‘70s, there was a big argument among atmospheric scientists about whether the world was warming up or cooling off.  Both sides had stats to “prove” their case, so it was a standoff.  There is no political advantage to be gained from the global cooling theory, so global warming has become the darling of the American Left.  Because of that, the MSM(the tool of the American Left) has ceased reportage on the theory of global cooling.  Now there’s a causal relationship.  No superstition required.

First, let me say that I am gaining a grudging respect for conservative thought through these dialogues.

This is a bit of a digression, but I’d disagree that the MSM is necessarily the tool of the left, given that it often uncritically allows itself to be used as the mouthpiece of the Bush administration. The fact that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were agitating (through the PNAC) for the invasion of Iraq in 1998 has not made the mainstream press to my knowledge. The Downing Street Memos showing that the facts were being “fixed” around the policy and the threat of WMDs was known to be overstated didn’t get much attention. Some of us on the left have been very vocal about election fraud - finally, Christopher Hitchens of all people has written an article in Vanity Fair of all places offering what’s pretty much proof that the 2004 election was stolen (using evidence that’s been available for anyone to look at). Arguing the slant of the MSM is like arguing whether the Earth is cooling or warming.

I hope no one will attempt to lower the level of the debate with the phrase “tin foil hat”. That simply shows a lack of imagination and adherence to ideology over facts.

Back to the subject at hand, I believe there are many different forces at work affecting the Earth’s temperature. Some are outside our control (solar activity), some are within our control (particulates in the atmosphere reflecting sunlight, greenhouse gases locking it in). While I can see that trying to control the Earth’s temperature through a consortium of world governments might seem like the pinnacle of liberal insanity, the fact is that humans are already changing the environment on a massive scale with pretty much no idea how it’s going to play out. Trying to form policy around incomplete theories seems better to be than just throwing all caution to the wind.

Besides, we already have international treaties that govern our development and policy decisions. These treaties, however, seem to be all about maximizing profit. This is why a Canadian company is able to sue the state of California for its decision to ban MBTE. Why doesn’t this trigger the same alarm in conservatives/libertarians as the Kyoto accords?

We should use less of it. But that won’t happen by forcing people to drive less or drive smaller cars.

I don’t know about that. It’s worked in Europe and Japan. It’s even worked here - Americans gladly made sacrifices during WWII, and it not only lifted us out of a depression but catapulted us into becoming a superpower. We just need leadership.

And a great little write-up on Al Gore’s “Sweet Ride” at the meeting.

One more thing.  The prosperity after WWII was due to regaining our productive capacity after the Depression, not because of rationing.  The rationing did encourage savings accounts, which is something we might want to encourage today.  The control of the economy through low interest rates is, I think, a long-term mistake.

strawman: The MSM definitely carries the water of the Left in this country. Even if they occasionally print the truth about Republicans, it doesn’t change the 24/7 leftward slant of the vast majority of their reporting.  The examples are too numerous to cite, and I’m sure you know them.  It’s about proportion.
Bringing up election fraud as an excuse for the left’s loss of the American majority is evidence of your lack of respect for the average American.  When JFK stole the 1960 election, where was the MSM?  Running puff pieces on the Kennedys because they were so glamorous.
Humans do change the local environment, that is true.  There is no factual evidence that we can affect the entire environment, no matter what you or anyone else believes.  Forming policies around superstitions is foolish, at best.
I am not in favor of any treaties that interfere with our ability to run our own country, for the record. I don’t think that giving up freedom for security is a good idea at all.

Well, the press likes a good story. It was fun watching Clinton being impeached over some consenusal nookie. Blood in the water. Whether the people leading the charge against him were also guilty of adultery or were hurting the country by their actions didn’t seem to register. The fact that it did distract his administration from their very real hunt for Osama bin Laden seems to have been lost as well.

I respect the average American more when I look at facts that seem to indicate they elected Kerry. I am sure that the 2000 and 2004 elections were not the first to be stolen, although the method in which they appear to have been stolen (unauditable machines made by companies with stated biases) are definitely a cause for concern.

The connection from greenhouse gases to global warming is far from a superstition. The Vostok samples would indicate otherwise. Even the rebuttal claiming solar activity is causing global warming mentions that this is amplified by fossil fuel burning. <cheap shot>There’s certainly more factual evidence to support this link than to connect Iraq and 9-11.</cheap shot>

Our production capabilities were ramped up by government, supported by rationing and a very high income tax on the upper bracket. We can sacrifice for the greater good when asked, and it doesn’t have to hurt the economy.

strawman said, The Downing Street Memos showing that the facts were being “fixed” around the policy...

What do you think that means? Remember - we’re talking about British terminology here.

Trying to form policy around incomplete theories seems better to be than just throwing all caution to the wind.

Trying to form policy around very incomplete theories could make the problem a lot worse.

It was fun watching Clinton being impeached over some consenusal nookie.

Oh my gosh. He was impeached for perjury. You know, what most of us would go to jail for doing? I think you know that and you’re just being dishonest. That’s not cool.

The fact that it did distract his administration from their very real hunt for Osama bin Laden seems to have been lost as well.

It doesn’t matter. When Clinton had a chance to put a missle into Osama’s tent he didn’t do it. So your complaint is a red herring.

I am sure that the 2000 and 2004 elections were not the first to be stolen...

This has to be proven before you can act like it is fact.

There’s certainly more factual evidence to support this link than to connect Iraq and 9-11.

I’m glad you recognized it as a cheap shot because your point is totally irrelevant.

I’d say this gives the MSM a rightward slant which at least compensates for the leftward slant in editorials and so on.

Which would explain why something like 90% of the reporters self identify as Democrats and/or liberals.

I’m firing my proofreader.

There’s also the pressure to suck from the press conference teat, because that’s where most news comes from. It’s a lot cheaper and less risky than trying to do investigative journalism. I’d say this gives the MSM a rightward slant which at least compensates for the leftward slant in editorials and so on. But this is an unwinnable argument.

Good parody. Incidentally, I didn’t see any mention of global warming in Newsweek’s article on Katrina. Apparently, there is some debate between climatologists on whether we are seeing the effects of global warming in the current hurricane season (and so Huffington is definitely jumping the gun), but still - it was conspicuously absent.

P.S. Great satire.

The press takes it from both extremes of the political spectrum. Sometimes they do twists trying to be fair. The fact that they are more likely to be anti-admin stems from internal social pressures. To wit: If you are a reporter and want to be seen as something other than a lapdog for whatever politicians you’re covering, you have to go after them. Even if you like them. Especially if you like them. This is a very real factor that does not register on most folks outside of media. Once you’re attuned to this and it’s on your radar, you’ll see this over and over in the media: Those who attack the administration (whoever it is) are lauded elsewhere in the media for their independence. Those who praise the admin (again, regardless) are derided. Most reporters, like most people, play in the vast middle ground.

I think Strawman is someone of conscience and integrity (although I’ve been wrong before). Perhaps his respect for conservative views would be less grudging if he felt we can write a mean political satire even as we destroy the planet:

http://mistersnitch.blogspot.com/2005/09/here-comes-story-of-hurricane.html

Sure, press conferences and junkets are a factor. Here again, there is some pressure within the press to bite the hand that feeds it, to show integrity to one’s fellows and so on. (Example: The BBC said Katrina ‘saved’ the media - because it did the ‘right thing’ and attacked Bush: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4214516.stm) But such attacks have boundaries, and these boundaries are well-known.

An interesting study would be to compare sports reporters with White House reporters. Both see many, many press conferences, trips and junkets. But the sportswriters will trash athletes, I mean just trash them, in a way no White House reporter would dream of doing. That’s because the sportswriter will never get fired for trashing the athlete. The sport craves the publicity. They gotta have it, and trashing athletes creates as much buzz (if not more) as praising them. So the media is in the driver’s seat. They can do anything they want. And they do, to absurd levels of vitriol. But to be a White House reporter - that’s a prestigious beat. You hold that for a few years, you become a celebrity yourself and you can get slots on talking head shows and sign lucrative book deals. So you know your political bounds and you do not exceed them.

The irony of course is that it matters not a whit in the grand scheme of things whether an athlete has lost a step or failed to show the amount of courage a middle aged beer guzzling fan has the “right” to expect. Whereas is matters a great deal to the future of this country exactly what the motives of our elected leaders are.

At the very least one wishes sportswriters would look more caustically at the financial underpinnings of sports, particularly in terms of whether municipalities should be financing stadiums (they should not). But here, too, sportswriters know their place, and they rationalize this non-coverage by telling us that the financial aspects of sports are someone else’s bailiwick. They say this even while writing their stories of yet another athlete’s ‘greedy salary demands’ that are ‘costing the fans dearly’. And they do this with no sense of irony.

So yes, press junkets and conferences play a part. These are ways to feed the media maw with the least amount of effort, and everyone does it. Absolutely. It’s good that the blogosphere is a factor now, to drive new opinions and offer paid media a new audience they can opt to woo and win by actually doing their jobs!

I should have said “trash them, in a way few White House reporters would dream of doing” in my statement above. There are always exceptions. My point re the freedom of one group of reporters’ license of trash the object of their coverage vs. another’s still stands.

Okay, Downing Street memo in context:

Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
...
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

Where did this policy come from?
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

What kind of evidence would lead Christopher Hitchens to the conclusion that Kerry should have won Ohio in 2004? Pretty damning evidence, that’s what.

http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/050214roco05?page=1

Read the whole article, but here’s an excerpt:

First, the county-by-county and precinct-by-precinct discrepancies. In Butler County, for example, a Democrat running for the State Supreme Court chief justice received 61,559 votes. The Kerry-Edwards ticket drew about 5,000 fewer votes, at 56,243. This contrasts rather markedly with the behavior of the Republican electorate in that county, who cast about 40,000 fewer votes for their judicial nominee than they did for Bush and Cheney. (The latter pattern, with vote totals tapering down from the top of the ticket, is by far the more general—and probable—one nationwide and statewide.)

In 11 other counties, the same Democratic judicial nominee, C. Ellen Connally, managed to outpoll the Democratic presidential and vice-presidential nominees by hundreds and sometimes thousands of votes. So maybe we have a barn-burning, charismatic future candidate on our hands, and Ms. Connally is a force to be reckoned with on a national scale. Or is it perhaps a trick of the Ohio atmosphere? There do seem to be a lot of eccentrics in the state. In Cuyahoga County, which includes the city of Cleveland, two largely black precincts on the East Side voted like this. In Precinct 4F: Kerry, 290; Bush, 21; Peroutka, 215. In Precinct 4N: Kerry, 318; Bush, 11; Badnarik, 163. Mr. Peroutka and Mr. Badnarik are, respectively, the presidential candidates of the Constitution and Libertarian Parties. In addition to this eminence, they also possess distinctive (but not particularly African-American-sounding) names. In 2000, Ralph Nader’s best year, the total vote received in Precinct 4F by all third-party candidates combined was eight.

In Montgomery County, two precincts recorded a combined undervote of almost 6,000. This is to say that that many people waited to vote but, when their turn came, had no opinion on who should be the president, voting only for lesser offices. In these two precincts alone, that number represents an undervote of 25 percent, in a county where undervoting averages out at just 2 percent. Democratic precincts had 75 percent more undervotes than Republican ones.

Well I screwed up my correction as well, typing too quickly (what am I doing here when I have bills to pay? It’s Strawman’s stoic presence no doubt.).

Anyway we have moved on now to whether Bush really won. This has been a key excuse for years of truly vile commentary from the left. So I’m inclined to say, ‘We’re even’. But I am all for anything that insures every citizen’s right to have their vote fairly and properly counted. Regardless of whether Bush “won properly” one way or another, electoral inconsistencies are historically as bi-partisan as it gets. (LBJ, anyone? Or let’s talk about how candidates are backed, who their cronies are and where the money comes from - JFK, anyone?) I detest crooked politics and without pointing fingers I am more than willing to concede that we need better vote-counting. Surely we can handle that in this age where trillions of dollars are passed along each day without human intervention. As for election funding, don’t go there. Whole ‘nother can of worms.

coincident happenstance is not a demonstration of causality.  It is superstition.  You need a mechanism of causation to prove is the result of another thing.  Got one?

The circumstantial evidence is about as clear as someone holding a gun, announcing “I’m going to shoot that guy”, and then finding a bullet fired from that gun in the dead victim. We could argue whether this proves causation, but c’mon - let’s not get silly.

Kenneth Blackwell was in charge of overseeing the elections and the recount. He also co-chaired Ohio’s Bush campaign. Walden O’Dell is the CEO of Diebold and a Republican fundraiser. In a fundraising letter, he promised to deliver the vote to the President.

The per-county numbers do show clear tampering. There are many ways it could be tampered with - the vote tabulation software made by Diebold has no security to speak of. You can bypass entering a password by double-clicking on a file directly. Diebold settled a case brought against it by the state of California that alleged its software was not secure as promised.

http://caag.state.ca.us/newsalerts/2004/04-130.pdf

If you really care to see one of the security holes in action, visit this site made the Republican and Bush supporter Jim March (be warned, it’s a little techie):

http://www.equalccw.com/deandemo.html

I can accept that elections were stolen in the past, and the “we’re even” argument holds some water - although I’d say that we were even in 2000, but that’s another kettle of pirhannas. Kerry will not be put in office retroactively, and so even I have to look forward. If we value our democracy, we can’t let this slide.

who was it that was “holding the gun”, then?  It still takes factual proof.  Your analogy is totally flawed.  You apparently believe this hypothesis, and the lack of factual evidence demonstrating causation isn’t necessary for you to hold that belief. That’s why it is a belief, not a fact.
I may believe that black cats are bad luck.  I may also believe that I have circumstantial evidence of it.  That doesn’t make it true.
The MSM coverage of Kerry was 3 to 1 favorable compared to the MSM coverage of the President.  A smoking gun?
Generally speaking, maintenance of belief requires ignoring any facts that conflict with that belief. We only pay attention to the information that agrees with our belief.

strawman:  My many experiences with liberals tell me that nothing I say will shake your belief system.  If I quote numbers, you will invalidate them, and if I make arguments that are convincing, you will attack me personally, as you just have.  Personal attack usually indicates a poverty of ideas. I simply want to state the truth for the benefit of anyone reading this stuff. I am not trying to convert you.

Okay, I’ll admit - I’m tired. I went to Ohio to monitor the elections fully knowing I’d never be sure if votes would be properly counted, and being very alarmed by both Diebold and Blackwell. You shouldn’t be allowed to oversee an election and co-chair one of the candidate’s campaigns. Votes shouldn’t be counted on systems that have less security than...well, pretty much anything. Less than the educational software I’ve helped write.

I’m tired of screaming my head off about this issue, and no one picking it up. I’m tired that when Hitchens sees the light, many conservatives still dismiss this as a loony, left-wing theory.

I’m tired.

You’re right - maybe voters in Ohio radically bucked the national trends for some odd reasons by showing up in record numbers and then not voting on the presidential tickets. Maybe Green and Libertarian candidates are enjoying an unexplained upsurge in popularity among African-American voters. It’s odd that one precinct went Libertarian while one went Green, but it is possible. Perhaps all of these oddities just happened to benefit Bush. Perhaps the officials at Warren county had good reasons for locking out reporters and making up a story of a threat report from the FBI.

However, I’d like to see you offer an explanation for all of these oddities that doesn’t strain credibility or require election fraud.

People used to believe that the planets and the Sun revolved around the Earth. In order to explain the odd orbits, epicycles were invented. You could always make an orbit work by adding another epicycle. However, the theory that all planets revolved around the Sun made the complexity of epicycles unnecessary. Did it prove that epicycles were wrong and the heliocentric solar system was right? No, but it was enough.

I don’t have proof that the 2004 election was stolen in Ohio, although I have proof that it could have been easily stolen by people with the motive and opportunity, but the alternative requires epicycles.

Please give to Verified Voting.

Robert, either you’re not being intellectually honest or you’re not looking at the numbers. Either way, I don’t see the point in arguing with you.

I think Strawman is being extraordinary reasonable and flexible, and deserves better treatment than he’s seen. What’s happened historically in ‘stolen’ elections is that they don’t get revisited. It’s one of those battles you won’t win, no matter how ‘right’ you might be. I’m sorry for that. Having in my life won some political battles, lost a few and fought others to a standstill, I realize one does not always get satisfaction, and once in awhile one is just going to lose. If you can’t let it go, then my advice is bide your time for a better day, and do what you can so you don’t see a repeat. Because if the Democrats truly believe the Republicans stole the last (or last two) elections, and many of them do, then there will be escalation next time out, and greater instances of fraud all around. This benefits no one.

Meanwhile, I am hearing the New York Times is up for sale. If not working I at least should be looking into that issue.

Re: Carter/Baker proposal-some details, please.

Robert, you’re unbelievable. Settled lawsuits count for nothing? County by county analyses are “scraps of information”? Democrats manage to commit fraud in Ohio under Blackwell’s nose on Diebold and ES&S equipment? Damn, I *wish* I was that sneaky. But I guess my co-conspirators suck because they delivered the vote to Bush.

Do you know that the Republican party had placed “challengers” inside voting precincts in Ohio to challenge people’s rights to vote? If you’re going to claim that Democrats cheated in Ohio, I’d like to see your evidence. Fair is fair.

The fact is that 52% of the American electorate voted for President Bush.

Your logic is circular. I can’t disprove your “fact”, because the “fact” itself contradicts my proof. Hmmm...maybe it’s NOT a fact!

Thankfully, not everyone here is as impervious to reason as you seem to be.

Why did you go to Ohio to monitor the election?  What was your agenda?  It’s possible you decided beforehand that there would be dishonesty on the Republican side, and went there to look for it.  I find it unbelievable that there was no election fraud on the Democrat side, but you don’t mention that.  Could be selective attention on your part.  None of what you say proves anything.  Your selective attention makes a big deal out of some hypotheses and scraps of information, but it still proves nothing.  The fact is that 52% of the American electorate voted for President Bush.  I know you don’t like it, but that is how it is.
As far as what revolves around what in the solar system, that is a matter of celestial mechanics, not beliefs.  Those that believed everything revolves around the Earth did so for mistaken religious reasons, not facts.  They observed what they thought supported their views, and came up with rationalizations for what didn’t support them, just like the conspiracy theorists of today.

How about the Carter/Baker proposal?  Most of the proposals seemed pretty reasonable to me.

Sorry, should have provided a link.

Strawman, you don’t have a blog kicking around somewhere, do you?

Not yet, Mr. Snitch.

Robert, personal attacks are not my weapon of choice. I prefer logic and facts, and am quite willing to consider other viewpoints. However, I when logic and facts fail - yes, I’ll call it as I see it.

With Occam’s razor in hand: the simplest explanation to the obviously skewed county-by-county results in Ohio, which were consistently skewed towards Bush in ways that can’t be reasonably explained otherwise, is that the guy overseeing the election who was working for the Bush campaign colluded with the pro-Bush guy who made the voting machines (machines shown to be easily tampered with) in order to fix the results. If you have a simpler explanation for the voting anomalies, I’d love to hear it.

If this makes me a conspiracy theorist, so be it. That in itself does not make me wrong.

On a personal note, I did think Bush stole the election in 2000, for reasons I won’t get into. It rankled me for four years feeling that my country had been taken over by a rightwing, religious faction with a secret agenda (PNAC). When the election results came in on November 2, 2004 I was of course disappointed, but I felt some closure. At least he was legitimately elected, I thought - and it was healing.

That is, until these ugly facts emerged.

You’ve done it. You’ve forced me to bring out Uncle Adolph again, a man who knew how to make bad things happen on a massive scale:

...the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big.

Oh great. This chat room is now a right-wing Daily Kos.

I would use the same quote as typical of the Left.  Clinton honed the big lie technique to a fine point during his administrations.  The “for the children” mantra is just one example.  Anyone who opposed him, for any reason, was therefore “against the children”.  Nice trick.  Your basic premise, that the Republicans would “fix” the elections, is unproven, so everything you build upon it is also unproven.  Your circular reasoning goes like this:  Since the Republicans are going to jigger the election in their favor, anything that looks anomalus is evidence that this is true.  I don’t necessarily agree with your premise, and so the anomalies you point to are not necessarily anomalies to me.  You call them that because of your initial assumption.

Once again, strawman, a personal attack.  You have no evidence of voter fraud to the extent that it changed the election results.  It’s not surprising, though.  You think your ideology is superior, and if the US electorate doesn’t agree, they are either wrong or they really didn’t vote that way.  It’s all a conspiracy to deprive you and yours of the government you want, isn’t it? Or, it could be that the majority of us want a Republican federal government, state governors, etc?  Occam’s razor explains it all, I think. The simplest explanation is the true one.  Complicated conspiracy theories that require an unbelievable amount of collusion between huge numbers of people probably aren’t true. I know none of this will convince you, though.  You believe what you want to believe, no matter what.

Politicians misrepresent their positions all the time - who could be against the “Clear Skies” initiative?

The Big Lie proposition is different. It states that people will believe a big lie more readily than they do a small lie. Take the belief that tomatoes are poisonous. This was obviously untrue, so how could a lie of such magnitude exist? How could so many people be spreading false information about a common plant? Because to believe it to be untrue would be to believe in a vast conspiracy. If everyone says so, who are you to question it?

I’m alleging that a “Big Lie” took place in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Most people don’t want to believe it, as they “would be ashamed of lies that were too big”.

Some claim that 9-11 was in fact orchestrated by the Bush administration, or at least allowed knowingly to happen. Part of the evidence they cite is this document:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

Search on the phrase “Pearl Harbor” and...well, you get the idea.

I don’t embrace this idea myself, simply because I don’t see quite enough evidence and to be honest - I don’t want to believe it. I know that believing in it would make me a “crazed conspiracy theorist” and would accomplish nothing, so I choose not to research this any further. Pictures of the Pentagon after the attack that seem to show it wasn’t hit by a plane - nope, not going to look at that, not going to take the time to find out the truth behind the allegation. Perhaps this is the “Big Lie” at work. I can live with that.

Ask yourself this. Is Hitchens really a closet Kerry fan? Did he start with the premise that Kerry should have won? Because he and I have looked at the same data and come to the same conclusion.

Okay, to be fair - the massive vote tampering in Ohio to benefit Bush doesn’t prove that Kerry would have won otherwise. But if that’s so, why are election officials mishandling the recount so badly that they are being brought up on charges?