Bold political leadership!

[rcallicotte]

Nobody could have convinced the U.S. citizens to go over there and lay our lives down like we are now because Sadaam didn't keep UN sanctions.  Most of us don't give a rat's ass about UN sanctions.  Plain and simple.  The playing card was the WMDs and his possible use of nukes.  I'm old enough to remember what the press put out there and what Bush pointed to as a reason. 

Does anyone remember Colin Powell's embarrassment in the UN?  He was a patsy for right-wing nutjobs.

The only reason we went there was because of the nukes.  I was there.  This was Bush's reason for going over there, since he couldn't pull the "Al Queda" card.

That is not true. Nukes where not the only reason. The reasons were the inteligence pointing toward his pursuit of WMDs, including nukes, his ties to terrorism, and his refusal to obey UN sanctions. Saddam was not at war with Al Queda. Al Queda  memebers had met with Iraqi officails several times, there is evidence that suggest Iraq was supplying jihadist groups with training manuals and other supplies and there had been discussions between Iraqi officials and Al Queda members about opening a training camp in Iraq, possibily in Bagdad.

[rcallicotte]

The choice isn't between extreme left and extreme right, but common sense.  This is otherwise known as balance...something our political system has drifted ashore from.

Any government can be screwed and a democracy can be screwed as easily as any other form of government.  There is no "free market" in the U.S.  It's nearly (almost all) monopolized by a handful of wealthy, including the media.  That doesn't mean that everyone in the U.S. is evil, but with businessmen in the White House they aren't looking out for anyone but themselves. 

That is not my point. Yes, governments can be screwed – that is what environmentalist are trying to do to ours. What environmentalist want to do is "screw-up" our government by implementing communism. To screw up capitalism the only real option is to change it to something else. You can't screw up communism; it's already a mess. My point is that one is naturally better than the other and so the comparison of each is not moot because they are not equal.

[rcallicotte]

Okay.  We'll leave the discussion for Global Climate change, which Gore admits is cyclical and shows evidence that we're taking it farther out of the loop than has been done by our own mistreatment of the Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam - do a search for heavy siltation.
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/004/Y1997E/y1997e1c.htm - we get our oxygen (fresh air) from trees
http://www.worldwildlife.org/endangered/ - a list

After all of the "raping" of forest have we started to lose oxygen? Really, have oxygen levels actually decreased at even a measurable level? Are people starting to die or even getting close to dieing? No.

None of that constitutes destroying the earth. Changing? Yes. Destroying? No. Besides, the things you mention are contained. That is, they are not global shifts.
Note: I'm not against stewardship (endangered species for example). I also do not deny that man has the ability to alter the environment in localized areas, sometimes in drastic ways. But then again, that's not what I started talking about, which was global climate change.

[rcallicotte]

This is an interesting observation.  Scientists have been able to track climate cycles dating back many years by sampling the ice in the Antarctica.

Well they showed us a chart in Biology class that showed that we are a lot higher then any other time in history (that they have been able to see) I think we have surpassed the other points in time with abnormal highs. This is not to say it necessarily our fault but there is something defiantly different about the time we are in. At any rate I know the ski industry didn't do too well last year (my uncle is a salesman)

[rcallicotte]

"The climate is not a living organism, you cannot poison it with pollution." - nvseal

The climate is part of the living organism, the Earth.  Without it, we would perish and it is affected by things like trees.  It can be destroyed and to assume it doesn't matter what we do to it is irresponsible and deserves punishment.

[Will]

I agree with that, ecosystems are hardy but can fall apart as soon as one cog is taken out of the system.

[Volker Harun]

Well, the climate is not living - but it has a delicate balance.
We surely do not know by empiric data, how a nuke or a large coal plant do affect the atmosphere as a single factor.
But the data surely shows that there is an imbalance in its total.
The least imbalance is that they show on TV the catastrophees in the US and in Europe instead of i.e. Bangladesh like 20 years ago.

[red_planet]

<trollmode on>
Maybe nvseal is just being pedantic... "climate" is after all what we experience as a result of changes in the "atmosphere"...so no .. you can't poison climate.. but you sure as heck can poison the atmosphere...

Rgds

Chris
<trollmode off>

[rcallicotte]

What?  I couldn't hear you over the mind control.   

Well, I have not been around for a few days and things are starting to become funny here ,-)

Think of the following. Al Gore says first came the CO₂ then the warming.
The movie "The great global warming swindle" says first comes the warming and thus the CO₂ is released from the oceans.

Either way ... here might be another cause. Cell phone technology.
It is based on pulsating microwaves - the same microwaves some people use to cook their meals.
The same technology is used by H.A.A.R.P. for warming up certain atmospheric areas so they act like a mirror (basically plain explained).
The same technology like H.A.A.R.P. can be used when connecting several cell-phone towers in an intelligent way or just simple warming up the air by letting them run.
Funny point is that the soviet union and the US - in their very state of bold leadership - used the same technology for mind and mass controls.
If you have a Zap-checker you might notice that about 30 to 50% of the cell-phone towers are active. So why would somebody need every 50 to 100 yards those things in a city when they are turned off? And they were turned off even during the FIFA World soccer championships last year in Germany.
Why should somebody need every few miles such a thingy in the Namibian desert?
Coincidence?
A technology that does both, mind and weather control?

That would be bold!

[Will]

I believe the technical term is "eh?" this is usually followed by "what was that sonny?"

[nvseal]

Nobody could have convinced the U.S. citizens to go over there and lay our lives down like we are now because Sadaam didn't keep UN sanctions.  Most of us don't give a rat's ass about UN sanctions.  Plain and simple.  The playing card was the WMDs and his possible use of nukes.  I'm old enough to remember what the press put out there and what Bush pointed to as a reason. 

Does anyone remember Colin Powell's embarrassment in the UN?  He was a patsy for right-wing nutjobs.

No one did try to convince U.S. citizens to go over there ONLY because of UN sanctions. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the UN. It is a pointless organization and we should have never waisted our time with it.
You keep acting like Bush was alone on the issue of WMDs. He wasn't. Republicans and Democrats (Hillary Clinton for example, who said she saw the evidence for her self and made her own decision about the war, yet back peddled later when it was politically benificial). Nations in the UN, using their own intel, also agreed that Saddam was trying to get WMDs. Bush was not the creator of the intel and he did not lie.

Right-wing nutjobs? Oh boy.

[nvseal]

The choice isn't between extreme left and extreme right, but common sense.  This is otherwise known as balance...something our political system has drifted ashore from.

What does that have to do with what I said? Capitalism is common sense.

[nvseal]

Okay.  We'll leave the discussion for Global Climate change, which Gore admits is cyclical and shows evidence that we're taking it farther out of the loop than has been done by our own mistreatment of the Earth.

Again, manmade global warming is not a fact. It is a hypothesis which is being sold to the public because of a "consensus" between some scientist -- not all. If it was a fact there would be no question to it. Al Gore, however, acts as though manmade global warming is a fact. Al Gore -- who is not a scientist -- calls scientist who don't agree with his hypothesis "global deniers."

[Will]

I think its technically a theory which is much stronger then a hypothesis and has more research and "proof" behind it. I say "proof" because nothing can ever be proved as fact in science (nothing have be proved but everything can be disproved).

edit: spelling

[nvseal]

"The climate is not a living organism, you cannot poison it with pollution." - nvseal

The climate is part of the living organism, the Earth.  Without it, we would perish and it is affected by things like trees.  It can be destroyed and to assume it doesn't matter what we do to it is irresponsible and deserves punishment.

What we do can affect the environment to a point. But to say that mankind and modern, western civilization has shifted the global environment and is now moving toward the end of mankind unless Liberals start restricting the free market is utterly absurd. Volcanoes, for example, have put out more pollutants than the automobile has since it was invented. That doesn't matter to the global warming crowd though; it's our fault; Al Gore said so.