jryan

And your evaluation amounts to "His opinion matches mine." His is simply "The US uses oil, Iraq has Oil, therefor the war was about oil". So please explain to me how, if the war was about oil, that immediately turning the control of the Iraqi oil over to the Iraqi government and paying market prices for the oil was part of the master plan? If oil was the goal, it could have been done much cheaper by lifting sanctions and buying the oil from Saddam (see: France, Russia, Germany).

Well, of course, but like you said, that isn't corruption, and Obama certainly hasn't chosen to not accept such money. He just accepts it in a way that appears to be less corrupt. Obama leads all candidates in donations from lawyers and lobbyists, so I would guess the lawyers and lobbyist think Obama is best for them? Here is the breakdown for contributions to date from lawyers and lobbyists: Barack Obama..$17,990,028 Hillary Clinton...$17,628,916 John Edwards...$7,924,378 John McCain.....$5,940,307 Has that influenced the election? And if so, what do you suppose they expect from Obama? Ummm... EVERY POLITICIAN vows that the they won't let contributions sway them. I'm also pretty sure that McCain hasn't vowed to the public that he will honor his PAC contributors by passing laws in their favor. That you believe that Obama is telling the truth and will manage to stay above it all is not founded in any reality. It is an article of faith. And Obama choosing to pass on public funding so that he can fuel his campaign with even MORE donations indicates to me that he is already cracking under the alure of big money.

Can you tell the difference between an standard artillery shell and one filled with Sarin? How about a barrel? You are assuming that the discovery would actually have to be real... but it wouldn't. An announcement and a photo op in front of empty crates would suffice if the intention was to lie about it. They wouldn't have to actually ship uranium (they actually already had uranium in country... see above link), or chemical weapon agents. They could even just overplay the magnitude of WMDs that they DID find in Iraq, and give samples of those as proof. But they didn't. You are stuck in an anti-occam's razor mentality that you want to over complicate the follow through on a "lie" that you already think they managed successfully for over a year leading up to the war. By your estimation, all they would have had to do if they were lying in continue the lie after the invasion with all that dummied up evidence you think they were showing to the American people and the UN. The point is they THOUGHT they would find WMDs in Iraq, so them sating there are WMDs in IRaq was not a lie. I don't even know what you are saying. Since when is Sarin not considered a WMD? That CDC article clearly states that Sarin is a weaponized nerve agent and is very toxic, and severe exposure is deadly... are you going on some other definition of what a WMD is that I am not aware of? I'm not saying that was a justification for a second war. There wasn't enough their to complete a refinement process anyway, I don't think. And Iraq couldn't assume that a U.N. pullout would leave the uranium. That is why Iraq sent the group to Niger to begin with. Unless, of course, we believe it was for tourism from a third world country to a country in shambles from years of sanctions... or for concrete. You can also find in the ISG report that Iraq had intended to fire up it's WMD programs as soon as the UN left. This leaves us with a perenialy sanctioned and inspected Iraq, or a much harder war later.

Source for the Urnaium storage at the Tuwaitha advanced weapons facility south of Baghdad: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/tuwaitha.htm

Why would he need to do to do anything with regard to the nuclear side of the Iraqi WMD program? Iraq alreday had tons of declared uranium at the time of the invasion. And it was declared for the very same reasons that you indicate. I would suggest you read the ISG final repport for the full picture of pre-war Iraq. Your assumptions are misplaced, and your attributed motivations are pointless and unfounded. In the ISG final report you will find all kinds of real information with which to build an informed opinion.

Yeah, pardon me for simplifying the issue. The speculation market is driving the price of oil, for sure, as it does all futures commodities. As such, anything that is seen as potentially changing output of the commodity in the future effects the current trade. Sorry, that was probbaly a recap none of us needed. Anyway, the war in Iraq is not the primary driver of the oil futures market. Oil has skyrocketed in the last 12 months as the turmoil in Iraq is dropping precipitously. Confrontations with Iran and the continued rise in oil needs in China have driven the oil futures as much as anything, and Exxon, Mobile had little to do with that. Also, yeah, OPEC isn't stupid, and will not over produce no matter how much we may want. The cost of a barrel of crude versus the value of the US dollar is also an interesting subject since the US dollar is also on an oil standard. It hurts my brain to do all the permutations needed for a drop in the dollar to equate to a rise in oil. But if I have simplified it sufficiently, the oil backed dollar meant the that value of the US dollar was based in large part on the fact that the US purchased the lions share of the worlds oil. As the primary buyer, the dollar was high. Now that te demand is rising elsewhere, and the US is loosing ground as the primary oil consumer the dollar is falling. Adopting the oil standard was really a bad plan all around when you look at it that way. Going back to the gold standard has it's own pitfalls, however. You never want to adopt a standard whos market is currently peaking. I wouldn't say it's a hairs breath by any stretch. I am sure that many here would rather the U.S. Government move forward on Global Warming initiatives and ignore the contrary information because the potential damage if the AGW side is right is over powering. That is the same reasoning used by the current administration with regrad to the Iraq WMD reports. After all, regardless of the dissenting view, the "Iraq has WMDs" was the consensus view world wide. In reality, the problem was not with Bush but rather with Saddam, and the possition he had himself in in the Middle East. Given that he was one of the strongmen in the region, and given that the bulk of his army was destroyed in the first Gulf War, and given that he had no friends other than Syria in the region, it was in his own best interest to play the game with the UN and keep everyone guessing as to whether he had WMDs or not. It should also be pointed ouot that he had always planned to start his programs again once the UN left for good. And he had every reason to believe they would, since he had payed off many influential politicians in France and Russia and could always count on their vote in the Security Council. The Final Assessment of the Iraq Survey Team doesn't get as much press as what they failed to find following the initial combat... but it is worth a read: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/ Yeah, and politics SHOULD be dry and based on facts. This is why it is ill suited to be involved in AGW at this early stage of the research. "Even me"? Hmmmm.. not sure how to take that. Anyway, governmnet contract competition doesn't guarantee reduced cost OR increased quality and never has. We could start a whole different discussion about this myth as well, and having seen that sausage being made a few times I can assure you that it doesn't always follow the standard market model. All it seems to do is increase the randomness of the eventual corruption.

I would hope I never insinuated that. But the problem is that the insinuation is ramapant "Oh, politician X got money from industry Y... he's in bed with big business!". My point is that just the contribution is never evidence of corruption. I was more looking for those who think Obama is a saint to maybe reconsider their demonization of the other side. Another thing interesting about the OpenSecrets.org website is how little money actually comes from the industries most often dragged out as the evils of PAC money. For instance, Obama alone collected more money from the movie and music industry ($4,086,170) than the total contributions to all candidates from Big Tobacco ($348,401) and Big Oil ($3,439,404) combined.

It isn't a conspiracy at all, it is simply true. It is reported quite a bit, and look for Obama to get hit with it in the upcoming election if he chooses to use the fallacy as a major selling point. http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/10/sb-a-little-bit-more-on-obama-1161881683 And here is an interesting article in the Chicago Sun Times... apparently Obama swears off PAC money, but uses his own PAC (HOPEFUND) to woo Superdeligates: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/sectorall.php?cycle=2008 http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2008/03/31/obamas-disingenuous-pac-statement.htm http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2008/03/29/obama-king-leadership-pacs.htm And on lobbyist money in general... here is an interesting chart that monitors contributions by industries: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/sectorall.php?cycle=2008 Also, as far as Clinton calling him on it... I don't know if you have followed her or her husbands election funds drives in the past, but she is in no place to be starting a debate on fundraising ethics.

I have several friends and family members who have diabetes. Because of this I end up getting tipped on meidcal news regarding disease quite frequently. Lately everyone is abuzz about this new medical procedure that is apparently curing diabetes in the majority of patients... as well as high blood preasure, and obesity. It soulnds too good to be true, and I am working my way through the journal articles, but I felt that it is intriguing enough that I would clue folks in here in case they suffer from diabetes and haven't heard of it yet. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080305113659.htm

And a good deal of those $20-$50 chunks are coming from lobbying firms that simply passed on the checks of their individuals rather than cashing them and submitting a lump sum check as they normally do. It is a parlor trick. All that Obama is doing is leaving John Q. Public's name on the check but counting on lobbyist organizations just the same. Here is an article about his history with PAC money: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/09/pacs_and_lobbyists_aided_obamas_rise/

I think there is a primary difference between the entirety of modern history in Afghanistan and the current push towards democracy. This time women are involved. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/10/04/afghan.women/index.html I can't find the article here, but there was another article I read that studied the role of women in oppressive societies such as the Taliban, and the findings were rather startling. Because men are placed on such a high pedistal in such societies, and women are so low, the women actually had quite a strong hand within their own home. The reason for this was that many men did not want the stigma of having an upstart wife. So they wouldn't turn them in for not following the rules in the home as it would cause a backlash for the them as well. Eventually the true hardliners burned through (unfortunately in some cases that is a literal term) their matrimonial prospects and were left single while the more capitualting men had peace in their home. The hardliners then took out their brutality on women in the streets which lead women to turn up the heat on their husbands at home (or turn down the heat, as the case may be). It got to the point where cliques of women would gather in secret to look through American glamour magazines and make makeshift beauty salons.... a great afront to the male dominated culture. These women's husbands, however, didn't seem to mind too much. It was on this backdrop, in Afghanistan, that a rather suprising thing happned. A group of women from N.O.W. (rather bravely I might add) travelled to Afghanistan in the days following the defeat of the Taliban when the area was still very much in flux and began to reach out to the women of Kabul to organize. They had expected to find women weakened by years of abuse... what they found was an incredibly strong group of women who were already taking their new freedom and running with it. I saw some documentary footage of this NOW trip and it was rather funny. The NOW women were both happy and perplexed to find that when reaching out to the women of Afghanistan the most frequent request was for new makeup. It is because of this that I do not give up hope.A good number of husbands and wives have had time to assess the situation they lived in, and may return to, and I believe they will fight very hard against the return of the Taliban. On a small and funny side note: There is a quirky realization coming from the break-up of Al Qaeda cells in Iraq. As they clear out numerous cells, and go through the houses to find weapons caches they are fining there are two other "contraban" items in these cells that are much more pleantiful than guns. The contraban? Booze and pornography. Al qaeda used it as a recruiting tool.... the mulahs operating as the spiritual heads of the jihad issued a fatwa that all sins commited prior to martyrdom were excused, so naturally the new recruits all quickly became drunk perverts.

The problem still exists in the "conspired to drive up the price of oil" that the primary drivers in the price of oil came from the upswing in China's usage and a refusal of OPEC to increase output to meet the demand. How Cheney managed to fix that 7 years in advance while talking to Exxon and Mobile I'll never know. Of course, if they REALLY wanted to fix oil prices they would have attacked Iran anyway. That whole argument is full of wholes you can drive oil tankers through. As for the WMD argument.. that is probably for another thread... but consider this simple fact: If the administration were so devious that it would attempt to drift a certain falsehood into the public record and kill thousands in an attempt to affect world oil prices we would have found WMDs in large numbers in Iraq already. Such evil cunning doesn't publicly declare that the WMDs were not found. It is "through the looking glass" reasoning. Everything is more than it appears even when there is a much simpler and more logical explanation. Cheney met with Oil Companies about Iraq - Reason: The last war in Iraq left huge environmental disasters in it's wake as Saddam ordered the oil fields set to the torch.... in case on a new war with Iraq, Oil companies with the skill and know how to put out oil fires, and to rebuild oil rigs would be needed. It's called planning. The aftermath: U.S. and British troops did a fantastic job of intercepting the Fedayeen Saddam in the opening hours of the war and thwarting most of their efforts to destroy oil fields. The fire eaters were not needed after all. Bush stated that Saddam had WMDs - Reason: Although there were competing views on this subject in the CIA Bush stated very clearly in his "16 words speech" that his intent was to never be wrong on the "probably harmless" side again. Aftermath: Much hay has been made in the Democratic party by doing a good deal of misleading of their own concerning Bush's speeches on the reason for invasion. Bush never said that Iraq had nuclear weapons, he said that he sought to start the program again.... and it turns out he was right. Joe Wilson's expose of the Niger connection was very very flawed. His biggest bit of silly rationale for he conclusions was that in 1999 Iraq sent a trade delegation to Niger to discuss opening tourist flights between Iraq and Niger. Even assuming for a second that anyone in Niger or Iraq would find the other an appealing tourist destination you can't escape the two facts that: 1) the head of the trade delegation to Niger was the same official that went to Niger on it's last trade talks to buy... yellow cake uranium. 2) Niger has two major exports... 75% of all exports is uranium, and the bulk of the remaining 25% is concrete.... so if you can manage to disbelieve the sunny Iraq tourism trade (not hard), do you suppose that Saddam was interested in shipping some concrete air freight? No? Joe Wilson asked the Niger officials who met with the Iraqis whether they were talking about Yellow cake uranium.... the officials said no. That, of course, doesn't really amount to evidence since Wilson's question was, essentially, "Hey, were you guys breaking U.N. resolutions?".... whether they were or weren't the answer would always be "No". My guess is there would have been a bogus tourism flights run if Iraq and Niger had come to an agreement... but the luggage compartment wouldn't be filled with luggage. There is a lot more to the WMD debate, but I will let that go for now. Anyway, none of this constitutes scientific evidence, but then we're talking "reasonable doubt" evidence anyway.

A terrorist uses terror as it's main tool and rarely (if ever) in history has a terrorist organization faught for a way of life that is actually free. Freedom fighters use guerilla warfare to combat larger armies and often fight for actual freedom. ie. The Taliban faught the Russians using terror and guerilla tactics, and a way of life that was anything but free... so they are terrorists. On the other hand, the Northern Alliance faught the Taliban using guerilla tactics, did not use terror, and faught for a more moderate and open Afghanistan... so they were freedom fighters. Since one word means something good, and the other something nefarious, all roving bands of terrorists consider themselves freedom fighters, even though they bake their opponents in ovens, walk into discos wrapped in TNT, and murder girls because they have the audacity to be raped in their country.

Actually, it could only have the opposite effect, if any. If you read the article, he mainly rejected public funds because it would have capped his ability to spend in the election... so by rejecting the public funds he is simply saying that he plans to spend more than the $84 million cap. So if he took the $84 million he would have stopped taking contributions and would have been cut off from further donations. By rejecting it he can continue collecting contributions right up to the election. So no, that doesn't hurt special interests at all. It just leaves the door open to them where it would have normally been closed.

Iraq's entire economy is based on oil, Sadam had been in material breech of the cease fire agreement for 9 years, a war contingency was in place, the previous war left scores of oil wells on fire... and putting them out is a skill held by oil companies, as well as rebuilding destroyed wells. This, not the grand evil conspiracy, is the easiest and best supported reason for such a meeting. But I guess when drawing up an Iraq cointigency and handling the aftermath of the potentially burning and destroyed wells should have been discussed with... I don't know.... I guess you guys are thinking Burger King or something? Or I suppose the grand plan was to get Exxon and Mobile advice on how much to pay the Iraqi's for their oil? Last I checked, Iraq is still selling it's oil, the U.S. isn't stealing it. What, in the current state of affairs in Iraq, leads to believing that any meeting between oil companies and the Vice President were on how to best exploit a coming war in Iraq? Or does that fall into the conspiracy mainstay "absence of evidence is evidence of a cover-up!"?

If Government decides that they need to "repair' that swath of land rather than let it "heal" on it's own, they will be making a gigantic mistake. Our history of trying to help nature recover is littered with catastrophe.... nature does a much better job on it's own.

In recent geological history ice has been the rule and warmth has been the exception. We are benefiting from living in one of those exceptional periods.

Here is an interesting article on this general subject (science and religion, not Dawkins specifically) by Stuart Kauffman, Professor of Biology, Physics and Astronomy at the University of Calgary. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kauffman08/kauffman08_index.html

If only we had the technology to reduce the worlds population......

Isn't this what you guys use RealClimate.org for already?

Actually, my understanding is that the IR retention is reflected IR, which comes from both the warmth of the Earth, reflection of IR that is caught on the way out, and the conversion of the higher wave lengths to IR from heating of the Earth's surface. I know it goes both ways, but it is not a viscious cycle.. ie. a set amount of CO2 can only retain so much heat. Well, the communication problem we are having revolving around what the exponential growth actually is. That is to say, this growth takes the form a, ar, ar^2, ar^3... ar^n (where "a" is the starting value, and "r" is the common ratio) . We are arguing about exponential/geometrical growth and haven't established what "r" we are talking about. When we are talking about "doubling the CO2" that would indicate we are talking about an r of 2 (a, 2a, 4a, 8a, 16a... etc.). Geometric growth is also the common term for growth with a common ratio of 2. So the exponential growth can be any growth that can be attributed a common ratio. Linearity would only happen if the growth was inverse of the logrithmic curve. But it's not. Since this is a thread about a movie that talks completely about predicting the future, I would say that keeping the discussion from talking about the furture would be off topic. As I stated earlier, the linearity depends on the exponetial growth being roughly the same as the decreasing logaritmic effect of the CO2. I haven't gotten the cause and effect reversed, the ocean does release more CO2 when it warms. The exact amount of that release per degree I couldn't tell you. Is it linear? I would guess not, as almost nothing in nature is linear.

Your explanation makes the false assumption that the second half of the CO2 increase has the same amount of thermal IR to potentially absorb as the first. But since the available thermal IR decreases for each doubling, the next X amount of CO2 absorbs less than the previous because there is less to absorb. Eventually all the thermal IR (which is the wavelength in question) is absorbed and increases in CO2 have little effect. I post citations when I think it is waranted, but since you have been interested in this topic for a while now I assume you know the basics. The most complex basic statement has been the logrithmic effect of CO2 absorbtion, you accept that. What you do not accept is my assertion that the CO2 increase will not be sufficient to impose a linearity on the GHG effect of CO2. Now to the disection of where we stand in this little debate: My original statement was in response to Bascules's assertion (uncited) concerning the increased forcing effect of CO2... I did not discount this entirely, but rather qualified it with the unstated logrithmic effect. YOU then jumped in and asserted that the "exponential increase" in CO2 will force linearity into the CO2 forcing observed.... so it is up to YOU to cite where such an exponential increase in CO2 is probable. If it isn't, then your assertiuon if just baseless hyperbole. Your latter sources don't support your assertion of an exponential increase... all you have, I woiuld guess, is the IPCC "scenarios" where they make predictions of the forcing effects of CO2 based on arbitrary "if it doubles then..." statements. So show me the real world studies that show that the increase in CO2 will continue to accelerate exponentially. The citation requirements are in your court. Well, that's a lie... here is your first statement in this debate: "It isn't generally true, but then, that's not what was claimed. An exponential increase in CO2 will have a linear effect on temperature. An increasing exponential value will have an increasing effect. That's basic math." Exponential and geometric growth are the same thing. Again, I am making basic statements that YOU agree with. Where we disagreed was in the growth of CO2 and it's effect on warming. And I am not making a strawman argument... your claim is well documented. You need to focus on filling your own holes. Your thumbnail numbers are actually, wrong (you misplaced a decimal)... but I will let that slide. The chart, assuming CO2 as the driver, shows 80ppm increase equals 8 ºC increase.... so 100ppm increase should equal a 10 ºC... assumingg linearity. But even going back to the logrithmic argument, 80ppm equals 8ºC... but 100ppm equals 0.63ºC. Care to explain?

I assumed you knew what the increase of CO2 have been over the last 150 years. I didn't think you would need a study quote for such a basic bit of data. The CO2 has increased by roughly 35% in the last 150 years. The funny thing is that you agree with my statement of the logarithmic characteristics of CO2 as a GHG... you are just pissed because I didn't post a study that predicts the CO2 increase will be less than enough to counter that basic bit of physics. So what is your proof that the CO2 will grow geometrically? Sorry, I forgot that the AGW folks are the only ones allowed to compare now to the last 1000 years. Yeesh. What happened to "different times, different conditions"? Well, actually I will consider your point because.... we can then say that the human contribution of CO2 is in the neighborhood of 20ppm in the last 150 years, or about 5%. Even eliminating 130 of the industrial years from the contribution (a decision in YOUR favor) we could say we contributed 20ppm in the last 30 years.... So, what is the effect of a 5% increase in CO2 on the log scale?

This isn't exactly true as CO2 has a logarithmic effect on warming. So the actually contribution of heating by CO2 is lessening over time regardless of it's source. This is the big conundrum in climatology right now. If the real effect of CO2 on global warming is to jump start runaway warming (which is necessary for the gloomier models to be true) then the bulk of the damage of anthropogenic CO2 has already been done. If we were to remove all of the anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere right now the natural warming, and the corresponding ocean release of CO2, would still be sufficient to take up our slack and continue the runaway warming. Which then begs the question of why this hasn't already happened in much warmer times in the past. Hmmm.. maybe it's because our predictions have been based on bad data and therefor can't properly model the intricate mechanisms of global climate.... Of the increase seen in the last 100 years (280 ppm to 380 ppm) only a protion of that is anthropogentic... unless you assume that the ocean released no CO2 following the little ice age. But we both know that that isn't the case. So of the increase, what portion is anthropogenic, and what is attributed to the expected warming?

This is comical as well.... what difference does it make WHERE the error comes from? My point is still that the error is more than the estimate. It doesn't matter if the error is coming from a positive or negative forcing. If you want to explain why a positive or negative forcing standard error makes a diffrence in the determined AGW forcing, feel free to air it. But right now you are simply saying "poe-TAY-toe" to my "poe-TAH-toe" and pretending you have proven that we are talking about oranges.