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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (6932)	2/14/2004 5:24:36 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

You will enjoy this: See What Happens When You Don’t Read? by Joe Conason "Is he out of his mind? "Does he have the faintest idea what he’s talking about?" So wondered Andrew Sullivan, formerly among George W. Bush’s most voluble admirers, after the President’s jarring Oval Office interview with Tim Russert last Sunday. The conservative columnist referred specifically to Mr. Bush’s strange assertions about federal spending, but the same goggling unreality pervaded his other remarks. Although he sounded confused and still speaks English like a second or third language, the President is not out of his mind. He may not have the faintest idea what he’s talking about, however, for the reason he revealed last fall. Recall what Mr. Bush told Fox News anchor Brit Hume about his information-gathering strategy. "I get briefed by [chief of staff] Andy Card and [National Security Advisor] Condi [Rice] in the morning. They come in and tell me …. I glance at the headlines just to [get?] kind of a flavor for what’s moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read [sic] the news themselves …. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world." It’s nice that the President has such confidence in his staff, but his trust increasingly seems to be misplaced. I first suspected that Mr. Bush had lost contact with everyday reality last July, when he insisted during a press conference that "we gave [Saddam Hussein] a chance to allow the [U.N. weapons] inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in." Even if Mr. Bush watches only Fox News, he ought to have known that the inspectors searched Iraq for six weeks last winter, before they were forced to clear out so bombing could begin. Yet he repeated the same weird claim just last month, in the presence of the Polish president, saying of Saddam Hussein: "It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in." Did Condi forget to tell him about Hans Blix and the inspectors? On Meet the Press, Mr. Bush said a few other things that suggest his hired "objective sources" are gaslighting him. "The budget I just proposed to the Congress cuts the deficit in half in five years," he told the NBC newsman confidently. If Mr. Bush glanced at a newspaper, or watched TV (even Fox News!), he would know that nobody believes his budgetary policies will reduce the deficit. Does Andy Card assure him every morning that all is financially well? Somebody must be misleading the President about basic budgetary facts as well. He apparently believes that his record of cutting discretionary spending compares favorably with that of President Clinton—when precisely the opposite is true. He would know more about his own record if he could bring himself to read Paul Krugman occasionally. Mr. Russert asked whether he has been surprised by the "very difficult situation" in Iraq. "Well, I think we are welcomed in Iraq," he replied. "We are welcomed in Iraq." To miss the daily tidings of carnage, he must be rapidly skimming those grim headlines. The President also sounded badly misinformed about his own inspector’s report on the missing weapons of mass destruction. "And when David Kay goes in and says we haven’t found stockpiles yet, there’s theories as to where the weapons went," he declared. "They could have been destroyed during the war. Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we’ll find out." Actually, Dr. Kay deduced that Iraq possessed little or no chemical weaponry after 1991, because American bombing and U.N. inspections had destroyed its stockpiles and production capacity. That’s the kind of news the President might have learned from any decent wire-service story. But he doesn’t read newspapers. That is also why he could tell Mr. Russert, without irony, that he had learned the "essential lessons" of Vietnam, a "political war" with "politicians making military decisions": He missed all the press coverage of his political appointees overruling (and publicly humiliating) the professional officers in the Pentagon, and ignoring their warnings about the real problems of invading and running Iraq. The President’s political appointees—notably a deputy defense secretary who never served in uniform—have dictated every aspect of the Iraq war, from force strength to timing. Speaking with a British journalist last November, Mr. Bush further explained why he doesn’t read newspapers: "It’s not to say I don’t respect the press. I do respect the press. But sometimes it’s hard to be an optimistic leader. A leader must project an optimistic view. It’s hard to be optimistic if you read a bunch of stuff about yourself." Surely his staffers smile when they give him the good news every morning, too. observer.com "I am the war president. I will never change."GWB 2/08/04

To: cosmicforce who wrote (6932)	2/16/2004 6:35:20 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 20773

This was an excellent post by Croc- I knew you would be interested- you might like the thread I stole it from too: Part 2 in "The Nature of Things" series on the impact of global warming in the Canadian Arctic was really good. They looked at the ways in which the warming of the ocean and the retreat of the pack ice, thawing of the permafrost, and changes in the fish populations, are impacting on birds and mammals. Really interesting stuff -- as in noticeable impacts rather than theoretical stuff. They interviewed researchers who have been studying Arctic bird and mammal populations for around 25 to 30 years. These are just a few of the changes these people have seen. * Increase in lungworm parasites in the Musk Ox herds due to longer, warmer Arctic summers -- which have led to advancement of the intermediate parasite hosts (slugs and snails) which are proliferating at much higher latitudes than before. Some of the species of slugs used to take a couple of years to reproduce, and are doing so in one season now, so there are many more, and they, in turn, act as hosts for the lungworms which infect the Musk ox in a much wider range on the tundra than in the past. * Female polar bears are thinner than in the past. They weigh less when they give birth and while raising their young as they have to expend more energy searching for food as the pack ice disappears. They have to spend more time swimming in the freezing waters getting from flow to flow than they have ever had to in the past. Basically, the pursuit of food is hard on the females and also on the young cubs which have a difficult time keeping up because they have to do so much swimming (and lose energy in the cold water). Scarcity of food also makes male Polar bears more dangerous to the females and young as they will kill them for food. * Caribou herds are having a difficult time moving from area to area on the tundra. With the ice not freezing across or not freezing solidly enough, the caribou are forced to swim where they used to walk. They showed aerial footage of a sort of worm-like network in the ice where caribou swam in search of the "next" section of land. Often, these "trails" ended with a dead caribou -- died of hypothermia and exhaustion -- frozen into the ice. The females are in poorer condition at calving time, and they loose weight during lactation due to less food and the need to move more often in search of food. Their loss of weight results in 20% less fertility in breeding season. Mosquito and other biting fly populations are greater than in the past as they emerge sooner and take a toll on the condition of the caribou. * Murres that nest on high ledges along the Arctic seas are having to hunt for fish over much larger areas than before. They used to catch mainly Arctic cod, but they're pretty much gone, so they are mainly catching smaller fish -- smelt I think... These aren't as nutritious as the cod, so the young murre aren't growing nearly as well or quickly, making them less able to survive and reach maturity in time to migrate south. In summer, the heat is too high up on the ledges and one of the scientists who has been studying these colonies for 30+ years says that the adults are often dying from heat prostration because they try to shelter their young from the sun and its just too hot for these Arctic birds. There was more...but basically, it was pretty depressing stuff. What was interesting, and something that I think a lot of people don't think about -- The effects of global warming are much more pronounced in the Arctic... and have been for awhile. It's sort of the "leading edge" of radical change, and we should be studying it very closely. Unfortunately, researchers don't spend a lot of time up in the Arctic because it's difficult work and expensive, etc.. and because people don't think it is relative to what's taking place elsewhere in the world (Wrong!!!). Anyhow it was an excellent show. Next week is about the impact of global warming, etc... on the Inuit peoples. Should be interesting. croc Message 19772735