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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (220471)	2/23/2007 1:27:00 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

He does not think that we can predict the climate because we cannot predict the weather in the near term but he isn't as strong a critic of the idea of global warming as I thought. In the near term, and in the far term even more so. I heard that interview too. Chrichton phrased himself diplomatically - he's obviously taken a lot of abuse for his stands - but if you think he's not a big critic of global warming you didn't understand him. Chrichton reads the scientists, not the politicians. The scientists tell him that climate is a "coupled, non-linear, chaotic system." Chaotic non-linear systems are full of feedback loops and butterfly effects. Small cause = big effect AND big cause = small effect. The scientists tell him that we cannot predict the climate a year from now, or ten years from now. The scientists tell him that there is a "subjective component" to validating their computer models, which means the models cannot be validated in any scientific sense. Therefore, Chrichton draws the rational conclusion that to proclaim that we can predict the climate a 100 years from now is an unjustifiable conclusion from a scientific point of view. "The future is unknowable." He said that several times. Chrichton also knows how some the IPCC's predictions of doom have disappeared from their last summary report 3 years ago to the one just published. Their prediction of sea-rise in the next 100 years has been cut in half. They also published the summary (a political document) months before the actual scientific report is due. He draws reasonable inferences from the delay, esp. as he notes that the conclusions from the last IPCC summary document were not fully supported by the last IPCC scientific report. Chrichton mused that as a culture we may be turning away from science. He notes that audiences don't seem really interested when he stresses the need for validated data. He notes that people love the idea of a catastrophe, and being able to save the planet from a catastrophe, and are embracing the idea for emotional reasons. In sum, Chrichton calls the global warming movement a kind of mass hysteria unsupported by scientific evidence. He didn't use that exact phrase, but that is precisely what he meant. He declares himself "not a catastrophrist." "Gore is wrong." he says. Do you still maintain that he's not much of a critic of global warming? Did you misunderstand him that badly?

To: geode00 who wrote (220471)	2/23/2007 1:59:18 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The Decline of US Media: Fox News Leads Race to the Bottom huffingtonpost.com

To: geode00 who wrote (220471)	2/23/2007 2:21:45 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Oily truth emerges in Iraq nydailynews.com Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 Throughout nearly four years of the daily mayhem and carnage in Iraq, President Bush and his aides in the White House have scoffed at even the slightest suggestion that the U.S. military occupation has anything to do with oil. The President presumably would have us all believe that if Iraq had the world's second-largest supply of bananas instead of petroleum, American troops would still be there. Now comes new evidence of the big prize in Iraq that rarely gets mentioned at White House briefings. A proposed new Iraqi oil and gas law began circulating last week among that country's top government leaders and was quickly leaked to various Internet sites - before it has even been presented to the Iraqi parliament. Under the proposed law, Iraq's immense oil reserves would not simply be opened to foreign oil exploration, as many had expected. Amazingly, executives from those companies would actually be given seats on a new Federal Oil and Gas Council that would control all of Iraq's reserves. In other words, Chevron, ExxonMobil, British Petroleum and the other Western oil giants could end up on the board of directors of the Iraqi Federal Oil and Gas Council, while Iraq's own national oil company would become just another competitor. The new law would grant the council virtually all power to develop policies and plans for undeveloped oil fields and to review and change all exploration and production contracts. Since most of Iraq's 73 proven petroleum fields have yet to be developed, the new council would instantly become a world energy powerhouse. "We're talking about trillions of dollars of oil that are at stake," said Raed Jarrar, an independent Iraqi journalist and blogger who obtained an Arabic copy of the draft law and posted an English-language translation on his Web site over the weekend. Take, for example, the massive Majnoon field in southern Iraq near the Iranian border, which contains an estimated 20 billion barrels. Before Saddam Hussein was toppled by the U.S. invasion in 2003, he had granted a $4 billion contract to French oil giant TotalFinaElf to develop the field. In the same way, the Iraqi dictator signed contracts with Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian and Spanish companies to develop 10 other big oil fields once international sanctions against his regime were lifted. The big British and American companies had been shut out of Iraq, thanks to more than a decade of U.S. sanctions against Saddam. But if the new law passes, those companies will be the ones reviewing those very contracts and any others. "Iraq's economic security and development will be thrown into question with this law," said Antonia Juhasz of Oil Change International, a petroleum industry watchdog group. "It's a radical departure not only from Iraq's existing structure but from how oil is managed in most of the world today." Throughout the developing world, national oil companies control the bulk of oil production, though they often develop joint agreements with foreign commercial oil groups. But under the proposed law, the government-owned Iraqi National Oil Co. "will not get any preference over foreign companies," Juhasz said. The law must still be presented to the Iraqi parliament. Given the many political and religious divisions in the country, its passage is hardly guaranteed. The main religious and ethnic groups are all pushing to control contracts and oil revenues for their regions, while the Bush administration is seeking more centralized control. While the politicians in Washington and Baghdad bicker to carve up the real prize, and just what share Big Oil will get, more Iraqi civilians and American soldiers die each each day - for freedom, we're told. jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

To: geode00 who wrote (220471)	2/23/2007 4:01:01 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi geode00; Re Crichton. Sounds like he's got about my view of it. Oh, and I can predict the weather, even if the professionals can't. Example: it's going to be warmer in August in NYC than it is now. -- Carl

To: geode00 who wrote (220471)	2/24/2007 12:13:21 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

A Cat Without Whiskers _____________________________________________________________ By MAUREEN DOWD Op-Ed Columnist THE NEW YORK TIMES February 24, 2007 So some guy stands up after John McCain’s luncheon speech here yesterday to a group of business types and asks him a question. “I’ve seen in the press where in your run for the presidency, you’ve been sucking up to the religious right,” the man said, adding: “I was just wondering how soon do you predict a Republican candidate for president will start sucking up to the old Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party?” Mr. McCain listened with his eyes downcast, then looked the man in the eye, smiled and replied: “I’m probably going to get in trouble, but what’s wrong with sucking up to everybody?” It was a flash of the old McCain, and the audience laughed. Certainly, the senator has tried to worm his way into the affections of W. and the religious right: the Discovery Institute, a group that tries to derail Darwinism and promote the teaching of Intelligent Design, helped present the lunch, dismaying liberal bloggers who have tracked Mr. McCain’s devolution on evolution. A reporter asked the senator if his pandering on Roe v. Wade had made him “the darling and candidate of the ultra right wing?” ( In South Carolina earlier this week, he tried to get more evangelical street cred by advocating upending Roe v. Wade.) “I dispute that assertion,” he replied. “I believe that it was Dr. Dobson recently who said that he prayed that I would not receive the Republican nomination. I was just over at Starbucks this morning. ... I talk everywhere, and I try to reach out to everyone.” But there’s one huge group that he’s not pandering to: Americans. Most Americans are sick and tired of watching things go hideously backward in Iraq and Afghanistan, and want someone to show them the way out. Mr. McCain is stuck on the bridge of a sinking policy with W. and Dick Cheney, who showed again this week that there is no bottom to his lunacy. The senator supported a war that didn’t need to be fought and is a cheerleader for a surge that won’t work. It has left Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, once the most spontaneous of campaigners, off balance. He’s like a cat without its whiskers. When the moderator broached the subject of Iraq after lunch, Mr. McCain grimaced, stuck out his tongue a little and said sarcastically, “Thanks.” Defending his stance, he sounds like a Bill Gates robot prototype, repeating in a monotone: “I believe we’ve got a new strategy. ... It can succeed. I can’t guarantee success. But I do believe firmly that if we get out now we risk chaos and genocide in the region.” He was asked about Britain’s decision to withdraw 1,600 troops from Iraq. “Tony Blair, the prime minister, has shown great political courage,” Mr. McCain said. “He has literally sacrificed his political career because of Iraq, my friends,” because he thought “it was the right thing to do.” He said he worried that Iranian-backed Shiites were taking more and more control of southern Iraq. (That was probably because the Brits kept peace in southern Iraq all along by giving Iranian-backed Shiites more and more control.) And he noted that the British are sending more troops to Afghanistan, “which is very necessary because we’re going to have a very hot spring in Afghanistan.” But then he got back to Tony Blair sacrificing his political career, and it was clear that he was also talking about himself. When a reporter later asked him if Iraq might consume his candidacy, he replied evenly: “Sure.” I asked him if he got discouraged when he reads stories like the one in The Wall Street Journal yesterday about Ahmad Chalabi, the man who helped goad and trick the U.S. into war, who got “a position inside the Iraqi government that could help determine whether the Bush administration’s new push to secure Baghdad succeeds.” Or the New York Times article yesterday about a couple of Iraqi policemen who joined American forces on searches in Baghdad, but then turned quisling, running ahead to warn residents to hide their weapons and other incriminating evidence. He nodded. “I think one of the big question marks is how the Maliki government will step up to the plate,” he said. And how, I asked him, can Dick Cheney tell ABC News that British troops getting out is “an affirmation that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well,” while he says that Democrats who push to get America out would “validate the Al Qaeda strategy.” Isn’t that a nutty? But Senator McCain was back on his robo-loop: “I can only express my gratitude for the enormous help that the British have given us.” Sometimes I miss John McCain, even when I’m with him.