Marc Valdez Weblog

Sullivan

Sullivan has many virtues, but steadiness of judgment is not one of them. This isn't a man you want to follow into battle. Unfortunately, many Americans did.

You can say that again! Almost bipolar, even! Yet, let's remember that many of us also followed Bush into Iraq, even if reluctantly. Political ADD is almost epidemic these days.

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Clear Skies

Here is a useful summary of environmentalist complaints against "Clear Skies." As a dispersion modeler, I have to say I'm baffled about this particular battle, but that's because it doesn't touch my core activities, just the eventual outcome.

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Revive The Sixties' Paranoid Style

Max Boot doesn't like Seymour Hersh's investigative reporting that much:

It's hard to know why anyone would take seriously a "reporter" whose writings are so full of, in Ted Kennedy's words, "maliciousness and innuendo." That Hersh remains a revered figure in American journalism suggests that the media have yet to recover from the paranoid style of the 1960s.

The actions of the Bush Administration, based on non-stop fanciful fictions, merit precisely such skepticism, however. If the press weren't such a scurvy band of lick-spittle eunuchs, we wouldn't have seen the Plame scandal, or had to read the insidious lies of power-currying Judith Miller and Laurie Mylroie. The press are a target. Paranoia is appropriate! And what does Seymour Hersh say?

...we all deal in "macro" in Washington. On the macro, we're hopeless. We're nowhere. The press is nowhere. The congress is nowhere. The military is nowhere. Every four-star General I know is saying, "Who is going to tell them we have no clothes?" Nobody is going to do it. Everybody is afraid to tell Rumsfeld anything. That's just the way it is. It's a system built on fear. It's not lack of integrity, it's more profound than that. Because there is individual integrity. It's a system that's completely been taken over -- by cultists.

Is that paranoia, or is that an apt description of reality? Speak Truth to Power!

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A Better Bumpersticker

Caution - Blonde Thinking

Bumpersticker

Never seen this bumpersticker before:

Choice - What a beautiful right

What can one say? (Tone deaf, for a start....)

Britney Spears

This is the time of day when all my biorhythms crash all at once. I'm barely awake. And for some reason, I'm worried about Britney Spears.

I don't know why. It's silly, of course. It reminds me, when O.J. Simpson was arrested, I read about this shocked fellow from New Guinea who couldn't sleep, thinking about how O.J. had been unjustly accused of murder. Worrying about Britney has just about the same relevance in my life as worrying about O.J. did for the New Guinea fellow.

By why do people say snarky things about her? It's the same kind of snide superiority masking alarm and fear that people showed to Marilyn Monroe. And even though Marilyn showed herself to be an excellent film comedienne and Britney's acting ability has left people underwhelmed so far ("... so ill I had to take a week off work"), at least Britney has time to figure it out. After all, Marilyn studied acting very hard. Marilyn learned her trademark walk from choreographer Jack Cole - it wasn't all natural talent. Like Marilyn, Britney has a tragic weakness: pills in the case of Marilyn: bad knees in the case of Britney. Such a weakness for such a kick-ass dancer!

Anyway, to those people on the 1999 California State Fair midway, who made disparaging remarks when I threw the ball, knocked over the stacked milk bottles, and won the poster of impossibly-fresh Britney, all I can say is:

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind.
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in.

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Big Feedlots and Air Quality

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More Tales of Sacramento at Night

If the weather is bad when I walk my dog Sparky late at night, I like to wear my dark blue trench coat. The trench coat makes me feel like a winged avenger passing silently through the empty streets of Sacramento, a righteous Druid from the dark side of the Moon, taking strength from winter mists emanating from the Earth.

Yet, I think others see me in a different light.

Last night, the weather was windy and wet (although not that cold) - still good enough for the trench coat. On the way to drop some mail off at the Post Office, I stopped to loiter outside the AM/PM convenience market, speaking loudly through the little security slit to the clerk, who was locked-in the store for the graveyard shift.

An African-American woman approached to make a purchase. Upon observing:

• my wrinkled, mud-spattered trench coat;
• my age-battered wide-brim Australian hat squashed over my head;
• my non-descript jeans and amorphous shoes; plus,
• a friendly mutt, unusually unkempt in the wind;

the woman knew where her Christian duty lay on such a dark night. Sweet thing, she offered to buy me a cup of hot cocoa!

Third Hack Caught!

ANOTHER conservative columnist paid by the government! My, my, my!

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Shroud of Turin

The latest scientific finding regarding the is-it-or-isn't-it-real controversy concerning the Shroud of Turin supports the Shroud's claims to great age - sufficient to derive from Biblical times. But what caught my eye is that the New Mexican chemist in charge of the study is disagreeing with the Arizona team of scientists who tested the Shroud previously: the team who were at the University of Arizona when I was there, in the early to mid-80's.

New Mexicans disagreeing with Arizonans: this cannot be! I've lived in both places for extended periods. Both states, the last of the lower 48, were admitted to the Union within a month of each of other, in 1912. If these folks disagree, then parts of my brain will explode! WHO can I trust?

(and if you say trust in faith, Gabe, I will submit you to rigorous Hegelian analysis!)

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Cheryl B.-C.

Crossing my fingers for you, Cheryl!

Bush Pushes the "Internets" Again

The White House announced that it will propose that the federal government spend $125 million in next year's budget to test computerization of health records.

What mystifies me is why Bush thinks this is a priority. After all, medical offices DO use computer technology. California's Kaiser Permanente offshored its medical records to India: does he want the U.S. to do the same with a centralized medical registry? I mean, that's the most "efficient" thing to do, isn't it?

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Bizarro Weather

Snow paralyzes Algeria and Tunisia!

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Oil

Like George Orwell said, the world needs a lot fewer novelists, and a lot more people who write almanacs. For those moments in heated debate, when you need quick information about how much oil comes from overseas, or where the U.S. fields are, here are useful links. (Courtesy of Michael S.D., who is in a ranting mood today!)

Zarqawi

Had him. Didn't recognize him. Let him go.

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TNR Keeps Laying Eggs

First, Peter Beinart's attack on Michael Moore, and now this! David Callahan at TNR is still focused on the Gore agenda, and wants the Democratic Party to go after Hollywood and its shoddy values. He defends the concept of an attack on Tinseltown:

Filmmaker Michael Moore recently warned that it would be a mistake for the party to pull away from Hollywood, saying that "this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story" and that America "likes to vote for Hollywood." Moore may be right on the first point. On the second, he should know better. The perceived elitism of the Democratic Party is now its number-one liability and ties to Hollywood play right into that perception, which is why Bush had such a field day with Kerry's "heart and soul" gaffe. What's the Matter With Kansas author Thomas Frank got it right when he wrote last July that "Hollywood stars are as close as America comes to an aristocracy, and being instructed on how to be kinder and better people by pseudo-rebellious aristocrats can't help but rub people the wrong way."

Callahan is wrong. Even though Hollywood stars make average Americans itch, so do other sorts of millionaires. Gore's attacks on Hollywood did not make him appear to be more of an average guy - quite the opposite, in fact. Limousine liberals like Gore and Kerry are hobbled from the outset from successfully carrying out distracting, demagogic attacks on other limousine liberals in Hollywood. Like Michael Moore, Arnold Schwarzenegger has a better sense of how to do these things: he NEVER attacks Hollywood. Neither should the Democrats! Intra-party fighting should be kept to a minimum. The number-one liability of the Democrats isn't its perceived elitism: the lack of policy ideas and craven deference to Republicans are the main enemies.

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Columnist Maggie Gallagher

Another conservative hack getting paid with taxpayer money to push the conservative agenda.

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Republican Congressional Corruption

Compared to the Democrats, not even close:

Conference committees added 3,407 pork projects -- never subject to any debate or amendments -- to the 2004 appropriations bills, compared with 47 additions to the final budget passed under Democratic control a decade ago.

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My Opinion on Climate Change?

I always thought it was big mistake for the folks concerned about global warming to push a regulatory approach (Kyoto Protocol) as a solution. Unlike criteria pollutants, whose emissions are somewhat amenable to control, greenhouse emissions are difficult to control except by scaling back combustion. In addition, the greenhouse problem is cumulative in nature: scaling back emissions just delays the problem, it doesn't solve it.

Free debate is the best way for contrarians and climate scientists to come to a common understanding. The trouble, of course, is that when government action is under consideration, free debate becomes scarce. Interests speak then. Interests insist on no action. And that is what will happen. Except for opening ANWR, of course.

Regarding global warming, it's likely to happen, and may already be happening: CO2 levels are some 15% higher today than when I was born. Yet, the expression of that warming may be modulated significantly, particularly by cloud cover.

A technological revolution is required. Environmental folks should be speaking the language of revolution: real revolution, not regulation. Hybrid cars, not Kyoto Protocol. The oil interests realize that worldwide oil production is at or near its peak, and they may need to change their approach in time, perhaps largely abandoning oil. Big Oil is ready, or will be ready before too long, to be peeled away from Big Auto, because they aren't dummies, and they need to move on. Big Auto will resist for a longer time. Environmentalists need to change their approach, because regulation won't work for this problem.

Why I'm a Liberal and Not a Libertarian

In the 2003 gubernatorial recall election, I was a bit surprised at the libertarians (like Ned Roscoe)....they seemed unusually ready to throw in the towel: for example, their willingness not to participate in elections (kind-of rational in one sense, since any one vote has almost no impact, but totally stupid in another sense, since it's the combined impact of many votes that make the difference). Libertarians seemed almost too rational for their own good - like the Jacobins of Revolutionary France (but without the guillotine, of course).

Myself, I'm an unreconstructed liberal. Give me the dead hand of the regulatory state any day! (At least, when it can do any good). Growing up in NM, which, economically speaking, is basically a colony of Texas, and which receives $2 in federal funds for every $1 exacted in federal taxes (2-to-1 being the highest proportion of any state, according to the Wall Street Journal), being a liberal was, for me, the only reasonable ideology to hold. Conservative ideology, with its emphasis on standing on your own two feet, applied to the fragile communities on the bleak highland mesas of the SW, means, more often than not, annihilation.

False Alarm

Yet it was Drudge who PROMOTED this false alarm in the first place ('Boston Street Gang Linked to 'Al Qaeda'")! This was HIS baby! He gets paid to yank the alarm chain, and he gets paid to let go of the chain! What an ass!

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Dollar's Day of Reckoning

In the Winter 2005 Wilson Quarterly, Robert Aliber has written a thought-provoking tract called: "The Dollar's Day of Reckoning." Aliber looks cold-bloodedly at the macroeconomics of America's rapidly-growing trade deficit, and he sees imminent troubles. The U.S. trade deficit is growing too large to be sustainable, and the situation will correct itself soon, likely to our sorrow. Aliber's purpose isn't to condemn, but rather to explain:

America's falling dollar and mounting international debt are not, as pundits often declare, the wages of profligacy and sin. They are the inevitable products of dysfunctional international financial arrangements - a system that now appears likely to come crashing down, with alarming implications for the American economy.

Aliber isn't interested so much in the particularities of bursting economic bubbles (e.g.: Japan, 1990; SE Asia, 1997) so much as their similarities, especially since 1970:

The pattern is similar in all the episodes of boom and collapse surveyed here, as well as in Mexico (1994), Russia (1998), Brazil (1999); and Argentina (2001). The growth rate of each country's indebtedness (or the indebtedness of a large sector of its economy) was substantially higher than the growth rate of its GDP, and significantly higher than the interest rates the country paid on the borrowed funds. The difference between the two rates of growth was not sustainable.

The U.S. is in a similar bind today:

Today, the U.S. saving rate remains low because of the continued displacement of American saving by foreign saving. But America's reliance on foreign saving is excessive: The nation's international indebtedness is increasing at much too rapid a rate. The inevitable adjustment will require that American's household saving rate increase as reliance on foreign saving decline. ... [The United States] is engaging in Ponzi finance, and the game will soon be up.

And the outlook?

The primary variable that must change is the U.S. trade deficit. It must decline to between $100 and $200 billion a year from its current level of around $600 billion. ...If the decline (in foreign demand for U.S. dollar securities) is too rapid, the value of the dollar could plummet, while inflation and interest rates on U.S. dollar bonds surge.

It's interesting to think about what his observations might mean for our society. Who will we sell our tradable goods to when everyone else seems to want to export here: the Europeans, maybe? Yet, since the 70's, the high value of the dollar has helped ruin our manufacturing base. Hell, even Boeing can't make a dent anymore in Europe (hello, Airbus!) Will we see mass unemployment? Sky-high interest rates? Plummeting real estate values? And when? Sobering stuff!
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Majestic 12

We are all conspiracy-minded these days! Keith at Subway is making a direct connection between Rumsfeld's newly-revealed Strategic Support Board, and a revived 'Majestic 12', the panel of government officials that "helped cover up the 1947 Roswell incident." Interesting speculation!

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Chris Landsea Bails on IPCC Process

Chris Landsea senses a deterioration in the political climate at Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), regarding what he sees as poltical grandstanding by Kevin Trenberth:

However, this case is not an honest scientific discussion conducted at a meeting of climate researchers. Instead, a scientist with an important role in the IPCC represented himself as a Lead Author for the IPCC has used that position to promulgate to the media and general public his own opinion that the busy 2004 hurricane season was caused by global warming, which is in direct opposition to research written in the field and is counter to conclusions in the TAR [3rd Assessment Report]. This becomes problematic when I am then asked to provide the draft about observed hurricane activity variations for the AR4 [4th Assessment Report] with, ironically, Dr. Trenberth as the Lead Author for this chapter. Because of Dr. Trenberth's pronouncements, the IPCC process on our assessment of these crucial extreme events in our climate system has been subverted and compromised, its neutrality lost. While no one can "tell" scientists what to say or not say (nor am I suggesting that), the IPCC did select Dr. Trenberth as a Lead Author and entrusted to him to carry out this duty in a non-biased, neutral point of view. When scientists hold press conferences and speak with the media, much care is needed not to reflect poorly upon the IPCC. It is of more than passing interest to note that Dr. Trenberth, while eager to share his views on global warming and hurricanes with the media, declined to do so at the Climate Variability and Change Conference in January where he made several presentations. Perhaps he was concerned that such speculation - though worthy in his mind of public pronouncements – would not stand up to the scrutiny of fellow climate scientists.

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Brazucas

Interesting story by Joel Millman in today's Wall Street Journal (I don't have a link), discussing how a better economy in developing countries, plus a more integrated world economy (featuring more relaxed visa policies elsewhere in the world), promotes emigration to the USA, instead of discouraging it. Case in point: the rapidly growing population of 'Brazucas' crossing across the Mexican border into the U.S. It's getting easier all the time for Brazilians to take a shot at entering the U.S.:

Brazilians being held here in El Centro at the U.S. immigration prison say they can get to the U.S. for as little as $1,500 - the price of a cheap ticket to Mexico City and bus fare to the border. Others insist they can travel all the way to Boston for no money down; they don't have to pay until smugglers get them to their destination.

Edjalma Andrade de Oliveira, a 36-year-old taxi driver from the town of Teixeira de Freitas in Brazil's Bahia state, says he traveled on credit when he left home in November. He says he wanted "to maximize my work opportunities" by leaving Brazil, and expected to land a job as a janitor once he reached the U.S.

Scaremongers

Why do I fall for this crap anymore? Here's Drudge whoring for a "Frontline" TV program Monday night on Al Qaeda's activities in Europe:

Al Qaeda's New Front: Terrorist activity in Western Europe.... Developing... High Impact Monday Nite... 'Alarming threat'...

Yet Drudge is what some low-lifes call a 'success.' Instead of whining, I guess I should respect that success and emulate him:

Vixen Vampire Minister of Health and Labor Spontaneously Combusts at Cabinet Meeting ('I have one thing that counts, and that is my heart; it burns in my soul, it aches in my flesh, and it ignites my nerves.') Developing.... Many Dead... Consuming fire spreads ...Camisados strip and become descamisados overnight. Treasury at risk ('I can't stop to count.... I have one thing that counts....') And where is Magaldi? High Impact Friday night...

Meaning, of course, that DMTC's last weekend of "Evita", starring Andrea Eve Thorpe, commences with Friday evening's performance at the Varsity Theater in Davis!



Scared witless, aren't you? Can't wait for more, can you? (I've got to do this more often....)

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America vs. American POWs

As a consequence of our having abandoned the Geneva Conventions, former American POWs now find that the U.S. sides with Saddam's regime against their claims!

Yet when 17 of our tortured Gulf War POWs and 37 of their family members said "enough" and joined together to bring a historic civil action to hold their Iraqi torturers liable, they were shocked—having won their case in federal court—to find the Department of Justice seeking to erase their judgment and "absolve" their torturers.

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The Imposing Humvee.....Obsolete?

"You go to war with the army you have," as one arrogant fool has been heard to proclaim. Still, it makes you wonder:

Stung by criticism that its Humvees and larger transport vehicles are out of step with fighting an insurgency in Iraq, and with soldiers still being killed and maimed by roadside bombs, the Army this week gathered 44 military contractors here to help remake its transport vehicles.

...After all, the more than 100,000 transport vehicles were designed to move behind front lines, not operate in battle zones with no boundaries.

The officers say they want the next Humvee-type vehicles and larger transport vehicles to be faster, more agile, more fuel-efficient and able to have armor taken on and off like a medieval knight before battle. They want the vehicles to carry more equipment and be much easier to service.

..."The way we thought we would use trucks five or six years ago is different than the way we are using them today, and it's different because the environment in which we're using trucks is different," he said. "Our Army as well as the rest of the military was designed to fight on a different battlefield."

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Charging for Grocery Bags

Actually, not a bad idea! A small, nominal charge will encourage reuse of the suckers. I know I don't reuse, and I've got too many of them piled up.

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Leonard Padilla Eyes the Maloofs

According to Graswich's column this morning, Leonard has a stake in a new arena:

Leonard likes the arena idea but says the deal depends on billionaire Kings owners Joe and Gavin Maloof paying off the $85 million loan the Sacramento City Council made to the Kings in 1997. "They have to pay it, even if it means selling a casino," Leonard said. "If they try some sleight-of-hand business about not paying every cent back, I'll make them pay."

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San Francisco Anti-Abortion March

Gabe had some funny stories about participating in the march, and what people yelled from the sidelines. Notable shout-outs included:

• all the men yelling, "Get out of my uterus;"
• the broad-minded fellow yelling, "Get out of here with your intolerant views;" and,
• the fellow yelling, "Get your God out of my Body!"

Plus, the fellow yelling, 'Separation of Church and State! It's in the Constitution!" (the Constitution doesn't actually use that phrase, but it does forbid the establishment of a state church, no doubt reflecting the influence of deists like Thomas Jefferson, who was "author of the Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom instituting separation of church and state in Virginia, passed in 1786.")

Gabe adds:

It was a very moving experience. I was quite amazed by the turnout. We apparently had something like 6,000 to 7,000 people. [The opposition] had something like 3,000 people, according to the story, but it seemed a little smaller than that, but I have NO idea. It was rather peaceful, from my vantage point.

On his brand-new blog, 'Of Mites and Wonder,' Gabe expands on his experiences:

Amidst the obscenities hurled at us and the surreal Disney-like-It's-a-Small-World-After-All chanting from those opposed to our march. I particularly remember three young women chanting "If you don't want an abortion, then don't have one," and others, such as "Not the Church, not the State, women will decide our fate!"

(For the record, I'm pro-choice, but political marches nevertheless make for blogworthy stories.)

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Strategic Support Branch

Why is Rumsfeld so determined to keep the Strategic Support Branch such a secret? Is Rumsfeld living a fantasy of total power? Who guarantees the focus of this organization isn't really warfare against the CIA? It's our money and our authority: it's time for an accounting.

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A Hispanic Viewpoint Regarding Alberto Gonzales

I heartily endorse this Letter to the Editor in the Sacramento Bee (Jan. 21, 2005):

Ignoring heritage of torture

As a person of Latino descent, I am saddened that, in a time that I should be filled with pride that a fellow Latino has been nominated for attorney general, I am embarrassed by it. Alberto Gonzales' memory seems to stop at our southern border. Our Latino heritage, hence our collective memory, unfortunately is filled with the screams, scars and tears of those from Mexico down to Chile who suffered at the hands of governments whose policies are reflected in Gonzales' legal reasoning.

We cannot allow this legalistic mind to be our top cop, charged with upholding the laws of this truly free nation.

- Julio Hernandez, Citrus Heights

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Waist-Deep Powder in the West

Cool! At Park City, just east of Salt Lake City:

...because of the southerly flow from the most recent storms, the base snow depths in Park City and at the nearby Canyons ski areas rivaled those of the legendarily inundated ski areas of Alta and Snowbird on Little Cottonwood Canyon. And, oddly, there is currently little or no snow on the ground in nearby Salt Lake City.

"People get shocked," said Ms. Parry, "because they're driving up from Salt Lake, and suddenly they cross Parleys Summit and it's a winter wonderland."

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Greenspan The Chump

The Bush team have played Greenspan like the willing chump he is. Now Greenspan is getting uncomfortable:

The new element is a rising concern at the Fed about the nation's imbalances: the federal deficit, which hit $413 billion in 2004; a low and declining national savings rate; evidence of speculative behavior among investors and consumers; and the country's enormous trade and financial deficit with the rest of the world.

In November, Mr. Greenspan noted that foreign claims on United States assets - essentially the nation's net indebtedness to the rest of the world - were now equal to one-quarter of the nation's gross domestic product. The trade deficit this year is almost certain to exceed $600 billion - nearly 6 percent of the nation's economy, and still climbing.

Too late, Alan! This is YOUR Republican legacy! The Democrats never did anything that could remotely compare to this disaster! I hope Hell has a debtor's prison JUST FOR YOU!

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For The Dogs

Someone stole my pooper-scooper. I can't imagine why.

Climate Change

Interests (Big Oil, Big Auto, etc.) love trying to poke holes in the scientific studies of global warming, puffing up their side, no matter how bad the science, and defaming others, no matter how well-founded their opinions are. As a friend points out regarding this interesting discussion:

Unfortunately, in the minds of the contrarians and their supporters, each criticism merely adds weight to their claim that their point of view is being SUPPRESSED. Those who chose to believe the Soons and Baliunases will not be dissuaded by arguments made made by the likes of Mann and Schmidt.

I always thought it was big mistake for the folks concerned about global warming to push a regulatory approach (e.g., the Kyoto Protocol) as a solution. Unlike criteria pollutants, whose emissions are somewhat amenable to control, greenhouse emissions are difficult to control except by scaling back combustion. In addition, the greenhouse problem is cumulative in nature: scaling back emissions just delays the problem, it doesn't solve it.

Free debate is the best way for contrarians and climate scientists to come to a common understanding. The trouble, of course, is that when government action is under consideration, free debate becomes scarce. Interests speak then. Interests insist on no action. And that is what will happen. Except for opening ANWR, of course.

A technological revolution is required. Environmental folks should be speaking the language of revolution: real revolution, not regulation. Hybrid cars, not Kyoto Protocol. The oil interests realize that worldwide oil production is at or near its peak, and they may need to change their approach in time, perhaps largely abandoning oil. Big Oil is ready, or will be ready before too long, to be peeled away from Big Auto, because they aren't dummies, and they need to move on. Big Auto will resist for a longer time. Environmentalists need to change their approach, because regulation won't work for this problem.

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