In a brilliant move on the part of global warming skeptic strategists, George W. Bush came out yesterday, via Condi Rice, in full support of using the power of government to “solve climate change”, saying we should avoid the decision “between sacrificing global economic growth to secure the health of our planet or we sacrifice the health of our planet to continue fossil-fuelled growth”.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9fe5b5aa-6d33-11dc-ab19-0000779fd2ac.html
That should stick a fork in this debate once and for all.
Of course, Bush has made this mistake of co-opting the other side's issues once before, when he adopted the previous Clinton Administration position that regime change was necessary in Iraq due to their bio-chemical-nuclear arms programs. He apparently thought that by having Gore, Kerry, and all the rest of the Democratic leadership all on record supporting, no, demanding regime change and ground intervention in Iraq, then they couldn’t challenge his post 9/11 policy. Whadda dumbass. Today, George W. Bush is known worldwide as a “Liar” while ol' Bill Clinton as a potential Nobel Prize nominee. Ah, the power of the press. Lewis Carroll would be proud.
The only reason a good ol' boy like me knows this is because somehow they forgot to destroy all the Time magazines from 1997 hidden in chests in South Texas ranch houses... the ones that described and mapped all of Saddam’s labs, Bill’s desire for a ground attack, coincident with his Grand Jury testimony in the criminal investigation of the accusation that he raped that Arkansas woman, with Madeline Albright telling him he couldn’t get Security Council approval because Germany, France, and Russia were doing too much business with Iraq at the time, and having Bill finally settle for bombing runs announced the day of his Grand Jury testimony instead. Of course, the Republicans apparatchiks were claiming a “wag the dog” scenario, and are all on the same record as claiming that Saddam posed "no real threat".
Funny how the same set of facts have been spun by these characters to support the exact opposite conclusions they espoused ten years ago, with each side having firmly staked each others position at least once. You would think this strategy flawed, since it would depend on a really stupid electorate and a press interested in pursuing an objective truth. Apparently it isn't flawed, since I see a lot of Bush Lied bumper stickers.
Of course, those of us in the oil business are exposed to this kind of logic all the time. I see the same drilling prospect come back time and time again after yet another dry hole was drilled in the previous "great" location. The prospect comes with a whole new set of assertions to explain WHY we see what we do and WHY we need to drill another exporatory well HERE, in the new "great" location. It is a classic example of what we call an underdetermined system. This is bigspeak for the idea that "The less you know (or the less data you have), the wilder your story can be (more degrees of freedom you have to create a hypothesis that fits the known facts). Kinda like string theory and cutting edge physics...
As you collect more data (or the facts change), your fundamental assumption doesn't change... ie There Is A Prospect In Here Somewhere, it's just not where you put it before… unless, of course, "they screwed up the completion (the fact is false)". And be assured that the geologist will be every bit as confident in the new interpretation as he or she was in the previous one. Especially if he or she gets a fee and an override and isn't participating in the risk investment part of the funding. Big Lesson Here- Always make sure you know how the seller benefits. The closer that benefit coincides with yours, the better.
Bush’s seemingly brilliant political plan to co-opt every Democratic position, such as rampant deficit spending, supporting illegal immigration for all, full-priced American pharmaceuticals bought by the Federal Government to anyone who has ever dined at Luby's, and saying last week that he would devote the rest of his administration towards subsidized healthcare for all should ensure that these agendas die on the vine. I mean, who in their right mind would support a Bush proposal today?
In ten years (100 years, 1000 years, a million years), when the Climate is still Changing, it will be Bush’s Fault. He will have Lied to us about Climate Change. If history is a guide, Al Gore may well lead the charge! Of course, the good people of Berkeley may not be around to see it, if the Berkely Daily Planet is an accurate voice of it's citizenry... http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=09-25-07&storyID=28081, where the position that humans should be eradicated is espoused... a position I fully support, incidentally... for Berkeley.
http://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/2007/09/commentary-global-warming-and-berkeley.html
Of course, as a geoscientist, the concept of “solving Climate Change”, or that “solving” it will make Earth “healthier" is like saying that feeding ten year olds growth retarding hormones will make them “healthier”, or that making it Daytime on Earth all the time and getting rid of that pesky night will make us “healthier”. The same kind of straw man, false statistical arguments used in the Global Warming Debate can be used here... such as:
human productivity will be much higher if it was always day, because we sleep at night and thus we wouldn’t ever need to sleep if it was daytime all the time;
we would herald in a "golden age" of agriculture where productivity would be increase at least two fold because crops could grow all the time;
no more pesky vampires;
no more night terrors and the like;
no more lightbulbs. Just think of the energy we could save and the planet we could save if it was daytime all the time! The shadows that humans throw when walking upright cause "false nights" and lower ground temperature to potentially catastrophic effect.
One last piece of advice to the genii running this administration. In order to coopt the entire Democratic agenda, It might be time to spin the Abu Ghraib incident as "Homosexual Tolerance and Sensitivity Training" as they piled up the nekkid homophobic fundamentalist criminal jihadists. I know they are homophobic because Ahmadinejad's only comments at Columbia that were booed and not cheered were (guess which):
1. America was a terrorist state (booed) (cheered)
2. Israel should be destroyed (booed) (cheered) (ok, he didn't exactly say that, but he smiled and didn't answer, to applause, when asked if he thought Israel should exist)
3. Iran doesn't have gays. It is a particularly western conceit. Those guys that are horse whipped are pretending it is a girls rump. (booed) (cheered)
Yep, three would be the right answer.
This interpretation is no more ludicrous than insisting that “ Republicans Support Texas Chainsaw Massacre Type Torture” charges made by the other side. I can hear it now.
"No, Judge Adjutant. Them boys and that ugly gal weren't torchrin' them gay bashin' A-rabs. They are Log Cabin Republicans teachin' how to be sen'tive!"
Is it any wonder why approval ratings for Bush and Congress are so low?
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