If first you don't succeed, lie-lie again.

Well, I suppose there is a difference between rhetoric and lieing. One is used for swaying the ignorant masses and the other is used as subterfuge: "I did not have sex with that woman" comes to mind.


The CNN headline says it all. House passes resolution rebuking the president on Iraq

"The passage of this legislation will signal a change in direction in Iraq that will end the fighting and bring our troops home," says Pelosi.

A change in direction? One signaling to our troops how disingenuous our new leadership is about them and their mission with words of support but actions of denial.

The one and only outcome of this resolution is to prop up the opposition leading up to '08. Real concern for our troops cannot get passed the questions as to how the mission will be affected. Even if there exists a doubt (given testimony from the commanding general himself) why the rush?

Drunk with their own new found power it is evident that these folks in Washington DC are little concerned with troops welfare and more focused on dealing a "rebuke".

Shame, that. Their words might mean more if their actions supported them. Loyal opposition is one thing. No one expects total silence of opinion. But, there is a fine line between opposition and something our enemy has already used to buck up his forces. In times of war, there are hits and there are misses. The opposition has certainly missed the boat on this call.

I fell into a discussion today about polls and how that data is presented. If ever there were tools whose use were for nefarious and fallicious useage it is the political poll. Why? It is the appearance of unanimous or near unanimous consent to a topic presented as the majority thought. It is a complex series of questions, statistics, and presentation that makes the poll so usefull to the propagandist and researcher alike. They are both useless and usefull all in the same package. It is a shame and a sham that data produced by polls and used by politician and demigogue alike are used to make political decisions or produce the illusion of national will.

A cleverness of word can turn on the result to the desire of the pollster. That is why not every poll is made alike. That is also why polls from Rasmussen or Gallup have the reputation of reliability over an internet poll hosted by yahoo for example. Yet, even here it cannot be denied that the pollster holds all the cards and can attain a pre-desired result from the questioning.

A poll in particular that I decided to look into claimed a 60% response in the negative in support of increaseing troop strength in Iraq. A story using this poll used the numbers to advocate a decline support for President Bush and his plan to add 21,000 more soldiers to "stablize" the situation in Iraq. Someone commenting to a Town Hall collumn stated that 2/3rds of the country supported an immediate withdrawl of troops and did not support sending more. I questioned the person on the source for his claim. A poll conducted by Gallup was the source for the story.

Here is the poll:

As you may know, the Bush administration has begun to significantly increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to help stabilize the situation there.  Do you favor or oppose this?

A fair question, no?

Let's look at what goes on in a poll and where those numbers we see flashed about casually come from.

First we have the question. There are several trigger words in this question calculated to bring a response, Bush, significantly, and stablize. I'd say this is meant not to find out what the average person might think but to elicit an emotional response either pro or con. What if instead of Bush the name Petreas where used? General Petreas is also asking for 21,000 more troops for accomplishing his given mission. What if it where new Defense Secretary Gates? These are names that do not elicit such hatred or support as does Bush.

Secondly, significantly carries with it a meaning of either out of proportion or a negative increase. We've seen the news stories that talk of significant rises in unemployment or rise in temperature. We use this term when trying to sway someone against something else we do not personally want.

Thirdly, the word stabilize, something Bush has used himself is negatively connotated and means that the situation is unstable, a state of affiars that is only supported in our media and ignores other happenings in the country that would speak against it.

It is difficult to treat with this subject and not be drawn by the allure of tipping the scales one way or the other. But, I'm not convnced this poll wasn't slanted to the "popular" over the real.

A Fox News poll was a bit more revealing in both real data and questioning. The break down of partisan support was given plus the numbers of people contacted. This information was missing from the Gallup data and though one last peice of information is still missing, that of the area of the country and socio-economic status of the respondants was not given.

The question Fox News asked was:

Do you support or oppose sending additional troops to Iraq to help stabilize the country?

Though  the word "stabilize" was used here as well the question lacked the other trigger words associated with the other poll question. The result deviated slightly from the Gallup poll in overall percentages but what is more refealing about this poll was the ideological data presented. Democrats as a whole weighed heavily

Global Warming, like the phrase "Bush lied, people died" has become accepted truth though there is little to prove it.

The temperature has raised some tenths of a degree over a short period of time. This is accepted as fact and isn't disputed. If Bush lied, well so did a whole lot of people. People died in the war, soldiers and civilians. But it is far from "accepted" fact apart from a fringe who hates the man anyway. Global Warming on the other hand seems to have a far more nefarious purpose and quite the inane agenda behind its most vocal adherents.

I can't state as to why, only speculate but speculation is a dangerous pastime that gets one into lots of hot water. But there is the question of how do we know? How do we measure and test the hypothesis that man is causing this rise in temperature? How do we avoid taking the assumptions we must use in the absence of empirical data?

The simple answer is we can't. I suppose for some it is better to assume the worst than to ignore the theory. If we are only talking about a theory and arguing for its benefits or drawbacks then I suppose this entry would not be needed for it would not be entered into the media debate. It would be in the scientific community and part of the process by which its members seek to jostle and compete for the esteem of their peers. For this is the real meat of science or any academic endeavor. Yet, we are told "scientists are unanimous" in their conclusions that we are affecting our weather and climate change is due to human habitation.

It ceases to be a product of pure academic research when it becomes politicized. Politics has its own reality.

I won't dispute what can be clearly measured and identified. Fossil fuels as they are converted into energy release by product. Every form of energy does. Is it enough to change an ecosystem? It is speculation that it does. It is assumed due to a very logical progression of cause and affect but that does not lead to the preeminence of the assumption to the level of accepted truth or fact. We cannot prove a thing. We cannot even observe it happening though that can be disputed by any number of phenomena. We can only state that it is happening and then square off against anyone who disputes it. And it is being disputed.

Academia is a lot of things and most of them questionable when it comes to the mores of civilized society. The worst back stabbers, squanderers of the public treasury, selfish, egotistical, and megalomaniacal people can be found in science. But, academics aren't ones to roll over and allow politics to besmirch the process of peer review and real investigative science. So, we have less than the one hundred percent agreement as to the causes of this upward trend in the thermometer.

But, at this point we do not even know if it is a bad thing. We do have the history of this ecosystem to recall as we look back several centuries and how the civilizations from which we spring came from. But we cannot see into the future. We do not know that the rise is anything but a rise that the planet and its highly complex ecosystem cannot cope with nor adapt to. We assume instead that it is catastrophic because we start with an assumption that follows like this:

man is destructive to his own environment
something must come between man and his environment to protect it
government is that instrument for protecting the environment
man will live under constraints

I do have a few problems with this line of thinking that makes people froth at the mouth at best and attempt to silence dissenters at worst. The starting assumption that we know enough and understand enough about the ecosystem to predict what will happen fifty years from now is flawed. That assumption also portends to calculate the rate of temperature rise, the rate of unchecked emissions, and a linear rate of heat around the globe and what it will do to the polar ice caps and our own river water supply. The problem is we don't know nor can we test if any of this is true. We only guess that it might be true. We cannot use the scientific method to prove it. Instead we turn it on its head and look at the problem from the standpoint that man is causing it and present the proofs. There is little empirical about this approach and it leaves it in the theory category only.

The other problem is the politicization of the whole issue. That in and of itself should raise alarm bells. Politics is good for only one thing: power. It takes power to change a society or to at least regulate it. When no one pays attention to a problem or a problem is at best debatable if it becomes politicized it leads to one agenda usurping another. I can't speculate as to the agenda of most out there who push this. It comes from a difference of world view. I don't view the world from a standpoint of superiority. To assume that we have the power to regulate this ecosystem is to assume control over it.

I see about me little proof that we are affecting this planet in the way projected. History doesn't support this. But what about that assumption and why shouldn't we take every precaution? Sure, why not. So far, fossil fuels are the most economical to use and extract. Other alternatives are eons away from become practical on a national level and without solid linkage to the increase in temperature it is a fool’s debate; solid linkage, not presupposition or climate modeling.

There are cleaner examples of power, nuclear being one of them. But, nothing is without its drawbacks. Fire burns wood and creates smoke. Energy must consume something and produce something else in return. Unless we want to go back to pre-civil war days of economy and development we are here now and things need energy to move.

We will never prove that the Global Warming is caused by man. It cannot be tested for the ecosystem we live in is far to complex to account for every single variable. That leaves us with being good stewards in an intelligent way while acknowledging we live in the post-industrial age where fossil fuels are still the most affordable to run the machinery that fuels our economy and life style.

 A topic of conversation from John Hawkins' column Liberals vs The Troops caught my attention today. A poster referred to a Washington post story about the debunking of the supposed mobile weapons labs rumored under Saddam's regime in Iraq and how they played a significant part of the lead up to the war.

The story, Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carry Case for War by reporter Joby Warrick carries a story that states the mobile labs were determined to be solely for the production of hydrogen for weather balloons. The report, generated by nine US and British civilian experts were dispatched to examine the captured "mobile bio-weapons labs" and submitted their reports in May of 2003 and days before the administration declared the finding of Saddam's WMDs.

In reading this, I'm left with a few questions. The report, still classified, is used as the anti-smoking gun if you will of the lack of WMD evidence to be found in Iraq. What is significant is the lack of real meat for this story. Who were the experts? On condition of anonymity they are the nine US and British civilian experts. Who did the reporter interview? Six government officials who either participated or had direct knowledge of the investigation. Further, we are told that the investigators where "unanimous" and "unequivocal" in their belief that the labs where not for bio-weapons. As further evidence it is stated the trailers lacked eleven components needed to produce biological material.

However, A CNN online news story U.S. confident Saddam had mobile weapons lab from May 2003 makes reference to a report by the Pentagon and CIA that states no other purpose for the trailers but for weapons production. Further, "coalition experts on fermentation systems and systems engineering" stated the trailers could not have been used for benign purposes such as "water purification, mobile medical laboratory, vaccine or pharmaceutical production". Further, the presence of sodium azide and urea refuted Iraqi claims that the trailers where used for Hydrogen production for weather balloons.

Again, no names where stated and only "expert" testimony noted. So, the obvious question is: which report is right? Is this information from the same "secret Pentagon investigation"? The Washington Post article seems to be familiar with the CNN story from 2003 in making pains to suggest the "expert" refutation of certain noted facts: the use of the piping or tubing for weapons production, the presence of the refrigeration units, etc.

I did find it interesting from the WP article that the report mirrors that of the official Iraqi claims that the trailers were for Hydrogen production for weather balloons. They may very well have been. But, a huge grain of salt has to be taken for anything the Iraqi's claimed before and during the war.

Yet, neither article would get a passing grade from any High School history or social studies teacher for lack of any thing tangible or real. Who are these people and are they really "experts"? Are they credible? Where they high or low officials? Unfortunately in this age where once trusted news organs have been caught with their hands in the fraud and propaganda jars it's hard to take "breaking news" stories such these with any credibility.

With the rush to prop up the claims that no WMDs have been found in Iraq or to discredit the official cause celebre for going into Iraq I'd wonder about the WP story based upon a still classified report and interviews with people who weren't even involved with the investigation. Is Warrick lying? I don't know nor will I speculate. I'm sure he interviewed someone. Was it enough to flesh out a real "eye opener" of a story? Not really, IMHO. Somebody is obviously wrong or these are two different investigative teams examining the same trailers but determining different results.

Unfortunately, as each is worded and propped up in such a way so as to convince the "choir" of what they already believe it is impossible to call either story "proof".