Thanks. That is very interesting. Hopefully, they will also be able to address the horrific roll-over problem that plagues SUVs. If so, and if I find I have need for something larger than the economo-boxes that I've driven all my driving life, I might consider something like that.

I'm curious what Volvo is working on. Geez, I wish we had more Europeans on this forum!

Thanks. That is very interesting. Hopefully, they will also be able to address the horrific roll-over problem that plagues SUVs. If so, and if I find I have need for something larger than the economo-boxes that I've driven all my driving life, I might consider something like that.

I'm curious what Volvo is working on. Geez, I wish we had more Europeans on this forum!

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

I am not sure what the significance of the hydroxyl article is.

If something were to effect the level of OH (a marker for the efficiency of atmospheric oxidation reactions) this would imply that more pollutants are leaving the troposhere, which means less ozone (a good thing for public health) but more hydrocarbons moving upstairs (a bad thing for global warming). On the other hand if OH levels aren't falling (which I think is what the article says) then that means we still need to worry about ozone but less about non-CO2 greenhouse gases.

You guys really don't get it, do you? When Jesus said, "Ye are gods," he failed to mention the full ramifications of such arrogance.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

I am not sure what the significance of the hydroxyl article is.

If something were to effect the level of OH (a marker for the efficiency of atmospheric oxidation reactions) this would imply that more pollutants are leaving the troposhere, which means less ozone (a good thing for public health) but more hydrocarbons moving upstairs (a bad thing for global warming). On the other hand if OH levels aren't falling (which I think is what the article says) then that means we still need to worry about ozone but less about non-CO2 greenhouse gases.

You guys really don't get it, do you? When Jesus said, "Ye are gods," he failed to mention the full ramifications of such arrogance.

Originally Posted by Tristan Jones

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

If all those SUV owners were moved by $6 a gallon gasoline (and that in short supply) to purchase hybrids, there would not be nearly enough hybrids in existence to satisfy that demand.

In Britain now petrol is $6 a gallon, the cars there are small compaired to their US counterparts, even the SUV's. If Petrol prices were that high in the USA, I would think that people would buy smaller SUV's, the sort which are popular in the UK and lesser degree Australia, like Toyota RAV4, Ford Escape or Honda CR-V. SUV buyers find in thse vehicles you can't get in a hybrid car.

To be fair, perhaps half the SUVs sold here are of the smallish variety, too. Especially popular in Columbus seem to be the Jeep Liberty, Toyota RAV4 and Hyundai Santa Fe. Ten-mpg behemoths like the Ford Excursion and Expedition get all the airplay, but they aren't the majority of SUVs people are buying.

Originally Posted by Tristan Jones

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

If all those SUV owners were moved by $6 a gallon gasoline (and that in short supply) to purchase hybrids, there would not be nearly enough hybrids in existence to satisfy that demand.

In Britain now petrol is $6 a gallon, the cars there are small compaired to their US counterparts, even the SUV's. If Petrol prices were that high in the USA, I would think that people would buy smaller SUV's, the sort which are popular in the UK and lesser degree Australia, like Toyota RAV4, Ford Escape or Honda CR-V. SUV buyers find in thse vehicles you can't get in a hybrid car.

To be fair, perhaps half the SUVs sold here are of the smallish variety, too. Especially popular in Columbus seem to be the Jeep Liberty, Toyota RAV4 and Hyundai Santa Fe. Ten-mpg behemoths like the Ford Excursion and Expedition get all the airplay, but they aren't the majority of SUVs people are buying.

Originally Posted by The Wonk

Thanks. That is very interesting. Hopefully, they will also be able to address the horrific roll-over problem that plagues SUVs. If so, and if I find I have need for something larger than the economo-boxes that I've driven all my driving life, I might consider something like that.

I'm curious what Volvo is working on. Geez, I wish we had more Europeans on this forum!

As a bit of a car nut, let me jump-in.

Almost all of the European companies are focussing on the diesel. A modern diesel can already match the 40+MPG number, and give performance equivalent to the gasoline engine. The Germans are leading the charge (VW, Mercedes and Opel). The rest of Europe is not far behind. Note the lack of new technology required, and the lack of cost-adders. Diesels are a direct trade-off with gasoline, and preferred in high energy cost situations.

<SOAPBOX>Now, think the BEST thought. Couple high performance diesels with the hybrid concept, and VIOLA, exceptional thrift (65-80MPG). This is possible today, and GWB to the contrary, should be pushed strongly using mandates, if necessary.</SOAPBOX>

Originally Posted by The Wonk

Thanks. That is very interesting. Hopefully, they will also be able to address the horrific roll-over problem that plagues SUVs. If so, and if I find I have need for something larger than the economo-boxes that I've driven all my driving life, I might consider something like that.

I'm curious what Volvo is working on. Geez, I wish we had more Europeans on this forum!

As a bit of a car nut, let me jump-in.

Almost all of the European companies are focussing on the diesel. A modern diesel can already match the 40+MPG number, and give performance equivalent to the gasoline engine. The Germans are leading the charge (VW, Mercedes and Opel). The rest of Europe is not far behind. Note the lack of new technology required, and the lack of cost-adders. Diesels are a direct trade-off with gasoline, and preferred in high energy cost situations.

<SOAPBOX>Now, think the BEST thought. Couple high performance diesels with the hybrid concept, and VIOLA, exceptional thrift (65-80MPG). This is possible today, and GWB to the contrary, should be pushed strongly using mandates, if necessary.</SOAPBOX>

autoweek mag test drives GM's fuel-cell car


TK

autoweek mag test drives GM's fuel-cell car


TK

Originally Posted by TrollKing

that last post of mine was from new year's eve, and was the last post i made here until this one. and actually, i did spend new year's day doing exactly as you suggest, while skiing on mt. hood.

TK

I'll be damned. Me and my sister took our kids (my 2-year-old, and her 3-year-old) up to Trillium Lake for a bit of snow tossing and sliding that same day. Must be something in the water...

Originally Posted by TrollKing

that last post of mine was from new year's eve, and was the last post i made here until this one. and actually, i did spend new year's day doing exactly as you suggest, while skiing on mt. hood.

TK

I'll be damned. Me and my sister took our kids (my 2-year-old, and her 3-year-old) up to Trillium Lake for a bit of snow tossing and sliding that same day. Must be something in the water...

http://209.61.190.23/news2002/nov02/...ws3monday.html

sounds VERY 3T to me

http://209.61.190.23/news2002/nov02/...ws3monday.html

sounds VERY 3T to me

Originally Posted by Stonewall Patton

We will see salinity standards set for road shoulder habitats such that roads can no longer be de-iced. Those in Northern climes will no longer be able to drive for good portions of the year...

stoney, i don't know where you're posting from, but there are plenty of folks driving year-round in northern climes where they don't salt the roads. most (if not all) of the western states (including alaska, i believe) do not salt the roads, instead opting for the (sometimes required) use of chains and studded tires.


TK

Originally Posted by Stonewall Patton

We will see salinity standards set for road shoulder habitats such that roads can no longer be de-iced. Those in Northern climes will no longer be able to drive for good portions of the year...

stoney, i don't know where you're posting from, but there are plenty of folks driving year-round in northern climes where they don't salt the roads. most (if not all) of the western states (including alaska, i believe) do not salt the roads, instead opting for the (sometimes required) use of chains and studded tires.


TK

Originally Posted by TrollKing

Originally Posted by Stonewall Patton

We will see salinity standards set for road shoulder habitats such that roads can no longer be de-iced. Those in Northern climes will no longer be able to drive for good portions of the year...

stoney, i don't know where you're posting from, but there are plenty of folks driving year-round in northern climes where they don't salt the roads. most (if not all) of the western states (including alaska, i believe) do not salt the roads, instead opting for the (sometimes required) use of chains and studded tires.


TK

...and sand and cinders here in NM, where salt is never used. I came here from Illinois and the car we drove out here is still around--we sold it to a lowrider 19 years ago and I see it now and then. He had to do a lot of boby work because of the salt-rust from Illinois. Our cars out here do not rust out...hooray for chains, studded tires, sand and cinders!

Originally Posted by TrollKing

Originally Posted by Stonewall Patton

We will see salinity standards set for road shoulder habitats such that roads can no longer be de-iced. Those in Northern climes will no longer be able to drive for good portions of the year...

stoney, i don't know where you're posting from, but there are plenty of folks driving year-round in northern climes where they don't salt the roads. most (if not all) of the western states (including alaska, i believe) do not salt the roads, instead opting for the (sometimes required) use of chains and studded tires.


TK

...and sand and cinders here in NM, where salt is never used. I came here from Illinois and the car we drove out here is still around--we sold it to a lowrider 19 years ago and I see it now and then. He had to do a lot of boby work because of the salt-rust from Illinois. Our cars out here do not rust out...hooray for chains, studded tires, sand and cinders!

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Within 10 to 20 years, our energy efficiency could increase to maybe 40% instead of 10%, and
we'd have an energy surplus and drastically falling prices. But the economy would still suffer a
temporary hit of the first magnitude. Not the end of the world, but hard times for a while. Which
will mean people scream and demand that the government do something, so the free market isn't
going to be allowed to handle the problem on its own.

My high school boyfriend bought a large, fashionable four-wheel drive truck in 1977.
As I recall, he sold it at a loss in 1979 because he could not afford to fuel it, nor could anyone
else. So I see your point, and I admit that my criticism of your memory was rather like the pot
calling the kettle black. I suppose it was the word "catastrophe" which raised my libertarian-
schooled hackles.

You may be further gratified to know I?ve taken your criticisms to heart. You made me confront the fact that my oh-so well-rounded self-education is fundamentally lacking in ecological studies. I went to B&N this afternoon in search of study material to take your advice and set that right. What I discovered is that environmental information sans politics is in short supply. Nearly everything published is either an indictment of civilization or an indictment of environmentalism. The shelves fairly vibrate with hostility; these books would commit browse-by shootings upon one another if they could. I got the impression that the truth may be somewhat hard to find, which offers up a sort of ?the truth is out there? challenge I might enjoy. I decided to begin with Edward O. Wilson?s ?The Diversity of Life? New Edition. I also bought Thomas Friedman?s ?The Lexus and the Olive Tree? because I need a better understanding of globalization. (thanks for the tip, Eli.) Bjorn Lomborg?s ?Skeptical Environmentalist? looks very comprehensive, and might be a good counterpoint to Wilson. I?ll probably also read Allen Hammond?s ?Which World?: Scenarios for the 21st Century.? Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Originally Posted by Eli Levin

The free market is not allowed to handle the problem on its own now, either. Don't forget that
the current administration is bought and paid for and that some of the biggest buyers are members
of the oil industry. They are interested in protecting their markets, now, and making more than a
few bucks, now, on the assets they have now.

Valid enough point. But it begs an equally valid question: to whom are the environmental conservationists beholden? Surely they too are interested in protecting their ?markets? now, and in making more than a few bucks (grants) now, on the assets (public attention) they have now. There is nothing wrong with making money, and I don?t begrudge it to either industrialists or scientists. But perhaps the skeptical eye with which we routinely view ?Big Business? should not glance so easily away from ?Big Science.?


Actually, I only came to this thread looking for general ideas as to our being in, or not in, the 4T! Oh well, I'll take my inspirations where I find them. :o
--Suz X.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Within 10 to 20 years, our energy efficiency could increase to maybe 40% instead of 10%, and
we'd have an energy surplus and drastically falling prices. But the economy would still suffer a
temporary hit of the first magnitude. Not the end of the world, but hard times for a while. Which
will mean people scream and demand that the government do something, so the free market isn't
going to be allowed to handle the problem on its own.

My high school boyfriend bought a large, fashionable four-wheel drive truck in 1977.
As I recall, he sold it at a loss in 1979 because he could not afford to fuel it, nor could anyone
else. So I see your point, and I admit that my criticism of your memory was rather like the pot
calling the kettle black. I suppose it was the word "catastrophe" which raised my libertarian-
schooled hackles.

You may be further gratified to know I?ve taken your criticisms to heart. You made me confront the fact that my oh-so well-rounded self-education is fundamentally lacking in ecological studies. I went to B&N this afternoon in search of study material to take your advice and set that right. What I discovered is that environmental information sans politics is in short supply. Nearly everything published is either an indictment of civilization or an indictment of environmentalism. The shelves fairly vibrate with hostility; these books would commit browse-by shootings upon one another if they could. I got the impression that the truth may be somewhat hard to find, which offers up a sort of ?the truth is out there? challenge I might enjoy. I decided to begin with Edward O. Wilson?s ?The Diversity of Life? New Edition. I also bought Thomas Friedman?s ?The Lexus and the Olive Tree? because I need a better understanding of globalization. (thanks for the tip, Eli.) Bjorn Lomborg?s ?Skeptical Environmentalist? looks very comprehensive, and might be a good counterpoint to Wilson. I?ll probably also read Allen Hammond?s ?Which World?: Scenarios for the 21st Century.? Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Originally Posted by Eli Levin

The free market is not allowed to handle the problem on its own now, either. Don't forget that
the current administration is bought and paid for and that some of the biggest buyers are members
of the oil industry. They are interested in protecting their markets, now, and making more than a
few bucks, now, on the assets they have now.

Valid enough point. But it begs an equally valid question: to whom are the environmental conservationists beholden? Surely they too are interested in protecting their ?markets? now, and in making more than a few bucks (grants) now, on the assets (public attention) they have now. There is nothing wrong with making money, and I don?t begrudge it to either industrialists or scientists. But perhaps the skeptical eye with which we routinely view ?Big Business? should not glance so easily away from ?Big Science.?


Actually, I only came to this thread looking for general ideas as to our being in, or not in, the 4T! Oh well, I'll take my inspirations where I find them. :o
--Suz X.

This opinion piece by John Le Carre is well worth reading. He paints a solid picture of 3T apathy among Americans and Brits. But are there not signs, at least in the US, of people breaking out of their apathy? Concerns about the police state the Bush administration has created are now coming from all points of the political spectrum and getting louder. Is this a storm brewing or just a squall? I find it difficult to reconcile this mounting universal concern about civil liberties and privacy with the completely apathetic 3T mood we knew in the '80s and '90s.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...543296,00.html

(Usual disclaimers)


January 15, 2003

The United States of America has gone mad
John le Carr?


America has entered one of its periods of historical
madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.

The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.

The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world?s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions.

But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer?s pocket? At what cost ? because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people ? in Iraqi lives?

How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America?s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election.

Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I?m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam?s downfall ? just not on Bush?s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America?s Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti- Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.

God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another?s, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas.

Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God?s work.

In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him. The CIA believes that ?somebody? was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr?s cry: ?That man tried to kill my Daddy.? But it?s still not personal, this war. It?s still necessary. It?s still God?s work. It?s still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people.

To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won?t tell us is the truth about why we?re going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil ? but oil, money and people?s lives. Saddam?s misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn?t, won?t.

If Saddam didn?t have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart?s content. Other leaders do it every day ? think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt.

Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam?s weapons of mass destruction, if he?s still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes? notice. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America?s need to demonstrate its military power to all of us ? to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad.

The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair?s part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can?t. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can?t get out.

It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain?s opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that?s Britain?s tragedy, as it is America?s: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. Blair?s best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world?s greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant?s head to wave at the boys?

Blair?s worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come. He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy.

There is a middle way, but it?s a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship.

I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect?s sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can?t explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar.

?But will we win, Daddy??

?Of course, child. It will all be over while you?re still in bed.?

?Why??

?Because otherwise Mr Bush?s voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him.?

?But will people be killed, Daddy??

?Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people.?

?Can I watch it on television??

?Only if Mr Bush says you can.?

?And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more??

?Hush child, and go to sleep.?

Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: ?Peace is also Patriotic?. It was gone by the time he?d finished shopping.


The author has also contributed to an openDemocracy debate on Iraq at www.openDemocracy.net

This opinion piece by John Le Carre is well worth reading. He paints a solid picture of 3T apathy among Americans and Brits. But are there not signs, at least in the US, of people breaking out of their apathy? Concerns about the police state the Bush administration has created are now coming from all points of the political spectrum and getting louder. Is this a storm brewing or just a squall? I find it difficult to reconcile this mounting universal concern about civil liberties and privacy with the completely apathetic 3T mood we knew in the '80s and '90s.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...543296,00.html

(Usual disclaimers)


January 15, 2003

The United States of America has gone mad
John le Carr?


America has entered one of its periods of historical
madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.

The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.

The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world?s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions.

But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer?s pocket? At what cost ? because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people ? in Iraqi lives?

How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America?s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election.

Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I?m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam?s downfall ? just not on Bush?s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America?s Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti- Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.

God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another?s, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas.

Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God?s work.

In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him. The CIA believes that ?somebody? was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr?s cry: ?That man tried to kill my Daddy.? But it?s still not personal, this war. It?s still necessary. It?s still God?s work. It?s still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people.

To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won?t tell us is the truth about why we?re going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil ? but oil, money and people?s lives. Saddam?s misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn?t, won?t.

If Saddam didn?t have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart?s content. Other leaders do it every day ? think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt.

Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam?s weapons of mass destruction, if he?s still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes? notice. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America?s need to demonstrate its military power to all of us ? to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad.

The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair?s part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can?t. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can?t get out.

It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain?s opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that?s Britain?s tragedy, as it is America?s: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. Blair?s best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world?s greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant?s head to wave at the boys?

Blair?s worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come. He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy.

There is a middle way, but it?s a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship.

I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect?s sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can?t explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar.

?But will we win, Daddy??

?Of course, child. It will all be over while you?re still in bed.?

?Why??

?Because otherwise Mr Bush?s voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him.?

?But will people be killed, Daddy??

?Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people.?

?Can I watch it on television??

?Only if Mr Bush says you can.?

?And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more??

?Hush child, and go to sleep.?

Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: ?Peace is also Patriotic?. It was gone by the time he?d finished shopping.


The author has also contributed to an openDemocracy debate on Iraq at www.openDemocracy.net

Originally Posted by Suz X

I went to B&N this afternoon in search of study material to take your advice and set that right. What I discovered is that environmental information sans politics is in short supply. Nearly everything published is either an indictment of civilization or an indictment of environmentalism..... Any other suggestions would be welcome.

skip the B&N and check out the library for scientific journals. you won't get a broad overview, but can look into specific topics. broad overviews tend to get politicized anyway.


TK

Originally Posted by Suz X

I went to B&N this afternoon in search of study material to take your advice and set that right. What I discovered is that environmental information sans politics is in short supply. Nearly everything published is either an indictment of civilization or an indictment of environmentalism..... Any other suggestions would be welcome.

skip the B&N and check out the library for scientific journals. you won't get a broad overview, but can look into specific topics. broad overviews tend to get politicized anyway.


TK

Originally Posted by Suz X

I went to B&N this afternoon in search of study material to take your advice and set that right. What I discovered is that environmental information sans politics is in short supply. Nearly everything published is either an indictment of civilization or an indictment of environmentalism..... Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Or, you can try this, right on the www, if you have the time.