Friday, September 15, 2006

Logic? What's that?

Yesterday I was listening to a talk show (On-Point) about the Saddam links that the current administration made to Al-Qaeda. One person was quoting evidence that the administration knew prior to making their claims of a connection that the sources they were relying on were not credible while the participant who was defending the decision was arguing that since they didn't *know* for certain that the information was wrong, they had to assume it might be accurate and act upon it in order to protect the American people. So if some flake says that another country has a nuke aimed at us, even though we know he's a flake and/or a liar, by this logic we need to take out that country just in case it might be true. I guess they consider it 'erring on the side of caution'.

I wonder why the administration doesn't apply the same logic to global warming? In fact they apply exactly the opposite to the possibility (a majority of climatologists would say "probability") that global warming is going to do bad things to the whole world if we don't act to limit our contibution to the greenhouse gasses. When it comes to global warming, a lack of total, absolute and incontrovertable proof is quoted as the reason for *not* taking any action. Could it have to do with the fact that friends and supporters of this administration are making big bucks from federal contracts resulting from the war but steps to curb global warming would cost them money? Or am I just being cynical?

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