Archive for June, 2008

The IPCC and US politicians are engaging in a factual genocide.

The IPCC’s peer review process is a scam. Their whole argument of CO2 gas causing temp rises is only explicitly endorsed by 4 reviewers out of a whopping 23 TOTAL reviewers. This is the CORE of their argument. And they only get 4 of 23. (23 is an impressive number of experts to pool from, no?)

In Chapter 9, the key science chapter, the IPCC concludes that “it is very highly likely that greenhouse gas forcing has been the dominant cause of the observed global warming over the last 50 years”. The IPCC leads us to believe that this statement is very much supported by the majority of reviewers. The reality is that there is surprisingly little explicit support for this key notion. Among the 23 independent reviewers just 4 explicitly endorsed the chapter with its hypothesis, and one other endorsed only a specific section.

The IPCC falsifies and obscures data to fit it’s agenda.. Arguably the foremost expert on sea level in the world, Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner illustrates how the IPCC has no qualms of adding “correction factors” to make their data match their claims.

I said you have introduced factors from outside; it’s not a measurement. It looks like it is measured from the satellite, but you don’t say what really happened. And they answered, that we had to do it, because otherwise we would not have gotten any trend! That is terrible! As a matter of fact, it is a falsification of the data set.

Dishonest political tampering

Glaring Omissions, False Confidence and Misleading Statistics An in depth look at the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report…

Line by line analysis of the SPM reveals that all of the science that cuts against the theory of human interference with climate has been systematically omitted. In some cases the leading arguments against human interference are actually touched on, but without being revealed or discussed. In other cases the evidence against human interference is simply ignored. Because of these strategic omissions, the SPM voices a degree of certainty that is entirely false.

US Senate report debunks consensus. Scientists, many are past and present members of the IPCC review board, demand the IPCC stop including them in the consensus of GW. Many scientists contribute a small portion, or review a chapter or two, and then are forever linked as part of a consensus they don’t believe in.

Land based temp readings in the US are biased. 43% of land based temperature stations in the US have been surveyed. Would you believe that nearly a quarter of those surveyed have man-made heat sources close enough to skew results upwards? I’m talking about a thermometer sitting beside a parking lot, an a/c condensor, gas grills, right beside brick buildings, on the roof, under shade trees. The linked site examines each station’s history, and compares it to known construction around the site. It is obvious that the heat-islands are driving temps up at that local station, but the data is being used to indicate temperature rise across the world.

“Antarctic Penisula is warming up” - Massive Ice sheet breaks loose due to man-made global warming….typical one sided comments from alarmists. They, like the IPCC, always fail to mention that as a whole, Antarctica is cooling. In fact, a record was set in 2007 for the most ice extent since recording began in 1979. In addition, the south pole has shown a DROP in temperature by one full degree F since 1957…the coldest year being 2004. That surely doesn’t fit the GW mold being pushed on us all.

Being a “denier” can be harmful for your career. One skeptic was threatened with having his career destroyed if he continued posting anti-global warming news.

Oregon’s State Climatologist threatened by governor because he doesn’t believe in man-made global warming.

New peer-reviewed scientific studies chill global warming fears. 2007 was a great year for the climate realist. At the bottom of the post, you’ll find links to 21 peer-reviewed studies that completely debunk Al Gore and the IPCC.

Tom V. Segalstad is head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and an expert formerly with the IPCC.

“The IPCC needs a lesson in geology to avoid making fundamental mistakes,” he says. “Most leading geologists, throughout the world, know that the IPCC’s view of Earth processes are implausible if not impossible.”

NASA’s James Hansen received a $250,000 grant from Theresa Heinz’s foundation in 2004, then proceeded to endorse her husband, John Kerry, in the presidential election.

In a 2003 Natural Science article, James Hansen said:

Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue, and energy sources such as “synfuels,” shale oil and tar sands were receiving strong consideration.

So, James thinks it’s ok to KNOWINGLY deceive people to bring attention to the subject. No wonder he and Al Gore get along so well. In the U.K. any school that wants to show his film must first present a disclaimer that there are known inaccuracies. The judge didn’t want to review all of them, so he was presented with 9, and he found all 9 to be false, misleading facts, AND this author found 35 errors.

Hypocrisy per se is not the issue here. It is pretty well established that Al Gore is to energy conservation what Eliot Spitzer is to “Mr. Clean.”

There’s a lot of reading here, 14. I feel this gives a decent spectrum of the IPCC’s failure at reporting true science.

Picture the scene: A stranger walks into a small-town country store and accuses the owner of planting seeds in violation of his company’s patent. When the store owner protests that he has done no such thing, the shady visitor leaves, all the while yelling that his company is big and will make the store owner pay. The company continues on with its harassment, utilizing private investigators who film farmers sowing their seeds, infiltrating community meetings and working informants. Some of the company’s employees pretend to be surveyors. Others are more brazen and attempt to bully farmers into signing papers that will give them access to their private records. Sounds like the basis for a great screenplay, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s an all-too-real part of life in rural America these days. And the company we’re talking about is none other than Monsanto. Filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin has exposed Monsanto’s evil empire in a new documentary that will probably never be aired on American television.

For years, farmers have been planting seeds in the spring for harvest in the fall. After the harvest, it is common practice for farmers to reclaim the seeds and clean them for replanting in the spring. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office traditionally refused to award patents to seeds because they were considered a life form with far too many variables to patent. That all changed in 1980 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, extended the patent law to cover “a live human-made microorganism.” Although the ruling applied to a bacterium developed by a General Electric scientist to clean up oil spills, the precedent was set and the door was opened. Monsanto walked through that door and never looked back.

Monsanto developed and patented a genetically-engineered seed that resisted it’s own weed killer, Roundup, giving farmers a convenient way to control weeds without harming their crops. However, what Monsanto gave itself is the gift that keeps on giving. Because the seeds are patented, farmers who buy these genetically-modified seeds must sign an agreement not to reuse the seed or sell it to other farmers, changing the face of farming forever. That means that farmers must now buy new seed every year. The increase in seed sales, combined with the increased sales of Roundup, has been a boon for Monsanto. Most of the farmers comply with the terms of the Monsanto contract. However, some farmers truly do not realize what they’ve gotten into and do not understand that they cannot reuse the seeds. Others will ignore the terms of the contract, preferring not to throw away perfectly good seeds. Even farmers who do not use Monsanto genetically-altered seeds and do not want to use them can fall victim to Monsanto’s strong-arm tactics when water, wind or birds deposit the unwanted seeds in their fields. There is no way to visually tell one seed or plant from another; laboratory analysis is required. Monsanto will gladly send out its army of shady operatives to pull samples from farm fields for testing in order to protect its profits. If it is confirmed by laboratory analysis that the crop in your field came from Monsanto seeds, it won’ t matter that you did not put them there. It won’t matter if you do not want them there. All that matters is that they are there, and Monsanto will do what it must do to protect its patent.

The ruthless pursuit of the world’s food supply

During the 1990s, Monsanto declared itself a ‘life sciences’ company, spinning off its chemical and fibers operations. After yet another reorganization in 2002, it presented itself as an ‘agricultural’ company. While its PR machine positions Monsanto as a leader in the fight against world hunger, the simple fact is that it’s all about profits. It’s not like Monsanto is donating genetically modified seeds to combat world hunger. In fact, just the opposite is true. Monsanto knows that if it it owns the seed market, it essentially controls the food supply. To that end, it has spent the last decade buying up over 50 GM and traditional seed companies around the globe. It squeezes its farmers for everything it can get, and it protects its patents with a ruthless pattern of litigation.

Since the mid-90s, Monsanto has sued 150 U.S. farmers for patent infringement. The most prevalent ‘crime’ involves the violation of a technology agreement that prevents farmers from saving seed from one season to plant the next season. Overseas, Monsanto’s behavior has not been much better.

In 2005 a criminal investigation concluded that a Monsanto consultant visited the home of an Indonesian official and handed him an envelope stuffed with hundred dollar bills. This bribe was in exchange for the official bypassing environmental impact studies on Monsanto’s genetically-modified and highly toxic cotton plant. Under any other administration this criminal act would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. However, Monsanto was allowed to cut a ‘deferred prosecution agreement’ with the Justice Department to avoid a criminal trial. Instead, Monsanto paid a million dollar fine and agreed to government oversight of its operations. Given the present administration, this amounts to no oversight at all, of course.

In India, an indigenous seed company, Navbharat Seeds Pvt. Ltd. of Gujarat brought a bollworm-resistant seed, Navbharat-151, to market in 1999. Navbharat-151 is preferred by Indian farmers because it is a conventional seed and was not produced by genetic engineering. In 2001, Monsanto claimed to have found its Bt. cotton gene in some of the fields of Navbharat-151 cotton and accused the Indian farmers of Gujarat of producing pirated seed via cross-fertilization of their Bollgard plant with Navbharat-151. However, the Monsanto seeds did not become commercially available in India until 2002. The only way this cross-fertilization could have occurred was through genetic pollution, or unless Monsanto was providing its seed illegally to Navbharat Seeds prior to 1999. This is just another example of the way Monsanto uses propaganda and public relations to attempt to extract royalties from unwitting farmers. It should be noted that Monsanto’s field trials began illegally in India in 1998, and the company was taken to court by the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE) for violating the Indian Environmental Protection Act. Legal action notwithstanding, many Indian cotton farmers have fallen hopelessly into debt because of Monsanto’s illegal and ruthless practices. Many have committed suicide.

On March 7, 2008, International Women’s Day, dozens of Brazilian women occupied the research site at the Monsanto facility in Sao Paulo, destroying the greenhouse and Monsanto’s experimental plots of genetically-modified corn. The protesters were members of the international farmers’ organization, La Via Campesina, who took exception to the Brazilian government’s decision to legalize Monsanto’s genetically-modified Guardian® corn, just weeks after France banned it due to environmental concerns and potential human health risks. The farmers object to seed patenting because it keeps poor farmers in debt to the corporations owning the seed patents and takes away the farmers’ autonomy to keep and share seeds. Brazilian farmers also believe that Monsanto’s GM crop threatens biodiversity and Brazil’s native seed varieties, and violates the rights of small farmers and consumers by contaminating organic and conventional crops.

This is Monsanto’s royalty grab master plan. Introduce its genetically-modified seed and sit back while it contaminates fields grown with traditional seeds. Once that has happened, Monsanto claims their seeds have been pirated. It is not only happening in India and Brazil. It is happening in Mexico, where the origin for maize has been deeply contaminated by Monsanto’s GM seeds, Africa and Paraguay. Monsanto’s reach has even extended to Iraq, a country we have already devastated through war. One of L. Paul Bremer’s final acts was to put in place an order preventing farmers from reusing ‘protected’ (or patented) seeds. The world is easy to contaminate, but hard to police, so the next logical step for Monsanto, of course, was development of the so-called ‘terminator’ or ’suicide’ seed.

In 2006, Monsanto purchased a company called Delta & Pine Land. Conveniently, this is the company that has been working with our own U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on genetically engineered seeds since 1983, and one of the main projects has been the ‘terminator’ or ’suicide’ seed. These seeds have been genetically modified to ‘commit suicide’ after one harvest season, preventing farmers from saving or reusing the seed. This would mean that Monsanto can save money because it will no longer need to employ its cadre of thugs to strong-arm farmers into submission.

How did Monsanto get where it is?

How did a company that manufactured Agent Orange (used as a defoliant during the Vietnam war), PCBs and dioxin, and left in its wake 50 known Superfund sites, come to control 90% of the world’s GM seed market? The short answer is that it has always had more than enough help from the U.S. Government. In 2006, Monsanto donated $106,500 to federal candidates with 32% going to the Democrats and 68% to Republicans. While this number may seem insignificant, it’s the approximately $4 million it spent on lobbying that helps them curry favor with the government.

Monsanto, more than any other U.S. Company, is a master at using the government’s unethical ‘revolving door’ policy. In 1991, Michael Taylor, was appointed deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). He had previously been an attorney at Monsanto. While in his government position, Taylor made key decisions that allowed the government to approve GE crops without proper testing and consumer labeling, in spite of the fact that there were (and still are) serious concerns about their safety. Taylor then returned to Monsanto to work in ‘long range planning.’ He is just one of the many Monsanto employees who have conveniently found their way into government positions, and then returned to the private sector after accomplishing their tasks.

Because Monsanto successfully prevented labeling of food packages, consumers do not know that 60-70% of the food on store shelves, including cereals, snack foods, and even baby foods, contain some type of genetically-modified ingredients. These ingredients also frequently turn up in animal feed. How safe are they? Because they were never appropriately tested, nobody really knows. Some of the potential problems include introduction of allergens and toxins into foods, antibiotic resistance, accidentally changing the nutrient content of crops and the creation of ’superweeds’ and other environmental risks. Of these potential risks, allergens and toxins are the most dangerous.

While responsibility for regulation falls to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the FDA. However, industry experts say that the green light is given mostly by the companies developing the technology. It is no surprise, then, that Monsanto owns 90% of the domestic genetically-modified seed market. (The rest is split among other companies, including Dow Chemical and Syngenta AG.) The FDA has a unique policy for determining the safety of GM foods: Genetically-modified foods simply need to be ’substantially equivalent’ to non-modified foods. This is hardly a scientific approach.

In the meantime, Monsanto’s unregulated march to control the world food supply continues with its recent announcement of the purchase of Marmot SA, which operates Central America’s largest corn seed company. This purchase will solidify Monsanto’s position as the leading corn seed supplier to the Latin American and Central American regions. Monsanto’s assault on the public food supply now moves to milk. Its synthetic Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, known as rBGH, has been banned for health reasons in every industrialized country except the United States, of course. Oakhurst Dairy of Maine, like many other milk suppliers, has been responding to the desire of American consumers and providing milk free of rBGH, and they have been labeling their containers as such. Monsanto sued Oakhurst to prevent them from telling their customers that the milk is free of the Monsanto chemical. Faced with intense pressure from a multinational corporation and rising legal costs, Oakhurst was forced to settle out of court.

In spite of this, Monsanto’s ruthless march to control the world’s food supply continues unabated, financially devastating America’s small family-owned farms, putting untested food on our shelves for unwitting Americans to consume, and generally wreaking havoc on a worldwide basis.

I wrote over half of an article before I realized that my conclusion wasn’t what I thought it would be. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Yet in light of these unexpected findings I am now feeling optimistic about John McCain’s chances in the upcoming election. So how did I come to this conclusion?

My initial premise was that going back to Peter lying about knowing Jesus over 2,000 years ago right up to today, people lie about liking someone if it might be dangerous or unpopular or simply uncool to admit they liked or knew that person. For example, how was it that disco was so popular back in the 70’s if everybody now say they despised it back then? Same with Barry Manilow, who everyone hated yet he still managed to sell millions of albums. Or more recently, if everyone says that Amy Winehouse is, at best, sad and, at worst, mentally deranged, how is it that her Back To Back CD is the biggest selling album of all time on Amazon.com?

I went on to say that this same phenomenon happened during this election where people are lying both for and against the candidates. Obama’s message of change is what everybody says they want. And yes, his race is also a major issue but a positive one, for to say you are voting for Obama proves you are not a racist, right? On the other hand, everybody hates Bush and the Republicans and therefore they dislike John McCain, too. Plus everyone is saying he is too old to be president, and more importantly, voting for him might indicate that you are a closet racist. Therefore if you want everyone to know that you, too, want change and are popular, cool and definitely not a racist then you tell them you are for Obama and against McCain and those awful Republicans.

I continued by saying that we saw this during the primaries. Obama easily won in the caucuses where people had to publicly indicate who they wanted and may have feared being considered a racist or even uncool if they literally didn’t stand in Obama’s corner. On the other hand when people voted in the secrecy of a voting booth where no one would know who they chose then Obama lost.

Where I got in trouble with this article is that based on all of the above I would assume that people are continuing to lie and say they are for Obama in order to look good to the pollsters. So a review of the polls should therefore show that Obama is decisively beating McCain, right? But he’s not. A few polls show he is ahead but only by single digits and one recent poll showed that they were tied!

What does this mean? How can McCain be doing so well when everyone knows that Obama is the man of the hour. He’s even on the cover of Rolling Stone and you can’t get much cooler than that! What about the historically known premise that people tend to lie to pollsters to make themselves look good? This would mean lying that they are for Obama because lets face it, nobody would lie about voting for McCain thinking that would make them look popular. So if you factor in that some people are lying about planning to vote for Obama and if he currently only leads by a few points, at most, then, oh my, it might mean that McCain is actually in the lead.

If the election were held today I wouldn’t be surprised if, to the shock of everybody, McCain is the winner. But the election isn’t for another 4 months and a lot can happen. Nonetheless, Obama shouldn’t be quite so certain that everybody will be voting for him, even including those who are standing in his corner. As for McCain? He needs to let people know that a vote for McCain is definitely not racist nor a third term for Bush. Most of all McCain needs to let us know that it is ok to support him and maybe even popular and cool to vote for him. Although just like disco and Manilow, if you want to deny you liked McCain after the fact, well, once elected and in the White House McCain probably wouldn’t even mind if you denied him three times.

San Francisco Gay Parade Puts Focus On November Ballot Battle.

San Francisco’s gay pride paraders celebrated their newfound freedom to marry as the city’s 38th annual march got under way with a matrimonial touch.

Members of the lesbian motorcycle group Dykes on Bikes wore bridal veils and wedding gowns and tossed bouquets as they led Sunday’s parade. Some of the motorcycles were adorned with signs reading “Just Married.”

Same-sex marriage has been legal since June 16 after a California Supreme Court decision that ruled the voter passed law unconstitutional.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom received ovations along the parade route for his role in working to overturn the state’s gay marriage ban with a ballot initiative that has qualified for the November ballot. Governor Schwarzenegger said in a pretaped interview aired Sunday on Meet the Press that he absolutely opposes a Constitutional change banning homosexual marriage in California.

Proponents of a Constitutional amendment to ban marriage between homosexuals submitted 1,120, 801 signatures to qualify the matter for the November ballot. If passed it would follow 24 other states where marriage is between one man and one woman.

If the marriages proceed during the next four months, it is unclear whether they would be nullified if the amendment passes. Some legal scholars have said the state Supreme Court might get called on again to settle that question.

A Field Poll released by U. S. News and World Report on June 29^th found 51 percent of voters surveyed since the Supreme Court ruling say they approve of homosexual couples marrying; 42 percent disapprove. An LA Times poll, released last week found 54% supporting amending California’s Constitutional limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

“People don’t like hypocrisy, and they like somebody with guts.”

Louisiana’s part-time lawmakers passed a pay raise for themselves, more than doubling their salary from $16,800 to $37,500 and the defecation has hit the impeller with thousands of angry letters and emails flooding into state offices, exposing several Legislators who are subjects of recall campaigns, and splattering Governor Bobby Jindal (R) from head to toe because he has resisted vetoing it.

Jindal, who ran partly on a “no pay raise” pledge, is being devastated and it could cost him his chance to be McCain VP designee as the political conflagration spreads over what some are calling his hypocrisy.

Conservative talk-radio host Moon Griffon. Says “I’ve gotten over 5,000 e-mails from people who say they voted for him (Jindal), and who say they would never vote for him again.” He added, “People don’t like hypocrisy, and they like somebody with guts.”

1. The London, England based Economist: editorializes that McCain is a “doughty but cranky old warrior” and Obama an “inspirational but sometimes vaporous young visionary.”
2. McCain’s call for offshore oil drilling has helped him in Florida and hurt in California where he now trails 58-30% Obama leads 84-6% among Democrats, and McCain only gets 67% of Republicans. Just 46% of Californians favor offshore drilling while 57% do nationwide.
3. The Revolutionary Guards said Iran would impose controls on shipping in the vital Gulf oil route if Iran was attacked and warned regional states of reprisals if they took part, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
4. Facing increasing pressures from both sides of the Pacific the U. S. Navy has adopted a training plan for Hawaiian waters that it hopes will allow it to accelerate some exercises and hold them more frequently while continuing to limit the effects of its sonar on marine mammals. It hopes the plan will allow it to prepare to defend against increasing Chinese submarines and satisfy U. S. based activists.

5. The American Civil Liberties Union is threatening to file suit against the U.S. Naval Academy over the school’s daily lunchtime prayer. Nine midshipmen at the academy asked the ACLU to petition the school to do away with the prayers, saying that some midshipmen have felt pressured to participate. The school says it has no intention of changing is policy of offering time for devotion during the noon meal announcement. It has done so since its founding in 1845.

6. The new so-called “Smart car” is so tiny it barely has room for six handles- efficient if you are in an accident with anything bigger than a watermelon—then they just lock the doors and six pallbearers carry you over and drop you into a grave.

7.  The staff at Dr. Keith Leonard’s dental office in Arlington, Washington figured it was time to pony up to escape high gasoline prices. Since more than half of the dental assistants and office staff own horses, on Wednesday the crew saddled up and rode their horses in to work.

8.  Seeing Barrack and Hillary make nice is like watching a client and a prostitute both knowing the other has a social disease negotiate with Bill as pimp.

9.  America’s hard and softwood forest have increased 40% in 50 years from 600 billion cubic feet to 850 billion. It is a good thing too as there is more pressure for pulp wood to make paper bags to replace the plastic bags not long ago promoted as a way to “save the trees.”

10. The staff at Dr. Keith Leonard’s dental office in Arlington, Washington figured it was time to pony up to escape high gasoline prices. Since more than half of the dental assistants and office staff own horses, on Wednesday the crew saddled up and rode their horses in to work.

Supreme Court Decisions Don’t Change Presidential Polls Though Most agree With Handgun Decision.

Following several key decisions just 26% gave the U. S. Supreme Court Justices good or excellent marks for their work. down from 31% two weeks ago and 41% a month ago. Voters overwhelmingly agreed with the decision overturning a Washington, DC ban on handguns. Most voters think there’s a chance gas prices will top $5 a gallon this year Only about a third believe prices will top $6 a gallon or fall below $4 again. Most reject the notion that conservation alone will bring prices down and are evenly divided about whether new energy sources can accomplish that goal. All the posturing on energy issues and the Supreme Court had little short-term impact on the Presidential race with Obama sticking in the high 40s and McCain 4-5% behind. The benchmark is July 4th with many believing If Obama is 10% ahead then McCain can not overcome it.

McCain’s call for offshore oil drilling has helped him in Florida and hurt in California where he trails 58-30% Obama leads 84-6% among Democrats, and only gets 67% of Republicans. Just 46% of Californians favor offshore drilling while 57% do nationwide.

Israel to Bush - Attack Iran Or we Must.

Israel’s message to President Bush was either attack Iran or we will. Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen will hear the same simple message while he’s in Israel this week — : If you don’t, we have to - and will before the U. S. administration changes.

Frankly Israel’s fears an Obama Presidency could mean an Israeli-US rift, and that thinks Belgium born and International reporter for Newsmax Arnaud de Borchgrave could mean a bigger calamity than the 1956 Suez Canal crisis and the Soviet’s savage reconquest of Hungary. Those punctuated the earliest chapter in the Cold War moving the doomsday clock to a minute before midnight.

Simply put a conflagration in the Middle East that could spread across the world could be triggered by the outcome of America’s November Presidential election.

First, even if he wants to Bush can’t attack Iran before the November elections because it would be a political catastrophe domestically, and Israel knows that.

Second, Israel believes - I think knows - Iran is tantalizingly close to or already has a nuclear weapon. After all Iran has had 23-years since Pakistan’s nuclear midwife A. Q. Khan handed over a-bomb plans I agree with Arnaud that it would be a miracle if Iran doesn’t have at least one city busting nuke. But, using one A-bomb while useful for terror and wrecking Israel only ensures Iran ’s utter destruction.

Third, there is a chance the U. S. will not vote itself into oblivion and could elect an experienced moderate in the person of John McCain who has said “There is only one thing worse than bombing Iran, and that is an Iranian nuclear bomb.

Borchgrave says Israel is convinced it is living an existential crisis and that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s extremist threats to snuff out Zionism could destroy the Jewish state with one city-busting weapon in the nose cone of an Iranian missile. Obama says he will go to Iraq and Afghanistan but it will be nothing but a political press opportunity generating platitudes, and notable in its circumventing Israel.

U. S. and European diplomats say there is leeway for diplomacy coupled with increased sanctions pressure. Also says Arnaud verbal bomb-thrower Ahmadinejad does not control Iran’s nuclear establishment, which is in the hands of Supreme Religious Leader Ali Khamenei. Also encouraging is that one of Ahmadinejad’s bitter political opponents, former chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, was recently elected to the powerful position of speaker of parliament and may unseat Ahmadinejad in 2009 elections.

Depending on an Iranian election and diplomacy as a last chance is twitchy at best. What’s excruciatingly clear is the whole game turns on what happens in America’s November election and relies on respecting the admonishment that diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy until you find a big rock. But, you must have the big rock.