Rudy Is Toast

This from some of the same pollsters who told us how McCain was all but a lock at one point.

We're trying to figure this out:

Why does Rudy Giuliani do worse in CNN/Opinion Research polls than in Gallup polls?

This month, Gallup has Rudy up 14 over John McCain. CNN has Rudy up only 2 -- within the margin of error.

We've looked back and discovered a mini-trend. (A month ago, Gallup had Rudy up 13 over McCain; CNN had McCain with 4).

The only difference we see immediately is that CNN samples from registered voters and Gallup samples from adults. Both polls were conducted from 5/4-5/6 -- the GOP debate was 5/3.

More later...

Hillary overcame her carpet bagging to win the Senate in NYC, but she had Chicago roots. Rudy is developing too many ideological-based carpet bagging issues with no solid conservative history to fall back on for support. He's a law and order guy and possibly a good fighter to take on radical Islam. That profiles much better for an AG spot, than it does Republican Presidential candidate.

But records show that in the '90s he contributed money at least six times to Planned Parenthood, one of the country's leading abortion rights groups and its top provider of abortions.

For now, I'm maintaining my post debate take - if Thompson gets in, this comes down to Romney and him and Romney may out work him. Conservatives are genuinely disappointed with Bush. If Romney can ding Thompson's image as a died in the wool conservative, he gets the edge on talent, energy and experience and could win even if he doesn't, assuming he doesn't get mired down in his own record. So far, I don't think he has.

He has John Gotti, Sr.- like hair ... but is he Teflon? Too early to tell. But this time out, I don't think Rudy gets the guy with the better haircut. I like Rudy. But Bush's soft conservatism on certain issues and Rudy on immigration and some fundamental conservative issues simply don't track well at all. fwiw I also won't be surprised to find the MSM saying it's Rudy right up until the end. I think they want the Hillary vs. Rudy race they missed out on 2000.

Rudy may have missed an opportunity there. He could have shored up his conservative cred and run for Prez just as she is doing now ... for the good of the country and all that.

Comments

[Zifnab]

Except the Republicans are still trying to win the Presidency through their base. That's just not going to happen this time, Dan. You can't go running back to the 28%ers to pack the polls because 28% of the vote doesn't win you an election.

[ET]

zifknob,
don't count too heavily on the polls. we have plenty of time for the dems to expose themselves as weak hypocrites on a bunch of issues (iraq, immigration, ethics reform, manmade global climate change). They are well on their way to losing in '08.

then we will see the typical liberal response...perhaps even riots in the streets ala France. Forget the polls. Liberals will be surprised to learn (the hard way) that their BS slogans don't resonate with most Americans. Then they will rant and cry and throw rocks because they just don't understand that they are the outcasts.

[nowinger]

I'm hopeful the GOP stays true to its base and nominates one of the many candidates who don't believe in evolution.

[ET]

Which candidate doesn't believe in evolution, nowanger? or are you just spreading lies again?

of course you are so enlightened and evolved that you advocate infanticide and support regimes that kill women for a sidelong glance. If liberals are the end result, then I don't believe in evolution either.

[Fred Beloit]

ET, hats off to you.

[nowinger]

Huckabee, who served more than a decade as Arkansas' governor before Beebe succeeded him this year, was one of three candidates at a Republican debate last week who raised their hands when asked if they didn't believe in evolution. Huckabee has since said that he is not opposed to teaching evolution as a theory in school.

[nowinger]

The other two were Brownback and Tancredo.

[Zifnab]

"Which candidate doesn't believe in evolution, nowanger? or are you just spreading lies again?"

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/03/who-doesnt-believe-in-evolution/

(That's Brownback, Tancredo and Huckabee with their hands up.)

And those were the candidates who would admit to it. I'm sure if you smoozed Romney at the right Wingnut U. you'd get the answer of choice out of him. McCain was probably too slow consulting with his press secretary.

[seekeronos]

And belief/non-belief in evolution is important because...?

...Because it is Most Holy Dogma to the Left?

...Because if someone disputes or considers that Darwinism isn't the very revealed Gospel from On High (from who, the Flying Spaghetti Monster..?) it means that s/he is a Christofacist Theocrat who will depose the Constitution?

Science H. Logic, man!!

Maybe it could it mean that someone can be just as much of a sceptic about Darwinism as someone else could be about religion?

Oh my Science! May it never be, that someone should disagree with Scientific Consensus™!!

[nowinger]

it means that s/he is a Christofacist Theocrat who will depose the Constitution?
------------------------

Very likely, yes.

Leaders who are hostile to science and who put their own religious beliefs above science are unfit to serve.

Religion cannot be proven by an empirical means, that's why its called a BELIEF SYSTEM as opposed to a scientific theory.

Skepticism about science is not the same as skepticism about religion, one can be proven to a high degree of certainty, the other must be taken on pure faith.

[Zifnab]

"And belief/non-belief in evolution is important because...?"

"And belief/non-belief in gravity is important because...?"

I don't see why people have to "believe" in gravity. It's like a religion with you people. Why does a bowling ball fall at the same speed as a tennis ball? What about feathers?! Feather prove gravity doesn't exist, but you lying liberals will never even talk about feathers, will you?

And we put a man on the moon without having to worry about gravity. There's no gravity on the moon! Stupid liberals. Let's face it, liberals just want to use gravity to chip away at our belief in God and our moral order. It's an excuse to give liberal universities that much more authority over our lives and to regulate our airplanes and our right to own surface to air missles.

Just ask Warren Chisum
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2007/02/warren_chisum_h.html

[ET]

Here is how it transpired:

"Moderator: Senator McCain, this comes from a Politico.com reader and was among the top vote getters in our early rounds. They want a yes or a no. Do you believe in evolution?

McCain: Yes.

Moderator: I'm curious, is there anybody on the stage that does not agree, believe in evolution?"

Ok. We have some candidates who raised their hands and were not given the chance to elaborate. Only McCain clarified his position:

"McCain: I believe in evolution. But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also."

Brownback, Huckabee and Tancredo may well have given similar explanations. If not, they are on the fringe and are unelectable. No strict creationist is taken seriously on the political stage, certainly not by mainstream republicans.

Your party, on the other hand, has swallowed the manmade global warming scam hook line and sinker. Will you elect a democrat to the white house who supports further sientific inquiry? Or is there a litmus test for adherence to the alarmist religion of the left?

[nowinger]

Yep, over 100 countries are on board with the 'manmade global warming scam'..hard to believe, whose behind it, the freemasons? trilateral commission? council on foreign relations? the 'jew bankers'?

Report after report comes out ticking off more and more proof of the devastating effects of global warming and all you winger nutjobs can do is say 'but, but, its cold outside, global warming is a lie'

Report after report comes out further strengthening the relationship between carbon emissions and global warming and all you fools can do is shriek 'liberal conspiracy, its the sun, there are no SUVs on Mars.

I HOPE that you all live to see the global warming crackpots completely discredited and you live long enough to see the predictions come true.

[nowinger]

PS,

Forget that, those of you who live another 40 or 50 years, long enough to see the fruits of your lies visited on the planet will never admit you were wrong and that the evidence for global warming was clear by the 19990s.

You will dissasemble like you always do and say you were rightly skeptical, but 'now' that it has really been proven, well, golly, gee, no one could have predicted this, gosh, golly, its too damm bad about all the extinct species and starving people and how come nobody told you global warming would be bad for the economy.

Fucktards every last one of you.

[steveaz]

Dan,
The reason I think Giuliani is "toast" is, he's too darn urban.

Us fly-over Americans want someone who is more like us. We don't wear expensive suits and penny loafers, we don't ride in black limo's, we don't use hair-gel, speak in a fancy New England twang, nor live in high-rises, and we don't have to navigate the snarled traffic-jams, PC linguistic taboos nor the inner-city "no-go" neighborhoods that most urbanite's "tune-out" as a daily matter of course.

Giuliani IS that urban life-style, but the urban lifestyle is not America. This reduces his viability as a Presidential candidate - too New York City...but, he'll make a good VP to a Fred Thompson administration.

[ET]

nowang...you are as gullible as you are stupid.

There is no proof that the mild warming we are experiencing recently is cause by man or by carbon emmissions.

There is no proof that the current warming trend is an anamoly.

there is no proof that a slight warming of the earth's climate will have many benefits to mankind.

The devastating effects you cite are based on computer models that are severely flawed and unreliable. The oceans are just as likely to rise 2 inches as they are 20 inches. or maybe not at all.

100 countries are on boeard with what? What do they agree on exactly and how do countries agree? Are you referring to kyoto? another scam that has been completely ineffective.

Report after report comes out refuting the report after report you claim as verification of your thesis. This is called debate, and the fact is, your position is losing ground.

Calm down. the sky is not falling. This issue will be one of the arrows that shaft the democratic party in 08. Cause we ain't buyin' your bs any more.

[ET]

"there is evidence that a slight warming of the earth's climate will have many benefits to mankind."

Misspoke. sorry.

[nowinger]

The devastating effects you cite are based on computer models that are severely flawed and unreliable.

Says who? Global warming deniars? Crack pots?

I realize all wingers hate and despite the United Nations except when you want to bomb some country that didn't abide by UN resolutions, so the recent reports reached by the UN on climate change are just so much hooey to you.

Its total BOLLOCKS that the idea of manmade global warming is losing ground and I doubt you can find a single peer reviewed scientific article or study that is less than 15 years old to support your premise.

But, whatever, you guys have already lost the debate, the only question that remains is how much damage will be done.

I also realize you don't believe in polls, since every poll and survey out there shows the majority of Americans are very concerned by global warming and believe its manmade. People can tell the weather is changing, things aren't right, anecdotal evidence can be very powerful.

[nowinger]

The pollution reductions needed to stave off the worst effects of global warming can be achieved—if governments act now, according to a major consensus report released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is a United Nations body charged with assessing the scientific record on global warming.

“Delayed emission reductions lead to investments that lock in more emission-intensive infrastructure and development pathways. This significantly constrains the opportunities to achieve lower [greenhouse gas] stabilization levels and increases the risk of more severe climate impacts,” the report states.

“This report provides a roadmap on how to avoid the worst effects of global warming, but we have to start moving right now,” said Will Coyne, program director of Environment Colorado.

“The sooner we act, the sooner we start improving energy security, creating jobs, and protecting future generations from the worst effects of global warming,” Coyne added. “We don’t have to wait for Washington before we can start taking action. Governor Ritter can lead by setting hard goals for cutting global warming pollution at the state level.”

The report finds that already available energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies could substantially reduce global warming pollution, while improving energy security, reducing air pollution, and creating jobs. Taken together with the second volume of the IPCC’s report, released in April, it also finds that it is cheaper to prevent dangerous global warming than to deal with its consequences.

The document released today, entitled “Mitigation of Climate Change,” is the Summary for Policymakers of the third volume of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.

Major findings include the following:

· Pollution Will Skyrocket Unless Governments Act: Global emissions are projected to rise by 25-90% over 2000 levels by 2030, unless policies are adopted to reduce emissions.

· Still Possible to Avoid Dangerous Global Warming: To prevent dangerous global warming (as documented in the second volume of the IPCC’s report), global emissions would need to peak no later than 2015 and then decline by as much as 50% by 2050, thereby limiting the global average temperature increase to about 2°C over pre-industrial levels (which is equivalent to 3.6°F, or about 2°F over today’s levels). This level of reduction “can be achieved by deployment of a portfolio of technologies that are currently available today and those that are expected to be commercialized in coming decades.” While not specified in today's release, the U.S. must reduce its emissions by at least 80% by 2050 to meet the global target of about 50% reductions, given our greater contribution to the problem.

· Action Cheaper than Inaction: Stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at relatively safe levels will cost less than 3% of expected economic growth by 2030 (less than 0.12% per year). Costs would be lower if carbon permits are auctioned and the revenue is invested in energy efficiency and the development of new, clean energy technologies. The former chief economist of the World Bank, Sir Nicholas Stern, has put the price of unmitigated warming at as high as 20% of global GDP by 2100.

· Vast Potential for Energy Efficiency: Energy efficiency in vehicles and buildings could significantly reduce global warming emissions “with net economic benefit” and with “large co-benefits,” but “many barriers exist against tapping this potential.” The co-benefits include improved energy security, job creation, lower costs, and reduced air pollution.

· Vast Potential for Renewable Energy: “Given costs relative to other supply options, renewable electricity…can have a 30-35% share of the total electricity supply in 2030….” “Renewable energy generally has a positive effect on energy security, employment, and on air quality.”

· Reducing Global Warming Pollution Can Improve Health: “[N]ear-term health co-benefits from reduced air pollution as a result of actions to reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions can be substantial and may offset a substantial fraction of mitigation costs.”

· Voluntary Action Ineffective: “The majority of [voluntary] agreements has not achieved significant emissions reductions beyond business as usual.”

“There are two bills in Congress that follow the prescriptions in this report – namely the Safe Climate Act in the House and the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act in the Senate,” Coyne said.

“These bills would reduce U.S. global warming pollution by 80% by 2050 by requiring improvements in energy efficiency and increased use of renewable energy like wind and solar power,” Coyne added.

A final synthesis of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report is due out later this year. The full Fourth Assessment Report includes input from more than 2,500 experts worldwide.

The previous two volumes of the IPCC report, released earlier this year, concluded that (1) global warming is “unequivocal;” (2) burning fossil fuels and other human activities are responsible for most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century; (3) the impacts are already evident worldwide and will worsen significantly, with increasing droughts, floods, heat waves, water stress, forest fires, and coastal flooding in store for the U.S.; but that (4) “many impacts can be avoided, reduced, or delayed” by quickly and substantially reducing global warming pollution.

The IPCC was established by the United Nations Environmental Program and the World Meteorological Organization in 1988 with a mandate to assess the state of knowledge on global warming on a “comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis” and to generate documents that reflect a consensus among those involved. In 1990, 1995, and 2001, the IPCC issued its prior assessments.

Coyne also noted that the report is inherently conservative because it reflects the consensus of hundreds of parties, including industry groups and governments opposed to taking action to reduce global warming pollution.
------------

All part of the conspiracy, eh?

[Hard Right]

The fact you quote the IPCC tells us you are a gullible idiot.

BTW, those computer models can't even reproduce the weather we've HAD let alone the weather we will have. GIGO jackass.

[ET]

Read a little, Nowang.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/is_climatology_a_science.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/thinking_globally_but_not_clea.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/gores_faith_is_bad_science.html

There is plenty of dissent out there. You just choose to ignore it because you need an apocalyptic cause to make yourself feel important. In fact, you are impotant (there's a difference, nowang).

BTW, the united nations IPCC Report is written by policy makers who review scientific reports. Many of the scientists associated with the underlying reports disagree with the IPCC characterization of their findings. There is enough disagreement to continue to study and draw rational conclusions.

I do not reject the idea that we will need to address issues related to pollution and adapt to an ever changing climate. What I reject are self-serving politicians and their brainless minions (that would be you, nowang) screaming at the top of their lungs and telling me how to live. Seriously, go fuck yourself.

[Hard Right]

"Seriously, go fuck yourself."

LMAO! That should be the standard response to the loony left.

[nowinger]

Its nothing but a winger lie that 'many' IPCC scientists disagree with the characterization of their findings, 1 or 2 becomes "many"...

What I don't understand is why wingers are so adament that there is a global warming conspriracy, do you really believe that 100s of countries and dozens of scientific bodies in these various countries are ALL part of a scam? Are they ALL bad, crazy, stupid liberal scientists? Every one of them? All the leaders of the scientific academies and assoications?

The simpler explanation is that all these scientific bodies agree on global warming because thats what the data tells them.

It seems so bizarre that wingers would rather do nothing for 100-200 years, by which time, if the scientists are right, and nothing has been done for that length of time, most life on this planet will die. Its another example of how unbalanced wingers have become, ALL you care about is winning, regardless of the consequences, you would really rather see the planet reduced to a dead hull than admit Al Gore is right.

Sickening.

[Hard Right]

Yeah, it's sooooo important/obvious they were ok with leaving China and India off the list-two of the worst polluters on the planet.

Yeah, why would socialist scientists who stand to get lots of research money lie?

The left has a religion-it's called global warming.

[Hard Right]

..."Al Gore is right."

NB-stop projecting what you lefties are doing onto us.

No Brain, drugs are bad. M'kay? Just say yes to anti-psychotic meds tho. You need them. I'm not kidding.

[Zifnab]

Sorry, nowinger. This is a "no fact based discussion"

Facts have a well-known liberal bias. If it weren't for facts and evidence, there would be absolutely no case against Wolfowitz. Also, the World Bank is a bunch of liberal French-o-phile hippie bastards who just want to give money to people who don't deserve it and spur terrorist-loving corrupt Saddam-esque WMD aquiring regimes the world over. If conservatives can't have their way, I say we firebomb the world bank ourselves. Right after we firebomb the UN.

[nowinger]

Zif, I think first we have to lock up the Democratic Congress and firebomb the NYTimes.

It may be that Bush/Wolfie have effectively destroyed the liberal commie WB without having to firebomb it. It looks like many EU nations are reconsidering their $$ contributions to the WB and may use existing national orgs. to give charity to the worthless, shiftless poor countries rather than bother with the WB. I'm thinking Wolfowitz will resign, declaring a huge victory in the fight against corruption, in fact, I bet a Mission Accomplished poster is in the works.

[Zifnab]

No no no. The NYTimes gets extraordinarily renditioned to a CIA "information camp" in China. And Wolfowitz didn't do anything wrong because as the President of the World Bank he can leverage his Unitary Executive power to make any illegal or grossly immoral actions perfectly legal and moral again because the President can't break the law.

That's the core of the conservative belief system. Presidents are immune from prosecution for criminal acts at all times because if you are the President and enforce the laws you can't legally be compelled to do anything you don't want to compel yourself to do. Unless those Presidents are receiving aid from the World Bank. Third World nations need to be held to a higher standard, after all.

[tally]

i live in the so called fly over country and gotta disagree about Giuliani being to urban. law and order wears a suit - or a uniform. i also have to disagree about the planned parenthood issue being toast for Giuliani. he's been explaining himself to well, and to honestly on this issue.

[Phoenix]

"It looks like many EU nations are reconsidering their $$ contributions to the WB and may use existing national orgs. to give charity to the worthless, shiftless poor countries rather than bother with the WB."

You stupid bitch. Those EU countries are behind this railroading of Wolfowitz *because* they are part of the problem and he was getting close to figuring it out. This 'event' happened TWO years ago. It's just now coming out? But no indeedy.... because Bush appointed Wolfowitz, that makes Wolfowitz B A D and not worthy of just maybe being right?

You yawp and whine endlessly about fairness and ethics and you won't even consider that Wolfowitz might be in the clear just because he knows Bush. That's your summed-up foundation for convicting him of all crimes. You need your head examined for not knowing when it's being twisted in the spin of your own prejudices.

Go fuck yourself.

[Buzzy]

Personally I think that a lot of conservatives are looking at Rudy as a Bush clone. Liberal on social issues, big spending, and years and years of war in Iraq. Personally I don't want any of those things.

FWIW, who really cares where Tancredo, Huckabee, and Brownback stand on evolution. Nice guys I'm sure, good conservatives even maybe but there is a reason they're not up there with the front runners in this race and won't ever be.

I want the question asked during a Democratic debate "who here has ever in their life got down on their knees and prayed towards Mecca?" Errrr Barry, did you hear that question?

Man made global warming, yeah I believe in it. Isn't that the big scam Al Gore is running?

[nowinger]

Wolfowitz is going to resign as president of the World Bank because he has (1) lied about his girlfriend's severence package (2) is no longer credible as a corruption fighter having been accused of setting up a sweet heart deal for his girlfriend and then lying about it (3) has alienated the staff at the World Bank who want him out.

You miss the larger point, as usual. The real issue isn't Wolfowitz's girlfriend's pay package or what he did or didnt' say to the Ethics Committee about it. If the WB was happy with Wolfowitz this wouldn't be a career ending offense. However, you forget that he has changed his story several times and that the Ethics Committe has flat out said he lied.

Wolfowitz came into an institution and made exactly the same mistakes he made at DOD. He surrounded himself with a group of loyalists with no experience at the WB and set out alienating everyone in sight and imposing the Bush Doctrine on family planning and climate change on WB policies as well as appearing to reward and punish certain countries along the lines of whether or not they had supported Bush and the Iraq war.

A leader cannot stay in his position when he has lost the confidence of the organization he serves. Its another example of the necons and the BUsh way of thinking that Wolfowitz doesn't care about the WB, doesn't care about alienating Europe and Asia, ALL he cares about is NOT LOSING, just like the rest of the cons. That's why instead of leaving with some semblance of dignity he has turned his departure into a public cat fight.

Wolfowitz was always a poor choice to head the WB for the very reason that he's not a consensus builder, he came in hostile to the bank and now he's getting his comeuppance. Same as Bolton at the UN. Appointing Wolfowitz was a slap in the face to the WB and, again, we are seeing that exercising unilateral power isn't what its cracked up to be.

Wolfowitz ability to lead the WB has nothing to do with the bank's history of tolerating corruption among countries that benefit from its money. Wolfowitz was correct to try and reign in corruption among donees, but he was the wrong guy to do it, since he himself is corrupt, a liar, a disassembler and who is not above showing favoritism to certain parties...that's the definition of corruption. He's gone on Friday.

[Fred Beloit]

Please write more and longer comments with more false accusations, nowanger. You are much, much too pithy. Besides we all know by now that the technique of reiterating and reiterating can make preposterous statements appear to be true in the long run. Keep up the good work. I know that many people accept as "fact" that the temperature of the earth has risen between 0.5 and 0.7 deg C in about the last thirty years. I do not. I'm with the climate expert, Danish Professor Andressen, who says a temperature average for the earth cannot be taken to this degree of accuracy.

[nowinger]

See no evil.
Hear no evil.
Speak no evil.

How convenient for you that there doesn't exist any fact or measurement that can contradict what you already believe. How'd that work out for you on the Iraq war?

[Phoenix]

Oh. I see you described yourself as that monkey. The second 'Bush' comes up, you become that monkey. You don't have a clue about Wolfowitz.

Seriously, go fuck yourself.

[Phoenix]

Hmmm. I'm acting like some of the libs when they were doing nothing but name-calling. I don't take anything back, but I will add this: Prove everything you just said, Nowinger. Just prove your know-it-all assertions.

And while you're at it, demonstrate why you think the UN and the WB might *not* need some cleaning up.

[nowinger]

Wolfowitz subordinate accused of interfering with bank on climate change:

One of Paul Wolfowitz’s two handpicked deputies, Juan José Daboub, tried to water down references to climate change in one of the World Bank’s main environmental strategy papers, the bank’s chief scientist has told the Financial Times.

Mr Daboub, a conservative former finance minister from El Salvador was brought into the bank by Mr Wolfowitz. He is already under fire for allegedly trying to remove references to family planning in the bank’s Madagascar country assistance strategy and reduce its prominence in its new health sector strategy.

The new claim will add to disarray at the highest ranks of the bank, which is in ­turmoil over revelations that Mr Wolfowitz personally arranged a large pay rise for his girlfriend as part of a secondment deal.

Graeme Wheeler, Mr Wolf­owitz’s other deputy, told the bank president to resign at a management meeting last week.

Daboub statement
World Bank managing director responds to inquiries by the FT

Robert Watson, the chief scientist, said Mr Daboub tried to dilute references to climate change in the Clean Energy Investment Framework, a key strategy paper presented to the bank’s shareholder governments at its annual meeting in Singapore last September.

“He tried to water it down. He tried to take out references to climate change,” Mr Watson said. Two other officials confirmed this account.

The chief scientist said Mr Daboub, who oversees the sustainable development division, tried to remove some references to climate change completely and, in other cases, replace them with the phrases “climate risk” and “climate variability”, which convey greater uncertainty over the human impact on climate.

Mr Watson said: “My inference was that the words ­‘climate change’ to him implied human-induced ­climate change and he still thought it was a theory and was not proved yet.”

He said that went completely against bank policy. “We have always felt that climate change is a very serious environmental issue and very serious development issue,” he said.

Mr Watson, is one of the world’s leading climate change scientists, having been a top official at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), an adviser to former President Bill Clinton, and the chairman of the Intergovern­mental Panel on Climate Change from 1997 to 2002.

Mr Watson said he and other managers in his division “pushed back” and insisted on some references to climate change in the paper. He said Mr Daboub conceded sufficiently to make the strategy paper credible.

“There was clearly less reference to climate change than there would have been, but it did not matter,” Mr Watson said.

The chief scientist said the attempt to dilute references to climate change “came from Daboub’s office and from Daboub himself”.

[nowinger]

Wolfowitz subverting the WB on family planning:

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and his political appointees have attempted to reverse the institution’s long-standing policy of promoting family planning, despite Wolfowitz’s recent statement, “Our policy hasn’t changed.”

As ThinkProgress noted earlier, a draft of the bank’s pending Strategy for Health, Nutrition, and Population (HNP) mentions family planning just once, in reference to a 2006 reproductive health project in the Caribbean that supported family planning services (p. 120). In contrast, the previous HNP (1997) identified a “lack of access to family planning services as a primary health challenge.” The draft was prepared by the office of managing director Juan José Daboub, a strong proponent of U.S. policy in Iraq whom Wolfowitz hired last year.

Officials at the World Bank have now rejected this regressive family planning policy. In an April 19 memo, eight of the World Bank’s executive directors write:

The directors specifically attack Daboub’s revision of the World Bank’s family planning policies. Some examples of their criticisms:

– “The original document makes virtually no reference to sexual and reproductive health, on a strategic level. This is surprising, considering the Bank has committed almost US$2 billion to sexual and reproductive health over the past 10 years.”

– “The document — including the supplmental note — still does not contain a clear position on how the Bank engages in issues of sexual and reproductive health.”

– “The document and supplemental note place sexual and reproductive health within the context of population policy and contains language, which suggests a limitation of sexual and reproductive health to tackle ‘fertility rates.’ This is not acceptable. … Sexual and reproductive health and family planning are integral parts of health service delivery and, as such,

[Phoenix]

Oh my god. Climate change verification and concern over over-population. H O L Y S H I T.

FIRE WOLFOWITZ, BY GOD. We cannot have anyone questioning climate change or trying to get third-world people to stop breeding.

Thank you for the effort. You do follow through, I'll give you that.

But if this is why he should be fired, WHY IN THE HELL IS THE BANK USING HIS AFFAIR WITH RIZA as the reason?

Sometimes I swear I am in the Twilight Zone here.

[seekeronos]

Shorter nowinger:

- The Global Warming is teh TRUE! The Flying Spaghetti Monster told me so! Run for your lives!

- Wolfowitz is Bush's little buddy, therefore, according to BDS, he is also to blame for all that is wrong in the universe

- The UN shall rule the world as one global caliphate! Allahu Yakbar yiyiyiyiyiyi!

- If you don't BELIEVE in evolution, you are a mindless slug and should be carted off to the extermination camps along with all those Christofacists!.

[seekeronos]

"Leaders who are hostile to science and who put their own religious beliefs above science are unfit to serve."

This sentence makes no sense... science, in and of itself, has no dogma.

It is when people attach dogma, and worse, compound _bad_ science with that same kind of slavish, dogmatic approach that those same people render themselves unfit for rule as well.

Evolution (specifically, Darwinist, materialistic evolution) is a _theory_.

Not a law like the Laws of Thermodynamics, or the Law of Gravity.

It is not a measurable and irrefutable fact, such as Planck's Constant, or the speed of light (c), or a Mole of any substance equaling its molecular weight in grams, or that said mole is equal to 6x10^23 molecules of a substance.

Evolution is a theory, which while supported by some evidence, has a lot of holes in it.

Good science and faith in Christ and God are not mutually exclusive.

I can see where God might have used microevolutionary processes and genetics as far as common lines and taxonomic families of creatures are concerned. But to say that we are all evolved from some gunk that came off the side of a comet that slapped into the earth 4.5 Bya, or that we are nothing more than a big cosmic accident, is saddening, don't you think?

[nowinkger]

Why isn't the beauty of the earth enough for you? Why do you need some god figure pulling the strings to make existance worth while and not sad? I don't get it.

The theory of evolution doesn't cover every single thing from the big bang to 2007, it doesn't have to.

Religious extremism is going to be the ruination of this country, a country full of people who believe women were created from the rib of Adam, that mankind is less than 10,000 years old and that evolution is wrong is not going to flourish in future increasingly dependant on science and technology.

[Phoenix]

You forgot to answer this, Nowinger. I forgot to check for it in my outrage at what you did answer.

And while you're at it, demonstrate why you think the UN and the WB might *not* need some cleaning up.

Posted by: Phoenix | Wednesday, May 09, 2007 at 11:31 AM

[nowinkger]

Actually I did answer it, I said that I agreed the WB had a history of ignoring corruption, I will further say that in my humble opinion both the WB and the IMF have done a TERRIBLE job in executing their missions. Most of their projects are giant construction boondoogles that trash the environment and produce no substantial results, then every few years they 'forgive' the third world debt and start over.

However, that has nothing to do with whether or not Wolfowitz was a good choice to lead the WB [he wasn't] or whether his stewardship of the WB is deserving of praise [it isn't] or whether he broke the rules on his gf's pay raise [he did]

There is a letter from 42 WB directors that lays out their lack of trust in him but for some reason I can't ever post active links on Dan's blog, it was published in the financial times.