Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

By Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney

04/11/07 "ICH" -- -- -Had Enough? Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out! You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for.

I've had enough. How about you? I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to, as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us. Who Are These Guys, Anyway? Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them, or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy. And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats.

The Test of a Leader: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17516.htm

A politician/movie maker and now a car salesman are telling us their views of science, it must be true! Therefore let us all discount the SCIENTISTS who are backing away from doomsday. Let us ignore the SCIENTISTS who now believe that global warming is not caused by man, but from the sun, the source of all energy, life, and climate on the earth.

But even if it is all man caused, "A warmer climate could prove to be more beneficial than the one we have now. Much of the alarm over climate change is based on ignorance of what is normal for weather and climate. There is no evidence, for instance, that extreme weather events are increasing in any systematic way, according to scientists at the U.S. National Hurricane Center, the World Meteorological Organization and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change." --Richard S. Lindzen

Professor Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/

Believe the politician/movie maker and ex car salesman if you like merrill, I'll go with the MIT professor on this.

Merrill, thanks for the great post and link.

We won't have real outrage until this country, like a drunken addict hits rock bottom...... until the middle class and the privileged sons and daughters of the chicken hawks who support the Cheney/Bush oil war come home in body bags.... until gasoline hits $5 a gallon and they can't afford to drive their environmentally destructive SUV's! Maybe then the chicken hawks will say, "I've had enough!"

Sigmund, Richard Lindzen is perhaps one of the very few scienctists who are global warming skeptics.

Lindzen is a PAID lobbyist for the "coal and oil industry," so of course, being a skeptic of global warming is in his financial interests...... He charged "oil and coal interests" $2,500 a day for his consulting services; and in 1991 his testimony before a Senate committee was PAID for by Western Fuels.

Professor Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies.

At least according to Newsweek/MSNBC... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/

But if you say so, it must be true!

So if thousands upon thousands of scholarly articles in peer reviewed journals report the conclusion that Global Warming is a phenomenon caused by man, including articles that thoroughly debunk the "solar cycle" theory, we should instead listen to the one dissenting voice?

The issue as to whether or not man causes global warming has essentially been resolved. There is no significant dispute among the scientific community, albiet there may be one or two more who still pursue other alternatives, as is the nature of science.

Frankly, the evidence is now so overwhelming and so clear that only one with a biased predisposition to disbelieve the prevailing theory would support the notion that global warming is not caused by man.

Funding from the government does not equal scientific independence. As we saw during the George H. W. Bush presidency, the government will fund research for political reasons.