Why We Can't See the Bushes for the Trees

In his speech on Tuesday, President Bush asserted that despite the Supreme Court ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency does indeed have the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, he does not intend to seek any further regulations beyond his proposal for more fuel-efficient cars. Critics of this stance are many, and Mr. Bush has certainly taken a lot of heat on global warming.

Despite the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community concerning the reality of climate change and the very serious threats it poses, it may nonetheless be judicious to entertain the possibility that on this matter, Bush’s critics, and even Supreme Court Justices, might nonetheless not be in the best position to judge. It is undeniable that, as President, Bush has access to information far beyond what any individual, organization or institution can ever know despite the fact that his ostensibly limited intelligence may often preclude his intelligent use of Intelligence.

It is not entirely unreasonable to believe that the notion that regulated commercial emission cuts would offer no more than a band-aid solution may in fact not be an entirely scabrous idea. As shocking as it may sound, particularly to those whose judgment is sound, the president may, in fact, actually have it right and know something that the scientists do not and cannot know. It is not often that President Bush is referred to as realistic. Still, with Gonzales soon to speak before Congress to defend the Department of Justice against allegations that eight US attorneys were allegedly fired for purely political reasons and the president himself having just two days ago insisted that attempts by Congress to link financial support for the war with timetables for withdrawal would undermine the troops, it is no doubt irrefutable that any attempt to limit hot air emissions at this time would in fact be hopelessly futile. Only Bush Administration officials may know the full extent to which, since 2001, not American industries but the White House itself has been the overwhelming source of toxic hot air released into our environment.

Another Inconvenient Truth with Gory Consequences

I didn’t watch the Oscars, but last night as I was surfing for the news before going to bed (obviously, as this practice would indicate, I’m not one to subscribe to the “never go to bed angry” philosophy) I read that Al Gore had won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth. If true, I should think this Oscar would most conveniently favor achieving stricter environmental regulations, a cause most noble, though I’m not sure it would have any effect on Gore’s possible Nobel.

Last night, in relation to the news of the Oscar, with the memory of the 2000 election still anchored in my brain, I advised myself to keep in mind that the category of “things Al Gore won” is one of the trickier ones. It is worthy of far more skepticism than, say, “things Kelly Clarkson won” (American Idol circa 2002) though still a tad more objectively grounded in public and/or media consensus than that of “wars America is winning.” I cautioned myself for the need to be open to the possibility that by morning the Supreme Court might have ruled that Gore had not won the Oscar after all. I am glad to report that this appears not to be the case.

There is no doubt some mysterious algorithm used to calculate the probability of different outcomes for these competitions. I know nothing of such mathematical matters (except that Fox News never calculates in base 10 and its computers don't use binary, only monetary, code). I will thus leave all calculations to the statisticians. Still (with the possible exception of the Democratic Congressional victory, though it remains to be seen whether they will actually do—or, and perhaps more essentially, undo or prevent from having done—anything) it seems to me that some kind of inversely proportionate relationship weighing the variables “importance of outcome,” “concrete or symbolic nature of outcome” and “actual outcome” has perversely determined the results of all sorts of contests ever since the turn of the century—what I sadly refer to as the turn of the screwed.