1. Grim energy report sets the stage for climate negotiations

THE NEW Y ORK T IMES

As the world heads for tough negotiations over a global climate deal next month, an influential forecasting agency says that cur­rent energy policies are not sus­tainable and that a transformation of energy use is required to fend off the worst consequences of global warming.
In the absence of a global deal to limit the emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for climate change, energy con­sumption will soar over the next few decades. That would result in a catastrophic rise in global tem­peratures, according to the Inter­national Energy Agency, an advis­er to industrialized nations that is based in Paris.
“Continuing on today’s energy path, without any change in gov­ernment policy, would mean rapid­ly increasing dependence on fossil fuels, with alarming consequences for climate change and energy se­curity,” the agency said.
The warning was contained in the annual World Energy Outlook, a 698-page publication that focuses this year on policies needed to re­duce the emissions of carbon diox­ide.
A part of the report was released last month as a map for policymak­ers considering how to make sig­nificant reductions. Government officials from about 190 nations will meet next month in Copenha­gen to try to hammer out an inter­national deal to replace the agree­ment known as the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012.
But international negotiators have signaled that an agreement is unlikely to be reached this year in the absence of a broad consensus on how to share the costs of switch­ing to lower-carbon technologies and fuels.
The recession, the energy agency said, offers an opportunity to make big strides in lowering emissions. As a result of reduced economic activity this year, global emissions are expected to fall as much as 3 percent, the steepest decline in 40 years.
Without a new global agreement, carbon emissions will rise by 40 percent by 2030, the agency said. More than half that growth will come from China, with the rest coming from other developing na­tions.
The agency’s forecasts are based on the assumption of no changes in energy policy from governments.
Global electricity demand, for example, would rise by 76 percent by 2030, requiring the addition of five times as much production ca­pacity as exists today in the United States. Much of that would come from burning coal; its share of the global energy mix would grow by 2 percentage points to reach 44 percent in 2030.
The recession, which has slowed the growth in demand and allowed governments to introduce energy-saving pro­grams, provides some breath­ing room. As a result of some of these policies, like stricter fuel­economy standards for cars, the energy agency has reduced its forecast for oil demand in com­ing years. ....The cost of reducing carbon emissions would be high.
But for each year of delay in an agreement, the world will eventually have to spend an ad­ditional $500 billion to cut emis­sions, the agency said.

2.  

FUNDED BY ENVIRONMENTAL COALITION
‘Oil stain’ ads target Terry cap-trade vote

B Y ROBYNN T YSVER  WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
A coalition pushing for clean energy policies is taking aim at Rep. Lee Terry over his oppo­sition to cap-and-trade legisla­tion.
The Omaha Republican is one of seven members of Con­gress targeted by the Clean En­ergy Works campaign in a tele­vision advertisement. In the ad, an actor portraying a politician leaves oil stains on people’s hands and clothes as he works a crowd of constituents.
The campaign takes Terry to task for accepting $415,000 in donations from oil and en­ergy interests over the past 12 years, including $1,000 from the American Gas Associa­tion this year and $5,000 from MidAmerican Energy Co. this year.
Terry said the advertisement was “so over the top” that he believes it was ineffective.
He said he stands by his vote against President Barack Obama’s climate change bill, which would place limits on how much pollution businesses and other entities could create. “They don’t tell you the bill will cost jobs in Omaha, and it will increase electric rates,” said Terry, who has argued that the bill would put U.S. business interests at a competitive dis­advantage with other nations.
Josh Dorner, a spokesman for Clean Energy Works, did not return telephone calls to his office Tuesday and Wednesday. The ad is also running in Ohio, Minnesota, Montana, Mis­souri and Pennsylvania.
Clean Energy Works is a co­alition of about 60 environmen­tal, labor, veterans, hunting and fishing advocacy groups that supports “comprehensive energy and climate” policies, according to the group’s Web site. Members include the Sier­ra Student Coalition, National Wildlife Federation and Clean Water Action.
The group is spending about $195,000 for two weeks of tele­vision ads targeting Terry. That is a considerable sum in the Omaha media market.
The cap-and-trade bill at­tempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that many scien­tists say fuel climate change. The bill narrowly passed the U.S. House in June.
The measure would place mandatory “caps” on the amount of carbon dioxide that a business or industry could gen­erate and establish a trading system for pollution credits. The bill is now before the U.S. Senate, where it is expected to have a tough time.
Terry is not alone in opposing cap-and-trade legislation.
His likely opponent in 2010, Democrat Tom White, says he also would have voted no on the bill.
White, a state senator from Omaha, said he thinks the bill places too big a burden on busi­nesses. Instead, he said, the government needs to work on creating incentives for the de­velopment of clean energies such as solar and wind.
“We should focus our efforts toward growing industries that are clean, and not shutting down those that have tradition­ally been here,” he said.

3. John's essay:

MIDLANDS VOICES

Energy bill in Congress is crucial to protecting climate

B Y JOHN POLLACK

The writer, of Omaha, is a re­tired meteorologist who spent 31 years with the National Weather Service.

As a retired meteorologist, I believe that now is the time to start taking action to protect our climate.
I have been intently follow­ing Midwest weather since the 1970s and our growing under­standing of climate for just as long. During that time, there have been major advances due to a worldwide program of con­certed research. These have included satellite and surface observations, as well as reconstructions of past climate conditions based on geologic and biologic evidence.
Increasingly sophisticated climate models that encode the accumulated knowledge are run on some of the world’s fastest computers.
The evidence that atmo­spheric carbon dioxide has a major, cumulative influence on the climate is now very strong.
Geology supports the climate models.
We now know that over peri­ods of time stretching from thousands to many millions of years, warm climates are associ­ated with high carbon dioxide levels. During glacial periods, levels are very low. We also know that the climate system can change very rapidly, adjust­ing to new conditions.
At the levels of carbon dioxide we are approaching, both the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets have disintegrated in the past. As the oceans warm, there are ominous signs of thin­ning at the margins of these ice sheets, with accelerating rise in sea level.
We know that increasing emissions will force stronger changes to the climate. I believe that unless we act soon, we’re in for a rough ride, as a region and as a planet.
Research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and other uni­versities has made it clear that changing ocean currents and temperatures exert considerable influence on Midlands climate, particularly in rising season temperatures and precipitation.
The geologic record shows that these changes can be rapid and harsh, sometimes after periods of apparent climate stability.
For example, early in the last millennium was a relatively warm period in Europe and North America. However, condi­tions here were so dry that the Nebraska Sand Hills became the largest area of active sand dunes in the Western Hemi­sphere!
The energy-climate bill now being debated in Congress offers a chance to put us on a different track.
The most important provi­sions of the bill are a commit­ment to reducing our carbon dioxide emissions and finding sustainable ways to do so. This calls for a major change in our energy economy. Specific pro­posals will be debated fiercely, as they should in a democracy.
However, debate should not serve as an excuse for delay.
As a nation, we can invest in a new, greener economy, provid­ing world leadership. Or we can drag our feet, encouraging other nations to do the same at the upcoming international climate summit in Copenhagen.
The delay-and-deny track may allow us to save a little money now, as we wait for some cheap “freakonomic” solution to arrive. However, an expensive climate disaster will likely ar­rive before we find a cheap fix to a complex problem.
Instead, now is the time to reduce our emissions and seek an international climate treaty

 

 

"We had a light frost on the grass this morning. September 29 is about 2 weeks early by my reckoning. My God, what are we doing to the Earth?"

Using his own style of hyperbole, I'd say flippant sarcasm like that about something as important as environmental degradation proves he is an enemy of humanity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at this guy's blog, he's a real conspiracy hound.  He even calls it "The Right Wing Professor's Blog"

 

 

----- Original Message -----

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Part One: Editorial cartoonist Jeff Koterba
Legitimate editorial cartoonist, drooling moron, or partisan propagandist? You decide.

I'm told Jeff Koterba's really a nice guy in person, a jazz musician, and that may be true. He denies he's a GOP shill, claims to be a "passionate centrist," whatever that might mean (to me, the phrase evokes Bill Keane's "Family Circus" in the Sunday comics), but his editorial cartoons certainly come across as crude GOP propaganda. See for yourself. Here's a year and a half's worth:

6/14/01 Cartoon: Local working folk, crabby and spoiled by unions, always want more. They already have Labor Day, why Septemberfest?

[For the reality of workers' lives & political influence, see

http://www.ablongman.com/catalog/academic/product/1,4096,0321070453,00.html ]

6/15/01 Bush is right to reject the used car junker, the Kyoto Treaty.

[Reality: http://www.whrc.org/globalwarming/warmingearth.htm -Kyoto Protocol]

6/17/01 Ridiculing FDA concerns about salmonella danger in runny eggs. [Too eager to cater to anti-gummint prejudices, this turned out to be premature. The FDA had said no such thing. Egg on J. Koterba's Teflon face? Retraction? Never!]

6/18/01 (More global warming). Poor innocent old GOP elephant finds it ironic that he's accused of being "closed minded," when it's the Democrat donkey slandering Bush with "poisoning our planet" and "killing our kids." [No Dem official accused Bush personally of any such thing, but for hard scientific data on the grim truths about environmental policies and their consequences, see http://dieoff.org/ ]

6/22/01 Dems are deceptive about the Patients' Bill of Rights.

6/24/01 Summer reading for kids: Mayor Fahey's "horror story," the Living Wage.

6/26-7/5 K's on vacation: guest cartoonists continue the attack on the Patients' Bill of Rights.

7/8/01 Wimps complain of the record heat [see 6/15].

7/10/01 Condit scandal: What would Clinton do? [Analysis of Clinton-bashing:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=246 ]

7/12/01 An anti-Bush cartoon! He hit himself in the head with the anti-gay Salvation Army bell. [His "Faith-Based Initiatives" came under fire when it was learned the Salvation Army (anti-gay) would use a million dollars of tax money to fight anti-discrimination laws.]

7/16/01 Yet another anti Living Wage. [On which: http://www.newparty.org/livwag/ ]

7/17/01 Raft (surplus) threatened by shark (spending) [Not by Dubya's tax cuts? Not by spending on the military? Reality, in easy chart form: Tables 4 and 6 of the Nov/Dec 2003 issue of Defense Monitor: http://www.cdi.org/news/defense-monitor/dm.pdf ]

7/19/01 Working folk could compromise & name the riverfront park the "Labor Lewis Union Clark AFL-CIO Sacagawea Park." Ha, ha.

Equally mean-spirited guest cartoonist: Jimmy Carter throwing rocks at Bush from glass house labeled "Habitat for Inanity."

8/2/01 Clinton, moved to Harlem, singing, prompts a reaction: Hey, keep the noise down, property values were going up. (And if he'd moved to an all white 'hood? He'd be attacked for bringing values down: no-win).

9/11 Terrorist attack

9/27/01 Uncle Sam with a can of Roach Rid, and a dopey kid with a Peace symbol T-shirt: "Wait! Why not just try talking to them instead?" Exterminate the sub-humans. Called on this by a UNL Prof, the WH was forced to try to defend it (10/5): "If Krejci's analysis were correct, what would be the point of the cartoon? Depicting terrorists as roaches would be a sort of visual name-calling, not much more." But "most editorial cartoonists -including Koterba- strive for a higher level ..." It's not "the crude propaganda trick Krejci alleges." [If you say so.]

12/3/01 By bringing up the downturn in the economy (really Clinton's fault, doncha know), the Dems start the "downturn in civility."

12/23/01 "Another Polluted Site," Ernie Chambers' yard, in which are signs like "Non-white and poor children don't rank high on the agenda of white politicians," which plainly offends Massa K's delicate sensibilities.

12/24/01 Cat reaching through mouse-hole for rat labeled "Osama." (From roach to rat.)

12/30/01 K displays his appreciation of our architectural heritage: Omaha Performing Arts Center performance spoiled by hacking, coughing, wheezing slob labeled "Preserve the Buildings."

1/7/02 [Sympathy for Clinton after his dog Buddy hit by car? Are you kidding?] The cartoon: His bored cat Socks sneaks away in disgust as Bill Clinton reminisces about Buddy. [2/22/04, Bush’s dog died: No nasty unsympathetic cartoon appeared.]

c1/25/02 Warm spell evokes global warming hysterics.

1/28/02 Arafat: "What weapons?" Predictable simplistic mainstream view that Palestinians have no right to defend themselves. [Reality: Editorial, "on the edge of the abyss," in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, c. 1/24/02. Many Israelis understand & oppose where their Rightist government is taking them. See 3/25/02, below.]

1/30/02 Omigod! Even K can't go along with Cheney's refusal to turn over records.

2/6/02 Although military spending accounts for more than everything else added together [ http://www.cdi.org ], Dubya seeks budget cuts only in social programs. K's view: Bush in an F-16, his path blocked by a herd of pigs. (Note: As his 2004 re-election approached, Dubya reversed course and spent so much he evoked the wrath of fiscal conservatives.)

2/7/02 Daschle's the villain for opposing the phony "stimulus" package (more tax cuts for the rich). [K never took Econ 101: "marginal propensity to consume." Again, by 2003 the irresponsibility and unfairness of the tax cuts was finally arousing opposition.]

2/13/02 Shame on these kids, they should just say no to their abusers. A firestorm of outraged letters appeared (most on 2/16): "ignorance and insensitivity," "disgusting," "shocked & sickened," "saddened & angry." [Hey, wake up! Waddya expect? This is the World-Herald! This is Jeff Koterba!] See Rainbow Rowell's thoughtful column of 2/20.

2/15/02 K supports the GOP: Inhibiting the ability of corporations to buy elections is inhibiting free speech. [A sudden ACLU convert!]

2/25/02 Another one against campaign finance reform, backed up by a George Will op-ed and by a letter from Omaha’s Curmudgeon-in-Chief, Lee Terry Sr., who for years got to spout off his benighted Rush Limbaugh type opinions as a newscaster/commentator. His name-recognition factor got his son, Lee Terry Junior, elected to Congress. Just what we needed, yet another mediocre, conservative, white male corporate lawyer. Stuck in endless on-the-job training, Junior’s turned out to be an ineffectual party-line lapdog. No surprise, Senior thinks restricting corporate propaganda means “different ideas will be gagged.” As they were on his TV show?

2/27/02 [Not a GOP shill?] Dem donkey attacking innocent Bush judicial nominees. [No cartoon would appear about Rumsfeld's scheme for a global propaganda arm, the Office of Strategic Influence, which he dropped that very same day -a perfect cartoon opportunity.]

2/28/02 Another anti campaign finance reform; it would trample the Constitution underfoot.

c3/1/02 Gas station hose stretches across Atlantic, while ignoring our own vast reserves. [Wrong. Letter 3/12: US has only 3% of world's reserves. Cartoons always based on the least possible knowledge, the minimum information, the slightest, vaguest awareness of reality. His cartoon images always reflect the most common myths and propaganda, never the result of careful research or expertise.]

3/8/02 Attack Daschle for daring to open discussion about Der Leader's conduct of the war. Accompanied by letters from two Rightist regulars, Mark Shiller and Mark D. Anich, who actually says "love it or leave it." [In reality, if the Dems are guilty of anything, it's that they initially failed to see through Karl Rove's irresponsible militarist strategy, or at least to speak out more strongly against it: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15889 ]

3/13/02 Mushroom clouds over DC. Dopey peacenik with sign: "Leave Iraq Alone." Uncle Sam: "you were saying?" [Far cry from actual peace movement concerns for civilian casualties. And, as even hawkish arms inspector David Kay finally admitted in January of 2004, there was no nuclear threat from Iraq. But a good propagandist would do all he could to whip up hysteria.]

3/17/02 Gays can't be good parents, it's too confusing for a girl to come home from school to two moms. [Huh?]

3/18/02 [Not a GOP shill?] Donkeys have literally lynched judicial nominee Pickering from a tree. [A simple test: was there ever an equivalent cartoon during the years of the GOP's obstruction of Clinton's nominations? Nominations which, incidentally, scored far higher on the ABA‘s ratings than Bush‘s nominees.]

3/21/02 After several letters on how bad K's recent cartoons are, the WH runs an editorial about great he is, he was nominated for some award (from the "liberal" media establishment, no doubt).

3/25/02 Arafat's behind the suicide bombers. [ (I'll bet Arafat wishes he could control what happens!) Again, vague impressions in place of nuanced understanding. Meanwhile, on page one: "Israel making plans for assault ..." Even proponents of all-out attack & occupation "doubt it would end all Palestinian attacks." One official says "all the Palestinian have to do to win is to survive." ...Ominous implications of genocide (maybe we can fix it so they don't survive), the path prepared by mindless propaganda.]

3/27/02 Letter defending K: "is not an unfeeling moron....I admire his tenacity." [Ah, that's what you call it!]

4/12/02 Critical of debate over ANWR. [Guess which side he's on.]

4/21/02 [Recession leads to painful budget cuts at the State & local level. For example, it was reported that OPD response times to 911 calls were lengthened by cutbacks.] Cartoon: the Unicameral surrounded by a mob of hogs. [To the ignorami and the haters of gov't, it's all pork.]

4/30/02 Bush playing "Iraq Attack" board game with Saddam, but handicapped by all these pesky rules of international law (while juggling a bowling ball). [See the parody at http://www.theonion.com/onion3836/bush_seeks_un_support.html]

The next day, AP reports "Investigation Can't Link 9/11 to Saddam." So, linkage becomes irrelevant.

After another year and a half of spin-doctoring, a noted study found that 80% of those who derived their news from Fox News believed that Saddam was behind 9/11, while only 23% of those who derived their news from PBS or NPR had such misperceptions. Little doubt where WH readers fell on this spectrum. Overall, the news media did a terrible job of informing the public: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16922

5/1/02 [Predictable:] Dour old judge bringing his gavel down on the head of the choir director of Woodbine school. [While an appeal was in progress, the Judge had suspended their plans to sing the Lord's Prayer at graduation.]

5/5/02 Clinton hosting a talk show: Viewer "seriously nauseated."

5/6/02 Let pilots carry guns on planes. [Or anyone with pilot I.D.? Simultaneous with DOT hearings on non-lethal weapons. Why are alternatives to guns so unthinkable in our culture?]

5/16/02 [Critical of Bush! Twice a year, to claim nonpartisanship.] Bush on Air Force One selling pictures to GOP donor list. [Shocking disloyalty to Der Leader brought protest letters from stunned Neberskies.]

5/18/02 [Dems even get attacked for imaginary sins!] If Bush had acted before 9/11: Democrat donkeys would have screamed "Warmonger!" "Idiot!" "Racist!"

5/21/02 [Critical of Bush!] Bush anti trade with Cuba but pro trade with China.

6/4/02 [Critical of Bush! But this'd be the last one for a very very long time --gotta think about the midterms coming up. Besides, it’s critical of Bush for the wrong reason -Dubya was finally forced to acknowledge the evidence on greenhouse gases when the NAS report came out.] Cartoon: "George W Gore" now believes in global warming. [I sent K a long letter packed with the science of climate change and after several exchanges he finally allowed as well gosh maybe there might be something to it after all, duh. Had never bothered to research it on his own, but yet felt qualified to ridicule Gore & others, who had.]

6/28/02 [He didn't pay attention to what the appeals court actually said:] Kids in class: "Miss Smith! Nathan used the 'G' word!"

7/4/02 Picky judge yelling at Thomas Jefferson for reference to a Creator. [a) Jefferson didn't use the phrase, it was inserted later, b) The Declaration of Independence isn't the law of the land, the Constitution is, with its Bill of Right to protect minority opinions, c) It's easy (and typical of K) to side with the inflamed majority against the Bill of Rights.]

7/22/02 Smiling white suburban mom in car waiting for her kid. Car's sticker: "My child is an honor student." Smiling little boy with sticker on his back-pack: "My mom didn't use day care." [Message: good mothers don't send their kids to day care. They don't work. If you're not rich and have to work, well, screw you! Your kid'll never be an honor student. --As with 2/13/02, Rainbow Rowell provided a thoughtful counterpoint to this nasty idiocy. Must be tough working at the same paper.]

8/5/02 Statue of Liberty :"Give me your Muslim extremists yearning to kill Americans." [I wrote him the following:]

And of course, to be fair, a matching cartoon: "Give me your Christian extremists, yearning to kill Americans."

Their lesser toll certainly isn't from lack of trying. After all, William Pierce's followers envision using the Grand Canyon as a mass grave for the Jews, race-mixers, leftists, atheists, gays, and all. And Christian Identity (of which there is a chapter in Nebr) believes Satan mated with Eve to produce the black race (or the Jews, depending on which branch of the cult you consult). And Timothy McVeigh set off his bomb in retaliation for the death of the messiah, David Koresh. And so on. (Check out http://www.splcenter.org/intelligenceproject/ip-index.html )

So, how about it? Equal time for denunciation of Christian terrorists as well?? Or is it just so much easier to demonize people of different ethnic and religious background that self-righteous ethnocentrism is irresistible and inevitable?

8/11/02 [Cockroaches, rats, now mosquitoes. In the news: Minorities being stopped by cops, "D.W.B.," etc.] Guy with paper rolled up (has a "West Nile" story), about to swat the mozzie, which is saying "How dare you profile me! I'm calling my lawyer." Ha, ha.

8/20/02 "Be careful on your way to school" to little girl dressed provocatively in shorts and tube top with a playboy bunny on it. [Now, what the heck is this supposed to mean? a) The girl's "asking for it"? Could K be that clueless? b) A sincere warning? But why? Abductions are down, only the hype -like this cartoon- is up. c) Kids don't walk to school anyway, because of this kind of hype & the fear it engenders, and it's a shame, too. Walking to school through the seasons is a childhood pleasure. Both b) and c) were subjects of recent WH stories. Maybe K doesn't read his own paper.]

8/26/02 Uncle Sam is listing Saddam's sins to a hopelessly stupid Frenchman, who says "So ... no current evidence ..."

[I sent K this article by ex-Marine Scott Ritter, who has since become a nonperson, vanished from the news shows because he won't play the game.]

“Jeff; Beware buying into official propaganda versions of situations. Scott Ritter is no ridiculous ‘Frenchie the Frog’ figure, he spent seven years as a chief weapons inspector in Iraq.”

Published on Saturday, July 20, 2002 in the http://www.boston.com/globe/

Is Iraq a True Threat to the US? by Scott Ritter RECENT PRESS reports indicate that planning for war against Iraq has advanced significantly. When combined with revelations about the granting of presidential authority to the CIA for covert operations aimed at eliminating Saddam Hussein, it appears that the United States is firmly committed to a path that will lead toward war with Iraq. Prior to this occurring, we would do well to reflect on the words of President Abraham Lincoln who, in his Gettysburg Address, defined the essence of why democracies like ours go to war: so ``... that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.'' Does Iraq truly threaten the existence of our nation? If one takes at face value the rhetoric emanating from the Bush administration, it would seem so. According to President Bush and his advisers, Iraq is known to possess weapons of mass destruction and is actively seeking to reconstitute the weapons production capabilities that had been eliminated by UN weapons inspectors from 1991 to 1998, while at the same time barring the resumption of such inspections. I bear personal witness through seven years as a chief weapons inspector in Iraq for the United Nations to both the scope of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and the effectiveness of the UN weapons inspectors in ultimately eliminating them. While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq's proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament. This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq. With the exception of mustard agent, all chemical agent produced by Iraq prior to 1990 would have degraded within five years (the jury is still out regarding Iraq's VX nerve agent program - while inspectors have accounted for the laboratories, production equipment and most of the agent produced from 1990-91, major discrepancies in the Iraqi accounting preclude any final disposition at this time.) The same holds true for biological agents, which would have been neutralized through natural processes within three years of manufacture. Effective monitoring inspections, fully implemented from 1994-1998 without any significant obstruction from Iraq, never once detected any evidence of retained proscribed activity or effort by Iraq to reconstitute that capability which had been eliminated through inspections. In direct contrast to these findings, the Bush administration provides only speculation, failing to detail any factually based information to bolster its claims concerning Iraq's continued possession of or ongoing efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. To date no one has held the Bush administration accountable for its unwillingness - or inability - to provide such evidence. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld notes that ``the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.'' This only reinforces the fact that the case for war against Iraq fails to meet the litmus test for the defense of our national existence so eloquently phrased by President Lincoln. War should never be undertaken lightly. Our nation's founders recognized this when they penned our Constitution, giving the authority to declare war to Congress and not to the president. Yet on the issue of war with Iraq, Congress remains disturbingly mute. Critical hearings should be convened by Congress that will ask the Bush administration tough questions about the true nature of the threat posed to the United States by Iraq. Congress should reject speculation and demand substantive answers. The logical forum for such a hearing would be the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Unfortunately, the senators entrusted with such critical oversight responsibilities shy away from this task. This includes Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, a Vietnam War veteran who should understand the realities and consequences of war and the absolute requirement for certainty before committing to a course of conflict. The apparent unwillingness of Congress to exercise its constitutional mandate of oversight, especially with regard to matters of war, represents a serious blow to American democracy. By allowing the Bush administration, in its rush toward conflict with Iraq, to circumvent the concepts of democratic accountability, Congress is failing those to whom they are ultimately responsible - the American people.

Scott Ritter is author of ``Endgame: Solving the Iraqi Problem Once and For All.'' © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company

That cartoon prompted a letter 9/1, pointing out that Saddam received US aid long before and after he gassed the Kurds in '88, and Hans Blix confirms that Iraq didn't expel the inspectors, they were pulled out by the US just ahead of an escalation in our military operations, and because Iraq was on to the CIA’s use of inspection teams for their own purposes.

Two years later, after all the damning revelations from David Kay, Hans Blix, and Richard Clark, it was obvious that Scott Ritter was right, and Koterba and the Bush sycophants were duped. Shame on them; it wasn’t that hard to discern where the truth lie: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17005

Then, on 10/4/04, a comprehensive investigation involving thousands of man-hours yielded the most authoritative report yet. The Duelfer report concluded that although Saddam never lost his desire for WMD, he had (because the UN sanctions were hurting so badly) complied with UN demands and had deliberately destroyed all Iraq’s WMD programs. There was nothing there. Bush had lied. Apology from Koterba from being part of this deception? On the contrary, “spin it” (10/8). Make up a fantasy scenario of what “might have” been, depicting Saddam getting sanctions lifted, and one of his henchmen sneering “Now let’s execute some children!” (Oh, you mean like they did when they were our ally under Reagan & Bush 1?) Days later David Brooks joined the “spin” bandwagon, ignoring the other 960 pages of the Duelfer report to focus on Saddam‘s “intent.” David Kay remarked: “intent without capability is not an imminent threat.” But neither Brooks nor Koterba nor the other Bush apologists seem to be able to grasp that simple point.

Duelfer was the CIA’s chief weapons inspector. The LA Times ran an interesting summary of Duelfer’s analysis of the world as seen from Saddam’s viewpoint: He assumed the CIA knew he had disarmed, but had to bluff to keep Iran from discovering he was defenseless.

A few days later and an Israeli security think tank issued a detailed report blaming the invasion of Iraq for increasing terrorism, but what do the Israelis know,, eh? http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041011/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_terrorism

9/10/02 [Induce hysteria.] Bedraggled survivors in the smoking ruins: Saddam had The Bomb after all! [Versus the 9/13 article, p. 8A: "Experts say Baghdad is far from building a bomb." Unlike with biological agents, it's impossible to hide such a gigantic undertaking. Cf. Oak Ridge, Hanford, Sandia, etc. Iraq’s former nuclear research had been undertaken at the city-sized al-Tuwaitha complex, covering a hundred square kilometers. Again, by 2004 the way the administration had lied to the American people was becoming a hot topic.]

9/11/02 The best 9/11 memorial: Osama's grave.

9/18/02 A glaring eagle & flag, and a giant spray can of "OFF!" [Does he even realize that's a brand name?]

9/19/02 a) Letter about 9/11: "I was appalled at the cartoon that a fitting memorial would be the death of bin Laden ...more appropriate would be the US taking a leadership role in promoting world peace." (Never in Koterba-land!)]

b) Cartoon: His ideal Americans, the typical petty-minded GOP couple in their humble cottage, grumbling about those nasty pols always raising the property tax. (Better to cut back on the public school system.) [Elsewhere in the same issue: it would involve a $73 increase on a $100,000 house.]

10/1/02 Two-headed snake, "Ossadama," with "Iraq-Al Qaida link?" on its side. In reality Saddam's regime jails, tortures & kills all fundamentalists, including Al-Qaida (at this time, they do have a presence in the US-protected zone in Northern Iraq, as an anti-Saddam force). But fusing two of our enemies into a grotesque "Ossadama" beast tells us "all our enemies are the same enemy," precisely the function the mythical master-villain Emanuel Goldstein served in Oceania in Orwell's 1984. He could never be caught, so the perpetual war and the emergency that it justified would never end, keeping the ruling elites in place for the duration. Orwell was a prophet. See http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/1984.htm ]

10/9/02 [Science isn't his thing.] Fictional Supreme Court decision to let stand that Quaoar will replace Pluto as the 9th planet. [Actually, astronomers were using Quaoar to make the point that neither it nor Pluto are planets.]

10/18/02 Babbling idiot attacking Bush's "axis of evil." His word balloon is punctured by North Korea's missile. [About which K knows as much as about Quaoar. See http://cns.miis.edu/research/korea/overview.htm on Korea and their missile program, and for weekly updates on the interface of science and politics (and some humor), go to http://www.aps.org/WN ]

10/20/02 Blame Harkin (D, IA) for the 11 Hispanics found dead in a RR hopper car because he's "soft" on immigration. [Prompted a 10/23 letter about how "tasteless and humorless" it was.]

Note: Some of his cartoons are inoffensive. In fact many of them have no particular point of importance at all (eg, 7/6, 7/18/01). That is, they are literally pointless. But it all pays the same, eh?

10/28/02 Maps on Sen. Hagel's walls show he can't tell the difference between Iraq & Afghanistan. [He's dared to express doubts about the wisdom of sending an army of mostly Christian "crusaders" into the midst of the Muslim world's most explosive area. Besides, look who‘s talking! The author of "Ossadama"!! ]

Latest estimate of what such a war might cost (WH 12/6/02): At least $200 Billion, and possibly up to $2 Trillion dollars, that's Trillion with a "T." For comparison, that's roughly 20 times what it would cost to eliminate poverty in America. But hey, look at the upside: The gang of oilmen in the White House would get to control the world's second largest oil reserves, and we could all go on setting our thermostats at 68 in the summer and 84 in the winter, and keep driving our SUVs!

12/5/02 "John Kerry ushers in the 2004 Presidential Campaign" by throwing a pie at an industrious Bush bent over the war maps of Iraq. [Should be "Koterba ushers in the 2004 Presidential Campaign," and it doesn't take much imagination to picture what that is going to be like, an inspiring model of intelligence & sophistication ....]

3/21/04 Sure enough, Osama in his cave, gloating over statements by Kerry. In response I sent this:

From: Jim Bechtel
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2004 11:09 AM
To: Koterba, Jeff
Yeah, Kerry's giving aid & comfort to the enemy.

Say, isn't that the definition of treason!?

(Gosh, good thing you've assured me you're not a rabid GOP propagandist, or I might wonder.)

He replied: Accuse me all you like. i will wear the badge proudly if that's what it takes. .... You can talk the economy, jobs, till the cows come home, but, if a dirty bomb should ever be detonated in new york city, well, all those economic efforts won't mean squat."

(Note that he embraced the label.) I replied: “You evade the point of your cartoon. I'm sure alert observers will write to the Pulse to explain it. Aid & comfort to the enemy is treason, and under your Leader's Patriot Act why shouldn't Kerry vanish in a "Nacht und Nebel" operation?”

Pulse, 3/24/04:
Cartoon disgusted me
I saw Jeff Koterba's Sunday cartoon, and I found it disgusting.

My first thought, in fact, is that Mr. Koterba has become a paid agent of the Karl Rove school of dirty politics. To impugn a sitting United States senator, candidate for president of the United States, by blatantly accusing him of being so soft on terrorism that he is the candidate of choice of Osama bin Laden left me sickened.

And I would point out that both Sens. John McCain and Chuck Hagel, in accusing the Bush administration of engaging in low tactics, have said in the past week that there is no way that John Kerry would be soft on defense or terrorism.

It's one thing to argue that Mr. Kerry's positions are wrong or disagree with them, but to smear him as a friend of terrorists is beneath contempt.
John Haas, Papillion

As one snake-oil salesman to another, local quackery guru Michael Braunstein immediately wrote in (3/27) to defend Koterba and praise his “insightful” cartoons. I would have thought Braunstein was a New Age liberal, but I should have known better. Both are just purveyors of unexamined belief systems, propagandists to the core. In fact, it would be tempting to go further and call them “pimps,” in the sense that they both make money prostituting their talents for gain at the expense of society, but the difference is they know not what they do, innocent in their ignorance. (I guess that excuses the harm they do.)

3/26/04 As if to thumb his nose at all those who object to his low-road tactics, only five days after the “Kerry is a traitor” cartoon and 3 days after Mr. Haas’s horrified response, Koterba again visits Osama in his cave, now reading the book by the long-time counter-terrorism chief Richard Clark (who apologized to the American people for being unable to get the Bush gang to take seriously his warnings about Al-Qaida). Obviously Koterba intends to stick stubbornly to the Bush re-election battle plan: Criticism provides aid and comfort to the enemy. Patriotism demands blind support for the worst President in our history. Criticism is treason, “crime-think,” in Big Brother‘s term.

In August 2004 WH publisher emeritus Harold Anderson launched an almost non-stop series of powerful attacks on Kerry which took me by surprise; the intensity of the junkyard-dog Democrat-bashing revealed him to be much more of a right-wing extremist than I would have guessed from his more moderate positions other “culture war” issues.

Given all this, the treatment of Doonesbury is ironic, if not hypocritical. It was removed altogether for a while by stodgy men who didn’t share its brilliant humor, then brought back but quarantined to the editorial page. After a few years of this, the WH editors must have begun to feel foolish, as the strip often contains biting satire but equally often has no more political comment than any other strip. (Besides, most readers could see that the targets of the satire richly deserved it.) And the WH must be under pressure to open up and be more moderate. Editor Frank Partsch solemnly intoned that Doonesbury “sometimes repeated accusations as fact without the documentation“ (as contrasted with Koterba?!?!), but that it was being returned to the comics page because “it fits well with the other comics now.”

Well, that's all I've got the stomach for. You can predict it'll be more of the same, day in, day out, from Koterba. Quite a depressing thought, isn't it?