THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

First, they were wars on nations that were and/or are democracies. No premis there. That is a fact!

Second, nothing followed my assertion except a question?

Can a question be wrong?

ican, What you are proposing is "speculation" based on past knowledge. Whether you can be right or wrong that's in the future is another matter, because there is no way to prove it here and now.

I don't believe you, but my dog does. Oh, Oh! I forgot to mention my dog died over ten years ago.

I don't have a dreidle to spin!

You said the wars were "against" (American) democracy. WRONG! There's a big difference between wars against democracy and wars against countries that are democracies.

There is no way to prove anything with absolute certainty without assuming at least one thing that cannot be proven to an absolute certainty.

What one can do is provide evidence that somethings are more probably true than others.

For example, it is more probably true than false that in future if one's head is cut off, one will die. On the otherhand, it is more probably false than true that in the future one will not die if one's head is not cut off.

"More probable" is speculation. "It will happen" is definitive, but unprovable.

WRONG! I wrote that the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor was a war on the US democracy.

Yes, I agree! There is a big difference
So that's one reason why I used the word on instead of the word against. There is no difference between war on a democracy and war on a country that is a democracy.

I would go so far as to say there is no difference between a war on you and a war on a person.

Because the two ideas, as you have described them, are incompatable,- both cannot possibly be true. Or in the terms you have chosen here - at least one of your predictions must certainly be wrong. One can conclude this with information available right now - the predictions are mutually contradictory, and a rational mind cannot accept them simultaneously.

I don't "dismiss them out of hand", except as noted above. I do dismiss "out of hand" the patently false notion that the temporal curve of oil production must be a symmetrical "bell curve", as the author of your site asserts. Moreover I noted numerous specific flaws and omissions in his analysis. This does not constitute dismissing anything out of hand. I offered a reasoned and factual rebuttal of a fantastic and false assertion.

With respect to global warming I have repeatedly acknowledged the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and their contribution to warming. However I note the dynamic nature of the earth's climate as denomstrated in the geological record, and am skeptical of the forecast that this will produce unstable warming of the planet. Moreover I note that, even if the current projections of the protagonists of this questionable forecast are true, the costs of reversing or even stopping the indicated change will far outweigh the costs of the phenomenon itself. Hence my conclusion that Kyoto was a folly.

I liked your "Weft" site; cute, that, however, is not the meaning of the acronym.

Good! We agree on this.

Either can turn out to be true or false.

Let's not forget, however, not all speculations are equal. Some speculations are more probably true than other speculations. Another way to say this is: All things possible are not equally probable. For example, it is more probable that a person will drive home and will not have an accident than it is probable that a person will drive home and will have an accident.

One might argue that it depends on the person doing the driving. OK!

For example, it is more probable that a person, who has never had an accident driving home, will drive home this time and not have an accident, than it is probable that same person will drive home this time and have an accident.

Term life insurance companies bet money their buyers will outlive their terms. Buyers of term life insurance bet money they will not outlive their terms.

Fortunately for the life insurance companies, they win that bet often enough to make money and continue to sell term life insurance to buyers who wish to make the buyer's bet.

Who said I was hung up on the WMD hooey?

I agree there are different levels of speculation as there are different levels of truth.

Thanks, c.i.

You're welcome, Kara. It was completely my pleasure.

I did!

Please elaborate on what you mean by "different levels of truth."

ican, You're gonna have to figure out this one on your own. I'm too tired playing mental gymnastics with you.

Ican wrote
"I predict the sun will within this century repeat its approximately 20,000 year cycle of reduced followed by increased radiation intensity, thereby cooling the earth and then warming it again. "

Well you might be right or you might be out by a few years or the cycle might never repeat. I'm sure you are PROBABLY correct.

What I would never do is say you are 100% DEAD FLAT WRONG. Nothing in this life is certain, as Werner Heisenberg has shown:

http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08a1.htm

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050322/323/fer20.html

Iraqi government comes into focus; street justice in southern Baghdad

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq's winning Shiite and Kurdish political blocs finalised the allocation of ministries for the first-elected post Saddam Hussein government, while Baghdad shopkeepers killed two gunmen in a case of vigilante justice.

Iraq's Shiite political juggernaut will take 16 to 17 ministries in the next government, the Kurds will hold seven to eight ministries and the Sunni minority will be awarded four to six ministries, a Shiite negotiator said Tuesday.

Kurdish sources confirmed the numbers and predicted an overall agreement on the government should be reached by Sunday.

The cabinet lineup will solidify the Shiite grip on power nearly two months after some eight million Iraqis voted in national elections.

The turnout, led by Iraq's 15-million strong Shiite majority, came after almost two years of suicide car bombings and assassinations by a Sunni Muslim-based insurgency, embittered by the US-led invasion two years ago which ended their grip on power.

The Shiites will take the interior and finance ministries, along with the cabinet post of national security advisor, said Maryam Rayes, a negotiator with the United Iraqi Alliance, which won 146 seats in the 275-member parliament.

The Kurds, with 77 seats, the second largest bloc in parliament, will receive seven to eight ministries, including the foreign ministry and probably oil, Rayes said.

A Kurdish source said the Kurds were likely to get eight ministries, including oil and foreign affairs.

Other posts that were locked up for the Kurds included the presidency, to be held by Jalal Talabani, and the post of deputy prime minister, the source said.

The Kurds, who suffered greatly under Saddam, have sought guarantees of their autonomy in the north and recognition of their claims to the ethnically-divided city of Kirkuk.

One complication that could change the allotment of slots is whether outgoing prime minister Iyad Allawi's list decides to join the government, the Kurdish source said.

For her part, Rayes said she thought it was doubtful that Allawi or his followers would join the government.

Iraq's Sunni minority, who largely boycotted the election, would probably be awarded between four and six posts, while the Christian and Turkmen minorities would receive one ministry each, she said.

Both the Shiites and Kurds are keen to ensure the participation of the Sunnis, who have largely powered the insurgency.

Al-Mutumar, the newspaper of secular Shiite politician Ahmed Chalabi, said outgoing Sunni president Ghazi al-Yawar would be the parliament's new speaker and fellow Sunni politician Hajem al-Hassani would serve as vice president.

Concerns abound among Iraqi politicians about whether any single Sunni leader represents the minority group, which has splintered since the fall of Saddam's regime.

In the latest indication of the Wild West atmosphere still predominent in large swathes of central Iraq, a full-scale shootout erupted on Tuesday in Baghdad's Dura district.

Shopkeepers in the neighbourhood grabbed their guns and returned fire on three cars from which gunmen were spraying their premises with bullets, an interior ministry official said.

Two gunmen were killed and another one was wounded, along with several civilians in the sudden clash near the Shiite Sadr mosque, the official added.

Sectarian strife is steadily increasing in Dura, where Shiites and Iraq's embittered Sunni minority mix.

US military officials and members of the radical Shiite organisation of cleric Moqtada Sadr have reported vigilante killings against Sunnis suspected of carrying out attacks.

The Sadr group has also admitted its involvement in hunting down insurgents in the southern district, home to hundreds of thousands people.

Dura's police chief Colonel Salem Zajay told AFP last week that Sunni insurgents were trying to drive Shiites and Christians from the area.

Separately, the driver of an interior ministry official was gunned down in Baghdad on Tuesday, according to a source at the ministry.

An Iraqi soldier was wounded on Monday night in clashes with gunmen on the capital's tense Haifa street on the western side, according to a hospital source.

In conflict-riven western al-Anbar province, a US soldier was killed, the military said, without giving further details.

Ican there is a higher level of evidence in forming an inference than there is in forming an assumption or a surmise. What accumlation of evidence have you gathered to make the inference that I am hung up on the WMD hooey?

definition of infer