Hillary would 100% definitely attack Iran shortly after she takes office, for two reasons:

1) Her Israel lobby donors require it.

2) As a woman president, she has an extra burden of proving her manhood by attacking something. The first time she hesitates to shoot first, the guys at Fox will get flat foreheads from slapping themselves and saying "See what happens when you elect a woman president !!" To inoculate herself from that criticism, Hillary will need to attack something early on to prove her manhood. What else besides Iran? Russia? Vanuatu? OK, maybe she could bomb Syria because AIPAC doesn't like Syria either, but Iran is the way to bet. Within 90 days.

It will be the Israel lobby, their corporate donors, and the corporate media. The Democrats are, after all, politicians who exist above all to stay in power. Anyone who expects them to change the rules or the outcome will be disappointed.

Blumenthal makes his best pitch to persuade skeptics to swallow their doubts and support Hillary, but his pitch sits somewhere between a lie and self-delusion.

It's commonplace now among the pro-Israeli left to personalize the stepwise nullification of our constitution and rule of law -- to say it's all just a Republican psychosis. But that is not true. This historic change has an external, real-world purpose -- to prepare America to fight Israel's wars under the banner of the War of Civilizations.

The leverage point in breaking up our legal traditions has clearly been the "war on terror," which among the beltway elite (right and left) has been made indistinguishable from the Iraq war and the coming Iran war. Hillary's foreign policy has often, accurately been called "Bush lite." She is deeply beholden to the Israel lobby, and in no way capable or willing to tell them no.

Nothing will change with her as president. She will also be a war president, in all likelihood with bigger and more dangerous wars to fight. There is no such thing as "War of Civilizations lite." Under that pressure, all of Blumenthal's fine words will be quickly forgotten.

Electing Hillary won't end the imperial war presidency. It will ratify the imperial war presidency by making it bi-partisan. It will be the other shoe dropping.

People would rather take their chances on the consequences of global warming than give up comforts and conveniences of modern life. Scolds and blowhards like Al Gore will wag their fingers and say "bad bad bad" but (let me repeat) people would rather take their chances on the consequences of global warming than give up comforts and conveniences of modern life. The world is supposedly moving toward democracy and that is generally considered a good thing. Scolds and blowhards are in a minority and will not prevail in any democracy. Because people would rather take their chances on the consequences of global warming than give up comforts and conveniences of modern life.

I live in a developing country where whole families of four travel on a single 110-cc motorbike. Guess what, they all want cars. Scolds and blowhards from America (where a family of four can't circle the block without a minivan) are telling people here to give up even their motorbikes and ride bicycles instead, to stop global warming. In America, cars and aircon are a birthright, but people in poor countries should do without. Look up f**k you in 100 languages, and there is your answer.

Of course you could tell your fellow Americans to give up their cars and aircon. Very noble, but you already lost every election you will ever enter with that platform. Because people would rather take their chances on the consequences of global warming than give up comforts and conveniences of modern life.

Sure, the planet is warming, the seas rising, the ice melting. It will be quite an adventure. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Of course the scolds and blowhards will continue to scold and blow hard, but the vast majority of people have already turned off the volume. People are not ignorant; they are making a conscious choice. They would rather take their chances on the consequences of global warming than give up comforts and conveniences of modern life.

For anyone who doesn't know where to find it, here are some of the deniers that drive y'all so bonkers, discussing the nasty current winter and observed global cooling in the past few months and speculation about a Maunder minimum in solar magnetic activity which is linked to "little ice ages" :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/26/eaice126.xml

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/Bill-Jamieson--Chilly-months.3805103.jp

http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=287279412587175

http://www.dailytech.com/Solar+Activity+Diminishes+Researchers+Predict+Another+Ice+Age/article10630.htm

http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Widescale+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/

And just in case these links don't make it through, you can find it all by doing a Google news search on "Kenneth Tapping", a Canadian solar researcher who is worried about lack of sun spots.

(My own position, as noted in an earlier letter: climate change is a spectator sport, not a policy issue. Convincing people to give up their cars, aircon, air travel, etc. has zero political chance, zero, fugeddaboutit. The astonishing hypocrisy of the rich world on this matter makes it zero squared.)

An article at dailytech.com about the sharp cooldown of the earth in the last few months was featured at digg, and it's interesting to note how much the user comments run against the warmists.

http://digg.com/environment/Temperature_Monitors_Report_Massive_Global_Cooling

Digg is not the haunt of Exxon and the utility industry. It's fairly PC on the whole, with a dose of libertarian / Ron Paulism mixed in. Commentary on this issue seems to be weighted toward suspicion, scorn, and outright hostility for Al Bore and the warmist camp.