It is encouraging that some American politicians, such as Senator Feingold, are starting to wake up from the sleepwalk that took the nation into a war based on lies.

However, while Feingold accurately calls the absence of the missing Iraq debate in the Congress "deafening", there's something about his article which is also remarkable for its absence. He talks about the many American casualties of the war; those who have already been injured or killed, and those who will be. Certainly every one of them has been, or will be, sacrificed in vain.

But when recounting the costs, shouldn't there be some recognition of the far greater number of innocent Iraqis who have been injured or killed as a result of this catastrophe? It will never be known exactly, but the dead already number at least in their tens of thousands; and there are many, many lives yet to be cut short or maimed as a result of destroyed infrastructure, scattershot fire by US troops, torture, depleted uranium, and insurgent attacks. The suffering will go on for long after the last US soldier has left the country.

Perhaps it's too early in the war to ask even critical US politicians to pay some attention to lives of foreigners, but the lack of the merest acknowledgement of such in this context is jarring. I am reminded of the manner in which Americans usually recount the dead of the Vietnam war -- remembering the 58,000 Americans, but not the the two to three million Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laosian lives that that other unnecessary, stupid, bloody blunder cost.

Feingold writes, "We owe each and every one of these soldiers, and their families, and the nation they serve, serious congressional debate and action." That is true, but you owe something more.

chashamilton writes:

"If all these use the 747-style upper cabin, why would Airbus have gone the other way?"

The A380 doesn't just have an upper cabin, it has an entire upper floor. There are two passenger decks, plus the cargo transport deck below the lower passenger deck.

"I also have a nick-name for the A380 - 'Baby Huey Beluga' - because most planes will be white, and the front of the plane looks more like the Beluga Whale to me than a porpoise."

There is actually a special type of Airbus plane officially nicknamed the Beluga -- the "A300-600ST Beluga Super Transporter", designed for ferrying Airbus parts around Europe from one plant to another. It can also be rented for other special transport jobs. Google for a picture of it, and you'll see the the aptness of the name.

As for the looks of the Boeing 747 vs. the A380, I agree, but I think this point is being driven into the ground by Patrick; this must be at least the fourth time he mentions this. But in any case, a it's generally a good column.

I have a comment, not on Patrick's article, but on the letter from John Dellaportas he includes at the end.

Dellaportas asserts that the Spanish voted out the Conservatives (Partido Popular) in 2004 so that "they could get al-Qaida to leave them alone," thus proving to the terrorists that their bombs can have a political effect. I've heard this assertion by American right-wingers before. What they conveniently choose to ignore is that the main reason Spaniards turned against the Conservatives so decisively was because the latter lied to the people about the perpetrators: they tried to convince everyone that the bombs were planted by the Basque separatist terrorist group, ETA, while they actually already had evidence pointing to al-Qaida immediately after the bombings. They probably lied because they feared what Dellaportas asserts happened; that the voters would punish the Conservatives for making Spain more vulnerable to Middle Eastern terrorism.

However, the attempt to mislead leaked out in time before the election, turning the Spanish voters decisively against the Conservatives -- and incidentally, also proving that the Spanish are less blasé about being lied to by their political leaders than Americans seem to be.

Who knows, perhaps some of those voting for the Socialists did do so at least partly because of worries about Spain's troops in Iraq having made the country a terrorist target. And in truth, who can blame them? The Iraq war is misguided, counterproductive, illegal, and based on lies. Why should an informed public support such an adventure, when the alternative at elections is to pull out of the mess?

swartzer wrote:

Actually, a watt is one joule of energy over one second. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt)

Looking at the definition:

1 W = 1 J/s

which gives us, when both sides of the equation are multiplied by one second,

1 W*s = 1 J

In other words, like Andrew said, one joule is the amount of energy that is produced by the power of one watt during the period of on second.

Perhaps the confusion arises over how to translate the English word "over" in equations. In Andrew's sentence, "A joule is one watt of power for one second", "over" means "for the period of", i.e., it refers to multiplication. When you wrote "a watt is one joule of energy over one second", perhaps you meant "over" to refer to the division sign in the equation 1 W = 1 J/s.

It seems it's better stick to equations to impart the exact meaning of physical units.

I remember when I first started reading about fusion power, around 25 years ago. Up until that point, commercial fusion power had always been estimated about 20 years in the future. So no change there.