<p>JHS, I think you give the current crop on the high court too much credit. True, they held that a person possessing marijuana they grew on their own property for medicinal purposes (legally under state law) could be subject to federal prosecution under the authority of the commerce clause. However, they also ruled that possessing a gun obtained through interstate commerce within 100 yards of a school is not subject to federal law. </p>
<p>Oh, those pesky “liberal” judges!</p>
<p>“Mini: Limited partnerships and other methods of raising capital without exposing the investors to personal liability in excess of their subscription were well-known before the use of corporate charters for private purposes became common.”</p>
<p>They were “known” (there was of course the South Sea bubble and the Boston Tea Company) and was one of the reasons state laws restricted their use, and required corporate charters “for public purposes”. But even then, it took until 1897 (well more than a decade after the legal fiction of the corporation as a “legal person” was created) for the courts to affirm the limited liability principle.</p>
<p>There was/is nothing Constitutional about it, and anyone who looks to the founding fathers to speak on this issue is wasting his/her time.</p>
<p><a href=“repamerica.org”>http://www.repamerica.org/news/GEvol1/ge1.2_Roosevelt.html</a></p>
<p>I don’t think that the scientific community is debating whether or not global warming exists, just its cause. Recent data indicates that the worst case was 15000 years ago, and there were no hydrocarbon emissions back then. There was the Ice Age (global cooling) and then the ice melted (global warming). There is a case to be made for the fact that this is a normal cycle of the earth, and that perhaps we have exacerbated it somewhat, but to say we are the sole cause denies historic fact. Now do I think we should do more to keep the planet clean? Of course. But what happens if the earth starts to cool in another couple years? Will people take credit for that, too, even if really little has been done to control the emissions? I remember people saying that 20 years ago that we only had 10 years to fix it or we were at the point of no return. Then, 10 years, ago, we had 10 years, now we have 10 years to go again until the point of no return, but we can accomplish it in 50. If we have reached the point of no return at least twice now, when does it really get there? Let’s be practical. It is here. Can we do anything to alleviate it? Perhaps. Can we totally eradicate it? History tells us no. Poor Al Gore, he didn’t get credit for the internet, so now he goes after global warming, but scare tactics will not help the situation any. As to why many people see this as a conservative vs. liberal issue is that many people see this as a business vs. little guy issue, rather than a “sky is falling” vs. practical application scenario.</p>
<p>I think I am going to step back and let the scientific community battle this one for a while. The saying “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” comes to mind. In the mean time I will do my part. (sigh I do love my corporate jet, I’ll miss her 
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We all agree that global warming is real, we just don’t agree on the cause. </p>
<p>As for $6.00/gallon gasoline, if it happens, it won’t be from taxes. Politicians know that this would affect the whole population, not just the other partys voting block. We can’t upset those in our own party now can we?</p>
<p>U.S. oil companies control 3% of the worlds oil. Not a large percentage and kind of hard to manipulate the other 97% of the market.</p>
<p>As for taxing the oil companies profits: Don’t they teach the difference between profit and profit margin anymore? Maybe the should be taxing Coke, their profit margin is 2X that of the oil companies.</p>
<p>Poor Al, he just can’t get a break…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009804[/url]”>http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009804</a></p>
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<p>I think it’s a pretty complex mix of stuff, from our laziness, to our being busy with life, to our lack of faith in the globalwarmists, to our sitting out the debate. Most of us aren’t scientists and many of us don’t have the interest or time to research this issue to see if it is “all that”.</p>
<p>We also have had enough experience with scientists who tell us ‘such and such is gonna kill us all by the end of the decade’ or ‘this is bad for you, oops, now its good for you’ or ‘by the year 2000, we are all gonna be living in space (or our computers are all gonna explode and send us back to the Dark Ages)’, that we don’t trust science enough to just take its claims on faith.</p>
<p>Also you got [scientists</a> who disagree that global warming is caused by man](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XttV2C6B8pU]scientists”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XttV2C6B8pU) and they point out how intolerant their opponents can be about disagreement.</p>
<p>Also, you got the global warming protesters who run around [protesting</a> on this issue in some of the coldest weather on record](<a href=“http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/another_warming_protest_hit_by_severe_cold/]protesting”>http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/another_warming_protest_hit_by_severe_cold/).</p>
<p>You have Democrats [canceling</a> hearings on global warming](<a href=“Welcome theglobalwarminghoax.com - BlueHost.com”>Welcome theglobalwarminghoax.com - BlueHost.com) due to some of the worst snowstorms in Washington’s history.</p>
<p>Then you have one of the most outspoken liberals telling groups of voters he has sold his gas guzzler [so that someone else can pollute the environment with it] while running around in a gas guzzling SUV. And when called on the carpet about it, he claimed he didn’t have the gas guzzler, but that ‘the family has it.’, acting as if he really doesn’t believe in global warming after all. Similarly, you got the guy who invented global warming [consuming</a> more than twenty times as much energy as the rest of us](<a href=“http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0703040579mar04,1,981708.story]consuming”>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0703040579mar04,1,981708.story), as if he knows all the global warming stuff is just lies.</p>
<p>I think since most of the global warming stuff is backed by science, and the left tends to see itself smarter and more scientific than the right, people on the left seem to think they have a right to diss as “cavemen”, folk who question them on this issue. People on the right think the left consists of a bunch of “tree hugging loonies”. And the rest of us, people like me, don’t really know what is true. We are just sitting by wondering how much food and clothing our kids will have to do without once Congress starts charging additional fuel and energy taxes on top of the already skyrocketing fuel costs we have to put up with.</p>
<p>The science is almost secondary to the politics. Assume for the sake of argument that global wrming is real, is more harmful than good for humanity and can be mitigated by changes in human acitivity. Assume further that the needed change in human acitivity is so great that it must be mandated by government and require some lifestyle changes.</p>
<p>Here comes the paradox.</p>
<p>The liberal sees that the solution is benign relative to the possible damge due to global warming that they won’t necessarily hold the science to a very hgih standard. Just the possibility of ecological damage is enough to accept government regulation and a lower standard of living.</p>
<p>The conservative is naturally prone to reject additional government intrusion, except in cases of dire consequence. In this global warming case, they would hold scinece to a much higher standard, because they are reluctant to accept the government mandated solution unless it can be very clearly shown that there is a problem and then, that government regualtion has to be part of the solution. The standard that science is held to in this case is so high that it may never meet it. It may require such a level of empricial evidence that by the time such evidence is manifest, it’s too late to do anything about the problem.</p>
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Lord knows I am no friend of the conservatives because I personally can’t afford to be. But I don’t think the statement quoted above is fair to them. Now, I could be completely wrong on this because, admittedly, I have not studied this issue in great detail. But, I don’t think conservatives are holding science to a much higher standard than usual. They seem to be doing what normal people do.</p>
<p>Should someone approach you and say “The sky is falling!” what would you do? Of course you would look up quickly, cowering and grimacing as you do, trying to see if the thing is really going to crush you. This initial action would take place because you have enough essential trust in the credibility of the public that when one of its members makes a claim, you will believe it, especially since the risk of cowering is not prohibitive. But when you look up and see the sky just sitting up there as usual, you will stand up, look at the guy making the claim, and say “Prove it. The sky looks fine to me.”. At this point it becomes necessary for the guy making the fantastic claim, to produce fantastic evidence supporting it. You will not so much as expend even the extra energy to cower further because you no longer trust the guy. And his simply producing as evidence what looks to be correlations will be insufficient. The claim is just too fantastic to be taken on what can be taken as flimsy support.</p>
<p>It’s the same with global warming. The problem I see between liberals and conservatives on this and other issues is with the assumptions themselves, to wit, "Assume for the sake of argument that global wrming is real, is more harmful than good for humanity and can be mitigated by changes in human acitivity. Assume further that the needed change in human acitivity is so great that it must be mandated by government and require some lifestyle changes. If we go ahead and assume this, well, the left automatically wins because its position (that Global Warming is harmful and government action is needed to stop it) becomes unassailable fact. It seems to me that the real disagreement here is over these assumptions. Many conservatives doubt, and even reject them, because they do not see evidence that is fantastic enough to support them. The left thinks the evidence is fine, and because the scientific establishment is on its side, it seems to think it has sufficient reason to denounce the right. As heretical as it may appear to people on the left, the right has a suspicion of the scientific establishment (not science itself, which is just a process) that I think is very healthy.</p>
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<p>Actually, I was in London last week and the BBC had a program where there was quite a spirited debate over global warming between scientists and statisticians from both sides of the argument. </p>
<p>There have already been laws enacted in the UK to kirb the effects of GW, and the people are starting to buck. There were many items in the press showing the hypocrisy of the “green” folks including thermal images of the homes of the major proponents of “living green” (including Prince Charles’ home) that showed the leakage of thermal emissions and waste (London Telegraph). They shame anyone mercilessly for any sign of hypocrisy in the press - Al Gore was written up as riding in a “smart” car while being followed by an entourage in gas guzzling vehicles (London Sun). It was all pretty entertaining…</p>
<p>It’s a liberal issue because with the push of jobs and polluting to countries where global pollution is less controlled through NAFTA/“free” trade/WTO, etc., the liberals under our previous President are majorly responsible for it.</p>