sorry, quick email on american politics. you might/might not know that america is possibly about to default on it's debt, due to the house republicans not being willing to increase the debt ceiling (even though it was increased 7 times under gw bush).
many republicans don't believe that there will be any calamitous consequences to not raising the debt ceiling, even though every single economist and business leader, both in the u.s and internationally, has predicted grievous and dire consequences if the debt ceiling isn't raised and if america defaults on its debt. which leads me to the simple conclusion that republicans love to disagree with experts. for example:
– republicans don't believe in global warming, even though 99.9% of the climatologists on the planet have stated emphatically that global warming is both happening and is the result of human actions.
– many republicans still believe that iraq had weapons of mass destruction even though all of the arms inspectors said conclusively that iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
– many republicans believe that president obama was born in kenya, even though he has a birth certificate from hawaii and countless officials have stated that he was born in hawaii.
– many republicans believe that the world was created 6,000 years ago (they even have a museum for it, the creationist museum) even though not a single credible scientist believes that the world is less than 5,000,000,000 years old. and so on and so on.
which leads me to conclude that republicans just love to disagree with experts, no matter how absurd the contrarian republican position might be (republican creationists actually teach that humans and dinosaurs co-existed). sometimes it's almost comical (like cartoons of humans and dinosaurs hanging out together), and sometimes it's horrifying (like when republicans block raising the debt ceiling and run the risk of decimating americas economy).
here's hoping that a few saner republicans (if there are any left) somehow prevail in getting the debt ceiling raised.
-moby