For Mike O'B (from my old hometown newspaper):

Mike, while I admire your passion on this matter, what are the options: Can't build more Nuke plants because of Three Mile Island. Can't buy more Middle East oil because we're draining our economy, funding foreign powers that hate us and holding ourselves hostage to OPEC. Can't invade any oil producing Middle East countries in wars of opportunity because that isn't nice and it gets Code Pink up in arms. Can't build windmills off the coast because Ted Kennedy didn't want his view obstructed. Coal's out because mining is dangerous, soot pollutes the air and contributes to the coming ice age / global warming / climate change / whatever new cause we've got from marketing.

No matter the industry or the technology, there are going to be accidents. The key is effective regulation to minimize the occurance of accidents, effective disaster preparation to mitigate those accidents and resiliency to recover from them.

As for your other question - the difference between Iraq and Afganistan is that we had no business to ever be in Iraq. They didn't attack us and they posed no threat.

Afganistan's government was supporting the terrorist organization that organized the attack on 9/11.

This is why both sides of the isle were all for the immediate attack on Afganistan in 2002.

Any body killed in war is killed too soon, but you're misunderstanding the protests if you think it's just about bodies. It's abour right and wrong. Iraq was wrong. We never belonged there.

And besides, Obama's plan for Afganistan is very clear - it's a surge, then withdrawl. We are to be done there by 2011. We have clear goals and objectives for Afganistan.

I'll say mea culpa for both of those.

Like I suggested, Mike: The perception is Afghanistan is the good war (assuming there can be such a thing).

And actually, according to the latest information reported in Time, the plan is to begin withdrawals in July 2011. No guarantee the US will be off the ground before the year is out, and indeed, there is no promise by the generals and the White House that it will happen in an 18 month timeframe.

I didn't think people blamed Bush for the levee breaking...

How quickly we forget, Jodi...

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/14/201055.shtm l

http://www.apfn.org/APFN/Katrina_levee.htm

http://www.factcheck.org/article344.html

Welllll....... as long as we're "owning" things, how about if every one of us who owns a car steps up to the plate? Or anyone who heats their home with oil?

We use cleaner-than-coal natural gas to heat our home and cleaner-than-coal natural gas PLUS hydroelectric power as the source of our electricity, so our family is only a fraction as bad as the rest of you plantet killers!

Heck, I even seriously considered buying a Prius! Just call me Mr. Eco Friendly and doing my part...

(Of course, I eat meat and exhale a green house gas, so you better hand me my fair potion of blame...)

Matthew -

What's the comparison in deaths in Iraq between Bush and Obama? I'm thinking that might be a more extreme difference.

The main difference between Katrina and the BP oil spill, as I see it, is that we knew days before Katrina hit that it was coming and it still ended up a complete clusterfuck. On both the local, state, and federal level.

The oil rig explosion was unexpected and I believe we were fed false information from BP about how severe the spill actually was.