Bill,
The Cheerios package said it could "lower your cholesterol 4 percent in six weeks."
If one on those male enhancement pills claimed it could make your package 4 percent larger in six weeks, the FDA would shut them down, too, unless they had clinical, FDA-approved testing to prove it. Watch those pills' ads. They don't make any overt claims.

All those supplements in the health food store and all the weight loss products say on the label that their claims haven't been verified by the FDA and that they aren't intended to treat or prevent any disease.(Ever notice that the weight loss ads say results aren't "typical" and may vary?)

The FDA said that Cheerios ad suggested that it was designed to treat or prevent heart disease. Only products that are clinically proven to treat or prevent heart disease can make that claim legally. That's all there was to it. What industry is being taken over?

Yes, the Earth's climate has changed before. But that doesn't mean we aren't changing or speeding the process now. Al Gore shot himself in the foot by making that climate-change movie so much about him. People who dislike him project those feelings onto the issue.

Even so, it's interesting that people talk about Gore making money, but not Exxon or Westmoreland or Peabody.

Bush's administration was notorious for censoring and burying studies that suggested man might have an effect on climate change.
But the week before he left office, they released a bunch of studies that supported the idea. One was about Arctic ice. Here's a link about it. Notice the first bullet.

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2109&from=rss_home

If it weren't for oil, and 9-11, we wouldn't be in the Middle East militarily. But we have a history there. The West pretty much created the countries in the Middle East after the world wars -- that's why, for example, there are Kurds in Iraq. Just leaving now is kind of wishful thinking.

I'd agree about North Korea, except that if we did anything militarily against them, they might really be crazy enough to attack South Korea. And they could obliterate South Korea in a matter of days without nukes -- they have incredible armament pointed south.