Neil deGrasse Tyson's Dark Matter Movie Notes from Hayden Planetarium

December 28, 2015

Saw Neil deGrasse Tyson's Dark Matter Movie at  Hayden Planetarium yesterday.  Here are some notes I jotted down while watching the film to save you a trip.  You're welcome.

13.8 billion years ago, the Big Bang (derisively named by its detractors) started emitting energy and matter. 

Mount Wilson in the 1920s was the largest telescope in the world at the time.  Andromeda was a pulsating star.  By studying it carefully, Edwin Hubble was able to figure out that it was much brighter than our sun and much farther away than the edge of our galaxy.  By studying its red shift and that of thousands of other galaxies, he was able to determine that the galaxy was expanding.  

Andromeda is over 2 million light years away, so we see it now as it was 2 million years ago, long before humans walked the earth. 

Light from the farthest galaxies started out billions of years ago. 

No matter where you are in the universe, you seem to be the center of it with everything expanding out away from you at an ever increasing rate (things farthest away are moving away from you faster than things that are closer).

The universe used to expand at a greater rate than it does today, the opposite of what was once thought theoretically before it was carefully measured empirically.    Its rate of expansion seems to have been accelerating for at least the last 5 billion years or so. 

The universe is cool (only 3 degrees Kelvin on average) and getting cooler as it expands.  At the time of the Big Bang it was hotter than the sun is today. 

In 1964 at Bell laboratory in New Jersey, microwave radiation from the Big Bang was first recognized as cosmic background radiation.  Mapping it allows us to know the distribution of matter and energy.  Blue areas are more dense and where galaxies form.  Red areas are enormous voids.   The cosmic background radiation marks the visible edge of the known universe. 

In 1995, the Galileo space shot released a probe that parachuted down into the atmosphere of Jupiter to measure the amount of heavy hydrogen in this enormous "cold storage locker" that trapped and preserved elements from a time much closer to the Big Bang, 4 billion years ago.   The amount found was consistent with predictions made by those positing a Big Bang. 

Most matter is not made of matter at all but of dark matter which must account for the additional mass necessary to hold galaxies together (the observed matter doesn't suffice).  It's thought that galaxy clusters are held together by a network of dark matter. 

Trillions of stars in a galaxy distort the gravity around it, but the distortion is greater than the observed matter. 

Supernovas massive explosions resulting from two colliding ghosts of old stars.  They occur at a rate of about 2 per century per galaxy. 

Matter and energy are the same, interchangeable per Einstein's e = mc². 

The universe appears to be about 70% dark energy with dark matter making up the bulk of everything else. 

Normal matter is only 5% of the universe. 

The universe must be bigger than the part we can see (the part whose light has reached us already).  Some believe it's infinitely large, others that it is perhaps 4 or 5 times as large as the visible universe (the part we can see). 

Is the USA Facing An Epidemic of Islamic-Inspired Violence? Spoiler Alert: No.

Are We Facing An Epidemic of Islamic-Inspired Violence?   (And If So, Does Trump Have the Cure?)

12/10/15

Whenever I am repeatedly shocked or surprised by something, it's usually because my model of reality governing that particular something was deeply flawed.  

And so it is with Trump and his supporters.  I was wrong along with so many others in believing that his campaign would prove to be an entertaining but ultimately ephemeral sideshow.   I cheered when Huffington Post moved coverage of his campaign to the Entertainment section, saying that it wasn't serious politics.  

But Trump is still leading and by a widening margin.   The more sane, educated people are appalled, the more his followers are delighted.

So what gives?

I think it goes back to Tulips.  And the South Sea bubble.   And Pets.com, collateralized debt obligations, and home prices that could never fall.  

Never underestimate that madness of crowds.   When people get an infectious, incorrect idea in their heads, especially one that is emotionally provocative ("if you keep borrowing against your home equity, you will never have to really repay the debt since your home will always rise in value" or "the United States faces an epidemic of Muslim-inspired violence that only a prohibition of Islam will fix") it has to run its course.  It can't be reasoned away by pointy-headed people with their "facts" and "data" and "logic."  This time is different.  The old rules don't apply.  No rules really apply.  We should all embrace this new paradigm.  

And all new paradigms (which are really old ones in new clothes) need a new, charismatic leader, one who can channel all that collective disdain for the experts who all their life have always made the masses feel a little guilty for not doing their homework.  There isn't any need for homework anymore.  All that is needed is boldness!  

The Trump supporters interviewed here are really no different than stock investors buying on 10:1 margin in 1929 or bond traders selling insurance policies on tranches of crappy subprime mortgages in 2007 or those who thought Mitt Romney was a sure thing (this last bet wasn't off quite as wildly, but it's clear that Mitt Romney himself had never seriously considered the possibility that he might lose until the election returns showed that indeed he had.  

Trump is the new, bold leader of the latest bubble in popular thinking (which is somewhat redundant, since all bubbles require the dynamics of a frenzied crowd to grow and spread).  The assumptions of the bubble follow:  

  The United States is facing an unprecedented wave of terror attacks led by Islamically-inspired radicals.  

  The president of the United States, himself a Muslim, refuses to recognize this reality that any casual viewer of Fox & Friends knows to be true.

  The mainstream media (meaning anything but Fox or Christian fundamentalist radio or Rush or Sean) are conspiring with our Muslim president and perhaps the Muslim Brotherhood to keep Americans ignorant of the truth.

  Trump is not afraid to speak this politically-incorrect truth:  only by keeping Muslims out of this country or closely monitored once they are here can we ever hope to fight this epidemic of Islamic-inspired terrorism that poses an existentialist threat to our country.  

Distilled to its essence:  

  Muslims are terrorizing America.  

  Keep Muslims out or register those who are here and you will eliminate terror in America.  

  Only Trump has the vision to do this.  

  Vote for Trump!  

As in any bubble, there is a grain of truth.   There have been 4 terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims inspired by an Islamist ideology during the President Obama administration:  

Attack Death toll

Fort Hood 13

Boston Marathon bombing  3

Chattanooga  5

San Bernadino 14

Total 35

3 of these 4 attacks (32 of these 35 dead) were committed with legally-obtained firearms (the other was made possible thanks to firearms which covered the escape of one of the bombers).    

But the grain of truth is whipped up into complete, mass hysteria.   

35 dead represents the number of Americans killed every 9 hours and 20 minutes from non-Muslim-inspired gun violence.   

That means that about 5 Americans have died during the average year of President Obama's term 6.9 years in office from domestic Islamic terrorism.  

We could argue that this is 5 too many, but is it an epidemic?  

Well, 5 is about the average number of people who die ON THE ENTIRE PLANET from shark attacks.  

The average American is 30 times more likely to die from falling airplane parts than from a shark attack.  
Therefore, we are facing an epidemic of Islamist violence in the United States only if we are facing a far, far greater epidemic of falling airplane parts.   (Why are both parties so silent on THIS epidemic?  Should we not ban all flights just to be on the safe side "until we know everything" as Trump said of Muslim immigration?)

I won't go through the rate per capita and compare it to automobile deaths, the flu, or cardiovascular disease, but take my word for it:  it's not even a rounding error.  

Since the premise is false, the conclusion (that Trump's Islamophobic policies will stop this non-existent epidemic in its tracks) is also false, but let's go through a few numbers to humor his supporters.  

Numbers vary widely (the United States does not ask citizens to declare a religion when conducting a census or for any other official government business), but there are about 6.7 million Muslim Americans.    

This means the 6 total Islamically-inspired Muslim Americans represent literally 1 in a million American Muslims.  

How does this compare to domestic terrorism committed by non-Islamic non-Islamic terrorists?  

Since President Obama took office, here are those numbers  29 killed in 10 attacks.   (See Appendix below for a detailed list), or 4.2 Americans killed per year.  

So although it's true that Islamic-inspired terrorism has been about 20% greater (35 versus 29 killed) over this period, and that since Muslim Americans are only 2% of the population, this does represent a higher rate per capita than among non-Muslims, the numbers are still tiny in both cases.   There were dozens of plots to kill people for right wing religious or ideological reasons that were disrupted and Christian or anti-government terrorists seem to enjoy a degree of popular support in many regions of the country that no Muslim terrorist does, allowing them to seek refuge among collaborators in a way that Islamists can't.  

If Islamist terrorism is an epidemic, then non-Islamic terrorism must at least be a very bad outbreak.  

But of course neither is a significant killer of Americans.   33,000 Americans die in gun violence that is not politically-motivated.   How many?  About 33,000 a year  or 90 a day.  

So let's compare side-by-side:

Cause of death Average deaths per year

Islamist terrorism 5.1

non-Islamist terrorism 4.2

firearms    33,000   

           You are 6,471 times more likely to be killed by a plain old firearm discharge (homicide, murder, or accident) than by a politically-inspired one.  
And yes, you are 7,857 times more likely to be killed by homicide, murder, or accidents as by non-Islamic terrorism.   

You are 3,548 times more likely to be killed by non-terrorist gunshots as by all forms of terrorism combined.  

So why are we worried about terrorism but oblivious to firearm dangers such as the gun show loophole again?  

Now let's say that Trump's strategy works and the number of Islamist terrorism deaths drops to 0.  Let's further assume that his stoking of Islamophobic hatred doesn't stoke more non-Islamist terrorism.   How would this affect overall firearm deaths (which include terrorist deaths)?

Well, 33,000 per year would drop by 5.1 a year to 32,994.9.  However, since we really should have no more than 3 significant digits, this rounds off to … 33,000.    The net effect of Trump's policy would be zero since the problem he is trying to solve is so miniscule it's within the rounding error of the total firearm mortality data of which it's a part.  

Appendix:  List of Non-Muslim Terrorist Attacks in the United States since 2009 in which at least one person was killed.  

2009 May 31: Dr  George Tiller shot by an anti-abortion Christian extremist: 1 killed.

2009 June 10: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting: 88-year-old James Wenneker von Brunn, a white supremacist and neo-Nazi, walked into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., shooting and mortally wounding Stephen Tyrone Johns, a security guard:  1 killed

2010 February 18: Austin suicide attack: Andrew Joseph Stack III flying his single engine plane flew into the Austin Texas IRS building killing himself and one IRS employee and injuring 13 others. 1

2012 August 5: Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting: Six people were killed and three others were injured, including a police officer who was tending to victims at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The gunman, 40-year-old Wade Michael Page, killed himself after being shot by police  6
2013 November 1: 2013 Los Angeles International Airport shooting: Paul Anthony Ciancia entered the checkpoint at the Los Angeles International Airportand fired his rifle, killing one Transportation Security Administration officer and injuring six others. The motivation behind the attack was Paul's inspiration of the anti-government agenda, such as believing in the New World Order conspiracy theory, and stating that he "wanted to kill TSA" and described them as "pigs".   1

2014 April 13: Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting: A pair of shootings committed by a lone gunman occurred at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community, in Overland Park, Kansas. A total of three people died in the shootings. Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr., a neo-Nazi was arrested and charged with capital murder, first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and aggravated assault.  3

2014 June 8: 2014 Las Vegas shootings: Two police officers and one civilian died in a shooting spree in the Las Vegas Valley committed by a couple, identified as Jerad and Amanda Miller, who espoused anti-government views and were reportedly inspired by the outcome of the Bundy standoff. 3

2014 September 16: Eric Matthew Frein described as a survivalist is alleged to have killed a Pennsylvania State trooper and critically wounded another at the Blooming Grove barracks. 1

2015 June 17: Charleston church shooting: a mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina..   Dylann Roof was arrested and later confessed that he committed the shooting in order to initiate a race war.  9

2015 November 27: 2015 Colorado Springs shootings: Robert L. Dear, armed with an assault-style rifle opened fire at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood. Two civilians and one police officer were killed, and four civilians and five police officers were wounded before the suspect surrendered. Dear told police "No more baby parts" after being taken into custody.  3

Let's say that Trump's fantasy of a Muslim-rein America were carried out and all Muslims were barred from entering the United States or rounded up an put into camps if they are already here.   (Again, this could never happen for legal, moral, and practical reasons, but for purposes of illustration, let's carry it out logically.)

Bush Lied. Thousands Died. We simply cannot allow neocon denial to rewrite history.

Bush Lies

This is well-trodden ground and I honestly thought that Bush's dishonesty was a settled historical fact by now.  But as the years pass between the events of 2002-2003 and the case for war becomes fuzzy in many American's minds, as the horrors of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq settle into a nightmarish mist where moral responsibility floats owner-less, as though the war were an inevitable natural disaster rather than an elective, man-made catastrophe, neocon denial, like Holocaust denial, can become an option for many, especially those most embarrassed by this debacle.
But history matters.  Moral culpability matters.  There are no statutes of limitation on lying or mass murder. If we don't hold our past leaders accountable for what they did, then present leaders know they can act with impunity. This issue transcends party. It even transcends nationality. All countries need to clean house morally, examining motives and deceptions.
Lying is a strong word for some but if a person or administration consistently and repeatedly, despite multiple public and private corrections, presents a case for a war that it knows is not true, with the errors systematically in the direction for war, with a vindictive response to public correction that ruins careers and compromises national security, then we must use the L word.
What follows is a document I created sometime in 2003 when most of these events were fresh in our minds. It is long and I apologize for that, but the voluminous details make an overwhelming case that Bush and other top members of his administration did indeed lie. I had long since left the intelligence community and had access to only open source information, but I knew, in real time, that there were no WMD in Iraq, certainly no nuclear program, as Bush repeatedly stated there was.  The idea that we did not know then what we know now is simply not true, because many of us, including the tens of millions who marched worldwide - the first and most massive protest in human history to a war that had not even started - knew in real time that George W. Bush was lying, systematically and always in the direction of war.

George W. Bush is a liar. He has lied large and small, directly and by omission. His Iraq lies have loomed largest. In the run-up to the invasion, Bush based his case for war on a variety of unfounded claims that extended far beyond his controversial uranium-from-Niger assertion. He maintained that Saddam Hussein possessed "a massive stockpile" of unconventional weapons and was directly "dealing" with Al Qaeda--two suppositions unsupported then (or now) by the available evidence. He said the International Atomic Energy Agency had produced a report in 1998 noting that Iraq was six months from developing a nuclear weapon; no such report existed (and the IAEA had actually reported then that there was no indication Iraq had the ability to produce weapons-grade material). Bush asserted that Iraq was "harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner"; US intelligence officials told reporters this terrorist was operating ouside of Al Qaeda control. And two days before launching the war, Bush said, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." Yet former deputy CIA director Richard Kerr, who is conducting a review of the prewar intelligence, has said that intelligence was full of qualifiers and caveats, and based on circumstantial and inferential evidence. That is, it was not no-doubt stuff. And after the major fighting was done, Bush declared, "We found the weapons of mass destruction." But he could only point to two tractor-trailers that the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded were mobile bioweapons labs. Other experts--including the DIA's own engineering experts--disagreed with this finding.

• David Corn, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception

Lie noun: an untrue statement made with intent to deceive (Merriam-Webster)

To accuse a politician of lying should be a serious charge.

So much deception has been documented by office-holders that the term dishonest politician has become redundant. This is unfair to those who serve with integrity and who are collectively impugned by the well-publicized egregious behavior of a few.

There are several levels of dishonesty, all of which have been displayed by this administration.

The lowest level, and arguably the most forgivable, is lies having to do with personal behavior that does not reflect on the performance of one's duties, and does not affect decisions made by those who hear the falsehood. The sexual life of President Clinton when thrust into a courtroom prompted an emphatic lie from the President "I did not have sex with that woman," although many might argue about whether fellatio constitutes sex, per se. This is at the level of a quibble, a wiggling away from a direct falsehood, but giving information that deliberately creates a false impression.

The most egregious level involves issues of national security, especially when the lies are so designed to inflame passions and lurch the country to war. These involve outright deceptions - the claim that Saddam Hussein was attempting to obtain uranium in Africa - or deliberately sloppy language that created a false impression unless parsed very carefully - such as Bush's frequent summoning of the memory of 9/11 in the same sentence in which he mentioned Saddam Hussein. The effect of both lies is lethal. Men, women, and children died in the thousands because decision-makers, influenced by these words (indeed, often citing them) - ceded their war-making authority to the President.

Somewhere between these extremes is an intellectual dishonesty, a sloppiness in thinking that may reflect the operation of a dichotomous mind unschooled in the nuances of history, foreign policy, or cultural and ethnic complexity of a region. This good-old-boy, ah-shucks-I-said-that? approach may have been deliberately misused by President Bush as a screen to hide behind, to make his ludicrous conclusions seem almost forgivable to those who support him. Yes, they say, he may have overstated his case about all those pesky weapons of mass destruction and links to al Qaeda and all that, but everyone makes mistakes. As National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told us, the President is not a fact-checker.

Apparently not.

What follows is a collection of some of the President's most egregious lies. There are unfortunately many others. I have attempted to exclude statements that arguably could have been simple errors of fact or judgment, which any leader under pressure will inevitably make. If the mistake is made in good faith and the consequences are not disastrous, then the leader should be forgiven. But if the weight of evidence was that the inaccuracy was inexcusable (because contemporary information disproved the statement) or seemed intended to deceive, then the inaccuracy is included as a lie.

What Bush said:	The truth:
Saddam Hussein had a "massive stockpile" of unconventional weapons.	The overwhelming weight of evidence from inspectors was that if he had any weapons they were scant. (Subsequent failure to unearth a single unconventional weapon demonstrates the inspectors' assessment was correct.)
Saddam Hussein was directly "dealing" with al Qaeda .	No such evidence existed or exists. "Combining the techniques of Madison Avenue and of totalitarianism, President George Bush has … endlessly reiterated the names of Saddam and 9/11 together. With a wondrous piece of suggestio falsi, he spoke of Saddam's links with 'al-Qaida-type organisations' (or 'al-Qaida types', or 'a terrorist network like al-Qaida'), and in one speech about Iraq, he mentioned September 11 more than 10 times. As a result of this subliminal persuasion, a majority of Americans now say they believe that Saddam was linked to the attack on New York, a falsehood which even the White House has never dared assert in plain terms." Guardian, 4/21/03
The International Atomic Energy Agency had produced a report in 1998 noting that Iraq was six months from developing a nuclear weapon.	No such report existed. The IAEA had actually reported then that there was no indication Iraq had the ability to produce weapons-grade material. Note that President Bush made this statement on television; by the time it was retracted several days later, the public impression of this inaccurate statement had already had its effect.
Saddam Hussein was importing aluminum tubes to reconstitute his nuclear program.	The IAEA stated multiple times that these tubes had been thoroughly examined and exactly matched the dimensions needed for conventional artillery munitions (allowed by the cease fire accords). President Bush repeated his incorrect statement in a later televised addressed AFTER the IAEA corrected his earlier inaccuracy.
Saddam Hussein was attempting to obtain uranium in Niger.	He initially cited what was dismissed by the intelligence community as a fraudulent letter. He later cited British intelligence. That British intelligence has never been shared with the Americans or the British. "In October, [2003], acting on Tenet's suggestion, Bush excised a sentence about Iraq seeking a specific quantity of uranium from Niger, Fleischer said. Yet, several months later, Bush went ahead and raised the claim about seeking uranium in Africa." - CNN, 7/15/03
Iraq was "harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner"
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."	No one who heard this speech doubted the President was referring to nuclear weapons, by far "the most lethal weapons ever devised." Note this is more than a desire, more than an inchoate program; President Bush said Saddam Hussein "possess[es]" the weapons and was hiding them.
Saddam Hussein "wouldn't let" U.N. weapons inspectors into Iraq. (State of the Union Speech).	In fact, the inspectors were in the country in the months before the war. - CNN, 07/15/2003
"We found the weapons of mass destruction."	Perhaps one of his most famous mis-statements, made on Polish television after the war. Arguably the most forgivable (every report of chemical weapons "finds" were later shown to be false), it is still curious why the President would issue a statement on such an important issue at such a critical time (attempting to enlist more Polish support for the occupation) without allowing his "fact-checkers" to vet the story.
"The vast majority of my [proposed] tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum."	Actually 42.6% of the initial $1.6 trillion package would go to the top 1% of earners; only 12.6% would go to the entire bottome 60%.
A single mother of 2 children supporting 2 children would experience a 100% pay cut.	Actually, such a woman would have not tax liability prior to the tax cut.
"The greatest percentage of tax relief goes to the people at the bottom end of the ladder."	The greatest proportion of the tax cut (42.6%) goes to the top 1%; here, Bush is using the "percentage" to refer to the percentage one's taxes are lowered. So a person paying $200 in income taxes who no longer has to pay federal income tax does enjoy a 100% reduction in income taxes, but is this arguably more significant than a millionaire whose $100,000 tax bill is cut by "only" 10%, or $10,000?
The estate tax would "keep family farms in the family."	The New York Times could not find a single family lost because of the estate tax.
"Ninety-two million Americans will keep an average of $1,083 more of their own money."	This is meaningless average since the distribution was so skewed toward high-earners. Almost half of all taxpayers would received less than a $100 tax reduction. Those in the middle of the range would receive $265. 80% of taxpayers would received less than $1,083.
About arsenic: "At the very last minute my predecessor made a decision, and we pulled back his decision so that we can make a decision based upon sound science and what's realistic."	2 lies: the decision to lower arsenic levels to 10 parts per billion was made after a decade of study, not "at the very last minute"; "sound science" as represented by a 1999 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study indicated the existing standard could create a 1-in-100 cancer risk and recommended lowering levels promptly.
Kyoto had to be abandoned because of "the incomplete state of scientific knowledge" about global warming.	More a quibble than a lie, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted global temperature increases, citing unspecified human contribution of human emissions.
"America was targeted for attack [on 9/11/01] because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world."	Since at least 1998, al Qaeda's motivation for attacking America was clearly its foreign policy not its domestic values. The 3 major criticisms were US support of Israel, sanctions against Iraq, and stationing of Western troops in Saudi Arabia. The attacks were vicious but far from random.
"No one could have conceivably imagined suicide bombers burrowing into our society and then emerging all in the same day to fly their aircraft--fly US aircraft--into buildings full of innocent people."	Actually, he and his senior staff had been briefed several times on just such a scenario.
"We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson of September the 11th."	Actually, he resisted creating a special committee to explore what happened, complicated the committee's future at one point by appointing an alleged war criminal (Kissinger), then filed to cooperate fully with the committee until publicly shamed into doing so.
"We're not going to deploy a [missile defense] system that doesn't work."	He did; the system has never tested successfully. Initial tests were such abysmal failures that subsequent tests were classified.
His 8/01 decision to permit federal funding of stem-cell research only for projects that used existing stem-cell lines was softened by his claim that there were sixty existing lines which "allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem-cell research."	In reality there were only about 10 lines, insufficient for a promising research effort, and seriously hampering American innovation in critical areas of medical research.
Ariel Sharon is a "partner for peace."	This is a strange statement to make about a man found responsible by his own government for the 1980 Sabra-Shatilla massacres that killed up to 1,800 Palestinians, and a man who has refused to make a single concession on settlements, the security wall, or the right of return of Palestinian refugees in the interest of peace.
Yasser Arafat is "irrelevant."	Yasser Arafat, like Sharon a man with a long history of politically motivated violence, may be many things, but he quite clearly remains (through 9/03) relevant to Palestinian policy. He was elected in 1996 to lead his people, which is of course more than can be said for President Bush.
Bush supports free trade.	In March, 2002, in a move later shot down by the World Trade Organization as a violation of existing free-trade agreements, Bush hiked tariffs on steel imports. He later rescinded many of those hikes, perhaps realizing this drove up the price of everything made with steel by about a third.
"We have assembled a coalition of the willing."	The vast majority of the troops and assets for the Iraq invasion were Anglo-Saxon with token support by a number of other countries, many of whom were granted large cash infusions for signing on. "The Bush team keeps arguing that this silly alliance it cobbled together to fight the war in Iraq is multilateral and therefore the moral equivalent of the U.N. Almost every government in it is operating without the support of its people. Fighting this war without international legitimacy is hard enough, but trying to do nation-building without it could be even harder." Thomas Friedman, NYT, 3/30/03
"I pray for peace."	Said on the eve of war, this strange statement makes it seem as if he had no choice but to attack, as if war was thrust upon him. Was it outright sacrilege? Perhaps. The Pope denounced the war as a "defeat for humanity." Bishop Tutu urged President Bush to "listen to the voice of the people, for many times the voice of the people is the voice of God" to "give peace a chance."
Security Council Resolution 1441 authorized the United States to take force against Iraq.	Incorrect. 1441 set up a timetable under which inspectors would be readmitted (they were), Iraq would report the possession of any weapons of mass destruction (they did, accurately as it turned out), then Blix would return to the UNSC who in turn could authorize force in the name of the United Nations if Iraq was deemed in material breach. No individual member state was given authority to attack unilaterally, and Blix indicated on multiple occasions that the Iraqis were surprisingly cooperative.
In response to world-wide protests against his proposed Iraq invasion: "Size of protest it's like deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus group… The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security, in this case, the security of the people."	A focus group consists of a small number of representative people. When over ten million people take to the streets worldwide, that pretty much IS the people. The highest support for the war outside of the United States was 14% prior to the invasion. Since the weight of evidence before and after the conflict illustrated that Saddam Hussein never posed a threat to the "security of the people", his equating invading Iraq in the teeth of international outrage was with protecting that security was bogus.
Mr Bush "understands there are going to be people who are more comfortable doing nothing about a growing menace that could turn into a holocaust".	This implies that the most rigorous arms inspection and disarmament regimen in history (that now seemed to have been even more successful than its most ardent supporters believed) is "doing nothing" and that between here and "a holocaust" no opportunity for intervention will present itself.
"Mission Accomplished" (slogan as backdrop to President Bush's 5/1/03 speech on the Abraham Lincoln announcing the triumphant end of major hostilities).	More Americans died since the speech than before it. Saddam Hussein remains at large. The country remains short of security, water, electricity. Many international aid agencies have withdrawn.
"There was a time when many said that the cultures of Japan and Germany were incapable of sustaining democratic values. Well, they were wrong." (Implying that Iraq could also sustain "democratic values."	From the Guardian: " In fact, it is Mr Bush who is wrong. Japanese men got the vote in 1925, not in 1945, as the president implied. And German men won the vote as far back as 1849, albeit subject to a property qualification, at a time when Mr Bush's country practised legalised slavery. Bearing in mind that America only became a full democracy in 1965, and Germany in 1946, there is a case for saying that Germans have at least as strong a democratic tradition as Americans. What's more, there is no dispute about who actually won the last German election, which is more than can be said about the means by which Mr Bush came to office. A little historical humility would do the president no harm."
"a new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region"	Conceivably an error in judgement rather than a true lie, this certainly has not (as of 9/03) been true.