I am not an American. However, I care about the USA's political landscape like an ant cares about the herd of cows wandering along the trail across which I'm walking. And, heaven help me if the herd gets spooked and starts trotting or galloping.

A "global warming" metaphor. At the moment, "sub-prime mortgages" in the USA have caused at least a slight melt in the sub-strata of the USA's fiscal glacier. The resulting outflow is set to overwhelm the series of lakes and the stream that flows from that glacier. Not only this, the seismic shocks caused by the shifts in the glacier, caused by the too-rapid melting of the glacier, are felt far away, and cause the foundations of other glaciers to falter.

Is the Bush Whitehouse responsible for the USA's sub-prime mortgage debacle? Perhaps not directly.

Is the USA's expensive war in Iraq responsible for instability in the USA's financial underpinning? At least 'maybe'.

Is the Whitehouse's ignorance of scientific data, research,and fundamental knowledge (including global warming) of concern? Yes.

Please feel free to read this commentary from Phil Plait.

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Peter