"The avalanche has begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote."

--Ambassador Kosh, from the TV series 'Babylon 5'

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The Turks are skirmishing in N. Iraq.

Pakistan is a mess: martial law and a dictator. ISI, al-Qaeda, and Bushies together.

Afghanistan is a mess, Taliban Rising and Poppy, too!

Iran is a diplomatic mess, very possibly the match that touches off the brushfire, and we now KNOW that DubyaDubyaThree is very much on Nutsy Caligula's mind.

Nusty Caligula has now officially threatened DubyaDubyaThree publicly, Mafia-style ("You wouldn't want there should be an accident").

Environmental tipping points are not just being reached but shattered. Permafrost mountainsides sliding, the Arctic Icecap soon to be no more in summer, and ALL environmental changes are happening "far faster than we estimated", to say the least.

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Go ahead and flame and crucify me for being a pessimist, but can you tell me that anything I have said in the short post above to be factually untrue. I am a realist.

Oh, and for all the hard data on all the environment stuff, just search around the Environment/Energy Forum and you'll find the data. Not just opinions and articles, but the scientific data itself.

So I ask...

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This poll should not be construed to be in favor of giving up, for to stand and be true in a good cause that may yet be doomed is still desirable over bending the knee to totalitarianism.

As the original Tom Paine said, "Better fare hard with good men (and women) than feast it with bad."

And remember, where there is life, there is hope.

who managed to escape the destruction of their planet...

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/venus/greenhouse.html

The damndest thing is, the only thing I AM certain of is that whatever the truth turns out to be, no human being will have ever thought of it.

we're just in a dip in the cycle. But those two issues are critical factors. I fear the dip will be a long slide into barbarism if we don't take serious action soon.

I didn't vote, because I can't decide if it's "too late" or not... but I thought I'd note that the quotation is from the great television series, Babylon 5 (and I suspect was written by J. Michael Straczynski). Since the T.V. and Motion Picture writers are about to go on strike, it seems appropriate to give credit where it's due!

The actual quote is a smidge different (from my file of "favorite quotes"):

The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.
-- Ambassador Kosh, Babylon 5, Believers

There are many, many quotes from Babylon 5 in that file! A couple of my faves (besides the one above) that seem particularly appropriate to the OP:

We are all the sum of our tears. Too little and the ground is not fertile, and nothing can grow there. Too much, the best of us is washed away.
--G'Kar "Objects in Motion"

And

The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation.
--G'Kar, Babylon 5, Season 3 ending in Z'ha'dum"

"The avalanche has begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote."
--Ambassador Kosh, from the series "Babylon 5"

Used with the permission of the Vorlon Chamber of Commerce.

regarding the Chinese word for crisis being two symbols one is danger and the other opportunity and I believe we would be better off to focus on the opportunity to change these situations than the dangers threatening us. Fear will only paralyze us and we need to be resolute even in the face of sacrifice. We may be pebbles but enough pebbles can prevent the boulders from rolling.

Peace to you, tom_paine.

that we're due for and it's going to be big fucking boulders rolling down hill.