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What if a letter of a similar nature had been written to the chairmen of major tobacco companies about 30-40 years ago, asking them to cease funding of "agents" (for lack of a better term) that kept putting out information questioning the link between smoking and cancer (which was not "proven" at the time)? Would you have objected to that?

Absolutely. Let the senators combat rhetoric with better rhetoric in the battle for public opinion. (Although in the case of tobacco, I hesitate to endorse any Congressional intervention at all).

If they have to threaten government action to "win" an argument, they've already lost. Or rather, we all lose in the general dumbing down.

If AGW constitutes a serious enough threat to the general welfare, Congress should act. But it doesn't need censorship to aid its deliberations.

Absolutely. Let the senators combat rhetoric with better rhetoric in the battle for public opinion. (Although in the case of tobacco, I hesitate to endorse any Congressional intervention at all).

Well, we disagree. For Congress to make proper policy decisions requires an informed electorate. A misinformed electorate may request that their Congressional representatives vote one way on a particular issue, whereas if they had been correctly informed, they would request a different vote.

I happened to see a piece on Headline News last night that was chilling. It was about how the Muslim media (particularly in Iran) manipulates public opinion. They said things like "Coca-Cola is contributing billions for the overthrow of Iran", Pepsi stands for "Pay Every Penny to Save Israel" -- stunning. The people who receive this unfiltered propaganda clearly have mistaken, widely mistaken view(s) about the West and the U.S., because they have been so misinformed and manipulated. Do we condone what the government run media is doing? I hope not.

Should I (or we) condone the deliberate conveyance of inaccurate information as fact, particularly if important policy decisions are at stake? I don't.

If ExxonMobil funded actual research that might investigate some of the wobbly pillars of AGW theory, I'd have little problem with that. What I have a problem with is ExxonMobil funding thinktanks who have employees who write inaccurate disinformation pieces like the one that kicked off this thread. That makes no contribution to science and it only serves to confuse the public on an issue that's already confusing enough.

So I don't have a problem with Snowe and Rockefeller having the same problem with ExxonMobil that I do. I got sick and tired of the "satellites don't show warming" argument six years ago, when they were showing warming and reanalysis shows more warming. How many years did it take to clear that one out of the public mind? (and due to the persistence of Web memory, it's still out there).