Skipper

What a strange and volatile place the USA is. Recently I received comments on a post on gun control in the USA saying I was 'liberal scum' and an 'f**king Nazi'. And I see the father of a soldier killed in Iraq is suing the organisation that paraded placards at the funeral insisting the war was God's punishment on America for tolerating homosexuality.

Churchill said you could rely on the US to do the right thing in the end, after trying all the wrong things first. Maybe he was right as we now see the possibility of seven years of near criminal inaction on greenhouse emissions being ended.

A Senate subcommittee has voted to cap emissions by 15% by 2020 compared with the proposed 20% in Europe. The bill has bipartisan support having been introduced by John Warner a Republican and Joe Lieberman a Democrat. It should be poised for the presidential approval around December- but will it be delivered?

Bush made conciliatory remarks about the emissions 'problem' but then dashed hopes by revealing a few weeks back that he favoured voluntary controls. Faced with a growing national consensus he will hesitate I suspect before applying his veto but in the end prove correct the second part of Churchill's analysis by actually doing just that.