THE TENSION: The Decline and Fall of Western Civ for 15 Mar.

It's the end of the world as we know it...

AP reports Democrats futilely challenged President Bush's Iraq policy on Thursday, suffering defeat in the Senate on a plan to end U.S. participation in the war.

So much for anyone who fell for Democrats' promises of a quick exit from Iraq.

White House political adviser Karl Rove raised questions in early 2005 about replacing some federal prosecutors but allowing others to stay, an e-mail released Thursday shows. The one-page document, which spans e-mails between the White House and the Justice Department in January 2005, also indicates Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was considering a range of options in dismissing U.S. attorneys early in President Bush's second term, according to the Associated Press.

While the mainstream media and Democrats are ignoring the fact that the law says 'United States Attorneys are subject to removal at the will of the President,' perhaps Bush's folks should have followed Clinton's lead and fired the whole lot.

The only story here is how conservatives are growing tired of the Bush administration's failure to stand up for itself and put down its challengers. However, unlike his American foes, perhaps Bush feels the real enemy isn't the opposite political party and ideology.

Speaking of Bush, Bloomberg reports the President's approval rating among Americans depends upon income level.

Twenty-three percent of all Americans said the country is on the right track, a 15-year low, according to a new Bloomberg poll. Among those with higher incomes, 43 percent said the country is on the right path. Three-fifths of Americans disapproved of the job Bush is doing, compared with 38 percent who approved. Among those with household income higher than $100,000, the gap is smaller, with 53 percent disapproving and 46 percent approving.

NASA has released a study that says dust, pollution, and other aerosol particles are not blocking as much sunlight as in the past. This, the reports says, could have given an extra push to the rise in global surface temperatures.

"When more sunlight can get through the atmosphere and warm Earth's surface, you're going to have an effect on climate and temperature," said lead author Michael Mishchenko of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), New York. "Knowing what aerosols are doing globally gives us an important missing piece of the big picture of the forces at work on climate."
So, does all this mean that less pollution is causing global warming?

A Danish scientist said the idea of a "global temperature" and global warming is more political than scientific, reports UPI.

"It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth," said Andresen, an expert on thermodynamics. "A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate".

There was no pot of gold behind the dancing roadside leprechaun, only speeding tickets. Dozens of drivers in the Orlando area found out the hard way Thursday after passing an Orange County sheriff's deputy dressed as a leprechaun and warning drivers to slow down, AP reports.

Newsday reports if gays and lesbians were looking for a champion to dispute Gen. Peter Pace's claim that homosexuality is immoral, they might have expected Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama to leap forward.

Not quite. While both Clinton and Obama are courting gays and lesbians, and would allow them to serve openly in the military, the Democratic front-runners have been curiously reticent about challenging the statements of the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff.

Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback is backing the Pentagon's top general over his remarks that homosexual acts are immoral. The Kansas senator planned to send a letter on Thursday to President Bush supporting Marine Gen. Peter Pace, who earlier this week likened homosexuality to adultery and said the military should not condone it by allowing gay personnel to serve openly the Associated Press reports.