crwtom

Monster deficits have no impact on economy????? You're surely joking ... Do you know what "inflation" is? Real wage decline, decline in purchase power, and all that stuff? How can the destruction of two and a half high rises collapse the hugest economy on the plant. There were very short term spike downs in the stock markets because people didn't know what was yet to come and whether all trade records could be recovered - but that was it. The overall levels and trends resumed a few weeks later. To make 9/11 the main cause for recessions is just silly. The 2000 bubble burst certainly was serious but there are a lot of other very good industries in this country and even many newer .com enterprises have taken off. So this should have recovered and turned around in under 2 years not over 7 years. Tax breaks are a gamble that can be very profitable if the timing is right and disastrous of the timing is wrong. In order for tax breaks to work you need to be sure you have a climate where people like to run and invest their extra money so yo can profit from the increased returns even at lower taxes. If those with tax breaks decide to remain bears you lose big time. So the onset of a war is just about the worst time you can pick for tax breaks. The market, that could have turned in late 2002 or 2003, remained depressed for another couple of years - during all of which time government coffers were hemorrhaging. If, on top of that, tax breaks are not matched at least in part by reduced spending, but instead by huge war spending and un-vetoed pork bills, it's not hard to see how things get badly out of hand. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

my early favorite - but he turned out to be a pretty clumsy debater. what if he picks Richardson as running mate

with upcoming retirements Huckabee could and would turn the SCOTUS into the socially most conservative in a long time with a lot of serious consequences. His voter base in Iowa was massively evangelical though - so this (hopefully) does not predict much about his chances in states like CA, NY, or a general election. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

choose and lose ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

No - the constitution no where says whether a specific practice is cruel or not cruel. What is meant by the phrase is simply undefined to begin with so that there is nothing that can be re-defined. The same word have been interpreted differently over time and depending on current public perception. It is not the constitution that allows or disallows some punishments but people interpreting the constitution that made conclusions based on vague guidelines. If the imprecision in the constitution disturbs you you need to seek an amendment clarifying it. There is your legislative process. What is more effective or favorable process is another questions. But short of constitutional amendments the current prescribed decision process lies in the courts, and no matter how much you appeal to people not to take this to the courts there will be people who will use their rights to take it to the court and sue the states. which also means that answer to such fundamental questions can change every four years in any of the 50 states. Suppose you have staunch death penalty supporter running in the next NJ election and there is another Newark type shooting a week before election ... I may not like the decision that my state makes either and it may become a cruel comedy if that also changes every now and then. And why should there not be some settlement in a fundamental question about life and death -- even a specific supreme court ruling is not a settlement for eternity and such rulings have superseded each other -- in fact, even constitutional amendments have annulled each other. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

The constitution does talk about "cruel and unusual punishment" and this is what the discussion is for many people about. There are already constitutional boundaries to who can be executed and how someone can be executed based on this "cruel and unusual" clause. The term is left vague -- many argue on purpose in order to allow evolving interpretations based on contemporary notions of what cruel and usual means. The job to define what the current notion is falls, by design of the US government, ot the SCOTS. So it is and will remain a legal issue unless you are thinking constitutional amendments (IMO the latter it is only matter of time -- perhaps in one or two of generations from now). While the constitution seems to leave the interpretation of what is cruel at different time I don't think there is any wiggle room in allowing regional variations of the term - or should be allow some states to crucify mentally retarded as long as their population and legislature feels comfortable with it since it is in the "local culture"? Delegating just about anything to states can become a cheap cop out in order not to have to really address tough issues. There are very good reasons that federal rules exist and trump state laws -- often to protect minorities and the defenseless against heavily biased state "moral majorities". Parochialism, cronyism, and corruption are in my impression more rampant at state level than they are at the federal level so I cannot say delegation to states makes me feel really good. (OK I'm from Ohio -- but I don't think other states are much better) Also states can change their minds even when you somehow get them to agree on one standard at one time. In any case, by constitutional design the job to figure out what is cruel and unusual at any given time is in the hands of 9 people - and they are busy with that right now. If they were to wait until 50 states to come to a consensus about this they'd not be doing their job. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

For first time in over 40 years a state in the US abolishes the death penalty. See N.J. to abolish the death penalty According to article similar legislation is/was in the pipeline in Colorado, Montana, and New Mexico. Recall also SCOTUS moratorium. Is this the beginning of the end of the death penalty? See attached what countries the US associates itself with in matters of capital punishment. South Korea has not executed in 10 years, and is now classified as non-practicing. Execution rates in the only other "first world" country practicing death penalty (Japan) are far lower than in the US (about 2 or so per year). Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Guns are designed to kill. The better it kills the better the gun Planes are designed to fly and the less likely death as a side effect the better the plane. Try again, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

The second is worded differently. The analogous wording of the first would be 1 . Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith for Chritians . (Introduced in House)[H.RES.847.IH] 2 . Whereas Christmas, a holiday of great significance to Christian Americans and many other cultures and nationalities, is celebrated annually by Christians throughout the United States and the... (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House)[H.RES.847.EH] ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

The correct question is Do you believe that 186280 miles equals one second? Humans distinguish between time and space only because they're slow and their brains are hyperbolically challenged. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

even assuming this is all authentic ... only about half of these are in a scientific discipline that would gives their ranks and titles any relevance. (what does it help that someone is a economics professors -- exactly nothing) Those dozen or so stand opposed to a few thousand climate scientists who take human effects on GW a lot more seriously. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Sorry bu that sounds like clichee to make those with neither feel better about themselves ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Scarborough said the other morning Bush was either outright lying or he is plain stupid to talk about WW III and already know at least the basics of what was coming in the NIE report. I think it's both - Bush is really stupid to think he can give clearly deceptive scare speeches like that against better knowledge, browbeat the intelligence community into compliance, and get away with it for a second time. It seems he still didn't get this proverb straight. This was the CIAs chances to regain some credibility after the Iraq intelligence disaster. They took it and, IMO, gained a lot of ground in the credibility war between CIA and WH about who is mainly to blame for the intelligence f**k-ups in 2002/2003. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

There are tons of movies out there overtly promoting Christian and anti-atheism messages. When was the last time an atheist league (or whatever) has made a huge stink like this with calls for boycotts etc about one of those religious movies? Tells you who is the more arrogant about their own world views of the two. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

kind of like tea leaves ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

how should I know? The constitution does a terrible job explaining when impeachment is applicable - "high crimes and misdemeanors" is vague 14th century terminology and everybody has a different oppinion on what that's supposed to mean. It appears though that it does not include incompetence, no matter how blatant and devastating to the country - the 18th century term "maldaministration" was removed from the earlier drafts. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

"acceptable level of loss of human life"? ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

ever notice that NRA spokes people constantly talk in relative terms (percentages, etc) when talking about European gun crime - you'd get them to talk in ansolute numbers (in coparison with absoluet numers in the US) only at gun point I guess. As an analogy: I had a salary raise of over 4% this year, but Bill Gates has actually decreased his net worth over the last year or two. By NRA logic this makes me the richest man in the world. The reality is that US gun murders per capita are 10-fold and more than that of most European contries. These little %-changes they bring up are a joke in view of the absolute numbers. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Print a lot of dead presidents. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Democratic solution: Introduce FAT-TAX Republican Solution: Make being fat a capital crime. More seriously, a couple of starters: * City planning/Urban development: Create cities that are walkable & get rid of suburbia without sidewalks. The concept of "pedestrian zones" is wide spread in Europe, but you find them here only in a very few coastal cities. * Mandatory cooking classes in high school. I believe, there is a serious lack of home cooking culture in this country - it is either "eating out" (and regular restaurants are healthwise often even worse than MacDonalds) or it's over/preprocessed microwave food with lots of mytery ingredients. In how many US households is dinner cooked from scratch and fresh meat/veggies at least 5/7 days a week? I bet not many ... Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

Yeah - and some people can still function quite well at 0.2 alcohol content. So they chould be allowed to drive intoxiacted at that level. Or, I learned and got used to driving in a coutry where you can go 120mph on the highway - so I should be allowed to do so. (in fact, you would see me do that many years ago on the Mass Turnpike since this is was indeded my pov) How do you do that. In fact, I find it quite easy to spot a cell phone user on the highway even if you don't see the driver: the type of swaying and abrupt lane changes etc. When I passed them (mostly for my own safety) they all had their eyes on the road ... but were still not functional. It is now established fact that cell phone use is as bad as alcohol use in terms of driving safety. See, for example, here or many other reports about this and similar studies. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

1.5 year old Zogby Poll among US troops in Iraq. 90% still believed they are there because of a Saddam-9/11 connection - but, nevertheless, the majority wanted to be out of Iraq by now. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

sure Greenspan talked about other presidents: from CNN Article, ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

As opposed to fearing day by day for the life of my family due to common crime, sectarian violence, kidnapping by rouge police forces due to a badly deteriorated public saftey. As opposed to hiding at home from hostilities in darkness and heat since there electricity/water hardly ever works. As opposed to being contantly under pressure by religious fevor, and having female members of my family harassed into confined life styles and stripped of basic oppotunities. As opposed to having friends and relatives still being killed and mamed in bombings and shelling from either side. ETC ... let me think what would be the favorable and resposible of the two options for my family ... Even if the current situation and quality of life for the average Iraqi family would break even with what it was under the SH regime (which it hardly does) this is a pretty sad statement about how the US took care of the coutry it invaded, occupied, and eventually broke. Cheers, T ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true

hopefully a good enough cop to know that you can slip through an expensive item while paying for a few cheap items as distraction. ******************************************************************* Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true