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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (382575)	5/5/2008 12:01:07 PM
From: i-node	Respond to of 1574493

>>> You've just watched too much "24" dude. It is interesting, because I had never watched 24 the last time this guy mentioned it. So I downloaded a couple of seasons from iTunes. It was actually entertaining, although obviously not based on reality. But now I know what they meant by a "Jack Bauer" moment ;) I think I'll start watching it when it comes back. I don't think one has to watch 24 to realize that there is a lot of exposure that we can do little about. Israel, even with its strong measures, is not very effective against suicide bombers. While we CAN defend against large-scale attacks, our government is fat and bloated and lacks the agility to zig when it needs to zag. It is amazing to me that the government has made as much progress in protecting us since 9/11 as it has.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (382575)	5/5/2008 12:14:23 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1574493

I've just seen one show. I'm not up on the whole backstory. I hear Bush is a fan!

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (382575)	5/5/2008 12:27:56 PM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574493

24 is over the top for me. Couldmt watch it after the first year because it beats the same dead horse, but it makes one overarching point. If there is a nuke in a city and you can get the code to disarm from a terrorist in custody, do you do whatever necessary? My answer to that has always been yes. Doesnt mean i am for torture but in those special cases i would bend/suspend/upend the rules. I once had an SI poster and a mother say that she would rather watch her kids blown up than do what i suggested to save them. I was attacked for my stand on this as well as saying that if you have MADD in place, and if the other guy attacked, as president you have to have the balls to blow them to hell or Deterrence means nothing. I said i wouldnt vote for a president who i didnt think would do what was required out of some sense of morality.

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (382575)	5/5/2008 1:08:50 PM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 1574493

Our view on fiscal responsibility: GOP senators offer tax cuts, reach for the credit card Mon May 5, 12:22 AM ET Anyone wondering why the federal budget is out of whack should take a look at an e-mail we received the other day from 41 Senate Republicans. It called for about $100 billion worth of tax cuts and demanded that they not be "paid for" — notwithstanding a budget rule requiring Congress to do just that. As tax cuts go, those in the letter are sensible. One would make a temporary fix to the alternative minimum tax, which was intended to make sure a handful of the richest Americans paid at least some taxes but which is reaching into the middle class. Other provisions would extend tax breaks for college tuition, research and development, alternative energy and so on. The problem is that the nation is already running $400 billion annual deficits, and 41 Republicans senators want to stack an additional $100 billion on top of that, as if borrowing even more money from the foreign nations that now hold almost half of the U.S. debt is no problem. Well, it is a problem, and the senators' idea stands to make it worse. What's at stake here is something called the "pay-as-you-go" rule. This basic budget discipline was put in place in 1990 but allowed to lapse by Republican congresses after 1994, chiefly because it made cutting taxes more difficult. Democrats revived the rule after they regained control of Congress in 2007. Pay-as-you-go doesn't pretend to end deficit spending, but it helps stop things from getting worse. It says that if Congress wants to cut taxes or add benefits to an entitlement program such as Social Security or Medicare, it has to offset the cost, either by cutting a benefit program or raising a tax. Republicans have all sorts of objections to this, none convincing. There are arguments, long discredited even by Republican economists, that tax cuts don't need to be paid for because they pay for themselves. There are arguments that the pay-as-you-go rule shouldn't apply to tax cuts because it doesn't apply to another big piece of the budget that Congress renews every year for non-benefit programs — such as road building, space exploration and national defense. That's an argument for toughening the rules across the budget, not for giving tax cuts a pass. Neither party is innocent when it comes to budget crimes. For example, the current Democratic presidential candidates have proposed big spending programs without offering credible ways to pay for them. And while Democrats have usually fought for pay-as-you-go discipline, they've sometimes joined Republicans to suspend it. The rule also should be much tougher, but nevertheless, it is having a useful impact. Negotiators on the current farm bill, for example, have been tying themselves in knots to come up with pay-as-you-go offsets. Congressional Republicans have often held themselves out as the nation's best hope for fiscal discipline. One of the main planks in the Republicans' 1994 campaign manifesto, the "Contract with America," included a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, asserting that Republicans wanted "to restore fiscal responsibility to an out-of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses." Apparently, they were talking about families that survive by maxing out their credit cards. Copyright © 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.