JHBowden

1. I don't know if anyone mentioned this above, but the national debt is not the deficit. 2. The Democrats clearly have moved to the left. My main man Clinton put the smackdown on Hussein in 1998 unilaterally, and he also helped screw Milosevic in 1999 without UN approval. Now things are a bit different on the left, as the worship of the feeble-minded Cindy Sheehan makes clear. 3. Many of the statements made by the administration before the war, for instance, that Iraq developed nuclear weapons fit into a pattern of blatant lies. Despite this, there were good reasons to do Iraq-- a) We f---ed Saddam Hussein. His despotism was a WMD threat in the midtern. Ceteris paribus, the world is a better place in his absence. B) The United States of America showed a willingness to spend dollars and spill blood to defend itself. There were 3K Americans dead after 9-11; there have been 25-100K Muslims dead up to this point in the Iraq war. As the recent case of France shows, if one simply appeases militants, they will walk all over everyone. c) Our presence in Iraq functions like a giant terror sponge. All the jihadists are going over to their backyard in Iraq to die at the hands of Americans instead of attacking civilians here in America. This gives truth to the saying "fight them there, or we'll fight them here." There has been no comparable follow up attack since 9-11 on the United States. d) Lastly, our presence in Iraq has strategic value. Iran and Syria sponsor international terror with a passion. If another major attack occurs, they know they're next, no questions asked. As a result, there's a powerful incentive for them, as long as they aren't nuclear, not to support groups aiming terrorism at the USA.

Chavez is just screaming to be assassinated. In the meantime, I think everyone can agree we really need to stop selling old military equipment to third world thugs.

I must say I'm impressed with Reid. Usually the cautious Democrats don't take the political initiative. If Daschle would have done this in 2002 perhaps thousands upon thousands of people who are now dead would still be alive today.

cerbaho-- It was claimed that wage floors don't put people out of work because there is a dislike of the fact that many CEO's of many very large companies are paid too much. That's not an argument my friend. The problem with increasing the existing wage floor is that it will put people out of work. That's life, no matter how much love and good intentions one has for low-wage earners. I'm not saying it is prudent for large corporations to overpay their CEO's, but if the stockholders are cool with it, it isn't my decision. There is a reason why 16 year-olds still in high school and housewives without skills aren't running these companies, and I shouldn't have to spell it out. Moreover, most people don't run corporations for good reasons -- they didn't get into Harvard Business School, they don't like the risk and hassle of starting and/or running a company, or, as in my case, they simply don't like the corporate environment. Compared to most people, I am a "f***ing genius," but I'm not the only one, which is why scientific research isn't as remunerative as, let us say, knocking in 100 runs for the Chicago White Sox.

Alito is qualified, but probably isn't a good consensus nominee. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it looks like the President is going to blow the Senate up, probably on purpose to take attention away from other failures.

Rex -- Supply and demand isn't a difficult concept to understand. I suppose that you would have me believe that in the world as the price of an arbitrary good increases, more people buy it, or that increases in supply raise prices. Analytically, this isn't the case, and it isn't what we find in markets, including the labor market, either. The idea is rock solid. If you're still not convinced, I recommend looking at other industrialized countries of the world. In Germany, for instance, the unemployment rate is 13%, while in Japan and the United States the unemployment rate remains under 5% even in sluggish economic conditions. There are reasons for this, and wage floors are one of them. Germany, for instance, has very high rates of unionization, and the bottom union wage, much higher than the minimum wage in the United States, is the de facto minimum wage. I'm not denying that it is possible for a growing economy to absorb losses in employment caused by wage floors. I'm merely pointing out that there will be some unemployment one has to take into account. There is no free lunch.

sox4lifeinPA-- I'm flattered you believe that I control the major television networks, but as an atheist, I have nothing but contempt for MTV and its feeble-minded viewers. The infotainment that passes for "news" these days is in the same boat.

I know the first one is very hokey; haven't seen the second one.

Don't forget the 59 civilians the jihadists just blew up in New Delhi.

There's a cost to raising wage floors, and that's more unemployment. This classic example is found in textbooks because, well, it is true. Those who have disagreed have stated that they don't like this proposition, but disliking an idea does not make it false. Intuitively this makes sense in the world; many small businesses for example can only afford to pay individuals so much. So in a sense the socialist position of raising wage floors not only generates more unemployment, it helps big business at the expense of growing smaller businesses.

Destroying Israel doesn't serve any rational goal. It serves irrational goals, such as the extermination of Jews for Allah. Martyrdom, in these people's minds, in only an added bonus. Is suiciding yourself into a skyscraper while flying an airplane rational? No, but rationality didn't stop faithful Muslims from doing it. Keep in context what we're dealing with.

The problem with MAD is that Israel is the size of New Jersey. It only takes a nuke or two to destroy them in a first strike, and Ahmadinejad knows this.

Good. It can be demonstrated analytically that wage floors put people out of work. Anybody who has graphed the marginal revenue product against the labor supply in an econ class has this knowledge.

Guys, look, suppose you drive 90 miles a day. That's about the distance from Joliet to Chicago and back. Now suppose gas goes up $1.00 per gallon for whatever reason. Now, my old Mirage gets 40mpg on the highway. The math comes out to-- 450 miles per week / 40 mpg = 11.25 gallons per week, or about 45 gallons a month. So you'd be paying 45 bucks extra a month if you did a monster commute. I've been there amigos. Seriously, unless you live out in Kankakee or drive a tank, you shouldn't be having a problem. With China and India industrializing rapidly, you'd think people would value good gas mileage more in anycase, but evidently people would rather not take responsibility for their own actions.

"But meanwhile, the average American consumer has to BEND OVER and pay it." Nobody is forcing people to drive fuel-inefficient vehicles. People pay a lot for gas because they choose to.

I currently live near Harrison and Loomis. While growing up I lived in Chicago, Burbank, Hazel Crest, and New Lenox, in that order.

Ozzie was just joking around with the "quitting" stuff.

The difference between North Korea and Iran, though, is that Iran has been supporting groups like Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah for quite a while. Given the extermination of millions of Jews is now Iran's official policy, I don't understand how anyone in their right mind would want to sit back and let them have the bomb. Even if Iran's bats***crazyinsane leadership does not directly use the nukes, they can give them to one of the many terror groups they support, and it would only be a matter of time before their technology spreads to other baddies in anycase. I know Bush is a moron and the occupation of Iraq was misconceived, but a nuclear Iran would constitute an even greater failure on our part. Hopefully either the Americans or the Israelis will deal with this problem, because the European approach of "we'll just write them a stern letter" isn't going to cut it.

Leno AND Letterman..... FOR ME TO POOP ON!

Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout.

I wonder how hippies will explain this: I think we need airstrikes against Iran's nuclear facilities ASAP. "Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury" is pretty explicit -- Ahmadinejad is calling for the incineration of millions of Americans. More from al-Jazeeza -- Ahmadinejad: Wipe Israel off map http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/15E...3CE0E9957EA.htm Also note when Ahmadinejad speaks of hundreds of years of war against "The Oppressor," he means the United States. Some in the west want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend this guy isn't a few French fries short of a happy meal, but we need to do something or countless numbers of people will be vaporized in the near future.

I think we should be rid of the separation of church and state and start taxing churches.

That site has accomplished its mission to some extent. I googled "awful announcer" and got a bunch of Tim McCarver links.

Nuke: "Could they, just once, just shut the hell up and do something useful?" As a Democrat, I think you're right. Many Democrats have become dopplegangers of the Clinton-haters of the late 90s. We have outstanding ideas on things like energy independence, science education, and fiscal policy. However, many are way too obsessed with hating Bush, even to the point of wishing failure to America to see a Bush failure. Since the clown isn't going to be here past 2008, people in my party need to get a clue.