spoogenet

I knew it!!! Time to bomb Dick.

Chris, I have a feeling the stock market comments are more directed to what I said than you, but I'm. Either way, chill a little and try to write a sentence that makes sense.

It's true that the stock market isn't the economy, but you can't write it off much either. It is a financial foundation of many companies and people and, as you said, is a bet on future success. When the markets dive people risk losing lots of money, which makes them less likely to spend. Of course you have shown with your $200 example, spending less can make a big difference in the economy. Therefore the stock market is very important to the economy, it can affect us instantly or its effects can take time to ripple through. One can say the same thing about a tax cut or rebate.

Cutting taxes can be a useful tool to spur future economic development, however it's a gamble just like the stock market. There's no guarantee it'll spark anything. And it only does you good if the government spends less and/or raises more tax money. Of course the theory behind it is to lower taxes, causing people to spend more, causing the economy to grow, meaning more taxes. It's the same theory behind a price cut. Lower prices to sell higher volume. While profit margin may go down, profit goes up. Newsflash.....beep beep beep...this just in....it doesn't always work.

Of course raising taxes is just the opposite. It can cause the economy to weaken, or it can just fill your coffers with more change.

On Pearl Harbor....what's a good Pearl Harbor discussion without the conspiracy theory that the government knew about the attacks and did nothing so we'd get pulled into the war? I've never heard of any oil sanctions causing it.....but I can't write it off as false either. Just because the history books and History Channel teach us that it was because we were the only threat doesn't mean it's the whole story or wholly true.

On Iraq and the Kurds. Training Kurds for self-defense? You do realize that the Kurds are not friends of Saddam's regime, he likes to kill them....I highly doubt he trains them. So if the Kurds are running terrorist training camps (and I'm not sure if they are), and we are supporting the Kurds (that I'm sure of), then we're supporting terrorism....again. If not, then who are you speaking of running terrorist training camps? If Saddam ran them, I'm sure he didn't train many Kurds.....

I still have yet to see any real proof that Saddam is much of a threat to the world. Personally I find it embarrassing the kinds of crap that have come out of all this. Simple things like plaigiarizing academic papers from as early as before Daddy bombed Iraq and calling it "a current intelligence dossier." That sounds like there's about as much intelligence behind it as thinking the Chinese embassy is a military post.

But so far I still have yet to see or hear any real proof that justified actions. And if you're concerned about young Iraqi girls that get raped, beaten, or anything else inhumane.....you must just have your eyes closed to the rest of the world. There are so many horrific violations of humanity that occur throughout the world that the US just turns a blind eye to. Look at how long it took the US to enter Kosovo. Do you think we care what goes on in Nigeria and some other African countries? Claiming that we're liberating people from a dictator is such a load of bull, it's a front for the real reasons.

And for news, if you watch CNN, you're getting some of the worst shit out there. CNN has some pretty horrible reporting, they're so extremely one-sided about it that it's just quite frankly ridiculous that anybody even bothers watching them anymore. My $0.02.

b