pineapple upside down cake

The '93 attack was a failure, and thus few people remember it today. More obviously knew of it at the time, but it was not enough to cause a panic that affected the stock market. I was specifically excluding domestic terror because that is usually aimed at government, not capitalism. I would be surprised if it affected the economy. U.S. embassy bombings again, generally will not affect the economy. You left out the bombing of the USS Cole. I should have clarified, I meant that there was no terrorist attack specifically aimed at destroying the economy that succeeded in the 90s. I said major wars, not military actions. The military actions you speak of were actually UN actions that Clinton felt obligated to join in on. Clinton sent in US troops, bound them to UN rules of engagement, misused SpecOps, and pulled out before the job was finished. The Serbian conflict was a civil war and a perfect example of the UN and a democrat president butting in where they should not. The Simolea conflict was another blunder. Clinton sent troops in, did not finish the job, and now we suffer the consequences. Clinton giving up on anti-insurgency directly resulted in the land of lawlessness and piracy we see today. The anti-terror strikes were mainly a political necessity, after the embassy bombings he had to go along with anti-terror operations. Nothing Clinton did counts as a major war.



No there was not, the surplus was all projected gains. People were not expected the internet businesses to crash, so they blamed its disappearance on Bush's spending habits. There was also still an increase in the deficit under Clinton, so even if the bubble had not burst, the surplus would have been largely a non-issue. Read this. You obviously do not understand war if you seriously believe that. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Any number of things can happen. Despite that, we defeated the Taliban in three months. The rest has essentially been cleanup work. The reason it has taken so long is that our military has been allowed to stagnate again just as it did under Carter. Our equipment was meant to fight an enemy that is easy to find, but hard to kill. The enemies we face now are hard to find, but easy to kill. Clinton did not realize this and continued to cut from our military (especially intelligence, which resulted in us being blind and deaf during 9/11) instead of transforming it to fight a different enemy. Instead of working to adapt our military to face a different enemy, he eliminated things such as SAC and did not provide anything comparable to fill the gap. We would be much better off if we still had SAC. The result was a generally poor coordinated military. It has improved over the years, and our preformance in the War on Terror has been pretty good. Calling Iraq unnecessary is honestly pretty ignorant. There is something wrong when attacking a country like Iraq is considered unnecessary. Here are the reasons for invasion in no particular order:

1. Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (if you do not believe this, ask and I will explain)
2. He kicked UN weapons inspectors out of the country
3. Genocidal actions against the Kurds including biological and chemical attacks
4. He failed comply with UN resolutions for disarmament

You must also remember that it was actually Clinton that approved the first airstrikes against Iraq. There were also several attempts at diplomacy that fell through because of Hussein's reluctance to cooperate. The UN backed out of their responsibilities, yet another blunder of the useless organization.



Yes, some have refused loans. I already said that a few banks were able to avoid these housing plans. Many banks were strong armed by the government to give loans to people who would not usually get loans at good rates for a lot of money. Some that avoided this were still forced to give out loans because of leverage the government still had over them, but avoided the required rates. The few that avoided this then were subjugated to sit downs with organizations such as ACORN that pulled many tricks to strong arm the banks yet again. The very lucky few that avoided this remained relatively healthy throughout this crisis. This all stemmed from the liberal view of closing the gap between the rich and the poor with the belief that everyone deserves a home regardless of if they can afford it. In order to do this, they needed the banks. They molded the banks to their agendas with shareholding and laws. A low income person is less deserving of a large loan, that much is obvious. A loan should be proportionate to their income. If a poor person wants a large loan, they should have great credit and have to pay high rates.



Should be, yes, but they are not. We live in reality, if all we ever did was follow these treaties regardless of what our enemies do, we would be dead or enslaved. I do not appreciate the use of scare tactics. That statement reminds me of that Mondale ad where he was implying that Reagan was going to destroy the world with nuclear weapons. If you knew anything about Reagan, you would know he was very much against nuclear weapons. Anyway, if all you do is build your points off of "If this happened..." then we will be here for a long time. The Cold War was a real war. There was a conflict between two opposing powers. It was simply more about an arms race than it was heated battle. Luckily, the Soviets never gained an upper hand. Also, military spending is always a good idea. There are plenty of people out there that have already declared war on the United States and western civilization that are just waiting for us to weaken our military to the point where they have a fighting chance. I think keeping the defense budget at about 4% of the GDP is good. What, you have never paid for anything in advance? If it were not for God obviously being on our side in WWII, we would have been defeated simply for not being ready. At times in the Pacific, we only had one operational fleet carrier. By the end of the war, we had over ten. We made a declaration right then that we would never be taken by surprise again without the means to defend ourselves. It is even more important now, considering that we are still the most powerful country in the world. If you only build things when you need them, you are asking for disaster. That is really funny. Reagan actually did not put any money into making more nukes, he put most of the money into defense systems and weapons platforms. Everything he did was aimed at getting rid of nuclear weapons. Under Reagan, the B1 Lancer was brought back from the grave to be one of our best strategic bombers (it is going to serve for a long time as new models are developed), and our military equipment was upgraded all around. He also tried to achieve a 600 ship navy. He never got to it, but a Nimitz class carrier was named after him for his efforts. Those ships also do many humanitarian projects instead of simply military operations, also. The nuclear reactors aboard the fleet carriers (yes, proof of nuclear efficiency) provide power for areas affected by natural disaster and California during brownouts. They also bring food and supplies to many depressed areas. Military spending results in more than you narrow minded view of war-mongering. I think Reagan's most profound achievement, though, was SDI. It was never fully finished, but it sure scared the crap out of the commies. SDI introduced a defensive system that could work against ICBMs. It uses radars and missiles to track and destroy them with kinetic force before they arm themselves. If, God forbid, we came under nuclear attack, you would have Reagan to thank for saving us from complete annihilation. A lot of the research done for SDI also contributed to other things such as the space program. Although that has been run rather clumsily. When Reagan did SDI, he was showing the Soviets that they had no hope of winning, and that a peace treaty would be their only hope of ending the conflict. Reagan actually did achieve this, Gorbechev offered a complete nuclear disarmament deal that required both countries to get rid of all of their nukes. It also required the U.S. to cancel SDI. Reagan wanted to agree, but he decided the price was too high. He was not going to sacrifice the security of the country against nuclear weapons just to disarm one country with nuclear weapons while others could simply develop them. The Soviets, realizing that they could not strong arm Reagan, had only one other option. They had to try and match him. This bankrupted them. This may have happened eventually without Reagan, but we will never know. As it stands, he defeated the Soviet Union. He attained "Peace Through Strength". I suggest you read up on your history.



The main reason for China's growth is gains that are off the books and probably illegal. That is the software piracy capital, afterall. I am thinking that China is doomed to fail. They are doing too much too fast just like the Great Leap Forward. I could be wrong, though. Reaganomics also created a stellar amount of jobs in addition to having good GDP growth. The unemployment rate went from 7.5% to 5.4% under Reaganomics. During Reagan's time, the most gifted college students would go directly to the stock market to make their fortunes. This is especially amazing since he brought us back so quick from the mess of the 70s. Without Reaganomics, the 90s would not have been so fruitful. You must also remember the crash of 1987 that was much worse than our current one. Reagan brought us back from that very quickly. He inspired competition, the entire basis of capitalism. Adam Smith would be very proud. Many educators do not like what Reagan did simply because it flies in the face of their liberal beliefs.



That is where we disagree on an idealogical level. I do not believe that it is a government's duty to provide a livelihood for its people. I believe that a government should work to keep business practices inside the law, but keep a hands off approach otherwise. That way, people can be responsible for themselves and their money. It allows for people to put in the effort to make a life for themselves without the government hanging over them. Therefore, an economic policy should not be made to close the gap between the rich and the poor, but rather give the poor a chance to become rich through the private sector. The only way the government can close the gap is by taking money away from the rich to "level the playing field". The liberals are essentially punishing those who live the American dream. Which is better, bringing everyone down to the same level, or giving many the opporunity to rise in wealth?



Social Security had immediate good effects, but did nothing to heal the economy in the long run. The government does not create wealth. Private companies competing for government contracts were creating jobs. That is not a social program because it was driven by the private sector, not the government. Capitalism saved the country, not socialism. If you want to thank a leader for keeping us from speaking German, thank Churchill. He was the only one out of FDR, Stalin, and himself that was actually trying to win the war rather than make power grabs. FDR was little more than a tyrant.



They are ambiguous because people constantly mix up the theory, practice, and propoganda that surrounds these systems. The propoganda about fascism tells you it is right wing extremism. The theory tells you it is an authoritarian system that despises class warfare for the better of its people. The practice tells you that it is little more than a power hungry system ruled by a tyrant. The funny thing is that commuism and fascism in practice are very similar, despite their animosity. The thing I always thought was funny about McCarthyism is that it was right to a certain extent. Despite the fact that McCarthy bat crap crazy, he was right that Communists had infiltrated our government. We now know that there were many Soviet cells operating in the U.S. Obama does have a flair of fascism if you look at the way he acts. He believes he is God's gift to mankind and that none should question his authority. Just like Carter, he always preaches conservation but unlike Carter, he does not practice it. He wanted an $11 billion helicopter fleet while he was criticizing CEOs for their million dollar jets. He also went on a totally frivolous trip to New York with his wife on the taxpayers dime while he criticizes the rich for "pushing down the little man". He is an authoritarian tyrant with socialist views. Close enough to fascist. Also look at the many similarities between him and Hitler.

i think Beretta 92FS's are the best guns.

Who could have imagined that Boba and Mandalore would be fond of guns?

When I see a good opening...

I prefer Beretta myself, like the Beretta 90two or the 92fs. Amazing guns!

I agree with Ron Paul on everything except for foreign policy. We cannot afford to be isolationist. Chuck Norris supported Huckabee, by the way.

barret 50 cal sniper raifle man, over 1 mile range, and
specific rounds that can pretty much take out your
target through a wall, or pierce a tanks armor.
AA-12 shotguns pretty fun to, a fully automatic low-
recoil shotgun? you know you'll look it up, and after
that you'll want to own one.

well, Sidious apparently liked Holographic operas.
yea, the sith eat, but they only need the bare minimum for sustenance.

muffins????