Jonsa

1. Where and when did Olmert brag about this? 2. What form does this influence and power take? How do you quantify this influence and power? What is too much?

If only you knew what you were talking about. The US and Israel regularly conduct war games. In these games they regularly practice integration of Command and control across all military disciplines. Israel could easily "host" the US 6th fleet, or any number of USAF wings and could immediately deploy a couple of divisions of Abrams. Only until we don't let them expand their commercial airline operations in Canada.

you're probably not aware of this but when it comes to warships, they must request passage 48 hours in advance and Egypt can deny passage without reason. Who would those "closest allies be"? And what has Israel been condemned for by the whole world? I presume you mean condemned by UNGA resolutions.

I agree. The superpower has its "allies" and dependent nations that consider co-operation in some operations of "questionable" return a small price to pay for the perceived benefits of the relationship. Nevertheless, their contributions of blood and treasure cannot and for the most part are not ignored. Karzai and his brother are corrupt, no question. You point out a recurring weakness in American policy, the necessity to deal with local powers-that-be. Expedience and percieved control trumps ethics. There are also the cultural aspects of foreign lands that seem to get ignored or misinterpreted time and time again. Agreed. Its a bit of a bitch when they just won't do what you want them to do, eh?

Atheism is a belief system with a single "unifying" belief which is the rejection of a diety/creator/supernatural being. Considering that there are a variety of athiestic philosophies you could say there are denominations.

that's a whole other thread.

Thanks for link. Apart from a bunch of big numbers, not much information and no explanation of how these numbers were arrived at. You do realize that "unfunded liabilities" is a theoretical calculation based on significant number of acutarial assumptions projected far out into the future - like 75 years into the future. Stop for a moment and think about what life was like in 1935 compared to today. Using such an abstract, academic, future based theoretical calculation to present the case that the US is insolvent is specious and spurious. Now, please present ANY evidence that 100% is usually a tipping point to insolvency. Like I said in my original post, THE PLANETARY AVERAGE is 95%. I'll keep it simple for you. If you own a house worth $1 million with a mortgage of $500,000 and an annual income of $250,000 your indebtedness is 250% of your personal gross domestic product. Are you insolvent? Are you broke? Have you reached a tipping point? Yeah thanks. my bad for not following it in the first place. Oh dear. your generation had nothing to do with it. What are you 12? In 1980 US debt was $907Billion or 33% of GDP. In 2010 US debt is $14.2 Trillion or 97% of GDP. Your generation had nothing to do with it? You need some clarity on these "ever growing" programs and their contributions to the deficit so far. How much has medicare contributed to the $14.4 trillion deficit? How much has medicaid contributed to the deficit. How much has Social insurance contributed to the deficit? I don't doubt that they have contributed, but you seem to be implying that they are the driving force behind the debt and annual deficits. Can you provide any reference? What does fairly bad mean? are 30% leeches or 50% or maybe only 2%? Are the workers to blame for their pension plans? How much of those pension liablities have to do with the deficits and the current debt of those states you mentioned? You aren't raising taxes to pay for salaries and benefits of the public sector. You are raising taxes to pay for government services. Or do you think you can provide government services without any people? You know things like policing, firefighting, teaching, road maintenance, water, licensing, tax collecting, etc. etc. etc. If everyone is paying the same taxes how is one business less competitive than any other? In recession, temporary tax cuts are stimulative but the bush tax cuts didn't generate more jobs during his tenure. In a growth economy, job creation in business has way more to do with how much business is being done as opposed to how much tax is paid. Okay lets start with the fact that social security is by LAW unable to add to the deficit. It must standalone. Now worker ratio. this is meaningless and your number was generated in 1950 when SS expanded to incorporate many millions of more workers. Since then, there have been a number of adjustments to compensate for the baby boomers. the last adjustment was in 1988 when SS was "balanced" through 2057. Yes, a 2 to 1 ratio does translate into higher costs, but those costs have so far been accounted for in the periodic balancing of the insurance fund. Let's take a look at "people living longer". While the average life expectancy has gone up over the years, closer analysis shows that compared to 1982, higher income people are living 5 years longer but lower/average income people are living only 1 year longer. And considering the ALE for US 79.4 averaging out, people are living roughly 15 years past retirement, not decades. And we won't even get into stats analysis of things like mortality by age to examine the various factors in the ALE increases. I have no problem with means testing, nor indexing to inflation those are very reasonable.

that is a simplistic, biased and extremely narrow interpretation of American Foreign policy. Petroleum and the internal combustion engine are the very foundations of modern civilization and the bedrock of every economy on the planet and will remain so for the next decade or two. So naturally the securing of sources becomes a rather important component of EVERY country's governing strategy and policy (both internally and externally). Did you ever wonder during both gulf wars why japanese oil tankers were able to cruise thru the war zone without incident? Lamenting the snail like pace of "moving off an oil economy" is useless hand wringing which totally ignores the realities of how entrenched petroleum is in the global economy. The huge military budget of the US has much more to do with the artifacts of WWII namely the ascension of the military/industrial complex to economic/political prominence and the cold war. Haven't you noticed that there seems to be a war every 15 years or so with more than one started by deceiving the country? And you should be reminded that in virtually every instance of US military presence on foreign soil, America paid for that presence in blood and treasure and remained at the request and desire of local governments.

didn't see it, can you please point me to your reference as my research has failed to find a figure that even remotely approximates that. sorry but for a $15 trillion economy $14 trillion is debt doesnt mean the country is broke. If it was broke, lenders would be calling in loans, existing loan interest rates would be SKYROCKETING, the value of the currency would PLUNGE, the stock market would collapse. Standing on a soap box spouting spurious talking points doesn't make them true. And I still can't find the several entitlements that have unfunded "promises" amounting to $112 trillion. I ask you once again to provide me with your reference. Don't be foolish. I said "like". Controlling expenses MEANS cutting subsidies and tax breaks for ALL recipients that don't need them and for some that do. It doesn't mean, keep these because its "only" 58 billion over ten years. Cutting $150 billion from the military budget 1,5 Trillion over 10 years. Yep that's spit in the ocean money. Raising taxes is the RIGHT thing to do. Your generation has to start paying for the mess you've gotten yourself into at some point. Americans should consider it the price of freedom, liberty and opportunity. I am amused by your logic. and how many of these public servants are leeching (expressed as a percentage)? I'd be very interested in understanding exactly how widespread this leeching crisis is. If you think that the states are in financial trouble because of public servants then you've drunk the koolaid. this is an opportunistic ideological battle cloaked in a fiscal cess pool of politicians own devising. Please explain to me exactly how public sector jobs can be at the expense of the private sector? Glad to see you familiarized youself with that. Structural problems. Okay so they don't need to be slashed just restructured. I don't think anyone would object to improving the system. Now exactly what are these structural problems.

The american economy is growing. Borrowing money is called financing. You do know that the president is NOT the authority for spending don't you? Constitutionally Congress is the sole spending authority.

Please supply a reference - IMHO this number is not credible so a factual reference would be appreciated. Three suggestions that are reasonable. Unfortunately Republican messaging rhetoric doesn't lend itself to reasonableness. The country's broke seems to be the justification for a host of ideological cuts. Is america that stupid? And I disagree that long term deficits and debt is best achieved with "tackling" entitlement spending. Its better managed by balancing tax revenues (maybe having this generation start paying its own way) with judicious discretionary program cuts - like billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks to big oil, and a significant reduction in military spending. So a public service job is not really a good job? or a productive job? Is it that public servants are merely leeching off taxpayers? That somehow they the source of the problem with government and debt? I agree I should familiarize myself with US Payroll taxes include federal social insurance tax (social security & medicare) and unemployment tax. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payroll_tax#Social_Security_and_Medicare_taxes Now what were those inaccuracies again?

Yes, I guess the payroll tax "holiday" as part of the tax package slipped under a lot of peoples radar. So the Government REDUCES tax revenue and a program pays out more than it takes in. WOW, who in their right mind could have predicted that! It boggles the mind how twisted American fiscal priorities are.

did you ever wonder how food prices are determined? You could just look at the FAO and take it all at face value. http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/FoodPricesIndex/en/ Prices are up cause of natural disasters and political instability. Sure that must account for it. For instance some sources claim that storms in Canada will reduce output by 17% when in fact, its more like 1.7% and that's off a record high. Are you aware of a company called Cargill? One of the largest companies in the world and its private. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargill I have a very very cynical view of this since commodity markets are run by the same type of greedy assholes that gave us the global financial crisis of the last couple of years.

sieg baby sieg!

I keep hearing from republicans that "America is broke". this strikes me as a)stupidily false and an unpatriotic slander. The current debt of the United states as expressed by as a % of its economic output is about average. The total debt is $14 trillion which is about 97% of gdp. That ranks the US 37th. The world average is 95%. I can understand having concern, but this seems more like political opportunists creating a " chicken little" scenerio to further an ideological agenda. The obvious first step is to reduce the deficit. According to some the "best/only " way to do this is by reducing spending and "slashing entitlements". Making the really tough choices. I don't think anyone would argue that getting control on spending and eliminating waste is a bad thing. But according to Republicans the resulting job losses are okay regardless of their election promises and the jobless rate. The really tough choices seem to be in the area of entitlements. Now these entitlements are paid by revenues raised thru payroll taxes not income taxes. Seems any increase in payroll taxes kills jobs but that is definitely not acceptable. Likewise, income taxes. Recent compromises to create jobs have resulted in the lowest taxes in decades. this ain't bad news, but reducing revenue when you have to borrow to pay the bills seems rather illogical. Particularly on the wealthiest 2%, where the billions and billions in revenue a modest increase would generate are apparently a small price to pay for the 5% of the 2% that would actually create some jobs. As long as you are slashing spending job losses are acceptable but raising taxes in totally unacceptable because it inhibits job growth. there are kernels of truth on both sides of the deficit/spending debate, but there is so much more ideological obfuscation. According to the OECD, the US average tax burden is 29.7% which is fourth lowest within that organization. The US also ranks #1 in lowest consumption (goods and services) taxes at 17% of total taxes . What this all boils down to is that there are a lot of different ways to skin the cat and this seemingly single minded slash and burn has more to do with ideology than sound fiscal practice. Slightly raising a few taxes, maybe allocating some of those "death taxes" to social security in conjunction with reigning in federal spending would quickly reduce the deficit, enable the "entitlements" to be preserved and generate some surplus to reduce the debt. I guess I'm a tad naive thinking common sense could trump ideology in solving collective problems.

The US has a long history of supporting dictators and other nasty type regimes. Of sticking their fingers in other people's pie to ensure that they get their slice. And the fact is, this strategy help them win the cold war. It solidified their position as the worlds greatest superpower both economically and militarily. And the rest of the world should be damn glad it was the Americans and not the Soviets that won that one. I don't think anyone would dispute that support for dictators by the world's beacon of liberty and democracy is anything but hypocritical. But BIG DEAL. I hate American support for the Saudis. I didn't have a problem with support for Mubarek or Israel. Either way, there are sound military, economic and diplomatic reasons for supporting regimes antithetical to american ideals. That is realpolitik.

Most people do not say "i'm going to do evil". Most people do justify their most heinous actions by claiming a greater good. But not all people. Sociopaths and psychopaths can't tell the difference to begin with hence their diagnosis. And I don't think there is always a need for good in this context. I think it is often about attempting to gain acceptance for "evil" deeds from others or to appease ones personal misgivings.

I'm-a-dinner-jacket.

Okay, i get it now. I won't belabour the point and will concede my assumption as being wrong. And I must agree that it sure aint no accident. I agree, like a leopard is harmless compared to a polar bear.

You really have a simplistic view of the history of Israel. They created israel through a war that would have seen the extinction of the jew in palestine if they had lost. they have refuesed to agreee on their borders, because their arab enemies refused to sign peace treaties until finally Sadat got brave and signed one only to get shot for his efforts. and while the Israelis are not without sin when treating with the palestinians, they are only a part of the equation. The treatment of the palestinians by their arab brothers has been pretty disgusting. The behaviour of the palestinians has also contributed to their present plight.

so "all men" only means white americans, i get it. The fact that the US is a constitutional republic and not a pure democracy is irrelevant to the discussion. Right, its niave to consider american foreign policy as "anything goes" as long as its economic and security goals are met. History couldn't possible support such a position. As for the fantasy you have conjured up, it assumes that the US approach is the best approach. What works for the world's only superpower doesn't necessarily work for any other nation. I guess the schoolyard debating tactic you utilize of "i know you are but what am i" has worked lo these many years, but we aren't talking about Canada or the UK we are talking about the US and bushs doctrine. I do agree that hypocrisy can be found everywhere, just like your original premise that "bush was right" was also hypocritical. And as for picking on the Saudis, its because I beleive them to be an enemy of democracy and liberty and to be exporting wahabism with its odious political aspirations wrapped up in false piety to the rest of the islamic world. A big pile of american petro dollars is paying for those madrassas in Pakistan and afghanistan. Yep that's what hypocrisy smells like.

So, Democracy isn't a standard. Liberty isn't a standard. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are only inalienable rights given by the creator to americans. Anything goes to further American interests. Okay I'll buy that, but hypocrisy is hypocrisy and by any definition, that is precisely what american foreign policy is fraught with. Its also a dimension of everyone elses foreign policy, but just because everyone does it doesn't stop it from being hypocrisy. And the unconditional support of the Saudis is hypocrisy at its most blatant and ugly.

Sorry, but the argument that because non-believers believe in similar laws or "do by nature" that which is required by god's laws as proof of god's existence is self referential nonsense. To argue that banning murder, theft, rape, and other property crimes are laws divinely created is just plain sad. But, Paul didn't have the benefit of sociology, anthropology, psychology, biology nor history to develop such a devine thesis, to him human behaviour must have been a perplexing mystery solved only by God. The code of Hammurabi was created some 350 years before moses received the 10 commandments. So, if Paul was right, God sat around for a few thousand years (a nod to the young earthers) waiting for somebody to discover him but in the meantime he gave the pagans a natural set of behaviours and attitudes that some smarty pants codified into "law", meaning that God's law was "revealed" long before Moses went up the mountain and long before anyone knew God existed. chicken meet egg.

I Can't remember the last time a jew or Christian rioted over an percieved insult to the bible or torah in a place thousands of miles away from the riot. Can't remember jews or Christians rioting over a cartoon of moses or jesus published in a place thousands of miles away. So perhaps you can go over the errors once more. The assessment of Islam is not just made on excerpts from their holy book, its made on their holy book, the words of their prophet, their religious law, their political treatises and on the actions of muslims themselves. (I concede to the generalization) There is absolutely no debate in Muslim circles wrt judgement day and its prerequisites. To dismiss muslim desires (and actions of a few) to bring this about because of some false equivalency to Christian or Jewish attitudes toward their own holy books and teachings is foolish and ignores facts.

I don't think anyone can argue with the logic of promoting democracy over dictatorship. A little rhetoric and idealism goes a long way intellectually and pretty well nowhere in realpolitik. The article is certainly right. Bush supported the cedar revolution which saw Syria bugger off and Hezbollah step in. The results of that "revolution" were less than desirable. Then the support for elections in Palestine that didn't turn out too well either. So the "Bush doctrine" didn't provide anything even appoximating stability, openess and liberty. And interestingly, Bush and his father before him played major kiss ass with the Saudis. A tyrannical, bigotted, self indulgant theocratic monarchy that exports violent islamic teachings and terrorists along with billions in oil. Nothing like an obvious double standard to highlight hypocricy.