KaskadskyjKozak

Only a small percentage of murders are tried as capital cases, and, of those, only some result in a capital conviction. Moreover, the time lag between sentencing and the execution is often more than 10 years. As such, it is a dishonest argument to state that capital punishment is not a deterrent - it is simply not applied often (or soon) enough to be one.

It, it, it. Define torture. Currently bleeding hearts are redefining "it" to include milder and milder forms of interrogation tactics - sleep deprivation, psychological tactics, and so on. When I think of "torture", I think of sadistic, brutal physical abuse, not shining bright lights in prisoners faces after 48 hours of not sleeping. The former does fall under the characterization of "non-productive" techniques, whereas the latter *have* proven effective.

"That's not what we meant by 'give head'..."

The "new" global holocaust? There wasn't one before.

It's already started and the world doesn't have the will (or means?) to stop it.

Not just a threat but an imminent one. I have been quite consistent in using that term as an indivisible unit in this thread. An *imminent* threat implies an immediate ability to hit us with nukes.

Kim Jong Il is evil; as are his cronies. We all know that the US picks and chooses which dictators to knock off. Obviously, the cost is pretty high - in lives, $$, and diplomatic repercussions.

It's much more likely that N.Korea would invade S. Korea and use nukes as a threat to non-intervention from foreigners than that N. Korea will launch nukes in our direction. Regarding the latter, I think that is really unproven as a threat. Sorry, but the Iraq war has caused me to be more suspicious about claims of "imminent threats". It is no small thing to deliver a nuclear device across thousands of miles of ocean. And I don't see any link between Kim Jong Il and Al Qaeda. Furthermore, N. Korea is isolated geographically (unlike Iran and iraq) which complicates their ability to exchange nuclear materials with other nations.

If you wish to trade insults, I'm game. Just about every posting from you screams "profoundly unhappy, cynical asshole". And how is that an imminent threat to the US? Irrespective of post WWII, cold-war treaties, why does the US need to protect Japan anyway?

Is it reasonably feasible to ford the Suiattle? The NFS web site says they don't advise it, but...

I was going to mention these issues as well - thanks for bringing them up.

WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam - none of those were cheap either. Spending is of course governed by a production possibilities frontier, and funding a war invokes an opportunity cost. But, doing NOTHING substantive to counter external threats and crises/political realities with global impact also can impose huge costs. Pay now or pay later. Unfortunately, accurately predicting the costs of inaction in advance is not possible, but monday morning quaterbacks abound (usually with a myopic POV).

Yes, a lot of it is. And I also challenge that many people *choose* not to "afford" health insurance by allocating their disposable income on other products of their choice - first and foremost on personal entertainment and material goods. One major misdirection of the who health insurance issue is differentiating between "catastrophic" coverage and general coverage. It's lack of the former that could ruin a family - the latter can and should be paid by choice *privately*. For those who truly can not afford it, doctors should do pro bono work and charities can pick up the slack - charities that, unlike government, are actually accountable, and fraud can be more easily checked out. Mmm... thread drift...

So how does China and Japan's disputes affect US national security? This is where our problems seem to come: acting as world policeman/enforcer/watchdog/whatever you want to call it.

Is there? W/r/t to "health insurance for children"? Your comment about the costs of the war implies that there is some huge, unaddressed need in domestic spending, and that said need materialized under the current administration. This is typical rhetoric from the left when in opposition: manufacture a social crisis, and demagogue it ad nauseaum. When in power, the former opposition summarily shuts up - the social crisis is gone.

I think it's time to reconsider that treaty. I don't know. What would the impact be of S. Korea falling to N. Korea right now? Would that really impact the U.S. in any meaningful way? The cold war threat of international communist expansion seems to have evaporated with the demise of the USSR. I'm not sure that China has that goal in mind - although regional, economic hegemony seems to be a goal of theirs. A strong Japan could be a reasonable counter to their threat, even at the expense of granting them an exception to nuclear nonproliferation.

I'm not interested in converting the stupid and blind. There are some people with interesting, opposing POVs. Foraker is not one of them.

Seems to me that N. Korea can really only pose an imminent thread to S. Korea primarily, and possibly Japan or China in the mid-term. The lesson from Iraq is that the burden of proof regarding an "imminent threat" must be much higher.

Yeah, as if there are 80 million kids who have no health care right now I love how the supposedly starving, suffering masses magically appear in left-wing rhetoric when a Republican administration is in power, and disappear when a Democratic administration is in power - irrespective of any substantive difference in funding of government bureaucracies.

I could only expect such an oversimplification and gratuitous attack from a mental midget such as yourself The point is not the "source" of OBL's hatred. The question is whether the US chooses to ignore its enemies or act to counter them. And of course, "how" to do it.

The status quo had a non-zero cost - enforcing no-fly zones, stationing troops, playing cat and mouse games with Hussein as he repeatedly moved troops towards Kuwait, then withdrew. And lest we forget, the reason OBL turned Al Qaeda's collective sights on the US was the "disgrace" of having infidels stationed on the hallowed soil of Mohammed's home land.

For the cost of the Iraq War (so far) we could give every child in US full health coverage for a year, probably more ( > 100 million child-years of health coverage). This is such a dishonest rhetorical tactic - as if doing nothing in Iraq would not have "cost" us. Just as doing nothing before WWI and WWII cost us - big time. Bury your head in the sand and wish away all the problems... isolationism, yeah, that works.

Maybe? We would NOT riot over it. Iranians, Palestinians and others have been burning flags for 20+ years, and there have never been ANY riots in the US over that. What a crock of shit. That just isn't happening - nor will it. Personally I'd rather they wiped their ass with old glory than riot and murder. Maybe we could subsidize their angst by providing flags to desecrate. They can even have at it and flush bibles down the toilet for all I care.

It's interesting how everyone is ignoring a glaring aspect of this issue: that the "muslim street" is so whacked that the idea of flushing printed paper down a toilet incites them to riot. It's friggin' paper with ink on it - that's it. BFD.

How about the Suiattle River Road / Vista glacier approach?