Cutting unnecessary spending would be dead simple if politicians (on both sides) were willing to take the risk of pissing off their lobbyists.

Mandatory spending + defense spending alone puts the budget in deficit. Eliminating education, hud, health and human services, homeland security, state department, and everything else in discretionary spending won't do it.

Well, at least we're no longer spending as much on our military as the rest of the world combined. Now our military spending is about 40% of the world's total.

But seriously, there's no reason for it to be even that high.

And me, I'll take "enhanced interrogation" (and that is NOT torture, despite the hype)

Sleep deprivation (as practiced by the US) is torture. What happened is the Bush administration attempted to redefine it, with much success in the US media.

From Sullivan:

Here's proof positive that what was once considered routine to call torture in the pages of the New York Times has now been changed, to accommodate the Bush administration. An obit, obviously written before Bill Keller decided to take his editorial cues from Dick Cheney, describes the torture undergone by an American Korean War airman at the hands of the Communist Chinese. Not the most sadistic or comic book type of torture - just open-ended solitary confinement in a damp, cold cell, with meager food and regular piercing alarms to enforce sleep deprivation. No one, including the NYT, called this anything but torture - until they had to accommodate the US government's attempt to torture prisoners without moral accountability or legal authority.

[link]

did i get it?

ETA: Yes! (Sorry, numberslut.)

meara, aren't you 12?

You're only off by one digit...I"m 32. :) Considering I joined Tabletalk when I was but a mere babe of 22....ah, how the time has flown!

That's one reason the political rants are so irksome; they cause me to dislike people I've come to like.

Hi Shari, I don't really know you but I am going to respond to this. If you dislike someone based on a political rant, that's just life. It's also entirely your choice. Everyone has differing personalities, and, as grown-ups, we each get to decide with whom we want to click, or not.

I don't eat meat, but I love many Buffistas who moan with delight over bacon. Do I dislike them because of their love of bacon? I could, if I really wanted to cut myself off from cool people over it. But I don't. But I would never ask them to stop posting about bacon because of my anti-bacon sensibilities (and though I don't ever talk about it, mainly because it's personal and it's boring, it is probably as important to me as politics are to you.). It would be futile, and more importantly, I don't have have the right to ask people to stop talking about something just because I don't subscribe to the meat newsletter.

We're all grown-ups and you're welcome to dislike me because I loathe Cheney. FTR, I have not publically, on any forum, wished the man ill health. But if I did, you'd be entirely within your right to dislike me for it. However, it will not stop me from posting about my hatred for him. And I do not believe it's the same thing as ranting about doctors or overweight people. Cheney and his ilk have done everything to in their power to earn this level of hatred. Overweight people and doctors, as groups, are not rewriting the Constitution and trampling all over American and human rights.

I just got a very weird email from a school where I applied for a job. It said that the original position I applied for, which was tenure-track, had been withdrawn because of a lack of money, but they just got funding for two new tenure-track positions, and they wanted to know if I wanted to be considered for one of those. I said yes, but I'm kind of puzzled as to why they bothered to send those emails, since there was nothing in the email to indicate what made the new positions any different from the one that we'd already applied to.

Overweight people and doctors, as groups, are not rewriting the Constitution

If they were, would that mean we'd already have single-payer health care? I could get behind that...

And I feel silly for adding this, because I don't need a disclaimer, but I've got NO problem at all with true conservatives. Some of my best friends (and, in fact, a favorite Buffista or two) are very old school conservative. I do have problems with people espousing falsehoods about the founding of our nation and those who want to strengthen the relationship between "church and state".

If they were, would that mean we'd already have single-payer health care? I could get behind that...

An excellent point, Missy.

but I've got NO problem at all with true conservatives.

Me too. Personally I think the current Republican party is more authoritarian than conservative.