whoami and
Rabbi......
I understand what you're saying about mortgages and all. This isn't the first time I've ever bought real estate. This is just the first house I've bought. This is also, however, the first time I've ever had to document a month-by-month history of how I actually saved up the cash. This was NOT a "standard procedure" that's practiced by anybody I've ever dealt with before.
I also understand why the mortgage company wants to know how you make a living, and what kind of risk you are. Trust me... I'm not stupid. I'm not a young street hood, nor do I drive a Hummer with no visible means of support. I closer to middle-aged than teen-aged, and my wife and I have both been employed in our respective fields for more than a decade. Our credit score isn't the best, nor is it horrible. Middle-of-the-road all the way.
I was shown a paper (Dang! I've gotta make time now to dig it out!) with "PATRIOT ACT" all over it, and a bunch of other verbiage, and that was that. Get the paperwork done, or no mortgage.
GoRon
Known as the defensive fetal position response.
I am all for homeland security but going into an isolationist stance isn't going to make the fanatics hate us any less.
Lemme go brush my teeth real quick so I can get the taste of your words out of my mouth...
I never said we should be isolationists. We shouldn't. We SHOULD be world leaders. We should be ahead of everyone else when it comes to quality of life. We should be first at taking care of our own citizens, as well as giving the helping hand up to a fallen neighbor. Our factories should produce more goods, of higher quality, at lower cost than anybody else. If the Iraqi citizenry had come to us and asked, "Will you please help us get rid of that nasty tyrant Saddam?" we should have been leading the pack, beating every drum, building up an irresistable international movement of ouster, and all the other countries should have wanted to join, just to be like us.
That's what should be happening. That's exactly what did happen, for a short while, under George the Elder. Even most of the Muslims cracked a smile at us for that one, since they had no love for Saddam, either. Then what happened? We decided we needed a permanent base on Saudi holy land, which made one of the more devout of the royal clan have a hissy fit and declare another jihad, starting the whole mess up again.
None of this has anything to do with my point, which was I'd rather have a full-strength military guarding us and the world, rather than use them kicking over anthills to see what crawls out. I'd rather use the anthill-kicking budget to strengthen our own, rather than use it rebuilding what we've just blown to hell. Spend part of it finally finding Bin Laden, he's had it far too good, for far too long. Spend it on crap that really matters, not crap that's gonna erode in months.