To tax or not to tax?

      I find it interesting that the republicans that while they were running screamed about the huge federal deficit are now the ones that seek to extend the Bush tax cuts to the rich. I mean, I realize that no one wants to pay taxes. I get that. I resented the chunk of taxes removed from my pay check every two weeks this summer. I dread dealing with my parents during tax time. Taxes put everyone in a bad mood. But the fact of the matter is that our government has no other way of raising revenue to run itself.
      When Bush came into office, we had a surplus. Thus, at that time, some tax cuts made some sort of sense. If the government has more money than needed, why not give American tax payers a little break? Now, in the midst of a recession with unemployment rate at 9.8 percent, now does not seem like the time to give those rich people a tax break. In fact, I would much rather use government money to help resinstall unemployment benefits than to allow some rich person to buy their second jet. Just saying.

Wikileaks

      So, the website wikileaks continues to release confidential cables of US diplomats saying unfavorable things about foreign countries. I am sure they think they're doing the world a favor, and that these things should be released. I, personally, could not disagree more. In a world where the US is already viewed disfavorably, these cables stand to seriously endanger American diplomatic relations with foreign countries. Some things should be kept private, and I think US diplomats should be able to frankly and honestly discuss foreign diplomats, leaders, and policies without fear of having the information leaked.
               In the meantime, the U.S. military has tried to close the security gaps that it believes allowed a low-level military intelligence analyst to steal hundreds of thousands of classified documents and ultimately give them to the WikiLeaks website. A U.S. soldier who served in Iraq, Manning has been charged with illegally transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The 22-year-old is suspected of having downloaded thousands of other documents from a server in Iraq. Hopefully, after this incident the US government will institute measures to keep such documents more classified.