In her recent speech at the Conference on World Affairs, Rachel Maddow cited James Madison's warning about the unitary executive, the propensity of an unchecked executive branch to lean toward war, whereas the legislature would be more likely to debate the issue before moving toward conflict.
Need a better seat in the Roman Senate? Get yourself posted to Hispania (Spain). Need funds to run a campaign for consul (president) or junior consol (vice-president)? Go to war with Gaul (France).
Need to prove yourself in an ill-timed, ill-thought out adventure in Parthia (Syria, Iraq, Iran)? Be like Crassus and attack preemptively and get your army decimated in the process.
likely support (limiting unfair financial practices toward the poor...). Bush? Tax cuts for the rich. Which would have been fine with the corporate interests in Greece (known as oligarchs - that's where the word comes from), who made sure Solon's attempts at fairness wouldn't last by overthrowing his protégé, Pisistratus, leading to periods of instability broken only by the need for the people came together to fight a common enemy (interchangeable between Persia, the Peloponnesians, Philip of Macedonia...).
Top Scientists Warn of Catastrophic Sea Level Rise
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- *Flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy, **Photo: BR Birke -- CC 2.0*
Dr. James Hansen, who was the lead climate scientist at NASA, and sixteen
other ...