Gregory Spear of The Spear Report also believes the extensive media coverage of U.S. diplomacy at the United Nations and the Bush administration's buildup for war might limit any shock to stocks once the bombs start dropping on Baghdad and Basra.

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"He was a true and courageous prophet of peace who struggled strenuously and bravely, first to avoid the drama of war and then to limit its terrible consequences, " Benedict XVI said.

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In war, you always try to limit civilian casualties, but when the insurgency is embedded with them, it becomes a difficult situation.

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The framers, having just experienced the horrors of the Continental currency (which had been used to finance the War of Independence) opted to limit federal monetary powers to coining money, which for legal tender purposes they defined as gold and silver.

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One can argue that it is not America's job to fix the world's problems, to stop the killings in distant lands even if, as we now know, those killings involve horrific weapons banned by international agreements that set a limit to our inhumanity even in times of war.

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But to facilitate the extraordinary demands of war finance, Congress set a statutory debt limit up to which the Treasury could borrow as needed without further authorization.

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During what war did the U.S. Congress establish the debt ceiling (or debt limit)?

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This grew to be inconvenient right around World War I, so to give the federal government more flexibility, Congress decided to set an aggregate borrowing limit known as the debt ceiling, which capped the total number of bonds that could be issued.

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