US War Costs ‘Could Hit $811 Billion’

I found this a rather interesting article from the BBC on our man, W’s personal war over yonder in the Middle East. In general, I find the BBC a lot less partisan on it’s war reporting than any American media outlet.

US war costs ‘could hit $811bn’

The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has soared and may now reach $811bn (£445bn), says a report by the Congressional Research Service. It estimates that Congress has appropriated $368bn for the global war on terror, including both conflicts.

It says that if the current spending bill is approved, US war costs will reach $439bn, and it estimates that an extra $371bn may be needed by 2016.

On that basis, the two wars would cost more than the $579bn spent in Vietnam.

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Political-Ish

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Behold! The Beauty of the Universe

or universes…universi…universum? What is the plural? None of them sound correct!

Oh the drama! My grammatical foibles are not worth dicsussing at this time. You simply must click on over to this amazing picture, gentle reader!

Don’t you feel small and insignificant?

Ya. Me too.

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Sing-A-Long!

Today is my last of class, woo hoo!
Don’t worry I passed, woo hoo!
And next Sat-ur-day
I will get a
large piece of paper that cost $40K!

Today is my last day of class, woo hoo!
Unless I hear from UCLA “you’re in!”
which is when the prancing begins
And the packing soon follows with
B movin’ alla her crap back to LA for fun!

It’s good to be a gradumate! Oh, and don’t expect any coherent conversations in the next week. I feel I deserve to lay about being HIGHLY unproductive, drink often, and relax on the patio with a cooler of Napa’s finest…or maybe Poland’s finest…someone’s finest…and a jar of olives…and a bag of frozen Sour Skittles.

That is all. Till next time, gentle reader!

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Education

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Voodoo Enronomics

This joke of the day is from Comedy Central…

Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

Communism: You have two cows. You must take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

Enron Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt-equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred through an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The Enron annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.

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Barbara’s Hippie Box

I’m gonna jump up on the soapbox the conservative people around me like to call ‘the hippie box’ and call attention to this fine article Scientific American: Insects Provide Billions in Free Services

FYI - I personally don’t think my soapbox is hippie-like in anyway but people around here think anyone who is interested in preserving the environment is:

A) a vegetarian, VW bus driving, flash-back having hippie
B) a bleeding heart liberal who’s too stoned to know better
C) someone who doesn’t know how life works - aka people who don’t have to work for their money
D) all of the above.

This is the environment I now live in and you see what I’m up against. I’m none of those things so they can all kiss my grits and talk about my ‘ignorance’ in their George Bush love-in Sunday nites over at Bubba’s Bar and Bar-B-Que Shack.

OK - on to my actual point. The story is about the benefits insects provide and how we are endangering them. Yes, conservative readers (if I have any), pesticides have done some amazing things for humans and I don’t dispute that. What I don’t like is the oversue of pesticides which is seriously affecting our environment, which in turn affects the quality of life now and in the future.

So, liberal or not, you can’t argue with the information in this article and that new standards for pesticide use should be implemented ASAP.

I have now stepped down from ‘the hippie box’.

Good evening.


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