The New Wasteland

Lieberman the Politician, six months elected,  
Forgot the cry of the grieving, and the deep electoral swell
And the voting and criticism.
       An encrusted shard of ego
Picked his bones in whispers.  As he rose and fell
He passes the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
       Democrat or Republican
O you who stroke the base and look electorateward,
Consider Lieberman, who was once accepted and honoured as you.

Only their parents can tell them apart...

Geek 1:



Geek 2

Another reminder about heroes

As part of the job, I've just been reading an account of a Wellington couple who have fostered nearly 40 babies over the last 6 years. These kids come in from broken homes, some of them battered, some of them with drugs in their systems. The couple look after them for a week, a month, maybe three, and then pass them on to their parents, elsewhere in the family, or into adoptive care.

It's not a job that can be left to a bureaucracy - babies need love. This couple has to bond with these children, again and again and again - and then give them up, again and again and again. And what they get paid to do so barely covers baby clothes and gear - they lose money doing the job.

It's not glamorous; it's not lauded; it's not publicised. None the less, and for the benefit of forty lives and counting, what they do is an act of quiet heroism, an act of continuing low level bravery that gets done again and again and again by quiet people throughout society.

Just to recap - these people are in a very real sense heroes. This is not a hero.

Hey! I think I figured out how to afford a new house!

And in the news today, an American eight grader and family are suing for $400,000 because a teacher inflicted the movie "Brokeback Mountain" on her. Other reports indicate the family had complained because words in other assigned reading had gone against their faith - which leads me to suspect, yet again, that these are poor victimised fundamentalists.

Now, I've seen Brokeback Mountain. It was okay - but I dozed off a little half way through. That's life.

When I was twelve, my English teacher forced us to read Janet Frame's Owls Do Cry - and then quizzed us on it. THAT was trauma. And I couldn't sleep half way through it, either.

New Zealand Education Department - prepare to be sued...

Rarer than diamonds, and more colourful.

I hadn't realised this, but it appears that New Zealand has a claim to fame in the minerological world. The Westland is the only place in the world where you can find Goodletite, a combination of ruby, sapphire and tourmaline crystals in a fuchsite matrix. It's the only precious stone found in New Zealand (I'm wearing pounamu myself - greenstone or nephrite jade - for personal reasons, but that's classified as semi-precious).



There's a story in a magazine here about it being marketed as "Ruby Rock", and they note that its singular location makes it considerably rarer than diamond - "a million times more unique than Opal" in enthusiastic if incorrect prose.

There's an opportunity here for those who value the unusual to steal a march on people who look to other stones first and foremost, and to do it before demand drives the price of the gem up...

The cost of Iraq - in context

From The US Civil War Centre, a comparison of costs for the various wars America has been in:

III. Financial Cost

Conflict Cost in $ Billions Per Capita
Current 1990s (in $1990)
The Revolution (1775-1783) .10 1.2 $ 342.86
War of 1812 (1812-1815) .09 0.7 92.11
Mexican War (1846-1848) .07 1.1 52.13
Civil War (1861-1865): Union 3.20 27.3 1,041.98
: Confederate 2.00 17.1 2,111.11
: Combined 5.20 44.4 1,294.46
Spanish American War (1898) .40 6.3 84.45
World War I (1917-1918) 26.00 196.5 1,911.47
World War II (1941-1945) 288.00 2,091.3 15,655.17
Korea (1950-1953) 54.00 263.9 1,739.62
Vietnam (1964-1972) 111.00 346.7 1,692.04
Gulf War (1990-1991) 61.00 61.1 235.00

The table compares the cost of America's principal wars since 1775 on the basis of then current and 1990s dollars. Current dollars are the actual numbers spent at the time. Thus, a 1775-1783 dollar had the equivalent purchasing power of $10.75 in 1990s terms. Actually this conversion is only a very rough guide, but at least gives some idea of the relative costs of the ten wars on an adjusted basis. However, it is not possible to take into account drastic changes in social structure (most Americans were farmers in 1775, and didn't use much money), and the increasing affluence of American society over the two centuries covered by the table.

Note that the figures are for direct costs only, omitting pension costs, which tended to triple the ultimate outlays. The table also omits the cost of damage to the national infrastructure during those wars waged on American soil. Confederate figures are estimated.

For the Gulf War it is worth noting that various members of the allied coalition reimbursed the U.S. for 88-percent ($54 billion) of the amount shown, so the actual cost to the taxpayer was only about $7 billion, roughly the same as for the Spanish-American War, and on a per capita basis only $26.92, arguably the least expensive war in the nation's history.

Today, we find this story:

WASHINGTON - The bitter fight over the latest Iraq spending bill has all but obscured a sobering fact: The war will soon cost more than $500 billion.

That's about ten times more than the Bush administration anticipated before the war started four years ago, and no one can predict how high the tab will go. The $124 billion spending bill that President Bush plans to veto this week includes about $78 billion for Iraq, with the rest earmarked for the war in Afghanistan, veterans' health care and other government programs.

Congressional Democrats and Bush agree that they cannot let their dispute over a withdrawal timetable block the latest cash installment for Iraq. Once that political fight is resolved, Congress can focus on the president's request for $116 billion more for the war in the fiscal year that starts on Sept. 1.

The combined spending requests would push the total for Iraq to $564 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

A quick look at the Bureau of Labour Statistics suggests that $1 US 1990 is worth $1.57 US 2007. This implies that the requests will push the cost for the invasion of Iraq - so far - to about $360 billion in 1990$ terms, for comparison purposes.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq so far, therefore, has cost the US more than Vietnam, almost half as much again as Korea, and almost twice as much as WWI.

Sheer genius

The best retelling of the Aristocrats yet. Wish I could laugh at it.