Sign of the Times

A coworker snapped this photo on his way to work today.

Verbs so overrated, don’t you?

If you like that, you’ll love their web page. I’ll let you get there indirectly, as did I, for the best effect.

The Russians Are Coming!

Not that you care or even need to know, but behind the scenes I’m being driven crazy by Russian comment spamming robots. Every post I put up gathers a “comment” within minutes or hours from someone like “Энрико” with a link to some .ru web site. For some reason Akismet hasn’t figured out yet that these are spam, and they’re the only comment spammers who consistently get through the filter. I hope they or WordPress can get this invasion under control.

Now I’ll just await the Russian Spambots on this posting. Three… Two…

Update:

That took under twenty minutes. Those bots are fast. If you speak Russian, can you tell me what the heck this blog is about? I hope it isn’t, uh, “romance novel” material. Of course, now that I’ve actually linked to them there’s no telling what’s going to happen.

I’m Shocked. Shocked!

Shocked, I tell you, to learn that our new Attorney General is a thoroughly-corrupt Clinton-era retread.

Let’s be blunt here: The Marc Rich pardon was one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of the Justice Department. Not the modern history, the entire history. Rich was accused of mega-crimes: millions in fraud, tax-evasion, and trading with the America’s enemies. In 2000, he was a fugitive. He had been one for nearly two decades, during which the government had expended immense resources in a futile attempt to apprehend him.

Shocked, I tell you, to learn that a president who pals around with terrorists is appointing an Attorney General who has arranged for terrorists to be pardoned.

Well, Lanny Davis says he’s the most qualified nominee, so I guess he must be.

An ungodly amount of money

You have just taken on another $24,000 in debt. So has every person living in your household. Except you can’t count on everybody paying their share. So if you’re one of the most oppressed minority in US history, namely an actual taxpayer, you’ve just been royally hosed.

Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

data courtesy of Bianco Research

That is $686 billion less than the cost of the credit crisis thus far.

The only single American event in history that even comes close to matching the cost of the credit crisis is World War II: Original Cost: $288 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $3.6 trillion

The $4.6165 trillion dollars committed so far is about a trillion dollars ($979 billion dollars) greater than the entire cost of World War II borne by the United States: $3.6 trillion, adjusted for inflation (original cost was $288 billion).

Please send lots of Marines

Michael Yon emails from Afghanistan:

Happy Thanksgiving from Zabul Province, Afghanistan.

The Taliban seem to be mostly afraid of American soldiers. They do attack U.S. and inflict damage, but all around I hear from Afghans and U.S. soldiers that the Taliban are mostly trying to avoid contact with U.S., while focusing attacks mostly on Afghans. Some people see the Taliban as courageous, but I am seeing more and more that they use cowardly tactics, often hiding behind women and children.

I am tonight in Zabul Province and have been out with New York National Guard. Their morale is high and they think they are winning the fight, despite the long series of frustrations that come with the terrain of war. Especially in Afghanistan.

Our cell phones are not working tonight; the Taliban forces cell phone operators to turn off the towers at night. The Taliban are afraid of being tracked, and are afraid the Americans will interrupt their sleep. The cell towers are cut off from 5:30 PM to 7:00 AM. An American captain told me that one group of operators decided to turn off the system late one night, so the Taliban came, killed one man, and tortured two others.

On an interesting side, Americans and Afghans are giving very high marks to the Lithuanian Special Forces who operate here. They are less impressed with Romanians; Afghans and Americans say the Romanians are afraid of the Taliban, but that the Lithuanians are having a field day chasing and killing Taliban.

On the Iraq front, please read Down with Barriers, Up with Iraq.

The Iraq war is over, but the Afghan playoffs will begin in 2009. This fight is just getting started. Please send lots of Marines, and lots of training teams for the Afghan Army and police.

Your correspondent,
Michael