Dana Milbank
Paul Krugman
I begin with some random facts culled from the weekend. The first is from the Asian Times. With all of the media's attention to the suicide bombings over the past few years, you'd think that Iraq or Afghanistan has a lock on bitter and disillusioned people, and you'd be wrong. The winner, is: "Pakistan suffered one suicide bombing before 9/11 - and 4,808 deaths in 303 attacks since." Pakistanis should spend less time worrying whether Westerners like or dislike them so much, and more time wondering why they hate each other...
Another congressional study report, released last Friday, put a conservative estimate the amount of money wasted during the last 10 years hiring third party contractors at $60 billion. We sent 260,000 non-military individuals to Iraq and Afghanistan at a cost of $206 billion. That's almost a billion dollars per person. No wonder why everyone and their second cousin has been trying to set up shop in Washington DC and Virginia, it's been the only section creating jobs... There has been almost no oversight or accounting where the money goes, so stealing and bribery has become the normal way that Americans do business, just ask your elected Republican representative...
It's estimated that 750,000 people will die in Somalia from starvation, most of them children. The saddest thing is that most of these people are beyond saving, their bodies have shut down past the point of being able to be revived without serious damage... For those who feel that the less government there is the better we all off will be, then consider Somalia. The US could easily be devolving into a feral state, ruled by religious extremist warlords, more concerned over getting a buck than saving anyone besides themselves. The Buddha asked what is the price of compassion, one that we should constantly be asking ourselves...
There are 47 major banks in europe that are on the brink of bankruptcy, they might be considered too big to fail. There is less regulation than here in the US, because most governments are run by right wing conservatives. Loans to banks exceed their deposits by 6 percent, with French banks running at 19 percent, and Greek banks over 32 percent. The financial institutions that sell credit insurance are in a lot of trouble if those banks went belly up, creating another crisis similar to what Goldman Sachs and AIG created here for us. And, to further reciprocate the love, it will affect our banking system also... We have had 80 banks go bankrupt since 2009, but they weren't big enough, so we let them fail.
In 1947 the UN OK'd the partitioning of the land of Palestine, creating the nation of Israel. It was assumed that both partitions would organize themselves, then apply for admission as separate memberships. Israel did just that, applying in 1948. In two days the Palestinian Authority is finally getting around to applying, with the US threatening to veto. This will signal the end of US influence in the Middle East, especially if Turkey and Egypt bond as economic partners. Saudi Arabia has already said that it would seek to punish or lessen US interests if we vetoed, the first thing would be to kick out all of the CIA contractors in Yemen. So be careful what you ask for, or deny to others, another lesson from the Buddha, the Bible, and the Koran...
Paul Krugman
"At the cusp of the 2012 race, we have a classic cultural collision between a skinny Eastern egghead lawyer who’s inept in Washington gunfights and a pistol-totin’, lethal-injectin’, square-shouldered cowboy who has no patience for book learnin’." - Maureen Dowd
"The occupational hazard of democracy is know-nothing voters. It shouldn’t be know-nothing candidates." - Maureen Dowd
Another congressional study report, released last Friday, put a conservative estimate the amount of money wasted during the last 10 years hiring third party contractors at $60 billion. We sent 260,000 non-military individuals to Iraq and Afghanistan at a cost of $206 billion. That's almost a billion dollars per person. No wonder why everyone and their second cousin has been trying to set up shop in Washington DC and Virginia, it's been the only section creating jobs... There has been almost no oversight or accounting where the money goes, so stealing and bribery has become the normal way that Americans do business, just ask your elected Republican representative...
It's estimated that 750,000 people will die in Somalia from starvation, most of them children. The saddest thing is that most of these people are beyond saving, their bodies have shut down past the point of being able to be revived without serious damage... For those who feel that the less government there is the better we all off will be, then consider Somalia. The US could easily be devolving into a feral state, ruled by religious extremist warlords, more concerned over getting a buck than saving anyone besides themselves. The Buddha asked what is the price of compassion, one that we should constantly be asking ourselves...
There are 47 major banks in europe that are on the brink of bankruptcy, they might be considered too big to fail. There is less regulation than here in the US, because most governments are run by right wing conservatives. Loans to banks exceed their deposits by 6 percent, with French banks running at 19 percent, and Greek banks over 32 percent. The financial institutions that sell credit insurance are in a lot of trouble if those banks went belly up, creating another crisis similar to what Goldman Sachs and AIG created here for us. And, to further reciprocate the love, it will affect our banking system also... We have had 80 banks go bankrupt since 2009, but they weren't big enough, so we let them fail.
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