Fugelsang's Wrapup

Counting The Costs

We've been hearing a lot lately about the costs of our Stupid Little War in Iraq:
$2.2 trillion - which is the low end of the estimates.
4,500 dead American Uniforms
32,000 wounded - 1,000 Amputees
3,400 dead American civilian contractors
190,000 dead Iraqis of all despcriptions (minimum BTW - could be way more)

That first number - the 2+ TRILLION dollars - that's just for starters.  That's what some folks think we'll end up spending over the next decade or two.  But y'know what?  We can anticipate spending a fuck-load more than that; and for a fuck-load longer time, because we still haven't stopped paying certain survivor benefits dating back to the CIVIL-FUCKING-WAR.

Per NY Daily News (so take it with a good dose of NaCl):

An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records found that the government is still making monthly payments to relatives of Civil War veterans — 148 years after the conflict ended.

This bit could definitely be an example of Rupert's Typical Puffery (2 people are getting about $900/year total), designed to make "the gubmint" look bad, but I think the real point here is that once we start this shit, it practically never ends.  We're still paying 50 Large for shit that happened in the Spanish American war, and that one ended 114 years ago.

Current yearly costs:

World War I = $20 Million

World War II = $5 Billion

Korean War = $2.8 Billion

Vietnam War = $22 Billion

In the end, we'll also get to deal with whatever we left behind (and we'll get to deal with it long after the assholes most responsible for it are dead and buried with full honors) - from Amer-Iraqi babies to a totally fucked up environment because of Depleted Uranium and whatever else we haven't been told about, but will likely be denied by the Pentagon for decades.

Somewhere along the line, we have to figure out how to settle our differences without bashing each other over the head with sticks and rocks.  This shit just ain't worth it.

God Love The Onion

I'm really hoping Candy Crowley et al at CNN were just trying to give us some small added  perspective about how perpetrators fuck up more than just their victims' lives - and to warn other young dudes about impulse control - but in our current style of political debate, where only Binary Reasoning is allowed, this is what it ends up sounding like:


College Basketball Star Heroically Overcomes Tragic Rape He Committed

Today's Vocab Term

Rent Seeking (per Wikipedia)

A simple definition of rent seeking is spending resources in order to gain by increasing one's share of existing wealth, instead of trying to create wealth. The net effect of rent-seeking is to reduce total social wealth, because resources are spent and no new wealth is created. In a theoretical context, it is important to distinguish rent-seeking from profit-seeking. Profit-seeking in this sense is the creation of wealth, while rent-seeking is the use of social institutions such as the power of government to redistribute wealth among different groups without creating new wealth.[1] In a practical context, income obtained through rent-seeking may of course contribute to profits in the standard, accounting sense of the word.

Since Rent Seekers add nothing to the actual effort required to create wealth, it's not a matter of doing the work, and deriving the great satisfaction of having done something worthwhile - it's all about having the power to buy somebody else's effort and claim it as your own.

And as long as we accept the bullshit view that the world has to be all about purely Darwinian Economics, we perpetuate a climate in which these destructive predatory schemes are not just tolerated, but encouraged and admired.

There is something immoral about the kind of system Rent Seeking engenders - something we feel deep down in our bones.  Which is why every society (eventually) revolts against it.

Today's Definition

Religion: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to the Ignorant the nature of the Unknowable. --Ambrose Bierce

About Those Women

Popular Myth holds that sometime back in the 6th century, 43 Catholic Bishops and 20 Bishops' Reps got together (in France - for a long weekend at the spa I guess?) in order to debate and then to decide on one of the truly pressing questions of their era - "Is woman human?"

The vote was 32 For and 31 Against.  Whew - that was close.  Hard to imagine what kind of (even more) unnecessarily lousy things might've happened if just 1 of those Shit-For-Brains-In-A-Satin-Hat had voted the other way.

This story is denied by the Church, but y'know what?  I don't care.  Is it any less believable than the crap they spin out every fuckin' day?

Today's Important Thought: Religion can't sell me their bullshit cure if I don't accept having their bullshit disease.

New Music

Making a joyful noise.

There's a lot goin' on here, and it's almost unbelievable how hard it is to make this happen live.  Coupla glitches here and there, but fuck.

Lucius:

Music

A coupla tunes from 2 slightly opposite perspectives:

Today's Smartest Thing

(My 2¢ - politicians take positions; abandon positions; and/or change positions when they recognize either political opportunity or political threat)

From a Balloon Juice post:

But there’s at least one difference between Portman and Obama on this specific issue: Portman did it because changing his position will lead to a clear and direct personal gain–his actual gay son might get an real benefit from the state based on his father’s position. As far as we know, Obama’s change in position gives him no such benefit. For you freshman logic fans, that’s the fallacy of equivocation. Glenn’s trying to say that one of Obama’s stated reasons (his empathy for friends and staff who are gay) is the same thing as Portman’s (a real parental interest in the outcome of the debate).

The Donald Speaks

The scene from the Maryland suburbs yesterday wasn't exactly all a-buzz.  CPAC is known for its rosters of All-Star Nutball speakers, and so far this year, they've not disappointed.

Best moment so far - this "crowd" shot of the room when it was Lil Donny Trump's turn to deliver the words of awesomeness.

hat tip = Addicting Info