December 2009
14 posts
Europe has a president (if you missed it)
Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as the first “president of Europe”
The presidency was created by the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty, which came to pass after several countries voted on it until it passed.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/11/19/eu.presidency/index.html
November 2009
19 posts
New US Embassy in Baghdad: Size of Vatican City
The embassy complex — 21 buildings on 104 acres. The 5,500 Americans and Iraqis working at the embassy.
“Embassy Baghdad” will dwarf new U.S. embassies elsewhere, projects that typically cover 10 acres. The embassy’s 104 acres is six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York, and two-thirds the acreage of Washington’s National Mall.
Original cost estimates ranged over $1 billion,...
Obama is to LBJ as Afghanistan is to Vietnam →
Watch and make your own analogies, that was just one.
Also recommend asking the question, “To what end?”
American taxpayers to finance the war in... →
“I believe that bank institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than...”
– Thomas Jefferson
Khalid Shiekh Mohammed is set to stand trial in New York. Today the US Attorney General said that “should he be found innocent, we have other things we can do with him so that he’s not released”
Just wanted to make a note.
21% mortgage owners are under water on their homes
Meaning that they owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth. This number is actually down (likely due to foreclosures)
“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
– Immanuel Kant
24k a car
Is what Edmunds.com calculated for the Cash for Clunkers program.
This was calculated by estimating the number of cars that would have been purchased anyway.
Was it worth it? GDP went up last quarter… let’s wait for the next one ;-)
There are 237 millionaires in the US Senate and House (44%)
Compared to 1% of the public at large
(Politico.com)
Blackwater bribes
Blackwater aka Xe approved payouts of about $1 million to silence Iraqi officials after 17 Iraqi civilians were shot by the firm’s guards. The shootings took place in Sept 2007 in Baghdad.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/11/11/us/AP-US-Iraq-Blackwater.html
(and more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/world/middleeast/12blackwater.html )
The unemployment rate for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is twice the national average (around 20%)
More than 30 members of Congress are being lookined @ for possible ethics violations.
- Washington Post
“Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied”
– Otto von Bismark
120 US banks have failed so far this year.
60 minutes did a report on how the US is f-ed because our energy grid is vulnerable from internet attacks from “foreign entities”. Why are power plants hooked up to the Internet in the first place?
“Once you know someone’s modivations, everything else they do makes sense”
– Ben Franklin (via Matt Nicole via ?)
my bank account
Interest rate 0.01% Interest YTD $0.11
..my mattress pays better