One Trillion Dollars - Thats a lot of coin.

Slow days are great for browsing the net and finding interesting facts that will either make you raise your eyebrows or go WOW!!!


Today i found this lil gem in the news...apparently the cost of the Iraq war is around 1 Trillion dollars, read on....


When the Sunday morning political pundits began talking last year about the tab for the war in Iraq hitting $1 trillion, Rob Simpson sprang from his sofa in indignation.
"Why aren't people outraged about this? Why aren't we hearing about it?" Simpson asked. And then it came to him: "Nobody knows what a trillion dollars is.

"The amount -- a 1 with 12 zeros trailing behind -- was just too big to comprehend.
So Simpson, 51, decided to embark "on an unusual but intriguing research project" to put the dollars and cents of the war into perspective. He hired some assistants and spent 12 months immersed in economic data and crunching numbers.

The result is a slim but heavily annotated paperback titled "What We Could Have Done with the Money: 50 Ways to Spend the Trillion Dollars We've Spent on Iraq."
Simpson is no geopolitical, macro-economic, inside-the-beltway expert. He's an armchair analyst and creative director for an advertising agency, a former radio announcer and music critic in Ontario and a one-time voiceover actor.

His alternative spending choices reflect his curiosity and wit.
He calculates $1 trillion could
Pave the entire U.S. interstate highway system with 23.5-karat gold leaf.
Buy every person on the planet an iPod.
Give every high school student in the United States a free college education.
Pay off every American's credit card.
Buy a Buick for every senior citizen still driving in the United States.
"As I started exploring, I was really taken aback by some of the things that can be done, both the absurd and the practical," Simpson said.

America could the double the 663,000 cops on the beat for 32 years. It could buy 16.6 million Habitat for Humanity houses, enough for 43 million Americans.
Now imagine investing that $1 trillion in the stock market -- perhaps a riskier proposition today than when Simpson finished the book -- to make it grow and last longer. He used an accepted long-term return on investment of 9 percent annually, with compounding interest.
The investment approach could pay for 1.9 million additional teachers for America's classrooms, retrain 4 million workers a year or lay a foundation for paying Social Security benefits in 65 years to every child born in the United States, beginning today.

It's too recent to make Simpson's list, but that $1 trillion also could have paid for the Bush administration's financial bailout plan, with $300 billion to spare. It might not be enough, however, to pay for the war in Iraq. Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz recently has upped his estimate of the war's cost to $3 trillion.
Simpson created a Web site companion to his book that lets you go virtual shopping with a $1 trillion credit card. Choices range from buying sports franchises to theme parks, from helping disabled veterans to polar bears.

Click on Air Force One, the president's $325 million airplane. The program asks: "Quantity?"
"At one point we couldn't find anybody who actually stuck with it long enough to spend $1 trillion," Simpson said. "It will wear you out."
Taken from courierpostonline.com


Id love to to have a crack at spending that cool Trillion.


But then i got thinking, well if thats what the US didnt get for their money what did they get?
Of course pro war people will say that Iraq got liberation, and the US have made the world a better place, but after some more digging i found this lil piece on http://www.about.com/. It tells us some of what 1 Trillion dollars did get ya.....



U.S. SPENDING IN IRAQ
Spent & Approved War-Spending - About $600 billion of US taxpayers' funds. In June 2008, President Bush signed a bill approving about 200 billion more for 2008, which brings the cumulative total to close to $800 billion.
U.S. Monthly Spending in Iraq - $12 billion in 2008


U.S. Spending per Second - $5,000 in 2008 (per Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on May 5, 2008)


Cost of deploying one U.S. soldier for one year in Iraq - $390,000 (Congressional Research Service)

Lost & Unaccounted for in Iraq - $9 billion of US taxpayers' money and $549.7 milion in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors. Also, per ABC News, 190,000 guns, including 110,000 AK-47 rifles.

Missing - $1 billion in tractor trailers, tank recovery vehicles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other equipment and services provided to the Iraqi security forces. (Per CBS News on Dec 6, 2007.)

Mismanaged & Wasted in Iraq - $10 billion, per Feb 2007 Congressional hearings

Halliburton Overcharges Classified by the Pentagon as Unreasonable and Unsupported - $1.4 billion

Amount paid to KBR, a former Halliburton division, to supply U.S. military in Iraq with food, fuel, housing and other items - $20 billion

Portion of the $20 billion paid to KBR that Pentagon auditors deem "questionable or supportable" - $3.2 billion

Number of major U.S. bases in Iraq - 75 (The Nation/New York Times)

TROOPS IN IRAQ
Iraqi Troops Trained and Able to Function Independent of U.S. Forces - 6,000 as of May 2007 (per NBC's "Meet the Press" on May 20, 2007)

Troops in Iraq - Total 152,850, including 146,000 from the US, 4,000 from the UK, 900 from Poland, 650 from South Korea and 1,300 from all other nations

U.S. Troop Casualties - 4,188 US troops; 98% male. 91% non-officers; 82% active duty, 11% National Guard; 74% Caucasian, 9% African-American, 11% Latino. 19% killed by non-hostile causes. 54% of US casualties were under 25 years old. 72% were from the US Army

Non-U.S. Troop Casualties - Total 313, with 176 from the UK

US Troops Wounded - 30,757, 20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries (total excludes psychological injuries)

US Troops with Serious Mental Health Problems - 30% of US troops develop serious mental health problems within 3 to 4 months of returning home

US Military Helicopters Downed in Iraq - 68 total, at least 36 by enemy fire

IRAQI TROOPS, CIVILIANS & OTHERS IN IRAQ
Private Contractors in Iraq, Working in Support of US Army Troops - More than 180,000 in August 2007, per The Nation/LA Times.

Journalists killed - 135, 91 by murder and 44 by acts of war

Journalists killed by US Forces - 14

Iraqi Police and Soldiers Killed - 8,719

Iraqi Civilians Killed, Estimated - A UN issued report dated Sept 20, 2006 stating that Iraqi civilian casualties have been significantly under-reported. Casualties are reported at 50,000 to over 100,000, but may be much higher. Some informed estimates place Iraqi civilian casualities at over 600,000.


Iraqi Insurgents Killed, Roughly Estimated - 55,000

Non-Iraqi Contractors and Civilian Workers Killed - 554

Non-Iraqi Kidnapped - 306, including 57 killed, 147 released, 4 escaped, 6 rescued and 89 status unknown.


Daily Insurgent Attacks, Feb 2004 - 14

Daily Insurgent Attacks, May 2007 - 163

Estimated Insurgency Strength, Nov 2003 - 15,000

Estimated Insurgency Strength, Oct 2006 - 20,000 - 30,000

Estimated Insurgency Strength, June 2007 - 70,000

QUALITY OF LIFE INDICATORS
Iraqis Displaced Inside Iraq, by Iraq War, as of May 2007 - 2,255,000

Iraqi Refugees in Syria & Jordan - 2.1 million to 2.25 million

Iraqi Unemployment Rate - 27 to 60%, where curfew not in effect

Consumer Price Inflation in 2006 - 50%

Iraqi Children Suffering from Chronic Malnutrition - 28% in June 2007 (Per CNN.com, July 30, 2007)

Percent of professionals who have left Iraq since 2003 - 40%

Iraqi Physicians Before 2003 Invasion - 34,000

Iraqi Physicians Who Have Left Iraq Since 2005 Invasion - 12,000

Iraqi Physicians Murdered Since 2003 Invasion - 2,000

Average Daily Hours Iraqi Homes Have Electricity - 1 to 2 hours, per Ryan Crocker, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq (Per Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2007)

Average Daily Hours Iraqi Homes Have Electricity - 10.9 in May 2007

Average Daily Hours Baghdad Homes Have Electricity - 5.6 in May 2007

Pre-War Daily Hours Baghdad Homes Have Electricity - 16 to 24

Number of Iraqi Homes Connected to Sewer Systems - 37%

Iraqis without access to adequate water supplies - 70% (Per CNN.com, July 30, 2007)

Water Treatment Plants Rehabilitated - 22%

RESULTS OF POLL Taken in Iraq in August 2005 by the British Ministry of Defense (Source: Brookings Institute)
Iraqis "strongly opposed to presence of coalition troops - 82%

Iraqis who believe Coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security - less than 1%

Iraqis who feel less ecure because of the occupation - 67%

Iraqis who do not have confidence in multi-national forces - 72%

Ok so after reading that im going to go out on a limb and say...maybe that trillion has not been used as wisely as maybe u and I could have spent it. Actually i recon that maybe its been how do you say...pissed down the drain.

Now im no financial wizard but in todays world economic crisis im preeeeety sure that 1 trillion dollars would come in handy right now. Still what do you and i know.
Best leave it to the Grown ups. They know best. Right?

Sometimes the World sickens me

Every man woman and child on this planet belongs to the human race.

We are all from different backgrounds and countries, we all follow different religions and are from very diverse cultures but in the end we all have a heart, a brain and reside on the top of the food chain.

So how can the following be allowed to happen....

Thousands of people gathered to witness 50 Somali men stone a woman to death after an Islamic court in the southern port of Kismayo found her guilty of adultery, witnesses say. Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow, who had been found guilty of extra-marital intercourse was buried in the ground up to her neck while the men pelted her head with rocks today, they said.
"Our sister Aisho asked the Islamic Sharia court in Kismayo to be charged and punished for the crime she committed," local Islamist leader Sheikh Hayakallah told the crowd. "She admitted in front of the court to engaging in adulterous sexual intercourse," he added. "She was asked several times to review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the deserved punishment to apply."
The execution was carried out in one of the city's main squares.
The port of Kismayo was seized in August by a coalition of forces loyal to rebel leader Hassan Turki, and the Shebab, the country's main radical Islamist insurgent organisation. Turki is listed as a terrorist financier by Washington.
The new administration formed there began implementing a strict form of Sharia (Islamic law). "This afternoon we are telling the people of Kismayo that we are practising a punishment that is rare in this region and was carried out in Kismayo for the first time," Sheikh Hayakallah said.
Cameras were banned from the public stoning but print and radio journalists were allowed to attend.
AFP


OK She she committed adultery and said that she deserved and wanted the punishment...and..sure the punishment is rare but to think that this punishment fits the crime in Islamic Law is a fucking joke.

Do they live in caves in Kismayo, carry stone axes, hunt for food and grunt as a language?

To bury a woman up to her neck and pelt rocks at her head till she is dead is disgusting,. Even as a supporter of Capital punishment i find this abhorrent.

Islamic Law huh?

I think you have raised the bar a lil high there guys...if that's what you do to someone that has committed adultery what do you do to the child murdering Kiddy fiddlers? ...you've left yourself no where to go...

Sometimes i just sit down and just ask myself how did some of the human race actually evolve without any humanity?
Then again sometimes i just resign to the fact that some of the people just aren't human.

I guess we are talking about Somalia.

Sad really.

What frustrates you?

Remember the classic line from Austin Powers father Nigel (Played by legend Michael Caine):

"There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures... and the Dutch." Well im pretty sure theres more than 2 i can add onto my list.

Yeah Yeah sure youll think im negative talking about the things i hate and not the things i love but its easy to remember the things you hate because every now and then your reminded of them, the things you love you take for granted most times and so they are pretty transparent.

Ive started a list (you ll see it on the right) of all the things that frustrate me or things i downright hate and despise. I picked the hate things because the Love things would mean too big of a list.

To start off the list I'm adding 3 things: Slow walkers, People who stand in the middle of an escalator so you cant get past and teenage phone bills. All 3 of these are self explanatory so there is no need to do into depth as to why i hate them because i feel my head could actually explode when i get to the bit about Teenage phone bills.

Feel free to comment on your hates or if you have a mitigating argument and would like to defend one of my pet hates feel free.

Let the list begin!

At least i didnt get this one o.0

Who likes Gadgets and Technology

Please dont mistake this for my Profile Pic

Pick me.

Geeks have changed. I guess you could call me a geek but i dont fit the mould that people seem to think a geek is or in most cases was.

We dont all wear pocket protectors and stand around the water cooler debating whether Kirk was the best commander of the Enterprise or if the Star Wars movies are based on fact or whether Stanley Tweedle is the Best choice for commander of the Lexx.

I love Technology as much as i love sport. Im 6 foot 5 inches tall and weigh 120kg. Im not afraid of spiders and love beer. Hell gimme some raw meat and ill eat it faster than Bear Grills can chew on a tree frog.

My point is Geeks are IN.

According to MSNBC geeks are the new chic....chicks dig us...

I still have friends that are shit scared of Computers and technology in general and i just sit there and think of all the things they are missing out on. They arent so much stuck in the past but more missing out on the future. Sure the "Good ol days" were just that ...good, but the now is soo not worth missing out on.

If i was to say Android most of my friends would thing of R2D2 or C3PO not the HOT Google phone, a Mac is a hamburger, spam horrible tin meat and Ram is something you do when your on a Dodgem car.

Sometimes im sure people think im talking a different language and most times I decide not to ask things like " So who here listens to the TwiT Podcast" just because the sound of crickets can be deafening. Is not just the guys that are geeks, there are plenty of Geekgirls out there as well and its only a matter of time till we take over the world. Gadgets and Tech stuff is great, the fact that you are reading this means that you yourself are part geek....dont hide it or try to push it away, we are evolving. Embrace it, you know you want to.

Matthew once said "The Meek shall inherit the earth"

Im sure he was misquoted :)

Anyone got a tissue?

Its really funny how fast the Aussie dollar plunged when it was revealed the US economy was going tits up. Come to think of it the whole global economy went south when US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said that it would be Spaghetti and not caviar for dinner for the next little while and he has actually said its going to get worse. So whats in store for us?

Should i stock up on Spam, take out my savings and shove it under my mattress?

Should i get the extra magazine and the spare 400 rounds for the M60 and put them in the car, check the perimeters and restock the Water bottles?

Or should i live on the edge of financial ruin, borrow big time and buy out all the poor saps who's businesses and ventures are going to fall into the abyss of financial despair and wait for the recovery that will see me one of the 10 most richest men in the world?

I doubt if ill do anything.

Ill sit here and gaze in wonderment as the Interest rates fall by 1 percent at a time. Ill get my wages on the 15th, pay my bills and be broke on the 20th. Ill save my little bit of cash to finance Christmas and go on my little holiday and then ill get back on the treadmill and not worry about it all, just like everyone else.

Its not that i don't care - i do really, but bottom line is The US rule the world and now we all have to suffer the consequences of their actions, and theres nothing we can do about it. With such a large population and to seemingly run the planet you'd think that they would have enough smart people to forecast a few years ahead and be able to see these things building up and perhaps nip it in the bud before it grows into a Triffid and starts devouring everyone around it.

They prolly do but I guess all that power, the responsibility and the greed can eventually turn into your worst enemy and stab your eyes out while you have your back turned.

The US sneezed and we all got a cold.

Typical!

http://www.kfwimer.com/dbj_intro.html

I moved!!

I moved from another blog host so below are my last previous few posts.

Email - How many Addresses do you have?
(30th Sep, 2008 at 12:02 PM)

I have 5.

One is specifically used to register for stuff on the WWW, that way i know all the spam will end up in there and i really dont care. Email has made our lives easier but at the same time its frustrated us to the point of recreating the Jonestown massacre. I wonder how many more people would have paid the ultimate price if Jim Jones had Inboxes full of spam every time he logged on.

No matter how hard you try to protect yourself eventually you will one day check your email and see that dreadded net note telling you that your impotent and need Viagra ASAP, or informing you that theres a breakthru in penis pumps and in the same breath explaining to you how to recover the fortune left to you by a Nigerian prince thats your long lost uncle.

Straight away you start asking yourself "Where did i slip up? Where did i mistakenly enter this email address? Im doomed".....Im willing to go out on a limb here and say that every one of you has at least 2 email addresses thats bombarded with spam. My mail client has had more rules created than the World Health Organisation.

Ive created this entry because this morning i logged into my Gmail account that i created over 4 years ago for the first time in over 2 years.

Gmail was the Brainchild of Google and offers 7gb of storage space to its users. In the beginning you could only get a Gmail address by being invited by another user but now its open beta and open to the public. I thought why not ill grab one, it will come in useful one day.

So here i am thinking i might start using that Gmail account to store files online. After 20 mins of trying to remember my password i log in...only to be hit in the face by a message saying i have over 2000 unread emails and over 4000 emails in my spam folder.

My first thought: " Am i going to read them all"?

Second thought : " How many people know this email Address"?

Then: "Who are all these people"??????

I had Emails from people i had never heard of which is the usual case with spam but the thing that struck me as odd was the amount of people the spammers had me confused with.The C in ctucker had become cris, craig, charlie, charlene etc etc etc. Spammers really just dont discriminate.

So now im slowly culling them down - sure i could delete them all in one hit but im glad i didnt. So far ive won over 400 million dollars in lotteries and have found im the hier to the throne in 4 countries.To any of you that have sent mail to tux@tuxinthecloud.com, ill get back to you shortly....

Log on and Switch off, Online gaming Rocks

(25th Sep, 2008 at 12:33 PM)

I play Online games.

With that one line your now thinking that im a nerd, have no life or friends and have seen every episode of Dr Who ever made. Online Gaming is one of those things you either get or you dont, there is no in between.

Well guess what, im not alone. Online gamers range from 15 to 90. Work in industries from butchershops to Multimillion corporates. Some are mums, dads, and prolly one of your best friendsComputer games not only help drive technology and hardware sales but provide enough revenue to the companies that make them to make some countries budgets look like my 1980 tuck shop bill.

Its estimated that Blizzard Entertainments fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, World of Warcraft , has almost 11 million subscribers and according to http://www.firingsquad.com/ , Vivendi Games (Which Blizzard is a division of ) made 1.51 billion dollars in 2007, up over 26 percent from the prior year.

WoW holds about a 60 percent share of the of the massively multiplayer online game market but its safe to say that the Makers of Everquest etc make a good living from Games.Not everyone however wants to dress up like a troll and stab things, or gather Fish for Matsy Rollingpin, some like to dress like futuristic gladiators and shoot each other in the head with Railguns, or fill a screen up with coloured blocks that drop at an ever increasing rate till your brain cant decide what to do, whatever your taste theres a game for it.

Gaming is like a drug. My first taste of this Online gaming malarkey was when i connected my Pentium III to a server hosting a game called Quake II. I ran around for an hour and couldnt hit a fugging thing, the players on the server were moving 100 times faster than me and i spent most of my time respawning after getting a BFG in the face. I started to think that all these people are on crack, i need to either start running around like im on crack or go back to solitaire. Within the week i was spending more time with my railgun than my wife. After 2 weeks i was racking up 20 or so kills a match and within the month i had bought a new modem, a new video and soundcard and was constantly tweaking my config file to lower my ping by 2, hopefully that would mean the difference between life or death. I was Hooked for life.

It wasnt until i bought a little game called Everquest 2 that i realised how addictive Gaming can be. I kept saying to myself " im not paying $70 for a game and then pay $20 a month to play it. What can it possibly offer me for that much money?"I didnt take me long to realise what this Massively Multiplayer Gaming was all about and what it did have to offer.

It wasnt just about sitting at home wasting spotty school kids with a shotgun and trying to get 20 kills before anyone else, it was about imersing yourslf in something and being able to be something or someone your not. It was about joining a guild and getting to know people that just like you had logged on to switch off reality for a bit. It was about gamers from around the world logging into a game and being right there with you, helping you even tho some were millions of miles away. It was all about the community.

The funny part about the Community is at times they can be very fickle. Take MMOs, for a while back you either played EQ2 or WoW. Each were sworn enemies to each other and because of that i first heard the term Fanboy, someone that will defend their game no matter what.Now in my eyes to each their own. If you play something thats fun then play it. Dont be worried that the game you like has less people playing it then any other, if its fun go hard.

There are however the fanboys of other games that will bag your chosen game till you want to shoot them in the face (head over to the Age of Conan forums for a taste of this). Its funny really because it seems they spend more time dissing your chosen game than actually playing their own.

Each time a new MMO is released the buzz can be heard from space. Players will leave the games they have played for years to be part of the New Community leaving their old one behind. I liken it to when you were at school and all of a sudden your best friend gets a girlfriend and suddenly you feel all alone.

Problem is with so much competiton you need to get your Billion dollar game into the market ASAP and some developers may cut corners etc to meet deadlines. The new game thats released has suddenly turned the buzz into a thunderous scream of disappointment. As i said the communities can be very fickle and to promise so much and to not deliver can make or break a company overnight.

As far as online games are concerned, theres a new kid in town. Warhammer Online has finally gone live. The screaming has stopped and the buzz is back, for now at least. Did i get moist at the thought of being one of the buzzing millions to flock to their servers? No. Will i? Prolly not, ill be too busy collecting fish for Matsy Rolling pin quietly screaming about my sojourn into Age of Conan. May it rest in Peace.I really hope War! is a success. With the last few MMO's promising the world but offer not a lot the gaming industry and we gamers will benefit from another big player in the market.

+ =

AFL Grand final time - Hooray

(23rd Sep, 2008 at 2:21 PM)

The AFL Grand Final is on Saturday and once again every Melbournian will think that the day rates up there with the birth of Christ. Unfortunately being a follower of AFL for over 35 years and having recently denounced it as a game that doesnt project itself onto the screen as it does live, id have to say the Melbournians have got it wrong.

AFL is a great sport to watch live but watch it on TV and it turns into hours of commentators dribbling into ther cups. Its not the messiah, its just a very naughty boy.

Problem is try buying a ticket to the Grand Final.... but dont rush out just yet, once you have done the math taking into consideration the amount of seats in the ground, the paltry number of tickets that actually go on sale to the public and the amount of bogans you would have to push your way thru to get to your seat thats are already being inhabited by something that resembles a family of throwbacks from a Kath and Kim casting session that you now have to argue with till 3 quarter time just to sit in the seats you sold your grandmothers corpse to buy, you will realise that if you cant get tickets you might as well take the kids out mushrooming, its just as much fun ...except the arguments youll be having is with the rest of the family that are complaining that you have stopped to go fishing at the only spot on the Hawksbury that has a rather large dog shit very near where you have placed your hot chips.

I guess a lot of sports are like that, not really the same unless your there. Problem is that most times it will cost you your only remaining bollock to buy tickets, grab your kids that shitty memorabilia and purchase hot food that resembles that item thats sitting at said fishing spot.To old Joe average with his 2.4 kids and his award wage job, a Grand Final ticket is as far away as the next Collingwood premiership.

Think ill go mushrooming this weekend.

V

So, What do you use it for?

(19th Sep, 2008 at 12:13 PM)

The internet - Possibly the most misused and greatest man made invention to never see its full potential. The Internet basically came into mainstream use in the 1990's altho it had existed decades before it was the 90s where it took off, growing in popularity by 100 percent each year, and it was CERN that unvieled the new World Wide Web project in 1991 which was really the basis for what we have now.

Its hard to believe that some kids never new the world without the internet. They think that getting music is free, and anything you want can be downloaded, theres a whole generation that dont know what a record looks like.

This all brings me to my main question, What do you use the internet for? The net has so much potential its ridiculous, Wikipedia can give you information about almost everything and everyone in seconds. Granted 20 percent of the shit on there is incorrect however it will give you the gist of what something is all about and who did what. Google is taking over the universe with images, maps, news, videos etc and creating a portal for use to do all our computing in The Cloud and lets not forget Microsoft. Id like to know how many houses in the western world have a microsoft product or brand in their house.

The Net can be used for so much more than just downloading copyright material and watching Youporn and the great thing is every day we find more and more things to use the WWW for. The planet has become a very small place and thats courtesy of the internet. Its only a matter of time until the internet as we know it today will be obsolete, replaced by an even faster network with 100 times the capacity and potential for growth that what we have now.

Its up to us as a society to realise its what this will mean to the human race and make it work for us. I just hope that by then Apple and Microsoft can play nicely together.

Cant we just get along?