Monday, December 14, 2009

Kajaki Dam-The Logistics and Security Nightmare in Afghanistan

Last year, two thousand British troops took part in a mission to deliver 220 tons of equipment to the Kajaki dam in Afghanistan. It took two thousand troops because NATO could not secure 30 miles of road from the Taliban. Now it seems the turbine will not be used because NATO can still not secure the same 30 miles of road.

Do the math. Afghanistan is landlocked. It is a logistical nightmare. Putin has generously allowed US forces to fly across Russia to get there. Why not help the Americans to go broke and ultimately be humiliated in Afghanistan?

Watch the video and read the article. Would you throw in 30,000 more troops and tens of billions of freshly printed dollars to accomplish exactly what?

_____________________________________________





Taliban stalls key hydroelectric turbine project in Afghanistan
Convoy diverted British troops from front but generator may never be used

Jon Boone in Kabul
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 13 December 2009 22.18 GMT




An enormous hydroelectric turbine dragged at huge cost by British troops through Taliban heartlands last year may never be installed because Nato has been unable to secure a 30-mile stretch of road leading to an isolated dam in northern Helmand.

The daring mission to deliver 220 tonnes of equipment to the Kajaki dam in Afghanistan in September 2008 was hailed as one of the biggest success stories of the British Army's three-year deployment in Helmand.

Two thousand British troops took part in the five-day convoy through enemy territory, which was launched because the main road leading to the dam was too vulnerable to Taliban attacks.

Senior British officers privately say the enormous diversion of scarce military resources for the operation allowed the Taliban to make major gains in other critical areas of the province, including Nad Ali, which subsequently saw some of the most intense fighting between British forces and insurgents.

Within a couple of months of the Kajaki operation, areas close to the British base in Lashkar Gah had deteriorated so badly that troops had to be resupplied by air drop.

The dam continues to be besieged by Taliban fighters and, 15 months after the mission by the UK troops, the turbine's components remain unassembled because huge amounts of cement that are required to install the equipment cannot be delivered safely.

Now the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the wing of the United States government which has so far pumped $47m (£29m) into the project, intended to electrify much of southern Afghanistan, says it is packing the turbine parts away and looking for other energy projects to invest in across Afghanistan.

"Our message is that until we have a secure road we cannot continue with the installation of turbine two," said John Smith-Sreen, head of energy and water projects for USAID in Kabul.

"When the turbine was moved in by British and American forces it was a huge effort and it was done in a point of time. But we can't move in the large quantity of cement and aggregate that we need in a point of time, we need a sustained effort," he said.

The road would need to be secured for about half a year.

While the cement required could probably be transported in around half that time, civilian contractors would need to see the road had been secured for about three months to attract them to the project, Smith-Sreen said.

He added that CMIC, a Chinese company contracted to install the turbine, "left due to security concerns overnight" when it was clear that the road would not be secured. The agency has not been able to find another subcontractor prepared to do the work.

USAID says about 30 miles of road is affected, but at a time when General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, is pursuing a strategy of concentrating effort on protecting large towns and cities from Taliban influence, securing a stretch of road in a sparsely populated area of northern Helmand is unlikely to be a priority.

A spokesman for Task Force Helmand said there are no plans to change the current security operations at Kajaki, where British soldiers are responsible for an ongoing effort to provide a security "bubble" around the plant.

While insurgents have been unable to get close to the dam and its turbine hall, heavy fighting around the perimeter of the area of British control is an almost daily occurrence.

Smith-Sreen said USAID was currently "deciding what to do" with the turbine, but that the process of mothballing it had already begun in the run up to the contract expiring in April.

"Unless we are told otherwise we are going to continue the process of inventorying the parts and storing them away securely," he said. He said the agency had other areas where it was considering investing resources, including smaller electricity projects across country.

The problem of Kajaki highlights an dilemma for Nato forces trying to use development to win hearts and minds in an area where construction work is impossible or hugely expensive.

When the dam was built by US engineers in the 1950s as part of the cold war gamesmanship with the Soviet Union two turbines were installed, but a third bay was constructed and left empty. The intention had been to put the turbine in that slot when it was delivered last year.

Smith-Sreen said USAID was satisfied with the work it has been able to do to rehabilitate the two existing turbines, which since October have been transmitting around 33 megawatts to the southern provinces – "more power than either Kandahar or Helmand has seen for 30 years".

However, the same fighting that has made the road leading to the dam insecure has also led to frequent blackouts for Kandahar city and Lashkar Gah, with the power transmission lines from the remote generating plant regularly cut.

"We've had to slice the line back together many times," he said.


72 comments:

  1. Posted by: bmatkin
    Dec 13, 11:16 PM

    I have heard all these arguments before and while they are realistic given the nature of the U.S. government at this time, they are not valid.

    Viet Nam was lost solely to two things, first, a terrible strategy on war prosecution that cost 50,000 U.S. lives. Secondly, the left ran an all out propaganda war.

    At the end, the U.S. had won the fight, and won the war but failed to solidify the victory.

    wars are ultimately won by making the enemy despair. That's it, (or wiping out every man, woman and child of the opposition, which is total despair) Hanoi didn't despair, they just waited for Cronkite to kill the will.

    Viet Nam could have been far lest costly if the U.S. wasn't so squeamish about leveling N. Vietnam. You can't care about borders, you can't care about niceties and politics, you have to care about making the enemy despair. When all their hope is gone, you win.
    Hiroshima and Nagasaki are classic cases in point.

    Afghanistan is no different, if you catch bad guys being aided by a village, you wipe out the village. You don't worry about borders and you certainly don't worry about waterboarding KSM.

    War is evil, cruel, impersonal, and final. If you play it like a game you are going to lose. Nobody, but countries that have "progressives" worry about beating the crap out of the enemy to help your side. Treating people that want to kill you like
    bad children is the definition of stupidity. It has nothing to do with "American values". "We are better than that" You are stupider than that. Niceties are for your guys, not the others. Ten minutes before you just shot 15 of his buddies in the back without blinking an eye and now you want to had him a Koran.

    Had he had the honor of being in a Uniform, and fighting by rules, then by all means treat them with in the bounds. (Which still may include leaving him in a very cold room for a few hours while listening to a loud Springsteen. (Now that's torture)

    This doesn't mean you don't make friends, you just can't be squeamish about your enemies. Germans who had been bombed into submission did not give the invading WWII troops much trouble even though those armies just killed their sons, fathers and families. In fact, many Germans had already despaired and wanted an end.

    We cannot win in Afghanistan with wimpy, half-baked, half-assed policies. We need to go in there like we mean it.
    So, the Mr. Miller's thoughts are realistic, just not valid.



    It's a son of a bitch.

    One must admit, Osama did a good job of sucking us in there. I can't find anybody who thinks the current strategy has a chance of working. Other than a Canadian general, who seemed to think things weren't that bad in most of the country.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 18 months is beginning to look like a long time.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pakistan Blocks Deportation of five (REAL) Americans

    Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A court order issued Monday blocks five Americans arrested in Pakistan last week from being deported or being handed over to the FBI, officials told CNN.

    "All the government functionaries, including federal government or provincial governments are directed not to hand over the alleged detainees (Americans) to any American agencies, or any other foreign agencies," the order said, according to Faisal Zaman, attorney for the government of Pakistan's Punjab province.

    The five were arrested Wednesday amid suspicion that they were plotting terrorist attacks. They were transferred Saturday from the small town where they were seized to a more secure location in Lahore, police said.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, it'll be a lot longer than 18 months, whit. Lot, lot longer.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Where is the indignation on the Left? He is their guy. I never expected Obama to be competent. He was about as unqulified as possible to be POTUS.

    He has been rolled by the bankers, the generals, the unions, the lobbyists, Pelosi, Reid, Putin, the Iranians, Hugo Chavez and Rahm Emanuel.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "One commenter to Joshua’s post appears to be on drugs, when he dreams a psychedelic vision wherein Obama talks the Taliban into siding with the U.S. and guarding the dam as if they were productive members of society. But inebriated commenters notwithstanding, The Captain’s Journal pointed out in the above two links one week before Michael Yon covered this affair (and it was a brave operation indeed by British forces) that similar to the irrigation canal that was blocked by al Qaeda in Iraq by merely shoveling dirt into it, and the electricity supplies that were terminated by simply destroying the local electrical grid, the Taliban don’t have to destroy the dam or the generators.

    All they have to do is kill the operators or destroy the electrical grid by cutting transmission lines or blowing up towers."

    ReplyDelete
  7. He was rolled by Chavez? News to me in my little corner of the world.

    I must've been Christmas shopping.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Where Eagles Dare
    Original Yon article of transport to the dam.
    Great pics as always.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Or by the Russians, who pulled their tanks from Georgia.

    Or in the Lebanese section of the Levant, where US allies won the election.

    Or in Iraq where the withdrawal continues and the Russians recovered their oil concessions.

    Or in Hopeinhagen, where there is no climate accord.

    Or in the Levant, where the Zionist settlements continue to violate the Law of Nations.

    Obama and US have not been rolled anywhere, outside the US. We are maintaining course and speed.

    Domestically, all the EB fears have, to date, been unjustified, as it is the liberal left that was rolled, as predicted here for more than a year.

    ReplyDelete
  10. If Stan the Man can deliver the head of Doc Z on a silver platter, victory will be ours, the parades will commence.

    Obama, and Stan, will be American heroes.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Where is the outrage on the Left? Well, lemme see...They're going to deprive you of the satisfaction because they spent eight years spun into the ceiling under the previous management. They'll get mopey; they'll become disgruntled and noisily disillusioned. But they just recently ended a long and exhausting affair with outrage. Do you know how much it takes to gin up another one when it's your own guy warming the chair?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Bob quoted: War is evil, cruel, impersonal, and final. If you play it like a game you are going to lose. Nobody, but countries that have "progressives" worry about beating the crap out of the enemy to help your side.

    Ironically, to tweak the Right, the Left loves to cozy up to dictators like Putin or Ahmedinejad who would not think twice to level their enemies' cities.

    ReplyDelete
  13. DR: Or in the Levant, where the Zionist settlements continue to violate the Law of Nations.

    Gosh, then we better call the Police of Nations and haul Bibi up before the Court of Nations.

    ReplyDelete
  14. "I have always known these kids as fun-loving, career-focused children that had a bright future for themselves," said Mustafa Abu Maryam, youth coordinator at the I.C.N.A. Center, an affiliate of the the Islamic Circle of North America, in Alexandria, Virginia. "As far as I know they were wholesome kids. Very goofy. You know, talked about girls. Very wholesome."

    "Golly Gee, Jughead, there's Betty and Veronica waving over there, let's go ask them to the prom!"

    "Naw, Arch, I've got more Suras to memorize to pass Q'u'r'an 101 before I can be accepted as a suicide bomber."

    ReplyDelete
  15. Sobering outlook on Afghan war

    McCaffrey made the report at the invitation of Gens. David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commanders for the Middle East and Afghanistan, respectively.

    McCaffrey said we are unlikely to achieve our political and military goals in 18 months — the timeline set by President Obama for the beginning of a reduction in U.S. forces.

    "This will inevitably become a three- to 10-year strategy to build a viable Afghan state with their own security forces that can allow us to withdraw," McCaffrey said. "It may well cost us an additional $300 billion, and we are likely to suffer thousands more U.S. casualties."

    Afghanistan is "still in the 14th century," he said. Seventy percent of the population is illiterate, and it is the world's second-most corrupt nation, after Somalia.

    ---
    President Hamid Karzai is under enormous pressure from the U.S., his allies and the Afghan people, and is underweight, sick and has a nervous facial tic, McCaffrey said.

    But Karzai also is brilliant, well-educated, nonviolent and a patriot who deeply cares for his people — even if he is imperfect and "has a collection of ruffians in his inner circle," McCaffrey's report states.

    The retired general says the Afghan National Army is a growing success story, but the Afghan National Police are a work in progress, six years behind the army in development: "It will take a decade to create an Afghan National Police force with adequate integrity which can operate at village level in a competent manner."

    ReplyDelete
  16. 'Rat's delerious, think's Big John has become Big Barry.
    Goldwater, not BHO.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The ONE thing this admin has in its favor when it comes to Afghanistan is that nobody expects it to be short. Nobody expects it to be sexy fun. Nobody expects it to be easy.

    Everybody expects it rather to lengthy, miserable, costly, thankless, and quite possibly futile.

    There's something to be said for that.




    "Doc Z" would be the better bag, yes. Because he is for all intents and purposes Chief Cook and Bottle Washer for AQ. The Other Guy would be a huge symbolic victory and either would go a long way toward putting the charm back into a decidedly charmless war, but Zawahiri would be double good.

    ReplyDelete
  18. A Quarter Billion for Sparks Nevada
    This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $248,312,153. Click on the link below for more information on the IED Jammer Contract.
    ---
    Beats Gambling, these days.

    ReplyDelete
  19. In a striking example of grade inflation, Obumble gives himself a B+ for his first year in office, saying on some program or other that he would have received a solid A if not for Republican intransigence on health care reform, and the unemployment numbers.

    ReplyDelete
  20. "Nobody expects it to be sexy fun."
    ???
    Crap! I'm canceling my subscription!

    ReplyDelete
  21. He gave himself the minority bonus points, al-Bob.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I was thinking, Doug, of the heady early days of the War That Became Long (And Then Required Much Embarrassed Explanation).

    ReplyDelete
  23. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Trish, the reason you saw those falling stars was there was a meteor shower last night. Heard it on Coast to Coast. All I could see was falling snowflakes.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Hide this decline--

    RASMUSSEN POLL: Obama Job Approval Falls to New Low at 44%... Developing...

    ReplyDelete
  26. Fresh violence kills 15 Afghan police

    KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Dec 14 - Fifteen Afghan policemen were killed at their posts in two separate attacks on Monday, officials said, in one of the bloodiest days for the force in many months.

    Eight policemen were killed when insurgents attacked their checkpoint shortly after midnight in the relatively secure northern Baghlan province. Hours later, three policemen turned on their own colleagues, shooting dead seven other policemen in the restive southern province of Helmand.

    ReplyDelete
  27. We used to watch meteor showers in Belgium, bob. July, August, and into September. Out in the countryside it was pitch black and on a clear night the viewing was spectacular.

    I'm going to miss my rooftop and brilliant nighttime skies here. I'm one of the lucky few.

    ReplyDelete
  28. We always used to watch the Perseids, aka the "tears of St. Lawrence", at the lake in August. Sometimes we'd even get some northern lights too, if we were lucky.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Following Sam's post out a bit--



    Explosive Deceit

    The exposure of Iran’s programme to test an essential component of a nuclear weapon confirms a pattern of duplicity by a bellicose regime

    Winston Churchill described the actions of Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The nuclear diplomacy of Iran is constructed more simply: it is one lie after another. Western diplomacy has proved susceptible to the tactic. A US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in December 2007 concluded that Iran was “less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005”. Documents obtained by The Times reveal that this assessment was worthless.

    The information comes from Iran’s most sensitive nuclear project. It concerns a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator. This is the component of a nuclear weapon that triggers the explosion. The plan was initiated in the very year that the NIE delivered its reassuring message.


    Initiated the very year that the NIE delivered its reassuring message.

    ReplyDelete
  30. NIEs are useless pieces of shit since the decision was made - for political reasons - to declassify them in summary. Those summaries themselves are so comically hedged that the whole endeavor is an exercise in pointlessness.

    And whaddya do? No bringing back the days when few knew what an NIE is.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Bob: In a striking example of grade inflation, Obumble gives himself a B+ for his first year in office

    What a coincidence, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickles gave himself a B+ for his performance, which included NOT salting Seattle roads last winter, which completely shut down travel during peak holiday shopping season, because he didn't want to affect the pH balance for the fish in the Puget Sound with "anthropogenic" salt runoff (except that the roads in front of his house were kept immaculate), and this year he didn't even make the top two in the Mayoral race, and he must step down in days.

    ReplyDelete
  32. T, around here the highway dept. doesn't use salt anymore. They spray some sort of liquid. You'll see these little stain lines on the road where the spray nozzles have squirted. Don't know what's in it though. Seems to work good. They used to just dump the rock salt on the road.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Anti-Freeze?
    ...to kill all the wildlife, instead of rusting out Datsuns?
    ...would a patriotic American own a Datsun?

    ReplyDelete
  34. More success for the USA, thanks to Team Ombamamerica and their manipulation of those African delegations.

    New York Times - Lisa Friedman - ‎24 minutes ago‎
    COPENHAGEN -- African nations' bid today to force rich nations to take new emission pledges has thrown the United Nations' climate talks into disarray as meetings were adjourned or postponed.


    Look to the results obtained, not the rhetoric used.

    Stalemate in Copenhagen, that makes it a good day for the USA.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Do not dispair, the freedom loving small businesspeople and entrepreneurs of these United States will always find a way forward, despite the assumption of authority and the subsequent attempt to stifle those very freedoms required to succeed, by the Federal Socialists.

    Colorado's Green Rush: Medical marijuana

    Denver, Colorado (CNN) -- Driving down Broadway, it's easy to forget you are in the United States. Amid the antique stores, bars and fast-food joints occupying nearly every block are some of Denver's newest businesses: medical marijuana dispensaries.

    The locals call this thoroughfare "Broadsterdam." As in Amsterdam, Netherlands, these businesses openly advertise their wares, often with signs depicting large green marijuana leaves.

    "The American capitalist system is working," said attorney and medical marijuana advocate Rob Corry.

    It's a matter of supply and demand.

    "The demand has always been there," he said, "and the demand is growing daily because more doctors are willing to do this, and now businesses, entrepreneurs, mom-and-pop shops are cropping up to create a supply."

    Colorado voters legalized medical marijuana in 2000. For years, patients could get small amounts from "caregivers," the term for growers and dispensers who could each supply only five patients. In 2007, a court lifted that limit and business boomed.

    Between 2000 and 2008, the state issued about 2,000 medical marijuana cards to patients. That number has grown to more than 60,000 in the last year.


    Burn baby burn !!!

    Not the same meaning, as in 1968.

    There is a new day dawning for
    "States Rights"

    Glory be!

    ReplyDelete
  36. Seems like there's a bunch of products, al-doug. Icenator, Triple Melt, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Last night and tonight you can see the Geminid meteor shower.

    A new moon permits enough darkness to really see them well, if your skies are clear and not too light polluted.

    ReplyDelete
  38. COPENHAGEN – New computer modeling suggests the Arctic Ocean may be nearly ice-free in the summertime as early as 2014, Al Gore said Monday at the U.N. climate conference. This new projection, following several years of dramatic retreat by polar sea ice, suggests that the ice cap may nearly vanish in the summer much sooner than the year 2030, as was forecast by a U.S. government agency eight months ago.

    One U.S. government scientist Monday questioned the new prediction as too severe, but other researchers previously have projected a quicker end than 2030 to the Arctic summer ice cap.

    ReplyDelete
  39. I googled university of illinois polar ice data and found the Cryosphere Today

    A lot of ice has to melt in the next four years. More scary is the thought that Al Gore was almost elected President in 2000.

    ReplyDelete
  40. BTW- I heard that Silvio Berlusconi has openings on his security detail.

    ReplyDelete
  41. You can run
    But you cannot hide

    Millions of Bush administration e-mails recovered
    CNN - ‎2 hours ago‎

    The Bush administration e-mails had been "mislabeled and effectively lost," according to the National Security Archive. Washington (CNN) -- Computer technicians have recovered about 22 million Bush administration e-mails that the White House had said ...

    ReplyDelete
  42. San Francisco Chronicle
    (12-14) 16:56 PST SACRAMENTO --

    Advocates of legalizing marijuana say they've collected more than enough signatures to have California voters decide next year whether to tax and regulate the drug.

    ReplyDelete
  43. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled a US human rights agenda on Monday calling for universal standards that apply to all nations, prompting rights groups to urge the administration to live up to its rhetoric.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- Two Georgia men, including a former Georgia Tech student, were sentenced to 17 and 13 years in federal prison Monday for supporting terrorism.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Infrared Telescope Launched From California

    Scientists say the spacecraft's detectors are about 500 times more sensitive than those of the last infrared sky survey in 1983, and are capable of producing photograph-quality images of the objects they find.


    Article doesn't mention planets, but I think this is the telescope that is supposed to take a much better look at whatever planets may be around nearby stars.

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  46. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  47. Another clear, beautiful night so perhaps I will see more of the Geminid. Between bouts of packing up.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Porous borders, exemplified in this story:

    PHOENIX -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents seized nearly $800,000 in counterfeit goods during a weeklong operation targeting counterfeit products, authorities said.

    In Arizona, ICE agents hunted for counterfeit merchandise at three swap markets in Tucson and Phoenix as part of Operation Holiday Hoax, ICE Public Affairs Officer Vincent Picard said.

    Agents in Phoenix seized $8,510 worth of fake NFL and NBA jerseys and jackets from Santa Monica Gear, Picard said.

    About $788,275 worth of counterfeit clothing, shoes and jewelry was seized from 20 vendors at the Tanque Verde Swap Meet in Tucson, Picard said.

    Tucson seizures included fake Ed Hardy clothing and baseball caps, Hollister International clothes, Nike sneakers and Coach jewelry.

    Throughout the U.S., law-enforcement agents seized more than 708,250 -- worth more than $26 million -- as part of Operation Holiday Hoax. Mexican authorities seized 255 tons of products during parallel operations.

    ReplyDelete
  49. MOSCOW — With the turn of a ceremonial valve, China’s president, Hu Jintao, opened a big natural gas pipeline from central Asia to China on Monday, significantly increasing China’s access to the fuel and providing the first major alternative to exporting the region’s gas through Russia.

    The ambitious project runs 1,140 miles across three Central Asian nations to the Chinese border, linking Turkmenistan to the Chinese region of Xinjiang. Once inside China, it connects with a pipeline that can carry the fuel even farther east.

    Though helpful to energy-parched China, the project siphons potential supplies from the long-delayed pipeline that the European Union would like to see built from Turkey to Central Europe. Such a project could also tap sources of natural gas in Turkmenistan, a stark illustration of the overlapping energy interests at play in the region.

    For the China pipeline, Turkmenistan says it can supply 40 billion cubic meters of gas for 30 years once the line reaches full capacity, reported China Daily, an official English-language newspaper. That is about the equivalent of half of China’s current consumption of natural gas.

    The pipeline is the first major export corridor for natural gas out of the region that does not pass through Russia. It breaks from the Soviet-era design of a pipeline system built to supply Eastern Europe via Russia to the north of Central Asia. The new pipe revives a pre-Soviet view of trade in the region, in which economic exchanges flow east and west, not just through Russia.

    “The startup of this pipeline reconstructs the ancient Silk Roads and symbolizes friendship and cooperation,” Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, said at the ceremony on Monday, the Interfax news agency reported.


    NYTimes

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  50. I don't give a damn if they are communists; that Chinese bunch is just about the most competent leadership group in the history of the planet.

    Those people may be totalitarian asshole, but they have a clear vision of the future, and the discipline to act. They, quite simply, impress the hell out of me.

    We're dicking around, to no advantage, in Afghanistan; and they're locking in 50% of their future nat gas needs with a thousand mile pipeline to Turkmenistan. They're a piece of work.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Americorps/Walpin/Michelle Scandal Heats Up

    If I remember my Donofrio aright, this guy Walpin would have standing to bring a quo warranto challenging Obama's legitimacy in the D.C District Court, but, alas, doesn't seem to want to do that. An older guy, quess you can't blame him.

    ReplyDelete
  52. From Carpe Diem:

    In 1958, American holiday shoppers paid $269.95 for Sears’ “best 24-inch console TV” (Update: black and white) in its 1958 Christmas catalog (see photo above on left), or it would have taken 136.34 hours of work at the average manufacturing hourly wage then of $1.98 to earn enough income (ignoring taxes) to purchase the TV.

    Today you can purchase a Sansui 26-inch widescreen LCD high-definition TV (see picture on right) on the Sears website for about $350 (or chose from the several hundred other TVs available), which would be a “time cost” today of only 19.03 hours of work at today's average hourly wage of $18.39, and this represents an 86 percent reduction in the cost compared to the 1958 TV.

    Alternatively, it would be slightly less costly for a holiday shopper to purchase seven 24-inch TV sets today (133.21 hours of work at the average hourly wage) than it would have been for a 1958 holiday shopper to purchase just a single 24-inch TV [black and white](136.34 hours of work at the average hourly wage).

    Carpe Diem

    ReplyDelete
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  56. We cannot win in Afghanistan with wimpy, half-baked, half-assed policies. We need to go in there like we mean it.
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