From Jon Henley’s diary…
Overheard, in a CNBC interview the other day, the Leader of the Free World. Host: “I’m curious … Do you use Google?” George Bush: “Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see – I’ve forgot the name of the program – but you get the satellite, and you can, like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It reminds me of where I wanna be sometimes.”
Item 1. From today’s New York Times
Given the rise in sectarian killings, a Sunni-based insurgency that appears to be as potent as ever and an Iraqi security establishment that continues to have difficulties deploying sufficient numbers of motivated and proficient forces in Baghdad, General Casey’s target seems to be an increasingly heroic assumption.
On paper, Iraq has substantial security forces. The Pentagon noted in an August report to Congress that Iraq had more than 277,000 troops and police officers, including some 115,000 army combat soldiers.
But those figures, which have often been cited at Pentagon news conferences as an indicator of progress and a potential exit strategy for American troops, paint a distorted picture. When the deep-seated reluctance of many soldiers to serve outside their home regions, leaves of absence and AWOL rates are taken into account, only a portion of the Iraqi Army is readily available for duty in Baghdad and other hot spots.
The fact that the Ministry of Defense has sent only two of the six additional battalions that American commanders have requested for Baghdad speaks volumes about the difficulty the Iraqi government has encountered in fielding a professional military. The four battalions that American commanders are still waiting for is equivalent to 2,800 soldiers, hardly a large commitment in the abstract but one that the Iraqis are still struggling to meet.
Item 2. Also from today’s New York Times
Overhead costs have consumed more than half the budget of some reconstruction projects in Iraq, according to a government estimate released yesterday, leaving far less money than expected to provide the oil, water and electricity needed to improve the lives of Iraqis.
The report provided the first official estimate that, in some cases, more money was being spent on housing and feeding employees, completing paperwork and providing security than on actual construction.
Those overhead costs have ranged from under 20 percent to as much as 55 percent of the budgets, according to the report, by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. On similar projects in the United States, those costs generally run to a few percent.
The highest proportion of overhead was incurred in oil-facility contracts won by KBR Inc., the Halliburton subsidiary formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root, which has frequently been challenged by critics in Congress and elsewhere.
The actual costs for many projects could be even higher than the estimates, the report said, because the United States has not properly tracked how much such expenses have taken from the $18.4 billion of taxpayer-financed reconstruction approved by Congress two years ago.
Fact: Dick Cheney, the current Vice-President of the US is a former CEO of Halliburton. According to this source,
An analysis released by a Democratic senator found that Vice President Dick Cheney’s Halliburton stock options have risen 3,281 percent in the last year [2005] Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asserts that Cheney’s options — worth $241,498 a year ago — are now valued at more than $8 million. The former CEO of the oil and gas services juggernaut, Cheney has pledged to give proceeds to charity.
Iraqi charities, one presumes?
I went to the Tanner dinner in Clare Hall this evening. The German Ambassador to Britain gave a nice little speech, in one part of which (about tolerance needing to start early in life) he told a story about a recent visit to Kosovo where, on entering a school, he heard a group of children singing a sweet little song in Albanian. He asked his translator what they were singing. The translator looked embarrassed, but the ambassador pressed him. “Well”, he said, “they’re singing about how when they’re older they are going to cut the heads off Serbs”.
From Good Morning Silicon Valley…
Boy Scouts in the L.A. area can now get credit for doing the entertainment industry a good deed. The little troopers can earn a “respecting copyrights” activity patch to sew on their sashes by taking a course designed by the movie industry to impress young minds with the evils of pirating. The patch (different from a merit badge in that it’s not required to advance in rank) shows a film reel, a music CD and the international copyright symbol, a “C” enclosed in a circle. Course work involves a hike through the swamp of intellectual property law, learning how to identify five types of copyrighted works and three ways copyrighted materials may be stolen. Also required is a project, like making a “just say no” public service announcement, or visiting a movie studio to see how many people would be out of jobs if the pirates win. “Part of being a Scout is being trustworthy and part of being trustworthy is being able to follow the rules in our society,” said Victor Zuniga, a spokesman for the council.
… in 2001, the iPod was launched.
… in 1993 a suicide truck-bombing at Beirut International Airport in Lebanon killed 241 U.S. Marines and sailors; a near-simultaneous attack on French forces killed 58 paratroopers. The attack led Ronald ‘Hopalong’ Reagan to withdraw US troops from Lebanon.
… in 1956, the Hungarians revolted against Soviet rule, with predictable results. The USSR, taking advantage of the West’s distraction in Suez, crushed the uprising without much trouble. I was ten at the time, and I remember standing in our kitchen in Donegal listening to the news with my mother. “What will happen, Ma?” I asked. “Oh”, she replied calmly, “the Americans will help them”.
This morning’s Observer column…
Tomorrow is the fifth birthday of the Apple iPod, the iconic device which defines our era as distinctively as the Sony Walkman defined the 1980s. One sign of an iconic product is that an entire ecosystem of goods and services evolves around it.
This happened with the Walkman, and it is happening now with the tiny Apple music player.You can buy all kinds of holders and ‘skins’ to protect it from damage; mini- speakers that plug into it; microphones that turn it into a digital audio recorder; small radio transmitters that beam songs to the nearest FM radio; attachments that turn it into a breathalyser; underpants with special iPod-sized pockets and – I kid you not – a customised toilet-roll holder with a charging dock for your precious device while you are, um, otherwise engaged. (Only $99.95 from www.old-fashioned-values.com.)
There’s a screen in the lobby of the Googleplex which displays a continuous scrolling record of live searches on Google. Video here, courtesy of Robert Scoble. First thing that stuck me: the number of queries in Spanish. Second thought: it’s clearly been censored to take out the er, adult searches.
Truly, you couldn’t make this up…
In the wake of recent school shootings, a candidate for Oklahoma state superintendent of education has announced a bold new proposal to keep kids safe without spending more on school security. Republican Bill Crozier suggests that students can defend themselves from school shooters by using textbooks to stop bullets fired at them. “If elected” he promises that thick used textbooks will be placed at the ready under every school desk.
Crozier recently tested his theory by doing what millions of students only wish they could do: fire round after round into a Calculus and science textbook with an assault rifle and handguns. Even better, he made a home video of his experiment and provided an unedited copy to a local Oklahoma City television station…
I always knew my copy of Samuelson would come in useful sometime.
Er, before you go out and buy shares in Sun Microsystems, though, it would be worth checking the Official Google Blog…
Soon we plan to begin installation of 1.6 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels at our Mountain View campus. This project will be the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the U.S., and we think it’s one of the largest on any corporate site in the world. The panels will cover the roofs of the four main buildings of the Googleplex, and also those of two additional buildings across the street. There will also be a portion of this installation on new solar panel support structures in a few parking lots. The amount of electricity that will be generated is equivalent to powering about 1,000 average California homes. We’ll use that electricity to power several of our Mountain View office facilities, offsetting approximately 30% of our peak electricity consumption at those buildings…
Here’s something I missed. According to Good Morning Silicon Valley,
Shortly before the acquisition was announced, Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony BMG each received a small stake in YouTube as part of content deals with the video sharing company. The three companies collectively stand to receive as much as $50 million from the deal, which will no doubt make them a bit more reticent than they once might have been to pursue copyright-infringement claims against the site.
Shrewd move by Google.