Good Morning.

Today is our 3,079th day in Iraq and our 3,607th day in Afghanistan.

We'll start this morning as we always do; with the latest casualty figures from our ongoing wars, courtesy of antiwar.com:

American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4474
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4335
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3615
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 246
Since Operation New Dawn: 46

Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 318
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,744
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 937
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq: 1,487
Journalists - Iraq : 348
Academics Killed - Iraq: 448

We find this morning's cost of war passing through:

$ 1, 239, 114, 500, 000 .00


Continuing on from Saturday, I'll try to be brief today and just pull a summary and talking point or two from each story...there's still a lot to go through.
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61 comments (Latest Comment: 08/23/2011 20:33:38 by Mondobubba)

As the new blog for today is not up yet, I thought that I would put up a brief stub updating our bloggers on the changing conditions in Libya.

From Al Jazeera English:


11 comments (Latest Comment: 08/22/2011 16:10:22 by wickedpam)

Good Morning.

I'm heading out for a long day at Spot Pond with Mr. Bean, but before I do, there's plenty to talk about today. In skimming my usual websites, there was just so much material this week that I had enough to write Ask a Vet just about every day.

In any case...today is our 3,806th day in Iraq and our 2,874th day in Afghanistan.

I'll skip most of the stats today, but if you feel that it wouldn't be Ask a Vet without them...here are the latest casualty figures from our ongoing wars, and the always-mesmerizing cost of war.
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8 comments (Latest Comment: 08/21/2011 01:49:19 by BobR)

Yesterday, the news broke that the Securities and Exchange Commission allegedly has been destroying thousands of files related to cases involving "activity at large banks and hedge funds during the height of the financial crisis in 2008". This is being reported at Market Watch, and Matt Taibbi has a piece in Rolling Stone about this as well. It appears that he broke the story.
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88 comments (Latest Comment: 08/18/2011 22:30:02 by Raine)

It was only 2 1/2 years ago that Democrats swept into DC, taking over the Excecutive and Legislative branches of government. It was going to be a new day in Washington, with all kinds of progress across the board. Things were REALLY going to change...

Except - they really didn't. Republicans dug in their heels over EVERY bill. The Senate, with about 6 months of a filibuster-proof majority still had conservative Democrats from conservative states. The lack of a quick turnaround in the job and economic problems (and disillusioned progressive voters' lack of participation) led to the Republicans taking back the House, and evening the balance in the Senate. It's been 8 months since they came back to DC - how have things changed in DC?

In a word - "Buyer's Remorse" (okay - that's two words...)
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61 comments (Latest Comment: 08/18/2011 02:55:08 by BobR)