TresSugar

Iraq Has $79 Billion Surplus - What's the US Deficit Again?

LibertySugar — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:15:00 -0700

Thanks to rising oil prices, Iraq will enjoy a $79 billion surplus by the end of the year, according to a report requested by a bipartisan group of senators. While the US has spent $48 billion in American taxpayer money on Iraq's reconstruction since 2005, Iraq has spent only a fraction of its oil revenue on reconstruction projects. And, Iraq spent only 1 percent of its 2005-2007 budget to maintain existing projects already funded by Americans or Iraqis. Thus, preinvasion promises that Iraqi oil money would finance the rebuilding of Iraq have gone unfulfilled.

The Central Bank of Iraq cites a lack of expertise in Iraqi ministries along with security problems as reasons for the lack of spending. There seems to be a vicious cycle: Iraq can't use its money to increase security because there's not enough security.

Congressional Democrats have already called for Iraq to spend its own money on reconstruction. Since the US just predicted a record $489 billion deficit for 2009, hopefully Iraq's windfall surplus will be put to use soon. Should Americans struggling with rising oil prices be frustrated that Iraq is sitting on oil profits while America pays for the reconstruction?

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More Money, Less Problems? Iraqi Officials Hand Out Cash

LibertySugar — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 03:00:41 -0700

Money can't buy me love, but can it buy peace? Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants to find out - he's passing out cash on the streets of Iraq. Iraqi officials can dole out up to $8,000, to each person only once, as a way to improve the national economy and morale. I guess your $600 surplus check isn't looking so generous now!

Usually getting smaller sums, under $1,000, most Iraqi recipients use the money to get medical care, or cope after a death in the family or job loss. American and Iraqi officials believe money and better conditions will ease extremism; but concerns about favoritism and corruption still remain.

Governments love giving out money these days! While American lawmakers reach for consumer spending (and their own approval) with stimulus cash (and $42 million of taxpayer money used to notify every American that the government might send them money), Iraq wants these funds to spark confidence, and signal upcoming massive oil-revenue investments in Iraq's basic services. Are you buying it?

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Democrats Want Iraqi Oil to Pay for Reconstruction

LibertySugar — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:00:40 -0700

Congressional Democrats want the Iraqi government to spend its own surplus on the country's reconstruction. The US has spent $45 billion on rebuilding the country while Iraq has $30 billion in oil revenue sitting in US banks.

Iraq anticipates oil revenue as high as $100 billion this year. Meanwhile the US military buys fuel at market price at about $3.23 a gallon. That's a $153 million monthly gas bill in Iraq alone.

Since the Democrats don't have enough votes to bring the troops home are they smart to go against President Bush with a bill limiting US funding of the reconstruction effort? Should oil rich Iraq start picking up the bill or is the US liable for fixing what it broke? When will it be fixed?

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Ground Zero Reconstruction Planners Ditch Timetable

LibertySugar — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:00:16 -0700

The building schedule for skyscrapers and a memorial planned for New York City's Ground Zero have been tossed out by the World Trade Center owners, due to unrealistic goals and rising costs.

Planners will announce a new timetable this September, seven years after the Twin Towers fell, according to BBC. Officials previously promised that the Freedom Tower, set to replace the destroyed towers while taking the title of the nation's tallest building, would be complete in 2006, then 2011, and finally in 2013.

Planners promise that the next date will be realistic, rather than emotional. The original Twin Towers took about five years to build. After September 11, 2001, how long did you expect it to take to rebuild Ground Zero? Does the stalling delay the healing process?

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Muslims, Marriage, and Reconstructive Hymen Surgery

LibertySugar — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:00:00 -0700

All it takes is about $3,000, a semicircular cut, and 10 dissolving stitches for European Muslim women to get their hymens restored and keep new husbands happy by appearing to be virgins as a result of wedding-night blood.

One doctor interviewed by the New York Times said:

If you’re a Muslim woman growing up in more open societies in Europe, you can easily end up having sex before marriage. So if you’re looking to marry a Muslim and don’t want to have problems, you’ll try to recapture your virginity.

So what kind of problems do these modern Muslims face? Recently a French court upheld an annulment of a marriage that was founded on a lie about the bride's virginity. But now, under the pressure of secular critics, the justice minister, Rachida Dait, has changed her mind and granted an appeal. We'll have to stay tuned to see how that goes.

When women can appease their husbands by creating faux virginity with a medical procedure, it demonstrates how nominal virginity can be. But, to some this deception might be unforgivable deceit. Do you blame these women for getting this form of plastic surgery? Do you think the annulment would have been granted if the husband had lied about his virginity and the woman brought the case?

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Say What? Brad Pitt For Mayor!

TresSugar — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:00:00 -0700

"I'm running on the gay marriage, no religion, legalization and taxation of marijuana platform. I don't have a chance."

- Brad Pitt joked on the Today show this morning about running for mayor of the Louisiana town where he has been leading on Hurricane Katrina reconstruction efforts. Some locals are wearing t-shirts decorated with the "Brad Pitt For Mayor" image seen above. Do you think Brad has a winning platform?

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First Recipient of US Face Transplant Speaks

TresSugar — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:10:00 -0700

Connie Culp, the recipient of the first US almost-total face transplant spoke to the media for the first time.

The 46-year-old mother of two had the middle section of her face shot off by her husband in 2004. Surgeons in Cleveland, OH, replaced 80 percent of her face with that of a dead female donor in a 22-hour operation, and it seemed that her appearance before the media was in large part to thank the donor's family. The transplant is only the fourth to be carried out.

Because of her injuries, Culp had no bone support and was unable to eat or to breathe without a tube in her windpipe. Surgeons used donor tissue to replace her nose, mouth, lips and chin.

Experts say that face-transplant recipients may feel remorse, grief, and guilt toward the donor, but my first thoughts were about how radically Culp's husband's violence has altered her life. Our faces, for better or worse, are integral to how we're seen and treated in the world. This story reminds me of an autobiography Lucy Grealy wrote about having part of her jaw removed due to cancer. To get a sense of how wrenching her experience was, read more.

Diagnosed with a rare form of jaw cancer at age 9, Lucy Grealy spent the rest of her brief life dealing with reconstructive surgeries (a third of her jaw had to be removed) and a world which seemed to privilege physical beauty above all.

In Autobiography of a Face, Grealy, who went on to attend Sarah Lawrence College and discover a love of poetry (apparent in this lyrical memoir), explores what it meant to have an unideal face in such a world. Although she seemed to come to some kind of peace with her situation, after her final reconstructive surgery, she became addicted to OxyContin, and eventually heroin, and died of a presumed accidental overdose in 2002.

Our best wishes to the brave Connie Culp. With the love of her two kids and family, and her sense of humor - she joked with reporters, "Here I am, five years later . . . I got me my nose" - she's got a new lease on life.

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Front Page: US Navy Heads to Rescue Captain From Pirates

CitizenSugar — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 07:47:57 -0700

A US Navy warship has arrived off the Somali coast where pirates are holding the captain of a cargo ship hostage. - Telegraph
President Obama has invited friends and aides to a private seder dinner at the White House tonight to mark Passover. - AP
Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi predicts that earthquake
reconstruction will cost several billion euros. - Wall Street Journal
Voters in a Missouri small town have reelected their mayor, four weeks after he died. - AP
Thousands of North Koreans rallied in their capital to celebrate their country's rocket launch. - BBC News
New York's US Senators have introduced legislation that would grant posthumous citizenship to the victims of last week's shootings in Binghampton. - CNN
Twenty-three schools in Detroit are set to be closed next year. - USA Today

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Long, Unfinished To-Do List in Iraq

CitizenSugar — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:00:01 -0700

Think your list of unfinished projects is long? According to the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (an agency created to oversee expenditure of taxpayers' money for Iraq reconstruction) has released a very “depressing picture.” The federal agency claims that delays, costs, poor performance and violence are to blame for the failure to complete 855 projects.

The audit also found many other projects falsely listed as complete and last year congressional investigators claimed as much as ten billion dollars charged by US contractors are “questionable.” Danielle Brian, executive director of the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight said:

The report paints a depressing picture of money being poured into failed Iraq reconstruction projects. Contractors are killed, projects blown up just before being completed, or the contractor just stops doing the work.

It's not just the jobs left officially undone - a ton of other projects had been falsely checked off as complete, according to the audit of 47,321 reconstruction projects.

Iraq reconstruction has cost US taxpayers more than $100 billion so far. While conditions in Iraq make anything difficult, how can taxpayers know that their money is being put to good use? Is there an accounting system that would help this phenomenon?

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Front Page: Psychiatrists Ask - Is Shopaholism a Disease?

LibertySugar — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:00:26 -0800

While compulsive spending continues during tough times, the psychiatric world is trying to decide whether it should be considered a disease. - New York Times
Iran says it would welcome a change in its relations with the US, if it involved a withdrawal of US troops from abroad and an apology for past crimes against Iran. - Reuters
Concerns are growing that reconstruction in Gaza will be slowed down by politics. The cost of reconstruction is estimated at $2 billion. - BBC News

Despite losses, Wells Fargo has reported that that it will not ask for more bailout money. - CNN
The poor parents of Slumdog Millionaire's child stars say that their children were exploited and underpaid. - Telegraph

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