The mind doth boggle...

As some of you may know, in my day job, I help write software to sell insurance. One task this software has to perform is assist users in determining their occupation, as defined by one of the several hundred possibilities on the Association of British Insurers' standard list of jobs. Today, while doing some testing, I found the description:

Hosiery Mechanic

Can I just say: What the ....?

Follow the money...

For those who haven't noticed yet, there's another Baghdad blogger out there. She's written an instructive little piece on who stands to gain from the war in Iraq. A brutally edited out-take:

Yesterday, I read how it was going to take up to $90 billion to rebuild Iraq. Bremer was shooting out numbers about how much it was going to cost to replace buildings and bridges and electricity, etc.

One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad [...] well-known for designing and building bridges all over Iraq.

[In May], his manager told him [...] to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, [...] did the necessary tests and analyses [...] and came up with a number [...] - $300,000.

Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. [...] Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.

A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !!

[note I should have included the first time around: go read the lot, there's much more detail in the original. Riverbend has lots more stuff worth reading, too]

<rant mode="bitter and twisted">
I'm becoming more and more convinced that the idea that "it's all about the oil" was optimistic. It implies that Bush & co actually cared about anything resembling long-term strategy, rather than just flattering their own egos about their ability to act "decisively" and "improve" the world political situation^*, whilst making a fast buck for their favourite industrial friends along the way.
</rant>

^*because, of course, all the Middle East needed was some good ol' boy straight talking and decisive action, and everything would be sorted in no time.

I find it rather depressing that I can't just dismiss a rant like that out-of-hand, as "too paranoid".

[slightly late attribution: BoingBoing]

Alastair Campbell

So, as half the damn world is reporting, Alastair Campbell has quit as Blair's Director of Communications. I can't say I was ever remotely fond of him.

Hang on a minute, though. Haven't we been getting rumbles in the press for at least the last month (or six) about how he was going to leave the job more-or-less imminently anyhow? The last few weeks have seen the start of whispers about how his political memoirs are now being polished up for publication, a step generally delayed until after someone's frontline political career is over.

Anyone else find the timing of this resignation, seemingly just at the right moment to take some of the heat off Blair, just a teensy bit suspicious?