Octopodial Chrome

Hussein made his first court appearance today; an Iraqi blog marks the occasion with the post Saddam Is in the Cage. This is an historic moment: hope comes to the Iraqis, and justice will surely fall upon Saddam. In a matter of weeks or months he’ll face the same end he sent so many to, and then his course will have been run.

We’re at sixteen months into the Iraq War; Karl Zinsmeister notes that we’re in a much better position now than in other American wars: Washington had surrendered in the French and Indian Wars; he had lost 90% of his strength in the Revolution; in the Second World War, Japan had just conquered all of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and had occupied American soil for ten years, and meanwhile Germany had conquered Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Holland and Yugoslavia.

We’re doing pretty damned well.

While taking some training for work today, I discovered that the not-for-profit sector in the US spends more than $500 billion a year—more than the GDP of Brazil, Russia or Australia. What an incredible nation we live in!