[SarahW]

BBC reporting and "Iraqui blabberjaws" featured.

[smith288]

I saw some guy won something and he said:

"A corner in Northern England just exploded....blah blah blah and I would like to thank my family..in Ny, another place that exploded..."

I know he didnt mean it in bad terms, but oooops.

[Robe]

According to ABC news....
"There are approximately 40,000 auto fatalities annually in this country, so in any given three-week period, there would be about 2,300 fatalities. The area around Washington has a population of about four million, or 4/280 of the population of the U.S., so as a first approximation, we could reasonably guess that 4/280 times 2,300, or about 30 auto fatalities, would occur there during any three-week period."
So we could say that approximatly 10 people a week die in auto accidents during any given week in the DC area"

Is it "BLACK SUNDAY" every week in DC?

[P.O.E.]

A portmanteau word for the ages: "Friviledge".

I love it. This could be applied to the spoiled-brat supposed peaceniks, who don't have the good manners to even occasionally say thank you for this great country and all it has given them.

[Paleo Conservative]

At Normandy ten men died every second. Up and down the coast. All the damn day long.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day.
[60 (sec/min)] x [60 (min/hr)] x [24 (hr/day)] = 86,400 (sec/day)

If 10 men died per second, that would be 864,000 deaths per day. That is twice as many Americans as actually died in World War II.

[Mark de New Brighton]

This rocks - hard to believe Lileks's day job is with the Red Star of Minneapolis! He's approaching Steyn levels of wit with his descriptions of the Beeb.

[chimera]

At Normandy ten men died every second. Up and down the coast. All the damn day long.

Does it seem to anyone else that this figure seems a little high? I'm not sure if he's quoting total casualties on both sides, or just US forces. I seem to recall a figure of something like 2,000-3,000 total US KIAs for the Omaha Beach operation, less at other venues. Given that the landings started at dawn and were pretty much over by early evening, that would be about 16 hrs. of fighting, or 57,600 seconds. Using the author's fatality rate about, that would be a little less than 600,000 KIA the first day. Seems a bit high, since our total KIA for WWII was in the range of 400,000 or so. Could it be for all combatants? Still seems a little high. Maybe it's a peak kill rate at the height of the fighting?

Still, I understand the gist of what he's saying. We've been somewhat spoiled by the relatively low total casualities for Gulf War I, the Balkans operation, and Afghanistan. This one figured to be a lot messier. Someone much smarter than me once said that an army that can't take casualties can't fight, one that takes too many can't win. Its a matter of taking your licks and hopefully having enough to win out in the end (that doesn't make it any easier for those who've lost loved ones, I know).

[segis]

“That was Samantha Pryce-Smythe, in Dubai. We now go to Linda Prithee-Wombat, in Jakarta.”

That line is priceless. Lilek's blog is very, very good.

[Boxsford]

This only works in one direction, however. We must respect & incorporate the genuine feelings of an Indonesian student who believes that a 1 AM raid on Saddam’s palace is the equivalent of driving passenger jets into the WTC on a workday morning. But we must be deeply troubled by an Administration official who doesn’t bleed copious quarts of agonized equivocation on the tiles whenever he addresses the media, and - worst of all - seems untroubled by his own certainties.

Thanks for posting this. It's great! I love this paragraph, I love this author. Now, did the Indonesian student address the fact that our Administration alerted Iraqis not to go to work? I don't recall anyone is NYC or Washington getting any kind of warning to stay away from the WTC or the Pentagon. The idiot!

[The Vast Right Wing]

Lileks' is fast approaching Steyn in his pricelessness. Friviledge, excellent.