Almost Forgot

- It's a good thing Political Wire is around to jog my memory; I'd almost forgotten that I wanted to comment on David Francis' commentary from today's Christian Science Monitor, which compares the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to previous American wars. According to Francis' analysis, if you look at military costs (excluding reconstruction funds) and use today's dollar as a baseline for comparison, the costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have already surpassed the total costs for World War I, and ring up at less than only World War II, Vietnam, and Korea.

Francis writes that in terms of expenditures per soldier, the current conflicts are already the most expensive in US history, due to increases in technology, protection, pay, and travel costs. He's got several other comparisons in the piece that are worth thinking about; read his whole piece.

- Also today, the Washington Post wrote an editorial on the Bush Administration's proposed new rule for SUV fuel efficiency, which I discussed in depth here. Basically the Post echoes the sentiments I expressed about the rules change, but they've got an interesting calculation that I wanted to mention:

"Under the proposed rules, average mileage for such vehicles would have to rise by just 1.8 miles per gallon over the 2008 to 2011 model years, reaching an average of about 24 mpg by the end of that time. The administration estimates that this change will save 10 billion gallons of gasoline over about 15 years. This amounts to a total of about 25 days of consumption under current trends - a disappointing drop in the barrel."

Exactly.