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Conservation in Iraq

27 Jul 2007 11:12 am

In response to Baghdad residents enjoying a decreasing number of hours per day during which their electricity works, the Bush administration has decided to stop keeping track of this indicator.

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Comments (9)

Obviously, there's the unfortunate "continual perpetration of a sham on the American public" aspect of this, but the more worrysome part, to me, is internal to State itself.

As anyone who has studied organizations can tell you, you always "measure what matters" -- if something's important, keep track of it. Reading the article, it's not that State has stopped publicizing the stats on Baghdad electricity -- they've totally stopped *measuring* them. That means that there's now no one in the State department who even has *internal* accountability for keeping the lights on.

Just another on the pile of Gross Mismanagement Anecdotes this administration has generated. Bob Woodward can barely type fast enough.

So now, wankers like Michael Yon can go out there and say, "seems to me there is a lot more electricity flowing through this city", and hey, there are no numbers to support or refute it, so who knows?

This is just getting more Orwellian with each passing day.

The BBC publishes a series called 'Iraq violence: Monitoring the surge' every Friday with electricity metrics for three representivefamilies across Baghdad.

Electricity per day/Baghdad

** Fam.#1 - Fam.#2 - Fam.#3
7/27 - 1 hr., 30 min., 30 min.
7/20 - 3 hrs., 3 hrs., 20 min.
7/13 - 2 hrs., 20 min., 20 min.
7/06 - 51 min., 4 hrs., 20 min.

Read the whole report.

It's an excellent, no-frills compilation of data on a range of metrics published every Friday. Kudos to BBC producer Mona Mahmoud for her great work.

So I guess this makes the administration See No Evil (Rice), Hear No Evil (Bush), and Evil (Cheney).

Ron, that should be a Dem campaign ad. It about summarizes the last six years. Bravo!

If these people wanted electricity, they should have thought of that before they...uh...sat there and did absolutely nothing to provoke us. No one to blame but themselves.

Thanks for that pointer, joejoejoe.

This week's edition is at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6917608.stm

One hour, 30 minutes, 30 minutes.
130 degree heat.

Anything else has to come from a generator.

This is the cutting edge of alternative energy research- necessity being the mother of invention and all.

Zaphod: Hey, don't bug me, Ford! - Yeah!

Ford: Yeah?

Zaphod: Yeah! These are the greatest shades in the known sky! Look at the copy.

Ford: "Joo Janta 200 SuperChromatic Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses.

"To help you develop a relaxed attitude to danger.

"At the first hint of trouble, they turn black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you."

Ford: You're mad!


Comments closed August 10, 2007.

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