Uwe Reinhardt, the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton makes a bold suggestion in the Daily Princetonian:
In lieu of bombing Iran.
It is true that it'd be easier (easier still if the US had not broken its bilateral treaty with Iceland and abandoned its air base there), and it makes almost as much sense.
It'd probably be cheaper; at least in the short run.
But here is where he goes too far!
"If we unleashed Shock and Awe in Reykjavik, we would generously compensate Iceland to the tune of, say, 275 percent of that country's $14 billion 2006 GDP -- a mere trifle in our giant federal budget. Furthermore, we would build, at our expense, an exact pre-bombing replica of their pulverized city, albeit with 21stcentury American plumbing and electronics. Could any reasonable people resist such generosity? And even if Icelanders irrationally did, we would, as noted, have the troops to make the Icelandic people accept what's good for them. What could Syria do about it?"
Ok, 275% sounds attractive, could lead to a bit of income equalization after the recent boom in capital growthl
But:
"...rebuild.. with 21stcentury American plumbing and electronics"
WHAT?!
All right buddy, academic collegiality be dammed.
You are not saddling my family with American plumbing and electronics!!
What sort of backward savages do you think we are?
You break it, you replace it to our standard! It gets cold in Iceland, we need proper plumbing.
And Iceland's economy would be permanently crippled if restored with American grade cell coverage or broadband.
PLEASE.
Look, this is personal, I have, literally, thousands of cousins in Iceland (what can I say, my great-grandmothers were sturdy ladies), I will not have them condemned to American standards of living.
I made my choice, and I can live with it, but they should not have to suffer.
Oh, and no sneaking in with Halliburton or Bechtel and some imported US contractors.
You hire Icelandic primary contractors using Icelandic labour. You know, people who would actually get the reconstruction done, for a very modest markup, to Icelandic building codes.
PS: Matt - did you order "yellow cake" when you were in Iceland last week? (There can't have been that many foreigners with dark hair in Iceland last week, it was off season).
Can you straighten this out, please. Maybe someone at the Hoover Institution has contacts at the State Department.
The waitress: I think she was just doing some retro Björk inspired hairdo thing. Caused quite a scandal.
So, no deal.
Go pick on someone your own size!
Greenland has lots of bits to bomb, or if you want a challenge you could try the Faeroe Islands, they are almost as convenient, and, for a modest fee, we might let you lease back some landing rights at the air base.
UPDATE: the main paper in Iceland Mogginn, reported on this and triggered a blogswarm on blog.is (click on "Fleiri" under Bloggad box in top right corner)
and RUV - the Icelandic Broadcasting Corporation also took note.
Reaction is roughly equally divided between: "too funny", "funny, but, makes you think", and "would be funny, but I'm offended, went too far".
Interestingly the "not funny" crowd seem to be overwhelmingly conservatives. Not entirely, some people are earnest enough to find any humour about bombing to be in bad taste.
I particularly like the environmentalist who wants the Princeton Chancellor to formally apologise!
As I predicted, my cousin is not amused.
You do not want to piss off my cousins...
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I think there's a ranch in Texas we could bomb. The owner won't care and we already pay for its upkeep. In fact, this could be a significant improvement to the usual month-long brush clearing he does by hand. It might get him to pay a bit more attention to the papers that cross his desk.
I think the only way out of this mess is to bomb the REAL cause of most of the idiocy for the last 10 years... Right. Washington D.C.
ps: Just in case Homeland Security is monitoring - what am I saying, of COURSE they are monitoring a atheistic Scientific blog! - I am KIDDING. This is a joke, not an attempt on a bunch of pathetic Congresscritters and Senators...
J-Dog: a surgical strike with less than 10 smart bombs might do the trick. One each for the American Enterprise Inst, Heritage Foundation & AIPAC; two for Dick's secret location; and the rest for K Street. Since the pathetic Congresscritters are pathetic, I think that they will get the message.
**DHS, I can only dream**
LOL! Great post...
changcho
YOu guys are way over the line. All we need to do is get W to go on a hunting trip with his VP.
During my visit in US I took it as a form of brain training to put aside the standard rules for rotations, switches, and colorings, to learn and remember each individual setting. I never quite understood why replacement taps couldn't match the others rotation or hot/cold markings, though.
Oh, and I learned that sealing around the loose fixtures with silicon paste was more efficient to achieve zero observations of cockroaches in my apartment than pesticides. I couldn't figure that was up with that construction finesse either.