"It's the economy stupid." Bill Cliton said of his presidential rival George Bush in 1992. Cliton won in a landslide that year. 16 years later, in a similar situation, Democrats are bound to win in landslide as well.

Democrats will have to undo any damage done by fiscally stupid Republicans in monitoring the house mortage sector, skyrocking oil prices, the falling dollar, and lower industrial production.

Take a look at the current stock exchange in this article.

The unemployment rate jumps to 5%, with a payroll increase that's the weakest since August 2003. Nasdaq tumbles after an Intel downgrade. Wendy's sales decline.

The Labor Department reported this morning that nonfarm payrolls rose by a mere 18,000 in December 2007, far fewer than economists had expected. It was the weakest month-to-month change since August 2003.

Stocks slumped on the grim report, pulled back from earlier lows after the Federal Reserve announced that it will conduct two $30 billion credit auctions later this month and then continued to fall. At 12:45 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below 13,000, down 183 points, or 1.4%, to 12,873.

The Nasdaq Composite Index plunged 68 points, or 2.6%, to 2,534, partly on a downgrade of tech bellwether Intel (INTC, news, msgs). The Standard & Poor's 500 Index had lost 24 points, or 1.6%, to 1,423. Light, sweet crude oil pulled back from the $100 level this morning, after crossing it for a second time on Thursday. Oil was down $1.11 to $98.07 a barrel.

The consensus estimate was for a gain of 58,000 jobs last month, although analysts' estimates had ranged broadly, with some reaching as high as 85,000 new jobs.

Nonfarm payrolls were revised upward to a gain of 115,000 in November from a previous reading of a gain of 94,000.

The unemployment rate jumped to 5.0%, up from the 4.7% in November, and up from 4.4% in December 2006.

A recession coming?
"These jobs data are the strongest evidence so far that the economic expansion is grinding to a halt," Peter Morici, professor at the University of Maryland School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission, wrote in a note to clients this morning.

"Slow jobs growth, along with the shortages of mortgage and business credit, declining home prices and residential construction, and falling industrial production, indicate the risk of a recession for 2008 is high," Morici continued.

Morici expects the Fed to "aggressively cut interest rates to combat the U.S. slowdown," but warns that "the Federal Reserve is in crisis, because its mix of policies addresses an old-style recession."

‘Santa died for your MasterCard’
Man nails Claus to cross to protest commercialism of Christmas

Crucified Santa controversy


updated 4:34 p.m. ET, Mon., Dec. 24, 2007
BREMERTON, Wash. - Art Conrad has an issue with the commercialism of Christmas, and his protest has gone way beyond just shunning the malls or turning off his television.

The Bremerton resident nailed Santa Claus to a 15-foot crucifix in front of his house.

"Santa has been perverted from who he started out to be," Conrad said. "Now he's the person being used by corporations to get us to buy more stuff."

A photo of the crucified Santa adorns Conrad's Christmas cards, with the message "Santa died for your MasterCard."

The display is also Conrad's way of poking fun at political correctness. He believes people do not express their feelings because they are afraid of what other people might think.

His neighbors found the will to express their feelings this past week. Some were offended but many were just curious.

Jake Tally walked by on Friday and chuckled, but did not pretend to understand the message.

"I don't really know what to think. I know it's about God but Santa has nothing to do with it," he told the Kitsap Sun newspaper.

All Iraqi groups blame U.S. invasion for discord
See departure of 'occupying forces' as key to reconciliation, study shows
The Washington Post
By Karen DeYoung

updated 3:12 a.m. ET, Wed., Dec. 19, 2007
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of "occupying forces" as the key to national reconciliation, according to focus groups conducted for the U.S. military last month.

That is good news, according to a military analysis of the results. At the very least, analysts optimistically concluded, the findings indicate that Iraqis hold some "shared beliefs" that may eventually allow them to surmount the divisions that have led to a civil war.

Conducting the focus groups, in 19 separate sessions organized by outside contractors in five cities, is among the ways in which Multi-National Force-Iraq assesses conditions in the country beyond counting insurgent attacks, casualties and weapons caches. The command, led by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, devotes more time and resources than any other government or independent entity to measuring various matters, including electricity, satisfaction with trash collection and what Iraqis

The results are analyzed and presented to Petraeus as part of the daily Battle Update Assessment or BUA (pronounced boo-ah). Some of the news has been unarguably good, including the sharply reduced number of roadside bombings and attacks on civilians. But bad news is often presented with a bright side, such as the focus-group results and a November poll, which found that 25 percent of Baghdad residents were satisfied with their local government and that 15 percent said they had enough fuel for heating and cooking.

The good news? Those numbers were higher than the figures of the previous month (18 percent and 9 percent, respectively).

And Iraqi complaints about matters other than security are seen as progress. Early this year, Maj. Fred Garcia, an MNF-I analyst, said that "a very large percentage of people would answer questions about security by saying 'I don't know.' Now, we get more griping because people feel freer."

Iraqi political reconciliation, quality-of-life issues and the economy are largely the responsibility of the State Department. But the military, to the occasional consternation of U.S. diplomats who feel vastly outnumbered, has its own "mirror agencies" in many areas. Officers in charge of civil-military operations, said senior Petraeus adviser Army Col. William E. Rapp, "can tell you how many markets are open in Baghdad, how many shops, how many banks are open. . . . We have a lot more people" on the ground.

On Iraqi politics, "we have four to six slides almost every morning on 'Where does the Iraqi government stand on de-Baathification legislation?' All these things are embassy things," Rapp said. But Petraeus is interested in "his 'feel' for a situation, and he gets that from a bunch of different data points," he added.

Polling in Iraq remains difficult
Even though members of the military "understand the limitations" of polling data, Rapp said, "subjective measures" are an important part of the mix. In July, the military signed a contract with Gallup for four public opinion polls a month in Iraq: three nationwide and one in Baghdad. Lincoln Group, which has conducted surveys for the military since shortly after the invasion, received a year-long contract in January to conduct focus groups.

Outside of the military, some of the most widespread polling in Iraq has been done by D3 Systems, a Virginia-based company that maintains offices in each of Iraq's 18 provinces. Its most recent publicly released surveys, conducted in September for several news media organizations, showed the same widespread Iraqi belief voiced by the military's focus groups: that a U.S. departure will make things better. A State Department poll in September 2006 reported a similar finding.

Matthew Warshaw, a senior research manager at D3, said that despite security improvements, polling in Iraq remains difficult. "While violence has gone down, one of the ways it has been achieved is by effectively separating people. That means mobility is limited, with roadblocks by the U.S. and Iraqi military or local militias," Warshaw said in an interview.

Most of the recent survey results he has seen about political reconciliation, Warshaw said, are "more about [Iraqis] reconciling with the United States within their own particular territory, like in Anbar. . . . But it doesn't say anything about how Sunni groups feel about Shiite groups in Baghdad."

Warshaw added: "In Iraq, I just don't hear statements that come from any of the Sunni, Shiite or Kurdish groups that say 'We recognize that we need to share power with the others, that we can't truly dominate.' "

'Shared beliefs'
According to a summary report of the focus-group findings obtained by The Washington Post, Iraqis have a number of "shared beliefs" about the current situation that cut across sectarian lines. Participants, in separate groups of men and women, were interviewed in Ramadi, Najaf, Irbil, Abu Ghraib and in Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad. The report does not mention how the participants were selected.

Dated December 2007, the report notes that "the Iraqi government has still made no significant progress toward its fundamental goal of national reconciliation." Asked to describe "the current situation in Iraq to a foreign visitor," some groups focused on positive aspects of the recent security improvements. But "most would describe the negative elements of life in Iraq beginning with the 'U.S. occupation' in March 2003," the report says.

Some participants also blamed Iranian meddling for Iraq's problems. While the United States was said to want to control Iraq's oil, Iran was seen as seeking to extend its political and religious agendas.

Few mentioned Saddam Hussein as a cause of their problems, which the report described as an important finding implying that "the current strife in Iraq seems to have totally eclipsed any agonies or grievances many Iraqis would have incurred from the past regime, which lasted for nearly four decades -- as opposed to the current conflict, which has lasted for five years."

Overall, the report said that "these findings may be expected to conclude that national reconciliation is neither anticipated nor possible. In reality, this survey provides very strong evidence that the opposite is true." A sense of "optimistic possibility permeated all focus groups . . . and far more commonalities than differences are found among these seemingly diverse groups of Iraqis."

LOL!

LOL! I got 33 views with the title alone but no responses!


I wonder if sex moans work with humans?

For me yes.

Sex ed prompts teens to lose virginity later
But study doesn’t determine if abstinence-only is best type of program

updated 6:43 p.m. ET, Wed., Dec. 19, 2007
NEW YORK - Sex education in school may encourage teenagers to put off having sexual intercourse, the results of a U.S. government study suggests.

The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of Adolescent Health, did not determine if the type of program matters — that is, abstinence-only versus more-comprehensive programs.

However, the findings do suggest that having some form of sex education helps delay teen sex, according to the researchers, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

In a national survey of more than 2,000 adolescents between 15 and 19 years old, the researchers found that teens who had sex ed in school were more likely to put off sex until at least age 15. Furthermore, boys who received sex ed were less likely to have started having sex at all.

“Sex education seems to be working,” lead researcher Dr. Trisha E. Mueller, an epidemiologist with the CDC, said in a statement.

In particular, she noted, some of the greatest benefits were seen in the teens who may need them the most — urban, African-American girls. In this group of girls, those who’d received sex education were 91 percent less likely to have had sex before the age of 15.

Overall, male study participants who’d received sex education were 71 percent less likely to have had sex before age 15 than those who’d had no formal sex ed. Among female participants, sex ed reduced those odds by 59 percent.

Male respondents who’d had sex education were also more likely to say they would used birth control the first time they had sex. No similar effect was seen among girls.

There were certain groups of teens who did not seem to benefit from sex education. Girls from rural areas were more likely to have sex, and white and Hispanic girls who eventually dropped out of high school were less likely to delay sex. The reasons are unclear, according to Mueller’s team, and the findings may be due to chance because the numbers of study participants in these groups were small.

Overall, the researchers conclude that “sex education provides youth with the knowledge and skills to make healthy and informed decisions about sex, and this study indicates that sex education is making a difference in the sexual behaviors of American youth.”

Study reveals why monkeys shout during sex
Females may yell loudly to help their male partners climax
By Charles Q. Choi
updated 12:56 p.m. ET, Wed., Dec. 19, 2007
Female monkeys may shout during sex to help their male partners climax, research now reveals.

Without these yells, male Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) almost never ejaculated, scientists found.

Female monkeys often utter loud, distinctive calls before, during or after sex. Their exact function, if any, has remained heavily debated.

Counting pelvic thrusts
To investigate the purpose behind these calls, scientists at the German Primate Center in Göttingen focused on Barbary macaques for two years in a nature reserve in Gibraltar.

The researchers found that females yelled during 86 percent of all sexual encounters. When females shouted, males ejaculated 59 percent of the time. However, when females did not holler, males ejaculated less than 2 percent of the time.

To see if yelling resulted from how vigorous the sex was, the scientists counted the number of pelvic thrusts males gave and timed when they happened. They found when shouting occurred, thrusting increased. In other words, hollering led to more vigorous sex.

Counting monkey pelvic thrusts is admittedly "quite weird, but it's science," researcher Dana Pfefferle, a behavioral scientist and primatologist at the German Primate Center, told LiveScience. "You get used to it."

Quite promiscuous
Male and female Barbary macaques are promiscuous, often having sex with many partners. This means sperm levels can get quite drained. The females shout when they are most fertile, so males can make the most use of their sperm.

Pfefferle noted her research suggests these calls might also make females more attractive to other males. She added these shouts might play different roles in other species.

Pfefferle and her colleagues detailed their findings online Dec. 18 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Ypu forgot about Hel Zimmer in 2004 when he went against his own party and endorse Bush.

Public school teachers are like Joe Friday from Dragnet
They teach
"Just the facts ma'am..."

They only teach facts not faith. It obvious religioso would love to say that school teacher deny God in school. The truth is God has no place in school. Try teaching the solar system and physics. In the Bible there a story that the sun stood still.

Joshua 10:12 to 10:13

...In the presence of Israel, Joshua said:

Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and moon, you too over the Vale of Aijion!

And the sun stood still and the moon halted, until the people had take vengence on thier enemies....


Bible mistakenly assumes the sun revolves around the earth. That so against the universal fact that the earth go around the sun. Further more even if the bible meant that the earth stop rotating and not the revolution of moon then every person, animal and stone would fly off the world as physic dicates.

Public school teachers are like Joe Friday from Dragnet
They teach
"Just the facts ma'am..."

They only teach facts not faith. It obvious religioso would love to say that school teacher deny God in school. The truth is God has no place in school. Try teaching the solar system and physics. In the Bible there a story that the sun stood still.

Joshua 10:12 to 10:13

...In the presence of Israel, Joshua said:

Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and moon, you too over the Vale of Aijion!

And the sun stood still and the moon halted, until the people had take vengence on thier enemies....

What do you think of a ministries preach a form of "Word of Faith" theology, known as prosperity gospel, which teaches that God wants believers to reap material rewards for their faith?

Don't you have to good to get the reward of heaven?

Christians are rewarded with heaven for their good works in much the same way Santa rewards good children.

"Be nice to your sister or Santa won't bring you that new fire truck for christmas"... Isn't that just saying be more kind to other and you will be rewarded? That example puts humanity first before the reward.

So teen who pledge premarital abstinance are no better off than kids who don't. They're uneducated about condom use so they're worse off as adults.

Teen Pledges Barely Cut STD Rates, Study Says

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 19, 2005; Page A03

Teenagers who take virginity pledges -- public declarations to abstain from sex -- are almost as likely to be infected with a sexually transmitted disease as those who never made the pledge, an eight-year study released yesterday found.

Although young people who sign a virginity pledge delay the initiation of sexual activity, marry at younger ages and have fewer sexual partners, they are also less likely to use condoms and more likely to experiment with oral and anal sex, said the researchers from Yale and Columbia universities.

"The sad story is that kids who are trying to preserve their technical virginity are, in some cases, engaging in much riskier behavior," said lead author Peter S. Bearman, a professor at Columbia's Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy. "From a public health point of view, an abstinence movement that encourages no vaginal sex may inadvertently encourage other forms of alternative sex that are at higher risk of STDs."

Rates of Disease

The findings are based on the federally funded National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a survey begun in 1995 that tracked 20,000 young people from high school to young adulthood. At the start of the project, the students were 12 to 18 years old and agreed to detailed, sexually explicit interviews. They were re-interviewed in 1997 and again in 2002, when 11,500 also provided urine samples.

Virginity pledges emerged in the early 1990s based on the theory that young people would remain chaste if they had stronger community support -- or pressure -- to remain abstinent. Programs vary, but in most cases teenagers voluntarily sign a pledge or publicly announce their intention to abstain from sex. Often pledgers receive a pin or ring to symbolize the promise and team up with an "accountability partner."

Since it was founded in 1993, the virginity group True Love Waits claims 2.4 million youths have signed a card stating: "Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, those I date, and my future mate to be sexually pure until the day I enter marriage."

The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that 20 percent of those surveyed said they had taken a virginity pledge. Bearman and co-author Hannah Bruckner broke them into two categories -- "inconsistent pledgers" and "consistent pledgers" -- to reflect the fact that some changed their status or their responses between interviews. Among those youngsters, 61 percent of the consistent pledgers and 79 percent of the inconsistent pledgers reported having intercourse before marrying or prior to 2002 interviews.

Almost 7 percent of the students who did not make a pledge were diagnosed with an STD, compared with 6.4 percent of the "inconsistent pledgers" and 4.6 percent of the "consistent pledgers." Bearman said those differences were not "statistically significant," although Robert Rector, who studies domestic policy issues at the conservative Heritage Institute, said he interpreted the data to mean that young people committed to the abstinence pledge were less likely to become infected.

The study did not detect major geographic differences but found that minorities were far more likely to have an STD. About one quarter of African American girls in the survey tested positive for at least one STD in 2002.

In terms of high-risk behavior, the raw numbers were small, but the gap was statistically significant, Bearman said. Just 2 percent of youth who never took a pledge said they had had anal or oral sex but not intercourse, compared with 13 percent of "consistent pledgers."

Debate on Abstinence

The report sparked an immediate, bitter debate over the wisdom of teaching premarital abstinence.

Deborah Roffman, an educator and author of "Sex and Sensibility: The Thinking Parent's Guide to Talking Sense About Sex," said youths who take virginity pledges are often undereducated about sexual health. "Kids who are engaging in oral sex or anal sex will tell you they are practicing abstinence because they haven't had 'real sex' yet," she said.

Ralph DiClemente, a professor at Emory University's School of Public Health in Atlanta, compared virginity pledges to adults' efforts to make New Year's resolutions.

"I wish it was that easy. We'd all be a lot healthier," he said. "If we can't do it as adults, why would we expect kids to be able to handle those issues?"

But Joe S. McIlhaney Jr., chairman of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, said the study offers an incomplete picture because it could not say whether sexually active teens who did not take a pledge had been pregnant or treated for an STD before the 2002 testing. The analysis "doesn't prove or disprove" assertions that virginity pledges are flawed, he said.

On the other hand, Bill Smith, public policy vice president for the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, said, "Not only do virginity pledges not work to keep our young people safe, they are causing harm by undermining condom use, contraception and medical treatment."

Conservative academics said the paper overlooked earlier important findings about adolescents who take virginity pledges, most notably that they have fewer pregnancies and out-of-wedlock births.

"It's hugely successful on those variables," Rector said. "Bearman has focused in on the one variable he thinks can show they [pledgers] don't do better."

President Bush has requested $206 million in federal funding for abstinence-only programs this year.

Several True Love Waits officials were unavailable Friday, according to a receptionist. Telephone calls to another virginity group, the Silver Ring Thing, were not returned.

So the Abstinance only a success for 11 to 14 yr olds but it's an over all failure due to a rise in teen pregancy. I wonder how the STD rates among teens each yr since abstinance only ed was enacted.

Abstinence programs face rejection
More states turning down federal money attached to zero-tolerance sex ed

The Washington Post
By Rob Stein

updated 11:58 p.m. ET, Sat., Dec. 15, 2007
The number of states refusing federal money for "abstinence-only" sex education programs jumped sharply in the past year as evidence mounted that the approach is ineffective.

At least 14 states have either notified the federal government that they will no longer be requesting the funds or are not expected to apply, forgoing more than $15 million of the $50 million available, officials said. Virginia was the most recent state to opt out.

Two other states -- Ohio and Washington -- have applied but stipulated they would use the money for comprehensive sex education, effectively making themselves ineligible, federal officials said. While Maryland and the District are planning to continue applying for the money, other states are considering withdrawing as well.

Until this year, only four states had passed up the funding.

"We're concerned about this," said Stan Koutstaal of the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the program. "My greatest concern about states dropping out is that these are valuable services and programs. It's the youths in these states who are missing out."

Pressure from both sides of debate
The number of states spurning the money has grown even as Congress considers boosting overall funding for abstinence-only education to $204 million, with most of it going directly to community organizations.

The trend has triggered intense lobbying of state legislators and governors around the country. Supporters of the programs are scrambling to reverse the decisions, while opponents are pressuring more states to join the trend.

"This wave of states rejecting the money is a bellwether," said William Smith of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, a Washington-based advocacy and education group that opposes abstinence-only programs. "It's a canary in the coal mine of what's to come."

"We hope that it sends a message to the politicians in Washington that this program needs to change, and states need to be able to craft a program that is the best fit for their young people and that is not a dictated by Washington ideologues," Smith said.

‘The straw that breaks the camel's back’
Smith and other critics said they hope that if enough states drop out, Congress will redirect the funding to comprehensive sex education programs that include teaching about the use of condoms and other contraceptives.

"I think this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of continued funding of these programs," said John Wagoner of Advocates for Youth, another Washington advocacy group. "How can they ignore so many states slapping a return-to-sender label on this funding?"

But supporters said they plan to fight for the programs state by state.

"We're talking about the health of millions of youth across the United States," said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association. "We know abstinence education offers the best for them. Now is the time to put more emphasis on that message, not less."

Huber disputed criticism that the programs are ineffective or overly restrictive.

"Our critics would have governors believe that these programs are just somebody standing in front of the class wagging a finger and saying, 'No. No. No. Don't have sex.' That's not what these classes entail," Huber said. "They are holistic. They include relationship-building skills and medically accurate discussions of sexually transmitted diseases and contraception."

Approach under scrutiny
Congress is considering boosting the $176 million in annual funding for abstinence programs by $28 million. State governments can apply for portions of a $50 million fund, which they use for a variety of purposes, including school classes, community groups, state and local health departments and media campaigns. But the money is restricted to efforts focused on promoting abstinence.

The jump in states opting out follows a series of reports questioning the effectiveness of the approach, including one commissioned by Congress that was released earlier this year. In addition, federal health officials reported last week that a 14-year drop in teenage pregnancy rates appeared to have reversed.

"This abstinence-only program is just not getting the job done," said Cecile Richards of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "This is a ideologically based program that doesn't have any support in science."

But Koutstaal, the federal official, took issue with critics who blame abstinence programs for the increase in teen births, noting that rates have continued to decline for 10-to-14-year-olds -- the ages typically targeted by the programs.

"I think it's awfully hard to blame abstinence education for the increase in birth rates," he said.

States express doubt
The program was started as part of the 1996 welfare reform. California, however, dropped out in 2000, forgoing more than $7 million it was eligible to receive, and Maine opted out in 2005, giving up $161,000. Most states, however, did participate. New Jersey decided to opt out last year, rejecting more than $900,000 in funding, and others followed.

"The governor has often stated that abstinence-only education does not show any results," said Gordon Hickey, a spokesman for Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), who announced plans to give up the funding last month. "It doesn't work. He's a firm believer in more comprehensive sex education."

Colorado also decided this fall not to seek about $450,000 that it is eligible to receive.

"Why would we spend tax dollars on something that doesn't work?" asked Ned Calonge of the Colorado Department of Health and Environment. "That doesn't make sense to me. Philosophically, I am opposed to spending government dollars on something that's ineffective. That's just irresponsible."

The reasons given for passing up the federal money vary from state to state. Some governors publicly repudiated the programs. Others quietly let their applications lapse or blamed tight budgets that made it impossible to meet the requirement to provide matching state funds. Still others are asking for more flexibility.

"The governor supports abstinence education," Keith Daily, a spokesman for Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D). "What he does not support is abstinence- only education. We are asking to put the money toward abstinence in the context of a comprehensive age-appropriate curriculum."

Most of the battles on the state level are being fought by local affiliates supported by national groups. In Illinois, opponents are planning to launch a campaign next month involving more than 100 state groups to try to sway the governor and state legislature to forgo about $1.8 million in funding.

"These programs are dangerous," said Jonathan Stacks of the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health. "We're trying to get people across the state to raise their voice on this issue. I think once those voices are heard, the legislature and the governor won't have any choice but to back the will of the voters."

Deaths are one thing but that leaves out amputies, brain trauma, and mental illness.

As a Iraq war veteran told me, "They sent you back just not in one piece."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_conflict_in_Iraq_since_2003#Amputees

As of January 18, 2007, there were at least 500 American amputees due to the Iraq War. According to a Time magazine article, the 500th victim was a 24-year-old corporal, who lost both legs in a roadside bomb explosion on January 12, 2007. He was cared for at the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, and then was transferred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The article reports: "The 500 major amputations — toes and fingers aren't counted — represent 2.2% of the 22,700 U.S. troops wounded in action. But the number rises to 5% in the category of soldiers whose wounds prevent them returning to duty."[41]


Traumatic brain injuries (TBI)
A Feb. 2007 article[114] by Discover magazine, titled "Dead Men Walking. What sort of future do brain-injured Iraq veterans face?", reports: "One expert from the VA estimates the number of undiagnosed TBIs at over 7,500. Nearly 2,000 brain-injured soldiers have already received some level of care, ..."

Mental Illness
A March 12, 2007 Time magazine article[116] reports on a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. About one third of the 103,788 veterans returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars seen at Veterans Affairs facilities between September 30, 2001 and September 30, 2005 were diagnosed with mental illness or a psycho-social disorder, such as homelessness and marital problems, including domestic violence. More than half of those diagnosed, 56%, were suffering from more than one disorder. The most common combination was post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.


Plus this is only American forces what about the cost of coalition forces.