Catamarca province, Argentina

Just one of the amazing landscapes that the Dakar Rally, an extreme-conditions vehicle competition, went through.  This from the Big Picture, natch, and you should click on it to get a better look.

Europe?

Over at the New York Times blog site, Frank Jacobs has a long article on "Where is Europe?"

This nifty map is the least of it:

Bhaktapur, Nepal in the monsoon.

Thanks to Anuar Patjane, the Big Picture, and the National Geographic Society.

One estimate of the cost of the War with Iran

By Orrin Schwab via Gary Sick:

If there is near unanimity in the Congress to go to war with Iran I say lets go. Lets do it!  They are the duly elected representatives of the people of the United States and they have determined that war with Iran is in the best interests of the country.  We should initiate hostilities as soon as practicable.

Here are some parameters to consider for our war:

1. Iran is 1.6 million square kilometers and has approximately 80 million
    inhabitants (77-78 million plus).

2. That makes Iran four times the area of Iraq and three times the
    population of Iraq.

3. The Iraq War was completed very quickly, and very easily. But the
    occupation, i.e. the reduction of resistance lasted ten years and has
    produced a relatively weak state.

4.  In order to do things right this time, we need sufficient ground
    forces to secure a mountainous multiethnic country with more than two
    thousand years of national history. We may be welcomed as liberators
    but coalition forces ultimately met with armed resistance from
    numerous  groups many of whom practiced deadly suicide attacks.

5. We need a long term occupational force for Iran.  I think an effective
    occupation of 80 million people spread over 1.6 million square
    kilometers should require well over 1 million well trained troops for
    at least 5 years maybe 10 years if things go badly.

6. The only way we can provide this level of forces is through a return to
    the Draft. The Selective Service system needs to activated
    immediately.
    All military reserves needed to be recalled to active duty while we
    begin the process of training millions of young male and female
    draftees for service in Iran.  A five year occupation should require,
    ballpark, 5 million draftees.  Of course, we have the manpower.
    According to the CIA, the U.S. has 120 million males and females
    between the ages of 18 and 49 who are fit for military service.

7. The direct financial cost of the war should be a multiple of the Iraq
    War which was 800 billion from 2003 through 2011.  The cost of
    deploying troops to Afghanistan averages about one million dollars per
    troop.  If we plan on 1 million troops for five years that would mean
    5 trillion in direct costs financed by the U.S. Treasury through
    2016-2017 and then undetermined costs thereafter.

8. The economic benefits of this exercise in military Keynesian economics
    should be huge. Unemployment should disappear.  War related
    manufacturing should be a virtual renaissance for domestic industry.
    The financing of the war will significantly increase the public debt, anathema to     Republicans, but they are spoilsports. They reject military Keynesianism, which worked wonders for Japan and Germany in the 1930s and 1940s as well as the United States and the Soviet Union.

9. No whining about casualties. The U.S. could sustain hundreds of
    thousands or more total casualties, including deaths from combat,
    disabling wounds, and huge numbers of psychiatric losses related to
    combat and the effect of concussive injuries to the brain.

Source.

Canada has a warship sailing to the Middle East right now to fight terrorism, so this is us, too.

Endeavor over Ponte Vedra, Florida

Thanks to James Vernacotola, the Big Picture, and the National Geographic Society.  Click to see it larger.

Today's date on the Mayan calendar

More here.

From The Big Picture and the National Geographic Photo Contest, 2011

Kent Shiraishi captures the first snow at a nature spot in Hokkaido, Japan.  Don't forget to click to see a bigger version.  As usual, the bigger picture is much more impressive.