Gaza: the rights and wrongs | Gaza: the rights and wrongs | The Economist

Gaza: the rights and wrongs | Gaza: the rights and wrongs | The Economist:

The Economist, a publication which I respect far more than the New York Times, now weighs in with it's advice to the world. Unfortunately, it's just as vapid as that of the Times. Below is their ending statement. Please, Economist, give us some idea of what you recommend. Overall, the piece suggests that Israel must take action to solve the crisis. What must the terrorist Hamas do? How about stopping the rockets and recognize Israel's right to exist.

Until Hamas and Hezbollah renounce that claim and stop arming themselves for a fight, fighting will continue and Israel will and should defend itself with the means it sees fit to choose.

I suppose the Economist would also say of Al Qaeda "some way must be found to change its mind." Terrorists do not change their minds. That is not their desire or aim. Thus, no amount of talk will convince them otherwise. Only death and lack of resources may change their actions, but not their beliefs as long as these groups receive the tacit and substantive support of Islamic countries who also hate Israel.

"and little progress is possible so long as half of Palestine’s people support an organisation that can still not bring itself to renounce armed struggle or recognise Israel’s right to exist. Since Hamas is not going to disappear, some way must be found to change its mind. Bombs alone will never do that."

Why Israel is Deeply Concerned About Its Future

This sobering analysis by Benny Morris, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben-Gurion University, is a "must read" for anyone concerned about Israel's fate in the next few years.

Given the realities that Morris lays on the table, what motivation do radical Palestinian terrorists have to negotiate with Israel? What will prompt them to give up their goal of eradicating Israel? I see nothing that will do that.

Perhaps within 10 years (or less?) the Middle East will have a nuclear face-off. Armageddon, anyone?

Editorial - War Over Gaza - NYTimes.com

Editorial - War Over Gaza - NYTimes.com:

This Times editorial is from 'lala land.' Providing all these ivory tower suggestions for everyone in sight to fix the crisis only fills space in their dying newspaper and is foolishness. Their journalistic euphemism for the Hamas terrorists is 'militant Palestinians.' What a joke. These are terrorists killing Jews and sworn to destroy Israel. Until they are dead or renounce that goal and stop firing rockets indiscriminately, this conflict will continue at varying levels of intensity. Israel is right to do all in its power to protect its citizens.

Nothing lasting can be negotiated as long as Hamas exists to destroy or drive out the Jews. The Islamic world apparently sees fit to allow them to continue doing so.

The Times ends the editorial with the absurd hope that Barack Obama, who has yet to make a statement about this present crisis, will waltz right in and fix it. More nonsense!

"Ms. Rice once hoped to make a Middle East peace her legacy. It is too late for that. But she should do her job. That means getting on a plane for Cairo and Riyadh — now — to enlist their help in brokering a new cease-fire. Then it will be up to President-elect Barack Obama to quickly pick up the pieces and fashion a Middle East peace strategy that may actually bring peace."

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Winning Isn't News

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Winning Isn't News

Iraq: What would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn't tell the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper for the news that we've defeated the last remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Let's choose to believe this account (July 2008) that we are winning/have won in Iraq. It really is a symptom of the onerous bias of the liberal media in the U.S. that they fail to report it. They are so infatuated with the Obama thing and the recession that the Iraq war dropped off their radar screen.

Here are some of the reasons they would give for not fully reporting this:

• The recession is absolutely the biggest news story now.
• The Obama victory is so important that we must cover it fully (ad nauseum).
• Iraq is just not news anymore. (I wonder how many 'embedded' reporters are still there [story below reports NONE]?)
• From the publishers: we are focused on our financial difficulties...we can't afford to spread our news staff too thin.
• Americans aren't interested in the Iraq war anymore.

One reason they wouldn't give is:

• Bush did the right thing in approving the 'surge.' Obama can't bring himself to say it because he opposed it and ...well, 'we' love Obama and hate Bush. To give Bush credit, well, it's just not in 'our' repertoire.

Today's (12/29/08) New York Times has this story on the subject. Opening paragraphs below.

TV News Winds Down Operations on Iraq War

By BRIAN STELTER

Published: December 28, 2008

Quietly, as the United States presidential election and its aftermath have dominated the news, America’s three broadcast network news divisions have stopped sending full-time correspondents to Iraq.

NBC

Richard Engel, a top correspondent for NBC, is rotating in and out of Baghdad.

“The war has gone on longer than a lot of news organizations’ ability or appetite to cover it,” said Jane Arraf, a former Baghdad bureau chief for CNN who has remained in Iraq as a contract reporter for The Christian Science Monitor.

Joseph Angotti, a former vice president of NBC News, said he could not recall any other time when all three major broadcast networks lacked correspondents in an active war zone that involved United States forces.

Except, of course, in Afghanistan, where about 30,000 Americans are stationed, and where until recently no American television network, broadcast or cable, maintained a full-time bureau.

Op-Ed Columnist - Stop Being Stupid - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Stop Being Stupid - NYTimes.com

Bob Hebert takes the American beast by the nape of the neck, growls heartily and shakes it up. He has obviously had his fill of the American economic mess that he says we've created by our stupidity.

We must live with the reality that money moves at the speed of light around the globe and production of goods will go to stable places where the costs are lower. His 'thinking globalization through ' suggests we can control it. We cannot.

"...We were stupid in so many ways. We shipped American jobs overseas by the millions and came up with the fiction that this was a good deal for just about everybody. We could have and should have taken the time and made the effort to think globalization through, to be smarter about it and craft ways to cushion its more harmful effects and to share its benefits more equitably..."

It's true that our leaders have failed us, but we get the leaders we deserve as we jaunt about the credit countryside believing (wrongly) that we can have it all. Hebert's right that living beyond reason in crushing debt is as stupid for a country as it is for a person.

I was reading as our Vermont Socialist Senator Sanders waxed eloquently about how spending nearly a trillion dollars in the next two years on various forms of infrastructure would put people to work and restore our economy. Surely the trillion will do that for those years, but what happens after the next two years? Will those jobs be gone or will we need to pony up yet another trillion that we don't have to keep stimulating? Why is no one talking about the long term...defined as far beyond the next election.

Relying on tax revenues, mandated wealth transfer, and massive long term debt to stimulate the American economy for the long term is a fool's errand. Instead we should be living within our means and encouraging private sector investment and businesses with reasonable labor costs. We need real engineering of businesses, products and services, not financial engineering built on a house of cards.

Perhaps there's a leader, not a pandering politician, somewhere who can convince us of that sober truth.

Israeli Strikes on Gaza Kill Scores - WSJ.com

Israeli Strikes on Gaza Kill Scores - WSJ.com

Welcome to the Presidency Senator Obama. The Israelis and Palestinians would dearly love to have some of that "Change We Can Believe In" stuff that you've been so adept at promoting. I read your powerful speech supporting Israel during your campaign. Now your resolve and friendship with Israel will be be tested.

I believe you will support Israel and renounce the terrorists calling themselves Hamas. If you don't, we'll have to rethink your resolve. I'll be watching for your statements.

Oh, and if you have the inclination, there's that Pakistan-India-Afghanistan mess for you to sink your teeth into come January 20.

The Evidence Gap - Health Care That Puts a Computer on the Team - Series - NYTimes.com

The Evidence Gap - Health Care That Puts a Computer on the Team - Series - NYTimes.com:

For too long the essential need for electronic medical records has been debated ad nauseum with paranoid concerns about privacy and confidentiality. These attributes must and can be managed well, but no system is perfect as long as humans build, maintain and use it.

The benefits far outweigh the costs and I hope Obama can trigger the huge change needed in both technology and public attitudes. A $50 billion commitment is just what the doctor ordered to move us out of the dark ages.

My new physician has agreed to use email with me when appropriate. Perhaps the day is not far away when electronic records will dominate and my dog-eared brown folder will disappear into the bowels of a shredder.

"...The Bush administration has left it mainly to advocacy and the private sector to introduce digital medicine. But President-elect Barack Obama apparently plans to make a sizable government commitment. During the campaign, Mr. Obama vowed to spend $50 billion over five years to spur the adoption of electronic health records and said recently that a program to accelerate their use would be part of his stimulus package..."

"...For most doctors, who work in small practices, an investment in electronic health records looks simply like a cost for which they will not be reimbursed. That is why policy experts say any government financial incentives to use electronic records — matching grants or other subsidies — should be focused on practices with 10 or fewer doctors, which still account for three-fourths of all doctors in this country. Only about 17 percent of the nation’s physicians are using computerized patient records, according to a government-sponsored survey published in The New England Journal of Medicine...."

This conclusion is the key to success:

"...The quality of care goes up dramatically just by having information instantly,” Dr. DeVries said. Yet, as her colleague and veteran of computer medicine Dr. Melski notes, there is no payoff to technology alone — only in people using technology wisely.

“We have to restructure our medical culture,” he said. “We have to promote a culture that believes in the evidence and is trained in analyzing the evidence. It’s the only long-run answer to the challenges we face in health care — evidence-based medicine.”

Solar Meets Polar as Winter Curbs Clean Energy - NYTimes.com

Solar Meets Polar as Winter Curbs Clean Energy - NYTimes.com

All sources of electricity experience some problems caused by temperature and weather changes, but some less than others. Alternative sources of electricity would seem more prone to the vagaries of storms, winter and other difficult conditions.

What these stories should always include is a reference to the need for reliable baseload power sources always available for the grid. Continual omission by the media creates the false impression for the public that all sources of electricity are equal in terms of supply reliability to the national or regional electric grid. This is certainly not the case and we should be well advised of that.

This lack of reliability, particularly for solar and wind, is not a major issue at present, but will be if alternative sources on the grid reach about 20% from their present contribution of less than one percent.

New York Times Looks to Sell Red Sox Stake - WSJ.com

New York Times Looks to Sell Red Sox Stake - WSJ.com


Newspapers, in particular the New York Times, are in deepening financial trouble for the reasons enumerated below in this WSJ story.

The Times is looking to sell a significant state in the Boston Red Sox holding company. Serves them right! They should be owning a piece of the Yankees instead.

"The ad recession and migration of readers and advertisers to the Web has sent newspaper publishers under intense pressure, forcing many to try to unload once-untouchable assets. The Times Co. on Wednesday said company revenues fell 14% in November while advertising revenues for the News Media Group, which includes both the Times and the Globe, declined 22%.

The Times Co. has taken several cost-cutting steps recently to satisfy its funding requirements, which includes a $400 million revolving credit facility that expires in May. The company recently slashed its quarterly dividend by three-quarters and said it plans to borrow as much as $225 million against its Manhattan headquarters. But analysts have said the company might need to make more cuts and/or sell assets to avoid drawing more debt toward the end of next year. Executives from Times Co. at an industry conference this month said they are exploring asset sales ahead of what they expect to be "among the most challenging years we have faced.""

Op-Ed Columnist - Time to Reboot America - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist Thomas Friedman- Time to Reboot America - NYTimes.com:

Thomas Friedman wishes us a Merry Christmas with advice about revamping America...and he's generally correct as far as he goes.

But there's a much deeper crisis underlying the skills, education, government focus, tax incentives, investment, etc., that Friedman describes. For success, America's makeover must regain it's spiritual, moral and ethical moorings to enable a rise to material success. The foundation is crumbling, not merely the superstructure.

For far too long, the 'get mine now...if it feels good, do it' crowd has held sway and the results are plain to see all around us. The quagmire stretches from government pork right on through the Illinois political corruption morass, the financial sector's crisis of trust, illegal/unethical finance management and more.

Will the Obama people see the true crisis and deal with it or will their remedy be more programs to shore up the superstructure while the moral fabric continues to shred? Perhaps we expect far too much or of our leaders. The true solution to our crisis lies with each of us.

"For all these reasons, our present crisis is not just a financial meltdown crying out for a cash injection. We are in much deeper trouble. In fact, we as a country have become General Motors — as a result of our national drift. Look in the mirror: G.M. is us.

That’s why we don’t just need a bailout. We need a reboot. We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover. That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history. Because of the financial crisis, Barack Obama has the bipartisan support to spend $1 trillion in stimulus. But we must make certain that every bailout dollar, which we’re borrowing from our kids’ future, is spent wisely.

It has to go into training teachers, educating scientists and engineers, paying for research and building the most productivity-enhancing infrastructure — without building white elephants. Generally, I’d like to see fewer government dollars shoveled out and more creative tax incentives to stimulate the private sector to catalyze new industries and new markets. If we allow this money to be spent on pork, it will be the end of us."