Friday, January 9, 2009

09 Jan 2009 08:47 am

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

I've been casually reading your blog for about a year now, and while I think I understand your motivations behind posting the horrifying pictures of dead children in the most current Israeli-[insert enemy] conflict, it is too just too painful and depressing to view.  Obviously shocking photos bring the issue (war=dead children) straight to the forefront in a way that perhaps television (if they had any cojones), print and radio cannot.  We Americans do not know the tiniest molecule of terror that children live and die with in Gaza.

But as a mother of young children and a human being, I cannot bear to see those pictures. The child's bloody feet at the morgue were almost overwhelming, and while I only caught a glimpse of what looked like a head in rubble, it feels seared in my brain and I can't seem to scrub it off.  My first reaction was to remove your blog from my RSS feed, but I don't want to miss your opinions and messages, just the shocking photos of dead humans.  Perhaps you might provide more warning for us softies in the future?

Point taken. My policy is to air as much of the truth as I can. And one of the benefits of being a blogger is the ability to raise issues and publish images that the MSM won't. I published the Danish cartoons and the beheading of Nick Berg. I have posted countless victims of Jihadism and Islamist sectarianism and the falling bodies of 9/11 victims. And it seems to me that the moral issues involved in thinking through the Gaza blockade and invasion was helped, not hurt, by facing the photographic reality that is sometimes kept from MSM readers. My apologies if you were offended. I'll think about warnings before particularly graphic shots in future.

09 Jan 2009 08:43 am

In Need Of A Hospital

Goldberg has a good idea for Israel.

09 Jan 2009 08:20 am

A Trillion Dollar Gamble

Marc reports on stimulus happenings:

At the end of the day, Obama's name will be associated with an epically large stimulus package that may, in the end, do be too little, too late. Late last year, Obama hoped that the Democratic House and Senate would come to quick agreement on spending, and, by January 20, a bill would be on his desk. But aides say that the scale of the work exceeded their original expectations. It's just not that easy to figure out how to stimulate an economy in this condition. In a normal recession, small tax cuts might  boost savings, which, if the economy were growing, would be fine. But Obama needs Americans to spend, spend, spend, and not to save. And Americans, worried about mortgages, debts and the falling stock market, are keeping their cash in their mattresses. When people save a tax cut, aggregate demand is unaffected. But people, in this deep, deep recession, are demand-starved; they need money to pay for basics like their mortgage payments. The thinking, then, is that no one will save the money.

09 Jan 2009 08:01 am

Eartha Kitt On Bernie Madoff

She died too soon.

09 Jan 2009 07:38 am

Not A Big Fat Idiot?

Weigel speculates:

... once ensconced in the Senate, Franken will likely eschew the racier, angrier jokes that gave him political trouble and become a harder target for Minnesota Republicans, and barely a target at all for national Republicans. It’s not like he’ll become a cultural lightning rod like Rick Santorum or Katherine “Queen Esther” Harris — Franken’s a conventional liberal, which isn’t a controversial thing to be right now.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

08 Jan 2009 08:57 pm

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"What we have learned is that once Islamists actually wield power, their popularity collapses. Religious fanatics do not know how to run countries; their real interests lie elsewhere (you can apply that on a much lesser scale, of course, to the competence of the Bush administration). The place where Shiite Jihadism is least popular? Iran. And remember how al Qaeda managed to turn off the Jordanians after various atrocities; and how they lost the battle for the hearts and minds of Iraqis (with the brilliant and brave help of US troops) - after the Bush administration unwittingly gave them a lease of life in that country?"

Here, sadly, is the difference.  Even when Islamists wield power poorly and are unpopular, they don't leave.  Iran is a perfect example.  Even if the mullahs aren't popular, they're as firmly entrenched in power as they ever were.  Yes, the Islamists (or Al Qaeda anyway) are less popular in Jordan now, but they don't control that country.  And it was a lot easier for the Iraqis to turn on Al Qaeda when they had American troops there to help them or at least watch their back.

Even if the rocket attacks on Southern Israel could be tolerated for a long time (this is, of course, a big if), how exactly is Hamas going to be dislodged from power?  They have the guns and the power and the state sponsor in Iran.  Their popularity may suffer (as no doubt it already had) but in power they shall remain.

08 Jan 2009 06:28 pm

Into The Future

Tom Ricks makes a few predictions about Obama's Iraq:

Obama's first year in Iraq is going to be tougher than Bush's last year. Three reasons for that: First, three rounds of elections are scheduled in 2009, and those tend to be violent in Iraq. Second, the easy U.S. troop withdrawals have been made, and the pullouts at the end of this year will be riskier. Finally, none of the basic existential problems facing Iraq have been answered-the power relationships between groups, leadership of the Shiites, the sharing of oil revenue, the status of the disputed city of Kirkuk, to name just the most pressing ones. Compounding the problem will be the incorrect perception of many Americans that the Iraq was all but over when Obama took office.

Despite the conventional wisdom that the war is nearly over, Obama's war in Iraq may last longer than Bush's, which clocks in at a robust 5 years and 10 months. "So now you back in the trap--just that, trapped," to quote Big Boi and Dre. My best guess is that we will have at least 35,000 troops there in 2015, as Obama's likely second term is winding down.

I think Ricks is optimistic. When one contemplates what president Bush has bequeathed - from $2 trillion deficits as far as the eye can see to a war without end in the Middle East to an intelligence capacity poisoned by torture - the jaw still drops. Did he really do this much damage to America and the world? Yes, he did.

08 Jan 2009 05:52 pm

Prop 8 And The Black Vote, Ctd.

Timothy Kincaid is skeptical of the new National Gay and Lesbian Task Force report (PDF) on prop 8 and race:

The fact is - regardless of how much NGLTF would wish otherwise - that the gay community does not truly have a strategic alliance with black voters. We do not have African American support. We can fully expect that unless something drastically changes, future votes on gay equality will have large percentages of African Americans voting against our rights.

Now there are a number of things we could do.

Continue reading "Prop 8 And The Black Vote, Ctd." »

08 Jan 2009 05:44 pm

My Mum And Starbucks

So I ordered the fancy-ass Tazo London Fog Tea Latte at Starbucks - because a man has to have something to help the petite vanilla bean scones go down. It cost over $3. And when I started to drink it, I got this Proustian feeling. Starbucks have discovered the old cup of cha that my mother reared me and my siblings on. The same strange blend of hot water and milk and sugar; the same black tea steeped a little too long; the same impact on the nose and lungs on a cold damp evening. All that's missing is that ritual: the English zen of making the tea.

My mum (yes, I have to use the English spelling) made around 10 of these a day. We were either drinking tea or the kettle was boiling. If my parents were having a fight, the kids upstairs listening to the uproar would wait until we heard the voices fade and then the all-clear siren: the sound of the water being drawn and the kettle being readied. When I told my poor mother I was a homosexual, it was her first impulse: "Oh my God, I'd better make a cup of tea."

My poor mum. Funny how a cup of tea reminds me how much I love her.

08 Jan 2009 05:36 pm

Shallow Thought

Isn't it great to have conservatives complaining about government spending again? It's been eight long years ...

08 Jan 2009 05:35 pm

A Time For Prayer

Jeffrey Goldberg links to a prayer for the children of Gaza.

08 Jan 2009 05:34 pm

The Gay Liaison

Obama has picked Brian Bond, which makes my day. Brian is a pragmatist but, unlike some others, actually believes in real equality and is prepared to take risks for it. He's a good man. And this is another inspired pick.

08 Jan 2009 05:21 pm

Now This Is Anti-Semitism

It seems to me to be important to allow a debate about the wisdom and morality of Israel's current military incursion without accusing critics of being anti-Semites at the first opportunity. But it is equally important to note when genuine anti-Semitism really does rear its disgusting head. Item One.

08 Jan 2009 05:20 pm

Faces Of The Day

Seagulls sit at sunset and wait for food from passers-by on the promenade of Crosby beach on January 8, 2009 in Crosby, England. Much of the UK has been waking up from a heavy frost and sub zero temperatures with clear skies producing spectacular winter sunrises and sunsets. By Christopher Furlong/Getty.

08 Jan 2009 04:50 pm

Post-Racial?

Blumenthal praises Ambers' new piece on how the Obama campaign approached race. Cornell Belcher, one of Obama's pollsters, gives his take:

Belcher resampled the white voters whose racial animus he had measured before. More than half had voted for McCain, but not by an overwhelming margin. Belcher concluded that Obama might have done better among them had he not been black. In 1992, Belcher noted, 85 percent of voters who said the economy was bad broke for Bill Clinton. In 2008, in a verifiably worse economic climate, only 66 percent of voters who said the economy was bad voted for Barack Obama. “The economy is clearly not the only story. I could argue that the economy wasn’t as big an impact this time around as in 1992,” Belcher told me. “You can’t look at that swath of hard-red counties that actually grew even redder and say that we are post-racial.”

Surely the truth is that there is greater polarization on this than ever before. The range of views and feelings in America on race and gender and sexual orientation now has a far wider span than in the past. Crude bigotry endures at one end while total post-racial consciousness grows at the other. This stretches both across generations and regions, creating a bewilderingly complex picture in which everything you could say about America is true in some respect. Americans, to take the gay example, are probably more homophobic and more accepting of homosexuality than any other modern culture. There is Appallachia and Provincetown. And racially, there are those parts of America that actually trended GOP this past cycle - and then a place like Adams Morgan.

To me, this is an overwhelming reason for federalism. America cannot endure as a coherent polity without more of it.

08 Jan 2009 04:20 pm

Mental Health Break

A cat owner wondered what his feline friend does at night and set up a time lapse camera. I know a beagle with similar habits:

08 Jan 2009 03:58 pm

Not Paying Their Fair Share?

Greg Mankiw cites a  Congressional Budget Office report (pdf) on effective tax rates. The breakdown:

Lowest quintile: 4.3 percent
Second quintile: 9.9 percent
Middle quintile: 14.2 percent
Fourth quintile: 17.4 percent
Percentiles 81-90: 20.3 percent
Percentiles 91-95: 22.4 percent
Percentiles 96-99: 25.7 percent
Percentiles 99.0-99.5: 29.7 percent
Percentiles 99.5-99.9: 31.2 percent
Percentiles 99.9-99.99: 32.1 percent
Top 0.01 Percentile: 31.5 percent

Mankiw notes: "These figures include all federal taxes, not just income taxes."

08 Jan 2009 03:36 pm

The Online Right

Does Pajamas Media believe that the future of journalism really belongs to Joe The Plumber? Or that this is really worth publishing? It seems to me that the right is still culturally disoriented. If they are still promoting Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber and Ann Coulter and culture-war resentment as their core message, they are obviously in deep denial about what this election really meant. If their only unifying theme is hatred or reified "elite liberals", they are doomed.

This denial - this calcification of the worst of the right in the last eight years - is the real danger to Republicans. What they need is a grappling with the public policy issues at hand, and an imaginative constructive, conservative approach to them. But the posturing is so much easier, isn't it? And still, one presumes, really lucrative for a tiny few.

08 Jan 2009 03:12 pm

A Green 2009?

Freakonomics hosts a debate: how will clean technology will be affected by the recession? George Tolley:

The major kicker clouding the future remains how high the international price of oil will be; this is a more powerful influence on clean technology adoption than any U.S. policy.

Of course, we get blowback either way. If recovery makes gas more expensive, we bail out Tehran and Moscow. If recession keeps gas prices low, we fail to make the deeper shift toward noncarbon energy that will undermine Tehran and Moscow in the long run.

08 Jan 2009 03:10 pm

Gentle Reminder

It's time to take down that Christmas tree.

08 Jan 2009 02:41 pm

Obligatory Porn Industry Seeks Bailout Post

We might as well get it over with.

08 Jan 2009 02:39 pm

PUMAs Keep On Trucking

Harriet Christian angles for Hillary Clinton's senate seat. You remember her, right?

08 Jan 2009 02:19 pm

The Outing Of Tintin

You knew this was coming.

08 Jan 2009 02:01 pm

Rockets From Lebanon, Ctd.

David Kenner sees the risks:

The rockets were likely fired by Palestinian militant organizations based in the refugee camps, not Hezbollah. Still, the rockets put Hezbollah in an awkward position. Hassan Nasrallah, after announcing that his group "will not abandon the fight or our weapons," cannot easily condemn the rocket attacks. Note that Hezbollah's initial denial of responsibility for the rocket attacks did not come from the group itself, but from Tarek Mitri, the government Information Minister. Nasrallah may not want a war, but he has placed himself in a position where he cannot oppose one.

Continue reading "Rockets From Lebanon, Ctd." »

08 Jan 2009 01:53 pm

Malkin Award Nominee

"Unlike her compadres Jagger, Galloway and Livingstone, who all have notorious histories of Communist fellow-traveling, Lennox is not known for far-left or anti-Israel posturing. Indeed, her political activism has thus far mostly consisted of feel-good stuff like singing at the Live 8 concert and generally raising awareness about global poverty. So one wonders what prompts her current, passionate antipathy towards Israel. Maybe it’s something as petty as the 2000 break-up with her Israeli husband, Uri Fruchtmann?" - Jamie Kirchick, Big Hollywood.

08 Jan 2009 01:26 pm

The Truth About Marriage's History

A reader makes some great points:

With Larison's argument against marriage equality, I think you miss the most fundamental flaw. Larison assumes that changes to marriage are made explicitly.  But birth control and the destigmatization of out-of-wedlock childbirth have changed the institution of marriage as profoundly as no-fault divorce laws.  Throughout the Western world, marriage is no longer invariably associated with procreation.  People have children without being married; people are married with no thought or even possibility of having children. My father & stepmother, for example, married when she was menopausal.

Historically, marriage has never been solely about procreation; it was about extending kinship ties and the concomitant financial security of an extended family.  That's why in the west, in-laws once played such a significant role in selecting mates and in rearing the children.  In the 1700-1800s, when the idea of marriage become associated primarily with the couple, the nuclear family grew in importance, & the industrial revolution changed the role of the extended family in financial security, the nature of marriage changed significantly. Once we stopped being an agrarian society, large families went from being an economic plus to a minus, which is a major reason the push to develop effective birth control became so important.

These bottom-up changes in the definition of marriage far surpass anything proposed by gays seeking equal access to the institution. And that is why the only way to strengthen the older form of marriage so prized by social conservatives would require repealing no-fault divorce laws (not something that likely to happen, insofar as conservative men seem to enjoy their trophy second & third wives as much as liberals do), repealing all opportunities for women to earn wages independently of their husbands, outlawing any corporate policies that allow or encourage people to move away from their parents' homes, etc.  Those kinds of explicit social, legal, and economic changes are just not going to happen. So unplanned change is going to continue in how Americans create & maintain their families. Since a certain amount of instability in family arrangements is beyond the control of conservatives, they'd better look for where they can bolster stability. Do committed relationships between adults foster more stable societies or weaken them? Surely the answer is that they foster stable societies, and for that reason, they should be not just accepted but encouraged.

Why do social conservatives not want to encourage stability, responsibility and commitment among gay Americans? What real policy do they have for gay Americans at all?

08 Jan 2009 01:15 pm

Marc Ambinder On Hulk Hogan

Can you resist?

08 Jan 2009 12:41 pm

The View From Your Window

Glendale, California, 11 am.
 

08 Jan 2009 12:29 pm

Oy, Ctd.

Goldberg quibbles with Daniel Levy:

Palestinians interested in a two-state solution would have viewed the withdrawal in 2005 as a first, important step toward independence. They would have used the billions in aid money that flowed to Gaza to build schools and hospitals and roads and farms on the abandoned land of the Jewish settlements. But they turned those ruined settlements into rocket launching pads. Sharon was wrong to pull out of Gaza without extracting concessions from the Palestinians, and he should have done it in the framework of a negotiation, but that doesn't change the fact that he gave the Palestinians of Gaza what they said they wanted. 

08 Jan 2009 11:48 am

What We Cannot See

Israel's refusal to allow the international press into Gaza means we don't have the best sense of what is actually going on there. But this glimpse is very troubling:

The statement said a team of four Palestine Red Crescent ambulances accompanied by Red Cross representatives made its way to Zeitoun Wednesday where it “found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses.”

08 Jan 2009 11:40 am

Daily Fear Mongering

A supervolcano is going to destroy us all!

08 Jan 2009 11:36 am

Rockets From Lebanon

Abu Muqawama believes Hezbollah:

a) I honestly do not believe that Hizballah has an interest in sparking an Israeli counter-attack (just yet) through an action of their own.

b) If this was Hizballah, I would think it would be a little more spectacular than three to four rockets.

c) This has happened before. Some rogue Palestinian group or Sunni group will manage to launch a few rockets into Israel. Hizballah will get a case of the red ass because, hey, resistance along the Blue Line is their territory -- and theirs alone. And as long as the Israelis play it cool, no one else gets hurt.

Totten adds: "CNN suggests they were fired by Palestinians, not by Hezbollah, and I'm guessing they're right."

08 Jan 2009 11:33 am

The Gay Agenda

Jeffrey Toobin profiles Barney Frank:

Frank is uncharacteristically hopeful about the future, including gay rights. “We’re going to do three things in Congress,” he told me. “First, a hate-crimes bill—that shouldn’t be too hard. Next, employment discrimination. We almost got that through before, but now we can win even if we add transgender protections, which we are going to do. And finally, after the troops get home from Iraq, gays in the military. The time has come.”

I'd take Barney seriously. It's the same agenda as in 1988, and the Human Rights Campaign will ensure that their 20-year-long priorities are taken in order. And not-too-fast either, or the reason for their existence - and the sources of their funding - might dry up. Soldiers can wait; couples should focus on the state level. Pragmatically speaking, it seems dumb to fight this, although I'm against all hate crimes laws and believe that ENDA will mostly be a symbolic piece of legislation.

One small prediction: now the Dems are back in power, the political divisions among the gays will probably widen. That was one unintended consequence of the Bush years: he united the right and left of the gay world into a seamless whole. Now: we get to fight again about our competing visions for a gay future. Back to the 90s we go ...  I look forward to becoming the most annoying conservative on gay lists soon.

08 Jan 2009 11:20 am

The Lowest Point Of The Bush Years

Joe Klein names it.

08 Jan 2009 10:57 am

"The Old Man"

Pro-quarterback Kurt Warner tells us what God looks like to him:

08 Jan 2009 10:55 am

Conversate Amongst Yourselves

Ta-Nehisi does some Ebonics reporting.

08 Jan 2009 10:37 am

Watching The Newshole

Gaza takes center stage.

08 Jan 2009 10:12 am

The Incidents Of War

And so the Gaza conflict isolates Israel even more:

The United Nations says it is halting all aid deliveries to the besieged Gaza Strip. It is citing a series of Israeli attacks on U.N. staff and installations. The announcement came shortly after the driver of a U.N. truck was killed by tank fire as he was headed to an Israeli border crossing to pick up an aid shipment.

The U.N. said the delivery had been coordinated with Israel. The Israeli army has not commented.

And the dog that didn't bark ... ? A few rockets fly in from Lebanon, but Hezbollah denies responsibility. Is it a good thing that Hezbollah didn't fire the rockets? Or that they're lying about it? Or is this not a good thing at all?

                        

08 Jan 2009 10:04 am

Containment And Islamism

Hitch makes an excellent point in his excellent Gaza column:

Life in Islamic Gaza was not such as to induce ecstatic happiness and prosperity among the populace: In common with many fundamentalist movements, the Muslim Brotherhood in its local Palestinian incarnation had badly overplayed its hand. It seems improbable that we'll ever know what would have happened in a free vote, but I think it's safe to say that recent events have further postponed the emergence of a democratic and secular alternative among the Palestinians. I even think it's possible that some people in Israel and some other people in Gaza do not want to see the emergence of such a force, but let me not be cynical.

The truly good news of the last couple of years has been the decline in support for al Qaeda and other Jihadist elements in Muslim public opinion. What we have learned is that once Islamists actually wield power, their popularity collapses. Religious fanatics do not know how to run countries; their real interests lie elsewhere (you can apply that on a much lesser scale, of course, to the competence of the Bush administration). The place where Shiite Jihadism is least popular? Iran. And remember how al Qaeda managed to turn off the Jordanians after various atrocities; and how they lost the battle for the hearts and minds of Iraqis (with the brilliant and brave help of US troops) - after the Bush administration unwittingly gave them a lease of life in that country?

Now: if you're a rational kind of person you might deduce from this that containing Islamism and letting it collapse under its own insanity is certainly a viable policy, given the unsavory alternatives. You might at least consider that taking the bait from these guys and reigniting religious wars might actually be giving them the oxygen they need. And yet prudent containment - even after the Iraq debacle - is still equated with surrender on the hard right. This makes no sense if we actually want to win this war. And we will only win this war when Muslims fight the people whose arguments we keep unwittingly legitimizing.

08 Jan 2009 09:52 am

The Times Lives?

Felix Salmon tangles with Michael Hirschorn.

...many smaller newspapers will close their print editions, which have lost the classified-advertising bread-and-butter revenue stream upon which they've historically relied.

But the New York Times is not a small newspaper. It has an enormous display-advertisement inventory, and sells most of it at high rates. It's also incredibly well placed to go national, as smaller papers close, and become a replacement for people who've lost their local paper and who shudder at the prospect of ever reading USA Today.

James Surowiecki piles on.

08 Jan 2009 09:22 am

Senate Approved

Congress gets into the toy business.

08 Jan 2009 08:53 am

Palin For Senate?

Nate Silver says not to get too excited about this poll. Know fear.

08 Jan 2009 08:40 am

The Best Bad Option?

Ross wades back into the Gaza muck:

In the face of such a calculus, what's Israel to do? The answer is simultaneously simple and impossible: In the midst of a hotly-contested domestic political scene, they need to balance their short-term security concerns (all those rockets flying out of Gaza, in this case) against a twofold long-term goal - the need to incentivize Palestinians to stay within hailing distance of the negotiating table (which is awfully hard to do when you're smashing through their cities in pursuit of Hamas rocketeers), and the need to act unilaterally, in the absence of a plausible negotiating partner, to preserve their state's long-term viability in the face of the looming demographic time bomb (which is awfully hard to do, as Israel has discovered in the wake of the Gaza pull-out, without compromising your short-term security). And it's the Kobayashi Maru-style impossibility of all this that makes something like the Gaza incursion so hard to analyze: It seems like a bad idea, but within the constraints that Israeli leaders operate under it's possible that it's the worst option except for all the others.

08 Jan 2009 08:14 am

Seating Burris

Nate Silver gets it about right:

I think Reid can be criticized for one thing -- for failing to advocate for a special election. But even if the Democrats had made a more earnest push to hold a special election, that would still have provided for the possibility that Blagojevich would attempt to nominate someone in the meantime. What were they supposed to have said? "You know Rod, we really have no legal grounds to block your nominee, so please pretty please with a cherry on top don't do it?"

So does Dave Weigel:

I don’t believe this "Burris will be seated" story. That would involve Harry Reid fumbling and caving. Ridiculous!

Heh. For a legal anaysis of the case see Sandy Levinson. I have to say I remain a skeptic as to whether Fitzgerald really has the goods on the sleazebag Blago, and have no problem with Burris at all.

08 Jan 2009 07:15 am

Prop 8 And The Black Vote

Ta-Nehisi flags a new report.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

07 Jan 2009 06:50 pm

Email Of The Day

A reader writes:

As one of your very-weed-friendly-but-not-quite-a-stoner readers, I want to apologize for not letting you know about the hilarity of Pineapple Express before now. 

We were going to tell you, but we totally forgot.

07 Jan 2009 06:11 pm

The End Of White America?

Could it also mean the demise of the GOP? Publius reacts to the notion that Republicans need to twitter more to attract the next generation:

I think the GOP's youth problem is actually a non-white problem. Obama won generally among 18-29 year old voters by 66-32. However, he won white 18-29ers by a more modest +11 margin. Thus, the larger youth gap comes from the fact that McCain (considered a more moderate GOPer) got absolutely shellacked among young non-white voters. Embracing social networking sites isn't going to help much with that particular problem.

And the country ain't gettin' any whiter.

If you haven't check out the Atlantic cover-story on this very theme, here it is.

07 Jan 2009 05:59 pm

Face Of The Day

Mourners of Israeli army Staff Sgt. Alex Mashavisky, who died during combat in Gaza, take cover as a rocket alarm goes on during his funeral on January 07, 2009 in Beer Sheva, Israel. International calls on Israel and Hamas to introduce a renewed ceasefire deal have increased following a day of significant conflict and an increasing death toll. By Uriel Sinai/Getty Images.

07 Jan 2009 04:46 pm

No Solution

Reihan considers a two state solution:

I really wish that something like John Bolton’s fanciful scenario could work, i.e., hand over an impoverished Gaza with its poisonous political culture to an Egypt that has more than enough on its plate, and hand some slice of the West Bank to a Jordanian state that warily eyes its restive Palestinian majority, all while Israel’s increasingly radicalized Arab minority (many of them self-identified “Israeli Palestinians”) look on. But it clearly won’t.

Continue reading "No Solution" »

07 Jan 2009 04:20 pm

Mental Health Break

Oh, Blimey, look at the mattress: