Pulse '05

Addiction

2006-02-03T22:03:00.000-08:00

It was interesting to hear President Bush talk about America's oil "addiction." In reality, addictions are unhealthy dependencies on substances. So... addicted to Middle Eastern oil would be about being addicted to oil, regardless of location.

News flash, George: addicts don't care about the source of their drug. So to redirect them to Arctic or Cuban drilling to reduce dependency (currently 20% of oil imports), would be akin to switching from Afghan heroin to Columbian smack.

Mr. President, please don't insult the American people. If you are talking about weaning Americans from cheap oil, you have a partner in me and the Ameican Left. Conservation, mandatory minimum MPGs that make sense, tax breaks for using biodiesel, ethanol, hydrogen fuel cells, or other alternative fuels, documented reduction in yearly vehicular travel, proof of use of mass transit are all great ways to reduce our use of oil. That and the promotion of non-petroleum substitutes for things like laundry detergent and soap would save Americans in real dollars and barrels of crude petrocarbons.

Cold turkey may not work for America, but changing dealers or drug sources does not count as breaking an addiction. You, as a former alcohol addict, shoud know that. Be ashamed. Be very ashamed, Mr. President.

A Service Announcement

2005-12-31T21:59:00.000-08:00

As 2005 draws to a close, I will be changing formats around a little. Instead of a catch-all blog, there will be three:

The Pulse, discussions regarding politics and personal life,
HaDofeq, Middle Eastern-related political and personal posts, and
The Ping, technical and technological posts

These three will provide readers with topics more germane to their searches. It's been great hearing from commenters, and I look forward to more posts in the coming year.

Ending the Year: Hamas into the Brink

2005-12-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

I was hoping to end the year on some kind of upbeat note. But on the Israeli Broadcast Authority's Friday's Yoman program Hamas announced that they would be entering the Palestinian government, with the intent to "liberate all occupied Palestinian terrorities, including Yafo and Haifa."

The great experiment started by Faisal Husseini and the Christian Palestinian moderates in the mid-80's is now officially a failure. The "last great hope" on which a number of Israeli governments have risen -- and fallen -- has been hijacked, like the Achille Lauro or American Airlines flight 11 and United Airlines flight 175, to the advantage of terrorists that would rather see the entire world erupt in flames than find common ground and peace.

Israel's radical right has advocated a fascist solution to Arab terror: transfer. This is no longer an even discussable solution, with rockets landing at Israel's doorstep in the south and north, and the great underbelly of the east probably the next front, from which almost no major city is out of range.

On a more organized front, Hizballah's puppet masters in Iran and Syria, under increasing pressure to reform and conform the the norms of behavior of world countries, are stoking the fires of terror against Israel, just as the Bush administration distracts the American public from its felonious conduct with faux warnings illegal immigation as a terror tool and investigations about the exposure of its failures.

My fear is that the next vocalized step by the far right, the economically disaffected, the displaced Gazans and the zealot "hilltop youth" cynically deployed by their parents and "rabbies" will be Kahane's jackals despicable cant: "Death to the Arabs." And, given Israeli military capability and 'Arik, King of Israel's impending ascent to the throne, is no longer just the dream of fascists.

Coming Soon to a Border Near You...

2005-12-24T21:25:00.000-08:00

Americans beware: the fate of Gaza can become your fate as well. With Gazans "securely" bottled up in their little sliver of a ghetto, the PLO's putative control has faded. Sure, they got the pretty uniforms, but that's about it. For effectiveness, Hamas owns the streets, the adrenal glands, livers and guts of the people. (Note to G.W. Bush: Hearts and minds are entirely unnecessary to own in this part of the world; fear requires no thinking!)

When Israel ruled Southern Lebanon, hundreds of Lebanese crossed the borders every day, picked up at the border by Israeli busses, and ferried off to Israel to work at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, in the industrial zone all up and down the coast, and even down to the orchards near Hadera. The money they brought in bought the Lebanese security, the Israelis a cheap labor force, and generally speaking, good relations with the locals. A win-win for both sides. Of course, that's all in the past now. Those thousands of Christian families are now living under the shadow of poverty and terror, families that didn't move to Israel after Israel's cowardly withdrawal "purged" by the terrorists that moved into the power vacuum.
Americans need to worry about a Hamastan in the Western Hemisphere. Don't laugh before you think about it for a minute. There are lots of poor people with little reason to stay where they are in South and Central America, and a big, rich country up north. If Bush and his Congress deliver on their GOP-inspired promise of closing the borders to illegal immigration (usually with some references to Al Queida and terrorists), Mexico is left holding the bag. With almost one in three Latin Americans under age 15 and one in four making under $2 a day (according to the PRB's latest stats), dealing with the millions on young Mexicans, Guatemalans, Peruvians, Columbians, Venezuelans, etc. already illegally within Mexico's borders.

That makes President Fox the oppressor, puts lots of disgruntled, poorly educated and lively folks with plenty of excess energy and time on their hands on US borders. This has the very real ability to destabilize Mexico, since the Mexican economy already depends on the funds Mexican immigrants wire down from America to their families back home.

If Bush is worried about immigration helping terrorists, then he'd first better think about how many, not how few, immigrants he can afford to let into the United States. Besides, how are we supposed to open a Home Depot every 43 hours and at a Wal-Mart almost every day without all that cheap labor, let alone the McMansions being thrown up en masse?

Start taking notes, folks. The delusional worries about the Southern US border today may become the reality because of, not in spite of, our current government's policies towards immigrant or migrant labor.

Oh, despite all that: Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas, Kwanza Greetings, a belated Eid ul-Adha, an orgiastic Saturnalia, and a Festivus for the Rest of Us!

Arafat is Dead, Long Live Chaos!

2005-12-15T18:03:00.000-08:00

Well, you heard it here first, folks. Hamas soundly trounced the rational parties, the parties of logic and corruption, in all but their home territory: Ramallah. And now that terrorism has won, the Palestinian counterparts to the Israeli rats are leaving the sinking ship, to founder independently or join whichever horse seems to be winning. (Sounds like the Democrat defections in the late '90s.)

Now the proof is in the eating of the pudding: will Hamas do what no other terrorist group since the Israeli pre-state cells have done, and 'go legit?' Begin and Shamir were proof that terrorists can become legitimate statespeople, better than either professional politicians or mainstream military leaders.

Sadly, I don't think it's that balanced a question. The pre-Israel Jewish cells were founded on the idea that killing civilians was abhorent with notable exceptions, unfortunately, in the King David Hotel bombing, Deir Yassin, and assassination of Count Bernadotte. carried out by the Haganah (the IDF's predecessor) Etzel and Lehi, and Lehi respectedly. The mere fact that I can name those exceptions, and Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad have taken random killings of civilians into the realm of blase reportage points up the gulf between these groups. I trust only that terrorists who target, and peoples that celebrate, the killings of civilians en masse cannot be trusted with running their own affairs, let alone conducting themselves as a Nation of the World.

Skin-deep Civilization

2005-12-12T18:21:00.000-08:00

Another quick post. Yesterday there was a blackout in my neighborhood. Nice day out, a little brisk. Sunny, pleasant. The local utility got the lights back on in under a couple of hours.

Bush has more to worry about than the angst in Iraq, or whether stuffing the Supreme Court with "his kind of people" is a good thing. See, I live in an okay neighborhood. No high density housing, definitely low-crime. The county doesn't truck with hoodlums (an ominous phrase), and there's a sense of "law and order" about the place.

So the good neighbors eschewed the outside air and descended to the local grocery store. You know the type: big box, no windows, one about every mile? The staff was average for a Sunday, and it took several minutes before the staff realized that (a) they were getting massively ripped off, and (b) they were outnumbered.

When the lights came on everyone carried on as if nothing happened. Police weren't called because there were too many of them, and there was no proof that those that had slipped outside hadn't purchased their goods. No power means no cameras. No power means the gloves are off.

This is a sentinel for the economic rebounding Bush trumpets. Give the rich their cake, and let the poor steal bread.

You Can't Step out of the Pond...

2005-12-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

...without taking the pond scum with you.

Change is Good?

2005-12-05T16:16:00.000-08:00

Like Texas weather, if you don't like the politics in Israel today, just wait a while. But like the weather, it's the same old stuff that comes down. As the Labor party lost it's grip on power in the nineties to an ever-increasingly powerful religious and ultra-religious influence, so has the right and alleged centrist movement now stunningly crumbled in the face of 'Arik, King of Israel.' [1997,2005] When I was in the Army there he'd be surrounded by rabid supporters, all chanting that, which was a take-off on the religious chant: 'David, king of Israel, is alive, is alive and truly here.' Fellow peaceniks then said that he was the one politician that, if granted leadership of Israel, would be most expected not to relinquish that power.

That prophecy seems to be occuring now. By creating the Kadima party (meaning 'Forward!'), Sharon can slough off the burden of the radicalized and increasingly fractuous religious right wing, use the strategic withdrawal from Gaza as his entry visa into the camp of the peace-makers and create a faux distance from his corrupt political activities associated with his hold on power to this point. He will be elected on the basis of personality and charisma, and not on a platform or direction that is any more noble or creative than those of Prime Ministers Shamir or Peres or even Begin. In many ways he is the uglier, ruder younger brother of Yitzhak Rabin.

We will be annointing a king, complete with a court of sycophants, jesters, fools and savvy gravy soppers. We will walk into the blades of his intended actions with eyes open and unseeing, just like Abraham's father's idols.

Putting Sharon in power, in this fashion, seals the doom of the Palestinian people. Sharon will carve, with a most sharp knife, the borders of the Palestinian fiefdoms, with the right cheering on, the religious upset they didn't get Iraq in the mix, the left quietly relieved there's a 'settlement,' and the Palestinians, yet again, victims of their own inability to act like even relative adults.

If this all sounds a bit harsh, let's consider what's happening now:

Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas rules, but only so far as 'the street' lets him. Radical factions, responsible for suicide bombings, are making the political brownie points, while Abbas can't risk angering the armed terrorists by trying to make them disarm. And if Islamic Jihad wins, Israel won't let the new government exist. Oops!
The 'fence,' a.k.a. 20-foot concrete walls, is a statistically successful way to reduce the homicidal terrorists looking to kill themselves to kil others.
The day after Sharon declared his new party, the Likud was down to nine members, the rest having defected either to him or other parties. The left lost only their impotent totem pole: Shimon Peres.

Our trees are bearing their poison fruits, and each tree is dying from the produce of the others.

Trivia for a Change: Harry Potter IV

2005-11-20T20:57:00.000-08:00

I've been on a severe writing project lately, with little time to post. But I did take time out to see the latest Harry Potter flick. I suppose the best way to describe my reaction would be what Bilbo Baggins said about his life before handing the ring to Frodo. "Feeling stretched thin."

It's a great 2-1/2 hour flick. But against a 700-page novel, with numerous twists and subplots, the movie simply has too much territory to cover. Scenes are cruelly cut to the minimum, leaving many without the right setup. There is one, count 'em one classroom scene. When one of the minor characters dies, there's no scene to cover the response: the next scene, with Harry going up to Dumbledore's office looks like it matches with the death, but there's no reference to it.

I hear that the DVD version will be considerably longer. I pray for that, because this was simply too fast, too thin, and not the homage to J.K. Rowling that the previous movies strived and succeeded in being.

Back to Grid Discussions

2005-11-14T14:35:00.000-08:00

The main character in the novel I'm writing manages several rogue botnets that carry out his Quixotic will. They are his NSA, his mob assassins, his librarians, and his bodyguards. They sit, not interrupting, not interfering with their hosts, until they are triggered to do their master's bidding.

The idea that grid computing could be sabotaged by hackers getting into the system is precisely why I wrote several patents on the subject of creating fiduciarily responsible distributed computing environments. The idea that a grid computing operation would naturally be safe is absurd, even though one of my commenters pointed out that internal networks didn't have to worry about such things.

If low-paid editors from ZNet can write about it (sorry, David B., I'm just guessing from friends in the industry), then hackers are already working on it. Grid computing needs to quickly grow up and take on the reins of security, auditability, and introspection for the purposes of ensuring that what is performed is what is requested.

Even if fiduciary responsibility isn't needed in grid computing projects, auditability, accountability and the management of individual grid notes is a prime requirement.

Honored

2005-11-06T21:56:00.000-08:00

This evening my spouse and I were honored by our private school for being founding members. Nine years of operations, eleven years of nurturing. As they called us all up for a group gift presentation I found myself hugging all these incredible people, people I had grown with over eleven years. People, even those with whom I had little in common, I knew better than I knew almost anyone with whom I grew up. People that had sacrificed, argued, cried and stood together in solidarity to bring our little school of twenty three kids to a powerful 160-student school with all the growth potential, politics and culture an expensive tuition can allow.

We are all blessed to be part of it, and I feel humbled by the opportunity offered to me to make a difference not only for my children's education, but that of my friends and neighbors. Mazal tov and yashar ko'ach!

A Battle Staged

2005-10-31T09:18:00.000-08:00

Looks like the Tom DeLay school of acceleration into brick walls is continuing. Picking a favorite from the neo-con list of judicial candidates and then talking the "up-or-down vote" from Frist's mouth dares the Democrats and moderate Republicans to fight.

A win for moderates and Democrats will decisively break the backs of the Evangelical right in favor of voices of harmony. The fanatics on their side will redouble their efforts to edge into power at all levels of government, and I predict civil servants will become involved.

Seating someone like Judge Alito with his views on gays, abortion and personal freedoms will serve up a grim choice for those left of far right: cooperate or fight a battle for Moscow, one scorched earthern field of policy at a time.

A Horned Dilemma

2005-10-30T14:42:00.000-08:00

The Supremes

With the Miers nomination dead, the pressure has been increase for a DeLay-style showdown on the Senate floor regarding Supreme Court nominees. I am not sure whether the conservatives trying to steer Bush's choice understand that getting a clear, conservative choice is not a win for their side. It will galvanize, as almost none of Bush's missteps have to this point, the slumbering giant that is mainstream Republicanism.

Fanatacism has no place on the bench. I know, that's what the neo-cons say, but, with the political demographics as they are, I think both sides have a point. I believe America needs a most moderate judge, one who will balance the needs of the many against the needs of the few, and the needs of two opposing, and balanced sides, against the risk of a House Divided.

Another Victim of his Own Arrogance?

Libby's arrest and continued investigations regarding Rove's involvment in the 'outing' of Valerie Plame adds another level of distraction to the insular and aloof Bush/Cheney cabal. It is unbelievably frustrating to hear Bush talk ardently of his role model, Ronald Reagan, while at the same time ignoring the one great thing that Reagan did: when in doubt, seek the counsel of wise professionals. Time and again this Presidency alternately resembles a plutocracy or a theocracy, despite even its own desire to find the best person for the job.

Watching the Economic Vote

2005-10-25T05:09:00.000-07:00

The French Herald Tribune managed to push in Bernanke's Jewish roots, but the most notable local event was the huge jump in the Dow at Bush's announcement of a replacement for Fed Chief Greenspan.

This is an odd occurance. Consider this: stock analysts and watchers make a career of second-guessing world events and corporate earnings, and, of late, unless a company makes a stunner of a move, the street has typically already moved the stock up or down into what they believe is its rightful place. It's when analysts go into disbelief that stock prices go wild.

Which they did yesterday. Which leads me to make the following conclusion: the market watchers did not believe that Bush would make a good choice for the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Ergo, the street does not have confidence in Bush's decision-making abilities.

Taken on its own, this logical train of thought could be seen as thin. But after the Miers nomination, the battles for judgeships and their subsequent recess appointments, and the incredible job our Commander in Chief is doing overseas, this is yet another thread binding the phrase 'abject failuretude' to the good old Yankee boy.

Now to await the week's indictments of suspects, or the latest cover-up. And I think the real republicans are starting to get nervous...

The Battle for the Digital Domain

2005-10-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

Google was sued by five top publishers today as it prepares to scan copyrighted works for inclusion in its indices. Google says this is squarely within the 'fair use' exclusion of copyright — allowing limited quotation — while the publishers see this as a violation of their ownership of the content.

The fact that Amazon has books bearing entire chapters, and the concomitant sales they generate, has all to do with both Google's desire for the content, and the publishers' desire to keep Google from getting referral revenue.

Content is the next killer app. The coming years will focus on digital rights and the milieu in which they are used. Microsoft is buying up art collections. Google is snagging public domain literature. Apple, as I pointed out below, is creating products around content, then turning around to create more sales for both Apple and the content owners.

Podcasting

2005-10-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

Attended an Apple podcasting seminar today. Software, products and services are moving so fast, the scramble is more to see which company or technology, or what philosophy, gets to lead than it is to provide products and services for the current market. Software that was cutting edge literally last week has been overshadowed by the next and next technologies that take the XML and linked metadata to the next level.

Like the original, non-commercial Internet of yore, integrating this technology into something that can be used for cash by the masses seems, to me, to be the next step. That would steal the thunder from the RealPlay industry, take personal publishing to the next level, and let subscriptions to paper magazines move to the next level of publication and revenue generation.

Interesting note: Apple is heavily toting that the TV episode content that they have managed to license is a first: until now, networks only licensed entire DVDs that were carefully packaged. Well, duh! The quality of what's being launched is, as was put by a podcasting leader: "pretty good quality if you play it on your computer and sit back a bit." Mark the words: Apple may make a mint on the video iPod, but the networks and cable channels will make a macro fortune on these micro-sales of single episodes to the new small screen.

Idiots with Internet Access

2005-10-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a scam beaut from one of my e-mail accounts:

Dear Friend,

I am Mr. Alex Smith a personal accountant to one Dr. Jonathan Mann, who died with his family in Swissair accident in 1998. The CNN webpage below will tells you more about
my client; http://www.cnn.com/health/9809/03/dr.mann.profile [blogger note: Notice that the reference link is correct!]
My purpose of contacting you is to ask for your aid in partnership to repatriate the sum of us$30 million that belongs to my client in a domiciliary bank account here in United Kingdom. As soon as i heard from you, i will give you the details/ operational method on how to repatriate the said THIRTY MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS into your bank account for our mutual benefit. While replying, include your phone number and fax for voice communications. I really need this money for my wife kidney transplanting operation which involved huge amount of monet. Please help me to to get the money out from Braclys [sic[ bank.

Truly yours,
Alex Smith.

Then, from another account, another variation on the same idiocy:

From: Tom Benson
Monrovia, Liberia
Email: tom50ben@hotmail.com
Dear Beloved,
This letter might come to you as a surprise since we have not had any previous correspondence nor met. This is as a result of the helpless situation I found myself into. I got your contact during my surf search on the web for a reliable, capable and trustworthy person that can assist me in this darkest moment of my life.

I am a native of Liberia. I lost my father, mother and two sisters with our family assets/house during the recent war raging in Liberia. I am alive writing you now from Nigeria where other lucky victims and I who escaped alive from the rebel attack are like refugees. No house, no good food, no good job. I am just getting assistance from well meaning individuals and a couple of Nigerians who came back from Liberia too.

Before my father's sudden death, he deposited a consignment labeled as GOLD & DIAMOND but concealed in it is the sum of US$27,000,000.00 (Twenty Seven Million US Dollars) in cash with a Private Security Company in Monrovia but the consignment was later moved to their affiliate office Overseas, for safety of the consignment (funds), via diplomatic means. He intended to use the funds for Politics. While my father was alive he explained to me that he had such fund and had to keep it in a security company abroad due to the unstable polity in Liberia and considering that he is a politician, he would not want the Government to seize the money if deposited into the banks in Liberia.

Now that he is late and am the only surviving son, I am writing you to assist me receive this consignment in your country, invest it in a profitable business and help relocate me to join you immediately. As a result of insecurity of life and property here, I do not want to stay in Africa any longer. You have my permission /authority to have/collect 30% of the funds on receiving it, for your timely assistance.

Please indicate your readiness to assist me immediately so that all the information about this fund will be passed to you immediately. Send to me immediately the following information:
1. Your full legal names including contact address
2. Your mobile telephone and fax numbers for easy communication
3. Date of birth, sex and marital status for documentation purposes.

As soon as I receive your reply mail I shall forward your information to the Security/Finance firm overseas to contact you for the delivery of the consignment to you as my proxy. Thereafter you shall help me relocate to your country, as I am sick and tired of the unrest in Africa. I shall send you the Power of Attorney to present to the Finance/security Firm as we proceed, as demanded by them. With the help of sympathizer I was able to secure a phone, which is very important for me at this stage to enable, me transact this important business for which I am contacting you.

Please help me and reply me immediately you receive this mail via my email: Email: tom50ben@hotmail.com

Your friend in need,
Tom Benson
Email: tom50ben@hotmail.com

These all started out as classic 'Nigerian Scams,' which are continuations of a scam that was practiced, town by town, in the Midwest in the 1850s! Now these are carried out anywhere in the World outside the US, anywhere where they'll have time to run after pocketing even one or two ill-gotten gains from idiots with more Internet access than common sense. And these scams are easy to guard against. Nigeria, a country entirely corrupt with oil, diamonds and other riches purely ravaged from this poor country, is home to, and the parent of, the '419 Nigerian scam,' named after the part of the Nigerian Penal Code that appies to such frauds.

I have ranted in the past as to how unbelievably unintelligent some of the staff in my local school district are. I shudder to think of them getting this e-mail. This scam, in its innumerable variations, is costing US taxpayers mllions of dollars in moments!

A brief word to the wise: if you don't know who it is, delete the e-mail. If the deal sounds too good to be true, delete the e-mail. If it sounds even vaguely illegal, delete the e-mail! (Get the trend?) Don't wait until you're paid into this idiocy before reporting them!

I know. You think that if you're reading this, you'll not fall for something stupid like this. But read the blogs, see who's blogging and what they're saying. Caveat Emptor, dudes and dudettes!

Brushing the Crumbs from the Table

2005-10-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

Our city closed its last Hurricane Katrina shelter this week, evacuees that were chased from one shelter to another by the storm's sibling sister Rita.

"They were handing out hotel vouchers like candy," my source at the shelter said. "Just go, here's a voucher and taxi money, and there's the line of taxis. See ya!"

It's a scene being repeated over and over and over in places that have become safe havens for refugees.

Okay, that quote went through two layers of paraphrase, but it begs the question of what next. Six months in a hotel doesn't rebuild a life. And those left in the shelters were either so totally impoverished that rebuilding their lives requires more than a fluffed pillow for a few months (not that I think they went to those kinds of hotels), or already impaired in their ability to deal with their lives. I met many of them at our city's shelter when thousands were living there for over two weeks.
The difficulty with dealing with lots of people, real people with real problems, makes for weird politics and negative energy spreading weeks after the initial, phyisical impact.
There are some signs of life from the Real New Orleans: communities, or at least streets, that are looking to rebuild. But the carpetbaggers, megacorps, scammers and other forms of sleaze have already tentatively settled on the ruins of this beautiful city, and it will take quite the battle to ensure that the rebuilt city is open to its former residents, and doesn't create another generation of dust bowl refugees spread throughout the United States.

A Brief Childhood Flashback

2005-09-26T21:25:00.000-07:00

Not all youth was suffered or wasted. I just found, after searching on and off for over twenty years (!!), part of a wonderful collection of records from my childhood. Recorded in the late 50's and early 60's, these science 'folk' songs provided me with some of my earliest facts and gave me an interest in science I've followed until today. Those of you remembering 'The Sun is a Mass (of Incandescent Gas)" from They Must Be Giants will be surprised to know that it's a cover for this simple song from one of these albums (listen to the original here).

These are beautiful little ditties, great for playing again and again and again and again to little (and maybe not so little) kids. I daresay the students in my local public middle school would learn a thing or two from these simple melodies.

Now if someone could point me to the equally wonderful songs about other cultures, and history tunes, I'd be much obliged.

Sharon's Military Strategy

2005-09-24T18:05:00.000-07:00

During the disengagement many people asked me why Sharon, an avowed right-winger, would do something so "dovish" as to give the Palestinians territory to call their own.

"He's not," I answered, "he's a pragmatic, right-wing general." Here's his bio.

This is the man who was one of the first (and only) Israeli politicians to purchase a large dwelling in East Jerusalem, through several proxies, and then move in, creating his personal 'Hebron community' within the Moslem Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. The same guy who was blamed for using Christian militia groups to help conquer Lebanese territory. The Phalange groups' behavior led to the horrific massacres in Sabra and Shatila.

The disengagement pulls the line of defence into a straight shot, and creates a clear field of fire into a territory where Israel doesn't have civilians. I am not the only on who sees the government's cynical abandonment of synagogues to be vandalized as part of a ploy for pity running up to an active, aggresive terror response.

Until the disengagement the Palestinians and the excuse, lame though it might be, that they couldn't possibly reign in Hamas because they didn't have the power and right to do what they needed. And Israel's responses were hamstrung. Things. Have. Changed.

Hamas has lost its cover. When shelled, Israel will respond with counter-battery fire. The PA is on the hook to keep order, and every time Hamas fires a rocket, they are undermining their assertion that their rule by might is right.

Everywhere Hamas fires a Qassam rocket will be come a target zone. Israelis return an accurate salvo before the missile lands. Even if Hamas terrorists run as soon as they light their missile fuses, Hamas cannot repeatedly withdraw from the field without creating instant Palestinian enemies from the survivor's if Israel's artillery strikes.

Unlike Israel's previous use of collective punishment, a singularly idiotic way of getting Palestinians to stop their kin given the PA's lack of power under Israeli-occupied territories, this has the effect of helping to empower the fabled 'Palestinian street' to take back their cities from the rule of the insane.

At the rate of fire available to Israel, there won't be a street, courtyard, public plaza or road intersection left after just a few weeks -- Gaza isn't all that big a target, and now it needs to act like a State, not a terrorist nest.

The Hurricane that Wasn't Here

2005-09-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

Water stripped from shelves. Jocularly, consumers, like cows in a closing feedlot, crowd the flashlight, battery and duct tape areas of local stores. Across the country gas is being eyed with a bit of panic. Pepsi and Coke are hoarded like bottled water. People are muttering about traffic, passing on numbers, locations, horror stories of local traffic.

San Antonio struggles with it's already complex traffic. The Austin City Limits show continues as planned. Houston's biggest evacuation headaches, aside from the preventable tragedy of an exploding bus with over twenty casualties, is the realization that capitalist evacuation methods depending on private vehicles don't work: only a well-orchestrated public transportation system can move millions of citizens from any two points.

In the meantime, tens of thousands of refugees, thinking they were only a step ahead of the storm, are instead wallowing in another hot, Texas fall day all over Central and West Texas.

The story not being told, the story covered up by the fearless fire fighters fighting blazes in downtown Galveston, is of the toxic time bombs direcly in Rita's path. It will be days, if not weeks, for the real truth to bubble up as to the real damage to the environment from this hurricane strike directly at our chemical underbelly.

One ill-timed hurricane gust, one tornado just a shade too powerful, and pipes will clang like xylophones around our main refinery complexes, shredding fuel and pastic manufcaturing facilities that spread like artificial cities across miles and miles of Texas flatland.

I can't deny we need the products produced by these plants, if not at the quantity we consume them. With the abject failures of FEMA and of Louisiana's entire government, with clear failure of our Texan evacuation system (what if we didn't have two days to evacuate Houston from, say a WMD), I don't have faith that the ever self-'regulating' petrochemical industry isn't setting us up for another Bhopal.

May I be proved wrong -- live upwind.

Very Strange Coincidence...

2005-09-24T07:22:00.000-07:00

Hmmm... maybe my post about FALN had strong voodoo jubjub... They're still battling it out!

Blood on the Road

2005-09-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

Just over the wires was a report on an accident near Kibbutz Gonen, where I lived during my army service. It was a head-on accident on a curving, single-lane road with no divider, uphill, with a drunk drivers shaken taken from one car, a body and four kids taken from the other.

I drove that road just a couple of months ago. Even sober it was dangerous: busses rocketing to a local watering hole naturally took up a lane and a half, and knowing where one could swerve saved my life more than once when I lived there.

My cousin, his spouse and son were killed in a death accident back in 1982. Killed by my cousin's son, an F-16 pilot with more balls than sense, who managed to get T-boned at an intersection after swerving around speed bumps and ignoring a 4-way stop sign to speed to his death and decades of pain for his orphaned brother and sister. I drove past there too. I do it every time I'm in Israel. Mussa was a gentle human being, a cornerstone of the Kibbutz Movement and a member of Israel's Parliment. The son of that man, who helped me understand the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, of working towards changing the world for the better, shattered the world of tens of thousands around him with his singular act of suicidal stupidity.

It never ceases to amaze me how countries seem to take drunk driver assaults in particular and automobile accidents in general as a 'cost of doing business' in a modern society. Israel loses, each year, more people from vehicular slaughter than from all military and terrorist activities combined. Combined! Yet, just as the United States blindly invests in jails and law enforcement to the detriment of education and well-child care, Israel pours more and more money into yeshivot, special interest groups and kleptocratic squabbles, and then in pristine, wide toll roads, rather than taking a serious, sustained and long term investment in the police infrastructure and roads.

Studies show that the stress of terror and war directly correlate to car accidents. But the limp, passive, reactive, and ticket-oriented way in which the Israeli Police act doesn't act as a counterweight to such behavior.

America has been a great friend of Israel, and a financial as well as political contributor to many valid and important goals of my Jewish State -- starting with its continued existence.

Friends don't let friends drive -- or spend -- drunk.

Voting In a Terror Regime

2005-09-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

Near future, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Crowds or supporters, many of them firing automatic weapons into the air in joy, welcomed the new president of the Free State of Puerto Rico, into her offices today.

"Now comes the hard work to liberate our sisters and brothers from under the oppressive gringo yoke," said Maria Torres through an interpreter. Torres, great-granddaughter of Alberto Torres, one of the famed liberation fighters from the early days of the revolution, when he fought the fascisti with Fuerzas Armadas Liberacion Nacional Puertoriquena (FALN) in the 1970's and 80's.

"We must continue our armed struggle until not a single Spanish speaker suffers under the English yoke of oppression," Governor Torres said, waving one of the Cuban cigars for which she is famed for smoking -- and which has caused her not to be allowed into the United States.

While the American Secretary of State complained commented on the aggressive start to La Presidenta Torres' rule, government officials dismissed the statement as a tactic meant to undermine Puerto Rico's place as a peer among nations. "We will not be cowed into obedience," an Interior Ministry spokesman said, "the time when the Great Satan could do that to us has passed.

Sound absurd? I think so. There isn't a country that I know of that would willingly bring to power an arch enemy at their border, or permit another country to do so. Iraq certainly wouldn't want that -- except, of course, that a majority of Iraqis are loyal, through clan or religion, to neighboring Iran, but that's a different story.

Hamas, avowed opponent of Israel, advocator of the destruction of the State of Israel, official terrorist organization by both American and international acclaim, is picking up the weapon of the vote. Under cover of supporting democracy, the United States and other Western powers may end up assisting in the installation of a mortal enemy around almost all of Israel's land border. Like other Iranian-backed sister organizations such as Hizballah, it gains converts to its fold by out-providing social services to its target populations -- while killing or derailing more legitimate organizations, such as the PA or the Lebanese governments, from doing the job that they, rightfully, should do. Check out this clinical discussion with one of the inventors of the suicide bomber.

I'm not going to go int0 a long discussion about whether Hamas is a terror organization or not; you can find out more about that here, here, here, here, here and here. I'm pointing to how terror organizations use the freedoms and tools extant in an open democracy to injure it. We trained the terrorists who flew the planes into the towers in our flight schools. We

Hamas is not a political organization: The following is a direct quote from the Hamas charter (Article 13):

Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?

...

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with.

Highlighting in the text is mine. This is no different than a party dedicated to the abolition of democracy and installation of a dictatorship running for the Presidency, except these folks can scare up the needed votes, and I mean that literally. Hamas in an election isn't an act of democracy, it's an act of terrorism.

So the discussion about the Palestinian Authority allowing Hamas to run in upcoming elections is nothing other than their throwing up their hands and facing the inevitable. And the inevitable consequence to Hamas sitting on one side of Israel's future
crenellated border will be the destruction of the Palestinian State, by Israel, by Western forces, or by civil war.

The real choice Abbas needs to make now is whether to disarm the militias and terror organizations in his midst. He does it now at great peril, or it will be done for his successors, for he will not live to see the peace he claims to strive towards.

New Orleans and the Attack of the Mad Herd Animals

2005-09-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, everyone take a deep breath. We just witnessed the incredible trauma and stupidity surrounding the 'management' of the New Orleans hurricane response. Now, we are setting ourselves up for the next phase: the madding return (see my previous posting).

If FEMA is running the show, then FEMA needs to set down the ground rules. Not panicked local politicians, not the media, and not the citizenry, which has been whipsawed between death and life, heartache and survival pragmatics. If the federal governemnt is responsible for the safety and well-being of the affected citizenry, then it, not the local government, needs to make the rules. If the local government wants to run the show, then they need to recind their request for federal assistance. They can't have it both ways: ask for help, and then do stupid things.

Of course, getting FEMA to make a decision that makes sense is a whole discussion into itself. But if this can be shifted into a Coast Guard/military-style operation (calm down, all y'all posse comitatus folks!), then there's a possibility that the cleanup and basic safety needs of the population can be met before they return to swamp the crippled infrastructure with yet more raw sewage and self-induced casualties.