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Gaza in the eyes of Christopher Hitchens.
The deaths of Palestinian Arabs in Gaza, and of Israelis (Muslim and Christian Arab, and Druse and Bedouin, as well as Jewish, don’t forget, in Ashdod and Sderot), are hardly ennobled by the sordid realization that the timing of the carnage has been determined by three sets of electoral calculation.
The first and the most obvious is the interregnum between U.S. presidencies, in which only the faintest of squeaks will be heard from our political class as our weapons are used to establish later bridgeheads and to realign our uneasy simultaneous patronage of the Israeli and the Egyptian and the Palestinian establishments. Benny Morris, one of the most tough-minded Israeli intellectual commentators, used to speculate that Israel would employ the Bush-Obama transition to strike at Iranian nuclear sites. He may have been wrong in the short term, but, in fact, the current attack on Gaza and Hamas is the same war in a micro or proxy form.
Second comes the impending February election in Israel. Until last week, Benjamin Netanyahu was strongly favored to come back as the man whose hard line against territorial concessions had been vindicated by the use of long-evacuated Gaza as a launching pad for random missile attacks. It now seems unlikely that he can easily outbid the current ruling coalition, at least from the hawkish right. …
In his column, “Get Out of the Way, You Old Fogies,” David Harsanyi says a gerontocracy has taken over the country.
… Thirty years after Ted Kennedy griped about Ronald Reagan’s advanced age, the man serves as a 76-year-old, nine-term senator recovering from brain-tumor surgery. Really, is there no one else available in the state of Massachusetts who can drop his Rs and vote dependably Maoist?
An average adult would not trust Sen. Robert Byrd (who is 91) to pet-sit their mutt for fear that the unfortunate creature might accidentally turn up in chili con carne. Yet, Byrd sits on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, where he doles out massive amounts of taxpayer funds for West Virginia landmarks with “Byrd” in the title. Fortunately, this session Byrd has lost his chairmanship to make way for a young whippersnapper in Hawaii’s Daniel Inouye, who is 84.
And, sure, there has been some progress in the Senate with the ousting of Alaskan criminal Ted Stevens (85). The youth movement continued in the House with the ejection of 82-year-old John Dingell from his chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to make way for Henry Waxman, who comes in at a stylish 69. …
John Stossel says Madoff made off with chump change compared to the federal government.
Bernard Madoff, who stands accused of bilking sophisticated investors out of $50 billion, is reported to have told two of his executives that his business was “a giant Ponzi scheme.”
Perpetrators of Ponzi schemes lead clients to believe their money is invested and that their profits are the fruits of the money manager’s savvy. But in fact, the “profits” are merely revenue provided by the next group of dupes. Eventually, when no more new dupes can be found, the scheme crashes.
Political leaders say Madoff’s alleged crimes show what’s wrong with the country. President-elect Obama said the “massive fraud that was made possible in part because the regulators who were assigned to oversee Wall Street dropped the ball”. Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid added, “[R]egulators have been asleep at the wheel”.
Politicians go on and on about Wall Street “greed” and “irresponsibility.”
But Madoff’s scam was small compared to Ponzi schemes the government itself runs: Social Security and Medicare. …
Contentions likes Sanjay Gupta .
Commentary wonders when the left crazies are going to notice Obama is starting out like Bush 44.
… Open-ended global instability has made certain that the U.S. will stick to the most vital Bush national security positions. Similarly, economic uncertainty requires the continuation of the Bush tax cuts and the indefinite postponement of pie-in-the-sky entitlements. Despite the campaign scraps thrown to the left-wing chorus and the sham apologetics offered to the international community, many liberal policies have been temporarily rendered non-starters. But if Democratic leaders are resigned to the judicious employment of conservative principles, and Democratic voters are not, where is the party heading?
It’s hard to say, but it can’t hurt to look at how this gap came about. One place to start is with the netroots. The runaway train of preposterous (and liberal) expectations that delivered Barack Obama into the White House first gained speed as a runaway train full of preposterous accusations against George W. Bush. With their cartoonish demonization of every Bush policy and associate, groups like the Daily Kos and Moveon.org made it impossible for any liberal with a web browser to give a single conservative policy a fair shake. Barack Obama’s exploitation and mobilization of this online hysteria made for an unstoppable campaign, but also for an illusory state of political affairs. Democratic politicians, President-elect Obama included, always knew better than the frenzied multitude that voted in “change.” But the netroots were duped as a result of their own momentum.
It’s too early to know how the betrayed will repay their leaders in the next Congressional or Presidential elections, but if Democratic fragmentation is to be avoided down the line, perhaps the introspection about re-branding, redefining, and reaching out needs to happen on the Left.
Turns out Barron’s is a fan of Dilbert’s Blog too.
… In his blogs, Adams is equally unkind to real advisers and money managers. In his view, formed long before the disrobing of Bernie Madoff, they’re always conniving to steal investors’ money. Perhaps this depiction is payback: Adams lost a bundle following advice during the tech bubble, which also convinced him that investing in individual stocks and “professionally managed” funds is a losers’ game. His advisers put half of his portfolio into WorldCom, Enron and other sure things and lost 40% of his invested cash, he says. He managed the other half and lost 20% in the tech wreck.
“Most of the investments I made in individual stocks went bad because managements were lying. They are the source of the information for the markets.” His conclusion: “It is even dumber to pay an expert to talk to the liar for you and charge you 1% of your portfolio.” Some folks who bought funds of funds that invested with Madoff surely would agree.
After that ugly experience, he put all of his money into tax-free municipal bonds and thus missed the first big stock bust of the 21st century. Recently, he began moving some of those funds into exchange-traded funds, including some that track the S&P 500.
Though he admits there’s a chance he could get lucky — this being one of those rare times when he thinks that decimated markets could recover significantly — his real reason for edging back into equities is to diversify. “I was more afraid that my muni bonds would become worthless than I was convinced stocks would be a good investment. The minimum I want is that the companies in the Fortune 500 don’t go completely under. That was my play.” …
Great Britain’s Independent reports new buzzwords.
… Micro-boredom: What we used to call downtime, now increasingly filled by fiddling with mobiles or BlackBerrys. Those who market these devices, or the services they use, see it as an opportunity to sell us something. Potential victims of this can be recognised by their adoption of the:
BlackBerry prayer: The hunched-over, self-absorbed pose adopted by those fingering their Blackberry, or texting on their mobile. Often accompanied by facial expressions to match tenor of the message being sent.
Digi-necker: Driver who, when passing a road accident, whips out their mobile and takes a picture. …