Making a Middle-Eastern Omelette

As the fighting in Gaza wears on, people are continuing to make a big deal out of the numbers of civilians being killed and injured.

Um, okay... But aren't ALL the Palestinians being killed and injured "civilians?" Last I looked, Hamas wasn't a recognized government, and it seems to be as about as legitimate a military force (in international legal terms) as the local Rotary Club. A civilian with a gun and a chip on his shoulder is still a civilian - we don't think of insurgents in Afghanistan, say, as being actual soldiers.

But in the end, the final tally of the dead and wounded is completely beside the point, along with concepts such as "proportionality." What's really at issue here are priorities. And both the Israeli military and Hamas have higher priorities than the body count among non-combatants in Gaza. Therefore, the final body count is secondary, at best. Why are we surprised by this? What else were we expecting? Everyone is making a ruckus about lowering the casualty count, but no-one, it seems, is offering a way for either side to get what they claim to be after in a way that doesn't leave the populace of Gaza at ground zero. And the backers of both sides are also okay with a mounting body count, or they would have withdrawn that backing by now.

And so the current fighting will continue for the same reason that fighting anywhere else continues - because one or both sides think that they're getting closer to their desired goal(s) (or keeping the other side from its goals) because of it.

Best. Wisecrack. In. History.

"I’m pretty sure “No Artificial Flavors” was meant as a warning."

Describing eating Campbell's V8 Garden Broccili soup with a panino as "an apparent suicide attempt" comes in a close second. But with 590 mg of salt per serving (seemingly to counteract the health benefits of the 3 grams of dietary fiber), this suff seems like a one-way ticket to hypertension, so maybe Ben wasn't trying to be funny about that part.

Unequilibrium

The saddest, truest thing that I've ever heard about the [Israel-Palestine] conflict is [from] a friend who said that it seems to him like a stable equilibrium.
Megan McArdle. "The problem with Israel-Palestine blogging."

Here's my question - given the fact that Israel generally runs up the casualty score on Palestine by about one hundred to one, and the population of Gaza and the West Bank isn't one hundred times that of Israel... What happens when they run out of Palestinians?

Just Blow Up Another One

After the bursting of the Internet and housing bubbles, I think we're done with bubbles for a while.
Eugene Robinson. "The Year of Madoff"

I suspect that "a while" will turn out to be shorter than Barack Obama's first term in office. Investors, looking for ways to recoup their losses after the disaster that was 2008, will be on the lookout for the next can't-miss economic opportunity, and will be just as blind to the patently unsustainable nature of the next bubble as they have been to the previous ones. We'll either hear a chorus of "this time it's different," and/or "last time, the problem was those crooks/idiots that were running the show." And people will want to believe it. Including regulators, who will helpfully look the other way. So investors will pile on, some people will make an absolute fortune, things will get wildly out of control, the system will detonate spectacularly and then everyone will express wonderment that we've brought yet another disaster down upon our heads.

A real change will require a painful reorganization and restructuring of the American economy. And if there's one thing that we, as a nation, have demonstrated time and again, it's a very low tolerance for pain.

This Year

I don't normally make New Year's Resolutions anymore. Back in 2004, I resolved "to become more involved in the political process," and by June I was sorely regretting ever having had the thought.

But I think that this year, I'm going to be Different. I'm not sure I know how yet, but I think that it's Time For A Change. Let's see what I can come up with.