Tamouz Rocks

Taking Responsibility?

2006-08-29T12:15:00.000-04:00

Hard to believe, but Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas official, wrote an article saying that Gazans only have themselves to blame for the chaos and lawlessness. Not Israel.

Wow. It's so refreshing when anyone in the Middle East is honest, instead of towing the party line.

Israeli Arabs are not so Palestinian

2006-08-17T10:52:00.000-04:00

Interesting article about Israeli Arabs from northern Israel who fled to the territories while the bombs were falling. Apparently, the Palestinians treated them like shit, rather than like brothers. Ghani Abassi from Haifa said:

"However, the treatment we received was disgraceful and dreadful," he said. "We walked around town for a while, but the attitude we encountered on the part of the locals was horrible. The youngsters on the street started harassing our wives and daughters and used shocking expressions that I cannot even bring myself to pronounce," he said.

...and another man said:

"They told us, 'you are worse than the Jews.' We heard expressions of joy over the fact we have fled our homes, and some even tried
to attack us.

The situation there is much more complex and nuanced than many outsiders understand.

(HT: Oleh Girl)

Iraq = Iran II

2006-08-15T09:03:00.000-04:00

Chilling, but convincing argument that the Iraq war has made the war on terror much, much worse. Oliver argues that Iraq's civil war is turning Iraq into another Shiite theocracy, with Israel and the US as their devils.

Anti-Israel and anti-Semitic

2006-08-14T16:19:00.000-04:00

I don't believe criticism of Israel is inherently anti-Semitic. Unfortunately, it sure brings out the anti-Semites on a regular basis.

Viz. this rally in San Francisco on August 12, 2006. Frankly, this is a right-wing site that has issues with some signs that I find legitimate, but there is plenty to be offended about. No comment necessary:

Real War Coverage

2006-08-14T15:56:00.000-04:00

Real war coverage is coming from bloggers, not the papers. Check out what Lisa and Michael have to report.

Ahmadenijad's Blog

2006-08-14T13:30:00.000-04:00

Ahmadenijad's blog has an interesting present for Israeli surfers.

Iran Wins

2006-08-05T17:55:00.000-04:00

Putting on my "I'm still worried about Israel" hat, I noticed Bradley Burston's excellent piece in Haaretz that comes to the conclusion that Iran's Ahmadinejad is something of a genius. No matter what scenario, Iran wins:

1. If I kill you, I win.
2. If you kill me, I am a martyr. I win big.
3. There are no innocents in the land of my enemy. If I kill infants, the elderly, pregnant women, even on purpose, I win.
4. When my enemy kills innocent civilians in error, even his own allies condemn him for brutality. I win.

How is Israel supposed to fight such an enemy? Israel never seems to have the greatest choices at its disposal, which is why it always looks bad. What is Israel supposed to do?

Israeli criticism of Israel

2006-08-02T17:22:00.000-04:00

Some of the best criticism of Israel (because it necessarily isn't loaded with anti-Semitism) is coming from Israelis, in Hebrew. For example, from this site, a sobering pie chart puts the Lebanon dead in perspective.

Israel	55	6.7%
UN	4	0.5%
Canada	8	1.0%
Lebanon	750	91.8%

Remember Mexico?

2006-08-01T09:41:00.000-04:00

Sploid has a great conglomerate post about the goings on in Mexico. Shouldn't we care that Mexico, which is right on our border, is on the brink of civil war? Certainly more than Lebanon?

Then, what's the point?

2006-08-01T09:33:00.000-04:00

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said today:

...a terror organization cannot be completely obliterated, since it can claim to exist and have influence even when operating very few militants.

Then...what exactly is the point of this war? What goals does Israel hope to achieve?

Qana

2006-07-31T15:19:00.000-04:00

What can I say that Jonathan hasn't already said?

Justified or not, this is bad for Israel. This war is spinning out of Israel's control.

Bad choices for Israel

2006-07-28T10:08:00.000-04:00

Brij Khindaria has an excellent post over at the Moderate Voice, which must be read in its entirety. He says that with signs that the Lebanon war is getting worse, uniting hostile groups that previously hated each other, all against Israel and the West.

Israel is really only left with two choices. It can either make peace immediately, or totally destroy the country of Lebanon brutally. In between can only lead to disaster.

Very sobering, especially because Israel will probably do something in the middle, which will only lead to a prolonged war which will strengthen enemy forces, without any decisive conclusion. In my opinion, this is a chronic problem with Israel: it wants to use force, but not too much. It isn't willing to capitulate, but it isn't willing to annihilate.

It's like poking a hostile lion repeatedly without killing it. Eventually, the lion will get pissed off and more dangerous. Either pet the lion or kill the lion. Poking will just put you in a more dangerous situation.

UPDATE: 8/1: Raja at The Lebanese Bloggers thinks that Israel has already lost. Hard to argue with him.

Whiplash

2006-07-27T14:53:00.000-04:00

After my last post on Lebanon, I'm going to whip over to the other side. These photos from an anti-Israel rally in Montreal are disgusting. It sure makes it hard to speak out against Israel when people on the other side have signs that say (if my French is correct), "worse than the Nazis".

Remember Iraq?

2006-07-26T15:43:00.000-04:00

With all the hullabaloo in Lebanon/Israel, it's easy to forget Iraq...where more people are being killed.

What the Hell is Israel doing?

2006-07-26T12:36:00.000-04:00

I don't understand anymore what Israel is trying to achieve by killing over 400 people (mostly civilians) and displacing over 650,000, while blockading the country so that the Lebanese are sitting ducks? How will this help defeat Hezbollah? How does this do anything but help Iran? What are Israel's goals, even? Other than to screw itself?

I'm so frustrated I don't even know what to say. So of course, someone's said them for me. The Israeli blogger Kusit* With a Holocaust Obsession has been blogging against the war in Hebrew and is just as confused and outraged as I am. Unfortunately, it's all in Hebrew, but the posts I'm identifying with are here and here. Just a taste, translated into English:

And I also ask...what exactly comes out of these 600 thousand refugees? What are we acheiving from the fact that Beirut's residents can't fly to freedom in Europe? Or boil water for coffee? And what are we achieving by driving them towards a financial...and humanitarian crisis? We're barely touching Hezbollah...and destroying Lebanon won't exactly encourage Lebanon's government to fight Hezbollah better. In any case, after it's all over, they'll be busy rebuilding the infrastructure and businesses.
So what exactly is the point of all these bombings of the civilian infrastructure and civilians?

* A "Kusit" is coarse slang that translates roughly into a "sexy girl" or "hot girl" or "slutty girl" or "a piece of ass" depending on the context.

New Orleans: WTF???

2005-09-06T18:23:00.000-04:00

New Orleans, as you know, is far enough from New York that Katrina didn't affect us directly in any way, other than the fact that everyone seems to be collecting money, food, clothes, and supplies for the relief effort. Also, as in the rest of the world, it's dominating the news, especially the fuck-ups by the US, Louisiana, and New Orleans governments. Newspaper editorials are furious, as are most people, but it's unclear how this is going to play out. In any other administration, there would be massive firings, especially at FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration). But the Bush administration has proven itself an exception to the rule for rewarding loyalty at the expense of competence, with little long-term consequence.

It's hard to believe that, for all practical purposes, a whole city is gone.

I'm just as outraged as anyone to see that the bulk of the people stuck in New Orleans are black, yet I'm not really surprised. You have to have money to have a car you can get into to leave town, as well as money to pay for a hotel. But that's just the beginning. In my opinion, the Bush administration is at fault, because a) it doesn't care about the poor, and b) it hires people loyal to Bush, rather than people who can do the job. Louisiana and New Orleans begged FEMA to send resources on Tuesday, and they didn't get there until Thursday and Friday.

Yet the Louisiana and New Orleans goverments (both Democratic) have a long history of being both corrupt and inefficient themselves. Editorials were written up to 3 years ago warning that if there was a big hurricane, there would be a disaster just like the one we're having.

Complicating all this is the fact that New Orleans is a crime-ridden city to begin with. There have been multiple reports of armed locals shooting at rescue workers!

The whole thing is, for lack of a better phrase, very very fucked up. Sad to say, I think that there is enough blame to go around, and that the ugly cracks in American society are now just as big as those in the levees.

Many of us who oppose Bush hope that maybe, just maybe, the country will wake up to the incompetence and arrogance of the Bush administration. There is no joy in that it will take the deaths of an estimated 10,000 people to do it. Realists like myself, of course, doubt it will make much of a difference in the long-term, as long as Karl Rove (his brilliant yet ruthless political advisor) is working for the administration.

But really, is politics what matters? People are suffering. People are dying. Give some fucking money to the rescue efforts.

Withdrawal, again

2005-08-26T11:19:00.000-04:00

I've already talked about how Israel has no choice but to get out of the territories sooner or later. Michael J. Totten has said it much more simply than myself:

Israel has four options.

1) Rule the West Bank and Gaza forever while denying Palestinians citizenship and equal rights. Basically, this is the South African apartheid model. The fact that Israel acquired those lands in self-defense in 1967 doesn't change that.
2) Grant citizenship and equal rights to Palestinians. This would make Jews an ethnic minority in Israel only a few years from now. They'll never do it.
3) Forcibly relocate (in other words, ethnically cleanse) Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza.
4) Withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza.

That pretty much sums it up. Israel is currently at #1. #2 will never happen. Some loonies are talking about #3, but how the hell do you move 3.5-4 million hostile people anywhere? That leaves #4.

Sure sounds like English

2005-08-12T11:03:00.000-04:00

Haaretz (hebrew) has an interesting dictionary of English slang in Hebrew. As a native English speaker. I couldn't believe it. Why learn Hebrew?

These are pronounced in hebrew pretty much the same way they're pronounced in English, except for the accent, of course. The list:

Buddies
It’s a must (“Zeh must”)
Take off
Vision
Thanks
Be my guest
Whatever
So what
Whatsoever
Please
Give me a break
Welcome
Hopeless
Homless
Oh my god
Definitely
Nice
Brownies, muffins
Weekend
Good gay (as in a male hottie)
Fun
Go for it
No problem
Beach
Bitch
Son of a bitch
Relax
Sweet
Agenda
Last season
Spin
Amazing
Vibe
Groove
Cellular, cellphone
The Marker (= Haaretz’s business section)
Like, duh?! (“Keilu, duh?!”)
D’ooohh!
But of course
Acting out
As is
“You want to shoot, shoot. You want to talk, talk.” (from "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly")
What the fuck
Beat (as in music)
Crispy
Indeed
Pure
Weirdo
Has been
Greedy
Fancy
Big hit
Bottom line
Line
State of mind
Delay
Too much
Bullshit
Cut the bullshit
Sorry
Teasing
I beg to differ
Triple double (in basketball)
I don’t believe it
Old school
Mode
Shift
Anti-aging
Feel (as a noun)
Feel good
Drive (as in “ambition”)
Full time job
Anyway
Clueless
Lowest of the low
Fine (as in “she is ___”)
The looks
OK
Frame
Freak

It's not about peace

2005-08-11T14:25:00.000-04:00

Right wing opposition to the Gaza disengagement loves to harp on how it will not bring peace.

I belive that they're right. But it's irrelevant. It's not about peace; it's about Israel's survival.

Israel's Jews are already a minority in all areas of Israel's control: 49% to be exact. The figure that I find amazing is that after the pullout, the number jumps to 56%. In Israel proper, Jews make up about 74%.

Now why is this Jewish majority so important? I've posted about that before, regarding the one state solution. Same principles apply here.

And that's what this is about. I'm not so naive to believe that the Gaza disengagement, or even a full withdrawal to 1967 borders, will bring peace. I don't believe that there will ever be peace in the region. But survival, not peace, is what it's about. And I honestly believe that this is what Sharon believes, too.

Is your child gay?

2005-08-11T10:43:00.000-04:00

Focus on the Family has actually posted a checklist to help you recognize if your child is becoming gay...so you can nip it in the bud, of course.

Here's what I don't understand: if FOTF admits that there are telltale signs of gayness before puberty, why is it a "lifestyle choice" after puberty?

Doesn't this strengthen the argument that homosexuality is innate and involuntary?

Hat tip to Joe Gandelman.

UPDATE: I figure that I should actually post some of the points, just in case this page ever goes away...

Evidences of gender confusion or doubt in boys ages 5 to 11 may include:

1. A strong feeling that they are “different” from other boys.

2. A tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy.

3. A persistent preference to play female roles in make-believe play.

4. A strong preference to spend time in the company of girls and participate in their games and other pastimes.

5. A susceptibility to be bullied by other boys, who may tease them unmercifully and call them “queer,” “fag” and “gay.”

6. A tendency to walk, talk, dress and even “think” effeminately.

7. A repeatedly stated desire to be — or insistence that he is — a girl.

Demographics in Israel

2005-08-10T15:07:00.000-04:00

The demographic problem for Israel: that Arab fertility rates are higher than Jewish fertility rates (meaning that an Arab majority is inevitable). Frankly, this is why I support getting out of the territories. Not because it will lead to peace (it won't), but because it's the only way to dump the population of rapidly reproducing, hostile Palestinians. Ironically, it's the closest working solution to "transfer", which transfer supporters would never support.

So...that's been beaten to death. What about the Israeli-Arab population? Well duh. Why are they reproducing at higher rates than Jews? It's obvious that it's because the Jewish Israeli population is more educated, and has a higher standard of living. These two factors almost always lead to a lower birthrate.

So the solution is obvious: educate Israeli-Arabs better, and make sure that there are more economic opportunities for them. Especially women, so that they aren't just baby factories. It's insane that Israeli Arabs are discriminated against in education and jobs. Forget the obvious moral issues: it exacerbates the demographic threat to Jewish hegemony.

Of course, I'm never the only person who comes up with these ideas. Thank god.

Iraq and Israel

2005-07-21T14:42:00.000-04:00

Sigh. Some things never change. Note the following from the current draft of the new Iraqi constitution:

3. Any individual with another nationality (except for Israel) may obtain Iraqi nationality after a period of residency inside the borders of Iraq of not less than ten years for an Arab or twenty years for any other nationality, as long as he has good character and behavior, and has no criminal judgment against him from the Iraqi authorities during the time of his residency on the territory of the Iraqi republic.

4. An Iraqi may have more than one nationality as long as the nationality is not Israeli.

And this is with occupying American forces. This is the sort of attitude that frightens Israel from compromising with anyone and makes the IDF go overboard. No, no, not to justify that, of course...

I wonder how this is being received by those who believe that the Iraq war was all about protecting Israel. This development suggests either a) that assumption is entirely wrong, or b) the Iraq war is an even more spectacular failure than previously imagined.

Dog Bites Man

2005-07-14T16:08:00.000-04:00

"Wilson says Bush should fire Rove"

Um...duh? He's going to recommend him for a medal? Rove tried to destroy Wilson.

And the mainstream media wonders why it's losing credibility.

Terrorism: the new priesthood?

2005-07-14T15:28:00.000-04:00

I wondered about this when trying to figure out the London bombings. Why would an 18 and 22 year old, raised in the UK to middle class families, blow themselves up along with 50 other innocent people?

Could they have been gay?

I mean: what is a young Muslim to do, if he is a believer or if he's merely in a very conservative family, if he thinks that he's gay?

In America, gay teens commit suicide all the time. If you're a young Muslim, you can become a suicide bomber and become a hero.

I wonder what percentage of suicide bombers were in the closet, and saw this as their only option?

(Obviously, I have no clue if Hasib Hussain or Shehzad Tanweer were gay, and they probably weren't, but we'll never know.)

Rove: How is this supposed to hurt him?

2005-07-12T16:13:00.000-04:00

Gimme a break. Sure, the sharks are circling around Rove...but look at the sharks. The under fire media and powerless Democrats. So what?

Do they really think that pressure and embarrassment will be enough to convince W to fire the most important contributor to his continued political success? It will take Rove to get out of this mess. And get out of it he will. If he isn't indicted, the broohaha will continue for a few weeks, and die out as other news pushes it out of the headlines.

It's looking likely that he won't be indicted. And even if he is, so what? Bush will pardon him, the press will go semi-ballistic, but not too ballistic (can't lose that White House access, you know), and it will blow away. And Rove will continue to engineer Republican wins for the next 20 years.

The only reason Watergate blew up is because a Democratic Congress was willing to impeach a Republican president. Ditto (or reverse ditto) for Monica-gate. With a Republican congress, Rove, and Bush are immunized.

Is it a scandal? Certainly. Will this hurt Rove or Bush in the long term? Doubtful. There were calls far and wide to fire Rumsfeld, too, and he's still running the Pentagon.

Attitudes in the ME

2005-06-28T14:28:00.000-04:00

I give up. There will never be peace in the Middle East. It's all about the really poor attitudes everyone has regarding the situation.

I mean, take Mobius here, trying to to be positive and go for unity. Then the comments section fills up with bile. From both sides.

People's attitudes and fantastic beliefs trump any attempt at either (take your pick) seeing the truth, or seeing anything positive. Good luck, Mobius.

Will Israel Live to 100?

2005-06-21T09:18:00.000-04:00

This sobering piece from the Atlantic Monthly, May 2005, is pretty much the way I see it.

There's one thing that it doesn't say, but I believe: An independent Palestine, with a ruling Arab majority and a Jewish minority, will almost certainly result in either the expulsion or massacre of the Jewish former-Israeli population. The tragedy in waiting is not merely for the demise of Israel as a Jewish democracy, but of the Israeli nation, language, and culture themselves. See previous posts for my logic.

Will Israel Live to 100?

Don't be seduced by the recent hopeful signs: in the long run the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will remain a problem without a solution.

BY BENJAMIN SCHWARZ

To the PLO'S efforts to rein in its militants and Israel's release of Palestinian prisoners should be added the most heartening recent development in Israeli-Palestinian relations: forces on both sides now wish their own leader dead. That's probably the best evidence that Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, despite previous evidence to the contrary (don't forget that the Israeli prime minister connived in the massacre of Palestinian refugees and that the Palestinian president wrote a dissertation denying the Holocaust), now really do seek peace. Sadly, though, the very circumstances that have pushed both sides toward accommodation militate against it. Indeed, they point toward catastrophe.

The Palestinian-Zionist contest is rooted in and remains vexed by land and demographics. The founders of Zionism may have enunciated the strikingly obtuse slogan "A land without people for a people without land," but in fact they fully grasped that making an Arab land into a Jewish state required upending demographic reality by implanting a huge foreign population and, in the parlance of the time, "transferring" - voluntarily if possible, forcibly if necessary - large numbers of Palestine's indigenous inhabitants from those areas intended for Jewish statehood. For their part, the Palestinians rejected proposals in 1937 (the Peel Commission report) and 1947 (UN Resolution 181-which, Palestinians protested, designated as Jewish a state that contained 500,000 Jews but fully 400,000 Arabs) to divide the land between Arab and Jew. The rejection of any Jewish state in Palestine defined the Palestinians' national movement from its inception, in the 1920s, until at least the early 1990s (many Israelis believe, with some justification, that the same rejectionism fuels that movement to this day). And the "basic tenet of Palestinism," say Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal in their definitive and sympathetic history of the Palestinians, continues to be the "right of return" for those 700,000 Palestinians displaced from Israeli territory in 1948 and their descendants (a population that may now number as many as five million) - which if exercised would mean the end of a Jewish majority in Israel.

Owing to the flight of those refugees and to the mass immigration of Jews in the late 1940s and the 1950s, Palestinians at first made up a small minority of the Jewish state's total population. But, of course, since the June 1967 war Israel has occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip-land overwhelmingly inhabited by Palestinians. And even more important in the long run, Yasir Arafat's adage that the Palestinians~ best weapon is the womb has proved true. The birth rate in the occupied territories is far higher than Israel's. Jews will very soon become a minority in the lands they occupy or rule from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean (by some calculations this has already happened), and some demographers forecast that in fifteen years they will make up as little as 42 percent of the population in this area. For decades Israelis debated the wisdom of annexing the territories, but in just five years a consensus has emerged within the Israeli political military, and intelligence communities that the country must withdraw from much of, most of, or essentially all of the territories (those distinctions are of course a crucial issue for the Palestinians), lest Israeli Jews be forced to choose between living in a democracy and living in a Jewish state: Palestinians will demand not their own state but a single binational state, based on the principle of one man, one vote. And at that point, Israel's deputy Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has said despairingly, "we will lose everything."

Fearing that more and more Palestinians believe time is on their side, and that they will thus be tempted by the "one-state solution," the Sharon government pushed for unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip (where Palestinians outnumber Jews 150 to one) and the building of the security fence to separate and insulate the Jewish state from the Palestinians (although it's not now routed along the Green Line, the fence would divide nearly all West Bank Palestinians from Israel). The fence has been rightly touted as an anti-terrorism barrier, but in fact it was conceived before the Palestinians' suicide-bombing campaign~ as a means of detaching Israel politically and economically from the growing and impoverished Palestinian population; indeed, an Israeli geographer who has intensely studied the political implications of Palestinian population growth, Arnon Soffer, has described the fence as "a last desperate attempt to save the state of Israel." (Soffer advocates ceding East Jerusalem as well as predominantly Arab areas within Israel's pre-1967 borders to help defuse the demographic time bomb.)

Sharon's unilateral efforts at disengagement-which would have preserved more Jewish settlements and granted the Palestinians less territory than do existing peace plans, and which would have created a separate but hardly sovereign Palestinian entity composed of detached cantons-have spurred Abbas to enter negotiations. Better to parley, the Palestinian leader- ship no doubt reasoned, than be forced to accede to the Israeli-imposed facts on the ground. In that case, why can't we expect that in fact the political problems created by demographics and land may lead to a binding and mutually satisfactory peace? First and most obviously, the gap between what Palestinian and Israeli leaders will agree to and what their constituencies will abide by is huge. Every sensible person on the left or the right concurs on the necessary steps, but the Israeli political system and national temperament seem to make those steps impossible to take. After nearly forty years of settlement building on the West Bank, for instance, those settlements close to the Green Line may have roots too deep and may well be too integral to the daily life of too many Israelis to be forsaken- perhaps by design. This is nothing, of course, compared with the obstacles that Palestinian moderates face. Groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, which are committed to Israel's destruction, are hardly on the fringe. And Palestinians seem to demand the right of return as adamantly as Israelis oppose it: 98.7 percent of refugees surveyed in 2001 dismissed compensation in place of return. Among nonrefugees polled the figure was 93.1 percent. Given that Aibbas has promised to submit a "final status" agreement to a plebiscite of Palestinians in the occupied territories and throughout the Arab world (a promise all but ignored in the Western press), the chances of a real peace (as opposed to what the Palestinians call a hudna - a tactical truce) appear to be slim.

But even assuming that a comprehensive settlement could be reached, Israel's long-term prospects are bleak. The late Faisal Husseini, a moderate PLO official and a scion of one of Arab Jerusalem's great families, said, "I worry about today. But the Israelis should worry about the future' Today the Palestinian cause is fragmented, and its people are exhausted. Israel, on the other hand, negotiates from a position of unassailable military strength. But the Zionist enterprise has never been able to transcend the demographic and geographic realities that have haunted it from its inception. Regardless of the moral opprobrium one might attach to either party, the seeds of the all-but-unsolvable Palestinian-refugee problem were sown when Israel recognized in 1948 that it couldn't function with a vast and hostile Palestinian population (indeed, even the relatively small number of Palestinians who remained in Israel after the war for independence lived under military rule until 1966). Today Israeli Arabs (that is, Palestinians living within Israel's pre-1967 borders and in East Jerusalem) have one of the highest population-growth rates in the world (among Israeli Arabs in the Negev, specifically, it is the highest), and they now make up about 20 percent of Israel's population; demographers project that they'll compose nearly a quarter of the population by 2020, and as much as 30 percent by 2050. (These figures don't count the approximately 150,000 Palestinian noncitizens, drawn to Israel largely by the prospect of higher- paying jobs, who live there illegally.) Such large antagonistic minorities have historically engendered conflict and calls for binationalism, which would further weaken the Jewish state.

More troublesome still, a future Palestinian state hemmed in between the Green Line and the Jordan and in the Gaza Strip will face astronomical population growth (the population in Gaza now doubles every generation, and an enormous influx of former refugees now living throughout the Arab world-mostly in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon-is almost certain), scarce water, and dire economic conditions. (The obvious outlet for Palestinian labor-Israel-will perforce be tightly closed; otherwise the sort of creeping immigration the United States has experienced from Mexico would swamp Israel, thereby subverting efforts to maintain a Jewish state.) A host of realistic Israeli observers, including Israel's national security adviser, General Giora Eiland, doubt that the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan contains enough land and resources to sustain two viable sovereign states. In few places in the world do conditions more demand that two peoples develop a symbiotic relationship; in no other place are the chances of building such a relationship more remote.

Whatever accommodation is made now, it seems inevitable that given the future that confronts a Palestinian state, its expansionist energies will be directed toward Israel (and, to a lesser extent, Jordan). At that point Palestinian leaders seeking further territorial revision will no doubt argue, correctly, that the Green Line was a cease-fire line, not an international boundary; that that line itself awards Israel territory won in war; and that it in no way resembles the boundaries of the UN partition resolution upon which the Jewish state was founded, David Ben-Gurion always urged his people to accept even the smallest Jewish state, arguing that it would serve as a springboard for future expansion. Palestine, he saw, would be taken over in stages. Today Israelis understandably fear that either by design or merely in response to exigencies it may be taken back in the same piecemeal fashion.

At some level most perceptive Israelis seem to grasp these future existential dangers. In fact, in conversations with Israelis on the left and the (moderate) right in academe, the military, the government, and the security services, I've been struck by their grim declarations that they as a people aren't going anywhere, but also by their foreboding about the country their children will live in. Most of all, though, I've been struck by the frequency with which these men and women - patriots all - have wistfully said, "We should have taken Uganda" (which Britain offered to the Zionist leadership in 1903). History shows that many problems have no solution - a fact all but unfathomable to Americans. Nevertheless, the century-long Palestinian-Zionist conflict is a story of two peoples, each with reasonable claims to the same piece of earth; and nearly every aspect of that story suggests that in the end - and to the detriment of those peoples, their region, and perhaps the entire world - their aspirations are not amenable to compromise.

Benjamin Schwarz is the literary editor and national editor of The Atlantic.

Confessions of the obvious

2005-05-11T11:38:00.000-04:00

1) I sure have strong opinions. So does everyone else with a blog. Of course, I've been mocked for expressing them early and often (and strongly) in public, verbally. Are other bloggers like that too?

2) I'm lazy. I know.

One-State Solution

2005-05-03T13:28:00.001-04:00

In regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the one-state solution seems to be coming up more and more in polite discourse as a viable solution. I'm very much against it. There's a big point that supporters seem to be missing.

On the face of it, it seems just: one person, one vote. The Jewish desire to maintain a majority is just anti-democratic or chauvinistic or racist. Isn't it?

Well, it's a little more than that. It's becoming well documented that, given Arab birth rates, Jews are well on their way to becoming a minority between the Jordan and the sea (i.e., Israel proper + the occupied territories.) In a single state, there would quickly be a Jewish minority at the mercy of an Arab majority. Forget the importance of the "Jewish character" of the state. It would put the Jewish population in mortal danger.

This may sound like I’m perpetuating a stereotype of murderous Palestinians (which, of course, if Hamas or Islamic Jihad gained control, wouldn't be far off). But even if that isn’t true, just consider this:

Look what the Jewish immigrants did to the Palestinians in reaction to what *other* people did to them. If the country were finally run by Palestinian Arabs, what do you think they would do to their *actual* oppressors?

Israelis, despite their ambivalent feelings towards Diaspora Jewry, are very aware of their role as the world's only sanctuary for Jews. The last thing Israelis will ever do is turn the sanctuary itself into a place where they themselves are at mortal risk as a minority.

So: the one-state solution is a non-starter. This also explains why the Palestinian right of return (to Israel proper) is a non-starter, and why the desire to maintain a Jewish majority is much more than merely racism or chauvinism.

So: what's the solution then? Well, now you understand why the Middle East is so depressing. I don't believe there is one. But that's another thread.

Yeah, yeah.

2005-05-03T13:27:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know, it's been ages since I blogged. I still may not blog, but I just wrote a comment on another blog that warrants posting, so it's above.

RNC Threatens Rock the Vote

2004-10-15T19:49:00.000-04:00

The Ed Gillespie, head of the RNC sent a cease and desist letter to Rock The Vote, demanding that they stop talking about the draft.

I have never seen better proof that they are a bunch of thugs. What a bunch of dicks.

Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Erotica

2004-10-15T14:15:00.000-04:00

Holy moley: Lynne Cheney wrote a novel in 1981 that includes some choice tidbits of...lesbian erotica.

How do you like that?

It's Iraq, stupid!!!!

2004-10-15T10:39:00.000-04:00

NO, NO, NO!!!!

Mary Cheney II

2004-10-15T08:30:00.000-04:00

I'm no fan of Instapundit, but he has a good post from a reader that gets to the heart of why Kerry's mention of Mary Cheney was offensive. Basically: Kerry used Cheney's kid against Cheney and Bush. Using your kid against you, in any context, is patently offensive to many parents. This makes much more sense to me.

The question of course: if there was some random gay person in the Bush administration (say, if Condi Rice was gay), and that person was used in the context of "I don't think she sees it as a choice," how would the Bush camp react?

UPDATE: No, I changed my mind on this one. Mary Cheney is fair game. Why? She's working for the campaign. If she was just living her life, that would be one thing. But she's a campaign operative. Fair game, in my opinion.

Ohio Plus Seven

2004-10-14T16:12:00.000-04:00

(Via Andrew Sullivan).

The New Republic says that Kerry needs to win Ohio, plus 7 more electoral votes.

Since all of these electoral votes come from states that Bush won in 2000, I think that Kerry still has an uphill battle, especially given the shenanigans with Republican Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.

Advantage still Bush. But it ain't over until it's over.

UPDATE: This is why I believe advantage still Bush. A tie isn't close enough for Kerry if Bush operatives are going to engage in strategic vote tampering.

The Horse's Mouth.

2004-10-14T13:13:00.000-04:00

Operation Truth.

Mary Cheney move

2004-10-14T11:14:00.000-04:00

Various right wing blogs are decrying the Mary Cheney references (Dick Cheney's out lesbian daughter) as a low blow disgusting move. They're all speculating that it's an attempt to peel off right wing voters by appealing to their homophobia.

Baloney. And who are these homophobes going to vote for. Kerry?

What it is is an attempt to point out the hypocrisy of the Republican stance on gays and gay marriage. "See?" it says. "Even our Republican Conservative Vice President has a gay daughter that he loves and supports. Isn't the FMA a little silly? Isn't it crazy just to say that it's a 'lifestyle choice?'"

There's no way a homophobe will stay home (and certainly no way he will vote for Kerry) as a result of this tactic. It appeals to the base and libertarian undecideds, mostly by pointing out inconsistencies in the Republican position. That's what politicians do to their opponents: point out inconsistencies.

On a final note: I speculate that the reason Lynne Cheney is so offended by the tactic is that she deep down stil has trouble accepting her gay daughter, and she's offended by the reminder. To her, it's like pointing out her retarded daughter, or crippled daughter, which would be low, unless there was a Republican platform discriminating against the disabled, of course.

UPDATE: Gay conservative (but anti-Bushie) Andrew Sullivan calls it like I see it.

UPDATE 2: I'm really unoriginal.

Debate III

2004-10-14T10:57:00.000-04:00

Quick comments; I have real work to do these days:

Gotta call it a draw. Maybe a hair to Bush.

With Caveat that I'm supporting Kerry: I thought that Kerry was better on substance, and Bush was better stylistically. However both candidates made me scream "you are so full of bullshit" and both candidates had moments where their faces made them look dishonest.

It was Bush's best, and Kerry's worst. But Kerry wasn't that much off from the other debates (just a little wonkier and wordier), while Bush was a different person from debate I.

I expect this to have little effect. I think we're back to 50/50, and I don't think we'll have an answer on November 3rd.

Remember Scott Ritter? There's a song about Scott Ritter...

2004-10-08T17:04:00.000-04:00

Oh yeah. The guy who no one listened to in when he was jumping up and down saying that there was no WMD in Iraq. In 2002.

(Hat tip: Marc Cooper).

Beat Bush! (even if that means voting for Kerry...)

2004-10-08T11:05:00.000-04:00

This made me laugh my ass off. Then I cried. A little too close to home.

I was at first suspicious that they were Bushies posing as Kerryites, but their link to this great post by John Perry Barlow suggests that it's sincere.

Barlow's post really hit home for me, and should for most folks:

We all need to get a grip and quickly. Whatever it has been traditionally, this Presidential race should not be a personality contest. I say this as much to myself to myself as I do to you. I have to snap out of it and remember we are not electing our new best friend here. We were electing a set of ideologies, cultural predispositions, policies, practices, and beliefs - many of them religious - that may literally affect the fate of life on earth. And one thing I will say for George Bush, he has disabused me of my old belief that it doesn't really matter who's President.

Required reading. Let's do this, folks.

Taba Bombing

2004-10-08T08:40:00.000-04:00

Not sure if I have anything profound to say about the bombing of a hotel in Taba, in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, full of Israeli tourists for the Sukkot/Simhat Torah holiday.

My first reaction is almost a shrug. Is this what it's come to? A bombing of Israelis is barely news. I'm ashamed of how used to it all I've gotten.

But I have a few other thoughts. One is that I imagine that the target wasn't so much the Israelis themselves as the Egyptians. I'm sure the bombers see the hoteliers as traitors to the Arab nation, giving aid and (literally) comfort to the enemy. The bombing will probably succeed in punishing them. Israelis (and I suspect other nationals) have vowed not to return, and I expect the Sinai's tourist economy to crash as a result.

Those terrorists are disgusting, but sometimes it looks like they know what they're doing.

The second is: I'm surprised that Israelis still went to Egypt at all. Yes I know it's right over the border, practically Israel. Yes I know it's cheap. But it's Egypt, so the Egyptians are running (or aren't running) security. Leaving aside potential anti-Israeli biases (which might not even be so bad in the Sinai) there's no way that an inefficient Egyptian bureaucracy can support the kind of efficient security measures that Israeli groups require. So combined with strong warnings from the Israeli Security Services (Shabak/Shin Bet) not to go to Sinai for Sukkot, it's amazing that so many did anyway.

That said: Israelis travel everywhere. Usually to get away from the crushing stress of Israeli society. What's to stop this from occurring in other popular Israeli third world destinations like Peru, Nepal, or Thailand? OK, they're not Arab countries, but it should be relatively easy for a terrorist to get in past the underpaid borderguards with weapons and attack Israelis, who tend to congregate in large numbers in predictable places.

So, it almost doesn't matter where Israelis go. They might as well go to Sinai.

Bush's Ventriloquist?

2004-10-08T07:48:00.000-04:00

Liberal blogs are speculating that Bush had an earpiece and electronic radio device prompting him during the debate, against debate rules.

The bulge in the picture, on his back, sure looks convincing:

(Much better shot, with something that looks like a wire going up from the box, here.)

One thing though: if he cheated, how come he still got creamed?

I think that either a) it weakens the argument, or b) he's even more incompetent than we thought.

UDPATE: Just to make sure, I looked at the debate with Real Player on WashingtonPost.com. I paused at exactly 22:45. I'm tellin' ya, you can see that box there. This is no doctored photo.

Check yourself.

UDPATE 2: Holy crap. A commenter on isbushwired.com has a link to a device that actually could be it. From a magician's supply company.

Bremer Explains Himself

2004-10-08T07:31:00.000-04:00

Someone's trying to save his career...

Look, even I'm starting to believe that everyone credible thought that Saddam had WMDs. Great.

But even if we did have to go in (and I'm still not saying we did), we were so cocky about it, and screwed it up so badly (diplomatically and militarily) that it made things worse for the US, not better. And then the administration won't own up to the failure. Is that not a good enough reason to boot Bush out of office?

The best Kerry ads you'll never see

2004-10-08T06:56:00.000-04:00

Via Centerfield:

Filmmaker Morris' ads of Republicans who are voting for Kerry have not been picked up by the Kerry campaign. Perhaps they think they're too narrowly focused, but since they're focus is on swing voters, I don't get their lack of interest.

These blow away any political ad I've ever seen, and certainly Kerry's ads. WTF?

If he would run these in swing states, he'd win. But that would destroy his brilliant strategy of flubs, faux pas, and general display of dorkiness.

Airport Weapons Rules Eased?

2004-10-07T16:58:00.000-04:00

Whaaaa?

Dulles and National Airports in Washington have eased their weapons rules.

People soon will be able to carry guns and other dangerous weapons onto the grounds and parking lots of Reagan National and Dulles International airports, after officials yesterday eased what they said were overly restrictive rules.

Are you kidding me? I would think that NRA types want to be tough on terror.

I mean, Israel doesn't let any suspicious car into the airport without a weapons search. And we have examples of this huge security hole closer to home, remember?

DeLay's 2nd sanction in a week

2004-10-07T13:52:00.000-04:00

So many things to say about this guy, but I'm too busy and angry right now.

So for now, just read what the Washington Post has to say.

Forget the Iowa Markets

2004-10-07T13:29:00.000-04:00

Many people who worship at the altar of market economics are jumping up and down about the Iowa Electronic Markets. Polls are one thing, they say, but predictions are much more accurate from people with real money on the line. So Kerry's toast, since after all, isn't the Iowa Market predicting Bush's win?

What a bunch of hooey. Check out the market for the Democratic nomination. See how well it predicted Dean's nomination? Oops.

Bookies are not infallible. Certainly a university pretending to be a bookie isn't either.

Gas Tax: Useless

2004-10-07T10:45:00.000-04:00

Everyone loves Tom Friedman. Maybe it's his folksy style or that his positions are relatively centrist and fair. But sometimes he has some whoppers. Take today:

If we had imposed a new gasoline tax after 9/11, demand would have been dampened and gas today would probably still be $2 a gallon.

Huh?

I really don't believe that adding a tax to raise the price of gas could ever dampen demand in the US, for one reason: people have no choice. Most people have to drive, and will complain and swallow hard and fill up their cars as needed, even at $4 a gallon. Just about everywhere outside of the US, gas is about $4/gallon, and everyone is buying a car and driving.

What's the alternative? Public transportation is an attractive option for those of us who live in New York or Boston, but what's a Los Angeles or Atlanta or certainly North Dakota resident supposed to do?

There are really only two alternatives to lower demand on fossil fuels: investing in public transportation infrastructure (in the cities), and developing alternative car engines that burn less (or no?) gas. The latter solution is the only one that would really work on a grand scale, since people loooove cars. I live in north Brooklyn, and I still love my car, even though I could certainly get by if I sold it. In the suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas, public transit isn't just unattractive, but downright impractical. No attempt would ever succeed.

But raising gas prices? That's ridiculous. It won't change a thing. Except for electing some Republicans.

UPDATE: Begging to Differ said it much better than me, and my point was only the starting point for a thorough Friedman shredding. Ouch.

As simple as that.

2004-10-07T10:09:00.000-04:00

No surprise that I've been reading a lot of Andrew Sullivan lately. But it seems to him (and me) that the fundamental issue of this election should be the administration's handling of Iraq:

But from a broader perspective, the following facts are simply indisputable. The fundamental rationale for the war - the threat from Saddam's existing stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction - was wrong. Period. In the conduct of the war, it is equally indisputable that the administration simply didn't anticipate the insurgency we now face, and because of that, is struggling to rescue the effort from becoming a dangerous mess. Period. So the question becomes: how can an administration be re-elected after so patently misjudging the two most important aspects of the central issue in front of us? It may end up as simple as that. Maybe, in fact, it should end up as simple as that.

It should, but about 50% of Americans still seem to think that Kerry's negatives or Bush's "morality" or "intent" trump those. I scratch my head.

VP Debate as microcosm

2004-10-06T14:20:00.000-04:00

It occurs to me that the debaters last night played so well to their constituencies, that it really summed up the anger and contempt each side (i.e. liberal/conservate, GOP/Dem, Red/Blue) has for the other, and why.

For anyone who asks "why is America so divided?" or "Why would anyone hate <Bush/Kerry> so much?", most of the answers were there last night.

It really was a good debate, in my opinion.

UPDATE: After all my updates to the Cheney bullshit post below, I'm not feeling as charitable to the other side, frankly. It illustrates the sort of thing that has been driving us Bush/Cheney haters crazy for a long time: unashamed creativity with the truth.

Hey, I voted for Edwards.

2004-10-06T10:34:00.000-04:00

William Saletan at Slate asks:

Now are you sorry you didn't nominate this guy for president?

Hey, I voted for Edwards in the primary. I never understood how Dems, when looking for "electability, electability, electability, electability" settled on Kerry. The first time in my life I ever even heard of Edwards was when he was on the Daily Show in 2002, and I knew right then that he was the one.

I don't know why his campaign never took off. Dems were worried that he was a neophyte and wouldn't have sufficient gravitas or command of the issues. I think last night proved that theory wrong.

Maybe Kerry would make a slightly better president, but that means nothing if you don't get elected. I think many Dems are kicking themselves now for nominating Kerry.

UDPATE: Ezra Klein thinks that Edwards' performance proved that Kerry is better. Does it?

Cheney's biggest debate lie

2004-10-06T08:19:00.000-04:00

Cheney in the debate:

In my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.

Cheney did meet Edwards before the debate, at a prayer breakfast.

Funny, because I thought it was a good hit.

UPDATE: It was multiple times. What a dick.

UPDATE 2: He's not even in the senate "most" Tuesdays. In fact, only two Tuesdays over the last 127 (OK, it's the liberal Daily Kos, but are you going to look up every session?).

Words fail me.

Veep Debate : It's a Draw

2004-10-06T08:01:00.000-04:00

It's amazing how many different opinions in the blogsphere there are about last nights slugfest. Cheney won, Edwards won, and even Kerry supporters and Bush supporters crossed lines to declare winners. Most surprising is the astute, right-of-center, Andrew Sullivan's contention that Edwards won.

I saw a draw. In a way, it was a pleasure. It was a real boxing match, and they both landed some devastating punches. Substantively, they both had an excellent command of the issues, made their points, and landed zingers that I fully expect to be played over and over again. (Why can't these be the guys running for the top office?)

Best political debate I've ever seen.

So...style? Also a draw. No doubt that Cheney was smoother, more articulate, and never got stuck saying anything. Edwards had a few Elmer Fudd moments (not to mention "Oh...can I say 'John Kerry' now?"). While never was at a loss for things to actually say that were substantive, he seemed a little more nervous and like he was working harder to get the words out sometimes.

But Edwards was so much more likeable. He seemed like he cared about real people, and he was always smiling or neutral. Cheney looked like...well...a dick. Condescending, elitist (maybe he's a liberal!), and hateful. Maybe that's what pro-war people want, but it struck me as eroding any image of trustworthiness (if any) that Cheney might have. I almost wish that domestic policy came first, because his worst moments were while defending Iraq. There were times that I thought Cheney was going to reach over and slug Edwards, and times I thought he was going to have a heart attack right there and then.

So: stylistically, also a draw.

My final point: this debate, while refreshingly juicy, will probably not make up any undecideds' minds. It certainly won't change any minds made up. So the net result is: draw.

Oh, and I think Gwen Ifill is an idiot.

Veep Debate tonight

2004-10-05T16:37:00.000-04:00

I know, it's been forever and I haven't blog. So sue me.

I went to bed really happy last thursday night after Kerry wiped up Bush. Yes, there were disturbing policy admissions from Kerry, but finally, FINALLY, it felt like the emperor (BUSH) had no clothes and someone called him on it. What anti-Bush folks have been seeing from day one has FINALLY been shown to America.

But I'm biting my nails for tonight. I think Cheney's going to wipe his ass with Edwards. Cheney might be evil, but he's brilliant. Edwards is an actor, but I don't know if he's a thinker.

It might not matter for the race (viz. Quayle-Bentsen in Bush-Dukakis race), but Kerry needs all the help he can get.

It would be nice if Cheney also had a "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" moment. I'm not holding my breath.

OK, I probably *will* be holding my breath while I watch those debates tonight.

NOTE: I never understood why the Dems didn't nominate Edwards. I voted for Edwards in the primary, as I believed that he was the only candidate with any chance of appealing to folks suspicious of Northeastern liberals (and I'm talking Wisconsin, forget about North Carolina). The more I hear him, the less I'm sure, and the more I reluctantly (and sadly) agree that Kerry might have been the best choice from that gaggle of Democratic fools.

But we'll see tonight, won't we.

Jim McGreevey - "I'm Out"

2004-08-13T10:13:00.000-04:00

Really not sure if his coming out is good or bad (but I did think that the NY Post's headline "I'm Out" was clever).

It's good in the sense that he's probably the highest profile out politician ever. And it's also good because it's yet another example of how futile it is for a gay person to subsume his homosexuality, no matter what the bible (or the American voter) say.

But it's bad, of course, since the whole thing is clouded in yet another McGreevey scandal. The press has been critical of McGreevey's past appointment of Israeli poet Golan Cipel as a homeland security advisor (for $110K/yr), especially since his only experience is an Israeli army lieutentant (i.e. none, really) and he couldn't even get a US Security clearance to sit in on meetings, since he isn't a US citizen. So now it turns out that the motivation of the patronage was that they were having an affair. Whether it was pure patronage, or blackmail of McGreevey by Cipel, it stinks.

If Cipel was a woman, this would be all bad. If Cipel was merely a paramour, but wasn't appointed to any position, this affair may never have even come to light, and if it did McGreevey probably wouldn't have had to resign. McGreevey is clearly trying to deflect his corruption by turning it into a gay issue. Coming out as gay is the *better* alternative, in the short term. But that will be moot if Cipel sues for sexual harassment (although I think that was probably just a blackmail tactic) or McGreevey is prosecuted for corruption (more likely).

So does that make this good or bad for gay rights? Unclear. I'd argue that in the short term it's good, medium term it's bad (as the McGreevey corruption facts come to light), and in the long term it's good - part of the unstoppable freight train of gay rights in America that has been traveling full throttle this year.

Why don't Israelis speak Arabic?

2004-08-04T13:56:00.000-04:00

Israelis will often lament that all they want to do is be accepted as a real country by their neighbors. That said, I always wondered why very few Israelis learn Arabic that well. I always suspected this, and a Jerusalem Post poll confirms it.

I think that's crazy. Part of the reason for the hatred is that Israelis and Palestinians (and certainly Arabs at large) live in different universes. They can't even speak to each other. When they do, it's in broken English. It's even more amazing when you consider that about 20% of the Israeli population (not including the territories) is Arab.

Israeli schools start teaching English in 4th grade, so most Israelis speak some form of English, usually labored. Arabic doesn't start until 7th grade, and is usually elective. Also, Israelis complain that Arabic is also very hard to learn, which it is. But considering the large linguistic gap between English and Hebrew, Arabic should theoretically be even easier for Hebrew speakers to master than English.

Arabs, on the other hand, are learning Hebrew. Not just Israeli Arabs (who don't have a choice). Noted Palestinian leaders such as Jibril Rajoub, Mohammed Dahlan, and the infamous Marwan Barghouti all speak Hebrew. I remember seeing Rajoub interviewed on Israeli TV a few years back, in fluent (and arguably more historically correct, using glottal ayins and hets) Hebrew.

I believe that Israeli schools should teach start teaching Arabic in first grade. That's right, first grade. Sure, English is vital for travel and professional advancement, but Arabic will allow Israel to actually have some hope of understanding and being understood by, if not actually integrating with, their direct neighbors. Especially those that live in their midst.

Moved

2004-07-31T13:18:00.000-04:00

So...not even a month into blogging and I'm already behind.

But hey, I just moved this week. I didn't even have a 'net connection for a few days.

God our new house is nice.

How to drive on the left

2004-07-23T18:45:00.000-04:00

My wife and I rented a car for a day in Oxford in September of 2002, to drive around the Cotswolds. I figured, "How bad could it be?", especially after reading Rick Steves' casual exhorations that driving was the only way to go.

Actually, it was much more stressful and exhausting than I would even expected it to be.

I've chosen NOT to learn from the experience and rent a car in Ireland this September.

Anyway, the biggest problems were:
* Judging the left
* Keeping the car centered
* Tight country roads
* Country night driving

I really didn't have much trouble obeying traffic rules and staying on the left, or making right turns across traffic. Even shifting with the left hand, while awkward, was doable.

The hardest thing for me was driving with the steering wheel on the right. I really couldn't judge if the car was centered. When driving with left side steering, your brain says "the car is centered" when your body is actually to the left of the center on the lane. What ends up happening with right side steering is that your brain gets confused and the car starts drifting to the left.

You only realize that this is happening when the passenger screams or you lose a hubcab when you hit the curb(kerb, sorry). Subsequently, I "hugged the line" and consciously tried to stay close to the white line. This is a little scary, because your brain tells you that oncoming traffic is too close to you. I consciously overrode it, but it was mentally tiring.

This problem is exacerbated by the small, windy, country roads in the Cotswolds. You really don't have a lot of clearance, and you're not just smooth sailing like on a freeway. It was actually much easier to drive once we got back to Oxford, and the roads were well built, and there were highways and lanes and stoplights. (that said, I did almost kill someone on a motorcycle who was on my left.)

Night driving compounds the country driving problem. There are no lights and you just can't see anything. I was very relived to make it back to the well lit ring road of Oxford.

So why am I doing this again? I don't know...why do women go through childbirth multiple times? I will say that it was a pleasure to see little Costwold towns such as Chipping Campden, Stowe-On-Wold, and Bleinheim Palace. So maybe...

Here are my recommendations if you're also stupid enough to do this (which I will follow in Ireland):
* Get the smallest car you can (no "FREE UPGRADE!"). You need clearance much more than legroom or luxury.
* If you don't own a stick shift at home (I do) spring for the automatic. Yes, it costs double, but it's one less thing to struggle with, and it is pretty odd to shift with the left hand.
* If you DO own a stick at home, DEFINITELY save yourself the money and rent one. Shifting with the left hand is clumsy, but doable. You'll save %50-%80 on car rental
* Don't drive at night in the countryside on your first day out.
* Remember to consciously check that the car is centered on a regular basis.
* Give your partner in the passenger seat permission to tell you that you're drifting left. Leave your manhood behind.

I'll let you all know how the trip goes.

Sandy Berger

2004-07-20T17:20:00.000-04:00

Update to previous post today. New York Times fills it in.

It seems that there's suspicion that classified papers from the National Archives (specifically about port security) ended up in the hands of the Kerry campaign.

If this is true, this is so so bad. That's Watergate level, and it will be very hard for Kerry to recover.

Stay tuned. This will get juicy.

UPDATE: I don't believe it. It turns out that even conservative writers are agreeing that this is no big deal and has been hyped out of control. So it seems that he didn't stuff his socks at all. He had a bunch of notes that he put in his pockets. Big deal; you know how many pieces of paper I find in my pockets on any given day?

And I bought it too. "Watergate level," I said. This is the sort of crap that pisses me off about the spin machine. Argh.

Appeasement

2004-07-20T15:08:00.000-04:00

Lest I be tagged as a bleeding heart, I think the Phillipines' withdrawal from Iraq in exchange for a hostage is a bad. It sets a bad precedent, and the kidnappings will continue.

That said, if there weren't any appeasement, the kidnappings would probably still continue (viz. Israel). I think the terrorists see it as a win-win situation. Either they make a political gain, or (Yay!) get to behead someone. Part of me believes that they'd rather do the beheading. They're not like professional kidnappers who are motivated by money alone.

So, while I'm happy a life was saved, it's hard not to wonder whether it makes sense to capitulate to terrorists in the long-term, since kidnappings will continue no matter what you do. My point is that I don't believe that taking a hard-line will discourage terrorism (as many righties do). Rather, I don't believe that taking a soft line will magically make them love us and stop the terror (as many leftie hippies believe). So we might as well move forward with a broad long-term policy that takes all of terrorism into account, separate from individual incidents.

Yes, yes, easier said than done.

Wall St. Journal: Two Americas

2004-07-20T13:37:00.000-04:00

The Wall St. Journal says that there are in fact "Two Americas."

"With the U.S. economy expanding and the labor market improving, it isn't clear how well the Democrats' message of a divided America will resonate with voters this fall. But many economists believe the economic recovery has indeed taken two tracks..."

"Upper-income families, who pay the most in taxes and reaped the largest gains from the tax cuts President Bush championed, drove a surge of consumer spending a year ago that helped to rev up the recovery. Wealthier households also have been big beneficiaries of the stronger stock market, higher corporate profits, bigger dividend payments and the boom in housing."

"Lower- and middle-income households have benefited from some of these trends, but not nearly as much. For them, paychecks and day-to-day living expenses have a much bigger effect. Many have been squeezed, with wages under pressure and with gasoline and food prices higher. The resulting two-tier recovery is showing up in vivid detail in the way Americans are spending money."

"At high-end Bulgari stores ... consumers are gobbling up $5,000 Astrale gold and diamond 'cocktail' rings made for the right hand, a spokeswoman says. The Italian company's U.S. revenue was up 22% in the first quarter. Neiman Marcus Group Inc., flourishing on sales of pricey items like $500 Manolo Blahnik shoes, had a 13.5% year-over-year sales rise at stores open at least a year."

"By contrast, such "same store" sales at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., retailer for the masses, were up just 2.2% in June. Wal-Mart believes higher gasoline costs are pinching its customers. At Payless ShoeSource Inc., which sells items like $10.99 pumps, June same-store sales were 1% below a year earlier."

The usual double standard.

2004-07-20T12:25:00.000-04:00

Sandy Berger's documents have mysteriously disappeared.

If this is true, it should absolutely be investigated. I can't believe he was just sloppy.

But:

So should John Ashcroft's refusal to submit documents, Dick Cheney's energy task force memos, etc. It's bullshit that they're finally investigating someone and he was a Clinton staffer.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that both the Clinton and Bush administrations were equally negligent on terror. What pisses me off about the the Bush administration is its secrecy, while it attacks Democrats guilty of its own sins.

The Washington swamp smells.

Tom DeLay

2004-07-15T22:51:00.000-04:00

I'm really speechless about DeLay and the ethics committee.

Wow, that smells.

I'm amazed by their comments too. Does anyone really believe this?

National Review loves....Jon Stewart?

2004-07-15T13:00:00.000-04:00

The National Review has an article lauding Jon Stewart, for basically all the same reasons libs love him.

I think the sky is falling.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

2004-07-14T17:42:00.000-04:00

The UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen is "not welcome in Palestinian lands".

"Mr Larsen's declarations at the (UN) Security Council are unacceptable and he is not welcome in Palestinian lands," Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.

He also said Larsen's statements were "inaccurate and biased."

Roed-Larsen told the UN Security Council on Tuesday there was a "steadily emerging chaos" in Palestinian areas and that Arafat had shown a "lack of political will" to reform his government.

Funny, because this is the same guy who blasted Israel two years ago over Jenin.

Just goes to show you: it doesn't matter what you say, what you've said in the past, how balanced you're trying to be. In the Middle East, if you don't agree with one side, you're "biased".

This just illustrates the fundamental reason why I believe that there will never be Middle East peace. If you can't even talk honestly without being "biased", how can any practical solution be worked out? Both sides have this problem in spades.

It would be funny, if people weren't dying.

Nader: What an asshole.

2004-07-14T15:25:00.000-04:00

Many 2000 Ralph Nader voters are sorry now. Nader must know that in 2004 he is helping to shift the vote to Bush. He must know that Republicans are the ones pushing to get him on the ballot. Then why is he doing this?

Simple: he's a self-centered asshole.

If anyone needed any proof that Nader was an asshole, there's a great exchange with him on Salon.com. Do yourself and sit through the ad and read this.

If you are really allergic to that, here are some gems:

Nader: Since [Lisa Chamberlain] was writing about the campaign, wouldn't you have the decency to call our campaign office?

Talbot: It's always Salon's procedure, whenever we do a critical article on anyone -- whether it's the Bush administration or you or anyone -- to give them a chance to respond. That's always our policy.

Nader: Look, I've been in journalism too, and when I was doing a critical piece on someone, I would call.

Talbot: Look, Ralph, I'm just not buying your premise that our reporter didn't try to reach you. Someone in your organization is not giving you the right information...

Nader: Wait, wait, wait! No, I'm telling you, if you make a call and you don't get through, and you're not working under deadline because you're working on the damned thing for three or four weeks, you write a letter. You write a letter! That's what I do. You write a letter!

Talbot: Our track record with you is that you've ducked every request we've made for an interview. We've called your office, we've gone through your friends, old Nader Raiders, people you trust and like. We've tried a number of ways to speak with you. And you've repeatedly avoided us. So what we decided when we contacted you again recently -- and again tried unsuccessfully to get you on the phone -- was that we were getting the same old runaround. You obviously weren't going to talk with us.

Even better:

Nader: This is ridiculous. You're treating Republicans like they're all criminals. Did you ever hear of Republicans who might work with us on issues over the years, who might believe in civil liberties even though they might prefer a Republican ticket?

Talbot: Look, you and I know that those kinds of Republicans are few and far between. And I challenge you to show me that the bulk of this money you're getting from conservatives is meant to advance the cause of American consumers. I just don't believe that. And if that's not the case, why is your own running mate, Peter Camejo, saying that you should give back this money?

Nader: Ask him now. Look, why are you so concerned about a tiny fraction of our support in our humble attempt to go past $1 million? Most of our money is under $100 [per contribution].

Talbot: They're not just giving money. These conservative groups are working behind the scenes to get you on state ballots. You're basically saying it's all right to work with the devil, Ralph, because you've lost your perspective.

Nader: OK, now I've flushed you out. Now you've come out. I'm an expert in flushing out bias, prejudice and prejudgment. And you've demonstrated all three. Until you go after the Democrats for obstructing us with dirty tricks and using both Republican and Democratic money -- they used a Republican law firm, by the way, among their three law firms -- until you're even-handed, I will declare you hopelessly prejudiced.

Talbot: Well, we're obviously not going to sort this all out here. But I would like to sit down with you and have a formal interview.

Nader: You have already interviewed me. You have already prejudged me. You have already indicated your predisposition. And you have lied.

For someone who's done all that wonderful consumer advocacy over the years, you'd think he'd have a thicker skin.

Nader doesn't care about unseating Bush. He doesn't really care about ethics and law. Mostly, he only seems to care about himself.

What an asshole.

Blair and the Butler report.

2004-07-14T14:57:00.000-04:00

See entry and comment on Centrist Coalition.

I bet Blair is quite relieved by the Butler findings, as they don't hold him directly responsible. Yet he still graciously owned up to his own errors.

If Bush would own up to his mistakes, he would be on the path to beating Kerry. His inability to talk straight and admit obvious error is probably hurting him much more than the war itself.

And frankly, that's what's firing up the ABB crowd.

Kerry and the Wars

2004-07-14T12:24:00.000-04:00

Kerry's clearly making a major mistake by barely talking about Iraq and terror.

It's funny, because it could be Bush's weakness. That's what's firing up the ABB crowd.

Clearly Kerry's worried about looking stupid given his opposition to Iraq I, support for Iraq II, and opposition to the $87B. So he's trying to avoid the issue. Instead it's "two americas blah blah". Big mistake, IMO.

Since Americans are worried about terror, here's what Kerry needs to do:

Promise to give the Dept of Homeland Security some teeth. They haven't really done anything. They need to shore up the ports, nuclear reactors, airports, etc. Crucial.
Promise to give money to big city police and fire depts. They're woefully underfunded, especially in (ironically) New York. Kerry could really make a stink, especially that Homeland Security money just ain't dribbling down to the primary targets like New York, Chicago, LA. Does anyone really believe that the terrorists will strike in Jackson, MS?
If Iraq gets worse, say "we need to get a handle on Iraq. We need help from allies to do it. Only I will have any credibility with our allies."
If Iraq gets better, say "we can now reallocate our resources to shore up the opium warlord chaos in Afghanistan, and actually get Bin Laden."
Talk about encouraging the democratic movement that is already happening in Iran, which is much much closer than Iraq was to having nukes.

I think both Kerry and Bush are assuming that Iraq and terror play to Bush's strengths. I think that's a mistake. If Kerry makes this campaign mostly about domestic issues, and barely about the war on terror and Iraq, he'll lose. He's mistaken to think that if he DOES talk about the war, he'll lose. It's HOW he does it.

Finally, as far as the 50-50 polls go, I really believe that Kerry is an excruciatingly unpleasant person to watch campaign. While I think that Edwards was the right choice, he just makes it clearer how Kerry's demeanor completely puts one off. Frankly, I think Kerry's demeanor is reason #1 that, despite Bush's disastrous troubles, the polls are 50-50 and tilting Bush. I think that someone more charismatic was the prez nominee (like Edwards, frankly, even with the inexperience issues), he'd demolish Bush at this point (remember Dole vs. Clinton '96? If it was Jack Kemp, I think Clinton might have lost.).

Instead, I think that the polls will still hover around 50-50 (going up, down, over, but still within the margin of error) through Nov 2nd. Anyone who thinks they see a clear winner yet is crazy. It's still a coin toss.

(I originally posted the above in the Centerfield comment section, but I feel strongly enough about it to restate here in its own blog.)

Anybody But Hillary

2004-07-14T12:05:00.000-04:00

Pundits love to talk about Hillary and her positioning for the Democratic presidential nomination in the years to come. Even when merely talking about the current race.

The craziest thing is that folks on the left or in the Democratic party talk like that's a good thing.

Hello?!!

Whether or not you think Hillary would make a great president is really hypothetical. She would get crushed in a national election.

A strong, bitchy, liberal woman who represents New York? And didn't want to stay home and bake cookies? And has less charisma than John Kerry?

People despise her. And not just on the right; plenty do in the center, and I'm sure a few on the left.

Putting Hillary up as a candidate would be suicide for the Dems, and might even give Republicans the latitude to put up a candidate that is really right wing.

It's 2004, and already I think an "Anybody but Hillary" movement should be in order.

Now as a cabinet member, that's another story.

This Land is Your Land

2004-07-12T14:31:00.000-04:00

Do yourself a favor and check out:

http://www.jibjab.com/thisland.html

If it doesn't come in, keep trying. Very worth it!

The Fence / Wall / Thingy

2004-07-09T17:35:00.000-04:00

So, the World Court / ICJ has ruled that Israel's security fence is illegal. Big surprise.

I get really annoyed with people who are against the wall (I have no trouble calling it a wall) in principle. I completely understand those who are against it because of the route. So am I. It should really be along the green line, and not snaking through the West Bank to protect the territories. The surrounding of Qalqilya on 3 sides is not just unconscionable, but pretty stupid, in my opinion. Just another time bomb.

But not to have the wall be there at all? I submit that the wall (if the route is right) is good for the Palestinians.

You heard me: it's good for the Palestinians.

The pro-Israel right can easily ignore the suffering of the Palestinians. To them, the narrative is completely about terror. Terror allows the right to write off the legitimate complaints of the Palestinians. "What difference does it make? They just want to blow me up." Terror becomes the whole story, not land or displacement or checkpoints or unemployment or Apache helicopters.

The wall has already demonstrated that it can keep terrorist deaths down.

If Israelis aren't being blown up, it's only a matter of time before Israelis left and center can no longer ignore the awful conditions in the territories.

But only if the wounds of suicide bombings aren't fresh. As long as Israelis are regularly blown up in their streets, buses, and cafes, they really won't give a crap.

But then again, maybe that's exactly what the terrorists want: war to either victory or shahid-dom.

And Joe Palestine loses.

UPDATE: Apparently, it's not so original. StandWithUs.com and Tallrite beat me to it. Don't feel too great that it's right wing sites that I'm siding with...

Compare and Contrast

2004-07-09T17:25:00.000-04:00

Go to Bush's web site.

Go to Kerry's web site.

Compare and contrast.

Bush's site is attack, attack, attack.

Kerry's is pretty positive.

Hmm... Ironic considering that the right is accusing the left of negativity. Makes Kerry look pretty good.

But.

Is this the right way for Kerry to go? Will Kerry look better than Bush for not attacking, or fall victim to unanswered attacks?

Experience (Dukakis) suggests the latter.

Gulp.

The Flip-Flopper

2004-07-09T16:12:00.000-04:00

Liberal rant today:

Kerry a Flip-Flopper? Well, isn't that calling the kettle black. Bush flips a-plenty.

There's a list at the (liberal) Center For American Progress.

BUT if that's too boring, there's this classic hilarious gem from the Daily Show.

First of all: why doesn't the Kerry campaign pick up on this? I think it would make a great commercial...

(WHITE ON BLACK, OMINOUS MUSIC):

THE FLIP-FLOPPER....

(Clip of President Bush saying how important it is to go into Iraq, with date)
(Clip of Governor Bush from the 2000 debates saying that we shouldn't get involved with other countries).

(WHITE ON BLACK)

Now who's the real flip-flopper?
(I'm John Kerry and I approved this message, etc. blah blah)

Second of all: Why has Bush succeeded? When the NY Times interviews folks from middle America, they often say something like "Yeah, well, I don't like what's happening in Iraq, but that Kerry's a liberal flip-flopper. I don't trust him."

Which means a) The Bush campaign is doing a good job b) The Kerry campaign is royally blowing it.

I should go into advertising.

Lastly: notice how the Kerry campagin is policy based, and the Bush campaign is attacking Kerry's character? Hmm...maybe it's because they know that if people really understood the policies, they'd lose.

OK. Expecting flames from conservatives about "here goes the liberal again."

Here we go again because we're sick of being bullshitted, getting pissed, and then being painted as lunatics for being pissed.

Edwards' Experience, again

2004-07-08T14:47:00.000-04:00

Yet more on the "Edwards is inexperienced" baloney.

George Bush: Six years in statewide elected office as Governor of Texas
John Edwards: Six years in statewide elected office as United States Senator from North Carolina

George Bush: Prior to that, failed businessman with four companies run in the red. Was able to use family connections and money to get out of red.
John Edwards: Prior to that, started his own successful law firm which made millions of dollars.

George Bush: Served no years in Washington, D.C., and had no national experience in government except as an unofficial "advisor" to his father.
John Edwards:Served six years in Washington, D.C., serving on the Senate Intelligence, Judiciary, Help and Small Business committees.

..and my favorite...

If George Bush really believes that a successful businessman who raised himself up from poor circumstances and has served six years serving as a United States Senator is not up to becoming Vice President, then Bush should not have voted for himself in 2000.

Really can't say it better than that.

The Real Costs of War

2004-07-08T13:33:00.000-04:00

Damn. From the LA Times. Read the whole thing:

Call-Up Prompts Sour Note

By Esther Schrader
Times Staff Writer

July 8, 2004

WASHINGTON — Does the global war on terrorism really need an electric bass player?

The question was posed to senior Pentagon officials Wednesday by Rep. Vic Snyder, an Arkansas Democrat, who had spent part of his morning looking through the list of retired soldiers the Pentagon announced last week that it was pressing into service to support military operations in Iraq.

The call-up of the 5,674 troops from a pool of 118,000 who left the service and did not join the reserves has provoked outrage among members of Congress and others. They cite it as more evidence that the deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere have put undue strain on a volunteer military not designed for fighting counterinsurgency campaigns.

Snyder, a former Marine, noted that the Army's list included two trumpeters, one trombonist, four clarinetists, three saxophone players, an electric bass player and a euphonium player.

"Is there not a way to do without the euphonium player?" Snyder asked Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff. "Do we need to really draft an electric bass player, to pull them back in? Is there not a way that we can't let that kind of thing slide?"

After a laugh in the hearing room, Cody answered with a straight face that the bands have been busy, tending to services and funerals. These days, Cody said, "our bands are being stressed quite a bit."

Edwards' Experience

2004-07-08T10:39:00.000-04:00

The Bush camp's effort to discredit Edwards for inexperience seems a little ridiculous to me, given Bush's own inexperience. I'm also amazed that they can trump Cheney's experience with a straight face, since his experience reeks of corruption.

But hey, I'm a bleeding heart liberal, right? If there's anyone out there (anyone?) who thinks that the argument is legitimate, please explain.

Or rather: I might buy the argument that Edwards is inexperienced. I don't get the argument how that makes Bush-Cheney a better choice than Kerry-Edwards. Anyone wanna help me?

The Center: Keeping it real

2004-07-07T12:27:00.000-04:00

Policy by policy, I suppose I'm the liberal that Karl Rove warned you about.

However, I'd like to believe that I come by this honestly, after weighing equal criticism from both sides. That's why Michael Moore bugs me. Hard for liberals to argue that we're the only ones making sense when we stoop to Ann Coulter's level. Then it's no longer a war of ideas and perceptions and solutions; it's just a religious war.

Of course, I accept the argument that sometimes Bill Moyers just doesn't cut it.

That said: I've been making it my business to read the National Review on a regular basis to keep me grounded, as well as Centrist blogs such as Centerfield (and it's links). I don't find that they've changed my positions (yet). Rather, they've added nuance and depth. It's important that I come to my positions after looking at everything from all sides, rather than just being fed what I want to hear.

I believe everyone should read positions that are starkly opposed to their own. If only more people did.

What is "Pro-Israel" anyway?

2004-07-07T12:11:00.000-04:00

What is "Pro-Israel" anyway?

Often, if someone criticizes Israeli government policies, they're called "anti-Israel". It's kind of silly, because often those very "anti-Israel" positions end up becoming official Israeli policy. For example, anyone advocating a two-state solution in 1987 would be shouted down as "anti-Israel". Today it's Sharon's policy. So that leaves Israel supporters in the diaspora looking like friers (suckers; I'll explain some other post).

Hebrew:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/objects/pages/PrintArticle.jhtml?itemNo=447758

English:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=447719

I'm amazed that American Jews are either farther to the right of Sharon, or are crazy commies on the left who call the IDF a bunch of Nazis. Israelis themselves have more nuance in their positions.

Kerry vs. Bush on Israel

2004-07-07T11:48:00.000-04:00

My own mother said that while she thinks Bush screwed up on Iraq, is not too bright, and scares her with his pro-life positions, she still is going to vote for him because Bush is more pro-Israel than Kerry.

Huh?

I've been hearing a lot of this for the past few months, from the press (mostly the Wall St Journal) and many Jews. It's nonsense.

Here's his record, from the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, no less:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/kerryrecord.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/kerry.html

I should also add: Bush is not necessarily so pro-Israel:

U.S. Reduces Israel Loan Guarantees:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/25/israel.loan.guarantees/

Bush’s Support for Israel Falters:
http://www.wjla.com/headlines/0504/147814.html

Rice Criticizes Israeli Gaza Home Demolition Plans
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,7489_A_1205126,00.html

Now, if you are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, that's one thing. But to stick with a presidency that you admit is disastrous, just because Bush might be marginally more pro-Israel (which he actually isn't)?

I've always been suspicious of one-issue voters, but it's even worse when they get the actual positions wrong.

First One

2004-07-07T11:27:00.000-04:00

Another blog? Why the hell would you wanna read another blog?

Maybe you wouldn't, but I wanna write one. I've been reading all these blogs, with political rants left and right, and I've decided that screaming at the computer, or posting not so lucid comments, is not necessarily the way to go about it.

Yup, I'm another lib, but I try as hard as possible to be open minded. I suppose my main interests right now (along with everyone else) are US politics and the Middle East. Trite, I suppose, but I've got things to say.

Just for background: I'm a New Yorker, but I've lived all over the US. My parents are Israeli, and I speak relatively fluent Hebrew (so feel free to send me email in Hebrew, you Israeli lurkers). I must say, understanding what Israelis are thinking and feeling when they don't have the filter of a foreign language only makes me feel more American. That said, I probably have a stronger link to Israel than the average American Jew, to be sure.

This does not mean that I'm a knee-jerk Zionist. I guess I have more of the "militant moderate" attitude towards the "mess" than most Americans. I realize the awful things that Israel has done to the Palestinians, but realize that the Palestinians sure don't make it easy for Israel to resolve the problem, or even talk to. If I didn't have family there, I'd probably just say "let 'em kill each other." Alas, I'm a somewhat interested party, so I wring my hands as lefties are wont to do.

I'm really pissed at the bs the Bush administration has pulled over the past few years. I resent as a New Yorker that 9/11 is being exploited for his policies. I think Kerry's a dud of a candidate, though, and I can't help smacking my head every time he opens his mouth. I think the primary system is extremely unfair, given that after Iowa and New Hampshire, it's all over.

That said, I can't think of a better option than the current Kerry-Edwards ticket. I voted for Edwards in the primary, because I really felt that he was the only candidate with a true chance of beating Bush. But maybe I would feel safer with Kerry in the Oval Office and Edwards as his salesman to get him there.

Although I'm incensed at the BS from Bush about Edwards's inexperience. As compared to the President?! And Edwards is only running for Veep! The hypocrisy never ends.

Ahem.

My main concern is that I do feel that the Dems are out of touch with the heartland. It's not necessarily about the issues, it's about style, tone, and culture.

Gee, what else, before I get started here....

What is "Tamouz Rocks"?

Tamouz was a popular Israeli progressive rock band in the 70s. At least, popular in Israel. I had never heard of them, but on a trip to Israel a few years ago, my cousin turned me on to them. They're kind of like Yes meets Mungo Jerry, but in Hebrew. Good stuff.

It seemed like as good a name as any.