I love how the GOP is suddenly so concerned

about fiscal discipline. Where was this sentiment for the last 8 years? What a bunch of frauds.

A contribution to the violence

In geopolitics and history, truth is a matter of perception, which is itself subject to biases. So what happens when those making judgments, the international community, are pulling for one side in a conflict? Objectivity flies out the window, and in its place is an artificial bar being set for perception of victory.

In the conflict with Israel in the summer of 2006, Hezbollah lost 50% of its fighting men. There was billions of dollars in damage to Lebanese infrastructure, and over a thousand dead civilians. Two years later, Hezbollah is going to great lengths to assure Israel that it does not intend to start another fight - an odd thing for a victor to do. And yet, Hezbollah "won" the war against Israel in 2006. The bar of victory set by the international community was merely: survival. Hezbollah did accomplish as much.

Fair enough. However, just because the rules of the game are being changed does not mean the players will no longer want to win. Israel and Hamas have insisted on fighting, and each will attempt to reach the criteria that have been arbitrarily set as being required for victory. Hamas needs to survive, and survival depends on deterring Israeli attack. Thus Hamas will hide among civilians as much as it can, hoping to avoid Israeli firepower. We are seeing a great many civilian casualties as a result. Israel on the other hand needs to completely and systematically crush the entire network of Hamas to be recognized as victorious by the international community. Accomplishing such a lofty objective would necessarily require a ground invasion, and would inevitably result in a lot of casualties among innocents.

We in the international community have changed the rules in this conflict; we cannot be surprised to see the combatants playing by them. The Israeli onslaught has been so exceptionally vicious (or "disproportionate") because we've set the bar of victory so high that anything less would inevitably result in an Israeli defeat.

P.S. This has nothing to do with whether or not Israel *should* be doing what it is doing. A military response to provocation by Hamas may be morally justified, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is wise. The Soviet Union 'provoked' the US during the Cold War (and vice versa). Pakistani militants certainly have provoked India lately, but should India think lightly of attacking an already unstable nuclear-armed country of 180 million people? Of course not. The question we need to be asking is whether or not this offensive is good for Israel's long-term security objectives. Unless there is something big that the Israelis know that I don't, I think the answer will prove to be no. Although, my opinion may be biased by the fact that I think Ehud Olmert is stupid and incompetent.

What did I think two years ago?

In the summer of 2006, Israel went to war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. This event was shortly after the Indian train bombings that killed so many. Here was what I was thinking then.

Almost three years later we see a similar situation. India was just attacked by Pakistani-based terrorists and again their response was reserved. Israel was attacked with rockets by a non-state actor (Hamas instead of Hezbollah) and again they have escalated the situation.

One interesting event happened today, though. Someone, a few rogue men in Lebanon perhaps, launched rockets at Israel from southern Lebanon. Hezbollah went to extra effort to assure the Israelis that it was not them who shot at Israel. Seems odd for the party that "won" in 2006 to sound so conciliatory. At any rate, Hezbollah has rearmed and has more rockets now in southern Lebanon than they did before. The international community demanded a cease-fire then, but the problem festers to this day.

I am not sure what the Israeli agenda is right now, nor whether or not they will accomplish it. My feelings are different than they were in 2006. Then, I thought the Israeli action was foolish, because Hezbollah did not want war but Israel over-reacted and forced them into one. It would have been like the US going to war with the Soviets over a small cold war skirmish - not worth it. The situation today is completely different. Hamas wants war, as do the people who elected them. The Israelis want war too. So fine, let them have it. Solving their problems through violence is a novel approach that hasn't been tried before, after all. /sarcasm

----------------------- Update -----------------

I really hope the Israelis have an important strategic objective in mind. Something that isn't readily obvious to the amateur observer. Otherwise they're going to look bad when this is over. Their current leadership doesn't have my confidence, for the record. They screwed up in 2006 and the smart money says they're screwing up now. Who knows, though. Maybe they know something we don't.

Israel and Obama

Anyone wondering why the Israelis are going all-out right now: think about it. Obama is going to be inaugurated in a couple of weeks. It is unimaginable to think that the Israelis have not OK'd this operation in Gaza with the President-elect. I guarantee Obama's message to the Israelis was this: do what you will while Bush is still in office, but this shit better be wrapped up by the time I'm inaugurated.

Yes, this is the institution that should lead world affairs

UN split on homosexual decriminalization

Keep in mind, this isn't a debate over gay marriage or civil unions. This bill simply would have asserted that one should not be punished for being a homosexual. Being hung in Iran, or stoned to death in Saudi Arabia, for the crime of being a homosexual.

Let us not forget that, 140 years ago, half of the states of this nation fought to defend slavery.

And heres the kicker: the US didn't sign the bill either. Our excuse was a technicality, but it sucked all the same. Apparently the US isn't the institution that should lead world affairs, either (and we certainly are not under Bush; hence my vote for Obama*).

If one was serious about wanting to win the war on terrorism, they'd see the folly of this. The best way to undermine the radical extremism that is endemic in many of these nations is to promote reform from within. We should be siding with the disenfranchised, not supporting the bullies.

*Obama has already thrown gays under the bus. They make a great sacrificial lamb, don't they? This does not actually surprise me all that much, though. Obama isn't the left winger that his base hopes and the right fears. I've always thought that he is a centrist who is masquerading as a leftist. His post election actions have confirmed my suspicion, to the dismay of the left-wingers.

That doesn't mean I approve of stoking social conservatives with an anti-gay preacher, but I obviously approve of the centrist cabinet picks, Gates for sec def, pardoning Lieberman, et cetera. Bill Clinton threw homosexuals under the bus too. Seems to be standard operating procedure, doesn't it?

Isn't it frustrating when the scientific facts don't support the political agenda?

One might reflexively assume that this article is a snipe at the right, but in fact they would be wrong. Interesting news about the terrible global warming we've been experiencing lately. We've been told lately that this last year was the hottest on record; that the situation is crucial. Turns out, the bureaucracy that came up with those numbers is wrong. Interestingly, that bureaucracy is headed by Al Gore's friend.

I've written about the global warming situation before; specifically, I gave ten reasons why I don't care. I guess we can file this latest news under point 6 in my diatribe. Actually, I think the more interesting thing is the recent decline in sun spots that will correspond with decreases in solar output. Historically, such decreases in activity were followed by ice ages. Wouldn't it be ironic if man-made global warming was staving off a new ice age?

I've always thought that Al Gore was a bit of a self-serving fraud. Its hard not to be suspicious of someone who speaks so strongly of knowing the truth about something as unpredictable as climatology. As I've pointed out in the past: weathermen cannot accurately predict the weather 48 hours in advance. And we are to believe they know what will happen ten, one hundred years from now?

Let me clarify. It is not foolish to think that massive production of greenhouse gases by humans would cause increased temperatures (it would be absurd to believe otherwise; to deny thermodynamics). And, it may be prudent to limit pollution as much as reasonably possible. What is foolish, however, is to believe with such conviction that immediate catastrophe will result if we don't stop global warming now.

Thanks, Sarah

The US Secret Service blames Sarah Palin for a dramatic increase in death threats against Obama. The increase coincided exactly when Palin started her nastiest line of attack in the 2008 Campaign. She would question Obama's patriotism, or say "we don't know who the real Barack Obama is". A subtle suggestion that he is somehow evil, or a traitor.

We saw her say these things, and her crowd would whip up into a hateful frenzied mob. We heard shouts of "hes a terrorist" and "kill him", and we saw her say nothing. We saw no condemnation of these events from the right. No repudiation of such hate from Palin's base, the evangelicals and "values voters" (Jesus apparently hates liberals). The silence was, and continues to be, deafening.

Ironic that I'm writing this on the seventieth anniversary of the Kristallnacht. That was another time in history when hateful people on the fringes of a movement said and did things while their more moderate colleagues watched in silence. When "good" men and women did nothing, said nothing.

To drive this point home

Appalachia, the stronghold of Hillary Clinton in the Democrat primaries:






















Meanwhile, the Daily Kos reports that only 22% of the counties in the nation voted *more* Republican.













Next election, I won't bother with reading about the candidates. I'll just look to see who the people in Appalachia are supporting, and do the opposite.

The future of the GOP

Win back the youth vote:

"This picture from Andrew Gelman is striking. It suggests that the real difference between the past two elections and this one was the youth vote. In this election, the young left the Republican party in droves.

Why? I am not enough of a political scientist to be sure, but conversations I have had with some Harvard undergrads recently have led me to a conjecture: It was largely noneconomic issues. These particular students told me they preferred the lower tax, more limited government, freer trade views of McCain, but they were voting for Obama on the basis of foreign policy and especially social issues like abortion. The choice of a social conservative like Palin as veep really turned them off McCain.

So what does the Republican Party need to do to get the youth vote back? If the Harvard students are typical (and perhaps they are not, as Harvard students are hardly a random sample), the party needs to scale back its social conservatism. Put simply, it needs to become a party for moderate and mainstream libertarians. The actual Libertarian Party is far too extreme in its views to attract these students. And it is too much of a strange fringe group. These students are, after all, part of the establishment. But a reformed Republican Party could, I think, win them back.

Can the Republican Party move move in this direction without losing much of its base? I have no idea, but that seems to be the challenge ahead."

What is soft power?

THIS is soft power. From President Elect Obama's victory speech:

To those who would tear the world down, we will defeat you.

To those who seek peace and security, we support you.

And to all of those who have wondered if Americas beacon still burns as bright. Tonight we have proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms, or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

Many of us are still rightly concerned about the "war on terror". The more observant of us might have noticed a few things about the war in Afghanistan. We cannot win that conflict with only military power. It cannot be won even with military power coupled with economic power.

The war in Afghanistan, and the wider war on terror, is a war of ideas. What side can best persuade the people of the world to join their cause? This is what George Bush always failed to understand. It is what General Petraeus, the architect of the surge in Iraq, always did understand. You have to get the people on your side. The policies of George Bush: preemptive war, unilateralism, arrogance, belligerence, and torture, only yielded short term gain at a long-term loss.

Obama is a much needed clean break from the policies of Bush: unity. He preaches it. He acts it. He literally embodies it. He is a descendant of both Christian and Muslim, black and white. The soft power of the United States has literally gone up by orders of magnitude just now.

It, of course, remains to be seen if Obama is indeed crafty enough to capitalize on this resurgence of American soft power. To bring the war in Iraq to a swift and stable close. To bring some peace to Afghanistan. Resolve Darfur, strengthen international institutions. The world is desperate for physical and moral leadership right now, and only the United States can fill that role today. President Obama will make it happen.

McCain's concession speech

Thats the McCain I know. I always knew he was still down there. If only he had defeated George Bush in 2000. I look forward to seeing him on the Daily Show again soon =).

Independents in Indiana

Supporting Obama over McCain by almost 20%.

This is striking when you stop to consider McCain's prominence was largely based on his appeal to moderates and independents like myself.

John McCain betrayed independents when he picked Sarah Palin as his VP, and they will bury him for it.

I still don't get it. McCain secures the GOP nomination and THEN moves to the right. It makes no sense. He ceded the entire middle of the political spectrum to Obama. Did he deliberately throw this election?

My last appeal: vote for Obama.

A year and a half ago I predicted that Obama would defeat McCain. At the time I had enormous respect for both men, and to some extent I still do. Yet events over the last few months have made it quite clear to me that Barack Obama is the superior candidate. First, here are three pieces written by conservatives who are supporting Barack Obama.

1. In February, I wrote my Conservative Case for Barack Obama. It is one of my favorite pieces, and everything still applies.

2. Andrew Sullivan's Top Ten Reasons why conservatives should vote Obama. A conservative Catholic British-American, Andrew's blog is one of my favorites.

3. The Economist newspaper finally endorsed Barack Obama. Coming from a right-of-center newspaper with 150 years of support for free trade, that is a powerful statement.

Since my "Conservative Case for Obama" was written in February, it is missing commentary on two important developments that have occurred since then. Obviously, the most important is the financial crisis. My views on economics are more conservative, thus John McCain should easily be able to draw my support on this issue. Unfortunately, he does not.

His first response to the financial crisis was to rashly call for the firing of Hank Paulson. He then suspended his campaign to fly to Washington DC to "help" with the bailout plan (with what expertise, I wonder?). He constantly accuses Obama of socialism - a curious accusation to make, considering we just nationalized all of the banks with McCain's support.

Meanwhile, Obama has had a steady hand and has been surrounding himself with very intelligent advisers. I for one don't believe his populist economic rhetoric; I suspect he is going to have economic policies similar to those of Clinton. Further bolstering Obama is this impressive survey by The Economist. Even controlling for party affiliation, the professionals overwhelmingly supported Obama's economic policies. Obama's principled stance against McCain's stupid idea of a gas-tax repeal earlier this summer also scored him a point.

The end game is that I am not overly impressed with either candidate on economic matters. Obama seems to have a better grasp on things, but I reflexively disagree with any left-wing economic policies, especially in this time of crisis. McCain has been a consistent supporter of free trade and cutting government waste, which I would support. However, his erratic and inconsistent behavior has made me question how he would handle things as president. To get a feel for how bad it really is, consider watching this video where Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto rips McCain a new one for his handling of economic issues.

McCain could have put people like me at ease with the selection of someone like Mitt Romney as vice president. Indeed, a McCain/Romney moderate pro-business ticket would be a very tempting alternative to Obama's populism. Alas, McCain took the low road and selected the most embarrassingly unqualified person to be VP that I could ever imagine. She is George Bush in a woman's body. Boastfully ignorant, hyper-religious, anti-science, and condescending to those who are curious about the world. One of McCain's own staffers was quoted as describing Palin as a whack job. The most important decision McCain had to make up till now was his VP selection, and in that decision he failed on an epic scale.

A month after her pick, I cannot emphasize enough how much I am turned off by Sarah Palin. However, anyone who thinks I am being unfair, reflexively using her as a reason to support Obama is dead wrong. My first reaction to the pick was excitement and support. Its obvious from that post that McCain had room to sweep me (and presumably other centrists) away from Obama. Instead, he threw us moderates under the bus to appease the far right. That decision probably cost him the presidency.

If I haven't been convincing enough, here is a final point. There is one outcome of an Obama defeat in 2008 that we can be sure of. Hillary 2012.

There you have it. We have two good choices, but in the home stretch one of them clearly pulled ahead while the other fell behind. McCain has had a good career and I wish he would have defeated Bush in 2000. Things would be different if McCain had been in charge for the last eight years. Alas, the McCain of 2000 is gone and is not coming back. There is only one real choice. Barack Obama for President in 2008.

This resonates with me

The other day, Sarah Palin mocked scientific research involving fruit flies. My undergraduate research, which had implications for cancer in humans, was based on a fruit-fly model. I suppose we can't really fault Palin for not knowing all of this (ignoring the fact that fruit flies are a common tool in even high school biology classrooms). We can fault her arrogance, though. It always makes sense, if one is to be discussing a subject with such contempt, to make sure said person knows what they are talking about. Otherwise they will be made to look quite the fool.

At any rate, here is a scathing piece on Palin's larger theme of anti-intellectualism and anti-science. A fantastic quote:

"This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity."

I would like to reiterate something of my own. I believe there is indeed some wickedness at work here. There is this sort of pseudo-debate about whether or not evolution is real. First of all, for you Catholics out there, this is a non-issue. The Vatican officially supports evolutionary theory. For other Christian sects, people are wrong if they assume they are forced to make a choice between evolution and belief in God. The two are quite compatible. I'll post on exactly why at a later date.

The crux of the issue comes down to this. I don't personally care whether an individual believes in evolution or not. On the surface, it can sound like a pretty outrageous proposition and without actually having studied it, its easy to have some skepticism. That being said, people in this country have this deep aversion to evolutionary theory because there is a group of people that keep pushing the message that evolution is anti-God and contradicts the bible. It is my belief that the people that do this are evil, manipulative, and are doing it because they know that sewing the seeds of (false) controversy creates an intellectual vacuum that they subsequently fill. Its all about influence and power, and denying evolution is the way these particular men achieve theirs.

At any rate, some will not be convinced; fine. Next time such a person is in the hospital, they should be sure they only accept penicillin for their staph infections. Evolution being false, strains of staph couldn't possibly have evolved resistance to methicillin. Thus these people certainly wouldn't need special antibiotics that can kill MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus), right?

Replace the word "Hindu" with "Muslim"

and I bet this article would be getting a lot more attention. Anyone disagree with that?

Victory or defeat

I saw this excerpt over on Andrew Sullivan's blog and wanted to repost it here:
-------------
On 9/11, Al Qaeda had no expectation of a traditional military victory against the United States. The point of the attack was economic -- to draw the U.S. into expensive and protracted foreign wars that would deplete our resources and destabilize our government. By invading Iraq, George Bush became the happy idiot to assist Al Qaeda in this goal. Now, Sarah Palin and John McCain take the leaders of Al Qaeda at their word when they say Iraq is the major front in the war on terror.

Neither consider the possibility that Al Qaeda wants Iraq to be the major front because it furthers their goal of weakening the U.S. while inflicting minimal damage on their operations.

Seven years after 9/11, we are seeing Al Qaeda's long-term goal being realized: the destabilization and economic collapse of the United States. Even as it's happening, the people who supported it all along want to continue facilitating our own long-term disintegration by clinging to simplistic concepts of traditional military victory and defeat. In this sense, they are possibly the most myopic, least strategic thinkers in the history of this nation.

As Gary Shandling said, with this approach, our only hope of killing Osama Bin Laden is that he'll laugh himself to death.
----------------

It is mind boggling how strategically stupid it was to invade Iraq, for so many reasons, the least of which is economic. Meanwhile, the powers that be have no long-term plan for Afghanistan, and are lacking strategic insight there, too. Our problem in Afghanistan is that there are millions of recruits in neighboring Pakistan that are all too willing to cross the border to fight the Americans. The only way you can slow that down is to improve the image of America. Bombing targets in Pakistan and killing civilians is a pretty bad way to do that.

the VP debate

The only question that matters is this: do you think that your VP pick is ready to lead the United States, and the world, starting in January of 2009?

I don't know how anyone voting Republican can give an honest "yes" to that question.

Over the last two weeks I have seen much that would make me question the depth of Sarah Palin's knowledge regarding crucial issues. Her performance in this "debate" did nothing to dispel my skepticism, and therefore she failed. She managed to not embarrass herself, I'll give her that. Maybe we should be setting the bar a bit higher.

Have you ever seen someone in a terrible relationship?

One of those unhealthy, disastrous relationships that so many people fall into. Everyone knows that the relationship should end. Many friends will even tell the person as much. In response, the person may become angry or defensive. Ultimately, though, you hope the person will end the relationship before it is too destructive. Then, years later, the person will look back and say to their friends, "I wish I would have listened to you sooner!"

This kind of thing is going on right now, on an international scale; the world is telling us who to elect for President in 2008. I know, I know, Americans are the ones who get to vote, and not foreigners. Its our country, we should be able to do what we want...I get it. Still, check out this interactive map on Economist.com: What if the US Election were held worldwide? The rules are the same: nations are given electoral votes based on population, and it is winner-take-all. Right now, the tally of world electoral votes is, Barack Obama - 8,202; John McCain - 8. The margin of Obama's lead in most nations is something like 85% to 15%.

The Economist reader base is well educated, so this is a sample of some of the most informed people around the world. Furthermore, it is a right-of-center newspaper; one would almost expect a McCain bias among readers. Certainly, the Economist has displayed such a bias on its own over the last couple of years. Maybe we should take our international friends' advice, just this once. They seem awfully sure about it this time around.

P.S. There is one nation in the entire world that is leaning to McCain right now. Did you spot it? It is, ironically, Macedonia (ironic because Macedonia is one of my ancestral nations). Makes perfect sense, too. Macedonians want McCain to win, because then McCain starts war with Iran. And, as we all know, the Macedonians' favorite past time is conquering Persia.

A simple graphic explains why I am the man.

This is how one goes about making money on Intrade - spotting trends before they happen. I correctly predicted (4-5 days before the markets responded) that McCain's VP pick was a game changer. I unloaded all of my Obama stock on Aug 29.

Meanwhile, my prediction about the general election is unchanged since February. That is, the only way McCain stands a chance is if the economy is booming and Iraq is pacified. Once the financial crisis hit on September 16, everyone knew Obama's numbers would go up.

I sold all of my Obama stock at 61.6 tonight because I think thats pretty close to the natural equilibrium value. It won't go much higher or lower (max of 70, min of 55) unless something crazy happens between now and then. I'm interested to see how Palin performs in the VP debate on Thursday, or if Biden says something really stupid. Alternatively, many of the state electoral vote races are VERY close right now. The trades below represent the most hotly contested states right now. The numbers below represent the probability that the corresponding state goes for Obama. Obviously, subtract that number from 100 if you want to find the probability that the state goes for McCain. Look how close Indiana is!

Trade COLORADO.DEM 66.5
Trade FLORIDA.DEM 48.5
Trade INDIANA.DEM 42.4
Trade IOWA.DEM 83.0
Trade MICHIGAN.DEM 79.1
Trade MINNESOTA.DEM 79.5
Trade MISSOURI.DEM 33.5
Trade MONTANA.DEM 15.0
Trade NEVADA.DEM 51.0
Trade NEWHAMPSHIRE.DEM 60.0
Trade NEWMEXICO.DEM 79.9
Trade NTH.CAROLINA.DEM 45.0
Trade OHIO.DEM 51.7
Trade PENNSYLVANIA.DEM 75.0
Trade VIRGINIA.DEM 57.0
Trade WISCONSIN.DEM 79.9

Playing Economist

Some reasons why I suspect that the bailout is a bad idea:

-We are giving the Bush Administration 700 billion dollars to use however they see fit. The Bush Administration. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? When has Bush ever been prudent with our money? What crisis or problem has he ever successfully managed?

-Hank Paulson will have almost zero oversight. We're going to put the future of the US Economy in the hands of one Bush appointee? This reminds me of the FEMA director Michael Brown during Katrina. I can hear Bush now. "Hankie, you're doing a helluva job."

-Where is the 700 billion dollars going to come from? The US government certainly doesn't have it. Where are we going to get it? Borrow more from the Chinese? We already owe them 1 trillion; why not make it 2? Or perhaps we could go beg King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia? Then he could channel the interest from our loans directly into the accounts of extremists and terrorists who are trying to take over Pakistan or are killing our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

-What will the consequences of borrowing 700 billion dollars be? Inflation? A (further) collapse in the value of the US Dollar? If we're lucky, it will only be 15-20 years of economic stagnation, like in Japan.

Something can't come from nothing. This crisis is the result of a massive disequilibrium in the financial system trying to correct itself. A 700 billion dollar bail-out will only delay the inevitable. It allows us to avoid pain now for a lot more pain later. I wish Americans would for once not screw over future generations. We spent money we didn't have. We should pay for it. Not our children.