Remember what I said about careful planning?

Barak Ravid writes:

Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well. Barak gave orders to carry out a comprehensive intelligence-gathering drive which sought to map out Hamas’ security infrastructure, along with that of other militant organizations operating in the Strip.

Tom Peters writes:

So, we’re in for it. And may be in for it for the foreseeable future. And the bottom may-or may not-be in sight. This is beyond any shadow of doubt the biggest financial crisis in 75 years. And despite my advanced age, even I have Zero Experience with anything like this. Hence, how does one give serious advice, or play expert with a straight face?

So here is my effort, probably futile and surely inadequate, to be a little less hackneyed than I otherwise might:

Feel the pain. Feel free to hurt and hurt badly for every single person laid off or fired, maybe even the Lehman gang.

Be of help. Feel the pain-and do something about it. Continue Reading »

Sherry Chandler writes:

Once upon a time, who knows where, I read that women cry more easily than men. It”s the way we”re built. This stuck in my mind because I do cry easily. I consider it a curse. Because the minute my tears begin to flow, people start treating me like a child, one who is no longer capable of reason, one whose critical faculties have been turned off. The conversation is over. And I want to scream to the heavens, “God damn it, I can cry and think at the same time!”

Glenn Greenwald writes:

Of course, if you ask Hamas why they blow themselves up in pizza parlors and shoot rockets at homes in Southern Israel as a response to the 40-year Israeli occupation and recent blockade, they’ll tell you the same thing.

If you ask Hezbollah why they kidnap Israeli soldiers and lob rockets into Israel in response to Israeli incursions into Lebanon, they’ll make the same claim. If you ask Al Qaeda why they fly civilian-filled airplanes into civilian-filled buildings in response to American hegemony (and endless military actions) in their region of the world, they’ll explain that jihad is hell and anything done to advance it is justified.

You’ll hear the same thing if you ask Russians why they destroyed Chechnyan residential blocks, or if you ask Serbian leaders about their genocide, or if you inquire with Rwandan tribal leaders about the brutality of their attacks, or if you ask virtually any other war criminal why they had to resort to such extremes.

[Update — 1409: There’s so much to read; so much to digest; so much to understand. She who Writes Like She Talks has suggested Kim Pearson. I’ve started reading and I agree.]

One of the transformational aspects in business that Tom Peters and others like him have created in the last 40 years is recognition that we do not live in a bi-polar world; that life is never black and white and those around us are never simply for us or against us.

If you think there are no options, you’re not thinking enough.

Such world views are childish, arising as they do from the my-parents-hate-me-because-they-won’t-let-me [insert juvenile self indulgence du jour here] attitude towards life.

Some people never grow out of that phase. And I think there is a particularly pernicious strain of this affliction that runs through politics and politicians fueled by the false bravado of those who think they know what to do.

We don’t want our leaders to be introspective. We want them to be decisive. We want them to chase the goblin from under our beds. We want them to make us feel all warm and fuzzy.

But that’s not the real world. Continue Reading »

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

Really Karl? I did that same contest at the local library–when I was six. Anyone who actually reads books knows that reading the words off the page is half the job, at best. The hard part is digesting the book, getting to its essential themes and then weighing them against your own body of knowledge. Look I love books, was raised in the business of publishing books and printing books. But watching a pundit–or president–brag about reading a book a week, is like watching a freshly-minted 21-year old get smashed at a wine-tasting. Only a rookie would set that sort of goal–and then brag about it. Either that or, you know, someone who doesn’t really read…

Via Blogger Interrupted…

As Tim Russo noted yesterday, one of the standard political attacks hurled at Israel is that it uses disproportionate force in resounding to attacks on its people.

Imagine, for a moment, what a proportionate response might look like.

Say that Israel deploys batteries of 120 mm mortars along the border of Gaza. By using sophisticated counter-battery radar it could track each and every rocket or mortar shell leaving Gaza, responds in kind, shell for shell on the launch sites. That would be beyond proportional, it would be, like 17th century duelists, equal.

What effect would that have? First, mortars and rocket launchers can be moved in minutes, if not seconds when mounted in the back of a truck. By the time the Israeli counter fire arrives, the firing party has moved and the only damage would be to people and property not involved in the action.

Since Hamas has no problem hiding in heavily populated areas, the perfectly equal response would result in collateral damage: the deaths and injuries of non-combatants and the destruction of homes and infrastructures.

Instead, Israel waits, observes and then responds with massive retaliation on strategic (rather than random) targets so as minimize civilian deaths and injuries. The rococo media can easily report on really, really big explosions. It’s much harder to report on the steady, but relatively quiet fall of individual shells and rockets that, for the most part, don’t blow up much of anything.

If you must choose between the two options: random but equal or well-targeted but unequal reactions which choice would you make?

(Note: because I believe this to be a false dilemma, I would reject both choices. More on this later today.)

Tim Russo writes:

Internet politics will continue to be seen as a “tactic” or a “strategy”, and those who subscribe to this approach, including media covering it, will be clueless to such a degree they”ll reside in some other universe.

The comments on Glenn Greenwald’s post are at 152 and climbing. He’s also added two updates this afternoon.

Here are a few of the comments:

Heru-ur: There is no doubt in a thinking man’s mind “who started it”. When the “Jews” steal land, humiliate the natives, shoot children, run an Apartheid society, attempt to starve the Palestine natives, claim there never even was a Palestine, and treat them even worse than America did the black man — then you know “who started it”.

Wakerobyn: If Obama’s daughters were being subjected to this overwhelming terror, he too might be out firing primitive rockets, throwing rocks (or shoes) or any other resistance he could muster.

The American people long to “Do the Right Thing” again, not because it makes us safer, maintains our lifestyle or improves our image. Common decency, however obscured,twisted and equivocated, is still the one value we humans hold in common.

Joe Frank: Do you really think that Israel, the only democracy in the ME, is interested in squandering its shared resources on a war? It’s ridiculously easy to stand at the sidelines here in the US, and throw spitballs at the Israelis. We don’t need another Intellectual who, with penetrating analysis, has figured out that war kills innocent people. We need ideas from people with moral clarity about the present, while being familiar with the thousand-years-old natural enmity between the parties to this war.

Ondelette: The bombing went on for about 10 minutes. It was like an earthquake on top of your head. The windows were shaking and squeaking. My 10-year-old was terrified, he was jumping from one place to another trying to hide. I held him tight to my chest and tried to give him some security and reassure him. My 12-year-old was panicking and began laughing hysterically, it”s not normal. I held her hand and calmed her and told her she would be safe. My wife was panicking. She was running around the apartment looking for somewhere to hide.

I’m still reading… still thinking… still seeking a way to understand how the cycle can be broken…

Glen Greenwald writes:

Still, any minimally decent human being — even those who view the world through the most blindingly pro-Israeli lens possible, the ones who justify anything and everything Israel does, and who discuss these events with a bottomless emphasis on the primitive (though dangerous) rockets lobbed by Hamas into Southern Israel but without even mentioning the ongoing four-decades brutal occupation or the recent, grotesquely inhumane blockade of Gaza — would find the slaughter of scores of innocent Palestinians to be a horrible and deeply lamentable event.

I’m giving Glenn’s piece a lot of thought and will write more later, but I have two snapshot comments: first, no Glenn, they wouldn’t and second, periods are free Glenn, you should use them more often.

Daniel Engber writes:

The updated model patches over the worst flaws of the old wind chill system, but it’s not anything close to perfect. Osczevski and Bluestein made a set of new assumptions to determine wind-chill-equivalent temperatures. Namely, they geared their calculations toward people who are 5 feet tall, somewhat portly, and walk at an even clip directly into the wind.

They also left out crucial variables that have an important effect on how we experience the weather, like solar radiation. Direct sunlight can make us feel 10 to 15 degrees warmer, even on a frigid winter day. The wind chill equivalent temperature, though, assumes that we’re taking a stroll in the dead of night.

Even the variables that Osczevski and Bluestein did include might be wildly off base. Air temperatures tend to remain fairly stable throughout the day, but wind speeds fluctuate a great deal. (It’s much less breezy in the morning and at night, for example.)

Wind speed also varies depending on where you are. Obstacles on a city street-like buildings, cars, and kiosks-can block the flow of air and reduce its average speed. But wind-chill-equivalent temperatures use a single number to represent all this variability.

I wonder which scale our local weather ninnies use?

I’ve pulled off Interstates because I couldn’t stop laughing after hearing a Dave Barry story. Here in quick flashes are Barry’s take on our current financial disaster as told in his annual The Year In Review:

January… in what some economists see as a troubling sign, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac invest $12.7 billion in Powerball tickets.

February… In sports, the undefeated New England Patriots lose the Super Bowl to the New York Giants in a stunning upset that confounds the experts, not to mention Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which had $38 billion on the Pats to win.

March… Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac apply to be contestants on “Deal or No Deal.”

April… Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac invest $17 billion in an Herbalife franchise. Continue Reading »

Johann Hari writes:

Then she warned me: “There is one known side-effect.” Oh, damn I thought. A downside. “It often causes people to lose weight.” Are you mad? You become cleverer and thinner? I whipped out my Visa card immediately.

A week later, the little white pills arrived in the post. I sat down and took one 200mg tablet with a glass of water. It didn’t seem odd: for years, I took an anti-depressant. Then I pottered about the flat for an hour, listening to music and tidying up, before sitting down on the settee.

I picked up a book about quantum physics and super-string theory I have been meaning to read for ages, for a column I”m thinking of writing. It had been hanging over me, daring me to read it. Five hours later, I realised I had hit the last page. I looked up. It was getting dark outside. I was hungry. I hadn’t noticed anything, except the words I was reading, and they came in cool, clear passages; I didn’t stop or stumble once.

Perplexed, I got up, made a sandwich – and I was overcome with the urge to write an article that had been kicking around my subconscious for months. It rushed out of me in a few hours, and it was better than usual.

My mood wasn’t any different; I wasn’t high. My heart wasn’t beating any faster. I was just able to glide into a state of concentration – deep, cool, effortless concentration. It was like I had opened a window in my brain and all the stuffy air had seeped out, to be replaced by a calm breeze.

Before…

After… Continue Reading »