Unrealistic Expectations for Obama

Howard Fineman has a realistic article up at Newsweek. He lays out point by point, showing why those with ridiculously high expectations for Obama are delusional. And he even leaves out some of the main reasons when considering each issue.  First, he looks at the stimulus package. Fineman notes that it will be delayed by Republican opposition. Hopefully that will be true.  What he doesn't mention is that the stimulus is likely to just be a giant pork project that won't help the economy, and will probably be counterproductive.

He moves on to talk about "bailout money," and predicts that there will be opposition from Democrats to spending the other 350 billion on the financial sector.  We can only hope.  And we can also hope there won't be still more bailouts. Fineman also forsees a bureacratic fight between established agencies and new "oversight jobs" within the White House. That's one of the problems of big government.  The more government you create, the more its parts clash with each other.

Fineman moves on to foreign policy, and the ugly world picture facing the new president. There's the new hostile, Soviet Union-lite Russia, the giant mess that is Pakistan, and of course the unsolvable Israel-Palestinian situation.  He doesn't even mention the still delicate problem of Iraq, or the huge challenge of Afghanistan, among many other foreign policy issues.

Fineman's article would be useful reading for anyone still enamored with their "hope and change" visions.  For those of us with already low expectations for Obama, it just reinforces a few key points.

HOT5 Daily 1/3/2009

1. "Flood-resistant rice in Asia 2009" A major advance in genetic crop enhancement.

Representative Sample: Advances in biotechnology have improved this ancient grain, which accounts for up to 70 percent of daily calories for people living in Asian countries

2. "When will this self-destructive hatred of high-fructose fruit beverages end?"  Illiterate terrorist-supporter in Manhattan.

Representative Sample: It's a picture

3. "Democrats Having Trouble With Democrats Over ‘Card Check’?"  Let's hope so.

Representative Sample: this little incident illustrates the insincerity of much of what goes on in the Democratic Party.

4. "Some New Year Resolutions For The GOP" Good advice for the party that will probably be ignored.

Representative Sample: Being the “no” party will not garner any sympathy or support

5. "From Russia, with nuttiness" more Russian behavior reminiscent of the Soviet Union.

Representative Sample: the promotion of Panarin may be a kind of Freudian projection of much more plausible concerns about the disintegration of Russia


To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

Aliens & Religion

I stumbled upon an interesting survey conducted in 2008 called The Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey.  It examined the following:

Would either the Christian religion or selected non-Christian religions confront a crisis or even collapse when confronted with confirmation that extraterrestrial intelligent life (ETIL) exists?

According to the survey authors, they identified three questions as most important.

1.  Official confirmation of the discovery of a civilization of intelligent beings living on another planet would so undercut my beliefs that my beliefs would face a crisis.  80%+  disagreed or strongly disagreed that their personal beliefs would be affected.

2.  The next question asked whether the respondents particular religious tradition would be "undercut" so that it "would face a crisis."  Again, the vast majority disagreed or strongly disagreed, although there was more variety among different religious groups.  For example, about 95% of Mormons disagreed but only about 68% of Catholics, indicating that more Catholics think finding an alien civilization would pose a religious problem than do Mormons.  Mormons are fine with aliens.

3. The last of the three focus questions asked whether religious traditions in general would experience a crisis. Many more people agreed with this proposition. 

The main report in pdf format can be found here.

This survey is pretty revealing.  Most religious people dismiss the idea that the discovery of an alien civilization would pose a problem for their own religious beliefs or those of the religious tradition they belong to. But they aren't sure when it comes to religions in general.  In other words, they tend to look at things much more rationally when their own personal beliefs are not in question.

The discovery of an alien civilization on another planet would likely be a world-changing event. Depending on the circumstances, and all sorts of variables, it is almost a certainty that such an event would pose religious difficulties.  The confidence that people displayed in the stability of their own religious belief systems seems based on little more than blind faith.

HOT5 Daily 1/2/2009

1. "Indian options for keeping Pakistan in check" An interesting analysis of India's options toward Pakistan from the Indian point of view.

Representative Sample: Our leadership has not acted responsibly now and in the past. Unless that can change we will continue to be at the receiving end. No amount of military superiority will help us.

2. "New Year’s Q of the day: what are the things you can’t live without?"  Responses from a recent poll and the author's own list.

Representative Sample: the number of things that Americans say are necessities has grown.

3. "Have Israelis Finally Learned the Strategic Value of Territory?"  Someone who shares my opinion about the foolishness of making territorial concessions to enemies.

Representative Sample: It's called learning the hard way.

4. "The Proportional and the Pregnant" Another view on the nonsense of "proportionality" in war.

Representative Sample: If a street-gang swore to kill your family and drove by your house every week spraying it with bullets, even though no one was harmed, what would the proportional response be?

5. "Dilutional disorder" an amusing takedown of homeopathy quackery.

Representative Sample: If homeopathy works, then obviously the less you use it, the stronger it gets. So the best way to apply homeopathy is to not use it at all.


To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

More Good Commentary on Gaza

Yesterday I noted the article by Robert Lieber.  Today, both Michael Gerson and Charles Krauthammer have excellent columns on the Gaza situation.  Gerson echoes what I wrote earlier (although he is nicer about it) about the misuse of the term disproportionate, saying

"disproportionate," which betrays a misunderstanding of proportion's meaning. The goal of military action, when unavoidable, is not to take one life in exchange for each one unjustly taken; this is mere vengeance. The goal is to remove the conditions that lead to conflict and the taking of life.

He also forthrightly states that

There is no question -- none -- that Israel's attack on Hamas in Gaza is justified.

It's good to see a journalist taking such a clear postion.

Krauthammer, who I recently criticized for his gas tax idea, points out the clear moral differences between each side, in contrast to some who try to draw a false equivalence between accidentally killing civilians and deliberately targeting them. He notes that

At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible -- also on both sides. It's a recurring theme

It shouldn't even be necessary, but Krauthammer gives examples of the different behavior and attitude of Israel vs. Hamas.  As he says,

Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.

HOT5 Daily 1/1/2009

1. "Shoe Bomber vs. Shoe Thrower: How the Liberal Blogs Stack Up"  Pretty unsurprising.

Representative Sample: we compare how various liberal progressive blogs covered two different Shoe Stories.

2. "Ending Gaza" It won't happen, but it's hard to disagree with the sentiment.

Representative Sample: the Gaza Strip is a failed non-state run by terrorists pledged to genocide and dreaming of a second Holocaust.

3. "Pondering the Strategic Objectives of Hamas" An analysis of what Hamas hopes to achieve by provoking the latest conflict.

Representative Sample: From the perspective of Hamas, it is very difficult to find a reasonable explanation for the strategic goals at work here.

4. "Here We Go: Connecticut Democrat Calls for Newspaper Bailout" Just what we need, another bailout.

Representative Sample: Any government intervention or bailout of a media enterprise to me makes that outfit government media.

5. "The Old Zeitgeist Vs. the New Zeitgeist" an interesting year-end list.

Representative Sample: a guide to where things stand zeitgeist-wise as we usher in a new president, and with any luck, a new era.


To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com. Put HOT5 in the subject.

Myths About Gaza & the Misuse of "Disproportionate"

Georgtown professor Robert J. Lieber's article in today's Washington Post should be required reading for anyone commenting on the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict over Gaza. The author attacks at least three myths.

1. Israel is indiscriminately killing civilians. Lieber notes that UN observer reports, hardly a pro-Israel source, indicate that 80%+ of the Palestinian casualties have been "Hamas security personnel or other militants." This is a high rate of precision given the conditions in Gaza, and the terrorists deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians.  Hamas is deliberately targeting civilians. Israel is not.

2. There is no "cycle of violence." Israel is defending itself against constant rocket attacks from Gaza.  If there were no  attack s on Israel from Gaza, Israel would not be  launching air strikes.

3. Hamas and Israel both want peace. Hamas is not interested in peace. They want Israel destroyed. No concessions by Israel will ever satisfy them.

Read the entire article. It's one of the best pieces on the situation I've seen in a mainstream outlet. 

There is one other thing about the conflict that Lieber doesn't specifically mention: the misuse of the word "disproportionate." Just about every critic and enemy of Israel has been calling the Israeli military action disproportionate. Such a use of the term is completely illogical and frankly just plain stupid. Many of the people using it are simply being intellectually dishonest, or allowing their dislike/hatred for Israel to remove their ability for logical reasoning.

Military forces of countries have not and do not respond proportionately to attacks on their homelands. Superior forces in general do not respond proportionately when attacked by inferior force. If you poke a lion, do you expect him to just poke you back? If someone attacks a police officer with a knife, is he expected to pull out a knife of his own, or will he use the superior force of a firearm? When the twin towers were destroyed on 9/11, should the U.S. have responded by destroying a simliar civilian target in Afghanistan? That would have been a proportionate response.

The entire nature of military operations involves bringing superior force to bear against your opponent, to overwhelm him as efficiently as possible, with minimal casualties to your own forces. It is not about giving the enemy a fair fight. Any article about the Gaza situation that accuses Israel of a disproportionate response reveals that the author is either illogical, ignorant of military affairs, intellectually dishonest, an enemy of Israel, or all of the above.