Bibi Netanyahu Wants You to Know He's Miffed

                Uncle Sam’s good friend Ben—you know Benjamin Netanyahu?  Israel’s Prime Minister?

Well, he stopped by the other day via NBC and CNN. He seemed troubled. Frustrated.  A tad angry.  He can’t seem to get our President to man up and lay down the law to the leaders of Iran the way he prefers.

  Ben wants Barack to tell Ali and Mahmoud—Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei and its President Ahmadinejad—that the United States will smack them hard if they make “one [atomic] bomb’s worth of medium-enriched uranium” --meaning enough explosive material to make an A-bomb. Ben calls that drawing a “red line” that Iran must not cross.

Now Ben—we call him Ben, which is more dignified and less baby-like than his nickname, “Bibi”—has been saying this and saying this. He seems convinced that Mahmoud and his team aren’t kidding when they say they will rub Israel off the map. Ben thinks they will actually try it, if they can produce the bomb.  He fears the Iranians will give their equally fanatical and irresponsible allies bombs, causing a threat that will upend the world. At worst, Iran and friends could blackmail and dominate their neighbors. At least they would start another vast Cold War.

Of course, an A-bomb could go a long way toward devastating Israel.  Americas know that better than most. With a couple of A-bombs, America melted and practically erased two Japanese cities a few decades ago.

But in effect, Barack keeps saying cool it, Ben. We’re not going to let Iran get the bomb. We promise. Trust us. We’re working with you. We’re twisting Iran’s arm. Look, Iran’s in pain. Let’s see if its leaders give in and give up pursuing the bomb.

So Ben pops up on our national TV to explain to us why Barack’s wrong. And though he denies it, Ben may want his friend and former Boston Consulting Group colleague Mitt Romney to use the “red line” argument during his campaign for the presidency.

At any rate, Ben has inserted himself into our presidential campaign. He’s a smooth talker. He’s convincing when he describes the dangers of allowing the Iranian “fanatics” to get the bomb. However, he’s unlikely to sway Barack or those in the United States who have considered the stakes in this dangerous confrontation with Ali and his boys.

For one thing, Barak must know Americans are tired of war. And who wouldn’t like to see the money spent on fighting used instead to improve our economy?

 Why not wait and see if increased sanctions against Iran combined with sabotage, subversion, and cyber- attacks finally persuade Ali to settle for having A-power without having the A-bomb.

True, Ben may be right about Iran’s intentions. For political and religious reasons that are hard for us to understand, Iran probably won’t relent.

Yet we can afford to wait until we’re absolutely sure that’s so. After all, despite the pleas of other nations to wait and see, we hurried to brutalize Iraq because it supposedly was poised to use weapons of mass destruction. The world knows how that turned out.

If Israel attacks Iran, as Ben seems itching to do, Uncle Sam will be dragged into the fray. And we will suffer.  There will be casualties.  There will be attacks and firefights at U.S. bases in Bahrain, Qatar, and Afghanistan. Hamas and Hezbollah fighters will take to the streets to attack U.S. government and commercial interests. This Iran promises.  Plus the flow of oil from the Mideast will be impeded. Gasoline prices in the U.S. will soar and again we will be saddled with the debilitating costs of war.

The picture is bleak enough to make one ask, “Why not let Iran have the bomb?” Iran could not be dumb enough to use it. An atom attack on Israel would invite a quick and terrible response that would cripple Iran for generations.  Because if Israel didn’t respond with the A-bomb it is thought to own, the United States would counter with its hellish weapons.

Then too, since the end of the Cold War, the balance of terror has kept the A-bomb toting nations of the world—the U.S., United Kingdom, France,  China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and North Korea—from  seriously threatening their use. India and Pakistan, you’ll recall, are fierce enemies and occasional combatants.

In his TV interview, Ben declared that people who say it might be okay to let Iran have the bomb are “stupid.”

That’s the wrong word. They’re smart to try and think of ways to avoid further bloodshed.

                                                                                                        ----Gus Gribbin

 

His Voting Advice Was Great; Following It Tricky

                They sat down for dinner. He reached for the vegetables and:

                “Dad!”

                “Yes?”

                “What am I?”

                “Whadda you mean?...You’re an eight…oops… nine- year -old who is supposed to be eating his supper.”

                “No. I mean—am I a Republican or a Democrat?”

                “You’re neither. When you get big, you’ll be able to choose one, or the other, or stay a neither.”

                “But when I grow up, which should I be? What are you?”

                “I’m a Democrat.”

                “Why?”

                “Aint you hungry?”

                “Tell me, dad.”

                “Lots of reasons. Let’s see.  At first I guess I became a democrat because our state, Maryland, is largely democratic. My friends were democrats. So….”

                “What should I be?”

                “Be what you want to be. But listen! And remember this! No matter which party you choose—even if you don’t join either—you’ve got to figure out who is the best for the job and vote for that person. The best for the job! Got that?”

                “Yessir.”

                “Okay. Eat your supper.”

                Many, many suppers—in fact, many, many years since his dad issued that advice, the “boy,” tries to figure out who is best for the President’s job in 2012. There are two incredibly smart, handsome, experienced, and patriotic men vying for the office.

                Like his father, the “boy” has a bias.  But he wants to be fair. Listen to the other side. Give the other candidate his due. Yet so many lies cling to the candidates or their parties. Real lies. Not just mistakes, but false statements intended to deceive.

Maybe he should choose the candidate whose side tells fewest lies. Read the reviews of independent fact checkers—not the so-called “fact checkers” each party employs”—and do basic arithmetic. Apply cool reason.

Do that and it appears the GOP team is winning the race to issue whoppers.

Among the tall tales are cheap fibs like the Veep Candidate’s extravagant claim he ran a marathon in “two hours, fifty something,” a blistering pace. It’s impressive that Rep.  Paul Ryan, the would-be Veep, can –or could—run a marathon. In fact though, it’s known that he completed the mentioned race in more than four hours. And though Mr. Ryan left the impression he was a regular marathoner, he actually ran just the one race.

And there are flagrant untruths like the Presidential contender’s claim that President Obama goes around “apologizing for America,” and that he “eliminated” the work requirement for welfare recipients. Also there is Mr. Ryan’s assertion that President Obama is responsible for the closing of a Janesville, Wisconsin, GM plant, when the plant closed five months before President Obama’s election and seven months before he took office. There is more.

Yet tallying the lies seems not to matter to political partisans. Partisans are “Predictably Irrational” –to borrow the title of the book by MIT professor Dan Ariely.  And as psychologist Jonathan Haidt points out, “We can believe anything that supports our team.”

  In his fascinating book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Dr. Haidt notes, “Political opinions function as ‘badges of social membership’. They’re like the array of bumper stickers people put on their cars showing [their] political causes.” He insists that gut feelings actually determine political choices and the mind merely comes up with reasons to support our emotionally dictated selections. Still, “Reasons sometimes do influence other people,” he writes.

Trusting that last thought, what reason would the biased “boy” use in choosing the best candidate for the job? Well there’s this and it’s big:

 The smart, handsome, GOP candidate, Mitt Romney, won the Massachusetts governorship as a moderate politician who declared among other things that he was pro-choice and that we should “sustain and support” Roe v. Wade, which he now says has “gone too far.”

Recently on Meet the Press Mr. Romney said he backed certain provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act, or “Obamacare,” although for months he has proclaimed that if elected he would begin working to eliminate the Act on his “first day in office.”

In short, the former moderate now says he is a “severe conservative.” Okay. That’s his prerogative.  But he owes us an explanation why he came to completely reverse his position on matters of concern to the electorate.

Absent that explanation, voters are left to believe he will say anything to gain the Presidency regardless of facts and regardless what he actually believes. Can one who would do that be trusted and be “best for the job?”

The “boy’s” father would say, “Absolutely not!”   And  as they say, “Father  knows best.”

                                                                                 ------------------ ------Gus Gribbin           

                (Note: In case you're interessted, Kenya’s Patrick Makau set the world marathon record 0f two hours and three seconds for the 26-mile-385-yard run in 2011.)

 

Poor Sen. Inhofe--He Can't Accept Reality

“A fool who persists in his folly will become wise,” noted William Blake, the eighteenth century poet and painter.

 That sounds right. Reality eventually delivers a jolt.

So my question is:

 When will Sen. John Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican and climate hoax proclaimer, wake up? Reality has proved him foolish many times over.

Most recently Mr. Inhofe accused James Hansen, the prominent National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist, of being an extremist in his own camp. Mr. Hansen released studies showing that last year’s intense heat and droughts and the forest and range fires in Mr. Imhofe’s home state and in Texas were likely related to climate change caused by human activities.

Then on August 8th the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that July 2012 was the “hottest month on record for the contiguous United States.”

 The average temperature for the month climbed 3.3 degrees to 77.6 degrees. That’s big. That figure translates to increasingly devastating crop damage, more frequent and widespread fires, increased economic losses, and genuine and persistent discomfort and suffering for people across most of the nation.

It’s reasonable for many in the most affected areas of the country to believe the climate we knew it is gone. Perhaps that seems less obvious in the Middle Atlantic States.

The climate here in Maryland seems relatively stable. There have been more 100-degree days than normal and many humid, yucky, 90-degree days.  Also thunder storms seem more frequent and severe—but that may be only an impression.  Then too, last winter seemed wet and un-winter like. Yet that’s not so uncommon.

Elsewhere though, our fellow countrymen are experiencing dramatic change. For instance, roughly 70 percent of the country is experiencing a prolonged, crop killing dry spell.  And NASA reports that in recent years extreme heat has affected 13 percent of earth’s surface up from 1 percent in the years before 1980.

Still the senator fights any suggestion that he is wrong. He is dedicated to blocking climate-change legislation. And on the same day NOAA issued its finding, Mr. Imhofe vowed he would block all climate-change research and activities.

Why?

It’s hard to think Mr. Inhofe actually believes what he says about climate change. It’s easier to believe he thinks he must continue to advance the interests of the powerful petroleum industry. After all, he is from an oil-producing state. And, of course, oil barons and other carbon producers hate the thought of further restrictions on harmful emissions.

Even so, there is such a thing as reality. And the reality is that even some of Mr. Inhofe’s staunchest academic allies and climate-change skeptics have recanted in the face of facts.

 D.R.Tucker, the conservative writer and talk show host who promoted Mr. Inhofe’s  rampant climate-change skepticism, admitted, “I was defeated by the facts.”

Dr. Richard Muller, the University of California-Berkeley physicist, admitted last month that for 20 years he had wrongly dismissed scientific evidence of climate change. “Call me a converted skeptic,” he stated.

Dr. Ricky Rood, University of Michigan meteorologist, stated a couple of months ago that a “couple of temperature facts struck me.”  He said that the last month when earth’s average temperature was below the twentieth century average was February 1985. “There have been 321 consecutive months with the temperature above the twentieth century average.”

The scientific dispute over climate change is about over. Now people who care about people want to focus on coping with an altered world where storms are stronger, dry spells longer, and high and low temperature extremes bring more and longer power outages.

And yet, as Eric Klinenberg, a New York University sociology professor, puts it in an opinion article, “Americans’ growing concerns about global warming will mean nothing if our national leaders are unwilling to seize the moment and do something about it.”

Sadly, many of our conservative leaders oppose taking action. They are being foolish.

“The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way,” said Josh Billings, the nineteenth century American humorist. But if the politicians blocking action to deal with climate change have their own way, all suffer, and the time for effective action is running out.

                                                        -----Gus Gribbin