“Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.”

(Heinrich Heine)
In the 1940s Heine was proven right and the Nazis burnt many millions of people, including 6 millions Jews.
This year a church leader in Florida thinks it will be a good idea to burn Korans on 9/11. I believe there are better ways to remember the tragic loss of lives in that horrible day nine years ago, especially when the method proposed here is not significantly different from the one used by the terrorists, namely: hatred.
In addition, the commander of American forces in Afghanistan said it will risk American soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
I know the First Amendment gives anyone, including evil and stupid people, the right to express their views in whatever way they find appropriate, but isn't that the same amendment that also gives Muslims in New York to build their own community center? Seriously, the Bill of Rights is not a "choose what you like" store. If the American people thinks they have the right to meddle with other peoples' affairs, take down leaders and put new ones on, all in the name of Democracy and Human Rights, then this right is based on one thing, and one thing only, exercising the Bill of Rights without racism or bigotry.
Let's hope this time people will stop this insanity earlier.

Coffee Name

Americans are unable to say foreign names. They don't even try to think outside of the box / strict pronunciation rules they were brought up with. For example, the whole world calls the country Iraq (pronounced Ee-rak) while the Americans pronounce it Ay-Raq. The same goes to Iran (Ay-Ran), or even Italians (Ay-Talians). Israel (Ee-sra-el) is pronounced (Eez-Real), which kind of fits, because it is a surprise that it "is real".

So it is no surprise that they can't pronounce my totally complicated and impossible Israeli name, Elad. They pronounce it Ee-Lad. It should be El-Ad, literally God Forever, well what can I say, my parents had high expectations of me. :-)

So, to make it easier for Starbucks / Panera Bread / whoever needs to call me by name to get my order, I give a fake American name. Sometimes I am Josh (a pet name my sister gave me), sometimes Kyle (as in Kyle McLachlan). Surprisingly, I am not the only one. Many foreigners do it, but also many Americans. You can hear all about it on NPR's All Things Considered at this link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128828538

The invisible yet empty hand

A while ago I had a conversation with a guy at work, whom I consider to be pretty open minded and intelligent. We started off talking about the World Cup and ended up talking about the free market and should the government interfere with it. I claimed that the free market is definitely a better model than a totalitarian centrally controlled market, as in the Soviet Union, but it is not necessarily the best way to run an economy. I used several examples.

The first one was the health care industry, which in most countries in the world is centrally run by the government with a much greater success than the free market American model - the one that successfully leads both the people and the US to bankruptcy while being mediocre at best (ranked 37 in the world!). He wasn't convinced that this was indeed the case, although he agreed with me that the money people pay for health insurance can be considered as part of "non-tax" - money missing from your available funds, but is not taxed by the government.

The second one I used was the availability of broadband internet - both wired and wireless. As Israelis, we are accustomed to think of the US as the epitome of technological achievements. Living here we have quickly learned that the case is far from being so. In fact, even after two years here in Cincinnati, I still wonder whether or not there is a reliable and widespread 3G cellular network in this city. I know there is none in the nation. Cincinnati Bell, a local provider that doesn't have coverage beyond the greater Cincinnati-Dayton area, claims to have the best regional network. That says a lot about how the national providers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile) see the importance of a national network. Don't misunderstand me, all of them claim to have a perfectly good data network in the Cincinnati area. So far, none of them convinced me that it is really so. And it could have been pretty easy to convince me - just give me what I had been used to by Israel's Orange network in 2008. The main reason not to implement a fast data infrastructure is simple - the economic gain is directly proportional to the population density. The more dense the area is, the higher revenue the network will generate, and Cincinnati is not populated densely enough.

On the other hand, the free market should be able to rectify this situation by offering an incentive in the form of higher margins in places where there is a lack of competition. Free market enthusiasts tell us that the invisible hand is supposed to draw people into such places to increase the supply and meet the demand. However, in some cases this doesn't work. In some places, probably the less populated or poorer areas, market forces do not accumulate enough to produce this invisible hand. The FCC has recently come up with a report that claims exactly that. About 24 million Americans have no access to broadband internet. That's roughly 8% of the population. Before the health care reform by President Obama, it was estimated that 50 million Americans do not have access to any health insurance. That's on top of the other millions that are covered through government plans like Medicare and Medicaid. In other words, only 2 out of every 3 Americans got their service from the "free market".

As in any problem, the first step to solving it is recognizing that it exists and that it is indeed a problem. If you ask Glenn Beck for example, he will tell you that America has the best health care system in the world. One can only hope that the current administration sees through this smoke screen and will at least be able to convince some Americans that not everything in this great country is indeed the greatest in the world. Media will certainly play a major role in this - both for the good and for the bad. Here is another example from an NPR (hardly a conservative right-wing station) host being taken by surprise when hearing the fact that Americans pay more for less broadband (skip to 21:15 and on).

However, even if the problem is recognized, the solution may not be clear immediately. This is especially true when people mix solution strategies with political views, i.e. when the political views cloud the thinking process and prevent it from going in the direction of central intervention in the market. In Israel I was known to be the most libertarian anti-socialist person in any room I walked into. I believe I have not changed my views at all and that I still believe in the power of the market in controlling complex systems. If I didn't believe it, I wouldn't choose the PHD topic I have chosen.

Central intervention can come in all sorts of ways, ranging from creating incentives for companies to invest in not-so-lucrative investments to playing a major role or even being the sole participant in the market. The level of central intervention should depend on how badly the market produces what we want it to produce. If the market works relatively well, as most do, government should facilitate the existence of the market, e.g. by creating a currency to be used in deals, but otherwise step aside and let the market work its way. But what if the market is left alone and does not yield the desired results? Well, that depends on how big the gap is.

If the market leaves a few people behind, as in the broadband market, the government should create the incentives for companies to go back and pick these people up. The fact that a child was born in North Dakota does not mean they should not be able to bridge the digital divide and be left behind for the rest of the 21st century. A recent study showed that a child born to poverty is likely to stay poor for the rest of his childhood and we know that a poor child left behind is a grown up and family we will have to support for the rest of his life. So even from the libertarian-reduce-my-taxes point of view I would rather spend small dimes on getting these kids connected than spend many more dollars for supporting them during the rest of their lives. That, of course, assuming that we're not going to leave them to die of starvation.

If the situation is even worse, as in the health care market, then simply using incentives cannot and will not rectify it. This has already been established because we see that even greater government interventions do not help the health care industry change its ways. A complete overhaul is in dire need. In fact, the main criticism I have about the Obama Administration in this case is that they "chickened out" and that the new overhaul is nothing compared to what should have been done. In fact, in the health care business I believe that the basics should be given by the government for the people and not the private sector. The reason is simple: the private sector, as it should be, tries to maximize revenue to their share holders. The only way to maximize revenue is by generating more income and reducing costs. In the health care industry generating more income means taking more money from the insured people and reducing costs come mainly from cutting the coverage they get. In other words, from the company point of view, the best revenue would be generated if from every dollar a person spends, 100 cents of it go to revenue and the rest is spent on coverage. The only reason why this is not a complete scam is that the companies - at least theoretically - must make the coverage sound good enough for one to spend one's dollar on a certain insurance and not the other. So, the coverage offerings are designed to lure one in, but once in - who cares? Leave the market to run wild long enough and you'll get exactly to where the market is right now in the US - people spend more and more money and get less and less while companies' revenues are in the billions. These billions of dollars can come from only one source and on exactly one expense -coverage. There is only one solution that will prevent these companies from reaching even deeper into our pockets - a government run national plan. This way the market is ruined, but everyone gets covered and pay roughly the same amount that they will take by the end of their lives. This is obviously the other side of the government - private sector spectrum.

One may argue that this will make the US a socialist country (God forbid!) and will consequently lead to its demise. My response is - yes, some things are better run in a central (maybe socialist) way. This doesn't mean that everything becomes socialist or that the country as a whole will become socialist. Why is the military run by the government and not private companies? Why is the police controlled by governments (on federal, state and city level)? Why was the Interstate Highway System initiated and has been funded since by the government and not the private sector? The reasons behind all the above examples are - because the public needs it, because their services have to be accessible to all people and companies without bias, and because it is too important for the people as a whole to become a revenue generator. Can you consider a police run by its share holders? They will not go into poor neighborhoods, deal with major crimes, or investigate corporates because it's either too dangerous or counter-productive for the share holders. So why do we still allow health insurance companies to do exactly these things - not to be available for poor people and not deal with major illnesses (on the grounds of "preexisting conditions" or other nonsense)? As Forest Gump's momma used to say - "stupid is as stupid does".

ESPN3 - Brilliant

I have been using ESPN3.com a lot lately and this is a brilliant site. Easy to use, excellent adaptive video quality, multiple screen option, and of course the best commentators.


Image quality has been reduced because I watched 3 matches at the same time.

World cup boredom

This World Cup is probably the worst one I have ever seen since 1982. With the exception of Germany, who played well, with a good offensive and fast motion, all the other teams play slowly, defensively and do their best not to be beaten, which leaves most games to a 0:0/1:1 draw or a 1:0 fluke. What a bore. I think FIFA should start addressing this problem and come up with a way to compensate losing teams if they scored many goals. Otherwise, with the growing number of players and their ever improving athletic capabilities we will doom ourselves to 0:0.

End of the academic year

Today marked the beginning of the final exams week for the spring quarter at UC. In other words, the end of the academic year is here, and what a year it was. Congratulations to D who is graduating in a few days with an M.Sc..

I managed to teach an entirely new class for which no available textbook existed, taught 4 other classes and two will come in the summer, and completed 5 courses towards my degree. Most importantly, I passed the Ph.D. qualifier exam, which is a mandatory step on the way to a degree. In all, this was a very busy and rewarding year for both of us.

Human rights hypocrites

Israel is being denounced by the whole world for stopping a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip. The fact that the flotilla was organized by a known terrorist organization makes no difference to the enlightened world. The fact that human rights and peace activists were using knives, machetes, metal poles, broken glass bottles to attack soldiers fails to strike people as odd, perhaps puzzling - pacifists are known to be pro-violence, are they not? The fact that convoys upon convoys of food and medical supplies are being delivered to Gaza daily, again, is not part of the comfortable narrative, so let's just forget it.


The question is why this whole scam is being done? What is the motive? The motive is, in the end, to cast doubt over the legitimacy of Israel. It is a well orchestrated attack on Israel, with major organizations taking part in it. For example, the BBC with its one-sided depiction of the news, the United Nations, whose human rights section found only one nation guilty of human rights infractions, etc. It is not new, either. When Israel destroyed the Iraqi nuclear facility near Baghdad in 1981 the whole world condemned it, only to thank the Israelis 10 years later when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and the international community came to rescue the oil fields there.

So, in order to let some human rights activists on some of the most known secrets in the world I decided to compile a short list of human rights infractions that Israel is *gasping* not involved in, yet they are still happening in our beautiful world:

• There is this small issue of a so-called genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Not sure if it is worth mentioning.
• I heard some rumors that protesters in Iran were killed and tortured by the regime, but I find it very hard to believe knowing how humanitarian they are.
• Workers in factories in China might be driven to work to death, to the point of slavery, but who wants to hear about the way his iPod/iPad was manufactured? And, besides, who lets them speak up about it?
• I can't believe it's true, but I heard claims that Turkey was involved in a genocide of their own. Naaah, can't believe them, such a nice people the Turks. Probably a Zionist propaganda this thing.
• There is a nice little island just to the west of England. For some reason, it seems that some of the settlers there are not originally Irish and the northern part is interestingly enough under British rule. I wonder when the English will remove all the settlements from Northern Ireland as Israel withdrew from Gaza in June 2005 (ah, yes, did you know that Gaza has been under Palestinian rule for the last 5 years?).
• While at it, how are the Basque and the Catalan states doing? I would really love to visit the free Catalan capitol of Barcelona soon.
• I heard the Belgians had some minor misunderstandings of human rights as well. The fact that Congo and this region is still in turmoil a century later can be attributed to the successful Belgium policy there. Hey, but human rights are not violated anymore, right? Everyone lives there peacefully?
  

This list, by the way, can go on and on forever. I just wanted to point out some matters, that in my humble opinion might be more pressing than the Israeli-Gaza conflict. After all, the people in Gaza live, eat food, get electricity, and have fresh water. All of that is due to Israel, which still supplies them with everything they need, even after 5 years of independence.

Independence?

Birthdays and new year days are usually good times to consider one's achievements. Well, it's not my birthday, but it is Israel's 62nd. So, happy birthday Israel, let's see how you're doing.
Lately I complained about the way the Obama Administration meddles with Israeli policy, and puts its democratically elected government at awkward positions, sometimes demanding things that contradict the very ticket they had used to get elected. At this point I would like to tackle the other side and answer the following questions: why does the administration think it's a legitimate move, and how can Israel escape this dire situation.
Israel has relied on one superpower or another during all its existence. Starting with France, that supported Israel in its first 20 years of existence, including providing it with weapons, and following the French embargo in 1967, the Americans. There is no doubt that the Americans get their reward out of it, otherwise why would they bother? The question is: should Israel continue with it and at what price?
From the economic point of view, the American aid is currently $2.5B, mostly for defense expenditures. Undoubtedly, this helps Israel buy advanced American aircrafts and equipment, but not the most advanced, e.g. the F-22 Raptor was not sold to Israel. But, more importantly, more than 2/3 of the money is required, by the treaty between the countries, to be spent on military equipment. So, basically, this is money that helps the federal government in generating jobs for the American people. It also allows the US to control what Israel buys, not only in military contexts, but also, for example, which airliners will El-Al use. At least on one occasion, El-Al had to cancel a better deal with Airbus and buy from Boeing under heavy American pressure. And finally, and most disturbingly, it allows the US to pressure and in many case cancel weapons sales from Israel to India and China. Independence? Hardly.
Let's assume that Israel refuses to take any more American aid. Sure, it will have to cover this gap in its national budget. Let's see if it is possible. The Israeli budget is about $80B, so $2.5B are about 3% of this budget. However, since at least $2B out of the $2.5B are not spent domestically, Israel can just buy aircrafts at a lower rate, or simply not buy them at all. In the last F-16 deal with the US Israel bought 102 F-16s worth $70M each. That's about $7B. Assuming it was paid for in a decade, the cost per year is $700M, which could be saved entirely, or reduced to a more manageable value. In short, at least $0.5B-$1B a year can be saved by cutting down on military expenditures.
Another part is spending the money domestically. Israeli defense forces started buying fatigues, uniforms, and other equipment from American sources because it was "cheaper" as it came from the American aid and not in Israeli shekels. But this came with a price: many textile and low-tech industries, which relied on these purchases, had to close down, because they could not compete for contracts that excluded them from participating in them. If you take all the unemployment money paid to former employees of these industries and instead of spending it on unemployment, the same money can be spent to buy necessary equipment from these factories. Doing so would boost the entire economy and will actually reduce government spending. I don't have the figures, but I would guess that at least $0.2B are spent each year on these types of equipment. If spent domestically, the workers hired to meet this demand will also buy more, pay taxes, and in general contribute to the Israeli economy and budget, so the benefit can be even higher.
Now, assuming the $1B-$1.5B can be saved or "won back" without the American aid, it seems that the other $1-$1.5B (1.5%-2% of the budget) can be saved as well, either by cutting on defense budget or simply by making better deals, which will be easier if Israeli is no longer restricted to buying just from American companies. As a last resort: raise taxes or increase the deficit.
It seems that the price Israel and its democracy pay for the American aid is too great. If the US wants to turn Israel into a state in the union, let it be clearly stated so, let the Israelis and Americans vote on it, and I am quite sure it will cost more than $2.5B a year (Israel's population is about 7.5 million, which ranks it 12-13 between Washington and Virginia. I doubt if they get less money from the federal budget spent in their area). If, on the other hand, Israel wants to retain (or gain, depending on who you ask) its independence, it should free itself from the American aid money.

On Politics and Friendships

The Israeli, and partly also the American, media are discussing lately the issue of the Obama administration's reaction to the Israeli government's decision to build 1600 housing units in East Jerusalem. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times had some spare thoughts to share, which the Wall Street Journal repudiated. In light of this discussion, I will share my 2 cents. I know I am not exactly a publicist or a renowned blogger, but still there is one thing that bothers me about the way the administration is pressing the Israeli government. But before that, a word of warning: I am what Israelis might call "left-wing"; I fully support the right of the Palestinians to have a state alongside Israel, I support the so called "Two States Solution", I supported the withdrawal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and I object to building in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Now that this is out of our way, let's take a deep breath and see how the Obama administration, with senior Jewish officials (Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod), is acting in their worst interests, instead of the required, assuming that the administration indeed wants to get the peace process working.

It is often said that special relations between Israel and the USA are founded on the premises of joint values, democracy being one of such main values. Israel is, in fact, the only openly democratic republic in the Middle East. It is so democratic, in fact, that in the last fifteen (15) years since 1996 there were six (6) elections. This democratic instability is caused by many factors, which are not the scope of this post. However, the main things to mention are that Israel is a democracy, an unpredicted one at that, and that the fragmented political map in Israel makes it impossible for a government to complete its four years' term. One may ask, what does it have to do with the Obama administration? Well, in short, everything. Since the Obama administration wants democracy to proliferate in the world, it should also show some respect to its, occasionally, undesired side effects, namely that an undesired political side gets into power. Undoubtedly, having a right-wing Israeli government, in which Avigdor Lieberman is Foreign Minister, is hardly a desired partner in American eyes. Nonetheless, it is still the elected government. The last campaign was unique in the way that one side, the Israeli right in this case, decidedly won the elections. And, being the right wing that they are, the ticket that got them there was expanding the settlement in Judea and Samaria, which, according to their voters, is, has been, and shall always be, part of the Jewish Holy Land. I might argue with that, but as the side that lost the elections, I respect their views and hope for the best in the next elections.

In my view, this is where the Obama officials show their infuriating combination of hypocrisy and inexperience. Hypocrisy because they do not accept the vote of the Israeli people, and force Prime Minister Netanyahu to accept their terms, which are contradictory to the ticket he was elected with. Not only that, by doing so the administration is deliberately trying to undermine Prime Minister Netanyahu's government by alienating his coalition partners. The inexperience part comes from the lack of understanding in Israeli politics. If they knew better, the administration would know that what they are doing will cause the Israeli public, including left wing people like myself, to rally in support of their government. I may not like the government's decisions, but I am definitely against foreign countries' meddling in our decision making.

And, yes, it is, in lack of better term, meddling with Israeli internal affairs. This is hardly the first time American administration did it to Israel, or to other countries. However, this time the administration has crossed the line between mild meddling and acting forcibly to destabilize the elected Israeli government. To make it clearer to American eyes, this would be parallel to a foreign superpower (China perhaps) forcing the administration to stop its healthcare reform, claiming it to be too expensive (China is after all America's largest creditor) by destabilizing Obama's administration using international and internal pressure on decision makers. I am certain that if this was the case, the Obama administration would not accept it silently, and certainly would not apologize for not doing so, as Netanyahu did. If anything, the administration reaction would be to denounce this act of meddling in American internal affairs and the American people would not accept it either. So, it is of great wonder to me that the administration expects the Israeli government and people to accept this breach of Israeli sovereignty.

5+3=7

If Google can't count, why should I complain about my students?

Brain drain

So, I get an email this morning from someone claiming that they represent the Israeli ministry of science and are looking to generate a list of Israeli "brains" that are currently living abroad. Great. First thought - it's probably phishing.
Second thought - other people got it as well, so may be it's not.
Third thought - I clicked the link, a genuinely looking site comes up. Great.

I clicked the "המשך" (next) button that will allow me to view/update my details, and - surprise! It doesn't work.

What's the f***?
Didn't they hear of checking their website? How do they expect Israeli scientists to return to such a "partachi" state?

Reply to "All That Buzz"

D wrote in her blog about Google's new edition to Gmail - Buzz.
This is my reply:
I think that the jury is still out on Google Buzz. I share D's worries about privacy and Google accumulating too much data on me. I don't, however, think that Google are doing a good job at managing the privacy setting. It's still an "opt-out" settings, and still - if you are not careful enough, people may have too much information about you. Add the fact that when used from a cellphone Buzz adds location data to your entries (buzzingas?) just makes it even scarier.

In addition, I find the level of noise (or maybe clutter would be a better term) to be too distracting at times. Buzz is now another thing that you have to check, after email, Facebook, Reader (and Twitter if you joined it). The fact that it is constantly inundating you with more data makes it harder to concentrate on the important stuff. Just think how hard it is to read an academic paper on the computer when there are so many distractions just around the Start button.

Finally, I think that Google is trying to kill off the competition, and get people more hooked on their services. Some of the competition they are aiming at is obvious - Twitter being the first, and perhaps Facebook and MySpace coming closely after. However, I think that since Buzz requires you to actually load the Gmail page (something I haven't done in years except for marking things "read") and read it, Buzz is a way of thwarting the risk of email clients syncing with Gmail and saving people from getting the well directed ads D mentioned. So, in the bigger scheme, Google is aiming at Microsoft's Outlook / Live Mail, Apple's mail client, and the open source Mozilla Thunderbird. I can understand the first two, but I think Thunderbird is a casualty of indirect fire and too much collateral damage. Google is supposed to "do no evil".