American support for Israel

Here are a few interesting charts from Gallup, showing how the support of the American public for Israel has varied throughout the years.

A conservative blog points out that the support is lowest in the periods when Israel has engaged in negotiations with the Palestinians, and makes the claim that the "peace process" undermines the Israel's relation with the American public.

Despite my reservations about the "peace process" as we know it, I tend to think that the reason for a higher support during the years of no peace negotiations has to do not with the hard line of the Israeli government, but with the Palestinian terrorism - the tactics which contradicts to the very basic western values (regardless of how pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli advocates justify it.) Had the Palestinians resorted to a peaceful resistance, the Israeli government would have no insensitives for a hard stance.

"Good" rich and "bad" rich

A valid point about the income of the sport superstars versus the income of the (hated) business stars:
"I confess to being a huge Lin fan. Indeed, my teenage son has been idolizing Lin’s skills and work ethic ever since Lin starred on the Harvard team. But, as an economist observing the public’s seething anger over the “one percenters,” or individuals with exceptionally high incomes, I also see a different, overlooked facet of the story.

What amazes me is the public’s blasé acceptance of the salaries of sports stars, compared to its low regard for superstars in business and finance. Half of all NBA players’ annual salaries exceed $2 million, more than five times the threshold for the top 1% of household incomes in the United States. Because long-time superstars like Kobe Bryant earn upwards of $25 million a year, the average annual NBA salary is more than $5 million. Indeed, Lin’s salary, at $800,000, is the NBA’s “minimum wage” for a second-season player. Presumably, Lin will soon be earning much more, and fans will applaud.

Yet many of these same fans would almost surely argue that CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, whose median compensation is around $10 million, are ridiculously overpaid. If a star basketball player reacts a split-second faster than his competitors, no one has a problem with his earning more for every game than five factory workers do in a year. But if, say, a financial trader or a corporate executive is paid a fortune for being a shade faster than competitors, the public suspects that he or she is undeserving or, worse, a thief."

When the facts are too obvious

I have pointed many times that the proponents of two-state solution and "peace now" are often oblivious to the very basic facts of Arab-Israeli conflict. Sometimes, however, the facts are too obvious to ignore, as Lara Friedman of the "Americans for Peace" has realized at the Arab League conference:
"If representatives of the organization that sponsored the Arab Peace Initiative cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the legitimacy of Jewish equities in Jerusalem, they should know that they discredit their own professed interest in peace. Their framing of the future of Jerusalem as a zero-sum game only makes it more likely that Israel will continue asserting its current power over East Jerusalem to hinder the vision of two states living in peace with a Jerusalem as a shared capital."

Here are some of the facts that I have written about before:
1. There is no Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but a larger Arab-Israeli conflict
2. The two-state solution does not solve the Palestinian problem, but only the Israeli one
3. Palestinians have more pressing concerns than the statehood
4. Solving Arab-Israeli conflict is impossible within major democratic transformation in the Arab countries (here and here)
5. Westerns powers are interested in over-emphasizing the two-state solution in order to preserve good relations with the autocratic Arab leaders  (here and here)

Collapse of socialism

Mario Draghi says outloud the thing that everyone knows, but no one has had courage to acknowledge:
"European Central Bank President Mario Draghi warned beleaguered euro-zone countries that there is no escape from tough austerity measures and that the Continent's traditional social contract is obsolete, as he waded into an increasingly divisive debate over how to tackle the region's fiscal and economic troubles.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Wall Street Journal at his downtown office here, Mr. Draghi reflected on how the region's travails were pushing Europe toward a closer union. He said Europe's vaunted social model—which places a premium on job security and generous safety nets—is "already gone," citing high youth unemployment; in Spain, it tops 50%. He urged overhauls to boost job creation for young people."
 

Krugman on welfare state

A lot of interesting information of welfare state from Paul Krugman.

Latvian identity

As it was expected, most Latvians rejected the idea of making Russian a second official language and, by implication, granting the full rights of the citizenship to 300,000 of ethnic Russians living in Latvia for at least more than 20 years (i.e. from before the collapse of USSR.)

My personal belief is that such a significant minority (nearly 1/3 of Latvia population are ethnic Russians) should be allowed to study and carry out business in their native language. In Latvia the situation is exacerbated by the fact that knowledge of Latvian language is a pre-requisite for obtaining Latvian citizenship, even for those who have been living in Latvia from before the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

The argument that limiting the rights of the Latvian Russians is justified by the need for preserving the Latvian culture is refuted by the example of Israel, which has Arabic as one of its two official languages. Yet, Israel has been frequently criticized, as for its supposed mistreatment of the Arab minority, as well as for its government's insistence on preserving Israel's Jewish identity, frequently voiced in connection to the peace negotiations.

What is the difference between being able to produce a nuclear weapon and actually producing one? (None)

Although I am not surprised that the same facts can be interpreted very differently (particularly by the media), it is a point that is always worth stressing:
"If you look at the “2012 Worldwide Threat Assessment” presented on February 16 by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and compare it with the “2011 Worldwide Threat Assessment,” you find a startling development. Last year, the assessment was “we do not know whether [North Korea] has produced nuclear weapons, but we assess it has the capability to do so.” This year it is, “North Korea has produced nuclear weapons.”" [Original links preserved, emphasis mine]