Heretics' almanac

Economics of natural disasters, a seed

It seems to me that the "experts" (always such an overly ambitious term in times like these) miscalculated the impact of Katrina on New Orleans.  The eye of the hurricane missed the city and passed it on the right side, so the winds, etc., weren't as devastating as they could have been.  Originally, they thought there'd be an all-clear by Tuesday, when the hurricane had moved on.

I'm not sure what they underestimated, but it seems there was more water from more directions than the city could handle.  So now it's one of those open-ended disasters: we have no idea of the impact of the damage, how many have died, what the secondary effects might be, how long it will take to clear up, etc.  The vast resources of the US military are put into motion to help out, but it's just too difficult, too nasty.

Hitchens, thinking he's clever

I find Christopher Hitchens to be an insufferable, pretentious blow-hard, and his latest article in Slate only confirms this perception.

Ironically, Hitchens, who thinks the Zionist enterprise is dubious to begin with, argues that "Cindy Sheehan is at best a shifty fantasist" because she (very likely) has said that the war in Iraq is being fought on behalf of Israel.  He further points to her paranoia by claiming that her allegation that an e-mail attributed to her was "easily and convincingly refuted."

But after having made this ad hominem attack Hitchens's real point is that Sheehan's activism is futile and kind of ridiculous, because the basis for her case is unlikely to find support on the left, right, middle, or anywhere.  He asks rhetorically, what if we actually did what she demanded?

The cold light of day in Gaza

I think the holdouts in Gaza are screwing up big time: Allison Kaplan Sommer is probably not alone in saying the exploitation of children and melodrama are causing her losing sympathy for them real fast, and the IDF/police are now busy removing nasty barriers to get to the last group.

But the Palestinian leadership is doing much worse.  Debka quotes Abu Mazen as saying:

We are marking a h historic celebration. Israel’s Gaza withdrawal was bought by the sacrifices of the Palestinian people and the blood of its martyrs.

And according to Wafa, selected Palestinian editorials are writing such things as:

...our people who have been suffering occupation, colonization and Apartheid Wall are capable of making calibrations in a way that shows our people's interest and looking for other areas of freedom without looking back to the past chaos.
  .
  What is required is to recall the "blood of martyrs" in order to support the law and democracy in light of the forthcoming legislative elections and moreover looking at Gaza sea not only for its fish but also for its transparent blue water.

and

...all should know that Israeli withdrawal from Gaza Strip was a unilateral Israeli withdrawal but with some security, political and economic aspects, simply because of immense pressures resulted in the Intifada of the entire Palestinian people.
.
This victory is because of the sacrifices of the Palestinian people as a whole, including children, women and elders.

These editorials - and let's not kid ourselves here - express what the Palestinian leadership wants its people to believe, namely that terrorism works. 

I don't know if Mazen is an idiot or a coward, or both, but it's as if he wanted to prove that these demonic "settlers" were right in claiming that Sharon's redeployment plan only encourages more terrorism.

Now, I know what leftwingers will say to this.

Breaking hearts in Gush Katif

I am starting to believe that the evacuation of Gush Katif will be a watershed in Israeli society in ways that nobody quite could predict. As could be expected, Norwegian journalists such as Nina Lødemel see it only as a dismantling of an extremist stronghold.

To be sure, those in Kfar Darom who threw "acid" (which turned out to be paint thinner) at the police officers who were enforcing a legal order were despicable, and Israeli authorities are right to prosecute them.  But the point - which a sensationalist bias prevents Nina Lødemel from noticing - is that this evacuation broke the heart of Israeli public opinion.

At one level, the images have compelling symbolic meaning.  Jews have had to dismantle synagogues, remove Torah scrolls, and abandon their homes on short notice on thousands of occasions in virtually every country they've lived for the last two thousand years or so.  When they are forced to do so by fellow Jews, the image becomes unbearable.