Thoughts For The New Year

It’s a New Year, we just swore in a new Congress yesterday (or most of one), there is a new conflict in Israel/Palestine, we are about to have a new President, and as of this evening College Football will have a new crowned champion (although not without the usual controversy). It’s like Springtime in America. Maybe one of those bleak, rainy, windy days where your allergies are going haywire, the temperature falls back to near freezing, and your taxes are overdue… but springtime nonetheless!

In any case, with the new year comes a lot of new news stories to get to, and while I’ll probably get to them in detail sometime later, I’d thought I’d start off with some basic thoughts.

- No one doubts that the current conflict in Gaza is largely the fault of Hamas. But keep in mind the plight of the Palestinians who live there. The Gaza Strip has roughly the same population and physical size of Philadelphia. The city, not the metro area. Israel has the place blockaded on three sides, and Egypt has closed its border to refugees. It’s a very small, very urban environment, and it is impossible to conduct any kind of military operations in that environment without significant civilian casualties. Let me repeat that with the appropriate emphasis: It is IMPOSSIBLE to conduct ANY military operations in Gaza without SIGNIFICANT civilian casualties. Even with the smartest bombs in the world, you can’t control the fires that they will start, avoid damaging public infrastructure and utilities, or keep children from playing in places that they shouldn’t be (and therefore getting in the line of fire). And trust me, as smart as modern day weapons are, they are only as good as your information, and information in wartime is never very good. So pray for the people of Gaza, for it is them who will continue to bear the brunt of this conflict.

- I am increasingly skeptical of the political acumen of Harry Reid. Reid botched the Burris thing from the beginning. He should have stayed neutral and uncommitted to Burris’ nomination. He could have just released a vague statement praising the past work Burris has done on behalf of the people of Illinois, and then sent the whole mess to the Senate Ethics committee who would make sure that there was no impropriety and recommend whether Burris’ nomination should be accepted. Instead, Reid took a premature hard line, and then had to back off. Just silly.

- Reid has also let the situations with the New York and Delaware senate seats drag on too long. Clinton and Biden should have resigned already, and their replacements named in time to get to work on the people’s business with everyone else. Instead, there are still four senate seats in limbo right now, and that’s just intolerable when everyone else in the country seems to want action yesterday on the major economic problems we have.

- People are trying to use the Caroline Kennedy pick to accuse Democrats of hypocrisy when it comes to “experience”. But the issue with Palin, at least MY issue with Palin, was never her experience. My problem with Palin was her complete disinterest in economic policy, foreign policy, and the constitutional balance of power issues that will determine the future of the country. She never once demonstrated even basic competence on any important issue that wasn’t abortion or energy policy–and that’s not a broad enough resume to be in the White House. Caroline Kennedy, while never holding office, has written books on the Bill of Rights and is a prominent advocate for New York City’s public schools. Is she the most qualified person to be the next US Senator from New York? I have no idea. But no one can doubt her interest or competence in at least many of the important issues of the day.

- NFL overtime rules need to be changed. Right now NFL overtimes are “Sudden Death”; that is, the first team that scores, wins. The problem is that NFL placekickers are so good, especially with domed stadiums and synthetic fields, that getting into field goal range is too easy. As a result, the coin toss is extremely powerful. There are two better systems. One would be to go to the college system, which I’ll call “Riposte”. In that system, anytime a team scores, the other team gets exactly one opportunity to get the ball back and either tie or win the game. The other possibility I’ll call “Sudden Touchdown Death”. It would be a Sudden Death game, just like now, except that field goals would be banned. Either of these changes would make the game both more fair, and more exciting for the fans.