We Missed Our Window of Opportunity with COVID-19

There is no way to sugar coat this. The US blew their opportunity to have a successful lock down. The failure point came in early to mid May. Lock downs across the country were ended too soon basically nullifying most of the benefits of the lock down. It was like running a marathon only to quit one mile from the end because "we've come a long way and we don't see the point in running anymore because the end is far away."

I will illustrate what happened with graphs. All graphs come from the Coronavirus information page maintained by John's Hopkins University. Data was accessed on June 7th, with the latest data being from June 6th.

Here is a graph of the number of confirmed cases of Coronavirus in the US from the first detected case in January to today (June 6). The period from February to early April showed exponential growth, as is expected for an unconstrained virus.

In mid April the effects of the lock down took over and stopped the exponential growth. It was on the way to flattening out, but in early to mid May the curve shifted and we lost the opportunity to suppress and contain the virus.

Below is a graph over the same time period but showing the number of new cases per day.

US Virus Cases per Day

Here you can see the exponential growth from February to early April. The growth curve flattens due to the lock down. But it does not continue its downward trend. Here is the same graph but for Germany, which did have a successful lock down.

Germany Virus Cases per Day

Germany had one advantage, they got the virus a little later than the US (about a week), and then they started their lock down earlier. This curve shows what a successful lock down looks like. Germany can now return to a more normal state with some precautions in place.

Italy had a much more painful experience but they too had a successful lock down, as shown by their graph below.

Italy Cases per Day

There are some countries where lock downs were not implemented or they had no effect. Here is Brazil (note the difference in the scale on the y axis).

Brazil Cases per Day

And India.

India Cases per Day

If a lock down is not successful and no preventive measures are taken then you get a second hump. This happened in Iran. Iran is also a case where tests were not done or intentionally not reported. The first hump has a piece missing from the left half. There are also indications that there was significant under reporting in general.

Iran Cases per Day

If you want to see actual data manipulation then Belarus is the best example. Mysteriously positive cases stay under 1,000 per day (except for one day where reports doubled up from the day before).

Belarus Cases per Day

If you want to see a lack of testing, under reporting and data manipulation all in one country, look no further than Russia. You have natural exponential growth, then in the middle of April a chunk is missing showing a lack of testing, followed by a period of under reporting in the first half of May. Finishing off with data manipulation after that.

Russia Cases per Day

Then you have Singapore which had a successful lock down, but then lost control when new cases were imported at the beginning of April/end of March, and now they are trying to bring it under control.

Singapore Cases per Day

The gold standard of lock downs was done by New Zealand (also Iceland). They had significant advantages of being an island where they can greatly control incoming people, and they were not along any major travel routes. But they did take advantage of that and managed to eliminate cases of coronavirus from the country.

New Zealand Cases per Day

Sweden tried a different approach with a "soft" lock down. It only kinda worked, and it may get worse now that they are opening up slightly.

Sweden Cases per Day

Compare that to Denmark right next door who tried a hard lock down. Again, note the difference in the scale on the y axis.

Denmark Cases per Day

So how did individual states in the US do? It's a mixed bag.

New York had a successful lock down. States next to New York (New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc.) had similar success.

New York Cases per Day

California not so much. It did have an effect, but then people gave up too early and lost all the benefits of a hard lock down like New York had.

California Cases per Day

It's a similar story with Texas.

Texas Cases per Day

And North Carolina.

North Carolina Cases per Day

In some sates it wasn't bad... until 1-2 weeks after Memorial Day. They have a very clear Memorial Day spike. Utah and Arizona are the best examples. You can also make out a Memorial Day spike in North Carolina and a few other states.

First Utah.

Utah Cases per Day

Then Arizona.

Arizona Cases per Day

Minnesota is a case where the virus came, got slowed down early by a lock down, but then the lock down ended and... well let's just say it found plenty of hosts.

Minnesota Cases per Day

From here on out the US does not have the option of suppression, control, and elimination as happened in New Zealand and Iceland, or the suppression done in Germany, Italy, Spain, South Korea, and many other countries.

We blew our chances of having a successful lock down. If we had waited 2-3 more weeks we could now be seriously planning on opening up the country again for normal business. But we blew it. Now we can only work on mitigation and maintaining good health practices so that we are not overwhelmed all at once. Because of this we will go through maximum economic pain. Even if everything opens up there will not be enough people that will return to normal to keep businesses afloat. A short 3-4 month shock could have been handled. But this will now drag on for over a year, possibly more.

Without any significant changes we are looking at more than 100,000 more deaths by the end of the year, assuming it doesn't get any worse, or significantly better. I don't know where it will end up, only what direction it's going right now.

Letter to My Congressman

Dear Representative Allen,

I was shocked at the news yesterday that U.S. Park Police and National Guard troops cleared Lafayette Park of people for the sole purpose of providing President Trump the opportunity of having his picture taken in front of St. John's Church while holding the Holy Bible. The use of St. John's Church as a backdrop for his picture was not authorized by the Episcopal bishop of Washington, Right Rev. Budde, or any other church leader. Other church members providing Christian service on the steps of the church were forcefully removed by U.S. Park Police employing tear gas.

This is a gross violation of religious liberty and a crass disregard of respect for constitutional principles. As a man of faith I was dismayed at the sight of the President of the United States, who took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, so callously disregarding his oath of office and basic Christian charity for the inconsequential purpose of having his picture taken. To add to it he sought to use the Holy Word of God as a prop for his violation of a sacred space.

Throughout history church buildings have been used as sanctuaries in times of crisis, fear, and violence. Some of the worst atrocities in history have come when political leaders transgressed the sanctity of sacred spaces. While no church buildings were burned yesterday, or believers martyred, the President of the United States did violence to our religious liberty and assailed the wall of protection that provides safety to believers from the encroachments of Government power. The sacred space of a House of Worship should never be used as platform to proclaim violence on the children of God.

For my entire life, when I first came of age, I voted with a conviction that religious liberty must be preserved as a fundamental right. In the 2016 the Republican Party platform it states, "We believe in the Constitution as our founding document." If that was true then, surely the foundation of Republicanism has shifted like sand since then. I find no condemnation of the President's actions, nor of any defense of sacred spaces from those who proclaim the Constitution as their founding document. But as for me and my house, our principles are placed on a sure foundation that will not wash away with the changing tide of political expediency. I believe that constitutional freedoms must be protected and respected, not gassed and harassed.

Representative Allen, you proclaim to be a man of faith. Now is the time to live your religion and make good on your faith. The actions of the President must be condemned and not defended. I cannot in good conscience vote for anyone who provides cover and defense to someone who uses their office to violate the sanctity of a House of Worship. The rights written in our Constitution define the character of our government. How we treat those rights define who we are.

Sincerely,

[quantumleap42], PhD

Why the Neutron Star Collision was an Important Observation

I am going to take a moment to actually talk about astrophysics (I know, it's a shock! To actually talk about what I do).

Back on August 17th the LIGO gravity wave observatory detected gravity waves from the collision of two neutron stars. This was quickly followed by the detection of a gamma ray burst by the Fermi space telescope, and then a host of other observations from other telescopes. This event quickly became the most heavily observed single event in astronomy. There are several good general reviews of what happened that are very accessible to the average reader (NY Times, NPR, Veritasium, and one more in depth from Phys.org, there is also a whole webpage about the detection with links to many papers).

So I won't go over the basics because you can get that from other sources, but I will talk about some of the more technical implications to the detection.

First, gold. Gold is very important in astronomy because it is very heavy and hard to make. Usually astronomers ignore the different types of elements, we are usually only concerned about hydrogen and helium. There is a joke in astronomy that the astronomer's periodic table of elements is the simplest one since we only have three elements, hydrogen, helium, and "metals". We refer to everything that is not hydrogen and helium and metals (that includes decidedly non-metallic elements like nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and neon). It keeps things simple.

But when it comes to metals we are concerned with what we call metallicity, that is the relative amount of metals compared to hydrogen and helium. Because hydrogen and helium make up a combined 98% of the mass of the universe, on a cosmological scale everything else is just a rounding error. But on smaller scales (small, as in the size of a cluster of galaxies) the amount of metals becomes important. Except for a tiny amount of lithium, everything that is not hydrogen and helium was produced inside stars, one way or another.

When a star goes through its life cycle it will return a significant amount of mass back into the interstellar medium in the form of stellar winds. For a large star with an initial mass of 10-20 times the mass of the sun, the star may return 80-90% of its mass to the interstellar medium in the form of stellar winds, or a nova or even a supernova. So while a star may start out as almost entirely hydrogen and helium when it forms, the gas that returns to the interstellar medium will be slightly enriched with metals, that is, the metallicity will go up. This enriched gas that has been returned to the interstellar medium will go on to form a second generation of stars, which will still be almost entirely hydrogen and helium, but now with a tiny fraction more of metals. The process will repeat, and each time it does the gas will become more enriched with metals. In order to have enough metals that rocky planets such as the earth can form the gas must go through at least 20 star formation and enrichment cycles. To date, the highest metallicity ever observed in a star is about three times the metallicity of the sun.

Because of something called the nucleon binding energy only elements up to iron can be produced in the conventional way inside of stars. Anything heavier than iron needs to be produced in another way because it is en endothermic reaction and requires huge amounts of energy. Some heavy elements are produced in supernovas but there is a subtle problem with that. While there certainly is enough energy in a supernova explosion to produce the heavier elements, most of the mass that is blown off in a supernova is hydrogen. It would take an immense amount of energy and a string of complex, and highly improbably reactions to convert that much hydrogen into elements as heavy as gold and lead.

In nuclear physics there are two processes which can produce heavier elements, named the r-process and the s-process (unimaginatively the r and s stand for rapid and slow respectively). The s-process takes less energy and a much lower neutron flux, and can happen over long time scales. In the s-process heavy elements are built up slowly one neutron at a time, and allows for neutrons to decay into protons.

The r-process requires huge amounts of energy, and a truly astronomical neutron flux. A parent element is bombarded with a huge number of neutrons to make an extremely unstable isotope. The only thing keeping it from decaying into smaller elements is the rate at which neutrons are bombarding the nucleus. While a supernova has enough energy for the r-process, there is a distinct lack of neutrons to achieve the neutron flux necessary for the r-process to take place. It does happen, just not at a high enough rate to explain the amount of gold, lead, uranium, and other really heavy elements we observe in the universe. So while normal stellar processes can explain the carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen we see, and novas and supernovas can explain the amount of aluminum, iron, nickle, and zinc we see, neither of those can explain the amount of gold, silver, lead, and uranium we see.

This is where merging neutron stars come in. In the collision there certainly is enough energy for the nucleosynthesis to take place, and because there are two massive sources of neutrons being ripped apart, the problem of meeting the minimum neutron flux is solved. But up until now we had no hard confirmation of neutron star mergers, much less finding evidence of r-process production of heavy elements. It has been suspected for years, but only with the LIGO detection and the followup observations of the nova remnant has this been confirmed. With the detection of r-process reactions in the remnant of the merger we can now conclude that almost all of the gold, uranium and other very heavy elements come from neutron star mergers.

Below is an updated periodic table of elements that shows where each element comes from. Some come from more than one source, but you can see just how many elements were detected in the neutron star merger. The purple shows elements from neutron star mergers. It is much more than gold. This is why the detected merger was so important. It showed us where many of the heavy elements came from like gold, silver, lead, platinum, iodine, bismuth, tin, uranium, and many more.

From Wikipedia. You can see a larger version here.

For my own research this does not change what I am doing. While most very heavy elements come from neutron star mergers, most metals come from normal stellar process that are already accounted for in my models. The detection of the merger does not change the overall metallicity, but it does slightly change the relative ratios of the different metals. But this change is not significant enough to impact what I do. The overall metallicity is extremely important, but the heavy elements are still too rare to make any difference. This could be more relevant to those who work on rocky planet formation, and also nucleosynthesis in interstellar space. But my work does not get down to that level of refinement. I work on fairly large objects where individual stars, and even supernovas are below the level of my resolution. So while it is exciting, it does not affect my work directly, but at some point someone may provide a slight modification to some of the models that I use that may change a few of the minor outputs.

"To rule and do according to their wills"

Now for a topic I normally don't talk about, wild sex parties. Yesterday I read a news update about the trial of the former head of the International Monetary Fund. What struck me was how removed the whole thing is from any sense of right or wrong or even a hint of morality.

It reminds me of a friend of mine who was robbed while on his mission in Argentina. After being assaulted in the street and being forced to give up whatever cash he had, his assailant reached his hand into his pocket and removed my friend's watch. When my friend went to the police to file a report they were entirely unconcerned that my friend had been assaulted in the street. They were not willing to even write up an official report, even when he told them that the guy had taken his money and had stolen his watch. It was only when my friend added the detail that his mugger had reached his hand into my friend's pocket and removed the watch himself did the police suddenly get concerned. Somewhere in there they felt a line had been crossed.

My friend got a black eye from the altercation, had his money and watch stolen but, according to the police, that was OK and he should just deal with it. But reaching into my friend's pocket? Now that had gone too far. Usually the legal lines are drawn long after the moral outrage is long past.

Returning to the story of the former head of the IMF (and potential president of France), I could not help but think about the ridiculousness of what was being argued about. This supposedly respectable leader of government and the prosecutors in the case were reduced to arguing whether four wild sex parties per year were excessive and regular. As one blogger put it:

""The prosecution gives the impression of unbridled activity," [the former head of the IMF] testified Tuesday. But in fact, "[t]here were only 12 parties in total. That is four per year over three years," he added helpfully, although that makes it sound a lot more "regular" than he probably intended. Mon Dieu, can the head of an international monetary fund not enjoy one group licentious evening per quarter? he seems to be asking. Yes, he just can't be the organizer, say prosecutors."

 The thing is the current law that he is being prosecuted under, and probably won't be convicted under, were probably written by the former head of the IMF or by his fellow politicians and in the French government. That is, the very laws that make their actions unprosecutable were written by the very people involved in these wild sex parties. As I read these news stories a certain scripture came to mind:

4 And seeing the people in a state of such awful wickedness, and those Gadianton robbers filling the judgment-seats—having usurped the power and authority of the land; laying aside the commandments of God, and not in the least aright before him; doing no justice unto the children of men;
5 Condemning the righteous because of their righteousness; letting the guilty and the wicked go unpunished because of their money; and moreover to be held in office at the head of government, to rule and do according to their wills, that they might get gain and glory of the world, and, moreover, that they might the more easily commit adultery, and steal, and kill, and do according to their own wills—

Seems to describe the state of law in certain countries at the moment.

My comments on the election and other thoughts

Today I voted. I did my research, looked up the candidates, all the way down to the local county elections, considered the options and implications and voted based on what I thought best.

Now without saying who I voted for I will explain four things I thought about before and while I was voting.

First, government debt.

Some people will read that and instantly try to put me somewhere on some insane left-right spectrum so first I will tell a little story. While I was on my mission in Argentina, the first little town I was in was called Bella Vista. It was a tiny town of perhaps 5,000-10,000 people, depending on the time of year and the expected harvest from the surrounding farms. In Argentina fútbol (soccer) was very popular. In some cases it was considered a religion. After being in the country for a few months there were only three teams I had ever heard about: Boca, River and Newell's Old Boys. The town seemed split down the middle. Half the town were Boca fans, the other half were River fans and everyone hated Newell's Old Boys.

I was unfamiliar with Argentine professional sports (I barely know anything about American professional sports) so I was wondering how they could have a championship play off with only three teams in the entire country (I later learned about other teams it's just that no one in Bella Vista talked about them). I thought Argentines were very weird. At one point River managed to win the national championship and half the town was out in the streets celebrating. There were car horns blaring, firecrackers going off, music blasting and people driving through the streets with people standing on the roof of their cars waving River flags.

About four weeks after this happened we heard on the street that Newell's Old Boys had played River and had beaten them. Everyone was shocked. That's when I decided to become a fan of Newell's Old Boys. That way I could have my "team" but my choice of team would not immediately alienate me from half the people we talked to. At about that same time I had a rather interesting conversation with a child of about 8 years old. My companion and I were talking to his family and all the little kids gathered around to ask "los americanos" some questions. The 8 year old looked at me and asked with great earnestness "What is your team?" I told him I didn't have a team. He thought for a second and came to the conclusion that I didn't understand the question. So he asked the question again. Again I told him that I wasn't a fan of any team. He was not satisfied so he rephrased the question and asked again. At this point I remembered that Newell's Old Boys had just beaten River so I told him that I was a fan of Newell's Old Boys. He gave me a look of exasperation and said, "No. WHAT IS YOUR TEAM! BOCA OR RIVER?!?" I told him that neither one was my team and that I was a fan of Newell's Old Boys. At that point he gave a frustrated sigh and concluded that this delusional American was too stupid and could not speak and understand Spanish so it was useless to continue the conversation.

When people ask me if I am a Republican or a Democrat, or if I am conservative or liberal the image that comes to my mind is that frustrated 8 year-old boy who had to deal with an American that was too stupid to know that there were only two choices and you had to be one or the other.

So, government debt. Government debt is a dangerous thing. It has all the dangers and negative consequences of normal debt, but it carries with it the enforced mandate of government. It is not something that can be done away with without undermining the foundation of government. To fail to honor a debt is to acknowledge that there has been a failure with the person who has the debt. For a government to fail to honor a debt is to acknowledge that the government has failed, which is to acknowledge that the fundamental structure of our society can no longer hold us together. It is quite a scary thing.

The thing to realize with debt (any debt whatsoever) is that the overall effect of debt on out society is to take money from poor people and give it to rich people. That is, debt makes poor people poorer and rich people richer (this is not just a trite saying this is something that has been shown with statistics and computer models of economic conditions, see this link for more information and some references). In computer models where the financial transactions of people are modeled we can reproduce roughly the income distribution that we see in US census records (see below).

As the above graph shows the modeled behavior (black line) closely follows the data from the US census. In these models we find that if we allow for debt (with interest!) then that line gets shifted so that there are more people who are "poor" and the "rich" people get richer (see below).

The end result of debt is to make poor people poorer and rich people richer. In these models if we allow for infinite debt (i.e. no bankruptcy) then the amount of debt that some people have will become infinite  and the amount of money that rich people have will also become infinite. Either way the system become unworkable and it eventually collapses. So how do you counteract the inflationary tenancies of debt? With taxes. Just as the models show that debt (with interest) can be fundamentally unstable, taxes tend to have the opposite effect. As debt makes rich people richer, and poor people poorer, as long as you have a minimally fair tax code (as in everyone gets taxed and then everyone benefits from the taxes), then it has the effect of decreasing the number and wealth of rich people and increasing the wealth of poor people. That is, it moved the bottom end of the curve up and counter acts the negative tendencies of debt.

Up until now I have just been talking about debt in general, which includes mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, education loans etc. But government debt is slightly different. Because it is backed by the thing that creates the monetary system in the first place. While government debt can help in extreme circumstances it has the tendency to act just like normal debt except that now everyone has to pay it, just like a tax. Taxes take money from all sides of the spectrum but it redistributes it in a way that poor people become a little less poor. Government debt is essentially the opposite of taxes. It takes money from everyone and transfers it to rich people (to understand this consider this: How many people who make less than $40,000 have bought a government bond? How many people who make more than $100,000 a year are invested in such a way that they make money off of government bonds? Who ultimately pays for government bonds, including the interest? and who ultimately benefits from the interest generated by government bonds?).

So having a consistent, and persistent, deficit in government spending, and then using the issue of more debt to fund the debt is perhaps the most destructive and immoral thing that can be done to people who can be considered "poor". Government debt is perhaps the only legal and socially acceptable method we have of grinding upon the face of the poor.

If you want to help poor people the best thing that the government can do is to balance the budget. Until you do government debt will make us all poor.

Second, oil.

I don't think we all need to give up our cars and use only *non toxic* non-petroleum products (the non-toxic part is sarcastic). Nor do I think that global warming will get so bad that the earth will punish us with a series of super storms, or that we need to give peace prizes to people who bake up a bunch of facts and scare the easily manipulated. What I am saying is that right now in our history oil tends to cause too many wars. It is an out sized portion of our economy and we should find a way to get along with less of it, if only to decrease the likely hood that we get involved in more wars because of oil.

Third, are the people competent for the job.

The Republican candidate for Secretary of State in North Carolina may be a good neighbor, a good farmer, a good father and a generally good man. But the more I looked into his experience and what he was proposing to do as Secretary of State I don't think he knows what a Secretary of State does. If you look at his campaign website he mentions the most important issues that he "promises" to address. The only problem is that all the things he brings up are things that can be addressed in the state legislature, but not by the Secretary of State. He seems a little confused about what the Secretary of State can and cannot do. I would not vote for him.

There was a similar case for several judges that were on the ballot. In North Carolina the election of judges is non-partisan, but there were two Republicans and one Democrat who were challenging the incumbents for no reason, apparently, other than they were of the opposite party and they wanted to make a partisan race about it (even if they knew nothing about being a judge). I didn't vote for any of them. That doesn't mean I voted for the incumbent, but it means I particularly did not vote for the challengers.

Fourth, basic morality.

Over the last while there is a disturbing trend in our society that belittles and scoffs at basic morality. Anything that might possibly require that someone use self restraint and hold to some "old fashioned" moral principles is roundly dismissed as ignorant and oppressive. I will not go into it in this post, but there is very little that voting can do to counter this trend. Still I look for men and women of good character, who have a desire that others also be men and women of good character.

With those four things in mind I went to vote. I marked my ballot and turned it in. I was number 108 at the polling place that day.

"Ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous king save it be through much contention"

In light of the current events happening in the Arab world I thought that this short passage from The Book of Mormon was particularly applicable.

16Now I say unto you, that because all men are not just it is not expedient that ye should have a ^aking or kings to rule over you.

 17For behold, how much ^ainiquity doth one ^bwicked king cause to be committed, yea, and what great destruction!

 . . .

 21And behold, now I say unto you, ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous ^aking save it be through much contention, and the shedding of much blood.

 22For behold, he has his ^afriends in iniquity, and he keepeth his guards about him; and he teareth up the laws of those who have reigned in righteousness before him; and he trampleth under his feet the commandments of God;

 23And he enacteth laws, and sendeth them forth among his people, yea, laws after the manner of his own wickedness; and whosoever doth not obey his laws he ^acauseth to be destroyed; and whosoever doth rebel against him he will send his armies against them to war, and if he can he will destroy them; and thus an unrighteous ^bking doth pervert the ways of all righteousness. (Mosiah 29:16-17,21-23)

 I think that the events of recent weeks, especially in Libya, prove the wisdom and truthfulness of these words. While many people, countries and nations have looked to kings, or strong autocratic rulers, as a solution to their current problems. Unfortunately the end result is usually more hardships and trouble for the people. In the end it never turns out to be a solution.

So War Is Bad But...

If you read news coverage of the current war in the Gaza Strip there will be plenty of pictures of injured people (usually children), and statements about how there is a terrible humanitarian crisis there that is worsening. Almost every news article that I have read had a statement from a UN Humanitarian Aid agency saying that they can't get supplies in to help the Palestinians. This comes with plenty of commentary about how people will start starving unless they can get aid in. When ever I read these statements and commentary I think, "It's a war. Do they expect the armies to politely pause the war every day for a few hours so that people can walk to the local market and get food, go to work, play in the park or plaza and fix the water faucet in their house that doesn't work?"

It's as if the media expect them to carry on with their lives as if nothing is happening or as if there is only an event going on like a major sporting event that temporarily disrupts daily life. True people still have to eat, even in a war, but as opposed to how the media presents it, the greatest travesty of war is not the fact that people don't have an uninterrupted supply of food and basic necessities. The greatest travesty is those that are killed and those that have their lives destroyed by the war. The media to some extent does try to present this, but they get bogged down in their concern over the "humanitarian crisis" rather than the events that lead to the creation of the crisis.

So having said that let us consider the principle contenders in this conflict and what they say about it. So let me say that I think that war is generally a very bad idea, but as it is happening somewhere else and not here where I live, I have the luxury of critiquing it and giving commentary from the comfort of my home. As I have to view the events through the filter of the media it may be difficult for me to tell who to believe and who is at fault (or if everyone is at fault). Because generally the media may take one side of the story and they may feed off their own redundant reporting to make what is happening worse (or better) than it actually is. One way to see how to judge the principle contenders is to look at what they are saying and how they are responding to what is happening.

As I was reading the BBC they occasionally have quotes from the people involved, such as the Israeli president and the leaders of Hamas. I found that if I just read the news articles about what was happening I would not know who was right in this conflict and who is to blame. If anything I might tend to sympathize with the Palestinian position. But when I read the statements from each side a different picture emerged. Lets compare their public statements:

ISRAELI PRESIDENT SHIMON PERES: "We don't intend neither to occupy Gaza nor to crush Hamas, but to crush terror. And Hamas needs a real and serious lesson. They are now getting it. We shall not accept the idea that Hamas will continue to fire and we shall declare a cease-fire. It does not make any sense."

Translation: "We're mad and we are going to do something about it. The idea that we should have a cease-fire just when we are getting going is crazy. We are committed and will go all the way."

ISRAELI DEFENCE MINISTER EHUD BARAK: "We have carefully weighed all our options. We are not war hungry, but we should not allow a situation where our towns, villages and civilians are constantly targeted. It will not be easy or short, but we are determined. We are peace-seekers. We have restrained ourselves for a long time, but now is the time to do what needs to be done."

Translation: "We don't like what they are doing and we will do something until they stop. When they stop we stop."

Contrast this with:

HAMAS OFFICIAL ISMAIL RADWAN: "Gaza will not be a picnic. Gaza will be a graveyard for you."

HAMAS MILITARY WING IZZEDINE AL-QASSAM: "Be prepared for a unique surprise, you will be either killed or kidnapped and will suffer mental illness from the horrors we will show you."

That doesn't sound very nice. When I read these statements I thought of a police officer called into investigate a domestic dispute (kind of like the things they show on Cops). When he arrives the two parties are fighting and he has to figure out what is going on and who to arrest or if anyone even needs to be arrested. After listening to both people argue for a moment the police officer takes one of them into custody. Usually its the one that's still spewing death threats and profanity when the policeman arrives.

So as for my personal sentiments of the situation, I do feel bad that people are getting hurt and that there are problems, but Hamas is making it very difficult for me to sympathize with their position. They may have a case that supports their claims, but at the same time they are not acting in a way that makes their argument very persuasive. The image that comes to my mind is that of a protester who after throwing a rocks and other things at the police, cries "Police Brutality!" when they get wrestled to the ground.

A New War

Anyone who has been watching the news over the past few days is aware of the recent conflict that has renewed itself in the Gaza Strip. For many people, including those involved (mainly in Gaza) this came as a surprise, but anyone who who had been following the events leading up to the Israeli attack and who understood basic military tactics, the Israeli attack comes as no surprise. What is notable about the western media news coverage of the event is the emphasis placed on reporting the Palestinian side and version of the story and almost ignoring the Palestinian response and provocation that lead up the the attack.

I have read many news stories about the attacks from both CNN and the BBC and in both cases they treat the Israeli attack as coming without any prior indication or reason. The way the news stories are being reported they make it seem like the Palestinians had a dispute with Israel, they fought over it, had a ceasefire for a while and when the ceasefire ended Israel attacked. They make it seem like these events happened in a vacuum and were unrelated previous events, or at most because of the failed peace talks. In other words the media is treating this like an event that hasn't been building up for years, they treat it as totally unexpected.

It addition to the views of the media it is interesting (or not) to find out the views of individual people, like me, who read the news, but aren't involved. When I went to read the comments left by the readers they ranged from the absurd to the rational, from the helpful to the hateful. They blamed everyone, from Hamas to Israel, to President Bush himself (and his dog too). The comments that were anti-Israeli were usually along the lines of (not a direct quote), "We think they are wrong and isn't it terrible that they are killing INNOCENT people" (the innocent, in all caps, is a direct quote). My favorite was (direct quote [sic]) "to be honest i'm quite shocked at the comments below especially by the Americans, claiming Israel has the right to defend itself." So the anti-Israeli position can be summed up as "Israel does not have the right to defend itself and/or they are the root and cause of all these problems, and because they are the cause of these problems they should not defend themselves."

The pro-Israeli position tends to be "They have a right to defend themselves and they should defend themselves, because Hamas was the one that did not want peace."

So the blame game happens and both sides blame the other and everyone else blames someone. It is easy to see that this is a touchy subject and many people feel strongly about this. I have my own feelings about the situation but I will not share them here at the moment, but I may do that in a later post. I thought that I would give a perspective on the situation, that not many people are noticing, and certainly very few, if any at all, news reporters are noting.

So here is the situation, and this is most likely the situation that will be given in the history books.

This conflict has been building for some time. Hamas has been severed from Fatah by being largely contained in Gaza. Fatah will not support Hamas to any great extent. Hamas has alienated just about everyone that could potentially help them. They even lost the support of Egypt. Their only main support comes from Syria and Iran, and that support is problematic, or limited to words (and a few covert operations). Hamas declared the ceasefire over and opted not to renew, which will cause legal (i.e. technical bureaucratic) difficulties in the UN and in the international community at large. If anything Israel (and the US) can use that technicality to stall UN resolutions, and other peacekeeping initiatives.

In Israel itself, they are getting ready for elections and the current party in power has been accused of not doing enough to prevent the rocket attacks. Their presidential candidate, Tzipi Livni, had been viewed as "too soft" on the Palestinian "terrorists" (hardly true, but oh well), while the main opposition poised to upset her bid to be president, is viewed as being even more "hardline" against Hamas. So when the two possible candidates for the presidency are "pro-action and armed response" it can be assumed that something will be done.

Furthermore, in the US George Bush has less than 30 days in office and can't really do much (it's a standard part of the last days of a lame duck presidency). Barak Obama is going to be president soon, but he is not president yet, so he can't do anything. France has the presidency of the EU until the end of the year, when it goes to the Czech Republic, whose president is one of the most outspoken critics of the EU and refuses to fly the EU flag over the presidential palace. Don't expect much action from him. No one else really has the clout, the initiative or the desire to get involved. Most of the world is more concerned about keeping their job and/or feeding themselves at the moment to try to do anything to help.

In short, Gaza has fallen into a political black hole at the precise moment when everyone else they have traditionally relied upon, is not in a position nor has the desire to help. They are in effect, between a rock and a hard place with nowhere to go. They could not have picked a worse time to end the ceasefire, and Israel is taking full advantage of the situation. The only wild card in the whole situation is how the Arab world (not including the Egyptians, but including the Iranians) will respond. That is the only trouble. The Arab/Iranian world may respond with force, which will make things very complicated.

Despite the fact that there is a war going on, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. I will follow the developments.