The Secrets of Netflix

Can be found on the Netflix Fan blog . . .

Haaretz's Q & A with Ehud Olmert

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmertanswered questions in a revealing online interview with Haaretz.com last June 15th, which noted that the former Mayor of Jerusalem and Minister for Minorities (Arabs) "... is the most prominent supporter among Likud ministers of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan. He was the first politician on the right to enunciate the basic principles behind this plan..." Now, he's Prime Minster, and the interview is even more interesting than the first time round, since it gives some clue as to where he plans to take Israel.

Konstantin On Russian Ukrainian Gas War

I guess I'm not all alone after all. Konstantin's Russian Blog says Western criticism of Russia is ridiculous:

The way Western mainstream media “analyzed” Russian-Ukrainian natural gas crisis is the peak of idiocy. It simply incredible – a cocktail of logical inconsistencies, libel, juggling with fact and outright political propaganda. Just one “analytical” pearl that covers it all – Ukraine rightly refused to accept four times price hike as this price would ruin its economy. Does it mean that when natural gas prices would drop four times Russia would have the right to demand that Europeans pay the old price? Because such low prices would ruin Russian economy? Because well being of Russians depends on high gas prices? Because Evil West uses natural gas prices as an instrument of political blackmail? Because they want to put Putin on his knees? Would good Europeans agree with such arguments? I doubt it strongly. Actually I’m absolutely sure that Europeans would discard such arguments as stupid and silly. Somehow this perverse logic works well when it comes to Ukraine.

Now, if I could only find a non-Russian who saw things this way...

Where Do Our Readers Come From?

Washington Post Praises Bull Moose

I've had a link in my blogroll for a little while, and today the Washington Post is puffing Bull Moose, aka Marshall Wittman. Most of what they say is true about him being a nice guy, he's always been nice to me. For example, when he headed the Washington office of the Christian Coalition in the 90s, Marshall invited me to give a talk on Woodstock at their annual convention -- as part of a panel on the cultural legacy of the 60s. It was pretty high-level, and intellectually interesting. (That's when I saw the unfunny "comedian" Al Franken in person for the first time, but not at our panel.) Marshall moved on his way, and I moved on my way, but I've always thought he was not mean--which is a rarity in Washington. So, he deserves all the nice words in the Washington Post today. Congratulations, Marshall!

Now, will Wittmann finally get a slot on CNN?

Tucker Carlson on the Jack Abramoff Scandal

Tucker Carlson turns state's evidence against his former conservative colleagues on MSNBC:

Why were supposedly honest ideological conservatives like Sheldon and Reed and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist involved with Jack Abramoff in the first place? Keep in mind that Abramoff's business wasn't just gambling, which by itself should have been enough to scare off professional moralizers like Sheldon. Jack Abramoff was a lobbyist for Indian gambling. Over the years Abramoff and his now-indicted partner took more than $80 million from a half a dozen tribes in return for their efforts to keep Indian gambling revenues tax free.

Step back and think about this for a second. Indian tribes get a special pass from the federal government to run a high-margin monopoly simply because they are Indian tribes, which is to say, simply because of their ethnicity. This is the worst, least fair form of affirmative action, and it should be anathema to conservatives. Conservatives are supposed to support the idea of a meritocracy, a country where hard work not heredity is the key to success and everyone is equal before the law. Conservatives should despise Indian gambling on principal.

And some still do. But others got rich from it, and now they're likely headed to jail. I'll be cheering as they're sentenced. Weirdos and charlatans and self-interested hacks like Lou Sheldon and Grover Norquist have long discredited the conservative ideas they purport to represent. Their political allies in Washington and Congress may be tempted to defend them. I hope they don't. We'll all be better off when they're gone.

Russia, Ukraine: "Let's Make a Deal!"

It's all over but the shouting, according to Reuters.

I still say Russia won this particular confrontation with the West. Let's see how the G-8 summit turns out...

The Washington Post on What's Wrong with USAID

Today's Washington Post editorial about serious problems with US foreign aid programs is so good, I'm going to quote it in full. Whoever wrote it knows what they are talking about. (This seems like the tip of the iceberg, I wish the Post would run one of those multi-part investigations they do so well.).

I'm especially glad that the Post discusses the harm done by working through NGOs. I could not have said it better myself.

Here's their editorial:

Reforming Foreign Assistance

Tuesday, January 3, 2006; A16

THE BUSH administration has done more to expand foreign assistance than any administration since John F. Kennedy's. According to the measures used by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, U.S. government aid came to more than $19 billion in 2004, nearly double what it was in 2000. But the government's competence in dispensing this aid is questionable, and the Bush administration knows it. The president's team deserves support from Congress in its efforts to improve aid's efficacy. Unfortunately, it may come up against suspicion and resistance fueled by self-interest.

The core problem in foreign aid is to strike a balance between legitimate oversight of how tax dollars are spent and counterproductive overregulation. In the 1980s a congressional backlash against corruption in aid triggered an increase in Washington oversight that went too far, causing a new form of waste more pernicious than the old sort. Because some aid money routed through government ministries in poor countries had gone astray, Congress insisted that future aid be routed through nongovernmental organizations with good accounting capabilities. In practice, this meant the money went to U.S.-based groups with high overheads. Many did good work, but their costs exceeded those of ministries and aid groups in the developing world, even allowing for some corruption. Moreover, the reliance on U.S. organizations undermined poor countries' sense of ownership of their development programs, damaging the long-term struggle to foster self-sufficiency.

This error led directly to a second one. Having decided to route aid money through U.S.-based groups, Congress began to micromanage how that money would be spent, depriving recipient countries not only of managerial control but also of a say in their own development priorities. The new cohort of U.S.-based aid contractors encouraged this process by lobbying Congress to protect their programs with budget earmarks; this undermined the priority-setting power of the administration as well as of recipient countries. The result was an aid program not only high on contractors' head-office costs but also low on flexibility. As if to parody its own mania for control, Congress went so far as to mandate that U.S.-financed building in developing countries should comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The result is that remote clinics in Afghanistan have wheelchair ramps; never mind that there are no wheelchairs in the vicinity.

This mess was compounded by a final mistake during the 1990s. Faced with a Congress that had grown more skeptical of aid even as it had seized minute control over its disbursement, the Clinton administration smuggled foreign-assistance cash into other parts of the federal budget. The result is a U.S. aid program that's split among more than a dozen spending accounts, some of which duplicate efforts and some of which may even work at cross-purposes.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants to rationalize this situation. Her team talks mainly about setting priorities for aid rather than letting a patchwork of earmarks and scattered spending accounts putter along without central coordination, but Andrew S. Natsios, the outgoing administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, is also eloquent on the case for local ownership of aid programs. The administration should be encouraged to turn its tentative discussions into a robust reform initiative. But already there have been complaints that the administration is trying to "politicize" U.S. assistance by asserting State Department control -- an odd objection considering how political aid is already. These suspicions of politicization are likely to be compounded by obstruction from U.S.-based aid contractors, who will resent a threat to their earmarks. This resistance must be understood for what it is: special-interest lobbying that hardly serves the interests of poor countries.

Gas--the New Oil

I may the only one who believes this--I can't even convince people I know--but it looks to me like Russia is winning the Ukrainian gas showdown. Here's what the Financial Times has to say:

Gas supplies to Europe returned to normal on Tuesday after Russia restored pipeline deliveries under heavy international pressure. However, Gazprom said Europe’s gas supplies remained under threat as it would not continue to compensate indefinitely for gas “stolen” by Ukraine. “Sooner or later Ukraine will have to pay for this,” said Sergei Kupriyanov, a spokesman for Gazprom.

Ukrainian officials have admitted to taking an unspecified amount from the pipeline but claimed it was gas from Turkmenistan that travels along the same route.

Russia said it was buying up all available Turkmen gas and there was none spare for Ukraine. Officials maintain that any gas taken by Ukraine from the pipeline is therefore Russian gas stolen from European customers.

In other words, Russia was correct to charge Ukraine with diverting European gas, which means Russia was supplying Europe as promised, although not Ukraine. It was Ukraine, not Russia, that proved to be an unreliable supplier, because gas was diverted before being delivered to customers.

Now none of this matters right now, while the EU and US are beating up on Russia. But it matters in Russia. Russia wasn't going to keep Ukraine shut off, IMHO. They were sending a message, a shot across the bow, "probing with bayonets" in Leninist terminology. Russia was reminding Europe that destabilizing Russia could affect EU energy security. What if Putin's government were overthrown, and every local oblast diverted gas promised to the EU? Well, it wouldn't be a pretty picture for Germany and others dependent on Russian gas.

Yes, there was a political message to the EU and US. I'll translate for you: Stop trying to push Russia around.

At the time of the Orange Revolution, an American diplomat gloated to me, "What can Russia do?"

Now Russia has shown that there is at least one thing she can do. Like the OPEC boycott of 1973, which shifted money and power to the Arabs in the global economy, Russia's move is a step towards shifting money and power back to the post-Soviet space. With Russia planning to rebuild its Army and Navy, those LNG tankers from Qatar won't be more secure unless the EU, US and Russia are all on the same page. And Russia can sell a lot of its oil and gas to China, if the EU and US don't want to play ball.

Yes, it was a crude power play by Putin. But IMHO, I think the message was received. We'll be able to test this hypothesis empirically. If Russia is treated with as much respect as Saudia Arabia by the EU and US from now on, it means that Russia played its hand correctly.

UPDATE: I'm not the only one, after all. Alexei has this comment posted on Tim Newman's White Sun of the Desert:

By the way, Gazprom’s new Ukraine tactic has nothing to do with the Cold War (The Economist must be desperately in love with Yulia Timoshenko but that doesn’t make them less superficial). Gazprom is not jeopardizing Europe’s gas supply, that much is obvious. Whether they can force Ukraine to pay what Europe pays for its gas is questionable but at least they have already exposed the Ukrainian importer’s theft of Gazprom gas. It might be the most sensible thing Gazprom has done since Putin installed the new management.

After Moxie (WARNING: If you don't like catblogging, skp this post!)

Our cat Moxie died suddenly last Wednesday, just fell over and was gone within a minute. It was a real "sudden death." We had never seen such a thing. One moment she was there, the next--gone. The vet couldn't find anything wrong at the autopsy, told us it was probably a birth defect. The Birman breed is known for them. It was strange because we had kept her inside and were very protective after losing two previous cats last year. One was probably kidnapped, the other hit by a car in an alley (we blame a silent Prius). But Moxie's life was shorter than the cats who went out. For a week the world seemed very dark. We cancelled a planned trip because we couldn't deal with the suddenness.

The story has a bittersweet ending, luckily. Yesterday, someone we know, in a pure coincidence, showed up with a kitten from her sister's cat, who had a litter. Did we want him? Yes. He doesn't have a name yet, though we went to the vet today and were told he's in good shape, about 10 weeks old, and tested negative for feline leukemia virus. We think we'll keep him... and I'll post a photo later.

White Sun of the Desert

Through a link on Registan, I came across Tim Newman's blog, which he calls White Sun of the Desert. For those who don't know Russia, it is the title of a classic Russian film about Central Asia...

BTW, Tim Newman has an analysis of the current Russia-Ukraine Gazprom dispute, too. (He works in Dubai.)

The American Thinker on "Transgressive" Art

Turns out, it's really not transgressive, after all...

Mark Cuban's Investment Advice for 2006

It's worth considering Mark Cuban's financial advice for 2006, since he's made a lot of money for himself and some of his investors.

Mark Cuban v. The New York Times

I wondered what that long, weird article by about bloggers by Katherine Seelye in today's NY Times business section was all about, so I checked out Mark Cuban's blog, since there was some cryptic commentary buried in the Times story, and they usually bury the lead. Sure enough, Cuban had a lot to say. Which leads to the question: Is the New York Times having a nervous breakdown?

And more--might Mark Cuban bid to buy the NY Times company, a la Charles Foster Kane?

Full disclosure: I actually made some money investing in Mark Cuban's Broadcast.com when it was acquired by Yahoo!

Tube Strike Hits London

We got a nice surprise New Year's Day call from a couple of our friends in London--by cell phone, they were sitting in Joe Allen's--who told us that there was a big Tube strike in London, but that everyone was taking it in stride. This story from The Independent has details.

Curiously, one of the friends on the phone had just been in New York on the eve of the Christmas MTA strike...

World Faces Anti-Semitic Tsunami

Speaking to the BBC, British Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks warned that the rapid spread of Islamist extremism threatens to flood the world with violence and hatred on a scale not seen since World War II:

"This is all a kind of tsunami of anti-Semitism which is taking place a long way from this country but (of) which Europe seems unaware," he said.

Here's a link to the Chief Rabbi's London website

Roger L. Simon on Spielberg's Munich

Simon takes apart the film, from the vantage point of a professional screenwriter, here.

And here's a link to Bret Stephens' Wall Street Journal review, mentioned by Simon.

Ukraine Gas Crisis Worsens

Russia's dramatic price hike for gas sold to the Ukraine is sending New Year's shock waves across Europe.

This is where the "free market" rhetoric of the EU and US is running into the "democracy" rhetoric of the Orange revolution. From the Russian point of view, it surely looks like this: Why shouldn't Russia charge what the market will bear, if Ukraine is no longer an ally deserving of subsidy? And why shouldn't the EU and US pay the price difference, if Ukraine is valuable to them? That is, let the EU and US subsidize Russia, rather than Ukraine?

The response--predictable--of the State Department and EU has been a little ham-handed and Cold War-like, to say the least. First, because Russia made a point of honoring all its contracts with the EU, shipping the gas paid for by EU countries. It is Ukraine that has diverted gas, reducing EU supplies, not Russia. Second, because the EU and US are paying for their ill-considered Central Asian policies--Russia bought up all the Turkmen gas that previously went to Ukraine before launching its price hike. Quite simply, the EU and US have no alternative cheaper supply to offer Ukraine at this time.

So, if it is just a business matter, Russia actually is in the right. However, if the Ukraine question is a matter of weakening Russia, then by raising gas prices to the Ukraine, Russia has exposed the political agenda of the EU and US. Either Ukraine will have to pay the increase, or the US and EU will have to do it for them. Neither the EU or US are in a place where they can threaten Russia militarily or economically.

Right now, unless there is some unforeseen development, hiking Ukraine's gas prices looks like a win-win move for Russia...

UPDATE: More on this crisis from the BBC.

UPDATE: It looks like this gas crisis might lead to Russia and Ukraine both joining the WTO.

Happy New Year!

This website even plays Auld Lang Syne...

Israel Celebrates Hannukah--and Novi God...

Haaretz reports on Russian holiday celebrations influence in the Jewish State:

While diners at posh Herzliya Pituah eatery Odeon are sitting down to their New Year's feast of goose liver and quince, the Lesovoy family will be sitting around the table in Ashdod, enjoying traditional kholodetz (veal in aspic) and homemade salads. When the children get up in the morning, they will find presents under a decorated tree left by the Russian Santa Claus, Grandfather Frost, known as Ded Moroz.

The only thing these two celebrations will have in common is the champagne they plan to drink at midnight. For the children, 9-year-old Hanna, 7-year-old Lev and 3-year-old Ela, the new year couldn't arrive at a better time. A week after collecting Hanukkah gelt, they also get presents for Novi God, the Russian new year.