#Israel has a housing bubble

You may be thinking.... what?

"I've not heard a word about such a thing, or about the Israeli economy in general being in trouble."

You haven't, because
A. The bubble hasn't burst yet, and
B. The mainstream business and political media isn't thinking outside the box enough.

All those houses being built in the occupied West Bank/Palestine? THAT is your Israeli housing bubble.

I think a lot of Israeli politicians know that, and, like Social Security used to be in the U.S., it's the "third rail" of Israeli politics. Even more liberal-party politicians there don't want to touch it at all.

Now, people may not be taking out home equity loans against their new settler homes. But, there's already plenty of largely artificial economic stimulus there.

You have:
A. The housing construction itself;
B. The settler village infrastructure construction, of neighborhood water, sewer, electricity and roads;
C. Municipal/village police, civilian government employees, etc.;
D. The Israeli Army.

Per the overall size of Israel, that's actually probably a pretty damned big bubble.

And, nobody inside the Beltway in the U.S. mentions it, either. Why not? They're probably afraid Israel would ask for even more foreign aid money if the bubble even contracted, let alone burst. And, it's an election year.

#Pujols - benched, and booed!

Did you ever, ever, think it would happen, and in a place more mellow than New York or Boston? It has.

Not only has Albert Pujols yet to hit a home run, not only is he now below the Mendoza line of infamy (heck, from April 20-May 5 [and sure to continue a few more days] his slugging percentage is below Mendoza) ... he's been benched ... and booed!

"If I could boo myself," Pujols said postgame, "I'd boo myself, too."

The booing? I know fans in St. Louie, including relatives, are lifting a frosty cold mug of Mike Shannon-style schadenfreude over this $240M turn of events, even if some have a 2x4 of biblical proportion in their own eyes.

The benching is just a day-off type move.

That said, I've gone on blogging record that Angels manager Mike Scioscia needs to do more, like either moving Pujols lower in the lineup for the good of the team, or else moving him UP to No. 2 to get him to stop thinking about the HR drought so much.

That then said, Kendrys Morales is starting to heat things up a bit, as has Mark Trumbo; that can only help.

Meanwhile, as everybody asks what's wrong with Albert, I'll throw out something besides:
1. He's getting older;
2. He's pressing;
3. He's slow to adjust to AL pitching.

Speaking of Scioscia,  I'll venture that Pujols is missing the protective managerial cocoon of Tony La Russa.

That leads to another question:

Is Pujols that psychologically fragile? If so, Arte Moreno's got the second coming of A-Rod, or worse, on his hands, for 10 long years.

And, we can forget about Pujols doing anything close to Babe Ruth and following a homerless April with a 54-HR rest of the season.

For my in-depth "what's wrong with Pujols" post, go here.

A bump on the road for Obama's re-election

I blogged a few weeks ago about a NYT political blog post that showed economic conditions in the second quarter of the fourth year of a first-term president was key to his re-election in a tight race.

It makes sense. Primaries are winding down in the party out of power, people are starting to think about the general election, and they're starting to consider issues.

Well, yesterday's weak jobs report, then, has to be troubling for Obama, even against a weak foe pandering to nutbars, named Mitt Romney.

As I see it, the only chance Obama has to offset this issue,  especially if it should continue into May, is a Harry Truman-type attack, like 1948. But, really, is Dear Leader that type of campaigner? His faux populism so far this year won't fool real progressives, and it may not fool liberal-leaning centrists, either. And, per David Maraniss' new bio of Obama, as excerpted in Vanity Fair, Obama had fled from anything left of centrist liberalism by the time he was looking to move to Chicago.

So, I don't think he has any real populism in him.

The fifth-worst career doesn't include Forbes

One of Forbest' editors says, forget that "fifth worst career" stuff, journalism is cool!

First, he ignores that most the stuff on Forbes website is from freelancers who may get paid bupkis. (This also explains how Forbes is allegedly doing so well, maybe.)

Second, he ignores that a ritzy New York-based mag like Forbes is incredibly different from some small town or small city newspaper.

Other than those two totally minor points of fact, Jeff Bercovici is totally right. The schadenfreude part of me awaits the day he is replaced by a freelancer, since he thinks some "fluff" about how great it is to work for Forbes counts as an actual news story.

Joey Dauben situation goes from bad to worse

It's been a while since I've checked in on the situation on Ellis County, south suburban Dallas, and its Walter Mitty/William Randolph Hearst in his own mind pseudo-muckraking "journalist" Joey Dauben.

The would-be muckraker had a "backfire" late last year, though, being arrested for sexual assault as an early Christmas present.

For a basic early take on him by me, see here. For fluff from a bored week at the Dallas Observer, see this Joey Dauben profile.

So, it's no surprise he claimed the arrest was a big conspiracy.

Anyway, it might be  good news that Dauben's original $200K bond was lowered to $50K and he's out right now. On the other hand, he has to wear an ankle monitor and refrain from Internet usage. That will just kill him.

AND ... he had to surrender the Ellis County Observer website to the state. He's fighting that, but, right now, the site is blank.

Dauben says he plans to fight the issue, which he still says is part of a conspiracy.

I've got another question.

Given that the sexual assault charge, a "statuatory" case, was against a male, that Dauben has been vociferously homophobic and that there's evidence that that is "repressive," and that the Dallas Voice, Dallas's GLBT paper, is covering this so extensively ....

"Joey, are you gay?"

Seriously. It's a legitimate question. If Joey doesn't want to talk himself, then, if David Webb at the Dallas Voice has any more info, he should speak up.

Update, March 16, 2013: I had a new light bulb pop on tonight. Joey Dauben reminds me of a slightly less mature James O'Keefe of Breitbart fame, detailed here in all his sordidness. 

Update 2, July 19, 2017: How did Dauben know that a mayor of tiny little Henderson County burg Seven Points, way away from Ellis County, was gay unless Dauben has a gay grapevine or good gay gaydar?

And, why did you feel compelled to say "I'm not gay"?

Joey, you're in prison because of repression and denial, IMO.

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Update, Aug. 22, 2021: Besides "Sunflower" and his other groupies who trailed him, at the Ellis County Observer, Dauben had as one of his flunkies a guy named Ali Akbar, who also allegedly was working on the Texas effort for John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. Today, you know him as "Stop the Steal" thief Ali Alexander. Dauben, per this piece, back then thought Akbar (already then a convicted felon) was shady as shit, claiming that Akbar/Alexander had talked back then of ways to rig an election. And, if Joey Dauben thought that ...

 

Update, April 17, 2023: Akbar/Alexander now accused of soliciting "dick pics" from followers of Nick Fuentes. Says he's been "battling" same-sex attraction. Uses "so gay" as a slur. Statement, via Twitter, claims he's done nothing illegal. Other than possibly breaking the law if any of these were of minors (and hence highly illegal), sounds like he needs to stop battling and start accepting being bisexual. Plus, it's all about the money. Milo Yiannopoulos (THAT Milo) ratted on him after he and Fuentes cut him out of a "potentially lucrative" position with Kanye West's presidential run. (Was this 2020, or is he looking at another in 2024? YE gads.) And, rats like Marjorie Taylor Greene are trying to dissociate from both. 

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Akbar/Alexander new update, Feb. 16, 2025: More on the Alexander is allegedly gay. Gives a whole new angle to his connection to Dauben. 

#Amazon vs. #Google: TV showdown time

Last year, Google announced it would be rolling out a set of You Tube TV channels.

And now, Amazon is firing back. Like Google, it will have original programming as part of this. And it's already announced what it will pay for scripts.

Now, neither one of these folks is in any way beholden to cable companies, either, other than for Internet transmission for folks not on DSL, wireless, or glorious dial-up. So, will this finally be the stake or silver-bullet to kill "packaged" cable programming and open the door to a la carte instead? Especially if you add in the idea of "apps" for TV networks? You know Google will do apps for its You Tube channels, and Amazon, with its tablet Fire, will do the same.

That said, what the hell will Amazon and Google bombard us with? The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, might need a couple of add-on zeros for a remake of "57 Channels and Nothing's On."