US again gives lip service to Mideast neutrality, back of hand to #Palestinians

So, Mahmoud Abbas wants the government of Palestine to join a few UN agencies?

Nope, can't do that, the US says; Dear Leader tells Secretary of State John Kerry to stop talking to the Palestinian leader.

Specific on which agencies the Palestinians want to join?

A senior Palestinian official said the 15 agencies Mr. Abbas moved to join — out of more than 60 possible — did not include the International Criminal Court or International Court of Justice, where many Palestinians hope to prosecute Israelis for what they consider war crimes, including the demolition of homes, arrests and killings of Palestinians, and the building of settlements. The 15 did include the Geneva and Vienna Conventions and agencies dealing with women’s and children’s rights, the official said.

Sounds reasonable to me. Abbas is deliberately avoiding being highly provocative.

But, we still give him the back of the hand.

And, that's why this idea that we would release Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard 18 months early to speed up the peace process is bullshit. Because, as al-Jazeera documented a couple of years ago, the "peace process" that the US envisions has always been on Israel's terms, and the Palestinian Authority has always had to dance to the puppet strings of US money, whereas, ever since Poppy Bush's one brief "hold" on foreign aid to Israel, we've never put Tel Aviv through the same hoops.

And, if anything, Obama's worse than Poppy's son Shrub, not better. From diminishing the severity of Israeli settlements in Palestine to

That said, per the link about Israeli settlements, Abbas has been a good Palestinian leader only through the soft bigotry of low expectations and comparisons to his predecessor, Yasir Arafat.

On the third hand, mainstream media have a history of misrepresenting how much, or how little, Israel is actually ready to give away on the land issue.  Also on the third hand, it's not just Abbas that's been getting the back of the hand; it's PA leadership in general.

Back to the original link, though, with this as the nut graf:

Israel and the United States have argued that Palestinian membership in these international agencies is a mistaken approach to Palestinian statehood, which should instead be negotiated directly between Israel and the Palestinians. Congress passed a law saying such membership could trigger a withdrawal of United States financial aid to the Palestinian Authority and other steps.

Uhh, I thought Palestine already was a state? So says 70 percent of UN member states; only the US and Western allies, plus a stray country here and there, disagree.

That said, the reason the US and the West reject it is because the PLO and Israel both agreed in the Oslo Accords not to act unilaterally on this issue.

On the fourth hand, this is the real world; usually a geopolitical action is part of a chess board, and a chess board that's not quite so blatantly underwritten with US dollars. And also on the fourth hand, since Bibi Netanyahu intransigently opposes Palestinian statehood, one could argue HE is the one acting unilaterally.

And, since Obama and Kerry won't lean on him to loosen up (despite Bibi's tears over various Obama alleged actions) there you go.

Surgery: End of the line for #TigerWoods?

USA Today photo via ESPN

I just saw this on Golf Channel: Woods has had surgery for a pinched nerve.

He will definitely miss the Masters. I assume he'll be early enough in his rehab that while he may appear at the US Open, he won't be worth much there. And, per in-house injury analyst (really?) Stephania Bell in ESPN's piece, average rehab time is 4.5 months, so scratch the US Open for sure, and possibly the Open, maybe even the PGA for this year.

Vegas is leaning to Rory McIlroy as the new betting favorite. Pundits are giving Adam Scott and Jason Day (sorry, but his bum thumb scares me off) some love.

Let's look at the future, though.

Earlier this year, I said I expected him to move to No. 15 on majors wins, because both the Open and PGA tracks favored him. But now, all bets are off, are they not? Certainly, until we see the actual rehab process at work.

Given Phil's back problems last week, at Golf Digest, John Strege recently asked if we're at the end of an era. Could be yes, indeed.

So, Rory? While America and Mrs. Robinson may not be waiting for you, the PGA of America sure as hell is, as are other golf organizations. (An ESPN fan poll says that 15 percent of previously potential TV viewers will skip the Masters because Tiger isn't there.) Ditto on TV networks hoping for some star power, I'm sure.

And it's funny that on April 3, Rory said this thing himself, that golf needs a dominant player. He didn't talk about his "lost" 2013 or a couple of "lost" chances to win earlier this year being part of the problem.

For Woods, it's the first Masters miss since his initial appearance 20 years ago. Here's what happened, at Augusta and elsewhere, in 1994.

As for Tiger's future beyond this year? Lee Trevino won one of his six majors after undergoing more serious back fusion surgery after being struck by lighting. However, overall, he was never the same player after then. (I guesstimate he would have won at least seven majors without that happening.)

And, per Sports on Earth, there's two other questions. First, there's the issue of whether Tiger's workout regimen may have focused on bulking up to the detriment of flexibility. Second, as golf fans all know, Woods moved to Hank Haney to overhaul his swing to reduce stress on his left knee. With the back problems, will current swing coach Sean Foley have to do further work?

And, Woodsaholics? You may need to work on getting a life.

Adaptation not necessarily bright spot in #IPCC latest #climatechange report

We're going to need all the work we can get on adaptation to changes in our planet due to climate change, whether they're higher tides, more acidified oceans, changing ocean currents, desertification or whatever.

But, just from that incomplete laundry list, the New York Times, with its claim that there's a bright spot in the latest report on climate change issues from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should be treated with a skeptical eye. And, I'm not even counting the non-adapting stance of the four types of climate change deniers, most common in the US, but not invisible elsewhere. Given that the BBC reports that some of the IPCC's own scientists consider some of the report to be "alarmist," the idea that short-sighted, short-terming national governments would actually take full account of what climate change will cause, and take full account of adaption and mitigation efforts and costs, is pretty laughable.

If we said, "there's a less dark spot," that might be more true. I'm no James Kunstler, building a backyard bunker that's strategically resistant to 130-degree temperatures and Bay of Fundy tides. But, "adaption" and "mitigation" ain't cheap. Although the cost of ignoring it could be.

The Times' own piece says that:

The poorest people in the world, who have had virtually nothing to do with causing global warming, will be high on the list of victims as climatic disruptions intensify, the report said. It cited a World Bank estimate that poor countries need as much as $100 billion a year to try to offset the effects of climate change; they are now getting, at best, a few billion dollars a year in such aid from rich countries.

The $100 billion figure, though included in the 2,500-page main report, was removed from a 48-page executive summary to be read by the world’s top political leaders. It was among the most significant changes made as the summary underwent final review during an editing session of several days in Yokohama.

And, that's just "poor countries." The developed world may be more resilient, or it may not. And it certainly has a lot of pricey infrastructure in coastal areas that developing countries don't.

Related to that is the "why" of these edits:

The edit came after several rich countries, including the United States, raised questions about the language, according to several people who were in the room at the time but did not wish to be identified because the negotiations were private.

Again, NYT, your idea that there's some "bright spot" is undercut by your own reporting.

But, given the structure of the US government, especially the states' equal representation in the Senate, there's slim hope that just maybe, the likely ongoing drought in Plains states might finally wake up Senatorial eyeballs. And, today's drought will be tomorrow's normal, on agriculture in that area.

On the other hand, who am I kidding? I live in a state that, whether in reality or in snark, John Cornyn parrots everything Ted Cruz says.

#GregAbbott: Has time to sue Obama, but not hunt down child predators

With April, starting tomorrow, being National Child Abuse Prevention Month, it's too bad that Greg Abbott isn't doing more to track down child abusers.

Per the story, which links to a paywalled original at the American-Statesman:

There are a couple of reasons the Attorney General’s office might prefer to use Williamson County to arrange busts. There’s the jurisdiction’s tough-on-crime reputation, and an easy relationship with local police departments. There’s also the fact that it’s a short drive from the office—coordinating a bust in El Paso, of course, would require a much greater expense of both time and money for Abbott’s officers.

But it doesn’t seem like an ideal use of resources, as a deterrent or a general policy. We may hope that the herd of child predators in Round Rock has been thinned significantly, but what about cities far from the attorney general’s task force headquarters, where prospective sex offenders know they are significantly less likely to get caught if they look for prey in Uvalde and not Leander?

Beyond this, it seems like a much more thorough overhaul is needed. Why not (with some appropriate state funding) set up regional task forces to investigate child abuse? It would be a much better use of the state's time and money than the current drug tasks forces, we all know.

But, besides Abbott being too busy suing Obama and wasting state money while doing so, we all know that asking him to make his tough talk be matched by a tough statewide stand, Abbott says that's a PC dirty trick, to ask him to stand for anything.

Besides, being too tough on child abusers, which, in sexual abusers, largely adult men getting too friendly with young women of previous acquaintance, might offend his best bud Ted Nugent.

That said, given his relative lack of success in suing Obama, that's probably another reason he's cherry-picking his child abuse cases.

Too bad we have an AG who often does more about slinging shit than cleaning it up.

This isn't about politics alone. This is a gross dereliction of some of the basics of his duties to the public as attorney general. And, it's not the o nly issue where Abbott as AG is essentially AWOL.

For example, discussion is growing around the state about raising the age of consent, including for adult criminality, from 17 to 18. Given how this would affect the prison population, juvenile detention and many other things, one would think that an attorney general who actually cared about being an attorney general would have his office working on some analysis at a minimum, and ideally, some policy recommendations. Well, so far, all we hear from Abbott is crickets.

Texas GOP responds to unequal pay for women

Rick Perry says this will create new jobs in Texas. In case it won't, he offers Texas Enterprise Fund millions to whoever can pretend to actually make that happen.

Ted Cruz blames Obama because he has made income levels all about socialism. Besides, Cruz says, the Democrats are the party of the rich.

John Cornyn repeats what Ted Cruz said because, per LBJ, Cornyn has voluntarily put his pecker in Cruz's pocket.

Louie Gohmert says complaining about equal pay for women is a plot by abortionists to destroy the culture of Texas as we know it, and that we will next have Satanists asking for equal pay.

Greg Abbott says he can't sue any state agency or private company over unequal pay because there's no state law about it, and besides, he's too busy suing Obama over something else which he can't remember because he hasn't checked his sue Obama calendar, even though there's no state law about it. When asked about unequal pay in his own office of Texas Attorney General, Abbott said it would be a conflict of interest to investigate his own office. When asked how he can stand this happening, Abbott says that's a PC dirty trick, to ask him to stand for anything. He did promise he has Ted Nugent heading a task force looking at pay for underage women.

Dan Patrick says he can get some female Ill Eagles to do lots of work for cheap, and that the men will be and do the same, as long as none of them wants to return home then come back, or put anything in writing.

David Dewhurst says he agreed with all of the above in spades, because Ted Cruz put the Dew's pecker into a pig in a blanket 2 years ago.

Jerry Patterson promises to give women as many concealed weapons as men.

Joe Straus says to himself that he sure hope Democrats unite with the few non-nutbar GOPers in the House to re-elect him as speaker.

A few thoughts on 'branding' and 'media gurus'

In my recent blog post about the good (well, maybe I didn't have much about that) the bad and the ugly at the newest version of Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, part of the ESPN stable, I didn't at all tackle one issue.

It's exactly the issue in the header. And, while it's not specific to him, his somewhat acrimonious divorce from his previous employer, the New York Times, and his move to a new one, ESPN, makes him the perfect lead-in.

From a New Deal liberal-type perspective, would be great to salute the likes of Silver, David Pogue and Ezra Klein (both of whom will also get more discussion below) as showing how journalists can empower themselves against the ongoing decline in the industry. After all, J-school grads at major shops (I'm going to call for-profit, big-biz type colleges "colleges" less and less in the future) are being encouraged to do just this. One could even argue that support for this is some sort of labor solidarity in general. 

Well, the initial sidebar argument is that if I want to support journalism branding, I'll say, great, let's help AlterNet brand itself better. The second argument is that, if I want to support rich entertainment journalists get richer (and I consider all three to be entertainment journalists in part, to some degree), why not support rich entertainers, like athletes and actors, fight back against sports owners and movie studios?

And, that rhetorical question should tell you a bit of how I feel about "branding" in general. Also, "branding," whether on the labor or management side, seems part of the rise of the culture of narcissism that's part of the Net 2.0 world. Old St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Kevin Horrigan has a great column with additional takes on "branding" that agree with mine.

That said, if one is to look at branding, let's look at all three.

Silver was driving jealousy at the Times, tis true. Especially with hindsight, while some of it was undeserved, to me, some of it clearly was deserved. Again, Nate, your choice on how you want to deal with critics. I'd suggest a different approach than your current on, but, maybe successful enough branding will get you enough fans seeing you as a martyr of old media.

And, of course, that's not true. In terms of today's world, ESPN is as much old media as is the Times. Given the number of properties the Times has sold off, in terms of today's world, ESPN is about as much of a Big Media outpost as the NYT, too.

You had a reputation, pre-NYT, for sports stats crunching. You'd moved into politics at the NYT. And now, with the hint of going from there into broader culture and science, you were meeting an ideal "sweet spot" for ESPN, especially if it had some plan already in place to further expand outside of traditional sports coverage. And, on the younger half (I think) of GenX age, you hit the demographic sweet spot, too. Congrats.

Klein wanted to expand his domain at the Washington Post. Unfortunately, he wasn't reading the tea leaves well, and that may say something about his chances of future success. The Post, like the Times, was contracting even before the Post sold itself to Jeff Bezos. The fact that, even after a few years, the Post didn't see fit to build on its location and strengths to do a Politico-style spinoff speaks volumes. And, given the degree of cost-cutting Bezos has done with Amazon, the idea that he'd suddenly open his wallet for Klein was a laugher.

So, Ezra was negotiating from a position of weakness, in a product market that, per Politico, is pretty saturated and, as far as I know, without a specific sales pitch for new lines and areas of coverage, contra Silver. And, as far as I can tell, even before that, his "brand" may not be as shiny and spit-polished as is Silver's.

Pogue was already writing for enough spots besides the Times that, at some point, there was going to be a parting of the ways. Because he wasn't intruding into sacred turf like the op-ed space (and Silver wasn't always totally right there), the separation here was much more amicable.

Whether Yahoo was at or near the top of his target list, I don't know. But, with it trying to make itself more relevant again, and knowing that because Pogue has written for a number of different publications before, he had a decent brand level, he surely became high on Yahoo's list once he became available.

I think that, in Pogue's own terms, he'll be more successful than before with the move. Will he be successful enough for Yahoo? That's still an open question.

And, while I already had tags for Silver and Klein, because of my interest in politics, I don't for Pogue.

So, there's kind of the branding lesson of the day. Part of building the brand is expanding the brand, and knowing how to do that when the time is right. Ezra's still a bit behind the curve.

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That said, the bottom financial line on "branding" will be to likely increase income inequality within the media world. And, there's only one-quarter of a step between this and the likes of Pierre Omidyar's new venture, since it's based on Glenn Greenwald as a brand.