Scalzi on mideast

A good Scalzi on the mideast.

...the most compelling discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian issue ... was an argument that I overheard at dinner between one of our tour group leaders and a journalist from the Jerusalem Post ... Both of these men were educated and formidably intelligent, each with qualities of personality that I had quickly come to admire, and both were vehemently opposed to the other's position on the Palestinians. 

The journalist, perhaps predictably, was the more liberal of the two, and saw the then-current situation with the Palestinians (who were in their first Intifada) as untenable and a black mark on Israel's soul -- a nation born out of the ashes of the Holocaust could ill afford to treat a minority population the way the Israelis were treating the Palestinians. 

The tour leader, on the other hand, saw no choice; the Palestinians were not committed to recognizing the right of Israel to even exist, and you don't negotiate with people who refuse to start from the assumption you should not be killed. Moreover, the Palestinians were a threat to Israel as a Jewish country. Well, the journalist replied, maybe Israel shouldn't be just a Jewish nation. And off they went again. I remember thinking at the time that if the Israelis were so divided over the issue, any actual discussions between Israelis and Palestinians themselves were positively and eternally doomed.

 

 mediacrit

A long while back I contemplated buying mediacrit.com for use as a slashdotesque/metafiltrian place for people to gather and analyze the news and entertainment that we're offered/fed. I was surprised no one owned the name, but never got serious enough about the idea to bother actually laying money down.

I'm still not serious about that idea, but I do wish someone else with a plan would have bought it; now it looks like the name's been bought by a professional domain squatter. Oh well.  

 DSL

Strangely enough, the DSL connection in our new home was live the day before we were promised it would be. A welcome, marked contrast to our last place.  

 April 1

I have no April Fu this year.