Israel voted last night to begin a unilateral cease fire in Gaza, although exactly when the cease fire will begin is unclear. My guess is that it will be some time before Tuesday.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed his nation last night and declared that “we have reached all the goals of the war, and beyond.” Hamas is not expected to stop fighting, so exactly what the goals were is not clear. Although maybe it is. The Talking Dog wrote two weeks ago,

IMHO, Israel’s government has, for its own domestic political purposes (how widely reported here is it that an Israeli general election is scheduled for February 10, 2009?) decided to “get tough on Hamas,” which, of course, has certainly been trying to provoke something like this for as long as it has controlled Gaza. And so, much will be blown up, many will be killed or wounded, and at some point (presumably before January 20th), “military objectives will have been achieved,” and, well… “calm” will be restored, which, of course, is the same utterly psychotic “status quo”

The Israeli army will remain in place, Olmert said, and will respond with force if Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel. However, Israel expects Hamas will engage in a “new flurry of rocket launches.” And, one suspects, Hamas will continue to find ways to fire rockets into Israel no matter how many troops Israel deploys. Trying to control a group like Hamas with force is like trying to smash mercury with a hammer.

The Talking Dog says today,

And so one must ask just what those goals were… now that there are over 1,200 Gazans (and 13 Israelis)dead (and thousands of Gazans wounded)… one must ask again when among the dead are three daughters and a niece of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, whose house came under Israeli fire… Abuelaish, a peace activist, is one of the few Gazans permitted to regularly cross to the Israeli side to work as a physician on both sides of the Israel/Gaza border.

Congratulations, geniuses. One of the few Palestinians of any stature who genuinely believes in the prospects for peaceful coexistence, and you’ve gone ahead and targeted his house, and killed three of his daughters. Way to go.

What Israel has accomplished is increase sympathy for Hamas, which will accrue resources and recruits in Hamas’s favor, resulting in turn in more Isaeli deaths in the future. The death spiral continues. As the Dog says, no one is suggesting that Israel passively accept rockets being launched into its territory. But there’s reacting, and there’s responding. There’s stupid fighting, and smart fighting. Israel chose “stupid.” And the same lame-brains who love the Iraq War are cheering them on.

Via Juan Cole, John J. Mearsheimer writes in The American Conservative that with “victories” like this, Israel doesn’t need defeats. In a nutshell, Mearsheimer says what Israel really wants is a permanent ethnic Apartheid, which if achieved likely will doom Israel.

See also Bob Ostertag, “A Better Source for News on Gaza.”

In the supermarket yesterday I noticed a new tabloid by the checkout counter, called The Sun. Apparently it is the new incarnation of the late, lamented Weekly World News. According to the front page headline, a secret prophecy found at the Vatican says the world will end this month. Also, President-elect Obama has appointed the space alien to be ambassador to Mars. I’m sure we can look forward to new adventures of the Bat Boy in future editions. It was good to see that not everything worthwhile in Western Civilization is lost.

But this morning I see that Circuit City is closing completely. There is a big Circuit City about a mile from my home, and I’ve bought a lot of stuff there, including the computer I’m keyboarding on right now. I would have bought more stuff there, but I tended to avoid the place because it was always crowded. This particular store, at least, was very popular. I’m sure the crowds are lining up right now for the liquidation sale. I say stay home and wait for the stuff to be on ebay.

California is so broke that it is postponing payments for tax refunds, student aid, social services and mental health programs. Naturally, righties are screaming about government theft and blaming welfare recipients (lucky duckies!). There’s not a peep of concern from them about how the state came to be in such dire circumstances, nor the least thought about what might be done to set things right.

At the New York Times, David Brooks muses that just maybe the “classical economic models” do not work.

The classical models presumed a certain sort of orderly human makeup. Inside each person, reason rides the passions the way a rider sits atop a horse. Sometimes people do stupid things, but generally the rider makes deliberative decisions, and the market rewards rational behavior. …

..In this new body of thought, you get a very different picture of human nature. Reason is not like a rider atop a horse. Instead, each person’s mind contains a panoply of instincts, strategies, intuitions, emotions, memories and habits, which vie for supremacy. An irregular, idiosyncratic and largely unconscious process determines which of these internal players gets to control behavior at any instant. Context — which stimulus triggers which response — matters a lot.

The “reason rides the passions” notion always was a pile of hooey, and any honest reading of history and human behavior reveals it to be a pile of hooey. It is a fantasy created by a panoply of instincts, strategies, intuitions, emotions, memories and habits, not to mention greed.

Brooks goes on to inform us that people have biases and don’t think objectively. Wow. Who knew? But by the end of the column, Brooks manages to subjectively reassure himself that the Left’s economic models are just as deluded.

Reading Brooks’s column is sometimes like watching a child in sixth grade social studies. It’s kind of fun to see what he’s learning, but it’s all stuff you’ve known for many years.

Bat Boy is more fun, anyway.

Glenn Greenwald has a couple of videos of a discussion on the Gaza situation that is remakably open-minded and realistic. You’ll appreciate it.

One of these headlines is real. Guess which one?

“Titanic Docks in New York — Sinking Was a Hoax”

“To Settle Debt, U.S. Gives New Jersey to China”

“History May See Lincoln-Like Greatness in George W. Bush”

“Angelina Jolie Admits She Is a Space Alien”

Answer.

The Peking Duck:

In my entire stint in Asia, starting in 2001, I have never once heard a positive mention of Bush by any Chinese person, either in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan or the PRC. Not among teachers, mid-level government officials, co-workers, friends, business people or taxi drivers. Despite the bombing of the Belgrade embassy, I still hear Chinese people praise Clinton. I’m not sure why, but most seem to adore him. The mention of Bush’s name tends to prompt a reflexive reaction of scorn and disappointment. If people were glad he went to the Olympics, they didn’t make a big deal out if it, the way they did over Spielberg’s backing out. And I’m not sure how the reporter measured Obama’s “unpopularity” in China during the primaries. I’m not going to say Chinese people I knew were raving about Obama, and he probably was less popular than Clinton, but I never heard anything indicating he was unpopular. (The only memorable remark I heard about Obama that wasn’t gushing with praise came from a Chinese teacher who, the day after the election, asked me, “How is it possible that white people voted for a black man?”)

Poor Dubya. China doesn’t love him after all.

Earlier this week I explained right-wing morality: “In other words, whether an action is moral or not is not determined by what is done, but by who is doing it.”

Here’s a nice example — when done by an illegal immigrant, sexual exploitation of a girl is an outrage. But sexual exploitation of girls by native-born Americans is perfectly OK.

I’m kind of swamped this morning. Here are some suggested topics for discussion among yourselves:

Is there a bigger ass in the world than Joe the Plumber?

If there is a bigger ass in the world than Joe the Plumber, might it be Sarah Palin?

Nice Harold Meyerson column on bailing out banks.

Goats burn down home, cat missing. What did the goats have against the cat?

Mark Landler, NY Times:

In an unusually public rebuke, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said Monday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been forced to abstain from a United Nations resolution on Gaza that she helped draft, after Mr. Olmert placed a phone call to President Bush.

“I said, ‘Get me President Bush on the phone,’ ” Mr. Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, according to The Associated Press. “They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care: ‘I need to talk to him now,’ ” Mr. Olmert continued. “He got off the podium and spoke to me.”

Putting aside the merits or flaws of the UN resolution — how is it the Prime Minister of Israel issues orders to the U.S. Secretary of State? And when did Israel put a dog leash on the POTUS? What happened to “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people“?

Unrelated: Don’t miss the Big Buddhas.

If you are tired of the state of the world, go feast your eyes on some really big buddhas (scroll down for photo index).

One of several pathetic points in Bush’s press conference today:

[Bush] hotly challenged the premise of one question that his policies had made America less prestigious and respected around the world, saying that was just the view of some “elites” and other pantywaists in part of Europe. Go to China! he said. They still respect us there.

Yes, but China is one of the biggest supporters and perpetrators of nasty oppression on the planet. That’s the best we can do?