A few weeks ago we took Elizabeth out for the first time, now that she’s had her shots. Luckily we were at a children’s department store when we realized that we had to buy her a complete change of clothing. Silly us thinking we just needed diapers for lunch and an hour of shopping.

That store was Lord & Taylor, which is going to be closed. Soon, Federated Department Stores will be virtually the only retailer in America with department stores. That means Macy’s and Bloomingdales will be the only real choices. That’s too bad. Also this weekend, I did a few hours of babysitting while Karen went out. Whoa, that’s tough work. I really wonder how moms want to stay home all day with little boo-boos. I did many things in the first 15 minutes of that 3 hour period and kept noticing that only 5 more minutes had gone by and there was still so much time left to go before mum was to return....

I’ve been making phone calls this month and comments in the Middle East are mostly agreeable to last month’s Global Thoughts. Israelis are quite nonchalant about the Hamas takeover of the PA and basically in a “Let’s See What They Do” mode; Arabs are cautiously optimistic figuring that the PA was a big failure and that maybe Hamas will just overall do better but they are a bit nervous about the Iranians gaining influence in this area via Hamas. Let their Sharon (ie: Hamas) deal with our new Sharon (ie: Olmert) and we’ll figure out how to make it work. After all, talking with Abbas was like talking with Peres – a guy who couldn’t deliver his street. One friend of mine who is well-versed in Islamic affairs says the Hamas will offer Israel a 50 year truce during the next 6-12 months. Hamas, he says, is under great pressure to make things work in Palestine because it is an offshoot of the Moslem Brotherhood movement that represents Islamists from Morocco through Indonesia. This is a huge opportunity for the movement to actually run a government and they need to show they can do a good job for their people. You can’t provide for Palestine simply by taking on the Israelis. Israeli Arabs are likely to vote for Zionist parties this election more than ever especially after they failed to unite around a single party since they all couldn’t agree on anything; the Big 3 Parties in Israel all agree on what is to be done (Likud, Labor and Kadima) – basically build the Wall, fence the Arabs in, and get out from anything on the other side of the wall. One Israeli analyst predicts action against Iran by early 2007 the latest. Their special forces are already scouting out sights in Iran under the cover of the Americans in Iraq and the Americans are likewise drawing up options for a military strike against Iran. Edward Luttwak, a leading American military strategist this month writing in Haaretz, says the Americans could do enough damage to Iran’s program in a night or two of bombings. It is clear that the Americans are drawing up scenarios and collecting information for some kind of action; I would think after the midterm elections.

Speaking of Iran – Consider that if they really wanted to build a bomb, they’d do it secretly instead of running around waving their arms around telling everyone how crazy they are. Stratfor Intelligence feels they are bluffing, trying to be a North Korea getting themselves leverage with the US by scaring everyone about having a bomb but not actually doing it. So far, it’s all talk with very little actual activity and the evidence is that the Iranians themselves leaked information about their nuclear program to the West. Remember also that the President of Iran counts for very little power in that country. A colleague recommends using the Gulf Cooperation Council to bring heat on Iran instead of having America leading the pack. I’m not going back on what I said last month, but what I am saying is that one must look past the rhetoric and make the decision as to what to do about Iran based on what they are actually doing. So far, not as much as meets the eye at least in the short term.

A quick word on this business of Holocaust denial since it is in the news with David Irving getting a jail sentence. Lately he has been mouthing off again perhaps egging the judge to increase his jail sentence, perhaps in the hope that people will think the sentence is ridiculous and move to get rid of these laws outlawing Holocaust denial. The laws are pretty silly and should go; they have become a means for Holocaust deniers to get more attention than they would otherwise receive – nothing like making something illegal to make it a cause celebre. Freedom of speech has to include the ability to say stupid as well as totally untrue things. It’s not the same as crying fire in a crowded theater. It’s not against the law to say that there was no Armenian genocide; why is the Holocaust so special that it warrants such a law? We have to admit that the law was an aberration to deal with European guilt over the matter and that the truth is that such laws are just not tenable within the broader scheme of an open political system.

Remember the cartoons flap from last month? Some Jews are having a contest open to Jewish artists who can come up with the most anti-semitic cartoons. They want to show that we can laugh at ourselves and do a better of job than anyone else out there. Strength is best shown by being able to laugh at yourself or at least to be able to look at yourself in the mirror. There is something very weak about being insulted all the time that just shows your hand too much. This month an Israeli general made a private speech and stated the obvious fact that King Abdullah of Jordan is in a long-term losing proposition as Hashemite King of a Palestinian-majority country and will probably be the last such king. It stands to reason that a country with a Palestinian majority won’t forever sign off on a Hashemite king. The King’s men said that he and Jordan were “insulted”and that this would damage relations between the two countries. Besides the fact that it was his own personal opinion, he actually said God forbid Abdullah should be the last such king. Clearly the insult was over the subject matter more so than any intent to insult. People were insulted with the cartoons this month too. Seems like “insult” has become the word for “stop insulting me with the Truth or inconvenient matters” because I don’t want to hear it aloud. This part of the world has to become more thick-skinned about dealing with matters of Truth. If they want to have patents, universities, or anything except misery and a lack of progress, it will have to become “insulted” by debate of facts and analysis less often.

One other comment on Palestine. This year, several million dollars were invested in purchasing greenhouses from Gaza settlers and turning them over the Palestinians so that they would have an economy. Before the withdrawal, these greenhouses accounted for 20% of the economy. Jews put up most of the money, by the way. In the immediacy of the withdrawal, looters made havoc of the property. They then put more money up to repair it. This month, the militias that were hired to guard the properties themselves ransacked it while they fought with other militias. This time they ruined it beyond repair. Sometimes all you need to know about the future is such little stories. I personally don’t expect any future to a Palestinian state as long as they are so hell-bent on fighting with each other. Just like the Zionists supposedly were responsible for destroying the Shiite mosque in Baghdad this week, Iraq is another example of a country that has no future as long as the people living there have gangs running around killing each other. If all the Zionists disappeared, who else would they all blame for everything? The Eskimos? This week I heard several Rabbis say publicly that the destruction of the mosque was savagery of the worst order. Nobody I know is taking any joy in seeing a bunch of Moslems running amok knocking off each other’s holy sites and imams.

I’m not sure what mainstream Islam has to say about “an eye for an eye” but according to the Jewish reading of the Old Testament it means monetary restitution. The Bible didn’t say so explicitly because to do so would cheapen the crime by stating right off the bat that you could undo the crime by paying money for taking out someone’s eye. But there was never a Jewish court that applied the penalty literally. One reason why this part of the world seems stuck is that it has yet to update the religious and social construct of the concept of revenge. If you are always taking revenge every time something happens, you can’t go forward because then the other side has to always take revenge too. It is an impediment to moving past anything. The Israelis don’t take revenge for every attack against them. Some think it’s weak – perhaps it is the wiser part of valor to hold back sometimes and create the possibility of moving to the next level.

At sabbath morning services in the neighborhood the rabbi read off a list of American servicepeople who died this week in Iraq. Took him a full 2 minutes just to read off a list of this week’s casualties. Guess what? More people are dying there than hardly anyone realizes. I know that sounds exceedingly flippant, but you know if everyone heard a list of war dead each week we wouldn’t be in there past the end of the month.... Is it really worth it for us to be sitting around there while all these Iraqis go around killing each other? I’m sure we’d love to be outta there. I imagine that even if there are good strategic reasons to be there, the pressure to get out will become that much greater in the next year. One thing we found out this week was the first poll of soldiers in Iraq and they said by a majority that we ought to leave.

This Dubai port thing – this is pretty much a no-brainer to me and I’m only commenting on it because people want to know what I have to say about it. It’s racist grandstanding by opportunists on the political front. It also confirms the status of Arabs today in America, as I said last month. Americans are not isolationist – they want to be involved in the world but they want to be far away from Arabs and, after 9/11, they are all the same to the late-night comedians who joke about them, political pollsters who frame the questions in the polls about them, and therefore the man on the street who forms an opinion about them. I see no problem with the deal – most of American ports are run by foreigners and there is no reason to believe that this deal would result in a worse security situation than already exists. The people running this company are very top-notch and the UAE is already servicing American aircraft carriers and a good amount of cargo heading into America. Since 9/11 in 2001, we haven’t even set aside spectrum on the broadcast frequency band for emergency response. The administration wants it for 2007 and the Congress is looking at 2009. I can’t understand why this couldn’t have been done in 6 months. America just doesn’t take security that seriously – all of a sudden we’re going nuts over this port deal? Just so you know; what’s really going on here is that a small union in Miami has a running dispute with the port company and they called up their people in congress to throw a wrench into this deal. Which just goes to show that sometimes a big company can get hit real hard if it has the wrong small company enemy. The fact that the company participates in the embargo against Israel is a problem now that Jewish groups are climbing on board about it – although in truth plenty of Israeli stuff goes through Arab ports as long as it goes through a third country first. The head of the Israeli Zim Corporation, which is the country’s main shipping company, wrote a strong letter of support to senators on the Dubai company saying that they are an excellent company to work with, that they are one of its biggest customers (with Israeli ships going through Dubai with other flags), and that they are a leader in security in the industry. What boycott or security threat?

My amigo in the UAE says that inflation is getting tough there – so much demand in the country is pushing up prices. The stock markets in the middle east are beginning to melt after the crazy increases and do not offer a good place for capital, but there are good investments in that region in infrastructure and even real estate.

I think that all told the Americans are playing pretty well viz. Iraq and the recent strikes by Al Quaeda in Iraq with the Shiite mosque and the refinery in Saudi Arabia basically are “Hail-Mary passes” by a football team in a ballgame that they are losing. This is something you do to try to regain the initiative when you’re going down for the count. The Americans are doing a good job of playing off the sides in Iraq against each other and the Sunnis do not really want the Americans to leave them alone to face the Shiites because they’d lose to them especially with Iran on Iraq’s doorstep. Allies such as the UAE need to be kept in the fold and rewarded for their assistance. The business of the Dubai port company and the rest of all this stuff is connected as part of the US strategy of distinguishing among friends and enemies and working with various factions. Bush is approaching dangerous levels of low popularity and this may ultimately kill the Dubai deal because his popularity is taking a hit because few people can understand why he would talk a tough game and yet allow this deal. Bush can’t afford to lose his base and this deal threatens it. This is similar to why Bush brought in Alito as a Supreme Court nominee when he was in similar danger last year. Long term think about Yugsolavia and figure that the leaders of Iraq don’t really want a civil war. As Stephen Colbert notes, If there is a civil war, then by definition the Americans have to leave because they can’t be part of a civil war!

India/Pakistan – The difference between a friend and an ally is that a friend can be your friend and also be a friend to your enemy. An ally has to choose sides. India is seen firmly on the side of the West. Pakistan is seen as flirting both with America and Al Qaeda. That’s why Pakistan will not get the same deal the Indians got. Pakistan has good excuses for its double-dealing but it is what it is. Besides, the minute the Americans find Bin Laden the value of Afghanistan and Pakistan goes down to virtually nothing. The main reason the Indians got the nuclear treaty is to knock off the potential pipeline with Iran; the Indians would be going nuclear anyway so there is no point in being a stickler about the treaty when those who don’t care about the treaty such as Israel will do what they want anyway. It’s not really about the treaty; it’s about responsibility.

I’ve sold out most of my American company stock and gone more deeply into foreign indexes such as Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Korea, Japan, and Brazil. Brazil, India and Korea are more high-growth, the others are slow but steady. Some colleagues are getting into gold but I learned from my Euro fiasco this past year and will stick with equities instead of commodities. Germany is also set to have a good 2006 and I may buy into that country’s index. The next few months will be critical in the sense that the real estate market is in a staredown -- buyers are not buying because they think the prices will go down since the supply has gone up dramatically and prices are no longer going up (and discounts are being given), and sellers are not selling hoping that the spring season will fetch better prices. If you are running the Federal Reserve, this is not a good time to raise interest rates because it could provide the tipping point in this game.

Amazing new poll in South Korea shows that more Koreans would side with North Korea than the US if there was a US attack against North Korea. Perhaps we should just leave them to each other. We are supposedly there because the South is afraid of the North.

A friend in Cyprus is working on a Russian subsidiary opening up a bank for his Cyprus bank. He says that aside from the energy sector, Russia is a good place for foreign investment. On the ground, he says, Cyprus hasn’t changed much over the past year viz. the Turkish/Greek situation.

This month features a write up on the topic of Customer Service: Why we don’t get enough of it.