I have just been communicating in the last few minutes with two friends over Facebook -- one a prominent Jewish American blogger now visiting family in an Orthodox community in Israel -- and the other a prominent Arab Muslim blogger living in the Middle East. I don't want to disclose the identities of either.

But my friend in Israel asked me for some help on shaping questions that he might pose to various Israel pols.

I shared with him some of my thoughts on what he could ask. . .particularly the question of how Israel views long term US support.

I told him that in my view America's increasingly consequential failures to generate stability in the Middle East is like an eroding levee in New Orleans -- and those levees at some point are going to fail leaving Israel quite vulnerable unless Israel and other stakeholding neighbors achieve a different equilibrium in the region. . .and soon. There is great doubt around the world in the ability of America to pursue and achieve its objectives -- and this doubt has consequences for Israel's national security calculus, whether it is acknowledging it or not.

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"Hamas legislators won a democratic majority in elections four years ago."

--Ethan Bronner, NYT online, Jan. 3.

"Eighteen months ago, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a coup."

--George W. Bush, radio address, Jan. 3.

I was just saying to a friend that the White House seemed vacant. But in truth, it remains much worse than vacant. The long national nightmare, which is far more than a national nightmare, has 18 days left to run, and Israel is taking advantage by striding into Gaza while the delusional American president is a cynic-in-chief flashing the green light. The long, abysmal, wretched Bush years are ending not with a bang but the sort of thump, thump, thump you used to hear when a phonograph needle got stuck.

And while Israel seems to have veered into attempting to uproot delusional Hamas from its position as the government of Gaza--leaving Bronner, for one, in doubt that they have any idea, or care, who would run Gaza without them--the government of the United States is cheerleading its way onward to "seek[ing] an enduring peace," in Bush's words, via an onslaught of Old Testament proportions. All the berserkers in charge no doubt believe that the desert they are making is deserving of the name "peace"--once they're done with the crucial business of Holy War.

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Utah whipped Alabama 31 to 17 and the score did not reveal fully the wondrous skills and marvelous energy of the Utes of Utah. They appeared faster, tougher, meaner and more creatively coached.

But they do not get to play in the national ersatz championship game. This is a dreadful wrong. Almost every year the BCS final game should stand for Bogus Concluding Fiasco. Everyone knows, and our incoming President has said, a play-off is in order.

Among other virtues of a play off, the Sugar, Rose, Cotton and Gator Bowls of my youth could be resurrected in their former glory is they became necessary stepping stones to a final pairing. Put eight teams in a playoff series, and the television audience will soar for every game; have half the money go to supplement Pell grants instead of to the BCS cabal's football programs.

Congress must act, and act before another travesty occurs next year.

These are terrible days for those of us who long to see Israel finally accepted by its neighbors. At a time when all 22 Arab states have offered Israel peace and normalization in exchange for the '67 territories, this war could destroy that possibility once and for all.

No, that does not mean that I question Israel's right to respond to the rocket onslaught from Gaza.

Of course, it has that right.

Any country has the right, even the obligation, to respond militarily to thugs who rain down thousands of rockets on its people, leaving its children quaking in terror. The question is not whether Israel has the right , but whether exercising it this way is right.

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Aside from ideological public policy concerns, the fight over whether to spend more of the stimulus on highways versus mass transit may also come down to the interests of those making asphalt versus steel, according to this piece in the NY Times:

The industry, in response, is lobbying the Obama transition team for infrastructure projects that would require big amounts of steel. Mass transit systems are high on the list, and so is bridge repair..."If the president-elect really follows through, he'll fund a lot of mass transit projects," said Wilbur L. Ross Jr., the Wall Street deal maker who put together the steel conglomerate known as Arcelor Mittal USA. "All the big cities have these projects ready to go."

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I'm convinced that progressives own the future. Not because Obama won (although that was pretty nice), but because the intellectual energy in America today is young and on the Left.

To make this case (and in light of the timeless practice of end-of-the-year list-making), I've put together a list of 10 young (under 40) intellectuals who I believe to be shaping a progressive future that is forward-looking, effortlessly intersectional, technologically sophisticated and engaged in not just the world of ideas but the world as it is lived. In other words, they're of the left, they're brilliant and they're helping to get shit done.

These are the ten young progressives who make me hopeful for the future. (I've included a video of each in case you're meeting them for the first time).

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The biggest thing to happen to me this year was the birth of my first grandchild, a little girl named Ella. I know this kind of thing happens all the time and frankly I get bored with people who go all gushy about the birth of kids or grandkids.

I’m bringing Ella up not so much because she’s special -- of course she is -- but because she was born right in the middle of the worst economic downturn in my lifetime and probably yours, and maybe even hers. Ella came with a crash.

Like almost everyone else, I’ve lost a big chunk of my savings this year. And the house I bought here in Berkeley at the very top of the housing boom is probably worth a lot less than I paid for it. I’m not too worried about my job because I have tenure here at the University of California, although maybe I should worry because the state is technically bankrupt. Still, I'm one of the lucky ones.

Yet all of this seems somehow beside the point, relative to Ella.

Having kids or grandkids expands your focus and also your time horizon. You pay a bit less attention to what the Dow is likely to do over the next quarter and more to the underlying wealth of the nation. By that I don't mean just its gross domestic product but also its gross domestic decency, if there were such a measure: The quality of our public schools and of our atmosphere, the extent of our openness and generosity toward one another, our national promise of opportunity to all. You find yourself less interested in the gossip surrounding Bernie Madoff or Rod Blagojevich than in the larger questions they raise about private greed and public morality.

Alright, maybe I am going all gushy. The point is, it's the Ellas of the world we're fighting for. This Mini-Depression is causing a lot of pain, to be sure, but it will be over in a year or three. Yet what kind of economy will we have on the other side? Will we have a more just society?

Which brings me to the end of the year. I wish you not just a happy and prosperous new year. On that score, 2009 may be something of a bummer. I wish you and your kids and grandkids, and Ella, something more -- a decent, generous, and humane future.

Over at the TPM mothership, Josh has put up a fairly provocative posting asserting the key stumbling block to resolution between Israelis and Palestinians is the continued existence of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and not Hamas, which he claims is a mere "distraction" from that core question.

But this argument ignores what has, in the past, been the key route to reconciliation between the two sides - land for peace agreements. The major accords reached between Israel and its Arab neighbors (Camp David Accords with Egypt, the Oslo agreement with the PLO in 1993 and to a lesser extent, the Jordan-Israel peace agreement) were premised on the notion that Israel would trade land in return for recognition and a peace agreement. Settlements, as well as issues like Jerusalem, water, and right of return, were always treated as secondary questions to be resolved in future negotiations.

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I'm so happy to see that Sam Zell, the "grave dancer" who has already destroyed our local newspaper, the L.A. Times, has found fresh territory to plunder. Sam and a bunch of former Resolution Trust Company (R.T.C.) officials are working day and night to position themselves to take advantage of the Credit Crisis.

What is obvious to former R.T.C. officials is that, like the last go around, a great deal of money will be made by a select group of investors and business operators, particularly those with government contacts. The former government officials said in interviews that much of what is motivating them is a desire to help the nation recover from this latest stumble. But they acknowledge they intend to be among the winners who emerge.

"Fortunes will be made here, no doubt about it," said Gary J. Silversmith, one of more than a dozen former R.T.C. officials interviewed who now are involved in enterprises seeking to profit from bank bailouts.

Look, I understand this is the nature of capitalism, but somehow I envisioned that after the taxpayers bailed out the capitalists, it would be the U.S. Treasury that benefited from the resale of these distressed assets, not the Robber Barons.

Wasn't that the premise of TARP?

Reports in the Israeli papers today note that the coming winter rain and winds may add to the deadly mess in Gaza and Southern Israel. The incoming Obama Administration will have a lot to content with when they arrive none too soon in January, but if this war shows anything, it shows that the Israel-Palestinian crisis needs their attention immediately. A high-powered envoy, propped up by public support from President Obama and his Secretary of State needs to be appointed, bring together the U.S., Europe, Russia and the moderate Arab states and knock some heads together for a settlement. It will be none too easy.

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Early last century, the press corps attacked Bill Haywood, leader of the leftwing "Wobblies" labor union, for smoking expensive cigars. Mocking their demand for hairshirt ascetiscm, Haywood declared, "Nothing's too good for the working class." Even as the press worships luxury and excess by the titans of industry, the smallest luxuries by labor leaders or even their members are treated as proof of the moral degeneracy of unions.

Such is the most recent attack on the United Auto Workers, the rightwing moral condemnation of their education and retreat center at Black Lake, Michigan. The horror is apparently that the UAW would own a $33 million asset; of course, this asset is 1000 acres with 27 miles of shoreline. Oh yeah, and this education center was used by 10,000 visitors last year-- as opposed to many a $33 million private home owned by a "master of the universe" living in and around New York and other financial capitals. Oh yeah, and to make the UAW crime complete, there is actually a golf course on those 1000 acres; working class folks actually have the audacity to enjoy a round of golf occasionally.

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The Redskins were predicted to end at 8 and 8 and so they did. Ironically, the defense, stalwart most of the season, produced the losing sequence, appearing out of position and out of energy as the Niners drove to an easy field goal to win the game at the buzzer.

Let's document the atrocities:

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Virtually the whole economics profession somehow managed to overlook the largest housing bubble in the history of the world. Remarkably, few, if any, economists were fired or even demoted for their extraordinary incompetence. Unlike dishwashers and factory workers, economists are not held accountable for their performance.

This is disturbing not only for its moral implications, but more importantly because the lack of accountability means that economists have no incentive to ever start thinking for themselves rather than just repeating the conventional wisdom in the profession. After saying silly things about the housing market for much of the last decade, the same crew is now saying equally silly things about the value of the dollar and the budget deficit.

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In many ways, it is remarkable how much more pro-labor the Obama administration is compared to the Clinton administration, at least in its rhetoric. Obama himself has often talked about the importance of the right to organize for unions, something Clinton almost never did.

Compare the incoming cabinet members. Back in 1993, the Clinton cabinet's support for unions was at best lukewarm:

"The jury is still out on whether the traditional union is necessary for the new workplace," Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich said in an interview.

"Unions are O.K. where they are," said Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown. "And where they are not, it is not clear yet what sort of organization should represent workers."

And then you have Obama's nominees.

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