The Informationist, a blog written by Bruce Abramson

Obama Smarts vs. American Common Sense

Is Obama Smart?  It’s a question that more and more people are asking.  His devoted fans like to note that he made it through Columbia and Harvard—supposedly a stark contrast to Rick Perry’s less-than-stellar transcript from Texas A&M, though Obama’s refusal to release his own transcripts does blunt the comparison.

The Dead Villain Test: Separating Cause From Effect In The Islamic World

Cross-posted at breitbart.com's BigPeace

Osama bin Laden is dead, and the world is a better place for it.  Moammar Qaddafi may soon follow.  His departure, too, will leave the world a better place.  If all goes well, 2011 will also witness the demise of Bashar, heir to the Asad dynasty.  No one with a shred of decency will shed a tear.  The world will just keep getting better, one dead villain at a time.

These three men have brought untold misery, pain, suffering, and death to tens of millions of people—the overwhelming majority of them Muslims, though their Western victims number comfortably in the thousands.  With their dispatch, the Islamic world will exact its greatest measure of justice since (at least) the Iraqi execution of Saddam Hussein nearly five years ago.

What do Tech Investors Want?

Cross-posted at breitbart.com's BigGovernment

Last week, Google announced its plans to acquire Motorola Mobility, effecting a vertical integration from the Android operating system into hardware.  Investors responded by shaving roughly 13% off Google’s value—roughly twice as much as the NASDAQ lost and three times as much as the Dow.

A few days later, HP announced its plans to shed its PC division and acquire a software company.  The combined effect will be a shift from hardware—long HP’s mainstay—towards software.  Investors responded by knocking close to 20% from its value in a single day.

Google and Motorola: Concentrating Attention on Concentrated Power

Cross-posted with breitbart.com's BigGovernment

Google is one of the worlds most intriguing companies.  From its humble beginnings as a search engine company, Google has leveraged its mastery of the elusive formula for monetizing web traffic into a force capable of tangling with China—making it considerably stronger than our own State Department by some measures.  Its recent announcement that it plans to acquire Motorola Mobile makes it heir to a grand tradition of American manufacturing—not to mention possessor of a valuable trove of intellectual property, and a sudden direct competitor to stylish hardware king, Apple.

Along the way, Google has managed to wander into numerous areas of public policy, including privacy, data security, and telecommunications regulation.  It has attracted antitrust scrutiny, patent challenges, and copyright suits—along with the standard collection of business litigation.  It has become a significant contributor to election campaigns and an active bidder for government IT contracts.  Above all, Google has riveted the attention of both devoted fans and committed opponents.

What does it all mean?  How can we make sense of such a company?  And how can the answers to these questions inform contemporary political debate?

Where Do The U.S., EU, And UN Encourage Restrictive Housing Covenants?

Cross-posted at breitbart.com's BigPeace

Quick.  Look at a map of the world and put an “X” through all the places that should be off-limits to Black residents.  Great.  Now put an “X” through all the places from which we should ban Muslims.  Then, just for good measure, “X” out all the places from which we should prohibit Chinese, Latinos, and gays.  Now look up.

Got any “Xs” on your map?  I hope not, because the exercise is hugely offensive.  Only a hard-core racist or homophobe would base housing restrictions on ethnic origin, religious affiliation, or sexual orientation.  The elimination of racial restrictions in housing was among the first, and most important, victories of the civil rights movement in the U.S., and few today would defend apartheid.  In fact, we have come so far from the days that racial covenants were standard clauses in real estate contracts that the mere suggestion of such an exercise should generate widespread revulsion.

But, let’s try one more, just for laughs.  Look back down at your map and put an “X” through all the places that should be off-limits to Jewish residents.  Got any “Xs” on your map now?

The Policy-Driven Gold Rush

Cross-posted with breitbart.com's BigGovernment

Gold has a long history of being many things to many people.  To some, it is a shiny bauble, to others a commodity, and to still others a currency.  To financial economists, gold is the traditional hedge against inflation.  This month, however, it appears to have assumed a new role: The gold market is now the mirror image of the broad equity markets. And while the tight inverse correlation in day-to-day trading is unlikely to persist for long, this general relationship may be around for quite some time.  Why?  Because headlines notwithstanding, the rapid rise in gold prices is not a short-term speculative bubble, but rather a necessary consequence of our previous bubbles and an appropriate response to the shakiness of sovereign debt.

A Bit-Less-than-Full Faith and Credit

Cross-posted with breitbart.com's BigGovernment

“The full faith and credit of the United States Government.” That’s what backs up our currency—and that’s all that backs up our currency. Throughout most of history, governments had to back their currency with something tangible, typically a fixed quantity of gold. In fact, most coins actually contained the requisite quantity of gold because many of the folks who used those coins in commerce didn’t particularly trust the King whose likeness they bore. It’s good to be king and all, but if you wanted to add a ducat’s worth of wheat to the royal granary, you had to put up an actual gold ducat.

Nation Building and Negativity

Cross-posted at breitbart.com's BigPeace

Salman Taseer, the Punjabi governor known for his opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, was assassinated earlier th is year.  While his murderer has become something of a hero at home, the West lamented the death of this prominent Islamic moderate.  Yet in a WSJ column titled “Why My Father Hated India,” Taseer’s son Aatish explained that: “[t]o understand the Pakistani obsession with India…it is necessary to understand the rejection of India, its culture and past, that lies at the heart of the idea of Pakistan.”  Both the headline and that sentence are jarring.  How could this paragon of Islamic tolerance still seethe with such rejection and hatred?

The answer resonates far beyond Pakistan.  Negativity and rejection form the heart of national identity throughout the Islamic world.  Pakistan was born as the anti-India.  Most Arab states arose as expressions of anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and/or anti-Westernism, reaching an extreme with a Palestinian nation born of a “Nakba,” or catastrophe.  The Arab spring—rejecting status quo but lacking positive vision for the future—cannot succeed because negativity is no basis for nationhood.

Obama Is Losing Turkey

Cross-posted at breitbart.com's BigPeace

Battle lines are being drawn across the Middle East.

On one side sit the forces of stability, with Saudi Arabia at the helm. On the other sit the forces of revolution, with Iran prominent in leadership. The alliances they lead are well known: the Gulf Sheikhdoms and Jordan align with the Saudis; Syria, Hamas, and Hizbollah with Iran. While both sides are equally capable of espousing Islamism and of violating the most basic human rights, the difference between them is very real. The Saudi-led bloc is quite content with the existing global order and the petrodollars that it bestows. The Iranian-led bloc is committed to toppling that order.

After The Norway Massacre: The Nazis Are Not In Europe, They Are In The Middle East

Cross posted at breitbart.com's BigPeace

Anders Breivik provides a stark reminder of a not-too-distant past. The dream of a Europe purged of swarthy foreign elements may be history, but it is hardly ancient history. Far too many people alive today still bear the marks of that dream tattooed on their arms. Those of us committed to ensuring that no one will ever again have to live through what they experienced have embraced the simple rallying cry of “Never Again!”