iConjecture

The past weeks and months have been rife with speculation regarding Apple’s “Next Big Thing.” The rumor truly dominating Internet forums has been that of the iPhone. The iPhone was/is supposed to be a cellphone/iPod with all of the stylishness and finesse that you would expect from an Apple product. There was a lot of excitement a few weeks ago when some insiders said that the iPhone was to be launched imminently, and that it will diverge significantly from our expectations. The iPhone was released, and it was a huge surprise. Turns out that Apple never even had the rights to the name iPhone; the copyright holder was Linksys, and they indeed released their iPhone, though it had nothing to do with the much hyped Apple product.
Tomorrow will see the keynote speech at Apple’s MacWorldExpo to be delivered by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. This speech is when the new cutting edge products are revealed and when so-called “early adopters” begin thinking about how much refinancing their house will cost them in interest this year. Here is a dude who thinks that he knows exactly what’s going down tomorrow. I’d be surprised if even half of his predictions come to fruition.

Nuclear Naivety

My buddy Josh Frankel has decided not to subscribe to the usual Israeli fatalism (when your number’s up, your number’s up) with regard to the Iranian nuclear conflict. No worries, says Josh. This is just going to be a repeat of the Cold War, with both sides rational enough not to mount an attack, as each party knows that a nuclear attack invites the annihilation of both.
Let’s highlight two of Josh’s assumptions, and then illustrate why his neat theorem falls apart:
1. Josh assumes that Israel’s military policy is rooted in reason.
2. Josh assumes that Iran’s military policy is rooted in reason.

As for Israel, look at the debacle that was the second Lebanon War. Look at how tens of thousands of cluster bombs did not detonate, how destruction was sown with no palpable results, how there is not one iota of intelligence on the state or whereabouts of the kidnapped soldiers. Look at how there was never a formal declaration of war, at the state of the bomb shelters in the North, at the Chief of Staff’s attitude that infantry are expendable cannon fodder. What makes you think that there is anything rational about Israel’s military and diplomatic policy?
As for Iran, I’ll just paraphrase what Benjamin Netanyahu told the world press throughout the Lebanon War. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad subscribes to a radical, eschatological brand of Islam which yearns for the Mahdi Apocalypse. What is scary about Ahmadinejad’s nuclear threats is squaring them with his religious beliefs: for the Mahdi to arrive, 2/3 of the world’s population is meant to die as either direct or indirect casualties of war. It won’t matter if Israel retaliates; the ball will have already been set in motion for worldwide nuclear war, thereby bringing this crazed despot’s idea of salvation closer to fruition.

Josh, I think you’re the one who needs the reality check.