Hey Middle East...Chill Out

I'm assuming that if you are reading today's post, then you were probably able to stomach my first couple of entries. If you've made it this far, I'm flattered...and that even goes for those folks who mistook my "Diary of the Downsized" for a blog with a similar name receiving quite a bit of notoriety of late, "Diary of Downsized Dawn," which I believe is a tell all account of one midget's struggle to achieve the ultimate goal in life...winning an AVN award for best actress in the little people category. I've seen her work, she's quite talented - her acting prowess clearly shines above the rest of her film's cast, the seven dwarfs included. Oh, and be sure not to confuse midgets with dwarfs...there is a difference and this site (http://midgetmanifesto.50megs.com/) will not only clear up any confusion you have between the two (in simplest terms, a midget is a dwarf, though dwarf may not be a midget) but also details how little people could very well be the solution for our ongoing energy crisis. (P.S. I don't think I can emphasize enough how much you need to click on the link above. It's disturbing, yet pure comedy...it's right up my alley, I guess you would say.)

Ok, moving on to the real purpose of this post...the Middle East

For quite some time now, perhaps 6 or 7 years (and there are probably a few of you out there that can verify this) I've been a leading proponent of a radical, yet truly simple solution to the clearly senseless ethnic, religious, and civil strife in the Middle East. In order to provide a solution to any problem, one must first understand the problem itself - while this type of logic shouldn't strike anyone as being a revelation it is, I would argue, often an infinitely more challenging endeavor than devising the solution.

With this in mind...here's my abridged, top down analysis as we wall street-types (employed or not) like to call it:

1. What is the Problem? seemingly unending conflict in the Middle East, or put another words, a WWE (or WWF to keep old school) royal rumble match with Israel essentially taking on everyone else, but with the U.S. standing ringside, poised to strike anyone who wanders to close to the ropes with a folding steel chair. Let's be clear though...the Middle East and the region of Palestine/Isreal have been at the center of brutal wars that go back well before the formation of Israel in 1948. This is the cradle of civilization folks...it's where we first crawled out of the Nile, walked on two feet, created art and culture and belief systems and not too long after that it's where mankind created war (and I do not mean war or killing in a Darwinian sense where it's survival of the fittest). War therefore is, and perhaps this is going to come out as being extremely offensive to some, a large part of the region's history and its inhabitants. There are countless examples of this - from the Akkadians in the 24th century B.C. to Alexander the Great to the Holy Crusades to modern times which has witnessed the Syrian and Jordanian conflict, Iran vs. Iraq, Iraq vs. Kuwait and of course, Israel vs. just about everyone.

2. Solution: Bottom-line here is, these are angry people who really don't like each other. And don't be fooled...if Israel didn't exist, the area would still be absolutely war crazy. History has shown us this. So elimination of Israel is not the right answer. What you need to be asking yourself is why are these people so angry...and how do you fix that? Well, let me put this in the proper context and use myself as an example to which you can perhaps relate. The Middle East is hot, real HOT. To make matters worse it's a desert so there is a lot of sand, making it essentially a very large beach, with very hot sand, yet no water. I don't know about you, but I don't do well in 100 degree weather, nor do I enjoy finding sand stuck to random parts of my body and furniture...in fact, these things make me quite ornery. So there's the whole heat factor, which of course leads to the sweating factor (not good in my book) and of course that ultimately leads to the dreaded chaffing factor...and chaffing really gets me upset. We are in fact, as I write, in the very beginnings of our summer and I've already found myself so completely distraught by the idea of going outside and having to deal with such oppressive weather, that I avoid the outside at nearly all costs. And I don't even have to contend with sand storms, which I can only imagine as being thoroughly unappealing. So....my solution is staying inside, but the real key is, staying inside + air conditioning. And I think it's the latter that is our solution for peace (or at least cooler heads) in the Middle East. Get these people A.C. and get it to them ASAP. You can't make rational decisions in the midst of such tortuous environmental conditions.



Send the ACs to the entire region; to all people...leaders of terrorist cells plotting their next waves of mayhem might be less angry if they had a cool breeze of a Goldstar A/C
wisping across their brow...or better yet, perhaps soldiers, jihadists and potential suicide bombers may think twice about leaving their house if it were cooled to nice 65 degrees...and if there is no one outside, there is no one to fight the war.


3. Does the Solution Make Economic Sense: Yes...and let me show you why...the above model A/C runs for $189.95 and puts out 10,000 BTUs, which easily accommodates a cooling area of 5-600 sq feet. That's the size of a typical NY studio/1BR so there's no doubt that should work in a typical mid-eastern home. Now what about cost? Well...by my calculations...if you buy one Goldstar A/C (like above) for every person in the Middle East (every person mind you, not just every household) it would cost in the neighborhood of $394 bln (excluding shipping and handling)...and guess what folks...the Iraq war has cost, by some estimates, $530+ bln to date

There ya have it...air tight logic for my thesis...

MJB