Snapshot: 1st of December 2008
December 1st 2008
I decided to take snapshots of history, so that future historians have at least one credible source for information about their past 
Here goes:
Today is December 1, 2008.
In America, we are nearing the very end of President Bush’s second term in office, and are awaiting the first term of president-elect Barack Obama. I think it would be a fair assumption for me to make if I said many American citizens are pretty frustrated at the state of their country, although many also seem to not care all that much.
We just finished thanksgiving weekend, over which a disastrous terrorist attack took place in Mumbai, India, killing over 200 people, a portion of which were specifically targeted Jews. How surprising. I think this illustrates the lack of regard for human life that exists in our otherwise modern world, as well as the inability for the innocent to be truly protected against acts of terrorism. I think America and other world superpowers may be regretting selling tons of arms to third-world countries for the past 100 years. Whoops.
The current situation in America is somewhat bleak. We have spent well over a trillion dollars fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - Afghanistan in hope of destroying the Taliban infrastructure, and Iraq to supposedly “free the Iraqis” ? If you read reports of what is going on in Afghanistan, the Taliban seem to be doing just fine 7 years later, and Iraq is experiencing an insane civil war, regular suicide and homicide bombings, and an unbelievable loss of innocent life. Nicely done, America. That region is usually pretty stable anyway.
On the flip side, America’s mortgage & credit industries have fallen to pieces. Banks are foreclosing left & right, the auto industry is on the verge of collapse, and all other industries seem to have begun to feel the heat. The American government pledged to fuse $700 billion into the economy, which seems to have done very little. They offered several individual companies their own bailout packages, and president-elect Barack Obama has been speaking of another $800 billion package. Looks like we may run out of trillion dollar bills at some point.
Somali pirates have been hijacking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods on ships in the sea, taking dozens hostage.
Russia and America are still bickering under the radar over last summer’s war in Georgia, and over the US-Polish deal to assemble a missile defense system in Poland.
Hamas and Israel have been in theoretic ceasefire since June, but that seems to have begun unraveling a few weeks ago, when Israel destroyed an underground tunnel dug by Hamas from the Gaza Strip into Israel, which would be used for kidnapping Israeli soldiers (since that form of terrorism seems to have quite a payoff in recent months). This caused a new round of rockets into Israel from Gaza, and the typical Hamas behavior we’ve all been missing. Shame on you Israel, how dare you protect your citizens!
This is amidst very rough political times in Israel. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was set to step down February 10th, after he officially resigned in September over charges of corruption; though, he may step down 2 months early after being indicted. So basically, Israel has little-to-no leadership at what seems a pivotal time - namely, a US administration rotation.
Syria has had its troops mobilized and practically surrounding all of Lebanon for the past few weeks. The US sent a message to Syria saying it would militarily intervene if Syria were to invade Lebanon. It’s great to see that practically nothing has changed since 1980, except for the grade of weaponry. I’m sure that’s safe.
Iran has been publicly toting how well it’s doing with its uranium enrichment program, as well as its basic desire to “wipe Israel off the map.” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is surely enjoying all of the press and airtime he has been receiving, which US news channels have been happy to provide. The world has attempted to impose economic sanctions against Iran, so far many have been opposed by Russia, and the others haven’t seem to stem the tide. Iran is heading straight for a nuclear weapon. It’s amazing to me how little this bothers everyone. In 1932, America surely cared when Germany was working to develop nuclear weaponry, but now, that’s an old fad - much of the world believes it is only fair that Iran have a nuke to protect itself. When Iran finally completes its nuke, we will officially be living in a new world - one where Islam possesses the ability to ignite the destruction of mankind. That should be interesting, to say the least.
Internal to America, everyone greatly enjoyed their much needed 4-day thanksgiving weekend. The excitement over sales on DVD players was so high, a group of shoppers broke the door to a store down, trampled, and killed a store employee in a race for great deals. DVD player discounts are now officially worth more than human life. Nice! Progress! Although, maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps they were going for Blu-Ray Disc players, in which case I’d understand.
On a personal note, I am moving to Israel in 28 days. Somehow, this has slipped all news coverage, which I still don’t quite get. Oh well.