Bombing Iran! Yesterday morning, for the first time to my knowledge, the New York Times — which as everyone knows is, alas, America's most influential newspaper — has agreed to run an article explicitly calling for the American bombing of Iran's nuclear program (and the “sooner the better” it says). The article, by Alan J. Kuperman, director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the University of Texas, is dry and academic and long (it runs to two pages online) and there are much better arguments to be made for such a move, but it is significant nonetheless as it might finally open up liberal public opinion in America to this possibility. The last paragraph of the article reads: Negotiation to prevent nuclear proliferation is always preferable to military action. But in the face of failed diplomacy, eschewing force is tantamount to appeasement. We have reached the point where airstrikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. Postponing military action merely provides Iran a window to expand, disperse and harden its nuclear facilities against attack. The sooner the United States takes action, the better. (On a previous occasion when I advocated the possibility of such an airstrike, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named me the “world's worst person,” although Olbermann misunderstood and misrepresented my argument.) For a more substantive case on why military action to prevent Iran going nuclear is (at least in my opinion) more preferable by far than allowing Iran to go nuclear, please see: “Obama, and the world, in 2012, after he fails to deal with Iran”. —network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/default.aspx Apple event Apple has something big up its sleeve for next month. The company has rented a stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for several days in late January, according to people familiar with the plans. Apple is expected to use the venue to make a major product announcement on Tuesday. Both YBCA and Apple declined to comment. The company most recently used the YBCA stage in September, when chief executive Steve Jobs made his first public appearance after a medical leave and showed off new iPods. Speculation that Apple is preparing to introduce a new tablet style computer has been building all year, and other reports now suggest the tablet will make its debut in January. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster today speculated that an event was imminent. “We believe there is a 75 percent likelihood that Apple will have an event in January and a 50 percent chance that it will be held to launch the Apple Tablet,” he wrote in a new research note. “If Apple announced the Tablet in January, it would likely ship later in the March quarter.” It is still unclear exactly what an Apple tablet would include, but most observers expect a sort of large-scale iPhone that has additional features for viewing video and reading books and magazines. Yesterday we reported that Apple is working to solidify a new round of content deals with TV studios.
