Sometimes I feel like I’ve been tied to the whipping post, and oh Lord I feel like I’m dying.

Here’s another daft NY Times reporter who thinks that the entire history of the world began on the day she graduated J-school.

Countering criticism of another Jewish building project planned for Sheik Jarrah, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said recently that Jerusalem residents had the right to live anywhere in the city and that Israel’s sovereignty over the capital “cannot be challenged.”

Separately, in Tel Aviv, the police continued hunting for a gunman who fled a gay community center after killing 2 Israelis and wounding at least 10 others on Saturday night. The shock over the attack was felt far beyond the gay community, jolting a society that largely values tolerance and has hardly been exposed to the specter of hate crimes.

via Israel Evicts Palestinians From Homes – NYTimes.com.

Israel as having hardly been exposed to hate crimes? Does she honestly expect us to swallow that whopper without choking on our tongues? Are we honestly supposed to come away from this stink nugget of an article believing that Jews in Tel Aviv are unfamiliar with the notion of a hate crime?

Either Isabel Kershner doesn’t know the first thing about Israel or she doesn’t know what a hate crime is. Likely a heavy dollop of both. Here’s a hate crime for you, Isabel–the Holocaust. Got your attention yet? No? Well here’s a list of the most deadliest hate crimes perpetrated against the Jewish citizens of Israel since 2000 alone:

Oct. 4, 2003

29-year-old female suicide bomber from Jenin explodes in a Haifa restaurant, co-owned by Israeli Arabs, two days before Yom Kippur. 19 murdered, including several children. A newborn and 4 Israeli-Arabs were among those killed. 60 injured.

Sept. 9, 2003
Twin homocide bomb attacks take place near the Zerifin Military Base and at a Jerusalem cafe. 15 murdered. Among the dead in the cafe attack were Dr. David Applebaum, head of the emergency room of a Jerusalem hospital, and his daughter Nava, a bride to be married the next day.

Aug. 19, 2003 – The attack takes place in the midst of a “cease-fire” declared by Palestinian terror groups and on the eve of a planned transfer of several West Bank cities to Palestinian Authority control. A Palestinian suicide bomber, dressed as an Orthodox Jew, strikes on a Jerusalem bus. 23 murdered, including several children. More than 100 are injured.

June 11, 2003 – The attack comes a week after the “road map” peace process is launched at a summit in Aqaba, Jordan, with the leaders of Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the United States.
A Palestinian suicide bomber, dressed as an Orthodox Jew, blows himself up on a bus. 17 murdered.

March 5, 2003
A Palestinian suicide bomber strikes on a bus en route to Haifa University. 17 murdered, most of them teenagers. 53 injured.

Jan. 5, 2003
Two Palestinian suicide bombers strike in crowded Tel Aviv shopping district. 23 murdered, including 8 foreign nationals. More than 120 injured.

Nov. 21, 2002
A Palestinian suicide bomber detonates on a commuter bus during morning rush hour in Jerusalem. 11 murdered, many of them schoolchildren. More than 50 injured.

Oct. 22, 2002
An explosives-laden sport utility vehicle driven by a Palestinian suicide bomber rammed into a bus near Hadera in northern Israel. 14 murdered. More than 45 injured.

July 31, 2002
A Palestinian terrorist plants and detonates a bomb in a backpack in a Hebrew University cafeteria. 9 murdered, including 5 Americans. More than 80 injured.

June 18-19, 2002
A Palestinian suicide bomber strikes on a rush-hour bus in Jerusalem, carrying many children on their way to school.
19 murdered. 74 injured – 6 seriously. A Palestinian suicide bomber strikes at a hitchhiking post in Jerusalem’s French Hill.
7 murdered. 50 injured – 3 critically.

June 5, 2002
A car packed with a large quantity of explosives struck a bus traveling from Tel-Aviv to Tiberias. 17 murdered. 38 injured.

May 8, 2002
A Palestinian suicide bomber strikes at a crowded billiard hall in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon le-Zion. 15 murdered. 55 injured.

March 31, 2002
A Palestinian suicide bomber strikes a restaurant in Haifa frequented by both Arabs and Jews. The bombing follows suicide attacks on each of the previous two days, one at a Jerusalem supermarket and one at a café in Tel Aviv. 15 murdered. Over 40 injured.

March 27, 2002
A Palestinian suicide bomber (Hamas) strikes at Netanya’s Park hotel during a Passover seder. 29 murdered, mostly senior citizens. 140 injured – 20 seriously.

March 9, 2002
Palestinian terrorists bomb Jerusalem’s popular Moment Café, around the corner from the prime minister’s residence. 11 murdered.

March 2-3, 2002
Attacks occur during talk of a Saudi Arabian peace initiative.
A suicide bomber blows himself up in a crowd of mothers and children walking home from synagogue after the Sabbath in an ultra-orthodox Jerusalem neighbourhood. 9 murdered, including 6 children, and an entire family is wiped out. A Palestinian sniper shoots an Israeli policeman riding on a motorcycle. 1 murdered. A Palestinian sniper attacks at a West Bank checkpoint. 10 murdered, including 7 soldiers. Palestinian attack in Gaza. 1 murdered. 4 injured.

Dec. 2, 2001
Palestinian terrorists attack three times in 24 hours – at a pedestrian mall in downtown Jerusalem, in a car in downtown Jerusalem and on a Haifa bus. 25 murdered. Over 200 injured.

Oct. 17, 2001
Palestinian gunmen assassinate Israel’s tourism minister, Rehavam Ze’evi, in a Jerusalem hotel.

Aug. 9, 2001
A Palestinian suicide bomber attacks the Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem at lunchtime. 15 murdered – including several children and nearly an entire family. 130 injured.

June 1, 2001
The attack comes days after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced a unilateral Israeli cease-fire. A Palestinian suicide bomber attacks a Tel Aviv beachside disco filled with teenaged immigrants from the former Soviet Union. 21 murdered. More than 100 injured.

May 9, 2001
Ya’acov (Kobi) Mandell (14) and Yossi Ish-Ran (14) were stoned to death by Palestinians while hiking near their home of Tekoa, south of Jerusalem.

Feb. 14, 2001
A Palestinian bus driver mows down a group of Israelis at a bus stop near Tel Aviv. 8 murdered.

October 12, 2000
Two Israeli reservists, Yesef Avrahami and Vadim Novesche, took a wrong turn on the highway and were stopped by Arafat’s Palestinian Authority policemen. A Palestinian policeman and other Palestinians later lynched and murdered the two Israelis.

Murdered for being Jewish. How do you spell “hate crime” again, Isabel?

Someone PLEASE wire Ms. Kershner with the news–Jews have been the victims of hate crimes for THOUSANDS of years, and for the past 60, as Israelis. If any other non-Jewish group had to endure what the Jews have been forced to endure, the world would have tilted on its axis and spun helplessly into space. For the “crime” of being Jewish in the middle east and having the the audacity to sustain a democracy in the hell of Islamic radicalism, Israelis have been made to suffer ridiculous and inhuman torments for decades.

From the “if we don’t want it, what are our elected officials doing pushing for it” file, comes this latest Rasmussen report:

The health care reform legislation working its way through Congress has lost support over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% of U.S. voters are at least somewhat in favor of the reform effort while 53% are at least somewhat opposed.

Today’s 44% level of support is down from 46% two weeks ago, and 50% in late June.

Opposition has grown from 45% in late June to 49% two weeks ago and 53% today.

As in earlier surveys, those with strong opinions are more likely to oppose the plan rather than support it. The current numbers: 24% strongly favor and 37% strongly oppose.

[ . . . ]

There is a huge partisan divide on the health care plan. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Democrats favor it. However, the plan is opposed by 80% of Republicans and 60% of those not affiliated with either major party.

via Rasmussen Reports™: The Most Comprehensive Public Opinion Data Anywhere.

It’s what the Tea Party movement is actually about, isn’t it? Taxation without representation. Sure, those are our elected officials inhabiting Washington, but are they representing our wishes? Are they doing what the majority of the population wants them to do on issues such as health care? Well, the answer is surely ‘no’ if they succeed in cramming this rotten apple of a health care ‘fix’ down our throats. And if our officials are no longer representing us?

Who are they representing?

Our officials MUST be sent the message that they serve in Washington at OUR sufferance. They are not elected to go be ‘avant gard’  and to enact the pipe dream fantasies of their socialist forbears.  Inasmuch as they’re doing that, they’re doing so without the approval of the people, and without that approval, they should be bounced when their terms are up.

Will we do it? Will we hold these people accountable? Not if the press has any say about it (and they most certainly do). They know that what these officials are doing is counter to the wishes of a large majority of the country, so they won’t DARE let you know about it in their daily newspapers and television shows. If you knew, you’d of course bounce them, and the pipe dreams will die….which is a bad thing when you’re a 14 year old trapped in the body of an adult news professional. Don’t you know that the world stopped when they turned 14 and we owe it to them to give birth to their adolescent fantasies?

Turn on, tune in, drop out. That’s the advice I’m giving you (in the spirit of the counterculture still unfortunately so relevant to many of our press and elected officials). Turn in to the new wave of citizens taking back their government. Tune in to the message being broadcast load and clear beneath the frothy veneer of “acceptable” political commentary at the NYT, the WaPO and MSNBC. Drop out from the zombie rank and file.

Cancel your subscriptions.

The NY Times doing its’ usual cheerleading:

WASHINGTON — Badly outnumbered and months behind in the debate on energy and climate change, House Republicans plan to introduce an energy bill on Wednesday as an alternative to the Democratic plan barreling toward a House vote this month.

How’s that for a lede? The Republicans have a plan, but they’re SO behind the times that nobody should really take them seriously.

The Republican proposal, drafted by a group led by Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, leans heavily on nuclear power, setting a goal of building 100 reactors over the next 20 years. No new nuclear plants have been ordered in the United States since 1978 because of the high cost of construction and uncertainty about regulatory approval.

Silly Republicans…they don’t realize that we don’t DO nuclear here in the US. Didn’t they hear? They’re expensive and the government won’t allow them anyway! Expensive…maybe. But relative to the Obama plan of cap and trade? Not so much. Obama is talking freely about his plan bankrupting the coal industry. Nuclear energy is clean and building and maintaining plants will create thousands of jobs. No go. Didn’t you see China Syndrome? Silkwood? There’s “uncertainty” about regulatory approval of new plants because the government passed these regulations in the 1970’s during the hysteria evidenced by these 2 movies. More people are at risk of dying by cigarettes than were ever at risk of being contaminated by a “meltdown” at a nuclear power plant. Those sure were good movies, though.

The bill also provides incentives for increased oil and gas production on public and private lands and offshore. It would also authorize oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, a focus of 30 years of controversy in Congress.

The Republican measure does not include any mandatory cap on emissions of heat-trapping gases, relying instead on nuclear energy, natural gas and renewable fuels like wind, solar and biomass power to reduce production of the gases, which have been linked to global warming.

No cap and trade? Will it must be half-cocked then. Said the buggy driver to the car dealer, “nice vehicle, but where do you put the horse?”. Cap and trade is the problem. That’s the very motivating factor behind the Republican proposal. The logjam in Congress these past 30 years prohibiting the exploration and recovery of our own natural resources has been caused almost completely by the Democrats being beholden to their environmental lobbyists and NOT to the American people.

“This is an alternative that takes us in the direction of energy independence and a clean environment without the national energy tax being offered by the Democrats,” Mr. Pence said.

Amen.

Douthat, that is. Ross Douthat.

Word is that he’s the new Conservative voice at the NY Times.

I’m not all that familiar with him, though I have read clips of him here and there in other blogs.

Here’s his current gig, which you may want to check out. Not sure it’ll make me buy the NY Times, but who knows.

Enjoy.

Not that its anything we think the New York Times Company should do, but we thought it was worth pointing out that it costs the Times about twice as much money to print and deliver the newspaper over a year as it would cost to send each of its subscribers a brand new Amazon Kindle instead.

via Nicholas Carlson, Silicone Valley Insider.

2 things:

1. It’s expensive to print the news every day on paper.

2. The NY Times has only 830,000 subscribers of 2+ years.

If there is a “paper of record” and nobody is around to read it, does it still make an impact?

So now we have an N.R.A. handmaiden in Bobby Kennedy’s old seat? Kirsten Gillibrand, a k a Tracy Flick, accepting the honor with her Republican pal Al D’Amato beside her on stage? Gross.

via Maureen Dowd – Which Governor Is Wackier? – NYTimes.com.

Why does Dowd hate Gillibrand?

Then the Democrats would have had another Kennedy in the Senate representing New York — Bobby’s niece and a smart, policy-oriented, civic-minded woman to whom the president feels deeply indebted in an era when every state has its hand out.

Instead they have Gillibrand, who voted against the Wall Street — as in New York — bailout bill. And who introduced a bill to balance the federal budget annually, which suggests she would oppose the $825 billion in deficit spending that President Obama proposes to rescue the country, not least New York.

[ . . . ]

The 42-year-old Gillibrand, who has been in the House for only two years, is known as opportunistic and sharp- elbowed. Tracy Flick is her nickname among colleagues in the New York delegation, many of whom were M.I.A. at her Albany announcement.

Fellow Democrats were warning Harry Reid on Friday that he was going to have his hands full with the new senator because she’s “a pain.”

Well what do you think of that? Gillibrand wants to balance the budget? She opposes handouts to Wall Street? She might try to block the stimulus? What sort of people find these acts to be offensive, I’d like to know.

Any pain to Harry Reid is good news for me any day.

Barack Obama’s inauguration set to be the most expensive in US history | World news | guardian.co.uk.

President Barack Obama’s inauguration next week is set to be the most expensive ever, predicted to reach over $150m (£102m). This dwarfs the $42.3m spent on George Bush’s inauguration in 2005 and the $33m spent on Bill Clinton’s in 1993.

Part of the spending includes emergency funding announced by the White House on Tuesday to help with the soaring costs. Most of this new federal funding will be to deal with the huge influx of people, estimated 1.5 million to 2 million.

A White House statement said that President Bush “declared an emergency exists in the District of Columbia”.

If there is snow, the costs will grow higher. The long-term forecast suggests there is a chance of snow on Sunday and again on the day of inauguration, on Tuesday.

Carole Florman, spokeswoman for the joint congressional committee on inaugural ceremonies, told the New York Daily News, which estimated the cost at $160m: “We’re always very budget conscious. But we’re sending a message to the entire world about our peaceful transition of power, and you don’t want it to look like a schlock affair. It needs to be appropriate to the magnitude of events that it is.”

First, someone from a congressional committee claiming that she’s always very budget conscious? Is that a sick joke? Doesn’t she read the papers?

Second, $150,000,000 for a party. Man, that’s some serious bread, isn’t it? Bush’s bash in 2004 was at $48.3 (in 2008 dollars) and Clinton’s in 1993 was at $48.8 (in 2008 dollars). What’s this bozo doing spending $150,000,000? Especially now. Doesn’t he know that there’s a recession going on? Personal sacrifice and all?

Third, where’s the press on this? Check this out from the BBC in 2005:

But with the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean and the ongoing war in Iraq, some think the expensive inaugural is an inappropriate, ostentatious display.

Precedent suggests that inaugural festivities should be muted – if not cancelled – in wartime,” New York Democrat Representative Anthony Weiner said in a letter to President Bush.

He noted the money could be used to buy 690 Humvees and pay for a $290 bonus for each soldier serving in Iraq.

What about this from the NY Times:

Ordinary citizens might have hoped that the overriding issue in Washington – the perilous Iraq war, with its drain on the nation’s blood and treasure – would dictate restraint. But plans for the four-day extravaganza roll forward with nine celebratory balls being underwritten by the usual corporate and fat-cat supplicants in the political power mill.

There’s nothing new in Washington’s triumphalist celebrations, festooned with price tags for access, but war usually mutes the singing and dancing. Not this year.

Umm. We’re still at war, aren’t we? Much better off now in Iraq (thanks to Bush) than we were in 2004, but nonetheless, still bleeding blood and treasure as the author of this piece so eloquently put it. Not only that, but our economy is in terrible shape. Perhaps reasonable people could disagree as to the propriety of having a big expensive celebration while the nation is at war. Fine. But there should be unanimous opposition to an expensive celebration while we’re at war AND while our economy is in the tank, people are losing jobs and home values are plummeting. Go ahead, have your party. You deserve it. But $150,000,000? More than 3 times that of Bush’s in 2004? Can we at least get 3 times as much righteous indignation from the suddenly incurious press?

Finally, this bit about the party needing to be “appropriate to the magnitude of the event that it is.” Ah, finally we get to the meaty nub. This isn’t an ordinary transition of power, you see. This is different. More magnitude and all. This isn’t two WHITE guys exchanging power. Oh no. This is a white guy giving power to a mixed race guy who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia in fancy private schools. A real man of the people, you see. Hope, change and all that. We’ve got to show the world how IMPORTANT this is not only to US but to THEM (whether they realize it or not!).

Spare no expense for the spectacle of OBAMA.

I laugh, and it’s funny, but only to a point. Obama’s deathly serious about all this. If he wasn’t, we’d get an occasional “aw shucks” from him here or there. You know, these followers of mine, “what can you do!” We get nothing of the sort from him. He basks in this. He’s a cipher. A performer. On him, the inarticulated hopes and dreams of the masses are writ, you see.

It’s all too Nuremberg for me, thank you.

WASHINGTON — A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, is expected to issue a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order, even when Americans’ private communications may be involved, according to a person with knowledge of the opinion.

via Intelligence Court Rules Wiretapping Power Legal – NYTimes.com.

This is very good news. We don’t want the Federal government to be prohibited from listening to or reading communications involving terrorists or terror-related activities. This is just plain common sense. Would we rather prohibit this type of surveillance and be victim of another terror attack because al-Qaeda could freely coordinate it with implanted cells? It’s amazing how many people live their entire lives in this sort of theoretical bubble, never once considering the real-life implications of their short-sighted, righteous indignation.

Also, take another look at the Times’ addition of “even when Americans’ private communications may be involved.” Very misleading. What’s “private” is always a matter to be determined by competing interests. Because I commit rape or counterfeiting or conspire to commit a robbery in the privacy of my bedroom, does not make an investigation there off limits. The court basically decided that the types of calls that would be susceptible to such surveillance are not “private”, insofar as to be “private” means that the government can’t listen in.

Here’s the killer, though:

In validating the government’s wide authority to collect foreign intelligence, it may offer legal credence to the Bush administration’s repeated assertions that the president has constitutional authority to act without specific court approval in ordering national security eavesdropping.

It may offer legal credence? What does the Intelligence court decision offer BESIDES legal credence for Bush’s assertions on his constitutional authority to surveil these calls? We’ve got to remember (and this goes along with what I mentioned above re: privacy) that what’s private is always relative to the competing interests involved. As above, this is not mere “eavesdropping”. This is NATIONAL SECURITY eavesdropping. There are simply greater things at stake here than whether Uncle Sam can read your email (which you shouldn’t be using to communicate with terrorists anyway!).

End Times – The Atlantic (January/February 2009).

Earnings reports released by the New York Times Company in October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400million in debt. With more than $1billion in debt already on the books, only $46million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company’s debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper’s future doesn’t look good.

[ . . . ]

The paper’s credit crisis comes against a backdrop of ongoing and accelerating drops in circulation, massive cutbacks in advertising revenue, and the worst economic climate in almost 80 years. As of December, its stock had fallen so far that the entire company could theoretically be had for about $1 billion. The former Times executive editor Abe Rosenthal often said he couldn’t imagine a world without The Times. Perhaps we should start.

Here’s a thought. People are staying away from your product in droves. Why not do something to bring them back? To do that, you’d need to know why they’re leaving. Do you know? I think I do. You’ve become the media organ of the Democratic party. You’re no longer presenting objective news. You don’t take your readers’ seriously enough to realize that they’ll notice. They’re leaving.

Stop doing that and get readers. Continue doing it and go bye-bye.