NYTimes to Go Back Behind the Firewall

So the New York Times has decided to go back behind a paid firewall. I remember when they first did this (back in '05? it feels like yesterday)... And I got through it easily back then. The only person I cared about reading at the time was Krugman, mainly because he was the only sane voice during the terrible two years of 2005-2006 (when the GOP was unstoppable in their evil). Sadly the Times could have taken a leadership role and dubiously decided that they needed to make more money.

I'm on record saying that when the News acts as a for-profit business, everyone suffers. The news-agencies turn into lowest-common-denominator gutter entertainment organs (because that's where the money is), creating and perpetuating scandals, and - worst of all - distorting the news in order to sell sell sell. The best example (outside of the "Feeding Frenzies") was the very existence of Sarah Palin. In the modern for-profit journalist world, every election needs to be a 'horse race' and even when a violently unacceptable candidate for VP is chosen, the media needs to keep the sides even.

The Times, arrogant as ever, believes that they have survived the newspaper crunches and can demand that people will pay for their product. Were they accurate - i.e. were they truly a good news source - then maybe it would be a smart plan. But, pardon my French, the Times' sucks. Their news quality is poorly written (I remember when the Times was written at a 12th Grade level), ignorant and thus biased in the worst way, and not nearly as useful as a good blog collection will be.

They have no idea how badly they will get burned by this - because five lines of computer code will be able to collect news from around the web better than the Times. Competition in the infinite cyberspace makes one specific news source obsolete.

The only thing the Times could boast would be their columnists - and two have just bolted. Frank Rich, who was the best thing in the paper, and now Bob Herbert (who I couldn't care less about). They must be the smartest people there because they're getting out. Columnists are pundits, which makes them nickel academics. In the idea profession, it's far more important to have influence than shiny metal coins: an academic would gladly give academic books/papers out for free if that meant more people would read 'em.

What to Read Instead?

There are a few options. The best news agency out there is actually the old Knight-Ridder, now known as the unpronounceable McClatchy. Their main site is here and it's worth reading instead.

The other options are Yahoo News - which is the AP Wire, a very good option. AP is still biased, but by dint of necessity - they try to sell to as many papers as possible - they are as comprehensive as possible. It's business model is most likely to survive the internet.

And of course I'll just go to Jpost and Haaretz more.

Reaction to Tuesday's Midterms

Some quick reactions from Tuesday's Midterm Elections. Note, when I say "we" that refers to "Democrats" and/or "(Normal) Jews" and/or "(Normal) Americans". This is because, as I said Monday, the current Republican party is bizarrely more evil in intention than the ideas backing the Bush Years:

1. This could have been much much worse. As the dust settles, the Democrats lost only 1 House. Many of the lost seats in the Senate should have been quite safe (PA, Ill-a-freakin'-Noise) and that's a depressing sign. But considering that Teabaggers were defeated in many places, that California stayed Blue, and that Harry Reid's Faustian deal is still under warranty, means that it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
   


2. The irony about Reid is that if anyone is responsible for the current failure of the Democrats, it's Reid. As I said in the intro, it's a given that the current GOP is freakishly evil (see below), but the only places where their evil could reign was SCOTUS (which is a lost cause until Scalia and Thomas get incapacitated by their own hatred of humanity), and the Senate. Despite the Dems having a historically high 60 seats, Reid allowed the Senate Republicans to destroy most attempts to repair the economy and help America. It's that bad. And because of the deadlock in congress, more people are out of work than should be, the health care plan is flaccid, and Obama's appointees are stalled in committee. All this evil was hated by the American people who returned their ire on... House Democrats. Who were by and large heroes these past 2 years. If there was any justice, Reid should have lost, the Dems should have kept the Senate - and House.
   


3. Which leads to the most infuriating result of Tuesday. While it's bad enough that the disturbing and malevolent John Boehner will be the new speaker, and that the Teabaggers have renewed vigor, what I'm especially angry about is that the GOP tactic of legislative anarchy worked for their benefit. The GOP is better at "playing the ref" than the Dems, mainly because the GOP is ideologically anti-government! Even when the Dems were trying to stop Bush's evil, in general their party is in favor of legislation. GOPers can take it or leave it. They may have claimed that they were trying to stop laws that hurt the American people, but only morons or fanatics actually believe that was true. Seriously. The proof is that the GOP supported everything they claim Obama stands for when Bush was the president. Every (non-alcoholic/moron) in Congress knew that we needed economic stimulus, health care, and bank reform - the GOP just didn't want those vitally important things to happen under a Democratic president. Which makes them a special type of evil.
   
   Note, this proof is the same one behind the Teabaggers: (1) if you don't like deficit spending, then why did you support Bush's epic/disgusting ballooning of the deficit? Because you want tax cuts and crazy wars? OK, yeah, you do. But it's because they're bigoted fiends; (2) if you hate health care reform, why did you support the Medicare Prescription Drug Boondoggle? I could go on but the pattern is obvious.


The Republicans spent 2 years blocking vitally important legislation - that they supported and knew would help get people jobs, medicine, life - in order to help their electoral chances... and it worked. And the American people fell for it. And I just threw up in my mouth.

And because it worked, the GOP will do it again and it will work again. It's bad enough to know that evil has gone unnoticed, it's worse to know that it will keep happening.


4. It's possible that Obama should be blamed for not strongly broadcasting the GOP evil before Nov 2. It is my biggest cavil with the president: that I want him to fight more. Yeah, it's nice to be 'non-partisan' but evil is evil and must be stopped. However, in retrospect, I have to blame the House/Senate democrats - and thus the DNC - for the responsibility of carrying out that message. It was their gooses about to be cooked and their legislature to be explained, and thus I blame their loss on themselves.
   
   
5. The big silver lining about the election is that - based on the GOP Evil Analysis above - that the hidden enemy of Republican Obstructionism now has a face. Ya see, as I've experienced in my own life, it's part of the American psyche to dismiss the excuses behind loss and failure. Bush lied, stole 2000, so what - he crossed the finish line and now we can move on to the next horse race. So too in Congress - so what if the GOP committed legislative fraud and grand evil over 2 years - it's not visible therefore its not provable. Yet now Bone-nert/Bay-nert/Boonert is the orange face of Congress. And we have a clear, easily spotted - even at night - enemy of Democracy.
   
   
6. Other good news - Massachusetts stayed Blue. The Scott "Nudie Model" Brown debacle of 2009 did not repeat.
   
   
7. On the unknown/bad news front: one piece of info I was looking for in the news organs is probably the most crucial factor of the Midterms - the makeup of State legislatures in those states that will gain/lose Congressional seats because of the new census. As Obama said on the Daily Show, the two biggest anti-Constitutional enemies to the Republic are (1) the filibuster, especially in the hands of the anarcho-nihilistic burglars of the GOP, and (2) gerrymandering of House districts. The GOP has succeeded in the former and may now succeed in the latter.
   
   
8. The last reaction for now has to do with newspapers. I sought out a (free) New York Times on Tuesday morning because I felt that I needed to have a good analysis and breakdown of the effects of the Midterms. Yet, I didn't get one. Not only was the newspaper frozen in time while reporting on a constantly shifting fact landscape, what information they did contain was fluffy and pedestrian. I wanted numbers! I wanted facts about losses and wins and causes and effects. Instead the paper was filled with reaction pieces about mood and feelings. It was useless. The internet wins again - not only because its up-to-the-second in news, but because the possible info is BETTER.

Tea Party Republicans

Frank Rich yesterday claimed, correctly, that: "What made the Tea Party most useful was that its loud populist message gave the G.O.P. just the cover it needed both to camouflage its corporate patrons and to rebrand itself as a party miraculously antithetical to the despised G.O.P. that gave us George W. Bush and record deficits only yesterday."

Very true. The Teabaggers, aka The Fort Sumpterists, are the latest in the group of dupes who fall for the cynical robber-barons of the current GOP. The tea-partiers who have genuine grievances should seriously be directing their energy against the GOP, and their perpetuation of the Bush years of disgrace and plunder. They won't because, bottom line, they are bigots. It's funny how this simple fact should still be in dispute. Why is their ire creepily directed against the Black President and the Lady Speaker?

Is it relevant that the Teabaggers are bigots? So what, you may ask. Well it's crucial because:

1. The GOP has embraced these sick fools, and that shows that the GOP is happy fellow-traveling with the scum of America. One sad lesson I get from this semester's study of the Holocaust is that the conservatives in Europe in the 1930s felt they could control the wacko radical right in their countries and while they succeeded in Italy, Romania, Hungary etc this gambit failed in Germany. And Germany was able to then take over all the conservative governments, ain't that funny. Radical Rightists are bad news no matter the era or nationalist-bugbear. And the Teabaggers are the radical right.
   
   
2. The teabaggers will come after the Jews with the same fervor they reserve for their Nigerian Presidential delusions. Another lesson I learn from the Holocaust is that the crazies actually mean what they say. Listen to their rhetoric.
   
   
3. There can be no Jewish Tea Party as a result, and I'd claim there should be no Jewish support for a political party that embraces Tea Partiers. Then again, the fact that a Republican candidate for Congress in Ohio happily dresses up like an SS officer should cement this conviction. Yet there are Jewish Republicans still because Obama is perceived as not a friend to Israel. Look, his state department has definitely screwed up, but as I've said many times before, there has not been one single 'fact on the ground' as a result of this - as opposed to the Bush years which gave us a Shiite Iraq, a Hamas controlled Gaza, and two failed Mideast wars - greatly reducing the American ability to contain Iran.
   
   Jewish republicans: don't get blinded by racism or greed! - the GOP is not our friend!
4. One last lesson from the Holocaust for now: that in every country where the Jews felt they were safe because they were rich, or part of the ruling class, we were quickly tossed to the wolves when the Nazis came knocking. Just being Jewish is a death sentence to the radical rightists of the world. You may think this is hyperbole, or a generalization, or even a cliche, but I've been going through the historical record in detail and it's nauseating how often it happened.

Pic from here of the GOP scumball in his SS uniform. Note, according to the Wiki: "He supports Israel's right to self defense and the American obligation to support it; he opposes a Palestinian state formed by taking land from Israel, a divided Jerusalem, and believes that the UN has become irrelevant." A lesson for you holdout GOP Jews: Actions speak louder than words. Dressing as a Nazi is a red line, no? Or does it matter when your hatred of blacks and/or greed for low taxes come into play?

Oren: "An End to Israel's Invisibility"

I guess one of the only reasons to read the Times is for Michael Oren's occasional op-ed. Thank God for Oren - he's really the only competent member of the current Israeli government. Op-Ed Contributor - An End to Israel’s Invisibility - NYTimes.com

Who Knew Greece Was the Party Country?

From my brother, in today's Times story quietly entitled: Is Greece’s Debt Trashing the Euro?, we read this:

"Striking is a bit of a national sport in Greece. Last month, the country’s unionized prostitutes took to the streets, protesting unlicensed competition from Russian and Eastern European immigrants."

I am speechless.

Pic from here.

William Kristol Finally Given the Boot

According to the tagline under his NYTimes column: "This is William Kristol’s last column." Kristol is by far the worst of the existing neocon morons and the fact that he was *still* employed by a non-neocon publication was a scandal. The NYTimes has done some stupid things in the past (among the many evil along the way: exhibit 1, ignoring the Holocaust, exhibit 2, actually liking it when Israelis are killed by terrorists), but hiring - and retaining - Kristol over the past year has to rank as one of the stupidest things in the past half-century.

Yeah, it's nice to have a balanced editorial page - it's one reason why I read daily, and subscribe to the print version of, the Atlantic - but that should require the editors to find columnists who are *honest* and (preferably) intelligent. But based on the living muppets Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd - both whom might be too stupid to feed themselves - the Times columnists have been steadily shrinking in quality. Dowd is haphazardly opinionated, vapid, and holds a blinding vendetta against the Clintons and all male Democrats. Friedman's crimes against facts and sense are well documented.

Kristol took the NYTimes' callowness and idiocy into a new, twisted level. After Rove was ousted in 2006, Kristol became the de-facto head of the Republican party (the "intellectuals" at least) - it was he who pushed for Sarah Palin early and often, and managed to override the GOP nominee to install his own, hand-picked, meathead.

Kristol regularly lies in his written columns and all in the direction of purposefully helping the Republican party. Why should the Times participate in helping a pure partisan further his aims?

Well, as I've prediction many times before, when Obama/Democrats took over, the Press - who from 2000-2008 were willing to swallow whole whatever garbage the Republicans spewed - now realize that they have new overlords. This will persist as long as Obama stays popular.

J.M. Marshall, of TPM, has long contended that the Beltway pundits weight the opinions of Republicans/Right Wingers as more serious than those views on the left... and I agree with his assessment. Which means that as soon as Obama's popularity dips, so Kristol will be taken seriously again.

See here and here (which has links to criticism of Kristol) for more data on the NYTimes decision. Pic from here.

Times: Conservative Ire Pushed McCain From Lieberman

As you recall, just a day or two ago, when I was predicting (as I do) the possible McCain VPs, I - like everyone else - did not even include Palin as a possibility. And while it looks like she will be a creeping disaster, I was most afraid of a Lieberman nomination (mainly because I like him personally and I didn't want him to be the most hated man in America).

So it turns out that my fears were not unfounded. According to the Times (Conservative Ire Pushed McCain From Lieberman):

"For weeks, advisers close to the campaign said, Mr. McCain had wanted to name as his running mate his good friend Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrat turned independent. But by the end of last weekend, the outrage from Christian conservatives over the possibility that Mr. McCain would fill out the Republican ticket with Mr. Lieberman, a supporter of abortion rights, had become too intense to be ignored."

Pic from here. Backpost finished 2009-12-03.

Our Broken Press, Part Mucho

No surprises, right, if the Times is being stupid. This 'time' (har) it's from the modern journalistic disease of Even-Handed-itis. Even though, in the world of objective facts, the Clinton campaign has been playing dumb and dirty, the Times cannot say that because factual objectivity is not a goal of modern journalism, the only 'objectivity' the mavens pursue is 'partisanship equality.' That is, the Times needs to blame both sides - basically by puffing up minor events on one side and quashing major events on the other side, to make both ends equal. This way, the Times cannot be accused of 'bias' or 'partisanship.' Observe:

Mr. Obama is not blameless when it comes to the negative and vapid nature of this campaign. He is increasingly rising to Mrs. Clinton’s bait, undercutting his own claims that he is offering a higher more inclusive form of politics. When she criticized his comments about “bitter” voters, Mr. Obama mocked her as an Annie Oakley wannabe. All that does is remind Americans who are on the fence about his relative youth and inexperience.

Got that. Even though, to any neutral observer, "the negative and vapid nature of this campaign" has been caused totally by Hillary, when Obama needs to fight back ("Mr. Obama mocked her as an Annie Oakley wannabe") he's considered to be contributing.

And if you're thinking, hey, this sounds exactly how the Times treats Israel's responses to terrorism, then you get a prize.

Just listen to him here and ask if he is out of line. (Answer: nope)


Our Broken Press, Part Three Billion

This type of thinking reminds me of 'regional diversity' at Princeton. When the powers-that-were wanted to reduce the overall numbers of dark people and Jews from the lily-white campus, they embarked on "regional diversity" - meaning they recruited students from all over the country. This sounds fine, no? Diversity is good, no? No. Because 'good' diversity means having people from different (or 'diverse') backgrounds, skills, life-experiences, etc. 'Regional diversity' was used to avoid the urban areas - which are large populations over a spatially small location - and go to the rural areas.

Conclusion? Even though 10 people chosen at random in NYC would be quite diverse, 10 people chosen at random from each state will yield a nice crop of white Anglo-Saxon stock students. But Princeton had cover, because some marketing genius called it 'regional diversity.' (For another painful irony, see 'political correctness' as it was used in the 90s to support bigotry).

This is a fancy way of saying that while 'partisan equality' can claim to be a way of giving voice to both sides, as I described above, it almost always involves exaggeration and distortion. And the goal, while its claimed to be for equality, is actually in the service of the nihilistic 'horse-race.'

The Horse Race

I'm not the first to talk about this problem, but I have been studying it for a while. It's a direct result of turning the news industry - which was always seen as loss-leaders by philanthropists or companies who wanted respectability and we willing to lose money on a paper to get it - into a news business. When jackasses decided to make a profit from the news - nihilists like Ted Turner (CNN), Rupert Murdoch (Fox), and Al Neuharth (USA Today)- then the whole first-amendment protected industry became entertainment instead of information. When we thought that newspapers were 'the first draft of history' that was only when, like academia, profit was taken out of the equation.

But since news is now to make money, the owners of mass-media need to script the news the best they can. Just as 'reality shows' have the semblance of in-vivo action but are in fact highly controlled and edited narratives, so too is news production by these profit insisting outlets. True, news can't be as scripted as a TV show, but unlike - ironically - sports, where rules govern action so as to ensure fair and real action on the field, the news agencies act like the Black Sox more than referees.

Another version of the sports metaphor is to compare TV News to 'professional' wrestling (which, come to think of it, is another oxymoron, like 'regional diversity'). Pro wrestling, unlike Olympic Greco-Roman, is scripted and fake. The scripts require a good guy to fight a bad guy. Conflict sells (and is the essence of theater, ask Bugs Bunny).

The Times needs to write stupid columns like the above example because they need to keep the semblance of even-odds in the campaign, for the two reasons above: (1) they need to act according to one definition of objectivity, and they chose the most lucrative, least ethical one, and (2) they need to make a profit, sell newspapers/ad space; and that comes from faking equality.

First pic from here, second pic is recycled. Backpost finished 2009-12-07.

Bobby Fischer, Anti-Semitic Wacko, Chess Master, Dead

From the Times: Bobby Fischer, Chess Master, Dies at 64.

On the first blog, I wrote about Fischer (twice). Basically, after seeing the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" I wanted to learn more about the wistful chess genius... and discovered that he was a disturbing figure not worthy of veneration. So he plays a game well? So does Barry Bonds. Whoop-de-doo. Just because the game is cerebral doesn't make it better. Fischer proves you can be 'smart' and be odious.

Pic is from here, of a rook, see definition 2. Backpost finished 4/8/08, 12:41 pm, I had just the title and the link.

A New Fish to Fry

Who, pray tell, would think of writing this sentence in defense of Mormons:

Still, even among those who respect Mormons personally, it is still common to hear Mormonism’s tenets dismissed as ridiculous. This attitude is logically indefensible insofar as Mormonism is being compared with other world religions. There is nothing inherently less plausible about God’s revealing himself to an upstate New York farmer in the early years of the Republic than to the pharaoh’s changeling grandson in ancient Egypt. But what is driving the tendency to discount Joseph Smith’s revelations is not that they seem less reasonable than those of Moses; it is that the book containing them is so new.

Who would decide that Judaism should be ridiculous to those who think Mormons are ridiculous? An atheist? Yes, but say better. A Jewish atheist? Yes, but more. A Jewish atheist who hates Judaism and will try to convince as many people as possible that Judaism should be mocked? Yup. Noah Feldman.

I really really feel sad for his mom.

Shotgunning Those Puppies

The Times, top newspaper in human history, has this headline: "Bush Assails Democrats Over Child Health Bill."

Note: 'assail' is journalist lingo for 'lie.' Evidently.

Bush attacks the Democrats in Congress for passing a bill that is not quite evil enough for his tastes. The lead line of the attack:

“Democratic leaders in Congress want to put more power in the hands of government by expanding federal health care programs. Their S-Chip plan is an incremental step toward the goal of government-run health care for every American.”

Somehow, Bush thinks that this is an attack; that people within the sound of his weenie voice will be outraged that Congress wants to make health care more available. To people. And chlidren! How disgusting!

George's alternative:

“I have a different view,” Mr. Bush went on. “I believe the best approach is to put more power in the hands of individuals by empowering people and their doctors to make health care decisions that are right for them. Instead of expanding S-Chip beyond its original purpose, we should return it to its original focus, and that is helping poor children, those who are most in need.”

Aside from the outright lies - which a newspaper is supposed to highlight and expose - Bush's squeaky plea is supposed to resonate with the 29% of the population who hate children. And why is he not yet impeached?

{2009 Update: pic from here.}

Times, Free at Last (Again)

TimesSelect, the grasping boneheaded grabasstic NYTimes ploy to charge for parts of their website, has died a deserved death. The bone of the boneheadocity was the concept that people would find the Times columnists and archives so valuable, that they would pay a premium to read their golden words. Except, uh, they may be good but not nearly as good as the FREE stuff we get online.

The online world is free and evolving (for now) and in the two years since NYT locked themselves behind a Dickensian wall of greed, Wikipedia and Youtube exploded and took control of news and information. Now, two years later, the Times needed to drop their scrooging because they were being left way behind.

As proof for my analysis, I just noticed on the online 'front page' of the Times that they are introducing a blog for my man, Paul Krugman. Considering that I get most of my online news and analysis from the incredible blogs on the Atlantic, Harpers, and from independents like TPM and Michael Totten, I'm glad the Times is starting off right.

Boo Freakin' Hoo

From the front page of tonight's NYTimes:

Isolation of Gaza Chokes Off Trade
By STEVEN ERLANGER

With Gaza almost entirely shut off from normal trade, Palestinian businesses are enduring a deep depression.

Aw. I am all, as they say, choked up. I wonder why Gaza is so isolated? Could it be that it's a terrorist state that has been given many gifts from Israel only to use those gifts to slaughter anybody with whom they disagree? Hamas is a criminal, bloodthirsty organization of killers and thieves. I'm surprised the Times doesn't have a story about those poor mobsters who can't feed their families with all that pesky FBI crack-downing.

{2009 Update: Pic from here.}

NYTimes Editorial about Gonzales

I hate to admit it, but they wrote a durn fine editorial. The choice quotes:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has finally done something important to advance the cause of justice. He has resigned. But his departure alone cannot remove the dark cloud that hangs over the Justice Department. President Bush needs to choose a new attorney general of unquestioned integrity who would work to make the department worthy of its name again — and provide the mandate to do it. Congress needs to continue to investigate the many scandals Mr. Gonzales leaves behind.

When Mr. Gonzales was appointed, it seemed doubtful that he would be able to put aside his years as Mr. Bush’s personal lawyer, which stretched back to the Texas governor’s office, and represent the interests of the American people. He never did.

In many ways, Mr. Gonzales turned out to be the ultimate “loyal Bushie,” a term his Justice Department chief-of-staff used so incredibly inappropriately to describe what his department was looking for in its top prosecutors.

It was just that kind of craven politics — the desire to co-opt the power of the government to win elections — that was the driving force in Mr. Gonzales’s Justice Department. Dedicated and capable United States attorneys were fired for insisting on doing their jobs with integrity — for refusing to put people in jail, or shield them from prosecution, simply to help Republicans win elections. Lawyers were hired for nonpolitical jobs based on party enrollment and campaign contributions, and top members of Mr. Gonzales’s staff attended pre-election political briefings at the White House led by Karl Rove and his aides.

[snip]

There was a more basic problem with Mr. Gonzales’ tenure: he did not stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law, as an attorney general must. This administration has illegally spied on Americans, detained suspects indefinitely as “enemy combatants,” run roughshod over the Geneva Conventions, violated the Hatch Act prohibitions on injecting politics into government and defied Congressional subpoenas. In each case, Mr. Gonzales gave every indication of being on the side of the lawbreakers, not the law.

Mr. Gonzales signed off on the administration’s repugnant, and disastrous, torture policy when he was the White House counsel. He later helped stampede Congress into passing the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which endorsed illegal C.I.A. prisons where detainees may be tortured and established kangaroo courts in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to keep detained foreigners in custody essentially for life. He helped cover up and perpetuate Mr. Bush’s illegal wiretapping programs, both in the counsel’s job and as attorney general. The F.B.I. under his stewardship abused powers it was given after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the name of enhanced national security.

Mr. Gonzales will hardly be a tough act to follow, but the standard for the next attorney general should not be set that low.

[snip]

The next attorney general will have two critical tasks. First, he or she must get to the bottom of the scandals hovering over the department. Mr. Gonzales played defense, as if it were Congress’s job to discover what laws his department may have broken, and his job to thwart it. The next attorney general should appoint a credible, independent investigator to look into the prosecutors’ firings and likely Hatch Act violations and make clear that the investigation will be permitted to follow the facts where they lead — including, as appears likely, to the White House.

[snip]

Mr. Gonzales, for all of his undeniable deficiencies, merely reflected the principles of this administration. His resignation is a necessary but hardly sufficient step in restoring the nation’s commitment to the rule of law.

Krugman Rediscovered

Paul Krugman is a great pundit (he was right about Iraq, doncha know). Yet I can't read him from the NYTimes because, darn them, they started charging for the best parts of the paper. Sure, I've done without the Bridge column for years, but when they took away my Krugman, there was no one left to complain. Ahem. Anyway, I swore off giving money to the Times in 2001 when I joined the NY community's boycott, so I had no Krugman source for a while.

However, the wacko liberal website Truthout were surreptitiously carrying the NYT columnists but were told to cease and desist. But sometime around the 2006 election they started carrying some of them again. And now Free Krugman is back!

Here are some recent columns
Jan 5
Jan 8
Jan 15
Jan 19
Jan 22
Jan 29

Krugman At Last

I refuse to give the New York Times any money. But Paul Krugman is so good - it makes the TimesSelect slimyness so attractive. Anyway, his column appears to be accessible today.

A crucial quote:

At this point, nobody should have any illusions about Mr. Bush’s character. To put it bluntly, he’s an insecure bully who believes that owning up to a mistake, any mistake, would undermine his manhood - and who therefore lives in a dream world in which all of his policies are succeeding and all of his officials are doing a heckuva job. Just last week he declared himself “pleased with the progress we’re making” in Iraq.

The Durn Liberal Media

Ya know how the liberal media distorts all the issues and highlights the shortcomings of Republicans and gives the Democrats a free ride? It's a bunch of bull-hockey. Don't believe me? See this article in today's New York Times: Some Blacks and Hispanics Criticize Kerry on Outreach - which has absolutely no purpose but to inflate a non-issue about the Democratic challenger into front-page blowhardiness. Where's the expose about the President and his wet-nurse Cheney in front of the 9/11 commission? If the press were liberal, I wouldn't be so angry, now would I?

Chovevei in the Times

A Challenge to an Orthodox Bastion

Oh, the Bleeding Heart

We successfully assassinated the 'spiritual leader' of Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization. The State department says so, in its 2003 Terrorist List and even in its 1999 Terrorist List (which has an interesting tidbit about Al-Qaida, led by Usama bin Ladin)

The New York Times refuses to call them terrorists. They call 'em 'militants.' I know I should stop harping on their anti-semitism, but I need to for two reasons:

(1) The NYT is the 'local' newspaper of the largest Diaspora Jewish community. They way it treats us is a sign of our exile.

(2) The NYT often reflects the sentiments of the self-hating Jews who populate said Jewish community, and so an attack against the Times is a roundabout way of attacking the self-haters.

I equate the NYT with the crotchety old relative who your parents insist on inviting to the Seder and who mocks you the whole time for being religious. Even if you don’t respond to the mocking, the attacks are effective because, being a relative, he catches you while you are vulnerable.

Considering that all weekend there's been a furious firefight in Pakistan over what may be Al-Queda's second-in-command... an assassination mission, dontcha know, I see a stupefying double standard at work. Yeah, what's new. But now it's a simultaneous double standard! A missile fired in Gaza has a different moral level than the same one a few miles to the East.

In any case, there were some people I know who responded to the assassination with anger and self-righteous shame. Evidently, we cannot acknowledge the assassination as good because "we cannot rejoice over our enemies"

This concept is from Pirkei Avot (4:24)

Samuel the Younger used to say (Proverbs 24:17-18) "Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, or else the Lord will see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from them." (see the text here & some commentary here.)

This one mishna has become the mantra of the 'Shalom Achshavnikim" (not that they actually uphold it themselves). There's something vaguely christological in that dictum. Those who espouse it with the most gusto do so in a historically 'Christian' manner, i.e. as secretly violent hypocrites.

The self-hating Jews would like to be Crucified, it seems. (Side note; I wonder if Mel Gibson has come out simultaneously endorsing and condemning the assassination. Endorsing it because it shows that we Jews just like killing people. Condemning it because it was targeted against Hamas and not against Jesus. )

Ya see, the bleeding-heart-dudes understand the Mishna about 'downfall of enemies' wrong. To rejoice when enemies fall is to open your heart to the violence. To revel in the death. Every downfall has within it some "ra'ah" (evil) - as seen in Parshat Ki Tisa (Ex. 32:14) - and to rejoice over downfall means that you are enjoying "ra'ah."

Personally, I'd prefer all other solutions to assassination. I would much rather arrest these dudes, hold a trial and throw 'em in prison. But if that avenue is not available, then often we will need to resort to assassination. 'Targeted killing' (the military euphemism) is a far better solution than warfare. Why risk innocent 18 year old Jewish boys in a protracted battle when you can just pop this murderer in the head?

If these "don't rejoice" hypocrites were really pious, they would care about these soldiers. In order to answer that objection they'd say that Oslo, or whatever mutant variation of it that's currently making the rounds, would turn Hamas into nice happy neighbors. This is a delusional argument and it makes sense only to those who are filled with sub-conscious self-loathing; people who deep-down want to get killed by Hamas.

Forget that. Pop the freak if that's what will save the most lives. Theirs *and* ours.

I am rejoicing but not over the downfall. Not over the fact that he is dead. I am rejoicing that a mastermind of death has been stopped. I would prefer if Shiek Whatshisface and the rest of his gang of psychopaths would just stop hating humanity. Until they do, their hate needs to be ended somehow. Hamas, and their smiley-faced-friends all over the globe, often give us (the good-guys, remember) no choice.

Be happy that evil has been stopped. If you don't feel happy, you need your moral compass repaired.

The New York Times Leads the Way

When it comes to outing the gay penguins (Love That Dare Not Squeak Its Name)