Because You Need It!

I’m reflecting on the non stop media sensation regarding the liquidation of terrorist filth in Dubai recently. I’ve been struck by a number of things. Firstly, there’s the usual outcry of manufactured rage from our European pals, whom it seems are always outraged over something or other while the rest of the world simply yawns & proceeds to ignore them – Such is the importance of the EU these days.. (Yawn).

Isle of Outrageous

The British media is particularly incensed, and why shouldn’t they be? This is bread & butter for them. British media no longer does news, now they do who’s wife is screwing whom in various football leagues, along with top stories on which latest celebrity daughter was seen puking outside the nearest pub. This is what passes for important news & events in Britain these days. In light of that depressing reality opportunities to take potshots at anyone or everyone is now a British media cornerstone – Anything to take people’s minds off how shoddy the UK has become overall.

So whether it be whipping up faux rage on Israel (a brit favorite) or seizing on total invented nonsense like calling the Vancouver Olympic games the ‘worst in history’ (from the Guardian, a joke of a newspaper if you ever saw one) – If the British media can invent a sensation based on nothing at all, believe you me they will. Anybody know what color panties Carla Bruni wore yesterday!? Quick! We need confirmation, check the frontpage of any British newspaper.. (Yawn).

Der Spiel.. er Spiegel

Our natural & steady allies in Germany (the product of slaughtering Jews, complete with cattle cars & ready bake ovens) have devoted 5 pages in Der Spiegel on the Mossad Operation Gone Awry. Other than the fact that the operation was successful, everyone got away, no one has been identified, and the Hamas cockroach on our most wanted list is now quite dead.. This was a real botch!! *eye roll*

Der Spiegel is quick to point out how the vaunted reputation of the Mossad is now tarnished complete with this gem at the end for added dramatic effect..

The Mossad, which is presumably no longer able to use 11 of its agents, is already searching for new recruits. There is a job application form on the agency’s Web site (www.mossad.gov.il), under the keyword “career.” The areas where potential intelligence agents are needed, according to the site, include computer technology, logistics and “special projects.”

Wow, that is dramatic. We’re in emergency mode over here in Israel! We need recruits it seems, too bad the Mossad revamped its website & opened it up to recruiting online several years ago, but why let little things like facts ruin a good Israel smack-down story right? It fits the narrative more eloquently to pretend this is an emergency recruiting rush to shore up the non-botched operations we are running. (Forgive me, while I *eye roll* again.)

Well oiled German machine a ‘Team Effort’

The piece in Der BS’er is written up by no less than 6 people! – I guess when you need to cram that much bullsh*t into such a small place it takes a lot of guys to do the hauling.. Either that or they break it up into small bits to keep that illustrious German economy hauling along, seeing as it is one Fraulein away at any moment from imminent & total collapse these days.. But I digress, there’s another country that needs an Israeli whipping boy much more than the sour krauts – Illustrious Dubai! Yes, that ocean of insolvency in the sand!!

Someone toss Dubai a quarter, they need to call 911..

Mere weeks after topping world wide headlines for days on end, Bankrupt Dubai needs all the help it can get. People are scratching their heads wondering how they managed in Dubai to piece together all that security camera footage so quickly!? Is that a real mystery these days? What else is there to do in Dubai right now? Those guys are splicing & dicing the video footage like there’s no tomorrow! Because, well.. there isn’t. Of course these guys are working the video like gerbils on speed! Anything to hold on for dear life to that paying government job on the isle of insolvency.

More striking was the fact that in all those hours upon hours of footage one sees massive brand new airports filled with absolutely NO ONE but alleged Mossad agents! It’s like one of those new fangled zombie movies, albeit after the zombies have eaten away the entire population food source and are just roaming around, looking for that one guy running around without shoes, but sporting a flashlight and a shotgun…

Dubai 2.0

Scouring the footage also reveals half a dozen spiffy hotels complete with shooting water fountains, marble floors.. and not a single patron anywhere in sight! One of the alleged Mossad agents supposedly called in to the front desk to verify if room 237 across from the Hamas target was ‘available’.. Silly goose, of course it is. The vacancy rate in the multi-billion dollar oil money funded hotel is at 99%. PLEASE – JUST CHECK IN!! Kill anybody you want!

Drowning in Red Ink Special!

Is that your bag with your rocket launcher Mr Spy Man? No problem, Mahmoud – snap snap.. Bellhop that up to room 237. Here are your complimentary breakfast buffet coupons Sir. There is a 10 dollar surcharge for any brain matter or blood spatters in rooms, shall I tack that on now or later? You know what, 1st assassination in light of the economic times is on the house, just please I beg of you tell all your friends!!! Let them know there’s always action in Dubai..

Frankly I don’t care if that credit card is forged and you are wearing what is obviously a silly disguise, take as many rooms as you like, here in Dubai we need all the help & sensationalism we can get right now.. We’re going to milk this till the camel milk runs dry.

Over Here in Israel

No one really cares, another dead terrorist? Good. EU Media is up in arms!? What’s New?

Haaretz will whine about needing to see heads roll, or how if Livni was in charge the pomegranate trees would bloom 365 days a year. Better yet, blame it on Bibi - If your toilet backed up its because Netanyahu is leading in every poll. *Yawn* It’s not Haaretz’s fault, just like in Britain, newspaper circulation is down – And nothing sells papers like a little Jew bashing, just ask Aftonbladet in Sweden – Clearly we killed this Hamas man in order to sell his kidneys on the black market. (Insert latest Eye roll here..)

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UPDATE: Soccerdad has linked over, & he has more on the rage that has developed. His post and links are a little less snarky too lol.

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Under Berlusconi Italians Are Strong Friends of Israel

Berlusconi - a valued friend

I’ve posted about Italy previously, in relation mostly to Italian elections out of concern that the election of Prodi over Berlusconi would harm Israeli / Italian relations.. That’s precisely what happened when Prodi won. His large Communist block was viciously anti-Israel and Italian Anti-Semitism spiked. My efforts then got me onto the frontpage of Libero.it, Italy’s largest web portal, a nice honor which warmed my heart further.

Thankfully for Italian Israeli relations Prodi is gonzo, and Berlusconi is once again leading Italy.

Which means we have a close friend restored to the Italian driver’s seat. Both commercial & military cooperation will continue to flourish benefiting both countries. But now via Haaretz we are learning that there are added benefits to this strong relationship & they are far from trivial. Specifically in the form of Italy stepping forward to heal the massive rift that has opened between Israel & Sweden over the libelous, absurd, world famous, and very anti-semitic ‘Organ Harvesting’ article in the Aftonbladet Swedish tabloid (I refuse to link to this trash).

Is the crisis in relations between Israel and Sweden coming to an end? That is what Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini, would like to believe.

In a telephone conversation with Haaretz, Frattini said he recently met with his Swedish counterpart, Carl Bildt, and the two agreed that at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers later this week, they will work to pass a resolution making it clear that the EU, under the Swedish presidency, strongly condemns anti-Semitism and will take action against any manifestation of it on the continent.

Frattini said he intends to demand that the meeting’s summary statement explicitly condemn the article published in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, which claimed that Israeli soldiers harvested the organs of dead Palestinians. He said his proposed statement would declare articles of this sort to be “acts of blatant anti-Semitism.” “There are limits to freedom of the press that stem from respect for the truth and the duty of every journalist to prove his claims,” Frattini explained.

The accusations in the Aftonbladet article are “terrible conclusions, lying and hurtful, and they have the power to assist all those who seek to incite against Jews or who oppose the existence of the State of Israel,” he added. However, Frattini stressed, “the state cannot intervene in the work of the press. The journalists are the ones who must set limits for themselves and must find the right balance within the framework of the journalistic code of behavior.” [...]

This Italian initiative is the strongest European condemnation we have seen of this affair to date, and make no mistake – Our friends in Italy have gone to bat for us here in Israel in a big way. Nothing remotely of the sort has come out of Sweden, they’ve been on the fence for far too long.

If Italy’s Foreign Minister in conjunction with Sweden can pull this off, the affair will hopefully be behind us all. This will benefit both Israel & Sweden, and the friendship we have come to rely on from Italy especially under Berlusconi is solid & valued. We are short on allies, Italy is one of them.

Grazie Berlusconi, Grazie tanto Italy!
(I hope I got that right..)

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Dumbest Man on TV?

If you ever watch him on MSNBC you already know, Olbermann is an idiot. He’s over the top, partisan, often factually incorrect, and instead of allowing the natural events of the news to stir interest & curiosity in the viewer he usually prefers to showcase himself. In short, he is the exact antithesis of the classic definition of a newsman.

That’s why I found this so alluring, not only does Olbermann compare the greatest technological achievement of mankind in its time, to the election of Obama! Which is absurd in itself to the point of mockery, he also seemingly alludes to his own ‘greatness’ at the same time.

He famously likes to liken himself to Walter Cronkite, using Cronkite’s sign off lines & mannerisms liberally in his nightly ’showpieces’.. Here he elevates idiocy to all new levels equating himself to Cronkite in an offhand manner the night Man left the atmosphere and landed men on the Moon, complete with incoherent analogies. A double shot of idiocy from the king of the morons himself.. Is it any wonder MSNBC has become the clown network?

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Who’s in control here? It is no longer clear

It might seem like I’ve been beating a dead horse covering the polling situation in Israel for well over a month now, slamming our big media endlessly for what I have called ‘agenda ridden polling’ and pushing their own views to shape public opinion in their own image, within Israel and abroad.

I apologize if it is tiresome, but I’ve been doing so because it has become more than clear that entirely unqualified & unelected media have had a skewing effect on state affairs for some time now in the realm of national decision making. It needs to stop and now MKs from both Israel Beitenu & Likud are proposing legislation to curtail influence by law. This is a small measure of vindication and allows me to get away with yet another post on this topic..

JPOST: ‘Ban publishing exit polls before voting ends’- Shelly Paz
(reproduced in full, I normally don’t do that but I digress on this topic)

MK Yisrael Hasson (Israel Beiteinu) will hold a special session of the Economic Affairs Committee on Wednesday to discuss banning the publication of exit polls while the ballot boxes are open for voting. Hasson chairs the panel.

“The meeting was set following the profound questions that have arisen regarding the media’s conduct and its influence on several crucial events in the Israeli reality; the disengagement [from Gaza in 2005], the Goldwasser-Regev-Kuntar swap deal [in July] and the Kadima primary last week,” Hasson said on Sunday.

It was important to examine whether the media had became the decision-maker, he said. “In other words, to check whether the watchdog of democracy has turned against the landlord.”

Hasson’s initiative is a result of allegations against the Israeli media and the way it covered the primary, accusations that went as far as to say that new Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni won the race thanks to media coverage that was clearly biased in her favor.

It has also been claimed that the publication of exit polls while the ballot boxes were still open, as well as in the days immediately before the primary, influenced the final result.

Also on Sunday, Likud MKs Gilad Erdan and Moshe Kahlon announced on they would soon introduce a bill that would ban the publications of polls in the two weeks before general elections and party primaries.

“Some would say that the intensive coverage of abducted soldiers increases the pressure on the decision-makers, who give in and agree to pay high prices, but that is impossible to quantify,” Erdan told The Jerusalem Post.

He added that he expected decision-makers to be able to withstand such pressure. “However, the general public can be influenced by polls, trends and the general mood that is created by the media.

“The media creates trends and they obviously affect the voters, who lie to pollsters and don’t feel comfortable revealing their real choice, and sometimes they are even discouraged by the polls and don’t even bother to go and exercise their rights at the ballot box,” Erdan said.

Dr. Yariv Ben-Eliezer, director of media studies at the Lauder School of Government at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, said that banning the publications of polls and surveys one or two weeks prior to primaries and general elections would help restrain the media’s eternal struggle for ratings.

“It’s not an exact science, but in general, the function of the media is to report, and when a TV channel or a newspaper commissions a poll, they’re not reporting anymore, they’re creating the news, and that is a failure of the media – where it deviates from its proper role,” Ben-Eliezer said.

Once the media commissioned polls and published them, it no longer reflected reality as it was but rather shaped it. “People are influenced and they can be affected by it [polls], and they may want to join what seems to be the stronger [political] group. I don’t say they do it intentionally, I believe that this is a result of the fight for ratings,” Ben-Eliezer said.

Indeed, Israel is a small country. A vibrant Democracy needs a vibrant free media, but at what point does it become clear that media, ‘elites’ & select opinion is now driving the national agenda? With today’s power in media that point in Israel has not only been crossed it has become untenable, this past week bordering nearly on criminal behavior with the Kadima Primary fiasco.

Crossing the line?

Now our national media pushes an agenda, and then when it is done doing so our media figures drop all pretense entirely and simply get themselves tacked onto party lists where they have already engendered favor through bias in reporting, and become Knesset MKs! Shelley Yacimovich of the Labor party, who was a vocal & visible journalist / activist put into Knesset this past session is a prime example. A number of Haaretz journalists have also recently left to pursue local & national politics as well, it kind of reeks.

Of course, journalists are free to enter politics by all means, but it seems that politics has also been entirely too free to enter Journalism here as well.. It’s time to reign them in because the people need to elect its governments and drive popular issues, not a handful of talking heads. This phenomenon has pushed Israel’s decision making farther to the left overall, while its electorate is solidly majority center and center right. The right is slandered, smeared & deligitimized by a cadre of illegitimate media, oh the irony.

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No Credibility, No Mandate, No Sweeping Adoration.

The tally is in and Livni has won by a mere 431 votes, instead of 49% to 37% as projected by every single outlet of big media in Israel last night, Livni’s lead is actually 1 measly percentage point. 43.1 to 42% - Shocking. It smells so corrupted I feel the need to shower. Worse, there were ‘voting irregularities’ last night in the arab sector (as usual) pushing Livni which may have clinched it for her – on top of her poll closing shenanigans.

A trend is developing, big media is pumping agenda driven polls in election after election to push their own horse. We saw it with Olmert, we saw it with Livni, and now we saw it even in the exit polls which declared Livni the winner before voting even ceased, studios closed down for the night, reporters went home and they drove Mofaz home as well in disappointment – but that wasn’t the story it seems.

Shocking Win

These results combined with the blatant manipulation by media, the blatant manipulation by Kadima to force polls open even longer at the last minute for their Princess Livni is a travesty and a mockery. Forget the fact that Israel’s new PM is decided by less than 20,000 people / votes – Now it is not even decided by those 20,000 it seems out of our 7 Million, it is decided by someone else entirely like some third world country, a true Banana Republic.

Livni has no mandate that much is clear. She is not the adoring savior shoved down our throats by our media with fictitious massive 20% victories over her rivals, and 20% electoral projected landslides in national elections, she will not sweep anything in national elections as I posted previously and that is precisely why we will be denied them. She has a zero success rate and that was proven again last night beyond her Foreign Ministerial failures.

Enough with this farce

Where does Kadima go from here? Our PM refuses to vacate, his replacement is coronated like a queen, negotiations & concessions steam forward with no mandate, now not once but a second time it seems, state affairs are not dealt with.. We are ruled it seems like a brothel – By a bunch of greedy corrupt prostitutes and their media pimps. Now Shas & Labor have seemingly even dropped their pre-requisites for remaining in the coalition, meaning nothing has changed at all.

Now that it is proven Livni is far from a winner the left’s GoldenGirl clearly cannot deliver, and the last thing that can be allowed is elections to drive this failure reality home.

Update: Lonely Planet

I’m feeling kinda gothca’d, which is why I seem to be the only person beefing about this, the media in Israel is seemingly skipping right over the whole debacle above. Contrast this to the Bush Kerry results 4 years ago where similar exits told a similar story and there was shock afterward, there was quite a bit of talk in the media about jumping the gun. Following some Clinton miscalls in this US election cycle, media again in the US looked at the need to restrain themselves..

Where are the opinion pieces in Israel with similar tones? The election was called across the board and was overshot by about 10% – a full 1/4 of the vote, it certainly affected the vote itself as well. If I find some dissent I will link it. Further, if I was feeling like a bastard I would contrast YNET political reporting last night which was gloating & filled with exhilaration, with the muted fare available today..

Link Update:
Thank Goodness SD does the phenomenal groundwork here, I thought I might be losing my mind. The Nissenbaum shot and the WP quotes are instant classics.

UPDATE Sep 19: Mofaz’s Exit from Politics

Mofaz has dropped a shocker, his exit from politics. Many are carrying on with the same scorn he received in the campaign, calling him sore loser etc. But I see it differently, he was indeed robbed, a victim of racism and ugly class rivalries in Israel amongst other things, and if he stays he benefits not himself so much, as Livni who’s party and who’s own experience looks paltry without him..

The Jerusalem Post analyzes the situation today, they’ve clearly been reading some high quality material ; )

[...] The Kadima establishment, they lamented on his behalf, had set him up to fail. Livni was the golden girl, to be crowned come what may. After decades of military and public service, he had been misrepresented throughout the campaign as a murky political operator and Likud hawk, and his popularity relentlessly undermined by skewed and baseless polls.

On primary day itself, when he still had a good chance of victory, the Mofaz camp further complained Thursday night, he was quashed by a combination of disqualified ballots, extended voting hours and the reprehensible broadcast of exit polls falsely showing an overwhelming Livni victory – an appalling breach of democratic norms that could only have persuaded those Mofaz supporters still waiting to cast their ballots that they were wasting their time and should head home. [...]

Phew, it is not such a lonely planet after all..

Big thanks for making Kadima Primary day the Hashmonean’s biggest traffic day in a while. I also saw that Jameel had an excellent post on the polling fracas, nice one – Both the Jpost full article and the Muqata look at polling are worthy reads.

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Brigitte knocks one out of the park

Appearing on Morning Joe at MSNBC Gabriel in 6 minutes or less gets to the heart of the matter;

• Muslims & the Arab world cannot simply be handed Democracy, in order to appreciate & value democracy one needs to fight for it
• Muslim extremism is an ideology like Nazism, preys on the weak, the youth and ignorance
• Wealth transfer through energy is feeding a monster
• Muslim moderates appear nearly non existent in their efforts to seize the Muslim mantle

Time to stand up she says, create organizations and be heard. Quite a lady, with a clear concise message. Buchanan, Brezinki’s daughter & co. appear somewhat out of their league, but kudos to at least having Gabriel on to speak a little common sense to the rabid MSNBC crowd. Enjoy a few minutes below..

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MSNBC a drag on the ‘ol ticket

NBC has pulled Left Wingers Olbermann & Matthews from the anchor chair for the remainder of election coverage, but the damage done by the MSNBC spiral into left-wing mania has been done. At its height 37 Million people watched the RNC speeches on TV in the USA, the highest numbers ever for such an event beating even the famous Obama speech at the stadium the week before, and each and every one of those viewers could clearly hear the crowd chanting NBC! NBC! NBC! when Sarah Palin spoke of the bias she was facing in the media LIVE during her speech. Ouch.

The mania was not isolated to that one event.. A series of gaffes including the one that shocked me the most, Olbermann opening his big fat mouth to apologize for his network’s airing of the 9/11 tribute by the RNC, left me with my mouth wide open in shock when I saw it.. You could smell it coming from miles away as MSNBC has become a sad joke but the damage to the NBC brand is done, a brand that has spent untold hundreds of millions building itself as a news division, undressed for all to see. Olbermann is a partisan hack, which is fine it seems in this day and age. But worse, he’s a moron. Worse yet.. He’s now dragged Matthews his co-anchor down with him & worse still, one of America’s original News broadcast networks.

The High Price still to be paid

Has adding a few hundred thousand paltry viewers per night, yet still coming in dead last in the news cable wars been worth all this? I feel for Brokaw & Williams because this tarnish won’t be coming off so easy. Credibility isn’t bought, it is earned & burned, and NBC News has lost a whole lot of it, dragged down like an ‘anchor’ by MSNBC’s totally unvarnished partisan reporting. Not to worry, Rachel Maddow Olbermann’s left wing protege who’s analysis I’d say ranks somewhere around that of Ernie & Bert’s of Sesame Street debuts tonight with her new show on MSNBC.

Forgive me if I don’t tune in. Apparently judging by MSNBC’s ratings.. I’m not the only one.

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Radical swing left has made MSNBC a laughing stock

They are in the tank for Obama (Joe woke up angry after last nights shenanigans), unlike most of the press there is little attempt to cover it. Olberman rails against the President calls him a liar on TV complete with camera cuts and fake mock rage, everyone swoons for Obama who can do no wrong. Hillary Clinton was savaged at the network, it goes on & on day in & out a spectacle of bias that needs to be seen to be believed. Now Rachel Maddow of Air America the failed radio talk liberal network has made the descent into partisan sludge complete with her very own show at MSNBC – Just what they needed, a little balance lol.

Matthews & Olberman running the circus show

Olberman gets caught on open mike and Scarborough reacts ferociously and why not? He sees the network on a one way ticket to flunky ville, when he attempts to file even a single balanced report on Live TV from the convention,  Reichsfuhrer Olberman shoots his mouth off like the clown he is.. Even Matthews is feeling a tingle in his leg when this one ends, the tingle of embarrassment no doubt as to what his network & job have become. The laughing stock of the broadcast / media world. Even Puke Buchanan can’t bring them back from the brink, despite being I suspect a licensed exorcist or involved overall, in some form of demonic works lol

For all the olby action check olbermanwatch, if you can stomach it.
H/T Terryann for the video

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