Yemen is terrorizing Israel.

That would be something if those who think themselves the Chosen people are humbled by an African tribe, eh?  With all the billions American taxpayers have spent to make the world safe for Israel...

Can we begin to openly observe that Benjamin Netanyahu is no military strategist?  I've said this before:  the Jews are no formidable fighting force, no matter how much destruction they cost the world.  The hostages who remain alive are no closer to being "rescued" and for all the shock and awe of #ProjectPager, I don't think Israel or her people are any more "secure" than they were on Oct. 1, 2023, much less Dec. 31, 2024...

#PrayForPeacePeopleEverywhere... #IfYouWantPeaceWorkForParity...

Who Loves Ya, Baby?

Ruth's boy.

 

No Hologram?

 or, Where We're at in 2024 (the second story reminds us: Carter Lives On!):

1. From the Grave, Mondale to Eulogize the Man Who Made Him Vice President

   Walter F. Mondale died in 2021, but he left behind the eulogy he planned to deliver at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral.

   40m ago

2. 

   Biden Announces $2.5 Billion in Security Aid to Ukraine

   The Treasury Department also released an additional $3.4 billion in budget aid as the Biden administration rushes assistance to Kyiv in its final weeks in office.

   40m 

RIP Linda Lavin

 So many from the Alice tv show have gone on to sling grits in the sky, including her tv son Tommy.  Flo is slinging the grits; Mel Sharples is barking orders; Vera's being dizzy, and now Alice is there to educate, and sing to them...  Sad passing, happy tv memories.  #MelvinSharplesKissMyGrits!

Paul Young - Everytime You Go Away

Pink Floyd - Shine On You Crazy Diamond / Comfortably Numb

Let The River Run - Carly Simon

Another Day Goes By, and Still the Journo's Die...

 put a little love in your hearts...

My theory on why Israel's civilian killings have gone unchecked thus far is that we have journOlists, not true journalists, operating out of the United States, primarily... "working from home".  Snug with their own families, here and abroad, there is very little bodily risk to "drop in" or "over the phone" journalism.  Little risk citing "unnamed sources".

So when the true reporters working on the ground are killed, there's no sense of solidarity that these are people in their own profession being picked off by IDF snipers or drones.  It's risk-free, "safe" journalism for the elites today -- look at how many countries Tom Friedman alone can travel to and offer up his unique American expertise on ... /s -- flying in and out, or better yet, just pulling other authors in for a podcast, where they can promote their vanity books about their own experiences.

So here we are.  The killings continue unabated...  Shabbat Shalom Gesundeit and Merry Christmas too.

Five Journalists Killed in Gaza Strike, Palestinian Officials Say

Captain & Tennille Christmas Open/Close

Homeless Lives Are Cheap. Dan Penny the Hero Taught Us That.

Daniel Penny was rightly prosecuted because you send the wrong message if you continue allowing the killing of people whom society has determined have no value.  What we do in Gaza, we now do here at home.  May the odds ever be in your favor, and let's see if this brown immigrant also is labeled a hero for cleaning up the subway by using fire as his force.

The police and medical examiner’s office have not publicly identified the victim. It appears she was homeless and had been sleeping on the train before the attack, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukkah... from the NYT.

 Lol... they really can't help themselves at this time of year.   Nevermind!

Celebrate the season and enjoy the laughs at their expense.  They couldn't make the MSM less relevant if they tried... lol.

Guest Essay

Why It Matters That Jesus Came From a Dysfunctional Family

He identified with the least and the lowliest, not just those in his lineage but those in his life.

2h ago

------------------

*  That "virgin" Mary was a hoor;  Joseph abandoned the family;  Jesus allegedly had "other siblings" ... (brothers from anotha motha?).  There is no Holy Family!  (They simply cannot let the traditional myths be...)

Now do the "burning bush" story in Judaism? The "real story" that's never been told??  We all know whose bushes -- heh -- were burning.  Most of those OT Jewish women like our Mary were hoors too!  Here's a "scholar" who has studied VD in the OT and has the poop for you this Channukkah Eve... (where are the "Revealers" of the faith truths to the Jews, just to keep this even, Kingsbury and Editorial Staff?  lol  You guys suck at finding things people want to read in the holiday paper.  Ain't nobody leaving this one out on the coffee table so everybody can read it today...)

Personally, as a trained journalist?  I don't think we need tales of religious myths on our editorial pages at all.  No "religious" columnists like French and Douthat needed, no storytelling nor dispelling of the myths that have Americans spending billions to bring about End Times, and using that as a pretext say to militarily disrupt another nation's nuclear program.  If Israel, has the bomb (wink/wink... fucking thieves), then if we want peace in the world, let parity reign...

There's no place for religious myths to be the foundation of our foreign policy.  We need more atheists and agnostics calling out the current crop of (can we be honest? Mostly "ethnic" Jews working in the visible "national opinion" roles... but of course, only ethnically.  NOT supporters of a religious homeland who believe they are Chosen and special in determining political and military foreign policies that benefit their own people via a... (wait for it) Religious state, or safe space for the Jews especially...

Remember how the NYT was caught "off guard" this year when Trump won, and could not believe the national mood was different than they were seeing on the streets of NYC?   America's NON support of our current foreign policy unconditionally supporting the crooked and corrupt Bibi Netanyahu's war games across the region is going to catch the editorial pages by surprise too, I think.  There's just not enough Jews throughout this country anymore with the pull they once had within profession... We more pluralistic, and with all the recent war refugees coming in... we're much more Muslim and non-Jewish Middle Eastern too.   Your loyalties to the OT / Torah are simply not shared by this nation.  Wise up before we rise up at the ballot box and shock you again?

America has NEVER treated those who advocate for the torture and murder of children kindly. I don't expect that to change here, even as our power people fall, and are replaced by less religious militants in the media.

“Do all the good you can, 

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can, 

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can, 

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can.”

John Wesley

Merry Christmas from the New York Times...

 heh.  I smell jealousy from the Jewish crowd publishing that paper...  This is why America cannot have nice things:

David French

Why Are So Many Christians So Cruel?

Nicholas Kristof

A Conversation About the Virgin Birth That Maybe Wasn’t

Ross Douthat

We Need a Great American Fantasy

-----------

* I rather be a poor Christian than a tribe that needs other people to supply them the weapons to kill the children who need to be displaced to fulfill the fantasy that "God gave us this religious homeland... for us and ours only."

Christians will continue offering the olive branch, and we'll even pull their charred children from the ashes again when their next holocaust hits.  If only the Jews could learn.

We need a song like this for the starving kids in Gaza this year...

 or next.  Because Israel's problems aren't going away, and American taxpayers will be called on to pay for their cleanup costs too. Oy!

"But say a prayer... pray for the Other ones...

There's a world outside your window

and it's world of dreaded fear..."

Save the children of the world, no matter race, religion or ethnicity. They're innocents... #NeverForget

(and Happy Hanukkah to our jewish friends.  Don't let bibi snuff out the lights this year, even if you've all given up on the Light on the Hill reason for needing a religious state of your own subsidized on all of our tax dollars...)

All Hearts Come Home For Christmas...

 Here's to the people with long memories today, who can remember Christmastimes long past with everyone in them passed on now.  It might feel like you are the last of a generation, or the last one standing from your high school crew, maybe you've lost a spouse or child or sibling or friend... enjoy your memories and know they are with you at this time...

            The pipes, the pipes are calling...From glen to glen and down the mountainside

                The summer's gone and all the roses dying  It's you, it's you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow...

I love you so!

Just... wow. I guess she has no say. (?)

 

Accessibility statementSkip to main content

Democracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion

Follow Megan McArdle

Who's with me?

 I'm staying up, apparently, as we hit the winter solstice at 320CST this glorious Saturday, December 21. Must be the pagan in me causes me to be awake, eh?  We did get our first winter dump of about 5 or 6 inches of light fluffy snow; you couldn't make a snowman or even a snowball if your grandmother demanded... (lol, inside joke. Not MY grandmother, but those more "determined" types... ;-) nttawwt, heh.

Beautiful to coat the landscape, freshen the air, drop the temps, and bring in the sunshine for Friday and Saturday before a slight warmup for Christmas holy days beginning next week. Good for the travellers and those who like to get out,

I just hope this winter passes quickly.  Too much pent-up anger and insecurity in our shared American hearts. The country is changing, and some people really do not like that and are only now realizing they cannot stop the shifts that began decades ago.  Insecurity causes hoarding, and hoarding causes isolation and isolated people do not know one another and the cycle intensifies...

The only cure, of course, -- (not to sound trite or sample sound lyrics, but...) -- is to let it be. Hold on loosely, but don't let go. Go with the flow (ok that's not a lyric.)  The bigger they are the harder they fall, so do your best not to fall...

Check yourself out of the game before that happens and you inadvertently take yourself out.

Time Travel in the USA

It's funny, you can criss-cross the nation and travel back and forth in time many ways, especially if you leave the radio playing where it's back into the 20th century in many states. We often think of New York and Cali as being way ahead of the rest of us, and then you stumble upon something like this...

Lol. Good luck, New Yorkers. You can do it! Lift the plastic lid and put your trash bags inside for pickup and wheel it behind you to the curb.* I think we started that back in the early 80s in teh Midwest... 🤣

Putting Trash in Trash Cans? Good Luck With That, New Yorkers Say.

Citywide rules now require more buildings to place trash bags inside containers for pickup. Many New Yorkers are thrilled to see fewer rats, but some are discovering new headaches.

---------------

*Racoon- and possum-proof. Rats too, if that's the nightlife where you're at. You're gonna love it, way less ripped plastic bags and trash spilling out. Just line them up properly so when they roll the trucks with the automatic arms the "garbage truck man" can whip down your block... or is that asking too much from New Yorkers to line the bins up straight too?

No Matter the Final Score...

 how the once mighty have fallen!

Score

Tulane Green Wave

0

Florida Gators

0

12/20 2:30 PM

People are too polite to say this, so I will...

 Take one:

David Brooks

The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be

By David Brooks Opinion Columnist Dec. 19, 2024 

When I was an agnostic, I thought faith was primarily about belief. Being religious was about having a settled conviction that God existed and knowing that the stories in the Bible were true.

--------

David Brooks came to Christianity via his girlfriend, now current wife. A woman who had been working as his "personal assistant" and was years younger when he as a now-divorced man was sexually attracted to her youth. Brooks never identified publicly as "agnostic." He was a Jewish-American writer, opining in a conservative vein at the NYT.  A family man. (His son served in the IDF during the years he was publicly champion the Bush-Cheney middle east wars.)

Because he used his role as family man to push his product, it's fair to "reveal" facts: His first wife not only changed her surname when she married him years ago, but also her first name. She converted to his religion -- Judaism -- to ensure their children would be considered Jewish as a birthright, which is gifted via the mother's lineage.

Columns like this, intertwining his newfound Christianity with his sexual advances in marrying younger second wife, who converted him to her own religion, are not as impressive as the NYT seems to think.  Wonderful story material for a religious periodical interested in private testimony;  off putting to millions of quiet everyday Christians celebrating their high holy days in the coming week...

Please reconsider letting David Brooks go, as you did Paul Krugman. Not only will this make more room for fresh voices needing to be heard, but you won't look like you are endorsing this cad for his private life that benefits mostly himself. People already think prosperity Christianity and political evangelicism are off-putting and not helpful to the faith... don't keep rewarding this and publishing stories that David Brooks and David French are selling as something universal to all readers...

You really can do better, put out "spiritual" editorials that are more helpful to us all, rather than just the white males trotting out their W's. Hth.

NYT writers seem to think this is a Dance Off...

 

Maps: See Israel’s Moves in Syria Since Assad Was Toppled

2 min read

-------------

*  It's a land Grab, peopole.  or "Things Tom Friedman Will never tell you..." For the WIN!  lol

What if "the government shutdown" is a ploy to put government workers out of a job and not hire them back...?

 If the shutdown goes well, do we really need all those workers? the thinking will go.  (Remember when Reagan fired and replaced all the striking air-traffic-control workers who thought their jobs essential?)

I'm not saying it is a healthy plan for the country, but cmon... see what's coming?

Madison kids grow up fast.

It's a cynical place, and there's no real respect for childhood, traditions or community there, imho. (The big Memorial Day event back in my day was a bratwurst grilling in a mall parking lot. Working-class were pretty much non-existent.) Gotta feel for children who come from broken homes and don't really have any community to compensate.

Police have released few details about Rupnow beyond her name, and they said they were investigating a possible motive behind the shooting. With much still unknown, a Washington Post review of court records points to an unsettled childhood for Rupnow, whose parents’ custody agreements sometimes forced her to move between their homes every two or three days.

“There are always signs of a school shooting before it occurred,” Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said at a Tuesday news conference, where he asked the public for patience as authorities investigated Rupnow’s social media activity and state of mind leading up to the rampage.

The teen is one of just nine female student school shooters in the last 25 years, according to a database maintained by The Post. She is also among the younger recent shooters: Just over a month removed from her 15th birthday, she was about a year younger than the median age of school shooters. And the violence unfolded at a small K-12 school with a religious affiliation, an uncommon site for such incidents, researchers say.

-----------------

(The Christian school they sent her to does not believe in evolution, if that's any indication of how this child was being raised by her father. His pictures of being proud of her on the gun range were posted on social media.  If he didn't lock his guns and she got to them... charge him*. Holding parents, or those who provide the guns, responsible if the weapon is used in a killing is the only way. Unforseeable my ass.)

* Wah! Wisconsin has no state law that gun owners must safely lock them to keep them out of the hands of minors.  #Sad  #ChangeIsGonnaCome