harmonicminer

The reporting is either lazy or agenda-driven… hard to tell which, in the yahoo story that ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ ratings drop 40 percent in week two

 

A week after a record-breaking debut, Sarah Palin’s reality show saw its audience drop nearly 40 percent on Sunday night.

According to preliminary ratings, just 3 million people watched the second episode of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” That’s down from the nearly 5 million who watched the Nov. 14 debut episode, which was the highest-rated premiere episode in TLC’s history.

 One problem: Palin’s show is losing ground with viewers aged 18-49. Per The Hollywood Reporter’s James Hibbard, just 885,000 in that key viewing demographic watched the show—down 44 percent from last week. The median age of the show: 57 years old—15 years older than the average TLC viewer.

So what’s wrong with the story?  It suggests that Palin’s Alaska is in trouble in as a show, or is a disappointment in some way.  But the reality is quite different.  Even with a “mere” 3 million viewers, it easily tops the best ratings TLC ever gets for it’s most popular shows.  It wouldn’t have taken the reporter for the story above long to find this information, if the reporter had bothered to look.

As the 2012 election heats up, look for worse and worse reporting on Palin.  Ignore most of it.

In a triumph of Stalinist reverse meaning, they call it the dream act.

It would seem that in US Federal Court, justice really is blind, as the NYTimes reports on the Acquittal on All but One Charge for Ghailani, Ex-Detainee

The first former Guantánamo detainee to be tried in a civilian court was acquitted on Wednesday of all but one of more than 280 charges of conspiracy and murder in the 1998 terrorist bombings of the United States Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The case has been seen as a test of President Obama’s goal of trying detainees in federal court whenever feasible, and the result seems certain to fuel debate over whether civilian courts are appropriate for trying terrorists.

The defendant, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, 36, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property. He was acquitted of four counts of conspiracy, including conspiring to kill Americans and to use weapons of mass destruction.

Because of the unusual circumstances of Mr. Ghailani’s case, after he was captured in Pakistan in 2004, he was held for nearly five years in a so-called black site run by the Central Intelligence Agency and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the prosecution faced significant legal hurdles even getting his case to trial.

On the eve of Mr. Ghailani’s trial last month, the government lost a key ruling that may have seriously damaged its chances of winning convictions.

In the ruling, the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan, barred prosecutors from using an important witness against Mr. Ghailani because the government had learned about the man through Mr. Ghailani’s interrogation while he was in C.I.A. custody, where his lawyers say he was tortured.

Rangel guilty: House ethics panel rules misconduct

New York Rep. Charles Rangel, a longtime power in the U.S. House, violated its rules with financial misconduct, brought it discredit and will be punished, fellow lawmakers sitting as jurors ruled on Tuesday.

Protesting the enduring stain on his four-decade congressional career, the 80-year-old Democrat said he was treated unfairly for “good faith mistakes.” His statement reflected the bitterness of an eight-month career slide, starting with an unrelated ethics ruling that forced him from his coveted chairmanship of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

The conduct often cited by critics was his failure to report income to the IRS from a unit he owned in a Dominican Republic resort, showing the chairman in charge of tax legislation shortchanged the IRS.

Rangel, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, remains a political kingpin in New York’s famed Harlem neighborhood and is unlikely to resign. He won re-election earlier this month.

A Republican caught in what amounts to income tax evasion, especially one who is in charge of writing the rules the rest of us have to follow, would probably have been pressured to resign by fellow Republicans. He would be unlikely to be re-elected.  The media’s calls for his resignation would be frequent and stentorian.  He’d probably win a “worst person in the world award” from Keith Olbermann.

It seems that in Rangel’s district, the content of a man’s character is the last thing that matters to the voters.

JSF planes for settlement delay?

The list of defense-related and other gifts the U.S. administration is willing to offer to Israel in exchange for three months of construction freeze in the settlements raises suspicions that someone has gone mad. An additional extension of the freeze, which he has previously rejected out of hand, may spell a political and ideological headache for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – but the offer by U.S. President Barack Obama is very enticing. The addition of 20 F-35s to the package discussed two months ago tips the balance very clearly. From Israel’s point of view, it is an offer that cannot be refused.

Since Obama entered the White House two years ago, he has not given the impression – at least in terms of foreign relations – of being a particularly tough negotiator. Nonetheless, this time the administration appears to have gone overboard, even though in Washington they know full well that the freeze is a highly symbolic gesture, which the settlers have already managed to avoid in the past.

This, of course, raises suspicions that there are much broader and substantive issues at hand, and not merely a few housing units in Samaria or Gush Etzion. Not only may there be a genuine Israeli willingness to move forward in a substantive way in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, but perhaps some sort of deal on the Iranian question is afoot. Could it be – and this is only conjecture – that Obama is trying to persuade Israel to commit to desisting from any independent action against the nuclear installations of Iran, in exchange for a substantial future reinforcement of the Israel Air Force?

I hope not.

The F-35 deal signed last month was controversial in both defense establishment and political circles. The debate did not stem from the quality of the stealth aircraft, but from the price tag accompanying it: Generals and minister believed that when the price per unit is more than $130 million, there are better ways to make use of the U.S. military aid package. But, according to the prime minister, the U.S. is now generously offering to double the number of aircraft without the funding for them being taken from the future military aid package.

This is an enormous gift, which nearly makes the debate on the need for the F-35 redundant. According to reports, there will also be significant benefits elsewhere in the gift list for Israel.

In spite a great deal of bad mouthing about him, the U.S. president has proven no less committed to Israel’s security than his predecessor.

What planet does THIS writer live on?

To date the security package has included emergency stores that are available to the Israel Defense Forces, a $205-million grant to purchase Iron Dome systems, and a significant stepping-up of joint missile defense training programs. The list of items to come, at least on paper, is impressive.

Hmmm….  NO quantity of JSFs will protect Israel from a nuclear-tipped Iranian missle, or simply a nuclear truck bomb, snuck in through one of the tunnels.

So I have to wonder if Netanyahu can be bought off this easily.