Okay, now I’m starting to worry. Two subprime mortage lenders closed shop in the last week. Word is that it’s going to be harder to get a mortgage. And this is occurring just about the time I am finally going to be able to buy a condo or a townhouse of my very own.

The on-staff track continues apace, and odds are very high I will be a member of Northern Virginia Company in a matter of weeks. I am paying down the debt that I accrued from, well, living while unemployed and underemployed. I wish I could tell you that my credit debt has at least some very cool toys to show for it, but I’m still watching TV on my ten-year-old Panasonic 36-inch TV that’s been repaired once by Panasonic (warranty) and once by a repairman. The laptop I own was effectively given me by my mother, who came into a little money three years ago. My biggest non-essential item expenditure in the last few years was my new digital camera, and you know, I deserved it.

So I’m paying down debt, and that will continue until sometime next year. Then I’ll finally be able to start saving money towards a down payment. I don’t think I’ll be able to swing more than ten percent, what with the lack of savings right now, unless the last of my tech stocks suddenly goes back up to what it was worth when I bought it. And in spite of all the debt and under- and unemployment, my credit record is quite good. I almost never paid late on the bills that count you late if you’re a second overdue (e.g., credit cards), and when I did, I made sure to get the late fee and mark stricken from the record. (It’s a simple phone call, and if you have no late payments in the last six months, they’ll waive the fee.) Last month, I visited a local company that’s building townhouses in my neighborhood (and which is probably part of the subprime problem, because they wanted me to sign on the dotted line right then and there, my credit was good, honest!), and had them check my credit score. It’s high enough that I don’t have to worry about getting a mortgage, they said.

But here’s what I am worried about: How many more lenders are going to go belly-up, and how much harder will that make it for me to get a mortgage loan? That, and how high the interest rates will go, are starting to make me worry quite a bit.

So, finance people: Is it time to worry yet? Or should I just continue with what I’m doing and see where things are six months from now, when I was planning on getting serious about shopping for a home? Because if this keeps up, I’m going to have to move out to the sticks if I want to own something, and, well, I hate the sticks. No offense to people who live there, but I’m a city girl, more or less.

President Bush offered Mexico help to Mexican areas devastated by Hurricane Dean.

I suggest that there are huge numbers of Mexicans with the knowledge and skills needed to rebuild stricken areas.

Just send ‘em some of the illegals in the American construction industry.

This week we present our 100th episode of Shire Network News. To celebrate the occasion, Tom Paine, Brian of London, and I got together over the Internet (because we are all internet geeks) and talked about SNN, our participation, and strip clubs. Yes, really. We also got Lair Simon to come out of semi-retirement, and he is at his fiery best.

If you haven’t listened to SNN yet, you may want to start with this one. You don’t need an iPod. All you need is some kind of media player. It’s just as easy to download the audio file directly and listen to it on Windows Media Player in the background as it is to do it any other way. If your computer has speakers, you can hear our podcast.

Right-click over the link that says “100 Podcast Hits A Century And Celebrates With A Threesome #100″ and select “Save Link As” and you’re on your way to becoming a dedicated SNN listener.

I was hesitating for a while about the title for this post. How do you call a person who sees only one side of a multi-dimensional problem? One-trick pony? One-sided coin? Obsessed? Then I recalled what was shown to me many years ago in the classroom: the Moebius Ring (look for “Escher’s ants” on the page). Like the ants in that animation, some people are revolving endlessly on the same circular road of habitual love/hate, coming to a degree of mental laziness where they are unable to discern anything that exists beyond their single track. Their highly developed selective vision will filter out all that clashes with their simple world view.

Now, of course, Moebius people are not endemic to one specific political wing (and I shall never tire to repeat it). But for this post I have chosen a specimen of the anti-Israeli side.

This is the way one of the Jonathan Cook’s supporters characterized his latest outburst of hate on CiF (yep, the Guardian again, how did you guess?). And the supporter is absolutely right - this is an exceedingly dirty job Cook is doing, no buts about it.

The gist of the article The propaganda machine is that poor Mr Cook and his colleagues in the good fight against Zionism are being relentlessly and viciously attacked by the Hasbara cohorts. And the one-sided vision is displayed in the article in all its glory. Take this:

Volcanic outbursts of hatred on Cif greet anyone who objects to Israel’s policies…

It would have been funny if it were not so pitiful: anyone who have invested half an hour of his/her time in browsing Middle East (or anything else, for that matter) - related articles will immediately know that volcanic outbursts of hatred greet anyone who supports Israel as well - and to a much higher intensity. But remember - we are talking about the Moebius Man here.

I am not sure if any other country or cause encourages this kind of mainly voluntary propaganda work, but I am sure that no other country or cause has the human resources that Israel can rely on to carry it out. There are thousands of people sitting at their computers ready to pounce.

You see how scary the picture is? Thousands - literally thousands of Hasbara grunts, coordinated by octopus-like tentacles of the Elders (right, let’s not forget the Elders) and ready to pounce. Indeed, one gets heebie-jeebies imagining this. Of course one should not mind the myriads of happy fellow travelers infesting The Guardian, the Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, the Counterpunch, MPAC, Electronic Intifada… the list is endless, and I am not even mentioning the Muslim countries press (get your inkling here) dubbing in pure antisemitism and the neo-Nazi sites and… ad infinitum. But remember - we are talking about the Moebius Man here. And one who is not above profiting from many of the media outfits mentioned explicitly or implicitly above - just take a look at his visiting card. Truly a man whose freedom of speech is being curtailed…

And of course, the poor injured freedom fighter does not forget to push that straw man of “I am being called an anti-Semite”. Really, my heart goes out to him. How about “dork”, Jonathan? And a pitiful one to boot, not above some hypocrisy? Take this complaint, for instance:

Other posters simply lied, in the great tradition of hasbara. Several suggested I had written that Rafik Hariri was killed by Israel. I hadn’t, and you can check my website to be sure.

Indeed, legally speaking, our man is correct. But in an article titled Syria: Convenient but Unlikely Fall Guy for Gemayel’s Death that mixes Gemayel’s and Hariri’s murders, Middle East politics and whatnot (thanks to the peculiar Cook’s habit to make a hash of every topic), he says:

Unlike my colleagues, I do not claim to know who killed Gemayel. Maybe Syria was behind the shooting. Maybe, in Lebanon’s notoriously intrigue-ridden and fractious political system, someone with a grudge against Gemayel – even from within his own party – pulled the trigger. Or maybe, Israel once again flexed the muscles of its long arm in Lebanon.

No surprise, then, that some people may have mixed one semi-libelous statement with another, quite similar.

Speaking about libels - take a look at this quote from here:

Several Israeli armaments factories and storage depots have been built close by Arab communities in the north of Israel, possibly in the hope that by locating them there Arab regimes will be deterred from attacking Israel’s enormous armory. In other words, the inhabitants of several of Israel’s Arab towns and villages have been turned into collective human shields – protection for Israel’s war machine.

That Israel is one of the most populated corners in the world and that existence of military installations of all kinds everywhere is a sad background of our existence - these facts do not enter the one-dimensional brain of the author. The shteitl where I happen to be living, is quite far from the centers of Arab population in Israel, but is surrounded on all sides by this or that military installation. Should I check my DNA for presence of Arab blood? But remember - we are talking about the Moebius Man here, one who will not be deterred by mere facts.

And since facts are mentioned (really out of tune with the fact-less article in question), one must not overlook the hilarious introduction to that article:

More than a little uncomfortably, I find myself with a bone to pick with one of our finest champions of humanitarian values and opponents of war.

You may not believe this, but it is true - the words above are dedicated to Fisk! One of the most ridiculous bloody liars of partisan journalism serves as a shining beacon to our hero, who in his Moebius state does not even realize where this act of worship puts him…

So intense is Cook’s love/hate affair with Palestine/Israel that he is ready to clash with HRW, an outfit that has definitely no love lost for Israel. He is going out all the way to prove that, while the Zionists intentionally and blood-thirstily killed civilians in Lebanon, Hezbollah targeted only military installations. And get told off by HRW for his trouble.

Well, that is enough, although there are more wonderful, albeit laughable, passages in the article.

Just as a funny detail - the last paragraph, where Cook is frothing about the Camera:

Camera has a section dedicated to “naming and shaming” some of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East.

Of course, being a humble person, Cook forgot to mention his own puny self. But the fact is that he is also named and shamed here, quite deservedly too, having his ignorance displayed for all to see.

Accidentally, that supporter I mentioned in the beginning, titled his post “Jonathon Cook staves off the zionist hordes“. What can I say: the Zionist hordes can definitely do with more jkcooks - so pathetic and ridiculous that they do the Zionist’s work for them.

So, I have finished my Hasbara pounce for now. Time for a rest…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Funny how over the last few days, the IDF scored more than a few hits on terrorists, and the media mostly ignored it—because the terrorists were effectively caught red-handed launching rockets at Israeli towns. There was no “poor, poor, pitiful Pals” narrative to go with the story—just naked attemped murder on Israeli civilians.

Until yesterday. Yesterday, the IDF killed two boys when it launched its own rockets at a rocket-launching crew—and it turns out, the narrative is a little different. You see, Palestinians have been using children to retrieve their rocket launchers after firing kassams at Israel, because they know that if the IDF sees that there are children nearby, they will hold their fire. It’s a common practice, long known by the IDF, and long hidden from the public by the AP, Reuters, or any other major news media. And while the current news stories actually acknowledge this practice, the media are using weasel-wording and their tried-and-true practice of burying that fact far enough into the story as to not make your average newspaper’s “World” section, which carries only the first three to five paragraphs of a story, and sometimes only the first two.

The AP:

Israeli forces killed six Palestinians, two of them children, in the West Bank and Gaza Tuesday and early Wednesday, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

The Israeli army said ground forces fired at gunmen who approached the Israel-Gaza border fence Tuesday. The Islamic Jihad group said three militants on a mission against Israel were killed.

[...] Later in the day, the army said troops targeted two figures spotted near a rocket launcher in an area of northern Gaza where a rocket had been fired into Israel earlier.

The fire killed a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old who were members of the same extended family, said doctor Muawiya Hassanin of the Palestinian Health Ministry. Another 10-year-old was seriously wounded and six other people were lightly hurt, all of them civilians, Hassanin said.

The army said Palestinian rocket teams have been known to send young children to retrieve rocket launchers after firing.

“In light of the reports, it seems likely that this was the case here,” the army said in a statement.

Notice the lack of a name for the army spokesperson, as is nearly always the case with any report from an Israeli regarding a “militant” strike. Notice also you have the doctor’s name. There is nearly always a named Palestinian spokesperson, and often, the victims names, ages, and quotes from families are part of the AP and Reuters stories.

Meantime, this is the very last paragraph in the AP narrative, and please remember that the last paragraph of a news article is always considered to be the most cuttable:

Israel frequently carries out ground and air attacks in an effort to stop near-daily rocket fire. Palestinians fired three rockets into Israel on Tuesday including one that hit an empty kindergarten in the town of Sderot near Gaza, the army said.

This is the CNN narrative:

On Tuesday, Israeli attacks launched at what Israel said were Palestinians involved in firing missiles into Israel from Gaza killed as many as four people, including two children, Palestinian sources said.

There were conflicting reports about how many people were killed in the initial attack, an air strike. In the second attack, Hamas security sources said Israeli forces had killed two children.

[...] In the second attack, the Israeli army said it launched an attack on two Palestinian militants standing near a rocket launcher in northern Gaza, in an area from which a Qassam rocket was fired onto Israel just a short while before.

Hamas security sources said the Israelis hit and killed two children, both age 11, with what seemed to be a ground-to-ground missile.

An Israel Defense Forces representative did not specify what weapons were used. The IDF did not immediately respond to the Hamas accusation that it had killed two children.

Note the boldface words, and please note that there are no such weasel words on Hamas spokesmen. See the CNN bias in action: Israelis lie, Hamas terrorists speak the truth. Subtle, but there. And if you were reading this story from another planet, you’d think that Hamas was the trustworthy source, and the IDF was the organization that didn’t want to speak to reporters or give out any information.

Now Reuters:

Israeli missiles killed three Palestinian militants and two young boys in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Palestinian officials said, ratcheting up tensions two months after Hamas seized control of the territory.

Yes, they’re starting off with the whole overarching “ratcheting up tensions” meme: Israel is causing the tensions because they aimed for terrorists firing rockets into Israel, and caught two kids who were being used as human shields for the terrorists.

The fifth and sixth paragraphs give the Israeli side of the story, again from an unnamed Israeli spokesman, because personalizing the Israelis makes them more human.

An army spokesman said that militant groups “often use children as part of their operations” to retrieve launchers and equipment following rocket attacks.

“In this recent event it seems likely that this was the case,” he said.

The BBC version doesn’t so much as bother to contain context, only the fact that children were killed. And oh yeah, in case you miss the point, here’s the headline:

Children killed in Israeli strike
Two Palestinian children have been killed and three others wounded by Israeli forces in northern Gaza, Palestinian health officials have said.

The dead boys, aged 13 and 14, were close to an area from which militants had been firing rockets at Israel, the officials said.

Israel said its ground forces had fired upon two people who were seen near a rocket launcher near Beit Hanoun.

I’m guessing the BBC got the exact same statements as the other news services, and yet, they neglect to point out the crucial fact that young boys are used to retrieve the launchers after they are fired so that the IDF can’t get a bead on the terrorists launching them. That’s an unpleasant fact the BBC will probably never publish.

If you read the full story, the BBC details four separate strikes, all against terrorists launching attacks on Israel. But the headline and lede are all about the children. Because that is the narrative about Israel: Terrorists killed by the IDF don’t count as newsworthy unless there are also civilians hurt. Because the narrative is that all Israel does is murder civilians. Never mind the incredible care Israel takes to prevent civilian casualties. Never mind that the terrorists who were killed by the IDF were gunning for civilians, or sending rockets at kindergartens, or trying to murder noncombatants—even when the terrorists groups admit openly that their men were trying to kill Israelis, the narrative is always, always on the damage that Israel does to civilians.

It simply amazes me that, given the anti-Israel media bias, Israel isn’t even more hated by the world than she is.