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41 Militants Killed in Wave of Attacks in Cameroon
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
MSNBC to widen its scope and make other changes
MSNBC finally recognizes they have been hit by two torpedoes amidships. Now if they can only recognize they are taking on water...

A change is going to come to MSNBC in 2015.

“Technology is continuing to drive unprecedented changes across the media landscape — and we all should be taking a hard, honest look at how we need to evolve along with it,” Phil Griffin, president of the NBC-owned cable news channel, wrote in a year-end message sent to employees Monday and reviewed by The Times.

Griffin noted that it was a tough year for cable news networks — Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC are all on track finish 2014 with a lower daily average audience than the previous year. Part of that has to do with the growth of broadband Internet service, which enables more news consumers to find video coverage online and through their mobile devices.

But Griffin acknowledged that MSNBC’s year was especially difficult, as it will finish third behind Fox News and CNN with viewers ages 25 to 54 — the demographic that advertisers target with news programming. Through Dec. 21, MSNBC averaged 169,000 prime-time viewers in the category, down 17% from 2013 and its worst performance since 2005. Fox News is averaging 302,000 for the year in the demographic, a 3% increase, while CNN is down 1% with 181,000. MSNBC is a distant second behind Fox News in overall viewers, but it’s down in that category as well.
Posted by: badanov || 12/30/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Evolve? Depends on what you mean by Evolve.
Posted by: tipover || 12/30/2014 1:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Can't wait for the end of bundling and the introduction of paying by channel to watch entire venues disappear off the bandwidth.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/30/2014 8:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC are all on track finish 2014 with a lower daily average audience than the previous year.

Fox News is averaging 302,000 for the year in the demographic, a 3% increase, while CNN is down 1% with 181,000. MSNBC is a distant second behind Fox News


Maybe I'm missing something but how does Fox has a lower daily audience last year but at the same time grow 3%? Reads like govmint statistics.
Posted by: JohnQC || 12/30/2014 9:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Progressive math, same type they're imposing with Common Core.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/30/2014 9:49 Comments || Top||

#5  "we're just becoming more selective in our appeal"
Posted by: Frank G || 12/30/2014 10:36 Comments || Top||

#6  JohnQC, either they mean it's an increasing share of a smaller pie, or the absolute increase is in the target demographic, with an overall decrease in all demographics of some unannounced magnitude.

Looking at the source article doesn't help any, but since the only absolute numbers given are in the target demographic, I'm guessing it's the latter.
Posted by: Mitch H. || 12/30/2014 10:39 Comments || Top||

#7  Yo, Phil. "Technology" ain't your problem.
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/30/2014 12:29 Comments || Top||

#8  Nice Spinal Tap reference Frank.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 12/30/2014 13:02 Comments || Top||

#9  ;-)
Posted by: Frank G || 12/30/2014 13:09 Comments || Top||

#10  “Technology is continuing to drive unprecedented changes across the media landscape — and we all should be taking a hard, honest look at how we need to evolve along with it,”

Technology? You mean people have better ways to get at the truth?

And I guess you could "evolve" by taking a hard, honest look at telling the whole story. Something you have never been "good" at.
Posted by: gorb || 12/30/2014 15:21 Comments || Top||

#11  Andrea Mitchell is in the MSNBC lineup. Yes, it's evolution.
Posted by: Pappy || 12/30/2014 18:22 Comments || Top||

#12  Expect them to become not so much in your face liberalism. Kinda like ABC nightly news.

They will however, still suck and fail.

Oh and the math was for the total viewership was down. Fox got more of a smaller pie.
Posted by: DarthVader || 12/30/2014 18:35 Comments || Top||

#13  I'd say that was devolution, #11 Pappy.
Posted by: Barbara || 12/30/2014 18:51 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Ebola Death Toll Nears 8,000
The World Health Organization on Monday released the latest figures on the Ebola epidemic, with the number of suspected, probable and confirmed cases reaching 20,081, almost entirely in West Africa.

The Ebola death toll stands at 7,842, with all but a few deaths occurring in three countries: Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Those are the reported figures; health authorities repeatedly have warned the actual numbers of infections and deaths likely are much higher.

As of December 27, hardest-hit Sierra Leone accounted for almost half of all cases, at 9,409, while Liberia had the highest death toll, 3,413.

Meanwhile, a health care worker who returned from Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with Ebola and is being treated in a Glasgow hospital, Scottish authorities said Monday.
Posted by: badanov || 12/30/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan
Kabul to be pressed to eliminate Taliban bases, assure Afghan MPs
[DAWN] The leader of a visiting Afghan parliamentary delegation said on Monday that Afghan parliament would push Kabul to honour its commitments to Islamabad on elimination of sanctuaries of Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan.

“The Afghan parliament will follow up with (Ashraf Ghani) government on its pledges made to Pakistan on the issue of terror sanctuaries so that required measures are taken,” said Senator Baz Mohammad Zurmati, leader of the Afghan parliamentary delegation.

Mr Zurmati was speaking at a reception hosted in honour of the 16-member Afghan delegation by the Senate Defence Committee at the Parliament House. The delegation is visiting Pakistan for a two-day Pak-Afghan Parliamentary Security Dialogue that will commence on Tuesday.

Presence of TTP (Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan) sanctuaries in Afghanistan has remained a sore point in the bilateral relationship. Things, however, changed with the installation of Ashraf Ghani government, which promised to act against the TTP’s hideouts. The Afghan army after Peshawar school bloodbath started a major operation in Kunar province, where TTP has been maintaining safe havens since 2009.

Political support in Afghanistan for action against TTP’s sanctuaries on Afghan soil would be seen as a welcome change in Islamabad.

In a message directed to both Islamabad and Kabul, Mr Zurmati said terrorist sanctuaries should not be tolerated.
Posted by: Fred || 12/30/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Taliban will shortly be moving into the cities anyway.
Posted by: ed in texas || 12/30/2014 10:14 Comments || Top||

#2  See WAFF > [Channel News Asia] TALIBAN CLAIM NATO DEFEAT IN 13-YEAR AFGHAN WAR, as the US = POTUS Obama formally ends its combat mission there.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/30/2014 23:06 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Egypt court bans festival honoring Moroccan rabbi
[Ynet] An Egyptian court has banned an annual festival in honor of Moroccan rabbi that was regularly attended by hundreds of Jewish pilgrims, mainly from Israel and Morocco. After the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Egypt began allowing organized trips to the tomb of Yaakov Abu Hatzira in the Nile Delta north of Cairo. The Culture Ministry declared the site an Egyptian monument.

The Administrative Court of Alexandria on Monday banned the visits and stripped the ministry's designation. It acted on a complaint filed by local residents who objected to the mingling of men and women and the consumption of alcohol at the festival.
"We don't need no tourists spending money round these here parts!"
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/30/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:


China-Japan-Koreas
Christians now outnumber communists in China
Christianity is growing so fast in China that some predict that it will be the most Christian nation in the world in only another 15 years. By far, the greatest growth is coming outside the official state-sanctioned churches, which are rightly considered subservient to the Communist Party. Numbers are increasing, rather, in unofficial Protestant “house churches” and in the underground Catholic church.

“By my calculations China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon,” said Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology at Purdue University and author of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule.

Although at least on paper the People’s Republic of China recognizes freedom of religion since 1978, party members are explicitly forbidden to believe in any religion. In 2011, Zhu Weiqun, executive vice minister of the United Front Work Department, wrote, “Party members shall not believe in religion, which is a principle to be unswervingly adhered to.”
Posted by: badanov || 12/30/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Then there's this: China's Xi Calls For Tighter Ideological Control In Universities
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for greater "ideological guidance" in China's universities and urged the study of Marxism, state media reported on Monday, as the country tightens control on Western ideology.

Xi's comments are the latest sign of his politically conservative agenda and come amid a ratcheting up of controls over the media, dissidents and the internet.

Like many officials before him, Xi is steeped in the party's long-held belief that loosening control too quickly, or even at all, could lead to chaos and the break up of the country.

Xi's administration has overseen a crackdown on dissidents and on freedom of expression that many rights activists say is the most sustained and severe in years.

Last week, Chinese media reported that a university in northwestern China had banned Christmas, calling it a "kitsch" foreign celebration unbefitting of the country's own traditions and made students watch propaganda films instead.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 12/30/2014 0:24 Comments || Top||

#2  on paper the People’s Republic of China recognizes freedom of religion since 1978

No. China recognizes "freedom of worship", which is the same Marxist term that Obama is trying to impose on the United States.

You are allowed to worship as long as you keep it hidden from public view. Atheists, however, are allowed full access to public media, are allowed to advocate for atheism in public, and no one is allowed to criticize atheism.

Do not forget that Obama was mentored by Frank Marshal Davis, a card carrying member of the CPUSA, who left the party to join the Maoist faction. Even as the Chinese become a Christian, capitalist nation, Obama is trying to transform us into a Maoist country.
Posted by: frozen al || 12/30/2014 10:50 Comments || Top||

#3  Numbers are increasing, rather, in unofficial Protestant “house churches” and in the underground Catholic church.

Which may be one reason why Pope Francis did not meet with the ChiCom government-disliked Dali Lama.
Posted by: Pappy || 12/30/2014 12:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Very good news.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 12/30/2014 16:41 Comments || Top||

#5  And ironically occurring at the same time that the Islamic Hard Boy/MilTerr threat agz China,, + Russia + India + their collective Nuke-WMD Arsenals, is increasing.

You just know the Hare Krishnas will coming to Beijing's airport very soon.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 12/30/2014 20:55 Comments || Top||


Europe
Ten Dead, Dozens Missing After Ferry Fire Disaster
The death toll after a ferry caught fire in rough seas in the Adriatic rose to ten Monday with dozens of passengers still unaccounted for.

It was unclear whether the missing passengers had drowned or otherwise died unnoticed or whether the ill-fated Norman Atlantic's manifest lists were inaccurate.

Pending resolution of the issue, the Italian navy was continuing to search for bodies around the stricken ferry, which remained in waters close to Albania hours after nightfall.

As survivors described a terrifying ordeal that could easily have claimed far more lives, Italian Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi confirmed that a total of 427 people had been winched to safety by helicopter over the course of a 24-hour rescue operation carried out in the teeth of an unusually fierce winter storm.

With the ten confirmed dead, that left 41 people unaccounted for in comparison to the list of passengers and crew released by the ferry's Greek operator on Sunday.

Lupi said it was unclear if the discrepancy was due to errors on the passenger list, no-shows at boarding or people getting off at a stopover on the Greek island of Igoumenitsa.
Posted by: badanov || 12/30/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  a total of 427 people had been winched to safety by helicopter over the course of a 24-hour rescue operation carried out in the teeth of an unusually fierce winter storm

That's about 19/hour, or one every three minutes. That's impressive.
Posted by: gorb || 12/30/2014 15:27 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
L.A. police investigating possible ambush of 2 officers
Los Angeles police are investigating whether gunfire in South Los Angeles on Sunday night was aimed at two officers responding to a call, officials said Monday.

The officers were in a black-and-white patrol car driving southbound on Hoover Street near 62nd Place on Sunday night when they said they saw a muzzle flash – the visible blast from a gun – and determined they were being fired at, said LAPD Lt. Andy Neiman. The officers were able to return fire, officials said.
Posted by: badanov || 12/30/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:



Who's in the News
54[untagged]
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1Commies
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1Hezbollah
1Islamic State
1Palestinian Authority
1Salafists
1al-Qaeda in Arabia

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In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2014-12-30
  41 Militants Killed in Wave of Attacks in Cameroon
Mon 2014-12-29
  Taliban declares 'defeat' of Nato
Sun 2014-12-28
  AirAsia plane with 162 aboard disappears between Singapore and Malaysia
Sat 2014-12-27
  14 ISIL terrorists captured in Ramadi
Fri 2014-12-26
  Pakistani forces kill key planner of Peshawar school massacre
Thu 2014-12-25
  ISIL bombard Baghdadi district with Chlorine gas
Wed 2014-12-24
  Jordan Confirms IS Captured Pilot after Plane Went down in Syria
Tue 2014-12-23
  Pak court suspends conviction of five attackers on Gujrat army camp
Mon 2014-12-22
  Afghan forces launch operation in areas bordering Pakistan
Sun 2014-12-21
  Seven Dead as Pakistan Hits Militant Hideouts
Sat 2014-12-20
  Abu Muslim al-Turkmani: From Iraqi officer to slain ISIS deputy
Fri 2014-12-19
  Dr Usman, Arshad Mehmood executed in Faisalabad
Thu 2014-12-18
  Peshmerga launch massive offensive on ISIS sites in Zammar, Mosul
Wed 2014-12-17
  Nawaz removes moratorium on death penalty
Tue 2014-12-16
  Taliban slaughter dozens of children at school in Peshawar


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