IT’S A QUAGMIRE:

The New York Times Co. posted a $648 million loss for the fourth quarter on Wednesday as it absorbed an $814.4 million charge to write down the value of its struggling New England properties, The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. . . .

The company originally paid $1.1 billion for the Globe in 1993 and $296 million for the Worcester paper in 2000.

The Times reported a loss amounting to $4.50 a share for the October- December period. It earned $63.1 million, or 43 cents a share, a year ago.

Reader Matt Graham writes: “NYT in quagmire. Should immediately begin plans for withdrawal from newspaper business.”

Don Surber: “I notice the Wall Street Journal does not operate this way.”

The Times empire should be making as much money as the WSJ’s, and I think it’s bad management that has made the difference.

REFORM IN KNOX COUNTY:

On the new Knox County Commission is the son of an ex-commissioner, the father of a current commissioner, and the wife of another ex-commissioner.

Also, there’s a Sheriff’s Office employee and one of the booted commissioners is now the Knox County Clerk.

Boy, term limits really bring in new blood, don’t they?

Part of the problem is that not that many people want the jobs.

STEVE FORBES IS PUSHING the Iraq Oil Trust idea.

LOADS MORE LIBBY TRIAL BLOGGING at Tom Maguire’s place. “In a brutally devastating but gentlemanly low key way the defense destroyed a key prosecution witness.”

And lots more on developments at Duke at K.C. Johnson’s, plus a link to this oped by Johnson.

UPDATE: No, it wasn’t a misquote from Tom above — I cut-and-pasted accurately, but then he fixed the error. I’ve followed suit.

BACK BEFORE THE ELECTIONS, I wondered if the Republicans suffered from some sort of “bizarre death wish.” Hugh Hewitt thinks it’s getting worse.

And reader C.J. Burch writes:

The Repubs are on very dangerous ground here I think. Any Sox fan can tell you this. It is very easy to really, really hate people you once loved when you feel they have betrayed you. (Think Roger Clemens, Sox fans) The Republican base isn’t going to get over this, I don’t think…not ever. Of course the winners will be conservative Southern Democrats, and there are still some around. Folks like Jim Marshall here in Georgia will step into the vacume just fine. The Democrats took the South for granted and tossed it away. Looks like the Repubs are trying the same gambit. If they don’t think southern (Jacksonian) voters will find somehwere else to go they’ve lost their minds.

I realize that you go to war with the political class you have, but still. . . .

HOW NOT TO TALK about politics and religion.

THE NOT-SO-FINAL countdown.

THE PERIL OF A NEWSPAPER BLOG “…is that a reporter might say what he actually thinks before an editor catches up with him and makes him stop.”

UPDATE: More here from Blackfive and here from Marc Danziger. Danziger observes:

Look, Arkin’s a pretty good writer, and a veteran. But if you look at his opus in Google, you find him on the anti-military side of almost every issue that’s come along since the 1980’s.

And to appoint him lead blogger on military affairs for arguable the leading newspaper in the country certainly looks a lot like appointing ‘Focus On The Family’s’ James Dobson as the lead rap music critic.

I’m not saying that the major media are liberal, or biased against the military or anything. But this sure makes a good case for it.

Read the whole thing(s).

MORE: A related observation from The Mudville Gazette. And reader Ted Doty writes:

The problem is maybe less what Arkin wrote, than what his commenters wrote. After reading some of them, I feel like I should take a shower:

” I applaud the use of the word “mercenary” to describe the soldiers comprising our standing army. The rarity of its use in this context compelled me to comment.

“U.S. soldiers are by no means “volunteers,” any more than I am a volunteer plumber. When a person accepts compensation in the form of respect, glory, and not least of all monetary benefits (not to mention a host of other privileges for serving one’s country after service is completed) a transaction is made in which both sides receive some benefit. Fisherman in Alaska take on relatively larger risks in exchage [sic] for relatively larger reward. Why is the U.S. military of the 21st century so different in this regard?”

Jeez … is is 2004 all over again? Not that I question their patriotism or anything …

No. Though it’s no fairer to blame Arkin for his commenters, I stress, than any other blogger. But that doesn’t make the comments better. Most of them, however, take a decidedly different tone, more hostile to Arkin than to the troops.

AN INTERESTING LOOK AT the state of the economy.

XENI JARDIN continues her series on Guatemala.

“LOUD CHEERING AND STRONG APPLAUSE:” Bush on Wall Street, where they seem pretty happy with him.

AN INSTAPUNDIT FLASHBACK: “HE’S DOOMED, THEN: ‘The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth.'”

Yep. Calling Obama the first “articulate and bright and clean” black candidate for President is unfair. Say what you will about Al Sharpton, but his personal hygiene appears to be excellent.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse: “I’m on the same page as Kos on this one.” Me too.

But Jonah Goldberg is defending Biden.

IS THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE ABOUT TO COLLAPSE? “I am starting to lend more personal credence to the theory that a combination of strong growth, fat corporate profits, and already tight labor market might push the unemployment rate to lows we have not seen since the 1960s.” That would be nice.

JULES CRITTENDEN: SURGE!

AN AL-QAEDA / CBS video partnership? “CBS used Flash, while AQ prefers realPlayer. That’s just one more reason to hate both Al Qaeda and realPlayer, I guess.”

BILL ROGGIO REPORTS:

Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, one of Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-laws with deep roots in al-Qaeda as a financier and facilitator, has been reported to have been murdered in his bedroom in Madagascar. Khalifa, “who mined and traded precious stones in Madagascar,” was reported to have been murdered by “a gang of 20 to 30 gunmen broke into his brother’s bedroom, shot him dead ‘in cold blood’ and stole his belongings.”

It’s hard to see this as bad news.

UPDATE: An angry lefty reader thinks that this is bad news because — if Bush weren’t an inept boob — we would have captured Khalifa and reaped an intelligence bonanza.

I’m sure we’d rather have captured him alive and interrogated him, but that’s not always possible. And at any rate, I doubt Khalifa would have produced much useful intelligence in the absence of now-banned interrogation techniques. I’d rather have him pushing up daisies than either operating out in the world, or filing a civil rights suit from Guantanamo. Of course, such a ban does tend to make people like Khalifa worth more dead than alive, but I can live with that consequence, and am surprised that lefty Bush critics feel otherwise, given all the complaints about Guantanamo, etc.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Meryl Yourish emails:

From the article:

“They stole everything — his computer, all of his things,” said Khalifa’s brother.

Uh-huh. His computer. Your lefty reader isn’t reading between the lines in the news article.

I doubt it was just someone desperate for an early release of Windows Vista. And another reader emails:

Your blurb contains an update that says:

“UPDATE: An angry lefty reader thinks that this is bad news because — if Bush weren’t an inept boob — we would have captured Khalifa and reaped an intelligence bonanza.”

If you read Bill’s article, you will see that he had been captured three times in the past and let go in each case. Basically it is a case for showing why we can’t use conventional law enforcement techniques against these maniacs.

He was arrested in the US in 1994 … let’s see … which administration was that again?

I blame Bush.

HOW MANY LEGISLATORS DOES IT TAKE TO BAN A LIGHTBULB? More than they’ll probably muster for this dumb idea:

A California lawmaker wants to make his state the first to ban incandescent lightbulbs as part of California’s groundbreaking initiatives to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

The “How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act” would ban incandescent lightbulbs by 2012 in favor of energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

I’m quite interested in compact fluorescents — I’ve installed quite a few in my house, and I’ve been experimenting to see which ones suck (most of them) and which ones are okay. But banning incandescents? That’s just silly.

Now a ban on private jets? Much less intrusive, and there’s lots of reason to think that this sort of thing has gotten out of hand. Flying commercial — you can even fly First Class if you want — is a small sacrifice for our business and political and entertainment leaders to pay in order to fight the scourge of global warming. Plus, who knows, if the “jet set” starts flying commercial again, maybe commercial flying will get better . . . .

THOUGHTS ON MCCAIN, WARNER, AND “BENCHMARKS.”

UPDATE: More background here.

GLOBAL WARMING CULPRIT LOCATED: “‘He uses the 707 as the family van,’ says Jumbolair developer Terri Jones. ‘The Gulfstream is his sports car.'” Green Hollywood outrage is sure to follow this revelation . . . .

MEGAN MCARDLE: “Gasoline prices rose slightly a year ago from $2 to $3 (readers in Europe are snickering, or sobbing) and the media was filled with how awful this was and what oh what was the president going to do to bring prices back down? Now that gas is cheap again, the hue and cry is about how to get people to use less. In the garbled logic of politics, where human beings are unmoved by incentives, CAFE standards offer a ‘have your cake and eat it too’ promise — low gas prices and low gas consumption. Unfortunately, reality will assert itself and we will find low gas prices bringing high gas consumption, no matter what CAFE requires.”

ED MORRISSEY:

Charles Schumer and Barack Obama plan to introduce a bill today in the Senate that will impose more regulation on political speech during campaigns in order to end “deceptive” practices. The New York Times editorial board enthusiastically supports this new bill, even though it admits that the one abuse most often associated with this effort can be prosecuted under existing law.

It’s all about protecting incumbents. It always is.

RUDY GIULIANI: “STAR POWER.” A big vulnerability is going to be on the gun issue, I think: It is for him what Campaign Finance Reform is for McCain, something that chases away GOP base voters who lean libertarian.

THE TOSHIBA PORTEGE R400 gets “gadget of the week” honors at Popular Mechanics. Doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, though.

SCIENCE FAIR BOOKS, Valentine’s Day reading, and more, at the Books for Kids blog. Plus, “princess books” that won’t shrink the brain.