I hate to brag, but I called it – the massive escape from YES (and HOT, which we used in the past and was no better). Check out this story from Arutz 7:

Current customers of the HOT and YES cable and satellite TV services have been jamming the companies’ phone lines since Thursday morning, after a ruling by the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Forum that customers have a right to cancel their service for the next three weeks without having to pay a substantial cancellation fee. The fee has been waived because of the closure of the Hallmark Channel, which has decided to stop broadcasting in Israel.
It should be noted that the number of those seeking to cancel the services substantially outnumbers the customers of both services who actually watched the channel.

Looking for alternatives? Look right here and here – at my blog post and Jpost article on Saying “No” to YES!

Could the recession really be over? According to Israeli placement company Etosia, 75% of managers in the hi-tech sector see hiring during 2010 set to grow by at least 20% – with half seeing hiring grow by as much as 30%, or even more. In addition, 46% see salaries in the hi-tech sector growing next year. The poll of 80 directors and top managers in Israeli hi-tech companies was conducted over the past several weeks, with companies of all sizes polled – from those with fewer than 10 employees, to companies with over 500.

Quoting Eyal Solomons, director of Etosia, Globes (in this Hebrew article) said that according to the poll, the hot areas in hi-tech next year – in order of “hotness” – will be software development, sales and marketing, hardware development, and product engineering and development. “Already now we can see a sharp rise in the number of open positions. Since the beginning of the year, demand for workers has gone up 40%.” Salaries, he said, are now more stable as well, since there is more demand.

Perhaps the best result coming out of the poll is that 81% of the bosses believe that the world economy will improve next year. Why is that “the best?” Because Israel’s hi-tech markets are overseas – in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the Far East. Companies wouldn’t be looking to hire if they didn’t think sales were going to rise as well – in the U.S. and Europe. While sales to China are already up, China is still far smaller a customer of Israel’s than the U.S. (first place) and Europe (second).

After being battered for the past couple of years, hi-tech companies have been very conservative in hiring – so the fact that they’re going out on a limb and proclaiming their desire to hire means that change really is in the air. Let’s hope that these guys are right!

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It’s pretty ridiculous, when you think about it – that a population of maybe 13 and a half million “runs the world,” which is closing in on about 7 billion these days. While I could maybe understand how that could work when there were only three billion people in the world – and the Jews were maybe a half a percent of the total – now that we’re just a quarter of a percent, you’d think that canard would fall away.

And yet it persists – and strengthens! Of course there are prominent Jews in many fields – just as there are prominent Irish, Italians, Americans, and Chinese. But somehow, there seem to be “more” prominent Jews – ie, more than you would expect. At least that’s the impression people have (and not just anti-Semites, either). And thanks to an article in the New York Times this week, I think I may know why.

The article, by David Brooks, discusses the “protocol society”- a society that produces not “stuff,” but intellectual property. According to Brooks,

A software program is a protocol for organizing information. A new drug is a protocol for organizing chemicals. Wal-Mart produces protocols for moving and marketing consumer goods. Even when you are buying a car, you are mostly paying for the knowledge embedded in its design, not the metal and glass.

In other words, Western society is now primarily producing ideas, and not just any old ideas – ideas that revolve primarily around the spoken and written word.

In other words, America (and the advanced West) are today in the business of dealing with words – instructions, rules, regulations, all of them leading to ideas. Exactly what Jews excel in!

Don’t take my word for it; the famous genetic researcher, Charles Murray, asks in an article in Commentary magazine in 2007 why the Jews are so overrepresented in the sciences, arts and literature, when it comes to superior achievement:

What accounts for this remarkable record? A full answer must call on many characteristics of Jewish culture, but intelligence has to be at the center of the answer. Jews have been found to have an unusually high mean intelligence as measured by IQ tests since the first Jewish samples were tested.

Murray goes on to cite IQ scores, showing that Jews score higher than the general population. However, he says

Jews are only about average on the subtests measuring visuo-spatial skills, but extremely high on subtests that measure verbal and reasoning skills.

In other words, Jews have an IQ propensity for dealing successfully with ideas – or, in Brook’s words, “protocols!” Interestingly, Murray says that Jewish accomplishment in general society (as opposed to within Jewish academic society, where everyone was expected to be literate) dates only to the mid 1800s, when society began its slow turn from agriculture and manual labor to intellectual creativity.

Now that we’ve arrived at Brooks’ “protocol society” – where intellectual property, “ideas that revolve primarily around the spoken and written word,” is the main product – it seems that Jews are everywhere, even if they’re not, because in order to succeed, everyone has to “think Jewish,” at least to some extent! The better your verbal and written skills, the more successful you’ll be in navigating modern society.

Why this should be true for Jews in particular, says Murray (and also, at least partially, for other groups as well, such as Chinese and Indians), is the subject of his very interesting Commentary article (interestingly, Murray says this applies mostly to Ashkenazi Jews, who lived in more advanced societies, but the letters to the magazine afterwards cite the possibility that it could apply to Sephardim, as well). So, the next time someone rants on about how “the Jews” run everything, keep in mind that the ones running things might not actually be Jewish – they might have just come up with a way to “think Jewish” and succeed in the “protocol society!”

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There’s no accounting for intelligence out there, particularly among the lower intellectual classes, such as the morons that run the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel web sites of the world. Why are they so humorless – and clueless? A sense of humor (and irony) is clearly a sign of intelligence, according to many studies. Meaning that if you don’t get the ironic aspect of many ridiculous situations in life, you’re just dumb.

That’s how it is with these people – and here’s the proof:

Over the past week, an article I wrote about anti-Israel and anti-Semitic web sites has become the darling of the very same people I trashed – because I apparently “outed” one of their ilk, with whom there seems to be a dispute. I’m not all that up on cockroach politics, but apparently one group of losers is accusing senior anti-Semite Alex Jones of being a “Mossad agent” or some such thing.

What do I have to do with this? Because in this article, I exposed Jones’ “Jewish connection.” Jones, a well-known peddler of dark conspiracy theories, apparently works at a Jewish-owned radio station, from where he broadcasts his theories on a syndicated radio program. The big “revelation” is freely available on Wikipedia, which I quoted directly from: “According to Jones’ Wikipedia biography page, ‘the Alex Jones Show radio program is broadcast live from Emmis Communications’ KLBJ Radio in Austin, Texas.’”

A quick search of the Emmis corporate website indicates that the company’s CEO is Jeff Smulyan, whose biography page says that he has, among other things, been awarded with “the Jewish National Fund’s Tree of Life Award.” Further rutting around on racist websites (I won’t offend you by listing the links) indicates that Smulyan is indeed Jewish (as if with a company named “Emmis Communications” there could be any doubt!)

As Mr. Smulyan has not taken any steps to hide his Judaism and still employs Alex Jones as a radio host (4-6 PM Sundays on KLBJ-AM Talk Radio, according to the site’s schedule), I assume both he and Jones are aware of each others’ identities and background. That means that either Smulyan is an extremely liberal fellow, who so believes in freedom of speech that he’s even willing to give someone like Jones access to the airwaves (it CAN’T be because of the advertising money Jones is pulling in!), or Jones is hypocritical enough to overlook his association with the “Jew media,” satisfied to make a deal with his “devil” in order to find a home on a “legitimate” radio station (this assumes, of course, that Jones is an anti-Semite, which you have to conclude he is, judging by the company he keeps).

My entire point in the article which mentioned Jones (and a couple of other jerks, whom I’ll get to in a moment) was their hypocrisy; here Jones goes on about the (according to his ilk, clearly “Jew-run”) Trilateral Commission and the (ditto) “Jew Rockefellers” running the world – while making use of the “Jew media” to spread his poison. It’s not just hypocritical – it’s irony on the highest level!

But the brains who run the hate sites just can’t relate to irony – hence they have wrenched that paragraph out of context, using it to “prove” that Jones is actually an agent of the Jews! Idiots – that’s not what it means! It means that he is a fake, phony and fraud, just like the “Hawaiian Settler” – the guy who occupies a home in Hawaii, stealing land and resources from native Hawaiians, and from where he points fingers at “Israeli occupiers” (ironic!). And he is a fake etc. just like the “Peace in the Desert” Jew from Brooklyn, living in occupied Jerusalem posting about Israel’s “atrocities” in Gaza (super ironic!). As is, to add to the pile, the “street brother” who besides being a Jew-hating cretin, is clearly extremely stupid – the proof being that he was the one who “exposed” what I wrote about Jones, without paying attention to the context, humor or irony or of the article. No doubt he thinks “irony” is what happens when you get the wrinkles out of your clothes. Duh!

(Hint: Watch the first video for some “rational” talk from Jones, then watch the second one for some “context”).

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So the iPhone finally came to Israel – overdue and overpriced. As I predicted, I might add (not that you had to be such a genius to figure it out!).

Don’t bother. The iPhone is so “this year” (maybe even “last year”). Save up your money so you can buy the real game changer – the First Else, made by Else (formerly Emblaze Mobile). I interviewed the CEO of Else for Israel21c.org (look for the full article there) and saw the First Else live and in person.

And it’s like no other phone you’ve ever seen! The video below doesn’t do it justice. This is an elegant – dare I say it? – work of art, that was ergonomically designed from the ground up to provide maximum usability and minimum (actually zero) futzing around.

I don’t want to give away too much because I want you to read the whole article (I’ll link it when it comes out), but I wanted to be sure to let you know what the future holds. Else CEO Amir Kuperveis and I discussed much about the philosophy behind the First Else (appropriate for a device that was designed from the bottom up), comparing it, of course, to the iPhone. Suffice to say that the one advantage the iPhone has – the thousands of apps you can install in order to improve functionality – comes off as a primitive band-aid solution to getting your device to work the way you want.

In the end, the cell device is about getting things done – and the ease of use in the First Else (here’s a tidbit: you can do everything – but everything – that you need to do on the phone with one finger, your thumb! It was designed that way) blows away any and every device on the market. If the First Else is a color high-def digital TV, the iPhone is an ancient early color analog set – while my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is like radio!

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You know those TV shows (I’m thinking Oprah) where they tell you how much money you can save if you stop smoking? Well, I’m saving money now too – not by giving up smoking, but by giving up Big Corporate Commercial TV!

Actually, I’m not giving up TV – not by a long shot. What I am giving up is subscription digital satellite TV, better known in Israel as “YES.”

Yes, this post is about saying no to YES (the truth is I thought of that line a long time ago, but I promised to give Jameel credit. We like Jameel). YES was costing me NIS 290 a month ($77 a month in current shekels!), an astronomical price for much of what turns out to be content (upwards of 80%, I would say) I can get for FREE, using an alternative satellite decoder that subscribes to the hundreds of free to air TV stations broadcasting in the Middle East.

I’ve been investigating the idea of dumping YES for awhile, so I did quite a bit of research on alternatives – and I knew exactly what to expect with the one meter dish I had installed, aimed at two satellites, Israel’s Amos, which has the six Israeli stations and Middle East TV, and Nilesat, which carries about 600 channels. Yes, most of them are Arabic, but there are enough English language one to make getting rid of YES worth it.

Until very recently, YES and HOT (the cable provider) had you over a barrel, because it was the only way even to get Israel Channel 10 (Recently Channels 1 and 2 went digital, and now you need a terrestrial decoder even to watch those). Now, if you want to watch any TV at all, you need a terrestrial digital box, which costs a couple of hundred shekels (I think) But for not much more, you can get a satellite decoder which you can attach to your YES satellite dish connection, if you’re already a customer (when you cancel your service, YES leaves the dish in place). The YES dishes are 80 centimeters, and most people I know who do this are able to use them to get the Nilesat broadcasts. If you want to be “sure” you’ll have access to the wide range of stations on Nilesat or don’t have a YES dish, you can get a one meter dish (like I did) for a few hundred more shekels.

I won’t go into the details, but suffice to say that on Nilesat, there are about 25 English language channels – news, sports and entertainment – all broadcasting free to air. From what I’ve seen so far, the programs on the free channels are equal (if not superior) to the YES content; the Dubai MBC English language movie stations (there are three of them), for example, all have the same movies that YES was charging 40 shekels a month for customers to watch as part of the “movie package.” There hasn’t been a decent program on the YES entertainment stations (channels 12, 13, 14) for a long time, imho, but the programs on the two MBC entertainment channels, as well as Fox Series (where you can watch The Simpsons 10 times a day!), along with a couple of other light entertainment channels, more than make up for YES’s offerings.

In fact, YES can thank MBC for making me a non-customer – it just highlighted the greed of the company. As I mentioned, the MBC channels are all free to air – meaning that YES could rebroadcast them without it costing them a nickel. But even worse; the one Arabic language MBC station is part of their “premium” Arabic package! Not that I watch Arabic TV (although I have plenty of opportunity to do so now!), but if you’re going to rebroadcast one of the MBCs, why not all of them!? But of course they wouldn’t – because then you might not order their “premium” entertainment package! Why pay for what you can see for free?

The truth is, it wasn’t even the money that got us to cancel. What we really hated about YES were, believe it or not, the “promos.” At all hours of the day and night, YES would broadcast promos for the most depraved programs – running the most depraved clips from the programs! And while I wouldn’t care if they did it at night, during “adult time,” I couldn’t take how they insisted on doing it during the afternoon, between shows the kids watch! I know quite a few people who felt the same way, but I’m sure they got the same reaction I did when I called YES to complain – double-talk, accusations that I was hallucinating (true story!), and being ignored.

They just don’t care – until you call to cancel. Now, I’ve got service reps left and right begging me to stay. By the way – don’t try to quit if you have a contract (ie wait till it runs out, because it will cost you at least NIS 400 to break it!). I haven’t had a contract for awhile, so theoretically I should be able to call up and cancel immediately. No way, though; I have to wait for a “senior service person” to call me up and “confirm” that I want to cancel (no doubt I will have to endure some sales pitch). But that’s to be expected, too – they learned it at the “nickel and dime” school of making money, quite common among many Israeli companies. This way, they can keep me on the line for another week or so.

Meanwhile, I’m quite happy with my 35 or so watchable stations (supplemented, of course, by iTunes podcasts and downloaded shows – but that’s another post). I’m thinking I should get someone to back a show I might produce about How to Save Money By Cutting the Cable (or the DBS dish). I bet they won’t show it on YES, though!