No sooner than I point out that in order for broadcast journalism to return to the days of the Cronkites and Reasoners, the companies supporting the industry would have to set their standards higher, MSNBC does just that.
Good-bye Keith Olbermann!
No witty headline needed. It is what it is:
GM has four plants in Mexico, and has invested some $5 billion here since 2006, Calderon said.
I’m waiting for the Sheet Metal Workers International Association and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades to storm the next GM shareholders’ meeting wanting to know where their stimulus money went.
This is just precious:
The guy who thought this thing out is Marc Norberg. I respectfully, while not laughing my ass off, request Marc fill us in on “those tax breaks”. I missed them. I think he illustrated his true intent a little later:
He added that the union has been targeting Pulte for years, but the homebuilder won’t meet with them.
Maybe it’s because Pulte is not union-only?
I think these guys got Pulte confused with GM.
People are talking a lot right now that the vitriol needs to be leveled down a lot. Problem is there are too many people that thrive on it. To me journalism hit the current low when Keith Olbermann went on MSNBC. I think he’s the worst editorialist in the world. The reason, well, just look:
His stuff is only partisan, is only personal, and is only inflammatory. When faced with a situation where he has no facts to support his argument, he resorts to mocking and trivializing the object of his scorn. At the very best he sounds immature. At the worst, not someone you want your kids around. He’s thrived on MSNBC even though I think most of his content borders on slander. Let’s look at slander a little closer, shall we”
Slander is the oral communication of false statements that are harmful to a person’s reputation. If the statements are proven to be true, it is a complete defense to a charge of slander. Oral opinions that don’t contain statements of fact don’t constitute slander. Slander is an act of communication that causes someone to be shamed, ridiculed, held in contempt, lowered in the estimation of the community, or to lose employment status or earnings or otherwise suffer a damaged reputation. Slander is a subcategory of defamation.
OK, so let’s start with the obvious. Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the world” series. Can someone tell me how that is not slander? He states his stuff as “fact”. He presents arguments. He doesn’t “think” this person is, he proves it. And, how much lower in the estimation of the community can a person get than to be “the worst person in the world”?
Now, to me, the reason we’ve got the incredibly low standards in broadcast journalism is simply because the victims of the incredibly bad journalism never do anything about it. The only reason MSNBC puts Keith Olbermann on tv is because he makes them money. Lots of it. Even though his ratings are in the cellar, always have been, and have no reason to ever get better, he makes money. What if he didn’t? You think MSNBC would put up with him very long if he was costing them a lot of money? I think Mark Levin’s on to that concept as well:
As with Keith Olbermann not really thinking any one person is truly the worst person in the word, but stating they are anyway, I see Mark Levin wanting to sue the pants off Keith Olbermann, without really thinking he has to win. If every single one of the “victims” of Olbermann’s slander were to sue, it would create a legal mess for MSNBC that could cost millions and last for years.
Now, I’m obviously leaning towards the “right” here. I’m obviously more conservative than liberal. But, more than anything else, I’m sick and tired of the pathetic ethical and moral standards broadcast journalism has allowed itself to get to. Everyone trusted Walter Cronkite. It’s nothing but downhill since he went off tv. I don’t trust anyone in television any more. If it’s on cable television, then there’s something happening. I’ll get the details elsewhere.
Now, I’m not totally absolving bloggers and whatnot. But, whereas broadcast journalism used to set the bar for bloggers to shoot for if they wanted any respect, broadcast journalism instead dumbed itself down to the levels of the worst bloggers. So, at this time, there are no standards. What’s any better about The View than any blog?
What’s got to happen is someone has to take the lead. And, it has to be a power player. I don’t see MSNBC or Fox or anyone else taking that chance. So, maybe, if enough people follow Levin’s lead, and my suggestion, and sue the crap out of broadcast journalists who slander for profit, then maybe cable tv will be that someone who takes the lead.
Canada, that land of escapism from the burdens placed on people in the US, just banned Dire Strait‘s Money For Nothing
Yup, they say “faggot”.
The little faggot has his own jet airplane
The little faggot is a millionaire
Man, that’s highly offensive. But, you know what, I really always felt the more offensive line was:
And he’s up there, what’s that? Hawaiian noises?
Banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee
Yeah, you know what THAT’S supposed to mean.
Clue here, Canada. Especially the idiot who was offended, it’s ABOUT being offensive. It’s a song about these brutes with half a brain realizing that people they find offensive are making it through life a lot easier than they are. Rather than spend five seconds trying to figure out the very obvious meaning of the song, this idiot does what so many people today do, they try to purge it without even wanting to try to understand it. That’s just fascism.
So, 26 years after after the song was released and it received its Grammy, Canada has decided it’s too offensive for air play. I think I’ll be staying right here in the US.
4
Jan
Recently was sent this link:
That’s my image, here’s Townhall’s link. Since I was a young boy, I hated NPR. They’ve had a lifelong history of dumbing down content. If they were reporting a war, you heard incessant gun fire in the background. The noises alone drove me away. It just struck me that they thought the average listener was too stupid to know what war was, so they tossed in sound effects to help. The content never enticed me to stay. Once CNN, Fox, MSNBC, XM, Cable, radio, the internet, and a host of other outlets arose to fill their void, I forgot they even existed. They served no function in my life. And, from what I can gather, the same was true for most of the US.
Originally, President Johnson asserted the charter for CPB, that’s the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as:
Now, the problem you had in 1967 was a very limited media. Not so much politically, morally, or ethically, but physically. You had radio, and you had broadcast television. That was it. There were basically three channels on television, and depending on your radio, a whole bunch. Probably 20 or so. In 1980, things changed rather dramatically when CNN went on the air. No longer was it safe to assume that only a federally funded quasi-governmental agency would be the only one capable of delivering “good music”, “exciting plays”, or “reporting on the whole fascinating range of human activity”. They definitely got the “reporting on the whole fascinating range of human activity” part down real good. They’re a news company, that’s all they do.
At about the same time, satellite television was in its infancy. For those with S-band dishes, you remember those:
You could get programming from anywhere in the world. Literally. You weren’t tied to the big three any more. I had one of those buggers, I watched NASA real-time. That was cool. Suddenly I was watching R and X rated movies, my whole experience exploded. At that time it became evident to me that there really was no need for NPR, CPB. How did they justify their existence? Folks, that was around 1980 or so.
S-Band begat the Dishnets we know today. Now you’ve got hundreds of channels. Want Education, go to educationtv. Want classical music? Go to one of the several classical channels. Symphony? Broadway? Opera? It’s all there. Concerned what you’re government’s doing? Go to C-Span. The content absolutely overwhelms what CPB was chartered to do. The purpose for CPB obviously no longer exists.
So, given the obvious eliminated need for CPB, what would you expect happened to its funding?
Funny you should ask:
| Year | Allocation | Change |
| 1969 | $5,000,000.00 | |
| 1970 | $15,000,000.00 | 200% |
| 1971 | $23,000,000.00 | 53% |
| 1972 | $35,000,000.00 | 52% |
| 1973 | $35,000,000.00 | 0% |
| 1974 | $50,000,000.00 | 43% |
| 1975 | $62,000,000.00 | 24% |
| 1976 | $78,500,000.00 | 27% |
| 1977 | $103,000,000.00 | 31% |
| 1978 | $119,200,000.00 | 16% |
| 1979 | $120,200,000.00 | 1% |
| 1980 | $152,000,000.00 | 26% |
| 1981 | $162,000,000.00 | 7% |
| 1982 | $172,000,000.00 | 6% |
| 1983 | $137,000,000.00 | -20% |
| 1984 | $137,500,000.00 | 0% |
| 1985 | $150,500,000.00 | 9% |
| 1986 | $159,500,000.00 | 6% |
| 1987 | $200,000,000.00 | 25% |
| 1988 | $214,000,000.00 | 7% |
| 1989 | $228,000,000.00 | 7% |
| 1990 | $229,400,000.00 | 1% |
| 1991 | $298,900,000.00 | 30% |
| 1992 | $327,300,000.00 | 10% |
| 1993 | $318,600,000.00 | -3% |
| 1994 | $275,000,000.00 | -14% |
| 1995 | $285,600,000.00 | 4% |
| 1996 | $275,000,000.00 | -4% |
| 1997 | $260,000,000.00 | -5% |
| 1998 | $250,000,000.00 | -4% |
| 1999 | $250,000,000.00 | 0% |
| 2000 | $300,000,000.00 | 20% |
| 2001 | $340,000,000.00 | 13% |
| 2002 | $350,000,000.00 | 3% |
| 2003 | $362,800,000.00 | 4% |
| 2004 | $377,800,000.00 | 4% |
| 2005 | $386,800,000.00 | 2% |
| 2006 | $396,000,000.00 | 2% |
| 2007 | $400,000,000.00 | 1% |
| 2008 | $393,000,000.00 | -2% |
| 2009 | $400,000,000.00 | 2% |
| 2010 | $420,000,000.00 | 5% |
| 2011 | $430,000,000.00 | 2% |
| 2012 | $445,000,000.00 | 3% |
| $10,129,600,000.00 | 8800% |
Yup, it just keeps growing and growing. Then came the news that George Soros donated a LOT of money to NPR. They then promptly fired Juan Williams. He was the only remotely conservative spokesperson at NPR. They reason they fired Williams? For expressing an opinion. That used to be considered an exciting human activity. What it did now was assure the planet that CPB no longer cared about their charter. They only cared about appeasing their base. And, that base neither represents the public interest, nor even the US citizens’ interest. It only represents the internal philosophy of the people running NPR. That’s it. That makes it no different than MSNBC, CNN, or any of the other hard left propaganda tools George Soros employs. Someone tell me what the point of NPR existing at this point is. I really see absolutely none whatsoever. The history you’ll find on the History channel. The music’s all over Sirius/XM.
Then came the internet.
They really no longer need to exist.
They certainly do not need to be contributing to the national debt.
John Boehner wants ideas, listen to Darrell Issa. Defund NPR, no one will notice.
From my friend Sharon:
The Basics for writing 2011 Romance Novels
He gazed into my eyes then grasped me firmly, but gently just above my elbow and guided me into a room, his room. Then he quietly closed the door and we were alone.
He approached me soundlessly, from behind, and spoke in a low, deep, reassuring voice close to my ear. “Just relax.”
Without another word, he gently reached down and I felt his warm, strong, calloused hands start at my ankles, gently probing, and moving upward along my calves slowly, but steadily. My breath stopped for a moment. I knew that I should be afraid, but somehow I didn’t care. His gentle touch was so experienced, positive, and so sure.
When his hands moved up onto my thighs, I gave a slight shudder, and then I partly closed my eyes. My heart was pounding. Then I felt his knowing fingers caress my abdomen, my ribcage. And then, as he cupped my firm, perky breasts in his hands, I inhaled deeply. Probing, searching, knowing what he wanted, he brought his hands to my shoulders, slid them down my tingling spine to my Victoria Secret underwear
Although I knew nothing about this man, I felt trusting and sexy again. This is a real man, I thought. A man used to taking charge. A man not accustomed to taking `no’ for an answer. A man who would tell me what he wanted. A man who would look into my eyes and soul and say:
“Okay, Ma’am, you can board your flight now.”
