Posts from — February 2008

Update: the Pensacola Beach Blog has an example of the quality control in his local Gannett paper.

Avedon Carol of Sideshow pointed to this nice summary, What’s really wrong with newspapers, of the major problems of newspapers. It also applies to the broadcast media, because the same forces that are killing newspapers, are killing local radio and television stations.

In a nutshell, while the media is complaining about losing audiences of readers, viewers, and listeners, they are eliminating the single reason people would become a member of their audience – content.

I have no source of local news other than rumor. The local radio stations are almost all owned by a single company out of Mississippi, and they don’t “do” news. The single television station was bought by Sinclair Broadcast Group along with the ABC affiliate in Pensacola, so the local news content on television has just about disappeared. All of the local newspapers are owned by the same libertarian whackos who have been replacing substance with fluff and firing all of the long-time local reporters. Most of what is labeled “local news” are press releases from various public agencies. I almost never agreed with their editorial policy, but bought the paper for actual local news reports.

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Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

I don’t guess too many political blogger are around little kids or they would recognize “Yes, we can!”. To offer them a little help and guidance plug “yes we can bob” into a search engine.

I mean, really, ripping off Bob the Builder for a campaign slogan – come on.

If you mail people cards, be aware that one of the dimensions must be less than 6 ¹/₈ inches or they charge you extra for postage. Also you should write parallel to the longer edge, or they will have a fit.

This message brought to you by your new, privatized, US Postal Service, which should not be confused with the old, cheaper and friendlier, US Post Office.

Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker reminds us that the FISA bill is back for more votes on Monday. Several of the amendments are due for up or down votes, so attendance is critical to stop telecom immunity.

Anyone making book on whether the candidates will take a break on the eve of “Super Tuesday” to actually fulfill their roles in the Senate?

McClatchy reports that Wall Street donates millions to top presidential candidates:

…Democratic candidates Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois were the leading recipients of cash from employees of these firms, collecting half the $7.4 million in donations to 15 major presidential candidates.

Through Dec. 31, Clinton had collected more than $2 million in donations from employees of 12 banking firms caught up in the sub-prime mess. She received $373,020 from Morgan Stanley workers, $316,001 from Goldman Sachs employees and nearly $290,000 from Citicorp. workers.

Obama got $1.7 million from the same firms, including $288,835 from Goldman Sachs employees, $242,395 from UBS workers and $226,805 from Lehman Brothers employees…

I’m sure these are just public spirited workers who are hoping that the the government will clean up some of the excesses that led to the subprime meltdown, and has nothing to do with any pending legislation, law suits, criminal investigations, etc. that surround the problem.

It is interesting that the two final candidates for the Democratic Party received half of the donations.

It’s Groundhog Day and some of the militant marmots object to being disturbed.

The world never runs out of stupid.

Eli Pariser of MoveOn sent me an e-mail at 12:10PM [my time] on 01/31 with this message:

Dear MoveOn Member,

We have a big decision to make. Yesterday, John Edwards left the race for president, leaving just two major Democratic candidates. And next Tuesday, over half of MoveOn’s members will go to the polls in the biggest primary day in American history.

Right now, we have an opportunity to influence who our next president is–3.2 million MoveOn members together. When we surveyed over 200,000 MoveOn members yesterday to see if we should go forward with an endorsement process, a big majority said “yes.”

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CNN et al. are reporting that in addition to the two cables that are damaged in the Mediterranean, Third undersea Internet cable cut in Mideast

(CNN) — An undersea cable carrying Internet traffic was cut off the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, officials said Friday, the third loss of a line carrying Internet and telephone traffic in three days.

Ships have been dispatched to repair two undersea cables damaged on Wednesday off Egypt.

FLAG Telecom, which owns one of the cables, said repairs were expected to be completed by February 12. France Telecom, part owner of the other cable, said it was uncertain when repairs on it would be repaired.

Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the cables off Egypt were likely damaged by ships’ anchors.

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February 1, 2003

Commander:
Rick Douglas Husband, Colonel, USAF

Pilot:
William C. McCool, Commander, USN

Payload Commander:
Michael P. Anderson, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Mission Specialist:
Kalpana Chawla, PhD
David M. Brown, MD, Captain, USN
Laurel Blair Salton Clark, MD, Captain, USN

Payload Specialist:
Ilan Ramon, Colonel, Israel Air Force

[Mustang Bobby has the crew picture.]

Learn To Adjust

You think we’re in the way, Dot?
Don’t be silly, cats are never in the way.

[Editor: Dot and Sox “helping” me reorganize.]

Friday Ark