Nancy Pelosi Extreme Makeover Working — (Not Her Facelifts) Her Transformation from San Francisco Liberal Progressive to Kindly Grandma, Italian Catholic

By Mick Gregory

Newt Gingrich has exposed the lies of Nancy Pelosi and is calling her actions the worst example of political power and damaging lies he has ever experienced in his lifetime. Watch the new Democrat one-party system ignor Pelosi’s poison and turn it on the few remaining Republicans.

 

 

Recent Pelosi items in the news

Chris Mathews of “Softball” calls Ms. Pelosi “a knockout.” She is amazing looking for a 68-year-old.

Update: Feb. 25, 2009 (Morning after Obama’s first State of the Union address). 

Pelosi’s face- and eye-lifts are amazing, but her biggest makeover is her political image, from a progressive Democrat/socialist, atheist, wealthy resort owner, to a middle of the road, “working class” Catholic.

 

 

Quite a makeover for newly sworn House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as her national image morphed from leader of the San Francisco liberal elite to Italian Catholic mom from Baltimore.

There was her photo-op return to the Little Italy neighborhood where she grew up as Nancy D’Alesandro, the mayor’s daughter. There was the visit to St. Leo the Great Catholic Church, where they still recite Mass in Italian several times a year.

“It’s clear Republicans are reeling today based on her outreach to Italian Catholics who, as we know, have deserted the Democratic Party in the Midwest in droves,” said San Francisco power attorney Joe Cotchett, who was among those attending the Pelosi swearing in.

While the marathon events in the nation’s capital might have resembled a coronation, those most familiar with how Washington works said Pelosi’s time in the spotlight amounted to well-calculated politics that could help her move her agenda in her first 100 days.

“A lot of people don’t know much about her, so this is a chance to fill in her profile and biography so she doesn’t just become the San Francisco liberal,” said San Francisco consultant Chris Lehane, a veteran of the Clinton-Gore White House. “This is the one time when the press will be focusing on it.”

And it may be working.

According to the results of a Rasmussen Reports national phone survey of 800 likely voters, released Friday, Pelosi’s approval rating has jumped to 43 percent — up 19 points from November.

On the other hand, the same poll also found 39 percent of those surveyed still give Pelosi the thumbs-down.

Showing off: In politics as in movies, staging is all-important to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — and his inaugural was no exception.

Produced by Schwarzenegger family friend Carl Bendix, who has done the Academy Awards Governors Ball and other Hollywood events, and emceed by former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, the Friday affair was Hollywood through and through — including a last-minute prop to help the gimpy governor.

–Matier & Ross, SF Chronicle

Keep a score card on the liberal mainstream media. Make note that there is never a word about:

Nancy Pelosi’s age.
The age of her children — in photo-ops it is Pelosi and her youngest, prettiest grand children
Her resort, Napa Valley vineyards, and high-end restaurants and use of non-union and illegal immigrant labor.
Her total support of partial birth abortion.
How she gained the votes from Democrats for first, minority leader and now majority leader.

Notice how the San Francisco reporters go with the spin, calling her a “mom” and not mentioning any of these items.

That’s why citizen journalists are filling the void.

The Internet most trusted news source now

The Web Most Reliable Source of News according to Zogby

There is a backlash to the perceived (real or imagined) alliance between major media and the Democrat party. 

A Zogby Poll, commissioned by IFC, found 37.6% of those asked consider the Internet the most reliable source of news. 20.3% consider national TV news most reliable and 16% say radio is the most reliable source.

• 39.3% of those surveyed trust FOX News most for the issues they consider most important, followed by CNN with 16% and MSNBC with just 15%.

• 72.6% believe the news they read and see is biased.

• 88.7% Republican and 57.5% Democrat respondents describe the news media as biased.

 Theodore Roosevelt

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” –Teddy Roosevelt

Impeccable timing for Ann Coulter’s new book, “Guilty.”

Set for release first week of January, the book exposes in documented detail, the media’s love affair with all things Democrat and Obama. Coulter presents all the details that have been covered up. It mocks  and rocks professional jounalism to its core.

“GUILTY is a much-needed reality check on a Left gone wild,” declares the book’s jacket.

“When it comes to bullying, no one outdoes the Left. Citing case after case, ranging from the hilariously absurd to the shockingly vicious, Coulter dissects so-called victims who are invariably the oppressors. For instance: While Barack Hussein Obama piously condemned attacks on candidates’ families, his media and campaign surrogates ripped open the court-sealed divorce records of his two principal opponents in his Senate race in Illinois.”

 

The leftist blogs are reporting that Ms. Coulter had her jaw wired shut. If so, she can still write best sellers. 

 

 

Mainstream media didn’t hide the housing bubble — They didn’t see it. They were too busy writing puff pieces on celebrities making millions on their mansions

Mick Gregory

I really do like to say “I told you so,” once in a while, especially to liberal Californians in the mass media. My family and I moved from the Bay Area to Houston, Texas three years ago at the peak of the housing bubble. We were watching the market trends and came to our own conclusion well before the “experts” in the media. Our neighbors, both attorneys, had also noticed the growth was hitting 30 percent a year in our San Francisco suburb. Those stats come in every month by realtor associations; polished up by their PR departments — they are finally picked up by journalists and edited neatly following the AP style book. There are a lot of hacks in the industry who think that’s what makes good journalism. No analysis, just following the rules of serial comma usage and the very important difference (in their minds) between that and which.

Never mind that the price per square foot was over $350 and there were multiple offers coming on homes. The time spent on the market wasn’t measured in days, but hours.

Three years ago, there were very few reporters at the LA Times or SF Chronicle looking at the historic, unreal climb in prices. “This is California, there will always be a market for a piece of paradise,” we’ve seen in various versions in the entertaining Homes sections that ran every Saturday and Sunday.

Reports on the housing bubble and wobbles were rare. How could you expect anything better? Business reporters don’t have the resume to get an administrative assistant job at Fortune 500 companies or with developers. They don’t have the ambition to sell real estate, or the skill to be a property flipper.

More important than that, journalists are tied to their home town newspapers or TV stations. They can’t be objective in reporting bloated housing prices or comparing the quality of housing between markets such as LA and Houston.

The free fall of California real estate is finally front page news. Now that foreclosures are equal to home sales in some California neighborhoods. All this sudden analysis is 2.5 years too late for the thousands losing their homes.

Back then, the “executive editors” promoted cute columns called Hot Properties with features on how celebrities were tripling their prices on Bay Area and Malibu homes.

The party is over. That was the last time newspapers made windfall profits off of 5 pound Sunday newspapers.

Here is an excellent look at the media circus from Dan Gillmor’s blog on citizen journalism is among the best in the blog biz. Gillmor gives journalists too much credit. He should know some 94.5 percent didn’t even take Economics 101.

Housing Bubble Coverage: Defending the Indefensible

Editor & Publisher: Newspaper Biz Editors Defend Mortgage Crisis Coverage. Did the growing mortgage credit crisis, which took a huge turn with last week’s collapse of Bear Sterns, get enough early coverage from newspapers? Top business editors at several of the nation’s major papers say yes, although a few admit some of the more complicated elements may not have been broken out enough for readers.

“What tripe. The newspaper industry almost totally failed to do its job, and the public got screwed once again.”

Citing a story here and there, as several editors do in the E&P piece, is not evidence of newspapers doing their job. It’s quite the opposite.

When an economic catastrophe of this sort — and entirely predicable one — is building, journalists are failing to do their jobs when they don’t harp on it.

As I said in a previous posting, newspapers and broadcasters were raking in billions in advertising from the real estate and banking industries as this bubble inflated. I do not believe this is a coincidence. I also don’t believe it was deliberate malfeasance; but you just don’t see lots of tough coverage in media of the people and companies paying the bills.

Many if not most papers have special weekly real estate pages or sections where you would find little hint of the potential for trouble. I know I looked for it in the papers I read. That’s where the discussion belonged — as well, of course, as Page One — not solely in the occasional business page stories. Hundreds of references to bubbles, most in the past year and not when there was a chance to slow down that train, were dwarfed by comparison to the buying advice that dominated coverage of real estate overall.

Oh, sure, there were extremely infrequent stories containing warnings in a few publications — and occasional quotes from skeptics in the prices-just-keep-rising stories that overwhelmingly dominated the coverage. But the reality is that journalists mostly didn’t have a clue, or didn’t want to have a clue. I don’t know which is worse.

Some bloggers, and some economists, did shout warnings. They were ignored, or worse, insulted by wishful thinkers and (I suspect) people who stood to gain from the continuing bubble.

Again, from a previous post, here are some questions the media all but ignored until too late:

Where were the stories we should have been seeing, noting that “buyers” — a word that is ludicrous in context –were running headlong toward a financial cliff? What happened to the coverage of a housing market that fewer and fewer people could afford to enter except with no-interest or no-down-payment loans, where home prices were so far out of sync with the economy that there was no precedent for such imbalance?

Where were the stories pointing out that the secondary (and far beyond) mortgage markets were salting hugely risky debt all through the American economy? You think your bank or pension fund doesn’t have some of this garbage somewhere in its books? Think again.

The media also bungled by not fingering the makers of this bubble apart from foolish “buyers” who proved to be such suckers. This boom was fueled by people who knew it couldn’t last: brokers, bankers and, above all, Wall Street’s ever-clever wizards who risk other people’s money for gigantic fees.

This is another journalistic scandal. It’s not quite on the order of the bended-knee, pre-war coverage — stenography of government officials’ lies and deceptions — that helped steer America into the Iraq war, but only because it’s not killing people in large numbers.

It’s a massive enough scandal, though. There’s plenty of pain left in this deflation, possibly including an outright tanking of the economy.

The journalism craft should take a long, hard look at what it’s failed to do, yet again, in the housing bubble. It has failed to warn — as loudly and incessantly as it did in promoting the housing bubble — that a financial crunch was on the way.

There’s plenty of blame to go around in this mess. The finger-pointing has barely begun. But when it gets going for real, I hope that journalists who do some of that pointing will at least look in a mirror.

“I can remember the yards of copy written about new developments and real estate sections filled with puff pieces promoting house buying, with no hint of any risks involved with these investments. For the few stories you cite, what about those that quoted the National Association of Realtors about how this was the right time to buy a house, and that house prices have never declined. Remember how we were told house prices were supposed to be “sticky” and that when there was a downturn, the prices would stick rather than fall precipitously. Where were the investigative pieces about how low-income people were being ripped off by subprime mortgages? Both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal you cite ran endless stories about high prices for New York apartments, with appropriate pictures of the luxury amenities that came with them. In my lifetime, newspapers have missed the S&L excess of the 1990’s, and they dropped the ball on this one, too. And what about the culpability of Congress in this? Where are the investigative pieces of House and Senate banking legislation that opened the door to easy lending, no-document loans and giving mortgages to people with lousy credit reports — including illegal aliens working day work construction jobs? From what I’ve heard on CSpan, Sen. Jon Kyl has reams of information documenting how Congress contributed to the collapse now happening, but no reporters seem interested.”

DanGillmor.com Home page

Just when you thought it was safe for Hillary’s machine, Obama wins more delegates in Texas, then Wyoming and Mississippi

Did you see this in your mainstream media? Barack Obama has beat Hillary Rodham Clinton for Texas’ Democratic caucuses on March 4. The official results won’t be available until March 29.
Until then, the last reported results – from 41 percent of the precinct caucuses – show Obama ahead with 56 percent to Clinton’s 44 percent.

Obama won by double digits in very white Wyoming and is about to win Mississippi.

So how can Hillary Rodham Clinton say she won Texas? Where is the real journalism?
Obama has won at least 31 delegates from the caucuses and Clinton has won at least 27, according to The Associated Press count. The remaining nine delegates will be awarded after the official results are announced at the end of the month.

The Texas Democratic Party gave up Monday on its effort to produce a public tally. What is so hard about reporting the vote? Is it because the outcome was not in line with the Democrat machine?

Ironically, only the Democrat allows delegates and super delegates do the voting that counts. Funny how they call themselves the Democratic party. What happened to the one man, one vote concept?

The Star Tribune bankrupt

By Mick Gregory

We are observing the death throws of a star on its way to becoming a white dwarf. Gasses spewing, used matter is shredded and  thrown out. The size of the once bright, powerful force rapidly shrinks as it collapses on itself. These are the telltale signs of a dying star.

The Star Tribune, once among the Midwest’s largest newspapers, was purchased by the Sacramento-based McClatchy media company in 1998. The “executive editors”  paid $1.2 billion for it from a family who wanted out of the business.

In less than 10 years, the rapid growth of Google, Drudgereport, Craigslist, E-Bay, FaceBook and WordPress lured away much of the newspaper audience and built new readers/users that were not newspaper-friendly. So the advertising found new rising stars.

Last year, Avista, a New York-based private equity group, purchased the dying Star Tribune for less than half of what McClatchy paid only eight years earlier.

Since Avista’s purchase, the star has been shedding  reporters, editors, photographers, advertising sales staff and designers through two rounds of buyouts and the elimination of open positions. That was just a show for creditors.

Now, in January of 2008, the Star-Tribune filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

The Star Tribune’s long-term business slump has continued, with revenue declining by about 25 percent, from $400 million in 2000 to $300 million last year, according to a Star Tribune story in July. While major expenses such as newsprint and transportation  increased.  Even those adult newspaper carriers throwning papers out of the window of their pickups, need to be paid.

Several weeks ago, Avista announced that it was writing down the value of its $100 million equity investment in the Star Tribune to $25 million. That’s $75 million wiped out in one year. The Star shed more than $1.15 billion in value over nine years. The new owners are getting pennies on the dollar trying to restructure their debt.

The only candidates for buying into debt-ridden newspapers now are hedge funds, especially those that make a specialty of distressed debt investments, according to several industry observers. It’s called a loan-to-own strategy, they calculate that the owners like Avista will default on their new loans and the fund becomes the new owner for pennies on the dollar. What’s left may be some downtown real estate and a false store-front Web site. This is the white dwarf stage. And there are hundreds more flickering, spewing gas and spitting out  used up matter.

The Houston Chronicle Web site rockets to No. 4 of Daily Newspaper Sites

Mick Gregory

Who would have “thunk it?” The Houston Chronicle, that paper in South Texas on the Gulf Coast, with all those red necks and rough necks and energy and IT companies, has risen to No. 4 among the nation’s daily newspaper Web sites.

It shows me that Texas is more computer savvy and wired than any of the media and IT critics every imagined.

1. NYTimes.com: 12,960 — 455,527 — 0:37:09

2. washingtonpost.com: 8,030 — 154,836 — 0:20:28

3. LA Times: 4,546 — 50,986 — 0:12:08

4. The Houston Chronicle: 3,292 — 93,737 — 0:20:44

5. SFGate.com: 3,236 — 51,617 — 0:14:56

6. Boston.com: 3,197 — 57,154 — 0:20:56

7. Chicago Tribune: 2,973 — 45,283 — 0:13:44

8. New York Post: 2,684 — 31,335 — 0:09:01

9. Daily News Online Edition: 2,555 — 9,754 — 0:05:04

10. Chicago Sun-Times: 2,142 — 14,804 — 0:08:13

Global Warming — the Biggest Hoax Ever Promoted by Mass Media, Lawyers and Progressive Democrats

Emerging economies such as China are justified in holding back on fighting greenhouse gas emissions until richer polluters like the United States do more to solve the problem, former Vice President Al Gore said Wednesday.

China, Indonesia, Russia and India are huge polluters.

We are so fortunate that Bush won Florida by 1,500 votes.

The world’s top climate scientists warned in a report last week that global warming was very likely caused by humanity and would last for centuries.

Chinese officials said they would act after industrial countries such as the United States and others make changes themselves, Gore said, addressing a conference in Madrid on global warming.

“They’re right in saying that. But we have to act quickly,” said Gore, who was nominated last week for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in drawing attention to global warming.

“China’s reaction to the scientific report last week was disappointing, but it was instructive,” Gore said.

Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide

Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?

By Timothy Ball

Monday, February 5, 2007

Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn’t exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.

What would happen if tomorrow we were told that, after all, the Earth is flat? It would probably be the most important piece of news in the media and would generate a lot of debate. So why is it that when scientists who have studied the Global Warming phenomenon for years say that humans are not the cause nobody listens? Why does no one acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes on?

Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets.

No sensible person seeks conflict, especially with governments, but if we don’t pursue the truth, we are lost as individuals and as a society. That is why I insist on saying that there is no evidence that we are, or could ever cause global climate change. And, recently, Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. So how has the world come to believe that something is wrong?

Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith. “It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species,” wrote Lowell Ponte in 1976.

I was as opposed to the threats of impending doom global cooling engendered as I am to the threats made about Global Warming. Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.

Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970’s global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990’s temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I’ll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.

No doubt passive acceptance yields less stress, fewer personal attacks and makes career progress easier. What I have experienced in my personal life during the last years makes me understand why most people choose not to speak out; job security and fear of reprisals. Even in University, where free speech and challenge to prevailing wisdoms are supposedly encouraged, academics remain silent.

I once received a three page letter that my lawyer defined as libellous, from an academic colleague, saying I had no right to say what I was saying, especially in public lectures. Sadly, my experience is that universities are the most dogmatic and oppressive places in our society. This becomes progressively worse as they receive more and more funding from governments that demand a particular viewpoint.

In another instance, I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie. Apparently he thinks if the fossil fuel companies pay you have an agenda. So if Greenpeace, Sierra Club or governments pay there is no agenda and only truth and enlightenment?

Personal attacks are difficult and shouldn’t occur in a debate in a civilized society. I can only consider them from what they imply. They usually indicate a person or group is losing the debate. In this case, they also indicate how political the entire Global Warming debate has become. Both underline the lack of or even contradictory nature of the evidence.

I am not alone in this journey against the prevalent myth. Several well-known names have also raised their voices. Michael Crichton, the scientist, writer and filmmaker is one of them. In his latest book, “State of Fear” he takes time to explain, often in surprising detail, the flawed science behind Global Warming and other imagined environmental crises.

Another cry in the wildenerness is Richard Lindzen’s. He is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, renowned for his research in dynamic meteorology – especially atmospheric waves. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has held positions at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and MIT. Linzen frequently speaks out against the notion that significant Global Warming is caused by humans. Yet nobody seems to listen.

I think it may be because most people don’t understand the scientific method which Thomas Kuhn so skilfully and briefly set out in his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” A scientist makes certain assumptions and then produces a theory which is only as valid as the assumptions. The theory of Global Warming assumes that CO2 is an atmospheric greenhouse gas and as it increases temperatures rise. It was then theorized that since humans were producing more CO2 than before, the temperature would inevitably rise. The theory was accepted before testing had started, and effectively became a law.

As Lindzen said many years ago: “the consensus was reached before the research had even begun.” Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists. This has reached frightening levels with these scientists now being called climate change denier with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The normal scientific method is effectively being thwarted.

Meanwhile, politicians are being listened to, even though most of them have no knowledge or understanding of science, especially the science of climate and climate change. Hence, they are in no position to question a policy on climate change when it threatens the entire planet. Moreover, using fear and creating hysteria makes it very difficult to make calm rational decisions about issues needing attention.

Until you have challenged the prevailing wisdom you have no idea how nasty people can be. Until you have re-examined any issue in an attempt to find out all the information, you cannot know how much misinformation exists in the supposed age of information.

I was greatly influenced several years ago by Aaron Wildavsky’s book “Yes, but is it true?” The author taught political science at a New York University and realized how science was being influenced by and apparently misused by politics. He gave his graduate students an assignment to pursue the science behind a policy generated by a highly publicised environmental concern. To his and their surprise they found there was little scientific evidence, consensus and justification for the policy. You only realize the extent to which Wildavsky’s findings occur when you ask the question he posed. Wildavsky’s students did it in the safety of academia and with the excuse that it was an assignment. I have learned it is a difficult question to ask in the real world, however I firmly believe it is the most important question to ask if we are to advance in the right direction.

Dr. Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (www.nrsp.com), is a Victoria-based environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. He can be reached at letters@canadafreepress.com

New York Times selling off TV stations en mass to keep afloat

The New York Times Co. stated after the stock market closed Thursday that it plans to sell its broadcast-media group, including nine television stations, to Robert M. Bass’s Oak Hill Capital Partners for $575 million.

Facing the prospect of further circulation and advertising declines and the growing threat of online competition, the newspaper giant said it needs to dispose of the properties to focus on core operations (the old gray lady).

“Over the years (the stations) have provided their communities with high-quality programming and have contributed significantly to our financial performance,” Janet L. Robinson, the company’s chief executive, said in a press release. “We believe, however, that our focus now should be on the development of our newspapers and our rapidly growing digital businesses and the increasing synergies between them.”
The lead investor for Oak Hill, Bass is part of the Bass family of Texas oil billionaires. His brother, Sid, recently held a large stake in Walt Disney Co. Robert Bass’s net worth is placed at more than $5 billion. Oak Hill’s committed capital stands at $4.6 billion, the company said.

The nine stations were expected to account for $150 million in 2006 sales, or 4 percent of New York Times’ overall revenue when the plan to sell was announced in September, spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said. At that time, 2006 operating earnings from the group was estimated at $33 million.

The stations are affiliates of ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as one member of the MyNetworkTV group, and are in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. Market sizes range from Memphis to Moline, Ill. They employ roughly 900 people, Mathis said.

While a number of media companies are disposing of assets in order to cut costs, don’t expect large newspaper companies to sell off their broadcast assets en masse like the Times has, said Steven Barlow, analyst for Prudential Securities in New York.

“I wouldn’t imagine you’ll see anything from (other media companies) on that front,” Barlow said.

Guess who is coming to dinner? The Nancy Pelosi $1000 a plate dinner?

Will your 67 year old grandmother be able to have the facelifts and eye lifts that Nancy Pelosi did on Mediacare?

“‘This old woman is quite prejudiced toward China. Therefore, (she) may bring some dissonance to Sino-U.S. relations,’ Professor Jin said.”

Actually, I hope my grandmother can afford a better plastic surgeon. Pelosi’s face now looks like the Joker played by Jack Nicholson. She must sleep with her eyes open.

Are any union bosses and other lobbyists coming to the dinner tonight? Will Nancy Pelosi‘s high-end Piati restaurants be the official caterers? Which Napa Valley wines will be served? Will the Rev Jesse Jackson be at the table? How about Cindy Sheehan? Will the servers be union? Will the women wear burkes? Imagine how much Nancy Pelosi could have saved on face lifts if she wore a burke.

Speaking of Democrat Progressives, this would be a good time to show you the progressive income tax mirroring socialist systems in France and Germany.

The Top 1% Pay 35%

Maybe our liberal friends are onto something. They keep saying the rich should pay more taxes, and it turns out the rich already are! That’s one of the valuable lessons from the IRS’s annual study of income tax data, just released for 2004.

Americans who earned more than $1 million in adjusted gross income paid $178 billion, or an average of $740,000 per filer, in income taxes in 2004. That’s up about one-third from 2002, the year before the Bush tax cuts in marginal income-tax and dividend and capital gains rates. The wealthiest 1% of tax filers paid a remarkable 35% of all individual income-tax payments that year.

Here’s a way to think of the distribution of current income-tax payments: Imagine Nancy Pelosi’s banquet attended by 100 random Americans. If the bill for the meal is distributed like the income tax, the richest person in the room is required to pay one-third of the tab (that would be George Soros) — or more than all 50 attendees with a below-average income. The three richest people are charged as much as the other 97. And the 30 or so lowest-income people in the room — those with a family income of $30,000 or less — pay nothing and eat for free.

The Earned Income Credit, actually allows 30 lowest-income people get paid to eat, thanks to the rest of the people in the room.

Social Security, contrary to Mainstream Media reports, is a “progressive” setup too. In its case, the more you make, the less you get in retirement benefits compared to what you earned while you were working.

And the new Democrats in Congress want to make income taxes and social security even more progressive.

“According to China Daily, Jin Rong-can, a professor at the International Relations Institute of the People’s University of China, pointed out that although the House’s influence on diplomatic policies is actually limited, Sino-U.S. relations will be affected if the democratic party controls the house following the midterm election.”

“‘This old woman is quite prejudiced toward China. Therefore, (she) may bring some dissonance to Sino-U.S. relations,’ (professor) Jin said.”

“Zhang Guoqing, associate investigator at the American Institute of National Academy of Social Science, concurs: ‘The Democratic Party cares more about domestic issues. It will protect the mid- and small U.S. enterprises and American labor’s interests, and thus will have some impact on trade relations between China and the United States.”

Inside the mind of an LA Times columnist

You have to wonder why newspaper journalists seem to be so out of touch with the public. Maybe it comes down to elite, arrogant snobbishness.

Joel Stein of the LA Times writes:

I don’t want to talk to you; I want to talk at you. A column is not my attempt to engage in a conversation with you….Not everything should be interactive. A piece of work that stands on its own, without explanation or defense, takes on its own power.

I get that you have opinions you want to share. That’s great. You’re the Person of the Year. I just don’t have any interest in them.

A lot of e-mail screeds argue that, in return for the privilege of broadcasting my opinion, I have the responsibility to listen to you. I don’t. No more than you have a responsibility to read me. I’m not an elected servant. I’m an arrogant, solipsistic, attention-needy freak who pretends to have an opinion about everything. I don’t have time to listen to you.

Hello? We don’t care to digest your opinion anymore. This is the world of Web 2.0. Read up on it. You may need a new job in the next couple of years.

Remember how the Mainstream Media Ripped Apart President Ford?

I seem to remember comments like: “He is a dumb cluck and can’t chew gum and walk at the same time.” Don’t Democrats say that about all Republicans?
He’s dangerous to be around — constantly falling down.
“Mr. President — that’s your hand your signing!” What a klutz! (Gerald Ford passed up an NFL draft to go to law school). He was an avid skier through his 80s.)

“Too bad Squeaky Frum wasn’t a better shot.”

When will the “Free Squeaky” marches begin?

It’s not the medium, it’s the bias, stupid!

I just saw this piece from the New York Sun by Alicia Colon on Drudge. Ms. Colon highlights a blog that has been hidden by the mainstream media, Lucianne.com.

Lucianne exposes what I believe is the root cause of the shift of the educated middle class from the mainstream media to that of the fresh air of Web-based citizen journalists.

The Mendacity Of the Liberal Press

BY ALICIA COLON
December 15, 2006
http://www.nysun.com/article/45266

The first time I heard the word “mendacity” was in the film “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” I loved the way Burl Ives’s character spits out the word as something vile and unacceptable.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where untruthfulness is routinely accepted and even mandated by politicians, union leaders, and members of the press. New York is the headquarters of the biggest producer of mendacity, the New York Times. Fortunately, it’s also the home of the antidote, Lucianne.com.

I pity the Americans who do not have the computer expertise to access the exposés of lies of corrupt politicians and gullible television anchors, biased newspaper headlines, and anything from the Associated Press. If it were not for the Internet and Lucianne Goldberg’s Web news forum, I would never learn the truth behind the Times headlines as pitched by the Drudge Report.

Matt Drudge, who may or may not be a willing accomplice to the distortion of news reporting, must be held responsible for the dissemination of the bias in the liberal press. Studies have shown that the readership of the Times is down — as it is in other liberal publications — and so are the television ratings of the alphabet networks and CNN and MSNBC, while Fox News is up.

Convenient Liberal Fabrications — Overwheliming bias in the media regarding global warming

What about Greenland actually being green during the Medieval warming? Didn’t we have a couple of Ice Ages? Doesn’t the Kyoto Treaty just punish developed countries, giving a free pass to pollute to China and India?

Get your copy of “The Skeptics’ Guide to Global Warming,” linked below.
See how Al Gore is pressuring public school science teachers to legitimize “An Inconvenient Truth”

Mick Gregory

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm climate recorded in Europe, lasting from about the 10th century to about the 14th century. This inconvenient truth is being written out of the liberal’s Big Brother/Big Sis political propaganda to inact more control and taxing authority over free enterprise, espically in the U.S. The Al Gore political machine tried to have 50,000 copies of his movie distributed through the public schools through his executive producer, Ms. Laurie David. When the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) refused the unusual request, The Washington Post let her write an Op-Ed piece complaigning about it.

NSTA Statement on the Distribution of “An Inconvenient Truth”
Nov 30 2006
Last updated 12/7/06

Over the past few days, NSTA and film producer Laurie David have been discussing her offer to provide NSTA with copies of the DVD “An Inconvenient Truth” to mass distribute to our members. On November 29, 2006, NSTA’s Board of Directors held a telephone conference to review Ms. David’s request. In an effort to accommodate her request without violating the Board’s 2001 policy prohibiting product endorsement, and to provide science educators with the opportunity to take advantage of the educational opportunities presented by films such as this, NSTA has offered to greatly expand the scope of the potential target audience identified in her initial request.

NSTA established its non-endorsement policy to formalize our position that the association would not send third-party materials to our members without their consent or request. NSTA looks forward to working with Ms. David to ensure that there are many options for publicizing the availability of the DVD to the national science education community, and to broaden the conversation on the important topic of global warming.

Professor David Deming, an author, scientist and lecturer at the University of Oklahoma and an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), testified Wednesday morning at a special hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The hearing examined climate change and the media. Bellow are excerpts from his prepared remarks.

Thank heaven for bloggers’ reports on Citgo, 7-Eleven, Foley page setup, now elite media spying on journalists

——Mick Gregory

Now a blogger sheds light on the Foley gay outing story. The young man is 21, he was 18 at the time of the IM gross exchanges.

William Kerr, of Moore, Oklahoma is the author of the blog Passionate America, which is being credited with discovering the identity of the former House page who may have exchanged inappropriate instant messages with former Rep. Mark Foley, and that the former page now works for Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Ernest Istook.

Kerr said he received e-mails and phone calls from national media outlets Wednesday, including the tabloid television program Inside Edition and Internet pundit Matt Drudge.

“I started thinking, ‘I’m not big enough to put this story out,’” Kerr said. “In the four days that we really worked on this, we just said to each other, ‘Do you know how big this is?’”

Kerr said he stumbled onto the former page’s AOL screen name when looking at transcripts of the instant messages on ABC’s Web site Saturday.

He said he typed a slightly-different Web address into his browser and found a version of the transcript with the screen name.

Kerr and another blogger spent several days researching on the Internet.

They had determined the page’s identity and were about to publish it when they found out he worked for Istook.

Kerr said he accidentally posted the story before he intended. Although he removed the post, the information already had spread.

He tried to verify the former page’s identity through Istook’s campaign office, but was turned away. Great work! This is turning out to be the Democrats’ October surprise.

Last week we learned on the network news about 7-Eleven dropping Venezuela-backed Citgo as its gasoline supplier after more than 20 years. This news has been posted on blogs for a month.

Management at 7-Eleven were worried anti-American comments made by Venezuelan President Hugo “Boss” Chavez might prompt motorists to fill up elsewhere. The 7-Eleven chain, which sells gasoline at 2,100 of its 5,300 U.S. stores, will now purchase fuel from several distributors, including Tower Energy of Torrance, Calif., Sinclair Oil of Salt Lake City and Houston-based Frontier Oil Corp. None of the gas will be from Venezuela.

Today we see that Citgo’s el presidente, Felix Rodriguez, appointed by Hugo Chavez, is making statements to Spanish television stations such as Univision that it was Citgo’s decision to drop 7-Eleven! That’s what 7-Eleven management gets for trying to downplay their decision.

The reality of the situation is that Hugo ‘the Hut’ Chavez signed a huge deal to sell oil to China and would like to keep the price per barrel as high as possible and try to ruin America’s economy. Hugo ‘the Hut’ would also like to be able to stop shipments of oil to America.
In another developing story, reporters attack HP for possibly spying on their managers and directors including the use of private investigators.
HP executives had to appear before a congressional hearing yesterday to explain themselves.

Yet, the San Francisco Examiner hired private investigators to follow reporters and used the evidence compiled to fire them. The Examiner staff, now merged with the San Francisco Chronicle, have their e-mails monitored and their Web use watched. The use of private eyes is most likely still in use. Those stories never see the light of day in the press.

Most IT companies monitor employee e-mails and Web use. Many use private investigators, but they are not the “high and holy” media. The media elite believe they are above the law.

And it’s The Chronicle editors telling the U.S. courts they have the right to leak (and profit from) grand jury content in the BALCO case.

Michael Rains is Bonds’ attorney. He pointed out in a rebuttle to The Chronicle reporters trying to use the courts to shield them, that Barry’s trainer and boyhood friend, Greg Anderson, has been found in contempt of court twice for refusing to testify and is in jail for a second term. Anderson, who earlier served three months after pleading guilty to steroid distribution and money laundering, has refused to tell the court whether he gave Bonds steroids. At issue is whether Bonds lied under oath when he told a grand jury in 2003 that he never knowingly took steroids.

Anderson’s testimony appears to be key to making a successful perjury case against Bonds.

They (the Chronicle reporters) need to be in jail,” Rains said of the reporters, whose work cast Bonds as a steroid-enhanced cheat.
“Other media people, of course, take exception with my attitude about that; but I say unless they go to jail, you make a complete mockery of the grand jury system. Since when can anybody declare that the purpose of our dealing with this issue has a larger purpose, and that is to educate the public?

“How can these guys sit there and say, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ve convinced kids in the Central Valley that they shouldn’t take steroids. And look at all the good that is coming.’

Come on, give me a break. This is all about money. It is all about a newspaper that was having financial problems. It is all about them making dough and how much they can make [from the book smearing baseball greatest players].”

Follow the money.

LA Times Editor Baquet sets the table for his last supper

 —-By Mick Gregory

In what some regard as a highly arrogant move, Dean Baquet, who was named editor of the LA Times last year, was quoted yesterday in his own newspaper — saying he was defying the paper’s corporate owner, the Tribune Company in Chicago and would not make the cuts they requested. 

The paper’s publisher, Jeffrey Johnson, said he agreed with Baquet. “Newspapers can’t cut theirway into the future,” he told his reporter. 

The number of jobs at stake is unclear but the paper,the fourth largest in the country, has eliminated morethan 200 positions over the last five years from aneditorial staff that now numbers about 940. Some experts in the field believe that number is way too bloated.  

“Newsrooms have benefited from all the automation of computers and  software products, yet, they are the most labor-heavy of all media,” said Greg Michael, media analyst.

“I am not averse to making cuts,” Baquet told the paper he manages. “But you can go too far, and I don’t plan to dothat.” 

The LA Times reported that Scott Smith, president ofthe Tribune Publishing division, had asked the paper’sexecutives to come up with a plan for trimming theirbudgets, but when Mr. Smith visited
Los Angeles latelast month, they had produced no such plan. Baquet “made his opposition to further cuts clearand said there was no need for further discussion,” the LA Times reported.  Smith said in a statement: “In this rapidlychanging media environment, we are all workingtogether to best serve our communities, customers andshareholders.” The decision by Los Angeles Times The to take its battle against Tribunepublic may signal that Baquet is trying to rally support on the paper’s behalf, to affect a sale to local investors. Local businessmen have expressed interest in buying the paper.

Sure, Hollywood, movie stars… Life is good as an editor or publisher of the LA Times. But life is not as glamorous for stockholders in Park Ridge, Barrington and Hoffman Estates who are paying their big salaries in tinsel town.  

But at what price? Investors know not to try and grab a falling knife — Greg Michael  

The stock prices of most newspaper companies has been falling for about two years, yet many of their publications remain profitable. The Los Angeles Times reported that its operating profit margin was 20 percent, higher than that of most oil companies.   Many papers, including The New York Times New York Times, The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, and The Cleveland Plain Dealer — have announced buyouts and job cuts over the last year. Newspaper costs, predominantly for newsprint and personnel, areoutstripping revenues and the Internet is siphoningoff readers and advertisers. The Belo Corporation announced yesterday that 111 newsroom employees at their flagship, The Dallas Morning News hadtaken buyout offers, leaving 450 editorial employees to retrench and focus mainly on local news. The dust has not yet settled on Dealey Plaza. “I expect further cuts in staff due to attrition and the heavy hand of management,” said Greg Michael of sadbastards.wordpress.com.  

Last month, David Black, whose Black Press is the new owner of The Akron Beacon Journal, laid off 40 editorialemployees, about 25 percent of the newsroom staff.

The cuts in other departments are rarely reported. Circulation help-desks are being off-shored to India. In a few years, why not some of the newsrooms?  

At The Los Angeles Times, circulation has been falling from its peak of 1.2 million in 1990. For the six months that ended in March, it was 851,500, down 5.4 percent from the period a year ago. It was the biggest drop among the top 10 dailies and more than twice theindustry average. 

The Tribune has been in particular turmoil because of aconflict in recent months with the Chandler family,its largest shareholder.  The
Chandlers have said the company, in which The Los Angeles Times is the biggest business, is mismanaged and have called for the company to sell its assets.

“This is ironic, because it was the Chandlers who profited from the  inflated sale of Times-Mirror to the Tribune stockholders, and a major slice of their pie is Tribune stock which has fallen as the market found that stockholders paid too much, several billion dollars too much for the antiquated media giant,” Michael said.  

The Tribune board has defended management and has beenin talks with the Chandlers to try to iron out their differences. The company earlier this year bought back $2 billion worth of company stock in an attempt to prop up the stock price. They also have to make $200 million in cost cuts company-wide overthe next two years. The statements in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times seemed to be a declaration that Tribune would not find much of those savings in Los Angeles — or it could lose its top executives. 

Note to executives, get your resumes up to date.

“Tribune isn’t shy or sentimental,” said Martin Kaplan, associate dean of the Annenberg School forCommunication at the University of Southern California. “My guess is that they don’t want to be backed into a corner.” 

My guess is that the LA Times newsroom can function well at 500. And that Baquet will be getting his walking papers in the next couple of weeks.  

As expected, Dean Baquet was forced to resign as editor of the Los Angeles Times at the request of the publisher after he refused to agree to further cuts of his editorial staff.

Baquet’s departure was to be announced Thursday but word leaked out this afternoon and the 50-year-old editor confirmed to his staff that he would be leaving the paper Friday.

Baquet will be replaced by James O’Shea, who is now managing editor of the Chicago Tribune and a long-time employee of the Tribune company.

O’Shea starts the job Monday.

Desperate Clinton White House–Why?

—-By Mick Gregory

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz deserves credit for at least bringing up the media manipulation today by the Democrat party, but he did not tell the powerful story of “Sandy” Berger’s destruction of evidence and the fact that Clinton was more interested in his image and sexual appitite than Osama bin Laden. Top officials of the Clinton administration have launched a preemptive strike against an ABC-TV docudrama, slated to air Sunday and Monday, that they say includes made-up scenes depicting them as undermining attempts to kill Osama bin Laden.  

Too bad Clinton didn’t launch a real preemtive strike against Osama, one has to ask

Former national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger said the film “flagrantly misrepresents my personal actions.”

Mr. Kurtz, did you forget about the documents Sandy Berger admitted he destroyed regarding Osama bin Laden and terror plots?

It’s breathtaking, that the Democrats are so used to getting the white glove treatment by the mainstream media, that when some truth is shed on the sloppy Clinton administration, they think they can confuse the public and even prevent a major network from broadcasting details. Update — the Clinton administration did pressure ABC to change wording and some other demands. We will know more by the weekend.

Web 2.0 and citzen journalists will now connect the dots. The truth will come out in blogs in the coming weeks. Don’t miss the docudrama on ABC this Sunday and Monday.

Berger said in an interview that ABC is “certainly trying to create the impression that this is realistic, but it’s a fabrication.” Why did you destroy several documents on this subject matter, Mr. Burger? ABC will get a big audience from this, unknowing football fans looking for “Monday Night Football,” may actually stick around and learn something. Scores of them will be blogging later and help capture the truth for today and history.  

One year ago — “The Sept. 11 commission (search) did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of surveillance of Mohammed Atta or of his cell,” said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from
Indiana. “Had we learned of it obviously it would’ve been a major focus of our investigation.”
 

Check out Dr. Sanity for a top Web site that has been following the Berger/Clinton  cover-up. http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2005/08/motive-for-bergers-bizarre-behavior.html
On Friday evening, Bill Clinton’s lawyers sent a new letter to ABC chief Bob Iger demanding that ABC yank “The Path to 9/11.” We’ve obtained a copy of the letter, and it reads in part: “As a nation, we need to be focused on preventing another attack, not fictionalizing the last one for television ratings. `The Path to 9/11′ not only tarnishes the work of the 9/11 Commission, but also cheapens the fith anniversary of what was a very painful moment in history for all Americans. We expect that you will make the responsible decision to not air this film.”

Black Tuesday at Ohio Newspaper

 —-Mick Gregory

More tales of fallen journalists, not long ago, known as a ‘holy’ profession by many; today it is the place for rich kids and losers. Earlier this month, Dave Wilson, who worked for a total of 18 years, 10 as a reporter and editor for the Akron Beacon Journal,went to a party.  He was on his way to a wake of sorts.  A fairly common practice in this rust belt area, where funeral parlors out number Starbucks.

He snatched up the mug and headed to a co-worker’s house, where Beacon employees were mourning the end of an era. Knight Ridder, once one of America’s largest newspaper chains, with papers from Philadelphia to San Jose, was officially dead. “Anyone got a golf club?”Wilson asked when he arrived. Someone slipped him a Big Buddie-sized driver. He placed the mug on a tee, then smashed  it into a cloud of ceramic chunks.

“It was like saying adios to that whole scenario,” he said. Once upon a time that stupid little cup had meant something special — something that fought to better people’s lives, earned Pulitzers for doing so, and allowed Wilson to be a proud provider. Now, on this crappy August day, it stood for something ugly — something full of defeat, anxiety, and loss. Knight Ridder had spent the past four years trying to appease the bottom line with layoffs and cutbacks that shrank the Beacon to the size ofOhio
State’s student newspaper. Then it sold the paper off like a rusted junk Ford. But not even the new owner, McClatchy, wanted anything to do with it. The company spit it back onto the auction block just days later. McClatchy quickly sold the Beacon to Black Press for $165 million. The Canadian company’s owner, David Black, assured the staff that he cared about “journalism,” and wasn’t going to lay anyone off. Some breathed a sigh of relief. Others were more realistic, they knew that even Knight Ridder had trouble making a profit at a rust belt property with no growth. “We knew more layoffs were coming,” Wilson says. A few weeks later, Black must have had a good look at the real numbers and said, “What the frick did I get for 1.6 million bucks!” On Tuesday, Black laid off 40 of the newsroom staff.  As the layoffs were announced, people ran to bathrooms, crying. Others fled to a downtown bar to numb the news. Ridder’s reign of terror hadn’t really ended, it seemed. “I was a little bit taken by surprise,”
Wilson said. “I thought there were others who were more expensive. I pretty much spent the whole next day seething with anger.” Over rounds of MGD and whiskey, staffers pondered what led to the latest bloodletting. Just as Black bought the paper, it was losing its biggest advertiser, Kaufmann’s. The department store was being purchased by Macy’s, with a top-rate marketing team, they wouldn’t be wasting their advertising budget on a token schedule in a suburb of Cleveland. The Plain Dealer won’t be getting much print from Macy’s either, the giant retailer is now a national chain and will leverage that with national TV buys. It was a financial blow the Beacon did little to prepare for. It simply raised ad rates and ignored the rest. “People were just hoping it was gonna fix itself,” Wilson said.

“Newspapers have often succeeded in spite of themselves. That’s no longer the case.” Adds columnist David Giffels, who is now dealing with survivor guilt, having withstood the purge: “Daily newspapers are big old traditional companies that are slow to adapt . . . There hasn’t been that sort of fire to adapt in an aggressive way. And until they start, those numbers are never going to turn around.” But Knight Ridder was the epitome of an old, lethargic company. “It became so bureaucratic,”
Wilson says. “There were too many committees, and committees always make bad choices.”

I saw the offices of the San Jose Mercury News about four years ago. I’d guess that 60 percent of the desks were empty, a couple were even truned over. I asked a secretary if there were layoffs recently, she nodded and said she was a temp. I stayed for the job interview, but I knew it was not the profitable, thriving flagship that Knight Ridder portrayed. The newspapers don’t air their own dirty laundry. They are not in the  business of  broadcasting their own demise. In fact, these quotes from Black Tuesday don’t come from the little Ohio paper. They are from a free paper in Cleveland. The new media model is pointing to free weeklies with Web 2.0 blogs. Google the Cleveland Scene for the story you won’t read in the  mainstream media.

The death of newspapers is not greatly exaggerated

It’s not just the large metro papers in the US that are drying up, watch the small local papers fall  even faster, because their advertising budget is often a tertiary add-on buy, and the first to  be cut by the Macy’s,  Home Depots and new home builders. And the papers large and small all over the world are entering the ICU stages of their long lives. Just this week (so far) The masthead of the Oakland Press is a little lighter following the summary dismissal of three top editors on Monday. Editor Neil Munro, Managing Editor Susan Belniak Hood and Dolly Moiseeff, assistant managing editor for features and entertainment, were told their jobs were being eliminated with no warning, according to two of those who were fired.“I was encouraged to leave the building right away,” said Munro, who was the paper’s main editorial writer. “Turn in my door card and leave the building.”The dismissals come only weeks after the paper’s owner, the Journal Register Co. of Yardley, Pa., announced that July ad sales for its 91
Michigan papers dropped more than 12 percent from the same time last year. Those losses severely lowered overall advertising revenue for the company: Without the Michigan losses, the decline would have been only 2.2 percent, the company said.On Monday, Journal Register announced plans to sell its cluster of five
New England daily papers and a group of weeklies.
London’s Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and Independent editor Simon Kelner were on BBC Radio 4’s Today program on Friday morning responding to another of those “newspapers are dead” pieces — this time the cover of The Economist.
Rusbridger said that not all newspapers will survive; he listed the combined pressures of declining circulation and ad revenue – both of which are shifting to the Web; disaggregation of advertising from editorial; fragmentation of audiences; and competition from free sheets – all at a time when newspapers will have to invest large amounts of payroll and IT into the  online Web 2.0 world.

Did you read this news item in The New York Times or San Francisco Chronicle?

By Greg Michael —  Now we find on the blogs that John Mark Karr, the 41-year-old schoolteacher who admitted to the media when he was picked up in Thailand last week that he was with JonBenet  when she died on Christmas Day in 1996. He was actually arrested in Northern California five years ago after telling an acquaintance that he broke into the Ramsey’s house the night of the slaying. A Northern California woman exchanged e-mails and recorded phone conversations with John Mark Karr in which he talked about JonBenet Ramsey’s 1996 slaying and the 1993 murder of Polly Klaas. Wendy Hutchens told police about her 2001 conversations with Karr weeks before the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office arrested him on five misdemeanor child pornography charges. At the same time she told The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa (a New York Times subsidiary). The paper is now reporting details in its online edition.

She says Karr told her that he met JonBenet at her family’s Christmas party, then sneaked back into the house that night through a basement storm window. So why did that shocking news stay hidden for five years?
 

Mrs. Hutchens said she alerted the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department (the same unit involved in investigating the Polly Klaas rape and murder) and recorded her conversations with Karr as evidence. The sheriff’s deputies later searched Karr’s Petaluma home and found enough evidence to charge Karr with five counts of child-pornography possession. He served six months in jail before leaving the United States.

It takes citizen journalists like Wendy Hutchens with the ethics to report what the New York Times never bothered to report or worse, covered up. A tip of the hat to the DrudgeReport for pointing to this information.

Whispered tales of Gore

 By Mick Gregory—

The media tends to go for the hipster, cool, dumbed-down route to please their audience. In the U.S. the press gives a pass to Democrats while attacking Bush and the UK’s Tony Blair. In fact, don’t you see a bit of a let down by the media in that the Islamic terrrorists bomb plot was stopped by Scotland Yard and U.S. Homeland Security?

Now let’s look at one of their favorite sons, Al Gore and his new gig, fighting global warming.

My other vehicle is a Gulfstream jet. My other home is a former plantation handed down to me. My trust fund is Occidental Oil gifted to me.

Mr. Gore, a drop out from divinity school has been propped up by the media, especially the New York Times, as being far more intellectual than George W. Bush, who had much better grades than Al Gore and earned an MBA in Business/Economics from Harvard. Now let’s get down to more media coverups.

Gore tells consumers how to change their lives to curb their carbon-gobbling ways: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, use a clothesline, drive a hybrid, use renewable energy, dramatically cut back on consumption. Better still, responsible global citizens can follow Gore’s example, because, as he readily points out in his speeches, he lives a “carbon-neutral lifestyle.” But if Al Gore is the world’s role model for ecology, the planet is doomed.

For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film’s distributor, pays this.)

Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.

Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents.

According to public records, there is no indication that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences.

Peter Schweizer, author of Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy has outlined some of Gore’s lies.

When contacted last week, Gore’s office confirmed as much but said the Gores were looking into making the switch at both homes. Talk about inconvenient truths. Gore is not alone. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has said, “Global warming is happening, and it threatens our very existence.” The DNC website applauds the fact that Gore has “tried to move people to act.” Yet, Gore’s persuasive powers have failed to convince his own party: The DNC has not signed up to pay an additional two pennies a kilowatt hour to go Green. For that matter, neither has the Republican National Committee. Maybe our very existence isn’t threatened.

Gore has held these apocalyptic views about the environment for some time. So why, then, didn’t Gore dump his family’s large stock holdings in Occidental (Oxy) Petroleum? As executor of his family’s trust, over the years Gore has controlled hundreds of thousands of dollars in Oxy stock. Oxy has been mired in controversy over oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas. Living carbon-neutral apparently doesn’t mean living oil-stock free. Nor does it necessarily mean giving up a mining royalty either.

A mine is a terrible thing to waste!

Humanity might be “sitting on a ticking time bomb,” but Gore’s home in Carthage is sitting on a zinc mine. Gore receives $20,000 a year in royalties from Pasminco Zinc, which operates a zinc concession on his property. Tennessee has cited the company for adding large quantities of barium, iron and zinc to the nearbyCaney Fork River. If Gore genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn’t he made any radical change in his life? Giving up the zinc mine or one of his homes is not asking much, given that he wants the rest of us to radically change our lives; ride bicycles to work; wear sweaters and turn down the thermostat… If you must buy gas, buy it from a communist dictator. Am I joking? No. Progressive,  Green and Democrat groups are encouraging U.S. consumers to ‘BUYcott’ Citgo, in order to (as they put it) help fuel a democratic revolution in Venezuela. This campaign for pro-Chavez, Citgo is acutally promoted on the New York Times’ About.com.