In fact, Warren Buffett has said don’t buy newspaper stock at any price. The days of the monopoly newspapers huge readership and advertising revenue are long gone.
The SF Chronicle’s carbon footprint is getting smaller, about 150 people smaller. Some may feel a little foolish now about turning off their lights for Earth Hour, especially when they learn that Al Gore kept the lights on in his 9,000 sq ft mansion. California’s power use didn’t budge. It was a dim idea.
Back to the lights out on newspapers top heavy with executive editors:
“Until the current newspaper crisis, you rarely heard politicians or activists bleating about how important newspapers were to self-government. They mostly bitched about what awful failures newspapers were at uncovering vital data. The only group that holds a consistently high opinion of newspapers is newspaper people,” Jack Shafer.
He cites a recent Pew study that shows most people don’t care if their local newspaper folds, and he says they have a point — few of the stories printed every day “are likely to supercharge the democratic impulse,” and even the ones that do, generally fail to spur voters to do anything.
Slate‘s Shafer laughs at the high-minded talk of the critical role newspapers play in a democracy, declaring, “I can imagine citizens acquiring sufficient information to vote or poke their legislators with pitchforks even if all the newspapers in the country fell into a bottomless recycling bin tomorrow.”
Shafer shows that some of the people arguing for the importance of newspapers — academics and liberal activists — have shown little love for them in the past.
CHRONICLE UNIT BULLETIN — It’s official!
More than 80 Chronicle staff members took the severance deal on March 31, 2009. The overall number will be 150 in the next two weeks. Is anyone keeping a talley? Has it been 500 cuts the last four years? That’s my estimate.
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Because of the large number of employees volunteering for termination during The SF Chronicle’s voluntary termination period, the WARN Act provisions requiring 60 days advance notice of involuntary layoffs is not valid. That means that after April 1, another 80 will be given their walking papers.
The company would have no legal need to give the 60-day notice provided for under the WARN Act.
Some members have said that they would not apply for the voluntary termination package and would, instead, wait for the layoff in order to get 60 days notice and the additional pay involved. Given the current situation, however, the Guild advises against taking this course of action because it appears there is a good possibility that the 60 days additional notice with pay won’t materialize. Remember that after April 3, 2009 no member regardless of age can receive the Supplemental Pension Benefit as a lump sum and all will have to take it as a monthly annuity. So if the Supplemental Pension Benefit as a lump sum from the Guild Pension Plan is important to you, and if the 60 days notice you were counting on is no longer a solid possibility, and you are certain you want to leave The Chronicle, we suggest that you should strongly consider volunteering to terminate your employment by the 5 p.m. March 31 deadline.
So, if another 50 or more rush to get your modest buyouts. The remainder who wait very well could end up with an extra 60 days pay. Not a bad bet. And there are still 60 days of skiing at Heavenly and Squaw Valley.
“Until the current newspaper crisis, you rarely heard politicians or activists bleating about how important newspapers were to self-government. They mostly bitched about what awful failures newspapers were at uncovering vital data. The only group that holds a consistently high opinion of newspapers is newspaper people,” Jack Shafer.
Names of Chronicle staff taking the buyouts are piling up like winos in front of the Salvation Army food kitchen.
Some of the paper’s veteran reporters and biggest names are leaving. It looks like music, books and arts coverage will be hit hard, as well as the photo department.
Here are the names so far:
Joel Selvin, who has covered the rock and roll scene for 30 years or so.
Carl Hall, a longtime science reporter currently on leave.
Tom Meyer, editorial cartoonist.
Zachary Coile, a long-time reporter in the Washington D.C. bureau.
Nancy Gay, who covers 49ers football and other major league teams.
Three of the papers top culture writers are departing, including:
Jesse Hamlin, Edward Guthmann, and Heidi Benson. They frequently profile authors, actors, and musicians.
Sabin Russell, who has covered science for decades.
Alison Biggar, the long-time editor of the Chronicle Magazine.
Sylvia Rubin, who covers fashion.
Bernadette Tansey, a biotech reporter. (She has been writing a new feature each Sunday that I love, a round-up of books on a particular business topic, but done in a very clever way.)
The photography department will take a big hit as six photographers, including Pulitzer-Prize winner Kim Komenich, are departing. The others include Michael Maloney, Craig Lee, Eric Luse, Mark Costatini and Kurt Rogers, a sports photographer
Other departures include:
Kevin Albert, editorial assistant
Greg Ambrose, copy editor
Charles Burress (who has covered Berkeley for years.)
Peter Cafone, sports copy editor
Ken Costa, graphic designer
Elizabeth Hughes, copy editor
Leslie Innes, Datebook editor
Timothy Innes, foreign news wire editor
Rod Jones, copy editor, news
Eric Jungerman, designer
Kathy Kerrihard, library researcher
Simar Khanna, editor of Home and Garden section
Even lower level employees are taking the bum’s rush:
Bonnie Lemons, copy editor, news
Glenn Mayeda, editorial assistant, sports
Johnny Miller, library researcher
Dan Giesin, sports night copy editor
Janice Greene, editorial assistant on the op-ed page
Shirley-Anne Owden, copy editor, features
Courtenay Peddle, copy editor, news
Lee Sims, copy editor, news
Michelle Smith, a sports reporter who covers women’s basketball
Patricia Yollin, metro reporter
There are many, many more. Please post what you know on comments.
So the list will grow longer. Hearst wanted to lay off as many as 225 workers, (and threatened to shutter the paper) but backed off after the Newspaper Guild agreed to cuts in vacation time and seniority rules.
I wonder how these soon to be retired professionals feel now about their liberal politics, the kind that use their taxes to pay for the Mayor Gavin Newsom to fly off to Davos, Paris and London to mingle with the rich and powerful world leaders, while the “good people” work 50-hour weeks and pay nearly 50 percent of their wages in tax?
This is a profile of journalists in Gawker:
“While journalists might continue to forge forward despite workload, deadlines and salary issues, they will not stand by as the foundation of journalism crumbles beneath them. At that point, they will quit,” the study concludes. Hey! Anyone want to start a rock band or a truffle farm with me? Clips not required.
California has turned into a high-tax, socialist state where the working middle class has to support millions of illegals and highly paid government employees. The state income tax has now broke the 10 percent barrier. The number of people leaving has for the first time in 70 years outpaced the incoming number, (including illegals).
Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida had the nation’s top foreclosure rates. In Nevada, one in every 70 homes received a foreclosure filing, while the number was one every 147 in Arizona. Rounding out the top 10 were Idaho, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, Oregon and Ohio.
Among metro areas, Las Vegas was first, with one in every 60 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing. It was followed by the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area in Florida and five California metropolitan areas: Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Riverside-San Bernardino and Bakersfield.
The Scobleizer has written a good blog post on the subject. Scoble is an IT and social media guru in Silicon Valley who often visits Texas. He interviewed the Texas governor, Rick Perry and they Twitter each other. Even after the real estate bubble burst in 2005-06, and homes fell in price by 20 percent each of the last three years, homes are still overpriced and only 10 percent of California households can afford median-priced homes. Nationally, 50 percent can afford the median-priced home.
The state of California has lost it’s glamorous image. I think of it now as a congested, welfare state with the highest taxes in the United States and the largest “public” workforce to support. Did you know that most of the government employees retire at full pay after 20 years of service?
Joel Kotkin of the SF Chronicle wrote this piece in 2007.
California has been losing ground in the new millennium. In 2004-05, it fell to 17th, behind not only fast-growing Arizona and Nevada but also Oregon, Washington and rival “nation-state” Texas.
Job creation has been even less impressive. In the Bay Area and Los Angeles, it can only be considered mediocre or worse. If not for the strong performance of the interior counties of the state — what Bill Frey and I call the “Third California” — the state already would be rightly considered a laggard when it comes to creating employment.
More disturbing, as California’s population has grown — largely from immigration — per-capita income growth has weakened. From the 1930s to as late as the 1980s, Californians generally got richer faster than other Americans. In 1946, Gunther reported, Californians enjoyed the highest living standards and the third-highest per-capita income in the country.
Today, California ranks 12th in per-capita income. And it’s losing ground: Between 1999 and 2004, California’s per-capita income growth ranked a miserable 40th among the states.
This slow growth reflects a gradually widening chasm between social classes. Although the rest of the country has also experienced this trend, the gap between rich and poor has expanded more rapidly in California than in the rest of the country.
Today, notes a recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California, California has the 15th-highest rate of poverty of all American states. When cost of living adjustments are made, only New York and the District of Columbia fare worse. Tragically, many of California’s poor are working. Somehow, this does not seem the best road to the governor’s dream of a “harmonious” society.
How did this happen to our golden state? There are many causes.
Certainly poverty has been greatly exacerbated by huge waves of immigration, particularly from Mexico and other developing countries. But other states — including Texas and Arizona — have also absorbed many immigrants, as well as people from the rest of this country, and have not experienced similarly strong jumps in their poverty rates.
Changes in the economy are clearly suspect. From the 1930s to the 1980s, California created a broad spectrum of opportunities for white- and blue-collar workers alike. Even the 1990s expansion, suggests Debbie Reed of the policy institute, helped reduce poverty by expanding a wide range of employment opportunities.
Today, economic growth in California — like that in much of the Northeast — seems tilted largely toward elites. Once a state known for its relative social democracy, the Golden State is becoming what Citigroup strategist Ajay Kapur has dubbed a plutonomy, dominated largely by a small wealthy class and their spending.
For example, despite all the hype about the renewed Internet boom in Silicon Valley, there has been only modest expansion of employment, even in the past year. Undoubtedly lavish takings by a relative handful of engineers, managers and investors are boosting high-end restaurateurs in San Francisco and revving up BMW sales, but benefits don’t seem to accrue as much to assemblers, midlevel managers and other high-tech workers.
Similarly, the governor’s entertainment industry friends, as well as art and developer elites close to Mayors Antonio Villaraigosa and Gavin Newsom, may feel these are the best of times. But Los Angeles and San Francisco, along with Monterey, now suffer a poverty rate of more than 20 percent, among the highest level in the country.
Parallel to these developments, California is losing its once broad middle class, the traditional source of its political balance and much of its entrepreneurial genius. Outmigration from the state is growing and, contrary to the notions of some sophisticates, it’s not just the rubes and roughhouses who are leaving.
Indeed, an analysis of the most recent migration numbers shows a disturbing trend: an increasing out-migration of educated people from California’s largest metropolitan areas. Back in the 1990s, this was mostly a Los Angeles phenomena, but since 2000, the Bay Area appears to be suffering a high per-capita outflow of educated people.
This middle class flight is likely driven by two things: greater opportunities outside the state and the cost of housing in-state. Over the past 50 years, housing prices in coastal California in particular have grown much faster than elsewhere; the Bay Area’s rate of housing inflation over the past 50 years has been twice the national average.
Given the shrinking per-capita income advantage for being in California, moving elsewhere increasingly makes sense, particularly for those who do not already own homes and don’t have wealthy parents. In some parts of the state, barely 10 percent of households can now afford a median-price home; in the rest of the country that number is roughly 50 percent.
These trends suggest that California could be devolving toward an unappealing model of class stratification. As educated white-collar and skilled blue-collar workers leave, businesses in the state will be forced to truncate their operations — perhaps having an elite research lab, design office or marketing arm in California but shunting most midlevel jobs elsewhere.
During a rare snow and ice storm in Washington DC on Jan. 28, the Goracle (Al Gore) spoke of the crisis of man-made global warming.
Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) begged the Goracle to look further into the future. “What does your modeling tell you about how long we’re going to be around as a species?” he inquired.
The Goracle chuckled. “I don’t claim the expertise to answer a question like that, Senator.”
This story by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post will be the turning point on the greatest hoax of the last 100 years.
By Dana Milbank
Thursday, January 29, 2009; A03
The lawmakers gazed in awe at the figure before them. The Goracle had seen the future, and he had come to tell them about it.
What the Goracle saw in the future was not good: temperature changes that “would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth —
and this is within this century, if we don’t change.”
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry (D-Mass.), appealed to hear more of the Goracle’s premonitions. “Share with us, if you would, sort of the immediate
vision that you see in this transformative process as we move to this new economy,” he beseeched.
“Geothermal energy,” the Goracle prophesied. “This has great potential; it is not very far off.”
Another lawmaker asked about the future of nuclear power. “I have grown skeptical about the degree to which it will expand,” the Goracle spoke.
A third asked the legislative future — and here the Goracle spoke in riddle. “The road to Copenhagen has three steps to it,” he said.
Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) begged the Goracle to look further into the future. “What does your modeling tell you about how long we’re going to be around as a species?” he inquired.
The Goracle chuckled. “I don’t claim the expertise to answer a question like that, Senator.”
It was a jarring reminder that the Goracle is, indeed, mortal. Once Al Gore was a mere vice president, but now he is a Nobel laureate and climate-change prophet. He repeats phrases
such as “unified national smart grid” the way he once did “no controlling legal authority” — and the ridicule has been replaced by worship, even by his political foes.
“Tennessee,” gushed Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican from Gore’s home state, “has a legacy of having people here in the Senate and in public service that have been of major
consequence and contributed in a major way to the public debate, and you no doubt have helped build that legacy.” If that wasn’t quite enough, Corker added: “Very much enjoyed your
sense of humor, too.”
Humor? From Al Gore? “I benefit from low expectations,” he replied.
The Goracle’s powers seem to come from his ability to scare the bejesus out of people. “We must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization,” he
said. And: “This is the most serious challenge the world has ever faced.” And: It “could completely end human civilization, and it is rushing at us with such speed and force.”
Though some lawmakers tangled with Gore on his last visit to Capitol Hill, none did on the Foreign Relations Committee yesterday. Dick Lugar (Ind.), the ranking Republican, agreed that
there will be “an almost existential impact” from the climate changes Gore described.
As such, the Goracle, even when questioned, was shown great deference. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), challenging Gore over spent nuclear fuel, began by saying: “I stand to be corrected,
and I defer to your position, you’re probably right, and I’m probably wrong.” He ended his question by saying: “I’m not questioning you; I’m questioning myself.”
Others sought to buy the Goracle’s favor by offering him gifts. “Thank you for your incredible leadership; you make this crystalline for those who don’t either understand it or want to
understand it,” gushed Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who went on to ask: “Will you join me this summer at the Jersey Shore?”
The chairman worried that the Goracle may have been offended by “naysayers” who thought it funny that Gore’s testimony before the committee came on a morning after a snow-and-ice
storm in the capital. “The little snow in Washington does nothing to diminish the reality of the crisis,” Kerry said at the start of the hearing.
The climate was well controlled inside the hearing room, although Gore, suffering from a case of personal climate change, perspired heavily during his testimony. The Goracle presented
the latest version of his climate-change slide show to the senators: a globe with yellow and red blotches, a house falling into water, and ones with obscure titles such as “Warming
Impacts Ugandan Coffee Growing Region.” At one point he flashed a biblical passage on the screen, but he quickly removed it. “I’m not proselytizing,” he explained. A graphic showing a
disappearing rain forest was accompanied by construction noises.
The Goracle supplied abundant metaphors to accompany his visuals. Oil demand: “This roller coaster is headed for a crash, and we’re in the front car.” Polar ice: “Like a beating heart,
and the permanent ice looks almost like blood spilling out of a body along the eastern coast of Greenland.”
The lawmakers joined in. “There are a lot of ways to skin a cat,” contributed Isakson, who is unlikely to get the Humane Society endorsement. “And if we have the dire circumstances
we’re facing, we need to find every way to skin every cat.”
Mostly, however, the lawmakers took turns asking the Goracle for advice, as if playing with a Magic 8 Ball.
Lugar, a 32-year veteran of the Senate, asked Gore, as a “practical politician,” how to get the votes for climate-change legislation. “I am a recovering politician. I’m on about Step 9,” the
Goracle replied, before providing his vision.
Prospects for regulating a future carbon emissions market? “There’s a high degree of confidence.” The future of automobiles in China and India? “I wouldn’t give up on electric vehicles.”
The potential of solar power in those countries? “I have no question about it at all.”
Of course not. He’s the Goracle. He and his entourage jetted to Davos, Switzerland!
He can afford his carbon credits, he owns the company. It’s like the Stienbrenners “buying” tickets to see the New York Yankees.
Now the famous NASA “climate change scientist” has been disgraced.
One of Al Gore’s favorite salesman is James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute. Hansen’s former boss, retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, has come forward with some news … Theon is skeptic of man-made global warming and his former employee James Hansen is an embarrassment to NASA. Theon says, “I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made.” He goes on to say, “Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress.”
There’s more to chew on here, it is good to find out who is on the Al Gore PR payroll.
Just last year at the annual gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the CEO of Lehman Brothers held court on the state of the global economy before lucky big league journalists and quiet subordinates while other Wall Street stars mingled after-hours with the likes of Claudia Schiffer, the supermodel, Bono of U2, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Pinch Sulzberger of the New York Times empire always attended. Did he get an invite this year? Why would he?
IT ALL STARTS TUESDAY. Better shape up for those ski pants.
But the politicians go on our dimes. New York Governor Paterson will fly off to a “junket” in a swank Swiss town this week, escaping from New York just days after his disastrous effort to chose Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate replacement, The New York Post has learned.
UPDATE: A beleaguered Gov. Paterson pulled out of his Switzerland trip Monday as a new poll shows his once-huge lead over Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has virtually disappeared.
Paterson was planning to leave Thursday to attend and speak at theWorld Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, but said this morning he decided to stay to concentrate on the state budget.
With all the wealthy Democrats in DC to help Obama make the USA a socialist state, the big spenders are not showing up in Davos this year. They may be in hiding.
As business, government and even nonprofit leaders jet set into the ski mecca, the cameras may be blocked from some of the parties this time. It would not be good PR to let the “journalists” into the five star restarants this time around.
And with much of the financial system in the UK, EU and the USA edging toward a possible socialist takeover, the 2009 agenda at Davos, “Shaping the Post-Crisis World,” has taken the limelight over global warming and globalization.
“The pendulum has swung and power has moved back to governments,” said Klaus Schwab, the German-born economics professor who founded the World Economic Forum in 1971 and has been its impresario ever since. “This is the biggest economic crisis since Davos began.”
Davos will draw approximately the same amount of participants (2,500) – but the cavier and celebrity-filled parties are going to be hidden from view. There will be many fewer members of the Bogner-ski suit set strutting down the resort’s snowy streets with their Rosignol skis in tow. Will Getty and his boy Gavin Newsom be there?
Davos has become so early 2000s and so Euro-centric. “Let’s stay longer at Sundance!”
In his first news conference since Election Day, President-elect Barack Obama said the United States is ”facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetimes.”
“Obama Drama Ding Dong.” (Let’s see if that phrase catches on). For the next four years we are going to read and hear about crisis after challenge for Obama Drama Ding Dongs. (Inspired by the “Animal House” nightclub scene.)
And the “free press” in America fails to report that Jimmy Carter’s presidency was on an economic disaster with mortgage interest rates of 19 to 21 percent, gas lines, unemployment of over 8.5 percent and the highest tax rates ever seen in the United States since LBJ’s Great Society.
Today’s media is a propaganda machine for the Democratic party. This week the Washington Post in an editorial admitted they had an overwhelming bias to get Obma elected. Woopsie. But the LA Times was even worse. The editors there kept a tape of a toast to a Jew hater named Khalid.
We will see the tape eventually. But will it have been edited? What do you think?
There is no comparative, investigative reporting. Watch America transform into an Eastern European socialist nation with no future and the middle class transformed into a lower-class, mediocre society ruled by the rich, elite class.
Funny? I thought Albert Gore was the guru of USA caused global warming? WTF?
Wasn’t that the mandate of the Democrat party when the war in Iraq calmed down? Why hasn’t Gore been on air as much as the Clinton machine? Didn’t liberals state that Al Gore was going to introduce Obama tonight? Oh sure, if you were staying home on “disability,” then you got to see Gore.
Maybe this is why:
Al “Unabomber” Gore Wacko environmental extremist
Al Gore wrote the book Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, which is the wacko socialist manifesto to regulate everything based on junk science. He parroted the extremist EARTH FIRSTers terrorist party line with a straight face. It is probably the most ignorant book ever written about the environment. In it he wrote the scary totalitarian prescription “we must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization.”
The following are highlights from a 1992 Democratic National Committee (DNC) memo by Jonathan Sallet to the Clinton-Gore campaign that highlighted Gore vulnerabilities from his extremist manifestoEarth in the Balance. The memo was obtained by the Wall Street Journal, which published it in August of 1992. Among the DNC’s findings:
“There is not a single passage in that book that I disagree with or would change.”
(Gannett News Service, 3/23/99)
Gore called the internal combustion engine the greatest enemy of mankind, see –
Gore wrote in EARTH IN THE BALANCE pp 325-326, “It ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine (by government fiat) over, say, a 25 year period.” “I wrote in this book Earth in the Balance that we should set as a strategic goal the phasing out of the internal-combustion engine over a 25-year period. I accept now that was a mistake. Twenty-five years is far too long for a goal like that. I think we can do it quicker.” (Ramesh Ponnuru, “The Attack Man,” National Review, February 21, 2000)
PAUL EHRLICH’S BOOK, ON GAS PRICES: “The United States could start by gradually imposing a higher gasoline tax-hiking it by one or two cents per month until gasoline costs $2.50 to $3.00 per gallon, comparable to prices in Europe and Japan.” (Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, The Population Explosion, 1990, pp. 219-220) On the dustcover of the book, Gore said, “The time for action is due, and past due. Ehrlich has written the prescription.” “Higher taxes on fossil fuels. . . is one of the logical first steps in changing our policies in a manner consistent with a more responsible approach to the environment.” (Al Gore, Earth in the Balance, 1993, p. 173)
Al Gore Supported Plans For Even Higher Gas Prices By Endorsing The Kyoto Protocol. At the 1997 Kyoto Conference, Al Gore committed to reducing United States carbon emissions to less than 1990 levels by 2012. Key to discharging Al Gore’s promises at Kyoto is a carbon tax which experts have concluded will raise gas prices by 65 cents a gallon and reduce average household income by nearly $2700 even as the cost of goods and services rise in response to higher taxes. (“Global Warming: The High Cost of the Kyoto Protocol,” WEFA, Inc., 1998, p. 1) Al Gore Cast The Tie-Breaking Vote To Increase The Gas Tax By 4.3 Cents A Gallon. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, a $241 billion tax increase proposed by the Clinton/Gore Administration, passed on August 6, 1993 on the tie-breaking vote cast by Gore. Included in the bill was a 4.3 cent per gallon gas tax increase. Gore was also its leading advocate in the Administration according to author Bob Woodward: “The meeting quickly turned to the gasoline tax. Vice President Gore, a strong environmentalist who advocated energy taxes as a way to reduce pollution, argued that the tax should be retained. President Clinton could be attacked on character if he dropped the gasoline tax now, Gore said emphatically and emotionally.” (Bob Woodward, “The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House, Part 3 of 4,” The Washington Post, June 7, 1994) Al Gore Was The Chief Advocate Of The Proposed 1993 BTU Tax, Which Would Have Raised Gas Prices By Six Percent. According to George Stephanopoulos, “Gore was the chief advocate of the energy tax, arguing that it was good for both the economy and the environment.” (George Stephanopoulos, All Too Human: A Political Education, 1999, p. 206) Al Gore Has Been A “Driving Force” Behind The Increased Regulation Of Gasoline, Which Has Resulted In An Increase In Gas Prices. Al Gore has been a “driving force” behind the stricter regulation of gasoline, which has “pushed up production prices and created a patchwork of contradictory gasoline formulas in various parts of the country.” (Bill Sammon, “Gore’s Strategy Is To Vilify Oil Firms,” The Washington Times, June 22, 2000) A recent study by the bipartisan Congressional Research Service cited these factors as contributing to the massive increase in gas prices in the Midwest. (Lawrence Kumins, “Midwest Gasoline Price Increases,” Congressional Research Service, June 16, 2000)
Who said it ...
The Unabomber or Algore?
The 10 excerpts below are taken from Algore’s extremist book Earth in the Balance, or from the Unabomber’s (FC’s) Manifesto. You get to try your skill at determining who said which quote. Some are easier than others.
1. “In the speech in which I declared my candidacy, I focused on global warming, ozone depletion and the ailing global environment and declared that these issues – along with nuclear arms control – would be the principal focus of my campaign.”
Unabomber
Algore
2. “No one knows what will happen as a result of ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect and other environmental problems that cannot yet be foreseen. And, as nuclear proliferation has shown, new technology cannot be kept out of the hands of dictators and irresponsible Third World leaders.”
Unabomber
Algore
3. “Artificial needs have been created. … Advertising and marketing techniques have been developed that make many people feel they need things that their grandparents never desired or even dreamed of. … It seems for many people, maybe the majority, these artificial forms … are insufficient. A theme that appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts many people in modern society.”
Unabomber
Algore
4. “Whenever any technology is used to mediate our experience of the world, we gain power but we also lose something in the process. The increased productivity of assembly lines in factories, for examples, requires many employees to repeat the identical task over and over until they lose any feeling of connection to the creative process – and with it their sense of purpose.”
Unabomber
Algore
5. “Like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, who learned how to command inanimate objects to serve his whims, we too have set in motion forces more powerful than we anticipated and that are harder to stop than start.”
Unabomber
Algore
6. “Technological progress marches in only one direction. It can never be reversed. Once a technological innovation has been introduced, people usually become dependent on it, so that they can never again do without it, unless it is replaced by some still more advanced innovation.”
Unabomber
Algore
7. “‘Oh,’ say the technophiles, ‘Science is going to fix all that!’ We will conquer famine, eliminate psychological suffering, make everybody healthy and happy!”
Unabomber
Algore
8. “Some argue that a new ultimate technology, whether nuclear energy or genetic engineering, will solve the problem. … We have also fallen victim to a kind of technological hubris, which tempts us to believe that our new powers may be unlimited. We dare to imagine that we will find technological solutions for every technologically induced problem. … Technological hubris tempts us to lose sight of our place in the natural order and believe that we can achieve whatever we want.”
Unabomber
Algore
9. “Very widespread in modern society is the search for ‘fulfillment.’ … (Yet) for the majority of people whose main goal is fulfillment, (technology) does not bring completely satisfactory fulfillment.”
Unabomber
Algore
10. “Industrial civilization’s great engines of distraction still seduce us with a promise of fulfillment. Our new power to work our will upon the world can bring with it a sudden rush of exhilaration. … But that exhilaration is fleeting. It is not true fulfillment.”
Unabomber
Algore
ANSWERS: Gore said 1,4,5,8, and 10
Source: Geocities.com
Don’t believe it? Google it!
This post was published on Aug 25, 2008
There is talk that Sen. John McCain will take more air out of the Democrat Convention by announcing his VP on Thursday. Good plan. Now, make it Sarah Palin and he will get some of Hillary’s disenfranchised voters. Palin has it all, good looks right out of central casting, intelligent speaker, family values and governor of Alaska.
She has positive energy and wit. She will be able to out debate Biden and show that the Republicans trust a women for high office.
Visit http://palinforvp.blogspot.com/
Drill here, drill now!
Sarah Palin
Victoria Osteen, the wife of Joel Osteen, best selling author and pastor of the Lakewood mega church was sued by a flight attendant. A jury returned a verdict of innocent, no incident took place.
“If I had to go through this, I could at least be an example of trying to live out what’s right, trying to stand strong and trying to just keep my faith intact,” she said. “I stood strong because I believe in the truth,” she told an AP reporter after the trial.
Victoria Osteen said she never touched Continental Airlines flight attendant Sharon Brown and a jury on Thursday believed her, deciding that the co-pastor of Houston’s Lakewood Church did not “attack” the airline employee. Here are some facts that were left out of the coverage in the mainstream media.
Sharon Brown is an African American who according to co-workers was jumping on the opportunity to embarrass the Osteens into settling out of court for six figures. Brown’s attorney was most likely working on contingency.
The frivolous lawsuit was started while the Duke lacrosse team travesty was taking place.
The dirty secret that has been kept out of the reporting, is that there is in deed racism in America; the “get whitey” brand.
After the jury’s verdict, which came following a week-long trial, Victoria Osteen began to cry and hugged her attorneys and several supporters in the courtroom as she said “thank you God” and “praise God.” The 12 jurors deliberated for just 2 hours.
Brown had testified Victoria Osteen got so upset when a spill on her first-class seat’s armrest was not quickly cleaned up that she threw the flight attendant against a bathroom door and elbowed her in the left breast while attempting to rush into the cockpit.
But Victoria Osteen testified no such incident took place, as did her husband and other first-class passengers. No body saw that dramatic attack in a crowded first class section.
Brown quickly left the courtroom without talking to reporters.
She had been seeking at least $405,000 for actual damages — physical and mental pain as a result of an attack she alleged took place before the start of a December 2005 flight from Houston to Vail, Colo.
The jury’s foreman, Gilles Labbe, said he and other jurors believed what happened on the plane was not an attack but a disagreement between a passenger and one or more flight attendants.
“This lawsuit in my opinion should not have been filed because nothing happened,” he said.
“It’s a great vindication …” he said.
In his closing argument earlier Thursday, Rusty Hardin, Victoria Osteen’s attorney, dismissed Brown’s lawsuit as a made-up story concocted to land a courtroom payday.
In his closing argument, McKamie told jurors that because of Victoria Osteen’s status as a religious leader, she felt she had “favor from God.” That led her to believe she was above reproach for humiliating and assaulting his client, he said.
Besides money for actual damages, Brown had requested punitive damages amounting to 10 percent of Victoria Osteen’s net worth as part of her lawsuit. He said it’s just the sliver of the amount of a Monet painting… That’s all.
You guessed right. It’s the illegal aliens.
Here is a story that has been avoided for the past 20 years — the cost of illegal aliens.
1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare and Social Services by the American taxpayers. http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt01.html
10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two-and-a-half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US . http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Homeland Security Report. http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
12. The National Policy Institute, “estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.” http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
14. “The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States “. http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml
Total cost is a whooping… $338.3 BILLION A YEAR!!!
Mick Gregory
With the wildfires under control, and the $250,000 rewards posted for the arsonists, we can calm down and look at another problem that is 10 times worse. The housing bubble has burst. There may be 200,000 homes foreclosed on this year in California. What about next year,300,000 in California alone?
There were some 1,500 homes destroyed in the SoCal fires, virtually all had fire insurance, plus, the land is not destroyed. But with a foreclosure, it’s all gone, and the one who loses his home, still owes the property taxes.
Wanna buy some prime California real estate?
Continue reading
Mick Gregory
The Swift Boat Veterens for Truth were reporting the facts behind John Kerry’s service in Viet Nam. In fact, it was the first time the truth came out, some 30 years later. If the mainstream left-wing media doesn’t like it, they call the truth a smear.
This plug for John Kerry got the attention of viewers of the PBS show “History Detectives.”
Read it and laugh. A member of the “History Detectives” producers, Wes Cowan, an anthropologist and owner of an auction company that specializes in historical Americana, delivered a brief commentary about Sen. John F. Kerry’s role in 1971, when, as a young Naval officer, he was a leader of those veterans who turned against the Vietnam War, and how, in 2004, a group known as the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and funded by a wealthy Republican campaign donor smeared Kerry’s military record and possibly cost him the election.”
This comment provoked the letters posted below. Even the PBS ombudsman was made aware of this blatant bias for Kerry.
On the ‘History Detectives’
Regarding your otherwise wonderful piece on the GAR — I was both appalled and dismayed that you included a snippet in your backgrounder on veterans groups on John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In that piece you stated, as if it were historical fact, that the Swift Boat group “smeared John Kerry” and “likely cost him the election.” The “smear” is a matter of interpretation and historians and political observers have many ideas about what “cost” Mr. Kerry the election. My dismay comes from the questions this raises about your show, which I love. If you are so sloppy and partisan about current history, is everything else you present on this show similarly slanted and shoddy? I am proud to tell you that both my great grandfather and my great-great grandfather were GAR veterans and I’m pretty sure they would share my disgust that you used a story about their beloved army as a prop to make a nasty and inaccurate little political point.
Sherry Sylvester, Garden Ridge, TX
This was a fascinating story that added a very important piece to our understanding of the social dynamic following the Civil War. But I was troubled by the subtle, and not so subtle (and totally irrelevant) infusion of current liberal political thought that the producers injected into an otherwise compelling story.
Elyse was careful to note that Cazenovia, NY, was “fairly liberal,” code words for “that’s why the Black vets were allowed in the GAR chapter and photo,” thereby implying that had “conservatives” been in charge back then, there wouldn’t be such a story. I suggest a quick read of Catton’s “The Coming Fury.” It was the Northern conservatives (the brand new Republican party led by A. Lincoln) that led the fight against further spread of slavery, were willing to go to war over the issue, and eventually gave American Blacks emancipation, in the face of massive and eventually deadly opposition led by Southern (and many Northern) Democrats.
Wes Cowan’s wrap-up was breathtakingly inane. Apparently he cannot get over the ’60s, the Viet Nam war, John Kerry’s (thank goodness) failed political aspirations, or Republicans of means contributing to groups he doesn’t like. How did he manage to say so little in so much space, and why was he allowed to take such a political cheap-shot, trivializing an otherwise important and well crafted history piece?
Bob Flood, Front Royal, VA
I was watching the recent episode of “History Detectives” which featured an old photo of Civil War veterans taken at a reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic. I was enjoying this story, until near the end, when Mr. Wes Cowan began his poisoned pontificating. He brought up the hapless Senator John Kerry, and could not help but mention his defeat (by over 3 million votes) to George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential election. Mr. Cowan’s voice took on a noticeably venomous tone when he stated that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth “smeared Kerry” and “may well have cost him the election.” Mr. Cowan, I defy you to name just ONE allegation made by John O’Neal and the Swift Boat vets that has been found to be untrue. To this day, John Kerry has a standing invitation to debate John O’Neal, but continues to run from the opportunity to face his nemesis. Every fact the Swift Boat Vets have brought up about Kerry has withstood the test of public inquiry. I am a Vietnam Veteran who was flying combat missions over North Vietnam in 1972 at the same time Jane Fonda was having her photo taken with the NVA gunners on the very AA guns used to kill American pilots. I believe that you would have a much better program if you would stick to historical facts, and leave out your suffocating left-wing political bias. However, that is probably asking far too much from the likes of P-BS.
John Kuehnert, Norman, OK
I enjoy History Detectives considering it one of my favorite shows, however, the narrative following the GAR segment concerned me. The remarks concerning John Kerry and the Swift Boat veterans were misleading and had nothing to do with the story. I felt the comments were inappropriate as they appeared to be nothing but a political commentary without the disclaimer. The “wealthy businessman” is also a Vietnam veteran who has taken issue with John Kerry for years. Again, I enjoy the show each week but take exception with last night’s remarks about John Kerry.
Paul Michna, Magnolia, TX
I enjoy watching the History Detectives . . . most of the time. Last night’s episode is pushing it, however. Wes Cowan made a comment about how the Swift Boat people “smeared” John Kerry and may have cost him the election. If Wes wants to talk politics, tell him to get on a different show. The Swift Boat folks didn’t “smear” anyone. They told the truth as they know it, and if that “smears” John Kerry, too bad. Kerry, after all, brought the whole topic of Vietnam up himself in the first place. But regardless, Wes’ comments were over the top and I hope you dump him for someone else, or label him as a commentator, not an investigator. We conservatives are the ones who need a return to the “fairness doctrine” to counteract folks like Wes who get paid with public funds to spread his opinions. ENOUGH!
Richard T. Hedlund, Weddington, NC
I was watching History Detectives last night and wanted to provide some feedback. The segment on the Grand Army of the Republic and veterans was well done. My enjoyment of the show was marred by the blatant attempt to politicize the show with the commentary after the mystery. The comments were over the top and very prejudicial. First there was the commentary that the American Legion had supported Mussolini (out of context and did not have anything to do with the previous commentary). A good student of history is aware that much of the country had conflicting opinions in the 1930s and early 1940s. Throwing one comment about the times without context is insulting.
Then there were the comments about Senator John Kerry, the last presidential election and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. That segment was blatantly political and inappropriate. Why and how Kerry lost the election would take an hour to discuss and the issue of the Swift Boat Veterans is only a part of it. Duly noted was the lack of comment about President Bush’s controversial service during that era and the attacks on him.
It would take too much space for me to point out all the problems with your comments (suffice it to say they were one sided at best and inflammatory at worst). I watch PBS because of the quality of the shows and the attempt at fairness and neutrality. If I want to watch a political show, either liberal of conservative, I will do so. I dislike when anyone mixes in their political agendas in the middle of a show that is nominally educational and entertaining. Please cease and desist and keep your entertainment shows neutral, or have the honesty to say that they are political forums and not educational or entertainment.
John Wylder, Lake Oswego, OR
I was disappointed with the episode of “History Detectives” that aired on Monday, July, 9. At the end of the first segment about the photo of the GAR reunion with black soldiers, a comment was made that John Kerry was “smeared” by the Swift Boat Veterans in 2004, and possibly lost the election because of it. This is not true, the group pointed out many of Kerry’s discrepancies in his service with the Swift Boats in Vietnam. He never did answer their charges and refused to release his military records from the period, which would have cleared many things up. This seems to be another example of the liberal bias of PBS. In the future, please confine yourselves to telling about history, not rewriting it.
Bob Abraham, Los Angeles, CA
By Mick Gregory
The campaign appearances the Democrats don’t want the public to know about. Did you read this in your daily newspaper?
Mrs. Elizabeth Edwards received enthusiastic applause from dozens during a speech at a restaurant/bar in San Francisco as part of Sunday’s Gay Pride celebration.
Elizabeth Edwards, wife of 2008 presidential candidate John Edwards, advocated her husband’s democratic campaign and addressed issues pertaining to poverty, lesbian and gay rights, and free health care among other topics.
As the 20 or more members of the audience held up John Edwards campaign posters, Elizabeth Edwards conveyed her and her husband’s beliefs regarding one of the most important issues to many San Franciscans: the rights of gay and lesbian American citizens. Why couldn’t her husband make it for the photo-op event? Ann Coulter may have had a point.
Will she be riding in the parade, behind Dykes on Bikes?
Everyone should have the same rights and Social Security benefits for their family she explained. “Same-sex couples should receive the same treatment (as straight couples, as in widow benefits).
Elizabeth Edwards, who has been fighting breast cancer since 2004, also declared that the country’s healthcare is “in shambles.” Smiles all around as everyone knows she means more money for free HIV/AIDS treatments.
I think it’s the gay-lesbian-transgender lifestyle that’s in a shambles.
Is it healthy? One has to ask.
In addition, Elizabeth Edwards said she and John Edwards both support stem cell research, deeming it an important part of the country’s progress toward curing many medical problems including HIV/AIDS.
Elizabeth Edwards’ speech took place at the annual Alice B. Toklas Pride Breakfast, hosted by the Alice B. Toklas Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Democratic Club, at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel at 9 a.m.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and California Assemblyman Mark Leno (wearing leather) , D-San Francisco, were among the opening speakers at the event.
Referring to Saturday and Sunday’s Gay Pride celebration, Newsom shared his belief that the “magic of San Francisco” stems from the non-judgmental nature of the city.
Clad in leather pants that he jokingly referred to at one point during his short speech, Leno used his time at the podium to thank the audience for their support.
The Gay-Lesbian-Transgender voter block is a powerful force, keeping Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom in power.
“Nice ass,” was heard a couple of times from the enthusiastic crowd.
The end of elite liberal media empires and rise of citizen journalism 