Al Gore and the Entire Democrat Party/Media Machine Pump Out Global Warming Propaganda

Copenhagen is the Mecca for Big Brother/Big Sis government elitists this month. It’s being called Dopenhagen. 

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe will have speaking slots at the podium in Copenhagen this week.

Well, why not? They are doing their part in population control. And the Democrats in the US will go along with Cap and Trade taxes on America and pass on some of the windfall to these dictators. This is getting ugly. 

Mugabe may have to apologize for burning his oppenant’s wives alive.

Here is a flash back to last year’s election from Zimbabwe.

The Mugabe political team who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro, head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed.

An hour later they were back. They grabbed Mrs Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window.

The killing last Friday – one of the most grotesque atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime since independence in 1980 – was carried out on a wave of worsening brutality before the run-off presidential elections in just over two weeks. It echoed the activities of Foday Sankoh, the rebel leader in the Sierra Leone civil war that ended in 2002, whose trade-mark was to chop off hands and feet.

Mrs Chipiro, 45, a former pre-school teacher, was the second wife of a junior official of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) burnt alive last Friday by Zanu (PF) militiamen. Pamela Pasvani, the 21-year-old pregnant wife of a local councillor in Harare, did not suffer mutilation but died later of her burns; his six-year-old son perished in the flames.

That news report was from London. You may not have read that in the U.S. newspapers. 

Back to Global Warming. I doubt that burning bodies alive cause that much CO2. Al Gore and the UN can forgive this one transgression from President Mugabe. 

Mick Gregory

Volcanoes put out 1,000 times more CO2 than all of the autos in the world (excluding China, Russia and India). In deed, Mount Pinatubo pumped out more CO2 in its 1991 erruption than all of the man-made emmissions since the beginning of time. And there are volcanic erruptions occuring daily all over the world. That proof is graphiclly displayed in glacier ice core drillings that go back 300,000 years. The year after Pinatubo, the CO2 frozen in the ice spiked to astounding levels.

Did Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” mention any of this? More importantly, did your daily LA Times, New York Times, SF Chronicle or Houston Chronicle report this?

This is a weekly report from Universal Weather, a Houston-based, high-tech air and weather service:

Etna, Italy has an ash cloud from 18,000 feet to the surface, moving toward the north at 25 knots. Ubinas, Peru has an ash cloud from 27,000 to 18,000 feet, moving toward the west at 15 knots. Tungurahua, Ecuador has an ash cloud from 20,000 to 16,000 feet, moving toward the southwest at 10 knots. Batu Tara, Lesser Sunda Island, Indonesia has an ash cloud from 5,000 feet to the surface, moving toward the northeast at 10 knots.

These are just the volacones that are in aviation traffic lanes. There are in fact 25 volcanoes errupting every week throughout the planet every week. This has been recorded since 1965.

Isn’t it time to call your local Democrat party politician and tell him/her that you are sick and tired of the propaganda and that you will never vote for the party of Big Brother/Big Sis government again?

http://www.twitter.com
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30511.html

Investment guru Warren Buffett’s outlook on newspapers is dismal

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.

What happened? Take a look at this modest blog’s stats: The 7-day traffic average is now passing hundreds of thousands of hits.  The majority are college graduates and in their peek buying years ages 25-55.

I predict the Boston Globe will go online with just a Friday/Sunday printed and delivered paper. 

The Boston Globe proposes to slash Guild wages by 23 percent. The talks carry on tonight and will probably end with an 18 percent cut in wages, and most and upper middle managers and no-named editors will be gone. The NY Times will handle the management. Just my prediction. 

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.

Newspaper editors purged MBAs from management years ago

Newspapers have not been blessed with the best and the brightest managers. Why? The executive editors sabotage real management and have purged MBAs from their ranks. Kill off the competition.

This is from the WSJ Deal Journal column, a Q&A with Mr. Knee, a highly respected  investment consultant

DJ: What would be your advice to newspaper owners?
Knee: You have seen people outsource everything from printing to editorial and indeed, any kind of journalism where your scale in the local community does not provide you with an advantage should be gotten elsewhere. If you find out how many people the large papers sent to the national conventions, you would wonder whether that’s economically justified. You have to focus on your competitive advantage, which is local. When the smoke clears, the local newspaper, which may not be the sexiest part of the newspaper industry but is overwhelmingly the largest and most profitable part of the industry, will be a smaller and more-focused enterprise whose activities will be directed to those areas where their local presence gives them competitive advantage and they will continue to generate as a result better profits than the supersexy businesses in the media industry asking for government or nonprofit help like movies and music.

The newspaper industry has not been blessed with the best managers, and generations of monopoly profits do dull the senses. On the journalism side, I think many managers would rather have avoided a fight with journalists than actually force them to think harder about what their readers want, rather than what they want their readers to want. In the economic environment we’re in, newspapers can’t afford to do every six-part investigative series they could have done before.

Meanwhile, the rank and file newspaper reporters who were busy covering their beats, don’t make much compared to the executive editors. 

Moma don’t let you’re kids grow up to be newspaper reporters. Have them study business, engineering, law or sales, even bar tending would earn them a better living. The executive editors who scratched their way to the top make big bucks for a while, until the host dies from bad management anyway. 

Ever wonder what kind of money the nation’s top newspapers pay their best journalsits? The top rung of the latter is set by the Newspaper Guild. Once you’ve lasted five or six years after about four years at a small daily and tuition of at least $20,000 a year at a respected J-school, this is it.

New York Times pays the most, $1,675.28 a week after two years. But that’s where it stays fixed until the next Guild negotiations. Of course, New York City has the highest cost of living expenses in the U.S.

Reuters pays $1,587.93 a week after six years.

The San Francisco Chronicle pays $1202.24 a week for six years of journalist experience. I know that is top for the Guild scale, but many of the hard workers, who put in more than 38 hours a week get additional pay above scale.

Consumer Reports takes the No. 1 position with $1,80410 a week scale after four years of experience. The union-biased “non-profit” magazine pays more that the New York Times or San Francisco Chronicle for their pro-union advertorial reports on products.

Can new online newspapers chage for its content? Jeff Jarvis of the LA Times says “No!” And he explains himself very well:

How’s that for a direct answer? Every rule has its exceptions — this one only a few: The Wall Street Journal (paid by expense accounts), Consumer Reports (which serves reviews, not news), iTunes (we may play a unique performance over and over, but I don’t read even my articles more than once) and porn (which is suffering the same problem newspapers are thanks to free competition from, uh, amateurs). But the rule of the new, post-scarcity economy is clear: Charging for news online is dangerous folly. Why? Let me count the reasons if not the dollars:

Once news is known, that knowledge is a commodity and it doesn’t matter who first reported it. There’s no fencing off information, especially today, when the conversation that spreads it moves at the speed of links.

There will be no limit to competitors. Readers, like water, will follow the path of least inconvenience. It’s impossible to compete against free. Have papers learned nothing from Craigslist?

In the old-content economy, one could make much money selling many copies of a product. In today’s link economy online, we need only one copy, and it is the links to it that give it value. So rather than complaining that Google should pay them for aggregating their headlines, news organizations should be grateful that Google does not charge for the links it gives and the readers it sends. Indeed, we should be spending our effort figuring out how to get more links to original reporting to support it.

Putting your content behind a wall cuts it off from the conversation and robs it of influence. Just ask New York Times columnists how much they disliked the pay wall the paper finally demolished.

Not all newspapers are going bankrupt. Many, in small monopoly markets are among the most profitable businesses in America with profit margins much higher than oil companies, Apple, EBay, Cisco, Sprint, AT&T, Google or Microsoft.  Gannett has the lion’s share of these markets. And also the highest ratio of MBAs in the media business. 

Stephanopoulos and Obama Chief of Staff on daily phone briefings from the White House

No wonder why trust in the media is at record lows, like temperatures. 

ABC News’ anchorman of the news and host of This Week with 
George Stephanopoulos, is on a daily morning conference call with Rahm Emanuel and others from the old Clinton administration, now in the media.  Web site Politico broke the news that
Stephanopoulos is currently conducting private, daily
phone briefings with Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. 

This is unethical  journalism and a clear
conflict of interest.   How can Stephanopoulos participate
in daily briefings about the administration’s strategy and
message and then be charged with reporting on them?

Update: Feb. 4: A White House reporter, so infatuated with the new president, jumped out of line and begged for Obama’s autograph today. At the end of the SCHIP signing, a member of the press corps jumped the rope penning off reporters to get an autograph from POTUS. Secret Service swooped in and stopped him. An Obama aide said the man is still being held by Secret Service. No details yet on the reporter’s name or publication. — Carol E. Lee 

The individual in question, whose name I don’t know, showed up in the press briefing room basement under escort of a White House press aide (not the Service at that point) apparently to retrieve personal belongings and make his way out of the complex. — Josh Gerstein 

 

How about tapes of those conversations with major media and the White House? Shouldn’t the public get in on that? It’s our White House, not the Democrat party’s central command for propaganda. 

The Media Research Center (MRC) Action Team thas started a campaign to call
ABC News and demand that he Stepanopoulos (Stephy)  recuse himself
from reporting on any issues involving the Obama Administration,
thousands of citizens took immediate action!

         In fact, the MRC reports  that ABC News switchboard
         personnel were completely swamped, and couldn’t keep up
         with the heavy volume of angry calls.

Don’t Stop Calling!

We are expanding this effort, and have added Stephanopoulos’s boss,
David Westin, President of ABC News and Westin’s boss, Anne Sweeney,
Co-Chairman at Disney. They all need to hear from us.

Here are the numbers to call:

George Stephanopoulos, Washington Chief Correspondent, ABC News
202-222-7700

David Westin, President ABC News 212-456-6200

Anne Sweeney, Co-Chairman, Disney Media Networks 818-569-7700

Click here to send emails:

http://www.mrcaction.org/r.asp?U=15953&CID=517&RID=11817738

Buyouts, layoffs, big declines in readership and ads — it is a bleak Christmas for newspapers

The decline of the newspaper media monopoly never slows. If you have any stock in newspaper-heavy media, it’s too late to get out. As of the end of 2008, 30 daily newspapers are for sale. Buyouts were the good old days. Now there are brutal Christmans-time layoffs. Google the Gannett Blog and find a running count by an ex-Gannetter. 

The layoffs and firings that started this week at newspapers owned by Gannett, including at the flagship USA Today, have been especially ruthless,  in addition to being timed just weeks before Christmas, they number in the thousdands.  But why not? These are mainly socialists and athiests who mock families and call moms breeders. 

It’s bloody news for newspaper journalists. Even the sill profitable Gannett newspapers (many still have profit margins at 20 percent) are shedding employees at a breathtaking rate. 

This week  a Gannett spokesperson said the cuts are being managed locally, at each newspaper, which is why as a company they’ve not released figures on specific jobs other than to say it’s a 10 percent cut companywide. While early figures compiled paper-by-paper totaled 1,700 Gannett jobs cut, it looks like that number may well pass 2,000 by next week.

In just the past week several thousand newspaper employees in America have lost their jobs, Cox Newspapers announced the closing of their Washington, DC, bureau, and the Tribune Co. will lay off more people at their flagship paper in Chicago.

In Chicago the credit analyst Fitch Ratings predicted that the continued decline in advertising revenues will cause some newspapers to default on their debt in 2009, and rated the debt of two huge newspaper companies – The McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co. – ask “junk.” Fitch also predicted that several cities could find themselves without daily print newspapers by 2010.

As many as 1,700 Gannett jobs were cut this week, from assistant managing editors on down, including reductions of up to 31 percent of the staff at one newspaper, The Salinas Californian, according to a reader tally on a blog published by a former Gannett worker, Jim Hopkins.

 

The most recent E&P (an online Web site on newspapers that ironically ended its print edtions a decade ago) reports that recruitment advertising declined in May. The Newspaper Conference Board, which measures job ads in 51 print newspapers across the country, said its Help-Wanted Advertising Index is 33. It was 38 one year ago.

“This is certainly a more negative picture going into the second half of the year, compared to the beginning of the year,” Ken Goldstein, a labor economist at the Conference Board, said in a statement.

In the last three months, help-wanted advertising fell in all nine U.S. regions.

 

The Dallas Morning News (a monopoly) said today it’s going to offer buyouts to the newsroom. That means waving a modest proposal of a few extra weeks of severance pay in front of the noses of older employees. Reality check: the UAW buyouts give auto workers 90 percent of their pay and free health care for life.

 

I was walking my dog this morning at 5:30 a.m. and watched a newspaper carrier in a junk car speeding around my neighborhood to drop a paper at every 20th house or so. Just a few years ago, 40 percent of the homes subscribed to the paper. 

Imagine the carbon footprint of that old smokestack medium. 

The age of objectivity and fair reporting in America is over — MSNBC is disgraced

Who is a Democrat PR talking head and who is a journalist on MSNBC, NBC or CNN? Why stop there? The Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times and SF Chronicle are not investigating economic issues and massive bailouts. What kind of balanced journalism do you think the media performed during the two-year election?

First the gang journalists piled on Hillary, next they covered for Obama and attacked Palin.

MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the network said Wednesday.

The New York TImes had a reporter rewrite an AP story on the hoax and they spun the story to blame FOX News first with the hoax.  This is called journalism?

MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the network said Wednesday.

David Shuster, an anchor for the cable news network, said on air Monday that Martin Eisenstadt, “a McCain policy adviser,” had come forth and identified himself as the source of a story saying Palin had mistakenly believed Africa was a country instead of a continent.

Eisenstadt identifies himself on a blog as a senior fellow at the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy and “a contributor to FOX News.” Yet neither he nor the institute exist; each is part of a hoax dreamed up by a filmmaker named Eitan Gorlin and his partner, Dan Mirvish, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The Eisenstadt claim had mistakenly been delivered to Shuster by a producer and was used in a political discussion Monday afternoon, MSNBC said.

“The story was not properly vetted and should not have made air,” said Jeremy Gaines, network spokesman. “We recognized the error almost immediately and ran a correction on air within minutes.”

Gaines told the Times that someone in the network’s newsroom had presumed the information solid because it was passed along in an e-mail from a colleague.

The hoax was limited to the identity of the source in the story about Palin—not the Fox News story itself. While Palin has denied that she mistook Africa for a country, the veracity of that report was not put in question by the revelation that Eisenstadt is a phony.

Eisenstadt’s “work” had been quoted and debunked before. The Huffington Post said it had cited Eisenstadt in July on a story regarding the Hilton family and McCain.

Among the other victims were political blogs for the Los Angeles Times and The New Republic, each of which referenced false material from Eisenstadt’s blog.

“The story was not properly vetted and should not have made air,” said Jeremy Gaines, MSNBC spokesman.

There are plenty of questions that are not asked.

How did Minnesota Democrat Party election officials come up with 500 more votes for the Democrat senate candidate days after the polls closed and none for the Republican candidate?

Why was there a crisis over $150,000 spent on Sarah Palin’s campaign clothing, but no comparison with Hillary’s warehouse of pantsuits or Obama’s Greek columns and semi-truck of suits?

Newspaper and news magazine circulation is dropping. Layoffs continue. (Wait until after January).

McCain should pick Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska for VP

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

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.

After Fighting to Change Upper Tier Management at the New York Times, Major Investment Bank Morgan Stanley Sells Off $183 Million in Shares

Mick Gregory

The New York Times empire is crumbling. Look out for falling debris. Stock is at a 10-year low.

Now, it is the top headline on the Drudge Report.

Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest shareholder in New York Times Co., sold its entire 7.3 percent stake today, according to a citizen journalist who knew of the transaction, sending the stock to its lowest in more than 10 years.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act didn’t do anything for investor rights of New York Times stock.

The Top 10 signs your newspaper has entered the spiral flush

Mick Gregory

Here is another gem by “Joe Grimm,” advising journalisits on their shaky careers. He’s a big, fat, older white guy working for the Detroit Free Press. I believe he gets paid to write this advice on the job. It gives him some extra status among the elite editors. Maybe the Free Press even gets a few resumes from “talented” journos at 30,000 circultation papers in Podunk?

Let me know if you enjoy reading these slice of life stories as much as I do. I add my insider remarks throughout. BTW-There aren’t really top 10 signs your newspaer job is going down the toilet. There are too many signs to count. In fact, most newspaper journalists are “floaters.” You know what I mean, those stubborn turds that float back after you flush.

Do Warning Signs Mean I Should Go?
Q. Lately a few things have been happening in our newspaper company that I see as troubling, and I’m wondering if I should prepare to look elsewhere for a job. Buddy, you should have been looking for a new job a year ago.

Recently a couple publishers were fired. An official reason was never released, and I am not sure if they are looking for new publishers. (Publishers are the BIG SUITS). These mainly middle-age white men made a good living off the sweat of bright-eyed socialist reporters willing to work 60 hours a week for $30,000 a year.

Our previous publisher also decided he couldn’t pay $500 to send 10 of us to a local conference that would have had a big impact on our reporting. $50 per head for a little seminar. That’s the publisher’s bar tab for some cheap Central Valley white wine on one night out.

I’ve heard my editor on the phone casually mention that the only paper in our group that’s doing well had been marked for shutdown by an editor who left here months ago. The rest of our newspapers have been bleeding circulation like stuck pigs, despite our attempts to gain new subscribers. Our Web site, however, has been doing quite well with hits. Kiddo, it’s not the number of hits, it’s your demos and advertisers willing to place an ad schedule in your media.

We’ve also been under a hiring freeze since last fall, which hasn’t impacted our newsroom, but rather the secretarial staff. Hey, that’s a year, an entire budget cycle. How big is your newsroom? I didn’t catch that.

On the bright side, the company hasn’t frozen much else. I received a raise during my review earlier this year, and we recently bought a new computer to replace one that had finally called it quits. Hey, they actually let you work on a computer that runs? Mr. Grimm might call that a plus! How much was your raise, may I ask?

Every “10 signs your company is headed toward layoffs” site has indicated that something is up at my company. Then again, a lot of those signs are things newspapers are going through all over. I don’t know what to believe.

Ultimately I need to know if I should start applying for new jobs. I’ve gotten more than two years of experience here, so I think I could find a new job, but I had been hoping to stay for another year so I could get an even better job and wait for my boyfriend to finish school.

Still Working

A. By Joe Grimm.

Stay cool.

There is a lot going on — at your place and at others. Yeah, a lot of running around “scooping” the local weekly. That’s a lot. Sort of. It really doesn’t matter to the reader if you scoop another medium on a story. News is a very perishable commodity.

In addition to the warnings, you’ve received some encouragement. Yeah, they replaced your 12-year-old baige computer with a 2-year-old hand-me-down from a failing small daily in your chain. Right?

You don’t want to leave yet, so I wouldn’t. But I would be prepared.

Pay attention to bigger signs: A change in ownership. Multiple rounds of buyouts or layoffs. The sudden loss of a major advertiser. The signs you’ve mentioned are stressful, but don’t indicate an imminent death.
Yeah, wait around until they have that group anouncement when you and 50 others with your exact skill set are out on the street.

Have a fresh resume on your own computer, ready to go out in the mail or digitally. Keep topping your own best work. Pay off those credit cards and bank some money. And keep your network fresh. You’ll probably be able to make another year there as you would like, and can launch a search if you must.

Think of getting a real education with evening courses in business, law or engineering. Did you know that law firms actually pay their interns $1,000 to $2,000 a week?

How much do small dailies pay interns? Do a little digging and report back to us.

Rupert Murdoch Is Now Mr. Wall Street Journal

Mick Gregory

The smartest guy in media, Rupert Murdoch has made the Wall Street Journal the flagship of his empire. You probably know he is despised by the mainstream liberal media.

Rupert Murdoch wanted it more that anyone else, including potential bidders General Electric, Pearson and Ron Burkle. “He wanted it more than all the tut-tutting media organizations who offered little more than rhetoric,” writes David Carr. “And he wanted it more in the end than the Bancrofts did — or at least he offered more than they were able to pass up.”

The IAPE union heads are “disappointed” with the decision by key Bancroft
family members to support the sale of Dow Jones & Company to News Corp.

At the same time, no matter who owns Dow Jones going forward, IAPE
members — over two thousand strong — will continue to band together
to fight for their interests. That includes negotiating a quality collective bargaining agreement.

We were heartened that several prominent Bancroft family members remain opposed to the sale on the grounds that it will irreparably damage the quality and independence of The Wall Street Journal and all Dow Jones publications.

We hope their courage, and their commitment to news gathering independence, will impress upon Dow Jones’ new owners that the success of our products has always been based on a foundation of integrity and trust.

The Spiral Goes Round and Round as the Secondary Newspapers Come Falling Down

Mick Gregory

The Contra Costa Times (a former Knight-Ridder paper) and the ANG (Dizzy Dean Singleton) newspapers, including the Oakland Tribune, will reduce the size of their newsroom staff as the MediaNews Group-owned papers consolidate, Publisher John Armstrong says in a memo to his underlings. “It is our hope attrition will cover this reduction, but there is no guarantee that layoffs can be avoided,” Armstrong wrote.

Today, Armstrong and editors Kevin Keane and Pete Wevurski are wearing their starched white, button down shirts and ties to the meeting with their news staff to carry the news from far above their level. “Don’t blame the messenger.” Armstrong’s memo gave no numbers of positions that would be eliminated. That method creates more fear and productivity.

In a separate memo to employees last week, Armstrong said the combined revenues of the Contra Costa, ANG and Hills newspapers and their related products were $245.5 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30 — $21.3 million less than the revenue total in the previous fiscal year, a decline of 8 percent.

During the year, those papers cut their budgets by $16.8 million, he said, which means the papers’ profits were reduced by $4.5 million. “Yes, we’re still profitable, but that is a substantial decline in financial performance, one that we cannot afford to repeat in the fiscal year that started July 1,” Armstrong wrote.

This follows the San Francisco Chronicle’s cut of 100 newsroom positions, where the smoke has still not cleared. There are still about 20 more “buyouts” coming. The final figures won’t be released until mid-August according to an insider.

That should keep some of those no-name copy editors working free overtime.

JPMorgan’s Frederick Searby and other analysts like the New York Times Company’s cost-cutting measures. “They’re finally biting the bullet and adjusting to the reality of an accelerating, secular decline in print,” says Searby.

Even “Pinchey” is starting to get it. What did the NYTimes shares look like at the end of day today (Thursday)?

So far, 14 took “buyouts” at the St. Paul paper, also owned by Dean Singleton’s MediaNews. He said: “The buyouts, along with attrition and decisions not to fill currently open positions, are expected to minimize the need for layoffs.” One departing staffer plans to attend poker-dealing school to work at an Indian casino.
So far, five newsroom employees were “granted” buyouts at the Indianapolis Star, one of Gannett’s top metro papers. There are many more to come my friends. See Ruth’s blog from Indy for details.

A military rocket launcher found in the front yard of Niranjana Besai in Jersey City

Mick Gregory

These used rocket launchers are actually worthless. I’ve seen them at Army surplus stores.

Yet, Drudge reports that a Jersey City woman made a “shocking discovery” on her lawn this morning when she noticed a military rocket launcher lying in the grass.

Niranjana Besai was leaving her house, located at 88 Nelson Street, to go to work just after 8 this morning when she spotted the launcher on her front lawn. “I read it and it [said] ‘missile,'” Besai told news reporters. “There was little ‘missile’ [writing] on it.”

She immediately called police.

Sources report that the device is an AT-4 missile launcher that is used to fire against tanks and buildings. The device was first approved by the U.S. Army in 1985 and questions are being raised as to whether the device was stolen from a branch of the military.

Its very powerful warheads can penetrate through well over a foot of armor, however each launcher can only be used once. The device found on Besai’s lawn was said to have been used previously and deemed inoperable.

Investigators are now trying to determine when and even where the launcher had been fired.

Officials initially expressed concern after discovering that Besai’s house is located along a flight path for Newark Liberty International Airport.

Residents along Nelson Street were alarmed by the discovery.

Besai’s neighbor, Joe Quinn, said he was outside of his home when he noticed Besai pointing at the device from her front porch. When he walked over to see what the fuss was about, he was just as shocked to see weapon, said to be about three or four feet long and weighing about 15 pounds.

“She’s pointing that there’s something in the front,” he told CBS 2 HD. “I said, ‘Let me come down and take a look,’ and I saw a little soldier on it and I said, ‘Whoa, that’s a missile launcher or something!'”

Quinn says he originally thought the launcher was just a pipe, but after noticing the picture of the soldier — which he described as a soldier kneeling, holding the launcher — he realized it looked similar to a missile launcher he’d seen on television. “I got scared myself,” he says. “It looked like a bazooka, and right away you think what does somebody want with something like that?”

Jersey City Police removed the launcher, and the incident is now being investigated by the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the FBI.

Sources say Besai is not involved in the investigation as a suspect. “I don’t think it was hers, they’re nice people,” Quinn said.

Newspapers continue the downward flush. The only ‘floater’ to pop back up is Gannett–because of the sale of poor performing newspapers

The downturn in the newspaper industry is getting worse. Come to think of it, why would it spring back? They are still run by the PC editorial elite, not managers. Except for News Corp. and Gannett, which are run by real executives.

Here are some stats collected by the Wall Street Journal on the eve of their premium buyout by News Corp.

Last fall, newspaper executives and analysts were caught by surprise by the severity of a slump that took hold last summer. Since the beginning of this year, the rate of decline in advertising revenue has accelerated. Total print and online ad revenue was down 4.8% to $10.6 billion in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the Newspaper Association of America, compared with its full-year decline in 2006 of 0.3%. Actually they should be unscrewing the Cooks sparkling wine for that.

• The Bad News: The rate of decline in newspaper advertising revenue has accelerated since the beginning of the year.
• The Background: Competition from the Internet and other media has transformed the market. In addition, real-estate classifieds have plunged along with the property market.
• What’s Next: The decline, which has sent newspaper stocks into a clockwise spin down the toilet, has prompted restructuring and consolidation, and has affected Dow Jones’s talks with News Corp. and the auction of Tribune Co.
Publishers have reported sharply lower ad revenue for April and May. The depth of the downturn is expected to become clearer as many companies report second-quarter earnings in coming days. Gannett Co. plans to report later today, and Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and McClatchy Co. tomorrow.

In the first quarter, revenue for every major ad category — classified, national and retail advertising — was down. The sharpest declines were for classifieds, where spending dropped 13.2% — not so much a result of competition from the Web as of economic woes affecting certain categories of advertisers. Real-estate classifieds, until recently a bright spot for the industry, have plunged along with the property market. Auto and employment classifieds are also sinking. Financial-news outlets such as the Journal are being hurt by a slump in technology advertising.

“Right now, you’ve got a perfect storm,” says Edward Atorino, an analyst with financial broker Benchmark Co. He predicts total ad revenue will fall 4.3% this year. The decline will be one of the steepest in history. See what I mean, a .3% drop will be looked at with fond memories.

Yet, the editorial executives continue to court Democrats, and denounce American corporations and have no clue how to manage a sandwich shop, let alone an expensive newspaper.

Star Tribune Slashes Newsroom

There are 40 to 50 newsroom employees who will be leaving the Star Tribune shortly, most of them through a voluntary buyout program. Some are encouraged to take modest packages; others are shown how bad things can get for them. Buyout applications are still being evaluated by scores, and some additional departures might be announced in the coming days. In addition, those taking voluntary buyouts have 15 days to rescind their application, meaning a few may decide to stay, for awhile.

Next, bumping goes on for those left who want the the desired positions, a Guild rule.

In percentage, the Strib cutback is on par with The Chronicle’s. How will the readers live without the classical music reviewer?

Arson Fires in Georgia and California–Cell of Islamic Terrorists Caught in New Jersey

Mick Gregory

Albanian illegals part of cell training to kill hundreds of Americans. Caught by FBI sting.

Massive fires in California and Georgia. Don’t worry. No connection to al-Qaeda reported in the mainstream media.

A wildfire roared across the hills in the LA’s sprawling Griffith Park on Tuesday, causing evacuations of homes and some of the city’s most famous landmarks.

A wall of flames raced across ridges and jumped fire lines late in the evening as the fire drew closer to homes and the Griffith Observatory, one of the locations for the 1955 film “Rebel Without a Cause.”

Hundreds of firefighters and five water-dropping helicopters rushed to the landmark park—a mix of wilderness, cultural venues, horse and hiking trails and recreational facilities set on more than 4,000 acres on the hills between Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley.

Late Tuesday, authorities called for a mandatory evacuation of homes that sit along the park’s southern edge as the fire burned out of control. Helicopters flew dangerous water-dropping missions after dark and no homes were lost by late evening.

Police officers drove through the parkside Los Feliz district ordering people out. “You need to evacuate, you need to evacuate your houses immediately,” one said. “The fire is coming toward the neighborhood.”

Home owners helped direct traffic through neighborhood streets.

“I was just able to get a few things,” said Ed Stephan, 83, who helped his wife into their car as ashes fell from the sky. “We’re not too worried but want to get out of here and observe the law.”

More than 200 residents were expected at an evacuation center, said fire Capt. Antoine McNight.

The fire destroyed Dante’s View, a trailside terraced garden on Mount Hollywood, said City Councilman Tom LaBonge. “This is a very sad night for Los Angeles,” he said.

Al Gore’s Global Warming — The Democrats’ New Convenient Religion

Mick Gregory
Holy High Rollers, Batman!

I have to wonder if hotel patrons will get hemp prayer rugs too?

Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel, a grape’s throw from Nancy Pelosi‘s vineyards, won’t find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore’s picture book about global warming.

They’ll also find the Gaia with waterless urinals, solar lighting and recycled looking paper as it positions itself toward becoming California’s first hotel certified as “green,” or “kind” to the planet. Similar selling points are found 35 miles south at San Francisco’s Orchard Garden Hotel, which competes for customers with luxury hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and Fairmont and just a few more miles south, Carmel and Monterey.

The Gaia Napa Valley has a note on its Web site that says it will continue to have a Gideon Bible in the guest rooms.

Are we seeing a little backlash?

The Gaia and Orchard are looking for publicity and lobbying to be the first hotels in California certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, which has authenticated 800 buildings across the U.S. and has about 6,000 in the process, including 30 hotels. San Francisco and other cities offer financial incentives to lessen water and energy use and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Seven years ago, the Green Building Council developed a rating system called the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED. Buildings are certified based on their use of environmentally friendly features such as recycled construction materials, solar lighting, and efficient energy and water systems. Older buildings may be retrofitted.

“If that choice is available, why not take advantage of it,” said Josh Dorfman of New York, founder of furniture company Vivavi Inc. and a frequent traveler. “It’s a way to be able to enjoy traveling and to still feel good that I’m doing it in a way that supports a cleaner planet. It’s a win-win.”

Building green isn’t a priority for most publicly traded hotel chains, said Robert Lafleur, a hotels analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group in Stamford, Connecticut.

Swinerton Inc., a San Francisco-based construction company, has worked on more than 20 buildings seeking certification. The 86-room Orchard Garden, completed last year, was its first hotel, said Grant French, a Swinerton engineer.

“There’s been a sea change,” said French. Some companies “are considering rolling out entire product lines of green hotels.”

Wen-I Chang opened the 132-room Gaia in the town of American Canyon last year. He’s building other green hotels in Anderson and Merced and said he hopes to develop at least six more within three years.

Why not rework Al Gore’s hotel-size house?

The former VP is known for taking six to 12 showers a day. Boys and girls, can you say obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)? No mention in the mainstream media of Gore’s excessive water use?

Chang said he became an environmentalist in 1999, when he couldn’t get a glass of water at a restaurant in Santa Cruz, California, because of a shortage in the area.

“I started thinking that there are many ways I can save water,” said Chang, 62. “I changed my shower habit from eight minutes to two minutes.”

Did you see that Mr. Gore?

Then he changed his building habits, after 10 years of developing Holiday Inn and Hilton franchises.

Chang said 43 cities have asked him to build green hotels. Some offer incentives to help cover construction costs, which were about 15 percent more for the Gaia. Chang said it’s saving 25 percent on electricity and almost 50 percent on water, which may enable the hotel to turn profitable next month.

American Canyon slashed Gaia’s transient occupancy tax by $1 million over three years. Anderson waived a $100,000 environmental impact fee, in part because a green hotel may encourage tourists to stay longer, said Scott Morgan, city manager.

San Francisco began giving priority to green projects last year. A developer may have to wait only four weeks to start construction instead of eight months, said Richard Chien, residential green building coordinator with the San Francisco Department of the Environment.

“We need to get more traction,” Chien said. “We’re facing problems with global warming and climate change and we’re taking a cue to develop programs to address that at a citywide level.”

Any big new buildings California’s government erects must be designed for LEED certification, by order of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The state is working to enact green construction standards for all buildings, said David Walls, executive director of the California Building Standards Commission.

Efforts by the state and cities have contributed to a surge in green development, said Bill Worthen, a senior associate at Simon & Associates Inc. in San Francisco. The consulting company is getting a call a day for projects, he said.

“It’s a hip and trendy thing to do and one that’s actually good for the planet,” he said.

Fools and their money are soon parted. That’s Darwin at work.

Senator Dianne Feinstein Corruption Burried by Major Media

Mick Gregory

Feinstein’s Corruption Hidden by the SF Chronicle, LA Times and NY Times

Appropriations Committees Chairs control billions of dollars that pass through their hands.

California U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) chairs the Senate Rules Committee, but she’s also a Cardinal. She is currently chairwoman of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittee, but until last year was for six years the top Democrat on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (or “Milcon”) sub-committee, where she apparently directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband. Mr. Blum.

Yet, not a word in the mainstream media. There were some articles in the local weekly Bay Guardian and Michael Savage read the reports on his national radio talk show, “Savage Nation.”

What circulates as “journalism” are rants that Dick Cheney should step down becuase Haliburton got contracts in Iraq.

No mention that Cheney had resigned from Haliburton well before he was VP. More importantly, when Mr. Cheney was CEO of Halliburton he was against any military contracts and is on record for speaches on that subject.

The Di Fi problems stem from her subcommittee activities from 2001 to late 2005, when she quit. During that period the public record shows she knowingly took part in decisions that eventually put millions of dollars into her husband’s pocket — the classic conflict of interest that exploited her position and power to channel money to her husband’s companies.

In other words, it is becoming clear that Senator Feinstein was up to her pearl earrings in the same sort of corruption that landed California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R) in prison. Indeed, it may be that the primary difference between the two is basically that Cunningham was a Republican and open target for the LA Times and NY Times. Feinstein is a Democrat from San Francisco and the his state’s senior senator.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was the best friend of real estate developers, landlords (like Shorinstein) when she was mayor of San Francisco, has developed a high national profile in the Senate. She was on everyone’s short list as a Democratic vice presidential candidate. But her record hasn’t improved a bit: She’s still pro-big business, and now she’s pro-big military and pro-globalization. And she has signed over contracts worth $1.5 billion to her hubby’s businesses.

Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, or CREW, focuses on the ethical lapses of Republicans and conservatives, but even she is appalled at the way Sen. Feinstein has abused her position.
Sloan told a California reporter earlier this month that while”there are a number of members of Congress with conflicts of interest … because of the amount of money involved, Feinstein’s conflict of interest is an order of magnitude greater than those conflicts.”

And the director of the Project on Government Oversight who examined the evidence of wrongdoing assembled by California writer Peter Byrne told him that “the paper trail showing Senator Feinstein’s conflict of interest is irrefutable.”

It may be irrefutable, but she almost got away without anyone even knowing what she was up to. Her colleagues on the subcommittee, for example, had no reason even to suspect that she knew what companies might benefit from her decisions because that information is routinely withheld to avoid favoritism.

What they didn’t know was that her chief legal adviser, who also happened to be a business partner of her husband’s and the vice chairman of one of the companies involved, was secretly forwarding her lists of projects and appropriation requests that were coming before the committee and in which she and her husband had an interest — information that has only come to light recently as a result of the efforts of several California investigative reporters.

This adviser insists — apparently with a straight face — that he provided the information to Feinstein’s chief of staff so that she could recuse herself in cases where there might be a conflict. He says that he assumes she did so. The public record, however, indicates that she went right ahead and fought for these same projects.

During this period the two companies, URS of San Francisco and the Perini Corporation of Framingham, Mass., were controlled by Feinstein’s husband, Richard C. Blum, and were awarded a combined total of over $1.5 billion in government business thanks in large measure to her subcommittee. That’s a lot of money even here in Washington.
Interestingly, she left the subcommittee in late 2005 at about the same time her husband sold his stake in both companies. Their combined net worth increased that year with the sale of the two companies by some 25 percent, to more than $40 million.

In spite of the blatant facts coming out of corruption, no major publication has picked up on the story, the Senate Ethics Committee has reportedly let her slip by, and she is now chairing the Senate Rules Committee, which puts her in charge of making sure her colleagues act ethically and avoid the sorts of conflicts of interest with which she is personally and so obviously familiar.

This is a the state of media control by the left. This is the reason citizen journalism and talk radio are so important. And why you will see the Democrats try and shut it down with “fairness” laws.

Now is time for all good stockholders to cut off the gravy train to the pockets of the New York Times playboys.

Shareholder Advisory Firm ISS Recommends Withholding Vote on New York Times Co. Board of Directors

Mick Gregory

A big time shareholder advisory firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, (ISS) is campaigning to investors to withhold their votes for four directors at The New York Times Co. as a way to push for corporate governance changes. The New York Times Co. is one of a very few using an outdated “robber baron” stock scheme.

The ISS report published this week, joins forces with a longtime shareholder, a Morgan Stanley investment fund, to roll back the dual-class share structure which allows the Sulzberger family to maintain dictatorial control of the company with only a minor share of the stock.

ISS analysts recommend separating the chairman and publisher roles, which are both currently held by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., “Pinchy,” as well as establishing key committees on the board that would be made up solely of directors elected by holders of the company’s publicly traded Class A shares.

The Class B shares, which are controlled by the Sulzberger family, have the right to elect nine of the company’s 13 directors. This is an blatantly undemocratic set up.

“Shareholders are left with few avenues through which to voice their opinion other than by withholding from Class A directors,” ISS said in its report. “While we do not advocate removal of the Class A directors, we believe that a strong message to effect change is necessary.”

The Times said in a public relations statement it was “disappointed” that the ISS had recommended a withhold vote for the four directors elected by Class A shareholders.

The Times’ annual meeting is scheduled for April 24. So watch for more positioning in the next two weeks.

Last year the Morgan Stanley fund and two other large shareholders withheld their vote for Class A directors, resulting in a 30 percent withhold rate. The votes are largely symbolic and are intended to signal shareholder dissatisfaction.

ISS also said that neither Sulzberger nor other managers are accountable to the company’s public shareholders “in any meaningful way.”

This is a democratic crisis. How long can the wealthy Sulzberger famiy (pronounced Sal-bur-jay among the inner-circle) soak the majority of their stockholders?