Crybaby

Apparently Susan Reimer never learned the Golden Rule: "treat others as you would like to be treated."

After Reimer's hateful, bitter, pathetic, puerile, lame hate screed against Governor Sarah Palin published in Monday's paper, she seems legitimately shocked that people were offended, and she was the subject of hateful attacks against her person.

Now I'm not going to defend personal attacks made by readers against Reimer. Just because Reimer launched a series of unnecessary personal shots at Senator McCain and Governor Palin doesn't mean people should respond in kind. But questioning Reimer's charachter and judgment are completely in line, and can be expected after the kind of crap that she wrote under her own name.

One line that did give me a chuckle was this:

So much pent-up anger, so much barely concealed hate was released in those e-mails and those postings. I wonder where next they will find a vent.

Gee, I wonder who unleashed pent-up agner and barely concealed first? Perhaps in was an in-over-her-head Baltimore Sun columnist maybe?

Obviously, given Reimer's column, this is clearly how she wanted to be treated though. Otherwise, she would not have subjected Senator McCain and Governor Palin to this kind of treatment...

Breaking News from 1985

I don't get it. The old norm always used to be that prices for credit were higher than prices for cash. It costs more per transaction for gas station owners to sell a gallon of gas by credit than by cash, and the gas station operators are trying to recoup their costs.

What's even more brilliant on the part of the producer is that you can clearly see the sign on the gas pump displaying the price for a cash purchase and the price for credit purchases; something that I have seen at every gas station that charges separate fees.

So why is ABC trying to manufacture outrage about this?

WYPR replaces respected host with hack

Please tell me WYPR isn't serious:

Days after firing longtime talk radio host Marc Steiner, WYPR announced today that Sun columnist Dan Rodricks would replace him.

The news came as the station, facing passionate protests from Steiner loyalists, pushed back its fundraising drive originally set for next week.

While Steiner's firing came as a shock to people who viewed his show as a unique civic forum, some said replacing him with a well-known local columnist and media personality might quell some of the backlash.

Of course, Rodrick's is a well-known leftist journalism hack, draft supporter with misplaced priorities, and he is nowhere near the level of Marc Steiner. And if anybody heard Rodricks' performance on the Chip Franklin show when they were paired together on WBAL, or if you saw the old Rodricks for Breakfast TV Show on WMAR-TV, you know that this is not anything resembling an improvement for WYPR.

I'll be interested to see what our friends on the left have to say about this...

The Perils of Out-of-town Media

In something I didn't even notice at first, the Capital did not endorse a candidate for President. Apparently, here's why:

This is the first year in my memory that The Capital hasn't endorsed a presidential candidate. Our current owners, Landmark Communications, asked all member newspapers to forgo the presidential endorsement because editors have no special insight or expertise to offer in a national race. It is a decision I wholeheartedly agree with.

Which is of course, a curious decision, but one within the purview of the paper's ownership. But Tom Marquardt goes a little further with this:

While he was publisher here, the late Phil Merrill traveled in Washington circles that brought him close to the candidates and their positions on issues of national importance. He did have the insight that gave him an advantage in selecting the candidates to endorse - and he never missed an opportunity.

Without Phil's insight, we were left with what we could glean from newspaper and television reports. In local races, however, we talk to most of the candidates and have a better feel for their character, experience and voting records.

Now that's a hogwash answer in my book. To say that one person who ran in "Washington circles" makes a paper qualified to offer a Presidential endorsement is absurd, much less using Phil Merrill's passing as a crutch not to offer such an endorsement. And besides, when you are talking about local, smaller media such as the Capital, should not as much time be spent considering the local issues that the next President will impact as much, if not more, than the large national issues?

I'm not going to rail about how bad out-of-town media ownership is in the sense of taking government action like the left wants, but Landmark's decision here is doing a disservice to the readers of these local papers, the Capital included.

In the Hot Seat

I'll be in studio tomorrow around 7 PM on the Warren Monks Show on WAMD, 970 AM in Aberdeen. I'll be on with RedMaryland colleague Mark Newgent, taking the same chair that our good friend Greg Kline had last week. In that vein, I'll crib the WAMD coverage map Greg cribbed from radio-locator.com:


It'll be good times.....

CNN fails Googling

So apparently, CNN was unaware that a retired Brigadier General who came out as a homosexual after his career was over, and was flown to St. Petersburg, FL for tonight's YouTube debate to ask a question of the Republican candidates was a member of a Hillary Clinton steering committee.

Emailers and bloggers picked this up in less than an hour and Anderson Cooper offered somewhat of a half-assed admission of this one hour after the debate.

Is it any wonder that CNN is rapidly losing credibility as an unbiased news source? If they couldn't Google the questioners names before allowing these questions to be selected and use, doesn't it make you question whether or not CNN is doing adequate story and fact-checking research in other areas?

No, TV doesn't try to push an agenda at all

No sir, no way:

Former Vice President Al Gore is expected to make an appearance on the NBC comedy show "30 Rock" in November. Gore was in New York last week to tape the episode, and a Gore spokeswoman says "he did have a great time".

Gore's office anticipates the episode will air as part of, what it called, NBC's upcoming "Green is Universal" week of environmentally-based programming, Nov. 4 - 10.

I am stunned that NBC will waste a week of program preaching environmentalist propaganda. That being said, if they are dumb enough to try this stunt during the November sweeps, then they've got it coming to them:

"We need to not just think green, but act green," said Zucker. "This commitment to a week of programming is an incredible opportunity for NBCU to use the collective power of its platforms – broadcast, cable, and film – and consumer expertise and reach to further the message of environmental awareness and change."

"For the first time ever, the massive resources of the entire NBC Universal family will stand together behind a single pro-social cause," said Zalaznick. "This far-reaching initiative represents the first step in our commitment to help raise environmental awareness and effect change both internally and externally."

Highlights from the "Green is Universal" week include:

NBC Entertainment programming, both scripted and unscripted, will adopt green-friendly and environmentally-oriented messages – across all dayparts – to promote the crucial issue of ecological awareness. Among NBC's many programs to feature this content will be the entire Thursday night line-up, including the Emmy Award-winning comedy "The Office," "My Name is Earl" and "30 Rock," the hit drama "Heroes" and "Deal or No Deal."

NBC News' platforms including "Today," "Nightly News," "Dateline," MSNBC and MSNBC.com, will support a week of special programming, including in-depth looks at the issues and some unique special broadcast events. NBC News' Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent Anne Thompson will be featured throughout this special week of programming.

NBC Sports kicks-off "Green is Universal" week November 4th with its Sunday Night Football match-up between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles. The broadcast will feature additional announcements about "Green is Universal," as well as incorporate the themes throughout its telecast on Sunday and the following Saturday's Air Force vs. Notre Dame game.

And it goes on like this.

Can you imagine if Fox did something like this for, say, capitalism, or individual rights, or the Second Amendment? Incorporating it across every aspect of its programming? Liberals would be marching in the streets. But do something politically correct like this, and nobody says nary a word.

This is bad business, bad policy, and bad politics all at the same time. And I hope they get trounced in the ratings for it. Not that there is anything worth watching on NBC anymore anyway...

I think Dick Enberg needs a script

So far he noted that Kellen Clemons is an "Oregon Cowboy" (they're the Ducks) and that Derrick Mason "started out with McNair in Jacksonville."

It's gonna be a long game from the broadcast perspective...

Just so I can again be called a "Media Darling"

I was listening to the streaming broadcast of Full Circle this morning and the topic of the Central Committee came up, and I found myself motivated to call. So I appear on the show for about five minutes late in the broadcast, along with host Eric Michelson, Mike Collins, South County Democrat Ray Naughton, and the Green Party's Rob Savidge.

The show runs again on Thursday night from 7-8, and you can listen on 97.5 WRYR-LP in Southern Anne Arundel County or streaming through their website.

Huh?

Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel is retiring. Which is certainly not a bad thing. What is curious is this blurb from the MSNBC story about it:

His retirement means the Republican Party will be scrambling to fill his seat in 2008 at a time when the GOP will already be defending more Senate seats than Democrats.

Say what? Scrambling? Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning has been running for months, and was in the race whether Hagel sought re-election or not, and was actually leading Hagel in several polls, which probably led partially to Hagel's retirement. So I'm not exactly sure how MSNBC deduces that the Nebraska GOP is scrambling when a top flight candidate was already in the race...

Forgetting what the story was about

The tragedy that was and still is the Minneapolis Bridge collapse is completely indisputable, and I don't think that anybody doubts that state, local, and federal officials are doing whatever they can in the recovery mission and in an effort to do what can be done to repair the damage to the people of Minnesota.

That being sad, every other government official needs to shut up about bridges for the moment.

Governor O'Malley ran out today and assured the people of Maryland that Maryland's bridges are safe. Now, nobody actually knows if the bridges are really safe. Nothing has changed in the past twenty-four hours that would make Maryland officials question the structural integrity of our bridges. But then again, nobody thought the bridge on I-35W had anything wrong with it either.

Something bad happened. Could it have been predicted and prevented? Who knows at this juncture. But I can assure you that Governor O'Malley taking this opportunity to jump in front of a television camera accomplished absolutely nothing. He forgot that the story was not about him...

One comment the Governor did make was that there was a $40 billion shortfall in the state of Maryland as it relates to highway infrastructure, in necessary repairs and improvements. Given the fact that highway transportation is one of the few areas that government has a legitimate business being in, would it not make more sense to divert some of the billions in new social spending proposed by the O'Malley administration towards repairing our dilapidating infrastructure to try as best we can to prevent such a catastrophe from happening here? Wouldn't that be a better use of the Governor's time than posturing in front of the camera?

So....now what?

This is surprising in that both are happening virtually simultaneously:

Talk-radio hosts Chip Franklin and Rob Douglas are moving on from Baltimore's largest AM station, WBAL.

Franklin, a conservative commentator who has been at the station for more than seven years, is headed to a more lucrative radio job in San Diego, while Douglas is returning to his security consulting business full-time and his home near Denver.

"This is a tremendous, life-changing opportunity for me," Franklin said today by phone from his Montgomery County home, which he is in the process of selling. He leaves WBAL on Aug. 3...

...Douglas, who had an earlier stint at WBAL but who returned to its airwaves just four months ago "no longer desires to be a WBAL Radio talk host," Jeffrey J. Beauchamp, vice president and station manager of WBAL, wrote today in a memo to the staff. Douglas is on vacation and will not, apparently, resume his show.

Well....lord only knows what happens for WBAL from here. I think I was one of the few people who was happy when WBAL dropped Rush Limbaugh a few years back because nationally syndicated radio is kinda monotonous and I am much more inclined to listen to locally relevant programming as opposed to the same old crap being spewed day in and day out.

Perhaps Greg and I should get to work on Conservative Refuge radio......

The Ugly Truth

Yes folks, while promoting the cause of saving the environment, Live Earth and its participants are...well....killing the planet:

The Live Earth event is, in the words of one commentator: "a massive, hypocritical fraud".

For while the organisers' commitment to save the planet is genuine, the very process of putting on such a vast event, with more than 150 performers jetting around the world to appear in concerts from Tokyo to Hamburg, is surely an exercise in hypocrisy on a grand scale.

Matt Bellamy, front man of the rock band Muse, has dubbed it 'private jets for climate change'.

A Daily Mail investigation has revealed that far from saving the planet, the extravaganza will generate a huge fuel bill, acres of garbage, thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions, and a mileage total equal to the movement of an army.

The most conservative assessment of the flights being taken by its superstars is that they are flying an extraordinary 222,623.63 miles between them to get to the various concerts - nearly nine times the circumference of the world. The true environmental cost, as they transport their technicians, dancers and support staff, is likely to be far higher.

The total carbon footprint of the event, taking into account the artists' and spectators' travel to the concert, and the energy consumption on the day, is likely to be at least 31,500 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to John Buckley of Carbonfootprint.com, who specialises in such calculations.

Throw in the television audience and it comes to a staggering 74,500 tonnes. In comparison, the average Briton produces ten tonnes in a year.

The concert will also generate some 1,025 tonnes of waste at the concert stadiums - much of which will go directly into landfill sites.....

....Let us start with some facts. Worldwide, an audience of around 1,268,500 is expected to attend the concerts - making it one of the largest global events in history.

Dr Andrea Collins, an expert in sustainability from Cardiff University, has researched the impact of such mass gatherings on the environment.

"An event of this size at Wembley - which holds 65,000 at a rock concert, will generate around 59 tonnes of waste," she says. "That is largely composed of the rubbish from food and drink consumption."

She found that a Wembley-sized football match generated an 'ecological footprint' of 3,000 global hectares - an area the size of 4,166 football pitches. This is the amount of bioproductive land required to absorb the C02 emissions produced by such an event.

Here is the most relevant quote:

But Dr Barrett says: "It would be far better for these celebrities to stay at home. Holding large concerts to highlight environmental concerns and cut carbon emissions just seems ridiculous. What planet do these people live on?"

And it is 100% true. The Guardian, Times of London, and Investor's Business Daily also pile on, while some wonder if Global Warming has Jumped the Shark.

While trying to do what they do best and tell us how to live, Live Earth participants are being exposed as hypocrites, much like their hypocrite-in-chief. Nobody is saying that these celebrities are not entitled to live the "rock and roll lifestyle" because they have for the most part earned their station in life. But for God's sake, don't stand there and become part of this massive global event to preaching climate change to the proles while living your carbon-emitting life of luxury.

And it is no wonder that Gore has had to go on the defensive against the charges of hypocrisy leveled by some musicians, including Live Aid/Live8 organizer and former Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof, British band Arctic Monkeys, and The Who frontman Roger Daltrey.

If these rock stars were truly serious about combating climate change, they would not fly around the world on private jets to concerts designed to fight the pollution they just dumped into the atmosphere. They would be better off starting a charity or an interest group than by doing what they are doing. And if Al Gore were functionally capable of toning down the rhetoric, toning down the hypocrisy, and occasionally tell the truth, maybe some of us would be a little less skeptical of not only his message that global warming is the end of us all, but what his motives actually were....

EDIT: Take that (H/T Instapundit:)

Tomorrow’s Live Earth concerts all over the world are part of Al Gore’s plan to save, well, the Earth. But they could end up generating more carbon dioxide than was produced by all of Afghanistan in 2006.

This Just In...

Journalists overwhelmingly support Democrats. (See who gave to whom here).

Is this really news at this point, given all of the years and years of discussion, and piles and piles of evidence, on liberal media bias?

Completely Unnecessary

In the wake of today's horrible Virginia Tech shooting, Dan Rodricks predictably found it necessary to be a jerk:

I can't wait to hear the gun nuts today on talk radio: If the professors and teachers had guns, this wouldn't happen. If America's universities were not so heavily influenced by liberal intellectuals, this would never happen. All students would be armed and able to defend themselves. It's all so predictable -- all so tragically predictable.

Yes, politicizing a tragedy like this one clearly shows that one has the moral higher ground. Neither side should be trying to make political hay right now.

I cannot understand why Rodricks felt it necessary to be such a jerk after such a horrific incident.

OK, we gave them time...

...but MASN's pregame Orioles coverage is not particularly good. Of course, MASN itself has some issues given the fact that so far the audio and video still is not particularly well synched.

The Preachers of Hollywood and Vine

During Sunday's Oscar Telecast, usually four hours of left-wing self-congratulation, the entire evening became a love-in for former Vice-President Al Gore and the Global Warming movement. It was so bad that CNN noted that Gore basically received $5 million in free advertising during the event. Hollywood blogger Nikke Finke has more.

In what ways was it bad?:

• Ellen DeGeneres made a joke in the monologue about people having actually voted for Al Gore, despite him not winning.
• The Goracle joins intellectual heavyweight Leonardo DeCaprio on stage to talk about how the Oscars went green this year led by the " non-partisan" Natural Resources Defense Council (see what sacrifices the rich with leerjets want you to make!). Oh: and we are all going to die (or something) if we don't take action right now. Ironically, Libertas notes:
  

  Leo and Gore. Between them these two environmentalists' combined living space could house all those Haitian Boat People Clinton turned back.
  

• Gore apparently made a movie which the Cuban Government loves that won Best Fictional Drama Best Documentary for some reason. His producer noted that he was "moved to act by this man." He and the Goracle then got their prom picture together.
• On the way up to accept the award, the Movie Voice Guy ( Don LaFontaine) said, and I quote as best I can:
  

  The movie was scheduled to be filmed in New Orleans the day before Hurricane Katrina hit, a prime example of the effects of global warming.

  (Never mind that Katrina was the epitome of Democratic failure, incompetence, and corruption)
  
  
• Then, some other guy comes up and wins an award and thanks Al Gore apparently for existing.
  

The entire night a celebration of a has-been politician and his "documentary" which has been savagely torn apart nine ways to Sunday.

Now, here comes the real question: how would Hollywood celebrate a movie about creationism?

I don't ask this question in jest. Creationism is, by all accounts, a theory. A theory that has little in scientific basis; in fact, most scientists support alternative theories (i.e. evolution) and have a substantially greater scientific basis to support the alternative theories. Creationism is accepted by millions of people as fact. They accept it on faith alone.

That's what many of the Hollywood elite do with current theories on global warming. They accept what they have been told on faith alone, notwithstanding the fact that no scientific consensus exists on the matter. Does anybody seriously think that Leonardo read any of the literature on climate change before coming to the conclusion that the Goracle must save us all? I highly doubt it, if only due to the culture of Hollywood that accepts left-leaning talking points as the truth, regardless of their veracity.

Hollywood's global warming alarmists adopt the global warming orthodoxy on a leap of faith. Ironically, these same people savagely criticize those who are religious for taking the same leap of faith on their beliefs.

Now I am skeptical about man-made global warming. And I am skeptical about creationism. But the contrast of the acceptability of believing in global warming on faith is striking when compared to the modern day acceptability of creationism.

Those who are on television, like DeCaprio. preaching about the need to conserve and the need to fight global warming remind me a lot of the televangelist Jim Bakker . Both preach to the true believers, both preaching gospels as they see fit. Both living lives of hypocrisy; Bakker for his sex scandals and financial improprieties, DeCaprio for his large houses and gas-guzzling modes of transportation.

That makes the global warming crowd in Hollywood nothing more than Preachers proselytizing to their flock. They are the Preachers of Hollywood and Vine...

O's ditch WBAL for HFS

The Orioles have surprisingly abandoned longtime radio home WBAL for WHFS. This is kind of a surprising move given that the Orioles, for most of their history have been on BAL. Want to know who really loses in this equation? Believe it or not, distant Orioles fans who live in the northeast and the southeast. BAL's 50,000 watt flamethrower allowed fans in those distant locales to listen to WBAL at night on most nights given a clear signal. That's not going to work on HFS, which is barely audible once you get to DC. That's why when WQSR was the Ravens flagship station, they swapped signals with WQSR swapped signals from 105.7 to 102.7 for additional DC coverage.

What this does to modern rock on WHFS is anybody's guess...

Surprise, Surprise

Who is surprised by this?:

For a quarter of a century, Carmen Scialabba labored for Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), helping parcel out the billions of dollars that came through the House Appropriations Committee, so when the disabled aide needed a favor, Murtha was there.

In 2001, Murtha announced the creation of Scialabba's nonprofit agency for the disabled in Johnstown, Pa. The next year, with Scialabba still on his staff, Murtha secured a half-million dollars for the group, the Pennsylvania Association for Individuals With Disabilities (PAID), and put another $150,000 in the pipeline for 2003, according to appropriations committee records and former committee aides. Since then, the group has helped hundreds of disabled people find work.

But the group serves another function as well. PAID has become a gathering point for defense contractors and lobbyists with business before Murtha's defense appropriations subcommittee, and for Pennsylvania businesses and universities that have thrived on federal money obtained by Murtha.

Lobbyists and corporate officials serve as directors on the nonprofit group's board, where they help raise money and find jobs for Johnstown's disabled workers. Some of those lobbyists have served as intermediaries between the defense contractors and businessmen on the board, and Murtha and his aides.

That arrangement over the years has yielded millions of dollars in federal support for the contractors, businesses and universities, and hundreds of thousands in consulting and lobbying fees to Murtha's favored lobbying shops, according to Federal Election Commission records and lobbying disclosure forms. In turn, many of PAID's directors have kept Murtha's campaigns flush with cash.

Cute acronym. None of this should be a surprise given Murtha's corrupt past (ABSCAM and what not) but isn't this just a little too blatant to be allowed to continue? Where are the charges of ethical misconduct from Congressional Democrats and the media? Especially when you consider this is some of the same stuff that Tom DeLay was accused of doing...

Just Saying..

...but I was annoyed with the Bryant Gumbel and Chris Collinsworth broadcasting team before Stover even kicked off tonight.

Gumbel is awful as a play-by-play man. Collinsworth is already doing what he does, which is step all over his partner.

Help me...

Short Attention Span Theater

CNN has added a "Story Highlights" box to certain stories, such as this story about Tom Vilsack's Presidential announcement.

Does this make CNN the USA Today of mainstream media news websites?

Anything But

I am on the email list for WBAL Radio's breaking news alert. So I was a little surprised to receive this, uh, breaking news today:

CAL RIPKEN, JR.'S NAME AMONG FIRST-TIME CANDIDATES ON BASEBALL HALL OF FAME BALLOT RELEASED TODAY. LISTEN TO WBAL RADIO FOR CONTINUING DEVELOPMENTS, AND JOIN STEVE DAVIS BEGINNING AT 6 P.M. UPDATES THROUGHOUT THE DAY AT http://wbal.com

Any player who meets the Hall of Fame's requirements, 10 years as a player and having been retired for five years, is automatically included on the ballot. So this is anything but breaking news. It would have been breaking news if for some reason Cal's name was not on the ballot.

There needs to be at least some discretion on the use of the term Breaking News, though network news hasn't really understood that for quite some time...