August 20, 2013

TEXANS ELECT CANADIAN CITIZEN AS US SENATOR! Newspaper headlines we never got to see....

August 2, 2013

No Deal: CBS Goes Dark On Time Warner Cable

Source: Deadline.com

BREAKING: CBS and Time Warner Cable negotiators failed to reach an agreement in their retransmission deal negotiations. This means that some 3M TWC customers in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas will lose programming from their CBS-owned local stations, and all TWC subscribers will lose Showtime, TMC, FLIX, and Smithsonian. TWC customers who turn to CBS will see a graphic saying that “CBS has demanded an outrageous increase for programming that CBS delivers free over the air and online.” It tells viewers that they can use an antenna to see CBS, and “as a courtesy, we will provide replacement programming from Starz Kids and Family on a temporary basis beginning shortly.”

Separately, TWC says that “CBS has refused to have a productive discussion. It’s become clear that no matter how much time we give them, they’re not willing to come to reasonable terms.”

But CBS counters that the cable company “has conducted negotiations in a combative and non-productive spirit, indulging in pointless brinksmanship and distorted public positioning – such as the fictional and ridiculous 600% increase CBS supposedly demanded – while maintaining antiquated positions no longer held by any other programming distributor in the business.” The broadcaster adds it wants “fair compensation for the most-watched television network with the most popular content in the world. We will not accept less.”

Here’s CBS’ complete statement:

New York, N.Y. – August 2, 2013 – Effective 5:00 PM Eastern Time, Time Warner Cable has dropped CBS in New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas and several other markets. We deeply regret this ill-advised action, which is injurious not only to our many affected viewers, but also to Time Warner Cable itself. Throughout this process, Time Warner Cable has conducted negotiations in a combative and non-productive spirit, indulging in pointless brinksmanship and distorted public positioning – such as the fictional and ridiculous 600% increase CBS supposedly demanded – while maintaining antiquated positions no longer held by any other programming distributor in the business. CBS, for its part, is eager to make an agreement in line with the kind it has struck with every other cable, satellite and telco provider, and has continually sought reasonable term extensions to get that job done. This is the first time in its history that CBS has been dropped from a cable system. Time Warner Cable, on the other hand, has a long history of taking channels off the air – more than 50 in the last five years alone. It has also chosen to drop Showtime, which is owned by CBS, a move that is completely unnecessary and totally punitive to its subscribers.


Read more: http://www.deadline.com/2013/08/no-deal-cbs-goes-dark-on-time-warner-cable/

---

In a related story millions of America's elderly now think their TV is broken.

August 2, 2013

George Clooney To Hedge Fund Honcho Daniel Loeb: Stop Spreading Fear

http://www.deadline.com/2013/08/george-clooney-slams-sony-investor-daniel-loeb/

Working on post-production for his latest directing effort in Italy to ready for Sony’s December 18 release, Clooney spoke to me about his new movie and how it’s getting harder to make films like Monuments, Argo and the Smokehouse-produced August: Osage County. The discussion turned toward recent critical comments made by Third Point LLC hedge fund head Daniel Loeb and the pressure he is placing on Sony Pictures chiefs Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal, centered around the under-performing back to back summer films After Earth and White House Down. Loeb, whose fund controls 7% of Sony stock, is pressing for Sony to spin off its entertainment assets and likened those misfires to historic flops Waterworld and Ishtar. Though Clooney and Heslov base their Smokehouse Pictures banner at Sony, and Loeb’s influence is growing there, Clooney has never been shy about standing up to what he feels is wrong. So, buckle up.

Said Clooney: “I’ve been reading a lot about Daniel Loeb, a hedge fund guy who describes himself as an activist but who knows nothing about our business, and he is looking to take scalps at Sony because two movies in a row underperformed? When does the clock stop and start for him at Sony? Why didn’t he include Skyfall, the 007 movie that grossed a billion dollars, or Zero Dark Thirty or Django Unchained? And what about the rest of a year that includes Elysium, Captain Phillips, American Hustle and The Monuments Men? You can’t cherry pick a small time period and point to two films that didn’t do great. It makes me crazy. Fortunately, this business is run by people who understand that the movie business ebbs and flows and the good news is they are ignoring his calls to spin off the entertainment assets. How any hedge fund guy can call for responsibility is beyond me, because if you look at those guys, there is no conscience at work. It is a business that is only about creating wealth, where when they fail, they get bailed out and where nobody gets fired. A guy from a hedge fund entity is the single least qualified person to be making these kinds of judgments, and he is dangerous to our industry.”

Why is he dangerous?

“[Loeb] calls himself an activist investor, and I would call him a carpet bagger, and one who is trying to spread a climate of fear that pushes studios to want to make only tent poles,” Clooney said. “Films like Michael Clayton, Out of Sight, Good Night, And Good Luck, The Descendants and O, Brother Where Art Though?, none of these are movies studios are inclined to make. What he’s doing is scaring studios and pushing them to make decisions from a place of fear. Why is he buying stock like crazy if he’s so down on things? He’s trying to manipulate the market. I am no apologist for the studios, but these people know what they are doing. If you look at the industry track record, this business has made a lot of money. It creates a lot of jobs and is still one of the largest exporters in the world. To have this guy portraying it that Sony management is the bad stepchild and doesn’t know what it is doing and he’s going to fix it? That is like Walmart saying, let me fix your town, putting in their store, strangling all the small shops and getting everyone who worked in them to work for minimum wage with no health insurance.

“It’s crazy he has weight in this conversation at all,” Clooney continued. “If guys like this are given any weight because they’ve bought stock and suddenly feel they can tell us how to do our business — one he knows nothing about — this does great damage than trickles down. The board of directors starts saying, ‘Wait a minute. What guarantee do you have that this movie makes money?’ Well, there are no guarantees, but if you average out the films Will Smith and Channing Tatum have made, you will take that bet every time, even if sometimes it just doesn’t work out.” Clooney also said he believes that down the line both films have a chance to be a wash. Clooney was particularly sensitive on the subject of job creation.

“Hedge fund guys do not create jobs, and we do,” he said. “On the movie we just made, we put 300 people to work every day. I’m talking about nice, regular people, and when we shot in a town, we’d put another 300 people to work. This is an industry that thrives; there are thousands of workers who make films. You want to see what happens if outside forces start to scare the industry and studios just make tent poles out of fear? You will see a lot of crap coming out.”

......

The best attack on hedge fund assholes I've seen.....
More at the link....

August 1, 2013

Rand Paul and Chris Christie are involved in a war of ambition.

Yeah, I spelled it right.

July 24, 2013

Three word solution for Anthony Wiener: Opt-in mailing list.

July 16, 2013

Average Penis Size Of American Men Is 5.6 Inches Long When Erect, Scientists Say

The average American man's penis is 5.6 inches (14.2 centimeters) long when erect, a new survey of 1,661 men finds.

The study, published online July 10 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, is relatively consistent with the results of prior surveys of penis size.

Penis size has been the subject of dozens of studies, as well as countless urban legends, myths and spam emails. For many men, the idea of not measuring up can cause a great deal of anxiety.

But whether penis size truly matters to a man's sex partner is up for debate. Some research shows that women who experience vaginal orgasms do so more consistently with men of bigger girth.

more at link...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/14/average-penis-size-american-men_n_3591649.html?utm_hp_ref=science

Someone somewhere just added "Ruler Sterilization Specialist" to their job skills on LinkedIn.

July 3, 2013

Coup d'égypt.

Nice and official.

June 25, 2013

IMHO the current Supreme Court would pass the Dred Scott decision again with a 5-4 vote.

They are that regressive.

June 24, 2013

Knock knock

Who's there?
I used to be a lawyer...
I used to be a lawyer, who?
Exactly.





I can smell the appeal due to inadequate counsel already....

June 21, 2013

Dear Paula Deen,

China is lovely this time of year.
I'll pick you up at the airport.
Sincerely,
Eric Snowden