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  • Art Stone 8:15 am on March 11, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    “social justice” Christianity – another name is “liberation theology” has come onto Glenn Beck’s radar and vice versa. The most notorious group I remember is the Mary Knoll Sisters, a Catholic group that operates in Central and South America supporting Marxist revolutionary factions working for “social justice” causes like breaking up big banana farms and redistributing land to the people and generally working against the interests of the United States.

    While listening to John Batchelor last night and learning that the United Farm Workers supports the cutoff of water used to irrigate the San Juaquin valley, it clicked in my brain that the logical inference is this is about land redistribution. The farm workers are supporting this to drive the big farmers into bankruptcy with the eye to the corporate farms being broke up and turned into farms so Mexican immigrants can farm “their land” and then turn the water back on.

     

  • Art Stone 7:39 pm on March 10, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    LifeLock fined $12 mllion – about a year ago, Dave Ramsey explained why what LifeLock was doing was improper and wasn’t going to work. The CEO of Lifelock – who gave out his real social security number as proof of the serivce – has been a victim of identity theft – surprise!

     

  • Art Stone 7:30 pm on March 10, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Rush repeats / clarifies that his statement was he would go outside the U.S. for medical treatment, not move out of the country if Obamacare passes.

    That’s fine for elective surgery, but what about when you think you’re having a heart attack in Hawaii? Who in Costa Rica is a specialist in cochlear implants?

    It’s opening the door to the bigger question – if the income stream of doctors (or over regulation) is the outcome of Obamacare, where might doctors go to practice medicine (the way Canadian doctors mostly migrate to the United States now and Canadians with money go to Florida or Michigan for treatment)

     

  • Art Stone 7:07 pm on March 10, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Bye bye Joey Reynolds – WOR is picking up Coast to Coast in New York, making WOR closer to the defacto Premiere affiliate in New York according to the NY Daily News.

    Not clear yet if Reynolds will remain on the WOR network or other shows may move. I hope Steve Malzberg isn’t overextended on a mortgage. He’s going to become expendable when Hannity moves to WOR :)

     

  • Art Stone 7:00 pm on March 10, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Is Youtube the news network of the future? I noticed Reuters is now posting their news video there.

    A little disturbing is the number of videos of the trainer death at Seaworld staying in the most watched. Should news edit out death or is news editing out death part of the problem?

    Will this encourage people to do stupid things trying to make YouTube videos?

     

  • Art Stone 1:25 pm on March 9, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Bruce WIlliams did his final show Friday – his goodbye letter is on his web site. For the next two weeks, he’s available for local hosts to do interviews.

     

    • obbop 8:25 pm on March 9, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I will miss the old curmudgeon’s voice and fatherly advice.

      • CharlieJ 12:48 pm on March 10, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        One of the most enjoyable jobs and periods of my life was in the mid 1980’s when I worked at a local radio station. One summer while on the evening shift, I was a board-op (the days before modern automation and de-regulation) for Bruce’s program. I listened to him every night for months and I think it developed my affinity for talk-radio.

        He did a great show and every time I tuned in in subsequent years, hearing his program was both enjoyable and a bit of nostalgia for a wonderful time in my own history.

        He was a ground breaker and put on a first class program.

        • queeniezee 9:13 pm on March 10, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          I hope this post ends up in the right spot – this is the only text box I can find. At any rate, regarding the Steve Malzberg comment, WOR would never replace him with Hannity, since Malzberg beats him in the New York market.

  • Art Stone 1:09 pm on March 9, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Glenn Beck Broke My Server!!! – the server has been running at capacity today, which is resulting in slower than normal response times. Glenn Beck has been running 20-25% more listeners than Rush (here) for the past few months… today, he is at 50% above Rush, and the day is far from over. If you would avoid non-essential activity today, it would be appreciated, although the worst is probably over…..

     

    • WesternMA 1:52 pm on March 9, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Ahhh…so that’s what happened. I thought it might be Rahm Emanuel.

  • Art Stone 9:21 am on March 9, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    “Which Founding Father do you admire the most?” – if you’re a politician and you’re about to be interviewed by Glenn Beck, you better have a cogent answer to that question. Glenn’s guest yesterday fumbled that question – he came up with “George Washington” – probably the first idea that popped in his head – but while Washington led the troops and was the first President, it wasn’t his ideas that laid the foundation for the Constitution.

     

    • dsrtwillow 1:12 pm on March 9, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Well Washington was a pivotal and crucial figure in several ways, and it can seriously be argued that without him the Constitution would have been moot. I don’t think there’s a “right” answer to that question. But I’m pretty sure that when Mika Brzezinski said “Abraham Lincoln,” that would qualify as wrong. And she still has the nerve to show up in the studio every day.

    • WesternMA 2:03 pm on March 9, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Ben Franklin gets my vote.

  • Art Stone 7:53 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    KPAM in Portland OR has finally moved to their new schedule. They were able to pick up Savage and moved almost every program. Hannity and Levin are gone, they’ve added John Gibson and Hugh Hewitt(!). Neal Boortz will be on about 2 AM Eastern. Victoria Taft moves from afternoon drive to lunch time.

     

    • Art Stone 8:27 am on March 9, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This was originally supposed to happen March 29th… Hannity and Levin have moved to Alpha Broadcasting’s (former CBS) KCMD-AM. KCMD dumps Rusty Humphries (and Savage) to make room. KPAM sounds like it has a much less expensive lineup now, but is giong to pay the price in listenership (probably).

  • jmyrlefuller 7:09 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    The rant that’s making waves today… Eric Massa has had a weekly radio show on Sunday mornings since early 2008, before he won election to Congress (never mind the violation of equal time rules), on WHHO– the same station that had its license revoked a month ago. The show moved to the former sister station, WKPQ… and this week, with Massa on the verge of quitting halfway into his first term, lit into the Democratic Party leadership, Rahm Emanuel in particular. He conjures up pictures none of us really wanted to ever see– Emanuel and Massa arguing naked in the House shower. He says that the investigation was over an off-color comment he made when drunk at a New Year’s Eve party, and that the real motivation behind the investigation was that Massa wouldn’t go along with the health care bill (he had been pushing for single payer and thought that it was better not to have a bill than to force through a bill that had a real chance of being counterproductive). I haven’t heard the whole thing yet but apparently he made rumblings about leaving the Democratic Party if his health ever permitted him to run for office again.

    It’s almost as if he had gone Republican.

    (Link above is an audio archive of the whole show)

     

    • jmyrlefuller 7:31 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      By the way… Massa will be making an appearance on Glenn Beck’s TV show tomorrow. Beck talked with him today about things off-air and says “all Americans need to hear him.” Things ought to be interesting.

    • Art Stone 8:07 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Thanks for connecting those dots.

      This Health Care thing is pushing the administration to the breaking point. Rahm Emanuel has been attacking the President in public. Congress is not used to President trying to usurp the powers of Congress and bullying them into bowing to his demands. I think trying to cut off this guy’s political head may push other Democrats to oppose the President. It’s show down time and they have to put their cards on the table.

    • jmyrlefuller 7:03 am on March 10, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hmm… how quickly the tables turn. Michelle Malkin decides to poo-poo Massa, “unearths” two Massa YouTube videos (one of which John Batchelor had found several days earlier), calls up Beck and Limbaugh, and now all of a sudden they’re dismissing Massa’s claims about as vigorously as Pelosi, Hoyer and the Obama administration. Beck follows through on his word to give Massa the whole hour and at the end of the interview declares it a waste of time. Limbaugh devotes a whole segment to trashing Massa. What gives? Does Malkin really have that much power behind the scenes in the conservative movement? If so, it’s kind of troubling.

      Look, obviously Massa has a lot of issues, and the more he lets out and tries to explain with regards to the allegations, the more likely I am to think that he was involved in some really bad stuff and was a creep on the level of the late Michael Jackson. I don’t think anyone in the mainstream conservative right is going to claim Eric Massa as one of their own. However, that’s precisely the reason we’ve taken note of his claims. He’s a man who isn’t capitulating to the right and whose political career is all but over. There’s also the “enemy of my enemy” factor, kind of like when the Communists and Nazis were beating each other up in World War II– did we want the Communists to win? Not really– but we loved watching the Nazis lose, because after all, the Nazis were our enemies, too. Gibbs says he has different stories– yes, but they’re not all contradictory. The things Massa is accusing Emanuel and the administration of doing are very consistent with their past actions and stated intentions– it’s just that none of us had ever heard or seen the naked shower scenario.

  • Art Stone 7:00 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    The 2010 estate tax screwup…. just listened to a local show with a tax person talking about the traps that Congress has put in place. With all the other 3000 page bills running around, one of the things that happened was that Congress let the Estate tax expire (as the Republicans intended a long time ago)…. but if Congress does nothing this year, the tax reverts to its pre-Republican high rates in 2011..

    So if you’re worth a few billion dollars and have pancreatic cancer, you might want to die in 2010…. but more seriously, people with complex estate planning in place can really get socked if they don’t get their plans updated…. they mentioned it is common for people to set up “generation skipping trusts” where the surviving spouse is left an amount equal to the estate tax exemption. Since there is currently no estate tax, that means the surviving spouse would get nothing, and all of the money would pass to the grandchildren – not the desired intention.

    It’s also unclear what happens if Congress does change the law when you’re part way through the process of settling the estate. Congress has a way lately of implementing retroactive tax changes when they fail to pass bills on time.

     

  • Art Stone 4:29 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    How does a fireman from New Jersey afford a $430,000 condo in Florida?

     

  • Art Stone 2:49 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Lady Gaga Can’t do this

     

    • WesternMA 3:28 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      THEY WERE GREAT…now if someone could just them to smile. They looked liked they were scared.

      • Art Stone 4:35 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        I posted the link before they started the second song. Their playin’ is a bit better than their singin’

        Joey Reynolds on WOR overnight is a bit of a flake, but he is really pushy that if you[‘re a musician and you come on his show, you will do your music live or you’ll get the bum’s rush. Many of his guests are there because they’re doing a Broadway show, so actually have the ability to sing and play instruments live.

        Back in the days when I watched TV, Paul Schaeffer on David Letterman had the same rule – we don’t lip sync,, we don’t clean up things in post-production. If you have talent, show it – if you just sound good singing into headphones in a studio and look pretty, take a hike.

        Clear Channel did a series of music videos called “Stripped” that started out with the same premise, but they pretty quickly drifted away from it. I play piano, and when you watch someone with their hands on the keys, you can tell right away if they’re actually playing the piano or it is a stage prop to make it look like they know how to play. CC is into the “switch cameras every 3 seconds” school of producing which is very distracting, and makes it much harder to see if they’re actually playing.

    • blsumner 6:44 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      That was FANTASTIC !!! Thanks

  • Art Stone 11:35 am on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    SC Senator Lindsey Graham slipped up over the weekend and called himself a Democrat…. I think it may have been on Meet The [de]Press[ed]. (Newsweek on Air?) He was talking about the Gang of 14 that used the filibuster threat to block Bush’s judge appointments unless the Gang approved of them….

     

    • Art Stone 11:45 am on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      It was “Face the Nation” on CBS

      So it is taking a partisan product and making it law. And I was in the “Gang of 14.” Remember the nuclear option with judges when we almost changed the rules? I was one of seven Democrats — seven Republicans, seven Democrats who said, don’t do that. Don’t pull the nuclear trigger. I’m glad I was in that gang. I got the heck beat out of me. We didn’t change the rules. This will be the same effect as if you had changed the rules for judges. It would be catastrophic.

      • WesternMA 3:31 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Freudian slip (you have to think it to say it)? About the same as Obama saying he had been in all 58 states!

  • Art Stone 11:18 am on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    HFCS backlash – the news at the top of the hour reports that companies are starting to switch back to sugar from High Fructose Corn Sweetener because of consumer demand [and probably fear of future litigation over causing obesity and type 2 diabetes] Another news story reported that soda sales at high schools are down 72%…

    Here is the story from the Wall Street Journal

     

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