Future TV Anchor or Reporter

This is almost unbelievable. I would not be surprised to see this "woman" end up as a reporter or Anchor somewhere, God I hope not here. My 16 year old daughter knows more about the world than this girl.

A Big Thank you

My daughter Melissa has a best friend named Amber. They have been friends for years. Amber is a great woman. I can't say that I know her really well, but what of her I do, she's a very great person. She posted the following video in her Myspace bullentin (her husband found it) and it is good. Amber lives in Minnesota not Colorado anymore, having gotten married and had a child. But this is about the Minnesota National Guard. However, it can can about anyone of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coast guard. This video is very moving. All I can say is, when you see a military person around, offer your hand and say thanks. Buy them a cup of coffee if you want, but say Thank you and let them know how much you appreciate their sacrifice in your name. God bless them all and bring them all home safely when the mission is done.

In their own words...

My friend Vincent, whom I used to work with at Fort KPNX, sent me this video. I don't really know how to preface this, as I think it speaks for itself. Let's see if it jogs anyone's memory about what was said about Saddam Hussein and the lead up to the war in Iraq. Now I can hear all the looney leftie libs and swamp fever KOS kids people saying, "there were never any WMD's found in Iraq, Bush lied" ad nauseum.

Well, good.

That means that we haven't lost a larger number of American GI's than we have already, due to Saddam 1) not using them had he decided to or 2) had no sufficient time to perfect them or deploy them or 3) was not able to supply Al Qaeda . I am still of the mind that they were there, may yet still be there and evidence from his own regime, i.e., Air Force and Intelligence officials, Iraqis, have said that during the lead up to the invasion, Saddam had the weapons or what was left of them, carted out on converted aircraft to destinations unknown, although a few of the Iraqi Air Force guys said it was Syria and or Iran. Hmmm.

But to get back to the following video, this is what the very people who now criticize the President and his decision to invade Iraq were saying as recently as 2004.

You know, let's put this in a little perspective. What would have happened to world history had we decided to invade Germany or Japan or both in say, 1935? Do you not think that might have saved countless innocent lives? And, Hitler did have a nuclear weapons program already in place for exploring the possibility of building a bomb that he could use against Britain, Russia and...the United States. Fortunately for all of us, things didn't happen the way Adolf planned.

Watch this video and see if it jogs your memory. When all is said and done, when our military is over there doing the job, would not the correct thing be to want them to complete the mission and WIN? Reagan put it best when asked about his cold war strategy, "We win, they lose." Too bad the Democrats don't have the balls to do the same.

This says a lot about TV News

So I woke up today and as I am wont to do, I got my coffee, a cigarette, and sat down to see what came in from who. I get a newsletter from TV shoptalk every weekday and it has stories concerning TV & other news media. I found the following story and although it is disturbing if it is true, I found it funny how the suspect handled the situation when the reporter from WPVI in Philadelphia showed up to interview him.






"This is what I think of TV News"
From David Gambacorta & Dana DiFilippo at the Daily News:

IF THIS was his audition tape for "Middle-aged Men Gone Wild," Lawrence Richette came up a little short.

The disheveled-looking son of Family Court Judge Lisa Richette whipped open his bathrobe yesterday and exposed himself to a TV reporter - a day after he was charged with seriously assaulting his 78-year-old mother.

Richette's nude stunt was one of many bizarre twists in the sad tale of alleged abuse of the longtime judge by her 48-year-old son.

Paramedics responded to a report of a domestic assault at the judge's Center City home about 5 p.m. Tuesday and found her with a cut above her eye.

Doctors at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital stitched the judge's wound, and she was released within hours. Capt. Benjamin Naish, a police spokesman, said she apparently was hurt at her home on Lombard Street near 19th about midday Tuesday.

Her son, who lives on Pemberton Street near 22nd, Center City, was charged with aggravated assault and related offenses, Naish said.

Richette was released from jail after posting $5,000 bail and agreeing to a stay-away order, according to court records.

Judge Richette, who couldn't be reached yesterday, was not cooperating with investigators, police sources said.

When an NBC 10 reporter went to Lawrence Richette's house yesterday afternoon, he came to the door in a white bathrobe and opened it within seconds, uttering, "This is what I think of TV news."

Naish said Richette could face indecent exposure charges, but it would be up to the station to file a complaint. NBC 10 officials declined to comment.

Later in the day, Richette spoke with a reporter from WPVI-TV (Channel 6) and professed his innocence.

"She fell out of her bed Monday night," he said on camera. "I didn't find her until Tuesday afternoon. I can play messages from my mom right now at Jefferson. She's calling me constantly from Jefferson telling me how much she loves me.

"There's no question I've been taking good care of her. No question in anybody's mind except the stupid police."

A growing market

It was released today that Phoenix will be TV market #12 as of Sept 22. Now to the uninitiated, that doesn't mean a whole lot, but to TV people it does. And to advertisers as well. When I started in the Phoenix market, we were # 17, having just jumped over Denver. Denver is still #18 and I am somewhat surprised that it hasn't increased. But this city is growing, and growing and growing. Phoenix is now the 5th largest metropolitan area in the country. Many times, TV market size mirrors the size of the city, though not in all cases. We are bigger as a city than Philadelphia now, though not as big DMA (Designated Market Area) which Philly is at #4 and Phoenix is poised to become #11, passing Detroit. Here is the listing according to Neilsen research, of the top 20 TV markets in the US.



Local Television Market Universe Estimates
Estimates as of January 1, 2008 and used throughout the 2007-2008 television season
Effective September 22, 2007
Rank
Designated Market Area (DMA)
1 New York
2 Los Angeles
3 Chicago
4 Philadelphia
5 Dallas-Ft. Worth
6 San Francisco-Oak-San Jose
7 Boston (Manchester)
8 Atlanta
9 Washington, DC (Hagrstwn)
10 Houston
11 Detroit
12 Phoenix (Prescott)
13 Tampa-St. Pete (Sarasota)
14 Seattle-Tacoma
15 Minneapolis-St. Paul
16 Miami-Ft. Lauderdale
17 Cleveland-Akron (Canton)
18 Denver
19 Orlando-Daytona Bch-Melbrn
20 Sacramento-Stkton-Modesto

Window Vista Cracked

On the continuing subject of Windows Vista, I found someone who cracked Vista to see what is under the hood. Check this out.

Installing Windows "Vista"

I am a Mac person. Have been since the 80's when I started using a mac to do graphic design for my old TV station, KKTV Channel 11 in Colorado Springs. Had a lot of good times there. But, I have stayed with Mac nonetheless. Always have been a "mac head", always will be I would imagine.

That being said, I also work on Wintel (any other system than Mac and Linux) at work. Anymore, most any computer system is based off Microsoft's operating system, so I had to adapt in order to do the necessary things one needs to do to keep a major market TV station up and running smoothly.

Now, I have never liked Windows or "Wintel" as I call it. in any form, though I have to work with the pro apps versions. I can find my way around and do what I need to do, but I have found that windows is bloated compared to Mac, especially Mac OS X, which I love. Fabulous operating system.

But some friends of mine have bought the latest Operating system from Microsoft or got a new computer with "Vista". I thought I would help "a brother out" as we say, and show you how you too can load the new "Vista" OS on a machine. You know what one of the beautiful things of a new intel Macs is? You can partition a drive and install OSX on one partition and Microsoft's OS on the other one! What genius! My only problem is, why would you? I mean that's an insult and a waste of a good Mac to put "Windoze" on a Mac. But I digress. So for those of you out there needing some help on how to install Vista on your computer, here is a handy video to show you how!

a quick piece on Blowhard Smarming

Yep, from the Blowhard Smarming file, this from the Washington Times;

August 14, 2007
John McCaslin
Washington Times

Before Gore

D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."

The 1922 article, obtained by Inside the Beltway, goes on to mention "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."

"This was one of several such articles I have found at the Library of Congress for the 1920s and 1930s," says Mr. Lockwood. "I had read of the just-released NASA estimates, that four of the 10 hottest years in the U.S. were actually in the 1930s, with 1934 the hottest of all."

A word about our Healthcare system

So that punk, Markos Moulitas, the man behind the "dailykos" a left wing blog funded by none other than George Soros, was on "Meet the Depressed" with Sen. Harold Ford Jr, and I couldn't bear to listen to the tripe from both and even from Tim Russert. So I went to Hugh Hewitt's site to see if anyone had critiqued his appearance. Well, no. But I found an interesting read concerning health care. Of course now, I hear Karl Rove is going to quit at the end of the month, but more about that later. Read the paragraph below and then follow the link to the site. Pretty interesting.

"Some patients just aren’t willing to sit back and take it anymore. The nation’s health system is long on promises and short on delivery. The litany of delays in care due to limited access grows by the day. In one instance, a patient sued her insurer because she was forced to wait four months for an MRI for her brain tumor and then months more to see a neurologist. In one metropolitan area, waiting times in the ER average four hours, while one in ten waits more than 12 hours.

One in three households surveyed tried and failed to gain timely access to at least one health service within the previous three months. And in one study, the total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and specialty care averaged nearly 18 weeks. Even the Supreme Court has weighed in on the unacceptable delays in care. But the lawsuit is not against a dreaded American HMO and the events did not happen in the U.S. All were byproducts of the Canadian health care system."

http://abducens.townhall.com/

As far as Markos, if I met him on the street, I would beat him into next week. And, as for the American & Canadian health care system, people on the left want to tout the Canadian & British system for their Nationalize (read socialised medicine). Yet, it's funny cos I doubt if anyone of them has relatives that live in either country. Or if they do, they are "privileged" as half of my family live in Canada and my relatives have told me time and again about how bad their health care system is. They prefer to come to the US for any major medical care when they can, as they would almost certainly die before our friends to the north and across the pond could see them. Trust me, if you want to spend most of your money supporting the government, which we do already, then go for it. And, can someone show me a government run program that is run efficiently? I can't think of one and no, the USPS is not run by the US government anymore. It's a co-0p between 2 different entities.

50 Cent to Quit if Outsold by Kanye West (Please, Please!)

I consider them both talentless, but hey, one less "rapper" is okay with me. That stuff is noise anyway. But I guess 1.14 million people don't have any taste either, what a sad state of affairs for music. Nothing like idol worship for a criminal.

50 Cent to Quit if Outsold by Kanye West
AP
NEW YORK (Aug. 10) - 50 Cent believes his new album will outsell Kanye West's upcoming disc, and he's betting his solo career on it. Both 50 Cent and West have albums due out Sept. 11. 50 Cent, who has sold better than West, has been riled by forecasts that sales of West's "Graduation" could rival those for his "Curtis" CD.

"Let's raise the stakes," the 31-year-old rapper told hip-hop Web site SOHH.com in an interview posted Friday. "If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, I'll no longer write music. I'll write music and work with my other artists, but I won't put out anymore solo albums." (um, you call that noise music? wow)

An e-mail sent to West's publicist wasn't immediately returned Friday.

50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson, has been publicly disparaging of West before. In 2005, he suggested the 29-year-old rapper's popularity was only possible because of 50's own success.

But they recently collaborated in the studio. Their work, though, isn't scheduled to appear on either new album.

50 Cent's last full-length solo album, "The Massacre," was the best-selling disc of 2005 and sold more than 1.14 million copies in its first week of release. The same year, West's "Late Registration" opened by selling more than 860,000 copies in its first week.

When Politics gets really dirty

Barack Obama bumper sticker

Another Good one from the Peoples Cube

How Liberals see America

From the People's Cube.com, this is how liberals see the founding of America

http://www.thepeoplescube.com/

Some thoughts

It's been a rough 4 days. I had to go to work Friday, right in the middle of the Chopper crash of Channel 3 (KTVK) and Channel 15 (KNXV). The mood the last 4 days around the station has been a bit somber, though it has lightened up a little. One can not help but think about the 4 guys that lost their lives in those helicopters. Working in the TV industry, we have a brotherhood, much like the police, military or other organization as we are a specialized industry. Chances are, we know or have met people, we've worked with them, who later went on to other markets, networks or in this case, died. I have friends all over the country working in different media outlets and sometimes I catch a friend of mines' name on some major production. One of my friends that taught me how to edit on non-linear gear (computers) worked for Oprah & Jerry Springer and just completes editing his first major Hollywood film. So, we get to know people. It's really amazing how small the broadcasting community is when you get down to it.

I really wonder what the point of their dying was though. When you think about what they were doing, it wasn't a huge story that caused them their lives. I have wondered, perhaps as far back as when I worked in Denver, when something like this would happen. I have often told reporters when I have been out doing ENG (live truck) and noticed the choppers overhead, sometimes 1, 2 or 3 or even all 5 at some point, all hovering in the same general area, that I hoped that they didn't collide trying to cover a story. But now it's happened. I am surprised that it hasn't happened already in LA with all the car chases or New York, Frisco or Denver. You can't put that many helicopters into one area without the risk of something happening. My heart goes out to the families of the dead.

So what was the point? The reason for the coverage was for a stolen truck. That's all. A stolen truck that would not stop for police and was driving erratically around the city. He hadn't robbed a bank, he hadn't shot anyone, he just was driving a stolen truck. But there they were, all 5 stations, covering a stolen truck. Many times when there is no real news to be had, stations will send the choppers out to cruise and look for news. My problem is, in this case, they weren't covering a story worthy of all 5 choppers. But many times, when it's a slow news day, they all tend to focus on the same thing in order to be first, "Hey, if we can't find real news, let's make something up!"

Now, 4 guys are dead because of basically a stolen water truck. The police are mulling charges against the guy who started it all but that wouldn't be right. He didn't cause the TV stations to send up their 3 or 4 million dollar ENG "trucks" to fly all over. That decision was made by the news departments, and to an extent, the pilots themselves. To me, this was not worth a helicopter chase and certainly not the resulting tragedy that occurred. To me, this is another example of how TV news departments have to sensationalize story's in order to get attention. I think they are more concerned about winning an award for "best coverage of a breaking news event" than they are about informing the public about real stories.

It's weird to go to award ceremonies for TV & radio people, almost sickening. I quit going to them years ago as it's like watching the Oscars or something. It's almost like watching a feeding frenzy by sharks. To think that most of them win awards on the back of someone else's misery. I wonder who will win "Best Coverage for breaking news" this time when someone submits the story of the 2 choppers exploding. Who will be the sharks to pick up their awards for covering that one?

It's eerie to go to those things, all of the media people sitting around, having a circle jerk about how great and responsible they are. The "service" and "information" they "provide for the public good" and then they have the promotions department produce promos about being "the Emmy winner" or a promo about one of their reporters or anchors winning an emmy. The sad thing is, most of those reporters and anchors really have very little to do with the story they got the award for, the producer is the real brains. Most of those reporters and Anchors don't really know the story, they voice over or read what is written for them. Sometimes, they interview someone for the story, but if you asked them to tell you the complete story, they couldn't cos they really don't care. It's all about image, it's all about them.

Sometimes I just get sick to my stomach watching certain anchors on TV with their phony concern knowing that when we roll into the next break, I can hear them in cue laughing or talking about their new car, or their spouses new job or their trip to Europe or laughing at some unfortunate circumstance. Then they leave and go home in their porsches or BMW's or Mercedes Benz's talking on their cell phones. It's true almost, what Don Henley sang, "Got the bubble headed bleach blonde, comes on at 5, gonna tell you bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye, it's interesting when people die, give us dirty laundry..."

But, 4 guys are dead now. All because they wanted to cover a non-story. All because someone in the News department wanted to be "first" on the air with a story. Oh! how exciting it could be! he might ram the police! he might take a hostage! he might have a gun and shoot somebody! Nope, he stole a water truck.

Sometimes I hate TV.