Good morning, Jane.

(spitting) they are going to play hardball. good thing we know how to fight back.

is there a fund we can contribute to help out the striking writers?

I’m a big fan of “The Office,” but I’d rather it go off the air than have its writers get unpaid for internet revenue. I’ve spent quite a bit of money on the show, through iTunes and DVD purchase. If I had realized how little of that money was going to the writers, I never would have made those purchases.

Unless the ATPTP decides to negotiate with the writers in a fair and equitable fashion, though, they’re going to screw themselves out of business. The people who create these shows could easily move to an internet-based network that completely bypasses the networks and gets revenue entirely from online advertising.

If that happens, the ATPTP will be completely screwed. It’s in their self-interest to negotiate.

Morons.

Speaking of morons:

http://ap.google.com/article/A…..AD8TD5GN00

Fuck them. I’m turning off my cable, and I’m telling them why. I don’t have good tv reception here, so I won’t be watching network either.

mornin’ all. it is morning, isn’t it?

It’s morning-ish. It will be true morning after coffee :)

Good morning Jane, pups!

Actually, I’ll share something completely unrelated– this week, over at Vermont’s Green Mountain Daily, we’ve been covering a fairly big story about the police going to pharmacies and asking for large data dumps of people receiving schedule II narcotics without any warrant, etc. The most recent Kos diary I put up about it is at:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/8/5832/88466

This includes links to the whole GMD archive of the story.

It’s morning-ish. It will be true morning after coffee :)

wurking wooking werking on it.

gah, fixin’ some now.

ours is ready but my sweetie’s sleeping in the room between me and it, so it will wait :)

Buenos dias! here’s this morning’s CSPAN lineup

ON WASHINGTON JOURNAL
Saturday, December 8
7am – Newspaper Articles & Viewer Calls
7:30am – Pamela Hess, Associated Press, Intelligence Reporter
8am – David Paul Kuhn, The Politico, Senior Political Reporter
8:30am – Gerald Dillingham, Government Accountability Office, Transportation Issues Director
9:30am – Newspaper Articles & Viewer Calls

I just figured out how to summarize the pharmacy story in a pair of bad limericks:

The state police tried to get personal information
expecting the pharmacies to follow in formation
but some bloggers found out
and to the media, they gave out a shout
and now word’s come out from the station:

it was a mistake, not an abuse, though our
press release came at a late hour
It’s not much of an admission.
after all, the police have their mission,
and they would never abuse their power!

Good morning, pups. Today in the NYT it’s TOMC and Bob Herbert. TOMC has typed a piece called “Everything’s Perfect, Except …” where she says she thinks Iowans are not the only people who are looking for a Republican to root for. She thinks we were all waiting to see if Mitt Romney might be the Inclusive One. (Speak for yourself…) Mr. Herbert says solutions to immigration problems need to come from rationally thought-out and compassionate government policies, not a witch hunt by all and sundry.

http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got banana pancakes if anyone is hungry. It’s foggy this morning, but we’ll probably reach the mid-70s later. No sign of rain anywhere. Have a great day.

I read a little about that earlier this week and it’s some pretty scary stuff…kinda on a par with calling the fire department and not knowing whether they’re wearing a DHS hat that day instead of turn-out gear. :-(

I read a little about that earlier this week and it’s some pretty scary stuff…kinda on a par with calling the fire department and not knowing whether they’re wearing a DHS hat that day instead of turn-out gear. :-(

*nods* It’s really a big deal.

It’s the War on Drugs Terrorists Citizens

Scott Horton interviews Scott Ritter

Scott Ritter, former U.S. Marine and UN weapons inspector and author of Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change, discusses the new Iran NIE, its confirmation of his long-held contention that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, the lack of hard evidence that they ever did, the illogic of the administration’s demands that Iraq and now Iran prove a negative, the mysterious origin of the “smoking laptop,” his patriotism, the state of Iran’s compliance with the IAEA, the possibility that the timing of the NIE’s release was a preemptive action against Mohamed ElBaradei’s upcoming report on the last outstanding questions, the lies claiming Iran is backing enemies of the U.S. in Iraq, the necessity of withdrawal, his case that the total debacle of the Iraqi occupation is the result of abject incompetence, the danger to U.S. troops in Iraq in the event of war with Iran, his admiration for Ron Paul and the need of the American people to destroy the careers of their warmonger representatives…

Good morning Jane –

This is the most important labor action that I can remember in my 36 year career in the motion picture business. We have got to stick together in solidarity. The producers are trying to break the Hollywood unions. It’s not just about the writers. It’s not just about the entertainment industry. It’s about Labor in America. It’s about every working man or woman in this country who has to get up each morning and report to work.

We are all on the same page.

The thing is, all it takes is for one production team for a highly popular show to find the resources to say “screw the networks– we’re going to produce a show without them” and then switch to independent web-based media to completely collapse the anti-union effort. That’s probably one of the reasons they’re so scared of giving writers more money :)

And now there is coffee.

Coffee……………………………. mmmmmmmmmm

this week, over at Vermont’s Green Mountain Daily, we’ve been covering a fairly big story about the police going to pharmacies and asking for large data dumps of people receiving schedule II narcotics without any warrant, etc. The most recent Kos diary I put up about it is at:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/8/5832/88466

This includes links to the whole GMD archive of the story.

excellent. recommended.

imo, this story deserves far more attention.

OT: Violent Radicalization & Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (HR 1955).

I’m no big fan of Ron Paul. But, it’s interesting to read his recent speech on this topic. He appears to be very much inline with the consensus opinion here. But, then there are his positions on other issues; sigh.

From the speech:

There are many causes for concern in HR 1955. The legislation specifically singles out the Internet for “facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process” in the United States. Such language may well be the first step toward US government regulation of what we are allowed to access on the Internet. Are we, for our own good, to be subjected to the kind of governmental control of the Internet that we see in unfree societies? This bill certainly sets us on that course.

It’s about Labor in America

amen.

It’s encouraging, at least, that now we all are aware of “Take Out The Trash Day” every Friday, and may be more likely to comb through the back pages of the paper where the comPost pile usually is. And the power of the blogs is strongly felt in this area.

And now there is coffee.

Coffee……………………………. mmmmmmmmmm

well, then. Let the Day Begin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXywSZ-Zdmg

I hope they’re reduced to running old Dragnets and stuff like that for a while. At this distance, the politics of that old stuff is obvious, which will possibly be a consciousness raising experience for the tv addicted cohort.

Jane, fwiw, that’s a rock’n VOICES OF UNCERTAINTY youtube.

I’ve tried to follow your coverage of this, but (shame on me) this is the first time I’ve viewed it.

Jane, small correction:

They AMPTP has now issued a list of demands to the WGA

i could be wrong about ron paul, but even if i am…

i dream of a country where we all agree on the basics: nothing that hints of a police state (ie we value and protect our human and constitutional rights), politics in the open and following the rules (no voter suppression, no cheating of any kind), and no starting wars. basically an anti-authoritarian, anti-imperial world view.

then the left and right can battle it out to figure out on legislative policies. progressives might tend to push for change for the sake of change and need conservatives (the real ones, not today’s conservative movement) to pressure them to justify their change. and conservatives need progressives to push them out of their complacency.

yeah. i know that’s stupid and unrealistic. ‘cuz the real battle lines are between the authoritarians and the anti-authoritarians.

i’d love to see them re-run some of the good stuff like max headroom.

didn’t think about it before because i shut off all commercial and cable tv a long time ago. was getting dvds until itunes and unbox came out. buying the episodes will work against the WGA, won’t it? time to stop, ennit?

excellent. recommended.

imo, this story deserves far more attention.

The first day I posted about it on Kos, it got up on the rec list and stayed there all day, competing primarily with candidate diaries, so it’s definitely got legs, but the follow-ups aren’t getting as many recs. Not sure why.

come pull up a chair with egregious

before they will return to the negotiations, which include taking reality TV and animation jurisdiction off the table.

Why “reality” (and I use the word very loosely) shows?
Because that’s the future. No actors to pay – low production costs, very little actual writing needed, etc. Couple that with a generally low-brow national audience (and no, I’ve never seen American Idol, thank you very much)(ok, so I did watch the first season of Project Runway).

The entertainment industry continues its rush toward the bottom line – profits and the almighty dollar.

Art is for pussies.

i dream of a country where we all agree on the basics: nothing that hints of a police state (ie we value and protect our human and constitutional rights), politics in the open and following the rules (no voter suppression, no cheating of any kind), and no starting wars. basically an anti-authoritarian, anti-imperial world view.

This makes a lot of sense to me, Selise. Although I’m probably pretty firmly planted in the progressive camp, this certainly seems like a basic world view I could buy into. The only modification I might make would be to make it transnational (as long as we’re talking about starry eyed idealism, why not?). Sadly, our current national consensus seems to be leaning the other way.

Sadly, our current national consensus seems to be leaning the other way.

that’s because some people don’t like what the outcome of such a system would be…. imo, there would be, for example, very progressive taxation.

I was sitting around with a bunch of other extras in the holding area on a movie we were recently working on, and the topic of the stagehands’ strike came up (this was when it was still on). A couple of others at the table came up with the usual sneering anti-union comments (these are SAG extras, mind you!) and I found myself announcing, “Well, as a pre-emptive matter, I’m prepared to take the word of ANY union over the word of ANY management, anywhere, anytime.” We’ve all been so schooled by media about the anti-union anecdotal equivalents of “welfare mothers driving Cadillacs” that it’s hard to leap to the defense of unions, but it’s necessary and important to do so. It’s time to start assertively pushing back against anti-union narrative, just as it’s important to start pushing back against pro-torture narrative.

In the case of the writers’ strike, I don’t think the AMPTP has realized how badly they’ve misjudged public opinion on this. Their latest walkout is going to hurt a LOT of innocent people, with tons of negative publicity resulting. And frankly if you needed poster children for the urgent necessity of breaking up media conglomerates, the AMPTP’ll do just fine. I look forward to a revitalized FCC and SEC (and maybe I’m dreaming) handing the moguls their lunch pails and saying, “OK, gunsels, now go get a REAL job!”

I want to know where these movie-movul idiots think this can possibly go? Of COURSE they’re going to have to come to some new arrangement. Do they think that the writers and the union will just wake up on Monday and say “Oh well, guess we’ll just forget about it?” and go back to work?

Given that they are doomed to come to an agreement, why don’t they just set about doing it and quit all the grandstanding and denial?

Oh, right, because they’re both incredibly stupid and incredibly greedy. Forgot.

I’m waiting for next season’s shows to be written in India.

It’s gonna take solidarity to bust the moguls. They’re willing to LOSE $1 billion in their effort to break the WGA. They care not a whit about public opinion. The Media Moguls/Corporatist Pricks (MM/CP) know if they can bust WGA the rest of the unions will fall like leaves in the breeze.

-I’m afraid this is definitely a case of Hang together or Hang individually. I hope there are enough union members around who remember (recent)history. We didn’t always have protections against unsafe and unfair working conditions. We didn’t used to have a lot of things. (not so) Funny thing is, Teamsters could end this in short order. How long do you think the MM/CP could hold out against the public outcry if Union Drivers across the country decided to walk off their jobs?

Any chance the Suits could henceforth just go non-union for writing? Would all of the other industry unions stand up for the WGA? How much of the TV/Movie business remains unionized?

The producers of “Battlestar Galactica” might be a little more impressed with the email campaign if it spelled the name of their show correctly.