P.J. Gladnick's blog

I'll say one thing for the Tribune Company's new "Chief Innovation Officer," Lee Abrams. He might not be able to solve the declining newspaper circulation problems but he is absolutely irrepressible in a very funny way. On the heels of his recent suggestion that the Los Angeles Times could solve some of its problems by repainting its news vans, we have yet another of Abrams' famous memos which goes in all directions powered by a generous dose of psychobabble. You might need to channel the late Timothy Leary to interpret Abrams' latest memo, THINK PIECE: BUSTING DENIALS AND ASSUMPTIONS,  issued last Monday which starts out with ideas about "re-imaging" the WGN Superstation, which is owned by the Tribune Co.,  and ultimately reaches the outer limits of the newspaper galaxy.

In stark contrast to the global warming alarmists, hurricane forecasters have now become almost comically vague in their forecasts. The problem for the hurricane forecasters is that their predictions can be checked for accuracy just months after the initial forecast.  While global warming alarmists feel free to predict disaster years into the future, hurricane forecasters are now forced to be very very cautious, especially in light of their highly inaccurate 2006 hurricane season predictions.

On the heels of the very active 2005 hurricane season which many blamed on global warming, forecasters didn't even wait for 2006 to begin before issuing a forecast in early December 2005 which predicted a very active hurricane season:

Just days after the official close of the busiest Atlantic hurricane season on record and with one hurricane still churning in the Atlantic, the first 2006 forecast is out already. To the surprise of no one it predicts an active season.

The 2006 forecast calls for:

Dan Abrams, apparently still smarting from the castigation he received in April from Karl Rove, just cannot let go. Despite the fact that the "high level" Republican operative, Jill Simpson, who accused Rove of orchestrating the prosecution of convicted Democrat former Alabama governor, Dan Siegelman, never actually met nor talked to Karl Rove and whose "high level" operative activities in her own words never rose above typical volunteer work, Abrams continues to wander into the swamp created by this much less than credible source. On Thursday, Abrams and Catherine Crier were salivating with glee on MSNBC's Verdict over the prospect that the House Judiciary Committee might issue something called an 'inherent contempt' arrest for Karl Rove (emphasis mine):

The Titanic has hit an iceberg and is sinking. Not to worry, just paint the lifeboats with a new color scheme and things will improve. As ridiculous as that sounds, it is not much different than the proposal of the Tribune Company Chief Innovation Officer, Lee Abrams, who proposed changing the color of Los Angeles Times vans:

Being too close to it. LAT has about 20 vans...but they're all Black? Hmmm. Maybe they should be painted in LAT colors. There ARE more than a few commuters driving around down there.

Apparently Abrams thinks basic black is not exciting enough but he seems to love the color green according to his internal blog post about changes at the Los Angeles Times obtained by LA Observed:

...They use soy based ink and recycled paper. Hmmm...maybe they should be bragging about that on every page as LA is the home of green.

Oh the outrage! The gift shop at Guantamo Bay sells a T-shirt that features a guard tower and barbed wire with wording that says: "The Taliban Towers at Guantanamo Bay, the Caribbean's Newest 5-star Resort." Another T-shirt from the same gift shop dares to praise, "the proud protectors of freedom". And yet another T-shirt shows an iguana with this "heartless" wording: "Greetings from paradise GTMO resort and spa fun in the Cuban sun." Does this even sound remotely like some cruel human rights abuse? Perhaps not to rational people but Daily Mail (UK) reporter, Angela Levin, works herself into a frenzy over these trinkets in her article, Greetings from Guantanamo Bay ... and the sickest souvenir shop in the world:

The sands are white, the sea laps gently and crowds of bronzed Americans laze in the Caribbean sunshine.

They have a cinema, a golf course and, naturally, a gift shop stocked with mugs, jaunty T-shirts and racks of postcards showing perfect sunsets and bright green iguanas.

The Denver Post has managed the amazing feat of criticizing Rush Limbaugh for supposedly calling for riots at this summer's Democrat convention in Denver while completely downplaying the role of the very organization calling for recreating 68 and all the problems of Chicago '68 that implies in their article provocatively titled Limbaugh dreams of DNC riot:

Rush Limbaugh says he is not calling for a riot in Denver during the Democratic National Convention — he only "dreams" of it, to the tune of "White Christmas."

The conservative talker discussed the possibility of Mile High unrest in August on his national radio show for a second day in a row Thursday.

"Now, I am not inspiring or inciting riots. I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming of riots in Denver," he said mimicking the holiday tune.

Time magazine is using the fact that the Democrat presidential candidates are currently being forced to raise more money to battle each other as evidence that the Democrats are much better at online campaign fundraising than the Republicans. Political blinders were firmly in place on Time writers Michael Scherer and Jay Newton-Small when they triumphantly put forth their reality-challenged  thesis of Why Democrats Rule the Web:

Republicans, who once were far ahead of Democrats in whizbang TV technology, let their party fall behind the nerd curve as Howard Dean and later John Kerry revolutionized and then exploited online fund-raising in 2004. Four years later, the Democrats have widened that gap, using the Internet not only to raise cash but also to organize canvassers and plot get-out-the-vote efforts. Republicans say the Democrats' Web advantage is due to not just greater enthusiasm but also smarter strategies...

Recycle videos, buy used cars, eat non-Nabisco cookies, and drink microbrewery beer. These are among the highly laughable suggestions promoted at the Daily Kos as part of their proposed boycott of ABC and Disney because Barack Obama was finally asked some tough questions at Wednesday's Democrat debate in Philadelphia. It was only 23 minutes into the debate before the boycott thread was posted at the Daily Kos with the outraged title of Tomorrow We Take On ABC, and Disney. It is hard to figure out which is funnier, the boiling outrage over the fact that their blessed messiah was asked challenging questions or the incredibly lame ideas for the proposed boycott. Here is a sampling of the Kossack inadvertent comedy act:

keep watching the videos you already have. SHARE them with other parents who would otherwise buy the Disney DVD, and don't buy Disney in the future. And talk to your kids about the power of the corporate media and the RESPONSIBILITY of the consumer to use their power as a balance. Spoken as a mom of a 7, 10 and 11 yr old. Yes, I do have these crazy, nerdy conversations with my children.

The winners of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize are scheduled to be announced tomorrow and I sure hope at least one blogger wins this coveted recognition. One big reason is that it is the blogosphere, in stark contrast to the mainstream media, that is paying attention to the biggest political story out there---how Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" has caused disarray among the Democrats. Operation Chaos, Limbaugh's plan for causing continued havoc in the Democrat party by encouraging Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton has received scant notice in the MSM although the effects are quite noticeable. Every time I see the MSM report on the startling rise of Democrat voter registration in Pennsylvania due to Republicans switching parties, I want to scream out ala Sam Kinison: "Say it! SAAAY ITTT!!!"

I have to give the Christian Science Monitor credit for at least discussing Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos which is his plan for Republicans to register as Democrats in order to vote for Hillary Clinton so as to cause yet more disorder in the Democrat party. One can search in vain in Google News for dreaded term "Operation Chaos," but with the exception of the Christian Science Monitor, the mainstream media shuns any mention of it despite the fact that registrations of Democrats in Pennsyvania are at record levels due to "mysterious reasons." Often when reading or watching media outlets describe the record number of Democrat registrations in the Keystone State without giving credit to Operation Chaos, I feel like channeling the late great comedian, Sam Kinison, who was famous for yelling: "Say it! SAY IT!!!"

Christian Science Monitor writer, Dante Chinni, finally said it in his article, "Rushing to register? Limbaugh’s efforts not yet showing signs of big effects in Pennsylvania." First Chinni discusses that which most others in the mainstream media refuse to even mention:

When I last reported on the hilarious musings of the Tribune Company's new chief innovation officer, Lee Abrams, little did I realize that he would provide us with a continuous comedy act of major proportions. His previous observations wandered from looking upon newspapers as the "new rock 'n' roll" to the need for soul all interspersed with quotations from everybody from John Cleese to Carl Jung. Yes, he was good for some bellylaughs but now he has exceeded himself in the inadvertent humor department with a memo to the Tribune staffers that rivals the best of comedy skits. Appropriately, Abrams announces that his job starts on April Fools Day:

...I start April 1st but I've been pretty engaged from afar. Thought I'd share some observations on TV, web and print. Small stuff, "think pieces" more than anything...not end alls, but when we re-think and maximize hundreds of little pieces within the framework of bigger pieces and it could be part of the blueprint for something very powerful:

Until recently the most popular metaphor to describe the Hillary Clinton campaign was Scorched Earth. This metaphor implies that Hillary is willing to destroy the entire Democrat party in an effort to win the nomination. However, there is a new metaphor on the block which is a bit more precise in its description: the Tonya Harding Option. This new metaphor was supposedly introduced yesterday by Jake Tapper in his ABC News 'Political Punch' posting, Democratic Party Official: Clinton Pursuing 'The Tonya Harding Option':

l just spoke with a Democratic Party official, who asked for anonymity so as to speak candidly, who said we in the media are all missing the point of this Democratic fight.

The delegate math is difficult for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, the official said. But it's not a question of CAN she achieve it. Of course she can, the official said.

The question is -- what will Clinton have to do in order to achieve it?

It's hard to top the absurdity of the media hyping global warming presented in the NewsBusters story posted yesterday by Noel Sheppard about how the classic science fiction movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still," is being remade where Klaatu comes to earth to warn us about global warming. However, a global warming art show ranks pretty close to that movie remake in the silliness department. According to a Huffington Post blog, "The Art of Global Warming" posted by Kimberly Brooks, there is now a global warming "Things Fall Apart" art exhibit featuring the photography of Sasha Bezzubov:

As has been noted by NewsBusters correspondents Brent Baker, Kyle Drennen, and Clay Waters, the Mainstream Media has mostly assumed an attitude of respectful awe towards Barack Obama's March 18 speech on race. That emotional awe towards Obama's speech has reached the level of mass weeping in the Leftwing blogosphere. The leftists profess to be so awestruck by that speech that it seems mass crying will soon replace the fainting attacks at future Obama appearances.

Imagine if a comedy script is submitted to a movie producer. It would be about a major newspaper conglomerate so desperate to turn around the plunging circulation numbers of its various newspapers that it hires a wacky radio consultant as a Chief Innovation Officer to help turn it around. The radio consultant is so strange that he believes the way to improve the circulation numbers is to ensure that the newspapers have soul. He plans to do this by treating newspapers as the new rock 'n' roll.  The wacky Chief Innovation Officer announces his plans in a seemingly endless  e-mail message that wanders aimlessly for 5 web pages in which it claims that newspapers need to "morph the soul of Dylan...with with the innovation of Apple and the eccentric-all-the-way-to-the-bank of Bill Veeck." The message also conjures up "theater of the mind," Star Wars, plus a whole host of nearly indecipherable psycho-babble that includes visions of open and closed modes.

Perhaps New York Governor Eliot Spitzer believes he can weather the firestorm over his scandal about his patronizing of a high-class prostitution ring. However, he is battling an element that will keep his scandal alive in the public more than the usual political scandal---humor. Spitzer's breaking scandal is less than a day old and already the media and the blogosphere is filled with many jokes and parody songs about his situation. Even many liberals are laughing at Spitzer since the humor generated by a self-righteous politician involved in a sleazy scandal involving a prostitution ring is just too hard to ignore. David Letterman led off his show with several jokes on this subject:

Do you think it’s too soon to be hitting on Mrs. Eliot Spitzer?

Did you happen to see the press conference? Very dramatic. Eliot Spitzer was there. He had yellow crime scene tape draped around his pants – crazy.

The thinking now is that the governor may step down now to spend less time with his family.

I have to give WISN TV reporter Kent Wainscott of Milwaukee a lot of credit for not breaking out laughing in the middle of his report on a Democrat superdelegate. If you think of Democrat superdelegates as hardened cigar-chomping big city type professional pols, think again. Democrat superdelegate and college student, Jason Rae (photo), is the exact opposite of that old stereotype. In fact, one could say he is just plain silly as you can see in this video report about him. Among the things that makes Jason Rae so comical is his bloated sense of self-importance which Wainscott breathlessly plays into at the beginning of his report:

Jason Rae may look like a typical college student but he has suddenly become one of the most important players in the race for the White House...

...He's had a string of national interviews and some unexpected and, to him, unbelievable phone calls...

In yet another example of how the dinosaur media is completely unable to cope with the new web technology, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel's editorial blog (or "blob" as editor Earl Maucker described it accurately last summer via a typo), The Slant, continues to generate almost no interest from the readers. Out of 21 entries posted to The Slant from January 16 through February 28, only three comments were left by readers. Something of an underwhelming response. Of course, it might have helped if the Sun-Sentinel actually provided a direct link to The Slant "Blob" from its opening page. Here is how the Sun-Sentinel describes The Slant which was launched last year with much hype:

It looks like Time magazine has dispensed with the quaint custom of showing at least a little respect for the recently deceased. This story by Richard Corliss begins a long sneer in the direction of William F. Buckley, Jr. starting with its very title, "William F. Buckley: Mandarin of Right-Wing TV." From that low point, Corliss continues his descent into his ill-mannered septic tank as he blames Buckley for inspiring what Corliss describes as "partisan political harangue as infotainment" following an appearance on the Jack Paar show in 1962:

Anti-American snarkiness has reared its ugly little head in this London Times travel story by Tom Chesshyre, "Tourism 'golden era' ends in Cuba." Apparently, Mr. Chesshyre believes that life under Fidel Castro's oppressive regime was a "golden era" for visiting that island. Yes, how quaint to see dilapidated buildings and people whose diets are severely restricted by government rationing. The Times seems to fear that these "good times" may soon be coming to an end and urges visits there before the atmosphere is ruined by the American tourist "invasion":

Travellers interested in visiting Cuba are being advised to go now before an invasion of American tourists begins.

Anybody who has spent even a little time reading the left-wing blogs on the Web have probably run across frequent political "conversion" stories. The theme is all too familiar. A friend or relative is an insensitive Republican who just won't listen to the enlightened liberal soul posting the story. However, due to the perceived excesses of the evil Bush administration or the ever wise arguments of the liberal author, the Republican finally sees the light and either ends up supporting the Democrats or becomes a Democrat himself. Of course, the veracity of these "conversion" stories usually crumble after just a bit of analysis.

One big "tell" that the author is somewhat less than truthful is the amazing ability to quote long blocks of dialogue from weeks, months, or even years in the past. Sometimes it is even easier to find out that a political "conversion" story is primarily a work of fiction.

Imagine the uproar in the mainstream media if it had been discovered that a supporter of a Republican presidential candidate had a picture of Augusto Pinochet in his campaign office. Chris Matthews would feel a bolt of outrage running up his leg as he called upon the candidate to denounce his supporter. So what happens when a Barack Obama supporter hangs a Cuban flag with the image of Che Guevara superimposed upon it? A collective yawn from the MSM. However, this video showing a clip from a Fox News 26 report of the opening on an Obama campaign office in the Houston area has stirred up quite a bit of controversy because of that Che Guevara flag hanging on the wall.

The woman in the red pants and in the photo above is Maria Isabel who was later questioned about that Che Guevara flag. Here is the transcript of the interview but to fully appreciate her incredible squirming under pressure you need to see the video:

A firestorm of leftwing outrage erupted on Friday on the heels of an announcement by the Hillary Clinton campaign that morning that she now wants the Michigan and Florida Democrat delegates to be seated at the convention this summer despite the fact that those delegates had been stripped by the DNC because those states had moved their primary dates up:

I hear all the time from people in Florida and Michigan that they want their voices heard in selecting the Democratic nominee.

I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan. I know not all of my delegates will do so and I fully respect that decision. But I hope to be President of all 50 states and U.S. territories, and that we have all 50 states represented and counted at the Democratic convention.

Although former U.S. Congressman, Joseph Kennedy III has been criticized for his Citgo commercial last year promoting discount heating oil provided by the Hugo Chavez Venezuelan government as a PR ploy, his latest commercial goes way beyond mere syrupy praise. Kennedy is now using the most recent Citgo commercial as a launchpad to blast the U.S. government and "Big Oil" as you can see in this video. After an introduction similar to the previous commercial showing poor people suffering from the cold, Kennedy goes on the attack:

...Yet our own government cut fuel assistance. And the Big Oil companies with oil and money to burn all said "no" when we asked for help. All but one. Citgo. Owned by the Venezuelan people, is donating millions of gallons to non-profit Citizens Energy...

We have seen Chris Matthews drool over her on live television but he might have second thoughts after reading the extensive shopping list of CNBC's Street Signs anchor, Erin Burnett. Her expensive list of things she wants from suitors was published in Men's Health as 8 Ways to Impress Me. None of the ways in which one can impress Erin has anything to do with personality. It all comes down to spending big bucks on Erin as you can see from her list:

1. Pack Your BagsAny guy who can plan a trip to an exotic locale, such as Mongolia, Mozambique, or Papua New Guinea, would impress me.2. Buy Me a New Atlas and GlobeYou could unlock my heart by allowing me to dream up my next trip. I love to travel, and hope to eventually set foot in 100 countries. I have many more to go.3. Do Something Special for My ParentsFamily is important to me, so round-trip business-class tickets to Australia and New Zealand for my parents would earn you big points in my book.

In what looks like an editorial authored by one of the more extreme members of the Democratic Underground, the New York Times ended the year with a rabid leftwing rant that among other things accused American soldiers of war crimes on a large scale:

In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.

In what seems to be an almost comical pattern among South Florida newspapers, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel has once again failed to apply the political party label to disgraced and imprisoned former Broward county sheriff Ken Jenne. Can you guess the political party to which Jenne belongs?

A Huffington Post blog, "Hillary As An Agent of Change," authored by Derek Shearer was posted yesterday to reassure the "progressives" that Hillary Clinton is really one of their own. Despite the common view among the left that Hillary is a status quo type, Shearer lets us know that she is really quite liberal as you can see in these excerpts:

... Hillary would be a strong leader who manages change in the public interest-at home and abroad--in the manner of FDR or Harry Truman. She is, in fact, the true heir to the New Deal tradition of the Democratic Party, but for a new era.

CBS News has discovered a dire new dirty political tactic. It is called "bundling." No, not the bundling of campaign funds as was performed by Norman Hsu for Hillary Clinton. This new bundling reported by CBS involves allowing ballot petition initiatives to be "bundled" together by signature collectors. CBS has presented the fact that signature collectors in California are collecting signatures on the initative to allow district allocation of that state's Electoral College votes simultaneously with the collection of signatures for other ballot iniatives as some sort of dirty trick. They even have a video showing this "sneaky" practice that has been used for decades when collecting signatures for ballot initiatives. The bundling section of this video was provided to them by a member of the Daily Kos named E Love who made his own laughable video about this newly discovered dirty trick.

Typical of CBS, this video highlights this "dirty trick" of both "bundling" ballot initatives and attempting to make the electoral votes in California more proportional to the popular election results while allowing only a brief one sentence response by a Republican in this report. Some unintentional humor in this report comes to us via the hysterical melodramatics of Rick Jacobs the head of the Courage Campaign who opposes this iniative. He apparently thinks it is outrageous for an initiative to increase funding for childrens hospitals to be allowed to be "bundled" together with the electoral college initiative:

You would think a candidate has to worry that a media outlet might find some sort of problem in his background that might harm his campaign. Right? In the case of Mitt Romney, it appears that his "problem" is that he is too perfect according to the Los Angeles Times. Romney's perfection "problem" is described in a Nov. 24 article, "Does perfection have its price for Romney?"

Mitt Romney arrives at his campaign headquarters here 10 minutes early, a knife-blade crease in his khakis, winter tan, lots of hair, all of it in place. He skips the coffee and doughnuts in favor of skim milk and the home-baked granola sent along in a zip-lock baggie by his wife. That's Ann, his high school sweetheart -- the mother of his five handsome sons -- with whom he says he has never had a serious argument in 38 years of marriage.