Saturday, October 24, 2009

Timeline of Rick Sanchez 10/22 lie.

October 22, one of the topics discussed on Rick Sanchez' portion of CNN Newsroom was the limiting of executive pay and bonuses for those seven companies that have not paid back their bailout money.

I began with two tweets to Rick.

2:04 PM "@ricksanchezcnn. Since Congress & the White House rely on taxpayer $ to stay afloat, shouldn't they take a 90% pay cut too?"

2:09 PM "@ricksanchezcnn How many of those 7 firms have already TRIED to pay the taxpayers back but were NOT ALLOWED TO DO SO by Obama?"

These are CLEARLY pro-CEO-bonuses (actually, pro-sanctity-of-contract).

I don't have an exact time for Rick's comments, because I can't find a YouTube video of the show, but I do know Rick's first comment relevant to this came after my second tweet and before my third.

According to the show transcript:

SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.Boy, you guys are -- we call this a national conversation and let me tell you something. The nation is conversing
and all of you to a man and to a woman seem to be angry at these big Wall Street fat cats.



I knew this was clearly a lie, considering I myself had tweeted twice taking the side Rick claimed nobody was taking. I didn't have access to Twitter at the time (cheap cellphone; can't surf the net with it) but I could surmise that I surely wasn't the only one, either.

2:16 PM "@ricksanchezcnn just outright lied, said ALL his Twitterers 'TO A MAN' were angry abt corp bonuses."

I honestly thought Rick would take this opportunity to go back and correct his error. He didn't.

(I'm fairly certain this Sanchez quote came after my 2:16 tweet but before my 2:28 one.)

SANCHEZ: By the way, I'm still waiting.

Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez here in the world headquarters of CNN.

I'm still waiting for one person to Twitter me since this show began -- maybe it will be you -- Twitter me if you believe that the Wall Street bankers should get their bonuses, because I swear, I have yet to get one person who's backing the bankers on this thing. I have never seen a situation where it's quite so one-sided.

In fact, look. Look at this one that we got just a little while ago during the break. It's another one. And it seems to say the same thing. "Look, if you get government money, all deals are off. No big paycheck until you pay off the debt." That seems to be what everybody is saying.

I would be interested. Again, if you're out there and you believe that the bankers should be getting their bonuses, send me a tweet. I would like to hear what you have to say. Maybe you can even things up. Oh, I doubt it.


I sent another.

2:28 PM "@ricksanchezcnn The CEOs should be paid what they're owed. Dodd, at Obama's urging, put in the loopholes that demanded it, remember?"

SANCHEZ: Let me share a couple more on the Twitter page, if we possibly can. There you go. "What the bankers should be getting is a nice kick in their rear end."

And underneath that: "You're nuts. No one's going to fight for these bankers." There you go. If you're serious, I'm serious. Let me know. If you think that you can explain a cogent reason why these bankers should get their money, send me a tweet and we will put it on right away.


2:46 PM "@ricksanchezcnn Ppl who get welfare still have to honor their contracts. So why shouldn't bailout corps have to honor their contracts to CEOs?"

and finally

2:51 PM "@ricksanchezcnn Out of the last 50 years, how many years has the US gone further in the red? Where's THEIR [i.e. the govt] 90% pay cut?"

Rick didn't put any of them on. Which means "we will put it on right away" is ALSO a lie. He did manage to put an @MikeBates tweet on, so I know it wasn't a case of getting lazy late in the show and not putting on any new tweets, which sometimes happens.

It's not a situation where Rick didn't see my Tweets. He has, on several occasions, had no problem finding my tweets and putting them on the air.

Spin is one thing; we are talking about bald-faced lying. He deliberately, blatantly lied. And I called him out on it.

I watched yesterday, to see if he might, just MIGHT grow a little integrity and admit that he lied (he sure had no problem calling out FOX for what he perceived as a lie, now did he?) or at least retract the claim that his Tweeters TO A MAN AND TO A WOMAN were angry about the bonuses.

But he didn't.

And because of that, I will no longer watch his show.

And I'm in the process of composing an email to CNN explaining WHY I will no longer watch his show.

Participation implies endorsement, and I do not endorse his lying. I will no longer loan him my legitimacy by participating in his little charade.

@RagnrDannskjold

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Squidgy.

You know that commercial where the little girl takes what she calls "happy words" out of reviews of Microsoft 7 and makes them the dialogue for cartoons?

Well, I'm at the store yesterday and I was forced to buy a package of Jaffa cakes, a product of Jacob's Biscuits, a subsidiary of Jacob Fruitfield Foods Limited, for absolutely no other reason than it had the following happy words on the box.



Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Picking up black walnuts to Bring Down THE MAN!

(WARNING: This post is Not Safe For Work if you're Al Gore.)

Yay! Hooray for me! I'm done with walnuts for the year! After probably ten hours of work, I cashed in my walnuts today, and received as a reward for my work a grand total of $6.57.

That wouldn't be much, if the story stopped there, but it doesn't.

I took my walnut money and bought two of the little pull-chain light socket adapter thingies that let you turn off a light bulb without flipping the power switch.

I put them in the bathroom, so now I can burn only one bulb when I need only one bulb, which is the vast majority of the times I'm in there. The only time I really need to burn all three is when I'm shaving. With the pullchains, I can turn on the two over the mirror at the sink if I need them, and turn them back off when I'm done. Previously, with all three running off the same switch, it was all or none.

Awhile ago, I had already switched out the 60-watt incandescent bulbs for 23-watt CFLs, so now instead of running 180 watts whenever I went into the bathroom, I'm only running 23 watts, less than 13% of what I WAS using.

(Pause here while Al Gore needs a moment of "alone time.")

I may ... MAY ... switch out the one bulb for a 10-watter from the kitchen. That'd be a 94+% energy savings.

(Pause here for Al Gore again.)

If I wasn't effectively trading walnuts (which are of no real use to me) for the adapters, I don't know how long it'd take for them to pay for themselves, but I don't think an estimate of "years" is all that unreasonable. So I don't know how cost-effective this is for real-live, actual humans. But once they save enough to pay for the three bucks or so per adapter, everything else will be just gravy.

(Now someone please get Al Gore a baby wipe!)

P.S. The less electricity you use, the less money you're paying the utilities in rates, and thus the less money you're paying the government in sales taxes. Just one little way to help Starve The Beast.

(Now Ron Paul needs a baby wipe too!)

Now, just to review -- Yay! Hooray for me!