Monday, January 13, 2014
Bullying women seems to be Bill O'Reilly's thing.
Women might want to think twice before working for Bill O’Reilly. According to Gabriel Sherman’s new book, The Loudest Voice in the Room, the top Fox News anchor grew so enraged at a female producer after a botched segment in 2003 that, in order to defuse the situation, “a senior Fox executive” intervened and escorted the crying producer out of News Corp’s Midtown headquarters.“
After one taping, he stormed toward his staff’s cubicles and tore into a young female producer, whom he blamed for botching a segment,” Sherman writes in Loudest Voice, which until today had been under a strict press embargo. “Staffers watched in shock as O’Reilly, easily a foot taller than the woman, started yelling and slamming his fist down on a shelf.”
“He got really close and in her face,” an onlooker told Sherman; “She was scared he was going to hit her,” said another. (The name of the producer is not revealed.)
Eventually O’Reilly vanished, after which “a senior Fox executive was called in and escorted the woman, in tears, out of the building to calm her down.” The famously vindictive anchor never apologized.
You may remember that O'Reilly has a history of losing his temper, and producer Andrea Mackris accused him of sexual harassment (the now famous falafel incident) he threatened to have Roger Ailes destroy her.
I don't think that it comes as any surprise that O'Reilly is a bully, and on a cable network that habitually presents women as blonde bimbos, and hires the likes of Sarah Palin, it should come as no surprise that nobody protected this woman from this kind of abuse.
After all as CNN's Jeff Zucker recently pointed out, Fox News is just a front for the Republican party ,and we all know how THEY feel about women.
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Wendy Davis wants to bring major changes to education in Texas. For that reason alone she deserves a ton of support.
State Sen. Wendy Davis announced several education proposals Thursday aimed at recruiting new public school teachers in Texas, including guaranteeing admission to state universities for top students who want to teach, raising teacher pay and offering student loan forgiveness.
The Democratic front-runner for governor didn't say how much her ideas would cost. She said she intended to use "existing state resources" and would not seek a tax increase.
"I do believe that education must be the No. 1 priority that we address as a state," Davis said at a round table at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Davis said high school students in the top 20 percent of their classes should be guaranteed admission to the University of Texas at Austin or other state institutions and a job teaching in a state school after graduation.
She said the state should forgive one year of student loan debt for every teacher who works two years in a qualifying school, and that loan forgiveness should be available to potential teachers in all fields of study.
Davis said Texas teachers were underpaid and decried stories of some teachers working a second or third job to make ends meet, saying they "simply aren't earning enough." According to the National Education Association, the national teachers' union, starting Texas teachers were paid about $1,000 less than the national average during the 2011-12 academic year.
She also wants to boost the number of teacher's aides and school counselors in the state.
If you had asked me even a year ago if it were possible for there to be a candidate so amazing that I would actually want to move to Texas to vote for them, I would have laughed in your face.
Wendy Davis is one such candidate.
If you are reading this while living in Texas I implore you to do everything you can to help this woman get elected as governor.
I think it will do wonders for the children of your state, for the women in your state, and for the Democratic party in your state.
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President Obama to announce changes to the NSA on January 17.
President Obama will deliver his highly anticipated speech on reforms to the National Security Agency on Jan. 17, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Friday.
Carney did not elaborate on what the president will say when he outlines his vision for changes to the NSA’s vast surveillance activities. The address comes in the wake of disclosures from documents stolen by former government contractor Edward Snowden.
Obama and his aides have been focused behind the scenes this week on finishing a review of the spy programs and preparing for the president’s address to the nation. Privacy and civil liberties activists, along with top executives of technology company, are calling on the president to adopt sweeping reforms to curb the NSA’s collection of phone call metadata and personal information of online users.
These reforms are based on the 46 recommendations of the review group that was appointed by the President back in 2013. How many of the recommendations he will implement is still an open question.
I have said it before, but it bears repeating, the President HAS to do something significant on this issue or risk having his Presidency defined as an administration that had no respect for the privacy of the citizens of this country.
I think that it actually an unfair assertion, however there is no doubt that it has become a popular meme among a segment of the liberal demographic.
If President Obama wants to redefine his legacy he needs to do something that earns back at least some of that confidence in his respect for our rights.
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The Sportsman Channel is making move to expand its brand, attract new advertisers, and using Sarah Palin to help facilitate that. Good luck with that.
First there is this from a PR Newswire story in May:
InterMedia Outdoors, Inc. (IMO), the industry leader and largest provider of Outdoors content, and parent company of The Sportsman Channel (TSC), today announced that it chose not to renew its programming agreements with The Outdoor Channel (TOC), in order to shift its highly-rated and award-winning television shows to The Sportsman Channel. IMO will also increase its commitment of resources to TSC, integrating new and upgraded programming and content from IMO's vast market-leading properties, which extend across print, television, radio and online mediums.
"We are going to build The Sportsman Channel into the leading outdoor network, both in distribution and ratings, and shifting all of our programming to TSC is a major first step in that direction. We have led in every Outdoors category we have entered-magazine, internet, and television production-and now we will lead in networks," says InterMedia Outdoors CEO Jeff Paro. "No other channel in the Outdoors category has ever had this kind of promotional strength behind it. We will actively and aggressively program TSC with hunting, shooting and fishing content, with a focus on high-quality original programming, production of our own shows, and partnerships with producers. TSC will be a better network for the consumer and a better value for the distributor."
So that was the plan about seven or eight months ago, and then this weekend those plans seem to have come to a head. A head with a giant ugly wig sitting on it.
Back in March they also decided to aggressively pursue more mainstream advertisers:
Effective Monday, the Sportsman Channel aims for advertisers beyond its roots — “hook and bullet advertisers” — to larger and more mainstream companies that covet the audience for shows like Steven Rinella’s “MeatEater” and Patrick Flanigan’s “Shell Shocked!”
And who have they been able to sign up with this new focus thus far? Well they hooked this big fish for one:
Cheaper than Dirt!, America’s Ultimate Shooting Sports Discounter, has signed three significant advertising deals with Sportsman Channel for 2014.
Cheaper than Dirt will be airing commercials spots on Sportsman through the following platforms: renowned series “Meet the McMillans,” the “Armed Citizen File” on NRANEWS Cam & Co., and a full-year of various advertising on the network throughout 2014.
Who Nelly! Now THAT'S impressive!
But did Palin bring anything new to the table?
Well possibly,
Courtesy of ABC News:
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race will again have a presence on national television after race organizers signed a deal with the Sportsman Channel.
The agreement, announced Wednesday, makes the Sportsman Channel the official network of the nearly 1,000-mile race from Anchorage to Nome. The race, billed as the world's longest, hasn't had a network deal since 2009.
No definitive proof that Palin helped to broker this deal, but if not it would be an awfully big coincidence. And who is it again that does not believe in coincidences?
All I can say is that if the Sportsman channel thinks having Palin on board is the key to long term success they might have done themselves a favor by checking with John McCain and the Tea Party first.
Speaking of Palin she might want to watch herself as hosts of the Sportsman channels programs sometimes meet a violent end.
Stay low Sarah. What am I saying, there are very few people lower than Sarah Palin.
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The Telegraph tries to explain why men love porn star Lisa Ann, and gets it completely wrong. Update!
If you thought the older woman/younger man trend died a death post-Sex and the City and Cougar Town, think again. The recent coverage of PornHub's UK statistics showed that throughout the UK, porn star Lisa Ann is extremely popular: she's the top search term in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and second most popular in England, scoring top-5 status in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, and Bristol.
To some this will come as no surprise, but plenty of people are probably scratching their heads and wondering… who on earth is Lisa Ann?
The actress, who has been in films on and off since the mid-90s, hardly fits the stereotype of the skinny, young, bleached-blonde chick that seems to dominate popular imagination of what porn stars look like.
She's busty, sure, but also filled out everywhere else. And at 42, she is perhaps best-known for playing a Sarah Palin-alike, complete with Hockey Mom glasses, gubernatorial power suit, and semi-automatic rifle in (ahem) seminal Who's Nailin' Paylin.
While the controversial politician and pundit may not be many people's idea of a great date, one thing is for certain - well-groomed, approachable older women are considered enormously attractive across the board. The idea of the shelf life of sexual attractiveness topping out at 30 is going the way of the dodo, if PornHub is any indication.
Wrong!
Here's the rest of the top five searches.
What I really think is behind the UK focus on Lisa Ann has little to do with her age or figure, and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that her most famous role was to depict Sarah Palin being degraded and used by a variety of different men.
I think this obsession with Palin is driven by a deep and abiding dislike for the woman.
The British newspapers have been universally mocking and derisive toward Palin since she first stepped on the national stage, and rarely miss an opportunity to point out something stupid she has said or ridicule her for her attempts to gain fame through various reality shows. I believe this also reflects opinion of Palin throughout much of the UK.
In fact this desire to view Lisa Ann channeling Sarah Palin may be no more complicated then the visceral thrill they get by seeing something shoved in her mouth that finally gets her to stop talking. That may sound misogynist, but I kind of think it applies to both genders.
You know now that I think about it, that DOES sound satisfying.
Update: I thought I would further clarify my point by pointing out that this objectification of Sarah Palin is something that she encourages up to a point through her artificially inflated breasts, hooker shoes, and overall demeanor.
What Lisa Ann does is take that fantasy to its logical conclusion, and the Brits may not want to watch that because they are aroused by the idea of an older woman or Sarah Palin specifically, but because in more sadistic manner they want to see some version of her receiving what they believe she deserves.
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Why gun accidents in America are so very, very common.
Bullets found in "unloaded guns" at The Dallas Gun and Knife Show at Dallas Market Hall in Dallas, Texas on Sunday, January 5, 2014. All guns are checked at the door an ammo found in guns are put in this water jug.
"Don't worry, its' not loaded" may be the most common last words heard by those who are about to die in this country.
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