February 9, 2006
Maps
http://www.hurricaneimagery.org/
http://www.nga-earth.org/
Once you zoom in so far you can change from map to imagery to transition from map to photo.
Game of tag banned on playground
February 7, 2006- Dodge ball is out, it’s too aggressive. Ropes courses are out, they’re too much liability.
...the principal of Spokane's Washington's Adams Elementary School banned the playing of tag by students on the playground... Several other schools in the same district say they have banned the hazardous game of tag, too. Those that still allow it have strict rules such as no pushing or shoving and playing only on soft, grassy surfaces.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48701
Scientist predicts 'mini Ice Age'
Feb. 7 -- A Russian astronomer has predicted that Earth will experience a "mini Ice Age" in the middle of this century, caused by low solar activity.
Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomic Observatory in St. Petersburg said Monday that temperatures will begin falling six or seven years from now, when global warming caused by increased solar activity in the 20th century reaches its peak, RIA Novosti reported.
The coldest period will occur 15 to 20 years after a major solar output decline between 2035 and 2045, Abdusamatov said.
Dramatic changes in the earth's surface temperatures are an ordinary phenomenon, not an anomaly, he said, and result from variations in the sun's energy output and ultraviolet radiation.
The Northern Hemisphere's most recent cool-down period occurred between 1645 and 1705. The resulting period, known as the Little Ice Age, left canals in the Netherlands frozen solid and forced people in Greenland to abandon their houses to glaciers, the scientist said.
http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060207-041447-2345r
GLOBAL WARMING HEATING UP
It has been announced that this January was the warmest on record. Last month came in with an average temperature of almost 40 degrees...some 8.5 degrees above average. You know what this means....the howls of global warming are set to begin. The Earth is heating up and we're all going to die!
But what you won't hear from our leftist environmentalist friends...is that temperature records don't go back that far. We could have had many warm Januarys throughout history, but we'll never know. Most records only go back a hundred years or so. Some more, some less. So based on limited data, they are concluding that the Earth is warming at an alarming rate.
Also going unexplained is the fact that February is headed back to normal. In a lot of places, temperatures have gone back to their normal winter highs and lows. But that doesn't matter to the left...
Experts Blame Cop Show For Educating Criminals
January 31, 2006 -- When Tammy Klein began investigating crime scenes eight years ago, it was virtually unheard of for a killer to use bleach to clean up a bloody mess.
Today, the use of bleach, which destroys DNA, is not unusual in a planned homicide, said the senior criminalist from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Klein and other experts attribute such sophistication to television crime dramas like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," which give criminals helpful tips on how to cover up evidence.
Prosecutors have complained for years about "the CSI effect" on juries -- an expectation in every trial for the type of high-tech forensic evidence the show's investigators uncover. It also appears the popular show and its two spinoffs could be affecting how some crimes are committed.
...in the six years since CBS introduced "CSI," there's been a trend of fewer clues like hair, cigarette butts and the killer's blood left behind at crime scenes, Peavy said.
The more sophisticated the television story lines get, the better equipped criminals will be, Peavy said, adding that he never watches "CSI" because it's too unrealistic.
http://www.nbc5.com/entertainment/6625350/detail.html?rss=chi&psp=entertainment
Study Finds Low-Fat Diet Won't Stop Cancer or Heart Disease
February 7, 2006- The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect.
The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women ages 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and strokes as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today.
...The results, the study investigators agreed, do not justify recommending low-fat diets to the public to reduce their heart disease and cancer risk. Given the lack of benefit found in the study, many medical researchers said that the best dietary advice, for now, was to follow federal guidelines for healthy eating, with less saturated and trans fats, more grains, and more fruits and vegetables.
...Except for not smoking, the advice for a healthy lifestyle is based largely on indirect evidence, Dr. Howard said, but most medical researchers agree that it makes sense to eat well, control weight and get regular exercise...
That is also what the cancer society recommends. Dr. Thun, who described the study's results as "completely null over the eight-year follow-up for both cancers and heart disease," said his group had no plans to suggest that low-fat diets were going to protect against cancer...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/health/07cnd-fat.html?ei=5065&en=184edbaa85ef6995&ex=1139979600&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
Record Sales of Sleeping Pills Are Causing Worries
February 7, 2006- Americans are taking sleeping pills like never before, fueled by frenetic workdays that do not go gently into a great night's sleep, and lulled by a surge of consumer advertising that promises safe slumber with minimal side effects.
About 42 million sleeping pill prescriptions were filled last year, according to the research company IMS Health, up nearly 60 percent since 2000.
But some experts worry that the drugs are being oversubscribed without enough regard to known, if rare, side effects or the implications of long-term use. And they fear doctors may be ignoring other conditions, like depression, that might be the cause of sleeplessness.
Although the newer drugs are not believed to carry the same risk of dependence as older ones like barbiturates, some researchers have reported what is called the "next day" effect, a continued sleepiness hours after awakening from a drug-induced slumber.
Ten percent of Americans report that they regularly struggle to fall asleep or to stay asleep throughout the night. And more and more are turning to a new generation of sleep aids like Ambien, the best seller, and its competitor, Lunesta. Experts acknowledge that insomnia has become a cultural benchmark — a side effect of an overworked, overwrought society… http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/business/07sleep.html?ei=5065&en=d2eba0f3facc30cf&ex=1139979600&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
Bush seeks to “slash” public broadcast funds (get out the crying towels)
(Hollywood Reporter) - President George W. Bush took a swipe at Big Bird and his ilk Monday as he proposed slashing funds to public broadcasting by more than $150 million… "Oscar the Grouch has been friendlier to the Sesame Street characters than President Bush, who has chosen to make huge cuts to children's television programming," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. "In a world of fast-and-furious television with ratings-driven content, the public broadcasting system represents the last stronghold of quality child-oriented programming -- we owe this to America's children…"
http://channels.netscape.com/news/story.jsp?id=2006020707260002523410&dt=20060207072600&w=RTR&coview=
What public broadcasting is and isn't
Jul 1, 2005 by Jonah Goldberg
...Public television was created to help poor people, educate young people, and to promote diversity on TV. Today, the average PBS viewer is in his late 50s. Somewhere around two-thirds of the poor have cable or satellite TV. Even more have DVD or VCR players. When PBS was created in 1967, it increased the number of television stations by 25 percent. Today PBS stations constitute a rounding error among the choices available to most consumers.
More relevant, with the obvious exception of "Sesame Street," the target audience for PBS isn't remotely the poor…
And that's the great irony of the restored PBS budget cuts. Because budget rules said the money had to come from somewhere, Congress raided social programs for the poor to give Big Bird back his $100 million.
Which brings up another bogus argument. When public broadcasting's integrity is attacked, the PBSers harrumph that government money is only a tiny fraction of their budgets. But, they say without taking a breath, if you take even one penny of it away, it will destroy us…
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/jonahgoldberg/2005/07/01/154794.html
We have no more need for PBS
Mar 3, 2005 by George Will
…In 1967 public television did at least increase, for many persons, the basic television choices from three -- CBS, NBC, ABC -- to four. Not that achieving some supposedly essential minimum was, or is, the government's business. In today's 500-channel environment, public television is a preposterous relic.
The Public Broadcasting Service recently tried an amazingly obtuse and arrogant slogan: ``If PBS doesn't do it, who will?" What was the antecedent of the pronoun ``it"? Presumably ``culture" or ``seriousness" or ``relevance." Or something. But in a television universe that now includes the History Channel, Biography, A&E, Bravo, National Geographic, Disney, TNT, BBC America, Animal Planet, The Learning Channel, The Outdoor Channel, Noggin, Nickelodeon and scads of other cultural and information channels, what is the antecedent?
Now PBS is airing some HBO films. There is a nifty use of tax dollars -- showing HBO reruns. Which contribute how to ``diversity"?
…Public television, its supporters say, is especially important for poor people who cannot afford cable or satellite television. But 62 percent of poor households have cable or satellite television and 78 percent have a VCR or DVD player.
….Big Bird. Never mind that the average age of PBS viewers is 58. ``Sesame Street'' -- see how its merchandise sells, and Barney's, too -- supposedly proves that public television can find mass audiences.
But the refined minority, as it sees itself, now has ample television choices for the rare moments when it is not rereading Proust. And successes such as ``Sesame Street'' could easily find private, taxpaying broadcast entities to sell them.
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/georgewill/2005/03/03/14686.html
PBS, Pay your own way
Aug 3, 2005 by John Stossel
My cable company made me a remarkable offer: They want to add a new channel to my cable subscription -- and you will pay for it… Sounds insane, and yet the channel isn't new. It's called PBS. Public broadcasting is a classic example of welfare for the well-off. We PBS viewers are 44 percent more likely than other Americans to make more than $150,000 a year.
… As David Boaz, author of "Libertarianism: A Primer," points out, businesses and nonprofits deal with 15 percent revenue losses all the time. If NPR and PBS lost all their federal money, they wouldn't disappear."
…when anyone suggests cutting the PBS budget, people say, "they're trying to kill 'Sesame Street'!" But "Sesame Street" is big business and would survive in any environment. "Children's programming that has an audience does not need taxpayer subsidies," says Jacob Sullum of Reason. "Noggin, which is more 'commercial-free' than PBS stations, carries 12 hours of kids' shows (including two different versions of 'Sesame Street') every day. Parent-acceptable children's programming can also be seen on Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel and ABC Family."
… PBS, on the other hand, is broadcasting by bureaucracy. This is not a good thing. We should have separation of news and state. "We wouldn't want the federal government to publish a national newspaper, writes Boaz, "why should we have a government television network and a government radio network? …When government brings us the news -- with all the inevitable bias and spin -- the government is putting its thumb on the scales of democracy. It's time for that to stop."
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/column/JohnStossel/2005/08/03/155090.html
PBS: The Profiteering Barney Scam
by L. Brent Bozell III November 13, 1997
...Have you seen the blitz of K-Mart advertisements with Rosie O'Donnell dancing around with Sesame Street characters? Maybe you saw the recent ad for Ford minivans, in which Big Bird tells parents to buckle up the kids. It used to be these PBS characters only sold themselves. Now they're shilling for other companies.
...Here's the irony. Free-market conservatives don't oppose merchandising, the catalogs, the stories in malls, the Asian-made Tickle Me Elmo, the Arthur underwear: WGBH is proving it can pay off in spades. It is the obvious solution, moving mere theory into reality, that public broadcasting doesn't need taxpayer dollars to operate.
So why, as Barney's Lyons Group goes to court and Children's Television Workshop is loaning its characters to K-Mart and Ford, are taxpayers paying corporate welfare to PBS? ......it's time for the taxpayer spigot to be turned off, once and for all.
http://www.mrc.org/BozellColumns/newscolumn/1997/col19971113.asp
from the Muppets own website: The Muppets Amazing Staying Power
February 1, 2004 ...the Muppets have been a commercial tour de force for a half-century. Their popularity has eclipsed that of most other characters born in the television age...
...The $13.6 billion entertainment licensing industry is littered with one-hit wonders...But the Muppets, owned by the Jim Henson Co. of Hollywood, Calif., are in an exclusive club, with the likes of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, Charles M. Schulz's Snoopy, Chuck Jones' Bugs Bunny and Johnny Gruelle's Raggedy Ann.
"They're one of the enduring licenses in the toy industry and several other industries as well," said Diane Cardinale of the Toy Industry Association in New York, which represents 400 toy manufacturers. "They're right up there with Disney characters in terms of worldwide appeal."
...The puppets' successes have ranged from TV's The Muppet Show to five movies that grossed $187 million...
In recent years, the puppets have starred in ads for the U.S. Mint, MasterCard, UPS, Starbucks, and Long John Silver and Denny's restaurants. Muppet versions of board and video games include Monopoly and Game Boy Advance...
http://www.muppetcentral.com/news/2004/020104.shtml
Kermit's big leap back toward the green
February 4, 2006 On Sunday, Kermit and his longtime love interest, Miss Piggy, will star in two new ads pitching cars and pizza during ABC's Super Bowl XL. Walt Disney Co., which acquired the rights to Kermit and other non-"Sesame Street" Muppet characters for a reported $60 million in 2004...
...their first feature, 1979's "The Muppet Movie," grossed more than $76 million in domestic box office.
...in 2000... Sesame Workshop, which had been paying Henson's company a license fee of up to $20 million annually to use Elmo and other Muppets, leaped in to buy the characters from EM.TV for $180 million.
http://www.latimes.com/business/custom/cotown/cl-et-muppets4feb04,0,2965695,print.story?coll=la-tot-promo
Hot cross buns too offensive for school
February 7, 2006- A school in the United Kingdom has banned traditional hot cross buns for fear the religious symbol drawn on the top of each roll might offend some students.
Hot cross buns are normally served during the Easter season, especially on Good Friday. Without the white cross drawn with icing, the treat is just a plain currant bun.
The head teacher of the Oaks Primary School in Ipswich, UK, Tina Jackson, has asked her supplier to nix the crosses, the Suffolk Evening Star reported.
Hot cross buns, hot cross buns
One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48700
Myths of rich and poor
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/thomassowell/2006/02/08/185448.html
RU4 or against wiretaps of foreigners? (cartoon)
http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/stayskalimages/2006/Phone-Taps.jpg
David Bennett <><
http://home.hiwaay.net/~dbennett
http://www.freewill-predestination.com
http://www.hurricaneimagery.org/
http://www.nga-earth.org/
Once you zoom in so far you can change from map to imagery to transition from map to photo.
Game of tag banned on playground
February 7, 2006- Dodge ball is out, it’s too aggressive. Ropes courses are out, they’re too much liability.
...the principal of Spokane's Washington's Adams Elementary School banned the playing of tag by students on the playground... Several other schools in the same district say they have banned the hazardous game of tag, too. Those that still allow it have strict rules such as no pushing or shoving and playing only on soft, grassy surfaces.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48701
Scientist predicts 'mini Ice Age'
Feb. 7 -- A Russian astronomer has predicted that Earth will experience a "mini Ice Age" in the middle of this century, caused by low solar activity.
Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomic Observatory in St. Petersburg said Monday that temperatures will begin falling six or seven years from now, when global warming caused by increased solar activity in the 20th century reaches its peak, RIA Novosti reported.
The coldest period will occur 15 to 20 years after a major solar output decline between 2035 and 2045, Abdusamatov said.
Dramatic changes in the earth's surface temperatures are an ordinary phenomenon, not an anomaly, he said, and result from variations in the sun's energy output and ultraviolet radiation.
The Northern Hemisphere's most recent cool-down period occurred between 1645 and 1705. The resulting period, known as the Little Ice Age, left canals in the Netherlands frozen solid and forced people in Greenland to abandon their houses to glaciers, the scientist said.
http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060207-041447-2345r
GLOBAL WARMING HEATING UP
It has been announced that this January was the warmest on record. Last month came in with an average temperature of almost 40 degrees...some 8.5 degrees above average. You know what this means....the howls of global warming are set to begin. The Earth is heating up and we're all going to die!
But what you won't hear from our leftist environmentalist friends...is that temperature records don't go back that far. We could have had many warm Januarys throughout history, but we'll never know. Most records only go back a hundred years or so. Some more, some less. So based on limited data, they are concluding that the Earth is warming at an alarming rate.
Also going unexplained is the fact that February is headed back to normal. In a lot of places, temperatures have gone back to their normal winter highs and lows. But that doesn't matter to the left...
Experts Blame Cop Show For Educating Criminals
January 31, 2006 -- When Tammy Klein began investigating crime scenes eight years ago, it was virtually unheard of for a killer to use bleach to clean up a bloody mess.
Today, the use of bleach, which destroys DNA, is not unusual in a planned homicide, said the senior criminalist from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Klein and other experts attribute such sophistication to television crime dramas like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," which give criminals helpful tips on how to cover up evidence.
Prosecutors have complained for years about "the CSI effect" on juries -- an expectation in every trial for the type of high-tech forensic evidence the show's investigators uncover. It also appears the popular show and its two spinoffs could be affecting how some crimes are committed.
...in the six years since CBS introduced "CSI," there's been a trend of fewer clues like hair, cigarette butts and the killer's blood left behind at crime scenes, Peavy said.
The more sophisticated the television story lines get, the better equipped criminals will be, Peavy said, adding that he never watches "CSI" because it's too unrealistic.
http://www.nbc5.com/entertainment/6625350/detail.html?rss=chi&psp=entertainment
Study Finds Low-Fat Diet Won't Stop Cancer or Heart Disease
February 7, 2006- The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect.
The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women ages 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and strokes as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today.
...The results, the study investigators agreed, do not justify recommending low-fat diets to the public to reduce their heart disease and cancer risk. Given the lack of benefit found in the study, many medical researchers said that the best dietary advice, for now, was to follow federal guidelines for healthy eating, with less saturated and trans fats, more grains, and more fruits and vegetables.
...Except for not smoking, the advice for a healthy lifestyle is based largely on indirect evidence, Dr. Howard said, but most medical researchers agree that it makes sense to eat well, control weight and get regular exercise...
That is also what the cancer society recommends. Dr. Thun, who described the study's results as "completely null over the eight-year follow-up for both cancers and heart disease," said his group had no plans to suggest that low-fat diets were going to protect against cancer...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/health/07cnd-fat.html?ei=5065&en=184edbaa85ef6995&ex=1139979600&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
Record Sales of Sleeping Pills Are Causing Worries
February 7, 2006- Americans are taking sleeping pills like never before, fueled by frenetic workdays that do not go gently into a great night's sleep, and lulled by a surge of consumer advertising that promises safe slumber with minimal side effects.
About 42 million sleeping pill prescriptions were filled last year, according to the research company IMS Health, up nearly 60 percent since 2000.
But some experts worry that the drugs are being oversubscribed without enough regard to known, if rare, side effects or the implications of long-term use. And they fear doctors may be ignoring other conditions, like depression, that might be the cause of sleeplessness.
Although the newer drugs are not believed to carry the same risk of dependence as older ones like barbiturates, some researchers have reported what is called the "next day" effect, a continued sleepiness hours after awakening from a drug-induced slumber.
Ten percent of Americans report that they regularly struggle to fall asleep or to stay asleep throughout the night. And more and more are turning to a new generation of sleep aids like Ambien, the best seller, and its competitor, Lunesta. Experts acknowledge that insomnia has become a cultural benchmark — a side effect of an overworked, overwrought society… http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/business/07sleep.html?ei=5065&en=d2eba0f3facc30cf&ex=1139979600&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
Bush seeks to “slash” public broadcast funds (get out the crying towels)
(Hollywood Reporter) - President George W. Bush took a swipe at Big Bird and his ilk Monday as he proposed slashing funds to public broadcasting by more than $150 million… "Oscar the Grouch has been friendlier to the Sesame Street characters than President Bush, who has chosen to make huge cuts to children's television programming," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. "In a world of fast-and-furious television with ratings-driven content, the public broadcasting system represents the last stronghold of quality child-oriented programming -- we owe this to America's children…"
http://channels.netscape.com/news/story.jsp?id=2006020707260002523410&dt=20060207072600&w=RTR&coview=
What public broadcasting is and isn't
Jul 1, 2005 by Jonah Goldberg
...Public television was created to help poor people, educate young people, and to promote diversity on TV. Today, the average PBS viewer is in his late 50s. Somewhere around two-thirds of the poor have cable or satellite TV. Even more have DVD or VCR players. When PBS was created in 1967, it increased the number of television stations by 25 percent. Today PBS stations constitute a rounding error among the choices available to most consumers.
More relevant, with the obvious exception of "Sesame Street," the target audience for PBS isn't remotely the poor…
And that's the great irony of the restored PBS budget cuts. Because budget rules said the money had to come from somewhere, Congress raided social programs for the poor to give Big Bird back his $100 million.
Which brings up another bogus argument. When public broadcasting's integrity is attacked, the PBSers harrumph that government money is only a tiny fraction of their budgets. But, they say without taking a breath, if you take even one penny of it away, it will destroy us…
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/jonahgoldberg/2005/07/01/154794.html
We have no more need for PBS
Mar 3, 2005 by George Will
…In 1967 public television did at least increase, for many persons, the basic television choices from three -- CBS, NBC, ABC -- to four. Not that achieving some supposedly essential minimum was, or is, the government's business. In today's 500-channel environment, public television is a preposterous relic.
The Public Broadcasting Service recently tried an amazingly obtuse and arrogant slogan: ``If PBS doesn't do it, who will?" What was the antecedent of the pronoun ``it"? Presumably ``culture" or ``seriousness" or ``relevance." Or something. But in a television universe that now includes the History Channel, Biography, A&E, Bravo, National Geographic, Disney, TNT, BBC America, Animal Planet, The Learning Channel, The Outdoor Channel, Noggin, Nickelodeon and scads of other cultural and information channels, what is the antecedent?
Now PBS is airing some HBO films. There is a nifty use of tax dollars -- showing HBO reruns. Which contribute how to ``diversity"?
…Public television, its supporters say, is especially important for poor people who cannot afford cable or satellite television. But 62 percent of poor households have cable or satellite television and 78 percent have a VCR or DVD player.
….Big Bird. Never mind that the average age of PBS viewers is 58. ``Sesame Street'' -- see how its merchandise sells, and Barney's, too -- supposedly proves that public television can find mass audiences.
But the refined minority, as it sees itself, now has ample television choices for the rare moments when it is not rereading Proust. And successes such as ``Sesame Street'' could easily find private, taxpaying broadcast entities to sell them.
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/georgewill/2005/03/03/14686.html
PBS, Pay your own way
Aug 3, 2005 by John Stossel
My cable company made me a remarkable offer: They want to add a new channel to my cable subscription -- and you will pay for it… Sounds insane, and yet the channel isn't new. It's called PBS. Public broadcasting is a classic example of welfare for the well-off. We PBS viewers are 44 percent more likely than other Americans to make more than $150,000 a year.
… As David Boaz, author of "Libertarianism: A Primer," points out, businesses and nonprofits deal with 15 percent revenue losses all the time. If NPR and PBS lost all their federal money, they wouldn't disappear."
…when anyone suggests cutting the PBS budget, people say, "they're trying to kill 'Sesame Street'!" But "Sesame Street" is big business and would survive in any environment. "Children's programming that has an audience does not need taxpayer subsidies," says Jacob Sullum of Reason. "Noggin, which is more 'commercial-free' than PBS stations, carries 12 hours of kids' shows (including two different versions of 'Sesame Street') every day. Parent-acceptable children's programming can also be seen on Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel and ABC Family."
… PBS, on the other hand, is broadcasting by bureaucracy. This is not a good thing. We should have separation of news and state. "We wouldn't want the federal government to publish a national newspaper, writes Boaz, "why should we have a government television network and a government radio network? …When government brings us the news -- with all the inevitable bias and spin -- the government is putting its thumb on the scales of democracy. It's time for that to stop."
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/column/JohnStossel/2005/08/03/155090.html
PBS: The Profiteering Barney Scam
by L. Brent Bozell III November 13, 1997
...Have you seen the blitz of K-Mart advertisements with Rosie O'Donnell dancing around with Sesame Street characters? Maybe you saw the recent ad for Ford minivans, in which Big Bird tells parents to buckle up the kids. It used to be these PBS characters only sold themselves. Now they're shilling for other companies.
...Here's the irony. Free-market conservatives don't oppose merchandising, the catalogs, the stories in malls, the Asian-made Tickle Me Elmo, the Arthur underwear: WGBH is proving it can pay off in spades. It is the obvious solution, moving mere theory into reality, that public broadcasting doesn't need taxpayer dollars to operate.
So why, as Barney's Lyons Group goes to court and Children's Television Workshop is loaning its characters to K-Mart and Ford, are taxpayers paying corporate welfare to PBS? ......it's time for the taxpayer spigot to be turned off, once and for all.
http://www.mrc.org/BozellColumns/newscolumn/1997/col19971113.asp
from the Muppets own website: The Muppets Amazing Staying Power
February 1, 2004 ...the Muppets have been a commercial tour de force for a half-century. Their popularity has eclipsed that of most other characters born in the television age...
...The $13.6 billion entertainment licensing industry is littered with one-hit wonders...But the Muppets, owned by the Jim Henson Co. of Hollywood, Calif., are in an exclusive club, with the likes of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, Charles M. Schulz's Snoopy, Chuck Jones' Bugs Bunny and Johnny Gruelle's Raggedy Ann.
"They're one of the enduring licenses in the toy industry and several other industries as well," said Diane Cardinale of the Toy Industry Association in New York, which represents 400 toy manufacturers. "They're right up there with Disney characters in terms of worldwide appeal."
...The puppets' successes have ranged from TV's The Muppet Show to five movies that grossed $187 million...
In recent years, the puppets have starred in ads for the U.S. Mint, MasterCard, UPS, Starbucks, and Long John Silver and Denny's restaurants. Muppet versions of board and video games include Monopoly and Game Boy Advance...
http://www.muppetcentral.com/news/2004/020104.shtml
Kermit's big leap back toward the green
February 4, 2006 On Sunday, Kermit and his longtime love interest, Miss Piggy, will star in two new ads pitching cars and pizza during ABC's Super Bowl XL. Walt Disney Co., which acquired the rights to Kermit and other non-"Sesame Street" Muppet characters for a reported $60 million in 2004...
...their first feature, 1979's "The Muppet Movie," grossed more than $76 million in domestic box office.
...in 2000... Sesame Workshop, which had been paying Henson's company a license fee of up to $20 million annually to use Elmo and other Muppets, leaped in to buy the characters from EM.TV for $180 million.
http://www.latimes.com/business/custom/cotown/cl-et-muppets4feb04,0,2965695,print.story?coll=la-tot-promo
Hot cross buns too offensive for school
February 7, 2006- A school in the United Kingdom has banned traditional hot cross buns for fear the religious symbol drawn on the top of each roll might offend some students.
Hot cross buns are normally served during the Easter season, especially on Good Friday. Without the white cross drawn with icing, the treat is just a plain currant bun.
The head teacher of the Oaks Primary School in Ipswich, UK, Tina Jackson, has asked her supplier to nix the crosses, the Suffolk Evening Star reported.
Hot cross buns, hot cross buns
One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48700
Myths of rich and poor
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/thomassowell/2006/02/08/185448.html
RU4 or against wiretaps of foreigners? (cartoon)
http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/stayskalimages/2006/Phone-Taps.jpg
David Bennett <><
http://home.hiwaay.net/~dbennett
http://www.freewill-predestination.com
posted by David Bennett | 2:46 AM
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