He Gacked On It!: Did Keith Olbermann Drop The Ball On Journalism?

According to the New York Times Keith Olbermann, of former ESPN and MSNBC fame, has reportedly signed with Current TV and will announce it later today. Current TV is a struggling fledgling network founded in part by former Vice-President Al Gore.
As part of his roughly $7 million settlement with MSNBC, the anchor signed a non-compete agreement that keeps him off rival television networks for several months. The agreement applies only to specific competitors in cable news and broadcast news not to independent Current TV.
Current TV may seem to be autonomous with its self-supporting ownership by Al Gore and his not so often mentioned partner Joel Hyatt.

But Mr. Hyatt is a board member of The Brookings Institute, which receives a large part of its funds from Bank of America, ExxonMobil, and the governments of the United States, Japan, Qatar, Taipei, the District of Columbia, and the United Kingdom. He is also a board member at Hewlitt Packard.

Mr. Gore has become the green billionaire and sits on the board of Apple, and don’t forget his investment fund with David Blood, the former head Goldman Sachs’s asset management firm.

Not exactly a pair that I would consider free of corporate influence, not to mention the innumerable links to the political world these men have.

But now is the time for a good man to come to the aid of his country.

At present the fact that AOL has bought the Huffington Post has created a gap in the independent media area. The same five conglomerates own most media outlets. Olbermnn himself even recently Tweeted:
“Am I missing something or has the primary appeal of The Huffington Post been its independence from big $ media?”

So now is the golden opportunity for Mr. Olbermann to step up and fill that roll. Sometime in late January someone (presumably Mr. Olbermann) registered the domain name theolbermannshow.com, this would be the perfect venue to launch the newborn Olbermann Post (or something with a more creative name). Hundreds of thousands signed the online petition to get him back on the air following his short suspension at MSNBC, so you know he has a built in and very large fan base. The Huffington Post was started with only a million dollar investment, we know you’re good for it Keith, I will help you fundraise it myself if need be.
Just please Keith say it ain’t so, back out of Al Gores offer and come restore journalism to the proud institution it can be, practice as you always preached. Good night and good luck.

Arianna Huffinton's New Domain

Top 5 reasons Huffington Post and AOL merger may be a good thing for America.

Today AOL announced it’s buying Huffington Post, the online news and culture website, for $315 million. This has sparked a lot of shock and fear in the liberally minded world.
AOL is dying, and they think the solution is to buy the Huffington Post and essentially turn it over AOL’s content machine to the Post founder founder, Arianna Huffington. She will be assigned to integrate the collective companies’ news and information websites.
So if you have a sunny outlook you could say that the Huffington Post is taking over AOL.



5. Many people fear this could lead to censorship on behalf of AOL, this is fairly unlikely since Arianna Huffington will retain control of not only her own company but also step into the roll of Editor for AOL too (and by extension its other online products) and has pledged to not changing the Huffington Post’s content.

4. This is a giant leap forward for online news as a whole and its credibility.

3. Huffington Post may lose its largest appeal of separation from big media, but it also gains the ability to compete with other larger networks on breaking news.

2. It is good for AOL stock (the Post is not a public company).

1. With any luck this could be the end of AOL and the start of a great media company that puts journalism back on track!


The outcome from this merger remains to be seen, but the Huffington Post has a formerly conservative now liberal founder who could steer both companies in a positive way. She is a great role model for women in America and a successful journalist with growing credentials. So be positive and hope and help the Huffington Post become what America needs now, competitive and accurate news.

At the same time AOL is the Evil empire that may only exploit the Huffington Post's weaknesses. --

Glenn Becks head WILL explode!!

In Egypt there is a lot of talk about who will be the new leader. As this revolt grows it becomes more obvious that it will no longer be Hosni Mubarak, so who is left?

Will it be the Nobel Laureate and Western media posterboy Mohamed ElBaradei?

How about the newly appointed Vice-President Omar Suleiman? He is the former head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate (EGID or also in slang Mukhabarat) and in that role he “interrogated” prisoners for the C.I.A.. By former I mean he JUST quit a few days ago when he was appointed V.P., he still has blood under his nails I am sure.

No one is mentioning the obvious choice. How about no leader? Disassemble the police and Army, organize, localize and live in Anarchy.

Not that catchphrase anarchy like in the Sex Pistols song, I also do not mean a crazy “wild west” scenario, I mean philosophical Anarchy.

The term anarchism derives from the Greek, anarchos, meaning simply "without rulers".
The Egyptian people have organized food, safety checkpoints, garbage removal, and even defense itself all without, and in fact in spite of their leaders.

Egypt could form a society made up of self-governing cells with shared use of the production facilities, organized either by direct democracy and in cooperation with other groups or cities, city states of they wish.

I know this is not a likely outcome, nor my choice to make for Egypt. If for no other reason the Egyptians, Tunisians and other movements in the area should try it just to watch Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly’s heads explode. Muslims living like Communists that ought to do it! ;-)