Sunday, July 29, 2007

David Downs

Lemme tell you something, brothers. That David Downs has gotten on my nerves, dude. That retard stole my belt and spray painted a bunch of tard gibberish all over it. Well, that ain't gonna cut the mustard, brother. I spotted that simple-minded sap jerking off in the stacks at BCPL while lusting after Neck Hair Lady. Well, I came up from behind and dropped that mongoloid with a Cut and Run from hell, brother!! I took back my property from that water head, dude. He's on my list now, dude. I'm blaming his insolence on that fool Tony Fanuci, who is supposed to be that tard terror's caretaker.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

KUNT TV

This is what OIL TV should be, since it's what J.R. Ewing is.

K-WHAT? Unbuilt Maui TV station lands questionable call letters

THE call letters KUNT have landed at a yet-unbuilt low-power digital television station in Wailuku, Maui.

Alarmingly similar to a word the dictionary says is obscene, the call letters were among a 15-page list of new call letters issued by the Federal Communications Commission and released this week.

The same station owner also received KWTF for a station in Arizona. (I love it!!!)

From Skokie, Ill., comes a sincere apology "to anyone that was offended," said Kevin Bae, vice president of KM Communications Inc., who requested and received KUNT and KWTF. It is "extremely embarrassing for me and my company and we will file to change those call letters immediately."

He thanked your columnist for bringing the matter to his attention and pledged to, "make sure I don't fall asleep on the job when selecting call signs again."

One might understand how Bae's eyes could glaze over during selection, as KM has some 80 sets of call letters and alpha-numeric callsigns for TV and radio stations in several states.

No KM station is yet on the air in Hawaii but its mainland TV stations carry programming from America One Network, My Network TV and the CW.

The call letter snafu was a source of great mirth for Bae's attorney.

"I can't tell you how long he laughed at me when he learned of my gaffe," Bae said.

Broadcasters for generations have joked among themselves about call letters resembling off-color words or acronyms knowing the FCC would never approve their assignment -- but that was before computerization.

KCUF-FM near Aspen, Colo. got its F-word-in-reverse call letters in August of 2005 and has been on the air since December, "Keeping Colorado Uniquely Free," its Web site says. Uh, yeah.
Station officials could not be reached, but the automated pop-music slinger has been written about twice in the Aspen Daily News. The paper said radio regulators "blessed the call letters."

However, assignment of call letters actually is an automated process, according to Mary Diamond of the FCC's Office of Media Relations. Broadcasters use the FCC Web site to request and receive call letters with no oversight from Beavis, his partner, or any FCC regulator.

Dude, seriously. Even after years of concerns over broadcast indecency and the debate about fines for fleeting profanities that hit the air.

The Code of Federal Regulations allows applicants to request call letters of their choice as long as the combination is available. Further, "objections to the assignment of requested call signs will not be entertained at the FCC," it states.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Murdoch, we're coming to get you, brother!

Now if we could just go after OIL TV and that conservative J.R. Ewing...

Liberal activists are stepping up their campaign against Fox News Channel by pressuring advertisers not to patronize the network.

MoveOn.org, the Campaign for America's Future and liberal blogs like DailyKos.com are asking thousands of supporters to monitor who is advertising on the network. Once a database is gathered, an organized phone-calling campaign will begin, said Jim Gilliam, vice president of media strategy for Brave New Films, a company that has made anti-Fox videos.

The groups have successfully pressured Democratic presidential candidates not to appear at any debate sponsored by Fox, and are also trying to get Home Depot Inc. to stop advertising there. (I hate the Home Depot, brother- they support dog fighting, dudes).

At least 5,000 people nationwide have signed up to compile logs on who is running commercials on Fox, Gilliam said. The groups want to first concentrate on businesses running local ads, as opposed to national commercials.

"It's a lot more effective for Sam's Diner to get calls from 10 people in his town than going to the consumer complaint department of some pharmaceutical company," Gilliam said. (The Braddock Whataburger and Parker Brothers better watch out, brother)

Some of the videos produced by Gilliam's company compile statements made by Fox anchors and guests that the activists consider misleading, such as those that question global warming.
Representatives for Fox News Channel, which is owned by News Corp., did not immediately return calls for comment. (Global Warming is the single greatest threat to humanity, after Republicans and Bush).

Home Depot has not had an unusual number of calls, said spokesman Jerry Shields, and the home improvement chain will not change its advertising strategy.

"We're not in the business of censoring media," Shields said. "We need to reach our customer base through all mediums available." (Capitalist swine!)

Groups like the Sierra Club have targeted Home Depot because they believe it's inconsistent for the company to promote environmentally friendly products while advertising on a network that has questioned global warming.

The groups seem particularly angry at Fox's Bill O'Reilly, who has done critical reports on left-wing bloggers. On July 16, O'Reilly said the DailyKos.com Web site is "hate of the worst order," and sent a reporter to question JetBlue Airways Corp. CEO Dave Barger about the airline's sponsorship of a gathering run by DailyKos. (Who is Bill O'Reilly?)

He'll never ride on JetBlue again, O'Reilly said.

MoveOn.org is campaigning against Fox because it says the network characterizes itself as a fair news network when it consistently favors a conservative point of view, said Adam Green, the organization's spokesman.

"We're not trying to silence anybody," Green said. "Rush Limbaugh has a right to be on the air—he admits his point of view. Fox doesn't." (Neither have a right to be on the air, dudes!!)

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Picket lines

This is what I should do with the Skills and Bells and Fanuci.

Outsourcing the Picket Line: Carpenters Union Hires Homeless to Stage Protests
By Keith L. AlexanderWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, July 24, 2007; A01

The picketers marching in a circle in front of a downtown Washington office building chanting about low wages do not seem fully focused on their message.

Many have arrived with large suitcases or bags holding their belongings, which they keep in sight. Several are smoking cigarettes. One works a crossword puzzle. Another bangs a tambourine, while several drum on large white buckets. Some of the men walking the line call out to passing women, "Hey, baby." A few picketers gyrate and dance while chanting: "What do we want? Fair wages. When do we want them? Now."

Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union members.

They're hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses. Several have recently been released from prison. Others are between jobs.

"It's about the cash," said Tina Shaw, 44, who lives in a House of Ruth women's shelter and has walked the line at various sites. "We're against low wages, but I'm here for the cash."

Carpenters locals across the country are outsourcing their picket lines, hiring the homeless, students, retirees and day laborers to get their message across. Larry Hujo, a spokesman for the Indiana-Kentucky Regional Council of Carpenters, calls it a "shift in the paradigm" of picketing.
Political groups also are tapping into local homeless shelters for temps.

One resident of the Community for Creative Non-Violence shelter earns $30 a day holding a sign outside a Metro (what does that pervert have to do with it?) stop protesting nuclear war. In 2004, residents of at least 10 shelters were paid to collect signatures on petitions in favor of legalized gambling. Residents call this type of work "lobbying."

The carpenters union is one of the most active picketers in the District, routinely staging as many as eight picket lines a day at buildings where construction or renovation work is being done without union labor.

Supporters of the practice consider it a creative tactic in an era of declining union membership and clout. But critics say the reliance on nonunion members -- who are paid $1 above minimum wage and receive no benefits -- diminishes the impact and undercuts a principle established over decades of union struggles.

"If I was a member of the general public, and I asked someone picketing why they were there, and they said they don't work for the union and they were just hired to stand there, that wouldn't create a very positive impression on me, nor would it create a very sympathetic position," said Wayne Ranick, spokesman for the United Steelworkers of America.

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the Mid-Atlantic local's parent, is one of seven unions in Change to Win, a group formed in 2005 after a split from the AFL-CIO.

One reason the carpenters union left was because it favored more aggressive organizing.
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters is the only union that routinely hires homeless people for its picket lines, union leaders and labor scholars say. It targets locations where work such as carpentry and drywall and floor installation is done without union labor. In a June newsletter on the union's Web site, the union's president and chief executive, Bill Halbert, referred to the pickets as "area standards campaigns."

Halbert did not respond to phone calls and messages left at the union's office in Forestville. George Eisner, the local's lead organizer in Baltimore, did not keep an appointment for a scheduled phone interview and did not answer several messages.

Hujo said the Indiana-Kentucky council has been hiring homeless people, retirees and college students as picketers for about two years.

Carpenters unions in Indianapolis, Atlanta, Baltimore, Miami, San Diego and Columbus, Ohio, also hire picketers, including the homeless, largely because the union members are busy working and aren't able to leave job sites, he said.

"People say it's not normal," Hujo said. "But this is a quality-of-life issue. This is not a union versus nonunion issue."

Other unions have not embraced the idea of hired feet, but few openly criticize the carpenters.
Joslyn Williams, president of the Metropolitan Washington AFL-CIO, differentiated between picketers calling for a boycott or a strike and picket lines such as the ones the carpenters have. "It's an informational picket, so it's a legitimate tool," he said.

John Boardman, executive secretary treasurer of UNITE HERE local 25 in Washington, said the issue of who the picketers are is less important than why they're there. "Let's focus on the message -- that there are people in this building that are working for substandard wages and benefits," he said.

In Washington, the carpenters union targets a different building almost daily.

At the protest site, union organizers ask for identification and a Social Security card from those who want to picket. The picketers are divided into groups of about 30, and some are sent on to other sites. They are often accompanied by an eight-foot-tall inflatable rat brought in by pickup.
On a recent Thursday morning, one group was sent to 1100 13th St. NW, another group to the corner of 21st and M streets. Typically, two or three union members are on hand to oversee each group. Armed with clipboards, they check off the names of picketers when they arrive and leave to ensure that they work their full two to four hours.

One day, a group picketed from 9 to 11 a.m. in the 600 block of Indiana Avenue NW. After an hour lunch break, the picketers headed to the 900 block of Capitol Street NW from noon to 2 p.m.

Their placards have the name of the targeted firm taped at the top; when the picketers move on to another company, the name is changed.

Capitol Drywall was the name on one placard two weeks ago. The carpenters' picketers were outside an office building on New Hampshire Avenue NW, where the company's employees were erecting drywall.

Mark Sokoloff, Capitol's vice president of operations, said his company is not unionized but offers its employees fair and competitive wages, as well as benefits.

"It's something that we would like to see disappear and go away," he said of the picket lines that appear frequently at job sites. "But if it won't, it's something that we will deal with."

The picketers get mixed reactions from passersby. Some drivers honk to show support. But many who work in nearby buildings and must listen to the picketers' chants for several hours are irritated.

Several picketers said they have had water thrown on them from upper floors in office buildings. That only encourages picketers to get louder, said one picketer who asked that his name not be published.

D.C. police Cmdr. Patrick Burke, who oversees the homeland security and special operations division, said the picketers have never broken any laws. If police receive noise complaints, officers will ask them to quiet down, he said, and they always comply.

"They have a First Amendment right to engage in free speech and assembly," he said. "We don't want to discourage people from doing so. But they just have to do so within reason."

Some activists for the homeless are unhappy with the practice of paid picketing. They say it amounts to using people down on their luck rather than giving them a hand up. Ingrid Reed, who coordinates job placement and housing at the Community for Creative Non-Violence shelter, said the money the unions pay picketers would be better spent on training or apprentice programs that teach skills.

"These jobs won't pay the rent," Reed said. "If they're out there every day Monday through Friday, when are they looking for a job?"

Reed said many residents of the shelter are hired to demonstrate at corners throughout the city.

"On any given day, if you have 20 protesters out there somewhere, 15 of them live here," she said.

Several picketers said they see the time spent on the line as one of the few legal ways they are able to earn money.

William R. Strange, 41, said he started working as a for-hire picket two years ago when he lived in a homeless shelter on New York Avenue. He is now paid $12 an hour because he plays the buckets during the demonstrations (DAMN, that's more than I make at the Braddock Library!!!).

A few months ago, after a day's picketing across from the National Geographic Society at 17th and M streets NW, Strange went inside and filled out a job application. He now loads trucks for National Geographic's warehouse at night. He still pickets during the day.

Strange also recently moved into his own one-bedroom apartment near the Brookland Metro station.

"Every day I turn that key to my apartment, I feel great. I owe that to the picketing," he said. "And it keeps me out of trouble."

My victory

Tonight, I finally defeated the diabolical conservative Ass Butte. We had a house show at C.U.N.T., brother. Unfortunately, the coward would not put his title on the line, but I did put my UN/ACLU title up for grabs, brothers. Well, this was a First Blood Match, and I scored the win when my minion, The Turd, brought hell down on Butte's head with a steel chair, dudes. Butte's forehead split open like the Red Sea, brother. I had earlier been busted open, but thanks to The Turd and his handy bottle of Vaseline, we were able to conceal it like voter irregularities in Philly, dude. If Butte had been man enough to put his belt on the line I would now be World Heavyweight Champion, brothers. Alas, it was not to be, but I will get my date with destiny before too long, brother and whatcha gonna do when these Libotine powered arms run wild all over you, dude?!!?!?

Sunday, July 22, 2007

News from the Lib.

Yo brothers, I am recovering from my match with Ass Butte at UnCivil War dudes. That fascist cheated to win with help from his "Richard Nixon"/Aaron Whitaker crook. They left me a broken, bloody, quivering mass in the corner brother. I can barely move after being nailed with a spine buster on the steel steps and then crushed with the Butte Bomb on the steps. Whitaker, you better watch your back, dude. I'm watching you. My poor cousin Yeti has been kidnapped by that evil redneck Dale Taylor who is on my list for what he did to my beloved neck hair lady. To make matters worse, Yeti has to live with that redneck in his trailer park and hunt and eat meat, drink alcohol, use electricity and drive a big truck for the next month. Da Crunk also lost his Southern title. It was a lost night with the exception of The Lummox winning the Texas Tag Teams titles and my love Gail Donnelly's crushing victory in the women's battle royal to be crowned the first Women's Champion, dudes. Also, I have to claim at least a moral victory as Ass Butte refused to accept my UN/ACLU World Peace and International Human Rights Heavyweight Wrestling Championship, brother. I will gain my revenge on Butte when I face him a Three Stages of Hell Match at Ill Gotten Gains.