Al Gore
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rob_gould
Well-known member
What do you see as the problem with this? The deal itself? The buyer? The seller?
Apologies if my presumption that you see this as a problem is incorrect!
Apologies if my presumption that you see this as a problem is incorrect!
rob_gould said:
We are a free market with free speech so that includes TV programming.
Al Gore (something like 20% owner of Current TV) seems a better businessman than politician for selling it.. Al Jazera lost it's major draw (OBL tapes), and Current TV lost Oberman. Not that I am suggesting any similarity between them. ;D
Al Jazera has been trying to get a toehold into the US market for years. While Current TV had pretty good penetration (59 million households) the ratings have been in decline for a while. They started out as user generated programming and shifted to a more professional but well left of center programming. Just for comparison their prime time viewership was all of 22k households, vs. Fox at something like 1million plus.
Comcast was already talking about dropping them based on low viewership before this deal. The Al Jazera sale seems to be the straw that broke that camel's back, while i suspect viewership could actually increase. After the Arab spring a lot of Americans have searched out Al Jazera news reports to get information closer to the source (there is (was) an Al Jazera news report on Link TV already). While Al Jazera has a reputation of not being friendly to the US, they are also not friendly to some of the dictatorships in the region too, so another voice in the region to listen to and weigh to triangulate in on news events. Of course all of this english language targeted programming coming from outside the US has to be taken with a grain of salt. But IMO better to see it all and then decide for yourself, not let others decide for us.
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Freedom of information can get interesting. I am very much in favor of not allowing government to do much of anything completely secretly. We have a right and need to know what they are doing. That said FOI can be abused. Right now a liberal newspaper in NY state is publishing the home address of registered gun owners. The publication of this information can be used by miscreants to A) avoid homes where homeowners may be armed, B) target home to rob to get their guns, C) target gun owners for public pressure. I suspect the latter is their intent, but the other two are troubling to me also.
A study done in TN after a similar publication of permit holders by zip code, indicated an 18% drop of home robberies in the zip codes with reported high gun ownership. ;D
Putnam county (NY) clerk has refused the FOI request so he is currently in violation of the law. I am more sympathetic to him than the newspaper for invading the privacy of law abiding citizens. Sad that the party exposed to most injury from this may be the non-gun households. 8) I still find it hard to believe that this won't expose more guns to being stolen. Those folks better secure them better if they have a target painted on their door. A larger question is why does the government need to keep a list of where private guns are held?
JR
PS: Sorry I didn't look at the links... life is too short to click on every link. I am more interested in what Gus thinks, not what links Gus decided to post with no explanation (why should we look at these?). The story is out there and already mentioned in another thread here.
rob_gould
Well-known member
JohnRoberts said:
Me too! Hence the question...
rob_gould
Well-known member
JohnRoberts said:
Absolutely. Al Jazeera is much less UK / USA-centric than any other news agency. It covers different stories that perhaps Western news agencies deem less important, at least to their viewing figures. Whether they're actually less important I'm not so sure.
Al Jazeera is another outlet to get a second (or third, or whatever) view on the same stories that we hear from news agencies closer to home. It's also a good place to learn about new that is less well publicised through the normal outlets.
Of course, as with anything you see or hear (on the news or otherwise!) interpret what's being said carefully and read between the lines. I'm not suggesting for a second that, like any news agency, they don't have an agenda.
Yup, I find it remarkable how much news goes on in the world that does not get reported here. We have multiple 24/7 news channels and they manage to only cover a small handful of the same stories that they repeat ad nausem.rob_gould said:
But thats life in a world where most viewers need to be personally scared into watching TV news. The teasers for NYC network evening news are insulting to anybody with half a clue. I religiously avoid local TV news, because it reminds me about where I live. 8)
JR
Gus said:
I consider Gore your typical hypocrite ex-politician, but this article seems unfair... Accusing him of trying, but failing to close the deal last year to save on taxes. Come on, I'd think less of him if he didn't try to avoid taxes. I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't a little passive-agressive tweak from Al Jazera... You want the deal in 2012, drop the price X percent.
Gore is a low life for a list of other reasons, but this is not one of them... I don't enjoy personal attacks against people who don't matter so I won't waste more bits on him.
Please don't tell anybody that I actually defended Gore over this. I find it amusing that he had to pay the 2013 rate on this deal, since he is a high profile democrat, but I don't begrudge him for trying to avoid it. Classic case of do what I say not what I do... he is not the only (ex) politician to ever try that.
UPDATE-- As if the Depardieu Russian citizenship story wasn't already funny enough, I saw a statement from Depardieu where he expressed his happiness with getting a Russian passport and mentioned how his father was a Communist... The irony is getting palpable, embracing "Communism" in the process of escaping high french tax rates. How does that saying go? "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" Depardieu seems more able than many Russians. There are a bunch of wealthy russians who emigrated here for the rule of law so their wealth couldn't be confiscated. I think the guy who owns the Nets basketball team is an uber wealthy Russian.
JR
Brian Roth
Well-known member
The big irony to me is the entity that bought St. Al's network is Al Jazeera, which is mostly owned by the Emirate of Qatar, one of the original OPEC countries.
An Inconvenient Truth is the fact Qatar has the largest per-capita carbon footprint of any country on the planet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/sustainable-earth/pictures-ten-countries-with-the-biggest-footprints/
Of course, the population of Qatar is very low. But, Qatar is known for blowing air conditioning down the streets, and lush golf courses.
I caught some of this info while watching a Discovery or History Channel show during the past year, which described the incredible efforts and energy required to do those sorts of projects.
More recently, Qatar promised to air condition a new stadium so the 2022 World Cup Football Games could be held during the scorching Qatar summertime.
I realize that St. Al did quite a Nobel thing for his investors and himself by brokering the sale of the Current network to the petro-rich entities, and I am certain he and his investors will be quite thrilled to "pay more of their fair share" to the US government.
Bri
An Inconvenient Truth is the fact Qatar has the largest per-capita carbon footprint of any country on the planet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/sustainable-earth/pictures-ten-countries-with-the-biggest-footprints/
Of course, the population of Qatar is very low. But, Qatar is known for blowing air conditioning down the streets, and lush golf courses.
I caught some of this info while watching a Discovery or History Channel show during the past year, which described the incredible efforts and energy required to do those sorts of projects.
More recently, Qatar promised to air condition a new stadium so the 2022 World Cup Football Games could be held during the scorching Qatar summertime.
I realize that St. Al did quite a Nobel thing for his investors and himself by brokering the sale of the Current network to the petro-rich entities, and I am certain he and his investors will be quite thrilled to "pay more of their fair share" to the US government.
Bri
