Murdoch on the Run?

 Posted by at 2:00 am  Monthly Report, Open Thread
Jul 082011
 

After Rupert Murdoch’s phone hacking scandal in the UK, spun out of control, he followed typical right wing logic, he closed the paper, costing hundreds of journalists and workers their jobs, to deflect the scandal and save the job of one corporate criminal.  It isn’t working and, although it appears limited to the UK, there is actually a US connection too important to ignore.

8rupert-murdochThe News Corporation’s decision to shut down the British tabloid The News of the World on Thursday did little to silence the growing uproar over revelations that the newspaper had hacked into the voice mails of private citizens.

In fact, it may have only fueled the outrage.

An outpouring of suspicion and condemnation came from all directions on Thursday, and was directed chiefly at the News Corporation’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, a figure as powerful as he is polarizing.

The British media establishment, Facebook and Twitter users and even Mr. Murdoch’s own employees questioned his move. Some said it was a ploy to salvage government approval of the News Corporation’s potentially lucrative controlling stake in the satellite company British Sky Broadcasting, or BSkyB. Others saw it as merely a rebranding.

There are already indications that The News of the World may be reconstituted in some form. People with ties to the company said Thursday that the News Corporation had for some time been examining whether to start a Sunday edition for its other British tabloid, The Sun… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

If the UK allows Murdoch to take over BSkyB, they are crazy!

Keith Olbermann provided great coverage of this on Countdown.

Ed Schultz interviews Eric Boelert.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And there it is.  The man who was overseeing the criminal activity, who subsequently engineered the cover-up and lied to Parliament is Les Hinton.  Les Hinton is now the Publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

Republican policy is to concentrate America’s information sources in as few hands as possible.  Those belonging to Rupert Murdock do not even deserve the Republican Ministry of propaganda, Faux Noise, let alone the WSJ.

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Monthly Report for June 2011

 Posted by at 3:22 am  Blog News, Monthly Report
Jul 022011
 

In June, Politics Plus enjoyed record performance in every category except one, unique visitors, which fell 404 short of the record.  Visits, page views, hits and bandwidth are all up from March’s record.  I consider page views most important, because to generate more than one page view on a visit, someone has to open other pages to actually read them.

Here are our basic stats:

vv6-11

Here is our most recent Clustrmap, last updated on July 1.

ClustrMap6-11

Our Clustrmap reset the morning of 2/28, starting over from scratch, so the above map represents just four months’ traffic. The largest circles represent over 1,000 visits.  The tiniest represent one to ten.

Our average durations were up from 195 seconds last month:

Number of visits: 54652 – Average: 219 s

Number of visits

Percent

0s-30s

44399

81.2 %

30s-2mn

3025

5.5 %

2mn-5mn

1651

3 %

5mn-15mn

1710

3.1 %

15mn-30mn

1213

2.2 %

30mn-1h

1635

2.9 %

1h+

1019

1.8 %

That’s excellent, because more visitors spent mote time here individually.

Search engine referrals were up considerably.

21 different referring search engines

Pages

Percent

Hits

Percent

Stumbleupon (Social Bookmark)

17916

82.1 %

22341

78.9 %

Google

2981

13.6 %

4808

16.9 %

Microsoft MSN Search

477

2.1 %

477

1.6 %

Yahoo!

122

0.5 %

166

0.5 %

Microsoft Bing

94

0.4 %

144

0.5 %

Microsoft Windows Live

51

0.2 %

143

0.5 %

Ask

35

0.1 %

35

0.1 %

Unknown search engines

33

0.1 %

34

0.1 %

Google (Images)

27

0.1 %

43

0.1 %

AOL

22

0.1 %

23

0 %

Digg (Social Bookmark)

20

0 %

20

0 %

Rambler

9

0 %

9

0 %

MyWebSearch

9

0 %

18

0 %

Yandex

4

0 %

15

0 %

Go.com

3

0 %

3

0 %

Dogpile

2

0 %

2

0 %

Virgilio

1

0 %

1

0 %

Interia.pl

1

0 %

1

0 %

Scroogle

1

0 %

1

0 %

Baidu

 

 

1

0 %

Netscape

 

 

10

0 %

Our top four non-blog referrers are:

http://www.reddit.com/               9,000+

http://www.buzzflash.net/           4,600+

http://www.care2.com/               4.400+

http://www.jabberwonk.com/       1,200+

Our top 15 blog referrers are:

http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/

http://jbm479.wordpress.com/

http://themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com/

http://annette-justmylittlepieceoftheworld.blogspot.com/

http://whohijackedourcountry.blogspot.com/

http://america-weeps.blogspot.com/

http://infidel753.blogspot.com/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php

http://www.freespeechwisconsin.com/index.php/topic,988.0.html

http://opovet.blogspot.com/

http://jackjodell53.wordpress.com/

http://republic-of-gilead.blogspot.com/

http://katieschwartz.com/

http://oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/

http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/

Here’s some linkey-love in return  The best ways you can spread the message to others is to use the share button at the bottom of each article to list our articles on the the networking sites where you belong. Quote PP articles on your own blogs also helps.  The operative commandment here is “thou shalt steal.”  We’re on the same side here, and I encourage.  Even if you want to repost a whole article, that’s OK.  Just link back, please.  Also, feel free to swipe my graphics in the articles.  If they are labeled with our URL, they are my work.

We have a new feature occasioned by a new plugin.  I almost screwed the pooch again on this one, because it reset before midnight in our time zone.  Fortunately, I had pulled it early, just in case.  Here are the top ten commenters for June.

Lisa G. (117)

Memphis Johnny (101)

Patty (84)

Phyllis (62)

Jerry Critter (60)

SoINeedAName (56)

TWM (51)

Jack Jodell (43)

Lee (21)

Leslie Parsley (17)

The widget is in the right column.  I don’t count, as I’m the resident big mouth, and I try to reply to every comment.  Those who leave their URLs in their comments, get linkey love.

Technorati remains a complete mystery to me.  Despite our record performance, our ratings declined in every category except World.  I have no idea why.  We barely made the A List.

    • Global 514 (rank 2,361)
    • US politics 517 (rank 285)
    • Politics 493 (rank 421)
    • World 440 (rank 358)

We have 485,496 links on other websites, up from 69,033 from last month.

We have 2,505 posts and 19,684 comments, as of midnight 7/1.

We have new wacky avatars, and I rotate them each month, but I recommend using your own avatar. Go to Gravatar.  Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use.  Whenever you comment under that e mail address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that image will be your avatar.

Your participation remains what makes this blog worth reading, not to mention worth writing.  Many people who visit here have told me  that they come here to read your comments in addition to my articles.  Politics Plus exists to help end right-wing insanity.  Thank you all for all you do, here and elsewhere, to help make that happen.

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Open Thread–6/30/2011

 Posted by at 2:12 am  Monthly Report, Open Thread
Jun 302011
 

It’s a rough day.  I missed most of yesterday’s sleep cycle doing analysis for today’s editorial on the press conference.  Nevertheless, I’m current on replies.  Today there are some ZZZZZZZs I need to find.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:25 (average 5:48).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Boston Globe: The United States will push ahead with more targeted drone strikes and special operations raids and fewer costly land battles such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan in the continuing war against Al Qaeda, according to a new national counterterrorism strategy unveiled yesterday.

While I prefer peaceful solutions by definition, I recognize that Al Qaeda needs to be opposed, and this may is preferable to multi-year ground wars.

From TPM: The Michelle Bachmann History Channel

Conan outdid himself!

From Washington Post: The Oregon House voted Wednesday to give tribal police the same off-reservation authority as non-tribal officers, despite objections from county sheriffs who said the measure would open the door to lawsuits and give tribal officers unprecedented authority.

Representatives approved the measure on a 33-25 vote after GOP representatives also argued the bill doesn’t have enough oversight to ensure the tribes comply with state law. The measure now goes back to the Senate, which has already approved the bill but is scheduled to decide Wednesday evening whether to accept changes made in the House. John Kitzhaber has said he supports the bill.

Effectively this will give Native American officers the same authority out of jurisdiction as any other officer.  Despite Republican opposition, Oregon is leading the way to progressive reform.

Cartoon:

30Cartoon

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Prosser Video Update

 Posted by at 1:59 am  Monthly Report, Open Thread
Jun 282011
 

28prosser unhingedOn Sunday, I posted The Fitzwalkerstan Attack Dog, describing how David Prosser criminally assaulted Justice Ann Walsh Bradley by grabbing her around the neck and choking her, when she demanded that he leave her office.  Here’s some good news.  The Fitzwalkerstan Attack Dog is under criminal investigation.

Tom Roberts, filling in for Ed Schultz, has the details.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Even back in the 1960s, the right wing had a pattern of physical violence, whenever their arguments lacked the rational authority to prevail, as they usually do.  I hope they nail this SOB!

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Open Thread–6/5/2011

 Posted by at 3:35 am  Monthly Report, Open Thread
Jun 052011
 

I’m quote late in getting today’s articles up, because of the heat.  Yesterday the heat was oppressive. It was officially 84° range, but the temperature in the enclosed area outside my windows reached 129°. It reached 102° inside, at at 2:00 AM is still 92°.  When I finally fell asleep, I overslept and got a late start.  I’m current with replies.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Yesterday it took me 4:49 (average 4:16).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: When a group of activists proposed banning circumcision in San Francisco last fall, many people simply brushed them aside. Even in that liberal seaside city, it seemed implausible that thousands of people would support an effort to outlaw an ancient ritual that Jews and Muslims believe fulfills a commandment issued by God.

But last month, the group collected the more than 7,100 signatures needed to get a measure on the fall ballot that would make it illegal to snip the foreskin of a minor within city limits. Now a similar effort is under way in Santa Monica to get such a measure on the ballot for November 2012.

Nazi Germany did the same thing to oppress Jews, but here, I think the target of these Republicans is Muslims.

From LA Times: Prospective Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman said Saturday that he won’t try to compete in the Iowa caucuses early next year.

No surprise here.  Likewise, I’m sure Cain will skip the KKK Kaucus.

Humor:

5Cartoon

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Monthly Report for May 2011

 Posted by at 3:07 am  Blog News, Monthly Report
Jun 022011
 

In May, Politics Plus ran well almost the same as April’s performance.  We still can’t be stars every month, and it was a good solid month.

Here are our basic stats:

vv5-11

Here is our most recent Clustrmap, last updated on May 19.

ClustrMap5-11

Our Clustrmap reset the morning of 2/28, starting over from scratch, so the above map represents just two months’ traffic. The largest circles represent over 1,000 visits.  The tiniest represent one to ten.

Our average durations were up from 183 seconds last month:

Number of visits: 38189 – Average: 195 s

Number of visits

Percent

0s-30s

31172

81.6 %

30s-2mn

2080

5.4 %

2mn-5mn

1316

3.4 %

5mn-15mn

1228

3.2 %

15mn-30mn

825

2.1 %

30mn-1h

1027

2.6 %

1h+

541

1.4 %

That’s expected, because we also had fewer drive-by visitors.

Search engine referrals were up slightly.

20 different referring search engines

Pages

Percent

Hits

Percent

Stumbleupon (Social Bookmark)

8801

58.7 %

13649

58.3 %

Google

4789

31.9 %

7998

34.2 %

Microsoft Bing

621

4.1 %

746

3.1 %

Microsoft MSN Search

403

2.6 %

403

1.7 %

Yahoo!

165

1.1 %

257

1 %

Google (Images)

59

0.3 %

113

0.4 %

Unknown search engines

35

0.2 %

36

0.1 %

AOL

27

0.1 %

27

0.1 %

Ask

27

0.1 %

27

0.1 %

Microsoft Windows Live

14

0 %

35

0.1 %

Digg (Social Bookmark)

12

0 %

33

0.1 %

MyWebSearch

6

0 %

18

0 %

GoodSearch

2

0 %

2

0 %

Yandex

2

0 %

26

0.1 %

Onet.pl

1

0 %

1

0 %

Dogpile

1

0 %

1

0 %

Kvasir

1

0 %

1

0 %

InfoSpace

1

0 %

1

0 %

ix quick

1

0 %

1

0 %

Netscape

 

 

2

0 %

Our top four non-blog referrers are:

http://www.reddit.com/          4,600+

http://www.buzzflash.net/      3,000+

http://www.care2.com/          1,600+

http://www.jabberwonk.com/    900+

Our top 15 blog referrers are:

http://crooksandliars.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

http://america-weeps.blogspot.com/

http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/

http://themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com/

http://annette-justmylittlepieceoftheworld.blogspot.com/

http://republic-of-gilead.blogspot.com/

http://whohijackedourcountry.blogspot.com/

http://jackjodell53.wordpress.com/

http://jbm479.blogspot.com/

http://infidel753.blogspot.com/

http://katieschwartz.com/

http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/

http://oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/

http://okjimmseggrollemporium.blogspot.com/

Here’s some linkey-love in return  The best ways you can publicize Politics Plus is to use the share button at the bottom of each post to list our articles on the the networking sites where you belong, and to quote PP articles on your own blogs.  The operative commandment here is “thou shalt steal.”  We’re on the same side here, so I don’t mind.  Even if you want to repost a whole article, that’s OK.  Just link back, please.  Also, feel free to swipe the graphics in the articles.

We have a new feature occasioned by a new plugin.  Unfortunately I screwed the pooch on this one.  The old month’s data disappears at midnight sharp on the 1st, so it’s up to me to grab it on the night of the 31st.  I just plain forgot.  Mea culpa.  I remember that Princess Lisa G was leading the pack with Jerry, Nameless and Mark close on her heels.

The widget is in the right column.  I don’t count, as I’m the resident big mouth.  Those who leave their URLs in their comments, get linkey love, or will if I can just remember this month. Embarrassed smile

Technorati remains a complete mystery to me.  Although, there is little to distinguish May from April, we’re solidly back on the A list. Our global authority, politics authority and US politics authority are all way up.  They started rating us for World (events) again.  I still have absolutely no idea why.

    • Global 523 (rank 2,455)
    • US politics 549 (rank 255)
    • Politics 532 (rank 328)
    • World 434 (rank 439)

We have 416,463 links on other websites, well up from 376,576 last month.

We have 2,380 posts and 18,192 comments, as of midnight 6/1.

We have new wacky avatars, and I’ll change them each month, but I recommend your own avatar. Go to Gravatar.  Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use.  Whenever you comment under that e mail address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that will be your avatar.

I had hoped for an increase from last month, but it’s springtime, and political blogs tend to slow down for the winter months in non-election years.  We did not have a viral article.  Your participation remains what makes this blog worth reading, not to mention worth writing.  Thank you all for all you do here.

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Monthly Report for April 2011

 Posted by at 1:49 am  Blog News, Monthly Report
May 022011
 

In April, Politics Plus ran well behind March’s record setting performance.  We can’t be stars every month, and it was still a good solid month.

Here are our basic stats:

vv4-11

Here is our most recent Clustrmap, last updated on April 28.

map4-11

Our Clustrmap reset the morning of 2/28, starting over from scratch, so the above map represents just two months’ traffic. The largest circles represent over 1,000 visits.  The tiniest represent one to ten.

Our durations were up from 170 seconds last month:

Number of visits: 35721 – Average: 183 s

Number of visits

Percent

0s-30s

29402

82.3 %

30s-2mn

1797

5 %

2mn-5mn

1123

3.1 %

5mn-15mn

1177

3.2 %

15mn-30mn

794

2.2 %

30mn-1h

815

2.2 %

1h+

486

1.3 %

Unknown

127

0.3 %

That’s expected, because we also had fewer drive-by visitors.

Search engine referrals fell somewhat.

20 different referring search engines

Pages

Percent

Hits

Percent

Stumbleupon (Social Bookmark)

10517

71.9 %

16137

71.3 %

Google

3344

22.8 %

5458

24.1 %

Microsoft MSN Search

361

2.4 %

361

1.5 %

Yahoo!

110

0.7 %

145

0.6 %

Microsoft Bing

78

0.5 %

149

0.6 %

Microsoft Windows Live

44

0.3 %

152

0.6 %

Google (Images)

40

0.2 %

60

0.2 %

Unknown search engines

33

0.2 %

33

0.1 %

AOL

27

0.1 %

27

0.1 %

Ask

22

0.1 %

22

0 %

Digg (Social Bookmark)

19

0.1 %

40

0.1 %

MyWebSearch

3

0 %

5

0 %

Yandex

3

0 %

24

0.1 %

Earth Link

2

0 %

2

0 %

Dogpile

2

0 %

2

0 %

Scroogle

2

0 %

2

0 %

Searchalot

1

0 %

1

0 %

Virgilio

1

0 %

1

0 %

Kvasir

1

0 %

1

0 %

Go.com

 

 

1

0 %

Our top five non-blog referrers are:

http://www.reddit.com/ 6,900+

http://buzzflash.net/ 2,600+

http://www.facebook.com/ 2,100+

http://www.care2.com/ 2,000+

http://www.jabberwonk.com/ 1,100+

Our top 15 referrer blogs are:

http://america-weeps.blogspot.com/

http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/

http://themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com/

http://annette-justmylittlepieceoftheworld.blogspot.com/

http://republic-of-gilead.blogspot.com/

http://whohijackedourcountry.blogspot.com/

http://blogagainsttheocracy.blogspot.com/

http://infidel753.blogspot.com/

http://www.jackjodell.blogspot.com/

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/

http://reconstitution.us/rcnew/

http://jbm479.blogspot.com/

http://katieschwartz.com/

http://oakcreekforum.blogspot.com/

http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/

http://carolinaparrothead.blogspot.com/

http://freakoutnation.com/

There are two extra due to a three way tie for 15th.  There’s some linkey-love in return  The best ways you can publicize Politics Plus is to use the share button at the bottom of each post to list our articles on the the sites where you belong, and to quote PP articles on your own blogs.  The operative commandment here is “thou shalt steal.”  We’re on the same side here, so I won’t mind.  Even if you want to repost a whole article, that’s OK.  Just link back, please.  Also, feel free to swipe the graphics.

We have a new feature occasioned by a new plugin.  Our top 10 commenters are:

Jerry Critter (66)

TWM (61)

Lisa G. (54)

SoINeedAName (47)

Patty (31)

Jack Jodell (27)

Phyllis (21)

Jack Jodell53 (18)

Blue (17)

Zada Shindelar (16)

tnlib (14)

The widget is in the right column.  I don’t count, as I’m the resident big mouth.  Those who leave their URLs in their comments, get linkey love.  The extra one is because Pope Jack hasn’t decided who he is. 😉

Technorati was even stranger last month.  Our global authority is up, but politics is down, US politics is down, and they stopped rating us on World.  Sadly, we’re back to the B list.  I still have absolutely no idea why.

    • Global 467 (rank 3,566)
    • US politics 473 (rank 282)
    • Politics 456 (rank 506)

We have 376,576 links on other websites, well up from 289,640 last month.

We have 2,258 posts and 17,197 comments, as of midnight 5/1.

We have new wacky avatars, and I’ll change them each month, but I recommend your own avatar. Go to Gravatar.  Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use.  Whenever you comment under that e mail address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that will be your avatar.

After the stunning numbers last month, this month’s  decrease surprise.  We did not have a viral article. Things often drop off at the beginning of Spring, and I trust this month will be better.  Your participation is what makes this blog worth reading, not to mention worth writing.  Thank you all for all you do.

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Open Thread–4/13/2011

 Posted by at 2:49 am  Monthly Report, Open Thread
Apr 132011
 

Yesterday I recovered from doing taxes and worked on volunteer projects.  I’m up to date on comments.  Today I co-facilitate a therapy group for former prisoners, so I’m staying too busy.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:25 (average 5:09).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From AP/Google: Last fall, when Democrats and President Barack Obama supported nearly $450 billion in Medicare cuts as part of their health care law, Republicans in the House vigorously criticized the effort.

In a postelection turnaround, House Republicans are backing the cuts to Medicare called for in the 2012 budget proposed by Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan. Those cuts account for a significant share of the $5.8 trillion Ryan claims his budget will save over the next decade.

To correct ongoing Republican lies, these were not cuts in benefits to retirees.  They were very small cuts to providers and mostly eliminating the 15% extra to Medicare Advantage plans.

From Alternet: In the final hours of the state’s 2011 legislative season, Maryland made history when it became the twelfth state to pass a law granting undocumented immigrant students the right to pay in-state tuition at the state’s four-year colleges.

Kudos to Maryland for countering red state racism.:

From Think Progress: In response to Kasich’s disastrous reign, Democratic state Reps. Mike Foley and Bob Hagan will introduce legislation this week to make Ohio the 20th state to allow voters to remove and replace state officials, including the governor and legislators.

Why wait until next week?  Last week would be better.

Cartoon:

Clay Bennett

Happy hump day!

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