Doug Berger – Page 143

August 18, 2007April 18, 2020

Big Ten Conference profiting from tax payers

Jim Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten Conference and the member schools decided to create a cable TV network to showcase the conference’s cash cows – football and basketball games.

Exclusive television deals aren’t unusual. Notre Dame has had an exclusive deal with NBC for many years to broadcast its football games each fall. What is different is that the Big Ten Network (BTN) will be on cable and no local broadcast stations will be able to show games slated for the BTN.

The network is slated to start on August 30th but as of now BTN only has coverage on 20% of the cable audience available in the conference’s region. One of major cable providers in Ohio – Time Warner – has refused to carry the channel.

The problem is that not only does BTN want to charge $1.10 per subscriber but also is insisting that cable providers put the channel on Basic cable. The cable providers say that BTN is a niche channel – that only a limited number of people would be interested and so it should be on a sports tier where fans would pay extra.

Delany and BTN President Mark Silverman countered:

…it’s ridiculous to banish BTN to a sports tier when channels such as Versus, the Golf Channel and Sports Time Ohio—not to mention Food Network, Animal Planet and HGTV—have homes on expanded basic.
“There’s already niche networks all over expanded basic,” Delany said. “I get 70 channels at home, and I watch about 12 of them.”
Playing Defense: Jim Delany knows if you can’t watch the Buckeyes, he’ll get the blame

I don’t have a problem with the conference having a TV deal because such deals pass on funding to all member schools. I do think that such schools, a majority state supported, should not be allowed to put their games on cable TV. Such games should be available, for free, on TV.

I help pay for the programs through my tax dollars and I am being asked to pay for cable to see the games.

August 14, 2007April 18, 2020

Tooting my own horn

I wanted to post about updates to two of my blogs.

iHumanism – narrowly focused on Humanism. Available since 1999, it was previously a standard HTML based site but has now been converted to a blog using WordPress. Content includes articles, essays, and commentary on Humanism, which is my life stance.

Most recent post talks about something called “vague theism” that is causing issues within the Humanist movement.

The Review Geek – basically a review style blog. It offers commentary on media offerings from TV to music to film and culture. I use the new Movable Type version 4.

Most recent post talks about the show “Feasting on Asphalt 2: The River Run” showing on the Food Network.

I really have no social life and am quite pale, so check them out if you have time.

August 7, 2007April 18, 2020

Dems bend over for a lame duck President – again

Remember all the brouhaha about warantless eavesdropping by the NSA that President Bush kept arguing was needed to “fight terrorism”? Remember how the Democratic leadership went nuts and threatened legal action and hearings etc… etc..?

If not read this NSA warrantless surveillance controversy

Well in an about face, some Dems broke ranks and voted to approve S. 1927 that now makes such wiretapping “legal”.

The bill passed the Senate 60 to 28 (16 Democrats sold out our rights) and passed the House 227 to 183 (with 43 Democrats selling us out).

The bill allows the government to intercept phone calls and e-mails from anyone including US citizens as long as there is some thread of connection to terrorism. It also removed oversight of the taps from the secret FISA court and gave it to the Attorney General – the guys who likes to lie to Congress.

The bill, listed on the House roll call list, is titled “Protect America Act” but they left off the rest. The full title should be “Protect America Act from stupid terrorists who use common methods to transmit information about their activities”.

The point of some Democrats passing the bill is summed up in this quote:

They also appeared worried about the political repercussions of being perceived as interfering with intelligence gathering. But the disputes were significant enough that they are likely to resurface before the end of the year.
House Approves Changes in Eavesdropping

Once again the Dems bend over for a lame duck President with a 28% approval rating – amazing.

For more info on this stupid action check out:

Why I won’t contribute to the DCCC

Senate Democrats Bend Over, Hand Bush The K-Y And Vote For Warrantless Wiretaps For No Reason Other Than Craven Cowardice

August 3, 2007April 18, 2020

I’ve won a prize

A few months back I entered the Humanist Vision contest sponsored by the American Humanist Association. The challenge was to create a “commercial” about Humanism and post it on YouTube. There was prize money involved and the goodwill of the Humanist movement.

My entry was based on a slideshow I am working on for my local Humanist group.

I didn’t win the top prizes but my entry did get Honorable Mention. That meant that not only was my entry shown at the AHA Conference in Portland, back in June, but that I also got a book from Humanist Press. The book I got was “Freethought Across the Centuries: Toward a New Age of Enlightenment” by Gerald A Larue.

I haven’t agreed with everything Larue has written in the past but the book is an interesting look at the history of Freethought.

So here is my winning entry as posted on YouTube:

August 2, 2007April 18, 2020

New Orleans residents who had insurance policies that excluded water damage lose in court

Saw this on the net today:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Katrina victims whose homes and businesses were destroyed when floodwaters breached levees in the 2005 storm cannot recover money from their insurance companies for the damages, a federal appeals court ruled today.
“This event was excluded from coverage under the plaintiffs’ insurance policies, and under Louisiana law, we are bound to enforce the unambiguous terms of their insurance contracts as written,” Judge Carolyn King wrote for a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
As a result, the panel found those who filed the suit “are not entitled to recover under their policies,” she said.
More than a dozen insurance companies, including Allstate and Travelers, were defendants.
The decision overturns a ruling by U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr., who in November sided with policyholders arguing that language excluding water damage from some of their insurance policies was ambiguous.
Duval said the policies did not distinguish between floods caused by an act of God — such as excessive rainfall — and floods caused by an act of man, which would include the levee breaches following Katrina’s landfall.
But the appeals panel concluded that “even if the plaintiffs can prove that the levees were negligently designed, constructed, or maintained and that the breaches were due to this negligence, the flood exclusions in the plaintiffs’ policies unambiguously preclude their recovery.”
Court rules against Katrina victims in flood insurance case

Who in their right mind would NOT buy insurance that covers flood damage if you live in a flood prone area like the bowl we call New Orleans?

No one would.

Then again, if you live in a flood prone area – you can’t get regular insurance coverage for water damage. You must buy flood insurance from the federal government.

My guess is average people don’t know that and I also guess that some of that info may have been withheld so the broker could make a sale on the policy. It wouldn’t be the first time.