we saw that...

st elmo's fire love theme instrumental by david foster

a nice tune to end the year on.

EXTERNAL LINK

hoak / kalb & cbs 2 tweet that they have reached an agreement with suddenlink

via: twitter @kalbtv5 ||| view tweet

**ATTENTION VIEWERS** Suddenlink and Hoak Media Corporation have reached an agreement to continue its partnership and transmit the KALB-TV and CBS2 signal. We apologize for any inconvenience the negotiation process has caused you and thank you for your support.

aww hell. we were really looking forward to channel 5 getting whacked tomorrow night.

EXTERNAL LINK

r.i.p. "dixie"

dixie was a sweet dog. extremely timid around people and other dogs -- except puppies. she never had any but loved playing with them.

she seldom left the porch -- except to occasionally engage in perhaps her one vice -- barking at and chasing the cattle around the pasture.

sometimes when she approached, the cows would stand around and look back and forth at each other apparently amused at her aymondesque yapping. other times they would play along and run around like a grizzly bear was after them.

it's unknown what caused her demise. her remains were found in the cow pasture. it didnt appear that she suffered. there were no signs of any sort of trauma or injury.

dixie is interred in the family pet cemetery alongside all the other honored dead, including umpteen dogs, at least one steer and chickens, geese, goats, pigs, guineas, fish and peafowl.

EXTERNAL LINK

mike magnoli makes his way home to connecticut

we can always tell when former kalb tv-5 reporter mike magnoli is up to something. a couple of weeks ago we noticed a surge of lafayette, louisiana googlers wondering what happened to him.

then, last week we began receiving googlers from connecticut looking for information about him, so it didnt take long to figure out that he had joined the "news" team at hartford, connecticut's fox affiliate.

while mr. magnoli was at kalb, we always felt like he was sincere in attempting to report actual news which of course clashed with kalb's policy of suppressing and covering up real news to report fluff instead.

we were surprised that he lasted as long as he did in alexandria and werent taken aback at all when he soon vanished from the airwaves and kalb's website to later turn up down south at lafayette's katc.

we would chide him for taking a job with a faux newz outfit but a job's a job, especially in this economy, right?

anyway, we continue to wish him much success in his career.

EXTERNAL LINK

eastern hoolock gibbon born christmas day at the santa clarita california gibbon conservation center

we've found ourselves on another wildlife oriented email list. this time on one from the gibbon conservation center (gcc for short) located in santa clarita, california.

this evening, the gcc emailed these photos to announce the christmas day birth of "alan mootnick," an eastern hoolock gibbon.

the little guy gets his name from the founder of the center, alan richard mootnick, who passed away, aged 60, on 04 november 2011, from complications of heart surgery.

according to the information from the link (below) that the gcc provided in their email, the eastern hoolock gibbon is native to southern china (western yunnan) and northeastern myanmar.

His mother's name is Phy Gyi and his father's name is Arthur. Alan is this bonded pair's first infant.

His mother began exhibiting signs of labor on December 24th.

Gabi, the Gibbon Conservation Center's Lead Primate Keeper, checked on her at 11:00 PM on Christmas Eve. Phy Gyi was in her sleeping box and she was quiet.

At 6:30 AM on Christmas morning, Phy Gyi was holding her new infant.

Phy Gyi allows Arthur, the father, to observe and touch Alan. Both the mother and infant are doing very well.

The GCC is one of the few institutions in the world that breeds this species outside of their country of origin.

This site contains additional information about this highly unique species:
http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/39877/0

Please join the GCC family in welcoming "little" Alan Mootnick to the Gibbon Conservation Center.

We believe that "big" Alan Mootnick is smiling down upon him.

EXTERNAL LINK

third circuit court of appeal quashes city of lafayette attempt at property expropriation ... this one time

released moments ago...

The litigation arises from efforts by the Lafayette, Louisiana City-Parish Consolidated Government (City-Parish) to acquire title to immovable property owned by Jeffrey and Sheila Person by expropriation for the purpose of extending an existing road into a residential subdivision in the City of Lafayette.

The Persons appeal the trial court judgment allowing the City-Parish to acquire title to the disputed property by expropriation.

For the following reasons, we reverse the trial court judgment and render judgment in favor of the Persons, rejecting the City-Parish‟s attempt to use the power of expropriation in this instance.

EXTERNAL LINK

suddenlink: hoak media kalb tv-5 & cbs 2 want a 200% + raise in their pay!

UPDATE: 30 december 2011 hoak / kalb & cbs 2 tweet that they have reached an agreement with suddenlink

via: twitter @suddenlink ||| view tweet

LATEST INFORMATION

We are negotiating a new contract with Hoak Media, which owns several TV stations, including KALB, KNOE, and KAQY.

Many of you have told us you enjoy watching one or more of these TV stations and want us keep them on your lineup. We want the same thing. In fact, over the last several years, we have enjoyed a good relationship with Hoak and its stations.

Unfortunately, they are now asking for a greater than 200% raise in their pay.

That’s not fair and not justified, especially in this economy. If you’re not getting a 200% raise, neither should they.

What’s more, in the last two months, we have negotiated new contracts with more than 60 other companies representing more than 100 other TV stations. None of them have asked for increases on the scale that Hoak is demanding.

Please contact Hoak and its TV stations at the numbers listed below. Ask them to be reasonable in their demands and, at the very least, to consider extending their current contract with Suddenlink until a new one can be signed.

Extending the contract we have today guarantees that Hoak continues to get paid and — most importantly of all — that you continue to have access to their TV stations.

Contact Information

Hoak Corporate Office: 972-960-4848

KALB: 318-445-2456

KNOE and KAQY: 318-388-8888

EXTERNAL LINK

"this is my story" the ben breedlove videos part 1 & 2

via: twitter @katctv3

A Texas teenager who said he cheated death three times despite a dangerous heart condition died Christmas night... view tweet

UPDATE: a few googlers have arrived here from googling was ben breedlove a christian. we dont know the answer to that -- however, in his "about me" vid from his breedlovetv youtube channel, he states that "probably one of the most important things to me in life would be god...i try to make it to church every sunday. that's very important to me."

EXTERNAL LINK

kim jong-il funeral video

besides being great actors, the north koreans also have a nice collection of classic lincoln continental motor cars.

EXTERNAL LINK

c-span 2011 local content vehicles cities tour @ baton rouge & governor huey long

UPDATED 31 december 2011

www.c-span.org/LocalContent
====

Uploaded by CSPAN on Dec 27, 2011

We visit the state Capitol built by Governor Huey Long with Former Louisiana Speaker of the House, Hunt Downer. He shows us where the Governor was gunned down, explains what may have happened that day, and tells us why the Governor was such a controversial politician.

====
see also
c-span youtube channel

LCV Cities Tour
Baton Rouge: Robert Mann, "Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds"
====
Baton Rouge: Correspondence Book of Gov. Claiborne
====
Baton Rouge: Hill Memorial Library at LSU on "The Bloody Book"
====
Baton Rouge: Leo Honeycutt
====
Baton Rouge: Preserving Plaquemine Lock
====
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Archives
====
related posts

huey long's phallus

interesting write-up of huey pierce long

leo honeycutt interview about his edwin edwards authorized biography book

====

EXTERNAL LINK

taliban claims to have downed american drone in southeastern afghanistan

originally aired from 5:30 pm tehran time /// 2:00 pm london time // 8:00 am cst

nato headquarters in kabul confirms to press tv the crash of a u.s. spy drone in paktia province. the taliban posted a statement on their website claiming that their fighters brought the drone down. nato, however, claims that technical problems caused the drone to crash.

press tv correspondent fayez khorshid says that taliban militants have brought down many u.s. drones as well as u.s. led helicopters.

u.s. officials have called on pakistan to reveal its secret military intelligence. washington claims that it needs the information to avoid situations similar to last month's attack in which twenty-four pakistani soldiers were killed.

a suspected cia spy goes on trial in iran. amir hekmati a u.s. citizen of iranian origin is said to have been sent to iran with the intention of infiltrating iran's intelligence ministry.

iranian naval war game drills begin tactical phase. iran's navy has begun the second phase of its drills in international waters beyond the srait of hormuz at the mouth of the persian gulf.

israel protests. a large crowd of secular jews is expected to protest against ultra-orthodox jews who have recently clashed with police over their demands for strict gender segregation and modest dress for women.

palestinians mark the third anniversary of the twenty-two day onslaught conducted against them by the secular jews.

press tv correspondent hassan ghani is live from london where many are gathered outside the israeli embassy to protest on the anniversary of the gaza war.

EXTERNAL LINK

santa claus is comin' to town - bruce springsteen and the e street band 2007

he's making a list; he's checking it twice; gonna find out who's naughty or nice...

EXTERNAL LINK

criminals on the loose at the alexandria, la. mall

via: cenlabriarpatch.com

now if the police and military would only use the usa patriot act, the military commissions act of 2006, fisa, sections 1031 and 1032 etc of the national defense authorization act of fiscal year 2012 to rapidly round up, try and execute criminals like these (as well as the criminals on the loose in our local, state and federal governments) no one would have a problem with such laws.

EXTERNAL LINK

rejected nissan advertisement

received this clip via email of an advertisement (super bowl?) for nissan automobiles which for some reason was rejected ....

EXTERNAL LINK

merry christmas from oak alley plantation 2011

we received this christmas card from oak alley today:

EXTERNAL LINK

youtube reinstates wesawthat... youtube channel!

two years ago this coming february, our youtube channel was "terminated" due to several copyright claims and the claim that broke the camel's back so to speak, was the one filed by the national football league through their nfl properties llc against our posting of the awarding of the vince lombardi trophy to the new orleans saints immediately after their winning super bowl xliv clip.

we promptly contacted the national football league attempting to make things right. we asked that they reverse their copyright claim so that we could get our account restored and at that we would delete our clip(s) that offended them.

the nfl's lawyer laughed in our face.

so we assumed that our account and its over 3 million views of nearly 1,000 video clips (at least one making international news) were lost forever.

one day a couple of months ago, out of the blue, we received an email from youtube soliciting us to "monetize" our youtube account. we promptly wrote back asking what gives? as our account had been terminated.

youtube support responded with the below email that set forth the copyright penalty-strikes against our account and that we needed to get at least one removed in order for our account to be reinstated.

so we filed counterclaims on all three penalty-strikes. the fourth penalty:

Penalty 4:
"former louisiana senate sec'y michael baer dies"
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 06/11/2009.

a community guidelines penalty-strike and not a copyright penalty-strike -- was obviously in error as it is merely a news report on the death of a prominent louisiana politician.

currently, when you file a copyright counterclaim, the claimant has ten days upon receipt of the counterclaim to file a federal complaint against you to stop the counterclaim.

copyright counterclaims filed on youtube at least, you are given a box to type in a message to the claimant. in each counterclaim we stated that while we believed that our posting of the clip was pursuant to the "fair use" exemption to the copyright law -- to please allow our counterclaim to go through so that we could get our youtube channel back and in return that we would delete their video. which we promptly did this morning first thing after receiving our reinstatement email from youtube.

we believe that the federal rules of civil procedure, allow federal complainants to serve their complaints via certified postal mail, so you can imagine that everyday for the past few weeks when the mail would come was a very anxious time for us.
so thank you nfl properties, llc.; nbc universal and media2air inc., for not suing us and thank you youtube for reinstating our channel.

EXTERNAL LINK

developing: louisiana college denied reaffirmation of accreditation and placed on warning for 12 months by sacscoc

we cant help but wonder how that goof and liar over at the so called baptist message, kelly boggs, is gonna spin this...

this story is developing on cenlamar.com click here to learn more.

wake up you stupid, pathetic, cowardly baptists ... stop listening to your pulpit pimp pastors and celebrity preacherticians and read the scriptures yourselves ... cant you see that louisiana college is being destroyed on purpose?

EXTERNAL LINK

hello hooper, nebraska

hooper bay, alaska we'd heard of before, but until we received a recent visitor from hooper, nebraska ...

according to this informative article in the new york times, "hooper -- population 827, more or less -- [got] its [name] either from an otherwise forgotten railroad official or from a man who won an uphill wagon race, and, with it, naming rights.

founded as a railroad depot in 1876, it grew to become a hub for farmers raising corn, soybeans and livestock — a point of interest along U.S. 275."

the new york times article states how the nebraska department of roads recently built a highway bypass around hooper, thereby depriving them of a lot of through traffic from travelers headed north to norfolk or south to omaha.

not to be outdone, the good people there banded together; took up a collection to erect that huge phallus highway sign to garner the attention and hopefully curiosity of passersby.

we like these people already.

anyway, other hooper's of the human persuasion that we're likely kin to -- although proving it on paper is nigh impossible -- thanks mostly to the war of northern aggression and all the records destruction it wrought, include:

william hooper (1742 - 1790) - a founding father and signer of the declaration of independence. hooper earned his law degree from harvard university back when a harvard law degree actually meant something. he was appointed a federal judge by president washington and served for a short period before his untimely death aged 48. he was a protégé of founding father james otis.

mr. otis was the guy who popularized the phrase "taxation without representation is tyranny." otis also believed that the african slaves should be equal to everyone else.

thomas hooper (1788 - 1851) - personal secretary to city of alexandria, louisiana founder alexander fulton - or so we've been told. after mr. fulton died, hooper married his widow, mary henrietta wells fulton.

EXTERNAL LINK

taylor swift covergirl mascara ad banned for excessive photoshopping

the national advertising division banned the above ad due to taylor swift's eyelashes being excessively photoshopped.

"You can't use a photograph to demonstrate how a cosmetic will look after it is applied to a woman’s face and then–in the mice type–have a disclosure that says 'okay, not really,'" NAD director Andrea Levine tells Business Insider.

Procter & Gamble, which has admitted to enhancing models' lashes in the past, has agreed to remove the ad. ~ read more

the proctor and gamble soap plant hard at work in kingsville, louisiana. they make soap to wash your clothes not your brains with.

EXTERNAL LINK

gannett/the town talk seeks to protect "thecleartruth" anonymous commenter alleged to be controversial alexandria la attorney thomas davenport

in the latest installment of the davenport vs slayter and slayter vs davenport internet defamation litigation -- two extremely contentious lawsuits which have generated massive public interest -- gannett/the alexandria daily town talk a/k/a alexandria newspapers, inc., recently -- through their attorney, andrew p. texada, of the alexandria, la., stafford, stewart & potter law firm, filed a motion and accompanying memorandum for a protective order and to quash a subpoena mr. slayter had served on them for the production of, amongst other things, account information of several past town talk anonymous commenters including:

"thecleartruth;" "thecrazyone2011;" "bigmouth2010;" "speakupnow;" "triplefun4me" and "damnshame123."

we suppose that gannett and the town talk really have no choice but to fight the subpoena -- what with all the fallout gannett received a couple of years ago over their wausau daily herald screw-up.

in any event, the town talk recently switched over to requiring their commenters to log in to and comment through their facebook account.

as we understand it, mr. davenport has maintained all along that he is not one or any of the above anonymous commenters. however, it must be noted that he sure has waged a hard fought and expensive legal battle to keep that information from being released. hmmmmm.

EXTERNAL LINK

slide it in

when you're a rethuglican (and zionist) propaganda blog -- especially one arising out of louisiana, it might not be such a good idea to use the word "diapers" in the title of a post.

nevertheless, the sixty-three second video embedded there is worth a look.

by the way, if you're interested in acquiring a dash or windshield mounted camera similar to the one in the video there is a distributor in indiana -- ultimate gadgets, that carries them. we havent bought one of these type cameras from them, (if we had one we probably would have caught this traffic accident on video) but we can vouch for their outstanding customer service.

EXTERNAL LINK

time to dump suddenlink internet access?

friday (16 december 2011) morning we were listening to the ksyl talk back 970 with fred & bob program, when news reader and station engineer, dave graichen interrupted to mention suddenlink internet access service and that

"they're one of the first cable companies in the country that are going to start charging you if you go over a certain amount of downloads if you have their internet service, it really, truly sucks and if you're not aware of what they're going to do it's really going to cost a lot of money for folks -- especially if you are one of these people who uses netflix or any any one of those services that you download movies -- you'll go over your limit very, very quickly ... so get ready."

link to audio page
naturally this caught our attention because we use suddenlink and we like to upload lots of video clips and high resolution photos and audio clips.


as you can see the letter has a link to "visit" to learn more from: suddenlink.com/allowanceplan/

we dont use netflix or anything similar to download movies from, so that's not really a concern but we do enjoy watching youtube clips and programs on hulu as well as listening to audio .mp3 files and according to the below monthly activity examples graph these all (as well as emails) count towards the monthly usage allowance.


we love the wording in how suddenlink chose to open their letter: "to further enhance your internet experience, a monthly usage allowance will be put into place for all residential (non-business) suddenlink accounts in your area, effective in the next few weeks."

we know that we're not that smart so we hope that someone preferably from suddenlink corporate would explain how exactly by placing a monthly usage allowance on our internet access -- that is enhancing our internet experience?

according to the suddenlink.com allowance plan web page here you can monitor your internet usage "by logging in to your online account at suddenlink.net, choosing 'my account,' and then choosing 'my internet usage summary.'"

we've had cable internet or broadband since the summer of 2005, it was cox then and for the previous five years we had msn dialup and was pretty pleased with msn apart from the obvious drawback of it tying up the telephone line. we've also been pleased with suddenlink.

however, we'd never registered an online account with either cox or suddenlink. we dont even have a cox or suddenlink email address.

registering an account is pretty easy though -- you'll need your statement in order to get your account number and pin from.

after you do that click on "my internet usage summary."

we already knew that we had the cheapest available internet access plan of 10.0mbps and according to suddenlink's letter that plan now "entitles" us to a 250 gb monthly allowance.


there are a variety of ways that you can check your internet usage.

it seems that suddenlink is being truthful in that our internet usage from the information available is well below our new 250 gb monthly allotment.

this may seem all well and good for now, but one thing we've noticed over the course of our 11 1/2 years of being netizens is that the internet is constantly changing. back then most websites were simple .html affairs that only required a couple 100 kb to download.

now most websites are extremely complex and many contain video and audio and other programs all of which have to be downloaded in order to navigate and/or display properly. so it's possible that in the not too distant future someone could use up 250 gb in a matter of days or weeks just from normally navigating the web.

it's unclear to us whether or not the louisiana public service commission had to approve this new monthly internet usage allowance. if you go to their website and look under the telecommunications tab you can see that it hasnt been updated with news and so forth in years.

yesterday we received a couple of retweets in our timeline marking what would have been the occasion of the late comedian bill hicks' 50th birthday. one such retweet was a tweet by keith olbermann which was his tribute to hicks containing containing several clips of his stand up act -- one in particular, in which hicks tells marketing people that they should kill themselves; we couldnt agree with more.

EXTERNAL LINK

deville man arrested on a disturbing the peace charge at alexandria city hall

details are sketchy surrounding the 22 november 2011 arrest at alexandria city hall of willard mcbrayer, 50 of deville, louisiana for, according to the alexandria police department: violating La. R.S. 14:103 - disturbing the peace.

according to La. R.S. 14:103B.(1) "whoever commits the crime of disturbing the peace shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned for not more than ninety days, or both."

the only information available is the La. R.S. 44:3A(4) a: Initial Report released this morning to wst... by the city in response to an La. R.S. 44:1 et seq., public records request.

city attorney and public records custodian charles johnson invoked the legal exceptions regarding the release of any information beyond the initial report -- which is of course his right and probably duty to do so.

anyway, for the record his initial response:

The City of Alexandria is not in possession of any public records which are responsive to your request except the initial report. As to all other documents, the City herein invokes the exemptions noted in 44:3 (1) and (3). These are records pertaining to pending criminal litigation and records containing security procedures etc. You may view the initial report at your leisure in my office.

so we requested and received the initial report.

according to that report the disturbance was witnessed by city attorney charles johnson and the investigating officer was cpl. darrell bradley. it's unknown, at least to wst... for now, if mcbrayer is or was a city employee -- this is likely due to the La. R.S. 44:3(4)(a)(b)(i)narrative description of the alleged offense being sorely lacking in well descriptiveness.

rapides parish jail records show that mcbrayer was booked in and released from there on a $250 bond the same day of 22 november 2011. we're attempting to find out if this case is being litigated in the alexandria city court or ninth judicial district court.

EXTERNAL LINK

senator david vitter live telephonic town hall meeting

we dont support subversive, treasonous, traitorous senator david vitter at all -- however, having said that we have to give him credit for being pretty darn clever in getting his propaganda out.

this evening at 4:11 p.m., cst, we received a telephone call and on the caller id it read "tele town hall 253-236-2011." we thought that it was some sort of robo-call similar to what we've posted before. so we switched on the recorder and got jumped in to some sort of live telephonic town hall meeting.

unfortunately, around 30 minutes in, the call for whatever reason disconnected.

that's too bad because our question to the senator had to do with the federal reserve. if we had the opportunity to have asked, it would have went something like this:

hello senator vitter -- as you know the federal reserve was created by the unconstitutional federal reserve act of 1913 and furthermore the federal reserve is not a federal agency -- in fact it is a privately owned central bank which creates federal reserve notes out of nothing, backed by nothing and at interest.

this was all proven as far back as the 1950's due to the painstaking research by eustace mullins in his book 'the secrets of the federal reserve.'

so my question is -- would you lead the way and/or support an effort to repeal the federal reserve act of 1913 - if so why and if not why?

link to audio download page

EXTERNAL LINK

controversial alexandria, la. attorney thomas davenport elected unopposed to the democratic parish executive committee

via: twitter @louisiana_sos
view tweet
since mr. davenport is now an elected official that would seem to make him a public person.

other local democrats elected at-large and unopposed to the rapides parish, dpec include, richard e. "dick" lee, rosia g. metoyer, helen w. moore, mary l. wardsworth.

district a - jonathan b. dean, district b - federal jail bird no: 07929-035, district c has no candidates, district d - angelina b. iles, district e - chris roy, sr., district f - gerber m. porter and district - g thomas d. davenport.

see the secretary of state's website for the complete list including the rethugs.

EXTERNAL LINK

"ode to the welfare state"

via rense.com a scan of the friday, 04 november 1949, daily news (new york).

the intro reads:

mr. truman's st. paul, minn., pie-for-everybody speech last night reminded us that, at the tail-end of the recent session of congress, representative clarence j. brown (r-ohio) jammed into the congressional record the following poem, describing its author only as "a prominent democrat of the state of georgia":

EXTERNAL LINK

alex cenla: alexandria, la pawn shop featured in tv program

new history channel television series will be set in a local pawn shop - according to this alex cenla scoop.

UPDATE: More breaking news on Cajun Pawn Stars. Official press release.

EXTERNAL LINK