In Financial Disclosure, President Obama Puts A Price Tag On Bo

The dog’s only worth $1600? His pedigree must stink!

This is truly reportage that cries out for the justice of guaranteed monthly subscription payments to TIME-Warner.

…’cuz magazine print makes a better dog trainer than a laptop???

So Stuart, in your pay-the-reporter model, you would dock my salary when I write about the dog?

Good photo, Michael. Did Obama fail to mention all the free cookies lovely Amy baked for the family? Did he invest in mortgage CDO’s or Greek debt? I’ll be happy to ruin any upcoming RW jokes about Bo’s “water dog” breed, Ted Kennedy, and Chappaquiddick by mentioning it first, spoiling the punch lines. You’re welcome. Is that photo featuring Bo’s staff? Is that “the football” on his adjutant’s lap? Maybe Bo really does have his own staff and Secret Service protection.

One would have thought the 1.4 mil “Nobel Prize money” would have gone to charity. The new global out reach program to “fundamentally transform America into the next Euro-Socialist” country. Or…
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Perhaps Obama invested it into the new Chicago Carbon Exchange (CCX) in hopes that the Cap and Tax bill gets passed. How did you miss that Michael? I’ll bet Franklin Raines put Obama on as a partner in the new technology being developed for the CCX.
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Of course 1.4 mil is a mere drop in the bucket to the 90 mil Raines raped and pillaged out of Fannie Mae.
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Yes, spreading the wealth is a difficult job, but someone has to do it.

Decon: Blowing up the unfunny before it happens.

I truly enjoy when MS takes on SZ. You gotta have moxie to do that. (Moxie is an old term now supplanted by balls).
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My observation is that it is no little reflection of the status, power, and limitless economic level of the Presidency that Obama can give away $1.4 million without blinking an eye. There’s more where that came from, right?

Maybe lawyermommydearest has proof that MS and SZ are the same person.

‘One would have thought the 1.4 mil “Nobel Prize money” would have gone to charity.’
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Perhaps instead of donating the money to charity (as MS’s post clearly states) he should have used it instead to establish a reading comprehension program for wingnuts.

Hmmm, interesting about Raines, Rusty. Yes, indeed Fannie tanked during his watch, but why pair him with Obama? Will you tell us or just leave us in the dark? Or are we to see this in black and white, not shades of gray? Or are we in the minority of those who don’t understand your Obama + Raines comparison?

“So Stuart, in your pay-the-reporter model, you would dock my salary when I write about the dog?”
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I’d recommend a virtual tip cup. Like a bartender, you take care of us, we take care of you.

lawyermommy me thinks is slightly schizoid even though she contributes some lucid comments occasionally. Weird. Definition of the mental disorder. We are all suspect, but I will never forget her rant on SZ, and am still scratching my head.

I want to see that dog’s birth certificate.

Michael Scherer:
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Thank you so much for responding to commentary; it is always greatly appreciated.
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in your pay-the-reporter model, you would dock my salary when I write about the dog?
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No, no, I simply wouldn’t contribute my hard-earned money to you for this story, once I was confronted with a “Pay The Author” click-able element next to your name.
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I would then also fail to link to this story in my social media posts, which would reduce the likelihood of it receiving further contributions from others, and of creating positive metrics in terms of advertisement-reception tracking.
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Let’s see, what’s maybe 20 readers willing to click-through an easy and transparent (everyone can see the contributions and totals) payment system, multiplied by $1, multiplied by 10 posts a day, multiplied by 300 days a year?
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Now, what’s maybe 100 readers willing to click-through an easy and transparent (everyone can see the contributions and totals) payment system, multiplied by $1, multiplied by 10 posts a day, multiplied by 300 days a year?
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The other side of this, too, is that, if this were one of your amazingly good pieces of thought and writing which expresses the interests of and is useful to news users, I would be literally out campaigning for you.
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In that scheme, I think that you might be slightly more incentivized to write up to the level of your talent and ability than if TIME-Warner just continues to pay your salary (and that of the useless editors who are employed to approve of this sort of waste) regardless of whether you put out tabloid crap or pieces in which you treat us with the respect we may deserve from time to time.
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No, I wouldn’t (even if I could) dock your salary for putting out stuff that should fill you on a melancholy day with shame and horror at the grim, finite nature of your time on earth, I would just withhold my financial support and argue with you in commentary until you regained your sense of self-worth, and posted that which you are capable of writing –and which we here in commentary are capable of reading.

I think lawyermommy produced photos of Stu in a bathing suit a while back. And he was a black woman. Which shows you can be anything you want on the internets.

Like a bartender, you take care of us, we take care of you.
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I would have said that, except then I wouldn’t have won the All-England Summarize Proust Competition, unlike this unfortunate gentleman who did not:

Voice Over: Good evening, and welcome to the Arthur Ludlow Memorial Baths, Newport, for this year’s finals of the All-England Summarize Proust Competition.
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(pull back slightly to reveal big banner across the top of the stage: ‘Alll-England Summarize Proust Competition’)
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As you may remember, each contestant has to give a brief summary of Proust’s ‘A La Recherche du Temps Perdu’, once in a swimsuit and once in evening dress. The field has now narrowed to three finalists…And right now it’s time to meet your host for tonight – Arthur Mee!
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(Showbiz music, applause, and Arthur Mee appears from the back of the stage; he wears the now traditional spangly jacket. He comes forward and speaks into the mike ; the sound is rather hollow and strident as in big halls with a hastily rigged PA.)
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Mee: Good evening and welcome, whereas Proust would say, ‘la malade imaginaire de recondition et de toute surveillance est bientôt la même chose’.
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(roars of applause; quick shot of grinning faces of the jury)
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Remember each contestant this evening has a maximum of fifteen seconds to sum up ‘A La Recherche du Temps Perdu’ and on the Proustometer over here…
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(curtain pulls back at back of stage to reveal a true, enormous, but cheap, audience appreciation gauge; it lists the seven books of Proust’s masterwork in the firm of a thermometer)
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…you can see exactly how far he gets. So let’s crack straight on with our first contestant tonight. He’s last year’s semi-finalist from Luton – Mr Harry Bagot.
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(Harry Bagot, in evening dress, comes forward from back of stage, he has a number three on his back; Mee leads the applause for him)
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Hello Harry. Now there’s the summarizing spoh you’re on the summarizing spot, fifteen seconds from now.
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(Music starts, continuity-type music. The needle of the Proustometer creeps up almost iraperceptibly to a tiny level.)
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Harry: Proust’s novel ostensibly tells of the irrevocability of time lost, the forfeiture of innocence through experience, the reinstatement of extra-temporal values of time regained, ultimately the novel is both optimistic and set within the context of a humane religious experience, re-stating as it does the concept of intemporality. in the first volume, Swarm, the family friend visits…
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(Gong goes, chord of rausic, applause. The meter has hardly risen at all.)
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Mee: Well tried, Harry.
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Voice Over: A good attempt there but unfortunately he chose a general appraisal of the work, before getting on to the story and as you can see…
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(close up of Proustometer)
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…he only got as far as page one of ‘Swarm’sWay’, the first of the seven volumes. A good try though and very nice posture…

I want to see Barack”s.

“A man up in Hyannis Port heard Michelle mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog, and, believe it or not, the day before we left for our first European trip we got a message saying they had a package for us. You know what it was?

It was a Portuguese water dog, in a crate that he had sent all the way from Massachussetts, all black, and our little girl Sasha, the eight year old, named it ‘Bo’.

And you know, the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it.”

“I think lawyermommy produced photos of Stu in a bathing suit a while back. And he was a black woman. Which shows you can be anything you want on the internets.”
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To steal JNS’ line, and “he was hot!”
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And SZ, I hear you about the overall quality of a given blog–supporting Digby or GG etc. At the same time, shouldn’t it be the blogger’s prerogative to post whatever the F s/he wants, up to/including tabloid fare? At the end of the day, under your rubric, we assess the overall product and choose/not to support them.
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I mean, sh!t, almost universally-revered KT posted a whole lot of 1000 words, and made her fair share of titillating sex scandal posts to boot. Doesn’t (entirely) take away from her otherwise quality work. PLUS, if the Swamp-cast didn’t put this pap out there regularly how would we get our self-righteous fix on?

2/3’s, go fly to Kenya and look it up, then report back to us. Just avoid flying thru Europe (volcanic ash clouds still a problem). Don’t use one of those airlines that charge for carryon bags.

Did Sasha originally name him “Checkers”?

I demand Secret Service agents in my backyard to quiet barking dogs belonging to idiot neighbors. I demand equality.

Oregon JC:
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shouldn’t it be the blogger’s prerogative to post whatever the F s/he wants, up to/including tabloid fare?
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Absolutely, I’m not sure how that contradicts the idea of putting a payment vehicle for users (“Pay the Author”) next to each post.
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You know, some tabloid posts are just too funny or weird or stupid to not to give up your cash to. I don’t think those exceptions would drive down income for the Author, they might even increase it slightly, depending on the blog.
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The open threads (that’s what KT’s “worth 1000 words” really were) will just stand on their own, depending on whether or not all of the clicks that come from the “openness” of the conversations translate into ad metrics or contributions.
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Believe me, if even the worshipfully-revered her highness the Empress Tumulty had put up another f-ing John Edwards’ Love Child post, she would have received no tithe from me!
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If we want to get our self-righeous fix on, they should post the contributer lists/amounts to the war-chests of national politicians…that would certainly qualify as “worth 1000 words”, don’t you think? Or, even better, pick a corporate entity, and list their political contributions…that should generate a thread or two. It would certainly contrast with the moneys shown by the the open payment system to have been contributed by readers, which might open debit cards a little more…

“I want to see Barack”s.”
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And you shall. The first day you are place in the internment camp for re-education.

Just as an example, I would probably give up some money of some sort to Scherer if he were to post a video of Morriessey reading Proust in response to my sarcasm.
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One would have thought the 1.4 mil “Nobel Prize money” would have gone to charity.
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Yes, one would have thought that, especially after one read the post:
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The second is a cash prize from the Nobel Foundation of about $1.4 million, which has been given to charity.

I realize you’re an idiot rustyblogwhore and, as pointed out by others, your reading comprehension is severely lacking. That being the case, I worked teh google for you and here is where the prize money went:

The most money — $250,000 — went to Fisher House, which provides housing for families of patients being cared for at major military and VA medical centers.
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The Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, which raises money for long-term relief efforts in Haiti following that country’s devastating earthquake, received $200,000.
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$125,000 went to six different charities:
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– College Summit, which partners with schools with the goal of increasing college enrollment;
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– The Posse Foundation, which awards scholarships to “public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes”;
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– The United Negro College Fund, which offers scholarship and internship programs for more than 60,000 students per year;
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– The Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which awards scholarships and offers outreach support to the Hispanic community;
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– The Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation, which offers scholarships and leadership curriculum to young people from Appalachia;
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– And the American Indian College Fund, which distributes scholarships to American Indian students and provides support for tribal college needs.
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Two charities were awarded $100,000 each. One is AfriCare, which offers programs in Africa addressing health and HIV/AIDS, food security and agriculture, and water resource development. The other is the Central Asia Institute, which promotes education and literacy in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan with a focus on education girls.

Yet another paranoid delusion put to rest.

Although a tip cup-like concept sounds good for entertainment, but, there are problems.
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First, there are cheapskates who will never admit that they like anything.
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Second, that does lead catering to the wealthiest just as our system already does.
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Third, if you could dock pay, we all know that Rusty would remove whatever he could to from the tip cup and donate it to his favorite charity, Guns for Tots. It’s a part of the NRA to make sure that preschool is made safer with automatic weapons for everybody.

“Fans of Glenn Beck will be either comforted or discomforted by the news that…”
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He still cries like the little b!tch that he is.
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His gold scam is taking money mostly from people we want to see parted with their money anyway.
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His nervous breakdown will probably happen on the air and that another Fox show (Family Guy) will make fun of it for profit.
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He still has no plans to ever tell the truth about anything.
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His followers will never be sent to re-education camps because you can’t re-educate someone who was never educated in the first place.

“So Stuart, in your pay-the-reporter model, you would dock my salary when I write about the dog?”
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You guys get PAID to write? You don’t just do it for fun like we do? Jumpin’ Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, I’m in the wrong business.

“..I’m in the wrong business…”
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Yeah, Kevin should do stand up comedy and you, Sacred, should write a Sitcom.

That was BRILLIANT!! 2thirds!! Love it.

Value of Bo: $1,600.00.
Monetary value of the Nobel Peace Prize: $1.4 million.
Seeing the right wing still fuming about Obama being President: Priceless.

“No, I wouldn’t (even if I could) dock your salary for putting out stuff that should fill you on a melancholy day with shame and horror at the grim, finite nature of your time on earth, I would just withhold my financial support and argue with you in commentary until you regained your sense of self-worth, and posted that which you are capable of writing –and which we here in commentary are capable of reading.”
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Well put. Though I still protest: The dog is not beneath me.

Stuart,
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Ironically, you are pressing the “pay him” button by reading and responding to this thread.
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This is what makes me laugh about posters who constantly post in threads about how something “is not news.” CNN.com is the worst, usually they just type it in all caps instead of giving a well reasoned response.
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Nonetheless, by doing this on every post you see here that you believe is not up to your standards, you are providing them with the revenue for approximately 5-6 page views. One to navigate to the blog (assuming a bookmark, two or three if not), one to load this post in full, one to respond, one to check back for his comment and one more to respond.
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If you want to vote with your dollars, stop reading posts that you think are worthless. This is the hilarious irony of the Internet. If a content creator can create a post that people read, and others whine about, he makes more money than if he just writes something everyone benignly agrees with and then moves on from.
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Eventually, if people actually voted with their “dollars” by choosing not to patronize posts that they think have no merit, the people in charge would dissuade journalists from making them. You clicking and telling him actually puts you at the high end of engagement and thus makes TIME more money on the ones you dislike than the ones you like.

SZ: The problem with the pay-the-author system you’re suggesting is that it encourages journalists to write about subjects that will make people more likely to contribute and not necessarily what needs to be said, or for that matter, the truth.

Thank you so much again for reading and responding to commentary, Michael Scherer.
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Protest so noted.

The problem with the pay-the-author system you’re suggesting is that it encourages journalists to write about subjects that will make people more likely to contribute and not necessarily what needs to be said, or for that matter, the truth.
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There are two prime arguments against that proposition, one being “So?“, i.e. perhaps direct incentives to truth-telling and that which affects readers can overcome current incentives against, and the other being “And they are currently encouraged to write about necessary topics in a truthful manner how, exactly?“.
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You seem to imply that direct monetary encouragement is somehow more a corruptible position than being paid a salary by TIME-Warner, or that readers like me will be more likely to pay for sh*t coverage than quality coverage. If so, I fail to see what evidence supports that reasoning.

Eventually, if people actually voted with their “dollars” by choosing not to patronize posts that they think have no merit, the people in charge would dissuade journalists from making them. You clicking and telling him actually puts you at the high end of engagement and thus makes TIME more money on the ones you dislike than the ones you like.
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It may make TIME more money, but it also provides the writers with a window into the real responses generated in readership by their work.
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At some point, either the writers will deliberately put up sh*t in the hopes of stirring up mass revulsion to pump up click-income, or they will find that situation professionally untenable, as their reputation for garbage becomes cemented in the public mind.
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The people in charge might dissuade journalists from writing posts that generated click-income because their brand was suffering, too.
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There’s a reason why they don’t just put page 3 topless models up, in other words.

Agreed, but at the same time, I’ve seen you post this a lot here on this blog.
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I don’t entirely agree with your assessment, but regardless of that, your opinion of these posts here seems pretty clear. You think they’re beneath the outlet posting them.
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At what point though does posting constant protest posts about the same issue make you wonder if it’s arguing against the nature of the beast? I mean, you wouldn’t go to Playboy.com and complain that they post nude photos, right? It’s what they do.
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I’d suggest that these smaller stories that don’t warrant entire articles is what Swampland does. So posting each time to tell them that it’s a waste of their time is eventually just telling the hippo to stop being a hippo.