Comments on The Morning News

And in monorail news... http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1946743.php

SNCHSD??!!

More specifically, the mosque that was bombed in Pakistan is part of extended family compound of a former Interior Minister who was the apparent target.

It's not clear from the LAT article whether Sherpao survived the attack.

I wonder who Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon dropped from his fantasy football team first: Shaun Alexander or Nancy Pelosi?

In other news, Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart have decided to scab. They're calling it "ambivalence". Fucking assholes. Conan and Jay Leno too: fuck them all. There's no decent people left on earth.

If the bus drivers go on strike, and the bus riders decide to walk, or drive their own cars, are they scabs?

Just asking.

Great. So Federal employees will get benefits. Now the real question is, will the government revise the tax code so their partners won't get taxed on the benefits, like I do?

Fnarf, dude, come on.

What? They're crossing picket lines. Fuck 'em. Show some solidarity or you're wasting your time.

why does the Times think that no one commutes from Seattle to the eastside? those are the numbers that i want to see.

From a NYT story on discussions sparked by the younger Spears' pregnancy, two teenagers:

“There is no excuse for not using contraception,” Ms. Viscariello said.

Ms. Akusis shot back, “I don’t think she should have gotten pregnant in the first place.”

I fear for the youth of America.

So they should continue to refuse to work, to do their job, because the writers have stopped doing theirs because they aren't happy with the cut daddy is giving them? They've already shown their fucking support.

Probably no one outside of Colbert's and Stewart's inner circles really knows the truth of how selfless or selfish they are.

That said, I'm with elenchos and Mr. Poe on this one.  You do what you can, and it seems like Stewart and Colbert and O'Brien all have.

@5: Maybe they're thinking about all the non-writing staff that are going without their paychecks, and unlike the writers, doing so involuntarily.

Well, Poe, 0% of the web profits is not a "cut". To be a cut, they would need to get more than zero. That's the crux of the dispute.

But I'm just saying that speaking words you thought of your own self is not being a scab. Not exactly. If you wrote a script, then you'd be a scab.

If people are reading the slog instead of watching the shows that are off the air, are slog posters scabs? Maybe you are but I'm not.

Not that I'm happy about this. I think if they stayed off the air the strike would be over sooner. This isn't going to make the writers cave.

Yes, that's EXACTLY what they should do.

When they write their own material, they become writers, and therefore they are scabs -- doing a union job outside of the union while the union is on strike. In addition, they -- members of unions themselves -- are crossing another union's picket line to get to work.

No wonder unions are in the shitter in this country. They won't stand up.

As far as "daddy" goes, don't take your little obsession too far. The cut they aren't getting is ZERO -- the writers are not getting any of the billions of dollars from online broadcast.

Elenchos, if the Slog commenters were providing the words for TV shows, in the absence of the writers (and God knows those shows would be shimmering pools of light if they were), they would indeed be scabs. As are Conan, Jay, Steven, and Jon when they provide words for their own TV shows. They're WRITING.

Just being they're WRITING doesn't mean they need to ACT like they're part of the UNION when they're not. They're writing material for THEIR show, for THEM. They - have - already - shown - their - support. They aren't members of the WGA, and just because they work in the same industry, it doesn't staple them to the union that serves a purpose that they do not need, because they're already fucking doing it. They do not have any obligation to refrain from doing their job, and they didn't in the first place. They did so to show their support, and now they're sick of sitting on their asses.

Exactly, @ 7. In addition to being a stress on my personal pocketbook, it's a pain in the ass for those of us in the employee benefits profession. We can't wait for it to go away.

hmmm, if the shows were done all impromptu, would the hosts still be scabs?

Well, they would indisputably still be crossing picket lines. As union members, they SHOULD be honoring other unions in their profession. And not just long enough, as Mr. Poe seems to think, to "show support" for a few weeks, but UNTIL THE STRIKE ENDS.

And from my perspective, which apparently not everyone shares, they would still be WRITING, as improvised music is still music.

But then, from my perspective, the studios should be denied access to food and electricity until the strike ends.

Actually, Stewart and Colbert are members of WGA. In so far as they sit in a room with the writers and write scripts with them, they are writers too. But they have another role, not as writers, but as talkers.

To me, speaking ad hoc, ex tempore, off the top off your head, that's exactly not using a script. It is by definition not written. When people talk normal, they are not using writers. Like when somebody walking is not riding the bus. If anybody writes anything down ahead of time, that is a script, and writing it is scabbing. If you just talk, no paper in front of you, no teleprompter, then it's just showing a lack of support, not scabbing.

So far blablabla; no, actually, they are not members.

Scabs is what scabs is. You can dress them up in a pretty bow and let them prattle about how they're not scabs, but they still are.

That said, I'm missing the monorail. Dang, would have been nice - and one-tenth the cost of that ST2/RTID deal we kicked the teeth in on.

Fnarf @21, absolutist much?

Pushing that kind absolutist adherence to a dogmatic ideal...

As union members, they SHOULD be honoring other unions in their profession. ... UNTIL THE STRIKE ENDS.

... without any regard for the consequences, even to bystanders...

Maybe they're thinking about all the non-writing staff that are going without their paychecks, and unlike the writers, doing so involuntarily.
[Orv @14]

reminds me of attitudes I've seen in another hot-button controversy.

fnarf, will, what about the other employees who are not union? i'm being serious... do you think that they should lose wages as well? or do you think that's just an excuse? what's the host to do in such a situation? the writer's have cause for striking, the host can handle it, but what about the other staff?

That's how the bosses win, by getting each group of employees to turn against each other. When it comes time for the grips or the cameramen to strike, where will the writers be?

Seriously, y'all sound like Nancy Pelosi. Let's all just try and get along, right? While your enemies eat your lunch.

[Comedy Central spokesman] Fox said because both Stewart and Colbert are WGA members, they are barred from penning any material, even for themselves, that their staff writers would normally handle.

I only knows whats I reads in the papers.

I think One Big Union would be cool. But then who would we go on strike against?

It's no wonder they're rioting in New Orleans; my $400 a month French Quarter apartment (on dry ground) was re-rented for $900 a month by my landlord the day after I moved out.

The papers LIE!!!

Just let them lie.

YEAH!