I Quit

I'm on the wrong side.

After one year with Jerry's Kidders, we were on the top of the the ratings. No show on AM was doing better than Jerry Agar. The other kidders and I were in negotiations with Hyundai to perform at the Chicago Auto Show, and we were excitedly planning our first year anniversary event.

At which point, the station decided to switch hosts. The nine to eleven weekday slot that Jerry owned for the past couple years was given to a different host, one that had been trying to squeeze into the WLS lineup for a number of years. Consequently, Jerry's Kidders were shown the door as well.

Starting Monday Morning, October 27th the 9-11 slot on 890 WLS will be replaced by Erich "Mancow" Muller. It was a great run, and I thank all of you who were in the audience. I also want to thank Jerry, Maura, Dobie, and Ken; for making my year as a radio star a delightful experience I shan't soon forget.

For those of you who are into Nostalgia, podcasts of most 2008 shows are still available for download off the WLS bandwith, although I fully expect them to be deleted soon.

Meanwhile up in Minnesota, failed talk show host Al Franken looks like he is about to win the Senate. So that's where we are. A failed Talk Show host on the left gets elected to the Senate, while a successful right leaning host gets the door.

I think I'm switching sides. I thought that inalienable rights and individual responsibility were noble goals, but it looks as though I was wrong. I'm tired of being shown the door. I want to be on the money making side.

Global Warming is a real crisis, the rich don't pay enough taxes, and America needs a Universal Health plan. That wasn't so bad.

Pardon me while I go wash out my mouth.

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Did I Get Ripped Off Here? Part 2

Last Halloween, I found this political cartoon which seemed vaguely reminiscent of my very famous Halloween Tax bit. But circulating this year, is an OLDER cartoon that seems even more like a rip off.





For those of you who might be a little memory deficient, here is the tax bit in question:



Incidentally a lot of people were bugging me about how that contest ended up. Well, I finished in the top twenty, but according to the website, I came in THIRD! I just didn't pass muster with the Judges, who awarded the big prize, to the fourth place contestant. If they run another contest this year, I intend to give it another try.

Stay tuned!

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Earth From Above Photography

Those of you who know me well, know I spend an inordinate part of my time wandering around the Huffington Post, looking for a row. I had never heard of Yann Arthus-Bertrand, before I found this story.

Yann is an Environmentalist artist, that travels the world photographing Nature, and is opening a Gallery Show in New York of the destruction man has committed on the Planet Earth.

And he does it, from inside a helicopter! Yann takes these pictures from inside of an EC120B helicopter. That aircraft is a marvel of modern technology, and has a fuel thank that holds over four hundred liters of aviation grade fuel, and has an average duration of four hours. Which means he is spewing 485 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere, for every hour he is up there.

These are very pretty pictures, but at what cost to the Earth? Without the industry he loathes, there would be no Eurocopters; without his Eurocopter none of his art would be possible.

I took issue with that. Imagine my surprise, when a blogger who claims to be Yann, actually responded to my remark.

"my work has "zero carbon footprint". Every gram of CO2 released in the air during our photographing and filming sessions are "reimbursed" by planting trees. My collaborators and myself have also set up a fund which buys "efficient ovens" for Africans. The efficient ovens which we send to Africa enable people to cook, heat their homes, etc... without using wood anymore. ...Therefore, Timmy, our carbon footprint while taking photographs is erased. Lastly, many pictures are taken from hot air balloons."

Unfortunately, a hot air balloon burns twenty to thirty gallons of propane for a one hour flight. A gallon of propane when burned will produce 12.7 lbs of CO2. So an hour in a balloon about puts almost as much CO2 into the atmosphere, as a helicopter.

He might need to plant a few more trees.

Stay tuned to this one...

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