99XWatch.org

Creative Loafing: "Barnes Ain't Noble"

Chase Mitchell writes a really funny "Add It Up" column in this week's Creative Loafing (citing  99XWatch as a source.)  The subject?  Barnes v. TJ&L.  Here are some some of the "statistics" from the column:

Number of years Steve Barnes worked as an on-air personality for 99X before leaving to focus on an "acting career": 11

Internet Movie Database user rating (out of 10) for No Witness, a 2004 film in which Barnes plays a hitman: 2.3

Percentage of negative user reviews it received, including one that called it "cinematic roadkill" and "a stillborn turd of a film": 100

Rank of the No Witness DVD on Amazon.com in sales: 17,020

Sunday 99X AJC Article

Via Radio Talk,  Rodney Ho's article, Faltering 99X goes in search of identity, to be run in this Sunday's AJC, is now online.  Ho's article discusses the ebb and flow of 99X's popularity and features a particularly insightful comment by a 38 year old computer programmer from Atlanta.

99XWatch.org on the Show

This morning I called in to the show to defend blogs and point out the irony of Jimmy Baron criticizing people who read blogs, while being a reader of this blog.

Update 03/07/2006 7:15 PM
Here's an edited (for length) version of the Newspile bit (441KB, 2:31) including my call. 

What I learned today...

I learned that tonight at Chops the word "non-ethnic" will be repeated about 3 dozen times.

AccessAtlanta.com's "Radio Talk" Features 99XWatch.org

AJC Writer Rodney Ho mentioned 99XWatch.org in his blog, Radio Talk, on Friday.  Mr. Ho didn't comment on 99XWatch.org, other than to call it "interesting" and to excerpt my first post.  Still, it's good to get the additional exposure. 

TJ&L Show Mentions 99XWatch.org, Misses Point on Social Security

Thanks to Toucher and crew for their mention of the website.  I couldn't have hoped for a better endorsement.

In mentioning my article on Social Security, Toucher misses the point. The Bush administration is arguing that Social Security is insolvent now.  As mentioned before, it won't become insolvent until 2053.  Even then, it can be fixed with minor repairs.  As Princeton Economist Paul Krugman argues:

[E]xtending the life of the trust fund into the 22nd century, with no change in benefits, would require additional revenues equal to only 0.54 percent of G.D.P. That's less than 3 percent of federal spending - less than we're currently spending in Iraq. And it's only about one-quarter of the revenue lost each year because of President Bush's tax cuts.

Regardless, of the problems facing Social Security, the LA Times' Michael Kinsley has proven that Bush's privatization plan will not work.