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02 Mar 2011 12:33

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Politics: Fox News kills Newt, Santorum contracts over presidential plans

  • This had been contemplated from the start. This is Fox policy, this is the announcement that is being made today.
  • Fox News’ Brett Baier • Explaining why Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, each of whom are running for president, just had their contracts suspended while they consider presidential runs. Sixty days from now, if they actually plan to run, their contracts get terminated. So … wait. There are a bunch of other folks on Fox News’ payroll in the same boat. Like, you know, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, who have basically used their entire careers on Fox News as one long presidential pre-campaign. And they’re not getting ditched yet, simply because they haven’t done their presidential exploratory committees? Wuuh? Fox News has some very strange policies about what constitutes “considering presidential runs.” source

04 Sep 2010 10:17

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U.S.: Blackwater, er, Xe, apparently gamed the system for contracts

  • 31 affiliates of Blackwater helped them get CIA contracts source
  • » Why this is bad: Blackwater is still managing to get federal money despite their rep cemented by that incident where a bunch of Iraqi civilians got killed. They’ve made $600 million from classified contracts, according to one government official, and just got another $100 million to provide security at Afghan bases. And they’re doing it in such a way as to stay low profile in hopes that nobody notices it’s the same company. Guess that didn’t work.

11 Aug 2010 10:57

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Biz: BP station owners caught between a rock and a hard place

  • rockDue to the oil spill, many individual station owners have seen business fall flat – some as many as 50 percent, but most around a more modest 5 percent after an early freefall in sales.
  • hard placeHowever, despite the stations mostly not being owned by BP, many owners have a contract with the company for 15-20 years that could lead to heavy fines if the contract’s broken early. source

20 Jul 2010 20:39

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Tech: Does Facebook’s lawyer know if Paul Ceglia owns 84% of Facebook?

  • NO well that’s just great; do you even do your job, dude? source

15 Jul 2010 11:02

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Culture: Piers Morgan, the new Larry King? He could make bank by signing

  • $18 million for that British dude on “America’s Got Talent” source

04 Jul 2010 17:37

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Offbeat: Can we just say that Kobayashi’s arrest is the weirdest thing EVER?

  • He wanted to compete in the hot-dog eating contest. But he wouldn’t sign an exclusive contract with the dudes who run it (“Major League Eating” – we’re not kidding, that’s what they’re called), so when he ran onto the stage after the event, he was arrested. This is the hot-dog-eating equivalent of running onto the field during a football game in the midst of a contract hold-out. And you know what? It’s going to reflect really badly on the corporatized nature of what was once a goofy, fun event. (By the way, Joey Chestnut won for a fourth year in a row. But he only ate 54 hot dogs – far short of his own record.) source

09 Jun 2009 21:48

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Biz: The Chrysler/Fiat deal: Screwing over dealerships en masse

  • 789 Chrysler dealerships are losing their contracts source
 

18 Mar 2009 10:27

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Biz, U.S.: AIG’s CEO has an explanation for the bonuses

  • We have to continue managing our business as a business – taking account of the cold realities of competition.
  • AIG CEO Edward Liddy • On why they have to give out the bonuses. Essentially, as was suggested yesterday in this editorial, AIG needs to give out the bonuses to retain their employees. He’s telling this to congress right now, by the way. • source

21 Feb 2009 11:11

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Biz, Tech: Prepaid cell phones are getting their comeuppance

  • 13% increase in the popularity of pay-as-you-go cell phone plans in the last year; it’s a small, but growing, niche market
  • $50 cost for an unlimited plan at MetroPCS or Boost Mobile; that same plan costs at least twice as much with contract providers Sprint, AT&T or T-Mobile source

30 Jan 2009 15:23

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Sports: Derek Jeter is pretty wise about the Yankees’ chances

  • Pretty much, if you think about it, every year we have a good team on paper. We get an opportunity to win. But you don’t win for just having good players on paper.
  • Derek Jeter • On the Yankees’ addition of big-contract marquee players CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira. He’s right, you know. Jeter answered that question while dodging another about the possibility of the Yankees adding a no-book clause to player and coach contracts, in the wake of Joe Torre’s new tell-all book, “The Yankee Years.” • source