Day: February 20, 2009

Fox Business Wins Suit Against Treasury

fox business

Looks like the Treasury will actually how to tell us all how they’re wasting our money. That’s the end result of Fox Business Network’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against them:

FOX Business Network has won a victory against the Treasury Department in its Freedom of Information Act request for details about the government’s bailout plan.

Judge Richard J. Holwell of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said in a decision Friday that the government is directed to comply with FOX Business’s request under the FOIA “within 30 days and to produce a Vaughn index with 45 days.”

That means Treasury must comply with FOX Business’s request by Monday, April 23, and must produce a Vaughn index by Monday, April 6.

A Vaughn index details which documents have been withheld and why.

This is great news for those of us who, for some crazy reason, don’t blindly trust the government to spend our money in a wise or responsible way. Here’s exactly what FBN was looking for in this suit:

FBN asked the Treasury Department to identify, among other issues, the troubled assets purchased, any collateral extended, and any restrictions placed on these financial institutions for their participation in this program.

Not exactly unreasonable. Definitely important.

Good work FBN.

Pajamas Media No Longer Paying Any Attention to the Ads it Runs

So… now that we are in the last days of the Pajamas Media blog advertising network it seems they’ve completely given up screening the ads it runs on its affiliate’s sites. I say this because of these beauties that I found on none other than HotAir.com (click to enlarge):

Obama New York Times ads

Here it is closer up:

Obama New York Times ad

Here’s the ad this banner leads to:

Obama New York Times ad

Yea… somehow I don’t think that blatantly pro-Obama ads from the New York Times of all places are going to get good click-through rates. This makes me wonder if anybody at PJM is even bothering to look through the ads they’re running anymore. Though, I guess this isn’t the first time PJM has run ads that couldn’t possibly make them any money. In fact, I remember when there were some rather racy and offensive ads on Malkin’s site. She was able to get them removed but I’d say its a disgrace that PJM ever put them up to begin with.

So really this probably isn’t a symptom of imminent death since they never did manage their advertising very well. After all, they are killing their ad network shortly and will soon be dead all together, unless of course internet tv explodes in popularity soon (which is sooooo likely by the way). And while PJM might blame poor revenue on the collapse of their ad network it sure is hard to make money when more than half the ads you put up are for your own idiotic poorly produced pay-video network. But that’s just my opinion I guess…

P.S. What will the collapse of the premier revenue source for a large majority of the conservosphere mean to the movement? Can the movement really gain momentum online without an experienced core of bloggers? Or am I overrating the importance of bloggers?