July 16, 2007

Live Earth Germany Loses Big Euros

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mojo-photo-liveearthlogo.JPGI promise I’m not jumping on the Drudge-led Live Earth-bashing “there’s no global warming” bandwagon, but this is the story: Billboard.biz reports the German edition of Live Earth on July 7th lost 1.3 million buckaroos. Ticket sales and merchandise added up to about $1.7 million, but costs added up to $2 million, not including the $1 million they paid to the Live Earth organization, for what exactly it’s not clear. Access to the Al Gore holographic projection data stream? Anyway, perhaps it was the lineup that kept ticket buyers away (only 29,000 of 45,000 were sold): the big names were Chris Cornell, Snoop Dogg, and DJ Sasha. Weird! Buried at the end of the Billboard story: news that the City of Hamburg is now stuck with the bill. Sorry, Hamburgers: that money we were going to spend on energy-efficient light bulbs, it’s, ah, being redirected.

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“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

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