New York Times Shops Times Building for Loan

Mainstream Media Financial Woes
The New York Hard Times?

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NY Times Stock: Grey Bag Lady?

The New York Times is trying to drum up some cash and is shopping its building on Eighth Avenue. It would like to secure a $225 million loan, with the NY Times Tower as collateral.

The New York Times Company plans to borrow up to $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building, to ease a potential cash flow squeeze as the company grapples with tighter credit and shrinking profits.
...
The Times Company owns 58 percent of the 52-story, 1.5 million-square-foot tower on Eighth Avenue, which was designed by the architect Renzo Piano, and completed last year. The developer Forest City Ratner owns the rest of the building. The Times Company’s portion of the building is not currently mortgaged, and some investors have complained that the company has too much of its capital tied up in that real estate.

Regardless of how decrepit the NY Times (the newspaper) is, the building is pretty snazzy.



"The New York Times Building is a skyscraper on the west side of Midtown Manhattan that was completed in 2007. Its chief tenant is The New York Times Company, publisher of the The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune, as well as other regional papers. Construction was a joint venture of The Times Company, Forest City Ratner Companies - the Cleveland-based real estate firm redeveloping the Brooklyn Atlantic rail yards - and ING Real Estate."


The NYT's stock price has steadily declined over the past 15 months. Friday, the Times' stock closed at $7.64. It was over $24 in 2007.

Standard & Poor’s recently lowered its credit rating on the Times Company below investment grade, and Moody’s Investors Service has said it was considering a similar move. Times Company stock, which has lost more than half its value this year, closed on Friday at $7.64, down 30 cents.

The New York Times is the fourth-bestselling newspaper in the New York metro area.

One would guess that there's not much demand for "news" with a decidedly left slant.




by Mondo
image/source: Wikipedia, New York Times Tower

Obama Tried to Delay Iraq-US Troop Agreements

Why isn't Obama denying Amir Taheri's charges?
He admited to it in June to MSNBC!





[NOTE: The New York Post's Amir Taheri, in "OBAMA TRIED TO STALL GIS' IRAQ WITHDRAWAL", "discussed how Barack Obama, during his July trip, had asked Iraqi leaders not to finalize an agreement vital to the future of US forces in Iraq - and how the effect of such a delay would be to postpone the departure of the US from Iraq beyond the time Obama himself calls for."]


We've discovered an MSNBC article which directly contradicts Obama's defense of his negotiations with the Iraq government.

Taheri layed out the Obama spin in today's followup to his Monday article:

The Obama campaign has objected [to my assertions]. While its statement says my article was "filled with distortions," the rebuttal actually centers on a technical point: the differences between two Iraqi-US accords under negotiation - the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA, to set rules governing US military personnel in Iraq) and the Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA, to settle the legal basis for the US military presence in Iraq in the months and years ahead).

The Obama camp says I confused the two. It continues: "On the Status of Forces Agreement, Sen. Obama has always said he hoped that the US and Iraq would complete it - but if they did not, the option of extending the UN mandate should be considered.

"As to the Strategic Framework Agreement, Sen. Obama has consistently said that any security arrangements that outlast this administration should have the backing of the US Congress - especially given the fact that the Iraqi parliament will have the opportunity to vote on it."




If there is any confusion, it's in Obama's position - for the two agreements are interlinked: You can't have any US military presence under one agreement without having settled the other accord. (Thus, in US-Iraqi talks, the aim is a comprehensive agreement that covers both SOFA and SFA.)

Unfortinately for Barack Obama, he's already on the record as having said that his discussion with Zebari was about both the SOFA and SFA. This from a June article from MSNBC:

He said he told Zebari that negotiations for a Status of Forces agreement or strategic framework agreement between the two countries should be done in the open and with Congress's authorization and that it was important that that there be strong bipartisan support for any agreement so that it can be sustained through a future administration. He argued it would make sense to hold off on such negotiations until the next administration.

"My concern is that the Bush administration--in a weakened state politically--ends up trying to rush an agreement that in some ways might be binding to the next administration, whether it was my administration or Sen. McCain's administration," Obama said. "The foreign minister agreed that the next administration should not be bound by an agreement that's currently made."

We've got Obama dead to rights on this. Start the investigation!

by rizzuto
image: dbkp file
Source: Why isn't Obama denying Taheri's charges? He admited to it in June to MSNBC!

Illegal Immigration Video: Illegal Immigration the Only Bi-Partisan Issue?

Illegal Immigration is More than a Cultural Issue:
It's a National Security Matter



Illegal immigration and securing the souther US border is about more than illegal immigration: it's about national security in a time that terrorists wish to inflict maximum damage on the United States.

They are looking for the easiest way into the USA. Why not the southern border, where thousands cross into the United States each week?





This week's Blogs4Borders' video report contains:

* Taxpayer funded Latino only healthcare? We take a look.

* Bi-partisan? Is illegal immigration the one true bi-partisan issue?

100% Preventable! Americans continue to pay the bloody price for open borders, when will the madness end?

by Mondoreb
Source: Blogs4Borders! 091508
image: dbkp file

John Edwards, Obama Energy Plan Top Culture Watch

Culture Watch, Vol. 27
Nancy Morgan
Right Bias


Father of the Year, John Edwards

John Edwards has been caught with his pants down. The recipient of the 2007 Father of the Year Award was finally exposed by 'tabloid' National Enquirer as having an affair and allegedly fathering a child as his wife Elizabeth is dying of cancer. Conservatives weren't surprised but some are amazed at the absolute sincerity Edwards evinced as he lied about the affair before he was forced to admit the truth. The old media remained silent as long as they could, until forced by events to actually report the downfall of their golden boy.



The Edwards scandal was a somewhat welcome relief from all Obama, all the time, but the Messiah still got his share of face time before retiring to Hawaii for a week long vacation. Phew. Most notably with his solution to America's energy crisis - inflate your tires. Obama also stated, with a straight face, "for the sake of our economy, our security and the future of our planet, we must end the age of oil." Good grief.

Obama accuses McCain of being in the pocket of big oil, even though Exxon company execs have contributed more to Obama than to McCain. Hmmm.

The Denver City Council has passed an ordinance barring protesters from carrying buckets of feces during the Democratic National Convention. For the second week, Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll reports both candidates are tied at 44% each. In a much needed break from the eternal campaign, the media has turned its focus on:

THE OLYMPICS:

The Summer Games in Beijing are in full swing. The opening ceremony garnered record ratings for NBC. The smog hanging over Beijing is getting so bad that the International Olympic Committee may have to consider postponing or shifting events.

With the eyes of the world on China, I figured this week's article would deal, once again, with 'China's Dirty Little Secret.' Most Americans would be shocked to know that China has, for years, engaged in the trafficking of organs and other body parts from their executed prisoners. Actually, this practise is not a secret, its just ignored.




GOOD NEWS:

On the energy front, the Department of Interior last week published proposed regulations to establish a commercial oil shale program that could result in the addition of up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from lands in the western US.
The price of oil has dropped almost 20% in only three weeks. If the trend continues into September, its possible most of the inflationary spike of the last 12 months will disappear. Cool jeans. Meanwhile, the GOP is continuing their protest against the Democrats absolute refusal to allow a vote on offshore drilling.

'The Obama Nation' has been at the top of the best-seller charts since its release. Meanwhile, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi's book 'Know Your Power' sold only 2,737 copies in its first week. No wonder Democrats hate and fear the free-market system.

A state appeals court has reversed itself and ruled that parents in California have the right to home-school their own children, even if they don't have a teaching credential. Good thing, too, as the California legislature just approved AB 2567 which calls for an official day of commemoration in all government schools of homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality.

In Iraq, the good news continues. Iraq has resumed oil exploration after a 20-year break. Anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr intends to disband his once-feared Mahdi Army militia and remake it as a social services organization. Translation: We whipped his b***. God Bless America. Meanwhile, Iran has decided to scrap death by stoning.

CULTURE:


Publisher Random House has pulled a novel about the Prophet Mohammed's child bride (experts differ as to whether she was 8 or 10 years old) fearing the book 'could incite acts of violence.' In response to this blatant appeasement, RightBias.com has decided to feature Muslim Cartoon Week all this week. Because we can. Hope you check it out and forward to your friends.

Greyhound has scrapped an ad campaign that extolled the relaxing upside of bus travel after one of their passengers decapitated a fellow passenger and proceeded to eat him. Animal rights fanatics PETA jumped on this story and posted an ad on its website comparing this horrific beheading to how humans kill animals for food. Yech.Institute for Internet Addiction Recovery and a death row inmate scheduled for execution says he's too fat to be put to death.

ESSENTIAL TRIVIA:


An astute stamp collector recently discovered that one of the Old Glorys in the U.S. postal Service's "Flags 24/7" series appears to have 14 stripes. Oh, lest I forget, the Post Office had a net loss of more than a billion dollars in the third quarter of this fiscal year. That's our money they're talking about. Sigh.

Chicago has been voted the worst nanny state in the U.S. - the city with the most stringent regulations interfering with the exercise of personal freedoms. Hey, isn't that where Obama is from?

Airlines are set to cut 60 million seats by years end and Forbes has come out with their list of the fastest dying cities.


IDIOT OF THE WEEK:

Again, a tie. First place has to go to another Father of the Year - a Gulf Coast man who was charged with murder after he said he gave his 15 year-old son powerful prescription drugs because he wanted the boy to know "how to party right."

Second place goes to the idiot that confessed to a 7 year-old murder on a national radio show. Ah, the eternal quest for those fleeting 15 minutes.

Till next Monday, keep smiling,


by Nancy Morgan
RightBias.com

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