[Bob Kuczewski]

Oz Report for Sale?

Davis,

I represent a group of pilots who would like to purchase the OZ Report and Forum from you.

Would you entertain an offer?

Your value will never be higher than it is today..

Please consider an exit strategy while one exists..

This is a serious offer.

In the spirit of disclosure we want our negotiations to be civil and professional.

We want these negotiations to be public as we want valid public contributionin the event of a deal is made.

We have been discussing this among ourselves for some time. Since your recent crackdown on posters we feel compelled to accelerate our plan to make an offer to purchase your contribution to HG.

We are calculating a reduction in its value to us daily and fear the loss of your contributions are becoming significant.


Will you consider this?

We will require a standard non-compete clause for 10 years..

We await your reply?


B R

For_Sale.png (100.74 KiB) Viewed 3511 times

[Free]

I've got two cents to contribute to the effort. About what it's worth.
Davis has already ceded control by being inept and or corrupt. Blindrodie is the gang leader that has control. They have made the OZ report valueless as
a vehicle of communication for the sport. Davis is boss of a low bar accomplishment, and what Rodie says, goes.


At the time the corporate borg, USHPA, should have contributed a forum for the sport, they didn't, and Davis and Jack both jumped in with an opportunist power grab for the traffic. Jack actually mines the data for income. Davis doesn't care for that, I guess, because he is still likely well off from his microsoft connections. The Oz report is just his little sandbox and he doesn't care that he is personally responsible for killing traffic. His word is last,... after Blindrodie has his say..
I do wonder what the deal is, there? What does Jim Gaar, have on Davis Straub, so that Davis goes 'Grendel's mother' on anyone that may try to hold Blindrodie accountable for anything?

So why pay for something that Davis is in the process of throwing away anyway?

[Bob Kuczewski]

... At the time the corporate borg, USHPA, should have contributed a forum for the sport, they didn't, and Davis and Jack both jumped in with an opportunist power grab for the traffic.

Bingo!!!

There has been a symbiotic relationship between USHPA and the "doppelganger" forums for over a decade, and it has been very detrimental to the sport of hang gliding.

As you said, an organization like USHPA would normally be expected to provide some communication mechanism for its members. I can't, for example, think of a single HG or PG club that doesn't offer a forum or mailing list for their members. So why doesn't USHPA?

You already know the answer Warren (Bingo!). USHPA doesn't want an official web site where members could ask legitimate but embarrassing questions ("Where did all the money go?", "How did my representative vote?", "Why does Mark Forbes remain in power at USHPA after being voted out of office?"). Those questions would go glaringly unanswered on an "official" USHPA forum where Directors would be expected to participate. But those questions can quickly fade into oblivion on the "doppelganger" forums where Directors can be inconspicuously absent. And anyone who does persist in asking such legitimate but embarrassing questions can be kicked off with no due process or recourse - "poof".

So USHPA allows the likes of Jack Axaopoulos and Davis Straub to dominate and control the vast majority of discussion in the sport of hang gliding. They can both claim they are "private" operations and can silence whoever they want (or whoever USHPA wants). They don't have to answer to the members as would be required of a USHPA forum. And USHPA rewards the "doppleganger" operators in ways that we will never know. The whole system is designed to support the corruption and mismanagement that we've seen, and it's killing (murdering) the sport of hang gliding.

[Free]

https://dailycaller.com/2019/09/06/prog ... shut-down/

Progressive Website ThinkProgress Is Shutting Down Because Nobody Wants To Buy It
CHUCK ROSS
ThinkProgress, a top progressive website operated by the liberal think tank, Center for American Progress, is shutting down on Friday after a 15-year run.

The decision was made after the site was unable to find a buyer. The Center for American Progress (CAP) has tried to sell off the website after operating for years in the red, according to The Daily Beast.


“Given that we could find no new publisher, we have no other real option but to fold the ThinkProgress website back into CAP’s broader online presence with a focus on analysis of policy, politics, and news events through the lens of existing CAP and CAP Action staff experts,” Navin Nayak, the executive director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, wrote in a message to staff, according to The Beast.

“Conversations on how to do so are just beginning, but we will seek to reinvent it as a different platform for progressive change.”

About a dozen ThinkProgress employees will lose their jobs. They are being provided severance packages through November, and will be covered under the non-profit’s health plan through the end of the year.

Launched in 2004, ThinkProgress has churned out several high-profile progressive writers and reporters, including Vox co-founder Matt Yglesias and NBC News campaign reporter Alex Seitz-Wald. It’s best known contributor now is Ian Millhiser, a justice reporter known for his Twitter diatribes about conservatives and the Supreme Court. (RELATED: ThinkProgress Claims Ad Networks Have Targeted It For Exposing Racism)

ThinkProgress’ decline has confounded some media observers, given the rise of other liberal news outlets during the Trump era. The site hired dozens of new staff members in recent years, but revenue has fallen far short of expectations, according to The Beast.

Campaign chairman John Podesta watches from the edge of the stage during a campaign rally with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (not pictured) at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, November 4, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Campaign chairman John Podesta watches from the edge of the stage during a campaign rally with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (not pictured) at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, November 4, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

The site has also faced criticism that it has tailored its reporting to demands from the Center for American Progress, which receives funding from wealthy liberal donors and some foreign governments.

CAP’s affiliation with Bill and Hillary Clinton has also been a sore spot for the think tank and ThinkProgress. John Podesta, the Hillary Clinton campaign chairman and Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff, founded CAP in 2003. Neera Tanden, a former Clinton White House aide and longtime Clinton booster, is president of the think tank.

Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign showed that Judd Legum, the founder of ThinkProgress, provided the Clinton campaign with strategies on how to go after Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.


ThinkProgress has also targeted Sanders during the 2020 election cycle. In April, the website published a video that criticized the democratic socialist over his personal wealth.

After Sanders complained to CAP, Tanden threw ThinkProgress under the bus, saying that the video was “overly harsh and does not reflect our approach to a constructive debate of the issues.”

Legum, who left ThinkProgress over a year ago, said CAP’s decision is “disheartening.”

2. I joined CAP in 2003 and was one of the first employees and I joined because I believed in the mission of creating permanent progressive infrastructure

It’s disheartening that CAP no longer believes that independent progressive journalism is worth supporting

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 6, 2019

4. The decision to fold ThinkProgress back into CAP, in my view, is a mistake. It violates the spirit in which it has operated over the last 15 years.

It also underscores that this was ultimately about control, not money.

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 6, 2019

[Bob Kuczewski]

Hmmmm ...

Maybe someone should offer to buy hanggliding.org since I don't think Jack Axaopoulos even flies any more. I can't recall the last time I've seen him post anything about a flight of his own. Furthermore, traffic has been way down on hanggliding.org over the years. I guess it doesn't help that he keeps kicking some of the most productive people in the sport off his site and keeping the rest in fear of offending him.

And if Jack won't sell, then maybe someone should just go buy USHPA out. There must be a few wealthy people left in the sport of hang gliding.

[Bob Kuczewski]

I was just noticing the new low in posting activity on the other national hang gliding forums. For example, here's the recent activity on hanggliding.org:

20241211_HangGliding_org.png (83.58 KiB) Viewed 261 times

The most recent post was December 4, 2024. That's been about a week now without a post. This is just another in a series of low points for activity on that site.

Ben Reese had written to Davis about the Oz Forum:

Your value will never be higher than it is today.

The same may be true of hanggliding.org today. Maybe Jack would entertain an offer?