We love us some Proof and 21C but let’s not pretend that proof is the best place to eat in all of Louisville. [Zagat]

Gregory O’Bryan, the guy accused of killing Andrew Compton, is due in court for a pre-trial hearing today at 8:45 A.M. [What Happened To Andrew?]

Wow. We thought the mainstream could do better than a whitewash when it came to Bud Shart… Schardein. But, uh, nope, obviously not. Wow wow wow. [C-J/AKN]

This is also how the story is being told on local television stations. Three sentences that mentions nothing of the scandal, nothing of that $200,000 bonus for being corrupt, nothing of the problems the city faces. Wow. [WAVE3]

Oh, wait, here’s a four sentence story about Schardein’s “retirement” from the Metro Sewer District. [WLKY]

Fortunately, there are a few media outlets in Louisville that won’t let the city forget what really went down with that scandal. [WFPL]

Do America’s infrastructure problems go beyond crumbling roads and bridges? [HuffPo]

On a scale of 1 to Greg Fischer on the day he gets to leave office, how excited are you that Time Warner has been given the go-ahead to purchase Insight Communications? [FOX41]

Publisher of A Kentucky Newspaper, Arnold Garson, is retiring on March 2. You knew this was just a temporary dumping ground for him. Did he even bother putting Kentucky plates on his vehicle? [Deep Newspaper Thoughts]

The head of Metro Parks got to drive drunk in a city vehicle and still kept his job. So why should we expect little issues involving metal detectors to be resolved with ease? That department is at least as screwed up as Metro Animal Services. [WHAS11]

There was a giant drug bust in Jack Conway’s backyard this week, right as he started talking again about how he’s cut off the pill supply from Florida. [Page One]

The Bourbon Women Association is apparently a thing and it has some sort of $25 event series coming up. It’s bourbon, so we obviously had to mention it. [Business First]

Time Warner Cable will buy Insight Communications Co. for $3 billion in cash as it bolsters its presence in the Midwest, the company said Monday.

-SNIP-

“We believe in our business and its long-term prospects and have long thought that Insight’s well-run, technologically advanced systems would fit well with our Midwest operations,” Time Warner Cable Chairman and CEO Glenn Britt said in a statement.

From an Insight release:

“For more than 25 years, Insight has provided our customers with unparalleled service and an unwavering commitment to excellence,” said Michael Willner, co-founder, Vice Chairman and CEO of Insight Communications. “We are extremely proud of the investment we’ve made to transform our cable systems into one of the leading telecommunications platforms in the nation. Given their industry-leading position and depth of resources, we expect that Time Warner Cable will continue building on the advancements our tremendous employees have made while providing outstanding service to our customers. The communities we serve could not be in better hands than with Time Warner Cable which already operates in this region and is widely regarded as one of the most respected technology companies in the world.”

Get ready for insane data caps for broadband and even worse (is it possible?) customer service than Insight.

Yay, Louisville! Possibility City, indeed.

Really, what the hell is with Metro EMS? Is the entire place falling apart? [FOX41]

Why wouldn’t these folks work against Jack Conway, who only pulled this for-profit stunt to try to get re-elected? It’s not illegal as long as it’s not state government. He had zero interest a few years ago when he was approached. For Allison Martin to call it desperate for Sullivan to support Todd P’Pool is about as hilarious as watching her have to defend her boss and her colleagues when she knows they’re full of it. [John Cheves]

Is there something to worry about on the University of Louisville Hospital merger front that no one is considering? We take a deeper look later today. [Page One]

Remember that bogus “survey” Greg Fischer’s administration spent $30,000 on last month? The one asked next to nothing about merger? Well, turns out, that survey was able to reveal that Louisvillians are generally satisfied with merger. Yeah, we know, this is pee-worthy hilarity. [C-J/AKN]

Restaurant sexytime extortion lady, Karen Sypher, has until Friday to finalize her appeals. [WAVE3]

Yesterday, Republican Party of Kentucky Chairman Steve Robertson questioned Jack Conway for the 98th day in a row over his involvement in his brother’s drug scandal: “I’m sure Jack Conway has set some sort of record for his evasiveness and refusal to answer the simple questions we have asked of him,” Robertson said. “If Conway has nothing to hide, he should answer the questions before his streak reaches day 100.” [Press Release]

Some parents are threatening to keep their children out of Jefferson County Public Schools over the busing dispute. How typical is that? Force your child to suffer on the educational front because school leaders are idiots? Yeah, that’s the ticket. [WHAS11]

Looks like Perry Clark has gone full-on teabagger. Look at the mindless slobs he’s dredged up from the bottom of the teabagger river. [We Get Comments]

Zen Tea House on Frankfort Avenue is closing and reopening inside a restaurant on Bardstown Road. [Consuming Louisville]

Cable and satellite television providers are losing subscribers in droves. Maybe Insight wouldn’t have people dropping like flies if it spent a little less on mailers for “Insight Phone” and a little more on providing actual service. [HuffPo]

If you’re on East Market Street or Main Street on a regular basis, you’ve seen the Lincoln Elementary construction transformation in process for a while. [Broken Sidewalk]

Louisville apparently ranks high for volunteering. Maybe because no one has a job and has plenty of free time. [Business First]

Here’s a clip:

He had a lot to say about Rand Paul and very little to say about himself. And he refuses to admit he won’t welcome Barack Obama to campaign for him (it’s okay to admit it – it’d actually help him to say so in Kentucky).

But it was a good appearance, no?

He was also on MSNBC for a blink of a second, but that appearance wasn’t as good.

HAHA. Check it:

Ugh. Those parents.

In related news, you could be Balloon Boy for Halloween.

We made The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC last night. Check it out:

Embarrassed? Yea? Nay?

He is on the teevee, too!

Here he is on fancy Fox News talking about the Jason Stinson trial:

Gabe Bullard is the biggest thing since Chuck Woolery.

And you can quote that (PLEASE!).

The bad boy of racing, the guy nobody likes, gets into a lockerroom brawl after he gets bumped in a comeback race.

A woman trying to make it in a man’s world faces down her competition, aided by one woman trainer who believes in her.

The stories of Corey Nakatani and Chantal Sutherland are featured in the first week of the new set of episodes of Jockeys, the Animal Planet reality series that debuted early this year. The new episodes continue to follow the dramatic stories of jockeys’ lives, which includes plenty of footage from Churchill Downs Derby week.

The first one-hour episode airs Friday night at 10, following the network’s popular Whale Wars series. It’s on Insight’s channel 60.

A key player in making the series happen is familiar to a lot of Louisvillians. Darrell Haire, the Western Regional manager for the Jockeys Guild, accompanied producers around the world to get the inside stories you’ll see on the show. Starting at Santa Anita, the show follows jockeys to several tracks, including Churchill Downs, in the upcoming weeks.

Haire, who appears briefly in every episode, is the go-to guy for the jocks. He’s been through a lot himself, placed himself in the middle of controversial jockey issues, and is enthusiastic about the TV series. Haire says it’s a great opportunity to help the image of jockeys.

“I wanted to protect the riders with all the bad publicity of the last few years,” he said. When I saw him in town Derby Week, he was busy arranging interviews and shoots for the show’s producers.

Haire helped choose the riders to be featured in the series. He was looking for athletes who were articulate and good in front of the camera, and for those who had compelling real-life stories.  Haire, in fact, has become a key figure in racing on film — he’s consulting with Disney to help cast jockeys in the upcoming film about Secretariat, starring Diane Lane.

Eight jockeys will be featured in the series. Mike Smith, Garrett Gomez, Kayla Stra, Alex Solis, Joe Talamo and Aaron Gryder join Nakatani and Sutherland.

While the first episode takes place mainly at Santa Anita, there’s always an eye toward the Kentucky Derby and Louisville, and a few episodes will focus primarly on the dramatic changes leading up to the Derby.  It’s good dramatic reality TV complete with beautiful pictures.

We’ll be watching, and let you know what to expect.

Hoffman gave no specific reason for the change, mumbling something about the way new management always makes changes, that they’re adding some things and taking away some things, that it was nothing personal. That’s not exactly true.

Did it have anything to do with what we’ve been writing about changes at the station, I asked. Of course not, he said. I asked if it wasn’t because the new owners, who are publicity-shy and have refused requests for an interview, were bothered that we wrote about the upcoming cancellation of the morning and late-night locally-produced sports programs?

Maybe it was our affection for Spangler, the dispatched morning show host with whom we’ve been doing our on-air shtick for 15 months, never missing a single week.

The real reason may have been the way we criticized the new on-air talent, Adele Guarino-Sanders, who has been doing segments on the show this week. She has no TV experience, is awful on camera and when Googled brings up a trail of court cases in which she’s the defendant.

On Wednesday, Hoffman called to make sure that I was planning to show up for next Tuesday’s show. He said there might even be an expanded role for us and that he was considering other ways to expand our brand in station programming. 24 hours later, he called to say our segment was being discontinued.

Next week, Hoffman’s on vacation and Guarino-Sanders is scheduled to host the morning show. I told Hoffman on Wednesday that I’d show up, despite reservations about the host. He assured me it was just one week, to get through that, and he’d be back as the regular host the following week. But 24 hours later, Hoffman called to say everything was off.

There are no regrets. The show gave us a video outlet and brought new fans to the ‘Ville Voice and Page One. Spangler was an enthusiastic fan, and the segments just wouldn’t have worked without him. It was fun while it lasted.

The good news: Now we have time to work with other stations that have been angling for months to pull us on-air on a regular basis.

Oh, and Rick needs to quit it with letting that fancy MacBook we got him hover dangerously on the edge of a tiny table! Apple Care won’t fix it if he breaks it on live televisions. Jeez.