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Fudge Round or Star Crunch?

Little Debbie Snack CakesLast week’s poll was a real nailbiter. We had a three way tie, but I think the Ron Paul supporters were stuffing the ballot box. Or maybe they’re the only ones who care enough to vote?

I asked my readers to choose between a bowl of Crispix, a peanut butter banana sandwich, Vienna sausages with crackers, or any single Little Debbie snack cake for their last meal.

Vienna sausage was the big loser, but only by one vote. I guess I’m not too surprised that it was so close. First of all, the voting was completely anonymous, so there was no risk of being singled out as someone who is actually willing to put Vienna sausages in your mouth. Another possible reason that the sausages got any votes at all is based on the same rationale that prompted me to choose the Little Debbies…

This is my last meal! Trans fat and phosphates be damned! I’m going out with a bang!

Don’t get me wrong–I’m a huge fan of both cereal and peanut butter and ______ sandwiches, but for $.35, it’s tough to beat a Fudge Round.

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Movies, Music, and Newspapers

This post by Jack Lail made me revisit a thought that has been rolling around in my empty skull off and on for a while now.

Truth be told, the history of newspapers on the Internet is littered with missed opportunities, wrong turns, and a lack of investment that all seemed smart (or at least prudent) at the time because of the industry’s strong herd instincts.

As an outsider, it seems to me these three industries are facing the same basic challenge. They are industries that completely rely on talent to exist, but whose current business model is centered around delivery, not the talent itself.

People are going to find good music to listen to, good stuff to watch, and good writing to read, and in an open market, the cream will rise to the top. The reality of the situation is that musicians, writers, and actors/directors no longer need the old media structure to be found, all they need is to have talent.

For now, old media has the market on talent cornered for the most part, but they’d better quickly find a way to monetize or they’ll be history.

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There Should Be A Law

For those of you who are not yet convinced of the dangers of smoking and have not yet written your state representative a letter of thanks for deciding on your behalf which private businesses can allow smoking, this story should change your mind.

In the vehicle they inhaled fumes from a can of compressed air normally used to blow dust from computers or photographs.
…
When one of the women lit a cigarette in the vehicle, the fumes ignited, burning the couple, DeBusk said.

This could have been avoided. All we need to do is outlaw smoking in private vehicles. That way people will be forced to either step outside of the vehicle to smoke after huffing, or will be compelled to huff outside so that they can smoke immediately.

We must do everything within our legislative power to make huffing safe….for the children!

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Who Really Posted The Photos?

Driving in to work this morning, I heard Melinda England’s boyfriend, Josh Pinkinton (sp?) in an interview with Hallerin Hilton Hill. According to him, the photos of the Inskip Elementary School teacher weren’t posted on her MySpace page, but on his page. He also claimes that England’s ex-husband is the person who contacted the media with the story, and the facts were subsequently botched by WVLT.

Interesting.

I can understand his wanting to defend her, especially if so many facts of the story were wrong, left out, or confused. Still, I think it may be a mistake to go to the media to try to straighten this out. It was almost dead…just let it die.

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Never Ask Me About My Business

Sonny CorleoneIn my last poll, I asked people to choose which Corleone they’d most likely be–Michael, Connie, Sonny, or Fredo.

The answers were pretty surprising to me for several reasons. First of all, someone actually chose Fredo. I had a suspicion that my friend Rooster may stop by this blog, but I didn’t think he actually read it. I figured he just looked at the pictures. Thanks for stopping by!

Secondly, there are several women who read this blog, but no one chose Connie. Not one. Hmmm.

Most surprising was that almost everyone chose Michael. Hmmm…draw your own conclusions about these people.

As much as I wish I were like Michael, I had to be honest with myself and choose Sonny.

This week’s poll should be a little easier to answer.

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County Commission Guilty. Now What?

Now that the KNS trial over Knox County Commission’s violation of Tennessee’s Sunshine Law has been decided, what should we expect next? And no, I’m not referring to whether or not Scott Moore will (be asked to) step down or not, or how the seats will eventually be filled.

I’m more interested in knowing if they media scrutiny of County government is now going to turn back onto the Mayor’s office and the events over there. One thing that became clear to the public, if it wasn’t clear already, is that there are definite factions opposing one another.

If the KNS doesn’t pursue the story vigorously, it could be viewed as support of the argument made by some Commissioners that the New Sentinel is biased towards Mayor Ragsdale. Should we then expect more hard hitting coverage from another angle? From another news outlet? Will it be initiated by the Commissioners damaged by the trial as a sort of counterpunch?

This has potential to get even more interesting.

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You Mighta Heard By Now, We’re Doin’ a Little Survey

There were some pretty interesting results from my last poll–at least I thought they were interesting. I asked readers to choose (one) between free markets, free religion, free speech, and free beer.

With 50% of the vote, speech won pretty handily. I’d assume that the 29% who voted for beer were being funny. It’s easy when the punchline is provided, no? 14% chose free markets, and 7% chose free religion.

Why is this interesting? Mostly because free speech won so easily–much more easily than I would have predicted. I think I know why.

Scott HallIf you give me free speech, I can use it to get the rest of them. Okay, to get free beer it helps to be as handsome as ten movie stars, but you get the point.

There’s a reason why freedom of speech is the first right guaranteed in the Constitution. If we ever lose it, all is lost.

*** Bonus points to the people who know why wrestling great Scott Hall is pictured in this post.

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Free of DRM is Good Too

I’ve been talking about free here a lot over the past few days. Well, Amazon has launched an mp3 download site to compete with iTunes. Seems impossible, right? Not if you consider that Amazon’s downloads are DRM free. DRM is the code in songs downloaded through iTunes that allow you to only play the song through iTunes or on your iPod. Songs downloaded from Amazon can be played on any player.

I checked out their catalog last night, and it is pretty extensive. Not only that, but you can also download complete albums there at a discount, not to mention the fact that you don’t have to pay shipping and get the song immediately.

You’ll need to install Amazon’s download manager, but it’s quick and easy!

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Violence Isn’t Cost Effective Anymore

This TED talk by Steven Pinker is pretty interesting. I’ll let all of his side comments, such as crediting Bill Clinton with the decline of violent crime in the 1990s, go. The most interesting aspect of this talk is not that violence is decreasing over time, but why violence is decreasing.

It seems pretty simple to me–violence has a very low return on investment.

Because of mass media, no act of violence seems isolated anymore. Therefore, committing an act of violence is a PR nightmare. Maybe not for individuals, but for states most definitely (Iraq). And states themselves have decreased the profitability of violence by individuals. It is virtually impossible for an individual to successfully take any significant amount of property from someone else by force (without penalty).

That’s why people rob banks without weapons. The rewards of successfully robbing the bank without a gun are equal to those of robbing a bank with a gun, but the risk of being unsuccessful is much less because the penalty for using a weapon in such a crime is greater.

It is sort of interesting to consider cultures that believe violence will be rewarded in the afterlife. There seems to be a definite perceived benefit to violence there.

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Vanessa Hudgens, Nude Photos, and Total Jackasses

What are these people thinking? And I’m not necessarily talking only about the minor celebrities or local news people who have sex tapes or nude photos out there floating around. It shouldn’t be too much of a leap to think that we will only hear about a very small percentage of the ones that exist. Let’s face it, with digital cameras and digital video cameras easily accessible to everyone these days, it only follows that there are a countless compromising photos and videos in existence. Some of them are bound to be of celebrities people someone somewhere may have heard of.

And really, who cares?

Before Paris Hilton made this the “in thing”, I knew a guy (friend of a friend) who had some topless photos of a (super hot) high profile girl. He threatened to release them in the media, and it eventually let to her becoming much lower profile. To this day I don’t understand why he did it. Obviously, it was an attempt to embarrass her and get back in her in some way, but it made him look sort of pathetic in my eyes. I think if he’d thought it through he may have realized that would be the outcome–maybe not.

The funny thing is, I don’t think any less of her for her having the photos taken other than her poor judgment in who she let photograph her. He’s the one that came out looking like the lesser person, at least in my eyes.

I pretty much feel the same way about the Vanessa Hudgens photos. Of course, I was forced to look at them in order to properly research this post. If you haven’t seen them yet, I wouldn’t bother. They are not that big of a deal.

But the guy who released these is a complete jackass. I don’t know how much he got paid, but I doubt it was enough to buy back his word, which I’m sure he gave her that he would never let anyone else see them.

Then there is the other price he has to pay–I wish him luck in finding another girl who will let him take dirty pictures of her.

Nice move, moron.