Sometimes I read something online that is so mind numbingly stupid that I can’t even conceive how someone reached that conclusion. Yep… this is one of those times.

Over the weekend, Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch wrote up a post about how Judge Richard Posner wrote up a blog about the death of newspapers, and he had one of the craziest ideas I’ve ever heard of for saving them from the worsening economy:

Imagine if the New York Times migrated entirely to the World Wide Web. Could it support, out of advertising and subscriber revenues, as large a news-gathering apparatus as it does today? This seems unlikely, because it is much easier to create a web site and free ride on other sites than to create a print newspaper and free ride on other print newspapers, in part because of the lag in print publication; what is staler than last week’s news. Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.

For those of you unfamiliar with the theory of linking and how it works, it’s a fairly simple concept.  Take me linking the word “TechCrunch” above.  I chose to link to the actual story Ms. Schonfeld wrote, so now when this post is published he will receive a notice called a “trackback” that allows him to know that I referenced his article in my post.  This will also be used by search engines to see how relevant his post is and how much credence they should give it.  The more links a site or story receives, the more importance a search engine puts on it, and the more chance of people searching on the appropriate terms will see it.

Essentially, links are the life’s blood of blogging.

Now, what Judge Posner is suggesting that linking to copyrighted material, or using a portion of it as a quote (like I did with his blog post above), should be illegal under copyright law , you have to wonder how he thinks this will save the the newspaper industry.  I’m not sure where to even start with just how wrong he has gotten this, but lets give it a go anyway:

Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, or to bar linking…

Okay, lets say you want to link to NYTimes.com, that would probably be fine, but if you want to link to a specific story, say Karl Malden, Everyman Actor, Dies at 97, the link would look like this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/movies/02malden.html?_r=1&hp

This is known as “deep linking”, and I have a feeling this is what Judge Posner is talking about as this is actual copyrighted material.  The problem is that without deep linking you could never share a story with any one.  Are you going to link to the main page and then tell them “Okay, click here… and then here… and then do this…”, no, you aren’t.

Deep linking is also essential to how search engines index the importance of a specific page so that it knows how much priority to gie it when people search on a term.  The more links a page has to it, the more important it is, the higher up in search results it appears.  Deep linking is a very, very good thing in the Internet business.

…paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent

What he is talking about here is block quotes like I did above.  The problem with this is that it would make it impossible for anyone to write a rebuttal to anything as you would have to do a long, drawn out, explanation of what the original article said.  You would have to make sure the wording was different enough so as not to be accused of plagiarism, but then balance making sure you got the original tone of the article.  That is essentially impossible.

Quoting stories is as old as journalism and is essential to editorials as well as stories.  So long as you only quote a small portion of the story it falls under Fair Use, and I don’t really see that ever being written out of copyright law.

It all comes down to “consent”

Judge Posner does stipulate that people could get the copyright holder’s consent and do the linking and quoting, but due to time constraints, and the timeliness of stories, would any newspaper want a dedicated person sitting around 24/7 just to approve requests?  Of course they wouldn’t,  so the solution would be giving people carte blanche to link and quote.  Those papars that wouldn’t do it would quickly see themselves losing popularity due to a lack of links, and… in short, everyone would have to give blanket permission and we would be back to where we started.  Everyone would have permission, and those that didn’t grant it would get zero traffic because of how far behind they are.

So, basically I am saying that Judge Posner’s solution is flawed beyond belief and that he shows a total lack of understanding for how the Internet actually operates.  His ’solutions’ will do nothing but create grief for bloggers and newspapers alike  It would take no time for workarounds to be found, and in the meantime it would end up costing those papers money as they try to handle all of the increased number of requests for permission.

Try to save old media if you want, but at least have a working knowledge of your “solution” before you suggest it.

Okay, seriously, you’re the governor of a state, did you think that NO ONE would notice you were missing?

As any one who reads this blog on a regular basis knows that I avoid discussing politics.  It just isn’t my bag, and I have always felt it was the safer route in life.  However, I think the situation with Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina isn’t so much about politics but about possibly the most ill-conceived extra marital affair ever.

You are the Governor of a state, you were in the possible running to be Vice-President in the 2008 election, you are considered a rising star in your political party… hey!  I got an idea!  Why don’t you lie to your staff, don’t tell your family where you’re going, and disappear to Argentina for five days to see your Mistress!  This has to be the best idea ever!

While his staff had been telling the story for days that he was hiking in the Appalachian Trail for Father’s Day, however his Lt. Governor seemed confused, as did his wife, Jenny Sanford, as to exactly where he was, or what he was doing.   It seems the man had just completely disappeared off the face of the Earth.

The State newspaper from South Carolina obtained two emails he sent to his Mistress, and one from her to him several months ago.  While they had them, they weren’t 100% sure on how authentic they were, so they sat on them.  Well, during Governor Sanford’s little… journey… they got a tip he was in Buenos Aries seeing the woman from the emails, and would be returning via the Atlanta airport today.  (which means SOMEONE knew where he was… just no one that seemed to matter)  The newspaper did the math and figured out what flight he should be on and sent a reporter to stake out the gate and… bingo, there he was.  Since the pieces were adding up, they have now released the emails to the public and they are here for your convenience.

From Gov. Sanford,
Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008, 12:24 a.m.
“One, tomorrow leave at 5 a.m. for New York and meetings. Will think about you on its streets and wish I was going to be there later in the month when you are there. Tomorrow night back to Philadelphia for the start of the National Governor’s Conference through the weekend. Back to Columbia for Tuesday and then on Wednesday, as I think I had told you, taking the family to China, Tibet, Nepal, India, Thailand and then back through Hong Kong on world wind tour. Few days home then to Bahamas for 5 days on a friend’s boat for the last break of the summer. The following weekend have been asked to spend it out in Aspen, Colorado with McCain – which has kicked up the whole VP talk all over again in the press back home …
Two, mutual feelings …. You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light – but hey, that would be going into sexual details …
Three and finally, while all the things above are all too true – at the same time we are in a hopelessly – or as you put it impossible – or how about combine and simply say hopelessly impossible situation of love. How in the world this lightening strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure. As I have said to you before I certainly had a special feeling about you from the first time we met, but these feelings were contained and I genuinely enjoyed our special friendship and the comparing of all too many personal notes …
Lastly I also suspect I feel a little vulnerable because this is ground I have never certainly never covered before – so if you have pearls of wisdom on how we figure all this out please let me know… In the meantime please sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul.”
——————–
From Maria,
Wednesday, July 9, 2008 8:14 p.m.
“As I told you I shouldn’t have done this trip but I would have felt worst if I wouldn’t have come because it was too over the date, he is a very nice guy, great heart … but unfortunately I am not in love with him … You are my love … something hard to believe even for myself as it’s also a kind of impossible love, not only because of distance but situation. Sometimes you don’t choose things, they just happen… I can’t redirect my feelings and I am very happy with mine towards you.”
——————–
From Gov. Sanford,
Tuesday, July 8, 1:42 a.m.
“Got back an hour ago to civilization and am now in Columbia after what was for me a glorious break from reality down at the farm. No phones ringing and tangible evidence of a day’s labors. Though I have started every day by 6 this morning woke at 4:30, I guess since my body knew it was the last day, and I went out and ran the excavator with lights until the sun came up. To me, and I suspect no one else on earth, there is something wonderful about listening to country music playing in the cab, air conditioner running, the hum of a huge diesel engine in the back ground, the tranquillity that comes with being in a virtual wilderness of trees and marsh, the day breaking and vibrant pink coming alive in the morning clouds – and getting to build something with each scoop of dirt.”

Again, let me make this crystal clear, I couldn’t care less what political party this man belongs to, I don’t care about anything to do with his politics, heck, I don’t even really care the he had an affair, that is between he and his wife.  What does anger me is that this is a fundamentally stupid man. Sure every Governor is entitled to vacations, no argument there, but to lie to your staff, to just disappear without anyone knowing when you are the man charged with being the head of your state? This is inexcusable and you must resign immediately as you are not fit to lead a Boy Scout troop let alone an entire state.  What if there had been a natural disaster?  What if some form of state wide emergency had happened?  Did anyone even remotely know where he was to reach him and get his orders? The Lt. Governor wasn’t in power, it was Governor Sanford, and the people of his state didn’t know where was.  Even for someone like me he owns a small business, which is nothing compared to running a state, but I am reachable 24/7/365 as that is my responsibility as the ultimate authority in the company… you know… like a Governor.

Basically, this man needs to resign for dereliction of duty.  If you are an elected official, if you disappear, that’s it, you’re done.  Good-bye.

I must request that no one calls my cell phone any more.

Hear me out folks! When certain people call my phone, this causes my phone to ring (I know, what a revelation), and since I have attached a ringtone to their number, that means that music plays to let me know who it is. Folks, every time you call me, did you know we’re holding a performance? It’s true! People jump up on tables and start dancing… spotlights suddenly appear as if from nowhere and shine down on the make-shift dance floor… it’s sort of like High School Musical, or, at least what I imagine High School Musical is like since I have never watched even a second of any of those movies, but you get the idea.

This is what the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) would have you believe.  According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ASCAP filed a brief (PDF link) against AT&T saying that even though consumers have paid a download royalty, the musicians are owed a second royalty for public performance when the phone ring in public places such as a restaurant.  They are going after AT&T because they make the phones be able to play the ringtones.

As the EFF points out, this is pretty much doomed to failure.  There is a specific section of the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 110(4)) that says performance without any fee or compensation is ok.

(4) performance of a nondramatic literary or musical work otherwise than in a transmission to the public, without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage and without payment of any fee or other compensation for the performance to any of its performers, promoters, or organizers, if —

(A) there is no direct or indirect admission charge; or

(B) the proceeds, after deducting the reasonable costs of producing the performance, are used exclusively for educational, religious, or charitable purposes and not for private financial gain, except where the copyright owner has served notice of objection to the performance under the following conditions:

(i) the notice shall be in writing and signed by the copyright owner or such owner’s duly authorized agent; and

(ii) the notice shall be served on the person responsible for the performance at least seven days before the date of the performance, and shall state the reasons for the objection; and

(iii) the notice shall comply, in form, content, and manner of service, with requirements that the Register of Copyrights shall prescribe by regulation;

So, okay, the consumer is protected because they have legally purchased the ringtones, so ASCAP turns to AT&T  because they are selling the ringtones for a profit, so they are ‘charging an admission’ for the ringtone being played.  So basically they are going after the company that sells you the equipment to enjoy this loophole in the copyright law.  The problem with this portion is that it was ruled on years ago in the infamous Sony Betamax ruling that ruled that companies were not liable for how their technologies were used. If they were to be held responsible for those uses, they would have to ask media companies for permission before building new tech, and this would stifle creativity.

Now that it is clear that ASCAP has no legal leg to stand on… does the greed of the music industry know no bounds?  Is there any possible way that they won’t continue to try to bleed money out of the consumer?  If by some miracle they win this case, you know the royalty fee will be passed down to the consumer, so, yes, this does impact you.  Yet again it is just another example of how the music industry treats all of its customers as criminals from day one, and you basically owe them money for even thinking about music.

This story is a couple of days old now, and I actually was going to give it a pass, but as I continued to think about it, the angrier I got.  Just who does ASCAP think they are?  I know of a retailer friend of mine who got visited by ASCAP at least twice over his personal radio he kept behind his counter.  He played music for his own entertainment as he would sort freight, but ASCAP said he owed them a yearly licensing fee because he played the radio at a certain decibel level that qualified it as a public performance.  He offered to turn it down, but he was informed it was too late and he owed them the fees.  Last I heard he had never paid it and continued to refuse to pay them, but they kept trying to get him for it.

Decibel levels?  Really?  Well, here’s a money spinner idea for ASCAP!  Go park an agent outside any given high school when it lets out for the day, and ticket everyone with a car stereo system over a certain level because they are obviously doing a public performance!  Heck, from my days in high school they would have made a fortune!

The music industry continues to wonders why they continue to have such a lousy relationship with consumers.  Well, I’ve got a couple of ideas of how that might have happened, could it possibly be the fact you come after us for every conceivable cent?  Just a thought.

Hopefully this will get tossed quickly, but you never know.

There are times where the mind just can’t comprehend some of the news it comes across… this is one of those times.

This past Monday the Georgia Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-2 decision that it was legal for teachers to have sexual contact with a student so long as they were over the state’s age of consent, which is 16-years-old.  According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the case came before the court on the appeal of a conviction of Melissa Lee Chase after she was not allowed to present a defense where she would have said the student she had sex with, who was over 16-years-old, was consensual to the situation.

Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears wrote:

Generally speaking, it is not a crime in Georgia to have physical sexual contact with a willing participant who is 16 years of age or older.

Between August and November 2006, Ms. Chase developed a relationship with a female student where she would have her over to her house for cookouts and to occasionally spend the night.  The relationship turned romantic and then eventually sexual.

Ms. Chase was arrested after the girl’s mother found romantic notes between the two.

During the trial, the girl testified that she was was the one who had pushed for the relationship because she had feelings for the teacher.  The prosecution objected to the testimony because they said consent was not relevant, and this was upheld by the judge.  Ms. Chase was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Chief Justice Sears wrote:

But the General Assembly did not specifically bar a consent defense when it enacted the state law making it a crime for a teacher to have sex with a student enrolled in school.

If it did bar such a defense, then a 30-year-old law school professor who engaged in fully consensual sex with a 50-year-old law student embarking on a second career would be guilty of a felony and face a minimum 10-year prison term.  That would be “truly absurd and unjust.

Richmond County District Attorney Ashley Wright said that she will be talking to the girl in the case to see what role Ms. Chase’s as an authority figure may have coerced the girl in any way.

It is well known how I feel about teachers having sex with their students, but if the law wasn’t written properly, it wasn’t written properly.  However, that being said, the law should now be rewritten and no matter what age or consent given, a teacher having sex with a student should be illegal.  While Chief Justice Sears makes a valid point about adult students, you would be hard pressed to find a college or university that doesn’t have a policy in place forbidding teachers from having relationships with their students.  I would even be okay with the law stipulating grade school, and then colleges, law schools, medical schools etc could set their own policies, but in grade school it should be absolutely forbidden.

Even if a student is of the age of consent, the situation between a grade school teacher and student is different than in any other educational setting.  You are taught from a very young age that teachers are your custodians from the time you get to school until the time you leave.  They have a very different relationship with their students than say a college biology teacher has with their students.  These people are, for all intents and purposes, like surrogate parents during your time there.

In short, fine, this law was flawed, this particular teacher may get out for now, but it still doesn’t make what she did proper or correct.  The state of Georgia needs to revisit the law, and every other state best look at their own to make sure they couldn’t have a similar problem.  Age of consent or no, just say no to grade school teacher student sex.

Well here’s a follow-up post I never thought I would have to write.

Back in January 2008 I wrote a short post about Salad Bar Etiquette and the things people do while going through a salad bar that annoyed me to no end.  You know, making artistic arrangements, chatting with their friends and so on.  Well, every week I go to lunch with a friend, and ever since that post he has given me endless guff about it and how I was making too much out of it and so on.  I just grunt him and I still stand by it.

Of course, any one can be changed to “the darkside” (aka as my way of thinking) by a small event.

A few weeks ago we’re at Ruby Tuesday in the salad line as a woman is going through the line with her daughter.  My friend and I are the only other ones in line, and as he hits the midway point, and I’m behind him at this point.  All of a sudden the woman says “excuse me,” smiles, and backs up to get something she forgot.  Okay, no biggie, it’s one thing.

Then she backs up further and gets something else.  -grumble-

Okay, seriously?  Three things?  ”I’m so sorry, just one more thing!”  You go reverse in the line for three things?!?  Here’s an idea… GET BACK IN LINE AT THE END!

So, as all this is going on, my friend finally turns to look back at me, and he mutters “I think it’s time you updated your post.”

… I WIN!

And the moral to the story kids?  Don’t go backwards in the line… unless you want me to stab you in the back of the hand with a salad fork.

Were you aware that if you go to a search engine and search on the term “porn”, you will see… wait for it… porn? I know, I’m just as shocked as you are.

Apparently some people in the social media scene are unaware of how search engines work.  You enter a term for something that interests you, you click a button, said search engine returns those results to you.  Seems like a fairly simple concept doesn’t it?  Well, apparently this was news to MG Siegler of TechCrunch and Loic Le Meur.

These two brain trusts decided to see what would happen when they went on Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, and searched for “porn”.  Both Siegler and Le Meur were shocked at how easy it was to view porn, but at least Siegler threw in a disclaimer:

Now, to be fair, to see these results, you do have to manually override the adult filter on the video search, but that’s a whole 2 clicks and doesn’t require that you actually verify your age or anything.

Well, I hate to school a fellow blogger, but, has he actually gone to any other search engine and tried this?  Don’t worry, I saved everyone the work.

Well, would you look at that.  Not only does Bing have a filter you can easily disable without age verification, but so does Ask.com, Google.com and Yahoo.com.  Imagine that.

Now, on Yahoo I realized I was signed into my account, so I signed out just in case age was associated with my account, and I was still able to turn it off with no fuss.  I did the same test on Google and got the same results.  I don’t think I’ve ever had an account with Ask, so I didn’t even bother to look.

Look, I’m no huge fan of Microsoft, and I think the name Bing is so atrociously obvious as an attempt to make a verb out of themselves as to be insulting (i.e. instead of saying “I’ll Google that”, they want you to say “I’ll Bing that”… not happening).  However, to try to insinuate that they are somehow falling down in protecting people from porn when they implemented the exact same method as every other search engine is just low.  The only thing Microsoft did differently is that the videos auto-play when you hover your mouse over them instead of you having to actually click on them.  Wow… that’s… really a non-starter.

Since this “news” came out over the weekend, Bing has added an “Agree” button stating that you are over 18-years-old, and apparently some people are calling victory because you now have to click another button.  Wow, that’ll stop those pesky kids!  They’ll never think to lie and click the “Agree” button.  I mean, heck, that’s a whole extra click to get to the porn!  No one will do that!

Personally I think this is just another example of, ‘well, Microsoft made it, so it must be evil’ thinking that is so prevalent in the tech blogosphere, and quite frankly I find that sad.  As I said, I’m no huge fan of Microsoft, but to attack them for something that is really no different than any other search engine?  Well, I think that says more about the authors of the commentaries than it says about Bing.

There’s bad taste, and then there is REALLY bad taste. One guess which category this idea falls in to.

It seems that Mary Kay Letourneau and her husband Vili Fualaa are hosting a “Hot For Teacher” night at a Seattle nightclub named Fuel.  In case you don’t remember this pair, Mary Kay was Vili’s teacher in 1996, and they began a sexual relationship when he was 13 and she was 34.  Her husband found a letter between the two in February 1997, and between this and Vili’s cousin learning of the relationship, she was arrested and charged with statutory rape.

She was sentenced to 7 & 1/2 years in prison, and four months after starting her sentence she gave birth to a baby girl fathered by Vili.  Two months later she was released on January 1, 1998 for good behavior, and ordered not to see Vili.

On February 3,1998 she and Vili were found in a car by the police and was arrested for violating the court order. She has also failed to join the sex offender program, and evidence was found in the car the implicated she was abut to leave the country. She was placed back in prison for her full possible sentence of 7 & 1/2 years.

In March 1998 it was discovered she was pregnant with a second child by Vili, and she gave birth to that child in October, 1998.  In May 1999 she and her husband, Steve Letourneau, were divorced, and he moved with their four children to Alaska.  Then, in November, 1999, she got six months in solitary confinement for smuggling letters out of prison to Vili.

On August 4, 2004, she was released from prison, and by August 7th Vili was filing for the ban on them seeing each other to be lifted.  They wed on May 20,2005, and Mary Kay is still registered as a Level 2 sex offender who has to have her address verified every 90-days.

So, a woman convicted of committing statutory rape against a student, and her victim-turned-husband, are going to host a party at a night entitled “Hot For Teacher”.  I can’t be the only one who thinks this may be one of the most tasteless ideas ever, can I?  Nope, I’m not.  How anyone can think this is a good idea, from the nightclub to Mary Kay and Vili themselves thinks this is a good idea, is just totally beyond comprehension.  And when did Vili start thinking he was a DJ?

Perhaps some of this year’s teachers involed in sex scandals can make a lucrative career out of hosting nightclub nights that are in bad taste.

• Christine McCallum, Boston, MA
• Lisa Lavoie, Holyoke, MA
• Christy Lynn Martin, St. Petersburg, FL
• Linda Nef and Valynne Bowers, Bountiful, UT
• Sarah L. Tolzien, Richton Park, IL
• Autumn Faulkner, Randolph County, WV
• Lindsay Massaro, Hackettstown, NJ
• Lauren Breslin, Vineland, NJ
• Kristina Anna Baeta, Union City, CA
• Raeanna Jewell, Apache Junction, AZ
• Jennifer Lea Burton, Orangefield, TX
• Tamara Hofmann, Chandler, AZ
• Jennifer Marie Collier, Jacksonville, FL
• Gina Marie Watring, Durham, NC

For some reason only known to Donald Trump, Carrie Prejean is going to keep her crown as Miss California.

Carrie Prejean, the current Miss California, has been embroiled in more controversies than you can you can shake a stick at as of late.  First there was the controversial answer to the question posed by gossip blogger Perez Hilton at the Miss USA pageant, to which you have to say, “Hey, her answer may not be popular, but she’s entitled to her opinion.”  It was what came after that which makes you wonder why this woman still has her crown.

I’m not one for following beauty pageants, I find them rather archaic personally, but when a woman has displayed such flagrant disregard for the standards of the pageant, and more specifically the contract she signed, it becomes a matter of business.  Seeing that Donald Trump, a man who prides himself on his business acumen, is the one running the show, then you really have to question why he would let a woman consistently violate a binding contract agreement without any repercussions.

Here is a list of things she has done to violate her contract.

• The application specifically asks if the applicant had ever posed nude or semi-nude for any photographs.  She said she hadn’t, but as the first of multiple leaked photos (NSFW image, though no full nudity) hit the Internet, it became obvious she had lied.  There is some debate if these images were taken before or after the contract was signed, but it doesn’t really matter.  Due to the size of her breasts in the image (the Miss California pageant organizes paid for her to get breast enlargement), it appears it was after her application.
• Her contract states that she has to make appearances at the request of the Miss California organization at their request.  She has been failing to do so, only sending statements through her public relations manager that usually boil down to “I’m busy”.
• TMZ has uncovered some topless, front-view pictures of Ms. Prejean, pre-breast enlargement, which would indicate there come from before the application.  Which, again, comes back to, ’she lied’.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less about her or her antics, what irks me is Donald Trump saying today, “Carrie will remain Miss California. We are in the 21st century.”  Oh… okay… I guess this translates to, “it’s the 21st century folks, contracts aren’t worth the paper they are written on, so feel free to do as you please.”

This is a man who hosts a “reality” show based around the principles of business, and this would lead one to believe that if a woman who has signed a contract with you has violated, and is continuing to violate, said contract, you fire her.  Come on, Trump, we all know you know how to say, “You’re Fired”, it’s your blasted catch phrase for crying out loud!

Whatever, it’s his pageant afterall, and it doesn’t mean a hill of beans to anything that goes on in the rest of the world, but it is fascinating to know that contracts apparently mean nothing to Donald Trump.

Apparently no one at KFC, or even Oprah’s Harpo Productions, quite understands the power of Oprah.

If you were unaware, KFC has canceled the grilled chicken coupon promotion from earlier this week.  Apparently you can take the unused coupons into restaurants and be issued a new one for a later date that will also include a free drink, but you won’t be getting any free chicken for right now.  Demand has simply outstripped supply, and there is no way for the chain 

As I said in the second post on the the promotion, why this whole thing was done prior to Mother’s Day makes no sense.  It is one of the biggest days of the year for the chain, and to put extra strain on their supply chain at such a critical time of the year for them just made no sense.  And to top all of this off, there are rumors circulating that the franchise locations were not warned of the pending promotion, and they are also supposedly not being reimbursed for the redeemed coupons.

Say what?

While this has not been made 100% official, apparently the deal is that Oprah is paying the corporations costs for the promotion, but somewhere along the line the franchisees got left out of this whole process are expected to just give the food away with no repayment.  How can this even be feasible?  This would also explain why so many locations were not accepting the coupons.

How can two companies of this size and reach have gotten this whole thing so horribly wrong?  Was no one aware that Oprah’s legions of fans will do anything this woman says?  

“Go print a coupon.” 

-millions of women in unison- “Yes… we shall go print the coupon, my liege.”

How could they have not had any clue how successful this was going to be?  With a snap of her fingers Oprah can sell millions of copies of a book, then add her viewers telling non-viewers about the promotion, and… reciepe for a complete disaster if it isn’t planned out correctly.

As for KFC’s part in this mess, this isn’t the first they’ve run a promotion, did they do no advance planning?  Did they not think it might be a good idea to coordinate with their franchise locations?  Did they not think that perhaps they should launch it after Mother’s Day?  No, apparently they just totally did this thing by the seat of their pants and now they have egg all over their face.

For those of you who want to get the new coupons, make sure to visit a participating location (whichever ones those may be…) to get a rain check certificate.  You will then need to mail that, along with your original coupon, in to the stated address and you will then receive a new one back in the mail that will also include a free drink.  And, here’s a wacky idea, apparently the new coupons will have staggered redemption periods.  Genius, guys… really… genius.

To add to the fun, enjoy this really overly euthasastic message from the president of KFC.

Oprah, Oprah, Oprah.

As someone who stays on top of Internet trends during the day, I had no clue what was going on when all of a sudden the Google Hot Trends page was taken over with every imaginable permeation of “Oprah”, “chicken” and “KFC”.  Being a curious sort, it seems Oprah and Kentucky Fried Chicken (I bet they hate it when people still use their full name… tough) have teamed up to give away loads of their new “grilled” chicken.  Sure they claim it’s grilled, but I can’t help it if it looks like someone painted stripes on a piece of chicken.  Thanks Oprah for unleashing this on all of us!

To get your coupons, simply go to unthinkkfc.com, click the button that says “Print Coupon Now”… and then download the world’s most annoying coupon printer.  Seriously, in this day and age I have to download a specialized program to print a coupon?  Thanks KFC!  It does work, though, and I will say this may actually get me to swing by KFC for the first time in 5+ years, but we’ll see.  The coupons are printable up until 9:59 PM CST on May 6th, and they are redeemable through May 19th… except for Mother’s Day May 10th.  Can’t have you cheaping out on mom and giving her free “grilled” chicken, now can we?  (yes, yes, busy day in restaurants, I know… perhaps running this promo at a different time would have made more sense?)

Duncan Riley over at The Inquisitr makes a great point about how PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is sure to have an aneurysm over this promotion. At publishing time they haven’t said anything yet, which says to me they are taking a hit off the crazy pipe before they come out with their rant that makes no sense to anyone but them.  At least they are always entertaining!

Enjoy your free chicken, folks!

It’s times like this that I think back to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“Don’t Panic”.

I won’t bother explaining the quote.  If you’ve read the book or seen the movie, you get it.  If you haven’t done either, you still get it… it’s like a universal quote.

The insanity that is circulating around the recent outbreak of swine flu is staggering.  You couldn’t bat an eye on Twitter this weekend without someone talking about it.  Blogs are writing endless posts about what to do.  Television shows are being interrupted to bring you the latest news when an a confirmed case is reported…

ENOUGH ALREADY!

We get it, there is a flu going around… it is transmitted via human-to-human contact… people have died.

You know what this reminds me of?

THE FLU!

Yes, it is a bit worse because this one came out of the blue, and we do not currently have a vaccine for it, but, then again, sometimes the vaccaine is worse than the flu for those who remember what happened in 1976.  In short, the vaccaine ended up killing a lot of people, and the pandemic like spread of the virus they predicted never materialized.

I do think it is wise to inform the public, “Hey, this is going on, you need to be careful, wash your hands, don’t go to work if you’re sick”, etc, but these are common sense rules everyone should follow.  Course, if they did, then I wouldn’t have had to write a post like Social Etiquette While You’re Sick just last month.  Do make sure you go back and read that because it is filled with basic tips that may keep you healthy during any flu outbreak.

What gets me is how the media is just making this worse.  They are acting as if no one has ever died from the flu before.  So, I went and looked up the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports on flu mortality rates.  Here is the excerpt for just the 2007-2008 flu season.

As of June 19, 2008, 83 deaths associated with laboratory-confirmed influenza infections have occurred among children aged < 18 years during the 2007–08 influenza season that were reported to CDC. These deaths were reported from 33 states (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin). Among the 83 cases, the mean and median age was 6.4 years and 5.0 years, respectively; seven children were aged < 6 months, 16 were aged 6–23 months, 18 were aged 2–4 years, and 42 were aged 5–17 years. Of the 79 cases for which the influenza virus type was known, 51 were influenza A viruses, 27 were influenza B viruses, and one had co-infection with influenza A and B viruses. Of the 63 cases aged 6 months and older for whom vaccination status was known, 58 (92%) had not been vaccinated against influenza according to the 2007 Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommendations. These data are provisional and subject to change as more information becomes available.

83 deaths in the United States alone. Where were the experts on TV to tell us how we should protect ourselves? Where were the flashy graphics? Where were the news conferences by elected officials? What about the travel warnings by other countries? Oh, that’s right, it’s because this happens every year.

There is an old saying in journalism, “if it bleeds, it leads.” Here you have a pre-packaged story for lazy reporters. You have deaths… in an exotic locale… a snazzy, brandable name (go and try to find a Swine Flu related domain name that isn’t taken… I dare ya) that is easy to say and can invoke fear because it’s short and weird sounding… hey, wait a minute, didn’t we play this exact same scenario out with Avian flu? Oh, and wasn’t it SARS a few years before that was going to kill us all?

Again, I am not saying you should be cavalier about this, do take precautions, I’m just saying they should be no different than the ones you should take every flu season.  And as for the people in the media… stop being lazy.

I’m always up for a good laugh, and thanks to a crack “legal team”, I got one last night.

Back in August 2007, I wrote a post about Armando Montelongo, one of the people on the series Flip This House that goes around buying cheap houses and “flips” them quickly to resell them at a higher price after he’s fixed them up.  The post focused on a particular episode known as “The Cathouse” that led to Armando’s brother, David, calling his partnership with his brother over as he walked away from the house in disgust over the cheapness Armando was trying to get away with.

This post, approaching its 20-month anniversary of when I wrote it, has been a constant performer for me in terms of visitors and pageviews.  I can always tell when an episode of the show with Armando airs because I see a spike in visitors to the post.  Beyond that, I no longer watch the show, and I don’t give the Montelongos a second thought.

Well, last night that all changed when I received the following email from legal@armandomontelongo.com:

Mr. Aune:

Re: Your web page at     http://www.seanpaune.com/2007/08/26/armando-montelongo/

Armando Montelongo’s  image is copyrighted. Please remove the photo you have on the above web page immediately.

Thank you,

Legal Team
Armando Montelongo Worldwide, Inc.

This email came in at 1:00 AM CST, and I replied to them at 1:10 AM CST that the image had been removed, and they replied at 1:19 AM with a simple “Thank you.”  No biggie, right?  Well, I have questions about this whole thing, so lets analyze it, shall we?

- Have you ever seen an email from a lawyer that didn’t include their name, let alone the name of their law firm?  The law firm name I could almost excuse because it is quite possible Mr. Montelongo has a full-time lawyer on staff, but no name?  Doubtful.

- It came in at 1 AM… on a Sunday night/Monday morning… of Easter weekend… what lawyer is cruising web sites looking for pictures of their clients at a time like that?

- There is an actual process to officially request the removal of copyrighted materials from a web site.  I’m not going to name it here as I’m not doing the work for his “legal team”, but you would be hard pressed to find a lawyer that doesn’t know how to do it, but apparently this “legal team” is not aware of it.

In short, I feel the email I got from legal@armandomontelongo.com was actually from Armando himself.  Do I have proof?  No, but considering the things I mentioned above, who else would be looking around for pictures of him at 1:00 AM.  I would say “Googling himself”, but my site records show the person coming in via a Yahoo search for “Armando Montelongo”.

So, why do I bring this all up?  No matter who it was behind the address, was the image really causing that much harm?  It had been there for 20-months, but it doesn’t change the post which is not friendly to him at all.  They also didn’t take into consideration this may lead to another post talking about Mr. Montelongo in a negative light.  Or that I may contact another blogger who is considering writing about this in a future post of his own.

Reputation management is an amazing thing, and annoying bloggers is not a way to do it.  Instead of getting a picture removed, they got a picture removed and yet another post on the Internet that doesn’t cast them in a favorable light.  Good thinking.

There is every chance that this was an actual lawyer, actually doing his job, but there is a point where it is better to just let one slide.  I obviously don’t like the guy if I took the time to write a rant about him, so what did they think I would do when they reached out to me and told me to remove an image?  Yes, they got their way, mainly because I didn’t feel it was worth the headache of arguing with them, and, hey, I had to give them some sort “thank you” for giving me an excuse to write about the guy again.

My gut tells me this wasn’t really a lawyer, but I just also don’t really care.  So, thank you, Armando for giving me fodder for another post!