S/V Tavarua

Somehow, I doubt this will counter Coke and Pepsi’s marketing budgets, but it’s a start.

One of the great things about America is that the tap water’s safe to drink. (Well, except maybe in Houston, where it’s the color of mud.) That’s not true in a good part of the world. The next time you see a water fountain being replaced by a Coke machine selling Dasani water (”Make your mouth water”) for $1.25, you should consider finding the person in charge of that outrage and demand that a new water fountain be put back in.

And thank the gods that Coke and Pepsi can’t charge for air. Because the evidence suggests that many Americans would rush out to buy air (”Make your body breathe”). Now excuse me while I head off to the Oxygen Bar, Sushi and Sake Lounge on Valencia for some Demon Tears Rolls…

Rep. John Conyers just posted this delightful note on the NYTimes’ pathetically slanted “coverage” of Senator Feingold’s censure resolution. The firings should continue until morale improves…

There were reports earlier this week that a World Health Organization study indicated that the last natural blonde would be born in Finland around 2202. This turns out to be erroneous as the WHO just released this statement. So hopefully we can plan on enjoying blondes globally into the foreseeable future.

MSNBC.com was caught changing a story about Cheney’s shooting to remove quoted references to alcohol.

Of course we’ll never know if Cheney was drunk since the Secret Service turned away a Local Sheriff who didn’t get the memo and showed up at the ranch to interview the participants. Which sort of begs the question as to why anyone would bother making this change anyway. But I digress…

What I find more interesting is that as we move to consume all our “news” from the network, we have no effective version control for legitimate news organizations. When you print a newspaper, you’re essentially committing the story to source control each time you roll the press. The Wikipedia and RSS folks knew this and designed revision history into the system. We should be demanding similar treatment from our online media sources because the potential for precisely this type of abuse is quite troubling.

FWIW, the email addresses for MSNBC’s senior management can be found here. (Scroll down to “2. Contact MSNBC”.)

Update: the scrubbed paragraph returns. The story changes depending on when you read it…

Update: well this is certainly pretty “murky” now, isn’t it? And yet somehow, I think clarity shines through.

Man Sells Device That Blocks Fox News

By EMILY FREDRIX, Associated Press Writer

It’s not that Sam Kimery objects to the views expressed on Fox News. The creator of the “Fox Blocker” contends the channel is not news at all. Kimery figures he’s sold about 100 of the little silver bits of metal that screw into the back of most televisions, allowing people to filter Fox News from their sets, since its August debut.

An interesting interview with NYU’s Mark Crispin Miller on MSM coverage of this story.

And cheers to the Chicago Tribune’s Charlie Madigan who managed to secure a front page center placement in today’s online edition with a story on this scandal.