Quote of the day

February 8th, 2010

Not because it is brilliant, but because it is such obvious bull.

Brewers catcher Gregg Zaun, on why his charity-oriented web site is so out of date:

“I kept changing teams so much and it costs like $1,000 just to change the colors on the site.”

Oh, really?

Greece, Europe and the news

February 8th, 2010

It seems more likely than ever that we will have a double-dip recession, and that the debt crisis in Greece and Europe will help drag the world economy into the second trough.

So where was the press before the debt crisis hit last week? Why are we again, playing catch-up on such a hugely important development?

Go Saints!

February 8th, 2010

Peyton Manning whines too much on the sidelines.

Good game, crappy commercials — some of them (the Dodge whatever) were really sexist and nasty.

Amazon’s choice

February 3rd, 2010

Amazon.com caved to publishers and will raise prices for e-books designed for its Kindle e-reader,

Macmillan, the big publisher, argued that Amazon was selling books for below cost and demanded that the online retailer raise prices to $15. Amazon at first retaliated by pulling Macmillan titles from its site, then said it would concede to the demand.

If Amazon does indeed raise its prices, then it needs to rethink the Kindle entirely and loosen its digital rights management stranglehold on the reader’s content. Right now, Kindle readers pay a low price for books that cannot be easily shared with or passed along to others.

If Kindle raises its prices, readers will get not-so-inexpensive books — close in price to deeply discounted new titles in bookstores and places like Target and Wal-Mart — that cannot easily be shared with or passed along to others. The higher prices will come on top of the $259 price tag for the Kindle device itself.

The first scenario includes a trade-off that people clearly are willing to make. The second takes from consumers, but doesn’t give.

Amazon, if it concedes to publishers, needs to find new reasons to make the Kindle attractive to a mass audience. The existing model, with higher content prices layered on top, just doesn’t cut it.

JS, patting itself on the back, makes us smile

January 31st, 2010

It’s right there on page A16. The JS, patting itself on the back for its BPA coverage, shows a picture of the paper being flushed down the Tidy Bowl.

Journal Sentinel in the crapper

Journal Sentinel in the crapper