Having been someone who has lost his temper before on an internet show I winced when I saw the normally calm and friendly Leo Laporte get angry and shut down the Gillmor Gang show over a Palm Pre review copy misunderstanding with Mike Arrington. I think the point Arrington tried to make was a very good one and it’s too bad that the usually passive Laporte took it as a personal insult and shut the show down. I think if given a similar situation 99 more times, Laporte would not have reacted the same way. But that’s not to say Arrington or Laporte did anything wrong.

Sometimes you just have bad days. That’s what I came away from this thinking.

I wish the internet mob would be able to look at these types of events and chalk them up as humans being human rather than trying to stir something up and going crazy as some are (apparently Arrington received death threats in the comment area of his apology post). We are all far from perfect and I think if each one of us looked inside ourselves when incidents like these come up we’d be able to say: yup, I remember reacting poorly to something and wish I could have that moment back. I sure do.

If you want to watch the live-aired version of what went wrong between Leo and Mike then click here to watch on YouTube, otherwise I’m embedding the funny keyboard cat version below.

I didn’t know what the keyboard cat was about and am normally not that fond of the LOLcatz animal humor but this video mashup cracked me up. Now go watch more keyboard cat at playhimoffkeyboardcat.com

Cooler heads prevail

Hopefully as the dust settles – and it seems by now Mike has already quickly apologized and Leo has accepted (in the comments area of same post) – the Gillmor Gang show should return and a serious discussion of the ethics of any company who might or might not be sending out gadget review units targeted primarily to those who will give a more positive review will be discussed and debated.

All keyboard cat kidding aside, that is a serious worthwhile discussion. What caused this spat is the primary reasons I stopped doing those paid ReviewMe reviews. The money was good and I didn’t feel obligated to give the products/services any particular positive slant. And I always started each review with disclosure for readers but at the end of the day something didn’t feel quite right. It left me feeling kind of dirty, so I stopped doing it. I wonder how many other tech pub writers have done the same?

While driving back to the office yesterday I heard over the local talk radio that there are some conspiracy theorists out there toting that the date of the 5/31/2009 crash for missing Air France Flight 447 adds up to 9/11: 5+3+1 = 9 and 2+0+0+9 = 11.

This is bunk. I did some quick math to come up with other dates that add up to 9/11 this month:

6/3/2009, 6/30/2009, 6/12/2009, 6/21/2009

In July:

7/02/2009, 7/20/2009, 7/11/2009

And in August:

8/1/2009

Should we expect other supposed 9/11 terrorist dates on one or more of these dates? Bogus. It’s all numerical coincidence and nothing more.  The reason the plane went down appears to be either mechanical or weather-related or combination of both:

It is believed that an electrical failure, which could have been linked to severe weather could be what is responsible for the disappearance of Air France flight 447.  France’s Environment Minister Jean Louis Borloo stated that, "Officials do not believe a simple bolt of lightning, something relatively classic in aviation could have caused the loss of the craft. There really had to be a succession of extraordinary events to be able to explain this situation."

It’s doubtful that turbulence alone will be to blame despite the fact that turbulence can seem really scary as a passenger, but from the numerous articles I’ve read to date this plane crash has nothing to do with terrorists. But let’s assume it was, what would be the point of crashing a plane with people into the ocean? Who is that terrorizing, Captain Nemo?

Thoughts and prayers should go out to the families of Flight 447, not idiotic conspiracy theories.

Maybe you’ve heard by now that Yahoo is shutting down Geocities. Yes, the same Geocities it paid $3 billion dollars for a mere 10 years ago. The first thing I thought about when I heard this news was MySpace.

Before you laugh out loud, I’m not talking MySpace the darling among teens and music artists today, I’m talking about MySpace 10 years from now. Take a ride in your time machine to the year 2019 because it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if by then MySpace has met the same fate. A lot of MySpace pages are nothing more than Geocities type over-busy pages with sound onjoin. The major difference is MySpace is more ‘social’ whatever that means these days.

I should probably not be in the prediction business because my record is shaky on this front, but I’m feeling good about this one. There will be something cooler than MySpace within the next 10 years and the inevitable shut down will follow. That’s not to say MySpace is a complete waste of time today so don’t think I’m trolling here but I think the sobering news about Geocities being here today gone tomorrow within 10 years – a lifetime on the internet, BTW – should be a wake-up call for MySpace users.

I’d keep a personal blog on self-hosted web space with the stuff that you really want to last any amount of time on the internet. Yeah, it’s more expensive than free, but your kids might be able to see what it is about when they grow up. Hey, maybe even your grandkids.

What do you think, am I wrong? Will MySpace have more longevity than Geocities? If you need another example of a waning giant, look at eBay vs. Craigslist. It’s tough staying relevant, popular and cool online. That’s my takeaway here. Yours?

Update 6/17/2009 7:40am PST: MySpace lays off 30% of its staff (thanks great big geek)

It’s our baby’s 16th birthday today, our middle teen graduates in a couple months and I’m feeling the last of my hair graying, but hey, life could be worse. Oh and yes, we’re coming to the end of month number four in rebooting our offline business and I can’t (and wouldn’t anyway) complain there. Positive attitude, karma, all that I believe in.

About the only thing I’m disappointed in lately is my online time. I’m feeling out of balance with the stuff I enjoy doing online. Don’t worry friendly readers, I’m not going anywhere and not going to start making excuses for not posting more to the blog. If you see me doing that then this blog has jumped the shark. 

I’ll get my writing mojo back in good time. I do have time to sit and write but where I would have been doing that a year ago, I’m now using that time for offline volunteer work in the community. I’m feeling a lot better about my contribution to society in the offline world.

As I write this my Google Reader is poised rather serendipitously at 777 items unread.

It’s nice being able to keep that number under 1,000+ and some might recall this was done by unsubscribing from any feed that averaged more than 3 posts a day. I’m happy with how this has kept my reading volume in check, but the negative to this is that I do not feel as connected. Ying, yang.

What do you think, is this good or bad? Probably bad for our online business. Maybe bad for both our businesses since one of my 2009 goals was to make our offline business more connected online. So improvement is needed on this front going forward. Balance, balance, balance; the key of life.

The online connected drug

Being online is like a drug, isn’t it? It’s a bit scary in fact.

To become sobered by just how scary online can be just read stories like the alleged Craigslist killer with a women’s panty fetish:

Philip Markoff, the accused murderer now known as the "Craigslist Killer," appeared to be collecting women’s panties, which investigators believe were "souvenirs" from his alleged victims, two law enforcement sources told ABC News. The panties, found during a search of Markoff’s house, are one of the reasons investigators believe there could be more victims who have not yet come forward…

It would seem this Markoff guy might have gotten in way over his head with gambling debts. Balance, balance, balance. Or in this guy’s case IF he turns out to be found guilty (and please remember: innocent until proven guilty), imbalance would be the correct word to use.

Although I’ve not used enough to judge Craigslist seems like an online service that plenty of normal, sane people use for buying, selling, trading and finding people and things but when you get into large enough numbers online the darker side of humanity is exposed.

But enough of the scary side of being online. Let’s focus on the positive side. There are plenty of good reasons to stay more connected online.

I’ve tried to keep online time spent in check by reminding myself that it is foremost a work place and secondarily for social interaction and entertainment. Just as I don’t want to spend too much time at the office, I shouldn’t spend excess time online. Even if our internet connection is 24/7, we don’t have to be. Balance, balance, balance.

Gone are the days of gadget shopping and multiple weekly trips to Best Buy. I think they miss me judging by the increase in sales-related emails they’ve been sending and in a couple cases phone calls from the store. You know you are shopping too much at a retail store (balance!) when the store starts having withdrawal symptoms.

Someday I’ll make time for that stuff again, but I’m happy replacing this with the local Eagles club and working longer and more focused work days. For the most part I’m still taking at least one day a week off and not working late every night so no fear of burning out.

But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the (good) online stuff. It’s not like missing smoking, which was a habit I managed to shake 23 years ago, but it’s close. To rip a line from Arnie: I’ll be back.

Yikes, my wife asked me about the game system OnLive before I’d even heard about it. OnLive is a service that looks to be a lot like the Vudu is for movies, only for games. It was announced earlier this month at the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC). The games will work on TV or PC and are streamed through a central server. OnLive has a beta sign-up page (done) and will be inviting players this summer.

While chances are good we’ll be getting the OnLive Microconsole unless the pricing is insane, I’m not too excited yet how this will go over. It’s from Steve Perlman, founder of WebTV (and we know how well WebTV went over) and also Quicktime. And speaking of pricing:

the OnLive team isn’t offering up any details other than to say "we can price it substantially lower than the Wii." That’s according to John Spinale, the company’s VP of games and media, who kept mum on other costs like subscription fees and new game prices

Techtree.com has a sensationalistic headline declaring this to be a ‘threat to consoles’ which is doubtful, but adds the following useful intel about the game companies involved:

So far, nine third-party game publishers, who include Electronics Arts, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Interactive, Take-Two, THQ, Epic Games, Eidos, Atari, and Codemasters, have committed to involve themselves in the game distribution service. These game publishers would also be retailing games as usual.

Xbox Live sort of rules the roost in our home and many others. If you want a great online game experience, it’s tough to compare the quality and diversity of titles to what’s available currently on Xbox Live. Yesterday we went and picked up the Guitar Hero: Metallica and enjoyed playing.

On the plus side potentially for OnLive, we’re digging how convenient the Vudu is hooked up to the TV, despite it being yet another TV-connected gadget. With Satellite in HD, Xbox Elite, PS3 and Vudu we don’t have enough HD jacks to handle all these gadgets. Going to have to get one of those HD selector boxes. Anybody seen a good price on one of those? I checked out on at Best Buy that was like $200. No way. Got to be something much, much cheaper than that. I’m thinking $50 range.

Will have more to say about OnLive when I can dig in and check it out firsthand.

If you haven’t heard by now one of Seattle’s two main newspapers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is publishing its last paper today:

"The mood has been lousy in the newsroom," said the 20-year P-I employee. "It’s one thing to lose your job; it’s another thing to lose a group of friends who you have worked with very closely for a long period of time and it’s still another to lose an institution that’s mattered in Seattle since the Civil War."

The P-I has been publishing for roughly the last 146 years. I feel for the folks who are losing their jobs naturally, but I’m glad the business isn’t getting any kind of bailout.

I was tired of bailouts before the first one and now congress is wasting time arguing over how to tax the bailed out AIG bonuses. We need to let companies fail like the PI. Yes, it’s painful, yes it is sad, but this is the way things go. Eventually everything dies. A business should never be so big that it can’t fail and I never would have thought I’d live in a time when the government would insist on not letting a business fail.

Back to the newspaper business. The P-I is going web-only. I was listening to a radio talk show yesterday talking about how difficult it would be for them to make it as an advertiser-supported operation. That they should sell something. I don’t think selling generic online newspaper subscriptions will work either.

So what will work for newspapers?

How can newspapers make money online? Custom, personalized news service might be one way. Let each subscriber get a service with news direct to them that they are specifically interested in. I know that one can already go out and do this with services like Y! Pipes, but newspapers who take all the geek out of online services and put it in online subscribers hands quickly and easily may find a market where people will pay. But that’s only going to last until everybody gets internet savvy. Then where to make money?

Perhaps offering the ability to hire a reporter. Imagine being able to pay for a reporter to follow a story you are interested in and report back the findings. Bloggers might buy if the prices were right.

I’m sure there are plenty of other, perhaps better creative ideas for newspapers. If you have some, feel free to plant them in the comments are above and maybe we can help some other newspapers going web only.

In the past I’ve written here about why the newspaper business has many challenges ahead and I believe many, many more newspapers will fold in the coming years. Also how this has become a cliched, cyclical spring story. I’m not sure what spring and newspaper business death have in common, but they do. Next spring bet on hearing about even more papers folding. Must be quarterly timing or something.

Whatever the case, I’m nostalgic but not surprised the Hearst company didn’t find a buyer in the last 60 days for the P-I. Think I’ll go out today and try and buy the final edition. Probably the collectors will have gobbled them already. There you go, another idea:

Reprint old editions and sell them on eBay at a premium.

You might have heard last week that cereal giant Kellog’s has stopped sponsoring Olympic swimming sensation Michael Phelps because he [gasp] was caught smoking something in a bowl in a picture in a British tabloid. He hasn’t admitted to smoking pot, but it seems a little like Clinton saying he ‘didn’t have sexual relations with that woman.’

So who are some of Phelps other sponsors that could turn tail and run? AT&T, Powerbar, Omega, VISA and Speedo. Making matters worst, USA Swimming has suspended Phelps for three months.

Dave Winer, a self-admitted once upon a time (but no more) weed smoker, has one of the more reasoned takes I’ve read to date about the statement that Kellog should have made, rather than throwing Phelps under the chronic bus:

What a bunch of stinkers they are at Kellogg’s. They could score so many points by saying something like this: "We don’t encourage pot smoking, but we understand that some people do it. We have so many bigger problems to tackle in this country, and Michael Phelps is such an incredible young man and hero, we decided to be heroic ourselves, and cut him some slack, and keep him on the corn flakes box."

If I were working in the marketing department at General Mills, makers of the famous Wheaties cereal and Kellog major competitor, I’d suggest it was time to rally behind Michael Phelps and pick up his sponsorship.  General Mills has one of those rare marketing opportunities involving an incredible athlete and should consider not staying in the grand stands. They wouldn’t have to glorify pot smoking, but they could send the message that teamwork involves sticking by your teammates, something Kellog isn’t doing by distancing itself from someone they once supported.

Then again, they’re already ahead of Kellogg in the cereal wars, so they don’t have to take any risks entering the Phelps media maelstrom. They can sit back and let Kellogg take heat for getting behind a champion who allegedly smoked pot. The thing is Phelps doesn’t fit the stereotype of the lazy, out of work pot smoker in any shape or form.

Really let’s put the pot smoking allegation aside for a moment and look at what Michael Phelps has accomplished in the pool. It’s like looking at what Pete Rose did as a player.

Phelps the masterpiece of swimming tapestry 

Phelps did something no other human being has ever done before by amassing eight gold medals swimming in the freaking Olympics! Don’t know the last time any readers got in the pool, but swimming is hard, hard work. I get tired swimming one or two laps in the pool and I don’t smoke and barely drink. Swimming fast is a thousand times harder. Phelps defines the word champion. He deserves to be on Wheaties boxes and getting major sponsorship deals everywhere.

Now let’s talk pot. Ooooooo.

Pot isn’t evil

Why we haven’t decriminalized this drug is beyond me. Somebody can get wasted on beer, wine and hard liquor but gets in trouble for smoke a blunt? Strange. Let’s legalize marijuana, heck, General Mills and Kellogg both can make their own brands of weed and spend our tax dollars jailing the bigger criminals in the world.

As for the crazy talk about boycotting Kellog? Please. Over this dropping Phelps news Kellogg is showing they don’t have any stones but boycotting their many products because they are being politically correct? Equally dumb.

The time for marijuana legalization is coming

Someday soon – perhaps over the next 10 years - we’re going to see an uprising of companies and/or more major mainstream celebrities (not celebrities like Snoop Dogg or Cheech and Chong) stand up and say: enough is enough on marijuana being illegal. Jail should not be a place for pot smokers. And if you are ‘caught’ smoking pot somewhere where you can’t hurt anybody or anything, you shouldn’t be treated like you did something horrible. This could be the kind of change President Obama talked about. Wouldn’t it be something if marijuana was legalized under the Obama administration and it helped turn the tables on the national deficit? Don’t get too excited if you read the tea leaves in his inauguration speech. But hey, who knows.

But pot smoking is not, not, not cool everywhere all the time. If you are caught driving a vehicle and hurt somebody or their property while stoned, I have zero sympathy for what your sponsors or the police do to you. Yes, that includes Michael Phelps if he does smoke the stuff recreationally. Let’s not torture the guy for having a little fun.

I’ve not watched or followed Oprah Winfrey that much but can’t help feeling sympathy toward her being duped by these bogus non-fiction authors who she has believed in and promoted. Winfrey, like most reasonable people, assume book publishers will vet their non-fiction titles to make sure they are, well, true. Heck, at least mostly true. Winfrey may have the scratch to be able to hire private investigators to check out the veracity of a non-fiction title but should she be forced to do so? I say no.

And how about these pieces of work like Herman Rosenblat, a holocaust survivor turned wolf fiction writer in sheep non-fiction clothing. Oprah deemed Pinocchio-Blat’s story about a girl throwing apples over the concentration wall to help keep him alive leading to a later coincidental blind date the “single greatest love story.” The only part Herman forgot to tell Oprah, her audience, and readers: it was all made up!

Rosenblat’s bogus autobiography is one of one of several memoirs that have been lauded by Winfrey and then later revealed to be frauds — including James Frey’s best-selling "A Million Little Pieces" and Margaret Seltzer’s "Love and Consequences" — consequently calling into question how much weight Winfrey’s future book endorsements will carry.

Writing a book is a lot of work. Figuring out the difference between the truth and a lie isn’t.

If one wants to write fiction then go right out and do it, but don’t be lame and claim some fantastic story as non-fiction. Fiction gives writers all the tools they need to spin tall tales legitimately. 

Some amount – a very small amount - of embellishment is reasonable for non-fiction book because memories aren’t perfect and not all historical events can be recalled in exact detail, but people like the ones blatantly duping Oprah and their readers are damaging the industry as a whole. I don’t respect or consider these writers to be anything more than scam artists. They are going the bathroom where others sleep, eat and drink. Not, not, not cool.

Rosenblat released a statement through his literary agent saying he only wanted to bring people happiness and that his tale was “only a dream.” He along with other writers pulling similar dreamworld confusion acts would bring writers happiness by categorizing their work correctly and honorably.

Despite Sony finally removing the curtain for its ambitious Home project and the Xbox providing a compelling fall update, the Wii is still the holiday 2008 gift to put on Santa’s list. Check out the subject of the Amazon email just received:

Plenty of Xbox 360 and PS3 in stock. Plenty of Blu-ray movies. Guitar Hero, Rock Band and all music games which have been a huge hit for me personally the last month are starting to wane interest thanks to a dirth of adding appealing songs. Where are more great album from the 60s, 70s and 80s? These music games and the struggling music business are missing a huge opportunity by not pushing out a steady stream of albums in videogame format. The console market as of this writing isn’t being soul sucked by the peer to peer sector.

But how about Nintendo? Major props to Mario’s proverbial parents for thumbing their Wiimotes to the hardcore gamer crowd. Even though the Wii gets little play time in our home, yes even with Wii Fit (sigh, we should be using more), it’s still favored over the PS3 but not the Xbox 360.

Our household appears in the minority that craves the Xbox 360 over the Wii:

In fact, Nintendo’s red-hot Wii system outsold the Xbox by almost 3-to-1 in November. Wii shipments in the month totaled 2.04 million, while Xbox shipments came in at 836,000 … PlayStation 3 ranked a distant third, with shipments of just 378,000 units, said NPD.

And it’s not just the Wii that’s a hit, the Nintendo DS has shipped 1.57 million to the more stylish and chic PSP with 421,000. Should any of us feel sorry for Sony? I don’t. They have a beautiful piece of hardware that is collecting dust due to an inexplicably slow launch of new titles. Yeah, they have some great games and as a blu-ray player movies never looked better, but people never were and never are going to buy a game console in large numbers for a proprietary movie format.

Keep on ignoring blog posts like this one, Sony, but the console graveyard is littered with game starved systems.

Sony PS3 Home limp emphasis on gaming

I was excited this week to finally get a peek at the PS3 Home long in beta. I was hoping to see a strong emphasis on gaming. Forget that.

My biggest disappointment with Home is that it launched with exactly the opposite. Why can’t I put buy arcade cabinets from their mall to put in my apartment and invite friends over to play? They could have bought Atari for a pittance and put every Atari game each in an arcade cabinet and offered them for sale in Home. Instead we get as flashy avatars living in this beautiful waterfront view outside that is devoid of any interaction capability whatsoever. You can walk out on the balcony and look in the distance at gorgeous virtual scenery.

Can see but not touch; the PS3 experience personified. Heck,I can boot up Everquest II or Lord of the Rings Online and both see and interact with cool scenery, why can’t I do (enough of) that in Home?

Hey Sony, go check out PhantomEFX Casino MMO. That has user custom spaces that you can get game machines to put in your apartment and invite friends over to play and has been available for a couple years. Not in beta, not some promise maybe in the future, it’s here and in use now.

Now before the Sony apologists start ripping me in the comments for not appreciating Home being beta and free. I get beta and get free, that’s great, thank you Sony, but somebody, anybody tell me why I’m going to bother going into Home at this point rather than launching straight into a game? If I want to hang out with friends online, why not do it outside the PS3 where interactive possibilities abound, thank you very much. There are a bunch of other places online to find fellow PS3 owners that don’t feel nearly as gimmicky and under-utilyzed as Home in its current open beta state.

Frankly I would have rather seen the money spent on Home being used to kick out a lot more fun games.

Home seems destined to be more of the same underappreciated potential squandered, which appears to be the sad state of arguably the best designed game systems ever. Look, I know this is going to seem like Sony bashing, but it’s really PS3 owner frustration that the PS3 could be so much better than it is. I’ve been through this with too many consoles in the past. The Dreamcast was an awesome machine, but review the sobering history if you need a lesson in how software outshines hardware.

The PS3 doesn’t score serious points for being cool and having great hardware, they need to deliver games or rip a card from Nintendo’s marketing brilliance: focus on fun at an affordable price for the whole family. Being the elite gaming system in an economy where every dollar counts isn’t helping Sony, despite offering a free online gaming community compared to the Xbox Live Gold which costs $50 a year.

My friend keeps saying he won’t buy an Xbox 360 because there aren’t enough of the type games he wants to play. This is something Microsoft needs to listen to and try and fill over the next year. He owns a PS3 and Wii and in his post at VTOR shared similar disappointment as me with Home. If Sony can’t get somebody like him excited who is already on board – as you might say about me with the Xbox 360 – then they have a big problem on their hands. Home is supposed to be their stunning, revolutionary dashboard interface. It’s supposed to make people buy a PS3 so they can be a part of the excitement.

Yeah, right.

How can Microsoft and Sony overtake the Wii in 2009?

Is this even possible? I would bet on the economy rebounding first. The real console sales battles were supposed to be fought this season, but I’m moving my projection to holiday season 2009 when the PS3 has a more refined Home experience and will be at full strength. By then the Xbox 360 will have to prove it’s aging gracefully and we’ll find out if the Nintendo Wii continues to do well on the strength of their game library rather than system shortages. Looks like Nintendo may have enough momentum and sales to call it already. If the Wii can be in demand in these troubled times, you have tip the hat. Big time.

As a PS3 owner, I’m worried about the system. It’s starting to feel close to joining the endangered species list. This is the time when I should be talking about how many awesome games I’m looking forward to on the PS3. What am I looking forward to? Well, Home was on that list because I expected it to be more game focused. Yeah, there is a game launcher there and a few very rudimentary games in the bowling alley and elsewhere, but too little, too late.

More games in 2009, Sony please. Get rid of the silly, overpriced Qore and virtual world wannabe fluff and give us more games. Gamers go where the good games are flowing in great supply.

During the whole Joe the non-plumber phase of the McCain Palin campaign trail I tried to avoid writing how absurd it was having this guy on the trail. I’ve yet to see anything from Joe then or now that shows he’s trying to parlay his 15+ minutes of fame into anything that has to do with the plumbing profession.

 
photo credit: ronnie44052

William Hung, love or hate him, at least did something for/in the music industry. If I’m wrong about Joe using his celebrity (gasp) to do something noteworthy for plumbers around the country then please use the comments below to correct me. I’d like to give the guy some credit for giving something back

Check that, I will give him credit for agreeing with most of the rest of America that the wall street bailouts were a bad idea. And the bailouts, much as I’d feared, didn’t stop there. The big three automakers are about to get an infusion of about half of what they wanted, but still some $15 billion dollars. U.S taxpayers having to prop up these companies remains a swelling, sour knot in my stomach.

Now back to Joe who got himself a book deal and is out promoting the book. He is claiming he is giving back and spreading the wealth around – only not to plumbers, but to publishing companies:

"I am not going to a conglomerate that way we actually can get the economy jump started. Like there is five publishing companies in Michigan. There’s a couple down in Texas. They are small ones that can handle like 10 or 15,000 copies. I can go to a big one that could handle a million or two. But they don’t need the help. They are already rich. So that’s spreading the wealth to me," he said.

In this book Joe covers the unpopularity of the bailout with the American people. During the promotion on Glenn Beck’s radio show, Joe turned the heat up on McCain:

I asked [John McCain] a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen. Yet he voted for it. … And I asked him some pretty direct questions. Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive — they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him.

So why didn’t Joe get off the bus? Because he believed Obama would be worse.

Oh, and for the record, Sarah Palin isn’t included in Joe’s McCain dissing. He didn’t get to spend much time with her and yet believes she is “the real deal.” Pardon me for not taking that endorsement seriously.

I can only sigh at this development, really.

If Joe really disagreed with McCain on the bus about this and was “appalled” then why didn’t he tell the media this during the campaign? If he did then he would have likely been booted off the bus and made to walk home. I doubt this revelation from Joe the plumber could have hurt the McCain camp any further but it surely would have helped Joe’s credibility. Help make him look like he was about more than riding the bus both figuratively and literally.

If Joe is now using John McCain, a war hero whom despite my disagreements politically I respect for serving this country with bravery and loyalty, to promote his book then shame on him. McCain was clearly misguided on his bailout vote but now Joe is biting the hand that fed him for … what? Why? To show he is an independent thinker?

Sure sounds like Joe deserves another monniker: disloyal. America has always had crazy things going on but these times seem crazier than any other time in my life.

I’m curious in an accident scene gawker kind of way what happens when Joe needs more money and takes a second book or other non-plumber related deal? Does he then diss Sarah ‘The Real Deal’ Palin to get some extra media love? If this is the publicity stunt that it smells like to me — and shame on me for giving this guy any further exposure if the spade is a spade — Joe and his ilk can’t exit the spotlight soon enough.

But before things go dark, Joe, please throw real plumbers a bone. Those guys actually have to work with crap, rather than spew it from their pieholes.