The Triumph of E-Books

Per the New York Post, Amazon has announced that it is now selling 5% more e-books than print books. We definitely now have a paradigm shift, not a fly-by-night fad. I not only enjoy reading books on my Kindle, I read much more than I have in the past. While printed books will always have a place as collector's items -- just like LP records -- I predict we will all be reading primarily with e-readers in about ten years.

FCC Ethics - Meredith Attwell Baker

Per Truthdig,

Meredith Attwell Baker, one of two Republican FCC commissioners, voted in late January to approve the merger of Comcast and NBC. Less than four months later, she announced that she is leaving the FCC to become a lobbyist for the merged company.

It is truly unbelievable to me that this is legal. The fact that our cynicism causes us to just let stuff like this slide as "business as usual in Washington" infuriates me. This is an equal-opportunity shame: neither party or ideology has a monopoly on being ethically challenged. We should all come together to agree that if you have made a decision as a government official that economically profits a business or organization, you should never be able to work for or knowingly own a portion of that entity -- ever.