The Land of Ozz

A story about how the MSM is or at least needs to change the way they do business was posted by a seasoned MSM member Jeff Jarvis. Reading blogs is as important as posting to them. Mark Tapscott’s quote of the Proverbs 18:2 in the description of his blog reminds us of that. Mark gives comments on the BuzzMachine “A new newsroom” posting by Jeff Jarvis. These postings are a must read for those who want to know how blogs might play into the future of MSM.

I ask who wants to blog because I really do want to know. I have offered space to friends on my server. I will set up the blog with trackbacks, comments, and blogrolls. These are people who I like to listen to and I think others would enjoy their views as well. The underlying motives are simple. I want to help disperse useful information on subjects that I feel are important and I want to make a few bucks.

There are plenty of subjects that I find important. Many things I like to weigh in on are covered very well by many others, but they are not me. I believe that it is important to stand up for what you believe in. I believe in good Christian values. There are few subjects that I believe can have a long lasting impact if they are shared clearly and with love. I am still working on the love part. I can be abrasive at times and that is why I am looking for a few people to help soften up my site and the subjects that I believe are important.

The idea of making a few bucks is not new. I have been running web sites for almost ten years now. I know how it works. I know it takes money and/or time to make money. I know that you can make a lot of money in a short amount of time if you have a ton of money to start with. I do not have money, but I do frequently have some time on my hands. Now making money on the Internet without a lot of money to begin with can only be accomplished with time, patience, and most importantly a good web site. The numbers that I have come up with are pretty simple. It takes about 100 unique visitors to a site before an ad is clicked. It then takes about 100 ad clicks to get a purchase. That comes out to roughly one purchase that results in a commission for every 1000 unique visitors to a web site. My numbers are based an my personal experiences, and a few statistics that I have found on other web sites. How much commission is earned depends on the amount of the purchase and the details of the affiliate agreement that is going to track and pay you for your referral.

I am looking to spread good information and make enough money. I do not expect to get rich. I do expect to make enough to pay for hosting and be able to throw a bone to the contributors once in a while. I plan on holding off on advertising until I get the content rolling. I believe that the content I am planning on offering will be helpful and sought after. More to come later.

I saw an article on Slashdot this morning that got me curious about how much a hybrid would really cost me. I looked into the total cost of ownership (TCO) comparison of a hybrid verses a non-hybrid of the same make and model for my mom about a year ago. I went back today and did the comparison again using the Honda Civic Sedan and Civic non-hybrid. I gathered my data from the Honda Automobiles web site and put it into my own spreadsheet.

The hybrid does not require charging from an outlet because it charges itself when no accelerating and hence does not incur extra cost to charge the batteries. The hybrid also has an expected 10yr battery life. The real choice is whether you want to pony up some of your own coin for the higher initial price tag to help with the world’s reported energy problems. The initial cost of these vehicles when compared against the same non-hybrid make/model/options is significant.

I used the cost savings calculator on the Honda web site to determine how much fuel cost I would save by running the hybrid 1200 miles per month at $2 per gallon. Their calculations show that you would not save enough money in fuel consumption to make up for the higher sticker price. The cost of a hybrid is about 40% higher based on a 5-year ownership and the price of a hybrid Civic is about 30% higher based on 10 years of ownership. These numbers do not include any tax incentives which can make the hybrid a little more attractive, but those incentives do not make a significant difference in the calculations. You can get as much as a $2000 deduction from your taxable income by driving a hybrid. Honda offers more information on this in their FAQs about the hybrid.

I created a spreadsheet of my own to calculate the cost difference. My numbers are within 1% of the numbers on Honda’s site. Here is link to an HTML copy of my spreadsheet. It comes within $50 of the calculations seen on the Honda web site. Keep in mind that they are using the best numbers for the hybrid. (51 mpg Highway)

I believe these vehicles will be a viable option for more of use when the initial cost of the vehicles gets more competitive with non-hybrids of similar models. I plan to buy a hybrid for my next vehicle if the cost comes even close to breaking even over a 10yr period which is how long I plan to use a new car. I will also keep a close eye on new tax benefits and other incentive programs that can help lower the TCO for the vehicle.

I did get a trackback and I am excited. It was not the most positive trackback on the planet, but it was a trackback. The blogger (Joseph Weisenthal) was rather critical in using me as an example of what he thinks blogs should not be. He has a right to voice his opinion and he expresses it very well. I do not agree with everything he says, but he will make my blogroll just for giving me my first trackback. Here are a few things he said about me in his posting and what I have to say in response:

Unfortunately a lot of bloggers at the long-end of the blogtail instead of differentiating themselves, and making something unique, do their best to imitate their blogfathers. Like this guy Hank Osborne.

Response: I am not trying to imitate, but I am hoping like a bunch of other nobodies to get noticed by a more popular blogger. Look at one of the “blogfathers” Glenn Reynolds. His blog site the InstanPundit consists mainly of postings that are 12 words or less with a link to someone else. I don’t see a problem with this type of posting, but I am criticized for not being original. Don’t get me wrong, Glenn Reynolds is far from unorignal, but most of his posts have little meat to them. I hope that Glenn Reynolds or one of the other “blogfathers” reads their trackbacks one day and realizes that I post relative information from time to time. Maybe one of them will throw me a bone. Maybe I am dreaming, but it is my dream and I have a right to it. I do know that Glenn Reynolds was writing long before he started blogging, and I will be blogging long before if ever I write professionally. I have got to start somewhere. Oh yeah, this is not where I started. I started with Caden’s Page before I even knew that the term blog existed. I had written over 20,00 words before I ever realized I was blogging. I started converting over to a more formal blog format a few months ago. Now here I am getting recognized/criticized. I never claimed to popular in he things I have been involved in, but rather well known. I guess bad reviews is better than no reviews for now.

Mr. Osborne averages 40 hits a day, and I suspect about 50% come from himself. If you scroll back throuh his “Details” section on the sitemeter, you see an inordinate number of hits from bellsouth.net, which I suspect is his own computer.

Response: I have been exposed. I do look at my own blog for a number of reasons. Joseph didn’t look very hard at the details though. The image below is from my site meter statistics. Maybe he could not access the details or he was just not very thorough. Anyway, it shows only 15% coming form BellSouth. Oh yeah, he pegged me on that too. I do use BellSouth and so does my wife along with just a few other people I am sure. My wife looks at what I post on Caden’s Page. We both get a ton of support from the emails that we receive from the several dozen repeat visitors to this blog. Most are brought in via an email subscription that allows them to get notified when I post an update to Caden’s Page. By the way, the 15% BellSouth traffic really is not all my wife and me. Our traffic accounts for approximately 8% of the total traffic to www.hoei.com and www.hankosborne.com. Right now both hoei.com and hankosborne.com live on the same server. I will move www.hankosborne.com later.

MSM MSM MSM, come on guy. Dude, your readers are reading all the big blogs too you know, where they are force fed this MSMeme down their throats. Does the blogosphere really need more of this? Isn’t this a waste?

Response: Yes the blogshpere does need more of this. Why? Because believe it or not there are people who read my site that may have never heard of Glenn Reynolds, Black Five, or Michelle Malkin. And yes, my views may echo some of the same things that others on the Internet say, but I did not learn those feeling here. I have been less than pleased with MSM reporting practices of bias news reporting for over a decade which is a heck of a lot longer than any of these blogs have been around. There is always another side to a story and the MSM generally in my opinion tends to track to the liberal side of most issues. That is not an original thought, but the MSM continues to deny that there are masses of people like me who believe this way. I live in a fairly conservative area of the country. I have spent about half of my adult life in or working for the military. These two groups in particular get a pretty bad wrap from the MSM. You don’t have to look past the first page of most major newspapers to see this trend these days. How many articles make the front page or cover of the LA Times, NY Times, or Newsweek where the members of the military are getting praised for their service no matter who sent them or why they were to sent their current post? Not very many compared to the negative stuff. Since when does the economics of making the sell need to over power the whole truth and the morals of doing the right thing? This is not what our children need to be learning, but it continues to be what is getting shoved down our throats by mediums (TV news, print news, and Hollywood) that we have absolutely no control over if we dare turn on our TV or step foot into the checkout isle in a grocery store.

Is this a waste of time? Absolutely not! If there are members of the MSM who believe that there are just isolated pockets of people like me, then they are wrong. Why do I echo my blogfathers? There are people who like to go to someone they trust to lead them to more credible information. I beleive I have access to people that others do not. I will continue to lead my friends and fans to the stories that I feel display more of the truth. There are plenty of people like me who are fed up with masses of filth and half truths that the MSM pushes on us every single day. I have a voice and here is a place where I can speak out. I will continue to do so no matter how insignificant or redundant my critics find me to be.

You can read the full story that Joseph Weisenthal wrote here. Thanks again to Mr. Weisenthal for the trackback.

Stay tuned. More to come…

Well, is it really a hot seat? Sen. Lindsay Graham(R) is the senior of two fairly junior senators from my home state of South Carolina. There are reports floating around about the fallout of Sen. Graham’s involvement in the recent compromise to get judicial nominees confirmed.

The GOP Bloggers’ Mark Noonam published a story here about “The Wages of Compromise” where he quotes the AP as making it sound like S.C. republicans are ready to replace Graham in the next election. Well, this is no more than the MSM trying to make you think that a good republican senator is straying to the left. I do not believe that for a second. I do believe that the recent compromise was not the best thing that has happened for conservatives in Washington lately. That said, I am not upset enough about it to call the republican headquarters and whine like the AP story reports that other conservatives are doing. I know plenty of hard core republicans in S.C. and none have mentioned a movement against republican headquarters.

I think that Sen. Graham has to pick his battles and this is one that will ultimately be won by conservatives whether a big deal was cut or not. I believe Senator Graham is smart enough to realize that fact. The reality is that the war over judicial nominees will be won, but as much as I or any other conservative may not like it, this battle had to be sacrificed to get things rolling.

I do not know Senator Graham personally, but I know people that I trust who do know him. I believe he is much like Governor Mark Sanford. I look at both men as conservatives first and republicans second. Neither of these men has a problem holding someone’s feet to the fire no matter which side of the isle they sit on. I like this about both of them and I will vote for both of them again given what I have seen so far.

I have been meaning to post a link to this. It is great. You can always count on Michelle Malkin to dig up the good stuff. Here she pay a special tribute to the CNN 25th anniversary.

Yes the MSM is stinking up the airways again with reports of abuse of the Quran without giving the whole story. With the violence that erupted after the Newsweek story, you would think that the MSM would be a little more laid back on the subject. No. It’s like they want to see if they can stir another riot that kills more people. Then they could report on how it was the alleged abuse of the Quran that caused the riots and not their own reporting of the false or incomplete information.

The more disturbing fact is that the MSM continues to disregard the rest of the story. Michelle Malkin dug out some interesting facts from the original report from the investigation into the Gitmo Quran abuse claims. Her finds tell a different story than many of the MSM reports. She links you to several of the reports that are starting to spin up. Malkin says:

***Don’t trust the MSM reports. Read the Pentagon’s investigative findings for yourself here.

You can read her full story here. Mark Tapscott adds to Malkin’s findings here. The bottom line is that the MSM is not interested in telling the whole truth and sometime it seems as if they want to tell no truth. Black Five provides a quote from a Vietnam VET that says it best and you can read it here.

The political radio shows yesterday were filled with news from the Take Back America Conference where Howard Dean promoted what he thinks are the three big openings for the democrats to make a move. Two of his ideas were related to voting procedures and the other was on making pensions portable. You can here is from the horses mouth by playing a video at Take Back America 2005: The Conference for America’s Future. I have more thoughts on this pension portability idea and I will write more later on that.

I am not convinced that the democrats are doing anything but falling in a death spiral. How can they survive? Well, they can move a little closer to the moderates. The GOP Bloggers give a spill on The “Progressive” Dillema. The real dilemma is how quick can they replace Dean if they want a prayer of a chance in the 2008 election.

That’s what I’m talking about. This woman did one of the most irresponsible things I have heard of in a while.

She obviously had people who thought much of her. She was about have a wedding with more bride’s maids than I have ever witnessed. You mean to tell me that she could not find someone to talk to about her cold feet.

Here is the story of her court appearance: Runaway Bride Pleads No Contest to Felony - Yahoo! News

I would have been okay if they sent her to jail for a while. At least she is not getting off with no punishment.