After having a wonderful lunch with Farley, the main character in the movie, and Sokoloff, the story writer, I became convinced that the folks behind An American Carol are top notch, free-market minded, and extremely deserving of the help of center-right activists and online professionals throughout social media realms.

It was made clear that An American Carol is of a center-right angle, and would not be distributed via normal, far left minded Hollywood outlets. David Zucker, well known director for films such as Airplane, Police Academy, Scary Movie, Naked Gun and various others, pulled off the political guns in this one. He certainly won’t be mistaken for a liberal after the film hits theaters next week anyway.

In An American Carol, a cynical, Anti-American “Hollywood” filmmaker sets out on a crusade to abolish the 4th of July holiday. He is visited by three spirits who take him on a hilarious journey in an attempt to show him the true meaning of America.

The filmmaker is a satire take on Micheal Moore, played by Kevin Farley. I’ve seen quite a few clips of the film, and I’ve even been offered a chance to see a private screening this weekend. I’ll be turning down the private screening simply because I want the full experience when I PAY to see the movie on opening night next week.

So why am I posting about An American Carol?

In short, I want to help the folks behind the movie as much as possible. Unlike most liberal-directed movies coming out of Hollywood, An American Carol is sort of the first of its kind. Sure, there have been other center-right films hit the market, but most did not have quite the opportunity this one has.

What I mean is, if An American Carol does well on opening weekend, it’s safe to say that other films with a center-right flavor will follow. This movie, with an all star cast and powerful set of directors/producers/writers, can score HUGE box office points and send a message to the Hollywood elites.

The problem is that it can’t do this without our help. While the film isn’t really a low budget film, it certainly needs the help of the grassroots movement to give it a kick start next week. The movie will open in more than 2,000 theaters on October 3rd, and we need to get anyone and everyone we know to go see it.

What can I do to get involved?

Message, message, message. Word of mouth is our finest tool in this information war, and we need to put it to work like never before.

1) Word of Mouth
PLEASE make sure you tell everyone you know about An American Carol. All of your friends, all of your family, co-workers, online connections, etc… everyone.

2) Social Networks
I’ve set up a Facebook group that I plan to use over the next eight days to promote and coordinate grassroots efforts to market the movie. Click here to join the Facebook group.

BE SURE TO INVITE YOUR FRIENDS

Once you’ve joined the group, please check the news section to see if there is an event planned to see the movie in your area. If there is not, create an event and let me know so that I can add it to the news section.

There is also an official Twitter profile that I am told will be used by the PR folks behind An American Carol. Follow An American Carol here.

3) An American Carol Action Network
Join the social network set up by An American Carol by clicking here.

This is our chance to help a conservative movie succeed and show Hollywood what Americans want more of. We MUST work together as a grassroots movement to help get the word out.

-Eric Odom
Follow me on Twitter here

There’s no getting around it: The job cuts and other changes announced by The News & Observer last week mean that readers will be getting less. Specifically:

* Less local news
* Fewer late sports scores and less late-breaking news
* One less page of op-ed opinion each week.
* Less business news.
* All told, 14 fewer pages per week.

Those and some other less noticeable effects are the consequence of the ongoing financial meltdown in the newspaper business that finally caused McClatchy Newspapers, The N&O’s parent company, to announce job reductions of 10 percent across its 30 newspapers. McClatchy previously avoided the layoffs that had reduced staffing at most other newspaper companies.

Mary Newsom, an Associate Editor of the Observer, posted on her blog a blurb explaining how she doesn’t at all feel it’s a loss of MSM integrity. She instead blames Craigslist type classified sites for a drop in revenue.

While this is probably true to an extent, I believe new media has alos played a significant role in the papers tanking level of influence and success. I mean, just look at what I quoted above for example. When was the last time you went to your local newspaper’s website to get the late-breaking baseball scores? Or late-breaking news for that matter? I use feeds or mobile versions of late-breaking news sites for that, not my hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune.

The News & Observer will be covering less local news as well. The fact is, bloggers are now doing a hell of a job covering local news. In fact, many bloggers are doing a far better job than newspapers EVER did. Business news? Who reads the local newspapers for business news? We have something called the internet for that!

Mark my words… more and more newspapers will begin to take these actions. The demise of print media is well under way.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Comedian George Carlin, a counter-culture hero famed for his routines about drugs and dirty words, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital on Sunday, a spokesman said. He was 71.

Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, died at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica about 6 p.m. PDT (2 a.m. British time) after being admitted earlier in the afternoon for chest pains, spokesman Jeff Abraham told Reuters.

A final tribute clip. (warning: lot’s of f-bombs)

Liberty Live has a very clean, very lively look and feel, and represents what a freedom movement blog should run like. The blog covers local issues revolving around labor, education, election reform, economic policy, public records and constitutional law.

I highly recommend you keep an eye on the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. They’re doing a great job online and I for one applaud their efforts.

And now he’s on the hunt for an Account Executive.

* Serving as a liaison between clients and vendors
* Managing vendors to ensure deadlines and budgets are met and high quality work is delivered.
* Ensuring creative design and code are delivered according to strategy.
* Managing project timelines and budgets.

Desired skills:

* BA/BS degree in marketing, communications, computer science, or similar discipline.
* 1-3 years related e-marketing and/or political experience.
* Experience with paid search marketing (i.e. Google, Yahoo!, MSN and second-tier engines), search engine optimization and online media.
* Demonstrated ability to be highly organized and excellent at multi-tasking.
* Excellent Microsoft Office skills.
* Must be HTML proficient and have significant exposure to web development and editing work (Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks or other web development software).

Location: Murfreesboro, TN
Hours: Full-Time
This job is salaried.

If you’re on the hunt for work with a good free market minded company and think this might be something of interest, let Allen know.

Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey.

While most people think journalism is important to the quality of life, 64 percent are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities, a We Media/Zogby Interactive online poll showed.

Nearly half of the 1,979 people who responded to the survey said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, up from 40 percent just a year ago. Less than one third use television to get their news, while 11 percent turn to radio and 10 percent to newspapers.

More than half of those who grew up with the Internet, those 18 to 29, get most of their news and information online, compared to 35 percent of people 65 and older. Older adults are the only group that favors a primary news source other than the Internet, with 38 percent selecting television.

Without question, the internet is the new battlefield in the information warfare.

The word creepy seems fitting. As the title describes it, Ronald Barbour recently committed suicide, and he used his blog for his final note.

I understand the ______ building is more than 150 feet tall. At the time of my last recon I noticed easy access to the roof that would allow someone to leap to their death to the parking lot below. I’m not an expert in these matters, but if I recall from my physics classes in college at 100 feet a falling object reaches a speed of about 100 MPH. This means that the falling man would hit the pavement at a speed great enough to cause instant death. I understand that over the years since the construction of this building several persons have died by jumping from this structure.

I plan to make such a leap. I do this in memory of the several hundred victims on 9/11 who jumped off the World Trade Center as a means of avoiding burning to death, and the over 3,000 American soldiers killed fighting Islamofascism in Iraq and Afghanistan. A parallel reason is a protest against the American Left and the Democrat Party who have stabbed the Armed Forces in the back in the early stages of what is shaping up to be The Third World War.

Flopping Aces has more on the story.

Our discussion was two fold… 1) I wanted to know his thoughts on the possible Microsoft purchase of Yahoo. 2) I wanted an insider opinion on Microsoft and its constant shortcomings.

1)It’s being reported in the Wall Street Journal that Yahoo has replied to the Microsoft offer saying it “substantially undervalues” the company. This is interesting to me because I don’t see a lot of companies lining up to make offers for Yahoo. And if Yahoo does end up selling at the current offer price, doesn’t that say to investors that Yahoo is indeed undervalued?

When I asked the former Microsft employee what he first thought when he heard of the offer, he said “I’m still kicking myself for not immediately buying Yahoo stock.” According to him, Microsoft is very serious about the deal and in his opinion Microsoft will eventually cut a deal for the company.

2)I brought up the success of open source, specifically Linux, Open Office, Firefox, Gimp, and other software that I use, and asked how Microsoft planned to address it. “Will Microsoft continue marketing overpriced products that already exist in the open source realm?”

I found his answer somewhat astounding. According to him, Microsoft has no interest in competing with open source for the individual consumer. Apparently, Microsoft is planning on shifting a LOT of its focus towards small business.

This to me is absurd. If Google and Open Office are both offering office suite products for free, why on earth would a small business pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars to be locked in to the Microsoft vortex? It makes no sense to me.

Then the discussion of innovation came up. Specifically, “why is Microsoft stuff in ‘me too” mode?” For example, every time Firefox comes out with a new feature… IE tries to follow along. When Apple cranks out a state of the art, innovative media device, guess who tries to follow along? I mean, am I the only one who remembers the Zune?

So, in the end I’m glad Yahoo has replied to Microsoft they they have. And I hope with everything in me they stick to their guns. While I believe Google needs strong competition and no one is currently providing it, a company like Microsoft would absolutely ruin Yahoo.

This is all my opinion of course…

A small but vocal minority on Flickr are already staging online protests at the prospect of a Microsoft takeover. Flickr is one of several popular Web 2.0 websites owned by Yahoo that loyal users fear will suffer under Microsoft ownership.

As soon as the news hit the wires that Microsoft is proposing a $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo, Flickr users began posting anti-Microsoft images, satirical “Flickr Live” logos and announcing they will abandon Flickr if it falls into Microsoft hands, fearing such a move would mark the beginning of the end.

In light of this, I’ve decided to post a collection of the rebellious images here. Each image links to the actual image page on Flickr.

View others from the Flickr Tag: Microsoft

Although Internet Explorer 3.0 could run Java applets and inline media, Netscape Navigator could not, and in any case nobody felt comfortable doing anything more complicated than making a few animated GIFs. Additionally, very few web designers had even the most rudimentary of aesthetic sensibilities, and nearly half of them were clinically retarded. The internet in 1996 looks like it had been created in its entirety by a panel of 13-year-olds with Geocities accounts who had about half an hour to spare each night before bedtime.

Here is the official Lego website, for example.

They include McDonald’s, Pepsi, Best Buy, and many others. Well worth the click.