Blost Post 9

For the final blog posting, I chose to review my friend Sam Edmiston’s blog. The post that I was most interested by was his post on celebrity endorsements. He talks about the lovely Jessica Simpson and her endorsement of Proactiv. Mr. Edmiston feels that Simpson is an appropriate choice for a celebrity endorsement of this product because she is known for having beautiful skin and she claims to have used the product in the past. He goes on to talk about how she obviously has no idea how the product works, but she has a pretty face and she is well known by many people.

Later on in the post, Edmiston talks about how he feels the endorsement will have the desired outcome that it is looking for. “Jessica Simpson is a very popular figure who has had experience with the product. There are a ton of people out there, especially young girls, who look at Jessica Simpson and want to look the way she does. They would love to try the product if it is working for a Jessica Simpson and the results are clear.”

I agree with Sam’s opinion on this matter. I happen to think that Jessica Simpson is a very attractive woman and she does have a pretty face. If it is true that she got her face this way by using Proactiv, then I feel that there isn’t a better person to endorse the product than her. I have known Sam for quite some time and I feel that he is a well educated gentleman whose opinion is someone that everyone should take into consideration. He has other very interesting blog posts including his talk about the controversy over whether college fooball should have a playoff or keep the current bowl system.

Blog Post 8

For this post I will express my final feelings on the topic of the death penalty. The death penalty is a topic that had received a lot of press in the past; however, the press that it has gotten has been for the most part directed at abolishing it. I feel that the death not necessarily a good thing, but it is a necessary evil. The fact is that many people agree with my opinion of this matter. People who are in favor of the death penalty choose not to speak out about it because they feel it is a personal opinion. The majority of people who speak out about the death penalty are against it. The reason they speak out is because they want to see change.

A main topic of debate is the cost of the death penalty compared to that of life imprisonment. There is no question that the upfront cost of the death penalty is much higher compared to life without parole cases; however, when the overall cost are compared after the variable of time is added, the totals are surprisingly different. The cost of LWOP can be estimated to be around $34,000/year. If a person is in prison for 50 years and the annual cost increase at 3% and the price for trial and appeals around $75,000, the total for one inmate with a LWOP sentence is about 4.04 million dollars. The cost of a year on death row is approximately $60,000/year. If a person is on death row for 6 years with a trial and appeals cost of 1.5 million dollars and the same annual cost increase of 3%, the total cost of one execution comes out to around 1.91 million dollars.

This is just one reason why capital punishment is something we should keep in our courts. There are many other reasons why its positives outweigh its negatives

Blog Post 7

For this blog post I researched a product endorsed by a celebrity. I chose the greatest person in Hollywood I could think of: Chuck Norris. After a little bit of thinking, I realized that Mr. Norris has been a long time endorser of the Total Gym.

The Total Gym is a piece of exercise equipment that has been around for many years. It does not have any free weights and consists of pulleys and a bench that can be put at different angles. The main selling point of it is that it is extremely versatile and easy to use. Also, Mr. Norris talks about how much fun it is to use and how the user can see results fast. The slogan he uses is: it takes just 10-20 minutes a day to reshape your body into the body you've always wanted.

I feel that Chuck Norris is an excellent endorser for this product. He has been in numerous awesome movies and he is known for being a real ladies man. He also kicks some real butt in his TV show “Walker Texas Ranger.” Everyone knows who he is and he gives the people watching him the feeling that he is a personal individual who cares about his fans. Chuck also has many hilarious jokes about how big of a BA he is.

I think that Total Gym has definitely had the effect they were looking for. When people think of Chuck Norris, they think of the exercise equipment he has been modeling for many years…along with Kristie Brinkley. Chuck is what I like to consider a true example of what all Americans should strive to become. He has helped to improve many peoples’ lives by choosing to endorse Total Gym.

Blog Post 6

The topic that I have chosen to research for this blog post is gun control laws. Being that I am from a very rural area and that I have been exposed to guns my whole life, gun control laws are something I am strongly against. I researched this topic on CNN and found two very opposing articles.

The first one is written by Tom Pate, a journalist out of Los Angeles. He was a former editor for the LA Times and is for gun control. Pate makes a point that far fewer guns in the United States would result in far fewer deaths. He also points out that he was recently robbed by an armed man so he obviously hasn’t had a good experience with guns in general. He also brings up the Virginia Tech shooting and talks about how the students were killed by guns, not a person so to speak.

The next article I read was written by Ted Nugent, a former singer/songwriter and avid hunter with his own hunting show. Nugent points out that there have been many instances where people who have had concealed firearms have been able to stop massacres before they begin to unfold. He also points out that the building of the Virginia Tech shooting was a “gun free zone.” This didn’t stop the shooter form carrying a gun and killing others. Nugent makes valid counter arguments to Pate’s article and really points out flaws in Pate’s thinking.

After reading both of these articles, my opinion about gun control laws has not changed. I believe that gun control laws do nothing more than keeps good people from owning guns to protect themselves. Bad people are always going to have guns and use them the wrong way. This is just a fact of life. The thing that can change this is if more people are able to protect themselves if they encounter a bad situation and need to defend themselves.