It has been a busy weekend for BlogosphereRadio so far! On Friday I posted a new Blogosphere News episode, and tonight we posted three new shows. First is a special episode of The Vlog in which we talk about election humor. There is also a new Blogoversial episode covering the election, with a follow up show to be posted on Wednesday or Thursday next week.

Finally there is a new episode of Blogging With, in which I interview Jon Gales of mobiletracker.net. Jon is a 19 year old blogger who has made some really decent money off his blog from advertising. The interview went quite well, so definitely check it out!

I know, lots of posts on the US election recently, but I am really into it. The latest is this story on Betfair, which has been accepting bets on who will win the election. Looks good for Bush:

Although U.S. opinion polls are still finding it hard to separate President Bush from his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, customers of Betfair, an online betting exchange, have overwhelmingly backed the Republican candidate.

Betfair’s latest figures show 2.3 million pounds ($4.2 million) have been wagered on Bush, while Kerry has attracted only 680,000 pounds ($1.25 million) in bets. Bush is now at 1-5 odds to stay in office, whereas gamblers can still get odds of 2-1 on Kerry to win.

Apparently the betting patterns are quite accurate, but I guess we’ll find out. I have long said that I would vote for Kerry if American, but that I think Bush will win. So he’s ahead in the polls today, and in the bets. Looks like another four years of terror.

Read: CNET News.com

Looks like Osama bin Laden has his timing down. Just days before the U.S. election, a new video tape has appeared in which Osama says:

“Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened (with new attacks).”

You know what this means? Both Bush votes and Kerry votes lose. If you vote Bush, you’re just blind. If you vote Kerry, you’re almost listening to Osama! Unfortunately, I guess the release of this new tape means that he won’t be caught right before the election. That would have made things interesting.

Read: Reuters

The Economist today endorsed John Kerry for President. Why is this significant? Well they endorsed Bush in 2000 and Dole in 1996, so this is a bit of a departure for the magazine. And if a widely respected and usually accurate publication like The Economist is endorsing someone other than the incumbent, what does that say about the state of the American economy or its outlook?

The video for Eminem‘s new song “Mosh”, which I mentioned the other day, has hit the net. Check it out at MTV!

Read: Gen Kanai

I am pretty pissed right now. The spammers have moved from email to blogs. I know this isn’t JUST happening, its been going on for a while now, but in the last two days, my blog has been hit hard. I don’t mind if real people are leaving comments. What I cannot stand are automated programs leaving comments for dugs or poker or whatever. In the last two days, over 100 of these spam comments have appeared on my blog.

I really don’t want to have to turn off comments completely. Since .Text has not been updated in ages, it lacks any sort of spam protectection. For the moment I have just written an SQL script to go through and remove all of the offending comments, but this will require constant attention from me, which isn’t ideal either. If it gets really bad, I might have to delve into the source code and rig something up myself.

My guess is that things will only get worse from here 😦

Looks like the politicians are not the only ones hopping on board the blogging bandwagon:

Although political blogs have received the most attention, advertising agencies and communications professionals are using blogs to create discussion about ideas within their industries.

The biggest fear is of an uncontrolled message slipping out, said Steve Rubel, vice president for client services at CooperKatz & Company in New York, a public relations agency with clients including the Association of National Advertisers, JPMorgan Chase and Wendy’s. “Do they allow comments or do they not? Is there an implication if it is a publicly traded firm? Who is the one who should blog for us? How might that choice be received in the company?”

All problems that should be considered, but which must be solved. Blogs are to 2005 like websites were to 1999 – if you don’t have one, you’re going to be left out, behind, and forgotten. I personally think that trackbacks, comments, and feeds should be standard on ALL blogs, but that isn’t happening even today so I doubt it will in the future. Without those community or interactive features, another question can be posed that Steve Rubel did not ask: Will our blog seem contrived?

Read: CNET News.com and NYTimes.com

It has been a while since the last news show was posted, so I figured it warranted a post on my blog. You can check out the new episode here. I guess in a way this is a “We’re Back!” post, as we haven’t done any shows for a while. We have two Vlog episodes coming up this week (I just need to mix them), and hopefully a new Blogoversial episode as well.

Thanks for listening!

Apple today announced two new members of the iPod family. Meet The Ugliest iPod Ever Conceived (this is the U2 branded version), and also The Biggest Waste Of Money Ever (this is the so-called Photo iPod).

Seriously, why would you buy an iPod anymore? If you want a good portable media player, get the Creative Nomad Zen Touch. Similar size and weight to an iPod, much longer battery life, much better media file support, and much, much cheaper.

Tonight I decided to watch Team America: World Police and I must say, this movie is not at all what I expected. Actually, to be completely honest, I am somewhat disappointed with it. I really like Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and I am a big fan of South Park. This movie however, misses a golden opportunity.

Instead of making a statement in American politics, Team America instead acts merely as a stage for Stone and Parker to share their dislike for some members of Hollywood. You might think that the movie is an attack on the Bush Administration’s foreign policy, but it really isn’t. Alec Baldwin and Matt Damon have nothing to do with the US starting wars around the world. While somewhat funny that these actors are part of the Film Actors Guild, or F.A.G., it seems pointless. Also pointless is the way the actors all die, or the fact that they are in this movie at all.

Actually there are very few things in this movie that are not pointless. The puppet sex scene was mildly funny, the fact that Intelligence is a computer that gets things wrong was only mildly funny. I suppose the way Kim Jong Il spoke and killed Hans Blix was mildly funny, but not really. I didn’t find the Michael Moore jokes funny at all. The elongated puking scene was disgusting, not funny. I suppose the speech at the end was somewhat funny, but even then, it felt forced.

Perhaps I had the wrong expectations before I started watching the movie. I was expecting a cross between Michael Moore and Jon Stewart – making fun of the election, the campaigns, the candidates, etc. Instead what I watched was a poorly made movie about dislike for a few actors and movies. If you want to see something because you are in election mode, this movie is not the one to see. If you want to see something funny, go watch South Park instead.

Team America had a good opportunity to make light of some of the issues surrounding this year’s election. To say that it failed miserably would be an understatement. Perhaps it succeeded at accomplishing whatever Stone and Parker set out to, but I can’t see what that could possibly be. All I can say is that I am glad I didn’t pay to watch this movie.