In the interest of accountability, this post has been retained. Please note that as of February 7th, 2007, News. Views. Common Sense. no longer accepts sponsored posts or advertising. Thank you.

Fall and winter are the seasons for major storms in many parts of the United States, be it wind, ice, or otherwise. One of the problems that many people have in major storms is loosing their electricity. How do you get around in the dark? Some people may turn to candles or kerosene lanterns, but both can be extremely dangerous is not handled properly, especially around children. It is because of this that every household should own at least one flashlight.

Sure, you can find run of the mill flashlights at your local supermarket, but what if you want something more, perhaps a little better? If this sounds like you, perhaps you would like a Streamlight or Pelican model. Then we have those who truly need a top of the line model, something light, bright, and durable. If fall into this category, then perhaps Surefire is the flashlight for you.

Regardless of your flashlight needs, OpticsPlanet.net has an extensive selection of just about every flashlight I can possibly imagine, as well as quite a few I never knew existed. Whether you?re hunting deep in a jungle or simply finding the fuse box, I would imagine that OpticsPlanet has what you need.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. I have received $7.00 from OpticsPlanet.net in order to generate buzz about their flashlight store. I have never actually purchased anything from their website and I make no claims of reliability.

In the interest of accountability, this post has been retained. Please note that as of February 7th, 2007, News. Views. Common Sense. no longer accepts sponsored posts or advertising. Thank you.

As you may well remember from my experiment with PayPerPost a few weeks ago, I was more than a little apprehensive at the idea of allowing outside companies to in any way influence the content of my blog. As a result, I have been very weary.

I have felt all along that honesty of opinion is what has allowed the Blogosphere to grow and evolve as it has over the past few years. On that note, it is simply impossible for such a trust to develop if bloggers are failing to disclose their association with a particular advertiser, employer, or other entity.

As a result, I have implemented a strict Disclosure Policy for News. Views. Common Sense. Although I have always promised (and followed through) to disclose any factors that may influence a post, I have yet to develop a true policy regarding it. Starting today, with the help of the Disclosure Policy Generator at DisclosurePolicy.org, I have such a policy.

If you wish, feel free to check out my disclosure policy here or click the link in the ‘Pages’ section of the navigation bar (on the left of the site).

I truly did find the site useful in generating a policy of my own, but it goes deeper than that. With a proper Disclosure Policy I know that my readers can rest easily with the knowledge that I will never lie to them or disguise the real meaning of a post. This has really helped with the ethical debate I have been having with myself as of late.

My Disclosure Policy follows:

I would like to remind you that this has been a sponsored post. I received $10.00 from http://www.disclosurepolicy.org to post about the ‘Disclosure Policy Generator’ site.

In the interest of accountability, this post has been retained. Please note that as of February 7th, 2007, News. Views. Common Sense. no longer accepts sponsored posts or advertising. Thank you.

Weblogs - today known simply as blogs - have been around in one form or another since the mid 1990s. In the beginning, most blogs were simply online diaries of a person’s life (as is now often seen on sites like MySpace and Facebook) and were a hobby more than anything.

Fast forward to circa 2000, when a number of major political and technology blogs began to emerge. Suddenly a personal hobby was becoming more than that, people actually began to make money through the sale of ads. A banner here, a link there, and some really very profitable sites were born.

Fast forward again, this time to 2006 where an apparent revolution in blog advertising is taking place. An internet startup known as PayPerPost has recently launched a second beta of their innovative system. The idea is truly simple: instead of displaying banners or targeted text ads (such as Google ads), the blogger simply makes posts about an advertiser or their products and gets paid for their efforts. A quick look at their blog reveals that some users have made over $1000 simply posting in their blogs. I’d have to say that this looks like a very interesting service.

At the same time, however, I see some controversy in this. As was mentioned at Techcrunch, the issues mainly revolve around the fact that bloggers are not required (and in some cases not allowed) to mention that a post is sponsored, and that advertisers can require a positive tone in the post. In my opinion, these issues are null and void if the blogger is responsible and always discloses his sponsored posts. After all, there is nothing wrong with a hobby that makes you a little extra cash, right?

Again, this is a sponsored post.