Death is the best pitchman.
It turned out that pitchman Billy Mays (some job description, eh?) died from hypertensive heart disease, and not a blow to the head as originally assumed. You can bet that there was a collective sigh of relief over at US Airways. Oh yes. It's a lot easier to sue some company for being hit on the head by a carry-on bag during a landing than it is to sue a company over a lifetime of bad eating habits. I wonder if anyone has ever been killed by being hit on the head by a carton of cigarettes? There's a lawsuit for you. Death, as well as being a cure for disease, is good for sales. Eight of the top ten downloaded tracks and 7 of the top ten downloaded albums on Rhapsody (Real Player's music service) are Michael Jackson recordings. As though his death suddenly reminded people, "You know, I don't own any of his songs. It's about time I owned all of his songs." Strange behavior. Now that Michael's dead, I can find a good excuse to say I liked him . We...