It was my first trip to Austin so, naturally I wanted to explore how such a culturally alive gem of a city thrives in a state long identified for its conservative values.

After sharing beers with dozens of hip designers, filmmakers, artists, software developers and social media pros at a tweet-up last night, I caught a glimpse of the Texas State Capitol. That’s when when I vowed to do more than just attend SXSW while in town.

So I went to the daily newspaper’s website, Statesman.com, to familiarize myself with the area.  The top local story was about a murder suspect being sentenced to death.  That’s when I entered the term “lethal injection” into the site’s search box to see if recent legal challenges surrounding that form of execution had been resolved.

The search results weren’t what I expected.  In one of the stranger examples of poor ad word management, Amazon popped up at the top of the paid search rankings offering “low prices on Lethal injection.”   It’s probably great news for Texas which, like every other state, has a large budget gap to close.

Let me be the first to suggest Texas outsource its lethal injection program to Amazon.  They’ll even throw in free shipping.