Another Great David Zucker Political Ad
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Headline or Word Game?
Yahoo! News feature screen capture, 10/26/2006
Look at the description of this featured Yahoo! news story:
Study shows 39 million gallons of fuel are used each year for every extra pound of passenger weight. [ed. - emphasis added]Common sense would hold that the main headline itself is true, but the lead-in is impossible. Of course, the linked article - Weight gain means lower gas mileage - says nothing so crazy. In fact:
The lost mileage is pretty small for any single driver. Jacobson said the typical driver — someone who records less than 12,000 miles annually — would use roughly 18 fewer gallons of gas over the course of a year by losing 100 pounds. At $2.20 per gallon, that would be a savings of almost $40.
That's $40 saved per year per 100 pounds lost if gas is $2.20 per gallon. NOT "39 million gallons of fuel are used each year for every extra pound of passenger weight." [ed. - emphasis added]
DOH!!!
And what about the headlines of related interest? Compare:
Exxon posts $10.49 billion profit
OR
Exxon Forced to Accept Unnecessary Profits
By Decadent Overweight Drivers
I'm fascinated that Yahoo! believes that overweight drivers will be most motivated to lose weight in the hopes of preventing Exxon from making more profits. A more compelling spin might be to point out how oil profits assist terrorists. But then, consider this:
Y! Health: Eat more, weigh less?
OR
Heavy Groceries Defeat Hopes For Gas Savings
Best Political Ad
Reportedly, this political ad was made by David Zucker of "Airplane" fame. It portrays former Secretary of State Madeline Albright being nicey-nice to America's enemies. It's enough to make Bill Clinton shake his finger and yell at journalists!
Google Points Out The Fascists
[Ed. - Red circles added to areas of interest]
I was looking up the definition of 'fascism' for a post at Rat Chat. The advertising surrounding the definition is fascinating.
Screenshot of Google ads
I'm sure Google would say that these ad results are a result of the content of the web resources the ads point to. That's what they would say.
Unfortunately, it is also a result of a snarky anti-conservative, anti-Bush our-ideology-is-superior-to-yours mentality at Google. But then, Google would prefer to distract users from the fact they are complicit in censoring the internet for China. Google's ideology is so superior that it is okay for them to prosper from fascism. Do they really believe that when they elect to do evil, they can counterbalance it with a certain quantity of good? What is the algorithm for that?
All urgently scorn the bushitler! May a thousand flowers bloom for the correct and noble censors.
Intolerance? Paranoia? How could this be?
Scroll down for update.
This is just outrageously funny! Apparently certain people believe that the Internet belongs to them and and it must be a dangerous conspiracy if certain other people use the same technology. I can just hear them sputtering: "WE are the Netroots. What the heck are YOU doing here?"
Let us look back, for a moment, to the dark days when Bill Clinton was president and Conservative folks found fellowship at FreeRepublic.com. The Internet of today is the very same hothouse that produced the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. It explains two terms for President George W. Bush. It explains how Republicans held onto the majority in the House in 2002. It even explains the GOP's superior fundraising.
But let's get back to the people who think THEY own the Internet:
Example #1 - Michelle Malkin added a Digg button to her blog posts. Readers used the button. Horrified users of Digg.com howled in protest: "fascist trash...right-wing media machine...ban anything from her site..." Michelle wrote:
How dare conservatives take advantage of user-generated ranking structures for news like everyone else!
If you're a liberal who puts the Digg button on your site and encourages your readers to use it, you're a social-networking revolutionary.
If you're a conservative who does the same, you are master of "gaming" and "spamming" and"controlling" the system.
Example #2 - Matthew Sheffield of NewsBusters.org points out a very paranoid-sounding article from the Wall Street Journal, of all places. They discovered that a cute flash cartoon available at YouTube.com was posted to that web site by someone using a computer belonging to a lobbying firm, DCI Group. And guess what! DCI has connections to ExxonMobil!
The authors of this story, Antonio Regalado and Dionne Searcey (summer interns?), need no more proof than that to accept that chicanery is afoot. It's the dreaded monster Propaganda!
The anti-Gore video represents a less well-known side of YouTube. As its popularity has exploded, the public video-sharing site has drawn marketers looking to build buzz for new music releases and summer blockbusters. Now, it's being tapped by political operatives, public relations experts and ad agencies to sway opinions.
...Web video operates on a different level, stimulating viewers' emotions powerfully and directly...
Internet videos could prove particularly potent, because they may influence watchers in ways they don't realize.
Remember when we were kids and grown-up people tried to tell us that watching cartoons would rot our brains?
Matthew puts all this consternation back into perspective:
Call me crazy, but isn't the entire point of "Inconvenient" to score political points and to "harden" people who have casually bought into the idea of human-caused global warming? (Oh, and make people think Al Gore is cool.) Doesn't our fearless reportorial duo feel even a little bit weird about comparing, at "worst," a viral video produced for under 3k with a "documentary" film costing far more, promoted by Paramount, the creator of the "Simpsons," and basically every MSM outlet?
Update: Well, okay! A Google search shows that Antonio Regalado and Dionne Searcey, the above-mentioned reporters, are probably more experienced than summer interns. You just wouldn't know it by reading this particular article.
