Into the Void

To persuade a man that his experience is not real or is worthless is to be a propagandist for some vested interest.

<RANT>
I am not swayed by vague, impassioned arguments. If I was, I’d be a Republican. The reason the Republicans are stomping us is this:
They put huge amounts of money into the infrastructure of the party. Think tanks, framing the arguments. The Democrats don’t invest, they throw money away. The tone of the latest JohnKerry.com email was just plain dumb. It is far below Kerry’s intellectual capabilities and I’m getting rather tired of his ineffectual stumping.
PLEASE, get a backbone. Be proactive: as long as you are reactive you don’t have a good enough foothold to argue your point. We have to be proactive participants in the Democratic process, not reactive little paramecia.
Listening to Kerry trying to be politically correct during the debates was painful. Stop trying so hard not to offend anyone. Progressives’ morality on the abortion issue is about the QUALITY of life vs. the inhumane exercise of bringing unwanted children into the world. “Pro-life” indeed! My morality is far more valid than theirs, yet Kerry fumbled for words during the debate sounded as if he is ashamed of his beliefs. As if any woman *wants* to abort her children. Nobody *wants* an abortion.
Life is an evolutionary continuum, not a series of separate creations. An early first-trimester fetus looks like a prawn and though the potential for human life is there, it is not sentient life. Not yet.
I saw Kerry on one of the Sunday morning political shows recently. The guy is still campaigning, still stumping. He is capable of so much more. How about some well-thought-out, *deep* insights from him for once.
And don’t let them call you “elite” just because you are educated. Bush has the same education as Kerry, but apparently he has chosen not to use it.
Republicans can give quick, definitive answers because they have already reduced the issues to black-and-white, with immutable, inhumane answers. They don’t have to stop and think. We think things through so it looks as if we are weak and indecisive.
And stop giving away money to people who don’t deserve it. Invest your money in the future instead. Put money into job training and childcare. Don’t put money into encouraging impoverished women to have more illegitimate babies. Many of these women are teens who don’t have access to the information that would have prevented the pregnancy. Teach birth control in the schools. Make the boy’s parents pay for the baby’s support - don’t encourage teens to have babies by offering them cash incentives to do so. If they get older they keep having them, offer them cash incentives to get free sterilizations instead.
Let’s make it really clear that white women have illegitimate kids,too, it’s not just a minority problem.
Tell everyone with an SUV that they aren’t safe from terrorists in their big metal womb. Each week your SUV uses enough gas to run my Prius for a two weeks or more. Get over 9-11, even if it requires psychiatric intervention. Especially if it requires psychiatric intervention. Don’t trade your freedom for a false sense of security. And PLEASE, the attacks on 9-11 were by Saudis, not by Iraqis and not by the Taliban. Our unprovoked attack on Iraq was and still is an obscenity. The war in Iraq is about the oil interests of all the people in the White House. Karl Rove acts like an evil wraith, Cheney acts like a sociopath, and Bush acts as if he is cognitively impaired from years of alcohol abuse.
And I act as if there is still a place in America for Democrats and other Progressives.
</RANT>

Gimmicks, gadgets and techniques are the genius of America.

The bipolars were up in arms about Tom Cruise’s comments on psychiatry, UFOs and medications while on Oprah’s show. Since I work full time, I don’t get to watch Oprah and I missed the famous “TC goes apeshit on Oprah” episode.
In case you missed it too, here’s the film clip.

Is he still dating that little girl? There’s a clip on Oprah’s site called “Tom Cruise Engaged.” In it, Oprah asks Katie, “What does this feel like, when you grew up wanting marry Tom Cruise?”

Eeeeeeeeew.

And in the “Why didn’t I think of this?” category:
[video] UPS CIO: Driving cost savings by eliminating left-hand turns | CNET News.com

This is the first post in the new category Meta, which will be, of course, blog entries about blogging. The purpose of this post is to clarify my own opinions and practices with respect to advertising.

Dear Leslie,
Thank you for participating in the Edelman/Technorati blog survey. We conducted this study to:

• Better understand bloggers’ attitudes towards corporations and PR firms
• Help clients understand why and how they should engage the blogosphere

Technorati contacted tens of thousands of active bloggers via email, blog posts and the networks of discussion and links those posts generated. The survey generated 821 responses during the week of September 26, 2005.
[..]
Thanks again for participating.
Richard
Richard Edelman
President & CEO, Edelman
richard.edelman@edelman.com

My answers:

1. The primary reason I blog is to Create a record of my thoughts. The secondary reason, of course, is to occasionally engage like-minded readers in conversations on a topic.
2. I post Every few days. I tend to post in bunches when my cognition and energy are up.
3. I write about companies or their products Less than once a week. I usually share by email with friends. No reason I can’t cc: the blog.
4. Yes, I would like samples to write about in my blog. I occasionally do this on another web site, specifically with books related to bipolar disorder.
5. I am contacted by bona fide companies or their reps Daily or almost daily. I’m only counting contacts from real businesses, not spam with a fake email address.
6. I most often actively interact with Product teams. These people are more likely to engage in dialog than PR people, and they’re usually pretty enthusiastic.
7. Companies usually contact me with Form email. I don’t generally finish reading an email that isn’t written to me personally. Oh, I can tell if vendor is using a mail-merge program.
8. Messages that come from an outside PR group generally go in the junk folder unread. These groups are less concerned about a product’s reputation and more concerned with whether they can sell me one. I trust them about 1 out of 10. Eudora has a very nice integrated SPAM filter.
9. Messages directly from a company are more likely to be read, and I’ll even pull them out of the junk bin if they contain solid information - technical details - about a product I’m interested in. I’d say I trust them 6 out of 10.
10. I have wondered whether to correct inaccuracies in a way that draws regular readers’ attention to the change. Perhaps Leave the error but append a correction is the best way.
11. If I post misinformation, I’d like a company rep to Post a comment. On web pages they must use the contact form.
12. I like to talk tech with Mid-level employees who work on research and development.
13. A blog endorsed and produced by a company is Occasionally trustworthy.
14. A blog by an employee is better, Somewhat trustworthy. Although they must toe the corporate line, they are more likely to talk about their experiences using the product.
15. I trust technical data from Company web sites. I rely on friends for product reviews.

What does all this mean?
Well, it means that the line between advertising and reality is blurring. We must decide right now whether to become whores for the products we use every day.
TAGS: Edelman, spam, corporate whore

Conservatives Split Over Bush Nominee
It doesn’t matter whether Ms. Miers is Conservative or a Constructionist or anti-abortion or for war. Let’s cut to the chase.
Harriet Miers has never sat on the bench. She’s not a judge and has never been one.
She isn’t qualified for the job. Period.

Go to Google http://www.google.com/
Type in the word “failure” - no quotes
Hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button

I finally got around to seeing Heart of the Beholder.
The movie was very engaging. It follows Mike and Diane Howard from before the birth of their first child. Their hopes for a better life are realized when Mike’s gamble of opening a video store blossoms into a popular video store chain.
That’s where the problems begin. A local religious splinter group targets the Howard’s video store chain for offering blasphemous videos such as Tom Hanks’ “Splash“.
When Mike refuses to cave to their demands, their leader blackmails the DA into inventing charges against them. There are death threats against Mike’s little girl, and things get just plain ugly.
Eventually justice prevails, but it’s too late. The weight of the legal expenses crushes the Howard’s dreams.
I don’t want to spoil it for you, but how the Howards get revenge is hilarious.
The movie won the Bluegrass International Film Festival “Director’s Choice Award” for Best Feature Film. Congratulations!
See previous entry.

Brought to you by the U.S. Government Bureau of Superheroes.