None Dare Call it Astroturfing

A Li'l Bigger

Actual signs from the Glenn Beck, Dick Armey, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News inspired "march on Washington" on Saturday. See more signs here.

Grass roots, my ass. And please quit with the inflated crowd estimates. Media outlets are saying between 60 and 70 thousand showed up. Organizers of the event claim 1.5 million. That's a pretty huge discrepancy. Of course, those media outlets are "mainstream," aren't they? Can't believe them.

"Angry Mob" set is from McPhee.

What Does Obama Want?

Depends who you ask.




More alarming, what should Obama do?



Oh, this is getting interesting. Let's let Magic Google finish this statement:



It's worse than you thought, people.

Cuban Cigars for Everyone

I've always found America's 50-year old policy regarding travel and trade with Cuba to be a little, I don't know...stupid? But that's a can of worms you don't want to open around a very small, albeit powerful group of Cuban ex-pats who decry the vicious tactics used by Castro to crush any opposition to his power. I get that, but there he sits, still mocking us, still in power. I think a little taste of American tourism and an influx of dollars would have a powerful and positive effect on the country that might eventually be too powerful to avoid, sort of like happened in Eastern Europe. But what do I know? Let me stick to what I do best: being silly in a middle school way.

Klik het beeld om het groter te maken

Coffee with the Candidates

If I am jacked up today on caffeine, I blame 7-11 for providing their Obama and McCain cups only in the large size.

7-Eleven is again conducting their presidential poll via coffee cups. They call it "7-Election." Choose McCain or Obama cups and the UPC scan records your choice. Says 7-Eleven President and CEO Joe DePinto, “7-Election provides an interesting daily snapshot of the election.”

Clever idea, except they do not provide a daily snapshot of the election. The cups are in the stores and I'm drinking from one now, but nowhere on 7-Eleven's site is this mentioned, and the website "7-Election" is "coming soon." I blame IT, as they are usually prima donna punks acting all swamped and put-upon and "no one appreciates us."

A long and silly press release is here, including where DePinto calls us "citizen-customers."

When Your Brand is Synonymous with Suicide Cults

I enjoy visiting deeply partisan political blogs just to read the idiotic comments left on them by uninformed yet passionate voters. It's amazing that people with no knowledge of proper English usage, punctuation or grammar are so heavily involved this year in the political discourse. Everyone's got an opinion, but most of them are parroted from the commenter's favorite partisan radio or TV host.

Then the name calling begins. Hillary Haters refer to her as Hillabeans, Hildabeast, Shrillary, Hellery, Sillary and Hillarious, among other clever names. The Obama crowd are called Obamaniacs and Cultists while their candidate is mockingly referred to as "The Messiah." McCain is derided as Bush Jr, McSame and McBush.

And all camps call everyone who follows and supports anyone but their favorite candidate "Kool-Aid Drinkers." It has become the slur of the season. Drinking the Clinton Kool-Aid or the Obama Kool-Aid or the McCain Kool-Aid is to be a deluded fool with no sense of reason who would die for their misguided leader. The term comes from the Jonestown Massacre, where 900 devotees of Jim Jones drank poison-laced Kool-Aid in a mass suicide.

So I wondered how Kraft Foods and their maligned product were faring as their brand name is tossed about regularly as a synonym for "idiot," "fool," or "mindless drone."

So I went to the Kool-Aid site. Silly me. Kool-Aid is for kids. Kids aren't reading political blogs or watching talk TV. Kraft Foods probably enjoys the fact that their product's name is on the lips of so many Americans. They don't need to address this non-issue. They market straight to kids. The kids then tell their parents to buy it. And Kool-Aid's tagline, "Oh, Yeah!" is one of the coolest tags out there.

But Kraft Foods is doing some targeted kid marketing these days. The Kool-Aid website is all "street" with graffiti font. The once fat Kool-Aid guy is now slimmed down (because obesity is a problem and Kraft Foods cares about kids) and he's showing off his urban cred. All of his old schoolmates from "back in the day" are minorities. Check out his friend's "ride." He enjoys concerts and b-ball, naturally.

Kids are drinking the Kool-Aid.

Seven Other Places

Here are seven other places on the Internet you could be right now.

1. Every Presidential campaign logo since 1960. (Page might take some time to load.)
2. It's an animated chimp movie, with jetpacks! (With Amtrak as a sponsor? Sure to suck.)
3. Huge in Brazil, ancient Canadian power trio Rush. Their fans down there even sing to the instrumentals.
4. Meatwater. (Thanks, Fish & Chimps.)
5. The Obama worship has officially gone too far.
6. Passionate-White-person-teaches-inner-city-youth-to-shine.
7. A cool design firm wants you to work for them. You'll have to move to Jordan.