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Kudos to Dove for broadcasting the worst Super Bowl commercial I had the displeasure of watching during the game. During Dove�s forty-five second spot, text is superimposed over various images of young girls, ranging in age from about 5 to 15, while a clip from Cyndi Lauper�s �True Colors� plays in the background. The text over read as a projection of the cause of the pictured young girl�s low self-esteem, featuring most of the usual culprits, such as �thinks she�s ugly,� �afraid she�s fat,� and of course, �wishes she were blond.� The ad finishes with a �message of change� from Dove, stating how they created the �Dove Self-esteem Fund� to change girl�s minds, because �every girl deserves to feel good about herself.�
So how could anyone think that this commercial was the worst of those aired during Super Bowl XL?
Read the full text of the article here.
So Giant Foods replied to my article that detailed why I wouldn't shop at their stores anymore:
Thank you for communicating with us about the Fair Share Health Care
bill that the Maryland legislature
just endorsed over the Governor's veto. Giant did not propose the
legislation nor did Safeway. We did
testify, as did many others, in support of the legislation. We
appreciate this opportunity to share our point
of view with you.
And of course, their point of view turns out to be simply a restatement, in social-welfare utility terms, of everything I attacked them for.
As we all know too well, health care costs have been increasing
significantly. The federal government and
the state government have tried to tackle this growing problem, but
have not legislated any significant new
laws or regulations that would help to lower health care expenses.
You can read the full text of their letter here.
Apparently it can try. I ran across this woman's great website while creating my own at blogger.com (and searching the keyword "Ludwig von Mises"). Hopefully that country's too long obsession with fascistic-socialist blowhards like Chavez will soon end, and cooler heads like this woman's can finally find economic and political freedom there. (But I doubt it--it seems that a corollary of having the "dutch disease" of oil production is also having a dictatorial tyrant former bedwetter for your "presidente" or "mullah" or "grand exalted leader.") By the way Joe, can we get one of these cool banners for Liberty Guys?
Earlier this week, I wrote about a law recently passed in Maryland that singles out Wal-Mart. And whenever you hear of legislation designed to specifically target one business, you can confidently assume that a competing business is behind it:
Take this excerpt from a New York Times article reprinted at “Wake-up Wal-Mart.com:”
One of Wal-Mart's competitors, Giant Food, another of the state's largest employers, came out forcefully in support of the legislation. Giant, which says it spends at least 20 percent of its payroll on health benefits, already satisfies the requirements of the law.
Giant's support "really opened the door," said Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative, a coalition of unions, consumer advocates and others pushing for the legislation.
Giant violated no (legal) law by doing this, but they violated a moral principle that I take seriously:
Click here to read the rest of this article.
Turns out that even Oprah can be shamed into a condemnantion of lying.
Yesterday, on her show, Oprah confronted "author" James Frey, whose book "A Million Pieces" she had endorsed with her "book of the month" designation, over his factual inaccuracies in his alleged memoirs. Her initial endorsement of the book led to millions of sales for Frey. However, a six week investigation by thesmokinggun.com revealed many fabrications of events, outright lies, and historical errors in Frey's tale.
Oprah had defended Frey's penninng of these errors, claiming that the book had "changed millions of lives," and that the "emotional meaning of the book" was more important than its factual content (anyone remember Tawana Brawley?). However, her fans, spurred on by a concern that they had been duped, called, emailed, and harassed her enough to recant to the point where she brought Frey back on the show yesterday for a verbal harange worthy of Ted Kennedy taking on a right-wing nominee (except that Oprah was sober during the interrogation). And it doesn't help when even a NY Times editorialist realizes that there's something wrong with what Frey did in lying so blatantly in a memoir. So after her two week campaign of trying to defend Frey failed (she even called in during Frey's Larry King interview less than a week ago), she drug him back on the air to redirect her viewers anger away from the person who defends the liar into a public shaming of the liar himself.
I feel duped," she said Thursday on her syndicated talk show. "But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers."
It's nice to know that enough angry emails and calls can change Oprah's stance on a moral issue; now if we could only figure out some way to get the same result from people who support national health slavery.
Today, at the National Mayor's conference in Washington DC, Iowa gov. Tom Vilsack received the National Award for State Art Leadership. In his acceptance speech, he touted the $2 billion in economic activity generated by investments that that the state of Iowa has made in museums, libraries, convention centers, parks and bike trails. Then he used his "success" to blast President Bush in rather curious terms, saying:
"We need to get our fiscal house in order and make long-term investment in infrastructure to make America competitive," Vilsack said in an interview.
I'm struggling to understand at what point musuems and bike trails started counting as infrastructure. I guess anything that gets you an award from people with little conception of economics and zero economic constraint...
I just read the most heinous news item I’ve come across in a very long time. The jist of it is this:
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Maryland has become the first state in the nation to require Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health care or pay the difference into the state's Medicaid fund. Similar laws may be coming elsewhere.
The article then goes on to mention a number of points (statements by commentators, really), not really pro or con, but voicing approval or disapproval of this legislation--the pro side pointing out how great it is that "Maryland is finally sticking it to Wal-Mart," the con side pointing out what a disaster this will turn into economically. The article quotes critics of the legislation citing job losses, closed stores, and the possibility that Wal-Mart may now not open a planned distribution center in the state as possible economic consequences of the new law. While all this may happen, I want to point out that this new law is not an economic issue, but an issue of human rights. And the law comes down hard against human rights.
Read on...
Let's now salute the dumbest idea in wealth redistribution in our (or any) nation's history.
FEMA announced yesterday that as part of the 'massive recovery' aid program to victims of Hurricane Katrina, they were going to issue government credited debit cards to the tune of two-thousand dollars per person. Just to, you know, help them get by. Of course, the press-release contained the 'rational-person' terms of use for these early Xmas presents that they'd ostensibly get used for food, new clothes, transportation (what do you call those big fan-boats they use on the bayou?), and other 'necessities' that would help the victims of the worst natural disaster get back on its feet.
Read more...
