...And Our Lead Story...

You Know How I Always Say The Media Lies?

To reach this audience—and to add a veneer of credibility to clients' messages—the public relations industry uses video news releases (VNRs). VNRs are pre-packaged "news" segments and additional footage created by broadcast PR firms, or by publicists within corporations or government agencies. VNRs are designed to be seamlessly integrated into newscasts, and are freely provided to TV stations. Although the accompanying information sent to TV stations identifies the clients behind the VNRs, nothing in the material for broadcast does. Without strong disclosure requirements and the attention and action of TV station personnel, viewers cannot know when the news segment they're watching was bought and paid for by the very subjects of that "report."

Yeah, that means what you think it does. GM gets tired of talking about how they're tottering ever closer to bankruptcy, so rather than try to fix things, they have their PR department cook up a "news" segment, bought and paid for by GM, which of course paints them in a very forgiving light indeed. Then, they hand it out to "news" stations, which have been playing them on air, within their regular news broadcasts, without telling you, or even having the decency to admit that they were paid for by their subjects.
Nice to know that the media's got honesty on the brain, hmmmm?

Well, at least you have me to give you the real deal.

You wanna know who my corporate favorites are? The CEO and co-founders of Google, and the CEO of Delphi Automotive. Each of them is making a salary of - wait for it - $1 per year.

Yeah, I said a dollar. At least they're TRYING to save their companies money. They know the stock shares that they get are where the real money is anyway, and they know better than to drain their companies' liquid cash by taking salaries like... oh, I don't know, maybe Lee Raymond of ExxonMobil? He makes $144,000 a day. Read that again. That's $1.67 a second, folks. Holy hell. No wonder we're paying through the nose at the pump, hmmm?

In a totally unrelated note: what's scary about this page right here is that I not only remember those games: I actually HAD an Atari 5200, and furthermore can probably still find my cartridges for most of those games, if I were to really dig through my closet. Boy, have games come a long way, or what?

Falling into the "Click this link before it's gone" category, someone is selling a Titan-1 ICBM missile silo and launch base on eBay for $750,000. Now, you, too can become a nuclear power! Woohooo! Join the arms race like never before!

I'm sure someone will think to ask the question that immediately popped into my mind on seeing this article: "What can possibly go wrong?"

Just so you guys know, there was a really, really friggin' huge earthquake in Tonga today. (Just like most people, I scratched my head and said "WTF is Tonga?!?" Thankfully, there's Google Maps.) FYI, Tonga is barely 20 miles long, and is southeast of Fiji. What's really cool about it is that when the earthquake - more properly, seaquake, got started, alarms went off in places as distant as Alaska, but nobody bothered to call tiny little Tonga and say "Hey, dude, you're about to have a really freakin' bad day..."

Hey, if you happen to be the guy who tried to abduct 13-year-old Brendan Nichol from his school in Midvale, Utah Tuesday morning, the police want to talk to you. They know who you are; you've been the only person in the whole town walking around with a broken-off pencil embedded in your face. That oughta teach you to try to get 'em a bit younger next time, guy. If a 50 pound dog can kick your ass, a kid who's 5'5" might have a chance, you know? Just saying.

Just so you guys know, stupid is not a solely American pastime. That's right: Stupid has gone international. The Proof?™ I bring you this Malaysian housewife, who claims an exorcist "fooled" her into having sex with him 51 times in order to exorcise the evil spirits infesting her. The best part? He charged her for it.

Oh, the sweet, sweet irony: the Filipino judge who claimed imaginary mystic dwarves helped him see the future failed to foresee the Phillippine Supreme Court disbarring his ass and removing him from the bench for being a psycho. Maybe rather than concentrating on the prognostications of vertically-challenged faith-based imaginary friends, he should have been trying to do his job. Just a thought.

Now for an unexpected pleasure: two people in the public service sector who are as outspoken as I am. Sadly, they're in Ireland. See, for some reason, Irish truck drivers don't seem to be able to grasp that the height signs on bridges aren't kidding. One particular bridge has been hit 70 times in the last five years. That's an awful lot of taxpayer cash going to road repair, which is probably why rail spokesman Barry Kenny, and Jeremy Quinn of the Irish Road Haulers' Association sound so pissed off:

Irish rail spokesman Barry Kenny expressed frustration after the most recent bridge-slamming in Dublin.

"It's gross stupidity not being aware of the height of the bridge," he said. "Another bridge that is regularly struck is 10-feet-6-inches. It's absolutely insane that somebody could be stupid enough to hit that bridge."

Jimmy Quinn of the Irish Road Haulers' Association agrees.

"Anybody who's driving round in a vehicle and doesn't know its height is stupid," said Quinn. "That's a bald fact and only an idiot would try to defend that."

And finally, proving once and for all that sarcasm can be a deadly weapon all by its little self, comes the clerk of the Open Pantry convenience store in Burlington, Wisconsin. See, a gentleman by the name of Billy W. Babe walked into the store about 4 AM April 21st, and told the clerk he was there to rob the store. Hilarity ensued.

Unwilling to believe Babe – who was not brandishing any kind of weapon at that point – the clerk retorted, “I want a raise.”
Frustrated by that response and his apparent lack of credibility with the clerk, Babe continued to tell her three or four times that he wanted the cash, twice adding “I’m
serious.”
After continuing to tell him what his purchase totaled and Babe repeating he wanted the cash, police say the clerk eventually walked away to call police – at which point
Babe fled in his truck at a high rate of speed.

The excellent gentleman in question was later apprehended after robbing a different, apparently sarcasm-challenged convenience store later that same day.

Thank goodness it's not just us; apparently no nation is sacred. It's entertaining, every once in a while, to sit back and see the waves of stupid coming from other places than Washington.