Social Media Outruns Real Life

The advertisement of the day:


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NASA: The Frontier Is Everywhere

A stirring endorsement of the capacity for good within the human race, our collective drive to seek out the great unknown and the media-challenged governmental agency that will someday take us there:


Would I come off as too big of a nerd if I admitted that I already have the official NASA app on my iPad? Yeah? Well I don't care...

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FDA Proposes New Cigarette Warning Labels

This is a bit much in my opinion:

Federal drug regulators on Wednesday unveiled 36 proposed warning labels for cigarette packages, including one showing a toe tag on a corpse and another in which a mother blows smoke on her baby.

Designed to cover half the surface area of a pack or carton of cigarettes, and a fifth of any advertisements for them, the labels are intended to spur smokers to quit by providing graphic reminders of tobacco’s dangers. The labels are required under a law passed last year that gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate, but not ban, tobacco products for the first time.

Public health officials hope that the new labels will re-energize the nation’s antismoking efforts, which have stalled in recent years. About 20.6 percent of the nation’s adults, or 46.6 million people, and about 19.5 percent of high school students, or 3.4 million teenagers, are smokers.

And yes, that's actually one of the proposed images above; you can see more here. Because just giving people the facts about cigarettes isn't enough, the government has decided that it's also necessary to appeal to one's emotions and fear of death and disease in order to control individual behaviour. My conservative counterpart Donald Douglas of American Clown Shoes accurately intuits my stand on this issue:

I don't know. Maybe some folks are so stupid they actually need these warnings. Besides, what would folks like egghead JBW do without some Nanny Statism to gripe about? Get rid of warning labels and marijuana laws in one fell swoop!! Then everyone would have equal opportunity to death!

Now I'm not a Republican so I don't consider the moniker "egghead" to be the epithet that Don does but I will admit that I do agree with him on this, at least partially: I'm absolutely convinced that some (hell, many) folks are so stupid that they actually need these warnings, there's no maybe about it. Even after several decades of government health reports stating definitively that cigarettes cause cancer and thus death, even after several multi-billion dollar lawsuits against tobacco companies for making false claims about the safety of their products all these years and even though cigarettes have had health warnings on them since the mid sixties people still smoke them! Why do they do this despite all of the warnings and evidence about how dangerous it is? Well, even though I'm an egghead (which is defined as being "elitist" and "out of touch") I understand a truth about myself and my fellow humans that Don does not: human beings have a fundamental need to alter their brain chemistry.

Ever wonder why the War on Drugs has been such an abject failure? Or why people smoke or chew tobacco, drink too much alcohol and eat too much fat, salt and sugar? Of course you don't because you know why people do these things: because it makes them feel good, and no amount of warning labels and government babysitting is going to make them stop doing so. Now this isn't to say that I think cigarettes shouldn't have warnings on their packages. I have no problem with the small amount of government intervention that is required to force companies to provide adequate information to the public about their products but these pictures of diseased lungs and choking children seem to me political correctness run amok.

Now I have no doubt that they'll have the desired effect of convincing a certain number of people not to smoke who weren't deterred by a mere written warning but how far should we as a society be willing to take this? Should the winery that produces my Pinot Noir be forced to place a picture of a hardened liver on every bottle? How about forcing fast food companies to print pictures of a guy having a coronary or having his leg amputated due to diabetes on their cheeseburger wrappers? Or we could even up the ante to things that still hold an element of danger yet don't even alter brain chemistry or directly affect our health, like forcing car companies to place pictures of bloodied corpses on their windshields or forcing the airlines to print pictures of a crashed burning fuselage on every ticket. Hell, we could force companies to put a graphic warning about the worst consequences of every product and activity under the sun on their respective packaging and advertising, then nobody would ever do anything stupid and we'd all be safe from ourselves, right?

Wrong. We could do all of that and more and people would still do stupid things that are dangerous to their health but we've decided as a society that we're OK with that because it's the price of personal freedom in this country. Full disclosure: I don't smoke, in fact I hate cigarettes. One of my great laments is that almost every cute girl I know in California is a smoker but I still defend the rights of smokers to do so because I believe in the principle of individual liberty. Being a hypocrite Don is comfortable letting his government dictate ever more restrictive advertising codes for tobacco and positively draconian anti-drug laws because he doesn't smoke or use illicit drugs, hence he could care less about the individual freedoms of people who do. I would imagine that he's quite all right with the recent San Francisco ban on toys in Happy Meals (gotta protect the kids, you know) and the massive sin tax that California has placed on alcohol and tobacco products (I missed that part last time I was reading the bible), all while he squeals incessantly about big government running wild and Obama ramming his health care reform down our throats.

What this ultimately boils down to is personal responsibility and the philosophy that adults, even stupid adults, should be able to decide for themselves whether or not to engage in behaviour that is dangerous to themselves and their health. Children are obviously different and because their reasoning skills are not yet mature they require additional governmental protection but even then I doubt Don and the rest of his tea partying ilk would want the government telling them how to raise their children in most respects. But telling an adult like him that he can and cannot ingest certain substances and chemicals because in the eyes of the government he's essentially too stupid to decide these things for himself? Well, maybe he needs these warning labels to protect him. Perhaps then despite varying levels of individual stupidity our societal "opportunity to death" might not be equal, but at least we'll all be safe from our own behaviour.

Well what do you know, I wrote this entire post without invoking the phrase "nanny state" even once. You're welcome, Don. Now go do what your government tells you like a good little drone.

TDS: Negative Campaigning

Case in point:

Advertisement Of The Day

This is a symptom of the "nanny state" mentality, on the political left and right, that I'm constantly decrying:

The forthcoming Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg flick The Other Guys may yet be riddled with pot shots from film critics. Poor Ferrell and Wahlberg -- on Muni, they can't shoot back.

While the official poster for the film features a maniacal Ferrell and the menacing Wahlberg sailing through the air, guns drawn, the version in Muni stations features Ferrell brandishing a vial of pepper spray and Wahlberg relying upon his bare fists. This is not a coincidence.

"Well, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency does have an advertising policy that states ads should not appear to promote the use of firearms or advocate any violent action," explains spokesman Paul Rose. You can read the stipulations against promoting "the use of firearms" and "imminent lawlessness or violent actions" right here.

Do we as Americans really need the agency in San Francisco that makes the trains and buses run on time deciding for us what exposure we should have to depictions of firearm use and violence? I love living in Northern California and The City's great but it does wear on my nerves at times. Be it instances like this or prohibition of illicit drugs or prostitution or gambling or even unpopular/offensive speech it all amounts to one thing: PC bullshit espoused by those who would tell you how to live your life because they supposedly know better than you what's good for you. Well, they don't (and this movie actually looks like it isn't half bad).

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Star Wars TomTom GPS Recordings

*waives hand all Jedi mind-trick like* You will buy a TomTom GPS device:


Seriously, buy one:


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World Cup: Write The Future

I still think soccer is boring but this sports star-packed Nike commercial heralding the upcoming World Cup makes it appear slightly less so:


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Brain Rage Porn

It's being used to sell cars but I'm posting it because I think smart is sexy:


I like to think that intelligence and pleasure are two important elements of this blog. I hope you do too.

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They Will Come To Town

This award winning global warming advertisement from Germany is obviously over the top but it's also quite beautiful as well (I recommend viewing it in full screen mode):


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Super Sexy CPR

For educational purposes, of course:


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Star Wars-Themed Pregnancy Announcement

I've never passed my genes on to a miniature version of myself but if I ever do I'm going to try to make the announcement as cool and nerdy as this one:


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[Update: Of course you don't want to make your wedding announcement too epic or else the pregnancy will just seem like a weak-ass sequel. I think it would be quite interesting to know these two individuals:


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As Seen On TV: A Tribute To Doing It Wrong

Whoever put together this compilation must have thought it was my birthday. My favorite part of any commercial that purports to sell people products that will somehow make their lives easier is the opening footage of tragically incompetent individuals who can not master seemingly innocuous everyday tasks such as slicing a tomato, breaking an egg or covering themselves with a blanket. Enjoy the fail:


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The New $100 Bill Is Futuristically Sexy

It's the next best thing to space cash:

The U.S. Treasury has released images of a redesigned $100 bill with new, Bladerunner-esque security features. Benjamin Franklin now consorts with a blue 3D security ribbon and a "bell in the inkwell" security stamp whose color fluctuates from copper to green (watch a video preview below). While Gawker's Hamilton Nolan damned the futuristic new look as "embarrassingly colorful" — "it looks like a god damn child's crayon scratch pad" — other critics embraced the redesign, which will enter circulation next February: "This is money that tells you it is coming from the future," says Alex Balk at The Awl. "It's... confident and a little aggressive." Matt Kiebus at Death + Taxes is also dazzled: "The United States Treasury just made the most complicated piece of currency my eyes have ever seen," he says. "It's new, it's shiny, I want it."

I think it's pretty damn cool, and pretty damn smart from a socio-economic perspective. The harder it is to forge the stronger our dollar will remain. And this video is fairly technically and stylistically impressive for something produced by a governmental agency:


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TDS: A Farewell To Arms

Does that logo look familiar to you?

If it does, it might be because I lamented it's non-inclusion in this film.

Priest Off

I fully endorse this product:


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KFC Is Practically Daring Me To Eat This... Ctd

Previously discussed here, it drops in less than a week. That sound you just heard was my heart slowing down in anticipation.

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KFC's New Boneless Filet Is A Total Ripoff

This is Kentucky Fried Chicken's newest concept item, ostensibly in the same vein as wraps and other "on the go" food items most fast food joints have been pushing lately. You can watch the unembeddable commercial here. Looks pretty damn good, right? You can get the filet with a biscuit, your choice of a side and a drink for five bucks or you can just purchase the filet by itself for $2.29. I opted to try the individual filet for lunch today (in addition to some other fried goodness) and this is what I got (sorry about the quality, I really need to get a new cell):
That's exactly how it came out of the bag and it was as dry as British humor. Fuck. That. I love you like a father Colonel but this is a total fail, you old bastard. Speaking of, check out one of his original commercials I came across today:


This latest culinary abortion aside, that's a man I'd like to buy fried chicken from. The only way I'd trust him more would be if he were holding a mint julep. Corporate KFC sucks. It used to be about the chicken, man.

Advertisement Of The Day

An anti-smoking campaign by BDDP & Fils, France for Association de défence contre le tabac. The French is translated as, "Smoking is being a slave to tobacco." While I somewhat agree with the sentiment I'm having a hard (no pun intended) time understanding how that equates to giving Big Tobacco head. Any thoughts?

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Thursday! Thursday! Thursday!

Today's bipartisan health care summit is C-SPAN's time to shine:


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MK Channel ID/Branding

This slow/stop motion film is a rebranding advertisement for the alternative music channel MK. There's some really beautiful stuff here:


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