Archive for August 14, 2009

There’s more than one cheese in the dairy section: Update: Comment from Sargento

Posted: August 14, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech
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After reading these two posts at Newsbusters and RedState concerning Sargento cheese’s decision to honor the left’s boycott demand of Glenn Beck I sent them this letter via their contact page:

Good afternoon.

As a person of Sicilian decent a good cheese is very important to me. Whether making homemade Chicken parm or a simple pizza the right cheese can make or break a good dish.

My local market carries your cheese, although times are tougher the quality of your product has justified the little bit extra I’ve had to pay to make sure the meals I cook are up to snuff.

Although your company has a fine eye for cheese your eye for politics doesn’t seem to be too keen.

Your decision to publicly pull advertising from the Glenn Beck show on behalf of an advocacy group supporting this white House is beneath you.

I’m not a big fan of Beck but I am a big fan of free speech and the right to disagree and critique with the government. I have taken the liberty of examining Mr. Beck and have decided that your determination that he is propagating “hate speech” is poppycock.

Since you have decided to publicly to take a side it behooves me to do the same. The quality of your product not withstanding I find myself compelled to find another cheese maker who can concentrate on producing their product rather than repressing speech.

When you decide to reconsider your decision as publicly as you made it, I will be happy to reconsider mine.

Thank you.

Redstate has contact info for them and others but I prefer the direct contact page, feel free to follow the link if you agree.

Update: The RedState story now contains this word from Sargento:

“I had never heard of the Color of Change organization until it was mentioned by a consumer who called us and claimed we were influenced by them, and I notice you have mentioned it as well. This group did not contact Sargento and did not influence our decision.”

That’s rather amazing when you consider the following:

“I can confirm that Sargento has instructed our media buyer to not buy advertising that would appear during the Glenn Beck Show,” Gannon said in an e-mail to the Business & Media Institute on Aug. 14. “We market our products to people regardless of their political affiliations. As a business, we sometimes disagree with the administration’s policies. Yet we do not want to be associated with hateful speech used by either liberal or conservative television hosts.”

I would like to know when and how he formed that opinion particularly when you consider this e-mail response they sent to a person advocating the boycott:

We deeply appreciate your reaching out to us and sharing your comments and concerns about Sargento ads appearing during “The Glenn Beck Show.” We sat down with the marketing department to talk about it and I learned that we buy time periods not specific programs. But in any event, they’ve made the decision to exclude that program from our future ad rotation. Simply stated, Sargento ads won’t be airing during that show. Again, thanks for contacting us.

Pat Lombardo

Sargento Consumer Affairs Department

I suspect it’s going to come down to whose business they would rather lose.

Update 2 RSMcCain puts it in perspective

The Left doesn’t have to add more targets to their boycott list in order to damage conservative media. Put the hit on Beck — impose what might be called a political discount on the value of his advertising — and the boycotters have thereby demonstrated their ability to do the same to anyone whom they should decide to target next.

To abandon Glenn Beck and throw him under the bus — to sacrifice him to the Left — would be an act of appeasement akin to Neville Chamberlain giving Hitler the Sudetenland.

He is exactly right, they can’t beat Fox in the ratings so they will use this plan. Sargento if they were smart could have dropped their ads without a comment when the cycle ended, after all Mr. Beck doesn’t have a divine right to their business, but once they made the announcement they took sides.

Update 3: Legal Insurrection looks at the bright side.

We need Beer reform NOW!

Posted: August 14, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Why do I say this? Well it’s because of this story:

CBS: Free Clinic Shows Heath Care Reform ‘Desperately Needed’

At the top of Thursday’s CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric used a free clinic in Inglewood, California to push for health care reform: “Tonight in the battle over health care, they are on the front lines….we’re going to show you why many believe reform is desperately needed. These are just some of the tens of thousands of Americans who need health care but have no insurance or not enough of it.”

So because people show up for free healthcare that mean healthcare needs to be reformed. I suggest we try something.

Have the same group have a setup where they give away free beer and see how many people line up for it and how long. It shouldn’t be that many since beer is not a necessity like healthcare reform.

I strongly suspect that the overflow crowds will prove the need for Beer reform and government provided beer. I’m sure that the people would be just some of the thousands who need beer but don’t have the means to get it or enough of it.

Update: I knew I should have copywrighted Beer reform.

Sarah Palin leading them by the nose…

Posted: August 14, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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Today on the Morning Meeting MSNBC continued to attempt to discredit Sarah Palin’s victory by claiming that she was “for death panels” before she was against them due to the Healthcare Decision Day. As you might guess the White House, msm and Lefty blogs are all over this like ants at a picnic, one example…

In olden times, Palin might have made this claim at a speech or during a news conference where reporters might have asked questions like: “What proof do you have?” or “Aren’t you just trying to scare people?”

But Palin does not risk that. She takes no questions. She has done her duty as a rabid responder. She has rung the tocsin, sounded the alarm, lit the signal fire.

Truth? Accuracy? Responsibility?

Not her territory.

…or perhaps like ants taking poison back to the nest because their charge ensures that her latest highly footnoted (Politico’s Roger Simon who owns the quote above must have missed those links) response will get a ton of attention:

I join millions of Americans in expressing appreciation for the Senate Finance Committee’s decision to remove the provision in the pending health care bill that authorizes end-of-life consultations (Section 1233 of HR 3200). It’s gratifying that the voice of the people is getting through to Congress; however, that provision was not the only disturbing detail in this legislation; it was just one of the more obvious ones.

and that doesn’t even cover her actual response deep in the post

“Ideally, the delicate decisions about how to manage life’s end would be made in a setting that is neutral in both appearance and fact. Yes, it’s good to have a doctor’s perspective. But Section 1233 goes beyond facilitating doctor input to preferring it. Indeed, the measure would have an interested party — the government — recruit doctors to sell the elderly on living wills, hospice care and their associated providers, professions and organizations. You don’t have to be a right-wing wacko to question that approach.” [5]

I agree. Last year, I issued a proclamation for “Healthcare Decisions Day.” [6] The proclamation sought to increase the public’s knowledge about creating living wills and establishing powers of attorney. There was no incentive to choose one option over another. There was certainly no financial incentive for physicians to push anything. In fact, the proclamation explicitly called on medical professionals and lawyers “to volunteer their time and efforts” to provide information to the public.

Comparing the “Healthcare Decisions Day” proclamation to Section 1233 of HR 3200 is ridiculous. The two are like apples and oranges. The attempt to link the two shows how desperate the proponents of nationalized health care are to shift the debate away from the disturbing details of their bill.

This woman is leading them by the nose. If I’m the Dems I’m almost as afraid as the Romney 2012 campaign. Every time she hits the dems on government healthcare she grazes Mitt.

Update: Oh and those olden times Roger, were they back when the media was covering John Edwards ass?

Update 2: Hey maybe this is Mitt’s counterpunch. Oldest trick in the book.

Update 3: How popular is Palin, based on today’s post stats she is more than 50 times more popular than porn.

Update 4: SISU nails it.

And her masterful playing of the national spin machine — check out her FaceBook answer to the president’s dissing of her “Death Panels” meme — continues to leave the spinmeisters reeling. As Judge Napolitano just told Bret Baier, all Sarah has to remember is that freedom rang “200 years ago because people like her were not afraid to challenge authority.”

Yup.

Not quite a rule 5 post but it explains something.

Posted: August 14, 2009 by datechguy in oddities
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Glenn’s abortive porn link from yesterday reminded me of two stories I recently read.

The first one is from the LA times concerning hard times in the porn industry.

The adult entertainment business, which was previously in the vanguard of home video, satellite and cable television and digital distribution, now finds itself leading the rest of the entertainment industry in losses from them.

“The death of the DVD business has been more accelerated in the adult business than mainstream,” said Bill Asher, co-chairman of adult industry giant Vivid Entertainment, who estimates that his company’s revenue is down more than 20% this year.

“We always said that once the Internet took off, we’d be OK,” he added. “It never crossed our minds that we’d be competing with people who just give it away for free.”

Apparently there is however one genre that IS making money according to Variety:

Over the last year, Hustler Video Group has without much fanfare trotted out a parade of titles derived from classic TV shows, including the recently released parody “This Ain’t Star Trek XXX.” All the meticulous little details are there, with the exception of moments (spoiler alert!) like the one where Kirk, Spock and Uhura engage in three-way stress-relieving exercise on the bridge, which for whatever reason wasn’t included in J.J. Abrams’ franchise reboot.

The idea of a porn parody of stuff isn’t quite new but the results in sales are:

Nevertheless, Thill says the TV-inspired titles are outselling more conventional counterparts. “It’s actually kind of revitalized the DVD market in the adult world,” he said — a genre deflated, like everything else, by the ready access of free material on the Web

The reporter for Variety couldn’t be more confused by the result if he was describing the failure of an anti troops movie. However I think I understand the appeal.

I was a teenager when I watched those shows and a lot of the comedy came from sexual tension, Gilligan’s Island joked about it, Three Company thrived on it, and Happy days celebrated it. Guys didn’t want to be the Fonz because he was cool, they wanted to be the Fonz because he scored at will. That’s where the cool came from. I can’t speak for the girls but I’ll wager David Cassidy and Scott Baio weren’t on those Tiger Beat covers for their musical talent.

If you don’t get it, check out the audience reaction to this blooper reel from the show:

Now take a look at this still from the parody This Ain’t Happy Days:

notparody

Every person in that audience who laughed at that blooper reel had that still in their mind decades before it was produced. Those people are now the target audience and apparently they are buying. And it’s not just the porn.

“More adults, ages 18 to 49, watch the Cartoon Network than watch CNN.” Allow me to unleash my inner Brent Bozell for a moment, and ask: Isn’t this a sign of intellectual maturity?

Guys never really stop being boys inside. That’s just the way it is.