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Information Salad: Episode #16

By Slobokan | October 30, 2006

We’re all over the place this week. We introduce the newest podcast host on the ISPN Media network, and tons of current event type stuff.

We introduce Spencer Sokols, host of ISPNMedia’s newest podcast, Radio Undone. He’ll be debuting the show sometime in the next few weeks.
Slobokan had one hell of a week.
Google’s getting pissy about the use of their name as a verb:

Usage: ‘Google’ as noun referring to, well, us.

Example: “I just love Google, theyâ€™re soooo cute and cuddly and adorable and awesome!”
Our lawyers say: Good. Very, very good. There’s no question here that you’re referring to Google Inc. as a company. Use it widely, and hey, tell a friend.

Usage: ‘Google’ as verb referring to searching for information on, um, Google.
Example: “I googled him on the well-known website Google.com and he seems pretty interesting.”
Our lawyers say: Well, weâ€™re happy at least that it’s clear you mean searching on Google.com. As our friends at Merriam-Webster note, to “Google” means “to use the Google search engine to find information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web.”

Usage: ‘Google’ as verb referring to searching for information via any conduit other than Google.
Example: “I googled him on Yahoo and he seems pretty interesting.”
Our lawyers say: Bad. Very, very bad. You can only “Google” on the Google search engine. If you absolutely must use one of our competitors, please feel free to “search” on Yahoo or any other search engine.
There is a development at the Charlotte Wyatt Website
Nanowrimo begins next week!!!
Test Pattern #4 was all about counting carbs.
The race in Wisconsin is ugly. Ron Kind and Paul R. Nelson are in a bitter battle. The most ugly and ridiculous ad, however, came from Republican challenger Paul R. Nelson. In the ad, he accuses Kind of not funding the troops while instead funding:
-research on sexual habits of Vietnam’s hookers.
-research that made teenage girls watch porn with probes on their genitals.
-research into the masturbation habits of senior men.
-research into some bizarre aleutian group of bisexual something or other.

We have audio for that ad and the others including this one that hits all the scarepoints of homosexual marriage, God in the pledge, and so on and this one that blatantly co-opts the 9/11 attacks to monger some fear.

Nelson is a slimeball.

This ties nicely into our recent discussions about political ads, including Test Pattern #1.
Michael J. Fox overmedicates himself, then does an ad for Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat.
I love when Democrats do this sort of thing.

You can’t criticize Kristen Breitweiser, the 9/11 widow on her positions on national security because her husband died on 9/11.
You can’t criticize Cindy Sheehan for her shrillness and over-the-topness because her son died in Iraq.
You can’t criticize Tammy Duckworth who wants to pull out of Iraq because she lost two legs there.

They haul out people who bear some relation to an issue or story and then jump all over you if you dare criticize their logic. Anne Coulter, in one of the few things I’ve agreed with her about in the last year said as much. Of course she caught hell for it and her quotes were taken completely out of context, but can anyone honestly disagree with what she said? 9 times out of 10, she’s a raving lunatic, but in this case she was right on the money.
President Bush says “staying the course” was never the strategy.
Steve Irwin in Hell: Brits Outraged
Via TVGasm :

The Hell On Earth 2006 episode shows Satan hosting a Halloween party, with hundreds of celebrities, including Princess Di, Notorious B.I.G., and Adolph Hitler. Satan gets complaints from his guests that someone is dressed up as Irwin. Irwin then tries to convince Satan it’s really him.

The “controversy” is being trumped up in the British papers, where they get worked up over this kind of thing, and in Australia, where Steve Irwin really wasn’t half as popular as he remains over here. They’re less worked up over Irwin being in Hell, than by the “stingray still being attached to Irwin’s bloodstained trademark khaki shirt.

“Grossly insensitive?” “Bad taste?” “Unacceptable?” as a British broadcasting watchdog declared? Or just plain funny?

Ironically, of all shows to get outraged over, they picked Southpark who in the same Episode said Princess Diana was in hell too, showed Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy go on a killing spree, and Biggie Smalls is brought back to life. Face it. South Park is an equal opportunity offender.
NBC and CW wont air ads for Dixie Chicks Documentary.

Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of The Weinstein Company stated, “It’s a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America. The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is sad and profoundly un-American.”
Peter the asshole is off the Amazing Race. Unfortunately, Sarah is gone too. At least she had the common sense at the end to say their relationship sucked.
We talked about Survivor, 6 Degrees, and Heroes as well
Vista bug delays shipment til Nov 8th.
Wordpress 2.0.5 was released today.
The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series tonight.
Ryan Block will appear on the next episode of Side Salad.
Slobokan gives a NASCAR update. Sorry no links this week.
Core Duo Refirb Special