sandwichesandapples

Related to my last post… TechCrunch writes about the Yes On 8 Google ads. They note that they’re seeing the ads on their site. And of course, because the post on which they discuss this is now relevant to the ads, they get served another one at the bottom of the post. Ouch.

TC does point out something hilarious in the whole cyber battle over Prop 8… YesOnProp8.com redirects to NoOnProp8.com. Hahaha.

I’m skimming through posts from a great blog called ’skine art which is all drawings from people’s Moleskine notebooks. I’m reading it in Google Reader of course, so I’m just getting the RSS feed. ‘Skine Art has added Google AdSense to their RSS feed to deliver ads to their readers like me who don’t visit skineart.com.

ANYWAY, every single post contains an ad for Yes on Prop 8 (which if you don’t know, is the California Proposition to ban gay marriage through a Constitutional Amendment. Yes being the “yes, ban it” side of the issue.) I bring this up not to argue the political point but to point out the expense of this advertising campaign.

It’s my understanding that the way Google Ads work is this: Google allows advertisers to bid on keywords which match content on websites (or Google search pages). The better your ad content matches the content on the site or search serving those ads, the less you pay. The reason being that Google values the user experience higher than the advertiser.

In other words, if you want to advertise your anti-gay marriage stance on a blog that shows nothing but drawings of birds and landscapes and bicycles, then you are going to pay a ridiculous amount of money to do so. Because your ad is completely unrelated to the content of the site.

The only reason I am getting served those ads is because Google recognizes my IP as being in California. So the Yes on Prop 8 people are buying anything as long as the location of the user is California. That’s an enormous amount of money to spend on propaganda meant to influence voters to ban two people in love from expressing it in marriage.

ADDENDUM: Some examples of the ad in “context” of the skineart.com posts below. Incidentally, hey ’skine art, I think you can reject these ads from being shown on your site if you’re so inclined.

(continue reading…)

The Alien has switched his endorsement from Obama to McCain! The details are salacious!

Uncovered photos suggest that in a last ditch effort to help her husband’s failing campaign, Cindy McCain seduced and then blackmailed the Alien for his endorsement.

At a recent McCain rally, inside sources say Cindy McCain disappeared with the Alien after sharing several champagnes with the notorious intergalactic lightweight. Ms. McCain’s alien-like good looks and natural blood temperature of 54 degrees Fahrenheit may have proved too much for him to resist as she reportedly put her cyborg husband into sleep mode and worked her charms.

The Onion has also been keeping a close eye on Cindy McCain.

[via X-Ray Spex]

I realize this could have been pulled out of context but it always sends a shiver down my spine when a politico says something that pretty much confirms what I figured they were thinking. Usually, they’re so shielded with spin and marketing and effective PR that you don’t hear them say, “You’re stupid and I’m smart.”

Then there’s this quote from Elizabeth Edwards, who is a health care advisor to Barack Obama, expressing her dislike of McCain’s health care plan:

[she] said McCain’s plan fails in all important areas by leaving the decision-making process up to individuals, who can frequently “make stupid economics decisions.”

So true. The government never makes stupid economic decisions.

At this point, politics is really meta-politics:

I’m probably going to vote for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) this year, and my reason is particularly indefensible. It’s a straightforward case of reverse racism…

And the candidate himself comes quite close to being a complete disaster. Obama has taken positions and even—with the slight peevishness of a man who knows he’s been singled out by destiny and doesn’t see much point in going through the usual channels—documented and supported them. To the extent we can piece together a portrait of the candidate, it’s awful. He’s a strident anti-trader and industrial-era dead-ender, persuaded that protecting decades-gone jobs in the Midwest is a national responsibility. He will try to enact some version of universal health care. On most issues where he’s not worse than Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)—foreign policy, wiretapping, finance—he’s just as bad. He may or may not be friendly with too many anti-American jackholes, but he’s definitely too friendly with jackholes in general. His budget projections are fanciful. Worst of all, for at least the next two years he will almost certainly have the support of the majority party in Congress.

And yet in a dream, in a Nixon-era fog of progressive uplift, I’m ready to vote for him. And I’m pretty sure my reasons for voting for Obama are no dumber than your reasons for voting for whomever you’re voting for.

Yeesh. I know I’m a huckleberry but I’m voting for the guy who best represents my principles.