Why isn't this being covered in the mainstream news? It's not even undernews!
Read more!It probably comes as a great surprise to you dear reader, but I hate advertisements of all kinds. They're distracting, they slow down my computer, and they fill my head with insufferable jingles.
So I found myself agreeing with Farhad Manjoo of slate:
Google's success seems to bear out Palant's idea that users will tolerate and even click on ads that don't bug them, lending credence to his theory that the way to reverse the mass adoption of ad blocking is for publishers to run ads that people don't want to block. That's why his new proposal makes sense. Ad blocking may not be ethical, but there's nothing illegal about it, and there are few technical ways for publishers to limit its effects. Ad blocking is here to stay. But that doesn't have to be the end of the Web—just the end of terrible ads.
Indeed, if all adds were like google's adwords, I wouldn't block a thing: adwords are useful and unobtrusive.
It always seemed to me that internet ads were engaged in an arms race, where companies produced ever more intrusive ads in order to gain an advantage over their competitors. If we leveled, the playing field by forcing all companies to comply to an intrusion threshhold, this incentive would be eliminated.
Granted, this would effectively kill the advertisement production business, but who needs them? Thanks to admen we pay $1 for 5 cent sugar water.Thanks to admen we drink beer that bears a family resemblance to urine. Thanks to admen I feel like chicken every night! Read more!
I've had the idea for at least three years that there should be a site where you can rate anything: doctors, architects, plumbers, schools, etc. Too bad these bastards stole my idea two years before I thought it up.
It's okay though, since they're pure evil: not only do they torture babies, but apparently they're also responsible for killing newspapers. But I have no scruples so I'll use them to get back at all the people who ever wronged me! That's right Malaysia and Slate, I'm talking to you!
I always heard that the neocons over at commentary were crazy, but I didn't realize how much. Apparently now would be a great time to secure or destroy Pakistan's nukes!
The argument has two prongs
1. Securing Pakistan's nukes would help India, which is a good thing because India is not muslim and is not China.Obviously this argument is insane, we should be attacking India instead!
2. It would also scare Iran, making them more likely to give up on their nuclear program.
1) Attacking India would not only scare the crap out of Iran, but China as well. Especially since it's entirely unprovoked. People would start to think of the USA like one of those drunken soccer hooligans who break car windows for no reason and give you a "Manchester Kiss" (a head-but) if you look them in the eye.
2) Commentary claims that by securing Pakistan's nukes, we would make it much harder for Kashmiri terrorists to create a safe haven in Pakistan. Again, this argument is complete nonsense. If we remove their safehaven in Pakistan, they'll simply run off to Kashmir and then we're left looking like morons. But, if we take over Kashmir, they can't just run away, because we hold the territory that they want to liberate. So we can set a trap for them, like in Iraq, and they'll all coming running to their deaths. I suggest a pit trap with spikes in it. I know there's a lobby out there pushing for acid traps instead, but that's just prohibitively expensive. We're going to need two, maybe three of these traps to catch all the terrorists; that's a lot of acid! Read more!
Sometimes I wonder why I read Mickey Kaus, who often seems anti just for the sake of being anti. But then he goes and makes me laugh:**--Earlier version of this item said "cocoon," not "bubble." But Sullivan arguably is in Obama's cocoon on the issue of torture, no? Not sure about the issue of genital warts! ...
And so I keep coming back.
According to the New York Times, at least, a couple of distressed debt funds held up the negotiations over Chrysler, forcing it into bankruptcy. While I have absolutely no problem with distressed debt funds (I think they perform and invaluable service), I'm having trouble figuring out what the hell these guys are thinking. You don't play hardball on negotiations against the government when it is protecting blue collar jobs and at a time when wall street is reviled.
Is this part of the same phenomenon of banker indignation blogged about on Samuelcanread? Regardless, I hope that these guys are pilloried, not so much because they deserve it (although they do for being so stupidly arrogant: this is not an ordinary bankruptcy, the normal rules do not apply. You guys do realize you're going to start getting death threats?), but because we desperately need a scapegoat. We may very well need more tarp funds, if not a few nationalizations. I imagine this would be much easier to get if the American people saw a few more heads roll.
And Frank Rich thought he'd only be writing about Arlen Specter this week...
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