How to really show "appreciation" for those who serve

Quick hint: It's not by exploiting them by broadcasting manipulative images of returning service members being reunited with their kids, moments which you'd think would be considered too private and personal to be placed in an advertisement- or at least, you'd think that if you hadn't turned on a tv at any time over the last thirty years.

Nor is it by allowing them to board planes before everyone else (seriously, I've never understood the advantage.  Why would anyone want to board a plane first?  All that means is that you get to sit in a cramped metal coffin breathing recirculated air longer.  How about letting them OFF first?  I've never seen this offered.)

I can think of three much better ways to show appreciation for our service men and women during "Service Appreciation Month" (gag, come on.  EVERY MONTH SHOULD BE SERVICE APPRECIATION MONTH YOU JAGOFFS.)

First, well, reread the opening paragraph of this post.  Stop using them to sell your crappy products, you cold-blooded, hypocritical, money-grubbing scum-sucking maggots.

Second, fund and operate the VA properly.  The treatment we give our wounded warriors is just short of scandalous- and I'm not just talking about those who return with broken or missing limbs or other traumatic physical damage.  We've done a great job denying the psychological damage caused by warfare in order to squeeze a nickle a little tighter.  If we really give a damn, this will stop.  Support the troops?  Fuck the deal on a new Chevy.  Heal them.

Third, let's stop putting men and women in harm's way at the drop of a hat, as a first resort, Just Because We Can.  We spent forty years throwing American blood and treasure all over the planet to protect the god-given right of US Corporations to sell soda and salty snacks in Asia, and we've spent the past thirty tossing our boys and girls into the meat grinder to keep our sacred high living standard supported with cheap oil (and not, say, reasonable tax rates for the rich.)  How about we show our support for Our Troops by, I don't know, just BRINGING THEM THE FUCK HOME and letting someone else be the Big Brother/Policeman of the world for a century or so?  Just a thought.

Thanks to Taco Bell, I don't think we really have to worry about the next generation

Just because we are the Fattest Nation on Earth doesn't mean that we should take that status for granted and stop looking for new ways to kill ourselves with food, right?

The old guys in this ad are concerned with a "slippery slope," but their priorities are really messed up.  Personally, the "slippery slope" I see coming from consuming sausage, eggs and maple syrup wrapped in waffles is sweating, shortness of breath, high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, and death.  These guys are worried about- pony tails?  Really?

What do you call the Brady Bunch in a Blender? A good start?

Not only will I not see this film, but I'm pretty sure I'll make an active effort to avoid any theater showing it.  Or the block that theater is on.  Or the town.  Or the county.  Hell, I think I'll just leave the country during it's run.

As near as I can tell, it stars Aging Before She Ever Really Got A Chance To Be Meg Ryan "comedienne" Drew Barrymore (who at least isn't playing Barely Out of High School love interests anymore) and "comedian" Still Stuck in the Happy Gilmore Phase of His Career Adam Sandler (remember when you thought he was kind of amusing on SNL?)  As near as I can tell, they have one total fail disgusting date in which things Not Funny To Anyone Over The Age Of Eight (yep, it's an Adam Sandler vehicle all right) happen.  And as near as I can tell, this leads to a Comedy of Errors which, like the Shakespeare play, isn't even remotely funny.

Oh, and there's a trip to Africa thrown in so we can do the whole "Time Share" joke and throw in a little blatant racism too, because who doesn't think blatant racism is funny?

Along the way we are going to get a lot of Sassy Smart-ass kids jokes, a lot of fart jokes, a lot of belching, some vomiting, and a general buffet of toilet humor.  And when it's all over, Sandler's character and Barrymore's character will realize that They Belong Together.  How do I know this?  No, not from the trailer, which is helpful enough to guide us through the plot twists (otherwise known as the times the screen writer found himself in a corner and decided to start all over again- but keep the previously written scenes intact) pretty much through to the end.  I know this because I wasn't born yesterday, and I know a Formula when I see one.   Anyone who doesn't know EXACTLY how this crud is going to wrap up inherited the scarecrow's brain of oatmeal and needles.

Oh, and we can also assume that this film will make roughly twice it's budget, 90 percent of which covers the salaries of it's- ahem- "stars."  Just enough to assure a sequel, god help us all.   Not that the lack of a sequel would be much of a comfort- we are certain to see another 100 or so films with the exact same story line regardless of whether its title includes a Roman Numeral.

Please, just kill me now

If I had died yesterday, I would have been spared this commercial.

Why, god, Why?

As in, "why are these people watching some stupid, brain-dead yak show during breakfast?"

As in, "do the makers of shredded wheat understand the elderly at all? If so, why are they depicting them eating breakfast in the middle of the morning, instead of the break of dawn?"  Everyone knows that people this woman's age eat breakfast at 6, lunch at 11 and dinner at 4, and are under the covers by 7, tops.

As in, "who on Earth thought it would be fun and a great idea to inflict upon the viewing audience the concept that this woman wants so badly to engage in sexual activity that she's extra-eager to shove shredded wheat down her gullet?"  What is she trying to accomplish here?  If her sex drive is about to experience an upturn anyway, why does she need shredded wheat?

And by the way, who the hell is in the audience of this talk show, hooting and hollering at the idea of seniors having sex?  Where do they find these people?

And when you've finished off your Wendy's Monsterburger, here's a desert idea....

This woman's desperate attempt to be for Dairy Queen what that bubbly redhead is for Wendy's is one, big colossal fail.  She approaches that other idiot in being an over-the-top annoying jagoff we'd like to bludgeon to death with a rubber sledgehammer, but that's about it.

Oh, and cake and ice cream in a waffle cone-- sounds good, but like the Wendy's girl, isn't she just being part of the problem here?

Happy International Workers Day!

The fortune teller in this ad sees "a lot of people losing their jobs" if Obama gets his "minimum wage hike."  I wonder if she predicted this every time a raise in the minimum wage has been discussed.  No, I doubt it- after all, considering that every minimum wage increase has lead to a rise in demand and corresponding drop in the Unemployment Rate, wouldn't those predictions have exposed her as a fraud and cost her her "business" by now?

Raising the minimum wage does not cost jobs.  Nor does it create inflation.  That's because the cost of labor is only one small part of the cost of doing business.  If you listen to Fox "News" or Sean Hannity, it's easy to get the impression that raising the wage of a burger-flipper at McDonalds from $6.75 to $10.50 per hour will force an end to the Dollar Menu, but it just ain't so.  Prices are set to Demand far more than to labor costs- and if you pay people more money, that creates more demand.  Maybe it becomes the $1.15 Menu.  Guess what?  If everyone making minimum wage gets a 30 percent raise, McDonalds will be selling a lot more items from that $1.25 menu than they are selling from the Dollar Menu.  This is not rocket science.

But it does require that we set aside the sad, ahistorical conceit that businesses always pay people exactly what they are worth, and that increased productivity will result in increased pay.  Two problems with this.  First, there is exactly as much evidence that it's true as there is that raising the minimum wage results in higher unemployment rates.  In fact, the opposite is true- the productivity of the American worker has increased dramatically over the past thirty years, while wages have remained stagnant (and profits have skyrocketed.)

Second, we are never told exactly WHY any business would raise wages unless it's forced to- especially during a prolonged period of high unemployment.  Out of the goodness of their hearts (they are people, after all?)

And no, I'm not even going to touch on the fortune teller's "remember I told you about the Health Care website?" snark.  That's just Rich Americans Determined To Use Your Ignorance Against You's cheap throw-away add-on line.  Heck, they have to get their money's worth for this crud, right?

So anyway- Happy May 1 for all of my fellow laborers out there, including those who actually buy messages like the one pimped in this ad and wonder how they could do Just A Little More to coax a few extra crumbs from the boss's table.   Special shout out to you guys, though I know you've been too brainwashed by the Right to get it:  It's not you.  You are working very, very hard for very little money not because of anything you failed to do, but because you are working for a race of cold-blooded lizards from another galaxy disguised as humans who are devoted to the goal of draining every ounce of life out of you for their own benefit.  You aren't lazy, and you aren't stupid.  You just got the bad end of a very raw deal.  You work, you suffer, you struggle to make ends meet- and they get rich off your sweat.

It has always been thus- but that doesn't mean it will always BE thus.  Let's lift our beers and toast the promise of the new day coming- the day when every laborer receives a fair share of the wealth his labor creates, not as a gift, but as a right.   May we all live to see it.

Buick asks us to imagine a world....

...in which people have a set idea of "what a Buick looks like," and the NEW Buick "shatters" their expectations of "what a Buick looks like."

I'm here to clue you in, Buick.  Nobody knows what a Buick is "supposed" to look like.  That's because nobody cares.  And nobody cares that you are desperately trying to grab our attention by putting out a series of cars that look like pretty much every other car out there.

"That doesn't LOOK like a Buick?"  Uh-huh.  Nice try.  If it makes you feel any better, Buick, people aren't stunned at the idea that KIAs have four doors, either.  The only thing that stuns us about KIAs is when we see models more than two years old still on the road.