Richard Scarry Get’s the PC Treatment

Every book up for a re-release could use a few updates, I guess. Just check and see how many of the changes from the 1963 version to the 1991 version are chronicled are motivated by political-correctness. How dare Mother Rabbitt be seen in the kitchen! [via Lileks]

Commercials Now Launching Musical Bands

Commericals have used music since the beginning; even popular tunes. But it’s been a recent development that commercials are launching the careers (or at least giving them a healthy shove) of some lesser known groups.

You might remember those Mitsubishi Endeavor commercials? The band is called Overseer and has a long history of backing media pieces. Mitsubishi has been capitalizing on this strategy for a couple years now. They have an Outlander commerical that uses music by Telepopmusik and their Eclipse commercial with a song by Dirty Vegas. Pontiac is piggy-backing on this strategy with their commercials for their new G6 with music by Citizen Cope.

What prompted this post was that last night I heard a song from a favorite band of mine in another Pontiac commerical. I’m not sure what car it was because I was trying to place the tune, but I finally figured it out. Wrecking Ball is a song from Lovers, Lead The Way!. The band is a huge Indie hit called Viva Voce. Be sure to check them out. (They’re a hip husband and wife team.) And be on the lookout for more unknown artists looking to break out through commercials. Then maybe we could all send in the info and Adtunes could update their site. 8^)

Incredible Images

I don’t have much love for Time magazine, but I can say this for them, they sure do use their position to bring the attention of millions to some amazing photographs. Among many you can see on their site, is this famous shot by Michael Yon. [via Not Exactly Rocket Science]

There are even more fantastic images located here.

ESPN and Duke, Sittin’ in a Tree, K-I-S-S…

Maybe I’m not the most impartial judge, but don’t you think that ESPN’s 14 mentions of Duke on a single page is the online version of a teacher’s pet? No wonder so many people hate Duke.

The Truth About Iraq

Help spread the truth, not the anti-Bush gar-baj we get from the DP.

Narnia Attacked

It’s really sad how obvious the DP is about their feelings for Christianity or anything even remotely related. Now they’ve come out against Narnia because its author, C.S. Lewis, is a Christian. And exactly what does that have to do with his stories? Let’s just call it for what it is: religious descrimination. [via Llamas]

Media Ignores Small Protester Turnout

We spend a great deal of time talking about Media bias. Well, at least I do. Because it’s so unfair. I have no problems with sport rivals, political rivals or even business rivals doing things in their own best interest, that just happen to be at odds with my best interest. They are supposed to be doing that. We are opponents.

Not so with the media. They’re supposed to be unbiased, impartial and objective. Sadly, they are none of these things no matter how much they claim to be.

When crowds protesting for the same issue as the media are large, they get great exposure in the press. When those crowds are small, we hear nothing about it. Did you see this a single photo of the protesters standing outside justice nominee John Roberts’ hearings on CNN? Washington Post? I didn’t think so because it would have made their side look weak. Here is the size of the crowd.

Are Drug Companies Influencing Medical Publications?

Other than tobacco, no other sector gets the negative press like pharmaceuticals. From 60 Minutes to villain roles in movies and video games, big drug companies are this era’s mafia bosses.

So am I erronesously buying the stereotype when I think drug companies are behind the attacks on vitamins? I’m not so sure. And neither is Bill Sardi.

When he wrote to the New England Journal of Medicine to emphasize the data in recent reports about how Vitamin C worked wonders against coronary heart disease they gave him the brush off. Here is Sardi’s article.

Now, I’m not the conspiracy theory type but I’ve seen too many examples of natural remedies like vitamins getting little credit in combating illness while man-made drugs grab all the headlines. It’s the first place we look when we want to feel better. But in our society, the smart person follows the money trail and there’s far more money to be made in drugs than in vitamins. Think about it.

Media Slander is Born

Blackfive and others have formed Media Slander. From their Purpose page:

The goal of Media Slander is to hold journalists and bloggers to high ethical standards regarding coverage of the War on Terror and other military-related issues. We plan to achieve this by highlighting bias, rumor and falsehoods that have been creeping into military coverage under the guise of objective news.

Heck, why stop there? I know it’s a big job but wouldn’t it be great if we could hit a site, search by Media Source and Topic and find out how many times the Washington Post has purposefully bashed Topic X?

To be more readily digested it needs to nail all Media Sources, not just the liberal ones. Even still, it’s a just cause. Good job.

The Media Just Don’t Get It

Based on an unsubstantiated story Newsweek has succeeded in pissing off the entire Muslim world. Now, they are apologizing in their “it’s-not-our-fault-you’re-just-stupid” way.

Dennis Prager brings up a powerful point. How come when other religions suffer a disrespect their first move isn’t to riot?

Oh yeah, none of the other major media outlets called Newsweek to task. Figures. Wouldn’t it be grand, just for once, that one of the Big Three went renegade and started uncovering all the dirt on the other two? Talking about how dirty and misleading they were in this case or that? Then the others retaliated!?! We’d have our very own media Armageddon. That’d be so cool I might actually watch network TV.

Google Censorship Rears Its Ugly Head

Now this is ugly. Google, a tech darling but one of the most pro-left companies out there, is caught red-handed censoring free speech that they so wholeheartedly claim to support.

(click for full picture of each)

RightMarch is appropriately upset and you should be too. There’s a word for this kind of behavior.

hypocrite
n : a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he does not hold

New Iraqi Government Sworn In

“The new phonebook is here! The new phonebook is here!!” -Navin

The new Iraqi phonebook will have a new entry for Ibrahim al-Jaafari as the country’s new Prime Minister. al-Jaafari and his new cabinet were officially sworn in today.

Meanwhile, the AP never misses a chance to highlight something negative in this piece of news that without-a-doubt good.

Meanwhile, investigators concluded two missing Marine fighter jets likely collided over southern Iraq as the body of one pilot was found, a senior U.S. defense official said Tuesday at the Pentagon. U.S. officials in Baghdad said the search for the planes was continuing.

I wonder if when AP reporters were growing up they didn’t get enough milk and cookies. They just come off so sour.

Internet Usage in Ukraine

Today I received an email from one of the Yahoo! groups in which I am a member. It came from someone who lives in the Ukraine. I’ve not seen it reported in the mainstream media but in less than half a year Internet usage has grown by 60% in that country. Any idea what’s driving it? You guessed it, politics, in particular the Orange Revolution.

Much like our own country experienced a jump in the number of bloggers during our elections, the Ukraine has been experiencing a growth of almost 15% a month due to the people’s mistrust of the country’s regime controlled media sources. It’s a small world after all.

The Damned of the West

“It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.” –Robert E. Lee

The horrors of war extend far beyond the soldiers on the battlefield. In our day and age, the terrorists, with whom America has targeted for elimination, don’t hesitate to wreck their havoc on anyone even remotely associated with us.

The Jawa Report has put up the first of a three part story on Roy Hallums. Hallums was a contractor in Iraq who’s been kidnapped and held since November 1, 2004. The media isn’t giving his cause much airtime. It’s a good thing Al Gore invented the Internet or much of what we learn today, we wouldn’t.

Update: Part 2 is up.

Exhuming McCarthy

You’re beautiful more beautiful than me
You’re honorable more honorable than me
Loyal to the Bank of America

Oh, sorry. Jawa has a great post about Mary Mapes calling out conservative bloggers.

They have vilified me, mounted a “wilding” attack against me… we were, it seemed the first victims of a new kind of digital McCarthyism, which uses the same techniques as the old McCarthyism–rumors, slurs, false charges and ugly attacks–but now employs the Internet, talk radio and cable TV echo chamber to ricochet information around the world.

So is she conceding the Communist part? Anyway, there’s a call for Digital McCarthyites. They’ve even got the button!

What gets me isn’t the liberal vs. conservative verbal battling, it’s the way the media has picked a team and joined the war. At least on the Internet people aren’t claiming to be impartial journalists.