Google: the Mass Advertising Machine

America prefers money to freedom.

Since its inception, Google has always 'kept it simple'.  Streamlined user interfaces and fewer variables that get in your face -- so little to account for at so much power and ease of use.  The code behind, however, is not.  Google is a leviathan of AI (artificial intelligence) and could probably figure out how to program your old school VCR or what the question to answer '42' is, if you know how to properly refine a search string.  It's advertising engine is no different.  It quite diabolically crunches numbers/keywords so as it knows exactly what to sell you at what exact time.

So enter the evils of advertising into a company who boasts to "do no harm" and what do you have?  Well, for a start we might well not need use a word as strong as evil to describe the advertising world/market, after all.

The internet, back in the early 90's, was tantamount to the wild west; a time where anything goes and lawlessness rode high in the saddle.  Of course, the governments of the world -- particularly the American gov't -- have made their pledges to censor the internet, with varying degrees of success.  Even before SOPA there were such antithetical movements as '24 Hours of Democracy' and so forth.  So how does Google AdSense factor into all of this?

Well, for one, Google played the biggest hand in forging the internet as the marketplace for anything and everything.  I would attest that the reason we have freedom on the internet to the extent that we do is part and parcel of the catch 22 that is freedom of speech in cyberspace.  In short, Google makes the internet indispensable, and what makes the internet indispensable is freedom of speech.

What would Blogger and YouTube be without dissidents and dissidence?  A hell of a lot more boring, for one.  Imagine the kind of ennui we'd be living day-to-day if the internet were as dry and blasé as the BBC World Service or Fox News Channel.  We may be sleeping with the enemy, but we still have control.

The control to express ourselves as we see fit, in a reasonable manner.  Cyber bullying and despicable sex trades will always be a factor on the internet... but they have been factors in life long before the advent of social networking and email.  There will never be a point to Orwellian control over anything or anyone; people who are truly intent on exploiting the system always find a way... instead the guys on the ground take the blows with nowhere to roll to.  Think we can have an internet of unprecedented order?  That'll hold about as true as having a noble war -- it'll hold about as much water a colander.

NRA Passes the Buck to the EPA

RIP Charlton Heston: 1923 to NOT-SOON-ENOUGH

The face of the upper-middle class Connecticut was rocked, today, as a 20 year old gunman murdered his mother and slew over 20 constituents of Sandy Brook Elementary School, Newtown, CT.  In light of the recent slaying, Obama wept and effectively almost lost his shit -- you would, too.  Now calling for stricter gun legislations, the President of the USA was met with maleficent jocularity as NRA ombudsman, Wayne LaPierre, made a startling and sweeping statement to the press shortly after the hammer came down.

Mr. LaPierre told Fox News; "it simply should have happened, it's a travesty -- just still not as horrific as the looming threat to classrooms everywhere, much greater than black powder: asbestos!"  Now trailing off mid-sentence, "In a sample taken in that very classroom, a state inspector found 1.74 parts per million of asbestos!  In 40+ years those kids were looking at dying of cancer, anyway!"

LaPierre is petitioning the president, next week, to bear down on the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and make a formal inquest into the state of airborne carcinogenic particles in the atmosphere in public schools all across America.  Needless to say, atmospheric pathogens are obviously a bigger health risk than guns, cigarettes and monosodium glutamate all rolled into one!

Wayne also stated that we need more religion in them thar schools.  After all, if Jesus didn't want us to have guns, he would have turned all the worlds bullets into daisies.  LaPierre stated, also, that 'keeping teenagers away from firearms is even worse than giving teenagers condoms -- there ain't no God in them Liberal Satanists enough to defend our lands from them British without assault rifles, hollow point bullets and mooooonshiiiiine!!'

Bravo, Wayne LaPierre, bravo...

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Sssh!  Forget about Charlie Brown!

Beyond modern fables and Dr. Seuss, what do we have to learn from the Christmas season?  Well, (1) it's expensive, (2) it's for children and (3) it's the most marketable time of year since Hallowe'en.  Mattel, Hallmark, Sony and Haribo own the season -- all having equal shares.

We've got Mickey Mouse, we've got Peanuts and we've got the Grinch!  All Christmas branding... and all as profitable for a single day a year as Facebook will be for an entire year of single days. But what happened to Santa and his elves?  How about that portly bitch, Mrs. Claus?  And of course, what happened to Jesus Christ?  Wasn't it meant to be his birthday or something?  Well, no, actually it was something the Church concocted to wax over the festival of Saturnalia... but with all this Christmas chicanery, who's keeping track?

Somehow I thought Jesus was born in June; what do I know, though?  Quite frankly, Christmas started off as a pagan holiday and was re-branded, effectively, by the Christians... so is it really any wonder that media moguls and advertising gurus keep re-branding it to their own ends?

I've been told 'it's a Hallmark holiday' by many people... and true enough, it is.  The capital, the overheads, the financial forecasts... they all make for a compelling *chingchingching* Debenhams, Next and Tesco -- or in the case of the latter, anywhere you can overpay for a good bit of turkey.  'Tis the season to by jolly?  Well, yes, but your pocket book won't after you've splayed the fucker and forked out for whatever the Buzz Lightyear is, this year.

Mickey Mouse had his Scrooge, Charlie Brown had his pathetic Christmas tree and the Grinch had the same old lesson to learn antagonists and anti-heroes in his position always learn!  The real lesson?  For rewriting certain biblical parables, one can be re-gifted with everything they desire... seems strangely like selling ones soul to the Devil.  But in a sense, it is, because after yet another incumbent Christmas advertising campaign, 2012, we're all that little bit more soulless!

Thanks to Tony Law I am Losing My Will to Live

'I am time travelling to a moment when I was amusing!'

Could it be 2012?  It must be!  For Tony Law will likely not be funny anymore when December 21st, this year, comes to pass.  Why, you might ask?  The Mayans knew it as well as any other prognosticating culture you might want to lend a pre-apocalyptic ear to; for the day when Mr. Law gets any genuine laughs, time will stop, clocks will run backwards, water will swirl down the drain clockwise in the northern hemisphere and your waffle iron will attack you!  No, I'm not referencing a poorly conceived CBC documentary, it's the signs of the apocalypse... all starting with Tony Law actually being genuinely amusing.  In fact, I also prognosticate that his head will explode -- but that's an easier prediction to make when I know where I can get my hands on an AR-10 carbine assault rifle!

So what does happen when a Canadian comedian can't make it in the States and is even far too rubbish for the travesty of Canadian sketch programmes... *cough*  Well, needless to say I won't be needing to scratch my eyes out any time soon, as I already have after watching Tony ham it up on a re-run of some nameless comedy programme on 'Dave'.  Usually known for its high quality programming... oh wait, what the fuck am I talking about?

Having come from a country where hand guns are readily accessible, it's no wonder Mr. Law took solace on British television... after all, we have our fair share of imbeciles with funny accents; but we've all seen a  Scouser before!  Why not showcase a Canadian nutter with the IQ of Scottish smoked salmon on some of the worst skit and stand up show Britain has to spew out of every gaping orifice?  Sure, he may have been on Qi... but I'm sure Stephen Fry is heading the way of Terry Pratchett, as it is.  Our only hope: the lifting of euthanasia sanctions!

So whatever you tune in and find Tony Law staring at you with his wild eyes, send him back to Canada so they can send him south to America and the Yanks can send someone even more awful (ie. Pauly Shore) down to Mexico where he'll have his rightful career prospect in mind -- playing wet nurse to an Hispanic tranny in a Mexican prison.

Keanu Reeves Receives First Ever Personality Transplant

Might he be stoned?

Medical science has always behaved like any evolutionary entity: progressing in leaps and bounds.  So now the genii who brought us anti-depressants, behavioural therapy and enriched corn syrup have done it again.  It is now possible to fix personalities and personality disorders by modifying specific regions of the limbic system where emotional potentiality to stimuli is processed and reactions are borne.  The surgery was pioneered by neuroscientists at GlaxoSmithKline and is said to be the most exciting breakthrough in psychosurgery and psychopharmacotherapy since the advent of Thorazine, Clozaril and the full frontal lobotomy.

Selected for the first broad spectrum personality transplant was famed actor Keanu Reeves.  Being believed that he had no personality of his own, he was said to be an excellent example of characterological vacuity and characteristic lability of essence.

Having starred in such blockbuster films as The Matrix, Speed and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure it became obvious the GlaxoKline researchers that he posed no personality of his own and would be the first to benefit from the revolutionary treatment.

The donor, one Mr. Dolph Lundgren, was happy to give up his personality; as he did have one, but simply had never had any use for it.  And as it happens the procedure ended up a startling success.  GlaxoKline are expecting to make $7.6bn USD a year in recursive drug therapies including Largactil drug maintenance and are expected to reap the benefits of plausible deniability in court cases incumbent which can simply be ignored or at worse bought off.  Malpractice suits are expected to quintuple in frequency, as are the figures of district attorneys' bolstered wallets.  The future is looking bright for unnecessary psychiatry! 

The Illusion of Security and the Private Security Industry

Bob Shepherd...

...and his endeavours.

Few know that which lies in the dessert -- not buried by the sands, but by reams of shredded paper and fallacious accounts of enemy indiscretion.  Anyone who knows much about the War on Terror knows that it's more of a 'war of terror' to begin with.  However, who really cares to tell the tale?  With the private security industry existing in the capacity that it does today, no one has the impetus to tell the truth, nor do they have the responsibility to do so.  So who, in the end, is going to pick up the slack for the lads on the ground, just making it from one pay cheque to the next, one roadside bombing to the next?

The casualties of war are always the forgotten.  To tell their story is a legacy to behest the valour that comes of doing ones job both honestly and well; so from the fray comes a soldier -- an ex-SAS operative -- to tell the stories those of us without proper clearance would normally not be privy to.  In this case, the man's name is Bob Shepherd.

Mr. Shepherd became a best selling author after his cold and candid account of the private security industry's involvement on the 'War on Terror' hit the shelves to a marketplace otherwise hungry for Andy McNab's accounts of SAS operations.  Bob, however, respectfully declines to make brazen anecdotes concerning an otherwise honourable annal of military history.  Focusing instead on scoundrels who play soldier and have no allegiance to any entity who isn't paying their way.  We all need to work, but considering the auspices under which close protection operates in hostile environments, one can not hope to expect to be well looked after when at the muzzle of an entire industry which is the same as any consumer or fuel industry: provided to make money at any cost.

Bob's books are readily available through Bob Shepherd's Blog and are worth a serious and thoughtful read.  His are accounts of mishap and misrule from our very own homeland through to chivalry and expedience by those who would otherwise be our foes.  He is a man not to be taken lightly, and neither is his non-fiction or his literary strides to explicate a world of war in which either side are no different than the other -- humans and humanity, even when at odds, need venture into equity... if only to know we're sometimes fighting ourselves rather than a phantom aggressor.