The first bumper stickers appeared before World War II and were attached to cars with wire. Kansas City silk screener Forest P. Gill is recognized as the father of the bumper sticker having pioneered the use of pressure sensitive stock to make the message stick to the bumper.

Americans’ claim to bumper stickers as a form of political expression isn’t exclusive. In Israel, people’s passion for bumper sticker messages have crossed over into rap — spawning a hit single covering 120 stickers in the lyrics of one song.

Which brings us to the message of one Florida native, seen here visiting a rest area on the New Jersey Turnpike.

What the message lacks in grammar is more than made up in passion (note that the slogan is not on the bumper, but permanently affixed to the back window).  And given a choice between being a fan of outdoor sports and liberal-media-inspired rules on proper capitalization, who wouldn’t prefer grabbing a Savage Model 110 rifle to a red tipped Sharpie marking pen?

The recent dustup between Professor Gates and Officer Crowley has taught us all about the dangers of profiling and sterotyping. But I’m willing to go out on a limb here and assume that someone who doesn’t know the difference between their and they’re won’t know how to spell xenophobic, either.

Sources: Buperstickerz.com, Wikipedia, NY Times 8/16/2004

It’s the stuff from which Sci Fi is made. The Web Search-opoly, which has shook the bedrock of the advertising world, has invested in a company that can cause earthquakes. (Sort of. The investment is real, the earthquakes are a possibility)

What’s best is that Rule #6 of Google’s corporate philosophy is “you can make money without doing evil.” Larry Page and Sergey Brin, meet Lex Luthor and Dr. No.

It’s also about energy and using the heat of the earth to produce clean power without greenhouse gases or fragile geopolitical alliances. Google has invested $6.25 million in AltaRock Energy which plans to drill two miles below the surface to tap geothermal energy in a place about two hours north of San Francisco.

AltaRock hopes to use engineered geothermal systems to pump cold water below the surface to fracture rocks and create fissures. The water, heated under intense pressure, returns to the surface as steam used to turn electrical turbines.

However, the NYT did a little digging (I couldn’t resist) and found that a similar venture in Basel, Switzerland was shut down after it triggered man-made earthquakes which persisted for months after the drilling stopped. AltaRock says they aren’t sure that the Basel project caused the Swiss quakes although local officials in Switzerland are sure that they did.

Regarding geothermal energy, Google says we need “more aggressive government policies to help catch up to other nations, including expanded R&D funding, a national renewable portfolio standard, and reliable tax incentives.”

Here’s the pitch: Corporate greed vs. community need by do global gooders gone bad  at the cross roads of good intentions and the San Andreas fault. Wannabe script writers for History and Discovery Channels — are you listening?

Source: NYT, XConomy, GreenTechMedia, Earthetech

Perhaps everyone could use a little pick-me-up at this point. Or maybe this is a reality check of gallows humor.

Check out the American Pie parody “The Day The Media Died,” aka Mad Avenue Blues. Author LMcDuff08 really knows his/her stuff — this piece is both cleaver and well executed. One warning: it’s as long as the original Don McLean song. But it’s worth it.

One man who is probably pretty cranky about all of this is Mitchell Habib, the head Nielsen’s IT houncho for Global Business Services. Responding to issues getting with reissues in February 2008, Habib told national client’s at Nielsen’s annual customer meeting, “the bucks stops here” and if things don’t improve, I probably won’t be back in a year.

Meanwhile, it’s fun to read people’s reactions to the ratings holiday. Here are a few snippets from around the ‘net:

• It’s again May sweeps,
  But where are the overnights…
  How did Castle do?
  – One of many Haiku’s posted to TVByTheNumbers, Wed May 6th
• The problems raised new questions about Nielsen’s outsourcing of work at its Oldsmar facility — did it hamper the company’s ability to recover from the breakdown? — TampaBay.com, Thu May 7
  (Editor’s Note: Mr. Habib took credit for reducing costs and increasing responsiveness by outsourcing much of Nielsen’s IT operations to EDI and an India-based company at the 2008 client meeting)
• Nielsen Media Research was in full damage control mode Wednesday as the primetime network ratings were held hostage for a third day in a row. — Variety, Wed May 6
• NYT reported Brian Stelter started a conversation with NBC’s president of research Alan Wurtzel, saying “Let’s talk about Nielsen ratings.” Wutzel responded: “We don’t have any!” — New York Times, Wed May 6.
• The ThrFeed blog included a short ratings update followed by a YouTube video of a cat playing a keyboard.
• And finally, the last word, from Nielsen:
  Nielsen will begin to release audience estimates [on 7/7/2009] for data of Monday, May 4, 2009 through Wednesday, May 6, 2009 for all Local Metered Market samples as well as the National People Meter sample.

  Data has been validated and cleared by our Statistical Research team. All samples have passed our standard geography testing as well as DTV technology testing.  Sample characteristic levels are in line with prior days and intab rates meet established reportability standards.
  – Nielsen, Thu May 7

]]> http://www.medianewsandviews.com/2009/05/noratings/feed/ 0 http://www.medianewsandviews.com/2009/05/swineflu/ http://www.medianewsandviews.com/2009/05/swineflu/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 10:23:06 +0000 Dave http://www.medianewsandviews.com/?p=349 by Dave Zornow

With news that Egypt is slaughtering that nation’s pigs to guard against a disease named after but not spread by swine, New York City Health Commissioner Bud Hackincoff has asked Mayor Bloomberg to seal the borders of the Big Apple to travelers speaking Pig Latin.

Customs officials at Newark, LaGuardia and JFK airports welcomed the extra security measure. “This is a common sense policy like limiting liquids to four ounces or less. We can’t take any chances,” said one TSA official.

Frightened passengers were pulled from airplanes and quarantined while officials decided their fate. “Eway on’tday avehay ethay inesway uflay,” said one distraught passenger adding “Ouyay eoplepay areway eallyray upidstay,” before duct tape was stretched across his mouth as a necessary public health precaution.

NYC Health officials are also considering additional measures designed to combat human viruses that spread as if they were computer viruses. Subway officials will issue 30 centimeter sticks to properly create a sneeze-proof space for rush hour riders. And the NYC Department of Health will ask the parents of young girls to temporarily forgo their pigtails to show solidarity for the sick.

In a separate development, Sesame Street has announced it will no longer broadcast episodes “brought to you by” the letters and numbers H, 1 and N.

Sources: Mercury News, English to Pig Latin Translator

See also: PoliticalIrony.com

The undersecretary for the Bureau of Retirement On Key Entitlements says the former head of NASDAQ brings unique qualifications to the job. “We’re in bad shape,” says Les Funds. “By 2017, Social Security will be paying out more than we take in. We need someone with a ‘magic touch’ to grow the system while still allowing us to burn the candle at both ends.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that putting Madoff in charge of Social Security is either a publicity stunt or a good example of government learning from the private sector. Bloomberg told WNYC’s radio audience last January that “Madoff’s isn’t the biggest ponzi scheme ever. – that’s social security.” When asked to comment on today’s announcement, Bloomberg rolled his eyes and said he’s running out of political parties to quit.

Editor’s Note: This post was first created as a submission to the New York Public Radio outlet WNYC for a Satire Slam! on 4/28. It was selected as a semi-finalist in that competition.

In a surprise move proving her outstanding professional range, Jody Foster was elected to the Israeli Knesset in a close contest. In May she added leadership of the center-left Kadima party to her body of work including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe and Emmy-nominations as an actor, director and producer.

Just kidding. this is actually Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. But you had to look twice, right?

The story notes

• The no-god advertising is represented by the Atheist Bus Campaign (“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy life”)
• Countered by the pro-God groups, jesussaid.org, the Trinitarian Bible Society, The Christian Party (“There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life.”) and the Russian Orthodox Church (“There is a God, BELIEVE. Don’t worry and enjoy your life”)

Broadcasters and public interest groups are urging a delay to the February 17 deadline for TV stations to turn off their analog signals forever. They’ve been joined by the incoming Obama administration in asking Congress to push back The Big Switch to June.

Former FCC Chairman William Kennard and Michael Powell opine in the New York Times that the government has bungled the coupon program and will leave millions of sets TV-less lurch on February 17.  There’s more demand for boxes than hardware to go around and a backlog of coupon requests that can’t be fulfilled.

FCC Chairman Martin says that consumers will be ill-served by a delay, because it will create more confusion — not less.

Finally, let’s get to Marie. Historians say that it’s unlikely that Marie-Antoinette ever said “let them eat cake.” But no matter — she probably would have said it if she could. And if she was alive and able to take a cold-hearted position on the digital TV transition, I have no doubt she would agree with Kevin Martin. And me.

Watching TV is an unalienable American right. Our founding fathers embodied this belief in the Declaration of Independence, when they wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…including access to at least three over-the-air network affiliates in each DMA, with ample ratings-generating content, including sports fare on the weekends and news-lite programming at six and eleven, as well as specially titilating content during the months of November, Feburary, May, and to a lesser degree, July.

Part of this text was inserted to defy King George, and his imposition of the UK’s distasteful annual TV License fees. But I digress.

Nielsen says a little less than seven percent of TV Households in the US are unprepared. Among Spanish speaking households, that jumps to almost 12 percent. Albuquerque, Tulsa and Houston are among the most unprepared places, digitially speaking: 12-13 percent of the homes in these markets say they aren’t ready for Feb 17th.

About five percent of people 55 and older haven’t gotten the message, either.

But I have to ask: where have these people been the past year? Broadcasters have been flooding the airwaves with announcements over the last six months. Millions have been spent in the effort to get the word out. Millions more have been spent on the coupon program for digital converters. If they digitally-clueless haven’t gotten the message until now, what makes us think that a few more months will make a difference?

Yes, it’s going to be a train wreck. People will be angry and confused. And the poorest, the oldest and those who find navigating government and technology are going to be hurt the most. But where does it say that over-the-air TV is a right for everyone?

It’s going to be ugly. But it will finally get people, who haven’t been paying attention up until now, to pay attention.

I say it’s time to bring it on. It’s going to hurt sooner or later. Let’s make it sooner and get this over with ASAP.

The turf battle between Cablevision and Verizon has opened another front. Specifically, in my front yard. Digging up my turf.

I noticed someone digging a hole by my front porch last week. And the Verizon truck parked across the street (incidentally, there’s no parking on that side of the street. These monopolies know no bounds!). Wanting to do my part for homeland security, I decided to question the infiltrator.

According to “Jim,” the FIoS installer (I’ll assume this was an assumed name he used in the event that he was taken prisoner by The Other Monopoly), says he was checking the ground for my FiOS connection. I remarked that although I was neither an installer, an engineer or a physics major, the ground looked perfectly fine to me, having been freshly installed only a year ago by Verizon. He shrugged his shoulders saying an inspector had recently been out to visit and had fingered my location as a trouble spot. According to Jim, Cablevision was behind all of this.

IMHO : Probably.  About three years ago, I was on a citizens review committee for a Northern New Jersey community which needed to approve Verizon’s application to provide TV services to the community. In the middle of the process, the NJ legislature made the process moot by giving Verizon a statewide OK to provide video services. But for a brief amount of time, I got to see some of the tactics that Cablevision lawyers employed to protect their franchises. It wasn’t pretty — but for those of you who appreciate what highly paid corporate lawyers can do when unleashed, it was probably high art.

So, is it likely that Cablevision sicked the PUC on FiOS? Yes.

It was at this point when my informant turned from possible fact to corporate fiction. “And if it wasn’t for all of the extra taxes Verizon has to pay, we would have put those bastards out of business already.” I found this to be a curious accusation at best, given that FiOS has offered no discernible discount in rates for video — a place where the marketplace is hungering for a price break.  But I wasn’t going to interrupt him quite yet. After all, he had the sharp tools and was holding the higher (electrical) ground.

“And their phone service sucks. The quality isn’t quite as good as the we provide, but people just put up with it.” As a dual Vonage and Verizon subscriber, I attempted to point out the fallacy and the irony of his statement. Vonage quality  *is* just as good as the phone company and it’s only that way because of the generous FiOS bandwidth. But this wasn’t a man who was going to be slowed down by facts. And he still was holding the sharp tools, so I decided to let him talk himself out and then show himself out.

Is there a digital turf war going on? Probably. But its nothing for us lowly consumers to concern ourselves with. Until it gets desperate enough for one of the two carriers to start using  price as a weapon to take away customers.

It makes sense for Verizon to take the lead in pricing. According to USA Today, the phone company spends about $900 per home with expectations of adding three million new video homes per year. Costs run about $715 more per home than Cablevision for the typical five-hour, two-person job for a new install. What’s a few dollars more for the Ivan Seidenberg if it will pay off in the long run?

Now, I don’t have an MBA, an EE degree and the only advanced telecommunications term I know is POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service). But if I owned a phone company and my consumer base was in a cost-cutting mood in trying economic times, the first thing I would do is start discounting to steal share from my competitor while I could do it on the cheap.

Which is the common ground for both the consumers and the competitors.

See also: RemoveTheLabels, Verizon