Yesterday I posted a movie and some commentary on the ethics of manipulating photos. Now there is a viral video from diet.com talking about the same thing, but with a diet and body image slant.
I haven’t actually listened to the whole thing, as I am supposed to be working. Some of the tricks remind me of some things that I saw on the ‘Watch Us Lose’ table on the front page of Kimkins over the last year or so. Of course some of Heidi’s pictures needed nothing more complicated than a slight vertical stretch to help recreate past weight loss success.
That question is just an extension of what people were discussing in 1995 in relation to the picture in this video. I looked into it and it is indeed becoming a trend…
With fuel costs breaking new records everyday, lots of people are considering curtailing their driving. For some people, this may involve putting a car into storage for months or longer. I was considering it and I realized that there are probably a few things that I should do to the car if I want it to stay in the condition that it is in. Here are a few links with helpful information:
AAA has advice that seems to cater to people with really nice cars.
After moving in 2005, we went carless for a whole year. It can be done. I consider my 1990 Skoda to be a time saving device. It is not a necessity and it is not a part of my identity.
I was just checking out one of many online businesses that claim to operate on Christian principles. I am skeptical but respectful of this practice. Basically, I consider it a branding decision and the degree to which it is ethical is entirely dependent on how well they follow through with that promise. Actual churches don’t always measure up, so it is highly probable that many ‘Christian’ businesses register fairly high on the hypocrisy meter.
This particular Christian business seemed okay and what caught my eye was that they felt it was necessary to have a front page disclaimer related to advertising. The most prominent advertising was coming from Google.
Many webmasters and bloggers put contextual ads on their sites and take a buyer beware approach. These ads are so ubiquitous that we tend to feel zero responsibility for their content. Maybe we are wrong.
The headline in the Washington Post says Clinton Sorry. The report says that she apologized for her recent reference to the RFK assassination.
I don’t know if the quote at the end of the piece is complete, but I read it for context and I do not see the word sorry. An apology from Hillary Clinton is a lot like Heidi Diaz coming clean.
I wrote the first part of this entry without watching the video of Hillary’s comment (the one for for which she ‘apologized’). I have to admit that it doesn’t sound as bad as it looks in print.
I was obsessing about politics and I saw some derogatory term that I didn’t understand. I went over to the urban dictionary. None of the ‘definitions’ for my term were remotely plausible, darn kids.
The founder of lifelock has famously displayed his social insurance number on the splash page for his product. Detractors like to say that his identity was stolen (or at least that an attempt was made) shortly after that. I say ‘SO WHAT?’
The service offered to consumers does not involve publishing your information on their homepage. It involves periodically triggering the heightened vigilance that is inherent in the system. Certain large companies are upset because they carry out the heightened security and it costs them money that they cannot legally pass on directly to individuals. That gets another SO WHAT? from me. Lifelock provides more security for its customers and they have a huge guarantee should this security get breached. I would hate to have my identity stolen and I worry about it occasionally.
The above video is best presented without commentary.
I want to make a short post about how I recently found a VISA card that had been left in an ATM. I approached the machine that was outside on a main street. It was beeping frantically and displaying in a language that I cannot read. I pressed a random button and the card came out. I looked at the name and then looked around for possible card owners. I didn’t see any, but I saw a police officer and I showed the card to her. She pointed way up the hill at an old man walking with a cane and told me to run after him. He responded to the name on the card and I gave it to him with a pat on the shoulder. He thanked me.
Observant readers of my blog probably noticed that I was riding the PayPerPost bubble for the last year. It seems that the gravy boat has sailed as far as paid reviews go. I am still checking out the marketplace and on rare occasions making posts for truly compelling websites, but not nearly as often.
Today I am biting the hand that feeds me a little bit by panning a weight loss procedure that an advertiser is promoting on SocialSpark.
My gut reaction to online sales of Lipotropic Injections was very negative. When I went to check it out on Google, I saw that the Internet is littered with people selling this stuff. That is why the advertiser is looking for outside the box SEO strategies, he wants to be on top of the heap.
I had to dig pretty deep to find any non-shilling info. All that needs to be said is that there is no conclusive data suggesting that these injections are effective and that self injection without prior in person instruction from a healthcare professional is a very BAD idea.
I should mention that, as of now, no bloggers who are part of SocialSpark have written a paid review for the Lipotropic Injections selling site.
You will not find too many Presidential candidates vowing to carry on the torch for Bush and Cheney. I think at last count, it stood at Zero. Since the present administration is not in a position to help with any campaigns, they have more time to do what they have been doing all along… hand out favors and alienate the rest of the World.
The general public has enough to worry about with the really big issues, like the war (which Bush and Cheney can take full credit for) and the economy (for which they deserve at least partial credit). The administration has walked behind this giant pile of lemons and opened up a little lemonade stand where they are giving away judicial appointments and other sweet stuff to the little people that have helped make it all possible.
Gustavus Adolphus Puryear IV was on loan to team Cheney to prepare him for debates in 2000 and 2004. He has made millions as the general counsel for CCA the private company that houses many of America’s federal prison inmates. Putting a man who has made obscene profits from imprisonment on the bench as a trial judge seems counterintuitive, but so does installing a man who made obscene profits as an executive for a defense contractor as Vice President.
