Product Placement Ads in Washington?.
WP: The great duct tape conspiracy?. Interesting WP story stating that 46% of all duct tape sold in the USA is manufactured by an Ohio-based company whose founder donated over $100,000 in the 2000 election campaign cycle to the Republican National Committee and other GOP committees.
His son, John Kahl, who became CEO after his father stepped down shortly after the election, told CNBC last week that "we're seeing a doubling and tripling of our sales, particularly in certain metro markets and around the coasts and borders." The plant has "gone to a 24/7 operation, which is about a 40 percent increase" over this time last year, Kahl said. The company had more than $300 million in sales in 2001.
And Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge keeps pushing the product. "You may want to have a safe shelter for four or six hours," he told PBS's Jim Lehrer on Wednesday, "until . . . the chemical plume moves on." So "you may need that duct tape." Link to Washington Post story (stupid, annoying registration survey required), Discuss (via strangelove) [Boing Boing Blog]
I took all this with a grain of salt until my eyes happened upon something I'd printed out a month or so ago that was still sitting on my desk. It was an article about the criminalization of TiVo and the heavily theorized "Product Placement" solution to the problem of people skipping commercials.
So I chuckled a bit, then turned back and re-read this and the pit of my stomach sank into nausea. Great. We've got product placement ads during terrorist alert briefings.
My brain goes into hyperbolic mode at this (ok, BACK into hyperbolic mode) and I can see members of congress wearing suits with the labels still on the left sleeves, giving speeches with shiny white teeth and toothpaste tubes sitting "incidentally" on the podium... Press conferences ending with "Thank you for your understanding, but I think the staff and I are going to Olive Garden!"
Great. Just Great. [The Universal Church Of Cosmic Uncertainty]
5:46:37 PM 
|
|
