Grandchildren and fake coffee

I recall someone in the comments section of another blog posting a link to an employment ad: Faux News was looking for someone to "write facts."

Congratulations on grandchild number 3!

Congratulations on the new grandbaby!

Dude, that's not fucking news! It's corporate fucking propaganda!

Congrats on the new grandchild!

Congrat on the new brat:-) , and may he provide endless amusement playing with whatever pets may happen to be around...

Ahh, nothing like the good old days of television, updated to modern times.

If you've ever seen news program footage from the late 50s and early 60s, when all television was black & white, you would have seen something similar.

Very often the product placement was a brand of cigarettes, one of which would be seen burning in the ashtray next to the pack, on the news anchor's desk, in the brief moments between stories & commercials. As if to suggest that the news anchor was smoking it while the commercials were running.

On the other hand, Walter Cronkite is a life-long pipe smoker, but he never did so on the set while presenting the news.

And what of the news anchor who honestly doesn't use the product...? Cronkite wrinklng up his nose at the stinky cigarettes, and presumably one or more of the McDonalds' hostages wrinkling up their nose at the plastic coffee.

But of course it's theatre, moreso now than then, and while the majority's taste in mind-altering substances may change over time, it is certainly interesting to note that much of the coffee consumption in the US has little to do with taste and everything to do with getting a dose of caffeine.

In other words, it's all about the drugs. And whether one chooses to use or not, seeing the news anchors conscripted as de-facto drug pushers, is almost amusing.

Here's to hoping that, some time in the future, coffee, like tobacco, is an adult choice to be shared among consenting adults, but not flaunted on television in front of children.

Imagine that. The end of the damn rat race, when fewer people are running around amped up on a molecule that's only a couple of atoms away from being crystal meth.

The mellower citizens of the future will look back on those coffee placements the way people today look back on the cigarette placements of the 1950s.

g336 said: "...a molecule [caffeine] that's only a couple of atoms away from being crystal meth."

This characterization is silly.

Consider that the active ingredient in Vick's inhalers *is* methamphetamine. And it's sold OTC, no questions asked. Why? It won't get you high because it's the left-handed "levo" isomer of the molecule (the right-handed "dextro" isomer is the one that has powerful stimulant properties). The levo isomer just doesn't fit into the brain's receptors the same way. There's not even a simple way to change between the two isomers, which is why meth makers don't buy up huge quantities of inhalers.

http://scienceblogs.com/moleculeoftheday/2006/10/lmethamphetamine_would…

Chemical differences that might appear small on first glance can in fact make huge differences in the ways they impact our bodies. For one molecule to be "a couple of atoms away" from another molecule does not necessarily make any connection between the two.

I believe the former WH press secretary's comments as stated on MSNBC have been discredited, which is the PC way of saying he frickin' lied.

pauls: Indeed? Discredited where and by whom? Bill O'Reilly? That's sort of like Ted Stevens discrediting his indictments. "I am not a crook!" You are a card.

you hated him when he was press secretary...you love him now...and I'm the card...

pauls: Let's get something straight. Just because someone says something that impugns the Bush administration doesn't mean I love them. I think McClellan is an asshole, stupid and had no problem being a professional liar (just as Dana Perino is a professional liar). Just because Paul O'Neill said something true about Bush doesn't mean I love O'Neill. He is also a jerk. Since you see everything through the lens of Republicans and Democrats it seems to be impossible for you to understand that for some of us my enemy's enemy is not necessarily my friend. There are plenty of bad Democrats (e.g., Steny Hoyer) and we need to replace them with good Democrats. But the worst Democrat is still better than the best Republican. But not by much.

Now to the business at hand. You said McClellan's claim was discredited. By whom? Where? Or were you just taking Fox News's word for it? Like everything else.

you just admitted that McClellan is a professional liar, so why believe anything he says? you believe what you want to believe...he says the WH gave Fox News talking points, so it must be true even though he is a professional liar..

pauls: In other words, your claim it was "discredited" has no foundation you can cite, correct? Did you believe what he said when he was Press Sec'y? Or aren't you that gullible?

Revere you already know I heard/saw that on Fox. I believe that. Actually no, I don't believe everything any Press Sec'y ever says (for one thing I don't think the Press Sec'y is actually told everything and what he/she is told might be a little shaded). I don't believe everything I read either.

pauls: Let me get this straight. It was "discredited" because Fox said it wasn't true? LOL.

yes, revere. Sort of like it's true because a professional liar said it.

pauls: No, not like that at all. You need to pay careful attention to language. Professional liars don't always lie. They lie as part of their professions. You have to judge what a person says by comparing and corroborating their utterances with other evidence. Most people don't have much doubt that what he said about the WH sending talking points to Fox News was true. Like Capt. Renault in Casablanca: "Shocked, shocked."

I'm not certain of this, but I believe it was only O'Reilly who said he'd never gotten any talking points, not Faux News as a hole [sic]. Although it was never made clear if Bill O's writers had gotten the talking points...