choofnagle
Posts by this author
November 6, 2007
Kevin Poulsen of Threat Level considers who's nuttier: Apple fans or Ron Paul fans? Complete with obfuscation, lying, and even fake posts on election sites. (Full disclosure: I am an Apple fan.)
November 5, 2007
Cynthia Crossen writes in today's Journal about subliminal advertising:
At a New York press conference 50 years ago, a market researcher, James Vicary, announced he had invented a way to make people buy things whether they wanted them or not. It was called subliminal advertising.
He had tested the…
October 31, 2007
Denialism blog has failed you. We totally missed Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. Would anyone like to share how they recognized this event?
October 26, 2007
In today's Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Levitz and Kelly Greene report on lead generation firms (also known as list brokers), companies that sell databases of consumer information to businesses for marketing purposes:
Older Americans around the country are getting duped by a seemingly innocuous…
October 24, 2007
In today's Journal, Jane J. Kim writes very clearly about the different tools that are now available to consumers to protect themselves against identity theft. The article explains the advantages and disadvantages to each approach. Great reporting!
October 23, 2007
John W. Miller reports in the Wall Street Journal about an unusual, insurance company funded program that brings many to Lourdes:
In an unusual scheme, [VGZ] the Dutch company spends about $280,000 a year to fly 600 of its sickest and most disabled clients to Lourdes. The company doesn't expect the…
October 22, 2007
All that stuff that the wireless industry says about being competitive is baloney! Cell phones in the US are big and stupid, and deliberately crippled to get you to pay extra for things that are natively supported in devices, like custom ringtones. And most Americans don't know any better because…
October 18, 2007
Over at Threat Level Ryan Single reports that all of a sudden, Senator Rockefeller, the putative custodian of legislation to give telecommunications companies immunity from privacy lawsuits, is getting lots of cash from such companies. And most of these donations come from out-of-state donors (…
October 18, 2007
While Mark is in Begas, attempting to use his big brain to make money, you people are at my mercy!!1! Let us begin!
Check out today's Times for a book review of A. J. Jacob's The Year of Living Biblically, One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, the story of a secular…
October 16, 2007
I'm doing the TRUST Seminar at Berkeley this week. Here's the info and abstract.
Date: Thursday, October 18, 2007
Time: 1:00 PM (lunch will be served)
Location: 540 A/B Cory Hall
ABSTRACT: In synthetic identity theft cases, an impostor creates a new identity using some…
October 3, 2007
Maybe Americans' bad taste can be reformed! Gary McWilliams reports:
The Wal-Mart Era, the retailer's time of overwhelming business and social influence in America, is drawing to a close.
[...]
Rival retailers lured Americans away from Wal-Mart's low-price promise by offering greater convenience,…
October 1, 2007
The Journal's Cynthia Crossen gives an overview of political battles surrounding billboard advertising today. An interesting read, in part because billboard advertising lobbyists have been pretty shameless in their political advocacy. I remember that when I lived in Georgia, they wanted to lop…
September 29, 2007
Ah, the joys of reading the relatively new weekend edition of the Journal...There's always news you can really use. For instance, if you happen to be in Atlanta and are hungry, the Journal will tell you exactly where you should sitting at Rathbun's, depending on whether you are an A, an A+, or A…
September 25, 2007
The ads work, that is. HeadOn, that homeopathic (and therefore completely ineffective) head rub for head pain isn't effective. But it's still selling, because advertising and propaganda often trumps evidence! Mya Frazier of AdAge reports:
Those rapid-fire "HeadOn, apply directly to the forehead…
September 20, 2007
Brian Krebs reports good news: Trans Union, one of the three major consumer reporting agencies, will offer all consumers the option to freeze their credit files in order to prevent identity theft:
A credit freeze directs the credit bureaus to block access to a consumer's credit report and credit…
September 20, 2007
Apparently lacking sufficiently homophobic leadership in the US, some American churches are turning elsewhere for their fire and brimstone. The Journal's Andrew Higgins reports:
MBARARA, Uganda -- The Rev. John Guernsey, rector of a church in a middle-class Virginia suburb, stood early this month…
September 17, 2007
The Journal's James Hookway informs us that a trial court judge in Manila, Judge Floro, has an interesting set of consultants: three elves, only visible to the judge himself! Belief in this trio has caused the country's supreme court to intervene and fire the judge.
...Mr. Floro, 54 years old, has…
September 17, 2007
Mark is totally outperforming me on this blog for many reasons, but my newest excuse is that I went to Austin for the weekend to see the Austin City Limits Festival. W00t!!1!
So, I'm going to be covering some divine articles that appeared over the weekend. First up: Verizon, it's OUR network,…
September 9, 2007
The 2007 Austin City Limits Festival starts later this week. There's a pretty amazing lineup of bands to hear for $80/day, including some of my favorites, Blonde Redhead, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and the Arcade Fire. My schedule of annoying indie bands is posted here.
September 6, 2007
In today's Journal, Robert Crandall and Hal Singer argue that America shouldn't drink the corporate average fuel economy standard (CAFE) Kool-Aid. Why? Well why do you think? Because the market is perfect and thus there is no problem! Bring on the Econ 101!
...if there was [sic] fuel-saving…
September 4, 2007
Opportunity knocks for all of you creative people out there! PETA is holding a blog advertisement contest! This could be fun. Perhaps we could have our own countercompetition in the comments? PETA is offering a $500 gift card to the winner. For our contest, I'd totally be willing to take you…
August 22, 2007
Peter Baker of the Post reports on a White House policy manual (PDF) detailing how President Bush's advance team should prevent anyone from saying or doing anything that might not be in total agreement with our President's policies:
The manual offers advance staffers and volunteers who help set up…
August 16, 2007
Reading about the anger stoked by Karl Rove's plan to go dove hunting reminded me of a recent oped by Vicki Haddock in the Chronicle, where she explores why animals sometimes receive more sympathy than people. A few anecdotes from the story are telling, and so totally California:
...football star…
August 13, 2007
Our friends from the WSJ recently endowed us with this bit of wisdom:
Unsafe products are a fact of life. The U.S. has created its own share of food- and product-safety scares over the years, from E. coli-tainted spinach to faulty Bridgestone Firestone tires. Even the best inspection regime,…
August 13, 2007
It's a few weeks old, but I just came across this oped in the San Francisco Chronicle by Robert Restuccia and Lydia Vaias. They've painted a big target on the American Medical Association for its role in prescription data mining. It's important to note exactly what AMA is doing here, because,…
August 10, 2007
Where does one start with this?
Some bald dude who lives in Maui and talks about ancient Chinese texts and gives advice on "The Power of Intention" belongs in a strip mall, not on PBS.
Looks like the PBS Ombudsman has commented on objections to Dr. Wayne Dyer (PBS can't say his name, not once,…
August 10, 2007
Today's WSJ has a profoundly sad article about the real life of some Second Lifers. It's worth a read, especially the end of the article, where you find gems like this:
Back in the world of Second Life, Mr. Hoogestraat's avatar and Tenaj have gotten bored at the beach, so they teleport to his…
August 5, 2007
For all the encomia made by banking industry lobbyists to the value of the "free flow of information," one finds examples where the industry restricts information sharing when it benefits them.
Capital One was one of the worst offenders. It's complex, but the company was restricting information…
August 2, 2007
In the bogus legal claims department, one finds this blub from Consumerist. What's the deal here? A pretty aggressive consumer group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, created model menu for Wendy's that demonstrates how the "restaurant" can display calorie information. It's pretty…