Author: Buck Banks

McCain, Obama Waging Rumor War Inside The Google

Buck Banks

If you think what you read in the paper, see on the TV or hear on the radio is bad, wait until you see what comes up on the most popular search engine when you type in “Obama Muslim.” On the left under results you get links to Urban Legends and Snopes that debunk the Internet rumor.
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But on the right, where the sponsored links are, the first link says, “Searching for Experience/Instead of Researching Obama/
Learn More About John McCain.” The next three links are “Christians for Obama,” “Jews for Obama” and “Barak Obama Facts.”

If you search “Obama Biden,” the top sponsored result is owned by MoveOn.org, followed by McCain and then three sticker/button sites.

Score two for McCain who, according to U.S. News & World Report, is winning the bidding war on sponsored links:

Overall, the McCain campaign has been more aggressive in bidding on Google search terms. In August, McCain’s site managed 21.6 million sponsored search-link impressions (the number of times users click on a particular sponsored link), compared with less than 1 million for Obama’s site, according to Nielson Online, another Internet monitoring firm.

The way this works is, the campaigns enter online auctions and bid on search terms. The higher the bid, the higher the placement in the ranking of sponsored links. The real winner here is The Google, but that’s another story. Apparently, the bidding/search war is heating up:

Specifically, Obama’s campaign has waded into online auctions for Google search terms to snap up not only obvious phrases like “Barack Obama” but also potentially negative ones like “Barack Obama birth certificate” or “Barack Obama as a Muslim,” according to Hitwise, an Internet audience monitoring firm.

This means that, as of Wednesday morning, Google searches for Obama being a Muslim (a false but pervasive Web rumor) often turn up a prominent “sponsored” link at the top of the results page that connects to a page on Obama’s campaign website that debunks the myth and details his Christian faith. Searches for Obama’s birth certificate produce a link to a page showing the official document.

How effective has the rumor war been? According to Hitwise, the number of click-throughs from the sponsored links have been low. Is it worth the money and effort for the campaigns? Probably not, but in the age of Web 2.0, The Google provides just another battle front in a campaign that seems to have no bounds.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

The first time I saw this particular fashion, I disliked it, and then I realized I’m getting old.

— Palm Beach, Fla., public defender Carol Bickerstaff after a judge says Riviera Beach’s “saggy pants” law is unconstitutional in the case of a 17-year-old who spent a night in jail for having his underwear showing. Bickerstaff said her office wants to get the law tossed altogether.

Holy Crap! Three-Ply Toilet Paper!

Buck Banks

Trish won’t let me create any new categories, but if she did, I’d make one for Water Closet Innovations. The latest was reported Tuesday by that venerable institution (so you know it’s important stuff), the Associated Press:
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If two-ply toilet paper is good, then three-ply tissue must be better. At least that’s what toilet-paper researchers in northeastern Wisconsin hope.

Yes, there is such a thing as a toilet-paper researcher. And a team of them at Georgia Pacific’s Innovation Institute in Neenah has come up with a three-ply version of its Quilted Northern product.

The new product will be launched Monday. The company touts the toilet tissue as ”ultra-soft” and says it plans to market the product to women 45 and older who view their bathroom as a ”sanctuary for quality time.”

If you go to the Quilted Northern Web site, you can actually interact with a roll of the stuff. There, you’ll find that it has a “thickness you can see and feel,” that it’s “soft and absorbent,” that it provides a “luxurious experience” and that it’s 100 percent biodegradable — because it’s made out of paper.

I’d try the stuff, but it has little hearts and flowery quilts all over it, and I prefer a manly, cheap one-ply. And, while I too would like a “luxurious experience,” my idea of a luxurious experience does not involve poo.

John McCain Helped Create the BlackBerry Phone

Buck Banks

The Associated Press is reporting that a McCain adviser said that the candidate was instrumental in the creation of the BlackBerry portable phone/Web browser:

At least that’s the contention of a top McCain policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant and citing McCain’s work as a senator, he told reporters Tuesday, “You’re looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create.”

McCain has acknowledged that he doesn’t know how to use a computer and can’t send e-mail, one of the BlackBerry’s prime functions.

Holtz-Eakin’s argument is similar to one advanced by [Al] Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000. Gore once boasted about “taking the initiative to create the Internet” through technological and educational policies. He later was mocked for claiming to have invented the Internet, although he never made such a claim.

Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said McCain’s service on and leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee put him at the intersection of a number of economic interests, including the telecommunications industry.

But another McCain adviser put Holtz-Eakin’s remarks into the proper context:

“He [McCain] would not claim to be the inventor of anything, much less the BlackBerry. This was obviously a boneheaded joke by a staffer,” adviser Matt McDonald said.

DVD Drop Designed to Spread Fear and Loathing, But Mainly Fear

Buck Banks

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When I opened my Sunday Miami Herald two days ago, not just Sports Authority and CVS Pharmacy fliers fell out. An 8.5-by-10-inch piece of paper with a DVD affixed to it clunked to the floor. It was “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” a one-hour trailer for a two-hour “documentary.” It’s designed to scare the bejesus out of you and make you decide that John McCain is the only candidate that can save us from waves of Muslim terrorists.

The DVD sports a scary-looking jihadist and an image of the ruins of the World Trade Center with an American flag in the foreground. Of course the timing of the distribution — just a couple of days after the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks — was surely not accidental. But it makes it clear that this movie is not about the GOOD Muslims, it’s about the scary radical Islamists who hate you and want to kill you and your entire family.

Twenty-eight million copies of the DVD, which was first released in 2006 during the midterm elections, was distributed through 70 newspapers in battleground states over the past weekend, including Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Virginia and Ohio. The highest concentration was in Florida, where no less than 14 newspapers presented subscribers with the thing. And it was only distributed to subscribers because … people who subscribe to the newspaper are residents and therefore are likely voters, whereas people who buy newsstand copies of the Sunday paper just want the comics, right? It also was included in the Wall Street Journal, the World Jewish Digest and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

It is produced and distributed by the Clarion Fund, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that spends a lot of time telling anybody who will listen that it takes no money from the gubmint or special interest groups. It’s a shadowy group that does not list its principals or indeed any information about where its funding comes from.

The DVD is a very slick production, and if you were able to sit through the entire hour, it would no doubt indoctrinate you with the fear and loathing of Muslims that its creators intended. Boosting its credibility are interviews with such luminaries as Alan Dershowitz, who I would imagine had no idea how his interview would be used.

This is propaganda in its most blatant form, and it’s specifically designed to make you terrified of another terrorist attack by maniacal Muslims. It exploits the documentary genre perfectly, blending “facts” delivered in a dead-pan manner with creepy music and outrageous logic to create an atmosphere of lunatic fear. It is so psychologically effective, it’s scary, which is, I suppose, the point. Note that FOX News ran the thing in its entirety in 2006. ‘Nuff said.

If you want to watch it, go here.

Poll: D.C. Insiders Mixed on Reaction to Palin Pick

Buck Banks

National Journal’s PollTrack queried 76 Washington Beltway insiders about what they think of John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his vice presidential running mate. Most thought the pick was just McCain expressing his usual mavericktude, his maverickosity, as it were.

Q. How does John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin affect your assessment of his judgment?

Much more respect for his judgment 22 percent
A little more respect for his judgment 24 percent
A little less respect for his judgment 13 percent
Much less respect for his judgment 12 percent
No change in my assessment 29 percent

Much more respect
“The choice showed guts, energized a still-suspect base, and shows once again his independent streak.”

“Guts for choosing a woman who’s not part of the establishment; guts for choosing someone who will attract more attention than he.”

“He is putting his issue agenda of shaking up Washington ahead of conventional politics.”

A little more respect
“Shows he’s not politically tone-deaf by acknowledging Republicans need diversity on the ticket.”

“McCain knows he’s behind and is willing to take a calculated risk.”

“It seems to be a remarkable political move, but I cannot make a final call on this until all revelations are finished: The vetting question is problematic regarding judgment.”

[…]

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

“They seem to be intimidated by the Palin pick. They seem to be intimidated by how the Republicans are coming at them on change. And you cannot win if you are constantly on defense.”

— Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, quoted in the New York Observer, on the Obama campaign