Category: Politics

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Last week NPR ran a story on “Applebee’s America”, a book on the way politicians brand and sell themselves to the voting public. One thing they brought up was “microtargeting” or “lifetargeting.” The idea is that you can take a person’s lifestyle and determine which way they’re more likely to vote, then send targeted advertising to people who are most likely to be persuaded.

There’s a link to a quiz on the website. It decided I was solidly Republican. (Hey, I might vote for a Republican someday if they ever run a less reprehensible candidate for something. [Update 2024: they’ve gotten so much worse.]) It took flipping four of the twelve answers before it decided I might be a swing voter.

Either the scoring system is reversed, or they need a new quiz.

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I wasn’t going to post anything about the five-year anniversary of 9/11 because I didn’t feel like I could add anything that hasn’t already been said. But a discussion at Comics Should Be Good reminded me of a mailing list post I made five years ago, on September 17, 2001, on the subject of terrorism in comics. After rereading it, I’ve decided it’s worth reposting: Continue reading →

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I was listening to the news this morning, and I caught a reference to “Convicted Lobbyist Jack Abramoff.” It occurred to me that the phrasing is a bit odd. It makes it sound like he was convicted of being a lobbyist, which, last I heard, was still legal.

I suppose “Convicted corrupt lobbyist” sounds too unwieldy… and there are people who might consider it redundant!