She's Not Me

Who is managing wacky Christine O'Donnell's campaign for Senate over there in Delaware? (I think that she's representing the MILF party.) I'd really like to hear their reasoning for her latest TV ad, as I'm not so sure that you need to automatically assume that everyone who watches TV is going to be aware of the fact that she claims to have dabbled in witchcraft (whatever the hell that means) when she was younger and therefore, that justifies having that disclaimer right off the bat. Wait. What?

Correct. See, back in October of 1999 when Bill Maher had her on his show, Politically Incorrect, she claimed "I dabbled into witchcraft. I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. … I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do....One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn’t know it. I mean, there’s little blood there and stuff like that...We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar." Uh-huh. OK, then. Since I've already been over this, I'll direct you over to the folks at Think Progress for the video of that whole debacle.

Now, maybe you hear that clip and think that she's a nutjob. Maybe you hear that clip and you think that you're not going to vote for anyone that whack-a-do. You know what I'm guessing that you're not thinking? I'm guessing that you're not thinking that she's really a witch. You know. Because of the whole witches not being real sort of thing. Yeah, that. But she apparently seems to think differently. She seems to think that it is really important to point out that she is not a witch. Oh, for cryin' out loud.

So, here's her first ad. First thing she says is, "I'm not a witch." Uh, yeah. We know. No one is. But seriously, if you hadn't heard the whole deal about her and her witchy-poo dabblings and then that commercial came on, wouldn't your head spin around just a little bit as you exclaimed, "What the hell is she talking about?!" I'm pretty sure that's what's going to happen with several people over there. Does the ad get better after that? Not really. Next thing she says is, "I'm nothing you've heard." See, I don't know about that one. I've heard she's a little cuckoo and I'm inclined to agree a little bit with that assessment. But what I won't agree with is what she says next. She states, "I'm you."

Yeah. See, you're really not. You're really not me. I'm not the one who stated that I believed that folks shouldn't masturbate. I'm not the one who said she wanted to stop the country from having sex. I'm not the one who said that masturbation was the equivalent of committing adultery. I'm not certainly not the one who said, "We took the Bible and prayer out of public schools. Now we're having weekly shootings. We had the 60s sexual revolution, and now people are dying of AIDS." (I don't even know what that means.) And I don't buy into the theory that "American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains." (Again, I don't even know what that means.)

All of that? That's not me. That's her. And it scares the hell out of me to think that she could be sitting in the Senate helping to decide what is best for the country.

Enter The Invisible Monkey

Who would have ever thought that those car commercials that we are bombarded with when they're having a "special event" would turn out to be rather amusing? Enter Dodge and enter PETA and you've got yourself a recipe for a wee bit o'hilarity ensuing. The hilarity ensues immediately after the annoyance over the emergence of PETA subsides, by the way.

See, Dodge made an ad that promoted their Dodge tent event. I don't know when the practice of erecting a tent became equated with a good deal on a shiny new vehicle, but it has been that way for quite some time now. They mention what a great deal you can get yourself on a brand new Dodge Charger, Dodge Journey or Dodge Grand Caravan. (What's a Journey? Is it named after the band? Shouldn't they have had Steve Perry in this commercial? I'm pretty sure he's not doing anything these days.) Not only that, they'll give you sixty days to see if you want to keep the vehicle. (There is, of course, no mention of the eight gazillion strings that are inevitably tied to such an offer. Things that I would imagine might include not having driven the car over 30 miles in those 2 months and never having turned on the air conditioning.)

That's when voice-over guy (the lovely and cancer-free Michael C. Hall) says that this whole thing could not get more amazing. He soon realizes that he is wrong when a little monkey wearing an Evil Knievel jumpsuit comes out and presses down on one of those ACME detonator things that Wile E. Coyote was always using to try and do in that sneaky roadrunner. The monkey pushes it down and a bunch of confetti blows out of somewhere. Voice-over guy deadpans, "I stand corrected." Not bad. Funny. I liked it. Maybe you will, too. Behold!

But who did not like it was PETA. PETA doesn't like anything having to do with cute animals being mistreated. I know. I know. All the monkey did was push the lever. But that is bad, according to PETA, because that little monkey had to be taught how to do that. (It's also bad because the little monkey is really a chimpanzee and there is, apparently, a difference. I don't know if it offended the chimp, but it really seemed to rile up PETA.) According to the website "Where's the Monkey?" in which Dodge tries to explain why they altered their commercial, they informed them "...about the poor conditions of working animal "actors." They told us how these animals are usually separated from their mothers at a young age and are usually discarded at seedy roadside attractions after they get too old to act." What sort of "seedy roadside attractions"? The only seedy roadside attractions around here are taco trucks and fruit vendors. None of them have monkeys. I'm not saying that what PETA is saying is false, I'm just saying I want more information of these primate abusing attractions that allegedly congregate roadside.

Dodge said that this made them sad and they took the spot off of the air. They also said that "Dodge is firmly committed to never using great apes in our advertisements again." While I suppose that is good, they don't mention anything about never using mediocre apes in their advertisements, so...fingers crossed!

But, wait! There's more! They took the ad off of the air and tweaked it just a little bit. They removed the chimp from the footage. Oh, don't get me wrong. They left the jumpsuit and the walking over to the blowy-uppy thing and the confetti that booms out from somewhere. That's still there. There just is no monkey. The monkey is invisible. Wait. Invisi....? Behold!

Most awesome! Very amusing! I'm glad that Dodge didn't completely ditch the ad. I'd like to see Dodge keep the invisible monkey in upcoming future ads. I'd also like to see PETA burn off of the face of the earth. I'm all for animals not being mistreated. And with everything that you can do digitally these days, there's probably no reason why Dodge can't just make a cyber-monkey instead of using a real one. But I'm never for PETA making an appearance. From what I can tell, they do one thing really well, and it's not caring for animals. It's their own attention whoring that they're so successful at.

They Didn't Ask For Signs

I think I love Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. Seriously. This video rules. Way to call out the Federal Government! Nice.

Heil Hanes!

Usually I take a little bit of time to work up to the point that I'm trying to make. Today, I'm just going to jump right into it, mainly because I have more questions that I have answers. So what better way to start it off than with a question. Ready? Why in the world is Michael Jordan rockin' a Hitler moustache in his new Hanes commercial? Wait. What now?

Correct. Michael Jordan has a new Hanes commercial out. The product alone is perplexing enough to me. It's apparently for some sort of T-shirt that fits snugly against your body when you're wearing in underneath some other article of clothing (like some sort of sweater vest or something, because we all know how popular that look is). According to the commercial, when you just wear a regular T-shirt underneath your sporty sweater vest, you tend to end up with something that they call "bacon neck". In other words, the collar of the T-shirt is wrinkly and looks like a piece of bacon. Um, OK. I guess.

Having spent a lot of time in states that actually have snow in the winter, I am familiar with the layering of clothing concept. But I would just buy a shirt that's a size too small and use that for the underneath layer. I don't recall it having a bacon neck. Then again, I wasn't wearing it with a sweater vest. Whatever. My point here is that I don't understand the product to begin with. Does it have some sort of fake pecs sewn in it? (You know. For those of you who want to look like you work out without actually working out. Or for those of you who want to harkin back to your days of wearing Underoos and pretending like you're He-Man.) They didn't mention any, so I'm guessing not.

But that wasn't the only thing that they didn't address. They didn't address the fact that Michael Jordan, the basketball god of recent yore, is sporting a Hitler moustache. What in the world is up with THAT? Now, I realize that one could argue that "it's not a Hitler moustache, it's a tribute to Charlie Chaplin". One could argue that. One would be very unsuccessful at convincing anyone that it was in homage to the Little Tramp. Admit it. You see that little moustache, you think Hitler. Behold!

Now, does this mean that I think that Michael Jordan admires Hitler? Um, no. No, I don't. (I mean, I hope he doesn't, but I also really don't think that he does.) Does this mean that I think it's really freaking weird that he has a Hitler moustache in a Hanes commercial? You're darn straight I do. What the hell is up with that?! Didn't the Hanes people think it a bit odd that Air Jordan was sporting Hair Hitler? What do they want us to think? "Hey, what a great idea for a new T-shirt! Sieg heil!" That's not exactly what came to my mind! No, it was more like "Why is a black Hitler pitching me underwear?"

As is my practice with all of these things, the video is below. It's Hitler, isn't it? How weird is that? If the video below doesn't play, check it out here.

Evolution Is OK

I don't get the whole "Creation vs. Evolution" debate to begin with. Seriously, why can't it be both? Why can't there be a supreme being who created everything and whose plan was for it to evolve? Why is that such a leap for people to make? I don't get it. Clearly, there is evolution involved. But look around you! The universe is just too darned orderly to be one big accident!

That's why I don't get this commercial. According to CBS News, a group which calls themselves the "True Republican PAC" (whatever that is) has put out an ad that attacks Alabama gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne. It attacks him for believing that "evolution...best explains the origins of life". Not only that, it also goes after him for saying "...even recently, said the Bible is only partially true."

So, when did it come to this? Are these issues that are such a big deal in Alabama that it is considered to be a good strategy to point them out? The announcer guy says these things with such disdain and disbelief in his voice, it's as if he was telling everyone that Bradley Byrne believed he had been abducted by aliens and spent the majority of his adult life cultivating crops on some alien planet in a galaxy far, far away.

It's weird. It's all just weird. I don't know who this Bradley Byrne guy is, but I hope he wins. He has got to be a better candidate for governor than whoever the jackass is that's running commercials denouncing him for believing in evolution. The ad is below. It's still weird.