Jul
3
2011

Target Hates America

[target]

No big deal, but I had a small hankering to maybe get a patriotic T-shirt for Independence Day festivities tomorrow. I'm not much of a flag-waver, but if there's a day to do it, it's July Fourth.

So I went to Target. And found tees honoring:

  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • England
  • Canada
  • Jamaica
  • Mexico
  • Costa Rica
  • Brazil
But nothing, zippo, squat, nada for the good old USA.

Sheesh, Target. What's wrong with you?

[2026 UPDATE: on the 15th anniversary of this post, I have to note that Target is doing better this year.]


Last Modified 2026-07-03 5:17 AM EDT

The Phony Campaign

2011-07-03 Update

[phony baloney]

Our candidate list remains stable this week, with nobody crossing our arbitrary 4% line at Intrade. But there was turmoil in GoogleLand, with Congresswoman Bachmann grabbing the lead from President Obama, and Mitt Romney catapulting himself out of the phony cellar to a solid third place:

Query String Hit Count Change Since
2011-06-26
"Michele Bachmann" phony 3,620,000 +710,000
"Barack Obama" phony 3,130,000 +10,000
"Mitt Romney" phony 2,830,000 +1,908,000
"Sarah Palin" phony 1,940,000 -30,000
"Rick Perry" phony 1,440,000 -350,000
"Tim Pawlenty" phony 1,160,000 -40,000
"Jon Huntsman" phony 1,060,000 +20,000

Popping up on the phony radar:

  • Congressman Thad McCotter announced his candidacy this week, fulfilling the predictions made to me last year by Chris Cameron (of the Radioactive Liberty blog) when we heard him speak at the Manchester Tax Day Tea Party event last year. Despite his announcement, Intrade considers him a very long shot at 0.4%, similar to the odds given Gary Johnson, Rick Santorum, and George Pataki.

    I was favorably impressed with McCotter's speech at the time, but nearly immediately afterwards he introduced really ill-advised Internet privacy legislation. According to Jim Harper at Cato:

    Representative McCotter's plan to regulate Internet communications this way is no "Cyber Privacy" act. It's anti-privacy, and it's anti-free-speech.

    One legislative sin does not disqualify a candidate, but I'm not signing up for Thad's army of supporters just yet.

  • As Forrest Gump didn't say: phony is as phony does. And what's more phony than unleashing a horde of phony patients on physicians?:

    Alarmed by a shortage of primary care doctors, Obama administration officials are recruiting a team of "mystery shoppers" to pose as patients, call doctors' offices and request appointments to see how difficult it is for people to get care when they need it.

    The plan was called off after publicity. But still, that's a pretty sweet government job: getting paid to fake being sick.

  • What's phonier than the media's hyperanalytic obsession with every single verbal misstep made by Michele Bachmann? Nevertheless, this is pretty funny:

    [Embedded video removed because I can't figure out how to embed it compliantly. You can watch it here.]

  • Fellow citizens, give it up for (probably not actually) Mitt Romney singing "Help Me Fake It to the Right".


Last Modified 2024-06-03 5:56 PM EDT