For the last couple of months I’ve noticed that in front of every cash register in every drugstore there are well placed display stands of a product called Airborne. If you haven’t seen it before, it’s really clever. Here’s their site for additional goodness.

The packaging depicts a fearful person surrounded by coughing, sneezing plane passengers, classroom students, theater goers, etc. cowering under a looming collection of malicious creatures that the viewer is encouraged to interpret as germs, viruses, etc. Even though one looks like the SwineTrek, another has cilia, so they’re totally biological.

The best part of the display is this statement in huge letters:
“Created by a second grade school teacher!”

Yes! Brilliant! This company deserves every penny it makes. They take a placebo with negligible manufacturing costs, pour all capital into marketing to fearful, credulous Americans, and watch the money come in on trucks. Yet another, “why didn’t I think of that?”

A tip of the hat to you, Airborne. Well done!

Wired has an article on a proposed windfarm for some town in upstate NY. The usual not-in-my-backyard arguments are asserted with regard to aesthetics and property values. But here are some new arguments against it that you might not have heard before:

Group members also warned of health problems ranging from strokes caused by the sunlight as it pulsates through the spinning turbine blades to mange in cattle. Others claimed that women living near the wind farms are having as many as five menstrual cycles a month.

…one speaker compared the sound of the spinning blades and whirring machinery (which most people find inaudible from fairly close distances) to the noises Nazi troops tortured Jews with during the holocaust.

Here’s a guy that decided to show his friends Goatse and photograph their reactions.

Here’s a page that randomly shows three unrelated panels of Garfield comic strips. No humor is lost.