There seems to be a glut of these things on TV lately.

For example, this one concerns a sculptor working indoors without a dust mask or other respiratory protection.






The product? Claritin. It helped him with his allergies. Wonder how much it will help with his respiratory disease?

PS: Maybe, just maybe, he's allergic to the dust?

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Methinks this is gonna be a loooong list...

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

In a lot of toy commercials that involve "naming a star", they make it seem as if the name will be actually official. Only the IAU can do that.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

The most idiotic I've seen recently is the credit card commercial with people breakdancing while waiting in a shopping line, only to grind to a halt whan someone attempts to sign a check. Yeah, those five second waits are just murder!

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Love the loan shark adverts. A couple going
spare over bills...phone the outfit...dishy
smiley young lady answers...all problems
solved...oh dear dear dear..


warning. Gullibility can degrade your income
even more!

Any E-surance commercial, anywhere, anytime.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

And he's wearing protective glasses in only some of the shots.

The lack of a dust mask is dumb; no eye protection sets a bad and dangerous example.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

That commercial bothers me, as does the Visa one set in a mall food court. Everyone in it changes lines as soon as someone pays in cash. Because, you know, no one's really set on one kind of food, and no one figures that, if everyone else is leaving, that line will be really short and therefore faster than a longer one in which everyone pays with Visa. Besides, not everywhere at the local mall's food court even takes credit cards!

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

My "favorite" is the Kia commercial with the salesman doing a take on Flash Dance.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

There is a Swifer ad set in a courtroom. The prosecutor asks the woman on the stand to point to the defendant (a mop), which she does with just a bit of anger in her voice, and the crowd gasps. Yeah, that was DEFENDANT all right.

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A Nerd can figure out how long it will take the original Enterprise traveling at warp 6.5 to travel from Regulus to Antares.
A Geek with think he can use that to pick up a girl in a bar.
A Dork knows he can't pick up the girl with it, but will hang around for hours anyway, just in case she asks.
She might. You never know.

This is one of the reasons I am accused of having no taste, but I like the E-surance spy girl! The only bad part about the commercials is that they have to sell insurance.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

The Beverly Hillbillies Geico add with a late 90's era computer w/ internet access in 1963!

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There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
-Douglas Adams
Aim high (but don't blow yourself up)!- Homer Hickam

In Soviet Russia, UFO report you!- Phil Plait

Clear skies Maksutov.

Any car commercial which basically says "If you don't buy OUR safe car, you'll get into an accident, your children and 6 other people will DIE on the way home!!!"

Well, actually, now that I think about it, ANY car commercial

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

Speaking of guilt trips, there's this local commercial:



Right down there with the "Every kiss begins with, uh, actually, to our way of thinking, is purchased." commercial series.

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Think you need a new car?

Here are some tips on how to justify the purchase:









Such things make one wonder if the producers and staff for this movie series (CAUTION: SOME GROSS STUFF IN THE REVIEWS, ETC. (just like in the "movie")) have been hired to make about 95% of the commercials currently shown on TV.

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Oh geez. Diamonds. Don't get me started...

... Too late. You're all going to have to listen to me carry on cranky a bit. I'll try and keep it to the highlights, unless someone wants the book version.

I may be the only one on the planet to be willing to own up to this, at least while I'm single and relatively anonymous, but the whole diamond thing is a crock from almost every conceivable angle. I get the "provider" symbolism, but there are some pretty ugly stuff that gets slid in the back end of that transaction.

... not many diamond mines worldwide with humane (or even remotely safe) conditions for its workers, something I'm loathe to support ...

... controlled pricing and artificial scarcity, something else that harks me off ...

... manipulating cultural norms through massive marketing, injury to insult ...

You get the idea.

The other thing is this: I'm a geek. Science and technology rocks my world. Now, I like geology well and good, but we, as a species, can use the scrapings from our cars' exhaust pipes to create artificial gemstones that are identical or better in "quality" than the best nature comes up with. We can etch them with scale depictions of Tyrannosaurs in F-14s you'd need a microscope to see. And thanks to DeBeer's price fixing and manipulation, we could (in theory) get such a gemstone (and etching) for a price that would demonstrate being able to provide both luxuries and necessities, rather than starve the family over DeBeer's preferred 2-3 months of your income.

If I had the dangly bits that made me eligible to receive an engagement rock, rather than provide one, I would sincerely and absolutely prefer a sensibly priced Tyrannosaur-in-F-14, hands down, rather than know that my partner got reamed through the nose for what some poor sucker we'll never meet had to risk his/her life to yank out of the ground for micropennies to the dollar.

And with the savings, we could afford the microscope.

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It's Placebo^[tm] Brand Power Drink! *[Use as directed. May increase kidney function.]

Oh, yeah. No, the only way I'd even consider having a diamond would be if it were a family heirloom of some kind, and I wouldn't much want it even then. Even leaving aside all the awful social stuff, which I have a hard time doing, I just don't think diamonds are very attractive. And those commercials that talk about how gold jewelry is a great gift? Not for me; I prefer silver.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Manufacturing of gemstone diamonds, as opposed to industrial ones, is only possible within the last few years, particularly if you require "white" instead of yellow. I know of only one company in the business, and even they can only go up to half of one karat so far.

www.apollodiamond.com

Another way to avoid supporting the African diamond warlords is to buy the ones that are mined in Canada, although I don't know what company to go to for that.

Yeah, the insurance companies really love those ads:

http://www.boston.com/business/artic..._incite_fraud/

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.