Because We Do Love A Trainwreck

As a population that thrives off visual and auditory stimulation - we love images of people getting kicked in the crotch, vehicles on fire, fights, animal attack, trainwrecks, and drunk women from the south cursing at law enforcement officials - we will watch just about anything if we think something "interesting" is going to happen.

These habits are easily recordable and provide insight into what programs the American public will and won't watch.

Neilson has been doing a great job of this for years.

However, it's their data that has been seriously misread.



Now that the RNC has completed their little party up in Minnesota, conservative bloggers and pundits are touting the rating figures of John McCain's speech as if they are a signifier that he has somehow "won" something.

You see, this is a something that Bill O'Reilly has never understood, and now we see other conservatives taking one fact ( television rating ) and somehow attempting to manipulate that into something completely unrelated and false ( McCain is going to win ).

There are several things that the Neilson ratings don't take into consideration: did the viewer watch the entire program? How much of the program was watched? Did you agree with everything in the program? Would you watch it again?

You see where i'm going.

The Neilson ratings are great at predicting what you'll watch, they aren't made for predicting how you are going to vote.

Heart Doesn't <3 The Republicans

Several conservative bloggers are already claiming that "Heart sucks now anyway" in response to Ann and Nancy Wilson's - as well as Sony's - cease and desist letter regarding Sarah Palin's prancing around at the RNC to the classic tune from the 70's.

Of course, as this is a copyright issue, Ann and Nancy have every right to do what they did.

The band issued the following statement:

"Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image. The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The 'barracuda' represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there's irony in Republican strategists' choice to make use of it there."

Ironic in-deed.