From the Huffington Post

Microsoft is preparing to pull its TV ads featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld and Microsoft's co-founder and chairman Bill Gates.

Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw said the end of the Seinfeld ads was planned well in advance, and wasn't coming in response to any criticism of the spots. "All along we said we were having a teaser campaign," he said. "We're getting ready to start the second phase. This was the plan all along."

The news, broken this afternoon by Valleywag, comes just days after Microsoft aired the latest in the series of commercials, produced by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, featuring the two men in comic situations. The ads have been largely panned as a strained effort on the software giant's part to not only promote Windows but also portray Microsoft as cool and in touch with regular consumers -- basically, to counter the stodgy image painted in Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads. Seinfeld, who reportedly received $10 million for his efforts, was a superstar in the 1990s with his hit show. Using him now, in 2008, only added to Microsoft's image as being behind the times, critics said.  Some viewers, such as the writers on Ars Technica, said the ads just left them scratching their heads. (If you can't easily find the ads on YouTube, Microsoft provides them on its site).

In the first ad, the two meet each other in a mall and pick out new shoes. In the next ad, which is in two parts, Gates and Seinfeld stay with a so-called normal family so they can work on a shared problem: To break out of their elite bubbles and connect with real people.

But the stay with the family doesn't go well, culminating with Bill Gates telling a little girl, "You're not so real." (I actually howled.)

Just unleash Gates, without the cardigan and avuncular image, sticking it to the smug "I'm a Mac" guy.

-- Michelle Quinn

I first saw those ads on the Discovery Channel.  I liked the first ad but the second one I thought was kinda funny but it left me scratching my head, like... how is this going to get me to go out and buy a new pc?  However, it's new and very different from the ads I have seen coming from Microsoft.

And get this, Crispin Porter + Bogusky are the same guys that did the ads for Mac.  I am looking forward to seeing the second phase of ads.

Watch the ads.

Link to NY Times:

“In one of the most dramatic days in Wall Street’s history, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself to Bank of America for roughly $50 billion to avert a deepening financial crisis, while another prominent securities firm, Lehman Brothers, hurtled toward liquidation after it failed to find a buyer.

“The humbling moves, which reshape the landscape of American finance, mark the latest chapter in a tumultuous year in which once-proud financial institutions have been brought to their knees as a result of hundreds of billions of dollars in losses because of bad mortgage finance and real estate investments.

“But even as the fates of Lehman and Merrill hung in the balance Sunday night, another crisis loomed as the insurance giant American International Group appeared to teeter. A.I.G. sought a $40 billion lifeline from the Federal Reserve, without which the company may have only days to survive.

JP Morgan to buy Wamu.

It's a sad day for the economy.  First it's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and now this.  I felt that the real estate market would eventually crash, but I didn't know that the mortgaged back securities market would cause such widespread mayhem... Lehman Brothers? Merrill Lynch?  Those firms have been here for over 200 years combined!  AIG and WaMu is in trouble too.  

Blind Greed is the cause of this mess!  These rich fools were so greedy that they couldn't see that while they were stealing from the "little people", at the same time, they were cutting their own throats because when the middle and working class suffers, they are going to suffer too. 

Now, I have never really understood finance but do understand that throughout history, the countries, whose economy were fundamentally strong actually manufactured goods--in which the U. S. is not doing now because those jobs have been sent overseas.

I sincerely hope that valuable lessons are being learned from this.

"It is time to put an end to he broken system in Washington that is breaking the American economy. It is time for change that makes a real difference in your lives."

“Think about it John! Voters have elected movie and television stars to governorships, to Congress, and even to the presidency. Oftentimes, if those stars die while in office, voters elect their spouses, as if osmosis gives the wives and husbands of deceased elected officials some bizarre form of political acumen. Even people who helped others steal elections have won elections themselves!”

“As the ‘good-old-boys’ in West Virginia have shown, you’re already guaranteed a number of votes simply because your opponent is African-American. And a bigot’s vote counts as much as the vote of a person with honor. What you need to do now is market yourself to those voters who are disgruntled over the defeat of Hillary Clinton. You can do that by picking a woman as your running mate. She can be as diametrically opposed to Hillary Clinton’s political views as George W. Bush is to sanity, and it won’t matter.”

While the author of this article cannot truly claim that the above discourse took place, when I first heard that John McCain had selected Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, I did immediately ask myself, “Is he really so cynical, or so naïve, that he doesn’t think voters will see through his transparent attempt to exploit the gender card?”

A few days later, I discovered that my thoughts were being echoed by Pulitzer Prize winning commentator Leonard Pitts, of the Miami Herald. In his column, Pitts also noted the “irony” of McCain choosing Palin, since the political party McCain represents “has spent years inveighing against so-called ‘identity politics.’”

In fact, during his campaigns, George W. Bush incessantly pandered to the twin evils of racism and sexism by denouncing affirmative action policies—designed to remedy discrimination against minorities and women—as “preferential treatment.”

Obviously far too many voters were oblivious to the fact that Bush, through his family’s wealth and influence, benefited from “preferential treatment” his entire life. As I’ve often stated in previous Pravda.Ru articles, Bush is not adverse to “preferential treatment,” as long as he, and his wealthy white supporters, are the preferred.

A few days after McCain’s announcement, polls appeared to indicate that his strategy was working. Suddenly a plethora of “undecided” voters, white women in particular, threw their support behind the McCain/Palin ticket.

A prominent feminist even claimed that women have endured worse discrimination than African-Americans, because African-American men were granted the right to vote decades before women were.

While this is chronologically correct, it is nonetheless a specious argument. It is true that African-American men were constitutionally given the right to vote in 1870, whereas women were not allowed to vote until 1920.

In reality, however, the voting rights of all African-Americans, male and female, especially in the postbellum South, were nullified in 1877 after Rutherford B. Hayes, to win a disputed presidential election, agreed to remove Northern troops from the former Confederate States, dooming African-Americans who resided there to a system of segregation and disfranchisement that cartoonist Thomas Nast described as “worse than slavery.”

This disfranchisement lasted for almost a century, and evidence of its power, and the racism it engendered, can still be seen by looking at the history and current makeup of the United States Senate. Nineteen women have served in the Senate, and sixteen are serving today. By contrast, only three African-Americans have ever been elected to the Senate, and only one, Barack Obama, is currently serving.

Undoubtedly many will argue that there is nothing wrong with supporting Palin solely because of her gender, since African-Americans are supporting Barack Obama solely because of his race.

But this ignores that fact that many African-Americans do not support African-American politicians when these politicians act adversely to their interests.

This was evident in the 2006 gubernatorial race in Ohio, where African-Americans resoundingly rejected John Kenneth Blackwell. Blackwell, an African-American and supporter of George W. Bush during the 2004 election, was suspected, in his capacity as Secretary of State, of wrongfully disfranchising minority voters so he could deliver Ohio’s electoral votes (and, as it turned out, the election) to Bush.

Of course, many voters are claiming it is not Palin’s gender that persuaded them to support the McCain/Palin ticket, but her other attributes: It was her speech at the Republican Convention; it’s her “family values;” it’s her “faith.” One woman even said that, as a woman, Palin could more readily identify with the pain of losing a child in combat in Iraq, while an idiot on the Faux “News” Channel tried to argue, with a straight face, that Palin has “international political experience” because of Alaska’s proximity to Russia, which apparently means everyone residing in Washington D.C. has presidential experience since they live near the White House.

But television shows and movies have shown that any moderately skilled person can effectively deliver a scripted speech. Actors on medical dramas like House and ER routinely rattle off medical terminology with unwavering proficiency. But this doesn’t make them doctors, nor does Palin’s well-rehearsed speech make her qualified to potentially run a country that is arguably the most powerful on earth.

Palin’s “family values” are also questionable. Although there were vociferous right-wing condemnations of the media for revealing the pregnancy of Palin’s seventeen-year-old daughter Britney, many reporters correctly pointed out that Palin’s self-serving political ambitions were primarily responsible for catapulting her daughter’s situation into the international spotlight.

Recently The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart exposed the hypocrisy of Palin apologists who contend that Britney’s pregnancy is a “private” matter. One of these apologists is Faux “News” Channel’s sexually harassing blowhard, Bill O’Reilly. Now suddenly concerned about preserving the Palin family’s “privacy,” O’Reilly did not hesitate, a few months earlier, to label the parents of Jamie Lynn Spears “pinheads” after it was revealed that the sixteen-year-old actress and singer was pregnant.

Voters who are now failing to make any distinction between Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin should ask themselves: What would these right-wing Palin apologists have said if an unmarried Chelsea Clinton had become pregnant during the latter years of Bill Clinton’s presidency?

It’s a sure bet that all the current “respect” for privacy would be nonexistent. In its stead would be twenty-four-hour images of Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones flashing across television screens, while the hypocritical “family values” crowd pontificated about how “immorality breeds immorality.”

As far as Palin’s alleged “faith” is concerned, and the speeches she’s delivered concerning it, I suppose if God is some vengeful warrior, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are God’s “holy” crusade, then one could dub her a “believer.” Yet it should be remembered that those opposing the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan attribute the very same characteristics to God that Palin does.

Given how easily many voters were swayed by Palin, I began to wonder what motivates them in the first place. Factoring in the gender and racial overtones of the upcoming election, my hypothesis is that most voters choose candidates who appeal to their basest instincts, then look for ways to rationalize their choices.

For example, I recall an instance where a woman announced she wouldn’t vote for Obama because “She didn’t like what he stood for.” But when asked what he stood for, she couldn’t give an answer.

Why? 

The rest of the Commentary can be found here:  http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/106357-0/

David R. Hoffman
Legal Editor of Pravda.Ru