politics and passive aggression

Years ago, I "monetized" my blog, explosive-cargo. That means that Google puts ads on it and, if those ads should ever do something interesting like earn money, I'll get a cut.

To date, I've not received a penny. But that doesn't concern me at the moment. What is amusing is the ads that show up on my blog. They appear automatically, you see, I presume in response to certain key words. (As you'd expect with a blog called "explosive-cargo," I get a lot of inserts from companies that do haz-mat stuff. Terribly disappointing for everyone, I'm sure.)

A while back I did a piece that basically compared the GOP primary challengers of 2012 to a pack of braying idiots. When I checked in on the blog a while later, I was startled to find a huge ad under my piece from some extremely right-wing organization. It more or less openly called Obama a Communist and hinted at the birther fantasy. I'm guessing that some bit of software on some server saw the names of Republican candidates in my post and assumed that I favored them.

For a moment, I was furious. I was going to contact Google and demand that the ad be removed. But, then, I had an odd thought. The right wing organization in question paid good money to make that advertisement. If it appears on my site, with my more or less left of center readers, then it will do its makers no good at all. It will be a waste of their time, their effort, and their money.

There is something satisfying in that. It is a kind of negative power. The ultimate in passive aggression…