Attack Ads! The Podcast

While most of us have heard of the Sherman Act, few have savored Senator John Sherman's speech to the Senate in defense of that act.  Today, I present to you my reading of an edited version of that speech, in this Bonus Episode: Senator John Sherman's Address to The Senate.

Monopolies are nothing new. Government allowing companies to merge and acquire and metastasize into monopolies, though, that is relatively new. The ideas that support monopolies come from a handful of jerks supported by other jerks, who provide trucks full of money. I focus my hairy eyeball of criticism today on one such full truck funded fuck in this Episode 268: Rich Uncle Money-Bork, Welfare Qu...

Propaganda is not just a thing that happens in the here and now. Dig well enough, and you might find old institutional knowledge that started originally as a conspiratorial plot designed to sway society. Make such propaganda profitable enough, and we find ourselves in a world described by the title to Episode 267: Breathing Together, Choking Apart.  Find the Show Notes Page at: https://attackadspo...

When propaganda falls, it can lead to social impacts more powerful than kinetic weapons.  The troubles come when the propagandists conceal their manipulation of society with misdirecting propaganda that we have trouble detecting, let alone responding to effectively.  Which brings us to today's Episode 266: Garbage Fires and Angry Weasels. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.c...

As I've quoted before, "ideas need patrons."  I'll dive into economic ideas bought by the wealthy and spread by those Chicago school economists in this Episode 265: A Stringent, Crystalline Vision. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/06/episode-265-stringent-crystalline-vision.html

Perhaps for the first time in human history, we people can now buy things more easily than we can fix them. Repair shops have become a thing only on television, even though so much of value could be repaired. I spend most of this Episode 264: Archeologists of a Bygone Age, planning my next big repair.  Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/05/episode-264-archeologists-...

Ethics often interfere with profits.  When more profits are "required," companies often face a hard choice…or an easy one.  Results vary.  I look into two compromises/profitable opportunities in this Episode 263: The Hits To Our Privates Just Keep Coming! Find the Show Notes at: http://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/05/episode-263-hits-to-our-privates-just.html

I'm reminded almost daily about how the current elevation of private enterprise has made our lives crap.  It's helpful to remember that this industrial fetish had an origin, and can be reversed, as I discuss in this Episode 262: The Shitcaca Sküll. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/04/episode-262-shitcaca-skull.html

I didn't really know how much advertisers surveil us.  I started to look into it.  Then I stopped looking: how much we have all lost our privacy was just too scary.  I look back on 10 years of reading in this Episode 261: Ways We Are All Getting Torq'd. Find the Show Notes page at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/04/episode-261-ways-we-are-all-getting.html

Episode 260: Two Scientists. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/03/episode-260-two-scientists.html

Not only does a constant onslaught of information drown us, we must sift out not just business propaganda, but ideological propaganda as well.  The effort leaves us cynical.  We should blame those in the title of Episode 259: The Butchers of Certainty. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/02/episode-259-butchers-of-certainty.html

Putting the descriptor "foreign" on any term often gives it more gravitas, perhaps more of a threat, than simply uttering the term alone. I consider adversaries foreign and domestic in this Episode 258: Ticky Tacky Talkin'.  Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/02/episode-258-ticky-tacky-talkin.html

When we chronicle the efforts businesses have made to influence how the public feels about the government, into Propaganda's Hall of Fame must go the National Association of Manufacturers.  I'll share some of their efforts in this Episode 257: Here Today… Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2025/01/episode-257-here-today.html

When one ponders stuff, it's best if one knows the actual facts of whatever it is one ponders, as opposed to made-up crap stuffed into one's head by others.  Otherwise you might as well use a tarot deck and see the title of Episode 256: It's In The Cards. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/12/episode-256-its-in-cards.html

We humans are funny critters, with loves and hatreds and outright loathings that too often bear no real resemblance to any cogent rationality.  Yet it's all we've got.  I explore this in Episode 255: Reasoning & Irrationality. Find the Show Notes at: http://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/12/episode-255-reasoning-irrationality.html

Not since the late 1800s has America elected a president twice out of order.  Should we worry?  Or should we worry about the moneyed forces behind our former president?  I explore context everyone should know in this Episode 254: It Can't Happen Here. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/11/episode-254-it-cant-happen-here.html

While lots of opinion page ink has been spilled over ASOLs making our lives unpredictable, no one, it seems, has taken the time to think of a good reason why. I explore one both possible and likely reason in this Episode 253: SaaSsy Pirates Say ARR. Find the Show Notes page at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/10/episode-253-saassy-pirates-say-arr.html

When something is new, its very introduction can cause friction, even havoc.  People always wonder how good or bad things could get.  In this Episode 252, I offer a bit disjointed ranting on the business end of Large Language Models, or Stupid ASOLs. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/10/episode-252-stupid-asols.html

In looking into sources of private propaganda, I am constantly struck on how far back it goes.  Today I go back a hundred years to a time when the private electrical power industry was insisting on the title to this Episode 251: Let There Be Some Light. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/10/episode-251-let-there-be-some-light.html

In business, simply maintaining the same level of profitability every year is regarded as failing; one must grow to thrive. But what if the product design is clearly dangerous to use? I explore this reality in Episode 250: Addiction Through Engagement.  Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/09/episode-250-addiction-through-engagement.html

We see slim and slender people all the time, every day… even when none walk among us. This screws with our brains in ways most of us never consider for a second. The bottom line for this phenomenon is the title of Episode 249: Advertising Makes You Fat.  Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/09/episode-249-advertising-makes-you-fat.html  

All too often today the forces driving the changes that increase suffering are hidden, unavailable for us to adequately understand, let alone change.  Matt Stoller delivers yet another industry machination in this Episode 248: More Reasons For Real Worry. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/08/episode-248-more-reasons-for-real-worry.html

How communities deal with bad behavior should be an ongoing debate.  Private companies, though, today use "community standards" to steal both platforms and the cash they deliver.  Hence, Episode 247: Swinging the Hammer of Demonetization.  Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/07/episode-247-swinging-hammer-of.html

Most people today feel they have can choose from whichever experts best confirm their own deeply-seated beliefs.  Sadly, this is wrong, and to understand how wrong, I try to answer the question of Episode 246: Why The Rent Is Too Damned High. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/07/episode-246-why-rent-is-too-damned-high.html

Too many grapple today with common but un- or poorly-defined terms, especially "mainstream."  What is mainstream?  When it comes to mainstream news, I've got a simple suggestion, which I give you in this Episode 245: Don't Trust Mainstream Media. Find the Show Notes at: https://attackadspodcast.blogspot.com/2024/06/episode-245-dont-trust-mainstream-media.html