UnSpun Precis

Chapter 2
Brandy Resa
June 30, 2008

1)       Warning signs of trickery

a)       Listerine commercial, woman manipulated by fear

b)       Top 100 campaigns of 20^th century

2)       Warning: if it’s scary, be wary

a)       Fear is staple tactic

b)       FUD factor, Amdahl’s ibm competitor

i)         Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt

ii)       Pop-up security warnings

iii)      Trustsoft, Inc lost antitrust $1.9mil

c)       Bush’s “Day of Horror”

i)         Iraq invasion used FUD

d)       After, concluded Saddam had destroyed

i)         Congress and press should have been more wary

e)       Fear used to cover lack of evidence

3)       A story that’s “too good”

a)       Overdramatic claims

b)       Michael Barnes, “Arming America”

i)         Claimed pre civil war Am. Gun ownership rare

ii)       “exposed truth”

c)       If so, no Minutemen.

i)         NRA couldn’t argue 2^nd amend.

d)       Belleciles Book was too good to be true

e)       More discrepancies

f)         Reason to ?

g)       Data in service of ideology

i)         1991, The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf

ii)       1994 Christina Hoff Summers, critic of fem. Mvmt

4)       The dangling Comparative

a)       Larger, better, faster, better-tasting

b)       Please Mom, More Arsenic!

5)       Superlatives Swindle

a)       Most, highest, biggest in history, smallest ever

6)       Pay you Tuesday con

a)       Nigerian e-mail scams

b)       Politics get burger today

7)       Blame Game

a)       Frivolous lawsuits, Bush

b)       Pointing finger at unpop. Group

8)       Glittering Generalities

a)       Carbonated water vs. “the real thing”

b)       Support for “middle class”