Good morning Maureen and John and nerdfighters.

Today we're going to talk about something that pisses me off.

At the end of last year there was a battle in the UK. The kid who won the X Factor, Joe McElderry, who I know nothing about, was apparently a shoo-in for the highest selling artist in the UK Christmas charts. That is until Rage Against the Machine decided to 'rage against the machine' and get a profanity-laden song from 1992 to the top of the UK charts. And they did it using an online anti-establishment social media thing.

Rage Against the Machine beat Joe McElderry by like fifty thousand units, proving to the world that we're not just sheep in a capitalist monarchy! Except, it turns out, that we were raging against the wrong machine because Joe McElderry's music is owned by the same people as Rage Against the Machine's music. Sony Music owns both Sony BMG, which is Joe's label and Epic Records, which is Rage Against the Machine's label. So while the anti-establishment folk were fighting their battle, Sony was laughing all the way to the bank, and that is what I want to talk about today: Brands and their hypocrisy.

Big corporations create these things called 'brands' so that they can sell more stuff to more people. They can use these brands to create specific marketing campaigns to hit specific demographics of people who believe specific things. All the while, those big companies don't give a crap about those 'brand values' as long as the brands continue to make money.

Don't believe me?

So Dove soap and skin care, those people, you know those people? They have this great marketing campaign about how real women are beautiful. And that's so great, and then you have a company like Axe body spray, and Axe body spray is like, "Sshhhh! I'll spray myself, and then I can use women for sex!"

And I'm sure you know where I'm going with this: Axe and Dove are both owned by Unilever.

Things get even crazier with media companies because they own like ten thousand different properties. For example, the company that owns the UK soft core porn magazine Nuts also owns the Hannah Barbara cartoon franchise, that company being Time Warner.

MTV has a similar structure, owning both television channels for young children and horny men.

I was personally extremely disappointed to find out that the National Geographic channel is owned by the same people who run Fox freaking News. Aaaaeewweh! Over here, you're talking about the beauty and wonder of natural and cultural diversity and the power of science, and over here, you're Fox News! Heh Ha!

And food companies are no better. Kraft is busy boasting the importance of meatless meals with their Boca Burger franchise, while simultaneously selling both hot dogs and steak sauce to quote, "SATISFY YOUR PRIMAL URGES!"

Kraft, until recently, was actually owned by Phillip Morris, the people who make Marlboro cigarettes, which was possibly the most intense brand hypocrisy of all time, with Kraft, focusing on family meals, and Philip Morris, focusing on killing people.

And Unilever, going back to the beginning, is doing it again with their food brands here offering up Slim-Fast with "keys to your weight loss success", while pimping like twelve different ice cream companies including Breyers, Klondike Bar, Good Humor, and Ben and Jerry's, and speaking of Ben and Jerry's; aren't they supposed to be like the quirky, cute, independent ice cream company for the independent thinking Cherry Garcia-loving kinda hippie person?

And now I fond out that they're owned by like one of the biggest food companies in the world? That's just depressing!

IT'S ALL LIES! LIES!

It all comes down to this, folks- there is only one corporate philosophy, only one set of brand values: Make more money.

If this means spending money to do good things so that more people will buy our stuff then they will do that. But these big corporations do not have a conscience. They have one goal, one goal only, and sometimes it's easy to forget that, but it will always be true.

Maurine, I will see you on Wednesday.