Friday, March 10, 2006

I have some land in Florida to sell you

So many times I have seen false, partially true, or misleading statements in advertising. Advertisers need to know that the first thing to know about selling a product is to tell the buyer the truth about it. But as far as mendacious statements in advertising are concerned, the state of Florida has taken the cake (you can't eat it, too). They say, "A bad day in Florida beats a good day anywhere else".

Huhh??? Some people on the Storm 2K had that same reaction, too. If you go to their "Talking Tropics" forum, you will see the slogan, followed by some explicit examples of bad days in Florida. For example, a satellite map of Hurricane Charley about to hit Port Charlotte. Or a map of Francis about to clobber Fort Pierce. Or Jeanne doing ditto. And Dennis aiming for Pensacola. And Katrina doing its big surprise on southern Florida as a warmup to caning it up in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. And don't forget Wilma, coming from the Cancun.

When they say bad days, certainly they mean these hurricane days. I wouldn't exactly call it a party. So what the tourism folks in Florida are saying is that the good days elsewhere are not as good as these days in Florida of flying metal, bowing palm trees, bridges breaking up and falling in the water, power outages that last for weeks, and so forth. What they are implying is that the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane occurs every day everywhere on this planet except for Florida. Even in South Dakota. (OK, you heard it here first. Hurricane warning for South Dakota. Effective immediately.). Talk about Armageddons. These people must be predicting the Ultimate Apocalypse confronting humanity as predicted in the Bible's Revelation or in Ragnarok.

Or maybe there is something funny about that slogan "A bad day in Florida beats a good day anywhere else.", and without any qualifying phrases or adjectives, that means hurricane days too. Maybe it is the case that a bad day in Florida beats a good day anywhere else. If that's the case, I have some land in Florida to sell you. And it's real cheap.

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