countblah2

Can anyone expand on what this means, or what was the shift in Japanese society or attitudes?

I am glad to see you all are doing this. I am a little late to this thread but here's some thoughts:

As someone who has run campaigns in both Austin and San Antonio (but never against Lamar Smith), I can't help but feel your spot missed your demographic. I've watched if a few times now, and it's almost like you made the ad you wanted to watch, rather than the ad that would try to engage the target audience who votes in the Republican primary in that district.

Some suggestions:

• 1. Make the text flow simpler. Right now it comes at you from all sides and in all fonts. Your demo is probably older, guaranteed to be more conservative, and this kind of stuff will just turn them off.
• 2. Is there a reason you address this straight to Lamar? If not, I would reframe it to address his constituency, not him. It comes off as alienating and pretentious. Your goal is persuasion, not to turn people off.
• 3. Lamar doesn't represent "the people of Texas". Make it local--"central Texas". Anything you can do to connect you to your audience is good.
• 4. SOPA is strongest when it has an anti-business consequence. Hold the threat of technology companies shutting their doors in his district over his head (you could confirm, but there are probably some solid examples you could use like Rackspace, AMD, etc.). Jobs/The economy will be the #1 issue during this entire cycle, and you have a topic that can directly tie in to it--use it.
• 5. Similarly, your audience probably doesn't know or give two shits about the RIAA or MPAA. But if you said he'd rather serve Hollywood lobbyists, that is something they will get.
• 6. Sounds cheesy, but your voice talent could do with sounding a little more Texan, particularly if you go with the us vs Hollywood sellout theme.
• 7. Make sure your buyer knows what they're doing. I have literally won campaigns because my buyers were pros and got us superior timeslots. Having the right ad is only half the fight.

Sorry if this is overly negative. Best of luck to you all and I'd be happy to field any additional questions.

Hey, I just wanted to add that it's super courageous to admit that despite the way you see yourself (skeptical, etc.), you still managed to get pulled into a highly manipulative and costly scam. That sort of honesty about your limitations and vulnerability makes you seem very mature, or at least that you learned a lot of this recent experience.

Question: How involved do you think the government should be in regulating this cult? I understand in Europe they are far less tolerant than in the US.

I would say if you're struggling to the extent you are, perhaps try reaching out to Dr. Reveille at UTMB (https://med.uth.edu/internalmedicine/faculty/john-d-reveille-md/). He and his colleagues run the world's largest study on this illness, split between the US and China I believe, and it's gone on for probably 15+ years. Any past or upcoming treatments, they'll know about, as well as having a ton of data from thousands of AS patients.

They may be able to give you some recommendations based on your circumstances for how to treat your particular case. Or perhaps persuade you to try biologics or some other treatment that you may not be aware of or have rejected for various reasons. It doesn't sound like I can persuade you to rethink biologics, but if you've rejected them, Reveille might have other ideas (also bear in mind that not all biologics are the same, there are quite a few on the market now, with some key differences).

My city recently tried a UBI experiment, and there was a lot of unhappiness on all sides from what I recall (too small, perceived as a random giveaway, etc. etc.).

I'd really like to see actual data on UBI successes, especially when placed in the hands of the most vulnerable people who could take advantage of it (if there were the guard rails in place) to avoid worst case scenarios like falling into homelessness, hunger, etc.

Especially now, I don't sense the appetite for "my city shouldering the cost of another experiment" when there might already be good examples out there of success/failure, what they cost, who was helped or to what extent, etc.