Long-time friend Tom pointed me to a web site called Tech Central Station, which is hosting a page which is practically a web site on its own called The Super Size Con, which goes all out in blasting and deriding the film “Super-size Me,” a film about a man who eats nothing but super-sized McDonalds meals for a whole month and becomes dangerously obese and unhealthy. The film won the Sundance Film Festival, and is receiving a lot of attention. Some say it is an important warning about the dangerously unhealthy fare served at fast-food restaurants; others say that it is a super-sized “Jackass”-style stunt–after all, if you eat nothing but huge amounts of McDonalds’ food every day for a month and get no exercise, what the hell do you expect will happen? My own feeling–not having seen the film–is that there is some truth in both.

But what Tom pointed out to me about this site which more or less wages war on the film is that if you look at the site’s “About” page, you will note something interesting:

Tech Central Station is supported by sponsoring corporations that share our faith in technology and free markets. Smart application of technology – combined with pro free market, science-based public policy – has the ability to help us solve many of the world’s problems, and so we are grateful to AT&T, Avue Technologies, The Coca-Cola Company, ExxonMobil, General Motors Corporation, Intel, McDonalds, Merck, Microsoft, Nasdaq, PhRMA, and Qualcomm for their support. All of these corporations are industry leaders that have made great strides in using technology for our betterment, and we are proud to have them as sponsors. However, the opinions expressed on these pages are solely those of the writers and not necessarily of any corporation or other organization.

Not only is the site a shill for just about every other megacorp you can think of (who really buys that “opinions solely those of the writers” garbage?), but McDonalds–the target of “Super-size Me”–is right there in the middle of them. Despite the site’s stated mission of having concern for the dangers of technology and solving many of the world’s problems and yadda yadda yadda, one detects more than just a whiff of the idea that this site is more about protecting corporate interests than in serving you, the peon consumer.

It really does pay off to take the time to check out who is paying the bills….