Political Flack Horror Stories...

Would you elect this man to be YOUR President?

It's a picture so embarassing that Democrats are now accusing NASA of leaking the photo's on purpose to embarass John Kerry. Isn't that kind of like being caught committing a crime, but then blaming the legal system for punishing you? If the photo is so horrible, isn't it the job of some political flunkie to throw himself in front of the camera's, preventing the photo from being taken in the first place?

Well... this is the same party that allowed Gillette to spend over $1 million, giving away Mach3 razors in delegate gift bags at this weeks Democratic National Convention...

...only to have security go through every delegate bag and confiscate the razors as a security threat. This also enraged attendees, who blame Gillette for the long lineups at security checkpoints.

We'll call that one a sponsorship decision gone horribly, badly wrong.

Maybe someone at the Democrat National Committee can offer a fired Gillette marketing executive a job as a John Kerry tour flunkie...

PETA viva L'Italia...

It's a story that would definitely make PETA proud. A town in Italy has passed a law which makes it illegal to keep goldfish in fish bowls.

(Story here, but you need a subsciption to the National Post to see it.)

"A fish kept in a bowl has a distorted view of reality ... and suffers because of this," city councillor Giampietro Mosca told Agence France-Presse. "Also, this type of receptacle generally doesn't have a filter and doesn't allow for good oxygenation of the water, unlike in rectangular aquariums."

I'll admit that I've never been overly concerned about the self-esteem of any goldfish I've kept in fish bowls. Yes, that's right - I'll admit that at some point in my past, I used to own a goldfish. And it was kept in a bowl.

And guess what - the goldfish inhaled, too. As best explained by David McNish, of Roy's Pet Shop in Kingston, Ont. Roy says the councillor's concern about oxygen betrays a limited understanding of the goldfish's respiratory system, (never mind any existential despair.) "A goldfish is a top air breather," he said, explaining they rise to the surface instead of breathing underwater through their gills.

By the way - news may be out next week that dorky dog pants and french poodle outfits cause canine depression.

Are you listening CRTC?

I suspect the answer is a resounding "No."

Another online poll in Canoe.ca, this time asking "What do you think of the CRTC's decision to approve the Al-Jazeera TV network for distribution by cable companies across Canada? "

A resounding 31% of respondents said they disapprove. What was even more encouraging is that 32% of respondents chose to vote by saying we should just get rid of the CRTC.

PETA video shows chicken abuse at KFC supplier

This should serve as a wake up call for a lot of organizations. Unfortunately, it won't.

PETA published to the Internet a video showing abuse at a KFC supplier... and KFC is forced to go on the defensive.

This is quite interesting for a number of reasons:

a) How many companies would look really, REALLY bad if video of some of their internal operations ever made it unto the Internet? Remember, the same rules don't apply as they do for 'regular' media. If someone is out to make you look bad, they can, and will, say whatever they want. There's no such thing as "journalistic integrity" on an attack video. Want proof? Heck - PETA owns www.kfccruelty.com.

b) How many companies would look bad if their SUPPLIERS had the same thing happen - which is exactly what happened to KFC. This isn't a KFC facility in question - it's actually owned Pilgrim's Pride. Unfortunately for KFC, Pilgrim's Pride isn't as high in public profile - and it's KFC that has the most to lose from an upset public. Have you considered what would happen if one of your suppliers put your corporate reputation into disarray?

c) How does PETA manage to get a videocamera into the chicken facility at the same time abuse is occuring? Let's just say the skeptic in me wants to scream out "staged!"

But so what - even if the video did prove to be staged, did KFC win? Hardly. Remember - PETA doesn't really care what people think about their corporate image. Heck - take a look at some of the campaigns they're currently involved in. They run nude through the streets of Pampalona. They run "Nofatchicks.com" - openly trying to lure unsuspecting pornography surfers to view a website detailing the abuses of the chicken industry. There are 50 other ongoing websites, all as equally ludicrous. If they can stage a Kamikaze run at KFC, they'd do it in a second.

What astounds me is why industry feels they can't fight back on some of these allegations. How come we don't get hidden camera video of PETA board meetings, where members openly admit their science is cracked but they decide to attack anyway?

Sigh...

Is Al Jazeera a credible news organization?

According to this CNews Poll, 65% say no.

Yet the CRTC will let Al Jazeera broadcast in Canada. It's illegal to have Fox News, but our government will let Al Jazeera in.

Shaking my head here.

Al-Jazeera allowed to air in Canada??!?!

Al-Jazeera allowed to air in Canada

How sad is it that the CRTC will allow Al Jazeera(!) in with stringent rules designed to keep anti-Semitic or other abusive comments off the air, but Canadians still aren't allowed to watch Fox News?

Grrrrrr...

Broken Sticks - Broken Lies

One of the great propaganda icons of the United Nations climate change machine, and the Kyoto process, is about to get swept away as a piece of junk science. If you subscribe to Canada's National Post you can read it here. The story is also being highlighted on a number of message boards and environmental websites.

The "Hockey Stick - a nifty graphic that claimed to show that the world climate drifted along at a nice, stable temperature for almost 1,000 years until the late 20th century, when temperatures suddenly started to soar. News that The Hockey Stick, reproduced and cited in thousands of reports and publications, is about to get zapped is sweeping the climate science community."

Most of the work is being carried out by "Defending Good Science" subscribers (and respected Canadian researchers) Ross McKitrick of Guelph University and Toronto analyst Steve McIntyre. 
 
Briefly - original author Michael Mann has published a 'corrigendum' (ie - a correction) in "Nature" magazine, admitting that there were errors made in the data while originally creating the chart.  However, he is also claiming that "none of these errors affects the overall results."
 
But McKitrick and McInyre are saying "We have done the calculations and can assert categorically that the claim is false." 
 
McKitrick and McIntyre say they have written another paper on the Hockey Stick debate and will be in a position to defend their conclusion "when that paper is published." They have already written, in a paper described on this page last October, that the Mann numbers were "unreliable" and "could not be used" to compare between centuries. The result, they say, is that Mann's claim that the 20th century was likely the warmest years of the last 1,000 years is wholly unsubstantiated.

This is going to be a major league battle, no matter what - but I'm afraid McKitrick and McIntyre are going to lose.  There are major world states which are basing economic policy on what has been asserted, time and time again, is nothing more than junk science.  Activist groups worldwide have a lot riding on this...
 
... then again, maybe they'll just quietly move on and start focusing on the impending change of the earth's magnetic pole (see the Blog entry below) or something equally bizarre.  After all, much like the alar scare, acid rain and the ozone hole, today's environmental priority becomes tomorrow's old fad, relegated to the dustbin of environmental activist memorabilia.

Grab your compass and hang on!

Oh Geez.

A 'developing story' in Drudge, citing the NY Times, says the earth is in danger of losing it's magnetic field.

The link may very well be dead by the time you get this, so if you allow me -

Science reporter Bill Broad has filed a report, according to newsroom sources, which explores how: 'The field's strength has waned 10 percent to 15 percent so far and this deterioration has accelerated of late, increasing debate over whether it portends a reversal of the lines of magnetic force that normally envelop the earth."

Broad explains: "During a reversal, the main field weakens, almost vanishes, and then reappears with opposite polarity. Afterward, compass needles that normally point north would point south, and during the thousands of years of transition much in the heavens and Earth would go askew."

Broad claims: "A reversal could knock out power grids, hurt astronauts and satellites, widen atmospheric ozone holes, send polar auroras flashing to the equator and confuse birds, fish and migratory animals that rely on the steadiness of the magnetic field as a navigation aid."


Hey - this is big news. The lead line is especially telling: The collapse of the earth's magnetic field, which both guards the planet and guides many of its creatures, appears to have started in earnest about 150 years ago.

Watch for the story to appear on Page One (!) on Tuesday.

How do you top this?

Warning - Adult Content.

"How far are you willing to go to save the world?"

A young couple at a concert in Norway had the answer to that question... "all the way." They got up on stage and proceeded to have sex. A banner was raised on stage informing the audience that the couple was having sex to save the rainforest. After completing the intercourse, the couple received applause from the audience and disappeared.

The two young people belong to an environmental organization called (and I am NOT making this up!) "F*** for Forest."

They have sex in public in order to put focus on the rainforest. Seriously.

As if it weren't enough that we have naked jugglers... now we have naked jugglers having sex in public.

You can't make this stuff up folks... I'm floored.

Cell phones boost teenage sex??!?

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Oslo is raising concerns after it found that teenagers who use mobile phones are more likely to have had sex.

"According to The Mirror, the researchers, who questioned more than 10,000 youngsters between the age-group of 13-18, found that 60 per cent of teenagers who use mobiles a lot had sex, whereas, only nine per cent of the children who seldom or never used mobile phones had had sex."

(Just what constitutes "a lot?" 3 times a week? Twice an hour? Having a phone surgically fused to your ear?)

This is my favourite part:
"The use of mobile phones is directly responsible for the early sexual encounters directly, they are as harmful as porn sites and adult magazines," said Professor Willy Pederson."

Some stories are just too easy to ridicule that it's not even sporting. How a story like this can even make it into mainstream media is an interesting story in and of itself. Not only is the lack of hard numbers disturbing, but a comparison piece is probably in order here.

For now, researchers are "attributing this disturbing behavior to the fact that children often flirt on SMS and can also make "speedy contact" with their phones."

Am I off base here? I never considered 'speedy contact' a precursor to romantic activity of any sort. Am I out of line for suggesting there are probably more variables here than the researchers are giving credit to?

This is analogous to researchers revealing that wearing a seatbelt puts you at far higher risk of being in a motor vehicle accident - simply because wearing a seatbelt would mean you're actually in a vehicle.

Once again - science is irrelevant... since this is proof you can get a "scientific" study to say whatever you want.

Careful where you put that horn...

PETA calls it their "Running of the Nudes."

I call it proof that you can't make stuff like this up. In order to protest the popular "Running of the Bulls," activist group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have run through the streets of Pamplona, Spain... in their underwear.

They wanted to run nude, and call it their "Running of the Nudes." The Spanish Government said no.

Take a look at the post below this one and tell me why I'm wrong about naked jugglers???

Fish, Activists and Naked Jugglers...

For those of you who missed it the first time, I just published a paper, "Framing the Fish Farmers," looking at the effects activist groups have on media in the aquaculture industry. (Short version - junk science bad, media indifferent, industry victimized.)

I have recently received a series of emails and had a very interesting telephone discussion with a woman in Scotland who shares many of the same concerns. What makes this interesting is who she represents... which isn't industry, but some of the very activist groups in question.

Her concern is that as "Junk Science" increasingly clogs the airwaves, some of the more pragmatic citizens groups will be forced to utilize increasingly desperate tactics in an effort to draw attention to their message. In response, industry will lump all activists with the same brush - and understandably, since this woman has a brain, she wasn't interested in being tarred with the same brush used on Greenpeace or PETA.

I have a quote I use on occasion - "In the cocktail party of life, some activist groups are juggling naked on the coffee table in the middle of the room. They don't care what you think about them - they just want you to pay attention to them."

Don't assume that the naked jugglers upset just industry - there are some legitimate attendee's at this cocktail party of life who deserve a spot at the coffee table... without having to deal with their naked juggling brethren. What is frustrating to industry is downright embarassing to legitimate organizations.

My new Scottish activist friend is going to be spending some time on the phone with some of the more realistic and pragmatic activist groups over the next few weeks to see if they can establish a reasonable working dialogue with the aquaculture industry - away from camera's and microphones. She wants to draft some legislative reforms which work for both the wild salmon and the farmed salmon industry, recognizing that everyone wants the same thing - healthy, happy salmon.

I'll be following her work closely, and wish her nothing but the best. Let's hope she can steer away from naked jugglers.

More on the "Harper Defeat."

Michael Harris has an interesting analogy in today's Sun Media chain... "When the Conservatives began to slowly overtake the Liberals in the polls around June 10, Harper started boasting of the possibility of forming a majority government, even musing about his transition team. It seemed a little silly given the tightness of the race at the time. As it turned out, it was also fatally presumptuous. The electorate was considering a future date with this guy, not having his children. That sweaty hand placed so swiftly on their knee gave them the willies."