Posts tagged FAIL

… in related news, Subway trademarks the word “The”

By admin on May 13, 2010
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“If ‘footlong’ is a name that’s been associated with us, it would benefit them that we would take an action like this to protect the association.”

-Subway flack, on why they’re sending cease and desist letters to restaurants using the word “footlong” on their menu, (which Subway has applied for a trademark on).

Bonus PR-Speak Translation! “Our sandwiches suck, so any association with us will hurt your business.”

Bonus witty retort: “Maybe the [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] can issue a cease and desist over the word Subway. That would be great.”

What’s the worst that could happen?

By admin on October 23, 2009
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[Start the video at the 16th minute for the story]

There’s a marvelous story in this hour long FRONTLINE documentary called “The Warning” about the woman who warned of the coming financial collapse.

It was the the late 90′s and while media manipulators of internet stocks proclaimed that “Santa Claus arrives early on Wall Street,” the tech bubble continued to inflate.  Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the immensely powerful Federal Reserve, told Brooksley Born, the head of an obscure small federal regulatory agency – the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – that he didn’t think the government should regulate fraud.

As Born challenged Greenspan’s orthodoxy on financial derivatives – the complex toxic financial products now blamed for the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and the resulting  financial collapse of 2008 – the story quotes Greenspan as saying “We’re never going to agree on fraud … you probably think there should be rules against it.”

“He thought the market would figure it out.”

In hindsight it seems as though the faith the public held in their illustrious financial wizard and the wizard held himself in the efficacy of his own magic potions, isn’t much different than that of religious fundamentalists. But to what god were they praying?

Vancouver wins the gold in DEMOCRACY FAIL

By admin on October 9, 2009
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Acting with the legal support of the BC Civil Liberties Association, this week two activists filed a lawsuit challenging a Vancouver bylaw that restricts the right to “distribute material critical of the Games during and around the events.”

BCCLA President Robert Holmes commented on the severity of the punishment for violating Olympics inspired bylaws in Vancouver, Richmond and Whistler that  give municiple workers the power to enter private property to remove “offensive” signs to protect the Olympic brand:

If you think through what people get thrown in jail for in this country, six months in jail is usually reserved for criminals who have a record of several convictions of breaking and entering, but now it’s the government that wants to break in and take down signs that should be part of people’s freedom of expression.

Collectively now: W. T. F. ?!?!

(link h/t cknw.com)

Please excuse me while I go vomit

By admin on September 9, 2009
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It doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be plausible and it strikes me as plausible.

University of Calgary political scientist Tom Flanagan, a former Harper strategist, advising on the Tory election strategy of tying the Liberals to the unpopular notion of a Liberal-Bloc-NDP coalition eventhough he recognizes it to be a boldfaced lie.

Now please excuse me while I go vomit.

Via theglobeandmail.com

CTV + CRTC = FAIL

By admin on July 6, 2009
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Today we learned that CTV will broadcast 60 hours of tomorrow’s Michael Jackson memorial over 10 of its channels.  While reading their press release loudly proclaiming the “super-simulcast,” I cringed with horror. Has anyone turned on a TV in the last week, flipped through the channels, and not had Michael Jackson’s ridiculously tragic life invade their living room?

It gets better.

After a long and nauseating “Save Local TV” campaign by CTV and CanWest (and the even more disgusting counter campaign by the cable and satellite companies – I’m looking at you Shaw and Rogers) today the CRTC decided to bailout the broadcasters to the tune of $100 million for the 2009-10 broadcast year.

Saying the absolutely most ridiculous thing possible, CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein, Q.C. pronounced that “we have taken steps to ensure that broadcasters … continue to provide Canadians with programming that reflects their needs and interests.”

von Finckenstein will surely soon declare that up is down,  black is white and that money grows on trees. The CRTC is requesting that you submit your comments by August 10, 2009, by filling out the online form.

On the bright side, Ben Mulroney and dead Michael Jackson have real chemistry together.  (as noted by  @robertmcbean)