Month: October 2006

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Marketing Trends/News, Media Ethics, Uncategorized

I couldn’t agree more with John Ritskowitz’s blog entry criticizing the marketers of a new anti-wrinkle product that was actually Nestle’s Quik powder–yup, the chocolate breakfast drink of your childhood.

This was a test by NBC’s Dateline, to see if they could find a marketing firm unscrupulous enough to take on the project despite dubious clinical results. And they did.

His blog includes a link to the Dateline report, which describes informercial scoundrels as “television terrorists.”

Masquerading as a representative from “Johnston Products,” a Dateline reporter contacted a marketing firm and told them up front that he didn’t think the product would help many people, and that no clinical trials were run to test its effectiveness.

And what did the marketing firm think? They thought there wouldn’t be a problem, as all that was needed was “somebody in a white coat” to give the impression that the product had been scientifically tested. That and a few paid testimonials.

The real shame was that the marketing firm then found a real doctor, a well-credentialed doctor, a hospital’s Chef of Dermatology, in fact (Dr. Margaret Olsen, then of Santa Monica’s St. John’s Hospital), who gave a glowing endorsement without ever examining the product. Yuck!

Ritskowitz goes on to cite several other products that give marketers a bad name, and were eventually pulled off the market under government pressure.

I totally agree with is analysis that this deceitful crap makes it much harder for us legitimate marketers. And of course, I agree with his call to sign the Business Ethics Pledge, which I founded (big grin). We currently have signatories from 24 countries, and I’d love you to be the next to sign.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Events, Uncategorized

It’s wonderful to see a national figure like Senator Russ Feingold who’s not afraid to connect the dots. In an insightful piece on Huffington Post, he all but calls the Foley-lusts-for-boy-pages scandal a distraction from the continuing disaster of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld’s totally failed Iraq policy:

We all saw the recently declassified key findings of the National Intelligence Estimate. One thing those findings underscored is that our continued and indefinite presence in Iraq is benefiting global terrorist networks that threaten our country. The war has been a disaster, but the Administration refuses to admit its mistake. It refuses to do what’s right for our national security. By “staying the course,” this Administration is ignoring the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the growing threats we face around the world.

I hope this guy runs for President! But the Dems will probably run Hillary Clinton, and if they do, I’ll vote Green–I will not vote for a candidate who still doesn’t understand that the Iraq war is a moral and practical failure, and who as far as I know has not repudiated her support for the so-called Patriot Act (which was one of the most unpatriotic pieces of legislation in its time–unfortunately surpassed by last month’s shameful embrace of torture and spying).

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Uncategorized

Since 1974, I’ve been deeply concerned about the economic, safety, and environmental hazards of nuclear power generation. It was the subject of my first book, published in 1980.

Today’s edition of my local paper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette, reported that three nuclear plants were awarded a combined total of $143 million in a court judgment, because the federal government has broken its contract to remove the waste.

The article is subscription-only, but here’s an excerpt:

It also could foreshadow a series of additional financial awards to operators of reactors nationwide who have argued the federal government broke contractual agreements that promised the waste would be taken away by 1998.

The award, granted by Court of Claims Judge James Merow on Saturday, was unsealed Wednesday.

It gives $32.9 million in damages to Yankee Atomic Electric Co., operator of the former Yankee Rowe reactor in Massachusetts; $34.1 million to Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., operator of Connecticut Yankee reactor, and $75.8 million to Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., operator of the Maine Yankee reactor.

Note that first paragraph. As a taxpayer, I am far from enthusiastic about a long series of payouts to nuclear utilities.

The reason the feds can’t take the waste is they have nowhere to put it, and that’s in large part because there is no safe way to store the stuff for tens of thousands of years, and that’s what would be required. So it’s not surprising that local activists don’t want a waste dump shoved down their throats. This was true even before anyone thought they might be a terrorist target.

‘Nuff said–shut ’em down!

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