In a tragic irony, Allen Carr has been diagnosed with lung cancer.
Allen Carr Health Statement Press Release
Archive for the 'News' Category
They just don’t seem to get it! A lot of people don’t like the idea of killing, for ’scientific purposes’, the largest mammals on Earth: whales. The only scientific study I could imagine would be to see how many they can kill before they don’t recover.
David Attenborough has previous said:
…If whales could scream the industry would stop, for nobody would be able to stand it.
Then they give money to poor Caribbean nations for ‘fishing aid’. What is this, so that these countries create over-developed fishing industries that will be just outraged by the impact of whales eating their fish? It’s so false and underhand and just disgusts me. Can’t we show repeats of The Blue Planet on Japanese television continually until they beg us to stop and repent their horrible crimes. Japan and Norway’s tolls: 2,500 whales killed in the last twelve months. It’s disgusting.
WaPo: Pro-Whaling Nations Lose Early Vote
Guardian: Japan hits out at ‘polarised’ whaling council
Thanks to the internet, I think for the first time young people are seeing history made before it is censored by their elders. It’s such a powerful thing that we can create our own history, see the news unfold in real-time and contribute our own information and thoughts to unfolding stories before they are stymied by those that would like a more agreeable daily roundup.
Ok, so it’s like Al Gore day here today or something, but I just was watching this Spike Jonze documentary/campaign video of Gore before the 2004 election, and it’s just too interesting to not pass on. It’s a touching look into the Gore family, sitting having a meal with the family, walking on the family’s property, and generally being with the family and moving past the politics. I admire Al Gore’s ethics, morality and intelligence so much that I dismiss all accusations of him being a boring guy. I worry if people think political leaders should be able to spout wisecracks more easily and readily than policy opinions. Gore’s a serious guy with real concerns, rather than trying to change the world one joke and ‘normal guy’ anecdote at a time, however this two part film is great at showing the largely unseen side of the man; the jovial, lighthearted, off-topic guy. Use the link to view part two.
YouTube: Unseen Al Gore Part 1
YouTube: Unseen Al Gore Part 2
Not intending to be harsh here, but the rather depressing city in which my parents live, Birmingham England, likes to compare itself to the ‘love capital’ of the world, Venice Italy. Don’t laugh; really.
They think they can compete.
- Venice: delightful if expensive city with beautiful canals, great art and a unique experience.
- Birmingham: bland, rather tired looking, wishful-thinking with cheerful inhabitants but nothing to make it stand out from the grey.
A wall of water, thought to be as high as 50ft, smashed into the side of one Brittany Ferries’ largest vessels, exploding windows and flooding cabins far above the waterline. The ship encountered awful weather conditions as it entered the Bay of Biscay and had to turn into the French port of Roscoff for emergency repairs, offering alternative travel arrangements and compensation to affected customers.
From The Times:
“We knew conditions were getting bad the night before when the magician had to cancel his act because his table kept sliding off the stage.” She said that they were given another cabin on the eighth deck.
The other event of note that has slipped past me was US President George Bush’s acceptance of a question from longtime White House ‘correspondent’ Helen Thomas. As her style of questioning would imply, she’s not a fan of the Bush regime. She began:
I’d like to ask you, Mr. President — your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, (and the) wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime.
Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is: Why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, your Cabinet officers, former Cabinet officers, intelligence people and so forth — but what’s your real reason? You have said it wasn’t oil, the quest for oil. It hasn’t been Israel or anything else. What was it?
The answer she got, continuing while she attempted to clarify her question, didn’t go any way toward answering the question and instead, inexplicably, focused on Afghanistan. Her question was partisan and her answer was unclear. Though she was asking questions as a member of the press corps, she is in fact more a columnist, one with a great distain for George Bush and his international wars. She didn’t get a good answer.
Despite this her office received over one thousand roses from newfound fans as thankyou for her dogmatic persistence (The Hill.com: After grilling Bush, Helen Thomas gets thousands of flowers). According to The Hill’s article, Thomas shared the flowers with bureau colleagues but sent most of the bounty to wounded personnel at Walter Reed Army Hospital.
It could be seen that Bush was finally letting the least-likely-to-get-picked journalist have a chance at redeeming her credibility by asking a reasonable question. Perhaps he was trying to stop the drops in his polling numbers by reaching out to those who wouldn’t normally favor him. Bush’s approval ratings have been at record lows recently and he needs something to help revive them. He may, on the other hand, have chosen Thomas precisely because he knew her question would become the news of the day. While any other respectable reporter may have elicited a real response from him that may have caused controversy, Thomas was bound to create news herself. As television news anchors attacked her, (O’Reilly, others smear veteran journalist Helen Thomas over exchange with Bush), the news became not Bush’s feeble response but Thomas’s partisan position. The ‘liberal media’ as a whole was under attack and not just one elderly lady. By picking Thomas, Bush was able to discredit all journalists trying to find out really facts from an administration that has has remarkable success in information management, successfully putting a positive spin on events that don’t even make the news. Overall, the story has legs because it’s shows the current White House not as money grabbing and conservative hypocrites, but as manipulative and unclear. The right love it because it shows have repulsive the left really are, and the left love it because it shows that the right understand just how manipulative they can be, and seem to get away with it.
AP: President Bush’s Q & A with Helen Thomas
Helen Thomas: Bush takes potshots at messenger
Harpers.com: Give ‘em Helen [January 2003 exchange between White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and Helen Thomas]
NewsHounds: Special Report Attacks Helen Thomas
MediaMatters: O’Reilly, others smear veteran journalist Helen Thomas over exchange with Bush
SF Chronicle: Bush Tangles with Helen Thomas
National Ledger: President Bush Uses Helen Thomas to Embarrass National Press
Baltimore Sun: News Whiteout
Researchers in Connecticut said that global warming has led to a massive decline in the lobster population of the Long Island Sound; however, if the polar ice caps melt and sea levels rise 30 feet, colder water might bring the lobsters back.
see: The Stamford Advocate | CTV.ca
On one side of the barricade was girl carrying a sign that said, “Instead of porn, show us Godly relationships.” On the other, a woman held one that said, “I moved here to get away from people like you.”
When you think of how to promote a new product, when you’re trying to get the word out about your new show or you need to raise money for a new venture, some of Seth Godin’s May ‘05 tips on what’s hot and what’s not in marketing could help clear your head. On his website there are many more from which this selection is copied.
- Products that are remarkable get talked about.
- Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills and your returns policy.
- You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time. And people, once unfooled, talk about the experience.
- People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
- Business to business marketing is just marketing to consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for what they buy.
- Traditional ways of interrupting consumers are losing their cost-effectiveness. At the same time, new ways of spreading ideas (blogs, permission-based RSS information, consumer fan clubs) are quickly proving how well they work.
- People all over the world, and of every income level, respond to marketing that promises and delivers basic human wants.
- People are selfish, lazy, uninformed and impatient. Start with that and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
- Marketing that works is marketing that people choose to notice.
- Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.
Seth Godin on what every marketer needs to know
Seth Godin’s Blog
