Those San Francisco dog nuts have done it again. They've created a website defending pit bulls. They have all these cute pictures of dogs with signs saying, "we didn't do anything wrong," along with a threat that these wacks are going to vote against the democrats because of "breed-specific legislation." Can you believe it? Single-issue dog voters?http//clevertrading.qa/

Ha! How's this?

This article says a lot about China and censorship.

Magazines are experiencing a renaissance in China, as more consumers with more disposable income turn to glossy monthlies for guidance on how to spend it -- and there's plenty of room for growth. In the U.S., magazines account for more than 10% of spending on advertising, while in China, home to the world's fastest-growing major advertising industry, they still account for just 2% to 3% of ad spending.

[...]

While Beijing controls all Chinese media, and the government has clamped down on foreign content on TV in recent months, the barriers for magazines, especially lifestyle titles, remain considerably lower.

New titles abound. In August, Advance Publications' Conde Nast teamed up with a government-affiliated partner to launch Vogue China...

The New York Times reports:

Lewis H. Lapham, the editor of Harper's Magazine for nearly 30 years, said yesterday that he would retire as editor in the spring.

It's official! It's Xmas shopping season, according to our friends at DMNews, a direct marketing trade publication:

NEW YORK -- Let the games begin. The holiday shopping season started in earnest this week for several multichannel merchants unveiling attention-grabbing strategies that in at least one case saw excited shoppers snatching nearly everything in sight.

But what's even better is that this year, shoppers have fulfilled the marketers' holiday dreams by working themselves into a frenzy:

Inside [clothing store H&M;], the mood was more intense than at Abercrombie & Fitch, with frenzied shoppers grabbing handfuls of clothing off racks without looking at the size. Several people were walking around with armloads of clothing ... which explains why within two hours of opening the store, most of the stock was gone except for a few T-shirts, scarves and jewelry.

Via Drew Curtis' Fark.

Radaronline reports:

The camera pans to reveal his pants dragged down around his knees and a pink vibrator resting on the crest of his buttocks, lazily gyrating with an irritating whine. The mood is hardly erotic. The man on the screen looks like a hostage in one of those videos streaming out of war-ravaged Iraq: disheveled, sleep-deprived, disoriented, and, just maybe, fearing something on the order of an on-camera beheading. “My name is Joe Francis,” he says repeatedly in a damaged monotone, slurring his words in a continuous stream. “I’m from Boys Gone Wild, and I like it up the ass.”

The copy of this tape currently in the possession of the LAPD is the unlikely centerpiece of a trial that is set to begin next year ­ one that pits Francis, the 32-year-old multi-millionaire kingpin of the Girls Gone Wild video empire, against a small-time hustler who allegedly video-taped Francis in humiliating positions while holding him at gunpoint and later tried to blackmail his victim by threatening to release the tape.

Ha! I ran into Manson at the new Gottfried Helnwein show. We kicked it and talked about Rose.

California just loosened its ban on breed-specific dog laws, thus allowing cities like San Francisco to take measures to address pit bulls and the like. I have tried to keep an open mind in this debate, and so I read some of the websites that oppose breed-specific legislation ("BSL"). And you know what, they use the same arguments that the NRA uses. Check it out--this is from Pitbulllovers.com:

Why breed specific legislation will never work

BSL is a flawed concept from the moment it is conceived. In most cases the dogs are targeted leaving the owner, which is the responsible, rational thinking party, out of it.

Some impose fines along with their laws but are often not enforced to the maximum so the owner gets away with a slap on the wrist.

Dogs are not the problem and BSL does not reconize this. People are the problem and until we find a way to punish people for their neglectful actions which allow dogs to bite and terrorize the public we will never stop the problem.

First problem is, take one breed away, these people will find another breed to replace it.

Since the APBT bans the Rottweiler is now on the rise as the most popular breed.

Now these dogs are taking heat from the general public and the BSL supporters. Again they are restricting the dogs and not the people.

BSL can be compared to gender profiling or racial profiling. Simply because a dog appears to be a dog on the restricted list it is treated as one.

What if you were driving down the road and the police took you to jail, sentenced you, and placed you on death row just for looking like a certain ethnic group? BSL does exactly that to dogs.

So why is it then that more BSL laws are implemented daily? God forbid a person have to take responsibility for their irresponsible actions and BSL supports these people by not placing very harsh punishments on them.

Ha! Vice Magazine has published a tirade against the baby boomers. Just imagine what will be said about "Generation X" by some future cohort labeled (and defined) by the marketing industry.

Check out today's WSJ, where Gina Chon reports:

...falling resale values for traditional SUVs are making it harder for car owners who want to trade for less gas-thirsty vehicles.

[...]

The prices of used sport-utility vehicles have fallen by roughly 10% in the past few months, leaving many consumers stuck in rides they can't profitably trade in.

According to Kelley Blue Book, the value of a 2004 Ford Expedition fell by 9.8% to $22,200 from January to October, while the price of a 2004 GMC Yukon fell by 6.9% to $25,700 in the same period. The 2004 Hummer H2 was worth $41,700 in January but is now valued at $39,000.

[...]

"We've heard from a number of dealers that say they aren't taking SUVs as trade-ins any longer," Mr. McCready said. "Dealers see themselves in a risk position now because they already have a number of SUVs on their lot."

It must be getting a little stuffy in that big, slow and stupid SUV. $100 for a tank of gas. Lowering trade in value. Ha! SUV Owners of America, your so called "basic right to own and operate the vehicle of...choice and to use it for whatever transportation purpose" is more of an albatross than freedom!

This article is both funny and telling. Funny because Jon Stewart was probably paid six figures to give a speech at advertising week, where he made fun of the magazine publishers:

An Advertising Week event designed to promote magazine publishing ran off the rails last night, when chosen moderator -- and magazine cover-boy favorite -- Jon Stewart ended up roundly mocking the editors on his panel and telling the assembled burghers of print that the medium now sits at “the children’s table.”

And telling because Ad Week basically states the nature of many public events, which are so controlled that interesting things rarely happen. Let's just say that this even, and Kanye West's talk, are rare.

Most marketing events, from press conferences to presidential “town halls,” are tightly controlled to prevent anything interesting from breaking out. So the Magazine Publishers of America deserves credit for taking an expensive risk (rumored price: $100,000) on hiring the big-draw Mr. Stewart and hoping for the best.

Just for kicks, I decided that in moving to San Francisco, I would tell no business my home address. I started phone and electric service in false names, and forwarded my mail from DC to my new office in downtown San Francisco. I also decided to never open my mailbox, and since March, I've just let the junk mail pile up in it.

This evening I came home and decided to open the mailbox. It was chock full of crap, and only a single piece of mail was for me (addressed to an alias!). There were 12 offers for pre-approved credit for other people who no longer live here. There were 4 identical coupons for Bed, Bath, and Beyond. And there were 3 identical offers for RCN Internet service.

The fun continues. I am going to file prohibitory orders on all of the saturation mail (mail addressed to "current resident) with my trusty Postal Form 1500, which you can obtain from the USPS here. When you file such an order, the sender is barred by federal law from mailing you again. All first class mail will be marked "Refused" and will go back into the mailbox.

In today's Advertising Age, one will find this article that discusses Advertisers' fears that their products will sullied if they appear on blogs with objectionable content.

Is it safe to advertise in places on the Internet that are essentially run by consumers and cannot be controlled? How can they protect themselves and their good names when blog and chat-room users are liable to say and post anything? It’s not just pornography or off-color language that worries them. What if consumers got angry about something involving a marketer’s brand, and their remarks got linked to across the Internet? Maybe advertising in such open spaces is not worth the risk.

That’s certainly true for toy marketers, said Rick Locker, of law firm Locker Greenberg & Brainin, who represents the Toy Industry Association. “Most would view that guerrilla approach as not suitable for their products because they can’t control what goes on there.”

What does this say about advertising and its effects on more controlled media, such as newspapers? If advertisers fear the lack of control of blogs, does that not suggest that part of writing a newspaper is exercising control that will attract advertising dollars?

But technology is coming to the rescue of concerned advertisers:

…Scott Rafer, CEO of Feedster, a blog and RSS search engine and ad network…is building technology to monitor and filter blogs. The other major difference is that because the postings are predictable, the content can be monitored and controlled by automation or by human beings. If something objectionable is posted, an ad can be pulled within minutes, he added.

What does this mean for bloggers? Will they feel compelled to censor user comments or brand-specific criticism in order to continue to attract ad dollars?

Hello loyal readers! I have started a new blog devoted only to privacy at EPIC. Visit it sometime: http://epic.org/west/.

CNN Headline news is selling a database of people who purchased products advertised on the channel. 150,000 individuals are in the database, at a cost of $60 per thousand names.

CNN Headline News Cable TV Product Buyers
This file contains 156,719 last-12-month phone-based buyers of products advertised on this cable network.
Selections: COD, credit cards, gender, state/SCF/ZIP Price: $60/M
Contact: RMI, 203-825-4638