Which part of “impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible” didn’t you understand?

Err, no. Read the article. Coke’s marketing department know that part of their target market is wackos. If they get the wackos to believe that drinking Pepsi is undermining ‘murkeria, then they can keep the sales figures up and collect those bonuses.

(Plus, of course, they can keep the little yapping clones who have no ideas of their own but just want to drink what seems to be on top, despite the revolting additive added into the mix.)

Marcus Stanley – The 2004 election Bush 62,040,610 (50.7%) Kerry 59,028,111 (48.3%)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2004

walt pohl – Some prominent individuals with left leaning beliefs where apologist for the Soviet Union during the early 20’s. Example: Walter Duranty, a New York Times Journalist, won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting which covered up the mass starvation of 12 million Ukrainian peasants.

The arguments seem to be built around finding the strangest individual or small group associated with an idea or viewpoint. Then tarring everyone with similar ideals based on the actions of the small subset. Continuing with this process it is apparent that the left is willing to starve a vast number of people to ensure socialized medicine. Equally strange, the right is willing to gas a vast number of people to bring the end of the world. Somehow neither of these views seems convincing.

Having read said context, it makes no difference.

Fundamentalist wackos, stirred up by cynical political operators in it for the money. Not a pretty picture.

I believe the formula is “fools and millionaires,” but yes. I can only imagine that when political consultants saw the whackos giving millions to frauds the consultants realized the whackos could be ripped off for their votes, too.

Hey, at least that way they’re good for something.
.

Sadly, ‘mike’, you’re not helping disprove Scanlon’s point.

Shhhhhhhhhh! Jeez, waddaya tryin to do? Clue these people in! When they’re making so much progress in the “trainwreck/self destruction” department.

Seriously tho – your comments are spot on accurate. Adding to them if I may. Not only does the “marketting campaign” fail completely to attract “coke drinkers”. It’s so embarassingly pedantic that it’s managed to cause some “pepsi drinkers” to not want to associate themselves with that product anymore.

Isn’t he saying that as a policy this idea does have some merits?

Please don’t be as dishonest as some on the right are – by any fair reading, that isn’t what Bennett said. Unless you want to escalate the political battle, this sort of thing is Not Good. And if you do, well, I suppose I’m going to have to take a different side.

That may be true, but the last election between Bush and Kerry was 51-49 Bush.

I think you may have it wrong. By this report, Lord Adonis is being lined up as the agreed official scapegoat for the deemed failures of the government’s schools white paper and Tony Blair’s flagging credibility:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/22/nadonis22.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/01/22/ixportal.html

Ruth Kelly will escape.

The schools debate is starting to look really exciting from a detached spectator’s perspective but the schools issue doesn’t detract from the shame of the traumas inflicted on families in the early 1990s by professional social workers intent on witch hunts for satanic abuse.

The BBC has engaged in an acclaimed piece of investigative journalism to bring to light what happened in one town but that, sadly, was far from being the only or even the most egregious instance. The local council implicated sought an injunction to prevent the broadcast of the programme but (fortunately) failed to convince the judge.

Allegations of satanic abuse imply criminal acts so the police were bound to investigate each case. In no case did police investigations actually uncover evidence that they considered would have been suffciently credible to withstand cross examination in criminal trials. The downstream outcome therefore was that a series of families were destroyed, supposedly for alleged criminal activities that were never brought to trial.

After that debackle, Munchausen’s Syndrome By Proxy became the next fashionable charge made against families, in that case by academic physicians:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/medical_notes/3528517.stm

For “fundamentalist wackos” in Britain you need look no further than Education Secretary Ruth Kelly and her spiked garter and self flagellation in the name of a right-wing Christian cult.

That said, I don’t suggest you actually look, since the sight is probably quite repulsive.

There’s a rather close real-life analogy to this – the notorious incident href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2010949.stm” rel=”nofollow”>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2010949.stm where Gerald Ratner, proprietor of a discount jewellery chain, described his own product as “total crap” at a tradeshow. Doing a Ratner href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3199822.stm” rel=”nofollow”>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3199822.stm is now a term of art in UK business journalism. But where the analogy breaks down is that Ratner’s customers took note, and stopped buying at his shops, wiping UKP 500 million from the value of the company, and eventually forcing it to change its name. Steve and y81, who are customers for the brand under discussion in this post, seem to be adopting a somewhat different approach. Interesting.