No “Global Warming Is for Real.” Orbital Stretching Is the Real Real Problem.

You have heard me say it before: celebrities like Charlie Sheen and Al Gore have a lot to answer for. At best, their drum-beating about so-called global warming has distracted all of us from the real problem our planet faces: orbital destabilization – or as the talking heads would say, “orbital stretching.”

At worst, Lindsay Lohan and Madonna and their ilk are guilty of knowingly profiting from a serious problem, in which Earth’s orbit decays and we go spinning (eventually) into the sun. Aaaaah!

Ignore scientific facts for a moment. Focus your attention on Panel No. 1 of the Scientific Diagram above, which clearly shows Earth’s stable orbit around our sun.

As you see, the Earth orbits the Sun in an elliptical path which has been unvaried for millions if not hundreds of years. Just as naturally, this elliptical orbit means that our Earth’s position vis-à-vis the sun changes throughout the year. Normally, Earth is closest to the Sun (147.3 million km) at perihelion; and farthest from the Sun at aphelion (152.1 million km).

PhysicalGeography.net notes, “…this phenomenon is not responsible for the Earth’s seasons!” This is clearly incorrect. Isn’t it obvious that the further we are from the Sun, the colder we’ll be? And the closer we are, the hotter? Duh!

Now consider Panel No. 2 which slightly dramatizes the terminal danger of orbital stretching. This is what we are experiencing now. Earth’s orbit is straining like an elephant’s BVDs. Our old aphelion’s stretching out farther and farther to the left. Because there is a limited amount of elastic available in the universe (see A Einstein on warping of space here), our planetary orbit’s beginning to look like that same elephant’s underwear after too many wash cycles.

Nobody knows what’s causing this terrifying out-of-waistband experience. Everyday orbital decay doesn’t explain it satisfactorily. And while you can read about stretch marks all you like, medicated creams WILL NOT cure our planet’s orbital degradation problem – trust me.

So never you mind what so-called scientists like Michael Mann, the director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center, say about so-called global warming. Do your own thinking about what’s going to happen when our planet’s stretchy orbit plunges us all into the Sun. That’s SZZT! for us.

Someday you’ll thank me for letting you read about orbital stretching. In a million years or so, we’re going to need way more than five tubes of SPF 3000 sunblock. And it’s now on the Internet so it must be true.

Feds Nationalize “Avatar,” Intend Film Earnings to Cover TARP Shortage.

Declaring that “All your revenue are belong to us,” President Barack Obama announced that the US government was nationalizing James Cameron and his entire production team. In a Rose Garden news conference today, the President predicted that the runaway box office earner would support his administration “for years to come.”

“Avatar” is a fantasy film by Cameron. It was released in cinemas on December 16, 2009. Until this movie’s premier, another film by Cameron, “Titanic,” has been News Corp’s highest grossing film worldwide (and, yes, the highest grosser of any film ever) at $600.8 million.

The new film features tall blue aliens, not Leonardo diCaprio. It earned $30 million over this past weekend alone, according to studio estimates, with its domestic (US) total reaching $594.5 million.

Nationalization is the act of taking an industry or assets into public ownership by a national government. Some nations hold that no compensation is due, based on socialist notions of private properties, so Fox Studios, News Corp and other so-called “owners” of the film are completely screwed.

In Washington, a speaker for US Department of Agriculture has said the administration also intends to use the studio’s marketing arm to help sell General Motors vehicles for the next two years. “We’re going to figure out how to sell those Chevrolets,” said Deputy Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Ann Wright, “and we plan to use the world’s best marketers to do it!”

The nationalization process is the responsibility of the USDA because McDonalds restaurants are using “Avatar” toys in their Happy Meals.

USDA budgets, however, rarely equal those of consumer marketers. How much did the “Avatar” production team spent on marketing, advertising and licensing? Chud.com’s Devin Faraci has noted, “The $400 million number doesn't include marketing, which is going to be monstrous for this film – well over $100 million in marketing, easily.” American Public Media’s marketing program estimates that the number is even larger, $150 million. Due to film industry accounting methods, no one will ever know the real figure.

After the announcement, the White House indicated that the film revenues would be used to cover budget shortfalls but had “no comment” about the President’s new look.

Photo appeared on FreakingNews.com by opchrom of Independents. All rights reserved.

Houston Copywriter Does Not Shy from New Self-Promotion Tactic.

Subject: Urgent Business Diversification Request

First, we must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction. This is by virtue of its being utterly confidential and very “top secret.”

Second, your ability to consider the matter of this great opportunity involving a pending transaction requiring maximum confidence is recognized by all the nations of the world, so then naturally we must write to you.

We represent a top website writer of the nationwide business community who is interested in doing business with your company utilizing talents when are presently spellbound in a relationship with a single client. In order to commence this business I solicit your assistance to enable this copywriter to diversify with work on your account, liberating the aforementioned trapped writer.

The source of this capability is as follows. The present civilian government having emphasized “shovel-ready projects” as a top priority, so we have identified a lot of writing opportunities which are presently floating in the national business community ready for proceeding.

However, by virtue of the admirable person’s position as a copywriter of excellent magnitude who is closely involved with a client no matter how estimable, he cannot solicit business in his own name. We have therefore been delegated as a matter of trust by this worthy copywriter to look for business relationship partners outside the boundaries of Spring Branch, USA.

We have agreed to share the capabilities of this writer with you thus: 30% for the new account owner, 93% for us (the senders of this letter to you), 42% to be used in settling taxation and all local and foreign expenses, and 95% for the esteemed writer himself.

This transaction is 100% safe. We hope to commence this transaction with your fine selves latest seven (7) banking days from the date of the following information from you, namely, your company’s signed and stamped letterhead paper – it will enable us to write letters of claim and job description respectively. This way, we will use your company’s name to re-award the contract to the copywriter and apply for payment.

We are looking forward to doing this business with you. Please acknowledge the receipt of this letter – we will send detailed information about the copywriter when we have heard from you.

Yours in friendship international,

Dr Aron Bachir

PLEASE QUOTE THIS REFERENCE NUMBER (SJ/P/419/2009) IN ALL YOUR RESPONSES.

Note: This is a parody but the “Nigerian Scam” is no joke. It is named after the number of the article in the Nigerian constitution that deals with this fraud, 419. These scammers cheat more than 50,000 people a year out of their hard-earned savings. Get smarter: Read all about 419 here. (And thanks to Susan Reeves for the graphic.)

Pigeons Forward

#1: From “Wonder Weapons Between The Wars,” Army Magazine, June 1984. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved.

Snickers-Horace Pigeon Catapult (Great Britain, 1917). Mounted on a Snickers three-tonne, K-type lorry, the pigeon catapult was a natural follow-on to the more common pigeon vans used by the Royal Army Signal Corps (RASC) in World War I. The idea itself was born amid the rolling barrages of the French battlefields, as the RASC suffered increasingly prohibitive losses among its highly trained messenger pigeons.

At the Second Battle of the Somme, the pigeons suffered in in-flight casualty rate of 80 per cent.

Lt Col Vandemere Horace then suggested the concept of propelling the pigeons through the deadly curtains of fire at a higher rate of speed – in effect, a booster system. Several variants were tried, including a pneumatic gun and large rubber bands. But Col Horace, who had taken a second in Classics at Oxford (Balliol, ’01) insisted the Roman catapult was the answer.

Events proved him right. Properly synchronized, the catapult launcher was an amazing success during field trials on Salisbury Plain in 1916, where wet athletic socks were used to simulate the messenger pigeons. The special shields extending from the sides of the lorry (see drawing) protected the RASC crew from pigeons launched with acute trajectories, while padding on the upper shield sides preserved overshot birds from serious injury.

The use of the pigeon catapult was temporarily discontinued when an outbreak of trench molt devastated the entire stock of RASC messenger pigeons in June, 1917.

Housewives’ Hit

Don't diss the power of pop culture. I recently participated in creating a direct mail campaign that turned ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” into “Desperate Households.”

Like most advertising trends, everybody’s doing it. Stuart Elliott wrote in his New York Times column yesterday that advertisers and agencies seeking endorsers for campaigns are making belles of the ball of the actresses appearing on the hit ABC series "Desperate Housewives," which is to return for a second season on Sept. 25. Almost every cast member is in an ad, some for more than one marketer, in a rush reminiscent of the ardor to use the actors from other popular shows like "Friends" and "Sex and the City."

(Forgive the absence of attribution quotes – there are too many of them; click http://www.nytimes.com to read the whole column – you can register for free access.)

Read the article, and you’ll see that other advertisers are doing related takes on the idea. This ain’t new, Magoo. How many of you had a client who absolutely had to have something related to “The Force be with you” in a sales program or campaign? For those of you that are old enough, “Patton” was a big, big hit on the sales meeting circuit, with the CEO appearing in uniform like George C. Scott in the movie – on top of a platform to boot.

A neat parody appears in the movie “Dave,” when Kevin Kline, playing a common man who happens to look like the President of the United States, makes a ‘celebrity appearance’ at a car dealership, riding into camera on the back of a pig.

It’s okay. That’s what pop culture is for. Give the pop icon a fresh spin, and it helps make connections that would (as Elliott point out in his column) take too much time to explain otherwise. More important, pop culture is a powerful force that can magnify the reach and impact of creative messages.

Use this power only for good. Or outright laughter.

Creative Displacement

This is probably as good a time as any to mention the American Creative Displacement Association – ACDA (or “AK-dah” phonetically). Although we members don’t identify ourselves very often, you probably know our work.

Every day, ACDA members are conducting little displacements. Hiding a co-worker’s coffee cup is harmless entertainment; an escalation would be moving the co-worker’s entire office just before he returns from vacation. (This is an evergreen crowd-pleaser, especially if you can get it all on video.) Moving your wife’s reading glasses from place to place around the house can provide hours of self-enjoyment.

You probably know the work of one of our American Masters, Allen Funt, who died after a long career in ‘99. The Candid Camera episode in which he closed New Jersey is still considered one of the great creative displacements of the modern era.

These are “human-scale” displacements, some more imaginative than others. Hilariously, the French displaced a real man, Merhan Nasseri, into Paris Charles De Gaulle airport and kept him there for 15 years.

Grand-scale displacements are generally conducted by governments – or non-governmental organizations. The Arab nations collectively displaced an entire people, the “Palestinians,” in 1948. The Israelis have never, ever considered this to be a joke. American Democrats feel like the past two Presidential elections have been displaced and they’re none too pleased either. (Although George Bush’s chief of staff thinks it’s right up there with the temporary closure of New Jersey.)

And the ACDA’s original governing body, the International Association of Creative Displacement, was co-opted by the UN in 1957, after the Suez Crisis. It now operates as the World Displacement Organization (WDO in English, or L’Organisation Mondiale de les Déplacements, OMD, in French), and specializes in displacing Iraqi oil money into its bureaucrats’ Swiss bank accounts.

There is an international group operating as a sort of clearing house, but I can’t give you its Web site. For several years, it was displacing itself in a section of the Swedish Army’s Web site [www.armen.mil.se], but is no longer there. And I can’t supply you with any contact information…I’ve displaced it. Sorry.