Canadian focus groups shocked by topless statues on WW I memorial shown on $20 bill

Journalists really have to stop basing their coverage of political issues on Access to Information requests for focus group results.

Here's a scoop: sometimes, focus group participants say stupid things.

Case in freaking point: CTV reports that focus groups shown Canada's new $20 bill design complained about "pornographic" images of partially nude women and "the twin towers" from 9/11.

They were looking at an engraving of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France, a world famous monument to First World War Canadian soldiers killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave.

And, being a neoclassical kind of monument, it includes naked boobies:

Oh! The humanity.

I would like to ask the journalistic community to please stop making Canadians look so ignorant.

Also, nudity in currency notes is classy.

What the Falklands, Argentina? #FdAdFriday

Oh, my. Argentina really is poking the bear. (Or rather, the bulldog.)

In this new spot for Argentina's Olympic team, field hockey captain Fernando Zylberberg run through the Falklands, and (according to Yahoo! News) ends his workout "on the island's Great War Memorial, which honours British sailors who died in World War I".

The tagline then claims the islands as "Argentine soil"...

For those of you not born yet 30 years ago, at the time Great Britain and Argentina went to war over the desolate British territorial islands off the southern coast of South America. 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel and three Falkland Islanders died during the conflict, which the Brits won.

Argentina has never given up its claim to the islands, however, and has been making increasingly threatening statements about having another go at them.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague was unimpressed by this attempt to politicize the Olympics:

"Of course in Britain we remain absolutely steadfast in our support for the self determination of the Falkland Islanders and we will always support that," he added.

"It is a rather sad stunt, it won't impress anybody in the world. We are not do going to take any actual action in response to it."

In times like these, comedy means war

The escalating tensions between Israel and Iran have been a concern for some time now. In the midst of this, the Israeli cable company, HOT, produced an ad featuring a comedy team from the popular sitcom Asfur being summoned to Iran by an undercover Mossad agent.

The video is subtitled, and the YouTube post contains a glossary of all the cultural context, slang, and double meaning used in the ad.



You might put this down to typical culture-bashing between enemies, which Iran must be used to by now. But the video also featured a Samsung tablet. And that, to Iran, means war. With South Korea?

According to Haaretz:

"On Thursday, a top Iranian lawmaker said Iran's parliament was considering to cut the country's trade ties with the country, over what he said was an "insulting" commercial, over the depiction of Iran as a "primitive society" and of insinuating that Israel was 'powerful enough to easily destroy Iran's nuclear facilities or assassinate the country's nuclear scientists.'

Head of Majlis Energy Committee Arsalan Fat'hipour told Press TV that Samsung chose to forget the high volume of trade it shares with Iran in its attempt to move closer to Israel, adding that Samsung's apology to Iran, 'though necessary', would not be enough to patch things up with Tehran. 

In response to Iran's claims, Samsung released a statement condemning the production of the commercial by the firm's Israeli branch, with Samsung's Tehran office saying that the spot had nothing to do with the firm and that it had been produced by HOT. "

Silly comedy segments starting trade wars. These are truly very tense times we are living in. The spot has the same cultural arrogance and casual racism that we see in American lampoons of the Middle East, but Iran seems more pissed off by the implication that Israel can wipe out its facilities so easily. I wonder if this is what the international mood was like back in the summer of 1914?

Thanks to Tatjana for the tip

F'd Ad Fridays: Amnesty International tries a classic Bugs Bunny trick

Via IBiA

In this case, let's hope it works.