snip "It just shows you the power of the Internet in the modern world," said Bernard. "American students lack math, science and logic skills. They are filled with sci-fi propaganda from Star Trek and The X-Files. People will believe anything. The whole world has become one big 'Wag-the-Dog' scenario. snip

this paragraph really struck me. the article it is taken from is posted below. the article topic itself is so ridiculous as to boggle the mind. but here it is and people have believed it and it is causing KFC lots of trouble.

i am just wondering how we can apply the above snip to the Y2K scenario.

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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIRTUAL UNREALITY Colonel Sanders doesn't do 'funky chicken' E-mail alleging beakless, footless chickens unleashes furor in Thailand

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Anthony C. LoBaido ) 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

BANGKOK, Thailand -- KFC International, the American-based fast-food behemoth, has found itself caught up in a 21st-century propaganda war which threatens the down-home, folksy image of Colonel Sanders. The Colonel, long an icon overseas of the American way of life -- a symbol of "metalanguage" like Coca-Cola, baseball and McDonalds -- has now been targeted with a massive e-mail disinformation chain letter that is wreaking havoc upon the organization in Thailand, not to mention elsewhere around Asia and the world. At the center of this cyber storm is an e-mail that has been making the rounds of the Internet in recent weeks. It reads as follows:

"KFC has been a part of our American traditions for many years. Many people, day in and day out, eat at KFC religiously. Do they really know what they are eating? During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire, they found some very upsetting facts. First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently, the company has changed their name? Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the 'FRIED' food issue. It's not. The reason why they call it KFC is because they cannot use the word 'chicken' anymore. Why?

"KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms. These so called 'chickens' are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet.

"The [United States] government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say 'chicken' anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this. Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will not see or hear the word 'chicken.' I find this matter to be very disturbing. I hope people will start to realize this and let other people know. Please forward this message to as many people as you can. Together we make KFC start using real chicken again."

While the e-mail chain letter might seem questionable, absurd and even preposterous -- as a matter of fact, it is completely false -- it has generated shock waves in fast-food circles in Thailand, reaching to the highest levels of corporate society.

To begin with, GMO or "genetically modified organisms" are a touchy subject in Thailand, whose huge GMO cotton crop has been called into question as unfit for export to the GMO-septic European Union. As such, the KFC-GMO e-mail scare is being treated as serious business within the fabled Kingdom of Siam.

Suwanna Usanachitt, the managing director of KFC International, Thailand branch, said that KFC has posted information on its corporate website to counter the propaganda spread by the erroneous e-mail chain letter. That information can be found at KFC's website, on which the company states: "Our chicken is purchased through many of the same suppliers that you might find in your local grocery store. Our poultry meets or exceeds USDA standards. Plus, it must pass our own rigorous internal quality guidelines."

Usanachitt said, "The GMO rumor was previously widespread in the U.S. Now it has spread to Thailand. ... We are taking the problem of the rumors very seriously."

KFC International believes the rumors began shortly after the recent spat between the U.S. and European Union in global trade talks over GMO products.

In Thailand, 90 percent of KFC's chickens are supplied by a company named Charoen Pokphand. Adirek Sripratak, the vice president of CPF Plc. -- a subsidiary of CP Group and a major player in the fast-food chicken industry in Thailand -- said that the "Chickens supplied to KFC are free from GMO, as the group exports chickens to Europe and Japan, which has strict regulations against genetically-modified food."

Adirek added that he was "confident that the quality of chicken supplied to KFC restaurants met international health standards and that no GMO source was involved."

"Part of our supplies come from contract farms which rely on national farming methods and feeding processes. They do not inject any chemical-based growth substances into the chickens," he added. The use of growth accelerators is considered "toxic residue" by industry standards.

Other chemical processes involved in chicken farming include injecting chemicals in the form of capsules under the skin of the chickens to prompt the fowl to ingest double the normal level of feed with the aim of faster development. The latter process is only used in sterilized chickens, which rank as only 5 percent of CPF Plc.'s total supply, according to a company spokesman.

CPF Plc. operates a plethora of chicken farms around Thailand, raising 16 million chickens every month. More than 50 percent of all chickens raised are designated for export.

"We only inject vaccines to prevent our chickens from diseases and no chemical substances are fed to accelerate their growth," added Adirek.

WorldNetDaily acquired the e-mail chain letter from Korean-American Susan McDonald, an English teacher and television actress based in South Korea. McDonald is a graduate of Columbia University in New York.

According to the University of New Hampshire's website, "the hoax includes reference to an unspecified study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire and there is no such research or study that was done here."

A spokesman for the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangkok said that she had only recently been made aware of the KFC-GMO e-mail chain letter and, as such, was not prepared to comment.

Numerous Thai nationals interviewed by WorldNetDaily expressed shock, surprise and even horror when presented with the contents of the KFC-GMO e-mail chain letter.

"It sounds horrible," said one Thai mother of two small children. "I don't think I would want to eat at KFC anymore if that's how the chickens are produced."

Rachel Bernard, a Seattle-based surgeon on vacation in Thailand scoffed at the contents of the e-mail when presented to him by WorldNetDaily at a local KFC restaurant.

"I can tell you this e-mail letter is a fraud," she said matter-of-factly.

"No such machinery exists. It's beyond current science. I think the KFC people should be looking into who launched the e-mail. Was it Burger King or Pizza Hut or some other competitor?"

Why would so many people believe the contents of the e-mail?

"It just shows you the power of the Internet in the modern world," said Bernard. "American students lack math, science and logic skills. They are filled with sci-fi propaganda from Star Trek and The X-Files. People will believe anything. The whole world has become one big 'Wag-the-Dog' scenario. But if, as an American, you can't trust in Colonel Sanders, then really, who can you trust?"

http://209.185.131.251/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=&lah=d3740331c62d0703a5f925e547dfe05d&lat=949014424&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2ewnd%2ecom --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anthony C. LoBaido is an international correspondent for WorldNetDaily.

-- boop (leafyspurge@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000

Answers

Anyone remember that corporate rumor maybe 10-15 years back, that ended up being attributed to the company's marketing division for free publicity? wag-the-dog, heh.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000.

---tell ya a real one I saw with me own peepers. I worked tradeshows for just about 15 years, I've seen EVERYTHING a human being can think up to sell, I mean EVERYTHING, yes, even sex at the adult movie producers show...well, anyway, back to chickens. Atlanta has the egg and poultry show every year. When i first started out in 85, they still had live birds on the show. Well, some dood came up with what we workers called "the soylent green chicken machine". This thing was a diesel powerd all in one chicken processing and packaging machine. You dump live chickens in one end, wrapped and frozen chicken whatevers comes out the other end. Dangdest thing ever. They eventually stopped allowing live critters on the showfloor, cuz the ringmeat exhibitors used to just turn them loose on tear down! Funny as all get out, here's all these day laborer freight dogs all running around chasing chickens to take home and eat, it's still funny thinking about it.

--the chicken guys are the second hardest partiers whenever they are in town, guess the first....it's the BAPTISTS! hahahahah! Yep, whenever the southern baptist convention is in town, more booze gets sold, more doods wind up spending the night guest of the county, more hookers move into the hotels, etc etc, and that's REAL funny. Can't tell ya which group is third, probably a toss up between comdex guys, or the "old crows" retired dot mil association. The japanese exhibitors always crack me up, too. real polite, all business until the last night, then they huddle together, and a designated english speaker comes over and asks "Excuse me, can you give directions to 'cheetah three' club?" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA EVERY time! hahahahahah!

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), January 27, 2000.

wog, i think you are WARPED!!

-- boop (leafyspurge@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000.

This is tooooo far fetched. But I can relay to anyone inclined. Those chicken farms (real chickens) were (and probably still are) fed steroids, to promote faster zoom growth. As to the most stoopid story, the mechanical management theory, would take more money and effort, than doing the "real thing". Perhaps, I should now tackle my cackling bunch, and put them on mechanical management? Don't need to, their inborn reproduction drive, is in over-drive. Must be an animal thing.

-- What? No Chicken Fingers? (No Toes@nofingers.com), January 27, 2000.

Zog, what a riot---the Baptists, huh? Cheetah3 club, heh. I had a client who used to be the liver plucker for Perdue, no kidding--her job was to cut out the liver on each bird as it past. Eck.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000.

Hokie, be sensitive here. You are a Shrink, right? Not all this earths' folks are born into money, most of them (us) just try to eek out a financial living, in this life time.

-- Prez-politic-mayor-lawyer (Indi@nchief.com), January 27, 2000.

zog- I particularly enjoy trying to pull my Japanese clients out of Tiffany's, down in the Flats. They are typically there for the duration (3 AM) and when they Do come out there is enough glaze in their eyes to skate on.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 27, 2000.

OT

"Why is it best to always go golfing with two Baptists?"

"Because if you only go with one, he'll drink all of your beer."

heard in Waco, TX, home of Baylor University.

-- mommacarestx (nospam@thanks.com), January 27, 2000.

What this story demonstrates is how gullible and ignorant most people really are. The comment made about the X-Files and Star Trek is on target. The bulk of the sheeple have sacrificed their intellectual capacity on the altar of television and Hollywood marketing gurus.

You can be sure this hoax will have a long life, just like the old urban legend about Procter & Gamble being Satanists...which is STILL making the rounds in the chain letter/fwd to your friends crowd.

Geez!

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), January 27, 2000.

i stopped going to KFC when one location had the colonel laying there in an open casket...

-- INever (inevercheckmy@onebox.com), January 27, 2000.

Please! INever...tell me you jest!

-- Kyle (fordtbonly@aol.com), January 27, 2000.

How about some Klan Fried Chicken from Corbin, Kentucky?

-- Fast Food is my life (couchpot@to.com), January 28, 2000.

It's a proven fact that 45% of the chickens are diseased! Stupid people are eating them by the millions and then they wonder why they are sick!

-- ... (...@...com), January 28, 2000.

Chicken

Think the subject of contaminated chicken has been done to death?

Think again.

Find out just how foul eating fowl can be.

Consider these realities:

The average North American eats more than 50 pounds of chicken per year roughly double the amount consumed just 20 years ago.

At least 1,000 US citizens are killed each year by contaminated chicken. As many as 80 million others are sickened.

Inspectors have about two seconds to visually examine the inside and outside of each chicken. At this rate, inspectors may examine 12,000 or more chickens in one day.

There are presently 1,370 unfilled federal meat inspector positions. In 1994 and 1995, more than 1.9 million inspection tasks went unperformed because of these vacancies.

A 3-ounce serving of chicken breast contains 75 mgs of cholesterol. A 3-ounce serving of ground beef contains 72 mgs. No plant foods contain cholesterol.

The owner of the nation's largest chicken producer Don Tyson earns about $5 million in salary, dividends and bonuses each year. Pay for workers on the poultry line are less than for any other manufacturing industry except apparel.

More than 90 percent of US chickens and eggs are produced on factory farms. Roughly 7.5 billion chickens were slaughtered in the US in 1995.

In a single year, US poultry operations use enough water to meet all the domestic needs of nearly 4.5 million North Americans.

Producing one egg takes about 63 gallons of water.

Full citations for this brochure are available upon request or see www.earthsave.org.

Eating chicken is proving to be an especially hazardous enterprise...

For starters, approximately 30 percent of chicken is tainted with Salmonella and 62 percent with its equally virulent cousin, Campylobacter.

Time magazine calls raw chicken "one of the most dangerous items in the American home," and each year in the US alone, contaminated chicken kills at least 1,000 people while sickening as many as 80 million others.

It's no surprise really that chicken is decidedly foul. Desperately crowded factory farms--where more than 90 percent of US chickens and eggs are raised--are fertile breeding grounds for disease. Additionally, slaughterhouses do an excellent job of spreading pathogens from one bird to the next.

Even if chicken was pathogen-free (clearly an unsafe assumption for any shopper to make), it would hardly qualify as wholesome. Not only is chicken nearly devoid of health-promoting compounds found only in plant foods--things like complex carbohydrates, antioxidants, phytochemicals and fiber--it also contains other suspect ingredients rarely recommended as part of a healthy diet.

Cholesterol. You'll find just as much artery-filling cholesterol in chicken as in beef and pork. Cholesterol is found exclusively in muscle tissue and can't be trimmed away.

Protein. People can meet or exceed their protein requirements simply by choosing a varied plant-centered diet and eating ample calories, says the American Dietetic Association. No animal foods are necessary. Many North Americans already eat twice the protein they need, and excessive protein has been linked to osteoporosis, kidney disease and other medical problems.

Antibiotic Residues. Roughly half of all antibiotics used in the US are fed to farm animals. If meat contains drug residues, it's highly unlikely to be detected, as these tests are rarely conducted.

Mystery Feed. Each year billions of pounds of slaughterhouse leftovers are made into animal reed, much of it for chickens. Chickens are also sometimes fed manure, which may contain pesticides, drug residues, pathogens, heavy metals, hormones and microbial toxins.

If you took a raw chicken and dropped it in a cow pile or in a pile of chicken manure, would you pick it up, wash it off and cook it for dinner? That's just about what's happening at these plants. -- Pat Godfrey, Inspector Tyson's chicken processing plant, Springdale, Arkansas

Despite millions of people falling ill each year, the US Department of Agriculture (the government agency responsible for meat safety) continues to stamp every thigh, breast and wing with its seal of approval, prompting many to ask, "Who's minding the henhouse?" Sadly, USDA has historically placed the interests of the influential poultry industry ahead of those of the poultry-consuming public. A new, more- scientific governrnent meat inspection system has been agreed upon in principle, but tangible improvements remain years away.

A poultry plant is not a good place to work. When you miss a day they punish you. If you're sick they punish you. The supervisors holler at you, but you can't say anything. They treat you like a child. -- Wonder Sims, 23, poultry worker.

The horrors found routinely inside chicken slaughterhouses are not limited to grisly scenes of disassembled chickens. They also include treacherous working conditions and dismally low wages. In 1994, a Wall Street Journal writer described the work he experienced first-hand in several slaughterhouses as, "faster than ever before, subject to Orwellian control and electronic surveillance, arid reduced to limited tasks that are numbingly repetitive, potentially crippling and stripped of any meaningful skills or chance to develop them... The work was so fast-paced that it took on a zany chaos, with arms and boxes and poultry flying in every direction."

Chicken production also exacts a steep environmental toll. It takes up to 700 gallons of water, six pounds of grain, and the equivalent of about one-fifth a gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of chicken. In addition, manure from the chicken industry is directly responsible for wide-spread pollution of waterways and groundwater.

Unless we dramatically curb our appetite for chicken, the future seems grim. We can expect more people hospitalized and killed by contaminated chicken, and more families mourning the loss of loved ones. We can look forward to more rivers ;and drinking water fouled with manure, more workers facing perilous tasks and lousy pay, and much more animal suffering. Despite the present horrors and bleak forecast, however, consumers continue to sleepwalk through the checkout line with shopping carts full of fowl. One can only wonder, when will we awaken from this nightmare?

For references and more information on this subject, please see: http://www.earthsave.org/ chicken.htm

-- ... (...@...com), January 28, 2000.

-- ...(Mr. hates chicken),
Haven't I seen you putting up those "Eat mor' Beef" billboards?


-- Possible Impact (posim@hotmail.com), January 28, 2000.

don't anyone panic, i am a vegetarian

-- boop (leafyspurge@hotmail.com), January 28, 2000.