Word: ftc
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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This all started in 1997 when the FTC, which has a very deluded, Douglas MacArthur self-image, began "Operation Waistline," which is always referred to in quotation marks in the report. Basically, "Operation Waistline" consisted of sending out letters to publications warning them about running ads with false claims. These letters, the FTC was shocked to learn, were universally ignored. The FTC researchers never asked themselves if they would open a letter with the return address of "Operation Waistline...
...vengeful FTC apparently spent the next half-decade sublimating in a 60-page report with all the appalled earnestness of a freshman college paper, only with really nice 3-D color charts. At one point it reads: "An ad for a product made from ground-up shells of shrimps, crabs and lobster asks, 'Have you ever seen an overweight fish?'... In fact there is no convincing evidence that the shells of shrimps, crabs or lobsters cause weight loss." Not only that, but, as I accidentally proved in third grade, you can indeed get a fish so fat that it will...
...love your stuff too" or "my editor took out all the good fen/phen jokes." However, he invited me to be a member of the panel of the Weight Loss Advertising Workshop in Washington on Nov. 19--he said I could fill out the application form on the FTC website if I wanted to. But it didn't seem as if we were bonding. In fact, I ultimately decided against attending the meeting when he told me the agency isn't allowed to serve food. "One of our rules is that we don't supply food for conferences. If we have...
...phone psychics? Gene Shalit? The woman on the other end of the phone-sex line who probably isn't a 25-year-old blond with large breasts and a penchant for the phrase "much funnier writer than David Sedaris"? I may have revealed a little too much to the FTC...
...Cleland to admit that most people who buy diet pills know they don't work, and that the Venn diagram of those people and the people who read FTC reports doesn't have enough overlap to be worth 2 1/2 years of effort. What he didn't understand, and why he should use whatever little bit of remaining FTC budget he has left to take his staff to a Eugene O'Neill play, is that people want to be deceived. You don't go to John Edward because you believe, but because it's nice to pretend you believe...