not all publicity is good publicity
The First Amendment only precludes government restraint of speech. It does not preclude punishment, after the fact, at the hands of the offended.
A new case in point is Heartland Institute’s disgusting billboard. World renowned astronomer and rational thought champion Phil Plait reported it well in his Discover magazine blog, “Bad Astronomy.” I am lucky enough to have met Phil (he is a wonderful soul) and I’m sure he won’t mind if I quote his blog below. (To read the whole thing, you’ll need to visit his original post. To cut to it right now, click here.)
—Steve Cuno
FOLLOWUP: Heartland Institute’s billboards are costing them donors By Phil Plait From his Discover magazine blog “Bad Astronomy” I wrote a few days ago about the disgusting billboards put up by the far-right Heartland Institute, a climate-change denial group that apparently has no lower bounds to what they’ll do. The billboards, which went up in Chicago, likened climate scientists (and anyone who knows global warming is real) to mass murderers and madmen. It was repulsive and hateful. After an uproar — and in less than a day — Heartland took down the billboards, but didn’t apologize for them. Instead they claimed it was an "experiment", and declared victory in getting attention. This would be why I use the words repulsive and disgusting. But the damage was done — this tactic has backfired on Heartland... (read the rest of Phil Plait’s post by clicking here now) |