Posted on 07/25/2003 11:19:21 AM PDT by scab4faa
The city of Las Vegas has concluded that a local company’s claims that it was charging men up to $10,000 to “hunt” naked women with paintball guns was a hoax, it was reported Friday.
“IT WOULD APPEAR from all sorts of admissions ... that the purported Hunt for Bambi was a scam, that it was all staged, that there were actors and actresses and there wasn’t even the real shooting of paintballs,” Mayor Oscar Goodman told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Thursday.
City officials told the newspaper that the mastermind of the scam, Michael Burdick, acknowledged that some hunts were staged in order to fool the media and generate sales of spoof hunting videos.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
On February 20, 1993, CBS aired "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark," Sun International Pictures' rehash of its 1976 film "In Search of Noah's Ark." At the end of June, Skeptics Society advisor Gerald Larue publicly revealed (via Associated Press and Time magazine) that George Jammal, one of the alleged eyewitnesses of Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat, was a hoaxer, and that Larue himself had played a role in the hoax. The purpose: to demonstrate the shoddy research of Sun International Pictures.CBS, Sun, and the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) set out to control the damage to their credibility by defending the program against the criticisms of Larue. Since Jammal was continuing to defend his story, at first the three organizations went on the offensive against Larue.
CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky stated that "There was clearly a hoax perpetrated ... we're not sure whether it was on Sun International and CBS or whether it was on Time magazine." A press release from Sun called it "sad and unfortunate that Dr. LaRue [sic], a distinguished USC professor, would victimize Mr. Jammal and his family to execute a third party hoax in which he was the primary benefactor."
John Morris, the Administrative Vice President of the ICR, made much of Larue's "long association with humanistic and anti-Christian organizations" and concluded that "This is hardly the resume of an objective critic." All defended the overall quality of Sun's research.
But subsequent events began to undermine a defense based on Jammal's veracity. On August 26, 1993, the Long Beach Press-Telegram--Jammal's hometown newspaper--ran a story about the hoax. In the story, Jammal did not admit to a hoax, but stated in response to a question about his religious background that "If I told you that, you'd know the secret." The reporter noted in the article that a poem framed in glass on Jammal's piano begins, "Humanism is a philosophy for people who think for themselves ...."
The September 1993 issue of Freethought Today, the monthly publication of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), announced that Jammal had been a member of the Foundation since 1986, and was scheduled to be a speaker at the group's annual convention at the end of October--where he would reveal his hoax.
Sun's position evolved, and their press release was revised to say that "Sun researchers now believe [Jammal] may eventually confess to committing a hoax." It continued to defend the quality of their research, however, stating that Jammal's confession "would mean that he has through an elaborate lie successfully hoaxed well-meaning individuals, religious groups, psychiatrists, Ararat explorers, and others since 1986. Even our exhaustive research would have failed to uncover this hoaxer if that in fact is what he is by his own future admission."
Now that Jammal has revealed his hoax at the FFRF convention, to the Los Angeles Times, and on a public access cable program produced by Atheists United, it is clear that Sun did present false information in their program.
But is their defense sound? How extensive was their research? Did Jammal engage in an elaborate hoax that resisted even the most cautious investigation? Or did Sun simply present claims which supported a particular viewpoint--that Noah's Ark has been found on Mt. Ararat--without regard for truth or accuracy?
Not at all. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if you could find some French"men" who would willingly submit themselves to such humiliation. It's in their blood. I must say, you have a most excellent idea there. ....but just make sure those twerps are fully clothed.
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