According to ExxonMobil's 2008 Corporate Citizenship Report and Worldwide Giving Report, the oil giant is still funding global warming skeptics. Following an unprecedented rebuke from Britain's Royal Society in 2006, Exxon said it would stop funding -- in the Society's words -- groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change." However, Exxon funding is still flowing to the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory, the home of skeptics Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. Baliunas "built her denial career downplaying the significance of the destruction of the ozone layer," at the George C. Marshall Institute, an Exxon-funded think tank. Soon has "become one of the go-to skeptics, appearing as a key speaker" at the Heartland Institute's conferences questioning climate change. Though the "Observatory is the research arm of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics," writes Greenpeace's Kert Davies, it "has little to do with either the Smithsonian or Harvard," while "Smithsonian has distanced itself from Baliunas, who discredits their name."

The Halifax-Plympton Reporter received a letter to the editor urging "that people contact their congressman about the Medicare Advantage program," a "sort of privatized health plan paid for via the recipient's Medicare. Reportedly, there's some interest in doing away with the program." The actual, physical letter was in the name of a local resident, but it didn't mention any of the local Congressional delegation, which the newspaper's editor, Matthew Nadler, found strange. So, he called the man who had supposedly written and mailed the letter. "He had no idea what I was talking about," Nadler reports. Then, "I got a phone call Monday from a young man who said he was calling on behalf of the letter's non-writer. I told him what happened, and I think I had some pointed words about what was a pretty sleazy use of an elderly person. I asked the caller who he was and who he worked for. Which, not surprisingly, I suppose, he declined to tell me." However, Nadler could see his phone number, and traced it back to the Dewey Square Group, a high-powered, Democratic-associated lobbying firm. Nadler notes that "their Web site doesn't list their clients, but it doesn't take a genius, or a newspaper editor, to figure out they've been hired by someone with an interest in keeping Medicare Advantage in business." The firm's site "promises 'grassroots' communication," but, he concludes, "it looks more like Astroturf from here."

Georgia Power, a subsidiary of the energy utility Southern Power, has mounted an intensive lobbying campaign for legislation that would allow it to bill customers now for as much as $2 billion of the $14 billion price tag of two new nuclear reactors proposed for the Vogtle power station. The utility, notes Associated Press reporter Shannon McCaffrey, has employed five lobbyists, used its four in-house lobbyists, and paid for meals for the House Republican leadership, House Democrats and the executive committee of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus. McCaffrey's article was published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the day before it published an opinion column by former Greenpeace activist turned PR consultant Patrick Moore. Moore, who enthusiastically championed Georgia Power's case, was simply described as the "co-chairman of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition'' which supports "increased use of nuclear energy." The paper didn't disclose that the coalition was created and is funded by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), and that Georgia Power is one of NEI's members (pdf).

Patrick MooreIt is "inevitable that a small amount of ingested pharmaceuticals will eventually show up at trace levels in wastewater," Greenpeace activist turned industry PR consultant Patrick Moore writes in an op/ed. "The Pharmaceutical Assessment and Transport Evaluation (PhATE) model has been developed by industry as a tool to estimate concentrates of pharmaceutical residues in surface waters. ... But some activist organizations still push for costly and unnecessary controls. In Washington, Oregon and Illinois, for example, interest groups who believe that any trace amount of any compound in wastewater must be stopped at all cost are proposing an elaborate take-back plan." At the end of the op/ed, Moore is identified as "an adviser to government and industry." Moore's colleague at Greenspirit Strategies, Tom Tevlin, told the Center for Media and Democracy that the PR firm does count pharmaceutical companies among its clients. However, Tevlin would not name them. The PhATE model that Moore praised in his op/ed was developed by PhRMA, the major U.S. drug industry group.

Mark PennUntil March 2008, the major public relations firm Burson-Marsteller counted among its clients the Pakistan People's Party, as the Center for Media and Democracy previously reported. Burson-Marsteller promised to influence U.S. policy and public opinion, via contacts with "100 American political journalists and business elites," by favorable "white papers" by academics and op/ed columns in newspapers. The firm also pledged to "promote credible 'third-party' supporters of Pakistan," including "former U.S. government officials," "think tank experts" and influential Pakistani-Americans. The Pakistan lobbying contract, which also involved the polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland, specifically mentioned New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria as outreach targets. Luckily for Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton -- whose former campaign strategist, Mark Penn, heads Burson-Marsteller and Penn, Schoen -- the firms' work for Pakistan ended "well before [November's] terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India." Otherwise the Penn-Pakistan connection could have been used by "opposition researchers dredging up tough questions" for Clinton's confirmation hearing.

People are questioning the propriety of a new TV and Internet ad that resurrects the voice and image of murdered Beatle John Lennon to promote the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation, which supplies durable, low-cost laptop computers to underprivileged children in foreign countries. The ad digitally recreates Lennon's voice, with his bespectacled face appearing to mouth the words, "Imagine every child, no matter where in the world they were, could access a universe of knowledge. They would have a chance to learn, to dream, to achieve anything they want. I tried to do it through my music, but now you can do it in a very different way. You can give a child a laptop, and more than imagine, you can change the world." Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, gave permission to use her husband's image free of charge, and the ad was created pro-bono, but still people are finding the idea of manipulating dead celebrities to promote products "creepy" and unsettling. A comment in a Laptop Magazine blog laid out a common opinion of such ads: "What's next? Elvis for peace in Darfur? John Wayne would probably have gotten behind AIDS education and prevention measures ... Where does it end? Why do we need dead people to help us envision a better future? I suppose there's nobody alive that would agree to this? Sad times."