The food industry used an absurdly contrived "experiment" to prove that parents should let their kids eat junk foods in a study published in the June 1999 issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The food-industry researchers taunted preschoolers by displaying an item of junk food while forbidding them to eat it. After five days of this treatment, they found, the kids' desire for the food item had increased.

By his own account, Barry R. Clausen has infiltrated radical environmental groups, staked out logging protests and helped bust a drug ring. He has testified before Congress about a rising tide of eco-terror, has been quoted scores of times in the national and international press and has appeared, he reckons, on 150 talk radio shows. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation and many other law enforcers don't see any sign of the surging eco-terror Mr. Clausen describes. Pressed, he acknowledges that his list of documented terror incidents includes graffiti and pie-throwings.

A scathing item by Tony Seideman ravages Microsoft's PR tactics, arguing that "the company's internal story is so far from what others are seeing that it is enraging members of the media who would rather be friendly, straining people's credibility and ultimately harming its own interests." Through its media relations operatives at Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft has tracked its press coverage with "spreadsheet precision and wooed select tech reporters for key media outlets via command audiences with Bill." The result, Seideman says, is a cult-like atmosphere within the company: "There is a poin