I wasn't surprised. Were you?

South Korea's largest tobacco company is in hot water over their ad campaign for the new This Africa cigarette. The campaign uses monkeys instead of people.

Unsurprisingly, people are pissed off and consider the ad racist and offensive.

Unsurprisingly, KT&G (the company in question) never thought the ad would be considered racist or offensive.

Unsurprisingly, KT&G even tried to blame foreigners for the "problems" with the ad campaign.

I would have been surprised if the company just said "Yes, we fucked up. Sorry." But I know better than to expect something like that. Why accept responsibility when you can pretend to do so while blaming foreigners.

What the ... bureautards?!?!? Part 2

As mentioned in the previous post on this subject I mailed my info to the branch of the Canada Revenue Agency dealing with Canadians living abroad. Thus letting the branch know what the main office didn't, that I had been living in Canada, and filing taxes, since 2010. That way they would know I don't owe them a dime for having my Tax Free Savings Account ... since the main office doesn't see fit to keep the branches informed on peoples status changes.

That was around August 25th 2013. Today, October 3rd 2013 I received a letter from CRA dated September 27th. A MONTH after I sent them the information. Information that couldn't be given over the bloody phone to start the process. Information the main branch has but couldn't simply memo them about. It had to be mailed to them from me.

Stupidly, I kind of expected it to simply say everything has been cleared up. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. Of course it will be a longer process. This letter was to thank me for the additional information about my 2010 tax return (what about 2011? 2012? Everything was mentioned in the letter.) And to let me know that they will review the information and advise me of the results.

What a bunch of bureautards.

So, once again, to warn those who played by the rules and let CRA know you were a non-resident Citizen of Canada, YOU have to the specific department within CRA know when you have returned. Filing your tax returns is not enough. CRA itself will NOT inform them of your status change. Kind of makes me wonder if the BS is worth playing by the rules for.