A Baseline for LCN DNA Analysis

This came up in a discussion about JonBenét Ramsey. The main point in the discussion was that a baseline was needed for touch DNA analysis, which became synonymous with Low Copy Number (LCN) analysis. There is quite a bit of background here that needs to be covered as well, because this case will is also an example for this post. If you want to read the short answer, just scroll all the way down to the last line.

Background and Evidence

In 1996 she was found dead in the basement of her parents' home in Boulder, Colorado and the case is still unsolved. There has been much discussion of who actually committed the crime, some arguing the parents did it, others an intruder, but there is no resolution in sight. In a way it echoes the Azaria Chamberlain disappearance here in Australia in that there are people who think that Lindy Chamberlain killed her daughter and blamed the dingoes.

Back in 2008 the Washington Times reported that the Boulder DA had cleared the Ramseys (although Patsy Ramsey had died in 2006). Forensic Scientists had analysed touch DNA on the leggings that she was wearing on the night she died. This DNA matched DNA found on her panties.

Now it gets a little tricky here. DNA was also found under her fingernails the belonged to an unknown person. Now according to CBS News 48 Hours this DNA also matched that on her panties. I'm having trouble finding corroborating evidence for this, but assuming that it's all true we've got DNA from under her fingernails, DNA on her panties, and touch DNA from her leggings. Apparently these all match.

It's the last one that caused this discussion, but there is still a little more to cover.

What is "touch DNA"?

"Touch DNA" is a term that describes DNA that is left by touching an object.

The concept relates to Locard's exchange principle, which essentially explains the idea behind trace evidence. Whenever you do something you will leave a trace behind. It may not necessarily be DNA but it will be something from you. This includes hair samples, fibres, footprints and fingerprints. The opposite is also true, you will take something from the place you are at. This includes dirt in your shoes, other fibres or hairs and the like.

Touch DNA is an extension of this idea. Since some of the things that make up fingerprints includes skin cells it is possible to extract DNA from a fingerprint. However such DNA does not have to come from a fingerprint, it may come from other body parts as well, so your clothes will contain extractable and examinable DNA as well.

This article from the FBI analysed DNA gathered from clothing. They gathered DNA from both the inside and outside of the clothes and analysed it for DNA. Interestingly they found samples of DNA from other people including spouses and in one case from someone who nobody knew at all. The fact that this was from a newly opened package of hosiery made things all the more interesting.

This article was cited as evidence as to why a baseline was needed.

But before we look at that we will need to look at what LCN DNA analysis is.

What is LCN DNA Analysis? How does it relate in this case?

Low Copy Number Analysis, also called/considered a subset of Low Template Analysis, is the analysis of small amounts of DNA. Normally this analysis is used when regular Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) analysis doesn't provide a testable amount of DNA. The sample sizes that we are looking at here is less then 200 pg (about 2x10^-13kg). Normally samples contain about 0.5 to 2ng (5x10^-13kg to 2x10^-12kg) of DNA usually because you amplify it with PCR. The University of Leicester has a page on the subject.

PCR is best describes as a DNA photocopier. It uses the same proteins that are used in DNA copying, although the taq polymerase comes from Thermus Aquaticus, a thermophilic bacteria, so the polymerase is able to withstand higher temperatures, like those used to separate the DNA strands. It should be noted that it copies the DNA of everything that's in the sample, so contamination is a very real problem and great care is taken to prevent it.

Normal PCR amplification uses about 28 cycles. LCN adds an extra 6 cycles, so the amplification process uses 34 cycles.

As far as I'm aware there is, as yet, no data available as to how much touch DNA was gathered. It was assumed that it was a very small amount, so naturally it was assumed that LCN analysis was used.

Has LCN DNA Analysis been used in other cases?

In Australia such analysis was used in the murder of Peter Falconio. DNA was found on cable ties that were used to bind Joanne Lees. The DNA was found to belong to Bradley John Murdoch, who was later convicted of the murder. The court was told at the time that the odds of it belonging to someone else were 1 in 150 quadrillion.

In 2007 it was used in the Omagh bombing case in the UK. After concerns from the justice in the case the CPS suspended the use of LCN, and ordered a study. In 2008 the CPS announced that there was no inherent unreliability in the analysis.

It has also been used in cases like the murder of Anna Lindh, a Swedish politician, where the DNA came from a knife handle, and in the murder of Marion Crofts. This pdf from the Forensic Science Service has a few more examples.

So why a baseline?

The logic behind the baseline is that with the small amounts of DNA involved there might be an increase in the number of people falsely accused by DNA evidence.

Therefore a baseline of some sort should be found to see if the DNA is coincidental or not. The idea being once you have the baseline you will be able to discriminate between "coincidental" and "relevant" samples.

In my opinion though there is no way to statistically determine whether a sample is coincidental. The DNA needs to be processed and looked at in light of the other evidence. In the Ramsey case it's that this DNA appeared on the leggings, the panties, and under her fingernails. It was found to be the same DNA. But how did it get there?

DNA Transfer

LCN analysis is rather recent, the earliest case is from 1999, but the concept of DNA transfer is older, but has not been studied in great detail. There are plenty of articles out there though.

One of the issues brought up in the Ramsey discussion was that the DNA could have been transferred by JonBenét herself. Theoretically this is possible, but there is limited evidence that it did occur.

It depends on how it transferred, and also how much DNA was found. If we were to see transference we would see much DNA under her fingernails, and less on the clothing in the order that she put them on.

Now DNA transference can be ordered. Firstly we have primary transfer. This is DNA transferred when when you touch a doorknob, or a mouse, or shake hands with someone. The DNA is being transferred directly from you to the person or object. This is essentially a given.

Next is secondary transfer. This is when DNA is transferred to a third party. So let's say Person A shakes hands with Person B. Some of Person A's DNA will be transferred to Person B. This is primary transfer. Then Person B uses the same hand to open a door. Some of his DNA will be transferred (again primary), and some of Person A's DNA will be transferred. The latter is secondary transfer. Person A didn't touch the doorknob but some of his DNA is on it.

There have been studies that examine this. Lowe et al. examined this in the 2002 paper The propensity of individuals to deposit DNA and secondary transfer of low level DNA from individuals to inert surfaces (abstract here). They started by determining how good a DNA shedder the subjects were. Once they determined who was a good shedder and who was a poor shedder they washed the hands of the poor shedder and got them to shake hands with the good shedder. The poor shedder then touched an object and they used LCN analysis to see which profiles they found.

Turns out the poor shedder is a poor shedder for 6 hours after they wash their hands, and they managed to find the good shedder on the object.

However, Ladd et al. found in A systematic analysis of secondary DNA transfer (1999) (here) found no transfer, they also found that primary transfer was:

[H]ighly dependent upon the individual handling the objects or performing the handshaking.

Next is tertiary transfer. In the example with Person A and Person B tertiary transfer would be if Person C touched the same doorknob that Person B did. Some of Person B's DNA would be transferred to Person C's hand, and so would some of Person A's. The former is secondary transfer, while the latter is tertiary transfer.

I have not found any papers that deal with tertiary transfer. The closest that I could find was from G. N. Rutty in An investigation into the transference and survivability of human DNA following simulated manual strangulation with consideration of the problem of third party contamination (abstract) . The article doesn't examine tertiary transfer but uses it as a theoretical pathway as to how the unrelated DNA got on the "victim's" throat. Beyond that I've found nothing.

Parameters and Logic.

There are quite a few parameters that need to be examined. So beyond the level of DNA transfer, we would need to look at shedder type, so the odds of being a good/poor shedder, washing in general, how the people touch the object, and I think it would be fair to say the kind of object that they touch.

We are looking at a vast number of possibilities, and the reason for that is just to determine whether a sample is coincidental or not.

But we also have to look at the evidence. There is very little evidence for transfer beyond secondary. Anything above that appears to be theoretical.

But we must remember that logic would need to be applied based on the evidence.

So one possibility is that JonBenét came in contact with some guy's DNA. That somehow got under her fingernails. One suggestion for that is "dirty hands". She then touched her clothes with these fingers and the DNA transferred. So clothes wise we are looking at DNA that is at least secondary transfer DNA, but could actually be in levels that haven't been examined yet. The other thing is that when stuff gets under fingernails it usually stays there until removed.

The stranger possibility was that the DNA was on the panties when some guy at the factory touched them. I don't see that as logical at all, especially considering that the DNA under the fingernails was found and analysed far earlier then the leggings.

My own opinion is that it was a bunch of primary transfers. The DNA got under her fingernails by scratching, which is primary transfer. The DNA got on the leggings and the panties when the person touched them, which is more primary transfer.

But now I think it's time to answer the question.

Is a baseline even possible?

In my opinion it's simply no. LCN DNA already relies on standards set by the relevant government. It still needs to match 13 loci in the US. In the UK they would still need to match the 10 loci, and according to the University of Leicester the last 6 cycles are amplified in duplicate and alleles that appear in both can be used in a profile.

The legal standards will not change because the analysis is different.

One thing that I have noticed is that there are no baselines for other pieces of trace evidence. This is probably the most damning factor in the argument for a baseline. Why should one type of trace evidence have a baseline while all other types of trace evidence be exempt from such a baseline.

It's simply because there is no way to statistically discriminate between relevant and coincidental evidence. In a crime everything collected is potential evidence. It doesn't matter if it's touch DNA, a fibre, or blood spatter on a carpet, it's all evidence until it can be determined that it isn't. In a way it's backwards to what we would think. It's evidence until it isn't, not it's not evidence until it is.

Once we know that, say the vomit in the sink, actually belongs to a paramedic who didn't tell anyone that he threw up, it's potential evidence and should be processed accordingly. That's the reason why it's called an investigation. Because you investigate leads. There are no statistics that will allow you to discriminate evidence.

Lastly there is one other reason why a baseline is stupid. It's just one big red herring.

More on Ubisoft's DRM

If you're reading this then you've most likely read my previous post regarding Ubisoft's DRM for Assassin's Creed II.

I want to write my own review of the game, but I don't know how many spoilers I want to include (if any) but I want to get this out there.

First off, my opinion of the DRM now that I've actually got the game is that it's not as bad as I first thought.

It doesn't use that much bandwidth, probably because I've turned off the cloud saving.

But it still sucks and I still don't like it. Right now I have to make sure that anything else that's downloading isn't, and that includes Windows updates, so no downloading pod- or vodcasts while playing single player games, or frankly, downloading anything because the game becomes a little glitchy.

At one point I wanted to play the game and had to spend some time figuring out why my internet connection wasn't working properly, which if I was playing any other single player game, even those using Steam, I could play offline without worrying.

But the most annoying thing is being interrupted in cutscenes or a fight where all of a sudden you get a message telling you that it's trying to re-connect to the server. Then I have to see what is causing the problem, if it's indeed something on my end or actually just some stupid thing out of my control.

It ruins the experience. Especially when you're at say, the pivotal moment of the reveal and then you're given the crappy gaming equivalent of the intermission in Monty Python, only with fewer colours and no organ music.

But if this Escapist article is anything to go by, other people are just as annoyed when the server happens to go down. That is something beyond their control.

Personally I believe that Ubisoft should not take the stance that those of us who bought/received legitimate copies of this game as our approval of the DRM. The reason that there are people who aren't pirating the game is because they want to acknowledge the work of the programmers, not the idiots who thought the DRM would be a good idea.

At least Steam give us an offline mode.

Some Sharia in Australia?

From an article from the ABC.

Dr Zachariah Matthews, the president of the Australian Islamic Mission wants certain aspects of Sharia to be implemented as a "parallel legal system".

My own opinion is that it's a stupid idea.

And I think that is a stupid idea for all religious groups. There shouldn't be a separate legal system for people of certain religions at all. I don't care if it is Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Baha'i, Christians or even Scientologists.

Nobody should have access to their own special courts because of their religion, nor should they get any special privileges given to them because of these courts.

The two examples given in the article are:

"When it comes to Muslim family law there are issues relating to the legal age of marriage," [Dr. Matthews] said.

"In Muslim law, for example, as in Singapore, the legal age for both parties is 16 rather than as it stands currently [at] 18.

"There's also the issue of the waiting period [between] separation and divorce, which is currently specified at 12 months. In Muslim family law that could be a lot shorter."

The first one looks, to me at least, as a way around current consent laws. The Sex Discrimination Act 1991 (Cth) raised the marriageable age of women to 18 from 16, bringing it in line with men.

It is, however, possible to marry at a younger age, because if you are older then 16, but younger then 18 you can go to a judge and get an order permitting the marriage, according to section 12 of the Marriage Act 1961 (Cth).

I also must wonder where Dr. Matthews got that age from. From what I've found the legal marriageable age in Singapore is 21 and the Registry of Marriages in Singapore has a whole section regarding what needs to be done if you are under 18 and want to get married, which includes a counselling session.

Taking a quick look at this list on Wikipedia most Muslim countries have marriageable ages comparable to non-Muslim countries, and a younger age appears to be typical for women.

The point on divorce just looks like queue jumping to me. From what I'm aware the intention of the year long wait is to allow for the possibility of reconciliation and also to allow both parties to calm down and work things out amicably. Religious requirements for divorce already cause problems in some cases according to letter of advice to the Attorney General and that's considering that marriage is, under the Marriage Act, secular and not religious.

I mentioned earlier that we shouldn't play favourites regarding religion, the reason I mentioned that was because of the end of the article:

But Dr Matthews says the minor changes proposed would only apply to Muslims.

"As long as that concession does not infringe on the rights of others and society at large, then the question I'm asking is, are we not mature enough or sophisticated enough to manage that type of diversity?" he said.

There's the rub. The examples given regarding marriage, in my opinion at least, do infringe on the rights of others. They are suggesting that Muslims should be treated differently and have different recourse on civil matters. Marriage and divorce are not religious matters under Australian law, they are civil matters.

And as such they should be dealt with in civil courts, not religious ones.

Perhaps I'm being a bit hasty here, all the news articles that I could find seem to cover the same thing. I haven't managed to find a copy of the speech that Dr. Matthews gave, so I don't know if I'm taking what he said out of context. But based on what I've read I feel my points are valid.

Responding to comments.

Well, I haven't responded to comments in a while (yes, this blog does get comments) so I figured I might as well do one now, since it's only four days until Uni starts and I can't get any sleep at all.

Both are from "truthers" and both come from the post Debunking 9/11.com is a PNAC front.

The first is from some guy called "John". His comment is technically spam, because it's just telling us about Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth:

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” -- Arthur Schopenhauer

Yes, clearly being ridiculed means that what you say must be true. Just like saying "the moon is made of purple dinosaurs" or "gold is really blue cheese". Clearly being ridiculed for holding such a view means that what you say is true, it's the first stage of being true. Now all I need is someone to beat the crap out of me for saying one of these stupid comments and I'll be one stage further then the "truth" movement.

"1,000 Architects & Engineers Call for New 9/11 Investigation "

More than 1,000 worldwide architects and engineers now support the call for a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. After careful examination of the official explanation, along with the forensic data omitted from official reports, these professionals have concluded that a new independent investigation into these mysterious collapses is needed.

Yep. Because in todays world, one thousand people is a huge number, I mean it's only 0.0003288827559417241% (July 2008 - 304,059,724) of the US population, or 0.00001494314817189223% (2008 number - 6,692,030,277) of the population of the world or 0.0046785814541031% of the population of Australia (2008 - 21374000).

To be fair if they were in say, the Vatican then they would be a powerful force because there are more of them then people in the Vatican, but that's irrelevant.

Compare that 1000, with the ~1.5 million people who are fans of this pickle. But I guess that means that the architects are more truthful.

Either way it's just an argument from numbers.

Perhaps there should be a list of architects and engineers who don't think that there should be a new investigation?

The second is from "anonymous". It's very much a disjointed rant which I shall make more disjointed by responding to it thusly:

There is no need for pseudo-scientific ranting of vectors or Newton's Laws of Motion.

Wow, I never knew that I made a pseudo-scientific rant on the laws of motion. If someone can point out where I did, I'd appreciate it.

The JREF forum has debunked Newton countless times.

I wonder which Newton this is? Perhaps some clarification is in order.

He also has not taken the million-dollar challenge.

Maybe someone should tell him?

It is quite evident that 2+2=5 as shown on the JREF forum(a place to discuss pseudo-skepticism, denial, the obvious in an unfriendly and ridiculing way)This is the link to the debunking of the conservation of momentum...

(the link was to a pile of shit by the way)

As far as I'm aware 2+2=5 for sufficiently large values of 2

The towers fell the way they did because energy and momentum are never conserved.

Yes... because 9/11 showed the world that thermodynamics doesn't exist.

Newton was a delusional pseudo-scientist who refuses to debate on the forum.

Like the "million dollar challenge" quote I suggest someone tells him. If you happen to be in London I hear he hangs out in the Nave of Westminster Abbey. I believe he hangs out with people like Charles Darwin, William Thompson, 1^st Lord Kelvin, David Livingstone, Ernest Rutherford and Clement Attlee. Say hi to them from me if you happen to go.

Some kooks and lunatics claim that he is no longer living without providing the link to the source. Without the link, we cannot deny, ignore, and ridicule the evidence presented, which are the three steps in the JREF debunking process.

Yes, without those links those fools at the JREF will have to listen to us.

Let us put an end to these nonsensical discussions of the conservation of energy/momentum(both have been debunked, and shown to be religious beliefs) and move on to proving and disproving claims without the use of mathematics.

Brilliant, I hate math, I shall give you 0.001% of all my savings for suggesting this... err... how do you figure that out again?

Perhaps I should pray to the gods of conservation of energy and momentum, I'm sure they'll help me.

If any fellow pseudo-skeptics enjoyed this ranting, then please do not open this link… (link removed)

Yes, I did enjoy your rant, so I won't open your link. It's probably got something to do with the first comment or something.

So there you have it. I've responded to a couple of comments.

I'm not happy with Ubisoft (A Rant)

Well, it's official as it's ever going to get with them.

Assassin's Creed II will have Ubisofts fancy new DRM. Now not all DRM is bad, Steam works quite well in terms of DRM, but I don't think this one will.

Why?

Well, it seems that you need an active internet connection for a single player game. It's not single player as in MMORPGs like WoW, but single player as in say, solitare. You don't need an active internet connection to play solitare, neither do you need one for single player games like Tropico 3, Supreme Commander, or even any Steam game with a single player mode.

Now I wasn't happy with Ubisoft to begin with. They were announcing a simultaneous release of the game on PS3, XBox 360 and PC, but they decided to delay it. And what kind of notice did they give PC gamers? Well, a twitter message. That was all the warning that we got.

So, hopefully this "best quality game" will be fucking amazing, or their definition of "better quality game" is one that doesn't try to take advantage of the latest Direct X (opting to use 9 instead, because it's essentially a port of the 360 game, incidentally Assassin's Creed used Direct X 10), and completely retarded DRM.

Clearly they did this because that's what PC gamers want, a reason to pirate the game.

Now, I'm going to state for, the record as it were, that I'm not going to pirate it. I was given a pre-order as a late Christmas present/early birthday present (back when it was slated for a January release) so my copy will be a proper copy so Ubisoft will get their money.

They are essentially punishing honest PC gamers with this DRM. Even some developers agree.

Why don't I like it? Well because I have a crappy connection and there is no offline play.

None whatsoever.

At all.

Right now my connction is probably as fast as a dial up one. I don't know why, the ISP doesn't know why, I suspect that Telstra (who run the exchange, but aren't my ISP) knows why but won't tell anyone, but it's really slow. It also hangs on pages.

Now ACII will have cloud saving, like Modern Warfare 2, except not on Steam. Now both games save locally, so the cloud is only really there as a backup or the off chance you'll go somewhere else to play.

What do I do if the internet is slow with MW2? I go into Steam, click 'File', click 'Go offline' and then wait for it to restart in offline mode. I can now play my game, which I bought legally in a store. Same applies with Empire: Total War.

In fact the only game where this doesn't apply is Audiosurf, and that's because while I can play it offline, I like being able to submit my scores to the server and see how good I am compared to other people. (It's been a while since I last played it, properly working internet or not.)

I suspect that ACII might sell pretty well on PC, but it will also be one of the most downloaded, because people will want to play online, and the pirates will take advantage of this. I think that it will be like Spore. People bought the game, but didn't install the proper copy because of fears of SecuROM. EA still got their money, but they also lost money because of it.

Treating honest gamers like this is only going to end badly. I my opinion Ubisofts decision is just punishing us for not having, or wanting, a console. People are already speculating on their official forum that this is the very plan. Make more people pirates so they can claim "piracy is too bad on PC, we're not making games for them".

But it's not just DRM that's annoying me. Ever since the twitter "announcement" (note: twitter is not a proper way to announce something if you are a company) Ubisoft have been virtually silent on the PC version. No real reason why they delayed the PC version, no reason why they initially promised a simultaneous release several months beforehand, not even release dates. People are still wondering about ambiguous statements regarding the Black edition, apparently Asia doesn't have an official release date yet.

They tell us essentially nothing, and yet they still expect us to buy their product.

I honestly don't think this is a sound business model that they are adopting.

Overdose on homeopathic "remedies"?

The stunt has been done many times before by various skeptics, but it never gets old.

The BBC reports on the "mass overdose" conducted by members of 10.23.

I do take issue in some of the statements in the article though from various people, like the following:

The society's chief executive, Paula Ross, said: "This is an ill advised publicity stunt in very poor taste, which does nothing to advance the scientific debate about how homeopathy actually works."

Paula Ross is the Chief Executive of the Society of Homeopaths.

Science wise there is no debate. Study after study and meta-analysis after meta-analysis has found consistent results. Homeopathy does not work, at best it's as good as a placebo.

So essentially figuring out how homeopathy works is, in a nutshell, "look at all the work done on placebos".

But Paula Ross will never admit that, because she has a vested interest in keeping homeopathy on the shelves no matter how potentially dangerous the "treatments" are (I suggest you read this article by Simon Singh).

The other statement was this one:

"Boots UK is committed to providing our customers with a wide range of healthcare products to suit their individual needs, we know that many people believe in the benefits of complementary medicines and we aim to offer the products we know our customers want

I have a cough, does that mean if I went to Boots UK and asked for heroin would they give it to me?

"We would support the call for scientific research and evidence gathering on the efficacy of homeopathic medicines. This would help our patients and customers make informed choices about using homeopathic medicines."

There is plenty of research, and you don't need to look very hard to find it. A search for "efficacy homeopathy" gave 16100 results.

I did another search for meta-analyses and found many articles, some of which I will share with you.

From 1998, an article titled Efficacy of Homeopathic Arnica -A Systematic Review of Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trials by Ernst and Pittler concluded "The claim that homeopathic arnica is efficacious beyond a placebo effect is not supported by rigorous clinical trials."

Evidence of clinical efficacy of homeopathy by Cucherat et al. in 2000 found that homeopathic treatments were slightly better then placebo, but also that there were too many studies with crap methodologies, while the ones with good methodologies found that homeopathy wasn't better then a placebo.

A systematic review of systematic reviews of homeopathy by Ernst in 2002 found that homeopathy wasn't any better then a placebo.

I could go on, but I won't.

I don't know what happens in the UK regarding homeopathic treatments, but I'm sure if they had to go through the same testing as proper drugs then we wouldn't see people say rubbish like this.

In my opinion the Boots UK people are being wilfully ignorant. There is easy money to be made selling distilled water or sugar pills. The BBC article says that £12 million was spent on homeopathic "remedies" by the NHS. It's quite possible that the actual market is far higher. I don't think Boots want to give up that cash cow with trifling things like efficacy.

The evidence is there, but in my opinion it seems that Boots and the homeopaths don't want to look at it.

The Young Turks, Racist KFC ads, and Ignorance

An ad by KFC was pulled because it was "racist". To Americans. The thing was that the ad was designed for the Australian market, which is a different society and we have different stereotypes and the like for groups of people.

However the ad was leaked online and has caused a stir among Americans because it's considered racist to them.

The Young Turks Video

The Young Turks produced a video talking about Australian responses to their earlier mention of the ad. Although some good points are raised it does miss the mark in some cases. I suggest that you watch the video to follow what I'm saying.

I'm sure that the Australians who responded to begin with actually understood the stereotype of fried chicken exists in the US. But it's removed from us. We look on that stereotype from afar and find it silly. I'm sure that there are Americans who look on certain stereotypes that we hold from afar and find them silly as well. We can see how it's offensive to Americans, but to Australians there isn't anything wrong with black people eating chicken. Australians see it from the US perspective and think that the Yanks are being silly.

However, even though he says it in a mocking voice Cenk Uygur is right. Americans don't understand because it is cricket. However Australians are racist in some ways, it's just different to the US.

Yet it doesn't matter if KFC is an American corporation, they were making an ad for the Australian market. What needs to be understood is that right now it's cricket season, and KFC are one of the sponsors for the game. And the image that they were trying to present was nothing to do with colonialism or racism but to present the image that KFC is cricket food.

The fact that they are an American company doesn't enter into it. If they were to make an ad showing say, American Football, it wouldn't have a good effect because Australians don't really understand anything about it beyond "it's rugby for pansy's".

This ties in to what Ana Kasparian says later that the reason they didn't want Americans to see it was "because you know it's offensive". Yes and no. I would say a bigger reason that Americans weren't supposed to see it was that as a marketing campaign it would be useless. Cricket means nothing to the US so much of the ad doesn't make sense. That's how it's being construed as racist.

They admit that the Aussie bloke is in the "wrong" stand (by which team they're supporting), but in my opinion when they keep going on about "perspective" they still haven't understood our perspective, which appears to be quite a bit of the issue.

Spreading a stereotype and perspective

Were we seeing people spread a stereotype and what stereotype were we seeing? The Young Turks video talks about that as well. Of course they are saying that the ad spreads the "black people eat fried chicken".

Why is it that and not "you can find a common ground with chicken"? Or "everyone likes chicken"? Are we to essentially assume the worst when we have ads which feature people with different skin colours?

But this isn't the problem with what is being said. The fear that was brought up on the video is misplaced, because it ignores a rather important point. The stereotype of "black people eat fried chicken" does not mean all black people. In the US context they usually mean "African-Americans eat fried chicken".

From my perspective the Americans are actually trying to spread the stereotype. They're pushing a stereotype on other people based on their skin colour and nothing else. And in this case it seems to be because it's an ad from an American company.

Ultimately Ignorant?

Part of what we are seeing is Americans pushing their cultural values and stereotypes on others. It's not just Australia in this case but also the West Indies. They are implying that when it comes to stereotypes involving fried chicken Afro-Caribbeans = African Americans and that they should be treated as such.

But in doing so we are ignoring that the West Indians are different to the African Americans and more likely to not see the ad as racist either. But the complaints from the Americans seem to ignore this and it comes across as ignorant and closed-minded and also as a bit hypersensitive.

There is the saying "when in Rome do as the Romans do". But in this case what we are seeing is the visitor to Rome telling the Romans how to act. It comes across as rude, and is also intolerant.

It also creates a storm in a fried chicken bucket.