The silly idea AdBusters had to make its own brand of sneakers - out-cooling the big, heartless corporations - officially became farce yesterday. The anti-commercial group found to its chagrin that Asian shoe factory managers had been lying, and that the facilities were poor examples of proletarian equality.

"Six months of searching in Asia for the right factory to produce the blackspot sneaker have turned up a big zero," read a letter sent to people who pre-ordered a pair. MarketingWonk got a copy after having sarcastically ordered 3,700 pairs "…noting that we intend to use them in lieu of cash in order to pay the Pinkertons we hired to bust a nascent MarketingWonk unionization effort."

AdBusters appears to be employing its own harsh version of international free trade by shopping its project to other shops in other continents. "None of the recommended 'union' shops we checked and visited in Korea, China and Indonesia met our standards for working conditions, shoe quality and overall excellence," the letter continued. "We've now given up on Asia…"