HUMAN RIGHTS VS. NIELSEN'S RIGHTS: AGENCIES REMAIN MUM ON THE SUBJECT -- At last, the Riff finally understands the motive behind the deafening silence of the major ad shops during the political brouhaha leading up to Nielsen's decision to delay its New York people meter rollout.

WE'RE JUST RIFFING, BUT WHAT ARE THESE GUYS WHIFFING? -- Inflation. It can be an ugly word in the best of times, but coming at a time when U.

BE-WARE OF WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING - We don't know what, if anything, the American Association of Advertising Agencies shelled out for new research on consumer attitudes about advertising that is a centerpiece of its annual management conference in Miami this week, but if it was more than $2, we think the money would have been better spent taking a ride on the New York City subway system. That way that ad folks could witness first- hand how consumers ignore advertising - transit ads, anyway.

THE WHOLE SHEBANGO BEHIND ADVERTISING WEEK -- We were having lunch recently at the New York Friar's Club, which is probably the only place where you can eat Matzah Brie in a room named after Frank Sinatra, when Matt Scheckner suddenly leaned across the table and mentioned, "I got home late last night because I was negotiating with Maytag." No Scheckner isn't in the market for a new washer/dryer.

'PRIDE' AND THE PEACOCK - It would have sounded like a bad idea before Montecore, a 600-pound white Siberian tiger, mauled Roy Horn on stage in front of a shocked audience at the Mirage casino in Las Vegas, but the fact that NBC has opted to move forward with "Father of the Pride," an animated TV series that depicts the sitcom-like lives of Sigfried & Roy's white lions sounds like a really bad dream. The show, "Father of the Pride," which was pitched to agency executives as part of the peacock network's prime-time development meetings, sounds high-concept and even a …

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS - Now that Madison Avenue is nudging the networks in the direction of a Wall Street-like upfront market structure, some people are wondering where the new rules and conditions will end, or even if they might ultimately begin to approximate the kind of SEC-regulated trading practices that govern the financial industry's equities and commodities markets.

HERE'S THE RETRACTION, PLUS A BIT OF POLITICAL ACTION -- Like many of you, we sure hope today is the last time the Riff has to discuss the political actions - or lack thereof - of Fox News Channel chief Roger Ailes. In fact, we wouldn't be bringing it up again today except that the Fox News Channel press department asked - actually they demanded - that we "retract" the quote we hypothetically attributed to Ailes in Tuesday's column.

THEY DISTORT? YOU DECIDE - If this is the way News Corp. behaves now that it's a U.S. corporate citizen, we'd just as soon they pack up and move back Down Under.

SO, WHO'S BEEN PLAYING CHICKEN IN THE FOX COOP? - With Nielsen expected to announce later today that it will yield to the immense pressure building from broadcast, political and consumer advocacy groups to delay the rollout of people meters in the Big Apple, you'd think that the people behind the successful campaign would be tripping over themselves to take credit for it. And maybe they are, the problem is nobody seems to be able to tell the Riff exactly who's responsible for it.

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST (MAYBE EVEN ALREADY) - Using the words "last straw" to describe Google's launch of "Gmail," a super-charged email system that can receive, store and retrieve a virtually unlimited number of messages transparently, at lightning speed and all for free, U.S.