Le Canard, Non!

Those cute little amphibious tourist-movers that quack so gracefully through this old city?

Silence them! commands the Stop The Duck movement.

Ride The Ducks - their Web site calls them "Quacktacular" - are in Baltimore, Memphis and Seattle, too, having started in Branson, Mo. Why? the movement asks:

The average Duck fueled and loaded with 30+ passengers weighs well in excess of 10 tons. Powered by loud 8-cylinder gas or diesel engines, the Duck produces emissions on par with a city bus. In fact, most require a bus-type Public Service Vehicle license in addition to a passenger-use boat license. In addition to bad Motown blaring over the Duck's PA system, its engine noise level can rise to 95 dBa under maximum acceleration. Anyone working, living, walking or biking along the Duck's route can attest to this.

The piece goes on about a design flaw and drowing incident in Arkansas. It's serious for a campaign called Stop the Duck. (Bill tip, Philebrity)

Gridskipper writes:

The Duck trucks, which blast old Village People and late '60s schmaltz at top volume, also commit the cardinal sin of giving duck whistles to children. Dozens of children on a bus playing YMCA, quacking on novelty duck whistles for 15 minutes as a time. Hellish, my friends.

The campaign warns of worldwide duck domination. They have T-shirts.

Starting a Landslide in My Ego - the local blog not the U2 song - has her own duck rant:

The gimmick is that they drive around the city showing people the sites, and then plop into the water for a trip up the river to see things from the other side. Now I don't really have a problem with that. Cute idea, whatever.

It's the quacking. You see, they give each of their passengers a little noisemaker-quacking-thingy, and encourage people to use it to quack at the passers by. They actually target you. The driver points at you, and they all lean out and quack right at you. I cannot begin to tell you how annoying this is. You'll just have to trust me.