Wouldn't want you to start your weekend without this as an inspiration -- what the Barbie doll would look like with an average woman's proportions. The doll has brown hair by default, comes with minimal makeup and is sold with the tagline "Average is beautiful." No. It's not. Yeech.
This may be the silly lawsuit to end all silly lawsuits:
McDonald's has been hit with a supersized lawsuit.
Unhappy eater Webster Lucas reportedly wants $1.5 million from the fast-food company after he claimed the staff only gave him one napkin.
Juxtaposition of the day. From the New York Times editorial page, Jan. 14, 1987:
The Federal minimum wage has been frozen at $3.35 an hour for six years. In some states, it now compares unfavorably even with welfare benefits available without working. It's no wonder then that Edward Kennedy, the new chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, is being pressed by organized labor to battle for an increase.
Oh, dear. Girl Scout Cookies turn out to be not so good for us:
Those cute little girls selling cookies around your neighbor are delivering junk-food snacks that are astonishingly unhealthy. ( Just four Samoas have 50% of your recommended saturated fat intake for the day... )
[. . .]
The headline on this CBS News piece is "Food prices soar as incomes stand still," and, boy, ain't it the truth?
Writer Jen Singer, the mother of two teenage boys, wrestles with her grocery list every week to keep the household budget from getting away from her.
"I'd like the government to stop by my house, come food shopping with me and see where the real costs are," she said.
Oh, no, there's a looming clown shortage:
“What’s happening is attrition,” said Clowns of America International President Glen Kohlberger, who added that membership at the Florida-based organization has plummeted since 2006. “The older clowns are passing away.”
[. . .]
Why some people carry and some people don't:
In my experience, those individuals who carry do so because they very consciously do not want to belong to the class of citizens that is inherently helpless — totally reliant upon the state to protect not just themselves but their family, friends, and neighbors. If the choice is between protectors and protected, they choose to be protectors.
Just as we've always suspected:
These are hard times for economists. Their reputations are tarnished; their favorite doctrines are damaged. Among their most prominent thinkers, there is no consensus as to how — or whether — governments in advanced countries can improve lackluster recoveries. All in all, the situation recalls a cruel joke:
One reason the indoor mall may have seen its peak:
So, why don't luxury shoppers like indoor malls anymore?
Somebody else is writing about an issue that has bugged me for years:
