1 The pot calling the kettle black is never easy to listen to... Now that Ben and Jerry's platinum ad has run its course, I'd just like to say I'm taking a group of kids swimming to Cuba this weekend to get some of that wonderful universal health care! Cement fillings for everyone and dirt-rag bandages to cover our jelly-fish wounds--after a thorough cleansing from water in a dirty bucket, of course!. Skill levels that would put US Civil War doctors to shame! Oh, B&J, if you're just renewing your ad, disregard the above. You convinced me that the US is a 'terrible, terrible' place to live without a Leftist Democrat in the White House...Except for all the other countries, of course.

2 Anyone have Lexis/Nexis that can count the number of anti-Wal-Mart stories in the LA Times over the last six years? I bet laid-off LAT employees have been scaring those remaining with horror stories of switching to cotton/Crocs from hemp/Birkenstocks after the shit-canning. Ad revenues do count after all.

3 Apparently, the bennies were pretty good in the 1980s—to prevent people from leaving. They used to call it "the golden coffin." I've only known a few LA Times people. The one who was a colleague was not . . . well, in the magazine trade we have to have a range of skills. Newspapers hire some specialized people who tend to work quick and dirty.