The NYC citizenry was spared yet another onerous Bloombergian restriction by a a last minute lower court decision, invalidating the ban on the sale of sugary beverages greater than 16 oz. However, the fight is not over: Bloomberg has two opportunities to appeal the decision.

Everyone knows that consuming sugary beverages regularly is bad for your health, as are many other things. For example, you can legally buy as many Camel shortie cancer packs as you want, enough to fill that same banned plus 16 oz. cup.

READ MORE

Nothing compares to the 21st-century marketing machine that persuaded Americans to spend $17.6 billion on Valentine’s Day (VD) in 2012, an average of $126 per person, according to the National Retail Federation. That figure was 8.6% higher than in 2011, impressive in an economic recession. In fact, VD is the third largest retail holiday of the year. That’s real money spent primarily on one-time gifts that are reasonably priced the rest of the year, such as a culinary orgy of designer dark chocolate touting medicinal and love potion benefits.

VD is a psychologically nerve wracking day even for those madly in love, and only fuels the fire like a lithiumion battery on a 787 Dreamliner. It’s the artificial pressure to have a romantic experience through huge expenditures of personal capital. And often it’s a downright depressing day for many, like the lonely super-model who couldn’t land that GQ-looking billionaire.

The free market creates this insidious, illogical, yet highly effective guilt trip, pimping out Cupid for the explicit purpose of making an obscene profit. VD is pure capitalistic manipulation to make you feel guilty, like the talk-show audience peer pressure to clap when the sign illuminates “applause” right on cue, despite an underwhelming performance.

READ MORE

For many years the mainstream media has verbally eviscerated hipsters as if they’re some kind of Ebola virus. Hipsters are vilified, accused of destroying the social and moral fabric of America with their off-the-grid lifestyle and perceived sloth, to being the Fifth Column in the gentrification and displacement of working class folk through collaboration with Gordon Gekko inspired real-estate developers. Unless you’re a wealthy, celeb hipster, you’re a target.

Many of America’s movie stars portray hipsters, including Dustin Hoffman as the 21 year old, silver-spooned Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1967) and Sam Elliot as the 32-year-old bohemian lifeguard Rick Carlson in Lifeguard (1976). Both characters rejected corporate offers; one in plastics, the other as a Porsche salesman.

READ MORE