last place in the world

This morning I mistakenly chose a elliptical machine that was situated directly under a ceiling fan, which made reading the paper a bit of an adventure and the work out slightly abbreviated.

Nevertheless, I did manage to pull out a couple of stories worth sharing with you.

Watch out Starbucks! WalMart is going fair trade as part of the company's new desire to "do well by doing good". But we are talking about WalMart, after all, so don't expect environmental and human rights activists to roll over just yet. Global Exchange Executive Director Kirsten Moller points out in the article, "Wal-Mart is probably the last place in the world that we would recommend anyone shop."

I find today's "K Street Confidential" to be a touch ironic. Yesterday I posted about the deluge of emails registered voters could expect to receive this coming campaign season and today there's an article about Congress' recent efforts to make it harder to receive emails from interest groups. While I don't think automated email systems are really the way to go for effective advocacy, there's something a little off kilter about this one.