Even McDonald's says we're working too hard

The New York Times nailed this marketing phenomenon on its head:

"[M]arketers are urging workers to commit small acts of so-called rebellion — like taking a vacation, or going on a lunch break."

Ad campaigns for McDonald's and Las Vegas tourism are apparently picking up on "office burnout." As well as the shrinking lunch break in America. (Surveys and polling suggests that workers in the UK and European countries including Germany, are also increasingly skipping lunches, taking shorter breaks, or having lunches at their desks).

This ad from McDonald's campaign promoting limited availability sandwiches opens with a glum looking office crew and a female member of staff adamantly declaring "I'm going to lunch." A fellow worker moans, "Those days are gone now," while another looms out of an office to warn "Think about what you are doing."

Another co-worker also wants to abandon work for McD's, dramatically stating, "I don't want to be chicken. I want to eat it."

What was once a theme so well articulated by the Occupy movement has now been deployed in ads by savvy marketers aiming to score a few more dollars from the pockets of the already financially squeezed American worker.

Fast and Furious fact and fiction: major media organizations bungle story

Operation Fast and Furious and  the subsequent “fury” that the operation has caused in certain circles in Congress is not new. However, the operation has become a full-blown scandal in recent weeks, with 17 Democrats joining Republicans voting to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in Contempt of Congress. In the meantime, something else has come to light: that all of the charges of “gunwalking” are completely fabricated.
  
That’s right. Its the phrase you’ve heard over and over again. Gunwalking. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives knowingly allowed guns sold in Arizona to end up across the border as an operational tactic. Unanimously it seems, reporters, relying heavily on the testimony from the GOP-lead Congressional inquiry, got it wrong. One reporter got it right. Katherine Eban, reporting for Fortune, finally set the record straight after an exhaustive six month investigation. ATF agents did not allow guns to be trafficked to Mexico and they did not “lose” guns, as has been widely reported. Phoenix Group VII agents were actually powerless in many cases to intervene and seize guns from straw purchasers due to conflicts with Arizona statutes regarding the “transfer of arms,” a “lack of adequate tools,” cautious senior prosecutors, and a new agency-wide focus on bringing down gun running conspiracies, rather than focusing on low-level straw purchasers. Much of the mass media misreporting on Operation Fast and Furious revolves around three big lies:

1.  The ATF Knowingly or willingly allowed “gunwalking,” resulting in “losing” some 2,000 guns.
2. The Justice Department lied to Congress about the details of the program.
3. The operation was a ploy by the Obama Administration to scare the public into approving an assault weapons ban.

Nailing Murdoch: media mogul's influence in UK gov leading up to Iraq War revealed

Getty Images via  The Telegraph

With no signs of the Conservative FOX behemoth slowing in the midst of the election cycle, here in the UK, the man behind the curtain appears to be increasingly vulnerable to scrutiny (and maybe even the law). Thanks to Prime Minister Tony Blair's Communications Director, Alastair Campbell, detailed diary entries describing conversations between Rupert Murdoch and Blair have become public. The diary reveals that Murdoch did indeed put pressure on the Blair Administration to speed up British involvement in the Iraq war. Murdoch had previously testified before the Leveson Inquiry that he had never used his position to influence the actions of Prime Ministers. However, the new evidence, detailed extensively by the Guardian, shows that Murdoch made a series of calls to Tony Blair in the weeks leading up to the Iraq war.