Recent weeks have seen a series of reports about growth in Internet penetration, in Canada and across the United States.
The latest release from the Pew Internet & American Life project focuses on senior citizens and identifies a 47 percent increase in Internet access in that age group from 2000 to 2004. According to Pew, 22 percent of seniors age 65 or older reported having access to the Internet. By comparison, other age groups include 58 percent of age 50-64, 75 percent of age 30-49, and 77 percent of age 18-29. Internet use only continues to grow.
McCapitalism: Banning Super-Size and Launching a Kids Line
U.S. fast food giant McDonald’s will launch a children’s clothing line in North America and western Europe in the very near future. The ‘McKids’ clothing line will be designed, made and distributed by Chinese firm Shanghai Longhurst, and will be supplemented by a product line that will include toys, videos, DVDs and books, among other items.
The ‘McKids’ initiative was launched in November 2003, when a new retail line featuring action toys, casual clothing and interactive books and videos was announced. In their statement, McDonald’s said the clothing line will offer ‘quality fabrics’ in styles that will endure “season after season”.
The McDonald’s brand has been under fire by healthy-eating groups questioning the merits of eating fast food. As a consequence, the company launched another initiative March 15 — so far applicable only to the U.S. — that will effectively ban super-size portions at their ‘restaurants’.
Pumped Up: Rising Gas Prices a Threat To the Global Economy
Rising gasoline prices are causing financial hardship for a majority of North Americans and are increasingly being seen by global economists as a potential threat to the durability of an economic recovery (albeit, a ‘jobless economic recovery’) that is just underway.
According to this article in Public Citizen “gas prices are rising because of uncompetitive actions by a handful of mega-companies …”.
“If it is so clear that America’s gasoline markets are uncompetitive, then why haven’t these companies been investigated?” said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. “We believe that millions of dollars in campaign contributions have purchased immunity from … scrutiny.”
Meanwhile, according to environmental scientist and President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, Jeremy Rifkin, in an article published yesterday in The Guardian, we should all be getting ready for “what might become the economy’s version of the perfect storm later this summer” as steady gas price increases become a harbinger for economic devastation that could result in “dire consequences for the global economy.”
SixApart Develops A Tool to Fight Blog Spam
Yesterday was the first time that VanRamblings was hit with pornography spam in the comments section of published articles (the porn comment links have since been removed).
For those of us intent on remaining credible on the blog front, and keeping spam away from our sites, help is finally on the horizon to prevent blog spammers from posting their unwanted material. Coming later this spring: TypeKey for MovableType 3.0 — and, soon after that, for TypePad.