So I’m checking my credit card balance the other day (eep!) and I see this little gem in the “special offers” section:

Aww, isn’t that sweet? Why not coax a smile out of someone just by GIVING THEM ACCESS TO YOUR CREDIT LINE. No biggie — it’s like a tall glass of lemonade on a hot summer’s day.

I have to say, if the best way to make your special someone smile is with plastic, it might be time to reconsider the relationship. Or at the very least, try a few alternatives first:

• “Have you lost weight?”
• “Let me do those dishes.”
• “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

Not, of course, that a credit card issuer is going to make any of those suggestions. If they were looking to be honest, they would have said so:

One of the great joys of Google News, in which “the selection and placement of stories…[a]re determined automatically by a computer program,” is the highlighting of stories (sometimes from fringe sites) occasionally juxtaposed with bizarre images.

Take this story from yesterday, which reported on the supposed difference between IQs of children born first and subsequently:

How excellent is that comparison? Alec vs. the crazy one from Threesome? Well played, eCanadaNow, well played.

Of course, they’re old hands at this. Check out this one I grabbed a few months ago…

I know Mike Bloomberg, who recently ditched the GOP, has homes in New York and Bermuda. I wonder if he keeps a place in my aunt’s building:

OK, probably not. But that’s OK — that means at least two people have some shame.