Unless you’re small enough to ride in the cart, there’s not a whole lot to enjoy about grocery shopping. When you’re the one cruising the aisles, paying the bills, and filling the bags, patience for a less-than-super supermarket can be drained like milk from a leaky carton. 

In the May 2012 edition of Consumer Reports, a survey compiling input from over 24,000 shoppers finds that the same stores have topped the lists for best and worst supermarkets for three years running.

 

Teenagers don’t give up their privacy too easily. Picture one right now and — nope, too late, she disappeared behind a slammed door.

But Marion Underwood, a developmental psych professor at University of Texas-Dallas, convinced 175 teenagers to allow her to access and record every text they send and receive.

 

During the 2008 presidential primary, Oprah Winfrey single-handedly did for Obama what dozens of congressional supporters, wealthy endorsers, and campaign strategists could not. “The Oprah effect,” studied by academics after the election, made for a huge increase in voter turnout and a windfall of financial contributions. Experts at Oxford estimated that Oprah bumped the election by a million votes.

 

by Larry West

Is Earth Day endangered? Should it be? A lot of people these days seem to think that as Earth Day approaches middle age—the holiday will turn 42 on Sunday—it is no longer relevant and should be abolished, or at least ignored. 

Opponents of President Obama have something new to gnaw on. As a child in Indonesia, young Barack tasted dog meat.

The mental image of our president dining on canine cuisine is a real tail-wagger for his rivals in an election year.

 

by Caitlin Kelly, Glamour
 
Here in New York, the sun is shining. It’s absolutely beautiful out. Yet, thousands of people are walking around, looking like they just heard Brad and Angelina called the whole thing off. Why? Because today is the federal tax filing deadline. But ladies, don’t look so glum--today’s another great day, too. It’s Equal Pay Day, the day meant to create awareness for the gap between men and women’s wages in the U.S. It’s not just Tax Day--it's double the fun, indeed. 

The United States Secret Service may be the most honored and revered government agency ever created — even if the current controversy suggests there are some secrets they just can’t keep. Below, the Daily Dose whispers seven pieces of Secret Service intel into your earpiece.

 

by Susan Reimer, The Baltimore Sun
McClatchy Tribune News Service

It used to be that only presidents had a list of their enemies, and if you were on it, it was a kind of a badge of honor — as long as you didn’t mind having your tax returns regularly audited.

Newsman Daniel Schorr was reading President Richard Nixon’s enemies list during a live broadcast when he came across his own name. Actor Paul Newman said he considered his inclusion on that list one of his greatest achievements.
“If you don’t have enemies, you don’t have character,” Newman said at the time.

That was then and this is now, and even lowly Maryland county executives, like Anne Arundel’s John Leopold, apparently keep a list of their enemies. (It is the preferred place to find yourself, I daresay, if the alternative is the back seat of his car in a mall parking lot.)

Now, everyone can join in the fun of making enemies.