In one of the odder contretemps of our time, New York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr has gone off on gossip sheet Page Six over their description of Out magazine as a "gay-lifestyle mag." Says Burr: "'gay lifestyle' is a purely political term with a purely political meaning, and it's simply, factually inaccurate." We're siding with him on this: Out is obviously a "gay lifestyle magazine" but it is not a "gay-lifestyle magazine." We find Burr's understanding of hyphenation and compound adjectives rather unspeakably hot, and now we would very much like him to criticize our perfumes, if you know what we mean, wink wink. But more importantly: Is the "gay lifestyle mag" in trouble? Its ad pages are looking rough.

"When a girl removes hair for the first time, it's a life-changing moment," said Stacey Feldman, vice president for marketing at the women's health and personal care division of the Church & Dwight Company, which purchased Nair in 2001.

Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields sings a modified version of "The Wheels on the Bus" for a Volvo commercial. What a world. [visit4info, via]

Wal-Mart has abandoned its famous smiley-face logo as part of a campaign to emphasize its low prices. The new logo reportedly depicts a Chinese prison inmate who is forced at gunpoint to make children's toys entirely out of lead. [Ad Age]

Political blog Daily Kos is begging Firefox users to pay a subscription fee. "If you use ad blocking software while viewing Daily Kos, you're getting all the benefits of our site but we're not getting any of the advertisement revenue associated with your visits." The better question: Who actually clicks on adverts anyways? [Daily Kos]

94 years ago, liar H.K. McCann launched his NYC ad agency with the slogan "Truth Well Told." That was a big fat lie. Advertising copywriter Copyranter brings you instances of advertising lies and the lying liars who sell them.

Copyranter thoughtfully assembles a collection of softcore American Apparel for your weekend masturbatory needs. Of course, seeing as you're already on the Internet, you can probably find something better, but it's still nice to have them all in one place. [Copyranter]

94 years ago, liar H.K. McCann launched his NYC ad agency with the slogan "Truth Well Told." That was a big fat lie. Advertising copywriter Copyranter brings you instances of advertising lies and the lying liars who sell them.

"Half of CBS's top 10 advertisers surveyed by Advertising Age said they are not in the controversial show that depicts kids ages 8 to 15 forming their own society in a western frontier village, although each cited reasons other than the hubbub as the reason." Among the missing sponsors: Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Ford, Pepsi-Cola and Anheuser-Busch. [AdAge]

94 years ago, liar H.K. McCann launched his NYC ad agency with the slogan "Truth Well Told." That was a big fat lie. Advertising copywriter Copyranter brings you instances of advertising lies and the lying liars who sell them.

"This summer, Virginia's Department of Health mounted an ad campaign for its sex-abuse hotline. Billboards featured photos of a man holding a child's hand. The caption: "It doesn't feel right when I see them together." ...Virginia's campaign was designed to encourage people to trust their instincts about possible abuse, says Rebecca Odor, director of sexual and domestic violence prevention for the state health department. She stands by the ads, pointing out that 89% of child sex-abuse perpetrators in Virginia are male." Okay, then! [WSJ]

Sloan-Kettering finally admits that only ugly people get cancer. [Copyranter]

Yahoo purchases Actionality, a startup which places ads inside mobile games, to accompany its mobile games portal. [VentureBeat]

My Cock and I are hitting the road, kids: We've finally found our ticket out. [Copyranter]

We've been mildly obsessed with the New Republic's page count ever since Editor-in-Chief Marty Peretz made that ridiculous pronouncement that the newly redesigned book would have 80 pages each issue. Which, of course, has yet to happen, and in the meantime, we've heard bitching from various people at the magazine that we're being unfair, that they're actually publishing very interesting stuff these days. So when the latest issue arrived in the mail (48 pages, ahem), we started trying to actually read the damn thing.

94 years ago, liar H.K. McCann launched his NYC ad agency with the slogan "Truth Well Told." That was a big fat lie. Advertising copywriter Copyranter brings you instances of advertising lies and the lying liars who sell them.

Online properties, lead by Google, grew their advertising revenues by "7 percentage points of market share in a single year." [Silicon Alley Insider]

"What Tom Ford did five years ago for full-frontal male nudity in his ads for the M7 fragrance for Yves Saint Laurent, he's about to do for the opposite sex in the ones for Tom Ford for Men. Though the designer took a more demure approach in his original ad campaign for his new fragrance, he's decided to shock the masses once again, switching images shot by Marilyn Minter in April for racier photographs of a dewy woman's body taken by Terry Richardson. The photos range from tame to titillating — the most shocking being the Tom Ford for Men bottle wedged between a woman's glistening thighs, with the bottle barely covering her bare genitalia." [WWD]

We're uncharacteristically speechless about this ad. Others are not so reticent. [Feministing]

94 years ago, liar H.K. McCann launched his NYC ad agency with the slogan "Truth Well Told." That was a big fat lie. Advertising copywriter Copyranter brings you instances of advertising lies and the lying liars who sell them.