FYI -- Re Laura's call here today for an end to the Starbucks reign of oppression: there's a good bit more on the subject over at MeFi. While we suspect that this had to do with a less-than-with-it staffer's error (and not with any corporate evilness), who knows what officially manadated parsimony might lead a coffee-kid to mistakenly believe they must do?

That said, Starbucks has employed at least one member of our family for some time, but that cannot excuse them from their true crime, which is working alongside crappy delis to drive all the decent pastry and bagels from the streets of New York. The pastry in Starbucks is so wretched that one might require the obscenely large Venti size beverage if only to re-hydrate ones oral cavity after a vain attempt to grapple with the stale thing one has just plunked down three bucks for. (See, by the by, this illuminating discussion of the goal and limits of the Super-Sizing of beverages, by our good friend Grim).

For this and other related reasons the editors don't object to Laura's proposal -- let us give the company the heave-ho from our shores, so long as local coffeemeisters Oren's are ready to take over the duties.