Here are some of our favorite brief Web stories from this week.

Some people had common sense.

• A University of Minnesota professor uses superheroes to teach physics. I never understood physics, but maybe I would have if it had been this exciting.
• There were some big changes in women’s health this week. Recommendations for mammograms and pap smears were adjusted and women everywhere were confused. We thought this write-up from NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman did a nice job of putting it all into perspective.
• Over privacy concerns, the Grinches at the USPS called a halt to the “Dear Santa” letter program with the residents of North Pole, Alaska this week. But, according to one of the Alaska Senators on Friday, the USPS has agreed to resume the program. Some new security measures will be put in place, and Santa’s letters will continue to be opened and responded to by the Alaskan volunteers. Childhood everywhere rejoices!

And, some did not.

• A North Carolina dad packed McDonald’s for his eighth-grade daughter’s lunch in a brown paper bag, and she ended up suspended. My dad used to pack me HoHos, Hostess Fruit Pies, or Hostess Cupcakes in my lunch. Would I be kicked out of school now?
• A 19-year old man was arrested in Texas after selling pot door-to-door. (What, is pot Amway, now?) His luck turned south when he knocked on the door of an off-duty policeman. Dude.
• Kate Moss, a well-known waif model, has become the poster girl for other girls who are trying not to eat. Moss recently said, “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” Girls aspiring to be super (dangerously) thin now use this quote on their own web sites as inspiration not to eat. NOT TO EAT. Someone should slap Moss upside the head with a double Quarter Pounder with Cheese for this comment. (To be fair, the model’s rep says the line was taken out of context. Sure, it was.)

No, this headline was not from The Onion. The readers of AskMen.com have voted Don Draper–of AMC’s Mad Men–the most influential man of 2009.

Handsome? Yes. Nice dresser? You bet. But most influential man?! This is a fictional character, people. How is he even in the running?

I love Mad Men. Don’t get me wrong. It’s an amazing show. However, Draper’s character isn’t exactly squeaky clean. He stole another man’s identity and began another life, where he fathered three children with a woman he hasn’t been faithful to. Yes, he’s an ad genius. That’s about all Draper’s character does right. Is this what some people aspire to these days?

Last year, the winner in the AskMen poll was Barack Obama. A real person who also happens to be the President. (He’s fallen to #3 on this year’s list.)

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[Thanks, Asylum]

Ever driven an ashtray? If you’ve rented a car that has been driven by a heavy smoker, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The smell lingers and gets stale. It’s awful. Hurray for the two major car rental companies who just announced they will ban smoking in their rental cars. It’s about time.

Beginning Oct. 1, Avis and Budget will become the first major rental-car companies to ban smoking in their entire North American fleets and to impose a cleaning fee of up to $250 on customers who smoke in the cars.

“The No. 1 request we get is for a smoke-free car,” says John Barrows, spokesman of the Avis Budget Group, the parent company. He says a common customer complaint is a car that smells of smoke, adding, “We’re addressing both concerns.”

Barrows says employees who drive the vehicles are no longer allowed to smoke and the cars will undergo a new inspection upon return. He says it costs the company more to clean a smoky car, because it often has to be taken out of service longer.

Now, we’re not saying people don’t have a right to smoke. They do. But, it’s one thing to smoke in your own car, where the stink is your own problem. It’s a whole other ball of odor to smoke in a car that doesn’t belong to you. What you do in a rental car affects a lot of other people. And, smoke is one of the worst pervasive odors. That smell cannot be completely removed. Ever.

Just ask hotels. The smell of cigarette smoke is so bad over time that you can’t even have non-smoking rooms next to smoking rooms. They had to create entire FLOORS where smoking is prohibited. And, a hotel employee once told me that in order to change a room from a smoking room to a non-smoking room, everything in the room had to be replaced: the furniture, the carpet, and even the wallpaper and/or paint.

So, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. Just do it in your own space.

Photo courtesy of Flickr: johntrainor

If you’re a reader of this blog, you already know how we feel about cigarette butts.

So, imagine how happy I was today to pass a Japanese tourist discretely smoking and using this product. It’s a tiny portable ashtray with extinguisher. Genius!

Is it any wonder why the Japanese were just named the world’s best tourists?

Why do smokers get a pass on the littering front? Last time I checked, throwing trash where it doesn’t belong was frowned upon. Yet so many butts lie on our sidewalks, streets, and parks that it is the number one type of litter in America. Don’t these folks remember the Crying Indian from the ’70s?

I see it every day. I live in a city and see folks smoking and tossing, smoking and tossing, all day long. Frequently, the cigarette is still burning. Throwing a cigarette butt on the ground is LITTERING. Why, exactly, are our collective streets, sidewalks, and roads your ashtray?

It is estimated that several trillion cigarette butts are littered throughout the world each year. Are they biodegrable? Not really, according to the research we found.

Various sources have stated that cigarette filters take 18 months to 10 years to degrade. It is safe to say that the cellulose acetate fibers in cigarette filters, like other plastics, are with us for some time after they are discarded.

We’re asked not to litter by fast food companies, by drink companies, by the government, and everyone else who mass produces a product. Why aren’t the tobacco companies doing anything to encourage the proper disposal of their product? We’re not sure. It seems like a fairly simple thing to do, and certainly wouldn’t discourage smokers from lighting up. But, people should know NOT to litter without being told. What, were you raised in a barn?

Oh, P.S.: Props to all the businesses that put out cigarette disposal bins on the sidewalk in front of their doors.