This snap of the ad was posted to the mock site Photoshop Disasters last Tuesday — the writer crowed, "Make her head bigger than her pelvis! Do it!" Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing noticed, and made the comment, "Dude, her head's bigger than her pelvis." But that relatively mild criticism of the unbelievable ad garnered the blog's ISP a cease-and-desist letter for reposting the picture.

Note to Ralph Lauren: it's not an infringement of your copyright if content you own is reproduced for purposes such as criticism, comment, or news reporting. No, really. Look it up. The company more than earned Cory Doctorow's indignant response.

Photoshop Disasters apparently received a similar threatening letter, since its post — though cached, for now, by Google — has been taken down.

Who is this woman 'shopped down to a spindly creature by Lauren's minions? She's 23-year-old French-Swedish model Filippa Hamilton — Countess Filippa Hamilton, to be precise. She's a Ralph Lauren favorite — in fact, she's on the brand's website right now. Check out the terrible job the retoucher did when he or she cut a path around Hamilton's hair to change the color of the shirt:

Hamilton has been featured in various ads for Ralph Lauren since her teens; up until now, the brand has never Photoshopped her into the likeness of a Bratz doll.

And in this July, 2009, editorial for Russian Elle magazine, shot by Fabio Chizzola, she doesn't look half bad, either.

Ralph Lauren should put a little less effort into crafting cease-and-desist letters guaranteed to harness the Streisand Effect, and a lot more into the quality of its post-production.

Ralph Lauren Opens New Outlet In The Uncanny Valley [BoingBoing]
The Criticism That Ralph Lauren Doesn't Want You To See [BoingBoing]

• The Sanga Amaj Women's Drug Treatment Center in Afghanistan treats female opium addicts, many of whom become addicted to the smoke that their opium-addicted husbands exhale. • Dame Joan Bakwell, who has been made a champion of the elderly by the British government, recently spoke out against the "American model" of TV news anchor teams which usually consists of an older man and a younger woman. • A recent study suggests that the risk-assessment tools used to help guide treatment decisions are too complex for breast cancer patients to understand and may lead to poor treatment choices for breast cancer. • A new study has found that the brain functions of low-income 9- and 10-year-olds are dramatically affected by poverty. • A recent study claims that although women feel "sexiest" at age 34 and have more sex in the 20s and 30s, they enjoy sex more as they get older. • Female activists in Iraq say that Iraqi women are "being strangled by religion and tribalism" as the country looks to form its new post-Saddam identity. • A Minnesota man is the proud owner of a 97-year-old fruitcake. • New, noninvasive genetics screens for fetuses with Down syndrome has re-sparked the debate on aborting fetuses with Down syndrome versus raising the child which can often be a financial and emotional burden. • A young woman in southern China has temporarily lost her hearing in her left ear after she and her boyfriend engaged in a particularly passionate kiss. • A new study has found a marginal link between sperm quality and intelligence. •

Apparently, back in 1962, a woman could be both well-groomed and totally ignorant about birth control. [Have times really changed? Look at Nicole Richie! Oh, we kid. -Ed.] At least, that's part of the narrative put forth by the comic "Escape From Fear", which was created and distributed by none other than Planned Parenthood in 1962 — the same year the Beatles released their first record, Marilyn Monroe overdosed, and A Clockwork Orange was published. Presented in its entirety on one of our new favorite websites, Comics With Problems (check out the comic about venereal diseases here) and linked to by another fave, BoingBoing, the 8-page comic is like Donna Reed meets 7th-grade Sex Ed meets Roy Lichtenstein.

Comic Gems: Tragi-Condom-Edy, And The Golden Age Of Nukes [BoingBoing via ComicsWithProblems]
Related: Capt Veedee-O And Ms. Wanda Lust In VD Claptrap [ComicsWithProblems]
Crying Girl, 1964 [MilwaukeeArtMuseum]

• The similarities between George W. Bush and Lindsay Lohan never cease to amaze us. Both have substance abuse problems. Both claim to be clean. Both drink while claiming to be clean. Both don't show up for work (Georgia Rule, The G8 Summit) when they've been drinking too much while claiming to be clean. And most importantly, both are spoiled rich kids who don't take the world around them very seriously. The fact that one's a 20-year old teen star and the other is the leader of the free world? A minor detail. A minor detail that scares the bejesus out of us on a daily basis. [Tennessee Guerilla Women]
  
• Those wacky right-wingers are at it again! All that liberal propaganda we're taking in (i.e. our favorite TV shows) is going to make us go out and kill someone. [Fishbowl LA]
  
• Bummer! Upon first glance, we thought this headline read "Astronauts Prepare For Lunch." And we thought. 'Hmm — What do astronauts eat for lunch? Bologna, perhaps?'. We're so disappointed. [CNN]
  
• Do we smell a scandal? And, uh, a not-coincidence? The sheriff who conveniently let Paris Hilton slip out of jail also accepted some mighty hefty campaign donations from Paris's grandpa. [Radar]

• Is she in jail? Is she home? It is SO HARD to keep up with Paris's whereabouts! Thankfully, there's help. [IsParisInJailRightNow.com]
• Isaiah Washington may not be returning to Grey's, but (until she starts bitching about how she's making less money than her other castmates) Knocked Up's Katherine Heigl is. [US]
• And in today's other celeb-sentencing story: George Michael gets community service. We assume he'll actually serve his sentence as opposed to having a withdrawal-induced breakdown and trying to run away home. [USA Today]
• An Englishman who shook his infant daughter so violently that her brain hemorrhaged is going to anger management classes. Um way too little, way too late, anyone? [BBC]
• The only message of hope we've seen all day: The Spice Girls reunion concert is ON! We are so dusting off our old CD's now. [People]
• Correction: This site brings us infinite more joy than the Spice Girls tour. Just look. [BoingBoing]
• 6 U.S. casualties identified today. [DoD]

Miss Formula, up close and personal, after the jump.

Changing Times: Los Angeles In Photographs, 1920-1990 [via BoingBoing]