The pictures in question were taken over the summer, and showed the pretending to kiss or lick "novelty phallus-shaped lollipops." Other images showed the girls in their underwear with dollar bills sticking out. The ACLU has become involved in the case, and they claim that since the incident occurred outside school, it should not effect their standing. •  A new study from Britain's Department of Health has found that new mothers feel most anxious around five months after giving birth. At this point, the excitement has supposedly worn off, and friends and relatives are supposedly no longer offering as much support, which leads many mothers to feel isolated and nervous. • Nutrition experts have complained that Kellogg's is falsely advertising that its Cocoa Krispies cereal can help "boost immunity." Currently, the Cocoa Krispies box reads: ""Now helps support your child's IMMUNITY," alluding to the addition of vitamins A, C and E. But Kelly Brownell from Yale University says, "by their logic, you can spray vitamins on a pile of leaves, and it will boost immunity." • Researchers recently found that 1/5 of smokers lie about smoking during pregnancy. The study, which looked at 3,475 women from Scotland, asked women to come clean about lighting up while pregnant and followed up with the revealing blood tests. •  The Cyprus Feline Society has identified two breeds of cat that they claim are "ancient breeds" and would like international recognition for them. The two breeds include the tall and elegant "Aphrodite," and short, broad-faced "Helen." •  A professor at Harvard has announced that next semester he plans a class based entirely on the HBO show The Wire. "I do not hesitate to say that it has done more to enhance our understanding of the challenges of urban life and the problems of urban inequality, more than any other media event or scholarly publication," said sociology professor William J. Wilson at a recent panel discussion.  • A new study found that while marriage rates are lower for women on welfare, receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, once they exit the system they are as likely to marry as women who were never on welfare. • International cancer specialists will meet this week to figure out how to combat the increase of breast cancer in developing countries, where almost two-thirds of women aren't diagnosed until the cancer has spread through their bodies. Doctors say part of the problem is that in some areas women worry that men will leave them if they lose a breast. "It's not a trivial consideration," says Dr. Lawrence Shulman of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, who is working to begin cancer care in parts of Africa where "the women are often seen as really either vessels for producing children or as sex slaves." • A mother in New York is challenging a judge's decision to 34 percent increase in the number of Down Syndrome births between 1989 and 2005, 15 percent fewer babies were born during that time due to prenatal testing. Some are worried that the decline in Down Syndrome cases will lead to cuts in research funding and that more people aren't even considering raising a child with Down syndrome. • A Texas health clinic operator CareNow says it regrets telling a Muslim doctor applying for a job that she couldn't wear her hijab. The company called it a "misunderstanding" after the American-Islamic Relations wrote to CareNow, explaining federal law requires employers to reasonably accommodate religious practices of an employee. • Today Michelle Obama is launching a mentoring program in which she and female White House staffers will mentor 20 high school girls from the Washington, D.C. area. The girls will get to visit their mentors' offices and gather for a group dinner. • Despite Liz Lemon's well-known love of the German language, 30 Rock is not popular in Germany. Its premiere last night on the German channel ZDFNeo earned a 0.0 rating, meaning it was watched by fewer than 5,000 people. Blerg. •

There are a few variations on this campaign. In one, a woman lights a Glade candle in the bath. When a friend calls, she tells her she's at the spa. In the next iteration, a woman lights a Glade candle, then tells her friends it's some expensive scent "from France." "You mean you've never heard of Glah-day?!" shouts her friend, triumphantly, as she rips the giveaway Glade label off the liar's back. Then there's the "yoga" ad, where the deceitful woman explains the fresh smell as something she uses to "plug into her karma." "DON'T YOU MEAN GLADE PLUG-INS?" crows her friend upon espying the telltale dispenser.

It's an innocuous — if annoying — campaign, and I get the logic behind it: in strapped times, people want nice things for cheap, and Glade wants to take its image upmarket. But there's something weird about the psychology of 'deceit ads' - pretending frozen pizzas have been delivered; that Sara Lee tortes are from fancy bakeries; that Pillsbury pastries are made from scratch; that canned broth is "a family secret." Some of it seems like a holdover from a time when convenience products were stigmatized, but the odd culture of 'women lying to their friends' — and it's always women — is somewhat unsettling to the overthinker, as if always implicit is the notion of female competition — and based on products, no less.

Of course, the commercials universe is a grotesque one in which husbands are invariably buffoons, people get strangely excited about fast food, and children speak exclusively in sassy one-liners. The odd deceit culture is of a piece with this; but the fact that these approaches have, one assumes, been strenuously market-and focus-tested and somehow found to appeal to women is bizarre. According to Marti Berletta, female shoppers are eminently practical: the marketer is advised that women prize "price over value," "thrift over convenience," "sustainables over disposables" and "essentials over indulgences." Nowhere does she mention status-conscious deceit, and indeed, lately there seems to be a palpable pride in bargain-hunting at work which is at odds with this.

That said, for all my bafflement and manufactured outrage, I was moved to sniff a Glade candle at the supermarket the other day: annoying or not, the ads had obviously made an impression - so had they worked? The candle smelled exactly like one of those blue-water scent things in a particularly grimy restaurant toilet. And at the end of the day, you can only deceive us so much.

Related: How To Market To Women During The Economic Upheaval [AdAge]

Thankfully, Cosmo only meant "naughtiest" in the "we are lying, why don't you try and sue us over it?" sense of the word. After the jump, a verrrryy steamy photo from the Cosmo vault.

It's Burt Reynolds, circa Cosmo's April 1972 issue. He's never really been our type either, but there's something kinda Regal Beagle-y you'd totally go home with after a few too many Alabama Slammers or whatever they drank on the Love Boat, plus he'd never notice if you hadn't shaved in a month and a half because you'd be so busy navigating his own fur.

Cosmo
Related: A Naked Burt Reynolds Makes A DirecTV Pitch [AdFreak]