Herding Cats: Our Favorite Savings Stories for the Week of November 1st

I challenge you, readers, to find any semblance of a theme for this week's roundup. Stella warned me it would be tough, and she was right. I've got nothing!

So let's forge ahead:

• Consumerist: Selling Alarm Systems After Murders Helpful or Opportunistic? - You have to click the "related" link at the bottom of this post for the full story on this...and it's a pretty sickening one. As immoral as fear-mongering and exploiting a tragedy can be, they can be considered two of the most common forms of profiteering (well, attempted profiteering, in this case, due to the New Hampshire town's near-unanimous disgust for ADT's tactics). Still, in the wake of the murder, it's definitely safer and more sensible that they started shilling alarm systems rather than handguns.

• Consumer Reports: Women More Likely to Give Gifts to Pet than Husband - I guess this survey proves that women are more concerned with affection from their pets than from their husbands. It makes a point... but I bet you have to work pretty hard to impress some pets, seeing as how most of them lack the cognitive ability to recognize and be grateful for a retail gift unless it's edible, chewable, or psychoactive (catnip).

• WalletPop: Only in Paris: Smoking and Chocolate Combined - I think this product epitomizes why I detest French food culture. Yes, I've been to Paris twice, where I mostly subsisted on banana-and-chocolate crepes from street vendors (they're cheap, but exquisite). At any restaurant though, I'd estimate that you basically pay three times the cost to get a third as much food as you would at home. And what do you know: my 9:1 ratio seems about right in the case of "Le Whif" which lets you inhale cocoa powder for $9. I'd rather savor a few squares of Ghirardelli for about a dollar.

• The Big Money : Why Eating Tainted Beef is OK - Confusing news for fans of ground beef: While it may disturb you that E. coli tainted beef eventually gets sold and eaten, cooking eradicates the bacteria. So the only danger is in the pre-cooked product. Why anyone would actually want to eat pre-cooked, post-infected ground beef is beyond me. ABC's sensationalism seems well-intentioned in this case, given all the morbid details of the meat industry the media has been sharing lately.

• Daily Finance : Sushi Salvation - To be perfectly honest, I'm not a seafood person, so I only read the first five paragraphs or so of this article, but these Oceanspheres sound really cool! One of the few creatures of the sea I do enjoy is salmon, which might be next on the list once Hawaii Oceanic Technologies can replenish the bigeye tuna population. Maybe they can build a few of these off of California to create some jobs for our hopeless state? Please?

• Mainstreet: Facebook App Allows Online Cash Exchange - Sorry, but I just have to say it: Allowing people to send money over Facebook is a horrible idea. There are tens of millions of users who barely know how to set their profile picture, much less know the difference between sending money safely and falling victim to a phishing scam. Luckily, since it costs $5 to sign-up, then $3 monthly, and then more fees to set up a pre-paid Facebook credit card, approximately 73 of Facebook's 300 million members will use it.

From all of us here at Savings.com, Happy Veteran's Day weekend to all our men and women in the military!