McDonald's (MCD) is slimming down its menu, which has ballooned by 70% since 2007 to a lineup of 145 items.

First came word that the fast-food king was getting rid of Angus burgers, chicken selects, and fruit and walnut salads. Now Bloomberg News reports the Southern Style Biscuit, Caesar salads and McSkillet Burrito may be next to go. The report comes from an internal company email and indicates the House of Ronald realizes that being all things to all people leads to shoddy service and angry customers.

"They can’t make the food fast enough," restaurant consultant Richard Adams said in an interview with Bloomberg. 

Taking an iPad into the bathroom is all kinds of wrong. But Hammacher Schlemmer is making it a little less wrong with a "commode caddy" that holds the iPad while business is being done.

The $100 chromed steel stand has a 10-inch flexible holder that can display an iPad in portrait or landscape mode. It also holds a roll of toilet paper -- apparently the only kind of paper allowed in the bathroom anymore.

"This is the bathroom stand that replaces a traditional basket of magazines," the company says on its website. The company's general manager, Fred Berns, said in a statement that it eliminates the clutter created by traditional printed materials.  

Next week is National Dog Bite Prevention Week, and health care specialists, veterinarians and the insurance industry are trying to get out the word about reducing dog bite incidents this year.

In 2011, about 70 million dogs were living in U.S. households, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, down from about 72 million in 2006. That means more than 36% of the population has canine companionship.

The downside to that statistic is the more than 4.7 million dog bites reported each year. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 800,000 Americans seek medical attentional annually for dog bites. Of those injuries, nearly half require emergency room treatment. Dog bite rates are highest among children ages 5 to 9, and related fatalities average 16 a year.

 

Southwest Airlines (LUV) has theoretically managed to squeeze more than $773 million in extra revenue from the flying public by squeezing them tighter into their seats.
 
As the website Unwieldy.net has noted, the airline decided last year to reduce its "seat pitch," better known as legroom, on its Boeing (BA) 737s by an inch, from 33 to 32 inches. By doing so, the fourth-largest U.S. airline was able to add six seats per flight. The Dallas carrier runs about 93,450 flights per month that are about 80% full, with an average ticket price of $141.72.

By Unwieldy's math, that equals exactly $773,074,040 in additional revenue, which for a company that's expected to generate $17.7 billion in sales this year isn't too shabby. A Southwest spokesperson couldn't be reached for comment on the validity of the site's calculation. However, aviation consultant Mike Boyd tells MSN Money that "it passes the smell test. . . . (But) you better have tushies in those chairs." 

Saturday marks the anniversary of the crushing disappointment known as Facebook's (FB) initial public offering. Facebook and Wall Street, however, seem to have moved on just fine.

Facebook shares have never come close to the $38 IPO price, but they've stabilized in the $26-$28 range. After a few months of not knowing what to think about the company or its prospects, analysts have come around. Only one major analyst -- Rich Greenfield at BTIG Research -- has a "sell" rating on the stock. Most everyone else has some version of "buy" or "hold."

So Facebook has settled into the life of a regular Wall Street stock. What's worth noting, however, is what Facebook did not become. 

As an overall trend, union membership rates in the U.S. are declining. The Department of Labor reports just 11.3% of America's wage and salary workers were union members last year, down from 11.8% in 2011. Compare that with 1983, the first year comparable data became available: The overall U.S. union membership rate was 20.1%.

The U.S. labor movement's roots were traditionally found in manufacturing, service and public-sector jobs. But as that factory work diminishes and the economy changes, more white-collar workers are looking at organizing.

 

Some gas stations, convenience stores and other merchants are illegally charging fees for debit card users, as well as putting minimum purchase amounts on customers who use the bank cards, according to a new report. 

A January settlement of a class-action lawsuit allowed merchants to start adding "checkout fees" on customers who pay with credit cards, but it exempted debit card users. Despite this, some merchants still hit debit card users, GoBankingRates.com reports.

Ten states -- California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Texas -- actually prohibit surcharges for credit card users, but that can be a gray area. For instance, gas stations sometimes offer cash discounts. While that's not adding a charge for credit card users, it still effectively dings them when compared with cash customers. 

 

When the San Francisco Giants invest in a bullpen piece like left-handed pitcher Jeremy Affeldt (pictured), the least they ask of him is not to cost them anything.

Don't cost them runs, don't blow saves, don't shift games that were in the "W" column into "L" territory. Since arriving in San Francisco in 2009, Affeldt's largely upheld those simple criteria by going 10-9 with 10 saves and giving up just two runs in 15 playoff appearances while helping the Giants to World Series wins in 2010 and 2012.

That he also saved the team $500,000 along the way by pointing out a clerical error in his contract didn't hurt, either.

Hank Schulman of The San Francisco Chronicle points out Affeldt was set to earn $4 million in 2010 under an existing contract with the Giants when the team negotiated a two-year, $10 million extension.