Category: News

I’ve owned a Gillette Mach 3 since the razor came to market, and I’ve spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars in recurring revenue on the expensive little cartridges. But when my current supply is out (unfortunately, quite some time since I buy them at a warehouse store), I shall switch to the Schick Quattro. Why?

Because Gillette lied to me.

I saw the commercials for the Mach 3 Turbo, which allows you to put a battery into your razor. In return, it has a little green light on it and, Gillette claimed, micropulses of electricity would lift the hairs for a closer shave. Well, at least the light worked.

The judge ruled that Gillette’s claims that its M3Power could raise the stubble on one’s face were not true.

The court ordered Gillette to change the TV and print ads and the packaging for the product in 30 days.

Gillette yesterday asked the court for a clarification. The razor maker argued that neither the packaging nor the instore displays for M3Power depict hairs “changing angle or changing length.”

“‘Gentle micro-pulses stimulate hair up and away from skin,’ does not suggest that hairs are changing angle or changing length,” it argued in court papers.

I was never tempted to buy the stupid thing because I’ve already got an expensive handle for an expensive razor cartridge, but Gillette brought an expensive product to market that does not do what Gillette says the product does; that is, its selling point is untrue and its value above and beyond the regular Mach 3 does not exist. Gillette did this to try to relieve me of more of my money, and now it will henceforth relieve me of none.

And now that it’s caught, it’s trying to Clinton its way out of changing its packaging to marketing copy that does not outright lie. Splitting, but not changing the angle or length, of legalistic definitions to save itself 1.6 million dollars.

You know what punishment I would prefer? Gillette would have to run advertisements in the same markets and media as its previous ads with its leaders admitting they tried to pull one over the shaving public.

Man, the Patriot Act / Homeland Security blah blah blah investigates everything:

A clump of cloth mixed with plastic was found in the stomach of the bear, who died of surgical shock and cardiac arrest.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will review the St. Louis Zoo’s care of Churchill, a polar bear who died May 26 during surgery to remove an abdominal obstruction.

“An investigation is just a closer look,” Jim Rogers, an agency spokesman in Washington, said Friday. “It doesn’t mean any laws were broken.”

Man, what riveting television that would be. Who poisoned the polar bear with a plastic and cloth capsule? I suspect the shifty looking penguin.

But all mirth aside, how many tax dollars will we expend to collectively, as a society, possibly spare another polar bear the same circumstantial fate? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated story, Government investigates possible case of mad cow; I suspect they’re acting on a jailhouse tip from an enraged sheep.

Hey, Michelle Malkin has a picture of a young Muslim lad urinating on the American flag.

As a person who votes Republican more than 40% of the time (and Democrat about 5% of the time, so don’t ostracize me from the cool blogoclique), I saw we should start burning down Indian restaurants in the United States reach a greater understanding between our culture and theirs.

In our culture, some people put a decal of a young man from an old comic strip urinating on some symbol or another into their rear windows of their automobiles to show the owner’s contempt for what the symbol represents. In theirs, some people put a decapitation of a young man onto their Web sites to show the people’s contempt for the infidels.

Okay, I understand aplenty now.

However, pardon me if I look at the picture and say, hey, it’s a kid peeing on a square of cloth that represents free speech. How precocious. If he peed on a Koran amidst all those Muslims, he’d be dead.

From Neil Steinberg’s Chicago Sun-Times column today:

Daley isn’t the only public servant receiving scrutiny. Our embattled governor, Rod Blagojevich, is on everybody’s minds and lips. His name came up in three very different conversations I had with three very different people one day this week. Since I am known as being a negative sort, I will present the bare facts behind the trio of comments without any kind of embroidery:

Time: 12 noon. Place: Back room at Gene & Georgetti’s. Speaker: a well-respected, longtime Chicago editor:

“I’ve been watching politics for 40 years, and he’s the worst governor we’ve ever had, bar none.”

Time: 2:30 p.m. Place: Editorial board room of the Sun-Times. Speaker: a longtime state officeholder:

“He’s missing in action and not paying attention.”

Time: 5:30 p.m. Place: the Metra Milwaukee North Line. Speaker: a lady on a train:

“He’s in over his head. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. I kinda feel sorry for him.”

When Neil Steinberg turns on a Democrat, it’s obvious the only principle the Democrat has espoused is Peter.

But you know, gentle reader, how I feel about my governor. I want to draft Matt Blunt 2008.

Warning over crow attacks:

Joggers are today being warned about violent crows in London parks after an attack left a man bloodied and needing hospital treatment.

If only New York had issued such a warning earlier this week.

State seizes cancer-stricken girl:

Child welfare officials seized a 12-year-old cancer patient from her parents, saying they were blocking radiation treatment that doctors say she needs.

State officials even issued an Amber Alert for a the child, who was in the custody of her parents:

Last week, authorities issued an Amber Alert to gain temporary custody of Katie after receiving an anonymous tip about possible neglect. She was found with her mother at a family ranch, about 80 miles west of Corpus Christi near Freer, on Saturday.

Certainly, the mother must face some charges:

Michele Wernecke was arrested on charges of interfering with child custody and was released Monday after posting $50,000 bond.

Intefering with the state that wants to take custody of your child.

Illinois? Massachusetts? No. Texas.

Friends, I am not for denying treatment of cancer-stricken kids, but I do fear allowing states to seize children from their parents when experts think the children are not being raised healthy. Because it’s a matter of degree and not kind that prevents Departments of Protecting The CHILDREN from seizing children from homes that serve too much soda, and government departments always turn up the heat.

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times, today:

So please stop bull——– us.

He’s so authentic and emphatic when he puts faux swearing into his columns.

Once suspects his shift key was broken, or else he would have deployed the @$%#&*# bomb.

Error nets Bush 100 extra votes: Town of Herman’s 366 votes for president should have been 266.

Republicans had to replicate this plot in only 34,613 towns nationwide to steal the election for Bush!

Radley Balko says:

Pass enough laws, and a pissed-off cop can find something you’ve done wrong.

Well, you know, gentle reader, how I concur. Balko’s piece has another acute example.

Wait, I have a great nickname idea for Marquette University:

The Marquette Interchange.

Because I think it would be an apt metaphor for a bloated, overpriced re-evaluation and update.

Within the tale of passive/aggressive neighbor conflict entitled “Feud escalates between neighbors in Eureka“, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch captures this fallacious theorem:

According to Virginia-based Community Associations Institute, one in six Americans live in communities governed by indentures, in part because the added layer of governance can assure harmony and stable property values. [Emphasis added.]

Each additional layer of governance provides an extra set of cudgels with which people can bash each other and new arbitrary rules with which to punish the undesirable guilty. But those who trade liberty for property-price security deserve neither, and really deserve a couple of correctional knocks to the side of the head like an old television slightly resistant to an Atari 2600 signal. The same amount of cursing, too.

That must be the reason that supporters of Michael Jackson had a number of anti-Bush signs outside the courtroom in California where Michael Jackson’s trial is occurring.

Wow, this makes West Virginia sound small:

An RMS Strategies Poll released today reports that 46 percent of 401 registered voters in West Virginia would vote for Byrd if the election were held now.

Or apathetic. But I guess they mean a sample of registered voters, not that there are only 401 actual registered voters in the entire state.

(Link seen on Captain’s Quarters.)

Hero or villain? A gun enthusiast who was jailed for performing abortions when they were illegal.

Seat Belt Violators Caught By Cops Wearing Night Vision Goggles:

Maryland State Police say they issued 111 tickets last night in a seat belt enforcement operation in Rockville.

111 x

The fine for not wearing a seat belt in Maryland is 25 dollars.

111 x 25 = 2775!

Three thousand bucks per night in a small enforcement operation in a single town. Those night vision goggles not only pay for themselves, but they pay for the cops who wear them, and probably a couple days of meals on wheels to boot.

Thank you for making seatbelt offenses a primary offense, giving incentive to law enforcement to pull over people who aren’t wearing their seatbelts after dark instead of chasing hardened criminals who might shoot back.

Now that Wisconsin taxpayers, through a special “district,” have built a new theatre, an existing theatre group is closing up shop:

A representative of New Riverside said last month that the arrival of the new Milwaukee Theatre, the taxpayer-supported venue under the control of the Wisconsin Center District, was “driving us out of business.” The Milwaukee Theatre opened in November 2003.

The managers of both venues generally compete for the same artists. In one case, comedian Jerry Seinfeld opted to go with the new Milwaukee Theatre instead of the Riverside. New Riverside officials said last month that Seinfeld rejected the Riverside even though the rental fee was waived.

I hate to see government-benefitted enterprises drive out private enterprises, as they will eventually lead to dependence on the government to provide those services.

Yes, this is contrary to what I wrote in November 2003, when I mocked the Riverside for predicting its own demise because of the competition. But you, gentle reader, understand that I am a finger-in-the-wind sort of guy and not the sort who can find fault in government funding of this sort and in entrepreneurs who claim that competition (government funded or not) will drive them out of business.

I spent a half hour on the phone with a research firm last night, hopefully helping to squelch a bad idea. The research firm wanted to gauge my support for a tax increase in St. Louis City and St. Louis County to fund Forest Park.

Hey, the questions really offered me all the options: A sales tax increase or a property tax increase; controlled by St. Louis City, one of the existing tax-spending unelected district bodies, or a new independent body designed to suck tax money; used specifically to improve Forest Park, used for Forest Park and St. Louis City parks, or used for Forest Park and parks in your neighborhood.

Of course, I said I would not approve any increase in taxes. I recognize that any increase in taxes earmarked for some specific project means that the government will spend the savings on other continuing, expanding programs that could, sometime in the future, exceed current revenue, requiring the government to float the idea of a targeted tax that sits atop all other general taxes.

Plus, it gives visionary leaders like Rod Blagojevich funds to raid for ongoing expenses. (h/t Free Will.)

The very nature of the questioning on the survey indicates that the very best bureaucratic minds are working and spending money they cannot allocate to actually improving Forest Park on getting some sort of tax increase on the ballot. Hey, it’s only one fifth of one percent, is that too much?

It’s not a lot in its own, but each ballot initiative accumulates, and each one represents a double tax increase: not only are we paying for whatever the tax targets, but the money left over in the general funds will instead purchase a new program with ongoing and growing expenses.