Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Last week’s story about the state of Missouri regulating personal watercraft use by minors drew this supportive letter from a trade group:

We cannot point blame at personal watercraft for causing accidents when operator-controlled factors such as inattention and inexperience are cited as the leading contributors (“Zippy craft, young riders are making waves,” June 4). Irresponsible boaters cause accidents. Because most accidents are preventable, steps must be taken by boaters themselves to improve safety.

People who take a boating safety education course are less likely to be involved in an accident. Rental-business owners should more thoroughly explain the rules to customers, so that they know how and where to ride, in addition to not jumping a boat’s wake or riding to close to another personal watercraft.

We applaud Missouri for its new boater education law that requires all boaters born after Jan. 1, 1984, to pass a safety course. But older boaters should take a class, too. Personal watercraft manufacturers support laws that require all PWC operators, regardless of age or previous experience, to take a course. We also support a minimum age requirement of 16 years to operate a personal watercraft and 18 years to rent one.

To prevent an enjoyable boating day from becoming an unfortunate tragedy, we all must take steps to assure that safety and responsibility come first.

Maureen Healey
Executive Director
Personal Watercraft
Industry Association
Washington D.C.

Instead of lobbying for regulation, perhaps Ms. Healey could have told her association’s members and customers to just not rent to minors. However, it’s cheaper for the members if the state handles all the expense of the entrepreneurs’ costs of business. After all, it’s working wonders for the airline industry.

(Submitted to the Outside the Beltway Traffic Jam.)

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.