JimSwift.net

Stupid Class Action Lawsuits

js — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:06:53 +0000

Weber Grills are my favorite grill to use.

So I get this via email because I registered my grill, presumably. So — some person (and later a class action group) sues because Weber Grills claimed that their grills are “Made in the USA” and all but one line of grills are, now people get class action money.

This is bullshit. As much as I’d like up to a whopping $9, I’d rather forgo it and reform the laws regarding advertising and class actions so I don’t have to waste my time dealing with a Doug Chambers bullshit lawsuit. So, to litigious dipshits like Doug Chambers, I’d like to say thanks for the offer of a $9 check and a concerted go fuck yourself for inadvertently making my future Weber purchase more expensive.

Legal Notice

Chambers v. Weber-Stephen Products LLC
Class Action Case No. 37-2011-00085919-CU-BT-CTL, San Diego Superior Court

A California Superior Court ordered distribution of this Notice in connection with a proposed settlement of
a Class Action. This Notice is not a solicitation.

YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS MAY BE AFFECTED WHETHER YOU ACT OR DON’T ACT.
PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY

This notice concerns a proposed settlement of a class action lawsuit against Weber-Stephen Products LLC (“Weber”). The lawsuit alleges that Weber violated the law by designating Weber grills and certain accessories as “Made in USA.” Weber believes that because all Weber grills and the disputed accessories are designed and engineered in the USA, and all grills save for one line are manufactured and assembled in the USA using component parts primarily made in the USA, it did nothing wrong and therefore has valid defenses to plaintiff’s claims. The court has not held a trial or ruled in favor of either party on any disputed issues. Weber and the plaintiff have agreed to settle the matter to avoid the costs of continued litigation.

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, the Class Members are all persons who purchased a qualifying Weber Product for end-use from February 15, 2007, through February 15, 2012, which bore the designation “MADE IN USA” on the product and/or product packaging. The Court has certified the lawsuit to proceed as a class action for purposes of settlement.

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Class Members are eligible to receive a check for $2.00, $5.00, or $9.00, depending on the price they paid for the qualifying Weber product. If the Court approves the proposed settlement, to receive the check, Class Members need only submit a completed Claim Form on-line or by mail. The Claim Form can be found online at www.WeberClassSettlement.com in English or en Español, or you can request to have one mailed to you by calling 1-877-219-9788. Each Class Member will be limited to a maximum of three Claims, and payments are available only to those persons who do not opt out of the proposed settlement. The payment offer expires on April 30, 2012, and is not transferable. Weber has also agreed to a permanent injunction, and, subject to Court approval, to pay the named class representative, Doug Chambers, a one-time fee of $5,000.00 to reimburse his expenses and time. Plaintiff’s Counsel will request up to $995,000.00 for attorney’s fees and costs, which Weber reserves all rights to oppose. The Court may award less than the amounts requested.

What are Class Members’ Options? To ask for cash and stay in the Class, Class Members must submit a Claim Form by April 30, 2012. If a Class Member does not want to participate in the settlement, the Class Member may request exclusion from the Class by June 20, 2012. Class Members may also stay in the Class and object to the settlement by June 20, 2012.

Do not contact the Court. To get additional information about the terms and conditions of the proposed settlement and your options, in English or en Español, please review the Notice of Proposed Settlement of Class Action online at www.WeberClassSettlement.com, or call 1-877-219-9788.

Making History Fun

js — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:13:08 +0000

Hey, I think I could do this to make Capitol Tours more fun…

Ash Wednesday Links

js — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:26:31 +0000

CafeHayek: Obama’s obsession with exports

Synthesis: The Complexity of Hayek

Reason: The 12 Biggest Customer Service Failures of the Year

Kotecki: 5 Signs the Tea Party Crashed Your Oscar Party

Obama 2012 re-election plan: Sing more

Uncommon knowledge: Thomas Sowell

Heidi Sheirholz is an aggregate demand Keynesian apologist!

The fact that we are not aggressively pursuing fiscal policy to generate demand is a choice we are making. We are choosing to forgo spurring a fast recovery and instead allow the unemployment rate to remain greatly elevated, needlessly condemning individuals and families to job loss and unemployment for years to come.

I guess we choose to forgo that when we passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act…Right?

Bloomberg: Best legal movie quotes of all time

My buddy Andrew Ivers takes good photos at 2am

ODT: Where does the Laffer curve bend?

WSJ: An Unconventional Pairing: Wine and ‘Sliders’ at the Castle

Neither has David Hogan, an Ohio historian whose book on White Castle describes it as a “socioeconomic ‘common ground’ where truck drivers eat alongside physicians who eat next to the homeless.” (So true)

Maddox: Oops! You’re racist

Econstories merchandise

McArdle: Peter Gleick Confesses to Obtaining Heartland Documents Under False Pretenses

ERP!

I have spurred a comment bonanza at GGW

DC Mugshots! Woo hoo! (See if you can guess their alleged crime before looking at the caption)

WSJ: Obama Proposes Tax Revamp (I’ll post my thoughts later)

Santorum: “Satan has his sights on the United States of America!”

Preppers of the world: Get your JIC Kit

Saint Louis’s North County seems to produce a lot of Playmates

BGR: Microsoft tries to do to Google what Apple did to it [h/t Rokeach]

FamousDC Political Academy Awards

Free Chili tomorrow!!!

Come Celebrate National Chili Day | Thursday Feb. 23rd (Tomorrow) Get a FREE Bowl of Chili (with any purchase) at Hard Times Cafe

CleveScene: Dennis! Marcy! Graham! Fireworks in 9th Congressional District Race!

YESSSSSSSSS: Lewis Black on Whitney Houston

Terrelle Pryor’s Odd Facebook Musings

js — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:33:30 +0000

So, Terrelle Pryor’s twitter account led me to his newly created facebook page.

Let’s just say that Terrelle Pryor’s facebook musings do not make me doubt that he didn’t do well on the Wunderlic test.

Maybe I should be kinder, since he’s only posted four things since starting his account. But, these sorts of things from an NFL player are just kind of odd. They’re the sort of questions you get from trolls on the internet, or those spam accounts that friend you.

I am not saying that Terrelle Pryor is an idiot, I’m just saying his social media posts would lead most people to believe that. Celebrities use social media to promote themselves or causes they love.

Asking people if they have the day off tomorrow, or how their day was, or even “Have a great day!?” accomplishes none of those goals, and in this case, probably is a net negative since it is working against him in the public image.

Just a thought.

Tuesday Links

js — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:12:54 +0000

John Beckwith and Jeremy Grey work here, I think.

Reason: Why Capitalism isn’t going anywhere

Mitchell: The Higher-Education Bubble and Third-Party Payer

Byron York: Hollywood turns ‘Game Change’ into Palin biopic

Dallas Observer: Behold, Shiner’s New Wild Hare Ads

ARLNow: Arlington Police to do a DUI check point on Friday

Sowell: Academic Hypocrisy

Alyson Chadwick: My David Duchovny story

Jalopnik: These Are The Insanely Expensive Cars That GWU Students Drive

You are listening to Baltimore

ODT: Where do Great Ideas Come From?

Whoisbrew: Dallas Gets Crafty: Deep Ellum Brewing Company <-Drew Huerter’s shop

STLToday: U.S. Supreme Court declines to review St. Louis eminent domain sign case

Landsburg: What is it like to talk batty?

Dept. of ‘But Why?’: WSJ’s Facebook Pages Target of ‘Comment Flashmob’

WFNY: New Browns Uniforms?

Deadspin: The Making Of “Homer At The Bat,” The Episode That Conquered Prime Time 20 Years Ago Tonight

GGW: Latest data shows plenty of car-free living in DC (I made a comment on the post)

GGW: The Evolution of MetroRail in DC

WSJ: Facebook Profiles Found to Predict Job Performance

Roll Call: Can Barack Obama Get Black Voters in Ohio Excited? | Welcome or not, back to culture war | Obama Inches Closer to Midnight Rules

Atlantic: Why don’t Americans riot anymore?

Volokh: Supreme Court Agrees to Review University of Texas Affirmative Action Case

Chaucer liked to bomble — who knew?

Weekly Standard: The Big Creep

The Hill: Poll: Rep. Flake with commanding lead in Arizona Senate primary

Wonkette: FBI Breaks Up Latest Terrorist Plot That It Created

Heaton: Teddy Roosevelt Didn’t Exist (and Other Interesting Presidential Facts)

A mug that keeps mustaches dry

Gunny: Somebody picked the wrong house

Cash Mobs Aren’t Helpful

js — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:55:53 +0000

I saw this CNN feature on the Cleveland Scene webpage about Cashmobs. Cleveland Lawyer Andrew Samtoy apparently created this idea, which is similar to the “Flash Mob” we’ve seen here in D.C., but minus the whole stealing part.

While I respect his goals in trying to help local businesses, this will not improve the community.

A few reasons:

1.) Buy Local is a silly theory to follow. Ultimately businesses will close anyway, and those who tried spending their hard earned dollars there solely because it’s local end up poorer, because smaller stores have a hard time competing on price. In the long run, for food at least, it is often worse for the environment, especially when it comes to food and “food miles.” The bottom line for a sustainable local economy is this: make the decisions based on your own needs for price and quality, not whether the store is local, national, or multi-national. Doing anything other than this, like spending more money at a locally owned store that charges more, just because it is local, just makes you poorer. We know most people aren’t participating in cash mobs, so it’s safe to assume that your altruism isn’t going to change the grand scheme of things. Why make yourself poorer in a futile effort?

Put simply: If Wal-Mart sells something that Ace Hardware in Cleveland Heights sells at half of the price, why would you buy it from Ace? Either way, you’re buying it from a place that employs people from Cleveland Heights. Is that not buy local? If Amazon.com charges half of what Wal-Mart is selling it for, and that includes shipping, if you don’t need it right away, why not buy it from Amazon? Sure, it’s not buying locally, but it saves you money. Remember, intentionally paying more is intentionally choosing to make yourself poorer. Even worse, not shopping around for the lowest price not only makes you poorer, it makes you stupid. Following a guy in a crazy hat, well, I don’t know what that makes you.

If you are “Buying Local” to feel good about yourself, without looking to compare quality or price, why not just round up to the nearest $5 mark next time you’re at a “cash mob” and tell them to keep the change? This is what you’re doing: just giving them more of your money than you ideally would to acquire the good or service you desire. You’ve already chosen not to get the lowest price, though sometimes you may, you’ve chosen to buy local. Why not just give them even more of your money for no additional gain for yourself? It helps the community, doesn’t it? Why not just give them money and not buy anything? That helps the community too! But people don’t do that, even though it is kind of what they are doing already.

2.) 40 people “mobbing” a store will not do much to help that store. Sure, one night that store will make money, no doubt, but that will not help out an ailing business stay in business. The video of “Big Fun” doesn’t help their case because it is a store that nearly everyone in Cleveland knows about. The best way to keep a vibrant, sustainable economy in your locality is to be a price hawk and only shop where you benefit the most. This will hasten the demise of inefficient economic actors, and allow that space to be used for a presumably more economically beneficial purpose. Keeping inefficient actors in business might employ people, for sure, but it also collectively makes the community poorer if that business cannot efficiently operate. Why prolong this?

3.) If cash mobs truly help these places stay in business via the one-time cash-mob, then they would have to continue the cash-mobs to help these places stay open. What’s this you say, going back to a place because they offer a good or service at a price I like? This sounds a lot like, you know, being a happy customer that chooses a business because it offers goods at prices people can afford. Cash-mobs don’t contribute to long-run success of these businesses. No business owner gets 40 customers one night from a guy in a funny hat and goes: “40 customers buying trinkets (or books), hallelujah, my money troubles are over.” And odds are that if that business was in monetary trouble, those 40 new customers could help, but that alone would not keep that business open. To really make a difference, they’d have to keep having “cash-mobs” there night after night, and I think people would stop coming after maybe the second cash-mob.

Cash-mobs may be cute and kitschy, but they are Keynesian “stimulus” economics at a micro level, and they don’t make a difference. They are not sustainable ways to improve things, just as the stimulus proved not to be sustainable when the money ran out. Cash-mobs do not do anything other than prolong the lives of businesses doomed to fail anyway, or help businesses that didn’t need it in the first place. That is in nobody’s interest.

President’s Day Links

js — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:01:52 +0000

"I won’t have to work on puttin’ gas in my car. I won’t have to work at payin’ my mortgage."

And you wonder why some of us want truly free trade. If foreigners subsidize the products they sell us, why should we complain? We’re getting a discount. Sure, China subsidizing X, Y, or Z hurts its citizens. But we respond by hurting ours back? This makes no sense.

Wisconsin lawmakers introduce CHEATS Act So, in response to alleged cheating, we respond by cheating back…. Wait, what?

Seattle Times: Obama sets up sweet bank deals to aid Boeing, other manufacturers

Free Busch radio on pandora

HotAir: The Left’s outrageous outrage at a proposal to require ultrasounds before abortion

NYTimes: Obama’s Tax Policy Targets Rising Sector of His Base: The Affluent

Hilariously untrue video about George Washington [nsfw]

DuckDuckGo goes after Google on privacy

DailySun: England’s Male Honeytrapper

Somewhat Daily Krugman rebuttal

Cleveland Scene: Be Thankful You Don’t Answer the Phone at the Local News Stations [they need to analyze the calls Congress gets]

CNN does a feature on “Cash Mobs” in Cleveland [I'll explain why these are stupid in a future blog post]