pileofcrapola

Spoiler alert: If your home is built on land you don’t own, you’re going to have to move it or lose it. The owner of a $2 million home in Rhode Island found out the hard way that not all engineers are up to snuff when it comes to figuring out what is and isn’t public park land.

Back in 2009, the oceanfront home’s developer hired an engineering firm to survey the land slated for the $1.8 million house, which currently sits on a plot in Point Judith, RI. Everything apparently passed muster, and the building went up, with construction complete in 2011.

Fast forward to when the developer then tried to sell the house, reports Turnto10.com, and a prospective buyer hired an independent engineer to check things out.

That survey found that the land was actually owned by a family that designated the area as park land for public use. Oops.

The developer has been fighting to keep the house where it is and reportedly contacted a trustee for the park to see what could be done (to no avail), but now the Rhode Island Supreme Court has found that because the home was built completely on land owned by the family foundation, it has to go, reports the Associated Press.

While the court said it was sympathetic to the developer’s plight and what can be chalked up to a surveying mistake, the park’s property rights come first, and it’s in the public interest to keep the land as a park anyway.

“Any attempt to build on even a portion of the property would constitute an irreparable injury, not only to plaintiff but to the public,” the court wrote.

According to a 2008 agreement among family members, if trustees did let the land be used for anything besides a public park, they’d have to fork over $1.5 million to New York Presbyterian Hospital.

It’s now up to a judge to decide the timeline for removing the house.

Well, at least the developer doesn’t have to burn the whole thing down, right?

Ruling: Oceanfront home must be moved [Turnto10.com]
Court: $1.8M House Built on Park Must Be Removed [Associated Press]

It’s Tuesday, which must mean it’s the day that all the bad consumers come out to play in the news with tales of their inebriated shenanigans at fast food restaurants. In this installment, police say a guy in a Mercedes refused to roll forward to pick up his order at the Taco Bell drive-thru, telling cops who arrived on the scene that it was fine, see, because he’s a cop, too. Except not.

Police in Maryland say there was “an odd scenario” at a local Taco Bell recently, reports WBALTV.com, where an allegedly drunk customer acted up in the drive-thru line and refused to move his car forward to pick up his order.

Cops showed up at 2 a.m. Sunday morning and reportedly found a man repeatedly blowing the horn of his Mercedes in the drive-thru. Officials said he’d ordered food, but then wouldn’t pull up to get it. Which just doesn’t make sense, ya know?

Anyway, he then allegedly adding cursing at employees into his horn-blowing to express his apparent displeasure with the world and the way it was spinning for him that day.

“He was also on his phone there for a while in the drive-thru again, using expletives and not following directions of the employees in terms of pulling up,” a police spokesman said. Ding ding ding.

At that point officers had a chat with the man, and reported that he smelled strongly of alcohol, his eyes were glassy and his speech slurred.

Here comes the fun part (no, we weren’t there yet!): According to police, when they ordered him to get out of his vehicle, he chimed in that he was actually a police officer himself. Which, predictably, wasn’t true.

“He didn’t display a badge or anything,” the spokesman said.

After officers gave him a field sobriety test — which he failed — he was issued five traffic citations and charged with DWI and impersonating a police officer. And ZERO burritos.

Police: Drunken man annoys Taco Bell workers, pretends to be police [WBALTV.com]

Every year in mid-June, Hornady Manufacturing, a Nebraska company that makes ammunition and reloading tools, gives its employees an impressive bonus. Three years ago, after local leaders accused the company of not supporting the local economy, it began earmarking a part of that bonus to be spent only at local businesses. How did they do that? By giving out envelopes of a very particular form of currency: $2 bills.

The Omaha World-Herald reports that when the bonus program began three years ago, the company handed out rolls of dollar coins. Those were too bulky, especially when the bonus works out to around $200 per employee.

Where do you get more than 30,000 $2 bills? The company has to order them from its bank weeks ahead of time.

Watching the $2 bills circulate around local shops let everyone see the company’s impact on the economy, and employees’ bonus spending in the town became very, very visible.

Of course, the whole bonus doesn’t come in $2 bill form: employees also get a real bonus check, as well as a contribution to their retirement accounts.

(This concept also has an evil twin: I have also heard of a strip club that gave out change in $2 bills, so patrons had to either give all of their bills to the dancers or have others in the small town know where they had been.)

Curiously, the Omaha World-Herald didn’t interview local storekeepers about the possible inconvenience of the influx of $2 bills.

Employer hands out $61K in bonuses — all in $2 bills [Omaha World-Herald]

Today’s kids may not remember, but waiters and waitresses at casual dining restaurants around the country were once covered in “flair,” pins and buttons — some whimsical, some carrying marketing messages — intended to give these otherwise anonymous eateries a level of quirkiness. It was an effort at synchronized idiosyncrasy, wherein servers were encouraged to express themselves… in the exact same manner as all the other servers at all the other thousands of identical restaurants. And then came Office Space.

Inarguably the greatest movie ever made in the history of greatest movies ever made, Mike Judge’s saga of workplace ennui draws an analogy between the crushing banality of the protagonist’s job as a cubicle-dwelling mid-level software engineer with the soul-robbing chain restaurant Chotchkie’s, a TGI Fridays stand-in where servers are expected to deliver deep-fried appetizers with a perma-smile, all while sporting just the right amount of flair:

In a new interview with Deadline, Judge discusses the long-term cultural impact that his masterpiece has had.

“About four years after Office Space came out, TGI Fridays got rid of all that (button) flair, because people would come in and make cracks about it,” reveals Judge. “One of my ADs asked once at the restaurant why their flair was missing and they said they removed it because of that movie Office Space. So, maybe I made the world a better place.”

Watchers of Judge’s current HBO show Silicon Valley will recognize that last sentence as reference to the oft-heard “Making the world a better place…” line that seems to make its way into every tech company’s media presentation.

[via AVclub]

Watching a 15-second ad might seem like a small price to pay in order to see your favorite music video right when you want to. But a number of artists who haven’t agreed to the licensing terms of YouTube’s upcoming ad-free subscription service won’t be showcasing their talents on the platform much longer.

YouTube announced that in a matter of days it will be begin blocking videos of independent record label artists who have refused to sign licensing terms for the platform’s new service, The Financial Times reports.

The move won’t be blocking just small, unknown artists either. Popular musicians such as Adele and the Arctic Monkeys will have thousands of videos in YouTube-land blocked if a deal is not reached.

The new service, which is expected to launch later this summer, would allow users to watch videos or listen to music without advertisements on any device – even when it’s not connected to the internet – for a fee.

Robert Kyncl, head of content and business operations for YouTube, says that nearly 90% of the music industry, including large record labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music, have signed the new service terms. YouTube has not revealed the specifics of the agreement.

While blocking artist videos from the platform, even as ad-supported content, seems unfair to consumers, Kyncl says YouTube’s goal is to make “features that fans love.”

But it might not be all doom and gloom for fans of Adele and other artists affected by the blocking. Vevo, which distributes official music videos for many independent record label artists, has an agreement with YouTube and will continue to provide content.

“To clarify, music videos from the indie labels and distributed by Vevo on YouTube will not be taken down,” a spokesperson from Vevo tells TechCrunch.

YouTube to block indie labels as it launches paid music service [Financial Times]

Since he started appearing on pal Oprah Winfrey’s show a decade ago, and especially since he launched his own inexplicably popular daytime talk show in 2009, Dr. Mehmet Oz has had a history of being a bit overly enthusiastic about some of the alternative and nontraditional treatments he’s highlighted, resulting in countless scammers cashing in on the questionable weight-loss treatments he’s described as “miracles,” like the green coffee extract that is the subject of an ongoing federal action. This morning, Dr. Oz is appearing before a Senate subcommittee and admitting that his “cheerleading” for products that he admits are just “crutches” has caused trouble for himself and for the Federal Trade Commission.

Missouri Senator Clair McCaskill, Chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, went straight for Dr. Oz’s jugular in her opening remarks on this morning’s hearing about the false and deceptive advertising of weight-loss products.

“When you feature a product on your show, it creates what has become known as ‘Oz Effect,’ dramatically boosting sales and driving scam artists to pop up overnight using false and deceptive ads to sell questionable products,” the Senator explained. “I’m concerned that you are melding medical advice, news and entertainment in a way that harms consumers.”

In his prepared opening comments, Dr. Oz says that even though he never mentions specific products or tells his millions of viewers what to buy, unscrupulous scammers use his words and likeness to peddle their often questionable products.

“It’s a problem I have spent immeasurable time, effort, resources and money to combat,” said the doctor. “I’m chagrined to say the problem has only increased exponentially… I am forced to depend my reputation every single day.”

Dr. Oz openly admitted that the weight-loss treatments he mentions on the show are frequently “crutches… You won’t get there without diet and exercise,” and that while he believes in the research he’s done, the research done on these treatments would probably not pass FDA muster.

“If the only message I gave was to eat less and move more — which is the most important thing people need to do — we wouldn’t be very effectively tackling this complex challenge because viewers know these tips and they still struggle,” said the doctor. “So we search for tools and crutches; short-term supports so that people can jumpstart their programs.”

Sen. McCaskill quoted three statements that the great and doctorful Oz had made about different weight-loss treatments on his show:

•(On green coffee extract) — “You may think magic is make-believe, but this little bean has scientists saying they found the magic weight-loss for every body type.”

•(On raspberry ketone) — “I’ve got the number one miracle in a bottle to burn your fat” (raspberry ketone)

•(On garcinia cambogia) — “It may be the simple solution you’ve been looking for to bust your body fat for good.”

“I don’t get why you say this stuff, because you know it’s not true,” said McCaskill. “So why, when you have this amazing megaphone, and this amazing ability to communicate, why would you cheapen your show by saying things like that?”

Oz took great issue with the Senator’s assertion that he doesn’t believe in the treatments he endorses.

“I don’t think this ought to be a referendum on the use of alternative medical therapies,” said the doctor. “I’ve been criticized for having people coming on my show to talk about the power of prayer. As a practitioner, I can’t prove that prayer helps people survive an illness.”

Countered McCaskill, “It’s hard to buy prayer… prayer’s free.”

“I do personally believe in the items that I talk about on the show,” responded Dr. Oz, who acknowledged that statements he’s made in the past have encouraged scam artists and others looking to make a quick buck on people looking for an easy way to lose weight.

“I do think I’ve made it more difficult for the FTC,” he continued. “In the intent to engage viewers, I use flowery language. I used language that was very passionate that ended up being not very helpful but incendiary and it provided fodder for unscrupulous advertisers.”

The doctor says his show has curbed the use of such language in recent years. He also says there are products that he believes in but that he’s yet to discuss on the show, “because I know what will happen.”

But the Senator wasn’t going to let him off the hook.

“The scientific community is almost monolithic against you in terms of the efficacy of the three products that you called miracles,” she told the doctor. “And when you call a product a miracle and it’s something that you can buy and it’s something that gives people false hope, I just don’t understand why you need to go there.”

McCaskill pointed to the FTC’s “Gut Check” list of seven warning signs that a weight-loss product is likely going to only make your wallet lighter.

She urged Dr. Oz to, instead of dumping half-researched “miracles” on viewers looking for quick answers, he instead educate his audience about the items on that list — “that there isn’t magic in a bottle, that there isn’t a magic pill, that there isn’t some kind of magic root or acai berry or raspberry ketone that is going to all of a sudden make it not matter that you’re not moving an eating a lot of sugar and carbohydrates.”

In response, the doctor said he tells his audience that information all the time.

“Then why would you say that something is a miracle in a bottle?” asked the Senator.

“My job, I feel, on the show is to be a cheerleader for the audience and when they don’t think they have hope, when they don’t think they can make it happen, I wanna look — and I do look — everywhere… for any evidence that might be supportive to them,” explained Oz, who believes that products like green coffee extract jumpstart someone’s weight loss program and “gives you the confidence to keep going, and then you start to follow the things that we talk about every single day — including those seven items [on the FTC Gut Check list].”

Throughout his testimony, Dr. Oz repeatedly reminded the subcommittee that he has to do constant damage reputation — along with taking legal action against some scammers — because of the people who abuse his enthusiastic statements for their own ends. However, the Senator was not exactly moved to tears.

“I know you feel that you’re a victim, but sometimes conduct invites being a victim,” concluded McCaskill. “I think that if you would be more careful, maybe you wouldn’t be victimized quite as frequently.”

Maybe he was just waiting for a fresh order of french fries? Or perhaps he was just too sloshed to remember that the local Wendy’s drive-thru wasn’t a hotel. Either way, we should probably just be happy he parked his car and didn’t ram it into the building three times.

A 38-year-old Utah man recently held up a Wendy’s drive-thru lane by taking an alcohol-induced cat nap, the Daily Herald reports.

Oh, you thought taking a nap at the drive-thru only happened at McDonald’s? Well, apparently drunk nappers don’t discriminate when it comes to fast food fare.

According to police records, employees at the Wendy’s called authorities to report a man, who allegedly smelled like alcohol, sleeping in his car at the drive-thru window. We’re not sure how peeved other customers were with the man, but they didn’t try to wake him. Instead, someone just took the keys out of his ignition, but they managed to leave the vehicle’s headlights on.

Upon arriving at the scene, officers woke the man and asked if he had been drinking, to which the man reportedly replied “yes, a little.”

Officers reported the man smelled of alcohol, stumbled out of the vehicle, had slurred speech, and droopy and bloodshot eyes. The man was unable to get though the instruction phase of the field sobriety tests, let alone actually perform any of the tests.

When officers searched the man’s vehicle they allegedly found an open bottle of liquor and an Arby’s cup containing a mixed drink of alcohol.

Officers also determined the man had previously been charged with multiple alcohol violations and a revoked driver’s license. He was also required to have an ignition interlock device, which was not found in the vehicle.

In all, the man didn’t even get a chance to satisfy his drunk cravings, but he was arrested for five alcohol and driving related violations, including suspicion of DUI, driving while revoked and having an open container in the vehicle.

Man sleeping in Wendy’s drive-thru arrested for DUI [Daily Herald]

The thirteen-year-long mess of the GM ignition switch recall was, in part, a failure to see and identify patterns in the data. Over the course of a decade, individual consumers lodged complaints that, put together, could have revealed the whole problem sooner. But nobody got to look at the whole, because all of the service bulletins that carmakers like GM send to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration go into its database… and never come back out. Too bad so sad, says NHTSA, but lawmakers and auto-safety advocates are hoping to change that.

The way that car manufacturers report on defects happens largely in private, as The Wall Street Journal reports. When a company like GM hears about a problem from drivers or mechanics, they issue a technical service bulletin (TSB) to their dealerships explaining how to deal with it. So, for example, if a line of cars has an issue where the rear cup holder keeps popping out, but it stays put if you replace a screw with a different kind of screw, the manufacturer would issue that in a service bulletin.

Sometimes what seems like a small issue at first turns out later to be a big issue. That’s what happened with GM’s ignition switches: the first few reports seemed to be isolated events, but were instead the front edge of a major safety issue, resulting in a massive (if long-delayed) recall.

The NHTSA also receives all the TSBs, which then go into their private database. The agency publishes abstracts of some of the reports, but the database is strictly internal, and off-limits to consumers.

Back in 2012, the highway programs reauthorization bill did include language requiring the Department of Transportation (NHTSA’s parent agency) to publish auto makers’ “communications to dealers” on a public website. And while carmakers do indeed use their TSBs to communicate to dealers, NHTSA apparently takes a more narrow view of the law.

And why? Because of copyright restrictions, they say.

NHTSA claims they only publish information after something has been technically classified as a safety defect, because the whole TSBs are copyrighted documents. A spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers told the Wall Street Journal that consumers are welcome to buy copies of the documents from third parties.

Lawmakers like Rep. Henry Waxman of California and Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts are hoping to push NHTSA into publishing the bulletins on their website, and they have support not only from auto-safety advocate groups but also from, of all places, GM.

GM’s own investigation of the ignition switch defect and recall found GM lawyers and engineers at fault for not looking at the TSBs about the Chevy Cobalt on NHTSA’s website… but the bulletins weren’t there for them to find.

“If publication helps customers and dealers solve problems together, we’re all for it,” a company spokesman told the WSJ.

Safety Regulator Balks at Disclosing Full Alerts [Wall Street Journal]

When shopping online, it can be difficult to compare prices between similar products because they come in slightly different size containers — or to see if you’re really getting a good deal by buying in bulk — because many e-tail websites don’t include unit pricing to tell you many dollars per ounce/gram/liter or other standard unit of measure. But today, some of the biggest names in retail agreed to start listing unit prices, while the biggest name in online shopping won’t commit.

New York state Attorney General Eric “Peter Parker” Schneiderman announced this morning that national retailers Walmart, Costco, Walgreens, CVS and Drugstore.com, along with NYC-based grocery delivery service FreshDirect, agreed to start placing unit prices on all applicable products within the next year.

For example, if you go to Walmart.com and you’re looking for hand lotion with shea butter, you might see this Dial product for $2.92 and this Suave item for $2.83.

The nine-cent price difference between the two items might seem negligible, especially if you don’t notice that the Suave bottle contains 18 ounces of lotion while the Dial is only 12 ounces. Given that the packaging of these two items is very different and one can’t do the side-by-side comparison that one might do in a grocery store, it’s entirely possible that one might assume they are the same size and thus providing around the same value.

But if Walmart.com had unit pricing under the sticker price, you’d see a substantial difference in value. The Dial product sells for $.243/oz., while the Suave lotion goes for $.157/oz, or around 2/3 of the unit price of the Dial lotion.

New York is one of the 19 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that has at least some law requiring unit pricing on retail goods, so these retailers are already making this information available in those locations. And some e-tailers — like FreshDirect competitor Peapod — already have unit pricing on their websites, so it makes competitive sense that these businesses would also want to look like they give a damn about informing consumers.

“As the Internet becomes the shopping mall of the 21st century, we need to ensure that consumers have the same robust protections online that they do in brick-and-mortar stores,” said Schneiderman.

While the agreement was made with Schneiderman’s office in Albany, the changes will be felt nationwide.

Walmart and Costco will provide unit pricing information on all their websites and mobile stores in the U.S. by the end of 2014.

Walgreens, FreshDirect, CVS and Drugstore.com have agreed to a slightly longer timeline, giving themselves until March, 2015.

The biggest player absent from this agreement is Amazon, which does provide unit pricing on a number of items, including its currently paltry Prime Pantry selection, but not uniformly. Nor does Amazon post unit pricing on all the subsidiary websites it operates.

Schneiderman says Amazon verbally agreed to add unit pricing to stores operated by its Quidsi subsidiary — like Diapers.com, Soap.com, BeautyBar.com — but that Amazon refused to put this agreement in writing.

When you think of young salmon rushing to the ocean in that yearly ritual, you probably picture rushing mountain streams of the purest, crystalline water, droplets splashing here and there and everywhere as the fish joyously leap and swim hard to make it where instinct tells them to go. Maybe there are are happy bears in your vision, feasting and frolicking. Now change that all to a truck filled with fish.

California has been hit so hard by drought, the state is helping Chinook salmon with their yearly commute, packing up the fish in trucks to help the young swimmers on their way, reports the Associated Press.

Millions of six-month old fish will be traveling by tanker trucks because the state’s rivers and streams are simply too dry for them to make their trip to the Pacific Ocean successfully.

“The drought conditions have caused lower flows in the rivers, warmer water temperatures, and the fish that would normally be swimming down the rivers would be very susceptible to predation and thermal stress,” said a fishery biologist with the Fishery Foundation of California.

This kind of thing is old hat for hatchery-raised salmon, but this year state and federal wildlife agencies are trucking about 50% more smolts (as the young fish are called) than usual because of the drought.

The fish are given some time to acclimate to the water in net pens before they’re taken out to the open water north of the San Francisco Bay, where they’re released and pulled to the ocean by the tides.

The problem with doing things this way is that it’s harder for the fish to make it back to their hatcheries in the three years to spawn, in this case the Coleman National Fish Hatchery.

“Because that imprinting cycle is broken, it’s unlikely that many fish will make it back to Coleman. In other words, they stray. They won’t find that scent to where home is,” said the manager of the hatchery.

But if this works, it could provide a better chance for more salmon to grow into adulthood and become the tasty fish consumers want to eat.

“I actually make my living just trolling for salmon, so it’s pretty important for me,” said one commercial salmon fisherman. “We need the help.”

Salmon Migrate by Truck During California Drought [Associated Press]

Depending on where in the country you live, school just got out for the summer, or is about to. Naturally, in the world of retail, this means that it’s time to put on some back-to-school sales. While a link to that special section on the JCPenney site made the rounds over the weekend, selling back-to-school stuff before school is even out is more popular than you might think.

JCP’s BTS display hit the business page of Fark this week, but planning a whole grade ahead is nothing new for Consumerist readers. It’s not just clothes: we spotted Staples trying to snag school supply business as early as June back in 2010.

The National Retail Federation confirmed last year that school supply sales have been moving up gradually in order to keep shippers coming back to the same store to pick up different loss leaders–and, retailers hope, everything else as well.

Of course, a Web page is one thing: actual store displays of apparel are a terrifying vision of the future, and unusual enough that we had to feature it when it happened last July at Sears.

Youth is wasted on the young, some might say, but not everyone tries to make up for the wastefulness of their earlier days when they’re all grown up. One 91-year-old man wasn’t about to let the capriciousness of his 30-year-old self go unanswered forever, however, turning in a library book that was 61 years late.

As one might expect, there was a hefty fee for such a tardy return, reports the University of Liverpool, where Ron had been a student decades ago: He technically owed up to £4,500 (or around $7,600) for the borrowed book Structure and Function in Primitive Society.

Back in 1953, the man was working as a research student at the university, and liked the book so much he decided to keep it when he moved to London to continue his work.

But years later, when he went to slim down his collection of books, he realized he’d kept the tome a bit too long. When his son-in-law took him on a recent tour of his old Liverpool haunts recently, he stopped by the library to drop off the overdue book.

“Ron had been warned very firmly by the friends he plays cards with at the local pub that he would be landed with an enormous fine, and feel the full force of the law,” his son-in-law joked. “They didn’t expect to see him again.”

The university librarian decided to be lenient in this one case, noting that while overdue books are a serious matter, he decided to remit the fine on the condition that Ron agreed “henceforth, to live an exemplary life and return all his books on time.”

It’s a good thing the fee was waived, added the son-in-law, because “Neither of us is fit enough to do much running.”

91-year-old escapes £4K fine when returning University library book 61 years late [University of Liverpool]

Mixups happen, sure — you order something one way and it comes another, we’ve all been there. But accidentally sending the body of a loved one to a medical school, where it’s at the mercy of eager young medical students, instead of the final resting place the family intended… that’s a pretty major mixup.

Major enough that the family of a Bronx grandmother is planning to sue the morgue for shipping her body off to a medical college without their consent, reports the New York Daily News.

The woman passed away in her sleep in May at a nursing home, but negligent handling of her remains won’t let her rest in peace, the family claims.

The woman’s son said he got permission from the city medical examiner to store his mother’s body in the city morgue at at a medical center until June 16, while he made funeral arrangements with the rest of the family, some of whom live in South America.

Somehow the morgue made a mistake, however, and shipped her body to a medical college on Juen 2 for “anatomical donation,” according to a notification the son received the day after from the city.

“I called the Bronx morgue right away and the person there confirmed they sent the body,” he told the NYDN. “I said, ‘You made a mistake,’ and he didn’t say anything, he did not apologize. I told them I wanted the body back in the same condition how it was.”

He says he was told it would take two days before he could get the body back, all while he’s imagining her lying on a slab in a classroom with students dissecting her.

But the chief of staff for the medical examiner’s office says that didn’t happen.

“She was embalmed and that was it,” she said. “She was not dissected or anything like that.”

Another official says the slip-up happened after someone failed to make a note that the body was just staying in the morgue temporarily.

“Appropriate personnel actions are being taken to ensure such a mistake doesn’t happen again,” he explained.

The family’s lawyer says they’re intending to sue over the situation.

“The city medical examiner’s office has a sacred responsibility and needs to reexamine its procedures so this never happens again,” the attorney said.

EXCLUSIVE: Morgue erroneously ships corpse of Bronx grandmother to medical school; family enraged, plans to sue [New York Daily News]

So far, 2014 has been a year of automotive recalls, beginning with the General Motors ignition recall. After just one company recalled 11 million vehicles, any other recalls just feel like piling on. Experts worry that consumers are starting to tune out and not pay attention to any recall announcements in the media at all.

Research by USA Today shows that most years, there are 21 million cars recalled in the United States by all automakers combined. In 2014, GM has announced 38 recalls totaling more than 14.4 million vehicles, and we’re not even halfway through the year yet. The one company could account for more recalls by itself this year than there normally are from all automakers.

A GM executive told USA Today that yes, there could be more recalls on deck through the rest of the summer. Meanwhile, other automakers fear the NHTSA’s wrath after General Motors was forced to pay a $35 million fine for its thirteen-year delay in doing anything about the ignition switch issue. That means that seemingly every car company is announcing their recalls in order to get them out of the way. It doesn’t hurt that announcing them now buries the news under a stack of other recalls, but it also means that the public could experience recall fatigue.

One market analyst for KBB told USA Today, “The typical consumer reaction seems to be, ‘My car’s running fine. Do I need to bother?’”

Recalls becoming ‘background noise’ that owners ignore [USA Today] (Thanks, Wayne!)

It’s never in good taste to make a joke about the safety of airplanes or their passengers. And it’s especially frowned upon when the person making the joke is tasked with safely guiding a flight’s landing.

The Federal Aviation Administration opened an investigation into a joke made by an air traffic controller that caused a pilot to call off a landing attempt at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport last week, Atlanta’s WXIA reports.

According to the FAA, Delta flight 630 from Detroit was just 1,000 feet off the ground when an air traffic controller told the pilot to circle the airport instead of landing.

Just seconds later, the controller told the pilot he was just joking and to disregard his earlier statement.

“I’m kidding, Delta 630. After you land, I’ve got no one behind you. Expect to exit right.”

But it was too late, the pilot had already called off the landing and abruptly changed the Boeing 777′s course. After circling the airport, the pilot landed the plane without issue on his second approach.

While FAA officials wouldn’t specifically address the incident, they confirmed an investigation was opened and that they don’t believe the passengers, the pilot or the plane were ever in real danger.

Any decisions on disciplining the controller won’t be made until the investigation concludes.

Air traffic controller ‘joke’ diverts plane just before landing [WXIA]

In a move weeks in the making, Hillshire Brands officially left Pinnacle Foods at the altar for Tyson Foods.

Hillshire’s board of directors on Monday withdrew its recommendation to purchase Pinnacle Foods, maker of Duncan Hines, Vlasic pickles and Wish Bone dressing, for $4.2 billion, Forbes reports.

The company’s board, along with financial and legal advisors, determined that Tyson’s $8.5 billion bid for the company constituted a “superior deal” and would result in a more favorable outcome in a financial point of view, officials with Hillshire say in a news release.

Sure, Pinnacle may need a few tissues to dry up the tears shed after being ditched by Hillshire, but the company likely won’t be leaving empty-handed. As part of the proposed merger between the two companies, Pinnacle is entitled to a $163 million termination fee if the company dissolves the agreement before Hillshire’s board makes a final vote.

While the offer from Tyson Foods likely catapulted Hillshire’s board into reversing its decision to back the purchase of Pinnacle, officials say there are “no assurances that any transaction will result from the Tyson Foods offer.”

What once looked to be a simple merger turned into a sordid love affair of sorts Tyson and Pilgrim’s Pride began competing for Hillshire’s attention; all the while Pinnacle stood on the sidelines waiting for its fate to be unveiled.

In mid-May, Hillshire announced plans to purchase Pinnacle Foods for $4.2 billion. The deal would have given Hillshire its largest share of grocery store shelves.

But just a week later, Pilgrim’s Pride, the second-largest chicken producer in the U.S., offered an unprompted bid of $6.4 billion for Hillshire. The proposal stipulated that to move forward, Hillshire would have to back out of its deal with Pinnacle.

Two days later, Tyson Foods crashed the party and upped the ante with a bid of $6.8 billion for Hillshire. That proposal also came with the caveat that Hillshire drop Pinnacle.

In early June, Pilgrim’s Pride countered with a bid of $6.7 billion. But that wasn’t enough to trump Tyson’s next offer of $8.5 billion. Soon after Pilgrim’s Pride withdrew their bid.

Citing Superior Tyson Offer, Hillshire Steps Away From Pinnacle Foods [Forbes]

Wow, this weekend was full of big companies apologizing to traumatized girls. First came the JetBlue incident with the youngster barred from using the bathroom, now comes a “Sorry about that” from KFC, which is having to do damage control after the family of a little girl in Mississippi claimed they were told to leave the restaurant because their daughter’s facial scars were scaring other customers.

The story was initially posted last Thursday on a Facebook page set up by the family to track their daughter’s recovery from a vicious dog attack earlier this spring.

“Last week at KFC in Jackson MS this precious face was asked to leave because her face scared the other diners,” wrote the family. “I personally will never step foot in another KFC again and will be personally writing the CEO.”

The next morning, KFC’s social media team was issuing an apology and asking the family to send in more information about the incident.

Over the weekend, the family provided more detail to local media.

“They just told us… ‘We have to ask you to leave because her face is disrupting our customers,’” the girl’s grandmother told WAPT-TV, adding that her granddaughter “won’t even look in the mirror anymore.”

On Sunday, the fast food chain told the AP that it was investigating what had happened and that it would donate $30,000 toward the girl’s medical bills.

A KFC rep called the alleged behavior “hurtful and disrespectful” and said that the company would not tolerate it.

“Regardless of the outcome of our investigation, we have apologized… and are committed to assisting them,” said the rep.

Prison commissaries sell basic consumer goods like deodorant and snacks, and also optional clothing items like socks and work boots. A reader’s letter brought a dilemma to our attention: the regular warranty exchange procedures don’t work when you’re in prison and can’t receive outside mail.

As human rights issues for prisoners go, thwarted warranty exchanges aren’t the most urgent problems, but they’re part of what we do here at Consumerist. It’s pretty frustrating for reader AnnaMarie and her brother, who is in prison and left without a pair of work boots because of a gap between Timberland’s warranty policies and the Virginia Department of Corrections.

Inmates can own three pairs of shoes: sneakers, shower shoes, and one pair of work boots. Those boots have to come from the commissary, and Timberland has the contract to provide them. AnnaMarie notes that most men wear the boots year-round, because Timberland boots are pretty great. Her brother’s boots are less great, though, because some of the stitching came apart after he wore them for only six months. They have a lifetime warranty, though: surely Timberland will repair or replace them, right?

Nope. Her brother says that he wrote to the company several times without receiving a response. AnnaMarie called them up and learned the official policy.

“Yes, that’s right,” she wrote to Consumerist. “They will mail these boots to you as a private consumer, but if you are an inmate, they will only mail the boots to someone other than the original consumer. The customer service representative that I spoke with told me that the inmate could either have a family member bring the boots back to the prisoner in the prison, or the inmate would just have to wait until they were released to get their boots back.”

This policy is completely useless to inmates and their families. Prison regulations prohibit them from receiving anything more substantial than sheets of paper through the mail, which rules out boxes of boots. Even if AnnaMarie didn’t live on the other side of the country, in-person visitors aren’t allowed to bring gifts. Keeping boots at a relative’s house is unhelpful when you have a few years or decades left, or are serving a life sentence. Besides, people who aren’t in prison can buy and wear any darn kind of footwear they want.

We contacted Timberland for clarification, and they sent us this statement:

Timberland no longer ships product directly to correctional facilities when a consumer is seeking replacement for a defective product. Our new policy, which we have clearly communicated to all the correctional facilities with whom we work, is that consumers will need to provide an address outside the correctional facility for the shipment. Alternately, consumers can contact the retailer where they purchased the product (in this case, the prison commissary) for replacement.

Timberland manufactures products using the highest quality materials and craftsmanship, and we extend a manufacturing and material defect warranties on all our products. When we receive a product complaint, our Quality Control Inspectors carefully examine the product. If the inspection process reveals a defect, the defective product is discarded and replaced with the same or a comparable product.

To return a product for evaluation under our product warranty, consumer can ship the shoes along with their name, shoe size, reason for return, and shipping address outside the correctional facility to: Timberland Consumer Returns, 50 Service Lane, Danville, Kentucky 40422

We asked AnnaMarie whether the prison commissary actually lets inmates exchange boots. Nope, she says: the commissary tells them to mail their boots in, and Timberland says that the company can’t mail anything back directly.

“If a boot is defective and the Timberland Company has a warranty for such defects, AND they have a contract with a captive audience, why are they changing the terms of the warranty in such a way as to make it virtually impossible to use?” AnnaMarie asks. We don’t know.

We tried contacting the Department of Corrections and people at the facility where AnnaMarie’s brother is serving his sentence about this, and didn’t get any responses. Even if we had, in government agencies, the person who knows the most about the situation or who actually made the policy usually isn’t authorized to talk to the media anyway.

Administering warranty exchanges might be needlessly complex for the commissary, and we get that. It doesn’t sound like anyone designed this policy to intentionally boost sales or to leave inmates bootless, but it leaves AnnaMarie’s brother with no option but to buy a new pair, and that’s frustrating.

Fauquier County community events Washington Post Book 'n' Stitchers, 6 p.m. Tuesday, and noon June 24, John Marshall Library, 4133 Rectortown Rd., Marshall. Work on projects and discuss favorite books. Free. 540-422-8500. Crocheting and knitting group, 1-3 p.m. Thursdays, St. Stephen's Church (pastor ...

Wealthy donors are lavishing money on their favored charities, including universities, hospitals and arts institutions, while giving is flat to social service and church groups more dependent on financially squeezed middle-class donors, according to the latest comprehensive report on how Americans give away their money.

The D.C. Court of Appeals will, for the first time, stream video of an oral argument live online.

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Gabe: Her Wildstar house of course. I like to visit all my friends houses, help with their gardens or mines, check out any challenges they have and just poke around in their bedrooms. Anyway I was in Jamie’s house and I noticed that she took a set of Granok furniture and she shrunk it way down to make a tiny room for her stuffed animals. She then placed her dolls on the furniture. That’s me checking out her tiny doll room. Yeah I know, I know…I look pretty rad. Anyway if you are a tweeter you should tell her what you think of her decorating. -Gabe out

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