How much avocado does your dip have to have before it is guacamole. That is the basis of this lawsuit in California.

Wholly guacamole?

That's the issue in a fraud lawsuit filed Wednesday against Kraft Foods, Inc., by a Los Angeles woman who claims the company's avocado dip doesn't qualify as guacamole.

"It just didn't taste avocadoey," said Brenda Lifsey, who used Kraft Dips Guacamole in a three-layer dip last year. "I looked at the ingredients and found there was almost no avocado in it."

She is seeking unspecified damages and a Superior Court order barring Kraft from calling its dip guacamole. Her suit seeks class-action status.

The Kraft product contains modified food starch, coconut and soybean oils, corn syrup and food coloring. It is less than 2 percent avocado, which in traditional recipes is the main ingredient of the Mexican dish.

The government doesn't have any requirements on how much avocado a product must contain to be labeled guacamole, said Michael Herndon, a spokesman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft said it had not seen the lawsuit but believed it was not deceiving anyone.

"We think customers understand that it isn't made from avocado," Claire Regan, Kraft Foods' vice president of corporate affairs, told the Los Angeles Times. "All of the ingredients are listed on the label for consumers to reference."

However, the company will relabel the product to make it clearer that the dip is guacamole-flavored, Regan said.

In other words, the information was already there for the lazy litigant to see – but she didn’t bother looking.

Dismiss the case. Disbar the lawyer. And donÂ’t buy the cheapest product on the shelf and expect it to be 100% avocado.

Posted by: Greg at 01:52 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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That is, of course, the essential argument of todayÂ’s whining, self-serving editorial over the failure of the Supreme Court to quash a subpoena of phone records in a probe of yet another nation security leak that aided terrorists who seek to destroy the United States.

A journalistÂ’s ability to protect the identity of confidential sources has been further eroded by the Supreme CourtÂ’s refusal this week to stop a prosecutor from reviewing the telephone records of two New York Times reporters. This is the latest legal blow to the diminishing right of journalists to shield informants who often provide information of great interest and importance but who might be punished if their identities were known.

Yeah, that’s right – folks who engage in criminal leaking of juicy information that the NY Times wants to publish on Page One because it helps the enemies of America. That’s right – the NY Times argues that journalists ought to have the right to obstruct justice.

The case arose from a Chicago grand jury investigation into who told the two reporters, Judith Miller and Philip Shenon, about actions the government planned to take against two Islamic charities in late 2001. The government contends that the reporters, in performing the normal journalistic practice of calling the charities for comment, effectively tipped them off to impending raids and asset seizures, undermining the effort.

Yes, it is true that the reporters may not have done anything criminal, but it would certainly appear that their sources did. That is why the information on the sources is necessary – it is essential to punishing criminal wrong-doing by the sources.

Rather than drag the reporters into court, where they could have protected their sources by refusing to testify, the prosecutor subpoenaed their phone records for 11 days in 2001. A trial court prohibited the government from obtaining the records from the phone companies, but a divided appeals court reversed that decision. Now the Supreme Court, in refusing to intervene, has effectively allowed the prosecutor to search through the records in hopes he can pinpoint the source of the leak.

Indeed, precisely because the reporters would have obstructed justice and jailed for contempt it is necessary for the prosecutors to obtain the phone records. If the reporters would recognize that they are subject to precisely the same laws that apply to the rest of Americans, such a subpoena would not be necessary. Bu reporters seem to believe that they are different, endowed by rights above those of ordinary Americans, and so the subpoena is the only way to get the records. The entire thing could be settled by an offer to reveal the sources to the investigators in the case – but the NY Times views itself and its employees as more important than the criminal justice system.

This is a bad outcome for the press and for the public. The phone records reveal the identities of lots of sources having nothing to do with the leaks. The appeals courtÂ’s disingenuous suggestion that The Times might redact irrelevant records would simply have helped point to possible leakers.

Again, that is the choice of the New York Times and its employees – revealing the sources directly would avoid this undesirable outcome, and sustain the rule of law over the rule of the media.

The public will be ill served if this case reduces the willingness of officials to reveal important but sensitive information. The privilege granted to journalists to protect their sources needs to be bolstered with a strong federal shield law that would preserve the public interest in newsgathering and dissemination of information.

Actually, the public will be well-served if the case reduces the willingness of unscrupulous officials to reveal important sensitive information that undermine the Crusade Against Jihadi Terrorism and other national security matters. There should be no special privileges granted journalists, no shield laws and no right to obstruct justice. AmericaÂ’s security depends upon it.

Posted by: Greg at 10:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My fellow Americans -- do you want more Supreme Court Justices like Roberts and Alito, or would you prefer that they have to pass Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer's litmus tests? And a seat on the Court could come sooner than you think.

For the past several weeks, there has been a rumor circulating among high-level officials in Washington, D.C., that a member of the U.S. Supreme Court has received grave medical news and will announce his or her retirement by year’s end. While such rumors are not unusual in the nation’s capital, this one comes from credible sources. Additionally, a less credible but still noteworthy post last week at the liberal Democratic Underground blog says, “Send your good vibes to Justice Stevens. I just got off the phone with a friend of his family and right now he is very ill and at 86 years old that is not good.”

Normally, this news might be too ghoulish to repeat publicly. Nevertheless, with the election just days away, it is news that should be considered. It points out what could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance for the 20-year movement to recast the court with a constitutionalist majority. It would be a cruel twist indeed for conservatives to “teach Republicans a lesson” next Tuesday, only to be taught a lesson themselves within months when new Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.) leads a Democratic majority against the most important Supreme Court nominee in decades. Conservatives whose mantra is “no more Souters” should bear in mind Robert Bork’s fate after the Senate changed from Republican to Democratic hands in 1986.

And the "moderate" Democrats running this year? What would they do?

With 55 Republican senators, the majority needed for the “constitutional option” was never a sure thing. But with significant Republican losses on Tuesday, it will surely be buried, leaving Senators Teddy Kennedy (D.-Mass.) and Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) free to return to filibusters, including against Supreme Court nominees. Schumer is reported to have assured Democrats that Bob Casey Jr. -- despite running as a moderate Senate candidate -- would be supportive of Democratic efforts to block constitutionalist judicial nominees. “There’s no worry on judges,” said Schumer. “And judges is the whole ball of wax.” Other supposedly centrist Democratic candidates including Harold Ford Jr. (Tenn.), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Jim Webb (Va.) have refused to rule out filibusters against judicial nominees.

So my friends, get out and vote Republican if you have a Senate race (not to mention in your local House race). Even if you don't like the candidate, vote for Republican.

Or else all the progress we have made over the last six years in filling judgeships with strict-constructionist judges will be ended in an instance.

Posted by: Greg at 08:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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