† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: The New York Times reports that the simple BOGO (Buy One Get One) is a retail relic of a bygone era thanks to cash-strapped consumers who purposefully hunt for bargains at the supermarket, forcing grocers to continually tweak sales promotions using “pricing equations worthy of Isaac Newton, or at least of middle-school math class” to induce them to buy more stuff than they had planned:

 

Using buying patterns detected from loyalty cards, receipts and other research, grocery chains are searching for the multiples sweet spot: The current Pathmark circular advertises Bush’s baked beans at three for $5 and Yoplait yogurt at 10 for $6. At Cub Foods, Sprite 12-packs are on sale at three for $11.97. Kroger has lemonade, socks and Kroger gummi bears candy on sale at 10 for $10. …

 

Even though shoppers usually do not have to buy the suggested amount to get the discount, they do anyway, said John T. Gourville, a professor of marketing at Harvard Business School who studies pricing strategies.

 

It is all about the power of suggestion, he said.

 

“Many people buy the amount, or buy in increments, that are advertised - five for $5, they end up buying five boxes of couscous or whatever it happens to be,” he said. …

 

Unemployment, rising gas prices and more expensive food have “put a tremendous amount of pressure on consumers, who have become extremely value driven, budget minded, list minded, less impulsive and very deal oriented,” said Bill Melnick, director for strategic planning at SAI Marketing, which studies consumer behavior for brands like Dole.

 

“In order to get someone to buy something that wasn’t on the list,” Mr. Melnick said, “or to get them to buy more of what’s already on the list, there has to be some incentive to get them to move outside their typical behavior.”

 

But a new study from Deloitte suggests that consumers are getting craftier at outsmarting grocers at the check-out line. Marketing Daily reports:

 

"I was surprised to see that consumers are treating grocery shopping as a sport now," Pat Conroy, Deloitte's vice chairman and U.S. consumer products practice leader, tells Marketing Daily in an email. "They are no longer feeling like victims and instead have a mindset that [says] 'I can beat you at your own game when it comes to shopping in spite of you raising prices and decreasing package size'." …

 

And 34% are using smartphones to research food prices or product information while in a store, and an impressive 28% of the sample saying they've interacted with a food retailer via their mobile application or Web site. …

 

[Adds Conroy]: "By using Smartphone shopping related applications in the grocery store, consumers have more control over sticking to their budget and researching food prices and product information before coming into the store or while in the store."

 

† Romney: The Sequel: In his current incarnation, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) has been “railing against high foreclosure rates … to critique President Obama’s handling of the economy,” The Boston Globe reports - but one of his bundlers is a lobbyist for a notorious “foreclosure mill”:

 

T. Martin Fiorentino Jr., who raised $102,900 for Romney, lobbied on [mortgage reform and antipredatory lending] legislation on behalf of Lender Processing Services, a so-called “foreclosure mill’’ that was reprimanded in April by the government for “unsound practices related to residential mortgage loan serving and foreclosure processing.’’ …

 

Fiorentino’s Jacksonville, Fla.-based firm, the Fiorentino Group, has been paid $180,000 by Lender Processing Services since late 2009, according to lobbying disclosure forms. The firm lobbied the House and Senate on the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act.

 

† Putting The “Boo” In Boomer: Baby Boomers flatter themselves that "60 is the new 50" but as a group they are more obese than other generations, putting them at increased risk of heart disease and diabetes, according to the Associated Press-LifeGoesStrong.com poll:

 

Based on calculation of body mass index from self-reported height and weight, roughly a third of the baby boomers polled are obese, compared with about a quarter of both older and younger responders. Only half of the obese boomers say they are regularly exercising.

An additional 36 percent of boomers are overweight, though not obese.

 

The nation has been bracing for a surge in Medicare costs as the 77 million baby boomers, the post-war generation born from 1946 to 1964, begin turning 65. Obesity - with its extra risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis - will further fuel those bills.

 

"They're going to be expensive if they don't get their act together," says Jeff Levi of the nonprofit Trust for America's Health. He points to a study that found Medicare pays 34 percent more on an obese senior than one who's a healthy weight.

 

† Libel Case Survives Victim (second item): Noting the 15^th anniversary of the bomb explosion at the Olympic Games at in Atlanta and the epic libel suit it spawned between lawyers for security guard Richard Jewell and Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs – both of whom died years ago - Fulton County Daily Report ponders whether the case changed journalistic practices, even though the plaintiff lost and it’s unlikely the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the case:

 

What is the legacy of the Richard Jewell case? Will it be a mere footnote in the annals of libel law? Has it changed the way newsrooms operate? …

 

Robert D. Richards, a journalism professor at Pennsylvania State University … said the Jewell case has affected newsrooms across the country. "This is an individual whose name has been turned into a verb in newsrooms," said Richards, explaining editors sometimes tell reporters "don't Richard Jewell this individual" when they are trying to counsel caution on reporting about private citizens.

 

Richards said the case is a cautionary tale regardless of whether the newspaper ultimately prevails in the case, noting the other news organizations' settlements with Jewell and the lengthy (and presumably expensive) nature of the Journal-Constitution's battle. …

 

Frank D. LoMonte, who was first a reporter and then a lawyer in Atlanta before becoming executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va., said one legacy of the case is that both law enforcement personnel and journalists have become more conservative about using the term "suspect."

 

"It's only post-Richard Jewell that you started seeing this phrase 'person of interest' taking over the lexicon," said LoMonte. "I think it originates with law enforcement using that term, then journalists are only too happy to fall back on it, because it's less easily proven false."

 

Additionally, said LoMonte, "there is a new appreciation of the importance of being transparent with your readers about what you don't know. That's not uniquely a result of the Jewell case, but it's a result of a number of embarrassments over the years where people have been caught overstating the certainty of your information."

Still, LoMonte disputed the idea that the case has made journalists timid. "I don't think that it should," said LoMonte, "because in the end the AJC has pretty well been vindicated."

 

"But," said LoMonte, who reported on the Olympic Park bombing for Morris News Service, "I think the experience causes you to do some soul searching, because on a human level everyone feels bad about what happened to Richard Jewell and his family."

 

† Warning: Dining Out Is More Fattening Than You Think: By now, you must have visited at least one restaurant that puts the caloric content of its offerings on the menu or on its Website and got the culinary version of sticker shock. If you think you’re doing yourself a favor by ordering soup and salad, think again. Researchers at Tufts University found that of 269 randomly selected items from 42 restaurants in AR, MA and IN, nearly one in five dishes clocked in at 100 more calories than stated, and the number of calories in soups and salads was more likely to be understated than other foods, The Boston Globe reports:

 

[T]he wide variability among many of the samples is troubling, said the study’s lead author, Susan B. Roberts, director of the energy metabolism laboratory at Tufts, given the growing numbers of consumers who regularly eat out and the legions who are struggling with their weight. More than half of the nation’s adults are overweight or obese.

 

“This turns dieting on its head,’’ Roberts said, “especially if you go to a restaurant and think you’re being good by ordering a soup or salad.’’

 

While 100 extra calories lurking in a salad may not seem alarming, a consumer who ate that additional amount each day would pack on, on average, 10 pounds a year, she said.

 

Roberts said the scientists do not know why lower-calorie foods, especially salads, tended to exceed the posted calories, but said it could be that workers preparing the items may have used more dressings and cheese than intended.

 

Among the restaurants in the study were Arby's, Bob Evans, Chili's Grill and Bar, Chuck E. Cheese, Denny’s, Old Spaghetti Factory and P.F. Chang's China Bistro.

 

† All The News That’s Fart To Print: As part of the “The Puget Sound Starts Here” campaign by a partnership of regional governments to improve water quality in Puget Sound, the WA Department of Ecology ponied up a $27,000 grant to create a music video to encourage dog owners to pick up their pets’ poop, The Seattle Times reports:

 

"There's over a million dogs in the Puget Sound region and the waste drains into Puget Sound," said Janet Geer, a spokeswoman for Puget Sound Starts Here. "People think it's like organic fertilizer, but it's raw sewage like human waste, and it ends up in local streams and goes into Puget Sound. There's all kinds of nasty things that pose health risks to humans." ..

 

Hence the new video. "Video is one of the most powerful tools, since pet waste is a difficult thing to talk about," Geer said. "We put a fun spin on it."

 

It was produced by Peter Furia, with Seedwell, a digital creative studio in San Francisco. It takes the popular rhythm and blues work "No Diggity," by Blackstreet in 1996, and creates a parody about doggy doo.

 

"We have strong feelings about keeping the environment clean, and we grew up in the Seattle area," Furia said.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (fifth item, Today’s Letter Is “I.” As In Ingrate.): A military-led investigation finds that U.S. taxpayer funds trickled down to the Taliban via a $2.16 billion transportation contract meant to promote Afghan businesses, and The Stiletto can only hope this will be the final nail in the coffin of the idea that nation-building is war by other means. The Washington Post reports:

 

According to a summary of the investigation results, compiled in May and reviewed by The Washington Post, the military found “documented, credible evidence … of involvement in a criminal enterprise or support for the enemy” by four of the eight prime contractors. Investigators also cited cases of profiteering, money laundering and kickbacks to Afghan power brokers, government officials and police officers. Six of the companies were found to have been associated with “fraudulent paperwork and behavior.”

 

“This goes beyond our comprehension,” said Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), who last summer was chairman of a House oversight subcommittee that charged that the military was, in effect, supporting a vast protection racket that paid insurgents and corrupt middlemen to ensure safe passage of the truck convoys that move U.S. military supplies across Afghanistan. …

 

Unlike in Iraq, where the U.S. military favored using American contractors who made millions providing security, reconstruction and training, local hires have performed the bulk of those tasks in Afghanistan. During the first quarter of this fiscal year, the U.S. military’s Central Command reported that 53 percent of more than 87,000 contract personnel it employed in Afghanistan were locals.

 

The U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department together signed nearly 1,000 contracts with non-U.S. vendors in Afghanistan last year.

 

The employment, under a government-wide policy called Afghan First, is an integral part of the Obama administration’s counterinsurgency strategy and calls for promoting Afghan capabilities, businesses and infrastructure. …

 

Tierney, now the top minority member of the national security subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, voiced sharp criticism of the length of time it took the military-led task force to reach the same conclusions that lawmakers made public a year ago.

 

“I would hate like hell to think my kid was over there” and the Taliban was “coming after them with something bought with our taxpayers’ money,” Tierney said.

 

In March, the DOD extended the contract of the eight trucking firms for another six months. And so it goes.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (penultimate item, Not Giving Credit Where Credit’s Due): In a case that illustrates the national security danger posed by chain migration, Afghan-born Mohammed Wali Zazi, father of convicted would-be NYC subway bomber Najibullah Zazi, was found guilty on one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice and one count of obstruction of justice for lying to the NYPD and the FBI who working feverishly to head his son off at the pass, and for conspiring with others to conceal evidence of the failed plot, Reuters reports.

 

Two of Mohammed Zazi's relatives - nephew Amanullah and brother-in-law Naqib Jaji - said he told family members to destroy chemicals, masks and goggles used by Najibullah Zazi and to lie to a grand jury weighing charges against his son. …

 

Federal investigators said Mohammed Zazi lied to them about not knowing a New York imam, Ahmad Wais Afzali, who in 2010 pleaded guilty to tipping off Najibullah Zazi that federal investigators suspected him of plotting an attack. …

 

Amanullah Zazi faces up to 30 years in prison after admitting to leading his cousin Najibullah to an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, as well as helping to destroy bomb-making materials his cousin had used.

 

The brother-in-law, Naqib Jaji, also pleaded guilty in 2010 to obstructing justice in the investigation by covering for family members who destroyed the bomb-making evidence. Jaji faces up to 20 years in jail.

 

Mohammed Zazi faces up to 40 years in prison, and is free on bail until his sentencing on December 2.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Is This Any Way To Run A Transition?): Several of President Barack Hussein Obama’s 32 czars - according to Glenn Beck’s count - have been deposed, The Washington Times reports:

 

Two years after he dramatically expanded the scope of so-called policy czars, President Obama this year quietly scrapped some of the most controversial posts, tamping down what had been a simmering constitutional fight with Congress.

 

Thanks to what the White House says is a reorganization, czars no longer oversee health care or climate change policy, though less-visible officials such as "cybersecurity czar" and "Gulf Coast claims czar," among others, are still on the job. …

 

Although Mr. Obama is not alone in his generous use of policy czars, some specialists argue that his reliance has been unprecedented in size and scope.

 

"Obama has more czars than any past president, hands down," said Mark J. Rozell, a George Mason University professor who is co-authoring a book on White House czars. He argues that czars violate the spirit of the Constitution's separation of powers.

 

"Many of them make policy, regulatory and spending decisions, but they are not confirmed, and they are not subject to testimony before Congress," Mr. Rozell said. "The president's critics are right to challenge the use of czars for these reasons, regardless of party ID."

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (penultimate item, The Day Newt Gingrich’s Candidacy Died): At a time when the long-term unemployed may be wondering where their next meal may be coming from, it looks like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) won't be having breakfast, lunch or dinner at Tiffany's and has closed out his tab at the high-end jewelry emporium, The Washington Post reports:

 

Presidential candidate and former House speaker Newt Gingrich has released his personal financial disclosure report.

 

The document confirms that Gingrich closed his interest-free credit line at Tiffany’s. The Post reported last month that Gingrich had a second 2010 credit line of $500,000 to $1 million at the jewelry company. In May, personal financial disclosure forms for Gingrich’s wife, Callista, showed that the family had carried a line of credit ranging between $250,000 and $500,000 at Tiffany’s during 2005 and 2006.

 

Gingrich’s campaign has been struggling since its inception. Profligate spending was a factor in the mass exodus of many of his staffers early in the campaign, and employees worried that the Tiffany’s spending in particular would hurt Gingrich’s bid.