Category Archives: Consumer issues

Homecoming surprise

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We had a bit of an adventure getting back home after a week in Portland, Oregon.

But before I tell that tale of the less-than-friendly skies, let me offer a bit of simple advice.

Please listen carefully.

Do not, under any circumstances, allow a small bottle of Robitusson Cough & Chest medication to explode in your suitcase.

This stuff is a thick, sticky, bright red liquid, the color serving no apparant purpose except to warn you of it’s hidden dangers. Be forwarned. I can now say from experience that it sticks to everything with the same intensity, whether your throat and other internals, or the valued “stuff” placed in your suitcase for safekeeping.

When I first opened my suitcase after getting home and saw the first blotches of red, I initially feared the $65 bottle of Oregon wine, carefully wrapped and place in the suitcase, had leaked. Nope, the wine survived intact.

It took a few seconds staring at the sticky mess to realize that a Robitusson explosion was the source of the damage.

I’m still assessing the items exposed to the Robitusson explosion. It may have killed the suitcase itself. The liner does not apear to be removeable, and that red goo has fierce holding power. I’ll trying hosing the suitcsase out and drying it in the sun, but I’m afraid it might be a goner.

I’ll also have yet to assess how the stains on a wool sweater I splurged on earlier in the year, and a nice long-sleeve wool-blend shirt that I wear during visits to cold weather. Perhaps I can eventually claim that it is just a tie-dye in process?

My fault, although I can plead diminished capacity due to the cold I had been battling for several days, hence the Robitusson.

But, really, my fault for not wrapping it tightly in a leak-proof bag.

And on the bright side, no family heirlooms were lost, no people, cats, or dogs were injured. And we managed to get home, although about 15 hours, and one unplanned hotel night, later than scheduled.

And so it goes on this travel recovery day.

A walk through the “war-ravaged” streets of downtown Portland

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Last night I left the safety of our hotel in order to walk several blocks to pick up a salad and pizza from Mucca Pizzeria on Morrison Street.

Just over two weeks ago, Trump described conditions here in the city of Portland.

“Portland, Oregon, every time I look at that place it’s burning down. There’s fires all over the place. … When a store owner … rebuilds … they just put wood up … because they know it’s going to be ripped down. … It’s not wonderful, it’s a disaster.

So please come along on my walk and see what conditions in downtown Portland are actually like.

Another AI hallucination

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Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, provided another direct example of an answer to a question that was flat-out wrong.

It came on Sunday, while I was writing a post about a confidentiality rule adopted by the Maui County Board of Ethics, which is similar to two state laws that were found to be unconstitutional more than 30 years ago.

I was the plaintiff in a lawsuit that successfully challenged a provision of the state’s campaign spending law in 1991-1992. The decision by Judge Alan Kay of the Federal District Court for the District of Hawaii cited an earlier Hawaii case, John Roe v. Akamine, et al. (Civil No. 91-00252 DAE).

This lawsuit challenged a law prohibiting anyone from disclosing any information about a complaint about a public employee or official with the State Ethics Commission, including the person who filed the complaint.

The challenge to this provision of the state ethics law was quickly successful. The state agreed the law was unconstitutional, and it was struck down by Judge David Ezra.

But I was unable to find much more information about the Akamine case. Documents from the case are not available via the federal courts’ PACER document system, and routine searches didn’t turn up anything more.

So I asked Gemini for any information it could find on the Akamine case. To aid in its search, I pointed to the citation in the court decision.

Its answer went wildly awry.

It was apparently a situation, as described by others, in which the inability to find relevant information prompted Gemini to wrongly “make up” an answer meant to satisfy my original inquiry.

Here, Gemini began with an clearly erroneous premise–that Roe v. Akamine was a challenge to the campaign spending law, and it went downhill from there.

Another Gemini hallucination

A 1991 federal lawsuit in Hawaii, identified as John Roe v. Akamine, et al., Civil No. 91-00252 DAE, took aim at the confidentiality clause within the state’s campaign finance laws. While details of the case remain largely in legal archives, it played a pivotal role as a precursor to a subsequent, more widely publicized case that successfully overturned the secrecy provision on First Amendment grounds.

The “John Roe” lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii, challenged the constitutionality of Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 11-216(d). This statute mandated that all proceedings related to a complaint filed with the Campaign Spending Commission—including the complaint itself, investigations, and hearings—remain confidential until a finding of probable cause.

Presiding over the case was U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra. His order in the John Roe matter became a significant precedent cited in the 1993 case Lind v. Grimmer. In that later case, journalist Ian Lind successfully argued that the confidentiality provision was an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech. The court in Lind v. Grimmer referenced Judge Ezra’s prior order in John Roe v. Akamine to support its decision to strike down the statute.

The use of the pseudonym “John Roe” suggests the plaintiff wished to remain anonymous, a common practice in cases where individuals fear reprisal for challenging a government entity or law. The defendants, “Akamine, et al.,” were likely officials associated with the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission or another state agency responsible for enforcing the campaign finance laws at the time. Despite searches for individuals with the surname Akamine in relevant government positions in 1991, a definitive identification of the named defendant has not been publicly established.

While the full complaint, court filings, and the complete text of Judge Ezra’s order in John Roe v. Akamine are not readily available in public online legal databases, its legal significance is clear. The case was an early and influential challenge to the secrecy surrounding campaign finance complaints in Hawaii, setting the stage for the eventual invalidation of the confidentiality law and greater transparency in the state’s election oversight.

Also see:

“I Asked Google’s AI Who It Was. It Lied,” iLind.net, July 4, 2025

Credit before credit cards

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At the time of Hawaii statehood in 1959, consumer credit cards as we know them were not yet in general use.

Instead, individual merchants extended credit to their regular customers, and provided a card that could be shown to get credit.

I ran across a small stack of my father’s credit cards from 1959 and the next sereral years.

They make an interesting glimpse of life in a simpler time.

Just click to view a slightly larger version.