WEIRD NEWS
You're Gonna Die Sooner Than You Thought
The last time American life expectancy declined three years in a row was in 1918 after the double whammy of World War I and a major worldwide flu epidemic. Until now. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's annual report, US life expectancy dropped about a month for the third year in a row, to 78 years and 7 months in 2017. Men can expect to live 76.1 years, and women 81.1. Public health experts called the statistics alarming, noting that early deaths among middle-aged people did the most to bring life expectancy down - and a dramatic increase in suicide and drug overdoses. After 22 years of steady rises, life expectancy dropped in 2015 and again in 2016, though it will need to drop a lot more to reach the level of 1918, when life expectancy was - believe it or not - 39. CDC Director Robert Redfield said in a statement: "These sobering statistics are a wake-up call that we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable." The suicide rate rose to its highest in at least 50 years, with rates much higher in rural counties than in urban ones. Another factor was a harsh flu season. Experts say they find it worrying that in the US, life expectancy is going in a different direction than in most developed nations. (CNN)
Blind Guy Suing Playboy... About Their Website
Donald Nixon is legally blind - and he wants access to the Playboy website. So he's suing, saying the site is not accessible to the blind. No - it's not about the dirty pictures, it's about the fact that Playboy.com is not compatible with screen-reading software that translates text into braille or recites it using a speech synthesizer. Nixon's suit claims the visually impaired "cannot fully and equally use or enjoy the facilities, products, and services" offered, putting Playboy in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires businesses to make services accessible to people with physical disabilities. Nixon hopes to force Playboy to become accessible to the blind but is also seeking unspecified damages. The Kardashians' DASH website was hit with a similar complaint in 2016. For what it's worth, the Justice Department has yet to release guidelines on how to make websites compliant with the ADA, and the delay has left many businesses in a lurch. (TMZ)
Thank God! PRB Will Live to See Another Day
Great news cheap beer fans, MillerCoors and Pabst Brewing Co. have settled a lawsuit in which the hipster's brand of choice claimed the bigger brewer lied about its ability to continue brewing Pabst's beers to put that company out of business. The settlement came as jurors were ending their second day of deliberations after a two-week trial in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. Pabst's suit sought more than $400 million in damages and a court order for MillerCoors to honor its contract. Details of the settlement won't be disclosed. In a statement, MillerCoors said, "We have reached an amicable settlement in the case." In a separate statement, Pabst said it "will continue to offer Pabst Blue Ribbon and the rest of our ... brews to all Americans for many, many years to come." (Newser)
Starbucks: Good Coffee, No Porn
Still more good news! You'll soon be able to sit in Starbucks without any fear of accidentally viewing porn. To ensure all their locations are "safe and welcoming to all," the coffee king says it will introduce "a solution to prevent this content from being viewed within our stores" beginning next year. No other details of the plan were provided so we can only assume this means some kind of new content blocking software. Back in 2016 Starbucks had vowed to block explicit websites, but then never did. A petition claiming the chain "broke its promise" had more than 26,000 signatures as of Thursday. FYI - it's actually against the rules to view porn while in Starbucks. It's also against their policy to take a nap (True). (Business Insider)
We Always Keep the Cleaning Products Right Next to the Saline Solution
Talk about your epic screw ups! Salford Royal Hospital in the UK is being sued big time after making an "appalling" error right before 68-year-old William Hannah died while in their care. Mr. Hannah was being treated after a car accident that had left him with several broken bones and serious head injuries. He also developed a lung infection, and a doctor went to flush out one of Hannah's lungs with saline solution, but an assistant accidentally passed him a bottle of cleaning detergent instead, which the doctor then "unknowingly" used to rinse Hannah's lung. The doctor realized the mistake afterward and tried to get as much of the detergent out of Hannah's lung as he could, but Hannah's lawyers say the grandfather's condition deteriorated and he died the next day. In a statement, the hospital's medical director acknowledges that Hannah "did not receive the high standard of care we always pride ourselves on." (Newser)
Sorry - You're Dog is Actually Not Smarter Than My Kid
Look we know your dog is the very best dog and the smartest in the world. So this doesn't apply to you. But a new study in the journal Learning & Behavior, has distressing news for the other dog owners out there - basically that dogs are not all that special and really not that smart. While our hearts say yes, the data says no. The study compares canine cognition to other carnivores, social hunters and domestic animals (all groups that dogs fall into). Researchers used existing information on the behavior of several animals, including wolves, cats, dolphins, chimpanzees, pigs and pigeons to see if dogs possessed any special skills that weren't recorded in other species. They did not. The good news is there are a lot of different ways the study explores intelligence, which means you are free to cherry pick the parts in which dogs did as well, if not better, than other animals to make yourself feel better. (CNN)
What the What?
Col. Thomas Jackman has been quietly ushered out of his job as commander of the Vermont Air National Guard for what basically amounted to an interstate booty call at taxpayers' expense! Just a year after taking command of the Burlington-based 158th Fighter Wing, Col. Jackman "took an F-16 flight to Washington, D.C., for a work trip that doubled as a romantic rendezvous with a female Army colonel who worked at the Pentagon." The report was based on emails between Jackman and the unnamed colonel that corroborate their romantic relationship, as well as interviews with several former Guard members "with knowledge of the incident." When the colonel's superiors found out about his alleged affair, they took swift action. (Task and Purpose)
The last time American life expectancy declined three years in a row was in 1918 after the double whammy of World War I and a major worldwide flu epidemic. Until now. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's annual report, US life expectancy dropped about a month for the third year in a row, to 78 years and 7 months in 2017. Men can expect to live 76.1 years, and women 81.1. Public health experts called the statistics alarming, noting that early deaths among middle-aged people did the most to bring life expectancy down - and a dramatic increase in suicide and drug overdoses. After 22 years of steady rises, life expectancy dropped in 2015 and again in 2016, though it will need to drop a lot more to reach the level of 1918, when life expectancy was - believe it or not - 39. CDC Director Robert Redfield said in a statement: "These sobering statistics are a wake-up call that we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable." The suicide rate rose to its highest in at least 50 years, with rates much higher in rural counties than in urban ones. Another factor was a harsh flu season. Experts say they find it worrying that in the US, life expectancy is going in a different direction than in most developed nations. (CNN)
Blind Guy Suing Playboy... About Their Website
Donald Nixon is legally blind - and he wants access to the Playboy website. So he's suing, saying the site is not accessible to the blind. No - it's not about the dirty pictures, it's about the fact that Playboy.com is not compatible with screen-reading software that translates text into braille or recites it using a speech synthesizer. Nixon's suit claims the visually impaired "cannot fully and equally use or enjoy the facilities, products, and services" offered, putting Playboy in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires businesses to make services accessible to people with physical disabilities. Nixon hopes to force Playboy to become accessible to the blind but is also seeking unspecified damages. The Kardashians' DASH website was hit with a similar complaint in 2016. For what it's worth, the Justice Department has yet to release guidelines on how to make websites compliant with the ADA, and the delay has left many businesses in a lurch. (TMZ)
Thank God! PRB Will Live to See Another Day
Great news cheap beer fans, MillerCoors and Pabst Brewing Co. have settled a lawsuit in which the hipster's brand of choice claimed the bigger brewer lied about its ability to continue brewing Pabst's beers to put that company out of business. The settlement came as jurors were ending their second day of deliberations after a two-week trial in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. Pabst's suit sought more than $400 million in damages and a court order for MillerCoors to honor its contract. Details of the settlement won't be disclosed. In a statement, MillerCoors said, "We have reached an amicable settlement in the case." In a separate statement, Pabst said it "will continue to offer Pabst Blue Ribbon and the rest of our ... brews to all Americans for many, many years to come." (Newser)
Starbucks: Good Coffee, No Porn
Still more good news! You'll soon be able to sit in Starbucks without any fear of accidentally viewing porn. To ensure all their locations are "safe and welcoming to all," the coffee king says it will introduce "a solution to prevent this content from being viewed within our stores" beginning next year. No other details of the plan were provided so we can only assume this means some kind of new content blocking software. Back in 2016 Starbucks had vowed to block explicit websites, but then never did. A petition claiming the chain "broke its promise" had more than 26,000 signatures as of Thursday. FYI - it's actually against the rules to view porn while in Starbucks. It's also against their policy to take a nap (True). (Business Insider)
We Always Keep the Cleaning Products Right Next to the Saline Solution
Talk about your epic screw ups! Salford Royal Hospital in the UK is being sued big time after making an "appalling" error right before 68-year-old William Hannah died while in their care. Mr. Hannah was being treated after a car accident that had left him with several broken bones and serious head injuries. He also developed a lung infection, and a doctor went to flush out one of Hannah's lungs with saline solution, but an assistant accidentally passed him a bottle of cleaning detergent instead, which the doctor then "unknowingly" used to rinse Hannah's lung. The doctor realized the mistake afterward and tried to get as much of the detergent out of Hannah's lung as he could, but Hannah's lawyers say the grandfather's condition deteriorated and he died the next day. In a statement, the hospital's medical director acknowledges that Hannah "did not receive the high standard of care we always pride ourselves on." (Newser)
Sorry - You're Dog is Actually Not Smarter Than My Kid
Look we know your dog is the very best dog and the smartest in the world. So this doesn't apply to you. But a new study in the journal Learning & Behavior, has distressing news for the other dog owners out there - basically that dogs are not all that special and really not that smart. While our hearts say yes, the data says no. The study compares canine cognition to other carnivores, social hunters and domestic animals (all groups that dogs fall into). Researchers used existing information on the behavior of several animals, including wolves, cats, dolphins, chimpanzees, pigs and pigeons to see if dogs possessed any special skills that weren't recorded in other species. They did not. The good news is there are a lot of different ways the study explores intelligence, which means you are free to cherry pick the parts in which dogs did as well, if not better, than other animals to make yourself feel better. (CNN)
What the What?
Col. Thomas Jackman has been quietly ushered out of his job as commander of the Vermont Air National Guard for what basically amounted to an interstate booty call at taxpayers' expense! Just a year after taking command of the Burlington-based 158th Fighter Wing, Col. Jackman "took an F-16 flight to Washington, D.C., for a work trip that doubled as a romantic rendezvous with a female Army colonel who worked at the Pentagon." The report was based on emails between Jackman and the unnamed colonel that corroborate their romantic relationship, as well as interviews with several former Guard members "with knowledge of the incident." When the colonel's superiors found out about his alleged affair, they took swift action. (Task and Purpose)
Comments
Post a Comment