johnlockinthetardiswithdestiel:
whoa canada
someone needs to turn down that sass level
Two things to know about Canada!
- We are smart enough to know hot things should be hot.
- We are sorry if you don’t
fun story about the reason they do that (at least in America)
once this lady spilled her McDonald’s coffee on herself and ended up getting like 3rd degree burns and since there was no warning on the cup she was able to claim she didn’t know it would be hot (or at least that hot) and won a lawsuit against McDonald’s for $1 million
That’s what the media smear campaign against her would have you believe, anyway. The truth of the matter is that the McDonald’s in question had previously been cited – on at least two separate occasions – for keeping their coffee so hot that it violated local occupational health and safety regulations. The lady didn’t win her lawsuit because American courts are stupid; she won it because the McDonald’s she bought that coffee from was actively and knowingly breaking the law with respect to the temperature of its coffee at the time of the incident.
(I mean, do you have any idea what a third-degree burn actually is? Third-degree burns involve “full thickness” tissue damage; we’re talking bone-deep, with possible destruction of tissue. Can you even imagine how hot that cup of coffee would have to have been to inflict that kind of damage in the few seconds it was in contact with her skin?)
Yeah I’m tired of people joking about either the “stupid” woman who didn’t know coffee was hot or the “greedy” woman making up bullshit to get money.
She was hideously injured by hideous irresponsibility, it was an absolutely legitimate lawsuit and the warning on the cups basically allows McDonalds to claim no responsibility even if it happens again. Every other company followed suit to cover their asses.
So they can still legally serve you something that could sear off the end of your tongue or permanently demolish the front of your gums and just give you a big fat middle finger in court. “The label SAID it would be HOT, STUPID.”
obligatory reblog for the great debunking of the usual ignorance spouted about this case
obligatory mention that the media smear campaign to twist teh facts on this case and get public opinion against the victim was deliberate and fueled by the right wing tort reform movement
it was seized upon to limit the rights of consumers to hold giant corporations accountable for wrongdoing
watch the documentary Hot Coffee, it lays out all of the facts and examines the response to this case and explains why everything you think you know about this case is bullshit, and explains why tort reform is bullshit in an entertaining and informative manner
The woman injured in Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants was 79 years old at the time of her injuries, and suffered third-degree burns to the pelvic region (including her thighs, buttocks, and groin), which in combination with lesser burns in the surrounding regions caused damage to an area totaling a whopping 22% of her body’s surface. These injuries that required two years of intensive medical care, including multiple skin grafts; during her hospitalization, Stella Liebeck lost around 20% of her starting body weight.
She was uninsured and sued McDonald’s Restaurants for the cost of her past and projected future medical care, an estimated $20,000. The corporation offered a settlement of $800, a number so obviously ridiculous that I’m not even going to dignify it with any further explanation.
The settlement number most often quoted is not the amount that the corporation actually paid; the jury in the first trial suggested a payment equal to a day or two of coffee revenues for McDonald’s, which at the time totaled more than $1 million per diem. The judge reduced the required payout to around $640,000 in both compensatory and punitive damages, and the case was later settled out of court for less than $600,000.
Keep in mind that at the time, McDonald’s already had over 700 cases of complaints about coffee-related burns on file, but continued to sell coffee heated to nearly 200 degrees Fahrenheit (around 90 degrees Celsius) as a means of boosting sales (their selling point was that one could buy the coffee, drive to a second location such as work or home, and still have a piping hot beverage). This in spite of the fact that most restaurants serve coffee between 140 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit (60 to 71 degrees Celsius), and many coffee experts agree that such high temperatures are desirable only during the brewing process itself.
The Liebeck case was absolutely not an example of litigation-happy Americans expecting corporations to cover their asses for their own stupidity, but we seem determined to remember it that way. It’s an issue of liability, and the allowable lengths of capitalism, and even of the way in which our society is incredibly dangerous for and punitive towards the uninsured, but it was not and is not a frivolous suit. Please check your assumptions and do your research before you turn a burn victim’s suffering into a throwaway punchline.
#don’t fricking get me started on Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants the level of misinformation floating around is staggering#I know that it’s an older case but it still makes me really mad that people treat it as this big dumb thing?#the fact that the media took a serious case and turned it into what it is to us today should piss people off#the level of distortion of facts is astonishing and upsetting and nobody seems to hear about it?#sorry I’m done I just#it upsets me when a legal travesty like this is just dragged out for some#’haha americans are sOOOOOOOo dumb!!1!’ humor#I MEAN GODDAMN IF YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE FUN OF AMERICANS AT LEAST MAKE FUN OF US WITH FACTS OKAY
jesus, i actually didn’t know about any of this, thanks for clearing that up
Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants at the American Museum of Tort Law
The McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case: Know the Facts at Consumer Attorneys of California
Always reblog. The deliberate misinformation/corporate propaganda about this case is misogynist and ageist as FUCK.
Tag: information
Doesn’t that look beautiful?
Like something you’d find on one of those soft/nature blogs?
Well you are in for a surprise
The Bolton Strid in England is one of the most innocent looking streams.Â
Though it looks like you could just hop across the rocks, but if you miss you will die for sure. It packs very rapid currents just a couple of feet below its surface. No one really knows how deep it really is. Nobody who has ever fallen into the Strid has survived. It has a 100% fatality rate.
It’s always the things I google expecting to be false that wind up being horribly true.
I forgot to add but here is a SOURCE
“It’s relatively common for people to assume they can jump the creek, walk across its stones or even wade through it (again, just looking at it, the Strid really seems to be only knee-deep in places, and certainly not the instant, precipitous drop into a watery grave that it is). Most of the time, they never even find the body. Which means there are just dozens of corpses down there, pinned to the walls of the underground chasms, waiting for you to join them…”
how dare you leave out the best quote
“It’s exactly how water works in a video game: It looks all stupid and harmless, but the second your foot touches the surface, you get some bullshit drowning animation and die instantly.”
San Bernardino alle Ossa is a church in Milan, northern Italy, best known for its ossuary, a small side chapel decorated with numerous human skulls and bones.
In 1210, when an adjacent cemetery ran out of space, a room was built to
hold bones. A church was attached in 1269. Renovated in 1679, it was
destroyed by a fire in 1712. A new bigger church was then attached to
the older one and dedicated to Saint Bernardino of Siena.
The osteotome was initially used in trepanning, or making holes into the human skull. The sharp spike was driven into the patient’s skull to hold the instrument in place, then the doctor cranked the handle to turn the saw-toothed blade.Â
The osteotome was considered superior to a reciprocating saw or hammer and chisel when it came to getting through human bone without splintering or damaging nearby tissue. Later variations made the tool useful in arm and leg amputations and dental surgeries. (Source)
“Crown Shyness”, A Phenomenon Where Trees Avoid Touching
The next time you’re out walking through
the forest, take a moment to look above you and you might be pleasantly
surprised by what you find.Check
out these incredible pictures to see what we mean. The naturally
occurring phenomenon is called “crown shyness” because the uppermost
branches of certain tree species don’t like to touch one another. The
intriguing behavior was first observed in the 1920s, and various
hypotheses have been presented since then in an attempt to explain it.
Some believe it occurs to reduce the spread of harmful insects. Others
believe that trees are attempting to protect one another’s branches from
getting cracked and broken in the wind, and it’s also been suggested
that “crown shyness” happens so that trees can optimize light exposure
in order to maximize the process of photosynthesis. Despite these
various theories however, nobody knows for sure why this phenomenon
occurs, but it serves to remind us of just how awesome mother nature can
be. Scroll down for some of our favorite pictures, and don’t forget to
vote for the best. (h/t: colossal) Via BoredPanda
Now here’s something cool! What you see above is fresh an salt water mixing in a cave. Fresh water is on the top giving the illusion that it’s air. You can look through my bizarre world tag. I compile all the most interesting posts there!
Imagine seeing the water ripples above you and taking off your scuba gear so you can breathe the air above you and then inhaling a bunch of water.
I should add that to my horror story tag.
Actually they’re are several drownings caused by exactly that! It is one of the reasons underwater caves are so dangerous.
This is terrifying.
so today I learned that when a pregnant woman suffers organ damage (such as a heart attack), the fetus sends stem cells to the damaged organ to help repair it. Apparently it is an evolutionary mechanism; by protecting its mother the fetus also ensures it’s own survival. I am in awe of how incomprehensibly complex our bodies are, truly. (x)
along the same theme, albeit less poetic, pregnant cattle and deer with limited food sources can reabsorb their growing fetus to meet their needs…
o k weird question but do sharks fart
Given that many aquatic creatures have digestive systems that have to cope with fast-food intake, I’d say that farting, as we know it, would be unlikely.
The fart, per se, is usually caused by the production of gaseous products of the fermentation of organic food material – especially complex carbohydrates – during digestion. In mammals, the alimentary canal is relatively long compared to a shark’s and in ruminants, the food is often stored at different stages of digestion, in pockets of the stomach. This gives ample time for fermentation to occur. There is also a high concentration of organic material in the alimentary canal of these creatures, including humans.
In sharks, the through-put of fluid in the alimentary canal is comparatively copious and fast in a digestive system where simple proteins are the main food material – not complex carbohydrates. This difference means that the production of gases in the alimentary canal of a shark is unlikely. Sharks do not have a swim bladder that captures air to assist with buoyancy, as many large fish do. Production of gas in the alimentary canal would probably have a deleterious effect on the shark’s navigational control. The digestive process in sharks is likely to have evolved to minimize the production of gaseous products in their alimentary canal.
Ciao! Are there any Italian grammars you would recommend for beginners?
- italian for dummies
- routledge – colloquial italian
- routledge – modern italian grammar
- routledge – modern italian grammar (workbook)
- thoughtco.com
Although a knowledge of general grammar terms is somewhat required, I would really recommend getting the Routledge editions! They’re very thorough and detailed and I’d also recommend them if you already know some Italian and need a reference grammar. I read it can be impractical to only read them through, though.
The Dummies series has a really fresh approach and I like it. It’s not a in-depth grammar book, but it’s helpful! It gives you tips and contains verb tables and dialogues.
For more resources you can check my other post here!