If so inclined, support the ACLU:
With that said, some of their work is still great, and I'm thankful for it.
Remember how McDonalds was the victim of a baseless lawsuit? Well, it wasn't actually the case, but that sure benefitted corporations who can now assert most lawsuits against them are frivolous.
Their coffee is just as hot nowadays and to lower the temperature to the degree to where the effect on Stella would have been meaningfully different would result in lukewarm, under-extracted coffee that fewer people would be interested in. Further, the sheer quantity of Mcdonalds coffee moved every year without incident implies user error, rather than product error.
Yes, I know what the jury said and how they divided up the blame. I disagree with their conclusion.
Citation needed.
Stella's own doctor testified[1]:
>Lowering the serving temperature to about 160 degrees could make a big difference, because it takes less than three seconds to produce a third-degree burn at 190 degrees, about 12 to 15 seconds at 180 degrees and about 20 seconds at 160 degrees.
The NCA (a coffee industry group) recommends[2] holding at a temperature of 180-185, due to "rapid cooling", and consuming at or below 140.
Stella's injuries were exacerbated by:
* The hot coffee permeating through thin sweatpants and being held against the skin.
* Her age - 81 years old at the time of the injury. Older skin is damaged more easily[3], and would also have implications for her mobility (how fast she could remove the soaked sweatpants)
Some experiments [4] show that coffee served at 180 will cool to around 162 in 5 minutes, 148 within 10, and 138 within 15. 70% of Mcdonalds business is through the drive-through [5], so must customers would be getting their coffee to go.
The question I'm unable to find a satisfactory answer for is how long it takes the average customer to receive their order and return home. I could probably figure that out if I knew how far the average customer was from their store, but that information is not readily available.
If holding at 180 results in optimum drinking temperature of around 130 in about 15 minutes (per 4), then this is the optimal temperature to hold at for product quality if the average customer lives within 15 minutes of a Mcdonalds.
If you were to hold at 160, using the info from [4], the coffee would fall below this optimum temperature in about 10 minutes and require reheating, which alters the flavor.
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20150923195353/http://www.busine... (page 4, bottom)
[2]: https://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/How-to-Brew-Coffee
[3]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3377829/ (It is widely accepted that elderly burn patients have significantly increased morbidity and mortality. Irrespective of the type of burn injury, the aged population shows slower recoveries and suffers more complications.)
[4]: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/mathematics/equation-to-mode...
[5]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mcdonalds-meeting-idUSKBN...
But its also true that responses, like the one you linked to are also often one-sided. And what would you accept from an association of lawyers who make money launching such suits?
The truth is, its not as simple as either side tries to make it out to be. I think the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau..., does a good job of presenting pertinent details from both sides.
The ACLU would not take the Skokie case today’: https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/02/14/the-aclu-would-not-...
Former ACLU board member Wendy Kaminer:
The ACLU Retreats From Free Expression: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-aclu-retreats-from-free-exp...
to complaints of sexual violence. We will continue to support survivors.”
The ACLU Declines to Defend Civil Rights: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/aclu-devos...
> McDonald’s operations manual required the franchisee to hold its coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit.
> Coffee at that temperature, if spilled, causes third-degree burns in three to seven seconds.
They might also be interested to know it was composed primarily of dihydrogen monoxide, a lethal chemical agent known to be the proximate cause of hundreds of deaths each year. They are describing boiling water.
Even if McDonald's did the wrong thing, it is a frivolous lawsuit. I serve boiling hot tea to all my guests, it isn't negligence. The case as described seems to be that McDonald's should be civilly liable for serving a hot beverage in a styrofoam cup to a customer who asked for a hot beverage and could easily detect it was in a styrofoam cup.
You hand styrofoam cups out your window to guests you know won’t be staying? Curious social habit.
> a customer who asked for a hot beverage
Coffee is brewed at very high temperatures but is rarely - if ever - consumed at those same temperatures.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18226454/
For most people, getting a cup of coffee that is near boiling would make for a very unpleasant surprise.
Bringing up Stella Liebeck makes me feel irrationally hostile; I've had a negative reaction to people "busting the myth" of that lawsuit on the internet for probably 20 years.
I certainly believe that suing corporations with deep pockets is a reasonable and moral way to deal with medical bills in a country without universal health care. It's not a good system, but if you can get away with it, why not?
And I know well that on average, the scourge of frivolous lawsuits against corporations is a myth, because I've worked in the legal industry and have a perspective based on many other lawsuits.
And if McDonald's served coffee without a properly secure lid, or some other defect then they should be held responsible for every penny of damages.
However, I am irritated by anyone who may insist that it is a "fact" that serving coffee which is hot (but less than 212 deg) is negligent in itself. And if I continue to see this "myth busted" or "fact checked" for the next 20 years, it's not going to change my opinion, because assuming I live that long, I'm going to be boiling water for coffee on my stove almost every day.
It was known by management to be dangerous; that was done deliberately so that people would be forced to sip slowly, to discourage refills. Ain't negligence in light of intent
The point I'm trying to make is not that coffee should be hot, because I know arguing that is futile.
The point is, that framing this as a disagreement about readily available facts is incorrect and if you habitually interpret people's opinions/values this way, it warps your sense of reality to your own detriment.
I think anyone who wants to prevent me from getting hot coffee is not a nice or reasonable person, and I feel threatened by any implication that I would be in the wrong for making hot coffee if someone else spilled it. But these are facts about me, not about the rest of the world. As such, you don't have to accept them, but you can't invalidate them with facts about the world either.
https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-107-pop-torts-an...
The ACLU's social media accounts are a mess as well. Their postings come off as unhinged and sue-happy, and the fan base of commenters has become so one-sided, that I think the ACLU simply caters to that vocal audience now. Maybe the change is not solely attributable to that - there might also be a new generational wave of inside actors that simply operate the ACLU in a more ideological manner.
I agree that some of their work is still great. But unfortunately it's been enough of a change that upon weighing the good and bad, I had to finally pull the plug on my recurring donations too.
I was going to post the same in anticipation of the partisan downvotes that you're receiving. Without going into specifics, this sums it up nicely:
>It’s not that the left shouldn’t have opportunities to speak up against the president’s agenda -- of course it should. But the ACLU shouldn’t be its political bullhorn. The organization’s legal independence gave it special standing. By falling in line with dozens of other left-leaning advocacy groups, the ACLU risks diminishing its focus on civil liberties litigation and abandoning its reputation for being above partisanship
One issue in particular is the ACLU's interpretation of the second amendment, which they do not fight for with the same fervor as the first.
1.https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/02/08/the_ac...
Trans women are women. These schools are denying this with this idea, so it seems like a good use of the ACLU's resources to me. Morality aside, I don't know about the legal aspects of defending that principle in the US, but presumably the ACLU have some ground.
>, so that those sports are competitive and fair.
[drifting off the OP topic, but...] shouldn't school sports be about inclusion? what is your ideal of fairness here? For me, the pursuit and rewarding of certain idealised body types selected by narrow athletic criteria reminiscent of pageantry has never been 'fair' for anybody..
School sports ought to focus on inclusive physical self-improvement, help kids develop cooperative skills, resolve conflicts and work together for a common goal, that sort of thing.
Trans women are women from a gender perspective, and not from a biological perspective. Unfortunately, the biological perspective is what the separations of men's and women's sports a thing, because of inherent biological sexual differences (primarily testosterone). I mean, if they want to get around the issue, then let's go all in - disband men's/women's sports and just have sports. Then anyone can play with anyone. That's never going to happen though, for political, cultural, and safety reasons, so we're stuck with a situation where gender is bumping up against biological sex hard.
From a biological perspective, trans-people lie in-between male and female. Transwomen are at an increased risk of breast cancer than cis-men while a lower risk prostate cancer. Transwomen (after years of estradiol) have significantly less muscle mass than cis-men, while, transmen have much more muscle mass than cis-women. All of the differences biologically are the result of sex hormones and the time at which they're introduced (pre-natal or puberty) and the time of exposure.
That said, I don't think it's wise for trans-women to play in serious sports. If they win, they won't get the credit, they'll be told it's because they're trans. If they lose, well, then no one cares and it doesn't make the headlines. It's unfair and unjust, but honestly, sports have never been fair or just. Especially the Olympics, they're a selection ritual for celebrating people who are genetically optimized for some specific task. I don't understand why it exists except for out of tradition.
The challenge is that trans women are women who used to have comparatively vast quantities of testosterone in their bodies, giving them dramatically higher bone density along with all of the other side effects of testosterone on the body.
When they transition fully, the estrogen has a side-effect of preserving the bone density they had previously. Specifically, this gives them a massive advantage in combat sports like MMA. I won't get into the other musculoskeletal aspects that happen.
It's a vexing problem, because I don't like the idea of trans women not being treated like women. It sucks to think about that. It also sucks for non-trans women who are getting their skulls fractured in fights.
The reality is that fans of non trans female athletes aren't going to accept this. When a tiny percentage of the population is trans, and suddenly trans women start winning at the highest levels of female sports at an insanely disproportionate amount, it clearly indicates that being trans provides a massive advantage in female sports. I haven't found any cases of trans men dominating in male sports.
I'm pro trans rights, and also know that my view on this is deeply unpopular in the trans community. I'm not sure what the answer is for this. Sometimes, reality doesn't mesh with our ideals.
Would it work to just group people by bone density and weight class?
Or for MMA, just some sort of scale of ass-kickingness. I would have to be in the can't punch out of a wet paper bag class, which I don't think would get shown on TV. ;)
The problem now is that we're being polarized on an emotional issue with both sides being demonized. E.g. One side says the other is hateful of trans people, the other side says trans is being pushed on them unfairly, etc. If we rather focus on the facts and amoral concepts (e.g. testosterone count), and drive opinion/policy based on that, there is good chance that we can all coexist without having to force opinions and understanding on both sides where it's largely unwanted. Only then can we come together and have a single, happy view on the topic as a society.
Perhaps there needs to be new vocabulary to describe sex and gender separately but that's a different topic. As for fairness, this is the best we can do on a broad scale between male and female because of the vast differences. After that we leave it to the individual to decide which sport best fits their physicality and interests.
Just because you share the bias doesn't make it unbiased
Huge fan of the ACLU in general, but some of the highly unpopular but incredibly important work they used to do, for example defending neo-Nazi groups right to protest, has been discarded in favor of popular causes.
While I understand why they have gone this way (who wants to defend Nazis in court?) it was a very important symbol of the organizations insane dedication to civil liberties. Taking a principled stand of preserving freedoms for those who are deeply, deeply unpopular is inconvenient and essential.