Death by Rental Car: How the Houck Case Changed the Law

The Power of People to Protect People is the message conveyed in the book Death by Rental Car: How the Houck Case Changed the Law, by Ben Kelley. People and lawyers need to know about ways that they can work together to protect others from harm. This is especially true when we are in an era of


Dead Bat Found In Bag of Fresh Express Salad In Florida, Prompting Recall

Two people got the shock of their lives when they opened a bag of “Organic Marketside Spring Mix” salad from a Florida Walmart, only to find a dead bat inside. They contacted authorities, which prompted an investigation by “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to see if the animal had rabies.” Additionally, the CDC is also working with the “Florida department of heath and the federal Food and Drug Administration” to find out how a dead bat ended up inside a sealed package of salad.


The Pope Provides Hope For The Poor

Since he became pope four years ago, Pope Francis has made it a personal priority to provide the impoverished with showers, housing, medical care and other services, essentially providing them with hope they will be cared for.




New Safety Standards Proposed for Baby Hammocks and Other Infant Sleep Products

An important new safety alert has been issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for parents who use baby hammocks with their babies. The scrutiny over the hammocks arose after “two newborns died in their sleep,” prompting regulators to propose new safety standards for not only baby hammocks but other products “where newborns sleep in an inclined position.”


Advertisers Turn Their Backs to Bill O’Reilly After Harassment Revelation

Advertisers are leaving Bill O’Reilly en masse after a New York Times report revealed that his employer had paid millions of dollars to settle sexual harassment and misconduct suits pending against the popular talk-show host. Big businesses announced they’d be cutting ties with O’Reilly on Wednesday following the Times’ revelation. Among the advertisers canceling contracts


63 Million Unsafe Recalled Vehicles Endangering U.S. Today

Car and Driver reports a count of 63 million recalled vehicles that are still unrepaired. There are more than 260 million vehicles on the road, so about one out of every five vehicles on the road is endangering Americans every day. “…the list of states with the highest rate of recalled vehicles in use without


John Deere Tractors, Farmers, and Soil

What drive through America’s rural heartland would be complete without catching a glimpse of the iconic green and yellow of a John Deere tractor tilling the soil or a combine harvesting rows of corn? Tractors are more complex than ever now, with Wi-Fi and GPS. John Deere is following the lead of other tech giants and preventing end users (like grandpa) from mucking around with the tractor software. Right-to-repair advocates are asking the usual question: if you buy a tractor, is it not yours to do with as you wish? A more important question might be: why are we tilling the soil at all?


How We Benefit from Slavery, Pt. 2

Slavery, while illegal, is far from dead, especially since externalizing the cost of labor onto the laborers themselves is profitable, both for the slave owners and for people like us who enjoy the fruits of slavery from a safe distance. On the other hand, most of the jobs added to the American economy in the last decade were non-traditional. This means that a lot more people are relying on temporary jobs, part-time work, freelancing, and “gigs” – exactly the sort of marginal people who live one accident or illness away from the mainstream American version of debt slavery.