uBud Light, Where “Up For Whatever” Means Getting People So Drunk They Can’t Say “No”r

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  (reddit)

  Bud Light continues to creep people out with the implied lechery of its “up for whatever” marketing campaign. The latest apparent gaffe from the country’s most popular watery beer is a tagline reminding drinkers that Bud Light is a go-to beverage for turning a “no” into a “yes.”

  As posted on reddit, the tagline on this Bud Light bottle reads:

  “The perfect beer for removing “no” from your vocabulary for the night,” followed by the requisite “#UpForWhatever” hashtag, because being “up for whatever” obviously means “spreading Bud Light’s marketing message in a way that can be tracked and quantified by our social media team.”

  Given the role that alcohol plays in many things that would have been a “no” without a night a drinking — driving under the influence, sexual assault, vandalism, public urination, random “woot-woot”-ing as you ping-pong down the sidewalk — it’s probably not the best idea for a multinational multibillion-dollar business like Bud Light’s parent company AB InBev to publicly acknowledge that its product can lead users down a path to stupid consequences.

  This reddit comment sums it up perfectly: “remember “No” always means “No”….especially if the question is: do you want a bud light?”

  Bud Light came under fire during the St. Patrick’s holiday in March when its Twitter account suggested that being “up for whatever” meant randomly assaulting people on the street who dared to not wear green (and those who did wear green, because #UpForWhatever, right?). The company apologized to those who “misunderstood” its intentions, much like some people who turn a “no” into a “yes” will probably be doing a lot of apologizing (possibly from behind bars) the next morning.

  We’ve written to Bud Light for comment on this tagline and will update if we hear anything back.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uAmazon Launches New Marketplace To Sell Specialized Supplies To Businessesr

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  Amazon launched its latest marketplace aimed at capturing business-to-business sales.

  Amazon is gunning for businesses – connecting them with sellers of everything from lab equipment to food service supplies. The online retail giant launched its latest marketplace Tuesday, aiming to provide businesses with the same shopping service the company offers everyday customers.

  Amazon said today that the new Amazon Business marketplace will connect individual businesses to third-party sellers of specialized office supplies, healthcare products, industrial equipment, IT equipment, and other unique business-only products.

  Businesses that sign up for the new marketplace can assign multiple users to the accounts with purchase and approval controls set to the company’s own procurement systems, Prentis Wilson, vice president of Amazon Business, says in a statement.

  Amazon says membership to the marketplace will come with several benefits including exclusive pricing and bulk discounts. Other features Amazon Business members receive include free two-day shipping for orders over $49, tax exemption and the option of an Amazon Corporate Credit Line.

  “Amazon Business delivers a new and expanded marketplace that brings the selection, convenience and value of Amazon to business customers, manufacturers and sellers with the additional selection, features and back-end integration businesses need to save time and money,” Wilson says.

  Introducing Amazon Business: Everything You Love About Amazon, For Your Business [Amazon]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uBumble Bee Foods, Two Employees Charged In Worker’s 2012 Deathr

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  (RustyClark hottnfunkyradio.com)

  Two-and-a half years after a worker at a Bumble Bee Foods cannery died inside a pressure cooker at the factory, official charges have been filed against the company and two of its employees f.

  Bumble Bee, a former safety manager and the director of plant operations were each charged with three felony counts of committing an occupational safety and health violation that caused a death, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, reports the Los Angeles Times.

  The worker died in October 2012 after entering a 35-foot oven at the company’s Santa Fe Springs plant so he could fix something inside the machine, which is used to sterilize cans of tuna. Other plant workers didn’t realize he was inside, loaded a bunch of carts inside it, shut the door and started the oven. As the temperatures reached up to 270 degrees, the worker inside died and his remains were found by another plant worker.

  Bumble Bee says in a statement that it disagrees with and is “disappointed by the charges” filed by Los Angeles prosecutors, calling the worker’s death a “tragic accident.” It noted that the California Division of Occupational Safety & Health “found no willful violations related to the accident” after its investigation.

  Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey said the charges against Bumble Bee Foods are part of her goal to go after workplace safety violations.

  “We take worker safety very seriously,” Lacey said in a statement. “Although the Bumble Bee investigation began in 2012, this case represents our commitment to protecting workers from illegal — and, potentially, deadly — on-the-job practices.”

  Bumble Bee Foods, 2 others charged after employee died in pressure cooker [Los Angeles Times]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uTyson To Further Cut Back On Unnecessary Antibiotics Given To Chickensr

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  (Chris Goldberg)

  Last year, Tyson, the nation’s largest poultry provider, announced it would cease using controversial antibiotics at its hatcheries, but left the door open for continued use of the growth-promoting drugs for birds as they matured. Today, the company is pledging to go even further by eliminating “human antibiotics” entirely from its flocks by Sept. 2017.

  For decades, farmers have been feeding antibiotics — including drugs that are of vital medical importance to human beings — to chicken, pigs, and cows primarily for the non-medical use of promoting growth. In fact, around 80% of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are for use on livestock.

  Unfortunately, the overuse of antibiotics has the unwanted consequence of also promoting the development of drug-resistant bacteria. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 2 million Americans fall ill from drug-resistant pathogens each year, with some 20,000 dying as a result.

  “Antibiotic resistant infections are a global health concern,” said Donnie Smith, president and CEO of Tyson Foods in a statement. “We’re confident our meat and poultry products are safe, but want to do our part to responsibly reduce human antibiotics on the farm so these medicines can continue working when they’re needed to treat illness.”

  Because Tyson is more than just a chicken company, it claims to be forming working groups with farmers and others in its beef, pork and turkey supply chains to “discuss ways to reduce the use of human antibiotics on cattle, hog and turkey farms.”

  Tyson’s latest announcement comes on the heels of similar moves by McDonald’s, Perdue, Chick fil-A, and others who have promised to reduce the use of antibiotics in their chickens.

  The Natural Resource Defense Council’s Sasha Stashwick believes the sheer size of Tyson — which churns out some 38 million broiler chickens each week — means we may be nearing the tipping point where antibiotic-free chickens become the norm.

  “Among the top 20 broiler companies (which likely control nearly all of the nation’s broiler chicken production), Tyson controls 23%,” writes Stashwick. “Combined, the production volumes of Perdue… Pilgrims (which announced this month that it will eliminate all antibiotics from 25% of its flock), and Fieldale Farms (which we gather is nearly all antibiotic-free) add up to 38% of all the chickens raised by the top 20 companies in the industry. That sure looks like a tipping point!”

  Steve Roach, senior analyst for Keep Antibiotics Working says the important thing is for restaurants and retailers to take advantage of the increased supply of these drug-free (or less-drugged) chickens.

  “While the chicken industry as a whole is making great strides in reducing antibiotic overuse, it begs the question: why are the turkey, pork and beef industries lagging so far behind?” He asks.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uWhat Information Is Available When Someone Scans My Driver’s License?r

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  (Taro the Shiba Inu)

  There’s a lot of information about you on the back of your state-issued driver’s license or non-driver ID card, but does scanning your license or making a copy of it give potential identity thieves key information about you? It’s not easy to find out what data is encoded in the barcodes on the back of your ID cards, and your state’s motor vehicles department may not want you to know.

  We use driver’s licenses as photo ID for everything from buying cold medicine or booze to boarding a plane, in addition to using them as proof that we’re legally permitted to drive. Yet people often wonder what information is embedded in those barcodes, and consumer problem-solving columnist Karin Price Mueller of the Star-Ledger decided to find out. Lots of extensive reporting got her…well, she found out what one of the barcodes means, but what the other one contains is a mystery that mere mortals are not allowed to understand.

  What the MVC, New Jersey’s motor vehicle agency, could tell her was that some of the data embedded on the back of your license is the same information that’s on the front of your license. There’s your name, birthdate, address, height, and weight. That’s to prevent people from altering the front of their license–say, the year of their birth. The other barcodes, though? We can’t know what information is encoded there for security reasons.

  Bamboozled: What the bar codes on your driver’s license reveal about you, and why it matters [Newark Star-Ledger]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uSenate Investigating For-Profit Foster Care Industryr

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  (frankieleon)

  The federal government provides around $7 billion each year in funding for foster care providers around the country, but leaves much of the oversight of these operations up to the states and local governments. These entities may then contract out foster care to private, for-profit providers. Recent reports have raised questions about the safety of the children placed into the care of some of these privatized foster networks, and now the U.S. Senate is beginning to ask questions.

  In February, a BuzzFeed News investigative report looked into allegations of sexual abuse and deaths involving the country’s largest for-profit foster care provider, National Mentor, which tends to some 3,800 minors in 15 states. The company now trades on the NYSE as Civitas Solutions Inc. and reports more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

  Earlier this month, the company decided to stop offering its services in Illinois. In a press release, Civitas makes no mention of state investigators’ findings that the company has placed two pre-teen girls in a house with a foster mother who had previously committed fraud by adopting two children then sending them to live with a relative while still saying they were caring for the kids.

  “Rather than ensuring their actions were in the best interest of the children and the families they are enlisted to serve, agency staff cultivated a culture of incompetence and lack of forthrightness,” reads the investigators’ report. ”The absence of good faith demonstrated by the private agency undermined any faith the Department or the public would be able to place in the organization.”

  The report concludes by recommending that the state “cease contracting” with Civitas, though a rep for the company told BuzzFeed that its decision to exit Illinois was unrelated to this report.

  In response to the BuzzFeed investigations, the Senate Finance Committee recently sent letters [PDF] to the governors of each of the 50 states.

  “When children are removed from the custody of their parents due to abuse or neglect, as lawmakers, we have an obligation to ensure their safety and well-being,” begins the letter, which describes the way the foster system operates as “a complex structure consisting of overlapping, Federal, State, County and Tribal laws and practices carried out by a mix of public and private entities.”

  This tangled structure can lead to “finger pointing and confusion” when something goes wrong, note the senators.

  “We are aware that states are increasingly contracting with private entities or organizations to administer some or all of their foster care programs. However, the extent and structure of these arrangements are less clear,” continues the letter, which then asks each state to provide detailed information about their foster care programs, including:

  • Proportion of children placed by private agencies;

  • Names of private agencies and whether they are for-profit or non-profit;

  • Accreditation requirements, if any, for private foster care providers;

  • Detailed descriptions of the selection process for private foster care contractors;

  • Detailed descriptions for safety inspections at foster care providers, and if those inspections are different depending on whether the provider ir private, public, non-profit, or for-profit;

  • Statistics on substantiated instances of abuse.

  The governors have until May 29 to provide the committee with this information.

  [via BuzzFeed]

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uTakata Airbag Defect Now Linked To 105 Injuries, Six Deathsr

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  (I Am Rob)

  The number of injuries and deaths associated with Takata-produced airbags that have been found to spew pieces of shrapnel at passengers and drivers upon deployment increased once again, now totaling 105 injuries and six deaths, according to data received from the parts manufacturer.

  Florida Senator Bill Nelson revealed the higher numbers during a statement on the Senate floor Monday afternoon.

  “These are the airbags that when they explode in order to save life, is either maiming life or ending life,” he said. “The number of vehicles recalled is going to be in the record books as one of the largest in American history.”

  Nelson said during his statement that the new injury and death figures, which were provided by Takata, are accurate as of the end of January. Previously, Takata provided Nelson and the Senate Commerce Committee with data that included 64 injuries and 5 deaths related to the defect.

  Seventeen of the new injuries were reported in Florida – which Nelson calls the “epicenter” of the issue – bringing the state’s total to 35 injuries and one death.

  “Now these injuries have been very, very serious,” Nelson said. “This is not a minor little nick. This includes incidents of facial fractures, blindness, and even quadriplegia.”

  Nelson warned members of the Senate that the number of injuries and deaths associated with the Takata airbag defect will likely continue to grow, citing a report from Reuters earlier this month that linked another rupture occurred last month.

  “We need to get to the root cause of the problem and we need to make sure we know why these defective airbag inflators are failing,” he said.

  While Takata has said that it would double its production of replacement airbags over the next six months after being criticized its slow output, Nelson said that it is more important regulators and the company ensure that the products are “actually safe instead of just producing more of the same, potentially defective inflators.”

  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the issue in June 2014 after five automakers – Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda and Chrysler – began recalling millions of vehicles.

  In all, the defective Takata airbags have resulted in automakers recalling nearly 25 million vehicles.

  In February, the agency began fining the company $14,000 per day for failing to turn over documents and answer questions. Investigators said the fine was a result Takata’s slow pace in working with the agency.

  “We have concluded that Takata is neither being forthcoming with the information that is it legally obligated to supply, nor is it being cooperative in aiding NHTSA’s ongoing investigation of a potentially serious safety defect,” the agency said at the time.

  Just a week later, NHTSA upgraded its probe to an engineering analysis. The regulators said the formal step intensifies the investigation and could help determine whether the company’s failure to quickly notify the agency of possible defects violated federal law or regulations.

  Additionally, the company was issued an order requiring it to preserve airbag inflators for use as evidence in the agency’s probe and any subsequent lawsuits.

  In March, Mark Rosekind, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, told a panel at the Consumer Federation of America Assembly in D.C. that Takata was being more forthcoming with information related to the agency’s investigation.

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist