It’s time once again for news and views that you can peruse. It’s another edition of your Weekly Reader! As always, if you want to share a link, just stop by the comments!
Optimus Prime Wants You to Go the Hell to Sleep (from Gizmodo–Yes, it’s actually Peter Cullen and you can hear a quick preview if you want!): “To clarify, you’ll need to have access to the immensely popular meditation/relaxation/sleep assistance app Calm to hear Optimus narrate a “Sleep Story,” which the company describes as being “soothing tales that mix music, sound fx, and incredible voice talent to help you drift into dreamland.” The story is titled “History of the Transformers,” which doesn’t seem like a tale that would be easy to drift off to given that the vast majority of it has to do with the endless wars between the Autobots and the Decepticons.”
5G and QAnon: how conspiracy theorists steered Canada’s anti-vaccine trucker protest (from The Guardian): “Bauder has long been a fringe figure, but his movement caught a gulf stream of support after the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, announced last year that truckers crossing the US-Canada border would need to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19. The supposed plight of the truckers proved to be a compelling public relations angle and attracted an array of fellow travelers.”
The Oldest Pub in Britain Is Closing Its Doors After 1,229 Years (from Food & Wine): “Yet, with over 1,200 years under its belt, Ye Olde Fighting Cocks — which reportedly received its current name after hosting literal cock fights back in the late 19th century — is likely to fight another day.”
Why every Costco product is called ‘Kirkland Signature’ (from CNN): “Sinegal was inspired by a 1991 article in Forbes about rising profit margins for leading consumer goods’ companies at the time like General Foods, H.J. Heinz and Nabisco and the emerging growth of private-label brands. Consumers are “starting to switch to house brands…The trend so far is only a trickle but it shows signs of growing fairly rapidly,” the article said. Sinegal underlined key passages from the article and sent it around to Costco’s top merchants.”
Major League Baseball stops testing its players for steroids after nearly 20 years, report says (from ESPN): “The halt in testing is a casualty of the sport’s lockout that started Dec. 2 and a provision in the joint drug agreement between MLB and the players’ association that states “the termination date and time of the program shall be 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1, 2021.””
Giant marine reptile skull discovery reveals new evolutionary theories (from CNN): “The skull analysis was part of a larger research effort undertaken by an international team in order to understand how quickly body size evolved in ichthyosaurs when compared to the body size evolution of whales — another group of originally four-legged land vertebrates that returned to life in the sea, just like the ichthyosaur.”
Study: Poor outcome more likely when patient is female, surgeon is male (from UPI): “It reported that women who underwent common elective or emergency surgeries with male surgeons had a 15% higher chance of dying, experiencing a major complication or being readmitted to the hospital within 30 days than they did if a woman performed their surgery.
In contrast, men experience similarly good outcomes regardless of their surgeon’s sex, the study showed.”
Dollar General is putting workers’ safety at risk, Labor Department says (from CNN): “Since 2016, the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed more than $3.3 million in penalties for safety violations at Dollar General locations around the country. These violations are typically for blocked electrical panels, obstructed exits as well as forklift, housekeeping and sanitation issues.”
That’s all for today. But don’t worry. I’ll be back next week, at this same exact time, with more random articles for you to digest. Until then, have a great rest of your week and happy reading!
Iacon East 