Swimming Accident Safety Checklist: Print & Share

June 10th, 2011. By AbiK

Each year, thousands are injured or die from swimming accidents: drowning, diving accidents resulting in brain injury, spinal injury, paralysis or death, and pool drain-related disembowelment or entrapment. As we begin the fun-in-the-sun season, we encourage you to print out our “3 D’s of Swim Safety Checklist” and go over it with your children. Unfortunately, many swim accidents occur when a swimmer thinks he’s familiar with a swimming area and becomes overconfident and lax about safety. A few brief moments to check in with and abide by safety rules can save a life. Enjoy the warm weather and please, swim safe this summer.

For easy download, printing and sharing this checklist is available on Scribd.com.

Asbestos News Roundup: 6.9.11

June 9th, 2011. By LucyC

A roundup of recent asbestos-related news and information that you should be aware of. An ongoing list of asbestos hot spots from the Asbestos News Roundup archive appears on our asbestos map.

Asbestos Lawsuits

Jefferson County, TX: A relative of the late Freeman Eugene Peart has filed an asbestos lawsuit naming 35 companies as defendants. The suit alleges that the defendants exposed Mr. Peart to asbestos which caused his death. This is the second lawsuit filed on behalf of Freeman Eugene Peart. In his first suit, which he filed, he cited an asbestos-related disease which was different from the one which the second suit alleges caused his death.

Throughout his career, Peart lived in Texas and worked as a laborer, welder, pipefitter and boilermaker throughout his career, according to the lawsuit. The suit claims that it was during this time that Peart was exposed to asbestos products which caused him to develop an asbestos-related illness. The suit further alleges that the defendants negligently manufactured, sold and used asbestos products without warning workers of the associated health dangers.

The defendants named in the suit include: American Optical, A.O. Smith Corp., A.W. Chesterton Co., Bechtel Corp., Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire, CBS Corp., Chevron, Cleaver Brooks, Crown Cork, and Seal, E.I. DuPont De Nemours and Co., Entergy Gulf States, Exxon Mobil Corp., Fluor Enterprises, Fluor Maintenance Services, Foster Wheeler Constructors, Foster Wheeler Corp., Foster Wheeler Energy Corp., General Electric Corp., General Refractories Co., Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., Goulds Pumps, Guard-Line, Henry Vogt Machine Co., Huntsman Petrochemical Corp., Ingersoll Rand Co., Minnesota Mining

Don’t Miss Movie Blows Lid off Tort Reform

June 9th, 2011. By AbiK

Think you really know what happened with that McDonald’s Hot Coffee lawsuit? You’re about to learn the part of the story that wasn’t covered in the news…

In the ‘blow the lid off the top’ genre of documentaries, this summer’s sure-to-be cult favorite movie is…

More insidious than Big Oil and fracking…

More damning than the water movie “Flow” …

More frightening than genetically modified food…

And it’s going to make you think a lot more about tort reform and what it means to you and me. About caps on awards and about mandatory arbitration. About protecting your rights. And about what it’s been like for four individuals and their families to have tried to stand up for themselves in the name of justice.

Do not miss “Hot Coffee”. A documentary by Susan Saladoff. The Washington Post calls it a “stunning debut”. Variety calls it an “Eye-opening indictment”. And LawyersandSettlements.com calls it about time—and a much-needed reality check on our legal system.

“Hot Coffee” is premiering on HBO on June 27th. Check your listings. For more information, visit hotcoffeethemovie.com.

What Happens When Facebook Face Scan Screws Up?

June 8th, 2011. By AbiK

Can you spell L-A-W-S-U-I-T?

As the adage goes, give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. And Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are giving credence to the phrase with this whole face scanning bit. Internet privacy be damned is apparently the underlying mantra of all that Facebook is becoming.

The latest “isn’t technology great?!” app that Facebook will be deploying focuses on all those wonderful Kodak moments that you load onto your Facebook page. Facebook will launch the software that will scan the faces in all uploaded images—yes, yours too—on the site in a few weeks, according to CNN.com.

The face scanning app will “recognize” you (I love the innocuous feel to that—like I’ve just run into Facebook in the produce aisle at Winn-Dixie and they’ve “recognized” me with a “Hi! Great to see you again!”. Bullsh#t.) and your friends on any given picture. The face scanning program will then suggest the name of the person in the picture. Aww shucks, Facebook’s helping us all tag our friends in photos so we only have to check a box! Bullsh#t.

What’s wrong with having Facebook face scans? I’ll tell you:

1. Facebook Face Scan and Privacy are Like Oil and Water.

See, here’s the thing: all Facebook users have automatically been included in the database for the face scanning. Oh, sure, you can “opt out” but you shouldn’t have to opt out—you should have to opt IN. By going ahead and taking your image, face scanning you and letting you opt out, Facebook already has you in the database, they just won’t “suggest” your name in any photos if you opt out.

Did you agree to be in that database for that purpose? No. When you signed on to have a wall on Facebook, I’m betting that wasn’t part of what you agreed to. And this is yet one more time that users are being told to opt out of some new functionality on FB that they don’t want to be a part of. Remember the need to opt out of Instant Personalization? When folks have gone as far as to create a damn Wiki page to provide instruction on how to opt out of a Facebook app, things have gone too far. But Facebook missed that memo. On the other hand, Google recently chose to NOT release face scan technology it had developed—for privacy reasons. Kudos to Google.

Note to Facebook: when you want to flaunt new technology, capabilities, toys and tools—ask your constituents first whether they want to be a part of it at all before making them opt out of it.

2. What if Facebook Face Scan Identifies the Wrong Person?

I’m guessing that Facebook Face Scan will follow the 80/20 rule when it comes to accurately assigning an identity to a face scan. A number of reports currently on the web put in question its ability to be completely accurate. And it leaves you with this WWFD?—What Will Facebook Do?—with your face scan question. Will they get it right?

I think back to the poor girl whose picture was incorrectly blasted all over the internet in the famed Kobe Bryant case—remember the one in Colorado where Bryant had a little rendezvous? To quote that girl’s lawyer, Sienna LaRene, who at the time was interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN, “I think down the road when the dust settles, there is absolutely no question that libel—a libelous situation exists, based on the reckless dissemination of these photographs without any attempt to check if this, in fact, was the complainant in the case. Albeit that would have been bad enough….Reckless? Absolutely. Potential libel suit, absolutely.”

It’s like a bad “separated at birth” dream. And it’s bound to happen. With private investigators out there like Steven Rambam who references sites like Facebook with a “Thank you very much!” for supplying him with an all-access pass to an incredible amount of personal information—it’s easy to see how serious a misidentification can be. Mind you, Rambam would do his homework first and make sure he’s got his man.

But if you think that your “friends” are mini-Rambam’s who will only check off that image tag box if they have the right person, consider the high school kid with 700 images loaded from various parties. Hmm, is that Karen in that pic? Yeah—I think so… I don’t need to tell you what situations might arise for “Karen’s” image to be broadcast around the web.

And the general public is not as discerning with these things as you think. Case in point: I’ve had—seriously—several people ask me if I’m Nicole Brown Simpson. No kidding. To which I respond, “She’s dead.” Doesn’t matter. That actually reminds me of PCWorld’s headline about Facebook Face Scanning being “Creepy”. It is. (And I love their comical suggestion to start uploading “random pictures of trees and animals and stuffed toys and tag them as yourself.” Very funny @geeklil)

So welcome Facebook face scan, and welcome privacy lawsuits—they’re bound to happen. And potentially libel lawsuits, too. That’s my prediction. In the interim, get your mouse and click over to Facebook for..

How to Opt Out of Facebook Face Scan Sharing

1. Go to Account > Account Settings > Privacy

2. Click on the little link “Customize Settings”

3. Go to “Things Others Share” section

4. Go to “Suggest Photos of Me to Friends” and edit the settings to “Disable”

Do it—now!

InSecurities: Securities Fraud Roundup 6.7.11

June 7th, 2011. By LucyC

Top Securities Fraud Stories

So here we go…another roundup of all the securities fraud lawsuits that’ve recently cropped up and have hit our Madoff meter. So without further ado, let’s get straight to them…

New Securities Lawsuits Filed 

What was that Eurythmics Song?—Here Comes That Sinking Feeling Again…ok, so maybe Annie was singing about rain and whatever it represents and not about quicksand. But you can bet your bottom dollar that the folks who invested in WMS Industries during the class period here were probably feeling a bit under the weather with this one: WMS Industries Inc. Securities Fraud…

Company:	WMS Industries Inc
Ticker:	WMS
Class Period:	Nov-1-10 to Apr-11-11
Date Filed:	May-25-11
Lead Plaintiff Deadline:	Jul-24-11
Court:	Northern District of Illinois
Madoff Meter:

The Allegations:

WMS Industries, which designs, manufactures and distributes both video and mechanical slot machines and video lottery terminals, got hit with a securities class action in the latter half of May alleging materially false and misleading statements. Yes, that old chestnut.

The allegations state that WMS has not been successful in living up to claims that it would continue to post sales revenue and margin gains “without the benefit or need for the recovery of overall demand or the casino gaming replacement cycle.”

For those of us not following the ups and downs of the electronic gaming industry—it’s in a down Read the rest of this entry »