ProLife versus ProChoice

  Are you ProLife or ProChoice? Do you believe abortion is a sin, do you believe abortionist are stealing a child chance of being born, or do you think the mother should be the one who chooses.
  There is a lot of debate on the subject and it seems like everybody has their own opinion on this.
  What baffles me is that people are still seeing the act of having an abortion as a shameful thing, as a taboo.
  Why should we?
   In fact why should what gives us the right to have an opinion about what another person should do with her body. We see a lot of peoples protesting in the streets against abortion but how many of them have had an unwanted pregnancy or how many of them have come to be pregnant as a result of a rape?

   As a man I can't possibly know what a pregnant rape victim might be going through and therefore I can't pretend to know what is best for her. How could I?
   It's easy to be a good Christian when nothing bad happens to you. When you live a nice untroubled life, it's easy to follow the Good Word. It's easy to look across the yard to your unfortunate neighbor and give him lessons on how to live his life and criticize the hell out of him when he does wrong.

   All those people who are denouncing abortion as an irredeemable sin where were they when the woman was helplessly at the mercy of the rapist? Where are they going to be when she will give birth?
   Are they going to help the mother raise her kid if she can't provide for herself? Are they going to be there to take care of him , and to answer his questions when he'll be old enough to realize he doesn't have a father?

Probably not.

Sure, not all women considering an abortion got pregnant as the result of rape but that doesn't mean they should not have the right to choose. Chances are if they are willing to have an abortion they probably did not want to get pregnant in the first place. Why they did is their own business.

You can't argue that they should have expected that before having sex. That is probably the most hypocritical argument I have ever heard and you would be amazed how many times I have heard it. How many of us are having sex only as a way to propagate our species, really?
Just because unwanted pregnancy did not happened to us, that doesn't make us better, it makes us luckier, because chances are it could always happen to us as well. No matter how many precaution measures a couple could take, we all know that no birth control method is 100% safe. There is always a 0,001 chance an accident will happen. You can't held a woman accountable just because she happened to be in the 0,001 percent.

Those people who are so aggressively defending the life of an unborn child, did they ever stopped to think about the life of the person carrying that child? A great percent of those women considering abortion are bellow 18 years. Think about that.
 Just because a 16 year old girl made the stupid choice not to take a pill, or let her boyfriend go without a condom, that doesn't mean she has to pay all her life, nor does it mean another child should be raised in a foster home.

How many of us did stupid things, but got lucky and didn't end up facing the consequences ?
Just think about how many times we could have endangered our life or somebody's else without even knowing? How many of us drove home after a party even if we had a few glasses, because we thought we were in control of the situation? How many of us crossed the road while texting? How many of us smoke, how many of us eat junk food?

How many people endangered their own kids, by leaving them unattended, or by not caring for them properly?

In this country, you can't drive a car, a soulless object without first going through driving school and getting a driver's license, because you might hurt someone else, or even yourself. You can't drink a beer until you are 22, but somehow, it's perfectly okay to have child at 16 years old, or less, that is to be in charge of another human being.

Somehow, I have a problem with this logic. How could it be wrong for a woman to have an abortion when she thinks she is not ready to raise a child, but perfectly okay for a 16 years old who hasn't even finished school to become a mother?

Maybe we should all pay more attention to those already alive before defending those unborn, but that's just what I think.

The weirdest Olympic sports

Everyone's eyes are on London this summer, as the world's best athlets are competing for a place in the gallery of the immortal Olympic champions. The gold medal surely represents the highest achievment an athlete can dream of, the crown of a lifetime of hard training. But it seems that throught history, some events have challenged the skills of competitors in a weird way. Here are some of the most unusual events:



 Tug of war 1900-1920 

 Unusual but also one of the oldest Olympic event, dating since 500 BC, as it was played at the original greek Olympics, the tug of war was a feature at the modern Olympic games between 1900-1920. The game challenges the physical strength of two teams who are required to pull a rope in opposite direction until the midpoint of the rope passes in one or the others territory.




 Hot air ballooning 1900 

 I don't know about you but when I think of ballooning I think of Jules Verne's novels , but it seems this was a sport event in the 1900. Hm, I wonder what happened if they had bad weather.

 Long jump for horses 1900 

 Unfortunately the equestrian and not the horse would get the medal for this one. Seems a bit unfair, as all he did was to sit in the saddle.

 Rope climb 1896-1932 

 I remember when I was in highschool and our coauch would always make us climb the rope. I was pretty good at that, but I never imagined someone could win the Olympics with this skill.







 Live pigeon shooting- 1900

 You see, now, this is the kind of event that couldn't possibly happen in our days . People would be appalled, shocked, enraged. However, it make me imagine the 1900 athlete as a posh guy that spent his day hunting pigeons, ridding his horse, flying his hot air balloon , and all that while smoking his pipe.


 Poetry -1948

 Not so much as a sport event , poetry was part of the Art competitions at the Summer Olympics in London 1948. Aale Tynni from Finland won the gold medal not by showing physical prowness but rather with her poem "Laurel of Hellas". Well, this is a lesson for whoever though poems are for sissies.

 Poodle clipping - 1900

 I kid you not, this was an Olympic event back in the 1900. Geez, what kind of society did we have in the 1900? Believe it or not, in 1900 the Olympics in Paris, Avril Lafoule, a 37-year-old farmer's wife from the Auvergne won the gold medal after clipping 17 poodles in 2 hours. I can help by wondering how an american poodle clipping team would look like.




Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org
http://dsc.discovery.com/life/weird-olympic-sports-slideshow.html

I've written a few lines about a drug called pradaxa some time ago and how it was related to some serious injuries. For those who were interested in that article, here's a little infographic

++ Click to Enlarge Image ++

PradaxaInjury.com

Rape victim is denied contraception pill

   
 It seems like everyday you get to hear stories that make you ask yourself are we actually living in the 21 century in a free world?
      This is one of those stories.
       A woman , that we are going to simply call R.W. in order not to disclose her identity ,was the unfortunate victim of a rape. After she was examined at Tampa's Rape Crisis Center, the doctor provided two anti-contraception pills for her to take. 
 While she was reporting the crime, however, an arrest warrant on her name was found for failure to pay restitution and failure to appear. Being detained at Hillsborough County Jail, her pills were confiscated by the staff who refused to return them so R.W. could  take them.
     Michele Spinelli, jail employee, motivated her actions on religious beliefs. Even though eventually she did not get pregnant, R.W. decided to sue the jail guard and Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee for gender discrimination and violations of the right to privacy and the right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment.
      Is the Sheriff accountable for Spinelli's actions?
      Even though judge Kovachevich dismissed the claims against Gee, she did wrote :"The single action of a final policy-maker can represent official government policy, even when the action is not meant to control later decisions. [...]Gee, as the representative of the municipality, promulgated no policy on anticonceptive medication and provided no guidance or supervision to Spinelli on the matter. Given that some entity must set policy for the government in each situation, plaintiff has rendered plausible the claim that Spinelli was designated the final policy-maker with respect to her decision to withhold anti-conceptive medication for religious reasons.”

   What I found so disturbing about this case is how religion has made some people think they have the right to decide about other people's life, even when that goes against the law.
    I wonder what would happen if Michele Spinelli herself would have been the victim of a rape. Would she still be so firm into defending her beliefs? It's easy to be pose as righteous when the other person must facec the consequences of your decisions. It may be easy to say that is wrong to use contraceptives when you're not the on who has to live with this decision, when you're not the one who has to raise the child, and provide for him , while trying to erase the horrible memory of how that child was conceived.
    
    As a common thing for all rape cases, nobody is there to help the victims when they are assaulted, but a lot of people tend to emerge afterwards with their opinions and lessons on morality .

     On an unrelated note, in New York, many schools have started banning words on standardized tests that might be considered offensive. Words like "birthday", or "dinosaur" because some of the kids attending those schools belong to a religion that doesn't accept the existence of dinosaurs, or doesn't celebrate birthdays.( I guess musems should be next)

    It makes me ask, when did we get to be so intolerant with other people religions that we decided the best way to deal with it is to ignore the subject all together? We are either going to shove our point of view down the other person's throat or just politely change the subject, since apparently we are not able to cope with the fact that other people like us may have other opinions and that we should respect their opinion even though we don't agree with it.

    In Michigan , the Sikh community was revolted after a student was denied the right to carry a religious sword at school. Now this is an elementary school we are talking about. Imagine your kid getting in a fight with another kid on the playground, which is a pretty common thing, except the other kid carries a sword with him always.

    There is such thing as religion and then there's common sense. You can not use religion as an  excuse to break law, and do whatever you like just because your belief demands it .  Respecting another person 's belief should be done is such a way you don't offend the other, which may be pretty hard , but not impossible if we all agree that our beliefs are just different point of views, and none of us holds the absolute truth.
      
    

1984 in 2012

   

 George Orwell's famous novel "1984" may soon become a genuine prophecy about today's society, in almost every way, with one exception - his dystopian society was never THAT controlling.
     In London, British authorities are very excited about their new plan for a surveillance program that will be able to store information about every phone call, text message email or Web page visited on U.K. territory.

    The government promises they are not set up to invade personal lives, and that no email will be read nor phone call listened without a proper warrant. Yet one can just imagine where could such an act lead and where our society may be heading when everything about a person can be carefully monitored by the state.

      Home Office Secretary Theresa May gives a very cold and somewhat threating response in an editorial for The Sun: 
       “Our proposals are sensible and limited,” she says.  “They will give the police and some other agencies access to data about online communications to tackle crime, exactly as they do now with mobile phone calls and texts. Unless you are a criminal, then you've nothing to worry about from this new law.”



     "Unless you are a criminal , then you've nothing to worry about from this new law" - Who else would find this line suitable for an iconic villain? Maybe I'm just overreacting, but nevertheless, what is the price of security? And is it possible that such a power could end up being used for purposes different from those intended?
      
     David Davis, conservative party politician and member of Parliament, declared  “This is a huge amount of information, very intrusive to collect on people.  It’s not content, but it’s incredibly intrusive.”



      He is not the only one shocked by this bill.  Human rights defenders ,  authorities and civil libertarians and many others, down to your normal every day citizen were just flabbergasted. 

    On the other hand, May keeps a firm tone.  “Without changing the law the only freedom we would protect is that of criminals, terrorists and pedophiles,” she says. 



     So the only solution could be regarding every living citizen as a suspect and 24 hour monitoring of their everyday activities? Obviously this is a statement from someone who's not very savy of the whole "Internet business", but every guy who spends most of his free time in front of their screen could tell you that everyone is perfectly normal until you check his browser's history. 
    Hopefully there are plenty of rooms in U.K prisons. 

Improper dosage of prozac leads to murderous behaviour

     
      A couple of years ago, Alyssa Bustamante was just another misunderstood teen with a defiant glaze and a goth look. Now recently turned 18, she's serving a life sentence in jail after found guilty for the murder of nine years old   Elizabeth Olten.
But what could have lead to such horrible violent act from this apparently normal teen from Missouri?
       Is Alyssa Bustamante a monster in disguise or could it be that her acts were strongly influenced by the negative effects of the a high dosage of antidepressants?

       A boy in Canada , although experimenting with various drugs at the early age of 15, had reportedly no violent tendencies killed his friend with a kitchen knife. Those who knew him said his personality changed radically after being prescribed Prozac. Even the judge presiding his case stated that drugs such as Prozac and other antidepressants may have extremely negative effects on teen, that often lead to violence towards themselves or others.
       In UK, a boy under 18 beat his father to death after taking high doses of Prozac and  citalopram, a drug that was illegal for patients under the legal age. In Germany  Tim Kretschmer opened fire on his classmates without saying a word, just like it was in a video game. It's clear he couldn't have been lucid at the moment, but could his brain be altered by medication in such a way he was unable to realize what was happening?
     
       The fact that drugs are killing teenagers all over the world may sound almost like a cliché, something wide accepted as a downsize of our modern world, something we don't really want to hear about until it happens in our neighborhood. But these are not the generic illegal drugs sold on on a back alley, these are legal drugs , prescribed by doctors for patients who are trying to overcome their problems.
        Prozac side-effects have created news about suicidal teens and shocking brutal murders, but should we blame the pharmaceutical companies or the doctors for giving wrong prescriptions?
        The theory that pharmaceuticals companies such as  Eli Lilly  purposely hid informations from the public about their products, information that pointed to some test results showing how antidepressants increase suicidal tendency, by causing an imbalance in the brain's biochemicals was regarded as a conspiracy theory, and yet , we are bombarded by the news with more and more tragic stories. 
       We can't help but wondering if these gruesome crimes could have been avoided if companies would have been a little bit more transparent, if doctors would have treated their jobs with a little bit more responsibility and tried to find out what exactly was the problem with these troubled teens before choking them with pills.
Maybe Alyssa Bustamante would have prepared for graduating high school this year, instead of looking at us from behind bars.

Judge in Breivik case, playing cards in court.

   
       Ernst Henning Nielsen, one of the three judges presiding the case of the mass killer from Norway was caught playing cards on his laptop while Mattias Gardell, Swedish religious historian, was addressing court.
It seems, however that the history lesson was not interesting enough for judge Ernst Henning Nielsen who decided to enjoy a game of solitaire before the lunch break.

     The court's first reaction after the cameras caught this goof was to condemn the broadcasters for filming the judge's desk.
 “One of the conditions for broadcasting is that there should be no filming of the judges’ desk. There are notes and documents of a sensitive nature lying there,” said Irene Ramm spokeswoman for the district court. She then came back on a more friendly note : "The judges are attentively following what is being said and what is being presented to the court. There are different ways of staying focused."

    Anders Behring Breivik , age 33 is currently being judged for the attacks on July 22 2011 when he detonated a rigged car near a government building in Oslo. He then debarked on the island of  Utøya where the youth division of the Norvegian Labour Party was organizing a summer camp. Breivik pretended to be a cop and then opened fire killing 69 persons. A total of 77 persons were killed and another 242 were wounded on that tragic day by a man that claims to be leading a holy crusade against multiculturalism and "The muslim invasion" .
    Breivik's intolerance towards muslims may have roots in his early years when he apparently had some problems with some members of the muslim community in his hometown. At 7, his friend's father, Turkish, wrecked his bicycle  and at 15 he had a minor altercation with a Pakistani  underground driver for riding on the outside of a underground car, that ended up with Breivik's being slapped.

    At the moment  the courthouse is trying to establish if the "crusader" is to be sent to a regular prison or an insane asylum. Breivik's has confessed his crimes and denies any responsibility, regarding himself as a hero, but ironically he managed to prove one thing right : terrorism has no religion.

Google wins battle in France

TF1 the number 1 television channel in Europe has declared war against Google.

The French broadcast group went to court against the popular search engine, and more precisely against YouTube , the video streaming website owned by Google since 2006.

TF1 was outraged to see copyrighted movies and tv shows being posted without approval on YouTube and sought damages up to 141 milion euros ( 175$ milion)

The whole business backfired when the court found Google not to be liable for pirated content on YouTube and TF1 was ordered to pay 80,000 euros as legal fees.

Although the rules are pretty strict regarding copyright infringement with videos uploaded to YouTube, Google can not act as a police force with users content. In fact the only ones that can be held liable for video-sharing of pirated content are the users alone. 

YouTube can only be held accountable if it refuses to take down the ilegal material after the rightful owner reports it, which sometimes may seem easier said than done. 

Just imagine that in order to be sure his content is not being pirated, the owner of the material should be constantly checking uploaded videos on YouTube. YouTube had his share of problems back home as well, since from 2007 the internet company has been fighting with Viacom.

Could this slowly lead to the fall of YouTube. All we know is that "youtubers" are a fast growing comunity and filtrating their content becomes harder and harder to conceive with each new member.

It may seem like scourge mainly for artists who find it very hard to sell their work when everybody can just get it free on youtube, but when we look at the past years we'll see that a lot of fresh singers and performers gained their fame and fortune by first singing in front of their webcam.

FELA - protecting railroad workers since 1908

        In the late 19 century and the beginning of 20th century the U.S. railroad companies thrived and expanded but the working conditions for the average Joe in this area were a bet with death. The number of deaths and injuries were of the order of thousands, and the victims may have been in the situation of waiting years for verdict in court if the railroad companies fought the decisions.
       Many of them wouldn't even go to court seeking their legal compensation fearing disciplinary action and retaliation.
     
       President Benjamin Harrison once compared the struggle and toil of a railroad worker to that of a soldier on the battlefield.
     "It is a reproach to our civilization that any class of American workmen, should in the pursuit of a necessary and useful vocation, be subjected to a peril of life and limb as great as that of a soldier in time of war".

      Something had to be changed. The gloomy statistics had to draw the attention of the legislation.

     The Federal Employers Liability Act was passed by Congress in 1908 and it meant that railroad workers had the right to sue their employers for  damages if they were injured while doing their job since they were not covered by  regular workers’ compensation laws.
       
       Ever since, FELA was a guardian for a safe working environment, even if conditions have surely changed since the late 1800. FELA also has been protecting workers from the pressure exercised by companies against those who want to seek legal consultation when they feel their rights are violated. 

      As an  example , it's a little known fact that sometimes workers who have sustained injuries are entitled to more than just compensation since their employers will always seek to minimize their costs on the legal battlefield.

     The best advice for a victim of a work accident in the railroad bussiness is to contact an experienced  FELA attorney

   

Unpaied internship - modern slavery

It's almost June and graduation day is close if not already here for students throughout the world. But what has the future in store for them now that school is over. Most students accumulated not only knowledge during college but also a pretty large debt so they might be thinking to end the after grad party a little earlier and start scouting for jobs.
We've all been probably told by our parents and family " finish a college and you'll get a good job" but it seems time has changed and a college degree doesn't really makes so much a difference anymore on the market now. So what does?

Applying for an internship has been popular for some time now among students , and while unpaid internship were mostly for non-profit organizations nowadays, they expanded to almost all domains of activity from fashion houses and film to law firms.

An internship system means that the intern is offering his services to his employer in exchange for experience in that particular field of work. This might help the intern get a clear grasp of the career he wants to follow, receive some school credits, and do a better job in his future workplace as he will not require a long training if even one at all when he starts as a regular employee.  The internship period can be paid, unpaid or partially paid , but what is particular for this system is the fact that the interns job does not benefit the employer so much, thus differentiating from real paid work. In US, nearly all internships must be paid, at least minimum wage according to FLSA( Fair Labor Standard Act) unless it qualifies with the following:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operations of the facilities of the employers, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school 
2. The training is for the benefit of the student.
3. The student does not displace a regular employee, but works under the close observation of a regular employee or supervisor.
4. The employer provides the training and derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the student; and on occasion, the operations may actually be impeded by the training.
5. The student is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period.
6. The employer and the student understand that the student is not entitled to wages for the time spent training.

A few weeks of working on your daddy' s store no longer adds weight to an average post-grad since most students now already have several months of experience with one or more companies even before graduation.
With today's economy and the battle for those few good jobs out there getting tougher than the Hunger games,  many young adults will agree to take unpaid internships just to get a foot ahead.

But what might have started as an opportunity to gain experience and enhance your education turned out to be more similar to slavery as many interns report working even more than a regular employee, for no payment what so ever.

Melissa Reyes from Melissa Reyes declared for New York Times how she often worked from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. five days a week.  After graduating from Marist College with a degree in fashion merchandising like many other she applied for an internship and got admitted at  Diane von Furstenberg Fashion House. She found the educational value of her activity there not as she expected. “They had me running out to buy them lunch, they had me cleaning out the closets, emptying out the past season's items.”

 Dan O’Connell wasn't even that lucky, as he reported for MainStreet.com. Close to graduation he sought an internship with an ad agency to realize the "agency" a woman working part -time from home. Among his duties were "to write school assignments for her daughter " and "wash her car".

In 2009 The Huffington Post , a renowned website, and a great opportunity for young  journalists to get noticed, auctioned a internship post . The bid was as high as 13 000$.

Why do students put up with this one might ask? Unfortunately , most of them don't have a choice as job market is going down and more and more requirements are expected from candidates.  Furthermore,  in a bitter irony, the work that could have been done by fresh graduates is now entrusted to unpaid interns.
But not everybody can afford the luxury of working for free, so as to be expected, poor students won't be able to get the needed experience and therefore will be denied the same opportunities and have to deal with less wanted and less paid jobs, despite their potential.

It surely looks like a profitable deal for employers but is this just white-collar slavery in disguise for students and what are the effects on the long terms when companies choose unpaid unskilled work over regular paid employees?

Cinderella law - no gaming after 12

With the release of Blizzard's new title, the long anticipated Diablo III, our attention goes to one of the largest gaming community.

South Korea can boast itself with one of the richest and most prolific online gaming culture in the world. A study conducted in 2010 by the National Information Society Agency revealed that 8% of South Koreans between the age of 9 and 39 suffer from Internet addiction ,the addiction rate being higher for those between 9 and 12.

This phenomenon reminding of the famous Hikikomori generation of Japan , has come into the attention of the Korean government who last year in November came with a law forbidding children under the age of 16 to play video games after midnight. This is to be carried out by restricting their access to certain gaming servers.

The restriction however is not in effect for mobile games or games that can be found on certain social websites like facebook.

The law went into effect since 20 November and now, in South Korea console services like PlayStation Network and Xbox Live are not allowing kids under 16 to register for game accounts or to login between the hours 12 and 6 am.

Apart from that , the Korean government has been found to be very active in the struggle to prevent internet and gaming addiction for youngsters by holding numerous workshops and offering counseling for students with such problems.


As expected, the Internet community didn't greet this law very well. Blogs and forums have attacked the initiative calling it "idiotic","waste of time and money" and identifying it as discriminating.

Same should have been expected by the Korea Association of Game Industry which has stated that this law enforces " excessive prohibition" and prepared a legal retaliation.


Cultural solidarity organization MoonHwaYunDae also appealed to the Constitutional Court trying , without success to stop this law .

Parents stood pretty much on the same side arguing that they should have the right to educate their children as they see fit and have the last word about what time they want to allow their kid to play.


Lawyer Lee Byung-chan representing the parents in this matter stated that the "cinderella law " violates the right to happiness and discriminates gaming as a leisure activity against other such as television.

In my opinion this law is indeed a peculiar case, the one you might be expecting to see in North Korea than in South Korea, but let us analyze the situation a little. The law blocks the access of children under the age of 16 on online gaming servers after midnight. It is not prohibitive as it is mostly restrictive but why is such a restriction needed?
I'm 26 and I used to play video games myself,( even though online games weren't as much as a thing when I was a kid as they are now)  and I still play them know, as an young adult. I had my share of "gaming nights" with my buddies, but that happened mostly when I was in high school and the rebellious part kicked in. What I don't remember is my parents coming to my room at 3 in the morning and finding me glued to the screen while playing Nintendo. If I did that , not only I would have got into serious problems , but I'd also be way to tired to wake up at 7 AM and go to school.

As a grown man, fully independent and supporting myself I still won't pull an gaming all-niter when I have to be at work in the morning because I learned to be responsible at home.  I do agree, it's the parent's own business at what time he decides it's ok for his kid to be playing, but I hardly imagine a parent having absolutely no problem with his under 16 offspring being online , playing until morning especially if he has to be up for school in a few hours.

Internet addiction is a real thing. Gaming addiction is a real thing and I could make a whole blogs about cases all over the world where gaming addiction lead to seclusion , unsocial behavior, and in some extreme cases real violence and murder. I'm not saying games are bad but when a kid gets so involved in an virtual environment so much that it has negative effects on his real life, maybe his parents should be there to teach him about being responsible in managing his time. Maybe that is why such a law is needed , because the  ones that should prevent this problem from happening are not doing their job.

Lawyer of the day

    My last article was about a car accident and today I just stumbled across an interesting article from earlier this year, the kind of article you could say restores faith to humanity.
   On February 07 this year, personal injury lawyer Melinda Helbock, also   founding partner of The Law Offices of Melinda J. Helbock, a well known law firm in San Diego , California, announced that she will be offering free legal advice for people affected by car accidents occurred in San Diego. This can only be seen as a good news for all drivers in San Diego who know have someone to turn to when found in unfortunate events.

    Melinda Helbock has proven herself as an excellent attorney in her over 17 years of trial experience. Member of  he San Diego Bar Association and the American Association of Justice, she received her law degree at the  California Western School of Law, and quickly became known through the community for her dedication and kindness in helping people who have entered her office.
   
      Indeed, the warm, family atmosphere at   Melinda J. Helbock, A.P.C  is not what you would usually see in a law firm and the trained staff as well as the collaboration with a whole network of law specialists  throughout the country has helped it provide high quality legal service for nearly 20 years.
       Melinda J. Helbock, A.P.C covers areas of practice such as:       

          

• -Civil Litigation
• -Business Litigation
• -Corporate Law
• -Personal Injury
• -Asbestos Litigation
• -Pharmaceutical Litigation
• -Real Estate Law
• -Worker's Compensation
• -Entertainment Law
• -Pro-Bono Representation
• -Employment Law
• -Intellectual Property Law
• -Bankruptcy Law
• -Family Law
• -Probate Law
• -Wills & Estates

     But Melinda is not only a great lawyer. Loving wife and mother of two boys, she is also a very active member of community. You might wonder how does she manages to get all these things done ? Yet she is constantly volunteering for organizations like :

• Encinitas County Day, volunteer
• Alzheimer's patient, volunteer caregiver
• ELL Minor B's Nationals 2010, team mom
• ELL Rookies Grasshoppers 2010, co-team mom
• Encinitas Little League Rookies Sidewinders 2009, team mom

It seems californians can only be proud with such a true pillar of comunity. All I say is that if I ever have a car accident in San Diego , I sure know who to call.

 

Paper cup stops truck

     A community was appalled last week in Texas, after truck driver  Richard Bolduc was involved in a very unlikely truck accident. 
    Richard was driving  at approximately at 62 mph on U.S. 271 near Bogota, TX, hauling shingles from Shreveport   when an object shattered his windshield rendering him practically blind from the explosion. As Richard declared his first thought was that his phone exploded but luckily, he managed to stop the truck in time, avoiding a potential collision in traffic. 

    It seems that the mysterious object was nothing more than a plain paper medium sized soda cup from Burger King, thrown out the window by of an oncoming car. 
    State trooper Ryan Case who responded to the scene said that he found the paper cup , but threw it in the ditch as he did not believe it could have any correlation with accident. He then found pieces from it scattered around the impact area. 
       It does seem unlikely that such a harmless object as a paper cup could provoke that amount of damage to a truck. We are not talking about cracking a windshield , we are talking about going through it with such a force it made shattered it. Can a paper cup do that?

      I did some research on the internet and discovered how this question was already given an answer by the Myth Busters two years ago in one of their episodes. If you want to see for yourself here is the link :
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/mythbusters-soda-cup-killer-angle-2.html


       Driver Richard Bolduc is currently recovering after sustaining serious injuries to his face, eyes and back. Fortunately, even though a specialist had to recover paper fragments from his eyes he is not in danger of blinding. Bolduc live as far as 600 miles from where the accident happened, however, the community was more than helpful. Bolduc is currently staying with pastor Donnie Childer, former truck driver himself and his wife Dana. They took care of Bolduc and his truck and also drove him to hospital after they were called in by driver  Mitch Cannon who was behind Richard when the accident happened.
     
     The Childers also made sure to call Richard's wife and let her about her husbands situation and that he is OK. Jennifer Balduc, mother of two girls with special needs declared that it would have been extremely hard without the help of the friendly people in Bogota. Even though doctors can say at the moment if Richard is going to be able to drive again, Jennifer is just happy that her husband is alive. 


     Now that is a heart warming story about kindness and how there are still people out there ready to jump and give a helping hand to their fellows in need, but it could also be looked as an alarm call for drivers everywhere to be more responsible on the road. It this case a simple gesture as throwing a paper cup out the window could have cost a man's life and maybe even lead to a traffic collision increasing the number of victims. Each year truck accidents alone clai 5000 lives in US. Maybe is time to raise awareness,because everyone knows accidents are best to be avoided than dealt with.
      In the unfortunate case of a truck accident or any type of car accident whatsoever it's best to remember that you can seek compensation. A consultation with a truck accident lawyer may help you.

Dumbest lawsuits ever

     We all heard of frivolous lawsuits, lawsuits that from the start have little to no chance of winning mostly due to their lack of legal merit and their absurdity, but things go way beyond with some cases that simply redefine the word ridiculous. Here are some of this cases:

Man vs Jackass 

      Former Bob Craft from Montana , changed his name to Jack Ass in 1997 to raise awareness, he says about the dangers of drunk driving.  He most probably had a shock when a TV show with the same name was aired in 2000 on MTV featuring a group of young men doing some dangerous stunts , so he did what any reasonable man would do - sued the heck out of them for 10 million dollars. He motivated his actions by saying that they stoled his name and defamed his good character.
     Now let's digest that for a moment. There's this guy changing his name to Jack Ass and then claiming somebody defamed his good character. I guess he was really making the term "jackass" a respectable name before MTV came along.

Christopher Roller vs Magicians

     We all love magic tricks and magicians. They challenge our imagination with their fantastic numbers but in the end we all know it's all just an illusion. Or is it?  Christopher Roller from  Minnesota claims otherwise as he believes the old "hand is quicker than the eye" does not apply to famous performers David Blaine and David Copperfield who may in fact , as he claims , use godly powers. He demands that they reveal their secrets or pay him 10% of their income for life. Why? Because, as he states he is actually God and those pesky magicians are using his power. And I thought it was all just smoke and mirrors.

Women vs Police...dog?

Police brutality is a serious matter and people are entitled to defend themselves and bring those responsible in court unless those responsible require a leash. This is a case of a woman in  Detroit who was bitten by a police dog . Most probably she could have had a strong case here unless she decided to file her suit against poor agent K9 Scruffy himself. The judge dismissed the lawsuit as being frivolous and also fined the plaintiff .
Talking about things that turn around and bite you in the...

Man Vs Anheuser-Busch

This one is a classic. We all find ourselves being influenced by ads on TV into buying some products promising to make our life better, but a man in Michigan really got a rough deal. In 1990, a Budweiser ad showed two beautiful women appearing from thin air in front of two truck drivers after they consumed the mentioned beer. Our guy went ahead and bought a case of beer, drank it, but surprise, no woman materialized in front of him. He sued the company for false advertising, but the court dismissed the suit. Weird enough last time I drank a full case of beer I saw two women in front of me. Unfortunately they were my girlfriend and they weren't very happy.

Man vs Himself

You know those moments when you do something really stupid and just want to punch yourself in the the face? Well Robert Lee Brock imprisoned for grand larceny and breaking-and-entering went a step ahead and tried to sue himself . Robert claimed that he was drunk at the time he committed those crimes which he states , was against his religious beliefs.He claimed he had violated his civil liberties and sued himself for 5 million bucks. Unfortunately as he was imprisoned at the time and unable to produce an income he demanded that the state should pay him the sum.
Still a better  use of tax -payers money than what we see today.


There you have it , some of the most ridiculous lawsuits of all time. Let me know if you liked this article in the comment section bellow and if you want me to continue the list.

Pradaxa Injury - Boehringer Ingelheim plays dumb

     This month it seems I've written a lot about medical problems and medical lawsuits. And now I find myself writing about another miracle drug that has been proved to do more harm than good in a lot of cases. Before that though , I must clarify that I am not under no circumstance advertising these pharmaceutical products ,nor am I trying to give them a bad name. A lot of people have been taking them and it improved their condition, but however there is still a great number of patients who have been complaining of some serious side-effects. Side-effects that in some cases put their life in danger.

     Pradaxa is an anticoagulant mainly used for treating pacients with  atrial fibrillation, a heart condition that leads to abnormal heart beats. Without treating, atrial fibrillation could lead to blood clots and strokes so an anticoagulant drug could mean the difference between life and death for those unfortunate to have this condition. 



     Pradaxa was released in 2010 , brought on the market by   Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals and it quickly gain popularity over its predecesor and competitior, Warfarin, mainly for being more user-friendly as the patient does not need to do regular blood test or have any food restrictions. 
     
     However, the magic did not last long after it have been reported that Pradaxa may have some fatal side-effects as severe bleeding injuries were in patients who were taking Pradaxa, injuries that sometime lead to death. FDA was flooded with reports of victims suffering from internal bleedings after using the anticoagulant drug and by the second  quarter of 2011, the number of deaths sky-rocketed to 117.
     Symptomes included: 

            • Severe headaches
            • Repeated nosebleeds
            • Constant fatigue
            • Weakening or swelling in the body’s joints, arms, hands, legs, ankles or feet
            • Feeling dizzy
            • Unusual bruises or bleeding, particularly in the gums
            • Vomiting blood
            • Coughing up blood
            • Menstrual or vaginal bleeding that is heavier than normal

      Keep in mind that the FDA approved Pradaxa in October 2010 and here we are, less than a year later , 117 people died.  
     Despite this,  Boehringer Ingelheim, the pharmaceutical company responsible for Pradaxa ,  dabigatran by its chemical name, indirectly dismissed any accusation, by saying that Pradaxa is as safe as any anticoagulant drug on the market and the risk it's similar for any other blood thinner. I must admit, I'm not a doctor,or a pharmacist, but seeing as Pradaxa's popularity was mainly based on the "user-friendly" part I'm a little confused of how this drug has the same potential risk of its competitors that require some serious medical tests before administering. But like I said, I'm not an expert.

      To make things worse, while other blood thinners drugs had an antidote, Pradaxa had no such thing even though this thing was actually marketed as a good thing. The logic? Pradaxa is better , more efficient and also easier to use. 

       And things go further . This year, in January, a study conducted by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic and involving 30514 patients proved that the use of Pradaxa lead to a 33 percent higher risk of heart attack. 

       Wasn't Pradaxa supposed to do just the opposite? 
        So, where's   Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals reaction? I guess as a cynical guy that I am the only thing I could do is point out the fact that maybe, striking deals with the victims cost a lot less than retreating the product of the market. 

         If what lead you to this article was the fact that you  or someone you know dealt with some serious problem because of Pradaxa the only thing I could recommend you is to seek the advice of a Pradaxa injury lawyer

Made into an internet joke because of her disability - The story of Heidi Crowter

 On April 13  BBC News program Midlands Today aired a segment about an unfortunate young teenage girl with down syndrome who became a victim of Internet abuse after she was turned into a meme intended to make fun of people with mental disabilities.

Heidi Crowter,  a 15 year old girl from Coventry was diagnosed with down syndrome soon after her birth. Most people who are not familiar with this condition associate down syndrome with mental retardation but even though  most individuals with Down syndrome have intellectual disability  the use of IQ tests for individuals with Down syndrome has been criticized on the grounds that the educator's low expectations and the fact that IQ tests do not take into account accompanying physical disabilities, such as hearing and vision impairment that would slow the test-taking performance. Many children with Down syndrome who have received family support, enrichment therapies and tutoring manage to graduate from high school and are able to do paid work, and some participate in post-secondary education as well.
Unfortunately what it's for certain is that those diagnosed with this syndrome don't have it easy at all, as they are predisposed to all kind of diseases with increased risk for cancer,  Hirschsprung's disease,   congenital heart disease ,epilepsy and the list could go on and on.


It is hard to understand how a teenager struggling everyday to live a normal life and overcome her hardships may end up as a target for humiliating jokes.

Apparently it all started after her picture was copied from a parent support group website designed for helping people with disabilities and posted on facebook in a degrading context, featuring malicious comments.
The most famous subcaption has been "I can count to potato" originating from the movie "Ringer". Memes featuring Heidi appeared on websites like Reddit , Memebase , Memegenerator and 9Gag.

Liz Crowter, Heidi's mother was appalled after finding out that people were mocking her girl on facebook pages and tried to have those photos removed. Unfortunately that may extremely if not impossible.
People share milions of pictures and links via facebook daily and to have a human being moderate every single one of those in order to make sure no offensive material is being distributed would take way too long for a website based on speed and simplicity. And what about those other websites?

Many people have blamed Heidi's parents for coming out in public and creating a "snowball" effect by attracting attention thus making it more appealing for trolls to create even more memes. Many argued that revealing the little girl's identity has made things even more difficult for her.
Are they right and is her mother to blame ? Or could it be that laughing at people with special needs stops being so funny when those people are no longer anonymous faces in funny posts, but real persons with real feelings.

When asked by the reporter what would she tell those who are making fun of her on the internet, Heidi  replied with tears in her eyes that she would kindly ask them to stop.

Just a girl trying to live a normal life.