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What Causes Many Birth Problems Of The Heart, Lungs And Brain? Antidepressant Paxil

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:00:40 +0000

One of a family's worst nightmares is for an infant to be born with birth problems threatening their life or well being. And many have been subject to this nightmare because of a defective drug: the antidepressant Paxil.

When a pregnant lady takes Paxil during pregnancy, especially in the first quarter, her baby is far more certain to suffer a few of a selection of birth imperfection wounds as a consequence. Such birth imperfections include wounds to the heart, lungs, brain, backbone, limbs, intestinal wall, urinary tract and gut system.

Such injuries may require surgery or even repeated surgeries to correct, particularly heart birth defects. And these surgeries place a serious price on families, both financially and emotionally. Now, such families are fighting back through the legal arena. They're pressing paxil class action lawsuits against the defective drug's manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, or GSK.

Based in Britain, GSK has reaped billions of dollars in profits through its defective drug, Paxil. And it probably did so while aware that many harmful Paxil side-effects were troubling many that were exposed to the drug even newly born infants.

Sadly, Paxil remains available, regardless of the damage that it has done and continues to do. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has placed alerts on the product's labels, however it still can be prescribed for patients as an anti-depressant. This regularly happens because many women suffer depression during their pregnancy. They then turn to anti-depressants for relief.

But Paxil can require a extraordinarily high price, including such heart defects as Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, Transposition of the Great Arteries, Interrupted Aortic Arch, Coarctation of the Aorta, Pulmonary Stenosis, Bicuspid Aortic Valve, Atrial Septal Defect, Ventricular Septal Defect, Aortic Insufficiency and Heart Murmur.

Other Paxil birth defects include wounds to the spine such as Neural Tube Defects or Spina Bifida. Paxil birth problems of the lungs include Persistent Pulmonary Raised blood pressure, or PPHN.The list keeps going and on. And now, so do Paxil lawsuits against the drug's culpable manufacturer. In fact, latterly GSK shows signals of settling such birth defect legal actions, as opposed to waging lengthy court battles.

To continue with such a {class action lawsuit against paxil} seeking commercial recovery for Paxil birth imperfection wounds, Americans across the land can warn the nationwide lawyer service of LawyerPaxil.com. A Paxil lawsuit can seek money compensation for their family's medical expenses and discomfort and suffering as a result of a Paxil birth imperfection injury. The first step is to notify LawyerPaxil.com either online or by phoning 1-800-344-9966.

The Responsible Blogger’s Guide to Dealing with Big Brother

BlogPostman — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:00:00 +0000

“What should I be doing better with my blog?” That’s one helluva question, isn’t it? As someone who blogs to support a thriving business, I think about that question every day. There are a lot of answers, many of which involve sexy topics like traffic, subscribers, and getting one zillion followers on Twitter. But when’s the last time you sat down and answered the question above with: “I should be paying more attention to blogging ethics.” Not so sexy. But as bloggers, we have to face facts about the world we live in. It feels like an anonymous platform where we can do and say whatever we want. But 2010 has a lot in common with 1984, and Big Brother comes in some forms that George Orwell never dreamed of. You need to be aware of one very important fact that many seem to forget: You can’t unGoogle anything When you launch your words into the blogosphere and social media universe, you’re laying a digital footprint in concrete. That concrete is the Internet Elephant, and it never forgets. Old versions of your site are cached. Facebook privacy blunders have ugly real-world consequences. And the Library of Congress is even planning on archiving our tweets. It feels like you can’t be held accountable for your rash words, but you can. Here are some tips on blogging ethics that will help keep your reputation clean. Especially if you’re going to make blogging a part of your business, you need to protect your interests. Your comments policy The bottom line is, it’s your blog and you have ultimate control over what gets posted in your comments section and what doesn’t make the cut. Please realize that whatever policy you decide on, not everyone is going to agree with you. I personally have a “post all comments” policy, except in instances of spam or blatant self-promoting garbage that adds nothing to the conversation. I also hold all comments that include links from first-time commenters for moderation (legitimate commenters are then white-listed). Some blogs allow trash talk, some don’t. Some allow profanity, some don’t. Every blogger needs to figure out what to do with the trolls . It’s your blog and your call. It’s always smart to make your comments policy clear. My developer is working right now on coding my site so my comments policy shows up in a cool style below each post. If you become known for deleting comments just because the reader isn’t a fawning yes-man, your credibility and authority will suffer. On the other hand, letting the trolls run free or allowing spam to trash up your comments won’t do your reputation any favors either. Proper accreditation If you use photos in your blog posts, use legitimate sources for images . (Assuming, of course, you’re not using your own images or photos.) Photos purchased from stock photo houses usually don’t require photo credit, although a few do. On the other hand, images you get under a Creative Commons license do have various requirements, usually at minimum a credit to the image owner. This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Don’t steal other people’s images or words and put them on your blog. That content doesn’t belong to you. It’s unethical and scummy. When you love a blog post so much that you want to send it to your readers, it is not okay to copy the post and paste it into your own blog or newsletter (even with accreditation) unless you get permission from the blogger. A better way to show your adoration is to select a handful of quotes (I prefer to stick with no more than 50-100 words) from the post and then provide a link back to the original post, with credit to the author. Understanding libel Ohhhhh — legalese! (The recovering attorney in Brian Clark will love this one.) Some bloggers make a hobby of calling people out for what they consider to be inappropriate practices, stupid decisions, or the like. Other bloggers are just plain malicious. If you’re going to go down this road, get your ducks in a row first. Read up on what constitutes libel . You owe it to yourself. What you might consider “free speech” could get you into trouble, as the line between opinion and malicious intent can be a very fine one. Make sure you have a liability insurance policy in place (this is a must). If you’re a member of The Author’s Guild, they offer Media Liability Insurance . You can also contact your insurance agent for a general business policy, but make sure it also covers libel and slander. You are not invisible Some people imagine that the internet lets them don a Cloak of Invisibility that bestows permission to do whatever the hell they want. It’s simply not true. You are responsible for your words on the web (and in life) no matter where you leave them or how anonymous you think you’re being. I don’t accept anonymous comments on my blog (including commenters who give fake email addresses) and here’s why: it shows me you’re not willing to be held accountable for your words. If you’re running a blog, there are some pretty cool tools you can use to verify identity or lend at least some level of “real world” status to a commenter you might hold in question. Email address verification tools: Did you know you can check any email address to see if it’s valid? Yep. And it’s free and easy. I use this one on a regular basis, but a simple web search for “verify email address” can point you towards others. IP address verification: Most comment systems (Disqus, InstenseDebate, and WordPress’s built-in system) display the IP address of every commenter to the moderator. I use WhoIs to verify IP addresses (I had to do this just last week for an unfortunate situation). If you continuously receive spam comments or inappropriate comments from a particular commenter, you can block an entire IP address from your blog. If you need help with this, just ping your comments system or hit up the WordPress Codex for tips on combating spam and unwanted comments. Disqus and IntenseDebate have built-in blacklist features. The best thing I can do here is to put just a bit of healthy fear into you. You’re not invincible, you’re not invisible, and you have a responsibility to both yourself and your audience. While you might have been looking for a more entertaining post on ethics (given my propensity for, ahem, colorful language), putting your thoughts out there on the web is serious stuff. As I said, nothing can be unGoogled. It’s not like a late-night TP-ing of your least favorite junior high school science teacher’s house. Drive-bys don’t work online. Strong ethical guidelines can keep your brand and keep your blog shop clean. If there are other best practices I’ve missed, lob them into the comments section below. While we don’t want to go all George Orwell, you have to remember that 1984 still applies in 2010 … and beyond (and it’s not such a bad thing). About the Author: Erika Napoletano is the Head Redhead at RedheadWriting LLC, a Denver-based online strategies consultancy. Her blog, RedheadWriting , is a bastion for “unpopular thoughts and blunt advice — delivered” and consistently strives to say what others won’t (but should) about marketing, social media, business integrity, and life in general.

6 Online Marketing Mistakes that Will Kill Your Business

BlogPostman — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:37:21 +0000

Usually on Copyblogger we talk about how to grow your business , get more customers, increase your conversion rate, build thousands of daily readers, and all the rest of it. But you also need to know about the factors that will kill off your business. Sometimes it’s a question of attitude, like when you’re sick of it, when it’s only a hobby and you don’t want to take it too seriously, or when you’re equally scared of success and failure. And then there are just downright mistakes, which, fortunately, can be corrected. If you want your business to thrive, watch out for these warning signs. Get them straightened out and you’ll get your business on the road to robust good health. #1: A sucky attitude Your attitude about your own business will affect everyone else’s attitude about it. Every web visitor, every person you speak to, every twitter and FaceBook contact. They’ll know, without you telling them, exactly how you regard your business. What are some of the warning signs that your attitude may suck? When you don’t post for weeks on end. When you haven’t put out a new product or service for the last six months. When you say your business would be great if it wasn’t for those $#%^& customers. When you whinge about how hard business is and how all those successful A-listers must have had friends in the right places. When you’re expecting to be an overnight success and you’re surprised that you aren’t both rich and famous after six months. #2: Marketing to a demographic, not a niche The best and simplest definition of a niche that I’ve seen is “a group of people with a common problem who congregate together.” What isn’t a niche? Freelancers are not a niche. Work at Home Parents (mums, dads, or both) are not a niche. Small business owners are not a niche. Copywriters are not a niche. Women over 40 are not a niche, neither are men after retirement. Those are all demographics — and they’re all groups that I’ve seen people try to market to. It’s only a niche when they share a problem. So what’s the problem in your niche, and how are you going to solve it? Where does your niche group together so you can market to them specifically? It’s a marketing paradox that the more you narrow your niche, the more successful your marketing will be. Have a look at who you’re aiming at now and ask yourself if it’s a demographic or a real niche. How can you narrow your message down to their core problem — the one that you solve brilliantly and uniquely? #3: Looking like a cheapskate It’s so easy to set up an online business these days — just whack up a WordPress.com or Blogger site and off you go. Need graphics? Pick up some clip art. Logo and website header? $50 should take care of that if you outsource to the lowest bidder. Business cards? You can get freebies from Vistaprint, why pay money for a designer and printing? Newsletter list? Send that from your desktop with Outlook. The only problem here is that your business looks cheap. And the overall impression visitors and potential clients get is that you’re (a) broke, (b) cheap and (c) unprofessional. There are some things you can do free or low-cost and no one will notice. Your website is not one of them. Don’t get me wrong here, you don’t have to go to the other extreme and mortgage your house to pay for the website. You do have to make sure that your site has a clean, professional look, that it’s easy to navigate, and that your web presence makes you look worth the prices you charge. #4: Not capturing visitor details Someone comes to your site, looks around, reads some posts, and then leaves. Sure, they liked it and intend to come back and read some more — but they never do. They forget, lose the url, get busy. And you’ve lost them forever. I’m amazed at the number of small businesses that don’t have a way to capture visitor details — their names and email addresses. They’re losing customers and making life harder for themselves. It takes time and effort to attract people to your site, so why let them leave without a way to keep in touch? Set up an email newsletter list (NOT from your desktop, see #3 above) and offer a valuable free report or ebook in exchange for their details. MailChimp is free up to 500 subscribers if money is tight at the start, and you can build from there. Once you’ve lost a visitor they’re gone forever — along with every person they may have referred you to. Do you really want to let them get away that easily? #5: Failing to plan long term Or don’t plan at all. Business plans are for big businesses, and for when you need to go to the bank for capital, right? Wrong! When you don’t plan you’ll drift. You’ll chase the latest marketing guru and technique, flit from this to that and wonder why nothing seems to work for you. What are you aiming for? What do you expect out of your business? How will you know when you’ve reached it? You don’t need a 100 page plan full of legalese and possible budgets and financial projections that no-one but your Accountant understands. But at the very least you do need to know what your aims (goals) for your business are, who you’re marketing to, and what makes you different from everyone else out there. No plan = No business. #6: All learning, no action Are you a ‘gunna’? You’re ‘gunna’ do this and ‘gunna’ do that? Just as soon as you’ve studied this marketing e-course, read those 136 ebooks, listened to the 84 teleseminars and watched the 78 hours of business videos that you’ve downloaded onto your computer? How many information products have you bought that you’ve never read, listened to or watched? How many of them have you actually worked through step by step? We all do this, or rather, don’t do this. Me? I’m waiting for retirement before I work through my resources folder — it’s the only way I’ll ever have the time. Ebooks, courses, videos and all the other teaching methods are great, as long as you utilize what you’ve learned . Information junkies abound. People who take action on what they’ve learned are rare. You’ll learn more in your first twelve months of actually running your business and putting yourself out there than you will from any number of books, courses and videos. Information is great, but nothing beats taking action. About the Author: Mel Brennan is the antipodean force behind both SuperWAHM and the Two Hour Business Plan . You can also catch her on Twitter . P.S. Looking for the advice we talked about at the beginning: how to grow your business, get more customers, increase your conversion rate, gain several thousand daily readers, and all of that good stuff? You’ll find it on the free Copyblogger newsletter, Internet Marketing for Smart People . Come join us today !

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6 Online Marketing Mistakes that Will Kill Your Business

How to Use Stories to Change the World

BlogPostman — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:14:40 +0000

If you have a blog, you tell stories. You may have dealt with the frustration of not having very many people see your stories, of not having enough subscribers or readers. Nevertheless, you keep on documenting your story in your blog posts, your Facebook status updates, your Twitter feed. You tell your stories and hope people will hear you. You’re lucky. The majority of people in Burma — a country that is brutally ruled by a military dictatorship — have no electricity, let alone access to the Internet. Which means it’s difficult to widely share stories about what they experience there. Right now, there are thousands of blogs detailing the difficulties of life as a single parent, but there aren’t many blogs describing what it’s like to live your entire life in a refugee camp or to survive a disaster like Cyclone Nargis, which killed more than 138,000 people in Burma. Those who manage to blog can suffer dire consequences for daring to do so. A 30-year-old blogger from Burma was sentenced to 20 years in prison for posting political satire. Weaving narratives about our lives is one of the things that makes us human The stories we tell are undeniably powerful. Stories allow us to connect with one another, to know each other as individuals rather than statistics. Yet those who are living through human rights crises have their stories written from a distance, in news blurbs and legal briefs. These stories rarely become as compelling as the ones you tell on your own blog, simply because they often lack the intimacy of a much fuller first-person narrative. Until now. Putting the human back into human rights My strategy to survive was to appease the soldiers and to make friends with them. I thought, if only we could make friends with these soldiers, then we would survive. But porters can die at any time. For example, if a soldier got angry and just shot me with his gun, nothing would happen to him. I would just die, like a chicken or a rat. To Tanintharyi Division, they send 500 porters every year. Of the 500, only 72 porters make it back to the prison. If you survive, you survive. I was a porter for nearly six months. ~ Lai Pa, 34-year-old man from Burma Perhaps you’ve read about the severe crackdown on monks protesting in the Saffron Revolution, or the destruction wrought by Cyclone Nargis. Although Burma is a hotbed of human rights abuses and repression, it is also home to 50 million individuals and exponentially more stories. This fall, Voice of Witness will release Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime . The book will delve into the diverse lives of people who have lived under Burma’s military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). Voice of Witness is a nonprofit book series that empowers the men and women who have lived through human rights crises by letting them tell their stories in their own words. In Nowhere to Be Home , dozens of stories are told publically for the first time. Lai Pa was studying to become a preacher when he was imprisoned and forced to work as a porter for the military . Tang Mai, an LGBT rights activist talks about his strained relationship with his father, a famous ethnic Kachin rebel leader. Ye Myint Win was a former army general who fought against those very same rebels; his story is told alongside Tang Mai’s. You can read the short descriptions we’ve put here for you, but as you can see, they only scratch the surface as an introduction to the narrators. (All of those names, as you can imagine, have been changed to protect these people.) The book brings to light the voices of refugees, former political prisoners, migrant workers, farmers, artists, students, and activists. These vivid portraits do something that human rights reports don’t: they allow you to experience Burma through entire life stories of its people in their own words. Calling all bloggers: how can we share these stories? Bloggers are storytellers, and your stories give you power. We’re asking you to share some of what you’ve learned from your own experiences of telling your story publically, to help us imagine ways this book can extend beyond the reach of print. Tell us. How can we use the Internet to amplify the narratives in this book? How can we make their words echo as far and as wide as any post here on Copyblogger? We want to hear your thoughts about sharing stories, about how storytelling can change the world, and about how you would use social media to share these incredible stories collected from Burma. Please let us know in the comments! About the Authors : Maggie Lemere and Zoë West are the editors of Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime , the latest in the Voice of Witness book series. Voice of Witness was founded by author Dave Eggers and physician/human rights scholar Lola Vollen, and is the nonprofit division of McSweeney’s Books. If you’re inspired by the storytelling work done by the nonprofit book series Voice of Witness, you can make a donation here to support their work.

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How to Use Stories to Change the World

Facebook: Word Of Mouth If You Can Get It

BlogPostman — Tue, 18 May 2010 23:00:03 +0000

Facebook may indeed be the perfect channel for transmitting “word of mouth marketing”. The only problem with word of mouth marketing from a marketers perspective is that you can’t legally buy it without disclosing you bought it and word of mouth as a rule can’t be replicated or scaled. So while Facebook may be the perfect environment for the incubation and distribution of word of mouth, marketers who rely solely on Facebook users to create and distribute positive word of mouth in their behalf may have find themselves without a marketing job.

Affiliate Undercover

Sun, 02 May 2010 19:09:01 +0000

You may have heard of the black-hat methods or as Eric Rockefeller call them ‘the sneaky and dirty methods’. Many of you do not like this way to generate money from your online affiliate marketing business; but what if you can utilize them now legally. Now, there is no need to leave thousands of dollars

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Affiliate Undercover

Why Third Tribe is Shutting Down

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:04:02 +0000

Before I talk about our reasons for shutting down Inside the Third Tribe (our community of next-generation internet marketers), I want to stress that it had nothing to do with our members. In fact, they’ve been amazing. More than 2,000 smart, motivated entrepreneurs, hungry for knowledge and passionately applying the education we provide. And it’s not because I don’t believe in the community. In fact, I think it’s one of the most remarkable projects I’ve ever been involved with. Unfortunately, we’ve had some issues with the team that I no longer believe we can reconcile. There were hints all along, as there usually are. But at the recent South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, it became clear that we couldn’t continue as we had been. I think we were somewhere at the edge of town when the drugs began to take hold. Brian said something like, “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . .” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was heading for Austin going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down. And Brian’s baritone voice was bellowing: “Holy Jesus! What are these [expletive] animals?” “Bats, Brian,” I said. “Austin is known for its bats.” You have to understand, he’s been under a lot of stress He’d seemed lucid enough back when we were planning out how we’d approach the conference. Lucid, but showing some signs of strain. We had launched too many projects back to back, and frankly, South by Southwest tends to bring out Brian’s . . . eccentric side. His voice was fast on the phone when we were making plans, but he sounded reasonably in control of himself. “You’re going to need plenty of legal advice before this thing is over.” “Really? OK,” I said, grabbing a pad of paper to take notes. “And my first advice is that you should rent a very fast car with no top. This blows my week, because naturally I’ll have to go with you. And we’ll have to arm ourselves.” My voice faltered a little. “Sorry, did you say arm ourselves?” But you know, I’ve followed Brian down a lot of strange rabbit holes, and so far we’ve always done all right. So we got the convertible, and the guns, and the 55-gallon drum of creamed corn, and he pulled some kind of connection that let me secure a tank of medical-grade ether. I try not to ask too many questions when he gets like this. Which makes it my fault too, I realize. He couldn’t stop talking about retirement, about how much he wanted to walk away. “Social media is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.” “Right, but there are good people too!” I kept saying. “You know there are.” But he wasn’t in any kind of space to hear me. As I’ve come to realize, there is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge. He took another hit and sank into a dark silence while I circled the Austin airport. We were there to pick up Chris Brogan Brogan . . . now there’s a piece of work. I don’t mind the first-class airfare or the Rolls Royce or paying for all the booze. Whatever. The man’s got his issues. But picking up the tab for those identical twin Thai massage girls is just . . . I don’t know, it gives me the creeps. Plus it’s hell on our profit margins. He was hysterical, as usual, as he careened out of baggage claim. His voice kept getting higher and higher, talking about not getting his due, not getting his respect, not feeling the love. “Don’t you understand? Don’t you get it? I’m still huge!” he shrieked. “Brogan,” Brian said, in the dangerous voice. That’s the first moment when I started to get nervous. Brian’s dangerous voice is . . . well, dangerous. “I’m everything I ever was!” Brogan screamed. “Who have we got now? Nobodies! Can’t you see it? I’m still big! It’s the media that got small.” Brian pulled out something that looked like a gun, and I nearly passed out. I don’t know if you realize this, but since 9/11, pulling out a gun in a U.S. airport is like wearing a giant sign saying, “Dear TSA dudes, please blow our heads off. Thanks tons, love, Copyblogger.” Brian squeezed off two tidy shots, but instead of a sound like gunfire, there was a sort of whuff . Brogan hit the floor like a sack of irradiated meat. “Damn it, Brian, what the hell was that?” I grabbed the gun and stashed it, then tried to lift Brogan’s head off the linoleum and check his vital signs. Actually, my words were a little stronger than that. You have to be firm when Brian gets this way. “Elephant tranquilizer,” Brian said. “Brutal stuff. Very bad. He’ll be having hallucinations of having his intestines gnawed by naked mole rats for about . . . ” Brian checked his watch, “the next 12 to 16 hours.” Don’t even ask me how we got him into the car. There wasn’t room in the back seat but somehow we managed to fold him into the trunk of the convertible and we headed for the hotel. Brian got snippy with me for insisting we crack the trunk for air, but the last thing in the world I need is a social media darling dying of asphyxiation in the trunk of my rented car. I do have a few boundaries. Then there’s Darren Rowse Darren, Mr. “Nice Guy” of the interwebs, was supposed to meet us in the hotel bar. We couldn’t manage to get Brogan out of the trunk, so we left him there, the trunk propped open by his elbow, twitching and sweating and muttering something about a close-up. I don’t know if you know Darren. He’s . . . well . . . he’s something of a character. He was slumped, as he usually is, giggling on the red plastic bar stool. He turned his manic grin to us and patted the machete that he always carries. “You call that a knife?” he said. He held up the machete proudly. “Now that’s a knife.” “Yeah, right, hi Darren,” I said. I was starting to get tired. One of them at a time I can usually take, but between Brian in an ether funk and Chris hallucinating on elephant tranquilizer, the last thing I needed was Darren’s incessant self comparisons to Crocodile Dundee. “That’s awesome, honey. Put it away before you make the bartender nervous, ok?” “Of course it took me a week to crawl this far,” he muttered, giggling. “I thought I was a goner. I said to meself, Darren old son, find yourself a nice comfortable spot and lay down and die.” “Rowse,” Brian nodded in greeting, his teeth clenched. Darren stroked the machete thoughtfully. “Up North in the Never-Never, where the land is harsh and bare, lives a mighty hunter named Darren Dundee.” Brian began to growl. “What the [expletive] is he [expletive] on about?” Darren snarled, the giggle dissolving. “Is he taking the [expletive] out of me? Because if he wants a fight, I’ll give him a [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] fight.” “Both of you, play nice, please,” I begged. “Just ten minutes of peace and then you can start in on each other.” I was desperate for a drink. But one of us had to keep a clear head, and as usual, it looked like it was me. “He’s [expletive] high again.” Darren’s eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they’ve always worked for me,” Brian said, with a majestic dignity that almost made me love him again. From there it just went downhill Anyway, I guess you remember the rest of it from the news accounts. They didn’t get it exactly right, but it was close enough. Brogan is doing better in rehab than any of us could have hoped, so I’m crossing my fingers. We don’t think the U.S. will try to extradite Darren for what happened to that biker, and let’s face it, the guy did pull a knife on us. Poor bastard. Brian’s wife won’t give me any details, and when I drove out to their place to try and figure it out, he took a shot at me. You know, it’s Brian. He’ll be ok. He always is. If I were going to write the truth about everything I know, about 600 people — including me — would be rotting in prison cells. So I’m going to have to leave it there. All I know is I can’t do this any more. I’m walking away while I still can. I booked a massage for later this morning, I’m going to go cash my settlement check , and then I’m going to take a walk on this beautiful first day of April and try and figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Until then, you all take care, ok? P.S. This post is 100% Brian’s fault. P.P.S. Thanks, Hunter . About the Author : Sonia Simone is currently the only one working at Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication . She also co-founded Inside the Third Tribe before it collapsed into a vortex of drugs, ego, and identical twin Thai massage girls.

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Why Third Tribe is Shutting Down

Can Distracted Driving Get Worse? You Bet Your Internet

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:51:44 +0000

Multi-tasking drivers are busy people. They’re busy texting, emailing, calling or tweeting. They’re also busy killing and maiming thousands of Americans because they place more importance on trivial exchanges with pals miles away than on paying attention to the road ahead.

Such multi-taskers are as bad as drunk drivers, studies show. Indeed, with their erratic behavior and slowed reaction times it’s hard to tell the difference. But since so many more distracted drivers than drunk drivers ramble our roads, the yakkers and texters are making one difference, all right: They’re becoming America’s new No. 1 traffic threat.

Harvard researchers have found that 2,600 Americans die and 570,000 more are injured in a year’s worth of traffic accidents because of one thing: distracted driving. Yet as bad as it is, it will only get worse, because the computer and auto industries are placing profits above safety. Astonishingly, given the carnage so far, they’ll soon sell computer screens on car dashboards.

Intel Corporation and Google are leading the charge, planning front-seat computer screens under the guise of “progress.” Let’s see: Getting more Americans killed and maimed is progress? Terrorists might agree, but reasonable Americans would not.

Unveiled at the Consumers Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nev., these devices will include 10-inch screens above a car’s gear shift featuring Web pages, 3D maps and high-definition videos. The New York Times says such “infotainment” systems will reach the market later this year.

Audi has an in-dash computer planned for the fall – and will try to salve its conscience by having this appear when the system activates: “Please only use the online services when traffic conditions allow you to do so safely.” Relying on drivers’ discretion and common sense hasn’t worked so far. What makes Audi think this will be different – especially after a consumer pays money for the in-dash computer?

Audi and Ford say they’ll have built-in constraints to ease Americans’ transition to driving while web-surfing. For one, access to certain functions will be reduced when a car is in motion. But the distracting screen will still beckon – like the personal laptops which caused airline pilots to overshoot their destination by 150 miles.

If you or a family member is harmed by a distracted driver, Jim S. Adler & Associates will get their attention -- via a car accident lawsuit.

Jim S. Adler & Associates is a longtime Texas personal injury law firm with offices in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Channelview. The law firm offers a free case review and represents victims of auto, car, SUV, truck, motorcycle, bus and other traffic accidents.