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Our little buddies at Consumer Reports have determined that a safety risk may be present in the 2010 Lexus GX 460 SUV. When pushed to its limits on CR’s track, the rear of the GX they bought “slid out until the vehicle was almost sideways before the electronic stability control system was able to regain control.”

CR says they do this test on all SUVs and of the 95 they’ve tested in the current ratings only this Lexus performed badly enough to warrant the dreaded “Don’t Buy.”

Check out this video for slow motion footage of the test. Looks kinda fun, but you wouldn’t want to try it inadvertently on a exit ramp, right?

Don’t Buy: Safety Risk–2010 Lexus GX 460 [CR]

A request has been filed to centralize more than 60 Ethicon Gynecare pelvic mesh lawsuits that are currently pending in New Jersey state court, indicating that many more cases are likely to be filed over the allegedly defective vaginal mesh.

All of the cases involve allegations that problems with Gynecare Prolift, Gynecare Transvaginal Tape or Gynecare Gynemesh, which are pelvic mesh products manufactured by Ethicon for treatment of pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence, caused women to experience vaginal erosion, infections, pain, urinary problems and other complications.

Ethicon is a wholly owned subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which is based in Middlesex County, New Jersey. All but one of the New Jersey cases are currently pending in that county, and attorneys for several plaintiffs are requesting that all of the lawsuits be assigned for centralized management in Middlesex County.

“Each case alleges violations of the Product Liability Act, and the determination of liability in each case will rely upon the same core of voluminous documents and medical literature,” lawyers argued in their request for centralization. “Common experts will in all likelihood be utilized in the cases, at least with regard to the liability issues. Therefore, the discovery and determination of the liability issues should be coordinated under the Centralized Case Management umbrella to promote efficiency, and prevent inconsistent legal rulings on the many common issues that will arise in the course of the litigation.”

In 2008, the FDA issued a public health notification warning of serious problems with vaginal mesh products used to treat pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and stress urinary incontinence (SUI). According to reports received by the FDA from nine different manufacturers, over 1,000 people had suffered severe complications from the surgical mesh, often requiring additional surery to remove the mesh or treat complications.

A pelvic organ prolapse occurs when organs such as the bladder, uterus, bowel or rectum drop and push against the wall of the vagina. This happens when the muscles holding the pelvic organ in place become weak or stretched, often due to childbirth or surgery. The surgical mesh is used to support the muscle.

Female stress urinary incontinence is a condition where urine is involuntarily released during moments of physical stress due to weakened of the muscles that support the bladder and urethra. In repair procedures, the surgical mesh is designed to act like a hammock to reinforce the muscle.

Similar cases have been filed against manufacturers of other vaginal mesh products, including Mentor ObTape lawsuits, which are currently consolidated in federal court as part of an MDL, or multidistrict litigation.

EDF recently submitted comments to NOAA on its draft catch share policy. In the letter we address how catch shares are better than fishery closures; how they improve fishing jobs and restore the resource; and how they are locally designed to meet specific biological, economic and social goals. We also address the importance of stakeholder input in the design of a catch share program.

Read the full post »

Richard Dawkins on a bus at the launch of an atheist advertising campaign in London January 6, 2009/Andrew Winning

The Vatican said on Tuesday Pope Benedict was willing to meet more sexual abuse victims but not under media pressure and scoffed at calls that the pope should be arrested when he visits Britain in September.

A lawyer for British author and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins said in London at the weekend he would try to have Pope Benedict arrested to face questions over accusations the Church covered up cases of sexual abuse of children by priests.

Asked about this at a briefing on the pope’s trip to Malta this weekend, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi scoffed.

“This is a bizarre idea to say the least. It looks like the intent is to make a public opinion splash. I think they should look for something more serious and concrete before we can respond to it,” he said.  “The pope’s visit (to Britain) is a visit of state, and so it would be very strange if during a state visit the person who is invited to make a state visit is arrested.”

Read the full story here.

Also on Tuesday, police said a vandal spray-painted an abusive message overnight on the house in southern Germany in which Pope Benedict was born.  The graffiti was a text sprayed in blue on the front door of the house in Marktl am Inn, in the predominantly Catholic state of Bavaria.

Police spokesman Konrad Rutzinger said the message seemed to be linked to the abuse scandals that have engulfed the Catholic Church, but declined to give details on its content. It had been painted over since being noticed early in the day, local police said in a statement. Read the full story here.

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Ain’t no party like an Espoo party ’cause an Espoo party don’t stop!  Except it did.  And new phones came out of it.

From left to right, the Nokia C3-00, C6-00, and E5-00.  The C3-00 (magenta) offers a QWERTY keyboard, Symbian Series 40, a 2.4-inch display, Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi, 55 MB of internal memory, and a microSD card slot (with support for up to 8 GB).  The C3-00 will be available in Q2 for €90.  The Nokia C6-00 (white) offers quad-band GSM/EDGE and HSDPA/UMTS on the 850/900/1900/2100 MHz frequencies.  The device offers a full QWERTY keyboard, S60 5th Edition, a 3.2-inch touchscreen display, and a 5.0-megapixel camera.  The C6-00 will be available in Q2 for €220.  Last but not least, the E5-00 (brown) offers S60 3rd Edition, tri-band UMTS, Wi-Fi, and A-GPS.  It will be available in Q3 for €180.

Now that the countdown is over and the secrets are out of the box, do any of the above devices interest you?  Hit the comments section and let me know!

Via Engadget

Clothier North Face has settled out-of-court with parody vestment maker “South Butt.” Once again, comedy wins!

The second company sells a variety of tshirts and hoodies and so forth that say “South Butt” in a font similar to North Face’s, and sports an upside-down North Face logo. The trademark infrigement suit contended that consumers might confuse butts with faces and not know who was selling what. Terms were not disclosed but South Butt is still selling their schwag, so I’m guessing North Face just agreed to turn the other cheek. They did manage to secure at least one concession; posts on the South Butt site about the lawsuit have been removed.

North Face, South Butt Agree to Turn Other Cheek [Law.com] (Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)
PREVIOUSLY:
South Butt Rebuts North Face
The North Face Thinks You Might Confuse Them With “The South Butt”

Time: 22:50 | 04/13/2010 | Download MP3

Mark, Joshua, and John on life as a 37signals Sys Admin
The Sys Admin team discusses hosting the 37signals apps, working with programmers, helping support, telecommuting, dealing with vendors, improving speeds in Europe, and more.

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Earlier on Bloomberg TV, Berkshire Hathaway board member Ronald Olson claimed the board has spent “a long number of years thinking about potential successors” to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.

However, Olson goes on to say that “there’s not going to be any decision made until the day that it’s called for.”

• 0:30 The board will make a decision when there needs to be one, they have prepared for this
• 1:00 This is not going to be a complicated process
• 1:20 On the day it needs to be made, the board will make the call from its current picks
• 1:55 There may be candidates that rise up in the future that are not mentioned today

Join the conversation about this story »

Multiple reports suggest Andy Stern will be leaving his job as head of the politically powerful SEIU. The union, which represents healthcare and public employees, was instrumental in passing healthcare reform. In other words, he has contributed in two ways to America’s fiscal woes. First, health reform may prove a budget fiasco since its tax hikes and spending cuts  were used to expand coverage rather than cut the budget deficit. Second,  fat pay and benefit packages for public sector unions are a big reason so many states like California have long-term fiscal woes. As this David Feddoso story found:

Among states whose government workers are less than 40 percent unionized, median per capita state debt is $2,238. Among states with between 40 and 60 percent of their government workers in public sector unions, the average debt is $3,609. Among states with more than 60 percent of the government workforce unionized, the average (median) per capita debt is $6,380.

Interestingly, Stern will be a member of Obama’s deficit commission. So there are at least a couple of issues that need addressing that he will be an expert on.

The American economy is in a period of sustained recovery. But suddenly, in Newsweek, and BusinessWeek, and the New Yorker, there are a blitz of articles predicting that the recovery will be faster, stronger, and broader than most people expect. After all, the optimists argue, look at the stock market, which is going gangbusters. Look at the March jobs report, the best in three years. Look at productivity bursts, and stabilizing home prices, and corporate confidence!

It’s true. There are a lot of good things happening in the US economy. But for every bit of good news, there are good reasons to be cautious about our optimism. Here are 7 ways the the health of the US economy is very much in a state of flux.

1. Investing. The S&P 500 is up 74% since March 2009. The Dow is also up about 70% from last year…

But among those who own stocks, bonds, or mutual funds, only 3 out of 10
say the value of their portfolio has risen since a year ago, according
to a BusinessWeek poll, suggesting that the gains have been relatively concentrated.

2. Economic Growth. We swung from negative-6% to positive-6% annualized GDP growth in 2009, and the economy has probably been growing since June of last year. Among the largest economies, only China, India, and Brazil are growing faster than the U.S. …

But consumer debt is still very high, suggesting that there is still quite a bit of deleveraging to come. Moreover, economists anticipate that the era of cheap credit is coming to an end
as interest rates on mortgages, car loans and credit cards are all set to rise. This will impede a consumer-led recovery, and with consumption making up approximately 60-70% of GDP, weak consumer spending might restrain dramatic GDP growth. And keep your eye on exogenous factors like oil prices, which continue to creep up.

3. Job Growth. We’re finally creating jobs! The economy added 162,000 in March, the best report in three years…

But job openings in February 2010 were no higher than when the
economy was plummeting in February 2009. Unemployment is at 9.7%, and
broader unemployment — including part-timers looking for more work —
is near 17%. Those are still horrific numbers. Unemployment is a lagging indicator, but crucial for
public confidence in the economy.

4. Income Growth. Productivity has grown 6.9%, the best since 2002. Strong productivity growth suggests rising living standards…

But there are a number of factors weighing down income growth. Part-timers grew in the latest jobs report and the work week at 33.9
hours/per is still near its all-time low of 33.0. That means that when
demand starts coming back, employers might begin by extending the work-week and full-timing the part-timers. This would contribute to income growth for the marginally attached, but millions of officially unemployed Americans might be left out, initially.

5. Housing. Prices have stabilized and improved recently. Mortgage rates are extremely low….

But foreclosures and the federal government’s drawback of housing-support policies could send home prices into a second dip. As Megan McArdle notes, “the backlog of foreclosures is eventually going to come on the
market, further pushing down home values in many areas.”

6. Government Stimulus. Last year’s stimulus was back-loaded to inject nearly $500 billion into the economy in 2010. What’s more, the federal deficit is already running 8% lower than in FY-2009 as the bank bailouts have proved significantly less costly than we imagined…

But whereas the 1982-3 recovery was driven by significant easing of interest rates, the Federal Reserve has little room to push interest rates down in 2010-11. Instead, rates will likely rise late this year or early next year as the Fed unwinds its unprecedented monetary expansion to avert inflation. What’s more, the federal stimulus will eventually become a net drag on the US economy, and there seems to be little political will to add another $100 or $200 billion of stimulus. Now that the administration has bragged about running a lower-than-expected federal deficit, they might be unwilling to follow up with a stimulus program that would restore 2010’s deficit to its previous high estimate.

7. Business. Corporate profits were up 8% in the fourth quarter and corporate bonds are rallying. According to the Business Roundtable’s CEO Survey,
75% of executives expect sales to rise in the next six months …

But
hiring is a different story. In the coming months, half of employers
expect no change in employment, 29% expect to hire and 21% expect to
shrink payrolls. Small business confidence fell to an 8-month low in March.

Scientists at GE Global Research, which is our technology development arm, have joined forces with the U.S. Army in a two-year research study to evaluate soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan for traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). The project at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia will combine the horsepower of GE’s labs with a range of GE’s current, and future, slate of Home Health technologies. Using advanced analytics to identify key symptoms of these disorders — which are still very difficult to measure and quantify — GE researchers hope to gather new information that will enable earlier detection, intervention and treatment of soldiers.

Ready to roll: The study is managed by the Department of Defenses’ Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) to support wounded soldiers. Researchers from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center and the Center For Telehealth at the Medical College of Georgia are also part of the team. Pictured above are medics at Salerno Air field hospital in the Khost province of Afghanistan. (Photo: NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)

The incidence of TBI and PTSD has risen over time as more soldiers have been deployed, and in some cases, redeployed to combat zones. Researchers say that the increased use of roadside bombs in the combat zones could translate into as many as 20 percent to 30 percent of returning soldiers experiencing the symptoms of TBI. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the cause of tramautic brain injury can vary, from the severe – such as a “penetrating head injury” — to a “bump, blow or jolt to the head… that disrupts the normal function of the brain.” The CDC notes that “the severity of a TBI may range from ‘mild,’ i.e., a brief change in mental status or consciousness to ’severe,’ i.e., an extended period of unconsciousness or amnesia after the injury.” The National Institutes of Mental Health define post-traumatic stress disorder as “an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened.”

GE researchers will use passive activity sensors to study the sleep quality, rest, activity cycles and brain activity of wounded soldiers. They will then measure, analyze and correlate the data with the symptoms of TBI and PTSD to help the military better assess the physical, behavioral, and occupational symptoms of these disorders. A key goal of the program is to establish a clinical relationship between activity, sleep and the severity of symptoms. The project will use existing and future versions of GE’s QuietCare technologies, which are currently being used in assisted living residents for senior citizens. The technology uses motion sensors and analytical software to learn the daily living patterns of residents — and then send alerts when certain out-of-the-ordinary events occur.

* Read today’s announcement
* Learn more about GE’s military support
* Read a fact sheet about the more than 11,000 U.S. veterans we employ
* Connect with our technologists on the Global Research blog
* Read more GE Global Research stories on GE Reports

Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
* “From GE Global Research to Camp Liberty, Baghdad”
* “Hoo-rah! Marines fire-up GE’s smart grid technology”
* “G.I. GE: Sniffing out explosives with the U.S. Army”
* “Renewing American Leadership: Immelt at West Point”
* “Manufacturing in Massachusetts: Send in the Marines”
* “The military precision driving GE’s precision products”
* “GE sensors help “Hotheads” stay cool”

Rumours abound that the AT&T Network is down in the Seattle area. The outage seems to be affecting voice calls. Service has been trickling back to some users over the last half hour, and rebooting has fixed it for some people, but others are still out.

How’s it going for you?

If you lost service service today, let us know in the comments what area you are in and if it’s been restored yet.

Update: AT&T just reached out to let us know that the issue should be all patched up in Seattle. Let us know if things are still shaky, won’t you?

[via TechFlash]

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Remember in Sept. 2008, when Washington Mutual went from being the sixth-largest bank in the U.S. to the biggest bank failure in U.S. history? Well, newly released documents show just how reckless and money-grubbing WaMu was in its final months — and how some employees were reaping huge rewards as the bank sunk into the quicksand.

In documents released by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, it becomes clear just how careless WaMu’s lending behavior had become during the height of the sub-prime mortgage boom.

Per the NY Times:

Loan officers received more money for originating higher-risk loans, and loan processors were rewarded for speed and volume, rather than quality… Loan officers and sales associates were paid even more if they overcharged borrowers through points or higher interest rates, or included stiff prepayment penalties in the loans they issued.

From its investigation into the WaMu fiasco, the Senate panel figures that Between 2000 and 2007, WaMu and its affiliate, Long Beach Mortgage Company, packaged and sold at least $77 billion in sub-prime mortgages.

“Using a toxic mix of high-risk lending, lax controls and compensation policies which rewarded quantity over quality, Washington Mutual flooded the market with shoddy loans that went bad,” says the Senate panel’s chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan. “They built a conveyor belt that dumped toxic mortgage assets into the markets like a polluter dumping poison into a river… Down river, there was Wall Street, with its huge appetite for these mortgage-backed securities. They bottled that polluted water, slapped a label on it from the credit rating agencies that said it was safe drinking water, and sold it to investors.”

Today, seven former WaMu execs — including ex-CEO Kerry Killinger, who received a $15.3 million severance package in 2008 — are to testify before the subcommittee.

Memos Show Risky Lending at WaMu [NY Times]

Last night I was at a bar with my new friend Adam discussing emo music and whether it emerged out of Seattle grunge or something else altogether. Personally I can appreciate Bright Eyes once in a while, but on the whole I just don’t get it. About the time I suspect we’re approaching a shift to 70s punk–which I can really get into–it happens…
“So I googled you. Science, eh?” Adam grins. Here we go again. “Uh, yeah.” “I gotta ask. Climate change. Prove yourself. Make me believe.”
And it starts… You see, I’m used to this challenge. Climate change might as well be the Yankees vs the Sox. It’s a pub conversation about who’s ‘winning’ when everyone is really loses unless we act. And I can already tell Adam’s a bright guy. He’s a skeptical thinker who doesn’t have access to journal articles, but does hear the news media fallout. He’s got a lot of questions about so-called email conspiracies, but at least he’s interested in a discussion. So we have another drink and I tell him a little more about what’s going on in oceans, on land, and in the atmosphere. He listens politely, and soon we’re back to Kurt Cobain.

Algerian women walk past an election poster of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Batna, 500 km (311 miles) east of Algiers, March 19, 2009/Louafi Larbi

A decision by Algeria’s government that women should pose for passport photographs without their Islamic headscarves has re-opened wounds still raw after nearly two decades of Islamist militant violence.

Algeria’s secular-minded government says that as part of the introduction of new biometric passports, all women should be photographed without the veil, a requirement that has angered the country’s influential religious traditionalists.

“We are in an Islamic country and the state should not be issuing laws that contradict our religion,” said Abderahmane Chibane, the head of the Muslim Ulema Association which groups leading Islamic scholars.

Algeria is emerging from a conflict that broke out after the military backed government in 1992 scrapped legislative elections that a radical Islamist party was poised to win.  However, analysts say the row over passports risks damaging a truce between the government and the Islamists that has helped reduce the violence and usher in a period of relative stability.

Read the full story here.

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With Google Chrome recently introducing a revamped sync feature which now makes it easy for users to share settings and even themes between different Chrome installs, Mozilla Weave for Firefox is finally getting some serious competition. But Mozilla developers aren’t sitting idly by, the Firefox add-on has just gotten som… (read more)

The U.S. trade deficit grew by 7%, or $2.8 billion, in February, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The trade deficit, which stood at $39.7 billion for the month, is the measure of how many more goods and services were imported than exported. February’s reading was a little higher than economists’ forecast of $38.5 billion. While both inflows and outflows of goods and services increased, imports grew a marginal $0.3 billion while exports rose by $3.0 billion. This data says a few things about the economic recovery in the U.S.

First, some may find troubling that the $3 billion increase in imports wasn’t for goods and services produced in the U.S. Any import growth wastes consumer demand that could be stimulating the U.S. economy, instead of those abroad. February’s $183 billion in imports would have gone a long way in improving the health of American companies if spent on domestic products.

Second, anyone who believes that exports are the answer to how the U.S. will experience a strong recovery may want to rethink that theory. In 2010, exports have so far been essentially flat. The following chart demonstrates this point:

Although there were some decent gains in exports in the last three quarters of 2009, so far 2010 isn’t continuing that growth. It should also be noted that all of these statistics are seasonally adjusted, so the time of year shouldn’t be a big factor.

If this trend continues — imports increasing while exports remain flat — then that could limit the steepness of the economic recovery in the U.S. If more consumer spending is increasingly benefiting firms abroad, growth for U.S. companies will be smaller than it would have been if that additional spending was on domestic goods and services instead. And U.S. firms aren’t making up that ground through their exports so far in 2010.

(Nav Image Credit: tinkerbrad/flickr)

Nearly a decade ago, I penned a short story for the now-defunct Mutual Funds magazine about a company called Mirant. The gist of the story was that while Mirant looked, smelled and was even created in the image of Enron, it was not another Enron. No siree Bob! Indeed, several analysts (whose firms had no doubt been involved in the underwriting when Mirant went public in 2001) swore that this company was different.

When Mirant filed for bankruptcy in 2003, I felt pretty guilty and often wondered how many people had bought that stock based on that short article (which I’ve been unable to find online or I would post). By then, Mutual Funds had been shuttered by Time and footnoted.org wasn’t yet up and running, so I had no place to give my mea culpa. But with yesterday’s news that Mirant (MIR) and RRI Energy (RRI) planned to merge, I decided to take a closer look at some of the filings.

While most of the top executives involved in the Mirant debacle — today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution recounts the various twists and turns — that cost shareholders billions of dollars have long since moved on, the current crop of executives — several of whom were at the company in the early part of the decade — will do very well post-deal, according to the proxy that Mirant filed last month.

Chairman and CEO Edward Muller, for example, who has been at the helm since 2005, stands to make $16.6 million, the filing notes. Meanwhile, the five other top executives listed in the filing stand to collectively receive $14.2 million as a result of the change in control. A quick skim of the proxy shows that three of those other top execs, including CFO William Holden III, John O’Neal and Anne Clearly, were all part of the old Mirant — the one that essentially imploded in Enron-like fashion. Meanwhile, a quick look at Mirant’s chart post-bankruptcy shows that shareholders seem to have taken it on the chin yet again. Perhaps that’s why several attorneys are already beginning to question this deal.

Image source: Francisco DaCosta