A man recently filed suit against Canadian airline Air Transat because the flight attendants refused to give proper medical attention... to his scrotum.

According to the suit, the plaintiff was flying from Montreal to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, when he went to the bathroom to check on a discomfort in his groin area, only to see spots of blood.

The passenger asked two different flight attendants — first a female and then a male — to get a closer look at his business to determine the exact nature of the spotting. Not surprisingly, both attendants passed on the opportunity and offered him some sanitary towels instead.

He then asked to see a doctor and the attendants told him they would contact a doctor if his condition worsened.

The passenger made his way to the hospital in Mexico and was diagnosed as having ruptured a vein in the area near his scrotum. It took three stitches to stop the bleeding.

In the suit filed against both the airline and the staff on that particular flight, the plaintiff charged that they failed to provide appropriate medical assistance and sought monetary damages.

However, the judge in the case found no merit in the suit and not only dismissed it outright, but ordered the plaintiff to pay the airline's court costs.

"It was not incumbent upon a flight attendant to conduct the medical examination of a passenger, a measure reserved for the medical profession," wrote the judge in her decision. "Nothing in the facts proves that that the situation was dangerous or worrisome to the point of requiring the immediate attention of a doctor."

Man sues airline for not looking at his scrotum [Toronto Sun via Jaunted]

This looks like a great opportunity and a great effort.  At NCSA, we hear from victims quite regularly. They often don’t know where to turn when they have been the victims of cybercrime. They face a number of obstacles to justice including that perpetrators are hard to identify and locate, crimes committed over the Internet may not fall under the jurisdiction of local law enforcement, and local services may not be geared up to help them.  We also hear frustration, anger, and anxiety—all common reactions to victimization from people who don’t know where to turn or who can help them.

There is a need to strengthen our safety net for victims of cybercrime and ensure they know how to report crimes and access help. We hope OVC gets some great candidates and look forward to seeing a strengthened response to all crime victims and helping anyway we can.

SSO (stay safe online),

Michael

Have you noticed Netflix's new movie information page? A lot of other people have. The new, cleaner layout rearranges the user interface a bit, and removes social features from movie pages--you can't see which of your friends have watched, rated, or reviewed that particular movie. Is this a good move, or a terrible one?

Users had their say on Netflix's blog. The entry announcing the change currently has 449 comments, and commenters on that page claim that the first 150 comments were removed.

Here's the new layout, if you haven't logged in to Netflix in the past week:

This redesign is helping Netflix phase out community features, like friends' ratings and lists. If you use Netflix, are these useful to you? Do you like the new changes hate them, or do you even care?

What Do You Think of the New Netflix Movie Information Pages? [Hacking Netflix]
New Movie Details Page Rolled Out [Netflix Official Blog]

The story — TV star stands accused of going nuts on a store employee — is something straight out of any one of the numerous Law & Order shows on NBC. But this time it's real, and the actor in question is Richard Belzer, long-time co-star on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

The NYPD — the real NYPD — was called to the Apple Store on Manhattan's Upper West SIde last night in response to a call about an assault in progress.

Belzer, had gone to the store with two associates to buy a computer. And according to the store employee alleging the attack, "I approached him like he was a regular customer. I asked how can I help you. He told me what he needed, and then before I was able to speak again, he lunges in and grabs my neck. It was no gentle manner. There is no gentle manner to grab someone's neck."

For his part, the actor and comedian admits that he did put his hands on the employee's shoulder, but says he did nothing more than ask her for help.

The police called to the scene reviewed the incident on taped surveillance footage and determined nothing illegal had been done on the actor's part.

Says Belzer, "The sad part of it was that police officers were called and had to report to the scene and God knows we don't need all that manpower wasted on a trivial accusation that was clearly done either for attention or to embarrass a famous person... I don't want her to be fired, I just want her to seek help."

According to reports, the employee has filed a harassment complaint with the NYPD, which is a matter for the civil court.

'Law & Order' cop: Choking claim is pure fiction [NY Post]

Interbrand Design Forum-- part of a global brand consulting firm-- has ranked the top retail brands and guess what? Walmart is most valuable.

Here are the top 10:

1. Walmart
2. Target
3. Best Buy
4. The Home Depot
5. Walgreens
6. CVS
7. Sam’s Club
8. Dell
9. Coach
10. Amazon.com

Walmart, Target, Best Buy Named Most Valuable Brands [Brandweek]

A sushi chef in California faces a year in prison and up to $100,000 in fines after being charged with serving endangered whale meat at his restaurant.

The chef at popular Santa Monica eatery The Hump, was charged with violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act by serving the meat of the Sei Whale. The restaurant was also named in the charges.

"Someone should not be able to walk into a restaurant and order a plate of an endangered species," U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said in a statement.

Wildlife and Customs officials undertook a sting operation at the restaurant to catch them whale-handed.

Two confidential informants ordered whale meat from the chef, who then went to the parking lot and came back with a package of meat and began slicing it.

When prodded by another customer about the mystery meat, the chef "quietly said that it was 'whale.'" and then served it to the informants.

Sushi chef, restaurant charged with serving endangered whale [Reuters]

Once again looking for anything even vaguely resembling a silver lining in these craptastic economic times, a new report shows that, while foreclosures did increase overall in February, they only increased a little bit... relatively speaking.

According to RealtyTrac, February saw the lowest year-over-year increase in filings in Jan. 2006 and filings were actually down 2% from the month before.

But before everyone gets their hopes up, RealtyTrac cautions, "This leveling of the foreclosure trend is not necessarily evidence that fewer homeowners are in distress and at risk for foreclosure, but rather that foreclosure prevention programs, legislation and other processing delays are, in effect, capping monthly foreclosure activity — albeit at a historically high level that will likely continue for an extended period."

Though Nevada still ranks highest on the list of states with foreclosures, with one foreclosure for every 102 homes, it did see a decrease in foreclosures of over 30% from last February.

The national average was one foreclosure for every 438 homes. Vermont had the fewest foreclosures, with a ratio of only one foreclosure per 39,077 houses.

Meanwhile, six states - California, Florida, Michigan, Illinois, Arizona and Texas - accounted for 60 percent of all foreclosure filings in February, though only Michigan (59%) and Illinois (21%) showed major year-over-year jumps in foreclosures.

Maryland and Utah had year-over-year foreclosure increases of 80% and 90% respectively.

Feb. foreclosure filings at year-over-year low [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Michael really has no complaints against CDW. He's just amused at the size of the box that they sent his serial adapter (that small metal thing at bottom right) in. He writes:

The item, the serial adapter was inside the small box with the typical antistatic foam that electronics are usually cushioned in. That smaller box was then inside the larger CDW box with a few unpictured "air pillows", some of which were deflated. No complaints against CDW, just showing the packaging.

Sometimes banner ads online promise a great price, but do not reflect actual reality. That's the sad lesson that reader Ricky writes that he learned recently after clicking on a banner ad for Overstock.com. See, the banner advertised products for sale at Overstock.com and bore the company's logo, but the company did not produce the ad, and the prices are not real.

He wrote to the company:

Hello,

I was researching iPod docks to purchase this morning and came across several models I was interested in. One in particular was a Philips DCP851/37x (Overstock #11676281). I came across several websites which carried the product including your own with the cheapest being Geeks.com which has it listed for $79.99.

Unfortunately, the item was sold out at Geeks.com and your website had it the next cheapest. The price was still over my price range so I stopped looking. This afternoon I had some free time at work so I decided to log into my hotmail account to check my email and the first thing I saw after logging in was a banner ad for overstock.com which had that very item I was researching. The price on the banner ad was $79.99 which matched Geeks.com website so I clicked on the banner ad and ended up on the product page on your website. The price unfortunately did not match the banner ad price and was the same price I had seen earlier, $107.49.

I clicked on the chat icon to talk to a customer service agent to explain what had just happened. They asked for a link to the ad in question, but unfortunately the ad had already switched to a different vendor. I kept refreshing the hotmail.com website in hopes that it would come back up, which it did. However, this time that price was different ($91.74), but still did not match the price on your website. She asked me to give her the link to the banner ad, but since it was a flash banner ad there was no way I could give her a link. She advised me to take screenshots and email this email address.

Attached you will find two screenshots, the first called hotmail.jpg shows my hotmail inbox with the banner add off to the right showing a different price from what's listed on your website. Unfortunately, I have not been able to recreate the lower price of $79.99 that I initially saw however this screenshot still shows the price discrepancy. The second picture of overstock.com shows the location of where the link went to after clicking on the banner ad where you can clearly see the two prices don't match up. Interestingly enough, you can also notice that on the item 'Mustek MP80B' the banner ad price is actually higher than the actual website.

The purpose of this email is two point out the price differences of your ads and your website and to hopefully get you to honor the $79.99 price on the Philips DCP851/37x (Overstock #11676281) product.

Any information on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Ricky

An Overstock rep responded:

Hello Ricky,

I am writing in response to your letter regarding the Overstock.com ad banner. I will be happy to help answer your questions.

To provide some clarification, the Overstock.com advertising on your Window's Live Hotmail is not a paid endorsement by Overstock.com. The advertising was placed via our affiliate program, a program open to everyone and comprised of thousands of affiliate members who post our banners and sell our merchandise on their own websites. Affiliate programs are widely used in the Internet retailing business, and the task of connecting affiliates with online retailers is typically handled by an independent third-party organization.

Overstock.com does not sponsor, support, or endorse the views and opinions of any political party, organization, personality, or issue. We simply provide a great selection of quality merchandise at deep discounts. As vigorous supporters of free speech, we firmly believe society as a whole benefits enormously by encouraging a diversity of ideas.

After carefully reviewing the matter, we do not plan to change our policies with regard to our affiliate program at this time. We certainly appreciate your comments and value the viewpoints of all of our customers.

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance on this or any other issue. I hope you will visit us soon for great savings on name-brand products.
Sincerely,

[redacted]
Customer Care
Overstock.com

It sounds as if this is a form letter sent to people who find sites on which they see Overstock's banner ads offensive, so it doesn't really apply to Ricky's situation. Still, it got the message across to him. Prices on banner ads are not the same as prices on ad circulars, and they are not always current. Or even real.

In a legal decision that could have a ripple effect on the digital download market, a British court has ruled that record label EMI can not sell songs from Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album as individual downloads or ringtones.

The band's attorneys had argued that the album, one of the biggest sellers in rock history, is only meant to be taken as a whole and that EMI's selling of individual downloads violated a clause in their contract intended to "preserve the artistic integrity" of the album.

Additionally, the judge ordered EMI to reimburse Pink Floyd approximately $90,000 in court costs.

Pink Floyd wins court battle with label [EW]