IBGerm

I cant believe what I just learned. A New York City teen, more specifically a Staten Island teen fell down a uncovered manhole to a sewer line while texting. She and her family are planning on sueing? What the heck.

The teen fell down and only suffered some minor scrapes on her arms back after she dropped into the man-hole on Victory Boulevard. "It was four or five feet, it  was very painful. I kind of crawled out and the DEP guys came running and helped me," Longueria told the Staten Island Advance.. "They were just, like, ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!" "Oh my God, it was putrid," she said. "One of her sneakers is still down there"

"We regret that this happened and wish the young woman a speedy recovery," DEP spokeswoman Mercedes Padilla said in a statement. She added that crews were flushing a high-pressure sewer line at the time. Sewer line workers are supposed to cut off pedestrian access to work sites or at least mark them with warning signs.

The family said they will file a lawsuit — for what, though, is not immediately clear. Her mother, Kim Longueira, said it doesn’t matter that her daughter was walking and texting, and also, the ‘gross’ factor that can’t be ignored.

Honestly, do we need to just go ahead and Nerf pad the entire world now. Nobody takes any responsibly for themselves now. I know it sucks that she fell into a hole, but she wasn’t paying any attention to where she was. If she had been texting and walked out into oncoming traffic and got hit, what are they going to sue the driver of the car, because they didn’t see her, or didn’t avoid her. What is next, sue the car company because they didn’t equipe the car with stupid person avoidance system? Sorry, I was ranting.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) –

***UPDATE***  The vulnerability that sent Microsoft scrambling yesterday and is being used by hackers now to attack Internet Explorer (IE) users may have been reported 18 months ago or more.

In the security advisory it issued yesterday, Microsoft credited a pair of researchers — Ryan Smith and Alex Wheeler — with reporting the bug. Smith and Wheeler once worked together at IBM’s ISS X-Force, although Wheeler now is at Texas-based 3Com’s TippingPoint DVLabs.

Microsoft Corp. has taken the rare step of warning about a serious computer security vulnerability it hasn’t fixed yet.

The vulnerability disclosed Monday affects Internet Explorer users whose computer s run the Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 operating software.

It can allow hackers to remotely take control of victims’ machines. The victims don’t need to do anything to get infected except visit a Web site that’s been hacked.

Security experts say criminals have been attacking the vulnerability for nearly a week. Thousands of sites have been hacked to serve up malicious software that exploits the vulnerability. People are drawn to these sites by clicking a link in spam e-mail.

The so-called "zero day" vulnerability disclosed by Microsoft affects a part of its software used to play video. The problem arises from the way the software interacts with Internet Explorer, which opens a hole for hackers to tunnel into.

Microsoft urged vulnerable users to disable the problematic part of its software, which can be done from Microsoft’s Web site, while the company works on a "patch" – or software fix – for the problem.

Microsoft rarely departs from its practice of issuing security updates the second Tuesday of each month. When the Redmond, Wash.-based company does issue security reminders at other times, it’s because the vulnerabilities are very serious.

A recent example was the emergency patch Microsoft issued in October for a vulnerability that criminals exploited to infect millions of PCs with the Conficker worm. While initially feared as an all-powerful doomsday device, that network of infected machines was eventually used for mundane moneymaking schemes like sending spam and pushing fake antivirus software.

Credit: JORDAN ROBERTSON (AP)

Once again, this is why you use Firefox and not IE, ever….

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I wanted to follow up on the first e-mail about the situation that occurred in Dallas (FC Dallas versus the Houston Dynamo on Saturday, June 13 ). First off I apologize about the format and spelling mistakes in the previous e-mail. I’m rewriting this in order to make it a little more readable and clarify a few points. Also I know for the most part that this is a minute group within the traveling Houston Dynamo supporter section and not a reflection of the group as a whole.

Before I get into the details of how they unfolded that night, I want to mention that not only were all three flags either missing and stolen or destroyed but the flag poles themselves were crushed, destroyed and are virtually unusable now. I did retrieve one flag however the grommets on that flag were ripped out. I eventually recovered the two poles that night but as I stated previously the top two sections of these polls were crushed and mangled. The flags themselves are easy to replace, but the flagpole kits were a special purchase and will run us retail of $100 to replace each flagpole. http://www.sportsauthority.com/sm-bsi-race-day-flag-pole-kit–pi-1826404.html. The flags we had, one was a red and white checkered flag, the other was a red and white stripped flag, with a snake (don’t tread on me, 1^st navy flag basically) and a black and white pirate flag.

For this game we decided to park in east parking lot across from the east side gate. We set up under a tree three or four rows back from me east side entrance a little to the right of center. We had three cars parked around the grass – tree medium. We decided to start about 4:14pm that afternoon. At this point we had several small Houston Dynamo fans around us with no issues, in fact were having a good time and enjoying a beverage with a few of the Dynamo supporters.

We decided to go into the stadium about 5:15 PM that evening to see the alumni game and stayed for the main event game that evening. Andy and Jenna left were we were seated, section 126, about 90:00 on the game clock, about one minute into the stoppage time. From what I understand, they left at this time, as to not be around when the supporter section came marching out. They felt it was an issue of safety. If they had stayed and saw what was happening and tried to stop it, they might have had an issue since there were more of them.  If the solution was to take down the flags earlier then what is the point. Are we saying other fans from other teams are ok to vandalize FCD fans property?  Where does it stop?

Paul ,Jennifer and myself waited until the end of the game and walked out the stadium and back to our cars. After talking with Andy and Jenna after the event they stated that when they got to the cars both flagpoles and all the flags were still there. We were maybe 5 to 10 minutes behind them. As soon as we left the stadium I looked up and noticed the poles being pulled down. I honestly didn’t think anything of it since Andy and Jenna had left before us and I assumed that they were taking them down to store them to take home. When we got to the cars this is when I noticed one of the poles with no flags attached on the road and the other on the grass median next to a small Houston Dynamo supporter bus. At this point I looked up and noticed Paul was talking to a security officer next to a larger Houston Dynamo supporter bus and yelling at me that he saw a gentleman come off the bus throw one of the flags down. At this point he picked the flag up and noticed another gentleman walk off the bus chanting and taunting that he had this other flag. As soon as he looked up he saw Paul and ran back up onto the bus. Now I am in the middle and surrounded by Houston Dynamo supporters and a few security officers. I decided that I would not take further action by myself and walked back to the east gate to get Frisco PD involved. I walked back to where Paul was situated now with 10 to 15 various Frisco officers and a few security officers from Pizza Hut Park. After trying to sort the situation out Jim from the FC Dallas organization was there trying to help as well as Paul Byrne from the Houston Dynamo organization. Unfortunately it didn’t seem as if anything was getting, and was told by Paul Byrne that this would be dealt with when they arrived back in Houston or in the following next couple of days. I have not heard anything back at this point.

We also tried to either press charges or get Frisco PD to enter the bus and at least retrieve the flag but they were unable to. I was basically told that I need to call the police and report this, which I thought was kind of strange since as I thought the Frisco police were already there along with several sheriffs and constables. It was then decided by Frisco police that they would like to just see the bus leaves for any more issues and/or trouble occurred. So the bus was forced to leave. Unfortunately the only description I have a gentleman that had the flags on the bus was that he was a 5 foot 7 Hispanic gentleman in his early 20s. Honestly I know that does not narrow it down one bit.

I want to know what if anything is going to be done about this. Like I said earlier I know it’s a small group of the supporter section that did this. It is not a reflection of the Houston supporter section as a whole, but nevertheless it is pure vandalism and stealing. What was taken were three flags in total one of which was retrieved but the grommets on that flag were torn off rendering the flag useless. Also both polls, one section of each were crushed. These are fiberglass poles and crushing the tubes reduces the structural integrity of the poll which basically makes them useless.

I look forward to hearing your responses on this issue.

FC Dallas season-ticket holder