Subject: Daily Dose - 040511 - IQ TEST, True Stella Awards, tiger-striped tabby, DDL, Rotten News

IQ TEST

Want to test your IQ - try the question below:

There is a mute who wants to buy a toothbrush. Imitating the action of brushing one's teeth he successfully expresses himself to the shopkeeper and the purchase is done.

Now if there is a blind man who wishes to buy a pair of sunglasses, how should he express himself?

Think about this before you scroll down for the answer.

He just has to open his mouth and ask, so simple!

If you got this wrong, please go dig a hole and hide. PS I'm writing this from the hole I had to dig.

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True Stella Awards...   (true lawsuit stories)

THE TRUE STELLA AWARDS 2003 WINNERS!

by Randy Cassingham
Issued 21 January 2003

Unlike the FAKE cases that have been highly circulated online for the last several years (see http://www.StellaAwards.com/bogus.html for details), the following cases have been researched from public sources and are confirmed TRUE by the ONLY legitimate source for the Stella Awards: www.StellaAwards.com . To confirm this copy is legitimate, see http://www.StellaAwards.com/2003.html

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THE RUNNERS UP FOR THE 2003 TRUE STELLA AWARDS ARE:

#8: Stephen Joseph of San Francisco, Calif. Joseph runs a non-profit group whose goal is to ban the "trans fats" used in many processed foods and which are indeed very unhealthy. But to help gain publicity for his cause, Joseph, an attorney, chose one food that uses trans fats -- Oreo cookies -- and sued Kraft Foods for putting the stuff in the snack. The resulting publicity over "suing Oreos" was so intense that Joseph dropped the suit after just 13 days. He never even served the suit on Kraft, showing that he had no interest in actually getting the case heard in court. What real cases got pushed aside during his abuse of the courts to get publicity for his pet organization?

#7: Shawn Perkins of Laurel, Ind. Perkins was hit by lightning in the parking lot Paramount's Kings Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio. A classic "act of God", right? No, says Perkins' lawyer. "That would be a lot of people's knee-jerk reaction in these types of situations." The lawyer has filed suit against the amusement park asking unspecified damages, arguing the park should have "warned" people not to be outside during a thunderstorm.

#6: Caesar Barber, 56, of New York City. Barber, who is 5-foot-10 and 270 pounds, says he is obese, diabetic, and suffers from heart disease because fast food restaurants forced him to eat their fatty food four to five times per week. He filed suit against McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC, who "profited enormously" and asked for unspecified damages because the eateries didn't warn him that junk food isn't good for him. The judge threw the case out twice, and barred it from being filed a third time. Is that the end of such McCases? No way: lawyers will just find another plaintiff and start over, legal scholars say.

#5: Cole Bartiromo, 18, of Mission Viejo, Calif. After making over $1 million in the stock market, the feds made Bartiromo pay it all back: he gained his profits, they said, using fraud. Bartiromo played baseball at school, but after his fraud case broke he was no longer allowed to participate in extracurricular sports. Bartiromo clearly learned a lot while sitting in federal court: he wrote and filed his own lawsuit against his high school, reasoning that he had planned on a pro baseball career but, because he was kicked off the school's team, pro scouts wouldn't be able to discover him. His suit demands the school reimburse him for the great salary he would have made in the majors, which he figures is $50 million.

#4: Priest David Hanser, 70. Hanser was one of the first Catholic priests to be caught up in the sex abuse scandal. In 1990, he settled a suit filed by one of his victims for $65,000. In the settlement, Hanser agreed not to work with children anymore, but the victim learned that Hanser was ignoring that part of the agreement. The victim appealed to the church, asking it to stop Hanser from working near children, but the church would not intervene. "It's up to the church to decide where he works," argued the priest's lawyer. When the outraged victim went to the press to warn the public that a pedo priest was near children, Hanser sued him for the same $65,000 because he violated his own part of the deal -- to keep the settlement secret. The message is clear: shut up about outrageous abuse, or we'll sue you for catching us.

#3: Wanda Hudson, 44, of Mobile, Ala. After Hudson lost her home to foreclosure, she moved her belongings to a storage unit. She says she was inside her unit one night "looking for some papers" when the storage yard manager found the door to her unit ajar -- and locked it. She denies that she was sleeping inside, but incredibly did not call for help or bang on the door to be let out! She was not found for 63 days and barely survived; the formerly "plump" 150-pound woman lived on food she just happened to have in the unit, and was a mere 83 pounds when she was found. She sued the storage yard for $10 million claiming negligence. Even though the jury was not allowed to learn that Hudson had previously diagnosed mental problems, it found Hudson was nearly 100 percent responsible for her own predicament -- but still awarded her $100,000.

#2: Doug Baker, 45, of Portland, Ore. Baker says God "steered" him to a stray dog. He admits "People thought I was crazy" to spend $4,000 in vet bills to bring the injured mutt back to health, but hey, it was God's dog! But $4,000 was nothing: he couldn't even take his girlfriend out to dinner without getting a dog-sitter to watch him. When the skittish dog escaped the sitter, Baker didn't just put an ad in the paper, he bought display ads so he could include a photo. His business collapsed since he devoted full time to the search for the dog. He didn't propose to his girlfriend because he wanted the dog to deliver the ring to her. He hired four "animal psychics" to give him clues to the animal's whereabouts, and hired a witch to cast spells. He even spread his own urine around to "mark his territory" to try to lure the dog home! And, he said, he cried every day. Two months in to the search, he went looking for the dog where it got lost -- and quickly found it. His first task: he put a collar on the mutt. (He hadn't done that before for a dog that was so "valuable"?!) After finding the dog, he sued the dog sitter, demanding $20,000 for the cost of his search, $30,000 for the income he lost by letting his business collapse, $10,000 for "the temporary loss of the special value" of the dog, and $100,000 in "emotional damages" -- $160,000 total. God has not been named as a defendant.

AND THE WINNER of the 2003 True Stella Awards: The City of Madera, Calif.

Madera police officer Marcy Noriega had the suspect from a minor disturbance handcuffed in the back of her patrol car. When the suspect started to kick at the car's windows, Officer Noriega decided to subdue him with her Taser. Incredibly, instead of pulling her stun gun from her belt, she pulled her service sidearm and shot the man in the chest, killing him instantly. The city, however, says the killing is not the officer's fault; it argues that "any reasonable police officer" could "mistakenly draw and fire a handgun instead of the Taser device" and has filed suit against Taser, arguing the company should pay for any award from the wrongful death lawsuit the man's family has filed. What a slur against every professionally trained police officer who knows the difference between a real gun and a stun gun! And what a cowardly attempt to escape responsibility for the actions of its own under-trained officer.

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A client recently brought her two cats in to my husband's veterinary clinic for their annual checkup. One was a small-framed, round tiger-striped tabby, while the other was a long, sleek black cat. She watched closely as I put each on the scale. "They weigh about the same," I told her.

"That proves it!" she exclaimed. "Black does make you look slimmer. And stripes make you look fat."

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DDL

There was a fat girl named Corelli,
Whose tits hung down to her belly.
She enjoyed copulation,
With such animation,
That she mashed all her partners to jelly.

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"Experts at Guinness have announced that a man in India has set a new world record for having the most cement blocks smashed on his groin. The old record was none."
--Jay Leno

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"The A&E network has launched a new reality show called, 'The Airline', that takes place aboard a real plane.  Apparently the show is really good but it always starts two hours late."
--Conan O'Brien

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"A celebrity birthday today - Marlon Brando. He turns 80 today. He celebrated, had a few close friends over and he ate them."
--David Letterman

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Rotten News...  (true)

And the '11th Commandment' Is ...
Thu Apr 8,11:22 AM ET

LONDON - If the first 10 commandments were handed to Moses on Mt. Sinai, the 11th was born in less solemn surroundings: The British pub.

The Methodist Church, together with Christian Web site shipoffools.com, invited drinkers to send in mobile phone text suggestions for an 11th commandment, leaving details of the unusual competition on beer mats in pubs around the nation.

The winning entry had an appropriately modern twist: "Thou shalt not worship false pop idols."

"The idea was to get people, especially those in their 20s and 30s, thinking about the Commandments and to prompt a debate about ethics," said Simon Jenkins, editor of shipoffools.com, who sifted through the 2,000 entries.

"By using beer mats, the Methodist Church hoped to connect with a group it doesn't usually reach," he said.

The church said it plans to publish a book of the best entries.

The top five submissions for a new commandment were rounded out by "Thou shalt not kill in the name of any God," "Thou shalt not confuse text with love," "Thou shalt not be negative" and — in a nod to the Atkins-era — "Thou shalt not consume thine own bodyweight in fudge."

Other suggestions included "Thou shalt not dance like your dad," "Thou shalt not dump your lover by text" and "Thou shalt not hold loud conversations on thy mobile phone in a public place."

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Thu, Apr 08, 2004
Prostitutes Discriminate Vs. NATO Troops

VILNIUS, Lithuania - The NATO (news - web sites) troops dispatched to this Baltic state are being discriminated against, the country's police commissioner said Thursday, by prostitutes who charge them more than three times as much money as Lithuanian clients.

In recent days, prostitutes have been arriving in the city of Siauliai, where 100 NATO soldiers are stationed, part of a team to service four Belgian F-16s that patrol the skies above Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Police Commissioner General Vytautas Grigaravicius told journalists.

He said that the sex workers were hiking their rates for the Western troops, who come from Belgium and Norway.

"Prostitutes take $35 an hour from Lithuanian citizens, while NATO troops are asked to pay $125 an hour," he said, calling it a clear case of discrimination. Prostitution is illegal in the country of 3.5 million residents.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were inducted into the U.S.-led alliance on March 29 along with four other ex-communist countries.

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April 8, 2004 

Jail sentence for Englishman who stole and cleaned dozens of cars

SHEFFIELD, England (AP) - Colin Sadd might be the man you'd prefer to steal your car, but he's going to jail again.

Sadd, 41, who has 155 previous convictions, was sentenced Wednesday to six years in jail after pleading guilty to stealing five cars and admitting responsibility for 31 other thefts. Sadd's modus operandi is to dress up in a suit, go to an auto dealer and ask for a test drive. The car never returns, but is abandoned after being spotlessly cleaned. "He looked after the cars he stole better than me," said his wife, Mary, who added that Sadd has never owned a car.

"He only takes brand new vehicles, drives them around for a couple of hours, then he cleans them inside and out. He will even buy a tin of polish to give them an extra sparkle and sometimes takes them to a car wash to get them extra clean."

Psychiatrists have said that Sadd has a compulsive disorder, and a judge in a previous case described him as "the man you would most want to steal your car."

"He has never hurt anyone and he desperately needs help with his obsession," his wife said. "If he was a pedophile or a mugger they would be falling over backwards to help him, but because he is fascinated with taking cars and cleaning them nobody wants to know."

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GERMAN ARRESTED - HIS LIFE SIZED DOLL
NEIGHBORS SAW HIM CARRYING WHAT THEY THOUGHT WAS A LIFELESS BODY AND CALLED THE POLICE. AFTER HE "INTRODUCED" THEM TO HIS "PARTNER", THEY LEFT!