Subject: Daily Dose - 040515 - SEX MACHINE, True Stella Awards, ball
markers, DDL, Rotten News
SEX MACHINE
A guy goes to a sexshop and asks the
man behind the counter to bring him the newest thing in sex.
After awhile, the man comes back and
shows him a machine that looks like a pussy. Its got hair and it vibrates.
The guy says, "Rap it up, i'll
take it!"
So then, the guy goes home and shows
the machine to his wife.
The wife asks, "What the fuck
is this?"
The guy exclaims, "It's a
machine that looks like a pussy. See, its got hair and it vibrates!!"
The wife says, "Well, what in
the fuck do you want me to do with it?"
The guy says, "Teach it how to
cook and fuck off."
_____________________________
True Stella Awards.... (true
lawsuits)
WE'VE GOT YOUR (ACCOUNT) NUMBER,
CHUMP
by Randy Cassingham
Robert and Suzanne Korinke faced the
New American Nightmare: they were the victim of identity theft. In April 2001,
the Korinkes went to refinance their mortgage and discovered someone had tapped
into their line of credit with Homecomings Financial in Texas. They had paid
off their lean balance the year before, and thought they had closed the
account, but their line of credit had been run up to $142,000. They had no idea
the account was active again until they saw their credit report during the
refinance procedure.
After spending countless hours to
straighten out the mess, Homecomings Financial, a subsidiary of GMAC Financial
Services, which is a division of General Motors, admitted in writing that the
debt was fraudulent and the Korinkes, relieved, put the issue out of their
minds.
Two years later, the Korinkes are
facing the Old American Nightmare: they're being sued. As they sat down for
Christmas dinner last year, a messenger arrived with an "urgent
package": a lawsuit -- filed against them by Homecomings Financial.
The suit claimed the Korinkes were
negligent in not informing the finance company of the fraud sooner; that
"caused the injury to Homecomings," the lawsuit claimed. "As
such, Korinke is liable for any and all sums attributed to his
negligence." It demanded about $74,000 plus attorney's fees.
Naturally, the Korinkes didn't
notify Homecomings about the fraud right away because they didn't know about it
themselves -- the company had accepted a change of address form from the crooks
so the Korinkes wouldn't get the bills from the company, and sent a new
checkbook to the new address by overnight mail. The fraudulent address change
was, indeed, part of what they had cleared up in 2001 -- the company admitted
it hadn't sent any notice to the old address, which would have allowed the couple
to detect the fraud earlier. But the company did send a notice to the
fraudsters to inform them that the address was changed back.
"I was outraged when I heard
about this," says attorney Mari J. Frank, an identify theft expert who is
defending the couple. In a remarkable example of stopping a frivolous suit in
its tracks, Frank was able to get the company to drop the suit in January, just
a month after it was filed. Homecomings even announced it "regrets the
inconvenience this incident has caused the Korinkes." It also noted
"We are actively working to resolve this issue fairly." As if it were
"fair" in the first place to sue the victims of a crime it helped
occur? On the other hand, the suit was dropped "without prejudice",
meaning the company has the right to file it again. Homecoming's attorney, J.
Allan Smith, refused to discuss the suit or why it wasn't dropped "with
prejudice". Afraid to put the matter out of their minds -- since that
hadn't worked before -- the couple is understandably nervous that they're still
not in the clear. They've spent about $5,000 in legal bills to clear up the
matter.
"How does Joe Consumer fight a
big bank?" asks Linda Foley, the founder of the Identity Theft Resource
Center in San Diego, Calif. "If you come out whole, you should consider
yourself really lucky."
Despite "The Identity Theft and
Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998", which made it a federal crime,
identify theft is a huge and growing criminal activity, with an estimated 7
million U.S. victims in 2002. Financial institutions must be more proactive to
ensure it doesn't happen -- prevention is much better than after-the-fact law
enforcement. Instead, and as this case illustrates, financial institutions can,
and sometimes do, take outrageous actions against innocent customers, claiming
that the victims of crimes are responsible for losses that are out of their
control, making them victims all over again.
The Korinkes are indeed "really
lucky" that they were able to find an attorney who specializes in the
exact sort of case they were involved in and was able to get the suit dropped
quickly. But even then, it was at a substantial cost of time and money. Stress,
hours of work, and thousands of dollars is "lucky"? In the world of
frivolous lawsuits, it very sadly is.
**********
LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE
by Randy Cassingham
From 1997 to 2001, John Struna
bought 40-55 tickets per game from the Convenient Food Mart in Cleveland, Ohio,
in his attempts to win the Buckeye Five lottery. By his own estimates, he spent
$125,000 per year on the tickets.
He finally beat the odds: on Oct.
25, 2001, after buying 52 tickets with the same number, Struna won. Each ticket
was worth $100,000. Except, the Ohio Lottery Commission pointed out, the 52
tickets didn't add up to $5.2 million, since the rules for the game limited the
payout to $1 million total. And since there were actually 53 winning tickets
for that game, that $1 million would be split 53 ways, leaving Struna with
"only" $981,000.
Whose fault is it that Struna didn't
understand the rules? Harry Singh, the owner of the Convenient Food Mart, said
he gave Struna a copy of the lottery's rules. Struna even kept them, carrying
them in his pocket, says Singh's lawyer, Gary Seewald.
Mardele Cohen, spokeswoman for the
Ohio Lottery, says the rules for games are clearly posted on signs provided to
ticket retailers and on their web site. Retailers are not required to give
copies of the rules to ticket buyers, so Singh actually did more than what was
required of him by giving Struna a printed copy.
Cohen added that it's reasonably
common for an individual player to buy 10 tickets in an attempt to get all of
the $1 million limit, "but when we saw that someone bought 52 tickets, it
didn't make any sense to us."
Attorney Seewald notes that every
single ticket even has the $1 million cap printed on it. Between that, the
rules folder, the signs and the Lottery's web site, the Lottery "does a
fairly good job of publicizing their rules and I think people have an
obligation not to be damn idiots."
Struna begs to differ. He says the
Lottery Commission didn't do enough to let people know there was a cap and, as
an official retailer, Singh should have discouraged him from buying more than
10 tickets with any particular number combination on them. With the help of
attorney Andrew Kabat, he sued Singh in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court
demanding $100,000 in compensation for each winning ticket that was made worthless
by the Lottery's rule. He also filed suit against the Ohio Lottery, claiming
false advertising, in the Ohio Court of Claims.
The case against the Lottery
Commission was thrown out, but the Common Pleas jury ruled against Singh and
awarded Struna $1.3 million. His attorney says the huge judgement "could
literally destroy him."
Struna is appealing the dismissal of
his case against the Lottery. Singh says he will appeal too.
When faced with people wanting to
buy something, lottery ticket retailers shouldn't have to question the patron
to ensure they understand all the rules. The tickets had the relevant rule
printed right on them, but Singh went further and gave a copy of the rules to
Struna -- who chose not to read them. Should Singh have held Struna down and
forced him to listen to him read the rules aloud? Of course not. But that's the
sort of requirement the jury would have us believe is reasonable by awarding a
"damn idiot" more than a million bucks for refusing to read what is
given to him.
____________________________
Golfer walks into the pro shop at
the local course and asks the golf pro if they sell ball markers.
The golf pro says they do, and they
are $1.00.
The guy gives the golf pro a
dollar...
The golf pro opens the register,
puts the dollar in and hands him a quarter.
_____________________________
DDL
What's the deal with this
toilet-seat crap?
If we don't put it up, there's a flap.
Leave it up ... and we get
A new lecture, yet
Either way, we'll be in for a rap.
______________________________
"In Moline, Illinois, Britney
Spears injured her knee during a concert and had to stop. Actually, the fans
hardly knew anything was wrong. Britney left the stage but her voice kept going
for three more songs. I think there was even an encore."
--Jay Leno
***
Our newer, high-speed computer was
in for repairs, and my son was forced to work on our old 386 model with the
black-and-white printer. "I can't stand it, Mom," he complained to me
one day, "this is like we're living back in the twentieth century."
***
A Stanford Medical research group
advertised for participants in a study of obsessive-compulsive disorder. They
were looking for therapy clients who had been diagnosed with this disorder. The
response was gratifying; they got 300 responses the day after the ad came out.
All from the same person.
____________________________
Rotten News... (true)
Printer Says It Can Improve Suicide
Notes
Fri Apr 2,10:17 PM ET
WELLINGTON, Ohio - Health officials
expressed outrage Friday over a fake suicide scene displayed in a shop window
to sell printing services.
The display at Special Effects, a
video and printing store in this northeast Ohio village, shows empty beer cans
on the floor near an overturned table below dangling legs meant to look like a
person who hanged himself.
On a nearby table is a short,
scrawled suicide letter on a piece of notebook paper — and another note that's
lengthy and professionally printed.
A sign reads, "Contemplating
suicide? Let Special Effects give your suicide note that professional
look."
The head of the state agency in
charge of suicide prevention said the display goes too far.
"We have to hope it reflects
ignorance," said Michael F. Hogan. "When suicide takes almost 1,000
lives every year in Ohio — more than murder or HIV -AIDS — and when 20 percent
of high school students think about suicide every year, we need messages
encouraging life, not death."
Storeowner Chris Goran said Friday
that almost all her customers thought the display she put up last week was
amusing, and that she never intended to offend anyone.
"It certainly wasn't meant to
elicit all of this emotion," Goran said. "I have to stand by the
opinion that it's generating people talking about suicide, and if people talked
about it more maybe there would be less."
Goran said she would keep the
display up but may add a sign with a suicide prevention hot line phone number.
*********
Woman grows extra breasts
April 1, 2004
A woman in cental China who paid for
breast enlargement surgery ended up with an unwanted bonus - two extra breasts.
The 24-year-old woman found the
extra breasts growing on her stomach one year after she underwent surgery at a
clinic in Hunan province.
The extra breasts grew and grew
until the woman was forced to undergo a second operation to get rid of them,
according to the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily yesterday.
The initial operation was carried
out at a small beauty salon which was unauthorised to carry out breast
enlargement surgery, the newspaper said.
Cosmetic surgery has boomed in
popularity in China in recent years but there is little official regulation of
the industry.
**********
Fri, Apr 02, 2004
Flatulent Cows to Fuel Oil Sands?
TORONTO (Reuters) - A Calgary
brokerage touted new ways to fuel northern Alberta's massive oil sands
developments on Thursday in an April 1 research report promising power from
flatulent cows.
The hoax report, done up to look
like a genuine research document, said a company called Bovine Hydrocarbon
Collection, based in Picture Butte, Alberta, would collect the methane from
gassy cows in special TurboSucks tanks made of old scuba gear, vacuum cleaners
and surplus airplane parts.
"FirstEnergy has examined the
technology as closely as possible, and believes it has significant
potential," the report said.
The author of the report, Steven
Paget, was not immediately available for comment.
A Web search for bovine hydrocarbon
collection shows a series of scientific documents, none of which have anything
to do with methane, oil sands or the rocket-like TurboSucks gadget pictured in
the FirstEnergy report
*********
EXTREME IRONING CONTEST GETTING
CRAZY!
A South
African duo have won an extreme ironing photo competition by ironing a shirt
while suspended from a rope across a mountain gorge.
Troye Wallett and photographer Gordon Forbes submitted the winning entry in the
Rowenta Trophy 2003 Extreme Ironing photo competition.
It shows Wallett ironing a shirt across a 100ft wide gorge at Wolfberg Cracks
in South Africa's Cederberg mountain range.
The photo competition is a separate event to the Extreme Ironing World
Championships which was dominated last year by the British team which won gold
and bronze.
The best British entry in the photo contest was Adi Hooper who was third with a
picture taken by Hugh Penney of him ironing underground at Alum Pot in the
Yorkshire Dales.
Another British duo claimed the extreme ironing altitude record by ironing at
17,000 feet on Mount Everest - but only managed eighth place in the competition
that attracted more than 160 entries.
Second place was taken by Australian base jumping ironist, Robert Fry, who
threw himself off the side of a cliff in the Blue Mountains with an iron,
board, laundry - and parachute.
The top three pictures will feature in a book about the sport to be published
in November.
British ironist Phil Shaw, known as Steam in extreme ironing circles, was one
of the ten-strong judging panel.
He said: "The standard of entries in this year's competition was higher
than ever and really any one of the top ten pictures could have been chosen as
a potential winner."
