Police in Idaho have arrested a woman who impersonated a plastic surgeon so she could carry out breast exams to random strangers....
The victims said they believed [Kristina] Ross because she used medical vocabulary.
She said Ross even gave them a phone number to an actual plastic surgeon's office in order for them to make follow-up appointments.
Ross is charged with a felony — "practising medicine without a licence." Oh, blech, it's the Daily Mail. Why do I keep reading that lurid trash! The charge is practicing medicine without a license. Oh, what bullshit. She wasn't practicing medicine. She was lying to ladies in a bar.
The Daily Mail also makes a big deal out of the fact that Ross's "gender category" is "male to female."
this story actually makes me furious. she peed her pants and she's suing a club. another classic case of an "entitlement cvnt".
last time i checked pregnancy was a personal choice. you aren't bestowed with any special powers, knowledge, or freedoms.
don't like being pregnant in big bad ny -- then leave, and go the burbs where you and giant stroller belong.
i have a country house in CT. they'll let you pee anywhere here. get out of ny, spoiled whining cow.
This story makes me furious too, by the way. I'm furious that a newspaper reports on a lawsuit without stating what the legal claim is. Is there a tort claim in New York for failing to give special treatment to pregnant women? "She blames Hammerstein management for the humiliation of wetting her pants"... but isn't this publicity, brought on by the lawsuit, humiliating? Or is she trying to "humiliate" the Hammerstein Ballroom into paying her off to undo the bad publicity she's giving them — with the help of a lawsuit and NY Post?
ADDED: I'm removing the "lawsuits I hope will fail" tag, because I don't understand what really happened here. My criticism is of the journalism, and my reason for writing the post was the hilariously unsympathetic comment. I'm not entirely unsympathetic myself. I remember being pregnant in New York City — twice — and wanting people to be spontaneously helpful to me — giving me a seat on the subway or offering me a place to nap at the law firm — and feeling sad about humanity because I didn't get that help. But I never asked for special concern.
Except once, actually. It was 1982, and I was going on a religious retreat with a group of individuals from a Manhattan church. It was about a 3-hour drive to the place, and a woman in the van lit up a cigarette. Would you please not smoke? I asked. She said she would continue to smoke, so I said that the reason I felt I had to ask is that I was pregnant. The woman and everyone else in the van rejected my request. I was told that smoking is only bad for the smoker — as if I were dumb to think otherwise. I said I couldn't go with them, and they stopped the van and gave me my luggage. As they left me there on the wrong side of the West Side Highway, which I would have to cross, at night, before hiking a couple of unfamiliar blocks to get to a place where I could begin to try to hail a cab, one young woman detained me for a little lecture: I was being selfish and not considerate of others, and therefore I was not a good Christian. I used to feel chastened by criticisms like that, and it wasn't until I was in the cab, crying, heading back toward Brooklyn, that it occurred to me that I might have said to her that I was concerned for others, because I was concerned about my unborn child.
CORRECTION: That was the NY Post, not The Daily News. Sorry.
Bonus lawsuit story that I wouldn't have blogged if I hadn't run across that other one:
Upper West Side couples counselor Jeffrey Mechanic is being sued [for $4 million] by two of his former clients who say he nearly destroyed their marriage in his wacky attempts to save it....
"He would tell me constantly that my wife was not capable of satisfying me... For 10 years, I was faithful. Then I just caved in and had an affair, and [Mechanic] said there was nothing wrong with that"....
Aren't marriage counselors always dealing death blows to marriages? That's my observation. But this couple actually stayed together, so... seems the husband got good mileage out of Mechanic when he used him as an excuse for cheating.
Don't fall asleep in the tattoo parlor. Don't rely on a verbal description of the tattoo you want when you are speaking a foreign language. Don't get tattoos when you are a teenager. Don't get tattoos on your face. Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't.....
And now a word from the tattoist:
Yikes! I know what you're thinking. Don't let anyone who looks like that do anything to your face. But wait. Listen to him:
"She was awake and looked into the mirror several times as the procedure was taking place... The trouble all started when she went home and her father and boyfriend threw a fit... They are saying things now like I doped her or hypnotised her. What rubbish. She asked for 56 stars and that's what she got."
This is a lawsuit, people.
The girl, Kimberley Vlaeminck is suing the small businessman, Rouslan Toumaniant. Who do you think is telling the truth?
***
Why would anyone ask for 56 stars? Maybe it's for the stars on the flag, one for each of the states, or maybe... I think... one left to go... one left to go...
The nature of the challenging and complicated work has come to light in the course of a lawsuit that may or may not be trumped up:
The court documents say the comedian has established “greater than 30 fraudulent corporations that set-up websites and mission statements to mislead individuals form (sic) discovering the true identity and purpose of the requested appearance by... Sacha Baron Cohen”.
At least 29 company name registrations linked to the film have been filed with the LA County Clerk, all in 2007. Many of them give the appearance of being German or Swiss broadcasting firms, such as Deutsches Modefernsehen and Deutsches Unterhaltungsfernsehen.
Among the firms that seems to have been most used as a front for the film is Amesbury Chase. Its website is now blank, but before being removed, it described Amesbury Chase as a production company offering “world class facilities, and state-of-the art equipment to help you create dynamic and compelling content”.
Its address was a mailbox on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. At least three other “front companies” – Chromium Films, Cold Stream Productions and Coral Blue Productions – used the same address and phone number and had identical websites.
Production staff working on the film used the companies as fronts to contact several organisations and individuals to persuade them to take part in the documentary they were filming, often pretending it was a European production looking at American culture.
Among those taken in were the Alabama National Guard, which was contacted by staff from Amesbury Chase to say they were an affiliate of a German TV station shooting a documentary on what it was like to be in officer recruitment school. Baron Cohen was allowed to train alongside new recruits and was filmed changing into uniform, exposing a thong he was wearing.
Or would you hate to use your legal skills to trick people like this? Come on, I said assuming you're a lawyer.
"... when the defendant knew or should have known that the plaintiff’s spouse was married shall constitute proof of intentional interference with the plaintiff’s marriage. Damages awarded pursuant to this statute shall not exceed $500,000. This action shall be instituted within two years of the discovery of the adultery."
Maggie Gallagher is inspired by this proposed statute (from Minnesota, oddly enough). But what she really wants is not that you should be able to extract half a million dollars from the person who seduced your husband/wife. She wants a cause of action against websites that facilitate adultery.
While it is easy to imagine that many whose property appears on Google's virtual maps resent the privacy implications, it is hard to believe that any - other than the most exquisitely sensitive - would suffer shame or humiliation....
The plaintiffs' failure to take readily available steps to protect their own privacy and mitigate their alleged pain suggests to the Court that the intrusion and that their suffering were less severe than they contend
Good call. They were sensitive. And they were Boring.
Although most theaters provide amplifying headphones to customers, those are of little use to people with moderate or severe hearing impairment. Instead, Waldo said, customers with hearing impairment need to be able to read the dialogue, either through captions projected onto the screen or through another system in use at some Seattle theaters.
In the second system, currently used at AMC Pacific Place 11 in Seattle and other area cinemas, the written dialogue is projected from the rear of the theater onto clear plastic panels affixed to hearing-impaired customers' seats. The captions aren't visible to anyone without a panel.
[According to John Waldo, an attorney with the Washington State Communication Access Project], captions are available for 80 percent to 90 percent of all films shown in Seattle-area theaters. The problem, he said, is that theaters only offer a limited number of shows with any kind of captioning available.
At best, he said, most theaters only offer one or two showings daily that include either type of captioning. Waldo hopes to change that, and insists that the theaters should at least offer captioned showings of each movie they play.
"The dream," he said, is "that we'd be able to go to any movie, any time and understand it."
The dream that we'd be able to go to any movie, any time and understand it. Well, then, I'm dreaming of a machine that will project explanations for the apparent plot holes and that will provide lists and charts to answer the usual questions like is that guy the same guy that was in that other scene and exactly why am I supposed to care that the Nazi learned to read.
"The baby writhed and gasped for air, still connected to [Sycloria] Williams by the umbilical cord. Immobilized by shock, Williams watched [abortion clinic owner Belkis] Gonzalez run into the room, cut the umbilical cord with a pair of orange-handled shears, stuff the baby and afterbirth into a red biohazard bag and throw the bag into a garbage can," the lawsuit explains.
Shouldn't anyone having an abortion need to visualize what is being done to the life/potential life she is destroying? To claim damages from seeing the death is to admit that you didn't understand what you were doing when you sought the abortion. If women are to have a right to choose to have an abortion — if the decision to have an abortion properly rests with the woman, as the law says it does — then it is crucial that she understand what she is doing. This lawsuit is a claim that she did not comprehend what she was doing. If that is true, it undermines the whole basis for the right to choose to have an abortion. Choices imply competent understanding. Either women know what they are doing or they do not. Take a side.
