The Validity of a Blood Promise

CATEGORY: Blood Pact, Business Contract

DIVISION: Modern Evil, Legal

NOTE: Whether signed in blood, sweat, tears, ink or any other marking fluid, a contract is a contract. We encourage the plantiff in this case to contact us as soon as possible for further legal recourse.

Judge: Blood Promise Can't Be Enforced

Tue Jun 26, 4:46 PM ET

SANTA ANA, Calif. - A Nietzsche-quoting judge said a promise penned in blood by a businessman was not an enforceable contract. Superior Court Judge Corey S. Cramin ruled Monday that Stephen Son could not be forced to repay Kim Jin-soo more than $140,000 that Kim provided to Son's companies, not to Son himself.

Son punctured his finger and drafted the promise in a restaurant after his companies accepted cash from Kim but failed to turn a profit.

Son was not required to guarantee those transactions, the judge said.

"Blood is the worst of all testimonies to the truth," Cramin said, paraphrasing German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

Kim's attorney, Richard Radcliffe, said his client might appeal.

"We think the blood speaks for itself," he said.

The lawsuit and purported contract dealt with more than $100,000 that Kim invested in a company run by Son in April 2003, when the two lived in Korea.

Later, Kim lent $40,000 to a second Son company in California.

The blood promise was written in October 2004 after the two men had moved to California

It read, "Sir, forgive me. Because of my deeds, you have suffered financially. I will repay you to the best of my ability," according to court filings.

Kim sued in January 2006.

Dead Man Laughing

CATEGORY: Gallows Humor, Execution Comedy

DIVISION: Modern Evil, Sales

NOTE: Death Row humor is a specialty of Modern Evil. Our upcoming publication of killer jokes, entitled "Laugh, I Nearly Died!", will be out in time for the holiday season. Unfortunately though, it won't be soon enough for Mr.Knight. Please visit his MySpace site anyway.

Man Set for Execution Wants to Die Laughing

Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:46PM EDT

By Jim Forsyth

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man scheduled to be executed on Tuesday wants to die laughing.

Patrick Knight, 39, has been soliciting jokes on the Internet and plans to tell one of them before receiving a lethal injection, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said on Monday.

"He says he wants to keep his execution light," she said.

Knight was sentenced to die for the August 1991 murder of his two elderly neighbors in Amarillo, Texas.

Lyons said a friend of Knight's set up a page on the social networking Web site MySpace.com to solicit jokes, and "hundreds" of suggestions have arrived in the mail.

"I'll be enjoying my last days on Earth," Knight wrote on the Web site. "I'm not asking for pen pals, but I'm asking you to spread the word that I am holding a contest. I want people to send me their best jokes, and to keep me and others with (execution) dates laughing."

Texas leads the nation with 396 executions. None of those put to death have ever joked about it, Lyons said.

"We've certainly had some people who have recited a poem or a Bible verse, some people who have asked forgiveness or who pray," she said. "This is, to my knowledge, the first time anybody has told a joke as their last words."

While she says Knight will be allowed to tell his joke, none of his executioners in the state death chamber at the Walls prison unit in Huntsville, Texas will be laughing, Lyons said.

"Everybody who is there takes it very seriously and will not be participating in the joke," she said. "So knock-knock jokes are out."

Outsourcing: How NOT to Hire the Qualified

CATEGORY: Fake Jobs, Fraud Hiring

DIVISION: Investments

EDITORIAL: Letter-of-the-Law compliance has created wonderful companies such as Burson-Marsteller, Microsoft, and Walmart. Now with this helpful video, everyone can learn how to put the power of outsourcing and minority hirings to work for them. Thank you LARRY M. LEBOWITZ, ESQUIRE [412-297-4979] of Cohen & Grigsby.

The McDonald's Franchise Approach to Cosmetic Surgery

CATEGORY: McSurgery, Beauty, Appearance Medicine

DIVISION: Products, R&D

NOTE: Delayed but finally government approved, our Solo Surgery™ line of fine products will be available this fall. Hopefully this will alleviate some of the anxiousness surrounding cosmetic surgery. Bringing you quality choices for all your medical needs is our pleasure, here at Modern Evil.









Doctors Warn of 'McSurgery' in Quick Fix Operations Boom

By Andrew Johnson

A huge increase in the number of cosmetic surgery treatments carried out by unqualified or insufficiently qualified people is leading to the "McDonaldisation" of the industry, doctors warned yesterday.

Surgeons spoke out in response to news that a New Zealand cosmetic surgery company is offering doctors a franchise after just two days' training at a hotel in Manchester.

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) said that high-pressure sales techniques and cowboy operators were fueling a booming market in Botox, face peels and laser treatment, some of which can result in poor treatments, injuries or, in extreme cases, death.

Paul Stapleton, of the Mapperley Park Clinic in Nottingham, said: "It's a McDonald's franchise approach to cosmetic surgery. It's a continuation of alarming developments in the field, which hasn't been helped by the Government's U-turn on plans to regulate cosmetic surgery."

The franchise deal was offered to ordinary GPs who had paid £2,000 a head to a New Zealand company called Appearance Medicine for the training weekend at the Marriott Hotel in Manchester. After practising Botox injections on volunteer hotel staff the GPs were offered equipment to start a practice in exchange for £35,000 and 10 per cent of future profits.

Dr Maurice Mann, a GP in Chesterfield, attended the course "out of curiosity" because he was inundated with patients wanting non-invasive procedures or help after procedures abroad had gone wrong.

"There were 19 doctors and one dentist on the course," he said. "It was a wide-ranging course. Some of it was very good. But what I found a little surprising was that they said for £35,000 they would give us basic kit and a franchise. It's an unregulated market.

"They're not doing anything wrong and have been doing it for 20-odd years. What is worrying is people going on these courses and just getting started.

"This is something there is terrific demand for. If people can't get it from a reputable source they will go to a disreputable one."

Appearance Medicine did not respond to requests for comment.

A quarter of all complaints to the Healthcare Commission are about "low-level" cosmetic surgery procedures such as Botox and face peels.

'I was filming a scene when my whole face froze from Botox'

Sarah Manners, the star of the BBC series 'Casualty', had Botox treatment four years ago. She had feared that her looks were not perfect enough - but the result nearly ruined her career. Her face froze while she was filming an airline drama in which she played a glamorous air hostess and an entire scene was lost. "It taught me a lesson. You can't afford to have Botox when you're an actor. It could lose you work."

Human Bone Smuggling Racket Uncovered

CATEGORY: Bone Trade

DIVISION: Products & Services

EDITORIAL: "Racket" is such a soiled term for a trade that has been in existence since the first human died. Bones are common - we all have them. How, where and why you trade them is entirely your right. Our lawyers in India will be looking into this.











Human Bone Smuggling Racket Uncovered

Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:06AM EDT

By Bappa Majumdar

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Indian police have discovered a stash of hundreds of human skulls and thigh bones and arrested a gang for allegedly smuggling them to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan for use in Buddhist monasteries.

"During interrogation they confessed that the hollow human thigh bones were in great demand in monasteries and were used as blow-horns, and the skulls as vessels to drink from at religious ceremonies," investigating officer Ravinder Nalwa said Tuesday.

It was the second cache of bones found in eastern India since April and police now believe the region could be the center of a much broader trade in human bones. They suspect some bones may even have ended up as far away as Thailand and Japan.

Officers found the latest collection in Jaigaon, a town in eastern India on the border with Bhutan, and arrested four people who said they were smuggling them across the border, Nalwa told Reuters by telephone from the northeastern town of Siliguri.

In April, police discovered what they called a "human bones factory" in the state, and arrested six people for illegally trading in skeletons. The bones were apparently being sold to medical students and for use in traditional medicine.

Both caches of bones appear to have originated in Varanasi, a Hindu holy city in northern India where millions of people are cremated every year on the banks of the Ganges.

"The skeletons seized in Jaigaon had all come from Varanasi's cremation centers and all these years we thought they were just going secretly to medical students," Nalwa said.

Eastern India was once a thriving center for the export of human skeletons, which were sent as far as western Europe, former traders in Kolkata said.

But the federal government banned the exports in the late 1980s after human rights groups raised questions about how the bones were being collected, forcing the trade underground.

Mukti Biswas, an arrested villager in another district of West Bengal state, told police that he had plucked bodies from the river, as well as collecting those left behind at Hindu cremation centers by poor people who lacked the wood to perform a proper cremation.

Biswas said he had supplied the bones to medical students.

Bhutanese authorities said they were awaiting more details from Indian police before investigating further but said they doubted if all the bones were destined for their country.

"We have never come across such large-scale cases before, maybe one or two," Ninda Wangdi, a senior Bhutanese police officer, told Reuters by telephone.

Buddhist monks in India said human thigh bones and skulls were used by followers of a Tibetan school of Buddhism.

"But one or two bones would last a lifetime, so a racket this huge might have links to other countries," said Bhikkhu Bodhipala, chief priest of the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya.