So….they cost me a day of work and a round of golf
So yes, once again the forces of evil are trying to force us off the internet. It won’t work. It did waste some of my time, and that of our legal team who had to respond to it, but it certainly won’t work. Also, it rather ruined my golf game yesterday. Actually, it helped at first (I had a drive of 280 when Jonn called with a head’s up) but then I couldn’t tone down my anger and was beaming sand wedges like 120 yards and throwing clubs.
Nonetheless, I spent the day writing a 4,453 word response today. Baldly stated, the entire document can be summed up by my second paragraph:
The Complaint represents the website hosting equivalent of a strategic lawsuit against public participation. Wickre is significantly less interested in any terms of use issues than he is in silencing free speech and veterans’ advocates operating within the law. To date, Wickre has commented no fewer than 118 times on the Blog, which is odd considering his aversion to the nature of what we write. Those 118 comments from his IP address are directly traceable to him. They do not include the numerous comments which were deleted by the authors because they contained social security numbers of bloggers, phone numbers and addresses for the bloggers and other commenters, and some indecipherable strings of letters and numbers.
The Complaint is full of obfuscation, misstatements regarding case law, and lies regarding easily verifiable facts. I will endeavor to respond to only the issues of import regarding the Complaint.
That said, if you guys could refrain from any comments that could get me in trouble for the next few days, that will suffice for my birthday gift (which you all owe me by Saturday.) So, instead of saying something about “hammer a six-inch spike through his penis” (looking at you Nik) or the therapeutic benefits of squatting on a traffic cone and then duck walking home (another classic noted in the complaint) how about blessing him with a million unicorn butterfly kisses, or a TV which receives only 180 channels of ALF reruns. Seriously, I need rest, and I can’t fight any more. Nothing that could be construed as a threat, pornographic imagery etc.
I agree with your unstated comments. Jonn agrees with them. Everyone reading this agrees. Just cut us some slack and don’t write it, at least until we get the all clear from Rackspace (which we will.) This is NOT a win for the bad guys, as I am certain their attorney spent much longer that 8 hours working on it, and costs significantly more than I charge, which is nothing. Besides, when this one gets tossed, we will be stronger even than we were before.
Jonn always ascribes the success of this blog to you guys, the readers. I agree with him of course. Collectively we have the smartest, most diligent, wise-assiest readers and commenters this side of the Mos Eisley cantina. So, use the brain and some restraint while 1SG is watching us *not* do our concurrent training tasks. Kapiche?
Also, please consider tossing Jonn a few shekels. Although the legal counsel stuff doesn’t cost him anything, server space for this house ain’t cheap.
I am taking tomorrow off to celebrate my Birthday a few days early by doing damn near nothing except playing Port Royale 3: Pirates and Merchants on XBox. It has to be the boringest game in history, which should be good for my blood pressure. SVT will resume Monday though.
BTW- Somehow we got derailed into music again, so answer me this one…the lady at 1:51, is that Susie Benjamin? Because it looks like a younger her to me.
Category: Politics
Maj Mike, I see your “Bless his heart,” and raise you a “Poor baby.”
Do they have SLAP laws in Fl. or WV. ? How many lawyers have contacted TAH for Philip R. Monkre ? TSO, maybe you should refer them the Giduck V Socnet case. I know not the same but similar in nature. Joe
Hack should I ask if you where on the Twitter storm too that depressiveblogger started, cause it was awesome, heh. Sharknado was the funniest/worst movie in a long while. Sorry Psul that beats you by a mile.
Paul Wickre is such a fine fellow to care so much about what the folks on this website think of him to have commented 118+ times. I’m so glad he’s around to give us his opinion.
Golf is one of those games I have always wanted to learn.
@50.
As I said earlier, much earlier, these guys are professional bullshit artists.
But in the end, Paul and Phil seem like really nice guys.
Sorry Psul that beats you by a mile.
Now Heidi, we can’t mention you-know-who and beating in the same sentence. He has a delicate constitution and we wouldn’t want to disturb him.
In all sincerity, I truly and passionately hope the Delicate One gets all the karmic rewards he so truly deserves.
That’s not too mean to say, is it?
Psul is a delightful source of wonderful entertainment. A joy to have around… What a guy!
Right.
Happy B-day, TSO
Heidi,
I don’t Twitter. I’m an a-hole, but never a twit.
My B-movie buddy and I have a whole DVR liberry of OUEVRES, as we call them. If you enjoy such fare, we recommend also: SWAMP VOLCANO, STONEHENGE APOCALYPSE, SAND SHARKS, MEGA PYTHON VS. GATOROID, SNOW BEAST, DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR, and a couple others that escape me at the moment. They’re all atrociously trashy and improbable, starring such thespians as Debbie Gibson, Tiffany (those 2 have an epic food fight at the end of MP vs. G that is to die for!), Jason London, Brooke Hogan (yes, daughter of Hulk!), Corin Nemec, Lorenzo Lamas and the incomparable David Carradine.
I’m sorry Nik(looking down with red cheeks), I was on a sharknado high
@ 50: In fact, I am starting to wonder if he didn’t fake the letter from the lawyer.
That thought crossed my mind as well.
@46… You are probably correct in that Paul is likely an extremely difficult client. There really is an art to handling difficult clients. If counsel does not control the room, certain clients will attempt to dictate strategy and even legal theory. It makes it worse when the lawyer takes a difficult client in a field that the lawyer is not familiar. This combination is likely what we are seeing here.
For those scoring at home, it also means the lawyer probably billed way more time than one experienced in this field. First, the lawyer needs to figure out what to do. Second, the lawyer needs to listen to multiple phone calls from Paul, and if my experience serves me properly, I bet dollars to donuts that Paul has written numerous, lengthy emails to the lawyer about his theories of what should be done, as well as analysis and general blather. That takes time to sift through, which costs money. This hosting complaint is not worth more than a $3,000 retainer. In my opinion, Paul likely isn’t getting his retainer back and probably ran up a bill closer to 5k. And that’s being generous. If Paul were my client and he came to me for actual litigation, I would hike up my initial retainer somewhere between $50-100k.
Putting out the tin pans for money to pay for space, its only going to get worse for the trolls and sheep followers, or as we like to say the usual blather. The revolution has started and its only going to get worse for this blog….stay tuned, oh and keep throwing the loose change their way, clicky, clicky
Hack, just threw up a little, but now I like carradine in kill Bill before he died. That is about all I can handle of the people you just put up. Geez, tiffany my old days at home in Denmark drinking southern comfort with red soda, enjoy that thought, heh
Psul is a great man and loyal customer
My buddies Cisco and Night Train will back me up on that
This, too, shall pass.
@62. Kill Bill I/II. Now you’re talking. Best scene? Tough to call. I’m partial to the eye-plucking fight. The Mexican bar meeting is up there too.
@61: Left implied but only barely unsaid in your astute analysis, of course, is that upcharge buried in more plausible costs, called the NUISANCE FEE. If any client ever earned one of those, I think we have consensus it would be Psul.
@62: Nonono, Heidi. You don’t watch these actors for their stirring performances, but for the camp humor moments (honestly, I think Roger Corman has long written his scripts for unintentional humor that is all too intentional.) The cheese factor doesn’t bring down these movies – IT MAKES THESE MOVIES.
ExHack: four words…Jersey Shore Shark Attack.
Bad acting, bad special effects, and multiple shots at Jersey Shore cast. Awesome.
2/17 AC: gotta be the japanese bar fight scene. Totally epic.
You want camp plus horror plus over-the-top bad? OK, time to bring out the big guns:
Rocky Horror. (smile)
Ad great music, too, Hondo!
Let’s do the time warp again . . . . (smile)
@65 Always Kill Bill, especially the scene where Lucy Liu goes into a polite speech about why she’s in charge of it all and then goes ballistic. 🙂
The sword fight in “El Cid” where Heston uses a jousting saddle as a shield.
Oh, yeah — the original black and white version of “The Haunting” where Eleanor is wandering up the spiral staircase and when she gets to the top, at just the right moment, the professor’s wife opens the attic door and then slams it shut. Saw that in the middle of a thunderstorm at Great Lakes. At just the right moment, when the attic door opened, the TV lounge doors slammed shut. 18 grown women screamed their heads off. It was great!
ExHack… there are some clients who you will cut a break here and there, and there are other clients who are so difficult and annoying that you bill them for the time you thought about their case while sitting on the toilet.
@65: I’m personally partial to the opening scene for II. It’s the kind of pensive, character developing expository I enjoy. And I know all of Beatrix’s wedding party: wannabe arty BF, trashy, trampy, crude girl friends, and the prissy officiator and his wife. I see them all at McCarran International Airport, the galactic transfer station for every form of shade-throwing, hungover humanoid waste, every day. Seeing them exterminated by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad at scene’s end is nirvana to me.
2/17 yep that one is epic. Now I’m also a big fan of dusk till dawn and ValHalla rising, but I’m weird
Hack, I know that’s why I like monty python and the young ones, classic stuff, heh (hope you have seen the young ones, I love Vivian)
For campiness, you cannot beat Frankenfish.
@67: VI, THANK YOU! I have told my B-movie buddy to BOLO for it.
@69: Hondo, believe it or not, I never have. I need to! It’s a cultural icon, for Cripe’s sake.
@72: Ex, I forgot that scene, where O-Ren makes a head roll and gallons of blood spray all over! It ties.
@73: JAGC: Thanks for making me LMFAO. Again, we agree Psul has to be that latter client. I’d feel sorry for his many present and former lawyers, but they took his shilling.
ExHack: oh yeah. With Vegas’ rep as a party town, somewhere in your area there’s got to be a dynamite midnight showing of the film. I’d suggest checking the UNLV area, for starters.
You’ll probably end up having to go twice – once to see the film, and the second time to watch the audience.
It’s certainly . . . interesting. Or it was 30 years ago, anyway. (smile)
Hondo did you dress weirdly too for that movie, just have to know
I think that movie spawns new generations of cult fans!
OK, off to go watch an OUEVRE. Oh … TWO HEADED SHARK ATTACK is also epic. A must see for the Asylum and Corman set.
I will miss the MadLibs/Tourette syndrome posts authored by our beloved Paul K. Wickre. May you live in interesting times, you silly wabbit!
Hondo-Rocky Horror Picture Show? I see you shiver with an-tic-i
pation
Heidi: no, never got that into it. But I did see it a few times.
The film was certainly a hoot – and watching the audience was nearly as much fun as the film. (smile)
@48
I demanded Tara Reid (the beeatch) as a human sacrifice to the B-movie gods
Maybe in the sequel?
351BG, don’t count out ol’ Psul. He keeps screaming to be left alone, yet keeps coming back for more and more and more. He demands his family be let alone, but attacks the families of others. He demands no contact info be posted for him, then posts it himself. Psul lives by the rule “Do as I say, but not even I know WTF I’m a-gonna do.”
There’s supposed to be a whole lot of returns in there.
The one time I went to RHPS, I didn’t dress up. However, my date did, and I was one grateful fella that she did.
@84: Let’s pray. They never did get the sharks out of the streets of L.A.
Sounds like you left something hanging there, 68W58. A famous sword, maybe? (smile)
@83
Nearly? You didn’t actually watch the movie, did you?
I only dressed up once, and it was for the play rather than the movie. It came to town while I was stationed in Wuerzburg. Interesting experience… the dialogue was in German while the songs were in English.
@30 TSO dude you have no idea how much I’ve laughed at that .. let me tell you why .. Emiliano ZAPATA was one of the biggest revolutionary dudes in Mexico, and he WAS a renegade until the end (he was ambushed and killed)
So someone called zapata yelling Renegades after the sheeet of paper … oh god the tears … LOOOOOOL
Nik: gotta ask – Janet, Magenta, or Columbia?
Hondo 89-I can’t answer that question without a host of backup singers.
maclave: the first time – yeah, I pretty much watched the film. As a camp classic/SF “B film” tribute, it’s actually pretty damn good. Plus, that night the theater was pretty tame. (smile)
After that, when I saw it I spent a fair amount of time watching the audience too – especially on nights when the theaters were lively.
68W58: I think you just did answer the question, amigo. (smile)
Which is campier? Mila Jovovich in “The Messenger”, which is the schizo Joan of Arc movie; or Mila Jovovich in “Fifth Element”, where she babbles around with Bruce “Bruno” Willis, who gets to wear elbow-length mits?
Chick-can Goot!
@61 ok I’m extremely unfamiliar with what a retainer is … I mean if the bill is 5k you can always bill him right? is that something you don’t get back? like a minimum fee? (sorry fo the delay but I had to commute home then stop by the walmart to clear it from gatorade, sun screen cream and some big bag of skittles 😛 per request of “Awesome Shit My Drill Sergeant Said” 😛
TSO–you were so pissed you were nailing 120 yard wedge shots? Hell, a couple of phone calls from DullASS and you’d make the cut at Muirfield this weekend.
And as for Paul K. Wickre, I hope this won’t void my visit to him on Thanksgiving day, where I’ll bring a heavily mayonnaise-based seafood dish for potluck dinner. I just hope it won’t have sat in the warm sun for far too long, because he’s a kind and gentle soul.
Yes, I know Paul Wickre. And never did there live a kinder, more generous man. He is an overflowing cup, filled with the very cream of human goodness in all the time I’ve known him, he’s never done anything immoral, and he’s ah, never done anything illegal …He’s always been a good, law-abiding citizen …
Awww, gimme a break!!
Damn Loc-Nar.
@49 I’m. Not familiar with a 240 but I’m guessing it has a high cycle rate assistant gunner ammo bearer I understand.. Before flying with the 3/17 air cav as a door gunner. I beat the bush with the 2/12 cav 1st cav div. worked out platoon size out of phu loi. Anyway here’s my gun story. Setting up in the afternoon pulling a listening post while the rest of the platoon sets up for the evening manning the 60. Open my shirt to catch some rays look down and see a red color behind a bush. Move the. Bush,it’s a full Budweiser. Come back in , as luck wood have it we had been resupplied that day. Took the bud rolled it. On the ice, kicked back on my ruck and guzzled it as my squad looked on. The fortunes of war.