Lee's Blog

The legal thuggery of Clifford Shoemaker (*spit*) has been quashed!

And it’s not just that Kathleen is off the hook; Shoemaker (*spit*) has been ordered to show cause why he should not be sanctioned. Good luck with that.

The funny thing is that some people are still defending Shoemaker (*spit*). Like this one on Orac’s blog:

Devil’s advocacy here – if you legitimately thought that there was a Big Government – Big Business conspiracy (and really, who doesn’t suspect some form of this somewhere?), isn’t this the type of documents you might expect to “catch” evidence from? If this was a lawyer with a suit about misappropriation of funds for the Iraq war, we wouldn’t think twice about a list like this. The reason we don’t react the same way here is that we know that there’s no there there, no conspiracy to find, but the nutty lawyer maybe doesn’t.

Well, no. Why would I expect to “catch” evidence about, say, misappropriation of funds for the Iraq war, by trolling through a random blogger’s correspondence with people whose blogs are listed on her blog roll? Or her communications with her physician? Or with charities and religious organizations? Really, if there were a giant conspiracy to conceal something, which was so effective that I wasn’t able to find any documentation anywhere, why on earth would I expect to “catch” evidence that was let slip to a random blogger? That’s what’s so silly about the subpoena.

So, I was procrastinating rather than do taxes and checking Google some more about the legal thuggery of Clifford Shoemaker (*spit*), and found this one. It ends with “We’ll talk about it in class next week.”

As ERV would say … nom, nom, nom. A group of enthusiastic students discussing all the flaws in this subpoena. I wonder if any of them have blogs??

Shoemaker (*spit*) is an Orc. And if Orcs don’t like the association, they can eat him.

This is the charity that I donate to. And this is a video of typical ferret determination.

I love ferrets. I wish I could give a few of these a home. But ferrets are illegal in New York City, because they’re “dangerous wild animals.” Look at these critters and tell me they’re either dangerous or wild.

Politicians are morons. And I’m glad Giuliani lost.

So I was wondering how much of an effect the blogosphere’s reaction to the legal thuggery of Clifford Shoemaker (*spit*) was having on Google.

If you just google “Clifford Shoemaker” (*spit*), the number one result is a funeral home (and I’ll bet they’re thrilled to share his name), then there are two blurbs about him as a lawyer, another funeral home result, and then six blog posts about his legal thuggery. The next ten contain two about the funeral home, two about him as a lawyer, one I’m not sure about, and five about his legal thuggery.

If you google lawyer “Clifford Shoemaker” (*spit*), all of the first ten entries are about this. Out of the first twenty, just two are not about this. And in the first thirty, there are just five not about this, one of which is the unfortunate funeral home. Interestingly, one of the four about Shoemaker (*spit*) appears to be a lawsuit against him by former clients. The link is to an order upholding dismissal of the case, but it seems that by this point in the litigation, the suit against him had been dismissed or settled, because his role is not discussed at all in the order, in my quick reading. But it’s interesting, anyway.

In the 31-40 range, we have a link to this:

How about Mr. Clifford Shoemaker’s attempt to intimidate those who continue to point out that he is making money by lying to his clients about the cause of autism and lying to courts about science?

Shoemaker knows that the Sykes family does not have a case and that Ms. Seidel has absolutely nothing to do with the case, but that didn’t stop him from acting in a way that will make trial lawyers embarrassed to be associated with him. Disbar, draw and quarter him.

Comment by freelunch – April 4, 2008 at 8:45 pm

That’s my kind of guy. But that means Wall Street Journal knew about this for six days before finally putting it in Best of the Web Today, and I don’t like that.

I get annoyed by labored attempts to claim, as a matter of fairness, that two things are really equivalent when in fact they are not. Like this:

Why did Hillary’s Bosnian gaffe cut deep but McCain’s Sunni/Shiite mix-up not seem to leave much more than a bruise? Because, fair or not, questions of honesty are the Achilles heel of the Clinton brand while McCain is perceived as strong and knowing on national security. One fit into a framework and the other didn’t.

Maybe it’s because everyone has had the experience of coming up with the wrong word, but one which describes a closely related subject, and they can understand that? Maybe the parents who have addressed a child by the names of other children and also the name of the cat, understand how easy it is to get mixed up when speaking? So maybe they understand that McCain might know what he’s talking about even if, in extemporaneous speaking, he came up with the wrong word? Especially since most of us couldn’t come up with an explanation of the difference between Sunnis and Shias anyway?

And maybe people see coming up with the wrong word as being entirely different from fabricating a complete narrative, with elaborate details, that is entirely divorced from reality? So they wonder whether Clinton is simply a pathological liar, or she actually has delusions and remembers events that never happened — never came close to happening?

Somehow I think there is a reason for the difference in reaction that may have little to do with the “framework”.

Sniff. That was so moving.

So the tale of the legal thuggery of Clifford Shoemaker (*spit*) continues. Nothing more will happen until April 17, I guess. I can’t decide if I expect him to double down and try to respond to the motion to quash, or tuck tail and let the subpoena be quashed without more humiliation to him.

Either way he’s an Orc. And if Orcs don’t like the association, they can eat him.

Actually, that goes without saying. How could you be an anti-Semite if you didn’t have delusions?

But this particular anti-Semite, Maciej Giertych, has a delusion that only partially relates to Jews:

In our civilisation, a righteous person living honestly will not get in conflict with the law, even not knowing it.

Really? Evidently this anti-Semite doesn’t live in New York, where a coworker of mine was ticketed for putting cardboard boxes by the curb for recycling. It is a requirement that you put them by the curb for recycling instead of putting them in the regular trash, but you must break them down and tie them with string, rather than putting them one inside another inside another. Tell me how a righteous person is supposed to know that without knowing the law? And there are lots of laws like that. Indeed, it’s been suggested that it is probably impossible to get through a day in modern America without breaking any laws.

I could go on for a long time on the sheer incomprehensibility of anti-Semitism, the fact that it’s a mental illness, and how worrisome it is that anti-Semitism is accepted and even openly embraced these days by so many politicians and politically active people — but then I’ll be too depressed to do my taxes.

This site is funny beyond words. I literally had tears in my eyes and was threatening to provoke an asthma attack laughing at the comments. But I’m sure I could find a cure for wheezing and watery eyes….

Update: the cure is belladonna. I feel so edified.

One of the commenters observed that “Skeptics sure do have some strange medical conditions, don’t they?” What, like “gurgling in the testes, 5pm, going up”? Or “coughing from my genitals”?  Or “intermittently missing limbs”?  (I’m going to need some belladonna if I keep going.)

I don’t think it was skeptics that set up the checklist, though.

I think of this particular passage from A Man for All Seasons frequently:

ROPER So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!

MORE Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

ROPER I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

MORE (Roused and excited) Oh? (Advances on ROPER) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you-where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast-man’s laws, not God’s-and if you cut them down-and you’re just the man to do it-d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly) Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

To my eternal shame, I have a law degree and actually practiced law for years. I worked for a very honest and reputable firm, and to the best of our ability, everything we did was of the highest legal and ethical standards. But I really didn’t enjoy practicing law (it’s just basically not my thing; I prefer computers to people), and I really, really hated the fact that people thought just because I was a lawyer, I must be like … Clifford Shoemaker *spit*.

Well, I wasn’t. And I’m not. I got a job as a computer programmer, which I love, and I resigned from the Bar. So I am not a lawyer and never will be again. So don’t anyone ever, ever, ever think that I am anything like that unmitigated swine (no offense intended to swine) Clifford *spit* Shoemaker *spit*.

The only thing that would be useful about my having a law degree would be having the ability to help Kathleen Seidel against that subhuman slug (no offense intended to slugs) Clifford *spit* Shoemaker *spit*. But unfortunately I have been away from the law too long and never practiced in federal court anyway.

Maybe I should call Clifford *spit* Shoemaker *spit* an Orc. Orcs cannot be offended by the comparison, unlike slugs, swine, and bottom-feeding scum-suckers, all of whom would have every right to object to being compared to this … this … words fail me … this lawyer.