I had great plans to write big posts today. But I'm busy, and tired, and I can't choose a target.

So: I think I'll take a few days off and post again Tuesday. Meanwhile, how about some suggestions for a topic? Note: The metallurgical qualities of my nads are not an acceptable topic, thank you.

I owe a Righthaven update, which I will do no matter what. But what do you want to see first?

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Last week I sent out the Popehat Signal asking for pro bono help from a Maryland attorney in support of a political blogger who was seeking to preserve his anonymity in a SLAPP suit.

Many people kindly retweeted it and blogged it and passed it along, and several stand-up attorneys inquired to see if they might be able to help. Eventually we found the right match. Now, more can be told.

The blogger is "Aaron Worthing," who currently blogs at Allergic to Bull. You can read about the case at his blog, and read about the motion he has just filed here. I will refrain from discussing the specifics; discover them for yourselves. Suffice it to say that I find the plaintiff in the SLAPP suit quite evil.

Aaron was caught in a ridiculous Catch-22: he was capable of drafting an opposition to the plaintiff's motion seeking to unmask him, but he could not file it without unmasking himself. The dilemma was solved when Elizabeth Kingsley of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg + Eisenberg, LLP in Washington, D.C. answered the Popehat Signal and stepped in for the limited purpose, as I understand it, of petitioning the court to allow Aaron Worthing to file his papers seeking to preserve his anonymity without breaching that anonymity. (Aaron drafted, and is responsible for, the substantive motion to quash subpoenas linked above.) Aaron may post more specifics about that soon. [Edit: here is his post about resolving the Catch-22.]

Beth specializes in representing non-profits and political campaigns, but quickly offered to step in here, to Aaron's gratitude and satisfaction. Beth and Harmon Curran acted in the best tradition of attorney pro bono work. As I've frequently argued, such generosity and civic spirit is essential to protecting freedom of expression in America from threats of all sorts. Beth has my admiration and thanks for helping, as does her firm.

So. What can you do for free speech?

By the way, Aaron is to the right of me, and has written for blogs even more firmly to the right of me. We undoubtedly disagree vigorously about many subjects. I don't have the privilege of knowing Beth well enough to know her political stances, but it would not surprise me in the least if she differs from Aaron as well. But that doesn't matter. You know why.

Iowa Occupiers disrupt Ron Paul's campaign headquarters, along with other Democratic and Republican campaign sites:

Occupy the Caucuses spokeswoman Danielle Ryun, who was among those arrested at the state Democratic Party headquarters, said the goal is not to be arrested. But since campaign officials won't listen to them, protesters are willing to be arrested to get their message across, she said.

"It would be great if we could show up, issue our concerns and have the candidates acknowledge us and change their platform," she said.

Let's see what parts of the Ron Paul platform needed work to make them acceptable to the Occupy movement:

1. Abolish the Federal Reserve Bank – oops, already on the platform
2. End federal payouts to banks - oops, already on the platform
3. End federal payouts to large corporations that aren't banks - oops, already on the platform
4. End foreign aid to Israel (and for that matter every other country) - oops, already on the platform
5. End the war in Afghanistan - oops, already on the platform
6. Withdraw American troops from Kuwait, South Korea, and Germany - oops, already on the platform
7. Abolish the Transportation Security Administration, along with a number of other federal departments and agencies - oops, already on the platform
8. End the War on Terror - oops, already on the platform
9. End the War on Drugs - oops, already on the platform
10. Establish a National Drum Circle on top of Mount Rushmore – not on the Ron Paul platform

That the occupiers would demonstrate against Paul, who so perfectly embodies their professed principles, shows them to be liars, idiots, or attention whores.

Or perhaps some combination of the above.

[Ed. note: This post represents Derrick's latest attempt to explain American politics through Starcraft. It is not to be confused with his attempts to explain American politics through Dawn of War, or Patrick's attempt to explain it through World of Warcraft.)

It doesn't take a genius to know what the hell is going on with the [GOP] clain. One faction is (reluctantly) pleased enough with its prohibitive frontrunner, MidClassMitt. They feel that while he may be somewhat flawed as a person and as a player, he has the skills and drive to represent them and beat Obama. And god damn it, that's good enough. Another faction though, somewhat led by a small but loud group of disruptive assholes (who don't even post on [GOP]'s forums, choosing instead to congregate on the #GOP IRC channel and just bitch bitch bitch all day long), has been going fishing for anybody, anybody, who can provide a challenge (credible or not). But why? Who gives a shit? Clan Tag is Clan Tag right? INCORRECT.  

PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW

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For some time, I've been thinking and writing about this question: is it "fair," and "right," that if I act like a sufficiently notable choad on the internet, I may become instantly famous for it, and the consequences of that fame may follow me and have profound social implications?

I keep coming back to two answers: (1) yes, and (2) to quote Clint, deserve's got nothing to do with it.

For the last hundred years, people who care about such things have been complaining about the anonymity of modern life. People who used to live in small towns live in big cities, and people are turned towards television and globalized, homogenized culture rather than towards their neighborhood. One consequence is the ability to treat people badly — even in serial fashion — with relative impunity. It used to be that you'd get the reputation as the town drunk or the town letch, or the village idiot, and that reputation would follow you until you move on to another town. But now many people don't even know their neighbors, let alone their whole "town."

With respect to certain bad behavior, the internet can change that — it can transform you into the resident of an insular town of 300 million people. This week notable jackass Paul Christoforo is finding that out. Try Googling his name to see what I mean.

Some people worry that the result is unduly harsh or unfair — that anyone can become a pariah because of "one mistake." I'm all for the concept of mercy, but I think that concern is misguided for a number of reasons. First and most importantly, the internet is manic and has a short attention span. You have to do something truly epic to go viral. One angry email won't do it unless it is so extreme that it reflects a disturbed mind. If you "just have a bad day," you'll slip into obscurity quickly. It takes talent, or sustained effort, to become internet famous. Consider the case of Jose Martinez of Brandlink Communications. Like Christoforo, he acted like an ass, and won a day or two, tops, of internet fame — but now he's slipping inexorably into deserved oblivion. And he's still employed. And it's only been six months, but if you say Hermon Raju, people will say "who?"

No, the sort of people who become instant-internet-famous are the ones who double down when called out on their bad behavior. In other words, it's not enough that you "have a bad day" — you have to refuse to acknowledge that you're having a bad day.

Finally, some argue that internet infamy can be "out of proportion" to the offense. Perhaps. But isn't that the call of every person who reads about your actions? People don't win instant internet notoriety based on third-hard accounts of conduct. They win it because they do something on video, or in writing, that's notable. If what they did really isn't that bad — if it's truly been blown out of proportion — then can't future readers determine that for themselves? There's more than a whiff of paternalism to the "blown out of proportion" concern — it seems to suggest that we ought not write about someone's misdeeds because future readers can't be trusted to assess their significance themselves. I disagree. Paul Christoforo's future employers, employees, associates, and friends are perfectly capable of reading up on the situation and making up their own minds.

Therefore, though I acknowledge the persistence of human frailty — most especially my own — I don't think that there is something inherently bad about occasional instances of that frailty becoming famous.

Moreover, there are good things about the prospect of internet infamy. It empowers individuals to respond to maltreatment. It provides the prospect of consequences to bullies. It deters bad behavior among those capable of being deterred. It allows investigations that may prevent new victims of bad behavior.

That said, though I support investigating and writing about bad behavior, I absolutely oppose harassing phone calls, harassment of relatives of bad actors, or other tactics designed to terrify rather than to illuminate. I encourage and approve of using internet methodology to track people down and expose them for doing such things.

Speaking of illuminating, let's discuss Paul Christoforo's latest "apology."

Christoforo has offered a string of what he views as "apologies" and what I view as proffered justifications for bad behavior. They are illuminating. Consider first his apology to Mike of Penny Arcade:

I just wanted to apologize for the way our emails progressed I didn’t know how big your site was and I really didn’t believe you ran Pax , So for what’s its worth I am very sorry.

This is not an apology for being a dick; it's an apology for being a dick to someone with more power and a bigger soapbox than you. It's saying, in effect, "I'm sorry for mistaking you for someone I could get away with abusing."

Paul Christoforo's statement to the In-Game column at MSNBC is even worse. It's not clear whether Kyle Orland refrained from asking him tough questions (for instance, about the wholesale plagiarism on his website) or whether he just elected not to print the answers. But the column amounts to an evasive apologia, not an apology.

A chastened Christoforo is now looking for forgiveness from the Internet community he unwittingly antagonized, saying in an interview with msnbc.com's In-Game he was "caught on a bad day" and that he hopes they will "let sleeping dogs lie."

Here's the thing: it's clear that Christoforo wasn't just "caught on a bad day." He's acted like that to customers before. Plus, the issue isn't merely temperament, it's honesty. Christoforo's Ocean Marketing site is largely plagiarized. Moreover, he dishonestly assumed the identity of another marketer, Brandon Leidel, in a buffoonish attempt to defuse the situation.

Christoforo is still attempting defiance:

Yet despite all the drama, Christoforo said he hasn't lost any of his other accounts, aside from Avenger. "It hasn't affected my business yet," he said. "Clients have brought it up, but they've mainly laughed about it. I haven't lost any clients."

The "lol thanks for the free publicity" gambit is typical of sociopaths caught out.

Referring to the email thread that started the whole mess, Christoforo said that he didn't know who he was talking to in his initial, flippant response to Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik.

"I didn't know who that guy at Penny Arcade was," he admitted. "If I had known, I would have treated the situation a little better. PAX is a great show. What he does is what I've been idolizing since I was a kid. It's admirable he's put that together. He has a lot of connections, ones I want too."

Once again, Christoforo makes it clear that only powerful people — people who can hurt him or help him — are people who deserve decent treatment. Christoforo is not a marketer who is remorseful for treating a customer badly. He's more like a career purse-snatcher who is remorseful (and terrified) because he snatched a purse from the elderly mother of a local mafioso.

Christoforo also said his response was driven in part by what he saw as the disrespectful tone of the messages that came before it.

Also typical of sociopaths and narcissists: a swollen sense of entitlement to respect, utterly uncoupled to any history of showing respect to others.

Regarding the litany of names Christoforo's e-mail called up as potential supporters — a list that included everyone from Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski to the mayor of Boston — he said the tactic was meant to "impress, not to threaten" and didn't come through correctly because "you can't see tone of voice in email."

Another hallmark of sociopaths and narcissists: the "do you know who I am/who I know" syndrome. [Lawyer protip: if a prospective client insists on showing you pictures of himself or herself with famous people before discussing the case, the representation will be miserable.]

"[Legal action] is something I'm not interested in doing because the community would be more pissed at me," he said. "Regardless of money [possibly won in a settlement], it would really ruin my name. Am I saying I care more about my reputation than money? Yes."

Note the lack of awareness that if he tries legal action, we (the collective we, but also this blog) will stomp him like a cockroach. Note also the utter lack of insight — typical of narcissists — about the connection between his actions and his reputation.

"At the end of the day, I'm a human being, and it feels like the entire world was bullying me," he said. "I want people to like me, I don't want people to think I'm a bad person. … I made a mistake. … I hope I can make something positive out of it."

At the end of the day, Paul Christoforo is a human being. But so are his customers, who were the target of his scorn and ridicule. So were the industry figures whose support he falsely claimed and who won his abuse by disclaiming him. So was the marketing expert whose identity he appropriated. So were the writers whose content Ocean Marketing stole for its website. So are the people who hired him, whose business plan has been substantially complicated by his douchbaggery. Paul — in a manner typical of narcissists — would like you to focus on his humanity to the exclusion of theirs. No, Paul. No.

Paul likes the word "bully" — it's a popular one among people who feel that they should be able to act the way they want without social consequences. I leave it to the good judgment of the reader whether the bullies are the ones quoting Paul and pointing to his conduct, or Paul himself. I'll say only this: the more Paul talks, the worse he looks.

Edited December 29 to Add: Forbes, through its writer Daniel Nye Griffiths, has a new interview with Paul Christoforo up. I update to make two points about it.

First, Christoforo continues to be Christoforo, and has reached the point where he is impossible to satirize. Yesterday, attempting to make fun of Christoforo's concept of an apology, I wrote this:

Sorry, I never would have punched you in the face if I had known you were a black belt. Can you please stop spin-kicking me now?

Today, in the interview, Christoforo says this:

Basically, what Mike [Krahulik] did is this: If you were in a bar, drinking and hanging out with a bunch of people, and in that group of people was one guy that you didn’t know was a mixed martial arts champion. He knows he can kick the **** out of anyone in that bar, and you happen to pick a fight with him. He doesn’t tell you what he is, you take a swing at him and the next thing you know you have a broken jaw and you’re on the way to the hospital.

In short, it's not wrong to throw punches — it's wrong not to warn the guy prone to throwing punches that you are better at it than he is. That, right there, is a sociopath.

Second, I have to say this: I really hated the interview. I would go so far as to say that it offended me, because it came off as a softball, rehabilitation-on-the-interview-couch, friendly chat with a guy who is just awful. It seemed like something that a PR professional much more competent than Christoforo would have arranged. Griffiths didn't challenge any of Christoforo's statements — he didn't probe his "just a bad day" narrative with references to prior documented communications, or posing as another marketer, or plagiarism on his web site.

Daniel Nye Griffiths is the journalist; I'm not. In a correspondence on Twitter about the interview, he suggested that all of that contradictory information was already known and out there (including in his own prior post) and that the point of the interview wasn't to revisit it. He also suggested that his point was to let Christoforo hang himself — as he says, "[s]ometimes just letting people say things is a better way to convey an idea to readers than editorialising about it. QED." I find that unconvincing, or at least unappealing, here. Christoforo has already repeatedly offered the narrative he offered to Griffiths. Asking him questions about inconsistent facts — which has not been called upon to do before, apparently — would not be "editorializing." I submit that it would be interviewing. Christoforo has already hanged himself quite thoroughly; I fail to see the purpose of an interview that simply hands him more rope. In addition, I find the tone of the coda to Griffith's piece difficult to reconcile with the idea that he was simply letting Christoforo be Christoforo:

At heart, Christoforo clearly feels that he is more sinned against than sinning – and that he was suckered into taking a swing at Mike Krahulik without understanding the consequences. Personally, I suspect that Krahulik simply did not imagine that, in the context, he would not be immediately recognised.

In either case, it is certainly the case that it was terrible luck to be the person whose Internet argument caught the eye of a superfan. Whether the moral of that is always to behave as if your communications could be shared with an audience of millions, or to play the percentages and hope to avoid this kind of blow-up through sheer probability is probably a matter for the individual conscience.

Griffiths' work suggests he is perfectly capable of an interview that is tough but fair. Indeed, he felt free to challenge me, suggesting that my initial tweet on his column (suggesting he needed a handi-wipe and a breath mint after that interview) employed a homophobic metaphor. For what it's worth, I would have used the same metaphor with a female journalist, thus offending an entirely different segment of the audience: I meant to make the vivid point that the interview struck me as obsequious. But whether I'm a homophobic douchebag like Christoforo is not the point. The point is that through that chide, and through his Twitter correspondence with me, Griffiths was more inquisitive than he was in his interview with Christoforo.

But perhaps such things are a matter of taste. You can read Griffiths' debate with me on his account.

As our readers know, free speech — and various enemies thereof — is one of our very favorite topics here at Popehat. After a year of observing various attempts at censorship, I've decided to seek your input in selecting Popehat's "Censorious Asshat of the Year." (I first considered a more generic "Popehat's Asshat of the Year" contest, but soon realized that the eligible posts comprised roughly half of our work product. There may or may not be medication for that.)

Note that big-scale censors — leaders who killed dissidents, national political figures who pushed big and ominous censorship laws, and the like — aren't eligible. "Asshat Censor" requires a certain element of whimsy, fecklessness, and/or lack of actual power.  Also, I only included people on here if we contributed something to the discussion of their asshattery.

Without further ado, here are the candidates. The poll closes at 5:00 PST Friday:

Dr. Karin Calvo-Goller, for pursuing criminal libel charges in French court over a bad book review. In Aggravation: Forum-shopped to France. In Mitigation: Thanked me for my post.

Karen Spears Zacharias, for promoting muddle-headed hand-wringing about how satire can harm children. In Aggravation: Forced me to write poetry. In Mitigation: More a silly Mrs. Grundy/agony aunt figure than a censor, really.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, for classifying Juggalos as a potentially dangerous gang. In Aggravation: renders assessment of truly dangerous groups properly classified as "gangs" less credible. In Mitigation: as a former federal prosecutor and current federal defense attorney, allow me to assure you that they really, really don't know better. The FBI, I mean. Possibly also the Juggalos.

Tennessee General Assembly Representative Charles Curtiss, for pimping a ridiculous no-mean-pictures cyberbullying bill and then defending it in very, very stupid terms. In Aggravation: he took an oath to uphold the Constitution. In Mitigation: As a state legislator, he is part of an indigenous people with no cultural tradition of the rule of law.

Tennessee State Legislator Joe Armstrong, for pressuring a college bookstore to stop selling novelty mints unflattering to President Obama. In Aggravation: Seriously? Mints? Are you fucking kidding me? In Mitigation: Member of same traditionally oppressed and historically disfavored and probably genetically poorly endowed tribe of state legislators, see above.

Florida Attorney Joel Hirschhorn, for issuing legal threats to critics of his telemarketing client. In Aggravation: criticizes First Amendment defense lawyers for overconfidence while using the web site "www.aquitall.com." In Mitigation: Admits that he knows nothing about First Amendment law and must rely on other lawyers, who are presumably from Florida.

Joseph Rakofsky, for agreeing to defend a murder case as his first trial, doing an appalling job, and then suing critics for defamation. In Aggravation: Sued dozens across the nation for accurate reporting of the contents of a court transcript, sued for "internet mobbing," a tort accepted only by the professionally censorious or the insipidly and self-promotingly contrarian. In Mitigation: increasingly pathetic.

The University of St. Thomas School of Law, for settling with the aforementioned Rakofsky, thus funding his litigation, promoting frivolous defamation litigation, and squandering the heritage of American legal education. In Aggravation: Cowardly capitulation consistent with their touchy-feely let's-reach-consensus approach to legal education, which produces baby seals to be clubbed in the real world. In Mitigation: technically didn't censor anyone themselves; just empowered, promoted, surrendered to, and endorsed censorship.

Froma Harrop, for being part of an organization promoting civility, calling tea partiers terrorists, defending herself by saying that civility means not refraining from such invective but providing everyone with an opportunity to say their piece, and then promptly deleting critical comments on her blog. In Aggravation: No apparent sense of irony or self-awareness. In Mitigation: only censored comments on own blog; went through entire life with a name that sounds like a minor character from the cantina scene in Star Wars.

Sam Houston State Professor Joe E. Kirk, for attacking a free speech wall with a box cutter because one comment on it said "Fuck Obama." In Aggravation: inspired Sam Houston State campus police to threaten the promoters of the free speech wall with disorderly conduct because of the propensity of free speech to cause people like Joe E. Kirk to attack walls with box cutters. In Mitigation: As a university professor, a likely victim of his peer group.

York University student Sarah Grunfeld, for accusing a professor of anti-Semitic comments based on poor listening skills, then doubling down and arguing that the professor should not have uttered hateful words about Jews even in the context of listing them as examples of unacceptable speech, while uttering the same words herself in order to complain. In Aggravation: Also asserted that there was no basis to accept the professor's statement that he himself was Jewish. In Mitigation: too young, stupid, and Canadian to know any better.

Christopher and Maeghan Maloney, for threatening a science blogger with a SLAPP suit for calling Christopher Maloney a "quack" because he promotes naturopathy. In Aggravation: Ms. Maloney, author of the SLAPP threat, wanted an injunction prohibiting all of the blogger's peers from repeating the "quack" statement, and is a state legislator. In Mitigation: The Maloneys were forced to read a ten-page letter from Ken.

Sarah Deming and her lawyer Martin Leaf, for attempting censorship via class action in a lawsuit claiming the movie Drive was actionably anti-Semitic. In Aggravation: "misleading trailer" and "hurtful content" litigation are both forms of censorship. In Mitigation: those Ryan Gosling internet memes are getting really freaking annoying.

Albin H. Gess of Snell & Wilmer, for threatening bloggers who engage in transparent satire of Meghan McCain. In Aggravation: actually smart enough to know that his threats were premised, legally speaking, on sheer bullshit. In Mitigation: forced to work at a giant firm being polite to Meghan McCain.

Thedala Magee and her lawyer Vicki Roberts, for threatening Amy Alkon with a defamation suit because Amy complained when Magee, a TSA agent, went to third base with Amy. In Aggravation: people who threaten Americans with lawsuits for complaining about government sexual assault are vermin. In Mitigation: Mageee has to touch sweaty business travelers all day, Roberts is apparently addled by television appearances and has a wrenchingly sad IMDB page.

University of Wisconsin-Stout Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen, for defending the censorship of obviously satirical and non-threatening posters on a college campus and disrespecting Firefly. In Aggravation: even when he caved, could not resist justifying his clearly unlawful actions. In Mitigation: did eventually, belatedly, do the right thing. Also, Chancellor job market is awful right now, so unable to get other work.

California Assemblywoman and Speaker Pro Tem Fiona Ma, for this deathless quote: "“We found out later on that, Constitutionally, you can not ban a type of music,” said Ma. “Plus, I, like my opponents said, I didn’t really know what was going on.” In Aggravation: she gets to make laws. In Mitigation: only said what they are all, to use the term loosely, "thinking."

Marc Stephens, for posing as a lawyer to threaten a 17-year-old blogger (among others) because they questioned questionable "science." In Aggravation: fond of bizarre conspiracy theories. Marc Stephens would say that if you follow college football, in light of the Penn State scandal you are probably complicit in child sex abuse. In Mitigation: entertained me in the course of threatening me. And who here hasn't wanted to threaten me?

Ken and Patrick, for calling out scrapers and occasionally banning or ridiculing comenters. In Aggravation: V. snarky assholes. In Mitigation: Not technically state action, authors come from broken homes.

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Bad marketing is one of our favorite topics here at Popehat, and one of our favorite precepts about marketing is Eric Turkewitz's "outsource your marketing, outsource your ethics," to which we generally add ". . . and your reputation." Though we generally discuss this concept in the context of bad legal marketing — for instance, legal comment spam — the principle applies to every industry.

Today's example: an truly epic flameout by Ocean Marketing.

Ocean Marketing is apparently responsible for marketing and distributing a ludicrous-looking X-Box 360 controller. A guy named Paul Christoforo is apparently the head of Ocean Marketing. On his LinkedIn profile, Paul has this to say about his company:

Our professional, highly skilled staff has the knowledge and expertise to help your business increase exposure on major search engines and portals.

Paul's right about the "increased exposure" part, though perhaps not in the way that his customers anticipate. John Biggs at TechCrunch has the story. In brief, when a customer complained about this controller not shipping by Christmas, and suggested he would complain to various tech sites, Paul Christoforo reacted with a bizarre rant, including the following:

You just got told bitch … welcome to the real internet check kotaku in 2 weeks when they are reviewing free PS3 Avengers we send them as well as G4 and all the other majors hell yeah , don’t forget to check Amazon, gamestop.com, play n trade , Myers , Frys and a ton of other local stores coming your way you think you speak for billions son your just a kid you speak for yourself no one cares what you think that’s why were growing and moving 20-50 thousand controllers a month. We do value our customers but sometimes we get children like you we just have to put you in the corner with your im stupid hat on.

When the customer included Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade (one of the most prominent figures in gaming culture) in the thread, Paul Christoforo doubled down, insulting Mike in a rather deranged fashion:

OK Mike whatever you say lol , are you sure hour not in Boston I spoke to the person who ran the show in Boston last year. If you let some little kid influence you over a pre order then we don’t want to be a your show ,Ill be on the floor anyway so come find me , I’m born and raised in Boston I know the people who run the city inside and out watch the way you talk to people you never know who they know it’s a small industry and everyone knows everyone. Your acting like a douchbag not that it matters pax east pax west , e3 , CES , Gamer Con , SSXW ,Comic Con, Germany I’m all over the place.

Penny Arcade posted the exchange, and it has gone viral, appearing at Kotaku and all over the place. Paul Christoforo had already doubled down, so I guess you could say what came next was quadrupling down: when someone at IGN demanded that he stop citing them for support, he lashed out and suggested that he expected good reviews because he had sent free copies of the controller to them:

In short, Christoforo showed he had learned nothing from BrandLink's skirmish with The Bloggess.

Penny Arcade's story has been slammed all day. It's gone live on Reddit. It's all over the place on Twitter, where Christoforo maintains an account called @oceanmarketting [sic]. The result is not merely extraordinarily bad publicity to Ocean Marketing and its client over this incident, but widespread inquiries into past incidents — like a prior incident of Christoforo acting like a douchebag towards a customer, and inquisitors determining that Ocean Marketing, supposed SEO and web experts, are using a template for their site (and an ass-ugly one, I might add).

There are no lessons here for the Paul Christoforos of the world. Paul Christoforo and his ilk are uneducable. However, if you run a business, there is a lesson for you: when you outsource your marketing, you hand your reputation and ethics over to someone who may or may not be just like Paul Christoforo. Now, not every marketeer is like Paul. But can you tell the difference up front? Do you know how to supervise your outside marketeer? When you wake up one morning after the Christmas holiday and find your company or product in the center of an internet shitstorm caused by your deranged marketeer, do you have a strategy for repairing your reputation?

Remember: outsource your marketing, outsource your reputation and ethics.

Edit: Possible plagiarism, too! What a shocker!

Edit 2: Looks like Paul closed the @oceanmarketting account and someone else snatched it up.

Edit 3: One source reports a conversation with Paul, in which he suggests this is no big deal and will all blow over, after which he offers an apology to the customer. It's likely to be too little too late — also, I'd point out that Paul's claim that he doesn't normally get into these communications with customers, and this was a one-time loss of temper, is contradicted by the earlier incident discussed above.

Edit 4: An apology to Penny Arcade. Sort of. "I didn't know how big your site was" is saying, in effect, "I now regret I picked on someone with power, instead of just the weak."

Edit 5: Caught on tape!

Note my update about his "apologies," and comment on "internet justice."

Could that be the predecessor to Weyland-Yutani, the evil corporation to end all evil corporations?

Either way, it's Ridley Scott with a heaping dose of gothic horror and science fiction. Until Guillermo Del Toro gets to make "At The Mountains Of Madness", this will do nicely.

Direct link.

(Previously: here, here, and here..)

Dear Iowa Democrat, have I got a proposition for you:

As you probably know, Ron Paul is currently leading the polls for the Republican caucus in your fair state.  Now we at Popehat are not especial fans of Ron Paul.  We've written more about the many flaws of Paul more than those of any other politician.  But I at least am compelled to criticize Paul because he's about as close to what I want from an elected representative as anything I'm likely to get in this life: consistently against government, and consistently for individual freedom.  I'm compelled to criticize Paul because I think he can do better.

In the next two weeks, the Republican establishment is going to join the fuckers at Wonkette, and for that matter Rush Limbaugh and NPR, in portraying Paul as some weird hybrid of Klansman and Trotskyite, for the ostensible reason that he said something pretty awful twenty years ago (but nothing worse than I've said in private conversation myself).

Did I mention that one of the things I like about Ron Paul is that he says awful things?  That and the blimp.

But the awful (and it was awful, and Paul should be ashamed and address it rather than pulling off the mike) thing Paul said isn't nearly as awful as what well-spoken politicians, who'd never say awful things, do to this country every day behind closed doors: selling out the middle class to Goldman Sachs, General Electric, the Service Employees International Union, and the prison-industrial complex.

It's also awful, I'll add, to say that the Emperor has no clothes, or that there is a man behind that curtain, and that we should pay attention to him.

So anyway, you're a Democrat.  I was once a Democrat, but I've gotten over it.  Now I'm an Independent, because I can't register as a Libertarian in North Carolina.  You love your government, and I fear it.

But I can vote in an election that matters to you.

Here's the deal: If you'll re-register as a Republican next week, and vote for Ron Paul in the Iowa caucus, I promise that I'll drag my ass out of the office on May 8, and vote against North Carolina's proposed constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage.  The Republican race will be decided by then, and I'll have no other reason to vote unless I care who wins the non-partisan primary for my county's Water and Sewer Commissioner.  I promise that I'll schedule no trials, depositions, or other work that would prevent me from voting against that amendment on May 8, if you'll brave the cold and vote for Paul at the Iowa caucus.

Mind you, North Carolina is a weird state.  We're the only southern state that hasn't amended its constitution on same sex marriage yet,  we were the last southern state to sign on to the federal constitution, and we had more deaths on both sides of the Civil War than any other southern state. We're weird, we're independent, and my vote may count.

You probably imagine Paul as your dream Republican candidate, the candidate Obama's most likely to beat so he can continue ruining this country for another four years anyway…

So you have nothing to lose.

Cleaning off the office desk and doing small make-everything-stay-calm-until-next week tasks this morning, and listening to a superlative version of Handel's Messiah on my iPad speaker set. It's the McCreesh version, justifiably highly recommended by the Penguin Guide.

(Is there anything better than having some iTunes gift cards and paging through the Penguin Guide, choosing the optimal versions of stuff you want to add to your collection, appropriate beverage in hand? Perhaps. Or perhaps not.)

But challenges remain in listening in the presence of people who are not well versed in oratorios. Just as it is prudent, for maintaining good reputation, to ensure that passers-by hear the entire verse beginning in "All We Like Sheep," it is also sometimes necessary to explain to confused listeners that He gave His Back to the smiters, not to spiders. Nor, for that matter, did He give His back to the spiters, though I think technically the smiters were also spiters, and probably also spitters.

Best wishes to all. See you next week.

Hiya, friends.

I'm trying to find some modest-scale pro bono legal help for a blogger. No, it's not me. And though, as you know, I've done pro bono First Amendment cases, I can't handle this one.

The issue is whether a plaintiff in a SLAPP suit against another party in Montgomery County, Maryland can convince a court to force Google to reveal the blogger's identity. The blogger will write the papers; he's just looking for someone to review them, advise on compliance with Maryland civil procedure and strategy, and make an appearance at the hearing (if there is one) in Montgomery County to argue the motion. The blogger can cover costs, but can't afford fees.

The cause, in my opinion, is just; the issue presented is blogger anonymity, and the underlying suit against the third party is a contemptible SLAPP. Moreover, the plaintiff has a rather remarkable history of evil.

If you can help — or know someone who can — please let me know. Time is rather of the essence.

Thank you.

Back in September, I wrote about how writer Amy Alkon was — in her view, and mine — sexually assaulted by a TSA agent and then threatened with a defamation suit for writing about the incident.

Amy wrote an opinion piece about the experience, and since September, has been trying to get it published in the American media. Now, it's a big deal for me to get published, but Amy's been published in all sorts of mainstream, widely-read publications, including as a syndicated columnist. It's no big deal for her. Yet, no matter how far and wide she shopped the column, she found that the American media — including outlets that had published her before — were not interested in her description of a TSA agent groping Amy's privates and then threatening to sue when she complained.

Amy has finally found a media outlet willing to run her story.

It's Pravda. Yes, that Pravda. You can read Amy's post about it here, and read the Pravda English language version here.

Now, choosing which stories to publish is an art, not a science. Perhaps the American media outlets didn't care for Amy's writing — even though they had published her many times before. Perhaps the story didn't grab them, perhaps they had no room that month, perhaps they were emphasizing other crucial stories like the tragic Kardashian divorce.

Perhaps.

But, as I argued a year ago, though the media has reported on passenger accounts of TSA abuse, when it comes to editorial comment, the media has generally acted as the TSA's dutiful fluffers, compliantly parroting the line that good citizens must endure this for their safety.

Call me a cynic. But I think that might have had something to do with it.

Now, did Pravda publish Amy's story because it still delights in illuminating America's shame? Perhaps. But Russians also know bureaucratic thuggery when they see it.

You can find all of our TSA coverage here.

Have you seen the movie "84 Charring Cross Road"? You know, the slow-paced but touching story of how a book-lover played by Anne Bancroft and a bookseller played by Anthony Hopkins develop a meaningful and thoughtful relationship in the course of cross-Atlantic correspondence over the course of decades, illuminating the nature of friendship, the possibilities of written communications, and the power of shared love for great things?

Yeah, my relationship with Marc Stephens is exactly unlike that.

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The communists believed in the creation of a New Soviet Man: a strain of human beings who would be altered memetically, not genetically (remember: Lysenko proved that genes don't control the phenotype of descendants – social conditioning of their ancestors does!) to be more docile slaves of the state: hard working, uncomplaining, willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the party leadership The People &tm;.

(The digression where we talk about a socialist government funding, teaching and enforcing ideological conformity to a fictional theory that – wait for it! – gives government greater power over people is a fun one, but I don't really have the time to talk about AGW right now. [ ed: "oh, snap!" ])

Human nature is pretty darned fixed. People are the same around the world.

…which is not to say that beliefs and societies are the same around the world. They're not.

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