re: GREAT ARTICLE!
From: oconnorj70@gmail.com

Hi!

I stumbled across your blog and noticed the great content you write. Over the last few months I've been researching and writing about (hearing loss, healthy lifestyles, aging, etc) and decided to begin blogging about it. With hunting season right around the corner I thought it would be a great time to highlight and focus on how you can protect your hearing and prevent hearing loss while hunting. I am very passionate about these issues, and since October was National Audiology Awareness Month and National Protect Your Hearing Month, I feel that it is important to continue to spread awareness. I'm wondering if you ever accept guest posts on those topics? If so, I would be happy to send you an article to review. Please let me know what you think, thanks!

Best,
John

John:

We might well be interested. My question is whether you can tailor your article to discuss protecting your hearing not just during ANY hunting, but when hunting the most terrifying and dangerous game of all.

Please advise.

Ken
www.popehat.com

I've been out of sorts of late, riven with the suburban fin de siècle, plagued with ennui, angst, weltschmertz. You know — moping.

There's only so many free speech cases I can write about in a week. Nobody pony-worthy is writing to me. I'm waiting for a couple of shoes to drop on the UST Development fraud investigation.

If only there were a nice juicy scam out there to chase . . .

Marc Randazza to the rescue!

Continue Reading »

From: anthony@outsourcedcontenttoday.com
To: ken@popehat.com

Re: Pope Hat Contact

Hi,

I have a client who is interested in purchasing an advertisement on your website, popehat.

Please let me know if you accept advertising.

Thanks in advance.
Anthony.

If you do not wish to receive any further communication from our company, please respond with "NOT INTERESTED" in the subject line.

Anthony:

Your email came in a time of desperate need. It's last stand time here. David is gone. Grandy is missing. Patrick is posting — well, best not to characterize it. Only I am l left.

We need funds to continue the defense, or Popehat will fall . . . to them.

What type of advertisements are you offering? What kind of remuneration might we expect?

The forces arrayed against us . . . I've said too much.

Please respond.

Desperately,

Ken
www.popehat.com

Hi Ken,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly – great site by the way!

I am seeking to place a single text link on your site for my client. I have been given a flat budget of $75.00 per year to place the link on your site.

Please let me know your thoughts on this when you have a moment or two.

Also, I am available via Skype, so if you have a Skype account please provide me with your username if you prefer to communicate in that manner.

Have a wonderful day :)

Best,
Anthony.

Too late. Too late.

Popehat pony, sans text, courtesy of Arthur.

Hello ,

My name is Ema and I am an Advertising Buyer for TravelOutreacher.net. I am contacting you on behalf of a client I work with in the travel industry. I’d like to inquire about a possible advertising opportunity on your site http://popehat.com.

Does your site offer advertising options? If so, would you be interested in discussing rates and availability?

Sincerely,

Ema Lastname

[email address]

P.S. If you’re not the appropriate contact for this inquiry, could you please redirect me to a colleague whom I may speak to regarding this request?

My dear Ema,

Thank you very much for your inquiry. As a matter of fact, we at Popehat have recently turned our thoughts again to accepting advertising. We have been trying the Amazon Associates Program, but have discovered that the results are less robust than we hoped. This may be that the forms of entertainment our readers prefer are not available on Amazon as a consequence of being felonious in most of these continental United States. Do you know if Amazon has an associate program in Somalia?

So: we are delighted at the prospect of accepting travel-related ads, and look forward to a long and fruitful relationship.

But I regret that I must add a caveat.

Ema, Popehat initially began soliciting ponies as payment for site-based advertising. This led to some rather harrowing realizations about ponies, realizations that prolonged and rather arcane study has only confirmed.

We are just men here, Ema. We do not pretend to be better than anyone else. But no man is an island. We exist in a community, a community that includes — to the extent certain laws and residency restrictions permit — our readers.

As members of that community, we cannot in good conscience accept travel advertising that might tempt our readers to imperil themselves vis-a-vis ponies.

Map Key: 1 pony = EXTREME VIOLENCE

There are still havens, Ema, new Edens and bucolic locales untroubled by ponies, where a man can walk down a country lane without fear. But the other places — the other places — this is difficult, but I must. The other places belong to the ponies now. I could not live with myself if some innocent visited Popehat and followed one of your advertisements and went to some wretched pony-infested place like, for instance, Tampa. They might come back, Ema, but they would come back something else, something Other.

Therefore, we must insist that any advertising arrangement between us include guarantees and stipulations and provisos that you will only serve our customers with advertisements regarding travel to locations that score lower than 3 on the LUUUPV (Level of Unjustified Uncontrollable Unacceptable Pony Violence) Index.

The level above severe is called "paddock."

Make no mistake — a man can come a cropper visiting a 2.5 if he hasn't his wits about him. We don't approve of readers abdicating all personal responsibility. But a hot zone like a 4 or a 5? I can't look my children in the eye if I let that happen, Ema, not even my child who only has one eye to begin with.

Let me know if you need help navigating any of the more reputable LUUUPV rating sites, Ema. I know that some can be somewhat eccentric.

I eagerly await your response.

Very truly yours,

Ken

P.S. Sorry, just saw your P.S. Never mind, ask Patrick.

Charts by the awesome @StephanieWDC, digital miscreant and creator of www.stephaniewdc.com

Not everyone can take the preposterous and examine it through the lens of the practical. Doing so for comic effect is the The Onion's gig, but those guys are old pros. Larry Niven did it for both comic and scientific effect in "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex", but most of us aren't Larry Niven. (Geek-life brag: I once talked to Larry Niven about that column at a concert of Star Wars music.) Too often the "what would happen if [extraordinary character] encountered [mundane circumstance]" shtick falls flat, like a Usenet flame war or a tiresome Saturday Night Live skit.

That's why it's impressive that attorneys James Daily and Ryan Davidson have pulled it off so flawlessly in the educational and fun "The Law of Superheroes." Their publisher sent Popehat an advance copy.

The book introduced me to the authors' blog Law and the Multiverse, which I shall now follow. The book concerns the same subject: how would the law treat the sorts of things that happens in the comics?

Is Batman a state actor? Does the newest Robin inherit the old Robin's assets or liabilities? For that matter, is Robin liable when Batman goes nuts and kills someone? How, exactly, can you expect to testify wearing a cowl? Are mind-readings admissible? All those buildings that get knocked down — who pays for them? Should the Avengers have a charter with an arbitration clause, and will it be enforceable if they do? What's better, tax-wise, for the Fantastic Four — a corporation or an LLC? And everybody in every Alan Moore comic should be in jail, right?

Those are the sorts of subjects Daily and Davidson tackle. They apply constitutional, criminal, and civil law issues to comic book heroes and villains, from the familiar to the (to me) obscure.

There are so many ways they could have handled this wrong. They could have been too serious about comics and not serious enough about the law, or vice-versa. They could have written the book in to much detail, like a law review article, or too little, like a comic book. They could have assumed too much of their readers' legal acumen, or too little. Instead, they did it just right. "The Law of Superheroes" is both entertaining and informative. People who aren't lawyers or law-geeks will learn something about the law, and lawyers and law-geeks will be thoroughly entertained at the application of familiar principles to comic extravaganzas. (This means, of course, that I disagreed with some of their legal analysis, and thought about how I would have explained it better. The book would have been intolerable had that not been the case.)

I gripe a lot here that the media does a terrible job at explaining the law to the American public. "The Law of Superheroes" shows that it can be done clearly and directly and effectively, even if you are talking about people in tights who have mood issues and talk funny. It's an enjoyable read; I suspect I'll return to it. Recommended.

As a follow-up to this post, apparently Nutjob the Pastetaster is still fulminating about not being allowed to allowed to vomit all his crazy onto my living room carpet:

Justthisguy said…

Non-kin adoptions can be kinda risky. I tried to point this out to Shithat, or Popehead, or whatever he calls himself, with examples on both sides of the question, but he changed all of my thoughtful helpful innocuous comments to "I eat paste."

He made a mortal enemy of me by doing that.

However, what can one expect of a guy who's a lawyer, which means he's an asshole, and who is also a californian, which means his brain doesn't work right?

7:22 AM, October 03, 2012

First of all, my brain didn't work right when I lived in other states, and even in other countries, so YOUR LOGIC IS FAIL. Second, I was an asshole long before I was a lawyer, SO DITTO.

Third: did I miss the day they were handing out online arch-enemies and get a bunch by default? Because honestly, I drew the biggest pack of sad-sack losers you can imagine. Really. Ignatius Reilly is shaking his head in disbelief.

Hi Ken,

I am a contributing writer to a website dedicated to authoritative discussion on education. I recently came across your blog post http://www.popehat.com/2011/12/01/confining-american-education-a-stem-cell/ and it got me thinking about the state of educational policy today, specifically in the United States — I would love to submit an article to your blog. As I'm sure you know, tuition costs continue to rise, yet few policymakers have done anything to actually assess whether or not this ascension corresponds to a similar rise of educational quality.

Today many students are graduating with advanced degrees and are taking on jobs that don't require such a level education, if only because the job market is stagnant. I would love to expound upon this idea and examine whether or not there needs to be policy changes that help the students who go to college and — eventually — who will shape the future of the nation.

Several universities, among them the University of Wyoming, have referenced our Internet resource as a learning portal for students. Please let me know if you'd be interested in an article, it would be great to hear from you!

Best,
Valerie Harris

Hi Ken,

I wanted to follow up with you and make sure you had received my email I sent a little bit ago regarding my blog post idea.

Let me know your thoughts, I would love to work with you. Do not hesitate to get back to me with any questions!

Best regards,
Valerie Harris

Dear Ms. Harris,

I had missed your email before; thank you for reminding me about it. I take it from a little Google research that you are affiliated with http://www.mastersdegreeonline.org/, a site devoted not only to rigorously substantive discussion of complex educational topics, but also to fearless explorations of the possibilities of nonstandard sentence structure.

At Popehat, our approach to guests posts is a work in progress. We require recompense for publishing guest posts. However, we have been forced to abandon our pony-based pricing system as a result of both practical and philosophical concerns. We are, however, still committed to a barter approach, especially as the campaign season draws to a climax and Patrick's views regarding the global financial system grow increasingly unconventional. We would propose to barter our respective goods with you: we provide a platform, and you provide education. Specifically:

1. In exchange for allowing you one full guest-post, we will require a half-day seminar regarding the mitigation of pony-related physical and psychological injuries, with an emphasis on pony-driven psychosis (or "ponychosis," as we have begun to call it after the recent regrettable mall food court incident involving Clark). Also hoofings.

2. If there are any misspellings or grammatical errors in the guest post, we will require liquidated damages in the form of suitable refreshments at the seminar. You may think, Ms. Harris, that it will be amusing to provide novelty pony-shaped cookies, but let me assure you very sincerely that it will not be.

3. For every additional guest post you wish to submit, we will require you to provide David with an opportunity to make an art-history-related presentation of not less than three hundred thousand (300,000) words.

4. We'll need honorary degrees of some kind. Surprise us.

Trusting that these terms will be acceptable, I remain very truly yours,

Ken
www.popehat.com

It's been a while since we've done this. Time to do it again.

Have you written a blog post at your blog you're particularly proud of? Have you launched a new web site? Did you start some sort of new online project or Kickstarter?

Promote yourself freely in this thread.

This series is about my independent investigation of a local mail fraud ring, its methods, the history of its practitioners, and the methods I've used to investigate it. This happened because the fraud ring tried to scam my firm on an already trying day, thus mildly annoying me. Contemplate that, and conduct yourself accordingly hereabouts. You can find the chapter index here.

It's been four months since I wrote about U.S. Telecom aka UST and its principals, including David Bell. Slowly but surely, various states are waking up to their mail fraud scheme. And the feds? No comment.

Yesterday wasn't a good day for the UST team. The Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection announced that UST/U.S. Telecom consented to an order against it prohibiting it from doing any business in Connecticut and requiring it to refund money obtained from victims in Connecticut, including several government entities. (You may remember from earlier chapters that UST started to target government entities, probably to take advantage of lax controls on accounts payable.) The Connecticut media has picked it up. I've obtained a copy of the complaint and consent order here. Note that the attached sample invoice is typical of the past ones we've discussed. UST did not admit wrongdoing, but consented to the order. Connecticut now joins North Dakota and New York in ordering the UST team to cease and desist their scheme.

Even though they were represented by an attorney in the Connecticut proceeding, and even though they've now been ordered to cease and desist in three states, UST has not stopped doing that thing it does. It's just changed the pitch a little bit. Tipsters continue to send me sample solicitations received from UST. Here are two recent examples. As you can see, UST has altered the fake invoice minimally but has kept the general format and the "please remit" and the "net 30 days" language which, as the Connecticut complaint points out, are calculated to deceive. UST now attaches a sheet of badly drafted boilerplate terms and conditions to the solicitations; you can see it in both examples. It doesn't detract from the overall deceptive nature of the solicitation. As I said in the first chapter of this series, solicitations designed to look like bills are prohibited by federal law, which requires multiple specific elements that UST has been ignoring for more than a year now:

(d) Matter otherwise legally acceptable in the mails which—
(1) is in the form of, and reasonably could be interpreted or construed as, a bill, invoice, or statement of account due; but
(2) constitutes, in fact, a solicitation for the order by the addressee of goods or services, or both;
is nonmailable matter, shall not be carried or delivered by mail, and shall be disposed of as the Postal Service directs, unless such matter bears on its face, in conspicuous and legible type in contrast by typography, layout, or color with other printing on its face, in accordance with regulations which the Postal Service shall prescribe—
(A) the following notice: “This is a solicitation for the order of goods or services, or both, and not a bill, invoice, or statement of account due. You are under no obligation to make any payments on account of this offer unless you accept this offer.”; or
(B) in lieu thereof, a notice to the same effect in words which the Postal Service may prescribe.

UST's team knows that's the law, because they've been following this series, and because the Better Business Bureau wrote them and told them. The fact that they've failed to comply for more than a year is overwhelming evidence of fraudulent intent. UST's planned defense is, apparently, "we aren't sending fake bills, we're asking people to buy preventative maintenance warranties." Logical problems with that, and with the solicitation, aside (what kind of solicitation has no information about the company or their services to convince you to buy?), let me say this: I've gotten dozens of tips over the last year about UST, and I've never heard from a single person who received services from them.

Meanwhile, David Bell has a pretrial hearing in his criminal case on September 21, 2012. I'll keep you up to date.

U. R., M. + M. O. T. + St. J. J, P., R. + M

V I A A N G U S

Photo by Studio Valette, http://studiovalette.com

A Kickstarter quest! Back in 2010, with help from her many fans, the charmingly geeky Alaskan songstress Marian Call managed to pull off a tour of all 50 states and a dash of Canada. In the wake of her album Something Fierce, Marian is now aiming to play Europe.

She has the music. She has the armor and weaponry. She has the kickstarter video (see below).  She has the adorably dorky Adventure Quest game by means of which the supporters of her kickstarter may unlock cities across Europe (i.e., bring her to them to play). She has a FAQ. She even has the publicly accessible thumbnail budget, whereby she establishes herself as the most open administration in history.

All she needs is support! The initial kickstarter amount takes her, and her guitarist, to England and Wales. Resources above that level unlock other countries, as shown on the game's map. Especially if you're a Popehat reader in Europe and a fan of Marian's work, please follow the links and see whether you'd like to play her game:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mariancall/marian-call-european-adventure-quest (The kickstarter)

http://www.mariancalladventurequest.com/ (The game, rulebook, loot inventory, and adventuring opportunities)

Longtime readers of Popehat may recall my coverage of Marian's music– especially her lyrics– here (shallow) and here (deep).  I'll be supporting her quest, even though it means sending her far, far away to gives shows I won't attend. If you like her way of making, funding, spreading, and sharing art, then I invite you to join me!

Click to envidify!

Hi Ken,

I was just reading through your blog and thought it was very helpful. I was wondering if you would allow a guest post?

I was considering a topic related to the legal trouble you can get into if you don't have the proper auto insurance.

Is this something you would consider?

I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!

Kelly Blogger (kellyblggr29@gmail.com)

Dear Kelly:

Thank you for your inquiry.

Actually, we've already had guest bloggers covering the need for auto insurance. If we repeat similar topics too often, our readers get unruly, and may start either posting unpleasant pictures in the comments, or else abandoning us entirely for sites that cater to their most base and contemptible desires, like Huffington Post.

There is a related topic you could cover, however: the legal trouble you can get into if you don't have proper pony insurance.

Ponies are cute and frolicsome and endearing, Kelly — at least on the surface. But ponies are also deadly. A pony can take away everything you've got and everything you're ever going to have. You won't know it to look at them — unless you look close, in the eye. A pony's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes.

So you can just imagine our concerns about liability, legal and moral, arising from the stable of ponies we've accumulated as payment for advertising and guest-posting. Why, my co-blogger Clark went into that stable just the other day. There was a sound — a harsh and terrible keening, Kelly, a sound like I have never heard before and pray to God I shall never hear again — and Clark came out a different man entirely. He was a changed man — and not even in a good way. He seemed a man emptied of all that was good and hopeful and filled up with something else, something dark and other, and now he sits in the corner in the shadow rocking and muttering softly in some language that not even David can pretend to recognize.

Apparently that sort of thing is not covered by our current pony insurance policy. So you can see my dilemma.

I look forward to your guest post about the hazards of uninsured pony-related activities. Please don't use us as a cautionary tale: it's still too painful.

Very truly yours,

Ken

P.S. No Brony stuff.

If you don't follow Tam at View from the Porch — aka Books Bikes Boomsticks — you are missing out. Tam's funny, whimsical, and a reliable reporter of infuriating Nanny-statism.

Tam also has a knack for a one-liner. Recently a commenter at the site objected to Tam linking and discussing a post here. The commenter apparently has a low opinion of me as a consequence of this post and my moderation of its comments; in response to a post about rude and socially maladjusted things people say to adoptive parents, commenter "justthisguy" saw fit to start articulating odd, off-key and frankly disturbing theories about non-kin adoptive parents being potential abusers. Inasmuch as this is my living room, I grew tired and somewhat creeped out by him, adjudged him a troll or a nutter, and moderated him as I saw fit.

Over at Tam's, this exchange ensued:

justthisguy: Tam, why do you continue to link to Shithat, or Popehead, or Ken, or whatever he calls himself? That creature seems to have no class and no honesty, which figures, seeing that he is both a californian and a lawyer.

I recall making a thoughtful, honest, polite comment on his blog, and seeing him delete what I wrote, replacing what I wrote with the words, "I eat paste."

I believe my comment was about the in-advisability of non-kin adoptions, in general. I do wish his non-kin adopted kids well, and hope that he will refrain from abusing them, seeing that stepfathers and adoptive fathers are statistically more likely to abuse their kids than are natural fathers.

Tam: How did it taste?

Boom, as they say.

By the way, I can't help but notice that bizarre accusations of sexual abuse of minors are a recurring theme that the mentally ill use to attack bloggers.

Hi Ken,

I'm getting in touch with you because I'm interested in writing an article for your blog. I came across your blog post popehat.com while writing for a website on music production. During my research, I've found an increasing focus in terms of design as the tools and technology available today improve our ability to customize how create music and collaborate as musicians

Please let me know if you'd be interested in an article this topic. Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best,

Sarah (sarahjthompson5@gmail.com)

Dear Sarah,

I am very interested in music production, and the tools and technology involved in music production.

More specifically, I am interested in the music of the spheres. Would you be able to write a post on the increasing focus in terms of design vis a vis sphere-related music?

I cannot sufficiently emphasize the importance of this request. A previous correspondent offered to write an article about the production of the music of the spheres, but ultimately delivered an article about playing rhombus music. A rhombus isn't even three-dimensional, Sarah. The article was so bad I had to run it on a weekend.

I await with eagerness your proposal.

Very truly yours,

Ken
www.popehat.com

P.S. Hypercube-related music is also acceptable. But you'll have to dumb it down a bit. My readers . . . well, enough said.

Note: Sarah is a spammer with a wide array of interests.

Previous fun with spammers here and here.

So I got some comment spam from a Canadian law firm. It was typically incoherent but unusually open about pimping the firm in question.

Rather than write about them immediately in an uncomplimentary way, I decided to write them and ask for a comment.

Gentlemen:

I write regarding comment spam apparently directed by your firm.

I am a lawyer and blogger in Los Angeles. Like other lawbloggers in my circle, one of my favored topics is bad marketing by lawyers. One example of bad marketing is comment spam: the use of computer programs to send thousands of irrelevant and often incoherent spam comments onto blogs across the internet in an attempt to promote a website.

I recently received comment spam promoting your firm at my site. The comment said: [deleted out of misplaced sense of mercy so you won't Google it.] Yes, it was like that in the original.

Would you like to make any comment before I write about this, as I have written about other comment spammers? (See, e.g., http://www.popehat.com/2011/10/10/too-seldom-is-the-question-asked-who-are-be-defensing-our-criminals/)

In particular, I would like a comment on (1) whether anyone with [Canuk, Snowy & Censorious LLP] authorized this comment spam campaign, and (2) if not, the identity of the marketing firm that conducted it on your behalf.

Thanks,

Etc.

Shortly I got a reply.

Hello Mr. White;
I thank you very much for your considerate feedback.
Yes we had been using someone to do some website promotion
for us. Although they assured us that they were not automating
anything, this is the second complaint we have received and
will proceed to terminate their services.

I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience to you and your
reputable firm.

Warmest regards,
Etc.

Why, I do believe that fellow had a tone.

Anyway, remember: outsource your marketing, outsource your reputation and ethics.