When you come right down to it, State Senator Ralph Shortey of Oklahoma is articulating the core value of politicians everywhere: this is America, dammit, and a complete lack of evidence or logic should be no barrier to passing legislation banning or regulating something.

In Senator Shortey's case, the thing in question is the grim prospect of corporations serving us human fetuses to eat as food, or in novelty items like ring-pops. Concluding that this is a real threat that Americans face, Shortey has introduced Oklahoma Senate Bill 1418:

No person or entity shall manufacture or knowingly sell food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.
SECTION 2. This act shall become effective November 1, 2012.

Shortey delayed the bill's effective date until November because, though serving fetuses to unsuspecting consumers is a real and palpable threat, banning it isn't something you want to just rush into.

What caused Shortey to conclude that there was a need for a don't-serve-us-fetuses-you-big-bad-corporations law? He read it someplace. I'll give you one guess as to where.

Freshman Sen. Ralph Shortey said his own Internet research led him to believe such a ban is necessary and prompted him to offer the bill aimed at raising "public awareness" and giving an "ultimatum to companies" that might consider such a policy.

Shortey said he discovered suggestions online that some companies use embryonic stem cells to develop artificial flavors, but added that he is unaware of any Oklahoma companies doing such research.

America needs leaders like Shortey — leaders willing to scour the internet for any hints of threats from fetus-peddling corporations or possibly Lizard People. Who else is going to protect us? Our so-called regulators?

In an e-mail to The Associated Press, U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Pat El-Hinnawy said: "FDA is not aware of this particular concern."

Of course the FDA is not aware of this concern. The FDA hasn't read nearly enough Geocities pages.

Some might see Senator Shortey's actions as bizarre, unbalanced, or indicative of poorly chosen priorities. I prefer to see them as noble. Why? Well, if Ralph Shortey is legislating against things that don't exist, he's not micromanaging real-world industries or regulating to help rent-seeking donors or passing stupid anti-bullying laws or otherwise interfering with the affairs of real humans that others can see and hear. Let's encourage more state legislators to be like Ralph Shortey. Let's tell them to spend more of their time legislating against the horrors of jenkem and bonsai kittens and the like. It keeps them busy.

Via Consumerist, courtesy of Amy Alkon.

Could one of our readers — perhaps someone from the great state of Florida, from whence this regulatory situation hails — point me to some context or explanation that makes this less ridiculous than it seems?

Because it looks ppretty freaking ridiculous.

(Click to embiggen)

Remember: the regulatory state is its own justification and its own constituent.

Hat tip to reader Dustin.

Yesterday I was looking at our traffic on Woopra and noticed a huge surge of searches for Ashton Lundeby. Who, you may ask? You know, Ashton Lundeby, the kid who was arrested for interstate telephone threats and became the subject of an internet propaganda campaign suggesting that he was being detained without charges under the PATRIOT ACT, possibly in a FEMA dungeon someplace. They Greys may or may not have been involved.

In fact, Lundeby was not detained secretly under the PATRIOT Act; that was propaganda sourced to his mother. Rather, he was arrested and charged as a juvenile under pre-9/11 statutes, indicted and prosecuted as an adult once the relevant U.S. Attorney's Office secured a court order allowing them to do so under preexisting law governing federal juvenile defendants, and later entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to 22 months time served. His mother later admitted she had made the PATRIOT ACT stuff up.

So why are people Googling him again?

Well, probably because another set of folks whose political agenda is served by the OMG BLACK HELICOPTERS routine — this time various folks who identify with the Occupy movement — have been pushing, uncritically and without even minimal due diligence, the bogus Lundeby-as-PATRIOT-ACT-victim story, two years after it was conclusively refuted, and even though the most minimal search reveals many sources showing it isn't true.

Now, you might criticize the Lundeby prosecution if you don't like seeing juvies prosecuted as adults, though quite frankly I think that as someone who staged multi-state bomb hoaxes he got off quite lightly. But making this about some sort of PATRIOT ACT abuse is willfully ignorant sloganeering. We criticize post-9/11 excesses and government abuse here all the time at Popehat, but we've also argued for years that badly-researched and credulous stories about government abuse are counter-productive and do not help the cause of vigilance against government excess.

Have I ever posted a story without doing my due diligence, or fallen for an exciting-sounding hook, or been credulous? Of course I have. But I am a blogger, and that gives me an unassailable right to pontificate about other people doing it without removing the mote from mine own eye. And therefore:

Proving that every dollar you send to the federal government is a fucking joke, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Gang Intelligence Center devotes four pages of its annual report to the gang known as…

Juggalos.

Millage. Millage. Dude.

I know it's been 17 years since I've been to Boston. But Boston is the biggest college town in the country. It's simply infested with college students. I can't think that its basic nature has changed much in 17 years.

You allegedly came up with a cunning plan to import marijuana into Boston. Now, I have no problem with that in principle. The War on Drugs is a ruinous and expensive failure. Half of America favors legalization. I have no moral or ethical or sociopolitical quarrel with your enterprise.

But . . . dude. Your plan was to drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco to buy marijuana, drive back from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and then bribe a TSA agent to help you smuggle the marijuana — over multiple plane flights — via American Airlines to Boston?

Dude.

Let me just mention a few things:

1. If you're in Los Angeles, you don't have to drive to San Francisco to buy marijuana.

2. Your plan involves trusting in the competence and reliability of a crooked TSA agent? Really?

3. Your business plan is to use post-9/11 commercial aviation to import marijuana in your luggage across the entire country into the nation's biggest college town? You know the nation's biggest college town already has some marijuana, right?

Honestly, sometimes the cops must feel like they're clubbing baby seals.

Sarah Deming, of Oakland County Michigan, did not enjoy Ryan Gosling's new movie, Drive.  Led on by a trailer that promised a light-hearted romp similar to the works of Vin Diesel, Deming instead got a film which "contained extreme, gratuitous, dehumanising racism directed at members of the Jewish faith, and thereby promoted criminal violence against members of the Jewish faith."

I was similarly distressed by the trailer for The Phantom Menace, which promised me a Star Wars movie.  Although I am not Jewish, it is not an exaggeration to say that after two hours of The Phantom Menace, I felt like an Auschwitz survivor, and I hated George Lucas as much as anyone ever hated Hitler.  Still, I have not sued over the experience.  Maybe one day, when I've recovered from the trauma.

So let me be the first to congratulate Sarah Deming for having the strength to vindicate her rights, and the rights of all Jewish people, against the makers of Drive.  Ms. Deming has filed a class action over the misleading trailer, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated in the State of Michigan.

While a class action seeking only a ticket refund for everyone in Michigan may seem trivial in light of the virtual Holocaust Ms. Deming suffered, let's remember that it took the Israelis sixteen years to put Eichmann in the dock.  If Ryan Gosling hangs within the decade, it will be in no small part due to Sarah Deming's willingness to fight the good fight.

And let's not forget to congratulate Ms. Deming's attorney, Martin H. Leaf of Farmington Hills, Michigan.  It takes a man of rare courage to stand up to the anti-semites of Hollywood.  In fact, based on the court's scant records concerning this case, I wasn't certain that Martin H. Leaf of Farmington Hills, Michigan was the tireless warrior for victimized Jews who struck a blow on behalf of that beleaguered race.  I had to resort to the internet to be sure, but I have no doubt that the Martin H. Leaf who wrote this warning to America in 2010:

Most Israelis no longer care what this Arab or that Arab leader promises, because it is all hot air. Israelis no longer want to give land for peace or anything else for peace: They have been there and done that. The only thing that makes sense now is peace for peace, but that won’t happen either.

Imagine where the US would be had Israel not had the guts to take out the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981? Hint: There would be no independent Kuwait, and oil would now be over six dollars a gallon, since the US does not fight nuclear powers. That is a best case scenario.

America’s death wish, manifest by Reagan and Carter allowing Pakistan to go nuke, Reagan allowing Iraq to go nuke, Bush allowing Syria to go nuke, and Obama allowing Iran to go nuke, will soon come to fruition. A nuclear Iran is going to make this world a very terrible place to live in. However, by the time America realizes this, it will be too late.

is the same warrior against Ryan Gosling's 21st century Kristallnacht who represents Sarah Deming.

In 2010, Martin H. Leaf was censored by the editors of Commonweal Magazine for writing that wake-up call to America, just as, he warned, Hamas censors and murders Israelis.  One can only pray that the circuit court of Oakland County Michigan won't join the scoffers and mockers who have silenced this man in the past.

As we've discussed many times before, our friends in Canada have a government with very strong opinions about what opinions are "acceptable" — meaning what opinions may be uttered without prosecution, fines, cease-and-desist orders, and reeducation. It's not to American tastes to create vast bureaucracies with the power to regulate and punish speech based on vague guidelines, but Canada is a sovereign nation, and can do what it wants.

Pity poor Professor Cameron Johnston at York University. He was just trying to make this fundamentally Canadian concept clear to the students in the class he was teaching by giving examples of unacceptable opinions. Really, reminding them that some opinions are unacceptable was, in the Canadian context, an act of great patriotism, akin to starting an American lecture with the Pledge of Allegiance and possibly a barbecue. In the course of being so very Canadian, Prof. Johnston mentioned that the sentiment "all Jews should be sterilized" was "unacceptable."

Regrettably, Professor Johnston doesn't get it.

See, it doesn't matter that he uttered the words in a context — the context of identifying the sort of opinions that are unacceptable to Canada. He still uttered them.

By uttering the words, Prof. Johnston committed speechcrime. That's a strict liability crime; intent is irrelevant. Moreover, in thinking that he could utter a series of offensive words by putting them into a specific disapproving and pedagogical context, Prof. Johnston committed a hate crime against the Moron-Canadian community, which is too stupid to grasp context, and the Entitled-Canadian community, which believes that it is un-Canadian to require them to pay close enough attention to follow context. Prof. Johnston knew or should have known that his class of 450 people would include members of the Moron-Canadian and Entitled-Canadian community.

And indeed it did — in the form of Sarah Grunfeld, a member of the Moron-Insipid-Entitled-Canadian community. Sarah Grunfeld was outraged to hear, sort of, that her professor thought that all Jews should be sterilized, and started quite a stir, complaining to York University officials and various community members. Tumult and inquisition ensued. The Canadian media acted in an appallingly un-Canadian manner, focusing on the so-called "context" of Professor Johnson's words and the utterly irrelevant detail that he was Jewish. Grunfeld, raised by her actions into a position of leadership in the Entitled-, Insipid-, and Moron-Canadian communities, did her best to set them back on the path of right thinking:

Grunfeld said Tuesday she may have misunderstood the context and intent of Johnston’s remarks, but that fact is insignificant.

“The words, ‘Jews should be sterilized’ still came out of his mouth, so regardless of the context I still think that’s pretty serious.”

Grunfeld also expressed skepticism that Johnston was in fact Jewish.

Asked directly by a reporter whether she believes Johnston is lying, she was unclear.

“Whether he is or is not, no one will know,” she said. “. . . Maybe he thought because he is Jewish he can talk smack about other Jews.”

Grunfeld demonstrates that with proper accommodation, Moron-Canadian students are able to learn the most important lessons that modern universities offer, such as the lesson that there is no objective reality. Is the person-object-construct we call "Professor Johnston" Jewish? What a childish question, reflecting a retrograde, linear belief system. Whatever "Professor Johnson" or other social constructs like "The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs" might say, whether the "Johnston" person-object is "Jewish" depends on the shifting perceptions of people like Grunfeld and on advanced scholarship by deep thinkers.

Shockingly, some Jews in Canada are contributing to the continuing wordcrime, failing to cherish Canadian values:

In response, Sheldon Goodman, the GTA Co-Chair of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs issued the following statement:

“Upon hearing of this incident, we immediately contacted York University as well as Professor Johnston directly. While York is currently looking into the matter, it appears that a very unfortunate misunderstanding has taken place. We believe Professor Johnston’s use of an abhorrent statement was intended to demonstrate that some opinions are simply not legitimate. This point was, without ill intentions, taken out of context and circulated in the Jewish community.

“Professor Johnston, himself a member of the Jewish community, may regret his wording but should not see his reputation tarnished. This event is an appropriate reminder that great caution must be exercised before concluding a statement or action is anti-Semitic.”

Sheldon "Goodman" doesn't get it. He's focused on "context." He's using "logic" and "inquiry." He might as well come right out and label Sarah Grunfeld and all the members of her dull-witted inattentive community as second-class citizens. Fortunately there are other Jewish-Canadians who are better assimilated into Canadian values. B'nai Brith of Canada, which has a record of supporting Canadian values about speech, is fully supporting the Moron-Canadian community by running Sarah Grunfeld's statement in full. In that statement, she speaks out bravely against all the bigots who wrongfully demanded her to absorb hate-concepts like context, comprehension, and caution:

I stand by my initial concern brought to the University’s attention immediately after the incident that when Professor Cameron Johnston made the abhorrent statement in his class that all Jews should be sterilized, he failed to qualify the statement clearly as an unacceptable opinion held by others. His delivery of this statement, made in a class of 450 impressionable students, was offensive to me and to others in the room.

I have since been grossly misquoted and ridiculed by the media, and attempts have been made to assign blame to me with the false claim that I simply “misheard” or “half heard” what was said. Meanwhile, the professor has not been called to account in any way for his “miscommunication”.

But Sarah's not done. Showing great insight far beyond her years and apparent natural abilities, she identifies what the real crime is here: that people — people like her — will be deterred from making careless, stupid accusations of racism if those accusations are actually subjected to scrutiny, and if the accusers are burdened with hateful responsibility for paying attention to what's going on around them:

It has been a very painful experience for me to see how the university has closed ranks and reneged on its assurances to me. I understand that there may have been a miscommunication, but any miscommunication was on the part of the professor, not me. The media has been complicit in allowing a false interpretation of my actions to be circulated widely, which can only have a chilling effect on the ability of students to have any kind of a voice on campus.

Well said. There ought to be a government inquiry — perhaps by Jennifer Lynch — into whether universities and the media are chilling stupid people from being stupid.

Meanwhile, if Sarah Grunfeld feels that Canada is a cold and barren place that refuses to celebrate her differences, she should consider coming here to America. Sure, we don't have Human Rights Councils like Canada. But there are signs that our universities and their administrators are coming around to Sarah's way of "thinking," and doing what they can to protect the moron community. At Brandeis University, Professor Donald Hindley uttered the word "wetback" in the course of criticizing people who use it; the 50-year teaching veteran was found guilty of racial harassment and forced to admit an ideology-monitor to his class. At Widener University School of Law, administrators are defying a hearing panel that cleared professor Lawrence Connell, and insisting that he be punished for using the term "black folks" in class and using the name of an administrator in an exam hypothetical.

And surely I need not offer you links to establish that modern America is, in fact, very welcoming to morons.

Come on down, Sarah. You've got lots of friends here.

Bloggers get junk mail from people who want to write "guest posts" advertising their own web sites or commercial services all the time. Most I delete without reading. This one, though, caught my eye, because the proposed guest post was so inappropriate for this site, and so poorly expressed.

Hello,

My name is Marie, and I am a writer for criminaljusticedegree.net. I happened upon your site recently and would like to ask if you accept guest posts. If you do, I'd very much like to contribute a piece discussing whether or not alcohol should be illegal. Alcohol is a drug so why are other drugs illegal and alcohol not? The piece would focus on legalizing other drugs because alcohol itself is a drug and thus, should be illegal like other drugs or the law should consider legalizing other drugs.

Of course, if you're interested I would welcome your input and suggestions for the topic including a preferred word count. Additionally, I am happy to provide links to previously published posts of mine on other blogs at your request.

Please let me know what you think.

Sincerely,
Marie

Marie's site appears to be a few pages of insipid fluff posted to draw hits to their links to for-profit schools with criminal justice programs:

In most civilized nations, including the United States, the criminal justice system is comprised of several departments working cohesively to control and deter crime. And though jails and prisons are often at maximum occupation, a functioning criminal justice system works to prevent and moderate criminal activity, and maintain social order.

And so on, like that, only even more so.

"Guest bloggers" spam hundreds or thousands of these things to blogs, hoping that a few will be gullible enough to accept the "guest post", and that the "guest post" will raise the spammer's site's visibility.

(Note that I have used the nofollow tag to avoid that here.)

I was about to delete this when it occurred to me to wonder — who falls for this?

So I Googled the gmail address that "Marie" used. It took me to a "guest post", the second link of which was a "criminal justice degree" hyperlink to her site.

Who fell for it?

Feminist Law Professors.

Guest Blogger Marie Owens: Are Criminal Justice and Law “Masculine” Professions?

A skeptic might read the site-pimping guest post and conclude it looks like something generated in a content-mill to promote a commercial site.

But then, perhaps the bar over there is not set terribly high.

Please do not let this observation lead you to believe I have anything but the utmost respect for self-avowedly feminist legal writing.

Edited to add: FLP has deleted the hyperlink to the commercial site that Marie put in the post. Just so there's no doubt that it was there, here's a screenshot.

Jesus wept.

You remember John Fitzgerald Page, right? Freakish narcissist and oaf who failed to consider what would happen if his boorish behavior became widely publicized?

Johnny, meet Hermon Raju. I just know you kids will hit it off. You've got so much in common! Let's see: there's cringeworthy hubris about your educational background, frontal-lobe-damage-indicator sense of entitlement, pathological lack of shame, capacity for maniacal rudeness to strangers, and general insufferability!

And, hey, the internet has helped you both forge your destiny forever!

You kids have a good time. I want an invitation to the wedding, now!

Edited to add: A follow up thought . . . .

Since bullying people into taking down unflattering web sites blog posts is increasingly pointless given the Streisand Effect, I understand that reputation advisers nowadays generally tell people like Hermon Raju to create many, many new blogs and web sites and forum posts with positive references to themselves, in an effort to drive negative references lower in the Google results. Some reputation and PR firms even do this as a service, foisting a blizzard of cheery references to their clients onto the internet in a desperate gambit to game Google.

Hence, the remedy for narcissistic behavior that draws negative attention may be systematic narcissism.

It's a funny old world.

Edited again to add: More than three years ago I wrote about the modern consequences of such dickery in the context of another oaf; many of the same points remain.

Remember the unspeakably evil Dr. George Rekers, simultaneous critic of gays and customer of rent boys, who conducted a hideous experiment too see if psychological torture would eradicate "feminine" behavior from a little boy?

CNN is running a three-party story about the experiment. The little boy, Kirk Andrew Murphy, committed suicide at age 38 in 2003. His siblings are now telling his painfully sad and chilling story. This is not a happy link. It will depress and infuriate you.

Rekers is unrepentant.

"I only meant to help, do the best I could with the parents, and I've written articles you can look up, too, on the rationale for our treatment. And the rationale was positive; to help children, help the parents who come to us in their distress asking questions, 'What can we do to help our child be better adjusted?' " Rekers said.

What could they do? Rekers told them to beat the kid if he acted girly.

According to Rekers' case study, blue chips were given for masculine behavior and would bring rewards, such as candy. But the red chips, given for effeminate behavior, resulted in "physical punishment by spanking from the father."

By the way, Rekers' "research" is still cited by anti-gay groups for the proposition that one can "cure" people of being gay. Do you suppose they know what Rekers did to produce the "data"? Do you suppose they care?

You've probably heard that San Francisco voters will consider a ballot measure to ban circumcision in the city. It's a controversial topic; there are hotly contested medical, social, and individual rights arguments on both sides. I'm not going to try to resolve them: I was circumcised, my son isn't, I see arguments on both sides.

Some Jewish leaders view the initiative as an anti-Semitic attack. It need not be one, necessarily — the circumcision rate in the United States hovers around 50%, while Jews make up only about 2% of the U.S. population (and observant Jews less than that). Moreover, there are many arguments to be made against circumcision that do not depend on denigration of religion.

It would take a heroic effort to frame this dispute as primarily one of anti-Semitism in time for the vote.

Help us, Foreskin Man!

Continue Reading »

Goofus pursues a public relations strategy guided by a room of sugared-up ADHD ten-year-olds.

This week, Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner went all Goofus on us, lurching from one odd stance to another in what almost seems like a deliberate attempt to publicize as widely as possible allegations that he tweeted a picture of his dick. He's not an NFL quarterback, so the picture (which I refuse to post) features an underwear-clad male in what the old obscenity laws refer to as "a discernibly turgid state" (which does not, I learned in law school, refer to Florida). Weiner has gone from asserting that his Twitter account was hacked, to refusing to talk about whether it was hacked, to lashing out at journalists, to answering questions in a thunderously inane manner:

NBC’s LUKE RUSSERT: “That’s not a picture of you?”

REP. ANTHONY WEINER: “You know, I can’t say with certitude. My system was hacked. Pictures can be manipulated, pictures can be dropped in and inserted.”

Shwaaaaaaa?

Weiner appears to be taking a wide stance here, maintaining the ability to argue that maybe it's a picture of him, maybe it's not, maybe it's a picture of him that's been altered.

It's funny, because I think most of us know right away, off [pardon me] the top of our head, whether or not we have a picture of our own boner. I know I don't. I'm almost 42 and tired and overweight and by the time the medication kicks in my vision is too blurry to use the camera function on my iPhone.

Some smart people I respect have argued that this ought not be a story at all, because what a government actor does in their private life isn't news. I have to agree in part and disagree in part. I don't care if Rep. Weiner and his wife have an understanding involving social media, his genitals, and third-party coeds with handles like @gullibleforDems. This isn't a morals issue. This is a intelligence/judgment/self-control issue. If a politician's Gary-Hart sexual antics suggest that he lacks sufficient self-control to avoid engaging in activities highly likely to get him caught and publicly humiliated, there's reason to question whether he has the self-control necessary to deal with more politically substantive temptations. If a politician can't address a personal crisis without flopping all over the networks like a dying fish on a dock, then there's reason to question whether he can manage crises of leadership. Hell, even if a politician is falsely accused of sexual impropriety, if he adopts a strategy that makes him look like he's being controlled by that alien who wore Vincent D'Onofrio for half of Men in Black, then it's reasonable to question whether he can hack the big jobs.

I want our leaders to be able to grasp the most basic principles of crisis management, like shut up until you have your story straight and don't go off all half-cocked.

So, Goofus, if news stories about your erection persist for more than four news cycles, consult a public relations professional. Right now, your strategy is so very, very bad that I'm beginning to suspect that you came up short when the Democrats drew straws to see who'd be the guy to create a diversion while they carried a dead hooker out the back of the Capitol building.

Every litigator has encountered the theatrical, slightly crazy opponent. Their papers are filled with bizarre accusations and wild unsupported legal theories. They dress oddly. Their affect is off. They act out in court.

Some lawyers and pro se litigants act that way because they are genuinely crazy. But some do it because it puts their opponents off their game. If their inexorable oddness makes you lose your cool in writing, or in court, they win, and suddenly the focus of the proceeding becomes not the merits but their oddness and your reaction to it. Suddenly, it's you — rather than the crazy guy — who is the laughingstock, because you've been trolled successfully. If the troll is sufficiently epic, you become infamous. Take Bill Bone, a Florida defense attorney who was so irate at plaintiff attorney Michael Robb's look-at-me-in-my-humble-old-shoes-fighting-for-the-people routine that he filed a motion demanding that the judge order Robb to wear nice shoes in court.

Or, this week, take Illinois attorney Thomas W. Gooch III, who allowed himself to become seriously discomboobulated. Gooch, who was defending his client Exotic Motors from a lemon-law claim, believed that his opponent Dmitry Feofanov had seated his paralegal at counsel table solely to distract the court with her voluptuousness, and saw fit to file a motion in limine demanding that she be exiled:

Defendant's counsel is anecdotally familiar with the tactics and theatrics of Plaintiff's counsel . . . . Such behavior includes having a large breasted woman sit next to him at counsel's table during the course of the trial. There is no evidence whatsoever that this woman has any legal training whatsoever, and the sole purpose of her presence at Plaintiff's Counsel's table is to draw the attention of the jury away from the relevant proceedings before this court, obviously prejudicing the Defendant's in this or any other cause. Until it is shown that this woman has any sort of legal background, she should be required to sit in the gallery with the rest of the spectators and be barred from sitting at counsel's table during the course of this trial.

You know, the judiciary in this country is made up of a Mos Eisley array of misfits, but I can still confidently say that 95% of judges would read that motion and say "wow, what an entitled dick. I'm going to find ways to humiliate him and screw his client." A smarter and more self-possessed lawyer would recognize that. Thomas W. Gooch III may be smart and self-possessed in other circumstances, but in this circumstance, the most charitable interpretation is that he got trolled in epic fashion. Even if he's right in his accusation, he looks like an ass and his Google results are now 75% boob-related. The harm he's caused to his own reputation, and to his client's interests, is worse by several cup sizes than the hypothetical harm they could have faced from Feofanov's alleged stunt. He got rope-a-doped.

And that's the nicest interpretation. Feofanov says his paralegal is qualified and necessary. Gooch may well just be one of those sexist, narcissistic choads who thinks that all the women in the world get dressed every day specifically to allure men like him — like the guy who gets angry because a woman doesn't wear her wedding ring while working out at the gym.

Either way, don't be Thomas W. Gooch III. Protip: if your conduct of your client's affairs requires you to make a statement reassuring the media that you are not per se opposed to large breasts, you're doing it wrong.

. . . bear in mind that one of the most persistent search terms that brings people to this site is "naked eunuchs," or variations thereof (e.g. today's "nacked [sic] eunuchs").

It averages about 10-30 such searches per month.

Those people are out there. They vote. They want to shake your hand.

n.b. this is Patrick's fault.