Getting yourself hated – Part 2
This is a version of a talk I gave to SkeptiCamp Sydney in October 2013. As it was essentially a PowerPoint show with me chatting about the slides I'm reproducing it here with the slides.
And on we go …
One of my favourites. You will note that it reveals that I am married to the Secretary of a tennis club and this is advising the club of my awfulness. Put your cursor over the picture to see the email address it was sent to.
Here is someone emailing my employer to report on my dastardliness. Again, place your cursor over the picture to see the addressee's email address. Then think about who in the company might have such an address and therefore might have been first to see the complaint..
Sometimes it isn't just complaining. Legal action is threatened.
I think this might have been the first Vacuous Legal Threat I ever received. Put the cursor over it to see the proposed jurisdiction in which the legal action was to have been pursued. As The Netherlands is quite close to Sweden I was hoping that I could arrange matters so that I would only have to make one long trip for both this case and to collect my Nobel Prize.
Mr O'Neill was a little impatient when I didn't immediately respond to his demand. He died in 2013, but I haven't heard whether his estate is still seeking exemplary and punitive damages.
This one has a particular piquancy. The complainer came to my attention because she totally rejected all laws as they applied to her. She had been stopped by the police and charged with driving without a licence. She argued that, firstly, no law could force her to have any form of licence to do anything at all and secondly that as she was stopped when the copper spoke to her she wasn't actually driving so there was no charge to answer. Apparently, though, she thinks that copyright law has validity. And did I send her money and remove the mention of her idiocy? And did the ISP (that's the Jason at Netaus.net.au) terminate my access? Of course not, although we did have a good laugh over a beer.
My "little hiney" never actually managed to get sued, but I did consider getting "mr. satan evil back stabbing bitch" printed on a t-shirt. The child abuse referred to was real – someone proudly showing pictures of children with chicken pox. Benny Hinn (not "Hind") is a disgusting faith healer.
I suggested to George that the words "best medical journal article" should not be used in the same sentence as a reference to something published in Medical Hypotheses. He didn't actually sue me.
Every now and then I remind Patrick Timothy Bolen of this threat and ask when Doctor's Data are going to get around to the fart in an elevator part of it. I've been waiting several years. My web site is still here and Doctor's Data are still a pack of crooks.
Truehope is a pack of crooks who package grass clippings and claim that the product is a treatment for mental illness. They were taken to court by the health authorities. To avoid defaming the judge by suggesting he was paid, I have to assume he was suffering from mental illness himself when he ruled for Truehope on the basis that it is acceptable to break laws if you don't like them. If you put your cursor over the picture you will see a warning about possible consequences of accusing other people of making errors. You might also notice that in an email accusing someone of defamation it is probably not wise to uses expressions like "Liar/Charlatan/Molester", "Liar/Not-A-Doctor" and "Liar/Unemployed/Convict" to describe the alleged defamers.
Not really a threat, but I am accused of slandering the now thankfully dead cancer quack Hulda Clark. When Hulda died (of cancer) her cremated remains were scattered in the Pacific Ocean. I asked a supporter if they got EPA approval to dump toxic waste in the ocean but I didn't get a reply. I was, however, accused of forging her death certificate.
Again, not a real threat, just some anonymous anti-vaccination liar offering polite commentary.
Sometimes it is my immortal soul that gets threatened.
And my favourite threat of all time. I imagine the writer going into a bank, approaching a teller and holding up a piece of cardboard with the crayoned words "armed robbery".
