Thursday, April 19, 2007

I Call Bullshit or You Can’t Have it Both Ways

There are some who are trying to use the tragic events at Virginia Tech to push the anti gun agenda. Never mind that the school was a “gun-free zone,” never mind that gun control is not a proven method of lowering violence in society. However I don’t want to comment on gun control generally in this post.

I want instead to look at the part of the left that has spent the last four years telling us that Bush is Hitler and now demand the disarmament of the people. I agree that this president has dangerously restricted liberty and expanded executive power. However, I do not think Bush is a power tripping genocidal dictator either.

However those who do think that have some explaining to do. Should gays, women, and other potential victims of Bushitler TM be disarmed in the face of the “Bush Agenda” TM ? If the republic is really in danger of being subverted by a dictator, one would think that that was the time to call the people to arms, not to disarm them.

The loony left faces a serious logical problem.

It is called the law of non contradiction. It was first stated by Aristotle more than two thousand years ago. “A thing can not both have and not have the same characteristic in the same respect. Either Bush is a genocidal dictator and the people should, “put their trust in god, but keep their powder dry,” or Bush is not a genocidal dictator and we should trust the authorities under his control to protect us and not keep our own means of self defense, but not both.

So which is it boys and girls? You can’t have it both ways.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Before you Kirk someone remember Google is forever

If you run a company and a blogger makes a critical review of your services you should learn the story of J. L. Kirk & Associates, aka Kirk Associates, or JL Kirk, or JLK, or JLK-A, or “Kirk“, before you decide to have your lawyers send threatening letter trying to shut them up.

Katherine Coble blogged about her husband’s experience with J. L. Kirk & Associates, she related that she felt that the firm was at best a hard sell and at worst, a scam, a fraud, a rip-off, or a con.

The company was foolish enough to have their lawyers send a letter threatening an action for defamation on what seem to be weak or non existent grounds, since the truth is an absolute defense to libel.

In the following 24 hours J. L. Kirk & Associates, has gone from being not well known, to infamous, to a new internet verb.

Kirk, is now a verb meaning to act like a stupid bully towards a blogger.

I have no knowledge of whether or not J. L. Kirk & Associates is or is not guilty of the practices Ms. Coble described. However I am sure that J. L. Kirk & Associates acted like stupid bullies who know nothing of the dynamic of the internet when they had their lawyer threaten Ms. Coble.

Given this I can assert that as fact that I would never do businesses with them and give as an opinion that anyone who does business with them is a fool.

Would you hire the lawyers who gave J. L. Kirk & Associates the service that they did? I would have advised J. L. Kirk & Associates to give it a rest. So would any lawyer who knows anything about the internet.

Also blogging on this are instapundit, captain’s quarters, bill hobbs, and bob krumm. A summary of local reaction is here.

By the way are Kirk and their lawyers now libel proof, that is to say are their reputations now so ruined it is impossible to injure their reputation? We shall see.

Also does Coble have a counter claim? The comment on her blog by a person claiming to be a J. L. Kirk & Associates employee was possibly defamatory.