Maeghan Maloney facing disciplinary hearing

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Michael

From the Kennebec Journal:

The district attorney of Kennebec and Somerset counties is facing a disciplinary hearing later this month because of an allegation that she improperly discussed a case with a judge.

Maeghan Maloney is due to answer misconduct charges stemming from a conversation she had with a Superior Court justice that led to the overturning of a Sidney man’s conviction on numerous child sexual assault charges and the granting of a new trial of him. She is scheduled to go before the grievance commission of the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar on May 20 for a hearing that could result in disciplinary action.

This is the same woman who is married to pretend-doctor Christopher Maloney. The two of them attempted to sue me for engaging in protected speech, and in the process, Maeghan Maloney threatened me with criminal statutes. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that is actually a wild breach of basic ethics in any civil proceeding. It doesn’t surprise me to hear she hasn’t changed her ways whatsoever.

Update: She was admonished for her misconduct.

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Darrick Banda for DA

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Michael

It isn’t often that I cross political lines and endorse a Republican. I’m a pretty liberal person, and while Democrats often don’t match up with my views as well as I would like, it’s definitely the candidates with the “D” next to their names that most closely reflect my politics. However, this election is a little different. For 2012, I have an overwhelming reason to endorse Darrick Banda for DA: His opponent is Maeghan Maloney.

As many readers know, Maeghan Maloney attempted to sue me on behalf of her quack husband, Christopher Maloney. They believed I had made libelous statements by calling “Dr.” Maloney a quack. (He practices the scientifically bogus discipline of naturopathy.) However, they soon backed away from their pursuit of that claim when I brought on an excellent defense team – a defense team made up of three lawyers who were working pro-Bono because they all value the protection of basic free speech rights. Here is what one of them, Ken, had to say about Mrs. Maloney:

5. Dr. and Ms. Maloney’s demand for injunctive relief, to me, perfectly represents how unprincipled, contemptible, un-American, and freakishly censorious their entire threat scheme was. The complaint they served on Mr. Hawkins was incomplete — it cut off at the seventh page, so you can’t tell what’s in the prayer for relief — but here’s what they demand in the text of the injunctive relief cause of action:

35. . . . . Injunctive action is necessary to prevent further expansion of Defendant Hawkins’ comments. A temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction or a permanent injunction is necessary, as Defendant has refused to limit or remove postings.

36. Such injunctive action would need to apply all [sic] blogging and social media, as Defendant Hawkins has threatened he will repost all his material. It would also need to apply to all allied bloggers reposting Defendant Hawkins’ materials since several have explicitly offered to host him and maintain a copy of his blog. [Emphasis added]

That’s right — a Maine state legislator just suggested that a Maine court should issue an injunction prohibiting unnamed, unserved people — potentially including you — from re-posting what Mr. Hawkins had to say about Dr. Maloney.

And that was some of the nicer stuff he had to say.

Of course, Maloney isn’t the only reason I’m endorsing Banda. As it happens, I think Banda is more qualified for the job given his background. He has been involved with the DA’s office far more than Maloney and I believe he is a far more respected figure than she is. Moreover, this position is not one that is political in the same way a legislative job is. I think Banda recognizes that, whereas I’m not so sure Maloney does. (After all, she can’t seem to even recognize basic First Amendment rights.)

Vote Darrick Banda.

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The irony of Freethought Blogs

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Michael

Freethoughtblogs.com is, presumably, promoted as a gathering of blogs which support the free exchange and criticism of ideas. Of course it has its leanings, but sans any legal issues, it is to be expected that such a place would not only allow opinion that parted ways with the local majority, it would embrace it. Unfortunately, expectations are not always met:

I thought Freethought Blogs was a stupid idea when I first heard it, because I knew it would just encourage a groupthink mindset… you know, the kind of thing that we self-proclaimed “free thinkers” generally desire to stay away from.

Thank you, PZ Myers, for proving me right. As if you hadn’t gone downhill enough already during ‘Elevatorgate’.

And this once again shows that for whatever reason, dissent of any kind on topics related to ‘feminism’ – even if it is simply misperceived – turns certain people in the atheist community into raving idiots who just shout past each other.

This is all in reference to the recent addition of Thunderf00t to the community. He is probably most well known for his YouTube videos criticizing creationism and other ill-thought, but when he turned to blogging, he set his sights on talking about Freethought Blogs’ pet issue: feminism. I have no desire to wade into the minutiae of it all – anyone who didn’t already agree with me would probably be a caricature feminist, and everyone knows there’s no arguing with those people – but here’s the gist: A new blogger comes on the scene and takes a contrary view to the established bloggers. In turn, the established bloggers fire back. The new blogger does the same. And ’round and ’round we go. That is, until the 800-lbs gorilla in the room – PZ Myers – steps in and censors the dissent:

That’s right. Someone wrote negatively about feminism and, since he had the power, PZ went about pulling the plug on everything. I would call it pathetic, but that really is far too kind.

I can’t say I’m personally surprised at any of this. PZ originally helped me with my Maloney issue but later completely ignored me when push was coming close to shove. It’s entirely obvious why: He didn’t like that someone was quieting something with which he agreed. That was the linchpin to his initial help – he agreed with my criticism of naturopathy. By the time I was close to being frivolously sued, however, I had spent some time disagreeing with him and criticizing some of his arguments (especially on feminism). He clearly knew this and had no desire to help a person who didn’t see eye-to-eye with him on his favorite issue. He never cared about censorship or the First Amendment. His concern was purely for issues that mattered to him, not any broader principle(s). And now we’re seeing that more clearly than ever: PZ Myers, censorious hack, has taken the steps necessary to censor Thunderf00t for doing no more than holding a different opinion.

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Liars. Liars everywhere.

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Michael

To my count, I have come across four major liars in my blogging career. First up is Jack Hudson. He has the be the worst, but he also may be the dumbest. I’m not sure which part of his personality I dislike more. The next is Christopher Maloney. His lies were in the details of his writings and, to his credit, I suspect some of them were just a result of his lack of understanding of how the Internet works. Then we have Michael Hartwell. He’s a recent addition and generally isn’t guilty of being dishonest, but that doesn’t mean he’s really any better. And finally, we have braggart Roxeanne. She has mostly confined herself to misunderstanding and misrepresenting science, (did you know that because condom usage needs to improve even more in order to better combat infection rates, that means condoms are ineffective and we should advocate abstinence-only programs? Crazy, I know), but now she has ventured into plainly liar territory:

There is a reason why children are nine times as likely to be abused by their mother’s boyfriends or new husbands than by their own fathers, and why biological fathers are an impediment to abuse of children. Predators seek out the vulnerable.

Yet California, land of moonbats, decided to make it easier for non-biological “fathers” to access children. The Golden State is considering letting more than two adults have “parent” rights to a child. Now, any normal person knows that this is going to result in a lot of litigation and some serious trauma for the kid (at best) and sexual abuse (at worst), but the Left is more concerned with eliminating traditional family structures than with advancing the well-being of children. What this state has just told paedophiles is that it’s open season on little kids, and if the mother gets creeped out, said paedophile can sue to have visitation with her child. After all, the former boyfriend/ex-stepdad had a “bond” with that lovely young teen, and such a “bond” should be respected by our legal system.

Well. Isn’t that interesting. It’s like she isn’t even trying to spin her lies in a way that is even remotely plausible. Here is the actual purpose of the law:

[Representative Mark] Leno told ABCNews.com that he recognized a “problem” in the legal system in 2011 when an appellate court placed a girl in foster care when her legally married parents — two lesbians — could not care for her.

The child was taken into state custody when one of her mothers was jailed and the nonbiological mother was hospitalized.

The court did not have the authority to appoint the girl’s biological father, with whom she had a relationship, as a legal parent. That third parent could have “benefitted the well-being of the child,” said Leno.

In other words, two people can have a child, marry separate people at some point, and all four individuals can be given custodial rights. And unlike Roxeanne suggests/lies, all the parents would have to agree before anything could move forward. There is no way some ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend couldn’t sue for custody as a result of this law.

This bill would obviously help in same-sex situations, but I think it would more commonly be applied in cases of heterosexual divorce. That’s just basic statistics. (And even if that wasn’t the case, who cares? Gay couples form families, too.) Furthermore, this would do nothing to benefit pedophiles. That argument is patently absurd and hardly deserves a response. Roxeanne isn’t the shiniest penny in the fountain, but I think she’s just barely smart enough to know she was lying.

This is a good law. Plenty of children are in situations where there are three or four parents involved. At certain times, this can cause undue problems as a result of legal restrictions. That is, a clear authority figure with the child’s interest at heart – a biological parent’s spouse, for example – may be denied from caring for the child, such as we see from the article. That isn’t fair to anyone involved and is more a snafu in the law than anything. The only reason to oppose this is stubborn denial of reality.

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Advice to bad lawyers and people who become Internet famous

Posted on June 30, 2012 by Michael

Shortly after Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal mocked some shitty website for threatening to sue him for some silly reason, the lawyer for said site of shit, Charles Carreon, went on a rampage. He started saying all sorts of stupid stuff, like that he was going to sue a couple of charities because Inman was raising money for them out of spite for Carreon. This has naturally only given the Internet more reason to hate assholes. Now push has come to shove and a suit has actually been filed against Inman. He sums everything up in his opening statement:

Dear Charles Carreon,

You’re making things worse.

As someone who has had experience with attempts at intimidation via legal shenanigans, I am quite familiar with this line of thinking. I used to often write that my legal opponents, Christopher Maloney and his terrible lawyer Maeghan Maloney, could never make things better. The best they could ever do was not make things worse. By continuing to chirp, they would (and did) only make life all the shittier for themselves. I was entirely right. I think Charles Carreon would do well to understand that.

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Anti-SLAPP suit against Andrew Wakefield

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael

Andrew Wakefield is a disgraced doctor who made up data that questioned the safety of vaccines. As a result, many parents refused to vaccinate their kids, especially in the U.K. Arguably, children died as a result. Andrew Wakefield is clearly a dangerous man and I’m glad that the scientific community has firmly rejected his nonsense. In fact, certain scientific journals and people even outside the scientific community have been quite critical. These include the British Medical Journal and journalistic Brian Deer. In response, Wakefield sued them for defamation. Now they are countering with an anti-SLAPP motion:

The anti-SLAPP statute protects journalists and publishers from baseless libel claims like Dr. Wakefield’s by providing for a special “motion to dismiss” to be filed at the outset of the case. To avoid dismissal, the plaintiff must submit “clear and specific evidence” to support each essential element of his claims. Where, as here, the plaintiff cannot satisfy that burden, the Court must dismiss the case and award the defendants their reasonable fees and costs, along with any additional sanctions appropriate to deter the plaintiff from filing similar actions.

This is what would have happened to Christopher Maloney had he been foolish enough to continue. Now the onus is on Wakefield to prove that he has actually been defamed. And, of course, he is unlikely to succeed. I hope this costs him a lot of money – and, more so, supporters.

via Popehat.

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Don’t do business with Bill Groome of Madhatter Magic Shop

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Michael

I’ve never been a fan of douchebag businesses and the entitled twits that run them. That’s why in 2009 I wrote about T’s Golf of Manchester Maine, run by Rawn and Judy Torrington. I even wrote about them in print (in addition to a number of other subjects), making sure they received a copy of my publication. I know for a fact that I took business away from them and I’m damn proud of it. Nobody likes to pay for services when the person doing the serving is a colossal sac face.

With that in mind, I’m glad that Jonathan Kamens wrote about asshat Bill Groome of Madhatter Magic Shop in Columbia, S.C. Here are the basics. Kamens asked Groome specific questions about a product. That information turned out to be incorrect. Kamens sent two emails asking for a refund. Both were ignored. When he sent a third email where he said he would initiate a disputed charge claim with his credit card company, he got this asshattery-laden response:

This is the first email I have seen from you since your purchase. I am very busy and I give information to the best of my knowledge. I get over a hundred emails per day and try to reply to all of them personally. My reply below was accurate and gave you the information on how the trick worked. Now I have more important things to deal with than a little boy crying over a $5.00 trick. I am sorry it did not fit your needs, but I described it as accurately as I could. Feel free to send it back in new condition and we will refund it per our return policy.

There are more intricate details that can be seen here, but the gist is that Groome only offered a refund when he was told one would be forced upon him. And that’s hardly an offer at all. Moreover, the comments Groome has left on Kamens’ blog makes it clear Groome is a liar. He claims that he did give a refund, except the way the charges appear on Kamens’ statements are such that only the credit card company could do it.

To make matters worse, Groome went after Kamens’ for being Jewish. I’m not familiar with Kamens’ blog or writing, but him being Jewish is irrelevant. This is a disputed business transaction. As silly as all religious beliefs are, Groome is just being mildly anti-Semitic.

But it gets worse. You see, whereas the idiots at T’s Golf were, well, idiots, they managed to keep their stupidity confined. Had they been dumb enough to respond to me, I would have done all I could to make the biggest stink possible about them. Christopher Maloney knows that all too well. Groome, on the other hand, went ahead and left a number of responses, as I have been showing. But now he has taken it one step further and threatened to sue.

This is all impressively dumb. Not only has Groome ensured that his online presence continues to be tarnished, and not only did he do damage to his reputation by race-baiting and calling a customer a ‘crying little boy’, but he has no case judging by his inability to demonstrate a single false statement on the part of Kamens.

So remember: Don’t do business with Bill Groome of Madhatter Magic Shop in Columbia, South Carolina. He’s a douchebag.

via Popehat

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Well, that was interesting

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Michael

I recently praised PZ for finally looking to shed his extra pounds. Aside from his lack of health being disrespectful to his own body, he runs the chance of leaving his loved ones behind too early – and for no good reason. I stand by that praise, and even though I am fully aware that it comes across as if I am just trying to insult a fat guy, I do genuinely mean it.

Unfortunately, PZ doesn’t see it that way. In the comment section of the post that inspired what I wrote, things took an ugly turn. I presented my argument that it is wrong to not try to be healthy. The first reaction – and it is always the first reaction – is to say I think it is wrong to be fat. I don’t. The issue is with putting forth an honest effort to be healthy. The results are not important, morally speaking. And just as I did in my post about obesity, I allowed for a huge swath of caveats. Some people have conditions which prevent them from putting forth the same effort as others. Other people work long hours and have to take care of children at the end of the day. Still other people have limited access to healthy food. It would be unreasonable to expect everyone to be able to put forth the same effort. That doesn’t mean, though, that it is magically impossible for people to attempt all they can – there is almost always a better choice available on the grocery store shelves – but I fully acknowledge that it can be difficult. I always have.

This, unfortunately, led to an extended discussion on poor people and food stamps. Apparently I hate them all because I don’t want to subsidize lobsters. The truth is, welfare funds are a limited resource. If we allow people to spend money on expensive items, they will have less for what they actually need. I saw this first hand while working at a grocery store in high school. People would use the last of their food stamps regularly on $30-70 worth of lobster. I can think of far better ways to use those funds.

The “counter” (if you can call it that) to this argument is that people get X amount of dollars and so it doesn’t matter how they spend them. (Oh, and I don’t think poor people deserve nice things, apparently.) This is a patently stupid argument. If I am given $200 a month for food and I need $300, $100 is coming from my pocket. However, if I buy luxury items, that eats into what I have been given. That means I will get one nice meal, but that might add another $30 to what comes out of my wallet. This does not help the poor; it allows some people to abuse their funds, forcing them to stay on welfare longer. That is, nobody is going to get back on their feet by spending money on things they don’t need at the expense of things they do need.

And, of course, this all means I must be a Ron Paul-loving, Reagan-blowing libertarian Republican. Right. No, my position is a utilitarian one. Welfare funds are not unlimited. It doesn’t make sense to allow them to be used to buy anything under the Sun. In fact, PZ and co are in the minority in what they think. Most states restrict the use of food stamps on some items (such as expensive energy drinks), and certainly no state allows the funds to be used for restaurants. And the states are right to do so. But what’s really interesting about this is that PZ and everyone else, once we get past the government intervention, is kicking into uber-libertarian mode. “Who are YOU to say what people should buy?!” Right. I’m the libertarian here.

The end result has been a ban. I suppose I’m okay with this. After all, throughout my Maloney troubles, PZ never responded to a single email or request for help. He, of course, is not required to do so, but let’s not be coy. I have disagreed with his rampant sexism in recent months, so he has no interest in helping me fight junk science. Emotion overrides logic here; if I never commented on his site, he would have been the first to help me. Besides that, the majority of his posts have nothing to do with atheism anymore. Sure, he has those spammy “Why I am an atheist” posts that have given my scrolling finger a good workout, but he mostly writes about feminism and stupid Internet polls. Overall I have still enjoyed him, but that is happening less and less each day. Without the writing he had as of a few years ago, I don’t care for much of what he has to say anymore. I’ll stick with Jerry Coyne, Friendly Atheist, and Starts With A Bang! for my big name bloggers.

At any rate, I hope PZ does manage to lose the excess fat he has. He’s older and has had health issues, so I don’t expect fantastic results, but I’m happy he is at least trying. After all, that’s all that matters.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Politics and Social | Tagged: , , , , , , | 12 Comments »

2011 stats

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Michael

Once again WordPress is wrong about the stats it has for my blog. It says I had about 120,000 hits. Try 138,000. It also says my post about average breast size was my most viewed post of the year. Coming in at number two is an old post about a Hubble contest. This is backwards. And not just by a little – the Hubble post got about 3,000 more hits than the other one. Finally, it says my busiest day was back in May, but this is false. My busiest day was just this month thanks to the Maloney post. I had 2,820 hits that day. (In fact, I had more hits the day after that post than I had on the day in May.)

Anyway. Here is WordPress’s amateurishly done stats summary for FTSOS.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 120,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 5 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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