Likelihood of Success

Ron Coleman’s pretty good blog

Now you’re really going to make them angy!

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 13, 2009

The AP demonstrates that classic obtuseness:

The seizure in Thailand of some 35 tons of war weaponry from North Korea and the arrest of five foreigners charged with illegal possession of arms may prove a blow to efforts by the United States to negotiate a halt to Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, observers said Sunday.

In other news, Patton’s victory at the Battle of the Bulge is now interpreted by historians as “the last straw” that “only increased Germany’s defiance in World War II and led to an unending cycle of violence.”

Et cetera.

Posted in Medialites, Stragety | Leave a Comment »

Scott Fenstermaker: I was wrong about him!

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 12, 2009

Super Genius

"Super Genius"

That Scott Fenstermaker is quite a good sport.  I just got this email from him (link added):

Ron,

I saw your blog posting about my involvement in the 9/11 case.  Good work!  If I were you, I would be more cautious about labeling other people as childish.  By the way, does your new firm have a defamation defense practice?

Scott Fenstermaker

He’s not only giving me free advice, but it appears he wants to send me some work on some as-yet unrevealed defamation case!

Could be he’s not the dunderhead I thought he was?

Posted in Lex scripta, Oppression, Sisyphus | Leave a Comment »

This is Chanukah!

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 11, 2009

Tonight, that is — it’s the first night of Chanukah.  That means that I’m going to be hosting the annual Blawg Review next Monday, at LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® (here’s last year’s).

Just a heads-up.

Posted in Blogophilia, Heart and spirit | Leave a Comment »

Party discipline maintained

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 10, 2009

Boy, could this guy pass!

Boy, could this guy pass!

Six Meat Buffet reassures us that, despite noises of panic among the insufficiently indoctrinated, at the New York Times the editorial side, at least, remains reassuringly on-message.

Posted in Liberal punks, Medialites | Leave a Comment »

Whatever the traffic will bear

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 8, 2009

Scott Greenfield brings us a Blawgospheric Darwinism Update:

I can’t think of a popular blawg whose purpose was to become popular, except maybe Above the Law, and whose goal was to use whatever means it could to attract readers.  Rather, popularity was a by-product of the effort, passion, and, on occasion, humor.  But some of the most popular and well-read blawgs around aren’t funny at all.  Is SCOTUS Blog a laugh riot?  Does My Shingle play to the crowds?  Is Randazza geared to the mass market?  Of course not.

What we see instead is the spin of bloggers who want to present a brave front despite the fact that they write, as do the rest of us, yet fail to engage an audience, so they claim that they are thrilled with the intimate success of their blog.  If they are, that’s great. But as Mark Bennett points out in his Social Media Tyro Blog, there is one continuing theme that permeates blogs that fail to capture a readership as a by-product of its content:  The purpose of blog is to market.

I wonder when it’s over which side will be left standing.

I do know which side will be left being read.

Posted in Social networking | Leave a Comment »

Not safe for work. Of course!

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 7, 2009

"Brother from another mother"

Personal friend of mine!

BITTER LAWYER interviews Randazza.  Of course it’s obscene — and hey, I mean like the kind you should have to go to jail for, man! — from “go.”  So for the good of your soul, no, don’t go!

At least don’t tell anyone you did.  You won’t fool God of course but at least you won’t lead others astray by your example.

But anyway — this part is not only safe for work, it’s safe for home, and should be required reading in law school, too:

What’s been your best moment in the law?

I don’t think there’s one “best moment.” Honestly, I live for the moments when I get a call from small blogger who has a really terrifying issue, and you can tell that there’s a real sense of panic on their voice.  When I get those calls, and I’m able to help, those are the best moments.

What’s been the worst moment?

Realizing that a lot of judges really don’t care, and they let lawyers get away with dishonest work.

That’s why Marco will survive, while my own prospects are less clear.  He realized that in one “worst moment,” whereas every day I wake up and think this time — this time, for sure! — Lucy is going to really hold onto that football . . .

Takes a toll on you, ya know?

Posted in Heart and spirit, Lex scripta | Leave a Comment »

Scott the Windowmaker

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 6, 2009

I’ve been wondering when this part of the Khalid Sheik Mohammed story was going to get a little air ever since I heard them interviewing one of the members of his “dream team,” Scott Fenstermaker, on the radio.

Ed Morrissey is very smart, but he’s missing something here about Fenstermaker:  He is very, very stupid.  I know this because I he was my adversary in a small case once–a case, in fact, in which he represented his own law firm, and thereby proved the ancient adage about what sort of a lawyer the self-represented get for themselves.

Fenstermaker stunned me with this obtuseness.  The experience was more akin to attempting to interact with masonry than any other I have had in my litigation career.  He was dumb, and he was childish.

Fenstermaker was infuriating because he never, ever processed what you tell him and responded with an answer premised on the new information — not merely that he didn’t agree.  He just didn’t absorb a thing you were saying. Some lawyers are manipulative, or misstate what you’ve said, or are playing dumb, but not this guy.  He was just thick as a brick.

I know his resume makes it appear that he has been somewhere and done something, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that somewhere between then and now, there’s a serious head injury in the mix.

And I have nothing per se against dumb-dumbs, even in the legal profession.  But the point is, Ed’s looking for a way to get through to Fenstermaker, and it isn’t going to happen.  There’s no there there.  He is not just trying to confuse you, Ed. He is thoroughly confused.

And the other point is this:  The fact that this guy is both a lawyer for this mass murderer or a member of his family — or whatever — , and his chief spokesman, means something very weird is afoot, the precise nature of which leaves me feeling kind of dumb, too.  But at the end of the day, it’s probably nothing more than just… Scott Fenstermaker.

Cross-posted on Right Wing News.

Posted in Lex scripta | Leave a Comment »

Imagine no gingerbread houses

Posted by Ron Coleman on December 3, 2009

Hansel and Gretel and Gingerbread HouseDid you know gingerbread houses are religious symbols?

In what religion, Hanselandgretelism?

Now that’s an intriguing thought.  The Gingerbread Temple.  Hansel and Gretel, the trembling sacrifices, denied  at the last moment to the wicked, bloodthirsty — and, of course, Aryan — deity that craves their tender flesh by virtue of their accursed human guile clothed in the flesh of childlike faux-naïvete?

Or are these abandoned urchins of the countryside rather a pair of child-priests in this cult, giving up the would-be cannibalistic witch as a gruesome offering to the Gingerbread Man himself, rightful master of his House, following a kabuki-like ritual pretense of shifting victimizations?

Well.

I have go to get out more.

Posted in Heart and spirit | Leave a Comment »

Snapped Shot is back!

Posted by Ron Coleman on November 30, 2009

We do to have live, fat cows in Peoples Paradise!

We do too have live, fat cows in Peoples' Paradise!

Ever notice how some “news” photographs look … fishy?

Me neither.  But Brian Ledbetter, thank God, has time on his hands.  And some things, he demonstrates on his reborn Snapped Shot blog, just don’t add up, you know?

Posted in Blogophilia, Medialites | Leave a Comment »

Always the last to know

Posted by Ron Coleman on November 30, 2009

Insty:

NEW JERSEY BLOGGER was on FBI payroll.

Man, why does everyone else always get on stuff like that?

Hey — forget threatening federal judges!  I wonder if he’s going to get in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission!

Posted in Blogophilia, Jocularity, Lex scripta | Leave a Comment »