Category: Politics

UPDATE:  Dan has demanded we take down his copyrighted picture.  Now, of course it was used under Fair Use, but I found a better one to use anyway.  Nonetheless, if you have pictures of Dan you’d like to use here, please send them along.

…and shockingly, it is for being a huge jackass.  Who woulda thunk it?

For nearly two years, claims that Yelp Inc. should pay people who post on its site have dogged the company like a bad review…

This week, the entire mess landed in the Northern District of California after Yelp won a motion to move the case closer to the company’s San Francisco headquarters. Florida attorney Daniel Bernath claims Yelp cheated its legions of reviewers by refusing to pay them for content they post to the website. The reviewers were Yelp’s employees, Bernath argues, comparing the company’s practice of withholding wages to that of a “21st century galley slave ship.”

Florida Attorney?  Yeah, not so much.

 “Defendants could not exist, nor make its returns, without labors of and its control over unpaid writers,” Bernath wrote.

Need I explain how ridiculous that statement is?  They aren’t “unpaid writers,” they are people who write reviews for dinner.  Yelp doesn’t have “control” over them, and there’s no compulsory labor.  Here’s the thing about uncompensated writers “working” for Yelp, at any given moment they could do the almost unthinkable, shut off the computer, and walk away.  No one would notice.  Yelp, and civilized society would continue.  Bernath is basically the Obama of Yelp shouting “You didn’t make this!”

Actual lawyers, the kind that Yelp hires to get migraines dealing with this mental midget pegged it succinctly:

“Under plaintiffs’ theory, popular websites like Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google and Twitter would suddenly gain hundreds of millions of employees,” the lawyers wrote, “all entitled to billions of dollars in payment by the mere fact that they have used these online forums to express themselves through content contributions.”

Now here’s the Dan we’ve come to know and adore, the man who won the Stolen Valor tournament on the strength of having gone full retard like the Hulk…

In a phone call Wednesday, Bernath said the bar complaint was an intimidation tactic.

“Yelp’s whole strategy is just to be petty and attack you by nipping at your heels and tripping you,” he said. “But in the end, the law says that they owe my clients money.”

Bernath’s bizarre sanctions motion, which includes a photograph of a shingles sore on his skin and a blister on his big toe, also accuses Yelp of abusing the mediation process. The company did everything it could to delay mediation, Bernath said, which is what caused the judge to postpone ruling on Yelp’s motions. When the two sides finally met, Bernath claims Yelp did not negotiate in good faith, adding the stress Yelp’s counsel inflicted caused him to suffer a shingles outbreak.

Bernath also claims the walk between the mediation conference rooms and the Orange County airport gave him a blister. He accuses Yelp’s counsel of refusing to offer him a ride.

Who in the Holy Name of SpongeBob’s Dick would let Bernath get in their car with them?  The silly son of a bitch bought my car and I wouldn’t let him in either.

But wait, I thought we caused his shingles and blisters?  Yelp did it?

In an email to me the other day Dan claimed victory over all of us, and ticked off a list of things he’d accomplished.  It was awesome, because not a one of them was accurate.  Not even a little.  He claims he ran a whole host of you off, and that everyone is afraid to comment.  Here’s some brain nuggets he dropped in that email:

TAH-used to get a few thousands per issue.  Now you get 20 or 30.

If anyone dares post to TAH every friend they know get informed that they are participating in a child pornography website

The wreckage of that website and its participants-someday we’ll give you an accounting but you have been hollowed out and destroyed.

your jeep, your student loans. I didn’t pay for them.

You don’t fit the norm of a rational person.  No gain but you have been scared for the rest of your professional life and have a fat wife and fat kid to support for the next 18 to 21 years.

Yes, perfectly rational to get upset that the lawyer opposing you in court should give you a ride in his car.  I bet he smells like horseshit and hasn’t showered in weeks.  If you do offer Dan a ride, for the love of all that is holy, lay down a sheet of plastic first.

Fox News reports that retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn who used to run the Defense Intelligence Agency said this about the administration’s pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran in a written statement to a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee;

“It is clear that the nuclear deal is not a permanent fix but merely a placeholder,” he said in the testimony, obtained by Fox News in advance of a hearing where he’s set to testify.

He said the 10-year timeframe on parts of the deal “only make sense” if the U.S. thinks a “wider reconciliation” with Iran is possible. He called this “wishful thinking,” adding that “regime change” is the best way to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

In lengthy written remarks, Flynn asserted that Iran has “every intention” of building a nuclear weapon, and their desire to destroy Israel is “very real.”

Well, it’s not like we already didn’t think that, but it’s nice to have General Flynn validate our suspicions. Who better to negotiate policy based on wishful thinking than John Kerry?

Flynn went on to condemn Iraq for their participation in the killing of US troops and continued that there is no real strategy against ISIS, but, you know, the President admitted as much just two days to the world.

Several people have sent us links to the story about General Hawk Carlisle (cool name, btw), commander of Air Combat Command, who bragged in a speech sponsored by the Air Force Association how airmen targeted one ISIS fellow using social media;

“The [airmen are] combing through social media and they see some moron standing at this command,” Carlisle said at the speech, which was sponsored by the Air Force Association. “And in some social media, open forum, bragging about command and control capabilities for Da’esh, ISIL, And these guys go ‘ah, we got an in.’

“So they do some work, long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three JDAMS take that entire building out. Through social media. It was a post on social media. Bombs on target in 22 hours.

“It was incredible work, and incredible airmen doing this sort of thing.”

Yeah, it was incredible work, so why are we telegraphing to the terrorist group how we’re finding them and destroying them? Yeah, it makes for a really nice story about how airmen are doing their jobs, but, do you think that will work from now on?

In the early days of the war against terror, intelligence agencies told the media how they looked at things in the background of videos to locate where terrorists were making their little broadcast messages to the world. Immediately, the terrorists learned to hang a sheet behind them to hide the background, so that didn’t work. Do these people think that our country’s enemies don’t have TVs and access to the media?

General Carlisle, if you find something that works, write about it in your book after the war. We would much rather that you kill these guys in droves than to tell us how you did it. We know that you’re doing everything that you can do, but stop giving away the farm.

The Air Force Times article that I linked to above begins “OPSEC isn’t the Islamic State group’s strong suit.” Apparently, it’s not ours, either.