Crackpot drops lawsuit after PR flacks fail to save the day; other Sunday reading
| posted by William K Wolfrum | Sunday, September 02, 2007Stuart Pivar, the New York businessman who sued science blogger PZ Myers for a Dr. Evil-esque 15 million dollars has dropped said lawsuit, which is good news for Myers, aka Pharyngula, and the rest of the science blogging world. A hearty round of applause to Seed Media Group, owner of ScienceBlogs.com, for standing behind Myers on this ridiculous matter.
Pivar's suit, which was for a bad review by Myers on Pivar's pseudoscientific book Lifecode, did have a couple interesting offshoots. The main one is this - Pivar has horrible taste in PR firms. The flacks he chose - Matthew Rich Group / Planet PR - jumped into the fray to try and build Pivar's case by cut and pasting the same message in comments of just about any blog that mentioned the Pivar lawsuit, including at Shakesville:As an attorney I can tell you Pivar has every right to sue PZ Meyer and he may well prevail. And by the way, shame on PZ for trying to censor an interesting, if unconventional theory, in science community. www.aninconvenienttheory.com shows part of the book in question and it seems of interest to this non-scientist.
Good work by Scientific American's Christopher Mims for connecting on the dots to show that it was Matthew Rich himself who was spamming blog posts to try and lend credence to Pivar's silly claims. So remember, when you absolutely, positively want a PR job done half-assed, give Matthew Rich and Planet PR a call.
Oh, and another offshoot of the lawsuit? Do a Google search on the term "Classic Crackpot" and find out.Other Sunday reading
-- Massive airstrikes on Iran? Coming right up.
-- Don't worry about the Middle East, though, Ok? You have enough on your plate with the Chupacabras running wild. And buy a T-shirt while you're at it.
-- Our old friend, the sexy and commanding William Donohue, the President of the Catholic League and a man literally dripping with virtue, threatened to beat up drunken atheist Christopher Hitchens on live TV.
-- Who said this about his post-politics career plans: "I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers”? If you guessed George W. Bush, you may now commence having a series of anger-induced strokelettes. Reading the rest of the article will likely finish you off altogether.
-- Finally, good work Kyle. And sorry your humorless school saw fit to suspend you for it. Good luck in college.
--WKW
Pivar's suit, which was for a bad review by Myers on Pivar's pseudoscientific book Lifecode, did have a couple interesting offshoots. The main one is this - Pivar has horrible taste in PR firms. The flacks he chose - Matthew Rich Group / Planet PR - jumped into the fray to try and build Pivar's case by cut and pasting the same message in comments of just about any blog that mentioned the Pivar lawsuit, including at Shakesville:
As an attorney I can tell you Pivar has every right to sue PZ Meyer and he may well prevail. And by the way, shame on PZ for trying to censor an interesting, if unconventional theory, in science community. www.aninconvenienttheory.com shows part of the book in question and it seems of interest to this non-scientist.
Good work by Scientific American's Christopher Mims for connecting on the dots to show that it was Matthew Rich himself who was spamming blog posts to try and lend credence to Pivar's silly claims. So remember, when you absolutely, positively want a PR job done half-assed, give Matthew Rich and Planet PR a call.
Oh, and another offshoot of the lawsuit? Do a Google search on the term "Classic Crackpot" and find out.
Other Sunday reading
-- Massive airstrikes on Iran? Coming right up.
-- Don't worry about the Middle East, though, Ok? You have enough on your plate with the Chupacabras running wild. And buy a T-shirt while you're at it.
-- Our old friend, the sexy and commanding William Donohue, the President of the Catholic League and a man literally dripping with virtue, threatened to beat up drunken atheist Christopher Hitchens on live TV.
-- Who said this about his post-politics career plans: "I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers”? If you guessed George W. Bush, you may now commence having a series of anger-induced strokelettes. Reading the rest of the article will likely finish you off altogether.
-- Finally, good work Kyle. And sorry your humorless school saw fit to suspend you for it. Good luck in college.
--WKW
