The Taming of the Shrew, or the Shaming of the True?

Recently (23/08/08), the Vadney published an entry in his sordid little blog entitled Taming of a Shrew or Amnesty. I would advise readers to ignore the pictures and zoölogical commentary. For example, the final picture, with the caption “The cute, chubby shrew mole likes to roll over and have her belly scratched”, is actually a photograph of a shrew, taken in the Netherlands, and the shrew, far from having rolled over, was face up on a piece of glass, and photographed from below.

Quite apart from the Vadney’s customary aversion to the truth, this posting shows his lack of invention when it comes to titles. Mine is much better, don’t you think?

Of course, what the Vadney is all about has nothing to do with the Taming of the Shrew: he wants to see the Shaming of the True. More particularly, of anybody who dares to publicize any inconvenient truths about himself. And when you’re someone as pathetic and dishonest as the Vadney, almost any truth is inconvenient. Not only does he want to shame those of us who stand up for the truth, he wants to extort money from us. He knows that his legal actions can’t win on their merits, but he hopes people will be fearful of the cost of defending them and settle out of court. Sorry, How-Old....

Vapid Vadney’s Vexatious Vexillology

In another ridiculous recent (25/08/08) posting, the Vadney has included a picture of the Agnus Dei, complete with vexillum. The cross on the vexillum is intriguing. It looks rather like the Savoyard cross: white on a red background. This must be the Vadney’s sly little back-handed reference to my living in Haute-Savoie, in the Alps. Now that raises an interesting point: the word alp means “summer pasture”; So what happens to all those alpine lambs in the winter? They get slaughtered, of course! And that is exactly what will happen to the Vadney if he is foolish enough to try to sue me. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.)

However, I have now moved back to Geneva, Switzerland, and so How-Old had better change the shape of the cross on his grubby little picture.

Pompous Pseudo-Piety

All this talk of religion reminds me. The Vadney’s piety is about as credible as his hair colour. A serious Christian theologian would doubtless tell him his use of religious images and language in support of his campaign of defamation and perjury (to cut a long list short) was nothing short of blasphemy.

He has also made a complete fool of himself with the affair of his pseudo-Psalm. First (21/08/08) he presents it as “Psalm 152”, with no qualification or comment, clearly under the impression it was a genuine Psalm. Then (PS to same posting), in response to my pointing out that there are only 150 Psalms in the Book of Psalms, and giving his drivel’s real origin (from a contemporary “charismatic prayer group”), he accuses me of “ignorance”, pointing to the existence of the Apocryphal Psalms (with a claim that “Psalm 152” appears in the Septuagint. I’d like to know where!). Eventually (25/08/08), he finally wakes up to the origin of his pseudo-Psalm, trying desperately to pretend he knew it all along, and citing a capitalization convention which neither he nor the poor benighted charismatics had complied with.

The real Apocryphal Psalm 152

First of all, let me apologize for previously having included, on my biblical quotations blog, a translation of the wrong Apocryphal Psalm. Foolishly, seeing it immediately after a translation of Psalm 151, I assumed it was number 152, but I was wrong. At least, when I make a mistake, I don’t try to cover it up or threaten to sue anyone who points it out.

Anyway, the following translation of the Syriac Psalm 152 is from the monograph Studies on the Syriac Aprocryphal Psalms (Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement, 7), by H. F. Van Rooy. I have taken the liberty of replacing the second occurrence of the word lion in Verse 2, in the light of Van Rooy’s footnote: “All the other manuscripts have ‘a bear’”, and because it makes more sense: David was said to have been attacked by a lion and a bear simultaneously, while tending sheep. I have also put in some standard punctuation.

1. God, God, come to my aid. Help me and save me. Deliver my soul from the murderers.


2. I will descend into Sheol through the mouth of a lion, or a bear will harm me.


3. Was it not enough for them to lie in wait for the flock of my father and to tear sheep from his flock, that they also wanted my soul, to slay me?


4. Have pity, o Lord, on your chosen one, and save your holy one from harm, he [sic] who persevered in your praises in all his times and who praised your great name.


5. How did you deliver me from the hands of the destroying death and how did you snatch my devastation from the mouths of the beasts.


6. Send quickly, o Lord, a saviour from before you and rescue me from the gaping death that wishes to confine me in its depths.

I am not so sure about some of this: Verse 5 seems a bit premature, but that’s how Van Rooy has translated it.

Anyway, I thought it quite apt in a way, with the religious references, and the sheep, and situation the Vadney currently finds himself in. Of course, he would be very foolish to look to God for salvation. No self-respecting God would take pity on someone whose situation had been brought about and was being prolonged by his own iniquity. The Vadney would do well to consider such simple concepts as truth and truthfulness if he wants to save himself.

Vadney4Justice or Justice4Vadney?

Please try not to puke. This is a picture of the Vadney from his 2007 election campaign for the post of Town Justice of New Baltimore. You will be relieved to read that I don’t want you to look at his face. I would like rather to draw your attention to the flag in the background. It’s a 13-star American flag from the days of the War of Independence. So you would think the Wad was trying to tell us something about his attitude to Britain with this picture, wouldn’t you? Well, probably he is, but like most information emanating from the Vadney, the message of this picture is totally false. At best, his attitude to Britain is ambivalent. Vadney doesn’t look down on Britain; rather, he aspires to be British himself. Remember, he claimed (falsely, of course) to be a Member of the Institute of Linguists (MIL) and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA), both august British institutions. And he claimed to have attended, among many other institutions, the University College of London. That would have been more impressive if he had got the name right: it is simply University College, London.

Vadney is a Merkin, Vadney is a thief!

And then there is the sycophantic puff piece in the Schenectady Daily Gazette (24 April 1998, p. B-11), in which the pseudo-journalist Cheryl Clark describes Vadney making “a little pot of chamomile tea” and serving it on a “silver tray”. And, of course, speaking “with a cultured European tinge that belies his Albany upbringing”: in plain language, a fake English accent. How quaint!

So, for something novel, let’s see how the Vadney would fare in the British legal system. As I have mentioned, we know that the Vadney claimed, on his ProZ.com and TranslatorsCafe.com profiles, as well as his own commercial website, to have qualifications he lacked. I also know that one UK agency, until relatively recently when they found out about his fraudulent claims, hired the Vadney on a regular basis. So where does this put him legally?

Also, feigned qualification cases, to my knowledge, have been brought/prosecuted - with the higher criminal standard of proof of beyond reasonable doubt - only under the UK Theft Act 1968. The gen. category is obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception. The spec. count is s. 16(2)c)-> a deception i.e. as to qualifications allowing a person to be given an 'opportunity to earn remuneration or greater remuneration'. See MPC v. Charles; R. v. Lambie; and esp. R. v. Callender (1992)- an unqualified book-keeper pretending to be a Chartered Accountant.

See <http://www.iol.org.uk/discussion/viewtopic.asp?id=1026>,
post by Maurice, a UK solicitor.

So, in simple terms: Vadney is a thief under English law! (Section 16 of the UK Theft Act 1968 has now been replaced by Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006, which came into effect on 15 January 2007. Vadney’s deceptions took place both before and after this date; so he is a fraud (in the UK legal sense) as well as thief! Note that there is no longer a requirement to have actually made a gain or caused someone a loss; intention suffices. And the maximum penalty is 10 years.) Wouldn’t it be nice to see him locked up where he belongs?

A day to remember

22 August 2007. The day Scott Waldman’s article about the Vadney and his lies finally appeared in the Albany Times Union. On the top of the front page of the D (Capital Region) section, with the headline “Candidate lists false credentials”, and a picture of the Vadney’s grotesquely grinning countenance (cropped from the same picture as is shown on this page, by the looks of it.) The subtitle was “Harold W. Vadney III, running for New Baltimore town justice, claimed degrees, memberships he doesn’t have”. There was also a teaser on the very front page of the paper. The Vadney was finally exposed as a fraud, not just on an obscure forum for translators, but in the mainstream press on his home turf!

This magnificent achievement was the culmination of a lot of very hard work behind the scenes by a lot of people I can’t name due to the Vadney’s practice of harassing people who disclose inconvenient truths about him with vexatious and frivolous lawsuits. A bit late for Scott Waldman and the Times Union, though! The limitations period is only one year. My thanks and congratulations go to all those people who helped, and to Scott Waldman and his publisher for having the guts to run that excellent story.

Vadney loses his top and drives full-throttle to perdition?

Affectations can be dangerous.
—Gertrude Stein

We have seen that the Vadney is not above crying poor. His so-called “AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF NOTICE OF APPEAL” (apparently he never actually did file a notice of appeal in due form) alleges that he can’t afford the cost of the appeal,can’t afford a lawyer, etc. He apparently can’t even scrape together $1600 to pay a judgment debt for court costs to one of the defendants in his lost defamation suit. Poor How-Old!

And not so long ago he was bragging about his success and wealth.The Schenectady Daily Gazette published a puff piece on 25 April 1998 (p. B-11), in which Vadney was described as “a businessman who turned a gift for languages - he speaks five - into an international translation service founded in 1986 that currently employs 300 consultants”. Who could have told them that? Even to this day he claims to “travel frequently to venues in Europe, especially Germany, France and Italy” (from the “about me” rubric on his blog, current as at time of writing). Then there is the small matter of that apartment in Italy. And I wonder how it is that he can afford to get around in a BMW convertible. By all reports, he drives around with the top down, his long scarf flapping in the breeze. Surely, he must cut a ludicrous figure posturing around like that at his age: a clear case of delayed mid-life crisis. And what poseur would be complete without vanity plates? In his case, apparently: “OBEN OHNE” (German for “topless”). No doubt the car is registered in his partner’s name, but how often do you think Edward J. Hayes III gets to drive it?

It all adds up, really. The riches to rags, the obsession with toplessness, the holidays in Italy, the convertible with the top down, the long flowing scarf, all point to one thing:

THE VADNEY THINKS HE’S ISADORA DUNCAN!

If the Vadney wants to emulate Isadora Duncan, then so be it. I am sure she was a bit of an exhibitionist too. Let us hope his reënactment of her life proceeds at breakneck speed. But there are a few important differences that rather spoil the parallel:

• People actually paid money to see Isadora Duncan topless;


• Isadora Duncan actually achieved something in life; and


• by the time she was the Vadney’s age, Isadora Duncan had been dead for seven years.

Of course, this is sadly purely hypothetical in the Vadney’s case, but we could perhaps add a further major divergence here:

• When Isadora Duncan died, some people were rather upset about it.

It remains to be seen, of course, if anyone would be upset if the Vadney met a similar fate to Isadora Duncan’s. (Maybe Hayes III would be upset about the damage to his car.) Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long for a resolution to this question.

Well, I couldn’t find a picture of Isadora Duncan topless.
So here’s Mata Hari bottomless.
Like the Vadney, she got herself into trouble with her compulsive lying.


(Courtesy of wikia.com)

Some references

I have been a bit slow about posting reference material, partly because blogging is far from my main occupation, partly because I need to ensure I am not exposing my sources to any legal risks, and partly because I am in the process of changing hosting companies. But here are a couple of files.

• Vadney’s affidavit in support of his so-called appeal. Here you can see his pathetic bleatings about how he didn’t understand what was going on at the trial of his defamation case, and how he is now a “poor person”, who can’t afford a lawyer or even the court fees for an appeal. A far cry from his usual chest-beating.


• Judge Teresi’s findings, including, among others, that the “defamatory” allegations against the Vadney were, in fact, true. Also noteworthy is that defamation proceedings are so rare in the US that the court reporter didn’t even know the word “libel”. Maybe they should have got Terry, whoever she is!

I don’t suppose anyone will download, let alone read, those files, but at least they’re there, and at least the Vadney knows that I know....

A more serious matter....

The Vadney has been harassing my octogenarian parents in Adelaide (Australia) with phone calls in the small hours of the morning. This is totally unacceptable. Ostensibly, he was trying to contact me, but he knows very well that I am at the other end of the world, in Europe. I will take whatever action is necessary, legal or otherwise, to protect my parents from this harassment.

Of course I won’t be retaliating in kind by calling the Vadney’s elderly mother in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t want to wake up the whole trailer park!

Coming soon!

Vadney’s career as a thief!

Special Anniversary Retrospective Edition

Well, actually, it’s a bit over a year since the publication, on 2 August 2007, of the exposé of Vadney’s lies on the NIL forum. I was aware of the anniversary, but have been a little busy lately.

An edited version of the original thread is available here. (Unfortunately, the graphics had to be removed after Vadney made a fuss about my alleged infringement of the copyright of the hosting company. I also added a further post after the forum had been shut down but the story taken up in the press. Also, the IP addresses have been removed for privacy.) Below is a bit of a summary of the story from then to now.

The story behind the original NIL forum thread

In June, 2007, I received emails about an American pseudo-translator named Harold Vadney, containing what seemed like extraordinary allegations about his dishonesty. I knew that he was a bit dodgy, claiming to be a clinical scientist despite showing complete ignorance of even the simplest chemistry, but the allegations against him seemed so over the top that I suspected my correspondent of being a few snags short of a barbecue. I told him I would be prepared to publish the allegations against Vadney on the NIL (Network of Independent Linguists) forum, of which I was moderator, but only after independently verifying the facts. At the time, as well as advertising himself as a translator and running a kitchen-table translation agency, Vadney was also running his second campaign for the post of Town Justice in his local community of New Baltimore, New York.

Among the allegations against him were the following:

• that Vadney had falsely claimed to be an FRSA (Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, a UK-based association of some antiquity and prestige);


• that Vadney had falsely claimed to be a Member of the Institute of Linguists (now the Chartered Institute of Linguists) a UK-based professional society for translators, interpreters and other language professionals;


• that Vadney had falsely claimed to hold an MA degree from the State University of New York at Albany.

These three allegations could be checked objectively without too much trouble, by contacting the IOL, the RSA and an organization called Credentials Inc., trading under the name of DegreeChk.com. I obtained the requisite information quite legitimately, despite Vadney’s subsequent protests, and it turns out that the above three allegations against him were all true. (He has since changed a lot of his online CVs etc., but his false claims were everywhere at the time, and can still be found in archived and cached versions of his websites.) So I went ahead and published the exposé. I notified Vadney immediately of the thread, a fact which, with his usual candour, he later strenuously denied.

One minor problem with the exposé was that DegreeChk.com had incompetently given Vadney’s one degree as a BS (Bachelor of Science in the US), rather than a BA. (There are serious doubts about how Vadney even got this degree—see below.) Although this led to some inappropriate statements on the NIL forum thread, it does nothing to change the undisputed fact that Vadney lied about his qualifications, in particular, by claiming an MA.

Reaction to the exposé

There were some consequences to all this. Vadney started throwing all sorts of wild abuse and allegations around on the TranslatorsCafe.com forum, in a thread that was quickly deleted. A New York regional newspaper, the Albany Times Union, was alerted to the story, and a reporter, Scott Waldman, asked me some questions and interviewed Vadney. The story did not appear until some time later, however, on 22 August, just after the close of nominations for the election. This story repeated the revelations made on the NIL forum thread, but added some other allegations against Vadney. These included his use of the false title MA and the made-up title of “Drt Med” on translations he certified for official purposes (not surprising since his website displayed an example of his certification including these postnominals), along with the revocation of his Army Commendation Medal.

Lying little worm that he is, Vadney has since repeatedly claimed that Scott Waldman got this information from me (and/or Scott Horne). This is simply not true, and Vadney knows it. I don’t know the source of Mr Waldman’s information, but he certainly didn’t get it from me. Clearly something has been going on behind the scenes, but I can only guess at what it might be. One thing is for certain: Vadney previously claimed to have an oak-leaf cluster to go with his medal, and there was no mention of it in the copy of his military record later obtained by Scott Horne from the military archives.

Rather than taking the intelligent approach of adopting a low profile and waiting for the thing to blow over, Vadney used the exposure of his dishonesty as an opportunity to draw attention to himself. He approached the local press, and one so-called newspaper (I say “so-called” because it was known for such journalistic exploits as publishing a multi-page “news” spread on the opening of a new salon), the defunct and unlamented Ledger, run by the contemptible and unprofessional Lisa Deyo, refused to touch the story. Another, the Daily Mail (24 August 2007), uncritically published Vadney’s version of the story, unsurprisingly full of lies, as fact. This servility was limited only by the incompetence of the reporter, Donna Rich.

For example, Ms Rich got my name wrong and said I lived in Canada and Scott Horne in Indonesia, whereas I lived in Indonesia at the time and Scott Horne in Canada. A scanned copy of the article, along with my response to it at the time and various documents relating to Vadney and his lies, may be downloaded in a ZIP folder from <http://www.geocities.com/qzzu/Vadney/Press_Kit.zip>.

Meanwhile, another newspaper, the Greenville Press, published (30 Aug 2007) a more balanced article. (“Balanced” does not mean the same thing as “even-handed”: balanced reporting of a dispute in which one side is clearly in the wrong will report this fact.) The article begins with the words:

A town justice candidate who misrepresented his own educational and professional credentials remains in the running.

Well, that’s one newspaper supporting Vadney, two supporting truth and justice and the contemptible rag known as the Ledger favouring Vadney but too gutless to publish anything about it. Another newspaper, the Ravena News Herald, which was definitely anti-Vadney, was unwilling to touch the story because it and its publisher, Dick Bleezarde, were being sued by Vadney (see below). Unfortunately, the Network of Independent Linguists’ forum, which first made Vadney’s fraud public, did not survive. Early in the piece, Vadney contacted the inaptly-named Bravenet Web Services Inc., the company hosting the forum, and a hack by the surprising name of Coal Fuller sent me a standard email demanding I remove all references to Vadney from the forum. I did not, and so, on 19 August 2007 or so, Coal pulled the plug. Vadney of course gloated about this, but it is merely a reflection of Bravenet’s craven policy: the moment anyone threatens them with legal action, they buckle. (We had experienced a similar reaction, under a previous moderator, when the IOL threatened Bravenet.)

A constant theme running through Vadney’s emails and public pronouncements is his conspiracy theory. At the time I became involved, he was suing several people for alleged defamation, relating to his pathetic campaign to have himself elected Town Justice in 2005. Articles and advertisements had been published pointing to Vadney’s loony conduct and obvious unsuitability for the office. In Vadney’ perverse little mind, my publication of the truth about him was part of some “conspiracy” with the defendants in that case (which was eventually summarily dismissed), in particular one Joan Ross. To this day, he does not seem to have grasped a few simple concepts. He has actually used the term “criminal conspiracy”, but never said conspiracy to do what. He does not seem to realize that there needs to be a “what”, an object of the conspiracy, and that, for it to be criminal conspiracy, this object must be itself criminal. Nor, at least until recently (assuming he read and understood one of the summary judgments against him), did he understand that there is no tort of “(civil) conspiracy”. There needs to be some underlying tort. The existence of a conspiracy, if demonstrated, may expand the class of tortfeasors, but it does not create a tort out of thin air.

The aftermath: the decline and fall of a narcissist

In another bizarre and perverse action, Vadney set up his hate blog, mainly focused on me, in December 2007, accusing me of “Internet abuse and defamation”. Initially, he hid behind the pseudonym “BG” apparently standing for beau gars (!). For a while he posted at a frantic pace, even finding time between the turkey and christmas pudding to post three times (actually more, since he amalgamated some of the posts) on 25 December. Now he seems more subdued. Maybe he has realized that he is totally outclassed in terms of credibility and writing skills and is only making himself look even stupider with every post, or maybe he is too busy behind the scenes, writing letters to judges, foreign consulates, law enforcement officials, dog catchers, and god knows who else trying to get them to do his bidding.

Vadney today cuts an even more pathetic figure than ever before. Unable to come to terms with the inevitable loss of his stupid defamation case, he is trying to appeal. Not only that, he is claiming poverty and trying to weasel out of paying the usual fees. This does not sit very well with his earlier bragging about the success of his business, or even with his dismissive description in his blog of Scott Horne and me as “indigent”. Certain real estate transactions taking place in distant Italy might be of interest to the court authorities in this regard, too. So impotent has he become that he has resorted to placing plastic bags of dogshit on the street in front of one of his neighbours’ homes (that of another of the defendants in his crazy defamation suit). He is a broken man, his demeanour a far cry from the jaunty arrogance of a few months ago.

Meanwhile, the rest of us have been getting on with our lives, advancing our careers, gaining new qualifications, travelling the world. It is only Vadney that is stuck in the mire of brooding, self-delusion, conspiracy theories and revenge fantasies. One wonders how much longer he can continue like that.

Postscript: Vadney’s degree?

The Greenville Press article mentioned above raises some questions about Vadney’s BA degree. How did he graduate in less than a year after leaving the Army? It quotes him as citing credits earned from the University of Maryland while in the military. Fair enough. What puzzles me, however, is the number of credits. There is reference on his military record to his having entered with a massive 15 semester-hours’ credit from Union College, and gained a further 24 SH under the DANTES scheme while serving. That makes a total of 39 SH when he left the Army. And yet he was able to complete the requirements for a degree (at least 100 SH, usually more) in less than a year? The guy is no genius, and, given his self-proclaimed propensity for “forging his way”, we are entitled to ask: just how did he get the necessary credits so quickly? Did Clerk Typist Vadney get some additional credits for his typing ability?

Congratulations to Scott Horne

My colleague and fellow target of the Vadney’s bile, Mr Scott Horne, has achieved his goal of Canadian citizenship. So congratulations are in order! Well done, Scott!

What has this got to do to with the Vadney and his lies? Well, regular readers may recall that he actually tried to interfere with Mr Horne’s application by contacting the Canadian immigration authorities about this blog. (He still apparently hasn’t worked out that this is exclusively my blog and noöne else’s!) This is what he has to say about it:

Scott Horne, an expatriate American, who never served in any branch of national service, deserted the US and applied for Canadian citizenship in February 2007. That's fine, I'm sure we'll all agree, Canada can have him. But it makes one think: Does Canada really need immigration that badly? (We're [sic!] contacting the Canadian Immigration authorities to ask if they really want someone like Horne--after they read his blog posts.) But then, on further consideration, he's gone to Québec.

(15 March 2008)

Horne filed his application for Canadian citizenship in about February 2007; we [sic!] will be contacting the Canadian immigration authorities shortly with a complaint and an inquiry asking if that's the best that Canada can do as far as attracting immigrants. Have you received a response from the Canadian government with respect to your application, Mr Horne?

(15 March 2008)

[Out of concern for readers’ sensibilities, I have omitted the Vadney’s infantile and nauseating multi-colour effects.]

Once again, the Vadney has made a fool of himself with his delusions of grandeur, belied as ever by his obvious impotence. Why Mr Horne’s citizenship should be any concern of his remains a mystery.

I might also mention, while on the subject of congratulating Mr Scott Horne, that he recently undertook the examination for the Diplôme Approfondi de Langue Française, Niveau C2 (Advanced Diploma in French Language, Level C2, commonly known as DALF C2). Level C2 is the highest level on the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference (for testing language competence), and Mr Horne gained a remarkable score of 95%. Once again, well done, Scott!

In celebration, I shall very soon post another one of Scott Horne’s fine parodies on the poetry blog. I was going to wait until I had finished a companion piece I am working on, but I’ll post it in the next day or so to celebrate the happy event.

Vadney’s paper-saving campaign

It seems the Vadney has been writing letters to various officials, judges and lawyers, dozens of them in fact, most of them with at least half a dozen cc’s. And he has added a new little slogan at the top, just under “Good men need only to stay silent for evil men to prosper—Edmund Burke” (now you know why I persist in writing against the Vadney): it’s “A Policy of Paper Reduction: A Green Office”! (The colon is actually an diagonal arrow.)

What is the subject matter justifying this enormous reduction of the world’s stocks of paper? This blog! Apparently the Vadney still hasn’t worked out the concept of “on the public record”, and is fuming that I have published “confidential” court documents relating to his case. It’s democracy US-style, How-Old; get used to it!

Strewing manure?

As mentioned in my ballad, Vadney is full of shit. Not only is it amazing how much of it he can stuff into that grotesquely stunted little body of his, but also just how much bullshit he manages to compress into a few lines of clumsily-written prose:

That's one of the reasons why we [sic!] have stopped responding to the manure still being strewn by Troll Benham and Sockpuppet Horne. They're evil and envious and have nothing to do. Period.

Strewing manure? That’s a fine charge to be throwing at me and my colleague! Sources close to the New York State Police inform me that Vadney was reprimanded on 6 May after carefully placing two sandwich-bags full of doggy-do (well, I hope it was doggy-do) on the street in front of the house of one of the defendants to his famous and ill-fated lawsuit.

Who’s evil? Who’s envious? Who’s got nothing to do?

I don’t claim to be perfect, but I have never pursued an innocent and seriously ill man to his grave with a frivolous lawsuit.

And I should envy a man who claims to be a professional translator but only gets work once every blue moon? Who tried for five years to get a regular job without success? Who claims to be a language professional but consistently misspells simple words? I should envy a no-hoper whose main chance of making something of himself is to sue innocent people for millions of dollars for telling the truth about him? Who just lost a fifty-million-dollar lawsuit? Who is so insecure he makes fun of other people’s minor disabilities, even though he can’t pronounce the letter r? Who has such an inferiority complex about his lack of education and his trailer-trash origins he poses for a portrait in a labcoat marked “Dr. H. W. Vadney”? Who feels so inadequate about his aging appearance he has to dye his hair? Who stands for election to a $10,000 job and gets 2.4 percent of the vote?

And of course, Vadney has plenty to do. Like depositing bags of dogshit on the street. Like concocting stupid lawsuits about bloody nothing. Like calling witnesses and boring everybody’s tits off for 3.5 days but not even calling himself or anyone else who might actually support his case. Like bragging about his assets in Europe and then claiming to be too poor to pay the costs of his hopeless appeal. Or bragging about how he “knows the law” and then whingeing about how he didn’t get a fair trial because the judge didn’t help him. Like running infantile hate campaigns in an effort to trash the reputations of serious professionals. (Don’t be misled: Vadney is neither serious nor a professional anything, except perhaps a professional litigant and a professional pain in the butt.) Like campaigning in elections he’d have no hope of winning even if people did believe his lies. Like fabricating credentials and forging documents....

Does the word “projection” ring a bell, anyone?

Vadney’s Notice of Appeal

All this reminds me. Vadney’s notice of appeal has been obtained from the Greene County Clerk’s Office. It is entertaining reading. Here are some highlights (numbering omitted):

• I believe I may have overestimated my understanding of the language of the court and of procedure at trial and that the court should have recognized that I may have made a procedural error but the court did not assure itself that I understood that I had a right to take the stand or not take the stand at a specific point before the court requested motions.


• I believe the court erred in that it failed to explicitly tell me that I had the opportunity and right to take the stand to testify on the facts to the jury.


• I believe the court erred in not explicitly asking me if I wished to testify before the court took motions.


• I believe the court erred and abused its discretion when, upon hearing my answer to the defendant’s motion to dismiss, refused to allow me to take the stand despite my vigorous requests to testify.


• I believe the court erred and abused its discretion in not allowing me to testify despite my express requests to do so.


• I believe the court erred and abused its discretion in that the court’s refusal to take notice of my request to treat previous defendants in the case before it and who were subpoenaed by me to testify and appear, as hostile witnesses.


• I believe that the court failed to exercise control of witnesses by allowing them to ramble and to refuse to answer for the most specious presumptions or to refuse to identify an exhibit or to criticize a true and correct exhibit for idiotic reasons.


• I cannot afford an attorney to represent me and must proceed pro se.


• I do not have the resources to cover the costs of this appeal or of another trial.


• I wish to proceed to appeal and retrial as a poor person.

Note the idiosyncratic syntax of some of the items. Note too that he complains repeatedly that the judge didn’t explain procedure to him, despite his persistent bragging about his legal knowledge and having run for election as a judge himself on two occasions....

I hope to post a scanned copy of the whole document, along with the judge’s findings and maybe even the hour-long diatribe in response to counsel for the defendant’s motion for dismissal, in which Vadney is alleged to have so expressly and vigorously requested to be allowed to testify, despite having already closed his case.

Is Vadney Appealing?

NO!!

Well, of course he isn’t appealing in that sense, but I was speculating as to whether he might be appealing against the recent court decision throwing out his stupid, unmeritorious and unrealistic defamation suit.

What would his grounds be? That he wasn’t able to present his case properly because he didn’t understand the law? This from a would-be Town Justice? Or maybe he didn’t get a chance to put his case? Well, he raved on for three-and-a-half-days, didn’t he?

And what about money? Appeals can be expensive...maybe around $US20K. Surely he won’t cry poor and ask for the fees to be waived?

Run that past me again, Werner?

I am not sure how relations are between Werner Patels and the Vadney lately.

The former’s recent comment on the latter’s blog is open to interpretation:

Interesting developments, after months of not checking in on this story.

Even after years of residing in the blogosphere, so to speak, I am still amazed by the extent to which certain things are escalated -- and transferred into the real world (e.g., by way of lawsuits and/or criminal action).

For Scott Horne to face the possibility of being arrested on what appears to be his native soil, this is probably the worst outcome I have seen in an Internet/blogosphere-related case in a long time, or ever.

It has also confirmed another of my suspicions: translators, most of whom are introverts and loners by definition, should not really socialize -- especially not on message boards and such -- because my own personal experience has shown that our profession is so filled with contempt for and/or envy of others in this line of work that such personal confrontations are just bound to happen.

This is why my wife and I pulled out of Proz, TranslatorsCafe, etc., because the experience was sickening for both of us.

I still remember my wife saying to me one day a few years ago, "You know what? Let's not bother with those sites anymore. All we ever get from being associated with them is grief and insult. Do we really need this?"

I thought about it for a few seconds and concluded, "No, we don't. Life is too precious and too short."

10:53:00 PM

And here is the Vadney’s unctuous reply:

Werner Patels appears to hit the nail on the head in his recently posted comment.

Vadney seems to have got things arse about: when Werner says “For Scott Horne to face the possibility of being arrested...is possibly the worst outcome”, I assume he means that it’s a bad thing. As the Vadney was the one promoting this possibility, Werner’s comment can hardly be construed as a statement in support of Vadney.

What worries me, however, is that the Vadney seems to have convinced Werner that there was a real possibility of Scott Horne’s being arrested. For what? The Vadney lives in a fantasy world in which (a) there is some (so far unspecified) criminal conspiracy against him involving myself, Scott Horne, most of his neighbourhood, two newspapers,..., and (b) people in authority give a rat’s arse about his conspiracy fantasies. It is probably possible to get anyone you like arrested by concocting a sufficiently plausible story, but the Vadney’s grasp on reality (in particular his grasp on other people’s grasp on reality) is so tenuous that the stories he devises (and may even believe) are somewhat less plausible than the Brothers Grimm.

New blog alert!

The Vadney, ungrateful little puppy that he is, has recently, with his antics, inspired a creative outpouring of poetry in some quarters. So I have set up a new blog devoted to Vadney-related poetry.

I have already posted a newly-composed ballad, with no fewer than 27 stanzas, some of which are mildly amusing....

See you there!

Judge with a Grudge?

Here is the text of the article which was the subject of Mr Vadney's lawsuit against one of his neighbours. His case against the other three defendants was dismissed before going to trial. In the remaining case, the judge held that Mr Vadney had only succeeded in proving the truth of the allegedly defamatory article.

Judge With A Grudge?

NEW BALTIMORE – You wouldn’t just accept the word of a used car salesman, would you?

Well, that’s exactly what Harold W. Vadney, write-in candidate for New Baltimore Town Justice, is asking you to do. His posters around town claim he is “Ethical, Professional, Fair and Independent”. His mailings and recent articles in the local press make him seem like he’s all that and more, so we asked around to see what kind of a judge he would really be.

We have been unable to find any endorsement whatsoever, unlike his opponents. In fact, it was hard to even find any supportive voters. Driving around, the only political signs we could find for him were on public property, unlike his opponents whose support is seen peppering private property all over town.

So, rather than relying on his sales pitch, we dug a little into his background and managed to engage a few individuals who actually know him. A different picture emerged. In fact, we discovered a man who seems to have the reputation of discrediting and ridiculing anyone who disagrees with his form of ‘justice’.

A simple web search uncovers a detailed, documented history of fellow business associates accusing him of displaying a violent temper and verbal abuse. Although these are personal opinions, one reads numerous allegations about his poor business practices and writers express shock and are aghast at what they claim is his extreme behavior. In just one example, Scott Horne, a business colleague, contends in a web forum, “Mr. Vadney does indeed have a fine reputation for withholding payment...threatening people who make public the truth about his failure to pay...and assaulting people with profanity.”

“I have absolutely no contact with him”, says John Luckacovic, a long-time hamlet homeowner and neighbor of Mr. Vadney, “and yet he has held a grudge against me ever since I dropped my complaint about the barking dogs kept in the house he shares with his partner. It makes no sense.”

“Things got better with the dogs, so I withdrew the complaint and the judge dismissed the case,” he continues, “but Mr. Vadney refused to be dismissed, and for more than a year, he has trumped up fictional complaints about me and my wife, sent the state troopers to our house numerous times, written hateful letters to the editor about me and even created a website specifically dedicated to discrediting the judge who dismissed the case.

According to Mr. Vadney’s website (http://vadney4justice.home.att.net), the dismissal of the case to which Mr. Luckacovic refers so infuriated Mr. Vadney that he wrote a 50 page (yes, 50 pages!) complaint to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct in an attempt to throw the Hon. Joseph Farrell off the NB bench. Twice, the Commission rejected his complaint.

Neighbors who know Mr. Vadney say his intense finger wagging is common knowledge to everyone around him. They contend it includes numerous petty, unsubstantiated accusations and a relentless harassment of his neighbors to obey laws of his own invention. By his own admission on his website, he places lengthy letters and calls to news media and various elected and unelected town leaders and politicians including the Greene County Sheriff’s office, the local NYS Trooper barracks, even Governor George Pataki, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Charles E. Schumer, to name but a few! Anyone with a few hours to spare (it took us more than three) can navigate around his website to learn more about this candidate’s views.

As soon as his website appears, Mr. Vadney sports an official campaign photo showing him in front of a 13 star Colonial American flag. One wonders if this symbolizes the 18th century justice Mr. Vadney would like to see for New Baltimore: one of witch hunts, stockades and public flogging.

Paid for by Voters4Justice

So there you have it: the allegedly “defamatory” article, found to have been proved true by the legal efforts of none other than the Vadney himself.

By the way, access to most of Vadney's web pages is blocked (whether at his instance or by the host on the basis of the content is not clear), but he was kind enough to post a scanned version of the article, which I downloaded and posted here.

Shock! Horror! Vadney tells the truth!

Well, it had to happen one day, I suppose. Harold William Vadney III has been caught actually telling the truth!

I have got hold of an archive copy of his CV (entitled “About Me”) from the 2005 election campaign, and it contains a classic example of unintentional truth-telling.

First, let me set the scene. We all know that Vadney's only genuine tertiary qualification, among all those he's claimed over the years, and despite his alleged decade or more of study at any number of high-profile universities, is a BA in German. However, we are also aware that he further claims, in many places, to have been “Director of Clinical Research” at Cathedral Health Systems. (I note in passing that Vadney took two unsuccessful lawsuits against this company!) So how does a language graduate get to be a “Director of Clinical Research”? Easy!

The answer is supplied by the Vadney himself:

I later moved to East Windsor (near Princeton) and from there forged my way into the pharmaceutical industries, and later into public health (HIV, TB and STDs), and finally into clinical research and epidemiology, finally occupying a position as Director, Clinical Research and Epidemiology with a major hospital corporation in Newark, New Jersey.

—<http://vadney4justice.home.att.net/AboutMe>
Downloaded 2/3/06 10:04 AM
(emphasis added)

Forged his way, indeed!

...which makes me wonder...

Might there have been some (unintentional) truth in some of the statements in Vadney’s blog? Well, his use of the word produced is sometimes open to interpretation:

5. Harold Vadney subsequently produced his Institute of Linguists diploma--disproving Benham's and Horne's claims--and forwarded a copy to the now Chartered Institute of Linguists' officer corresponding with Benham and Horne but who inexplicably (or explicably) disappeared or is no longer with the Institute'' and the Institute has been reticent on the subject ever since;


6. Harold Vadney produced his RSA certificate of election to fellowship--again disproving Benham's and Horne's claims;

—Blog entry, 23 April, 2008
(emphasis added)

We'll ignore all the usual lies for the moment. The question is: What can Vadney mean by “produced” here? The word is sometimes used in the sense of laying something before someone, as evidence, say. But who has seen these alleged documents? He can't mean he produced them to the IoL, because he mentions forwarding a copy of his diploma to them, as a separate event. I can conclude he is using the word produced in its more everyday sense. “Produced” them with PhotoShop, did we, How-Old?

How not to win a court case...

Now Vadney has been a little coy about the outcome of his famous court case, in which he sued Joan Ross, John Luckacovic, the late Richard Bleezarde and Bleezarde's publishing company for alleged “defamation”. So it was left to me to announce the pleasing if predictable news: he was found to have no case against any of the defendants. Mr Vadney’s handling of the case did not help his cause. In particular, he called witnesses whose testimony could only harm his cause, including the one remaining defendant (the case against the others having been dismissed before the thing came to trial). This is what the judge had to say about Vadney’s attempts to prove the falsity of Mr Luckacovic’s assertions:

The fourth element is that the Plaintiff must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the statement was false, meaning substantially untrue. There has been considerable testimony about the contents of this statement, paragraph by paragraph, in some instances line by line, and in some instances inexhaustible questioning concerning specific words and/or phrases. There's been a total lack of proof or evidence that the statement, that this article, Exhibits 6 and 7, Judge with a Grudge, is false. On the contrary, the extensive examination of the witnesses in this case, particularly the Defendant, have [sic] only established and cemented the fact that the statements are in fact true, although the Defendant has no burden at this stage. So I'm finding that as a matter of law Plaintiff has failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the statement was false, that is substantially untrue.

The simple translation of that is that, despite his three-and-a-half days of theatrical posturing and calling huge numbers of witnesses, all Vadney managed to prove was that the “defamatory” allegations against him were in fact true (which we all knew anyway).

By the way, the judge also found (still in relation to Mr Luckacovic's Judge with a Grudge? article) that Vadney had failed to show that it was defamatory, failed to show that Mr Luckacovic had known it to be false (pretty hard when it's true, but judges have to be thorough) or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity, and failed to show that it had been a substatial factor in causing economic loss (to the respective burden of proof in each case). Put simply, the case never had any merit and Vadney knew it.

What's a few oak leaves here or there?

Another interesting claim in the Vadney autobiography that has recently come to light concerns his military decorations. Consider the following:

While with the 1^st IDF, I earned a number of commendations from the German military and civilian community and service medals, including the Army Commendation Medal with oak-leaf cluster.

—<http://vadney4justice.home.att.net/AboutMe>
Downloaded 2/3/06 10:04 AM
(emphasis added)

But hang on! What happened to this oak-leaf cluster? It's not mentioned in the copy of Vadney's military record sent to Mr Scott Horne. It has strangely disappeared from Vadney's more recent CVs. (For those not familiar, the oak-leaf cluster is equivalent to being issued the same medal a second (or subsequent) time.) Is this the medal which, according to Scott Waldman's article in the Times Union, was revoked? Why did it take Vadney so long to get confirmation of his medals, when it took so little time for Waldman and Horne to get their copies of Vadney's record? Did Vadney engage in some kind of threats and posturing to get the Army to remove all reference to his revoked oak-leaf cluster? And why did Vadney get demoted and leave the Army in such a hurry?

Of course, Vadney himself could answer these questions, but don't hold your breath: he is probably exhausted already from revealing so many truths in one life-time.

Reality check, Mr Vadney!

Well, the Vadney has finally got around to responding to my reports on his defamation trial. It took several weeks, and, as usual, he offers nothing concrete.

In fact, the only comment he has made so far about the trial has been that he someone called Terry there who was pretending to be a trainee court reporter, but that he wasn't sucked in. Well, if he wanted anyone to believe that, he shouldn't have left it so long. Obviously, he was totally fooled at the time, and only recognized her picture later.¹

Somehow, the Vadney seems to have forgotten to mention that he totally lost his suit: the court found that, despite his several days of drivel, he had failed to make a case against the remaining defendant, Mr Luckacovic. The so-called case against the other three defendants, Ms Ross, Mr Bleezarde and Mr Bleezarde's publishing company, didn't even make it to trial, summary judgment having been made in favour of the defendants because of the obvious lack of merit of the Vadney's suit.

As the Vadney's “defamation” suit was dismissed, he has no business referring, as he does (see his blog entry for 23/04/2008), to “the 2005 defamations”. He lost the suit; so there was no defamation. Referring to “defamation” in relation to the facts on which that suit relied is therefore itself defamatory, and quite possibly in contempt of court.

Then we have the following classic:

John Luckacovic's attorney was served with notice that if Horne appeared anywhere in the vicinity or on US soil law enforcement authorities would be requested to immediately arrest him and anyone aiding or abetting his escape would be made accountable for obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting a suspect of criminal conduct.

Yes, How-Old, maybe you really do think that the law enforcement services are going to comb the countryside in the hope of arresting someone “suspect[ed by you] of [unspecified] criminal conduct”, on your say-so. But if you have such delusions of grandeur, you would do better to hide them: with a bit of luck, there might be some people left who are unaware of your mental condition.

A few more home truths for the Vadney

• Your fraudulent claims to be a Fellow of the RSA and a Member of the IoL, and to hold MA and PhD degrees, as well as your laughable attempts to pass yourself off as a physician, are recorded for posterity all over cyberspace: you have (reluctantly) removed them from your CV and web pages, but you can't cover up your dishonesty.
  
  
• Neither the Swiss nor the French police force is looking for me. Nobody gives a rat's arse about you and your ratbag allegations.
  
  
• I am not wanted in Indonesia, and have not committed any serious crime there. Writing the truth about a lowlife like you in another country never was a crime there (and just why did you take such pains to say that truth was not a defence against criminal libel charges in Indonesia, I wonder?). There was a criminal libel law, but it quite explicitly confined its protection to the president and the government, and was unsurprisingly struck down by the constitutional court a month before you started threatening me with it.
  
  
• Nor for that matter are the Mounties or the US Border Patrol, the FBI, the CIA, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Space Patrol, U.N.C.L.E. (remember that show, anyone?) or any other law enforcement agency looking for my colleague Mr Horne. Such organizations are used to receiving bizarre reports from even more bizarre people, and have a special, cylindrical filing system for them (in IT terms, a write-only memory).
  
  
• There is no such tort as conspiracy. Even if there were, it wouldn't help you. Hasn't it sunk in yet that people work against you because you are a contemptible piece of shit and you bring it on yourself, not because of some imaginary “conspiracy”?
  
  
  

Shocking discovery!

And now for the really shocking news: one of my correspondents claims to have uncovered evidence that the Vadney once actually told the truth! This is so implausible that I'm not posting it until I can confirm the details independently.

FOOTNOTE

¹ It was a couple of years ago that I first saw that picture of a rather overweight woman in a shower cubicle, so tastefully used in the Vadney's posting of 17/05/2008, while Googling for a German expression. It appeared in a site called www.uglypeople.com. I'd like to know whether Vadney got permsission from uglypeople.com, and whether he gave something back by submitting his own portrait.

Despicable cur!

Hello. Some of you may think I am going a bit over the top here with the invective. I’m sorry, but I can’t help it faced with further evidence of just how low that Vadney creature can sink.

Now that the trial in his blatant attempt at extortion masquerading as a defamation suit is over, I can examine and discuss the evidence given at the depositions.

PERJURER

One thing I find is that Vadney claimed to have been a member of the Institute of Linguists since 1981. This was in a deposition that took place after the Vadney’s much-vaunted (by him) correspondence with the IoL. Even if he ever was a member of the IoL (which the IoL has denied yet again even after the Vadney’s famous correspondence with them), of his own admission he let his membership lapse many years ago. He even made a posting to the IoL forum asking for advice on how to reinstate his his membership. So this was no mere slip-up; this was a deliberate lie.

DEFAULTER

I also note that, according to the late Mr Bleezarde’s testimony, the Vadney took out election advertisements in his newspaper, the Ravena News Herald, but never paid for them. The bill was over $US600. And of course, he then had the chutzpah to sue Mr Bleezarde over an advertisement which described him (Vadney) as, among other things (equally true), a bad payer.

Maybe the Vadney thought that inserting paid advertising in the News Herald somehow entitled him to a guarantee that nothing adverse about him would be published on its pages; he seems to have enjoyed such a cozy arrangement with another newspaper, Lisa Deyo’s The Ledger, but what can you expect from a rag that publishes a multi-page spread on the opening of a salon as “news”? Or maybe the Vadney intended to Mr Bleezarde’s company deduct the cost of his campaign advertisements from the damages settlement. He has just about enough hubris to have seriously thought he was going to win!

Even as the grotesque farce of the Vadney’s frivolous defamation suit was being played out, he was in a catfight on the TranslatorsCafé Hall of Fame and Shame over his failure to pay a translator. On his own account of events, the Vadney led this guy to believe that a second job would be forthcoming, and so the translator agreed to bill both jobs at the same time. The Vadney then took this as carte blanche to delay payment on the first job even though the second job was not forthcoming. The amount was small (€24.30), and the two seem to have resolved their differences, but the story is typical of the man’s sordid petty avarice (not that he lacks more grandiose avarice: witness the tens of millions he was claiming in his sick joke of a defamation suit).

The silence is deafening!

It is now over a week since How-Old the fwaudulent twanslator posted to his blog. The posting was—if this is possible—even more inane and pointless than usual: under the heading “The reason Comments are Moderated”, we have the following gem of pithy prose:

You don't really have to wonder that species like Richard Benham and Scott Horne get to publish their ridiculous babblings and why sites and blogs really cannot be left to the good sense, decency and intellect of visitors.

Just have a look at the 4-word, almost English comment left by one of our remarkably gifted retarded visitors below in the previous posting.

Makes a cretin cockroach look brilliant!

Sorry, How-Old, but nothing would make a cretin like you look brilliant, although you do manage to make a cockroach look clean and respectable. One wonders, however, about this “comment left [...] in the previous posting” which we are invited to “Just have a look at”. At the time of writing (8 days later), there is no comment in the previous posting, and there have been no comments for some months on How-Old’s blog...and even then they were his own comments.

However, all this is but a side-show. How-Old has been gloating in anticipation for months about his defamation suit against Joan Ross, John Luckacovic, the late Richard Bleezarde and Bleezarde Publishing Co. Inc., promising to keep us posted. Since that somewhat surreal posting of 10 April, a fair bit has happened on this front. The cases against Mrs Ross and Mr Bleezarde and his publishing company were summarily dismissed, Mr Bleezarde died (after having the last couple of years of his life poisoned by Vadney’s malicious and spiteful prosecution), and Mr Vadney spent 3.5 days in court in a pathetic attempt to convince the jury that he had a case against Mr Luckacovic, calling his enemies as witnesses (life’s tough when you alienate everybody you know), only to have this case, too, thrown out by the judge.

[Aside: Readers may note that the Vadney is fond of calling those who oppose him “pariahs”. Some time ago, he described Joan Ross and John Luckacovic as “pariahs in this community” on the TranslatorsCafe website (a moderator has moved the posting to a closed forum); more recently he has described Scott Horne and me as pariahs. I suppose we are supposed to conclude he is popular. One has to wonder how popular he is if to defend his “good name” he feels compelled to call as witnesses someone against whom he has just lost a defamation suit, this defendant’s husband, and a judge he has twice tried to have kicked out of office by complaining about him and a third time by running against him in an election. Oh, there was his sister. Where were his legions of supporters? In is fœtid imagination, where they’ve always been!]

The legal bills of the various defendants must have amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. At least some of them were insured, but of course the cost of frivolous actions by idiots like Vadney gets passed on to all policyholders in the form of increased premiums.

Why did Vadney even take such a hopeless case? The answer is simple: he hoped to extort the defendants into settling. Implicit in his approach is a two-pronged threat: Even though he cannot win, the legal expenses of defending a suit in the US are enormous, and even though he can be sued for malicious prosecution for bringing a suit with no prospects of success, he has nothing, and will just go bankrupt if his victims try to execute the judgment against him. Imagine the ignominy of trying to make money in such a shabby way!

Nothing to say, Vadney?

Finally the fireworks? Well, some damp squibs....

After the ignominy of having three of his four ridiculous defamation cases summarily dismissed, well-known wannabe translator, wannabe judge and genuine fraud, charlatan and perjurer How-Old William Vadney III had his defamation suit against the final remaining defendant, Mr John Luckacovic, dismissed without the defence being called upon to present a case. By all reports, the Vadney sorely tried the jury’s patience, spending several days presenting bullshit, calling unsympathetic witnesses who could only harm his case, asking a huge number of irrelevant questions, most of which were disallowed by the judge, speaking at times too quietly to be heard and at other times so loud the judge had to tell him to reduce the volume.... Such a fruitless waste of time for all concerned: the defendant, his lawyer, the jurors, the witnesses, the judge, the court staff....

Let us hope that the Vadney, who is a completely despicable lowlife piece of trailer-trash shit (witness how he hounded the innocent Mr Bleezarde to his grave), will finally be declared a vexatious litigant and that this nonsense will come to a long-overdue end.

Of course, now that this case is out of the way, there is nothing to stand in the way of criminal prosecutions against the Vadney. For example, he claimed in depositions that he had been a member of the Institute of Linguists since 1981 or so, knowing that to be false. It would be nice to see him doing time for perjury over that one, although for all I know the authorities could have much more serious charges to lay against him.

My congratulations go to all the successful defendants. Pity it came too late for Mr Bleezarde: one again, my condolences to his family and friends.

RIP Richard Bleezarde, publisher

It is with some sadness that I must report the passing yesterday of Mr Richard Bleezarde, late publisher of the Ravena News Herald. Mr Bleezarde had been sick for some time with a heart condition, and spent several months in hospital.

It is impossible to tell whether the stress of Harold William Vadney’s totally vexatious and frivolous multi-million-dollar lawsuits against Mr Bleezarde and his company hastened his decline, but we can be sure that the last months of Mr Bleezarde’s life, which can hardly have been pleasant, were unnecessarily worsened by the need to deal with them. As the judge found just over a week ago, Harold William Vadney’s case against Mr Bleezarde and his company was totally without merit and had no prospects of success. But Mr Bleezarde was still obliged, at a time when he should have been left in peace to finalize his affairs and take leave of his loved ones, to contend with Vadney’s grotesque manœuvrings and posturings, incurring large legal expenses. Shortly before his death, Mr Bleezarde was trying to sell his publishing business, presumably to pay his legal bills. So many sacrifices to the vanity, stupidity and cupidity of a vile and loathsome piece of subhuman lowlife trailer-trash garbage.

Harold William Vadney, hang your head in shame. You mercilessly pursued an innocent dying man with no motive but to gratify your own sick desire for self-glorification and the morbidly self-deluding hope of undeserved financial gain. It doesn’t get much lower than that. If your tinhorn piety is anything more than a shallow pretence to suck up to the gullible old ladies in your church, you’d better start praying that you are wrong. For you have no hope of redemption. Don’t count on a deathbed repentance, because repentance requires sincerity to be effective, and sincerity is one thing you can’t get away with faking.

Eternity is a rather long time to spend with a red-hot poker up your arse.

On a more practical note, don’t forget to bring your toothbrush to court today. Sometimes things move rather quickly.

What happened to the fireworks, How-Old?

Back on 11 January 2008, the Vadney announced yet again that

A trial date has been set for April 14, 2008, in the matter of Harold W. Vadney v. Joan Ross, John Luckacovic, Richard Bleezarde and Bleezarde Publishing (New York State Supreme Court, Greene County, Index No. 07-0233).

I am not sure why the Vadney found it necessary to announce this date so many times, but, after the usual drivel about the action and yet another reference to Joan Ross’s “taking the Fifth” (more on which below), he invites us to

Stay tuned for the fireworks!

Well that, combined with the Vadney’s repeated references to the case in his blogs and elsewhere (including irrelevant abusive diatribes about it now mercifully deleted from the Chartered Institute of Linguists’ discussion fora), not to mention his repeated promise to publish the defendants’ depositions (which would have got him into deep shit for contempt of court), sounds like a promise to keep us posted on developments. But some pretty major developments have taken place without a word from the Vadney!

One development that he seems to have forgotten to mention, although it happened over a week ago, was that three of the four defendants, Joan Ross, Richard Bleezarde and the Bleezarde Publishing company, got summary judgment against the Vadney. In short, he has already lost his case against these three defendants. Not surprising, since it was purely vexatious and frivolous.

Now what’s that about the Fifth Amendment, How-Old? For the benefit of readers, I would point out that How-Old, on his account, threatened to prosecute the defendant for an alleged “conspiracy”, and then asked questions that were irrelevant to the matter at hand but clearly intended to gather evidence for his equally frivolous planned prosecution. It is perfectly reasonable to refuse to answer questions in such instances, and in no way constitutes an admission of guilt. (Guilt of what? one might ask. A conspiracy has to be a conspiracy to do something, and that something has to be illegal....) I can’t help wondering how many times How-Old will have taken the Fifth Amendment by the time these proceedings are over. I am tipping that, if he doesn’t avail himself of its protection, he will soon be invited to spend some time as a guest of his State Governor.

He would be very well-advised to start availing himself of it early, as follows:

Court Usher: Do you solemnly and sincerely swear that the evidence you shall give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Vadney: I wefuse to answer that question on the gwounds that my answer may tend to incwiminate me.
Court Usher: State your full name, address and occupation.
Vadney: I wefuse to answer that question on the gwounds that my answer may tend to incwiminate me.

[...]

Defence counsel: Mr Vadney, do you run a translation business under the name of Albany TransComm International?
Vadney: I wefuse to answer that question on the gwounds that my answer may tend to incwiminate me.

[...]

Defence counsel: Mr Vadney, why exactly did you bring this suit against my client?
Vadney: I wefuse to answer that question on the gwounds that my answer may tend to incwiminate me.

[...]

There have been some other, even more bizarre, developments in this case. As we know, the Vadney was threatening to subpœna Mr Scott Horne, of Montréal, to have his deposition taken in Montréal for use in the present proceedings (as recently is 1 March 2008, he had a blog entry entitled “Shield Law No Protection / Montréal Agrees to Depose”). Well, of course, this never happened, but the ever-resourceful How-Old III has apparently subpœna’d one of the former defendants (Joan Ross), her partner (whom he recently abused as the hunched, paroxysmal, lurching "Robbie"), the town dog-catcher (!) and a certain Justice Farrell.

The stupidity of this move beggars belief. If you subpœna someone, they are your witness, and you are prevented from asking leading questions, but the other side is allowed to lead as much as it likes. So why would you subpœna someone whose evidence is likely to be hostile?

Justice Farrell is the judge against whom Vadney ran for office late last year, scoring a massive 17 votes against Farrell’s 688. Earlier, after the judge had dismissed a complaint about the Vadney and his partner’s barking dog (the plaintiff having withdrawn his suit), the Vadney lodged a totally frivolous and typically stupid 58-page complaint against the judge. The plaintiff in this dog suit was, if I am understanding this correctly, none other than John Luckacovic (New Baltimore, New York, is a very small town...), the sole remaining defendant in the present suit, which, again if I am understanding things correctly, relates to an advertisement, published in Mr Bleezarde’s newspaper, entitled “Judge with a Grudge?”, about the Vadney’s equally ill-fated earlier (2005) campaign to get himself elected Town Justice to sit alongside Justice Farrell, and making reference to the dog case and the Vadney’s subsequent complaint against the judge.

For those curious about the content of the advertisement the Vadney has complained so bitterly of, he has been kind enough to post it on his own webspace. Now tell me, if it really were so damaging to his reputation, why would he be disseminating it further? (It’s been there a couple of years at least!)

Livers white as milk...assume but valour’s excrement

Shakespeare lovers will recognize the above quotation, from Merchant of Venice, III, 2. Here is some more of it:

There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts:
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;
Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk;
And these assume but valour's excrement
To render them redoubted! [...]

Now, of course, the excrement here is literally “outgrowth” in the form of a beard, but we all know that our subject, Mr Vadney, is full of a rather different kind of excrement: the bovine kind!

We have already seen how he describes himself as “valiant”, “courageous”, a “real champion”. Yeah, yeah.

And he accuses Scott Horne and me of “alleg[ing] one can enlist in the military for a particular posting”. Really? Where did either of us say that? Of course, in theory, once enlisted one can be posted anywhere at the discretion of the service involved. You might not be able to decide where you get posted, but, at least as a volunteer, you can decide on the timing of your enlistment. In particular, if there is a war on, you can wait a few years until your government starts pulling out. And that is what brave little How-Old did.

Twenty-two is a pretty ripe old age to be joining the army as an enlisted man. What was brave little How-Old doing that stopped him from rushing to his country’s defence in its hour of need? Attending college? Well, yes, sort of.... Apparently he had accumulated all of 15 semester hours at Union College, Schenectady, by the time he enlisted. Any serious and non-retarded college student would have got a bachelor’s degree by the age of 22. Do I smell an ill-fated attempt to gain a student deferment? Whatever the reason for this unsuccessful stint as a student, young How-Old wisely refrained from joining up until the process of “Vietnamization” (begun over three years earlier in 1969) was almost complete, enlisting a couple of weeks before Nixon announced the suspension of all offensive activity (although I was pretty offended by Watergate), and less than a month before the signing of the Paris peace accord.

So rather than a sign of the “champion’s” heroism, this looks like a carefully calculated attempt (probably using all ten fingers and a few toes too) to avoid any actual combat duty. But of course, nothing stops the milk-white-livered coward from assuming valour’s (bovine) excrement!

Nowadays Mr Vadney has more sedate ways of displaying his valour, or at least his excrement. Like attacking old people for...their age. He’s edited it out now, but there are still copies around of the blog entry where he referred to the artists Frank and Trudy Little as “Methuselah’s parents”. Like victimizing innocent people and turning their daily existence into a nightmare with frivolous and totally meritless, but time-consuming and expensive, court cases. Like ridiculing people for their disabilities. We have a reference to the “partner” of one of the hapless defendants in one of the Vadney’s court cases as “the hunched, paroxysmal, lurching ‘Robbie’”. Even I get a serve for mentioning my minor and well-compensated dyslexia, but of course there is no explanation for the Vadney’s own inability to spell or even read. Who could forget the “Kabal of Sleeze”?

And again, one wonders why anyone would still be bragging about such an inglorious military career over 30 years after its abrupt and humiliating end (perhaps Mr Vadney would care to inform us just why he was let go so suddenly?). Maybe because he has accomplished nothing since?

Vadney the valiant victim, courageous challenger, real champion putting his life on the line for his country!

In recent postings to his puke pages, the Vadney has indeed referred to himself with characteristic modesty as: “valiant victim”, “courageous challenger” and “real champion”. But most amusingly of all, he calls himsef “someone who's put his life on the line for his country”. In Göppingen!? In the 1970s!?

There were no organized Nazi elements left over from World War II, the Soviets didn’t invade and were never likely to, being at least as scared of the West as the West was of them. So what was this big threat to the Vadney’s life? Hippies armed with flowers!

And of course the usual lies. Scott Horne and I published the story that Vadney’s medal was revoked and Scott Waldman picked it up and uncritically republished it. This is not a mistake on the Vadney’s part, this is another lie. The Vadney is an avid reader of my blogs—like all true exhibitionists, he finds even adverse attention exciting—and he has seen my previous refutation of this fabrication. For those who are unaware of the background to this, the original forum thread in which the Vadney was exposed is still available. And then there are the usual lies about such mundane matters as my age, the length of time I spent out of the workforce.... None of these claims, even if true or believed, would add any credibility to the Vadney or his pathetic attempts to impress people, but then why tell the truth when you can just as easily tell a lie?

Note that the Vadney has neither denied nor explained the rather abrupt termination of his military career. Typically, he tries to cover it up with another lie: by constantly referring to his “five years” of service, when he spent exactly (to the day) four years and one month in the army. It rather looks as though he was demoted and bundled out, and he has done nothing to deny it. This from a “real champion” of self-aggrandizement (or puffery, as he calls it). What can we conclude? The obvious!

Are you suffering from VD?

The Vadney recently published the “news” that “Some Internet Trolls May Have A Psychiatric Disorder!” Despite the total vacuity of this statement (some bus drivers may have psychiatric disorder, some West Virginians may have a psychiatric disorder...it’s amazing what you can do with “weasel words”!), the Vadney does not produce any credible evidence (which is nothing unusual; what is unusual is that he attempts to provide any evidence at all). His reference are a forum discussion and a so-called “BehaveNet® Clinical Capsule™”. Interestingly, the forum contribution is lifted (with a reference) straight from a blog (due to a NéantHumain or “human non-being”), and contains a disclaimer, “It takes a qualified professional to diagnose anyone with a personality disorder., whereas there is no reference at all to Internet trolls on the BehaveNet page. In short, the two alleged “references” are nothing of the sort.

In any case, one may wonder why the Vadney is burbling on about Internet trolls at all. It could be another example of his tendency to get infatuated with individual words (how many times has he used the “word” crapola lately?). Or could it be projection again? Maybe, but it’s not quite so simple: the Vadney doesn’t actually appear to understand these “new” words he’s discovered and become so attached to. So while his calling me an Internet troll may be an example of projection, it doesn’t follow that the Vadney is himself an Internet troll.

This is not to say the Vadney is not a troll. He has all the characteristics one associates with mythological trolls: dwarfish stunted stature, grotesque physical appearance, and an unmitigatedly evil character. Judging from a toy troll my then-baby daughter was given as a gift some twenty-odd years ago, even his hair colour fits the bill. But he is not a typical Internet troll. From the Vadney’s own reference, we see that an Internet troll displays:

• A tendency to make provocative comments to invoke emotional responses in others
  
• A lack of connection to the community being trolled; i.e., will leave if desired response is not invoked ("Do not feed the trolls!")
  
• A dissatisfaction with one's life and a cynical attitude towards things in general
  
• A tendency to challenge the rules and authorities of a community
  
• A preference to exhibit these behaviors only in places where one's true identity is unknown
  

Some of these apply to the Vadney; others do not, especially the last one. He doesn’t hide his identity, because he is so self-obsessed that he can’t miss an opportunity to draw attention to himself. Even adverse attention is better than no attention at all. The Vadney suffers rather from a form of narcissism, let’s call it Vadneyoid disorder, or VD. He just happens to choose the Internet, among other fora (e.g. the courts, the electoral process), as a venue for drawing attention to himself.

Let’s have a look at the diagnostic criteria for “narcissistic personality disorder”, again from BehaveNet.

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
   
   
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
   
   
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
   
   
4. requires excessive admiration
   
   
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
   
   
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
   
   
7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
   
   
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
   
   
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
   

What was that, “five (or more)”?? I make it nine out of nine! I can’t detail all of them, but here are a few:

• “exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements”...like claiming an MA you don’t have, professional membership you don’t have, fellowship of the RSA you don’t have...?
  
• “sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations”...how many times has the Vadney announced that he has made some totally unrealistic demand of the XYZ border guards, police force, consulate, company,..., and promised to keep us informed of the progress of their “enquiries”, as if they or anyone else gave a rat’s arse about the Vadney’s petty, obsessive and frankly delusional concerns?
  
• “ is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends”...are you reading this, Edward Hayes III?
  
• “is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her”...well, I dealt with that in an earlier post, “Anyone for Green Herring?”.
  

If you check the other five characteristics, you will note that the Vadney has them too in spades. So what makes Vadneyoid Disorder (VD) special? Why is VD not just extreme narcissism? Well, part of the Vadney’s symptomatology is his obsession with the law, and his belief that he is always (legally) in the right, and that he knows the law better than anybody else, especially lawyers. So add that to the above list, and we have a clinical definition of Vadneyoid Disorder (VD): anyone with at least 10 of the (expanded) list of symptoms has Vadneyoid Disorder (VD). Fortunately, it’s not known to be catching!

Disclaimer: I am a qualified professional, just not a qualified professional shrink! The above definition was intended for entertainment only.

The Pink Parasite, or Would you buy this used man?

We all know about projection. Vadney lied about his credentials, which makes him a fraud; so he calls me a fraud. He accuses me of defaming him, when my accusations were true; so again the boot is on the other foot. Similarly he accuses me of criminality, stupidity, impotence, ugliness...even of being a parasite, which is a bit rich considering his own circumstances. Recently, he has accused me (and Scott Horne) of being suicidal; so I draw my own conclusion.

So why is Vadney contemplating suicide? Well, I know it’s hard, but let’s try to imagine ourselves in his position. This is my (imaginative) take on it:

Would you buy this used man?

You are 57 years old. You have been trying to make a career as a freelance translator for over 25 years now, and still you can’t make a go of it. Your business is derisory. Others, in far less time, have built up successful careers, but you can’t do it. You are coming to realize that you are too old to start again. Until a few months ago, you had a job-search website up, but after over five years, it became just too humiliating, and you had to take it down. Now your opponents, who have access to archived copies, are making fun of you over it.

Your lover, Edward, is 14 years your junior. When you met him, you were broke. When he gets sick of supporting you and kicks you out, you will be broke again. Naked came I, as the Good Book says. For a while it was rather neat that a younger, wealthier man supported you. In a way it proved you were desirable—to someone at least. But now you worry about being old and ugly. You know that dyeing your hair a lurid shade of orange can only cover for so much. You know that your days of living in comfort as his parasite are numbered.

You know, too, that, when the time comes, and your toyboy has had enough of you, you will be very hard-pressed to find a replacement. As you so aptly put it, “Middle-aged men with low self-esteem and zero self-respect are not exactly A-list company.” You really don’t like yourself. If you were happy with what you are, you wouldn’t dress up in a lab-coat with “Dr H. W. Vadney” printed on it. Not for a portrait; not even to do the gardening. It might not have made you a better person, but it fooled some people and gave you an illusory feeling of respect—not self-respect, maybe, but respect from others. Now that you have been exposed for what you are—a fraud—you must know that people laugh at you behind your back about that famous lab-coat.

In fact, there is nobody you encounter, either in your so-called professional life or in your neighbourhood, who you can’t be sure isn’t secretly laughing at you. You have been caught lying about your credentials, and it has been in the press, and it has been mentioned on professional websites. You have nowhere to hide.

Reality is closing in on you. For years—decades—people believed you were a doctor or a clinical scientist, or they politely pretended to. But now the secret is out: you have only a lousy BA, and you made a mess of your MA. You had so much trouble coping with that failure that, even nearly 30 years later, you were still pretending to have passed your MA. Until you were exposed as a liar. The whole house of cards has come crashing down around you.

You continually lose court cases; you must realize that you can be stung for costs, and then your only way out—apart from suicide—will be to go bankrupt or to go cap in hand to your young lover, who sooner or later must tire of your demands for money. You can’t accept that the fantasy persona you created for yourself is a lie; so you relentlessly harass and pursue anyone who challenges or threatens it. But somehow you know too that you have been caught out: the game is up, and you will never again be taken seriously. Your claims to be a doctor and a clinical scientist, instead of winning you respect, have made you ridiculous, despised, a laughing-stock. It is too late to recover your self-esteem and relaunch yourself: you are too old and you have no independent means. You can’t even earn a living.

You know too that some of the things you have been exposed for are serious crimes: fraud, perjury.... Even your current obsessive hate-blogging could get you prosecuted for harassment, but you just can’t stop. You could land in prison. With your fake upper-class mannerisms, your puffery and your holier-than-thou attitude, you will be despised and detested, both by the other criminals and by the prison guards. Your two absurd and pathetic attempts to become a judge will not sit well in your new environment either. Your life in prison will be hell.

You? A judge? Some hope! With 17 votes, it looks like not even all your family voted for you. You should be grateful: a judge in prison would have an even worse time of it than you’ve booked yourself in for.

You skulk around the house in your dressing gown, behind closed shutters and boarded-up windows, peering out at the world, at the people who, unlike you, have a life, wondering whether they are talking or thinking about you. Pathetic. You Google your own name obsessively to find out what people think of you. You have next to no work; you are afraid to show your face for fear of ridicule, or just for fear that people will realize you have nothing better to do than wander around. Your future as a homeless and despised old jailbird (if you survive to be let out), unattractive, unloved, unwanted, living on the street, is too horrible to contemplate. How sad.

No wonder you want to kill yourself.

But don’t worry: he won’t do it. He hasn’t got the guts.

PS: If anyone is wondering what happened to the entry on the distinction between onanism and masturbation, two topics dear to Mr Vadney’s heart (see his blog entries from December 2007 for multiple references thereto), stop worrying! I posted it to this blog by mistake: it was intended for the companion blog, Biblical quotations for the Vadney, and that’s where you’ll find it now. Although that blog is primarily intended for his spiritual guidance, that particular entry is more for his general education, which is sadly lacking. However, I included it there because it rests on a Biblical quotation which is commonly misunderstood.

PPS: I’m still in Annemasse. My precise geographical coördinates, to two decimal places, are on my ProZ.com profile. I can’t be bothered copying them here.