A minor curiosity...

The other day I received an email apparently emanating from the office of the Town Clerk of the Town of New Baltimore, NY, population three-and-a-half thousand. I have never set foot in New York state, and would probably not have heard of the town if not for the egregiously disreputable activities of one of its most justly reviled residents, recently an aspirant to the Roman Catholic diaconate. So I might well have wondered why the Town Clerk of this bustling metropolis, a Ms Janet Brooks, would want to write to me. I might have, but I didn’t: it was obvious to me straight away that the said wannabe deacon, wannabe judge, wannabe consumer advocate and wannabe translator was behind it.

Here is the full text of the email (telephone number masked):

Can you be reached at 08 xxxxxxxx?

Thank you

No name, no signature, no suggestion of a reason for wanting to contact me by telephone. Nothing. Now how stupid does Mr Wannabe think I am? More to the point: How stupid is Mr Wannabe? But it gets funnier. Out of curiosity, I made as if to reply, just to see what the return email address was. Any guesses? Would you believe <hvadney@mhcable.com>? You couldn’t get much more inept an attempt at email forgery than that! (For the record, here are a few things he could have done differently, without any additional technical knowledge: choose a more plausible alleged sender, write a more plausible email giving some reason why the alleged sender wants to contact me, set up a freemail address that looks as though it might belong to the alleged sender and is not obviously connected with the real sender....)

The telephone number was that of my parents in Adelaide, without the country code. This guy seems determined to prove that I am still living at my parents’ house, thirty years after I moved out (it was November 1976, in fact), even though he knows it isn’t true.

There was another dead giveaway. According to the header, the email was addressed to two recipients. One was my normal email address, for which email from the wannabe Ralph Nader’s address is filtered; the other was to the address given at the top of this blog (<Richard_Benham_AU-StopVadneysLies[at]yahoo.com>), which I have instructed Mr Wannabe to use if he feels he absolutely must contact me. Of course, I only received one copy, and that was the one addressed to the “StopVadneysLies” address.

On the subject of consumer advocacy: I thought the whole idea was to make a fuss about other people’s being hard done by!

ΔOKEI ΔE MOI KAI TON ’OYAΔNEION MH ’EINAI

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!

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.

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.