I want to preface this with the strong statement that this is not a flame, or an invitation for flames, but an appeal for reasoned discussion concerning an issue that I find baffling, frankly.
This came to my attention today on a site which hypertext linked to here:
I think this is the first time I'd actually seen the 4-5-page letter from IL which [H] published on March 2 of this year, which you can read by following the hypertext link [H] makes in the statements [H] made today which I've quoted above.
The first thing I'd like to draw your attention to is the fact that March 2 falls within the 10-day deadline which the IL legal letter from this Florida law firm [H] published on March 2 demanded be met for a retraction, as the letter displays a date of February 27, 2004.
If you haven't read the letter you might wish to do so. The letter raises a total of 18 specific and distinct points of objection to [H]'s original September '03 IL article. What I found most interesting was the comments [H] makes immediately in the body of the text after making this letter available to the public March 2:
I did a double-take when I saw this, and thought: "You mean, out of the 18 items mentioned you wish to take issue only with these five?" I had to turn this over a few times before reaching the conclusion that, yes, what [H] was actually saying was that it had no argument with any of the points in the IL letter with the exception of five of those points, which [H] duly addressed individually and specifically.
I have to bow to whomever it was who thought up this kind of a retraction, because it is among the most clever I have ever seen...
In fact, it may have been a tad too clever, and may well backfire, but I'll address this momentarily. First though...
If you are tempted to think, as I was when first reading it, that "No, what Kyle's saying is that he disagrees with all the points the IL letter raises, not just those five"--if you think it through you'll see that logically that doesn't wash for two reasons:
(1) If he disagreed with all 18 points, why state that "After hours of consideration, out of the 18 items noted we have found 5 that were in need of addressing as outlined below. They are numbered to correspond with the request in the above published document"....?
If you in fact disagreed with all 18 of them, why "address" only five of the 18 items you disagreed with? Since Kyle only considered that five of the eighteen points of contention raised "needed addressing," then it must be concluded that he doesn't think the other thirteen points do--which must mean he does not dispute them.
(2) The 18 items raised in the letter from IL's lawyers that [H] published were written by IL, not by [H], and so it is incumbent on Kyle to "address" each and every one of them with which he disagrees or disputes, if his intention is to deny or rebut those points. But again let me underscore that he chooses to only specifically "address" five of the 18 points IL raises.
Next, you might be tempted to say, "But the article isn't entitled as a retraction, and the other comments within the body of text outside of those you quoted would indicate that there is no intent to retract whatever." You'd be exactly right--at least halfway, because I initially thought the same thing.
What we have here, I think, is a "Retraction Disguised as a Rebuttal," or a "Retraction Nested within a Rebuttal." More specifically, what we have here is what superficially appears to be a rebuttal, but is in fact intended as a retraction to meet the demands of the IL retraction request.
IE, the rebuttal camouflage is vague and misleading and unspecific in the March 2 text, but the internal retraction it contains is specific right down to the exact five items with which [H] disagrees out of the eighteen items of contention published by [H] in the IL lawyers' own words. An exceptionally clever (but maybe too clever) tactic, if I may say so myself...
I can see [H]'s lawyers saying to the judge:
"But your honor, we did exactly as IL asked, and we printed a retraction in the time frame they asked for--but we actually reprinted the IL lawyer's letter itself so that people could read the points of dispute in IL's own words. We think the retraction we gave IL, in reprinting their complaints in their own words--18 points of which we mildly disputed only 5 of them on March 2nd--we think that what we did here exceeds IL's request that we make changes to our original September IL article, and so our position is that we have more than satisfied their requests, and that is why we ask that the state of Texas close this matter immediately. Since we've done what they asked, our position is that we have no other burden to retract and we ask for a dismissal with prejudice."
In fact, I think this is actually the reason that [H] launched the "preemptive lawsuit" shortly after publishing their March 2nd "Rebuttal that was a Retraction," on the presumptive grounds that they had satisfied IL's requests and therefore would like to see IL and the whole issue go away--pronto. Thinking about it this way constitutes the first time the "preemptive suit" has ever made any sense to me since the first time I heard about it.
Last issue to address is why. Why would [H] not simply do a straightforward retraction, instead of this convoluted and ineffectual retraction they tried to execute on March 2nd? My opinion is this: [H] wanted to save face with its "community" after once again putting its foot firmly in its mouth. [H] knew it had to retract, since it never had any factual basis for the September '03 article, but simply couldn't bear to admit it had made a mistake to its readership, and the result was this rebuttal-retraction compromise of March 2, which pleased or satisfied neither IL nor the courts, obviously. It would absolutely be up to the judge whether he'd accept [H]'s characterization of the March 2nd article as a "retraction" of any sort, and considering the lengths [H] went to in order to disguise it, I would not be a bit surprised to see that it would fail to meet the court's requirements for a bona fide retraction of any sort.
In case you have any doubts as to my logic, I think it's easy to prove the point. Of IL's 18 points of contention reprinted by [H] on March 2nd, consider items 1, 2, 4, and 10. They concern the opening paragraph of [H]'s September '03 IL article here:
Since points 1,2,4,& 10 were not the points [H] considered "needed addressing" in its March 2nd article, even after "hours of consideration," and since the September '03 article plainly and clearly states what IL says it does in their 1,2,4 & 10 numbered points , it must be concluded that [H] has no argument with points 1,2,4, &10 as stated by IL in the IL document [H] reprinted March 2nd. I cannot see any other interpretation than, therefore, that [H] also had no dispute with any of the other points IL raised, with the exception of the 5 points which [H] actually and specifically "addressed" March 2nd.
So now, today, June 16 2004, we get this Plea for Help from [H] which you can read above but which I will paraphrase as follows:
"OK, folks, my tail is in the sling and things aren't going so well! Listen--my problem is that when I wrote in September '03 that Robbins and IL were probably a bunch of crooks out to sham investors, I had no proof to back it up. Instead, I unwisely relied on public forum gossip and newpaper clippings, and I reached conclusions based on circumstantial evidence, and I jumped to improper conclusions about some things. So, since I didn't do it back then, I desperately need all of you who are willing to help me to go out and dig up dirt on Tim Robbins--because if I can't prove he's a crook my tail is grass--dig? So, for the sake of my tail and "Freedom of the Press"--which basically just means *my* freedom here--PLEASE SEND IN THE DIRT and give me a helping hand! Please?"
That, unfortunately, is what I read from this plea for help. I cannot see how it will have any bearing whatever on the current litigation which [H] has brought down upon itself.
In conclusion, I want to address some of the things Kyle has said, and that have been echoed by the St. Louis Today article referenced above, which concern SEC reports and other public documents.
The implications made by [H] and now by this newspaper are that IL has been hiding pertinent facts about its business from potential investors, facts which are brought to light in IL's SEC filings.
Uh, I hate to clue these guys in but I guess somebody has to... SEC filings of this type are routine and required by law of public corporations operating in the US. All corporations must print in their SEC filings *any* information which might be considered negative. Why? For the sake of investors, that's why. SEC filings are documents routinely read by investors prior to investing in a given company--they are PUBLIC DOCUMENTS available to investors, as well as to people like [H] and newspaper reporters...
Specifically, the purpose of SEC filings is to inform investors--that is their basic purpose. So, the only way for IL to be doing something wrong here would be if it DID NOT put this negative information in its SEC filings so that any portential investor could read it at his liesure prior to investing. The definition of what an SEC filing is completely demolishes any possibility of IL trying to hide these facts from anyone. IE, everyone who invests in the company knows all the bad stuff prior to investing. This is most likely why IL isn't being sued by any of its actual investors, despite what [H] has been saying about "protecting" IL's investors, whom I suspect know more than [H] will ever know about making investments of all kinds...
Secondly, is it unusual for a startup technology company to run for a couple of years, or longer, on investments alone, prior to getting out a product and taking in money? Heh... Goodness no, in fact most tech startups follow exactly this model--look how many years Transmeta, for instance, was funded before Crusoe ever emerged! The list of tech startups, some of them today well known, that have followed this model is a very long list, indeed. Why [H] would think it suspicious that a console company would take 12-18 months to design, develop, and deploy a console from scratch to compete with M$ and Sony, is utterly beyond me. Good grief, we have well-known examples of companies like Valve and ID Software taking as long as 4-5 YEARS between 3d games! I don't see anything alarming at all about the fact that IL is 18 months or so into its existence and isn't yet shipping a product. Good grief. All of this is entirely an issue between IL and its investors--I can't see where [H] fits in at all, frankly. If the IL investors aren't unhappy, certainly [H] has no right to be unhappy.
Also, in the September article, [H] references a resume which [H] admits it obtained directly from Robbins' own web site. This means that Robbins' resume was also a PUBLIC DOCUMENT, which obviously Robbins wasn't hiding, but was instead avidly promoting publicly himself.
For some strange reason known only to [H], [H] apparently thinks that no one apart from [H] is capable of reading and analyzing Robbin's PUBLIC RESUME as reprinted by [H]... Good grief, again.... Doesn't it in the least occur to [H] that if Robbins wanted to HIDE his resume, because it contained incriminating information of some sort, THAT ROBBINS WOULDN'T HAVE PUT IT ON HIS OWN WEB SITE????? I guess not...
The part about the 90-day WorldCom employment in 2001 was really, really funny I thought, as [H] somehow connected the 2002 WorldComm bankruptcy with the fact that Robbins left the company a year earlier after having served 90 days there as an "Account Executive." What I get out of that is that Robbins was hired by WorldComm as a salesman of some sort and quit after 90 days. What I don't get out of it is that Robbins has framed the WorldComm executives running the company in such a way that he stole the company blind but managed to place the blame on them, that he also eluded the FBI and the SEC--but only [H] was "smart enough" to finger the real WorldComm culprit--Tim Robbins, who did it all in 90 days without a soul being the wiser... Dog-gone, that's funny... Heh... Unbelievable.
Anyway, that's the way the issue stacks up to me, and although I began this post stating I was baffled I really feel much less baffled now than I did when all of this began. I welcome dissenting opinions and contrary views, of course. I think this is a case of [H] simply biting off more than it could chew this time, and realizing that huffing and puffing away behind a web site "editorial page" is no defense against slander and libel at all. Sure--no question about it--Kyle's got rights, but so do people who aren't in the press as well--like Tim Robbins and everybody else. I think that's the whole point here.
This came to my attention today on a site which hypertext linked to here:
[H said:
I think this is the first time I'd actually seen the 4-5-page letter from IL which [H] published on March 2 of this year, which you can read by following the hypertext link [H] makes in the statements [H] made today which I've quoted above.
The first thing I'd like to draw your attention to is the fact that March 2 falls within the 10-day deadline which the IL legal letter from this Florida law firm [H] published on March 2 demanded be met for a retraction, as the letter displays a date of February 27, 2004.
If you haven't read the letter you might wish to do so. The letter raises a total of 18 specific and distinct points of objection to [H]'s original September '03 IL article. What I found most interesting was the comments [H] makes immediately in the body of the text after making this letter available to the public March 2:
[H said:
I did a double-take when I saw this, and thought: "You mean, out of the 18 items mentioned you wish to take issue only with these five?" I had to turn this over a few times before reaching the conclusion that, yes, what [H] was actually saying was that it had no argument with any of the points in the IL letter with the exception of five of those points, which [H] duly addressed individually and specifically.
I have to bow to whomever it was who thought up this kind of a retraction, because it is among the most clever I have ever seen...
In fact, it may have been a tad too clever, and may well backfire, but I'll address this momentarily. First though...If you are tempted to think, as I was when first reading it, that "No, what Kyle's saying is that he disagrees with all the points the IL letter raises, not just those five"--if you think it through you'll see that logically that doesn't wash for two reasons:
(1) If he disagreed with all 18 points, why state that "After hours of consideration, out of the 18 items noted we have found 5 that were in need of addressing as outlined below. They are numbered to correspond with the request in the above published document"....?
If you in fact disagreed with all 18 of them, why "address" only five of the 18 items you disagreed with? Since Kyle only considered that five of the eighteen points of contention raised "needed addressing," then it must be concluded that he doesn't think the other thirteen points do--which must mean he does not dispute them.
(2) The 18 items raised in the letter from IL's lawyers that [H] published were written by IL, not by [H], and so it is incumbent on Kyle to "address" each and every one of them with which he disagrees or disputes, if his intention is to deny or rebut those points. But again let me underscore that he chooses to only specifically "address" five of the 18 points IL raises.
Next, you might be tempted to say, "But the article isn't entitled as a retraction, and the other comments within the body of text outside of those you quoted would indicate that there is no intent to retract whatever." You'd be exactly right--at least halfway, because I initially thought the same thing.
What we have here, I think, is a "Retraction Disguised as a Rebuttal," or a "Retraction Nested within a Rebuttal." More specifically, what we have here is what superficially appears to be a rebuttal, but is in fact intended as a retraction to meet the demands of the IL retraction request.
IE, the rebuttal camouflage is vague and misleading and unspecific in the March 2 text, but the internal retraction it contains is specific right down to the exact five items with which [H] disagrees out of the eighteen items of contention published by [H] in the IL lawyers' own words. An exceptionally clever (but maybe too clever) tactic, if I may say so myself...
I can see [H]'s lawyers saying to the judge:
"But your honor, we did exactly as IL asked, and we printed a retraction in the time frame they asked for--but we actually reprinted the IL lawyer's letter itself so that people could read the points of dispute in IL's own words. We think the retraction we gave IL, in reprinting their complaints in their own words--18 points of which we mildly disputed only 5 of them on March 2nd--we think that what we did here exceeds IL's request that we make changes to our original September IL article, and so our position is that we have more than satisfied their requests, and that is why we ask that the state of Texas close this matter immediately. Since we've done what they asked, our position is that we have no other burden to retract and we ask for a dismissal with prejudice."
In fact, I think this is actually the reason that [H] launched the "preemptive lawsuit" shortly after publishing their March 2nd "Rebuttal that was a Retraction," on the presumptive grounds that they had satisfied IL's requests and therefore would like to see IL and the whole issue go away--pronto. Thinking about it this way constitutes the first time the "preemptive suit" has ever made any sense to me since the first time I heard about it.
Last issue to address is why. Why would [H] not simply do a straightforward retraction, instead of this convoluted and ineffectual retraction they tried to execute on March 2nd? My opinion is this: [H] wanted to save face with its "community" after once again putting its foot firmly in its mouth. [H] knew it had to retract, since it never had any factual basis for the September '03 article, but simply couldn't bear to admit it had made a mistake to its readership, and the result was this rebuttal-retraction compromise of March 2, which pleased or satisfied neither IL nor the courts, obviously. It would absolutely be up to the judge whether he'd accept [H]'s characterization of the March 2nd article as a "retraction" of any sort, and considering the lengths [H] went to in order to disguise it, I would not be a bit surprised to see that it would fail to meet the court's requirements for a bona fide retraction of any sort.
In case you have any doubts as to my logic, I think it's easy to prove the point. Of IL's 18 points of contention reprinted by [H] on March 2nd, consider items 1, 2, 4, and 10. They concern the opening paragraph of [H]'s September '03 IL article here:
(emphasis mine)[H said:
Since points 1,2,4,& 10 were not the points [H] considered "needed addressing" in its March 2nd article, even after "hours of consideration," and since the September '03 article plainly and clearly states what IL says it does in their 1,2,4 & 10 numbered points , it must be concluded that [H] has no argument with points 1,2,4, &10 as stated by IL in the IL document [H] reprinted March 2nd. I cannot see any other interpretation than, therefore, that [H] also had no dispute with any of the other points IL raised, with the exception of the 5 points which [H] actually and specifically "addressed" March 2nd.
So now, today, June 16 2004, we get this Plea for Help from [H] which you can read above but which I will paraphrase as follows:
"OK, folks, my tail is in the sling and things aren't going so well! Listen--my problem is that when I wrote in September '03 that Robbins and IL were probably a bunch of crooks out to sham investors, I had no proof to back it up. Instead, I unwisely relied on public forum gossip and newpaper clippings, and I reached conclusions based on circumstantial evidence, and I jumped to improper conclusions about some things. So, since I didn't do it back then, I desperately need all of you who are willing to help me to go out and dig up dirt on Tim Robbins--because if I can't prove he's a crook my tail is grass--dig? So, for the sake of my tail and "Freedom of the Press"--which basically just means *my* freedom here--PLEASE SEND IN THE DIRT and give me a helping hand! Please?"
That, unfortunately, is what I read from this plea for help. I cannot see how it will have any bearing whatever on the current litigation which [H] has brought down upon itself.
In conclusion, I want to address some of the things Kyle has said, and that have been echoed by the St. Louis Today article referenced above, which concern SEC reports and other public documents.
The implications made by [H] and now by this newspaper are that IL has been hiding pertinent facts about its business from potential investors, facts which are brought to light in IL's SEC filings.
Uh, I hate to clue these guys in but I guess somebody has to...
SEC filings of this type are routine and required by law of public corporations operating in the US. All corporations must print in their SEC filings *any* information which might be considered negative. Why? For the sake of investors, that's why. SEC filings are documents routinely read by investors prior to investing in a given company--they are PUBLIC DOCUMENTS available to investors, as well as to people like [H] and newspaper reporters... Specifically, the purpose of SEC filings is to inform investors--that is their basic purpose. So, the only way for IL to be doing something wrong here would be if it DID NOT put this negative information in its SEC filings so that any portential investor could read it at his liesure prior to investing. The definition of what an SEC filing is completely demolishes any possibility of IL trying to hide these facts from anyone. IE, everyone who invests in the company knows all the bad stuff prior to investing. This is most likely why IL isn't being sued by any of its actual investors, despite what [H] has been saying about "protecting" IL's investors, whom I suspect know more than [H] will ever know about making investments of all kinds...
Secondly, is it unusual for a startup technology company to run for a couple of years, or longer, on investments alone, prior to getting out a product and taking in money? Heh...
Goodness no, in fact most tech startups follow exactly this model--look how many years Transmeta, for instance, was funded before Crusoe ever emerged! The list of tech startups, some of them today well known, that have followed this model is a very long list, indeed. Why [H] would think it suspicious that a console company would take 12-18 months to design, develop, and deploy a console from scratch to compete with M$ and Sony, is utterly beyond me. Good grief, we have well-known examples of companies like Valve and ID Software taking as long as 4-5 YEARS between 3d games! I don't see anything alarming at all about the fact that IL is 18 months or so into its existence and isn't yet shipping a product. Good grief. All of this is entirely an issue between IL and its investors--I can't see where [H] fits in at all, frankly. If the IL investors aren't unhappy, certainly [H] has no right to be unhappy.Also, in the September article, [H] references a resume which [H] admits it obtained directly from Robbins' own web site. This means that Robbins' resume was also a PUBLIC DOCUMENT, which obviously Robbins wasn't hiding, but was instead avidly promoting publicly himself.
For some strange reason known only to [H], [H] apparently thinks that no one apart from [H] is capable of reading and analyzing Robbin's PUBLIC RESUME as reprinted by [H]...
Good grief, again.... Doesn't it in the least occur to [H] that if Robbins wanted to HIDE his resume, because it contained incriminating information of some sort, THAT ROBBINS WOULDN'T HAVE PUT IT ON HIS OWN WEB SITE????? I guess not...The part about the 90-day WorldCom employment in 2001 was really, really funny I thought, as [H] somehow connected the 2002 WorldComm bankruptcy with the fact that Robbins left the company a year earlier after having served 90 days there as an "Account Executive." What I get out of that is that Robbins was hired by WorldComm as a salesman of some sort and quit after 90 days. What I don't get out of it is that Robbins has framed the WorldComm executives running the company in such a way that he stole the company blind but managed to place the blame on them, that he also eluded the FBI and the SEC--but only [H] was "smart enough" to finger the real WorldComm culprit--Tim Robbins, who did it all in 90 days without a soul being the wiser...
Dog-gone, that's funny... Heh... Unbelievable.Anyway, that's the way the issue stacks up to me, and although I began this post stating I was baffled I really feel much less baffled now than I did when all of this began. I welcome dissenting opinions and contrary views, of course. I think this is a case of [H] simply biting off more than it could chew this time, and realizing that huffing and puffing away behind a web site "editorial page" is no defense against slander and libel at all. Sure--no question about it--Kyle's got rights, but so do people who aren't in the press as well--like Tim Robbins and everybody else. I think that's the whole point here.
