Probably not the same guy...

In my capacity as Lawyer-but-not-Hip-Hop-Lawyer, I was recently contacted by a person who requested -- quite stridently -- in a very demanding fashion -- in other words, demanded -- that I help him solve a problem he is having. This person does not work at my company. He is not one of our customers or business partners, and -- in short -- has no relationship with me or my company, professional or otherwise.

Amid all of the guy's staccato threats, I was able to determine with some clarity the nature of his complaint: my company [allegedly] has been running banner ads on a site which has editorialized extensively against him, in a very crude and impolite manner. Unfortunately, prior to viewing the actual content of the site, I had, early in this person's discourse, been led to believe that the site was using racial hate speech and graphic pornography and scatological imagery to make its attacks on him.

At which point I, at some pains to interject, said, well, obviously we wouldn't want to be associated with that kind of thing, so if you'll direct me to where our banner ad is on the site, I'll make sure it is removed. Later, I was able to make the determination that although the site did make a passing reference to the man's heritage as a, uh, Semitic personage, it was probably intended as a reference to his very out-front championing of Jewish (or maybe Israeli) causes and, connectedly, his own [allegedly] strident racism against persons of Arabic (and Persian) backgrounds, and that the pornographic and scatological imagery was cartoonish (at best).

But I digress. Because I really couldn't care less who is right, who is wrong, and what their stupid beef is all about. Just another of the millions and millions of little dust-ups happening daily on these here inter-tubes. Don't care, don't wanna hear about it. But if this guy cares enough to harass me about a commercially insignificant banner ad, then fine, I'll get it taken down.

But and so then, the guy says, alright well that's a good start, and I'll guess you owe me a debt of gratitude for helping you out in this way, but now there's something you can do for me, to, you know, avoid having me prosecute a civil suit against you based on my preposterous and legally absurd claims: go ahead, right now, and contact your ad rep at Google, and explain to them in excruciating detail exactly why you want this ad removed, viz., that this site is illegally denigrating me in a most crude, impolite, and illegal manner, and further use your power as a Google customer to urge -- nay, DEMAND -- that Google cease doing business with this site.

Naturally, I was reluctant to accede to this request. The guy is flat loony. This was yesterday. And now, today, imagine my surprise as I read this article and have no other choice but to conclude that the identity of this person was evidently none other than Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister of the country of Israel, who, in addition to (apparently) haranguing your humble blogger on the telephone, has also been busy preparing to go to Washington to make a few requests of our President, Mr. George W Bush:

"Citing sources close to the Israeli prime minister, Yediot Achronot reported on its front page Wednesday that Olmert, who is due to hold closed-door talks with Bush in Washington, will say that 'time is running out' on diplomatic efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program.

"The United States should therefore prepare to attack Iran, Olmert will tell Bush, according to Yediot."

Ok, so let me get this straight, Mr. Olmert. One of your neighbors, who has [reportedly] made various and sundry threats and comments derogatory to your country, is [allegedly] plotting to construct a weapon which could only be used against your country, a country (yours) which has a relatively huge defense budget, a highly efficient, deadly, battle-tested military with the latest and greatest in weapons technology, and a verified arsenal of deliverable thermonuclear weapons. And you want us to preemptively attack this neighbor of yours??

Thanks for your input, buddy, but I kinda think we'll go ahead and take a pass on all that.