Pics of Larry Klayman "in action" this morning at the Haliburton-Cheney Lawsuit Press Conference

Yahoo-AP ^ | 07.10.02 | AP-Via Yahoo

[Registered]

Larry Klayman, chairman and general council of Judicial Watch, holds a news conference on suit filed against Vice President Dick Cheney in Miami Wednesday, July 10, 2002. The group said it was suing Cheney and Halliburton Co., the oil services company he ran for five years, alleging fraudulent accounting practices at the company. (AP Photo/Hillery Smith Garrison)

Larry Klayman, chairman and general counsel of Judicial Watch, holds a news conference in Miami to announce that Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney Wednesday, July 10, 2002. The group said it was suing Cheney and Halliburton Co., the oil services company he ran for five years, alleging fraudulent accounting practices at the company. (AP Photo/Hillery Smith Garrison)

Larry Klayman, chairman and general counsel of Judicial Watch, holds a news conference on a suit filed against Vice President Dick Cheney in Miami Wednesday, July 10, 2002. The group is suing Cheney and Halliburton Co., the oil services company he ran for five years, alleging fraudulent accounting practices at the company. (AP Photo/Hillery Smith Garrison)

[Clara Lou]

It seems to me that Mara said it first, then one of the men chimed in and repeated it. All were in agreement.

[yikes]

It was good to hear that nominal dem, Mort Kondracke, call Klayman a "crank" tonight on FOX.

[Registered]

Did anybody hear the press conference? What did he say happened to Donato's $100,000,000.00.

ned, I believe Luis was headed that way. I've been waiting for him to post his report. I believe he was going to ask Larry just that question.

[billhilly]

I predict that Klayman will go the way of David Brock and Arianna Huffington. He will become (temporarily) the darling of the SALON crowd and Joe Conason will write glowingly of his conversion in the pages of the New York Observer. Too bad Geraldo doesn't still have his gig at MSNBC.

It seems to me that this is prompted by the shortage of conservative donations.

[Catspaw]

Here's a starting point on codpieces, Registered:

A Briefe History of the Codpiece
Part the First
by Lord Samuel Piper

---

The codpiece has held a certain fascination, as well as other important items, for those of us in the Society for Creative Anachronism. It has been regarded with fear and ignorance by many men and a certain reverence by some women. This timely bit of scholarly research should help dispel the fear and ignorance. Any ladies having problems with the "reverence" bit will need to speak with me personally.

Many have assumed that the "cod" in "codpiece" referred to a fish. Because of modern slang usage, or perhaps due to total loss of touch with reality, some have assumed that "piece" meant a firearm. Such suppositions are as far from the etymological truth as can be imagined without rattan blow induced hallucinations.

Not a cod fish

In Middle English, "Cod" (or "Codd" in Old English, "Coddd" in Exceedingly Old English) meant "bag" or "scrotum", which led to some interesting moments when dining out at the Renaissance equivalent of Long John Silver's. "This is the tastiest codd I've ever had in my mouth" was a guaranteed show stopper, bringing about numerous jokes and a homicide or two.

Also not a cod fish

The codpiece began as a flat piece of material covering an improvement in men's fashion -- a well placed slit. This new, "easy access" region in men's pants allowed men to relieve themselves while standing without lowering their pants. Soon after this technological breakthrough was coined the popular after ale phrase "Once more into the breeches."

The simple flap was buttoned closed, laced closed, tied closed, or occasionally glued closed after a particularly exciting night at "The Yellowe Rose Publick Howse."

The codpiece remained flat cloth for a number of years. While visiting England, Duke Fabrizio of Bologna, dressing hastily after a quick romantic interlude, used the flap to contain (or perhaps restrain) his nether parts while appearing before King Henry VIII and Queen Anne Boleyn.

Anne Boleyn

Queen Anne, amused at the Italian's conspicuous bulge, remarked "Be that thine codling or art thou glad to see me?" Of course, "codling" is 15th century English for either a "small, immature apple" or "any of several elongated greenish English cooking apples," so we may never know if the Duke's fruit was being ridiculed or complimented.

King Henry was very distressed by the whole business and assumed this bulge (from Middle French "boulge" meaning "leather bag" or "curved part", or perhaps "curved part in a leather bag") to be the latest Continental style in courtly fashions. He immediately ordered his codpieces padded in order that he not look out of date by comparison to Duke Fabrizio, commanding, "My codpieces must compare favorably to Bologna." Those tailors, very literal-minded fellows all, envisioned pork sausages and thus began the whole size contest that continues to this day.

Henry VIII

Common or "bologna" codpiece	Egg-shaped or "huevos rancheros" codpiece	Be-ribboned or "foofy" codpiece	Armored or "sausage o' steel" codpiece

---

Richard III

Coming in Part the Second : More word origins - What happened when the codpiece of King Richard III (Dick to his friends) came unbuttoned.

[pgkdan]

Larry's gotta be loving this. A whole new source of contributions has just opened up. As to the presstitutes, a pox on their dishonest houses....

It just kills me to think that I once sent this self serving, pig fornicating, publicity hound a $100 a few years ago. Talk about a waste of money.

[McGavin999]

Good example ken. Actually, Halliburton switched to a much more accurate method of accounting (for their industry). More than likely they claimed revenue based on the percentage of completion and now-a-days it's pretty easy to be very, very accurate. The only change they made was recognizing the profit on change orders they were confident they would collect on. Usually, these changes have already been agreed on with the owner (Joe: I want you to make this change. Sam: it's be cost plus. Joe: OK, here's your notice to proceed). Six months later, the paperwork gets processed and an official change order to the contract is issued. Sometimes, the company has already billed for the changes before the paperwork catches up. On big contracts that can take a lot of time since twenty seven gazillion people have to sign off on every single piece of paper. Everyone knows it's going to be billed, and everyone knows it's going to be paid, but the C.O. is still working it's way through the approval process.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. I am going to love watching Klayman being publically humiliated. I hope Halliburton countersues.

[eureka!]

"It just kills me to think that I once sent this self serving, pig fornicating, publicity hound a $100 a few years ago. Talk about a waste of money."

I did the same. And then $50 on top of that, I think. My backside and twisted knee are very sore from all the kicking I have given myself. Then, I also learn 77% of our money or more goes to fundraising. I am happy that I still get solicitations though, I send the prepaid envelopes back with love notes. ;^)

[Madame Dufarge]

Look at Larry's Matlock suit!

Heck, that's what I thought you were talking about the first time!

So what does that say about Klayman's suit?

My misunderstanding aside, this can't be emphasized enough.

[small voice in the wilderness]

I'm sure the putty face will disappear as he books more and more morning shows. The makeup artists can perform miracles, and we all know that Katie, Matt, Diane, Charlie, etc. will want their newest bu** sniffer to look his best. I give him 15 minutes to be their new best friend. Then I hope he ends up waving a Need a Lawyer? poster board sign outside the network studios. Day after pathetic day.

[terilyn]

You know, it may be possible that Klayman has bitten off more than he can chew with Cheney. Took this little game of rip-off-the-donors further than he should have, just one step too far.

Heck, look what happened to Bill Mahr when he took his Politically Incorrect comments one step too far when he insulted our military. FReepers banded together and fought back.

We wrote, called, faxed and e-mailed him, his sponsors, his network, and the media.

Guess what, little Bill doesn't have a show anymore.

Are we going to sit here and let Catie Couric, Aaron Brown, Dan Rather, Brokaw, Jennings, (good grief, I can't even list them all), do their worst or are we going to fire up those keyboards, those faxes and those telephones and let the media know what we think of their bias? Where was the front page news, the leading story, the running tickers when this Clymer sued Clinton? Nowhere. It was nowhere.

This is pathetic.

So do we let them know what we think or do we stay quiet and hope this dies a quick and painful death on it's own?

[lone star annie]

Time to Freep ol Larry. The conservatives were on his side when he was pursuing actual corruption, but now he is after headlines and cash.

He is hurting for cash. When W won the election the money dried up for ol Larry. Even Rich Lowry of National Review said that electing Gore would be better for his magazine because the opposition gets fired up.

[VA Advogado]

sick sick sick

[Wild Irish Rogue]

"It just kills me to think that I once sent this self serving, pig fornicating, publicity hound a $100 a few years ago. Talk about a waste of money."

Me too. We helped create this monster,unfortunately. Hope the Dims likewise waste their money by throwing it down the rathole, known as Judicial Watch. He looked particularly odd today-sort of like a demented ice cream man.

[Clara Lou]

I just saw LK on CNN. He cloaked himself with John Adams, and said that if Cheney didn't know about the changes at Haliburton while he was CEO, then the whole war on terror was in trouble. My opinion of LK is not postable at this site.

[Lucky2]

I think Cheney is safe on this one. Lawsuit Larry never wins a case.

[Texasforever]

I spent my entire carrier in the business that Halliburton is in. In the 80's the vast majority of EPC contracts were "cost plus" and yes the client was supposed to absorb the over runs but usually after they were forced to in court. In the late 80's fixed cost projects became the norm but over run charges were written into the contracts as "contingency fees". All overrun claims were considered accounts receivable, unless challenged by the client, and legitimate earnings . In the cases that there were disagreements as to the amount of money being billed for overruns or schedule penalties or incentives the challenged costs were "off the books" until the negotiations were completed. Every project, most by Halliburton, were mega petrochemical complexes with multi-year schedules and strict payment schedules and conditions. At any given time Halliburton had in excess of 20 billion dollars in procurement activities on as many as 100 major projects around the world. In many cases, to meet schedule incentives, it would use its own money to purchase schedule sensitive material and equipment and then bill the client later. There is absolutely NOTHING that Halliburton did that was illegal, immoral, or unethical

[Fred Mertz]

I caught ABC news - World News Tonight at 6:30 pm - I believe they called JW a "private investigative group", but I could be wrong on that.

Then they had a 5 second clip from Larry's news conference this morning (Did Luis attend?) where he accused Halliburton of blaming its auditors.

It was interesting footage and leftist presentation.

[Fred Mertz]

...if Cheney didn't know about the changes at Haliburton while he was CEO, then the whole war on terror was in trouble.

That is such an excellent point, thanks for bringing it up.

[Registered]

Luis? Did you go? Did you tape the conference or get to ask any questions?