Legalese Laughs

This was the final HH Watch post deleted from Yahoo. Enjoy.

The HH interpretation of Odyssey's interrogatories has begun in earnest, with much comedic effect. The players are "SatDiver" ("smithvi," "gldn_flz," "beavus_chryst,"), nauticalresearch" ("Doc"), and that brilliant legal mind (and ex-TV producer) "Solomon."

SatDiver: "In general, the expectation when asked to provide an interrogatory answer is to provide a specific answer to the question, and all of the information that you have regarding the question. Answers are to be responsive, complete, and not evasive in any way."

Simple translation: Stating the obvious is apparently not enough, wordiness also counts for points. What the long-winded SatDiver is clearly implying is Odyssey evaded answers. And with that, let the HH mutual admiration society come to order:

Solomon: "Thank you, satdiver, for your elucidation. The interrogatories do not appear to be satisfactory to my untutored eye. Assuming OMR has data for the shipwreck and the candidates for its identity, perhaps a maritime archaeologist would have been best employed in composing the responses. This case seems to be testing the patience of the Judge, going by his increasingly frosty responses to OMR. How sternly he deals with Stemm will be interesting. Personally, I do not see this case proceeding much further. Will we see OMR continuing to fail in meeting the basic requirements? Or can a leopard change its spots?"

Translation: Ex-TV man admits he doesn't know much about legal interrogatories, but that doesn't stop him from saying these just won't do. "Increasingly frosty" reactions by the judge? Apparently Solomon hasn't read all the court documents and transcripts, for if he had, he would have noted the snarky, highly amusing comments directed at James Goold by the judge early on in the case.

SatDiver: "Certain aspects speak volumes in these issues. Don't know, is not just, don't know....but don't know, including the definition of dont know, with a specific explanation as to why you don't know…. 'Potential' identification, can be just that, and submitted as such, with supporting evidence as to the hypothesis. There can be virtually no harm with a potential identification, IF properly documented."

Translation: We apologize, but this is un-translatable. It appears the excited, highly agitated atmosphere of mutual agreement reduced "SatDiver" to pure gibberish. But even that couldn't stop Doc from positing an unsolicited opinion:

Doc: "In my opinion the interrogatories noted raise more questions than the Admiralty arrest in the case of the Black Swan, Viz; Mr Stemm thinks it might be the Mercedes but he is uncertain because history and research demonstrates that vessel is in another location??? Mr Stemm thinks it might be a 'Pirate Vessel?' (from the same time period the artifacts) that his company has researched? There are a few things that the resources of history have taught us; The Mercedes was not lost 100 miles or even 200 miles West of the Straits of Gibraltar. The Mercedes was a sovereign vessel in the service of the Kingdom of Spain. The Mercedes was sunk within the Territorial Seas of Portugal. Others have attempted recovery of this 19th Century loss and been refused permission. The cargo consists of property of the Kingdom of Spain and one of his subjects. The artifacts themselves tell a story of their origin and ownership that cannot be refuted."

Translation: Besides demonstrating ignorance of the proper use of semi-colons and colons, "Doc" offers up a laundry list of definitive conclusions about the BS without one shred of historical evidence. No surprise there, of course.

UPDATE: Several readers wrote in to say they would be most interested in seeing some definitive historical evidence posted by HH to back-up their assertion that the Mercedes was a Spanish sovereign warship. And indeed, we looked for that as well on their website and there's nary a shred of evidence, nor a convincing original historical document, posted. Guess they just want us to take their word for it.