In case you are wondering where I have been, I took the weekend off, and then at some point over the weekend,. I clear my internet cache, which removed my password from the WP login, so I have been effectively locked out of my site until now. I now have my password tattooed to my forehead.
Chalk one up to the never-ending wisdom of John Cole.
Krista
That must look festive, having “cindysheehansucks” tattooed on your forehead. :)
(I kid.)
Ozymandias
But won’t you end up typing the password in backwards everytime you have to check?
Paul Wartenberg
There’s a better place for tattooing your passwords onto your body. Noooo, not there. I’m talking about the inside space between your big toe and the second toe. Sheesh!
demimondian
Actually, the reason he forgot his password was that he couldn’t remember if it was “wardchurchillsucks” or “JeeieMacBethSucks”. He changed it from cindysheehansucks at the end of last summer.
John, if you used “ThisWeeksJackalopeSucks”, you wouldn’t need to change it wheneve Minitrue changed the content of the five-minute hate.
Punchy
Is this a Password of the Left, but not actually a password?
McNulty
You missed a good dust-up on Friday between ppGaz and Lukasiak. Had you been here for it, you probably would’ve felt the same way you felt back when Penn State and Pitt played in football and rooted for injuries.
I compared it to when Michigan plays Notre Dame. I rooted for Michigan (ppGaz) out of Big 10 loyalty, but i still felt a little dirty afterwards.
tBone
John, I can’t believe you have the gall to come on here and claim that you’re endowed with “never-ending wisdom.” Are you claiming that all of the lefty posters here are stupid, then? What an arrogant ass.
There. That should take care of any misinterpretation withdrawal you were suffering after several days away.
demimondian
tBone, not to defend John, but something which never starts also never ends. We don’t have all the facts yet, so please don’t get the left arred, once again, as flying off the handle without the facts.
Mr Furious
I feel your pain, John. If I leave my dogeared little book of user IDs and passwords at home (or work) when I need it, I am screwed…
Mr Furious
Nice ones, Krista and tBone…I’m sure John feels right at home again.
tBone
Look, demi, it’s right there in black and white: John thinks he has never-ending wisdom. No reasonable person could possibly read that in any other way. Case closed.
capelza
Hi John Cole!
What IS Cindy Sheehan up to these days?
Krista
I bet he’s now wishing he hadn’t remembered that password…
Anderson
Cognitive malfunction is one of the many aftereffects reported by victims of alien abduction.
Punchy
Wow, I thought I was the only one that did this. Like when Notre Damn played USC…just hoping for a rash of injuries or a landmine to explode underneath the field…
John Cole
LOL.
Browns/Cowboy Superbowl- Root for injuries.
Brian
John, you missed a very entertaining little kerfuffle yesterday between Goldstein and some hack professor and his elves. The ensuing back and forth reminded me of some of the exchanges here, but with more ferocity.
It was a laugh riot!! The prof and his elves have now returned to their cave. Poor sap, he shut down his comments section. How chickenshit is that, man?
Punchy
You read the link? Some commenter made a sexual comment about his 1-year old daughter. Yeah, that’s “chickenshit”.
demimondian
Hmm. Brian, it’s quite possible that the original post constituted a statement from which a reasonable person could derive an immediate threat to a person under his or her guardianship. Under the circumstances, that might actually constitute a crime.
John Cole
That douche bag and his minions have been making personal attacks against Jeff Goldstein for weeks, and have been encouraged by many high-profile left-wing sights (Atrios, etc.). They have done nothing to moderate the abusive and personal attacks against Jeff, while Jeff has taken great pains to delete personal information and not make personal attacks against them.
Additionally, that comment was made by some fucktard, and not Jeff, yet Thersites and the like are trying to attach it to Jeff as if he himself made it. We all agree that comment was disgusting, but if you want to know who has been on the wrong side of the online integrity issue, it has not been Jeff. It has been Thersites and Atrios and FireDogLake and the like, who have called him any number of names, called him mentally unbalanced and made fun of medication he takes, etc.
Quit playing their game.
Krista
Yeah, I’d definitely be able to laugh about it if I had a one-year old daughter, and someone made a comment about her “d**k-sucking lips.” That professor obviously has no sense of humour, really.
Krista
Just for clarification, where were they making the personal attacks? On Jeff’s site, or on their own site? I’m just wondering where all of this took place. And, may I also add that I truly hope that Jeff deleted the comment in question and heavily censured the commenter?
Punchy
OT, but…Dr. Cole, what is the genesis of the beef between Jeff G. and Atrios? Atrios rips the guy almost once a day, compares him to Ralph Wiggum, etc. Is this just a conservative/progressive dust-up or is there more to Atrios’ (strange and unending) slamming of Goldy?
John Cole
The genesis of the argument is they do not like his politics, so they simply want to destroy him. It is that simple.
John S.
Yeah, Jeff Goldstein is a paragon of excellence when it comes to integrity. Nobody exudes morality better when suggesting what people can do with his genitalia than Jeff.
Krista
I’m wondering, though — if this guy was slamming Jeff on Jeff’s own site, and Jeff was fed up, wouldn’t it have been much better to have just IP banned him, instead of disclosing the guy’s name, his wife’s name, and where he works? I don’t know enough of the history to say that Jeff wasn’t being badly bashed, but to my mind, the much better response would have been to IP ban the prof and his gang, as well as the commenter who made the disgusting comment.
Brian
Jeff asked for, but was not given, the IP address of the commenter, yet Thersites insisted on claiming it was one of Jeff’s commenters who wrote it. Jeff made a good faith effort to help Thersites sort it out, and he was rebuffed. They preferred to keep on the fight, and I was happy to help Jeff’s side.
The commenter’s statement was inapporpriate, but we don’t know who it came from, and we probably never will. If it was my kid, I would have taken the comment down, and worked behind the scenes to sort it out via the IP address, but the dope chose to make it an issue. Some father.
Don’t come around picking a fight and not expect to get royally bitch-slapped for it. They got slapped, then started whining about how the Righties were being all mean and stuff.
Boo-fucking-hoo.
Brian
Krista,
With all due respect, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Jeff didn’t reveal the guy’s name first, a commenter did, and Jeff removed the comment. Besides, the guy’s name, along with his wife’s name, is all over the site of one of his commenters. If you play publicly on the Internet, chances are you’ll be able to be found.
The comment about the kid happened on Thersites’ site, not Jeff’s, yet Jeff offered to see if the commenter matched anyone from PW, but he needed the IP address, which Thers wouldn’t give him. It’s all a canard.
One of my comments is still on that link I gave you. The one that he excerped and called me “insane” at the end. My comment still stands: the guy’s full of shit, and he was never in danger.
Krista
Brian – that’s why I was asking questions about the situation. It’s what people do when they’re not fully aware of all of the details of what might have happened. (Oh…wait…I forgot that I’m on a blog. Forget that last sentence, then.)
John S.
Krista, are you implying that Brian is not a person? If one follows the corollary of your logic, they would come to that inevitable conclusion…
Pooh
BZZT! He may not have ‘revealed’ but he certainly reprinted several times…
Theristes may well be an asshole (hardly makes him unique on the intrawebs, right ppGaz?) but…why the ‘outing’ and not just an IP ban? I eagerly await a more fact-based response from Brian.
Brian
I understand this, Krista, but you were already going down the road of spreading the very canard that’s the subject of dispute. As well, the issues been going on literally for weeks between the two sites, so the best way to brush up on the subject would be to set aside a day of your life and pore through the posts between Jeff and Thersites to understand where we are today. I don’t have the time to give you, and I can encapsulate it for you ina ncie, neat little comment with a bow on top.
The guy has a blog where he was posting stuff about Jeff’s education on the topic of signs and intentionalism. Banning his IP address at the comments level wouldn’t have made much of a difference. It was what he was saying on his blog that was the source of everything that followed. The guy’s commenters then spread a falsity about some comment about his kid. Jeff would have to ban the IPs of the commenters, then he would only get accused of CENSORING DISSENT!!!!
Brian
Correction…
That would be that I CAN’T encapsulate it for you with a nice little bow.
Correction again…
I WON’T do so.
Paul Wartenberg
About 2 television interviews per day, down from her peak of 14.
Pooh
Brian, be that as it may, what is the excuse for a signatory of Online Integrity to out someone (and his WIFE) in that manner? Like I said above, in my limited interactions with Thers, he is indeed an ass (worthy of this comment section? Put him and GOP4ME in a room and I’ll spring for the popcorn…)
But the point of “Integrity” is you have to have it when it’s hard as well as when it’s easy.
Krista
Bah. How come everybody else gets to talk about crap when they’re not fully aware of the situation, but I get called on it? And no, I have no intention of spending a day of my life poring through a flame war between two people who I don’t know, don’t really care about, and probably wouldn’t like very much if I knew them. But thanks anyway. :)
John S.
Silly Brian, there is no dissent on the good righty websites. At least, on the ones that ALLOW comments.
Punchy
Ruh roh…our gov’t just seems incapable of EVER telling the full truth…why am I not surprised? Will they ever come clean on anything?
Brian
A Lefty, who has some understanding of the subject that was originally being argued, has come to Jeff’s defense.
As for Pooh’s question, I will let Jeff speak for himself regarding the OI Pledge. I think he handled himself admirably. My feeling about the whole issue of OI, is that if you want to bring it up as you have, and take it seriously as a tool to be used, then you need to believe in its code across the board, and not apply it selectively, such as to Jeff and not to the other guy.
I am sure Jeff learned a lot from this whole scene, but each side had a role in how it got to where it did. But, as an observer and sometime participant in the argument, I think Jeff carried himself much better than Thers’ side did.
Brian
I believe that most of them do. RedState is the only one I know of where they seriously moderate the comments.
If I were a blogger, I’d have rules of conduct, which would mean at times that some comments would be removed. Having unmoderated comments isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Any visit to Atrios can show you that. It’s a cesspool over there.
The Other Steve
That’s a first for Jeff. I mean we all remember the BitchPhd incident where Jeff encouraged people to contact a college and complain about a professor.
Good for him! Maybe he is learning.
Now if we can get Michelle Malkint o change.
John S.
Actually, a lot of them DON’T.
The likes of Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds prefer their bloviating to be 100% dissent-free.
Anderson
Fact:
People who publicly write about slapping their cocks against the faces of their opponents/enemies/antagonists, are assholes.
Brian
That’s a pretty elastic definition of “a lot”.
Anderson
The guy has a blog where he was posting stuff about Jeff’s education on the topic of signs and intentionalism
EEK! Poor wittle Goldstein wuz bein’ MOCKED on someone ELSE’S blog! Extreme measures were necessary!
Add “fuckwit” to “asshole,” supra.
Pooh
Good to know we have badBrian today – admirably? What is admirable about repeatedly posting this guy (and his wife’s) name?
As for OI, if he signed it (didn’t he?) then he has pretty clearly broken the pledge and should be delinked! (I think the whole thing is silly, and I’m not expecting any such delinkage to occur, but there is a certain degree of “I told you this would happen” that I’m feeling. And I don’t think I’m the only one.)
McNulty
While Reynolds has never allowed comments–at least i don’t think he did–Malkin actually did allow them in the early days of her blog. She also tolerated dissenting comments.
I really don’t wanna defend her because i think she’s a little too big into the “War on Christmas, Conservatives are under attack” mode. However, when dissent goes from “i disagree with you and here’s why” to “you’re a slanty-eyed c**t”, which it did i don’t blame her.
Brian
It’s a good day in the blogosphere. Thersites’ site has been shut down within the last hour or so.
Goodbye, and good riddance.
John S.
Yes, clearly insults and haranguing are a phenomenon only experienced by the poor beleagured commentariat of the right. I wonder how many bloggers on the left that have received hate mail, death threats, etc. have decided to suspend their comment sections.
And to get a “I disagree with you and here’s why” out of ANY poster on the majority of blogs would be a fucking miracle. You doth protest too much.
John S.
No. Professor Cole would insist that people who publicly write about slapping their cocks against the faces of their opponents/enemies/antagonists, have integrity.
McNulty
Do you go out of your way to be dumb, or does it just come naturally for you?
Anderson
Ah, McNulty proves John S.’s point.
Brian
Is this a measure of a blog’s worth?….whether or not they have open comment sections?
I think many blog readers would be fine with more moderating of comment sections by bloggers, or if bloggers went to a registration process, or if their favorite bloggers did away with comments altogether.
Seriously, when have you seen a topic discussed with civility between opposing camps on a blog? I don’t mean the latest cellphone technology as a topic, but a subjects that are political by nature? If the thread starts out well, it almost always devolves into a spitting match and commenters writing “you said it first” and “No, YOU said it first!”. It’s the nature of the blogging beast. So, bloggers can either accept it as a fact of blogging existence, or put restraints on it.
I don’t just a blog by whether or not it has comments. People who seek that out and place value on it are trolls, I suspect.
Perry Como
It’s the nature of anonymous communication. Someone may have pointed this out here before, but Penny Arcade summed it up pretty nicely:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
Brian
Now that gave me a chuckle.
Isn’t the incivil behavior what pretty much doomed Usenet in earlier days? I understand that it migrated from there to the blogosphere, but I never was involved with Usenet.
demimondian
I go back to the days when alt.flame has just been founded, so I remember much, much, young Jedi.
Uncivil behavior is not what killed Usenet. Most news-readers supported “kill files”, through which persons posting from a given account, or on a given subject, could be removed. Perry kindly wrote a similar function for B-juice, which makes my reading at home much more tolerable (except that I have to use Firefox, ick.) What actually killed Usenet was spam — nntp is a totally insecure protocol, and so the spammers and the porn-traders took over the groups. The signal to noise ratio fell to such a level that the regulars left, and almost all groups died.
Perry Como
Not really. Spam was the downfall of Usenet. Newsreaders had kill files, so if someone was particularly obnoxious you could just *plonk* them. Once spam showed up, Usenet was a losing battle. Some lists went to moderated only and others did self moderation (bring a chicken), but self moderation is an uber-geeky approach.
Oh, and AOL. AOL giving its members Usenet access was the final nail in the coffin.
John S.
Indeed.
I demand the comment section here be shut down because McNulty insulted me.
John S.
Not often. Particularly when you or Darrell are involved. I can’t put my finger on it, but for some reason when you two pepper your posts with ‘leftist kook’ language, it has a tendency to erode any sort of civility.
If it starts well, it usually gets interrupted by you or Darrell calling people names or introducing specious claims that when challenged then result in a fresh hurling of insults. I wish your cute little hypothetical were a reality, but sadly it is not.
demimondian
All I can say to that is “Oh, look. B1FF and Muffy are back. How…nice.”
Brian
The Frontier days. Must’ve been fun, while it lasted. Smaller community compared to now, and therefore likely more serious about whatever was discussed?
DougJ
Brian must be a spoof — Goldstein looked so dumb there I almost started to feel sorry for him.
DougJ
I agree with John about Jane Hamsher’s comments about Jeff’s anti-anxiety medication — that was a classless personal attack on Jane’s part. You’ve got to draw a line between calling someone stupid, craven, fascist, what have you (which is fair enough in many cases) and making fun of what may be legitimate mental illness or other personal problems.
Goldstein is a grade A asshole and moron and deserves to be described as such. But his personal life is none of our business.
DougJ
There’s plenty of right-wing sites that have comments sections — rathergate, scrutator, atlas shrugs, blogsforbush, volokh. They get plenty of lefties there but they don’t seem to ban them.
And kudos to all of them — Jeff G and the rest. And I do hold it against Malkin, Reynolds, and the rest that they don’t allow comments.
DougJ
Jeff G and the scruloosers have banned me of course, but that doesn’t count.
tBone
That’s because you’re a troll. Brian said so.
You actually got banned from PW and Scrutator? Wow. You must have said some exceptionally crazy shit to achieve that.