Censorship on Panda's Thumb and the AOL Message Boards
Panda's Thumb is probably the biggest, most active blog dealing with the evolution controversy. Its staff members are Darwinists or neo-Darwinists. I have frequently been banned from Panda`s Thumb, forcing me to change my posting name there several times, and many of my posts there have been deleted. Though I personally consider arbitrary censorship to be a very bad idea, I nonetheless concede that blog owners and staffers have the right to practice it, but I expect Panda`s Thumb to be more tolerant because it received a web award from Scientific American magazine. PT's staff claims that I was banned and deleted because I was using multiple names, but the opposite is true -- I used multiple names because I was being banned and deleted. I was afraid to tell the truth because I figured that PT's staff would get even madder at me if I accused them of arbitrary censorship. It makes no sense that I would go to the trouble of preparing long posts -- including a lot of time spent on research -- and then invite deletion of the posts by using multiple names. I think that one of the reasons why I was banned was that the many heckling reply comments I was getting that contained nothing but insults and/or ad hominem attacks were creating a nuisance.
America Online has been practicing arbitrary censorship on the AOL message boards by deleting posts and occasionally suspending AOL members ( I was suspended at least once, and had to call up AOL just to log back on ). I feel that AOL has no right to do this because the AOL message boards are semi-public rather than private forums and because most of the commenters on these boards are paying AOL members ( non-members can comment by obtaining an AOL email address through http://www.aim.com ).
My biggest motivation for creating this blog, "I'm from Missouri," was to avoid the arbitrary censorship practiced by other blogs and Internet forums. Censorship here will be avoided -- there will be no deletion of comments, no closing of comment threads, no holding up of comments for moderation, and no registration hassles. Comments containing nothing but insults and/or ad hominem attacks are discouraged. This blog uses a free blog service, http://www.blogger.com
My non-response to a particular comment should not be interpreted as agreement, approval, or inability to answer.
A bit of trivia about the slogan, "I'm from Missouri -- you`ll have to show me": "Show Me State" is the official state nickname of Missouri. The nickname shows that Missourians are proud of the slogan`s skepticism. Many decades ago I saw a BBQ sauce brand named "I'm from Missouri," but at the time I did not know that the name had a double-meaning ( the name also reflects the fact that Kansas City -- most of which is in Missouri -- and St. Louis are famous for BBQ ).
America Online has been practicing arbitrary censorship on the AOL message boards by deleting posts and occasionally suspending AOL members ( I was suspended at least once, and had to call up AOL just to log back on ). I feel that AOL has no right to do this because the AOL message boards are semi-public rather than private forums and because most of the commenters on these boards are paying AOL members ( non-members can comment by obtaining an AOL email address through http://www.aim.com ).
My biggest motivation for creating this blog, "I'm from Missouri," was to avoid the arbitrary censorship practiced by other blogs and Internet forums. Censorship here will be avoided -- there will be no deletion of comments, no closing of comment threads, no holding up of comments for moderation, and no registration hassles. Comments containing nothing but insults and/or ad hominem attacks are discouraged. This blog uses a free blog service, http://www.blogger.com
My non-response to a particular comment should not be interpreted as agreement, approval, or inability to answer.
A bit of trivia about the slogan, "I'm from Missouri -- you`ll have to show me": "Show Me State" is the official state nickname of Missouri. The nickname shows that Missourians are proud of the slogan`s skepticism. Many decades ago I saw a BBQ sauce brand named "I'm from Missouri," but at the time I did not know that the name had a double-meaning ( the name also reflects the fact that Kansas City -- most of which is in Missouri -- and St. Louis are famous for BBQ ).
Labels: Internet censorship (1 of 2)
posted by Larry Fafarman | 4/16/2006 12:59:00 PM
94 Comments:
At least I never said anything mean to you Larry. In fact I even pointed out that they should leave your posts as educational opportunities for others who have bought into the christian/muslim/whtever far-out concept that we can do anything but marvel over god/life force/ whatever. I argued that semi-educated arguments like yours should be left for others to see so that visitors can see why arguments like yours are wrong. But they are an uppity bunch over there at times and they got angry at you for posting the same argument again after it was demonstrated to be wrong. That you never conceeded your point even though you were unequivocally shown to be wrong.
I however, care very little for the debate and I am far more interested in the comic value of people like you. Scientists are rarely truly funny. Good senses of humor, just that they tend to take themselves seriously but seldom make fools of themselves. There is not much room for comedy there. But you... You provide so much grist for the little devil in me. Or the giant Satan if you prefer. You are like chris farley and the stoner college dude from Saturday Night Live all rolled into one. I wish they would let you post but the square pegs that they are...
Good Luck with this blog. I know you will enjoy a pulpit. I do. Oh holy Brahma, spirit of the Salmon and the meadowlark, deliver us from boredom...
Repeat
Congratulations, BWE -- you are the first commenter on my blog (other than myself, of course).
Merely answering my arguments is not the same thing as refuting them. And I do not have to concede to a counter-argument that I do not accept.
Many of my arguments on Panda's Thumb were simple, irrefutable statements of fact, e.g., "there is no constitutional separation of bogus science and state" and "scientists can continue to use evolution theory even while believing that all or part of it is untrue." And my comments on PT were often very well supported by URL links to references. Furthermore, even when one of my comments did not repeat ideas from my previous comments, I still got the same rude treatment.
If you think that my arguments are so comical, then why don't you try to refute them right here on this blog ? Point out all the holes in my arguments in my post titled, "The Co-evolution Paradox." Show that my post titled "Traipsing into breathtaking inanity -- absurd rulings in the Dover Intelligent Design case" is completely wrong. If you can't do those things, then you are just a bag of hot air. Talk is cheap, and talk about talk is even cheaper. Furthermore, you ignored my request, " comments containing nothing but insults and/or ad hominem attacks are discouraged. " Your comment did not address any issues here but was just a personal attack on me.
Larry, you know full well you were banned for posting under multiple user names, which is expressly against the rules of Panda's Thumb.
Your banning had nothing to do with your silly attempts at challenging "darwinism" and everything to do with your dishonest and anti-social behavior on the blog.
Chance visitors to your site are reminded that Panda's Thumb can be checked for massive amounts of evidence which refutes Larry's assertions about his experiences there.
hugs,
Shirley Knott
Hi, Larry. Nice to see you have your own blog. I anticipate many hours of refutation. I wanted to start out with a quick history lesson regarding your time over on Panda's Thumb (hereafter PT).
I first joined PT about a year ago. Back then, there was a thread called the Bathroom Wall, which was part of PT, for off-topic comments. It was intended for both general topics of interest (eg, news that didn't have a current topic) and for shifting comments that had strayed off-topic. Many commenters on both sides had their comments shifted over there. Sometimes, the original post contributor would shift one of his own comments over! It was considered a healthy way of keeping threads on-topic without unnecessary censorship. I myself had several posts moved there - for the record, I agreed with all of those decisions.
Last fall, PT rebuilt the site. For some reason, the Bathroom Wall thread became broken. Suddenly, there was no way to make general comments or to move off-topic comments. The sudden proliferation of threads taken over by off-topic comments caused a great deal of concern.
Enter Larry. Around the time the Dover decision was handed down, he started posting on PT. The majority of the active commenters on PT found his assertations so absurd that they couldn't resist pointing and laughing. Unfortunately, because it seemed so obvious that Larry's assertations were incorrect, most didn't bother to take the time to refute them. This led to a large number of threads where Larry would post something, 10 other people would point and laugh, and maybe one person might give some sort of actual rebuttal. This might not necessarily have been a problem, but many of Larry's comments were tangential to the topic (ie, they picked a detail of the original post, but went in a completely different direction than the topic was intended to go) that quickly devolved into off-topic discussion. This led to a strong call for the return of the Bathroom Wall. Not to censor Larry, but to place his comments where they were more appropriate to discuss, as had been the long-time tradition of PT. On January 18th, Wesley finally created a thread on After the Bar Closes, PT's auxiliary forum, called the Bathroom Wall to restore the tradition. One of Larry's comments was the first comment moved there, plus a horde of responses to that comment.
At some point, Larry was assigned an IP address that was on the database of problem addresses (this database is not maintained by PT). He then had a friend make a post for him (on a different computer) because he thought he'd been banned for his ideas. After his friend posted, he forgot to change the username back, and was informed that posting under multiple names was a bannable offense known as Rule 6. (Shortly before Larry joined, a poster had been banned for just that reason, so it was fairly fresh in people's memories) Larry then proceeded to speculate on how to avoid a ban, and threatened to post under a bunch of names if he were ever banned. That brought an immediate reaction from the administration; Larry was warned that if any further threats to that effect were made, he would be banned. This also meant that he was under heightened scrutiny for any such activity.
Then, an unfortunate event occured. Another person showed up and posted some rather rude comments, and possibly posted under two names. The admin investigated and found that the same IP address was being use by four usernames, one of which was Larry. With this evidence, plus the previous threats, the admin decided those four users would be banned. However, the fourth name happened to be a long-time PT denizen who was definitely opposed to Larry's position, so another PT commenter did some digging and discovered that the IP address in question was one of the main gateways for AOL, which Larry was known to be using. the pro from dover was the fourth username, and he has been posting normally ever since. As a result, it appears that the admins decided at the time to not enforce the ban on Larry (though I did not see an announcement to that effect). Larry, rather than petitioning to have the ban lifted in light of the new evidence, decided to follow through on his threat to post under multiple names.
So, for another month or so, Larry was posting under multiple names, and his comments would occasionally be moved to the Bathroom Wall for off-topicness. During that time, multitudes of posters requested that Larry resume posting as himself, reminding him that he could be banned. I even offered an incentive to Larry by offering him information he had been demanding for several months provided he resume posting as himself (or a derivative, such as Larry or Larry F.) Then Larry made his big mistake. He posted under the name of a PT regular. This behavior is not tolerated at all by the admin, and the decree came down that a ban was to be enforced on all comments by Larry, and any comments that responded to Larry (according to the site rules).
As a result, responding to Larry became hazardous, because it was difficult to know whether the contributor that started the thread would enforce the ban. Therefore, when it became apparent that some contributors hadn't heard of the ban, some of us started informing the contributors when Larry was posting, that he was under a ban, and why he was under the ban. This got threats from Larry to post as those who were bringing his posts to the attention of the contributors to post under their names in hopes of getting some of their real posts deleted. This is attrocious behavior, and at this point the admins felt the integrity of the system was at stake, so they actively sought out and removed Larry comments. Finally, Larry got the message and stopped posting.
As for my own actions, the reason I called out Larry was because his actions were making it impossible for me to freely respond to his comments. I sincerely wish he hadn't taken the actions that got him banned, as I was enjoying the clashes we were having. I look forward to engaging him on his own blog, and hope that he is earnest about his stated posting policy (I have no reason to doubt him, nor do I doubt him on it).
Question for Larry. Are there any limits (imposed by the software or by yourself) on the number of links in a comment? I will try to keep my comments from being gargantuan, but in order to back up my positions, they probably will be on the longer side. Due to time restraints, my comments will come at slow intervals, so be patient with me.
Reply to W. Kevin Vicklund`s comment of Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:48:49 AM --
The reason why I threatened to come back under a different name was that some commenters were asking that I be banned and/or deleted -- some were even asking that those who responded to me be banned too. You were among the worst offenders in this regard -- many of my posts might have gone unnoticed if you had not called attention to them. Your claims of innocence are very hypocritical. Doing any of the following is very bad Internet etiquette: (1) asking that another commenter be banned or deleted, (2) asking other commenters to not respond to a particular commenter, and (3) posting comments containing nothing but insults and/or ad hominem attacks ( I got so many of these comments in response on one particular thread that the PT staffer closed the thread ). As for comments that did nothing but attack me personally, those comments were posted by people who were frustrated because my arguments were logical and were often backed up by URL links to reliable sources.
I was banned before I ever violated any of PT's rules, but I was afraid to point this out on PT because I figured that the PT staff would get even madder at me if I accused them of arbitrary censorship. I never posted rude comments. One of the disadvantages of banning by IP address is that other users of the same IP address can be unintentionally banned. If there was some error or misunderstanding that resulted in my being banned, the PT staff never explained it to me -- also, I am wondering how you got all these details that even I was not aware of.
I kept changing my posting name to help avoid banning and/or deletion. Again, I ask -- why would I go to the trouble of preparing long, carefully-researched posts and then risk deletion by using multiple names ?
Also, contrary to what you claim, most of my comments on PT were on-topic. Commenters who were not disfavored by the PT staff were given much more latitude than I was in deviating from the main topic -- in fact, one of the threads became a long discussion about British beers and ales. Reasonable deviation from the main topic should be allowed, especially considering that commenters who are not PT staffers are not free to start their own threads.
Also, moving posts to PT's off-site "Bathroom Wall" is not a "healthy" way of keeping threads on-topic. Posts that are moved to the BW are generally ignored, and moving a post there often destroys the continuity of the post's thread -- it is often necessary to flip back and forth between PT and BW to follow this thread. Also, calling a post "off-topic" is often just a pretext for moving it to the BW. The BW is mostly just a hypocritical scheme devised by the PT staff for censoring posts while denying charges of censorship.
I posted under another user's name as an experiment because one of my comments was being held up for moderation and I could not figure out why. I thought that maybe there was a new policy where only approved commenters could post without their posts being held up for moderation, so I tried using the name of a regular commenter and I posted on an old thread to avoid disruption. On my test post, I clearly stated that I was not the person whose name I was posting under. I later found out that the reason for holding up my post was that I exceeded the limit on URL links. In answer to your question about URL links, Panda's Thumb allows a maximum of four and Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars allows a maximum of only two -- posts exceeding the limit are held up for moderation and it may be necessary to give notice by email that your post is waiting for approval. I do not know if there is any maximum on my blog, and I was not asked to specify a maximum when I set up my blog.
I have no problem with "gargantuan" comments, and I don't know if the blog service imposes any limits on the length of comments.
I still post on Panda's Thumb from time to time. Things have gotten so bad at PT that virtually any commenter who makes a dissident comment is suspected of being me and hence is subject to deletion and/or banning. Eventually, a lot of people will not want to visit PT just to see one side of an issue.
Anyway, I consider my problems with PT to be in the past and I now hope that I can move on.
Your first ban occurred on the Another Religious Assault on Education thread on January 26th. If the link works, it should take you to the admin posting announcing the ban. Here are the relevant excerpts.
-admin
Rule 6 kicks in for IP address 207.200.116.136, which has had comments from “Larry Fafarman”, “thordaddy”, “M”, and “the pro from dover”. If it is just a number in a dynamic pool, it shouldn’t cause anyone too much discomfort.
-Michael Rathbun
Just a note for administration: 207.200.116.136 is one of the main AOL web cache servers. As much as I appreciate a Larry Farfel-free environment, this might be entirely too dire.
-'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank
Well, since Pro From Dover has been here a long time and is a definite anti-IDer, I think it absolutely one-thousand percent certain that he and Larry are not the same person.
Thordaddy is, like Larry, just a crank (with some bizarre “theory” that nobody seems to care about), but I think it extremely unlikely that they are the same person either. Larry, as an attention-seeking crank, prefers to get his fix under his real name.
As you can see, it wasn't even technically a ban on the users, just a ban on a particular IP address.
This is the only ban regarding you I know of before the ban when you posted as a regular, and immediately after that you started posting under a bunch of names. Therefore, I presume that this is the ban that started the whole thing.
As for my conduct. I never called for your ban until after it was being partially enforced. I never asked any user to not respond to you. Almost all of my posts to you were largely substantial, and when I did insult you, it was over a topic previously discussed and not a general attack. Those posts of yours that you claimed would have gone largely unnoticed? I called it to the attention of the moderators because I would have responded to them (or rather, a subset of them) if I were allowed to under the rules. Since I was not allowed to respond, there was only one recourse left to me. There is no hyprocisy on my part, and aside from the occasional mild insult, my etiquette was fine. You, however, had terrible etiquette, as you were knowingly and deliberately breaking the stated rules of the board.
Accusing me of poor etiquette for turning you in when you were violating the ban is analogous to accusing someone of poor etiquette for turning you in to the police for violating a restraining order on a neighbor's property.
Reply to post by W. Kevin Vicklund at 4/19/2006 12:45:05 PM
I was not aware of this post by the Panda's Thumb Admin, which said, "Rule 6 kicks in for IP address 207.200.116.136, which has had comments from 'Larry Fafarman', 'thordaddy', 'M', and 'the pro from dover'. If it is just a number in a dynamic pool, it shouldn’t cause anyone too much discomfort."
My normal IP's are a little different, 207.200.116.200 or 207.200.116.202, though occasionally I have had other IP's and I might have had IP address 207.200.116.136 at some time(s). Anyway, even if I had seen the above post by the PT Admin, I would not have been aware that I was being totally banned.
You said, "As you can see, it wasn't even technically a ban on the users, just a ban on a particular IP address." That's ridiculous -- when an IP address is banned, the commenters who use that IP address are banned.
The story you gave here, which shows that I was banned without being accused of breaking any of the PT rules, puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of the PT Admin and Staff. I would report this to Scientific American magazine -- which gave PT a web award -- but I don't think it would do any good because John Rennie, the magazine's editor-in-chief, is a fanatical Darwinist and therefore is probably a PT pal.
Kevin wrote, "Those posts of yours that you claimed would have gone largely unnoticed? I called it to the attention of the moderators because I would have responded to them (or rather, a subset of them) if I were allowed to under the rules." There is no PT rule against responding to banned commenters. Anyway, you could not be charged with breaking such a rule if you simply said that you were not aware that you were responding to a banned commenter.
And why did you wait until now to tell me the story you gave here ? And how come others did not tell me this story ? Didn't you folks even suspect that I changed my name only because I was banned ? As I said, I was afraid to tell the truth because I thought that the PT staff would get even madder at me if I accused them of arbitrary censorship. I do not accept your claims of innocence. Anyway, the story you gave here only exonerates me from blame for what happened.
On three separate threads, the story was told. You were actively participating in at least one of those threads at the time. On February 4th, on the Ohio Governor Taft Now Opposes ID thread, ben said
"yes they tryed once to ban lalalarry but someone pointed out it was an aol main server that the ip belonged to
they might as well just ban aol"
You posted on that same thread seven comments later and less than seven hours later. We had every reason to believe you already knew that particular chain of events. As far as we were concerned, you were told.
You claim you were afraid to make the admins even madder, yet the action you took was the one guaranteed to make them angry. Even after we pointed out the error, you persisted in the multiple names. It looked to us like you were hellbent on disrupting PT, and we for months told you to resume posting as Larry.
Re: responding to a banned commenter. First, all comments by a person who is banned is automatically considered a Rule 4 violation. Comments responding to Rule 4 violations are also considered Rule 4 violations. Also, responding to a banned commenter is considered a meta-issue and thus falls under Rule 2. Wesley has affirmed that several times this year already. Secondly, why should I lie to protect you? I've already been identified as an expert on Larry posts - trying to claim that I didn't realize it was you would be obviously false and wouldn't do me any good anyway, as the comment would still have disappeared. Unlike you, I do not advocate perjury (this is not an ad hominem - you are on record at PT advocating perjury).
You hold the majority of the blame, and I am innocent of all but some mild insults.
Kevin, if you are going to continue using my time to debate this issue, the least you could do is refer the Panda's Thumb people to this blogpage so that they can decide for themselves whether I was treated fairly.
The bottom line is that I was banned before I ever violated any of the PT rules -- your quotations of PT posts make that clear. There was no reason for me to post under new names except to help avoid banning and deletion. Even Lenny Flank admitted in your citation above, "Larry, as an attention-seeking crank, prefers to get his fix under his real name."
Also, the PT Admin's post that you quoted showed a very flippant attitude about blocking comments, saying about blocking an IP address, " If it is just a number in a dynamic pool, it shouldn’t cause anyone too much discomfort. "
You said, "You posted on that same thread seven comments later and less than seven hours later. We had every reason to believe you already knew that particular chain of events. " I am not responsible for reading and/or understanding every post on Panda's Thumb, and I had no reason to suspect that efforts were being made to ban me. And telling me that I am being banned does not excuse banning me for no reason. Anyway, the PT comment you quoted from the Ohio governor thread ( " yes they tryed once to ban lalalarry but someone pointed out it was an aol main server that the ip belonged to" ) was posted after I was banned and started using new names.
You said, "You claim you were afraid to make the admins even madder, yet the action you took was the one guaranteed to make them angry. Even after we pointed out the error, you persisted in the multiple names. " I did not go back to my real name because it had been banned. The PT staff/admin never told me that I could go back to using my real name. And I was afraid that if I used a name that was reminiscent of my real name, my posts would be deleted.
Also, contrary to your claims, nothing in the PT rules even suggests that responding to a banned commenter is against the rules. Anyway, there would be no point in such a rule because often a banned commenter cannot be identified and such identifications are often mistaken. The way things are now on PT, any dissenting commenter is likely to be identified as me.
You were under no obligation to point a finger at me. The PT staff and admin are nasty enough without help from self-appointed flunkies among the commenters. You are not innocent -- not by a long shot.
"2. Superfluous comments may be removed without notice, as in talk between contributors concerning board layout, duplicate comments, or other meta-site issues."
Responding to a banned commentor has been defined as a meta-site issue. So sayeth Wesley on March 13th:
"There is no new policy. Someone under a ban has no expectation that any illicitly entered comment will be retained. Anyone responding to such a comment is engaged in a meta-site issue, and thus those comments fall under Rule 2, and may be removed entirely without notice."
"4. Entry post authors and the management may move comments that are deemed inappropriate to the topic of the entry post, excessively inflammatory, or otherwise disruptive of substantive commentary to the Bathroom Wall. Repeat offenders may have their comments restricted to the Bathroom Wall or disemvoweled."
Comments from banned commenters are deemed disruptive. Comments to comments deemed disruptive are themselves deemed disruptive. The long standing practice is that when one comment gets moved for a Rule 4, all comments responding also get moved.
Excerpts from your quotations of Wesley Elsberry -- "Someone under a ban has no expectation that any illicitly entered comment will be retained. Anyone responding to such a comment is engaged in a meta-site issue ..... and may be removed entirely without notice." -- and -- "Comments to comments deemed disruptive are themselves deemed disruptive.....when one comment gets moved .....all comments responding also get moved."
Very good, Kevin ! You know all the PT rules backwards and forwards. You know all the details of how I was banned. Maybe you could get a job on the PT admin as chief of troll patrol.
At last I am beginning to see your point, Kevin. You did not want to possibly waste your time responding to my posts, fearing that they would be discovered to be mine and that your posts would be removed along with mine, so in response to any post that you had the slightest suspicion of being mine (there are not many dissident comments on PT, so any post that makes a dissident comment has a strong possibility of being mine), you just said, "hey, it's Larry again," in the hope that the post would just be removed (posts believed to be mine are not moved to the Bathroom Wall -- they are just deleted, period). Instead of just complaining to Wesley that this policy of removing responses to "disruptive" posts creates a dilemma for those who want to respond, you decided to go after me instead, and, by extension, go after all "disruptive" commenters who could be suspected of being me. And Wesley has a very broad idea of what constitutes "disruptive" comments: I once made the "disruptive" comment that the Ohio Board of Education should have heard public comments before -- not after -- voting on the Ohio evolution lesson plan, and Wesley, while conceding that my comment was on-topic, claimed that I was in error because he had not heard of complaints from any of the Ohio public commenters themselves, and added that any further PT comments on the subject would be moved to the Bathroom Wall (see PT comment ). If Scientific American magazine had an ounce of integrity, it would not renew PT's SA web award. However, as I said, it probably would not do any good to complain to Scientific American magazine, because John Rennie, the editor-in-chief, is a fanatical Darwinist who might be lacking in integrity himself -- I heard a rumor that he proposed in November that universities refuse admission to graduates of Kansas public schools because of the Kansas state evolution education standards. I made the big mistake of continuing to post on PT after I was banned just because I was annoyed that PT had an SA magazine award while practicing such egregious censorship.
Anyway, Kevin, if you really believe that I was treated fairly on PT and that PT really deserves its SA magazine web award, then why don't you invite your PT friends to review this comment thread so that they can judge for themselves ?
Your posts are extremely easy to identify, Larry. You bring up the same points, in the same manner, even if they have already been refuted, plus you have a distinct writing style (nearly as distinct as mine). There are plenty of dissidents that post to PT. I have only pointed out those that are sock puppeting your arguments.
PT is aware of this blog. Not the entire population of PT, but a good number. It looks like they're pretty much going to pull up a chair and watch you and me duke it out.
Larry said, "I kept changing my posting name to help avoid banning and/or deletion. Again, I ask -- why would I go to the trouble of preparing long, carefully-researched posts and then risk deletion by using multiple names ?"
But Larry, this is mind-bogglingly stupid. Whether or not you were banned 'appropriately', as soon as you started posting under multiple names you were in violation of the rules.
In addition, posting as a regular and threatening to post as other regulars are banning offenses.
If you felt that you had originally been banned unfairly is not relevant - the intelligent course of action would have been to discuss that with PT management.
Instead, you chose to respond in violation of the rules.
As I say, that is mind-bogglingly stupid.
Sure, your posts were full of errors, falsehoods, illogic, etc. But everyone is entitled to be wrong.
But choosing to violate the rules in retaliation for something that you didn't even bother to ask about is just dumb.
Larry,
Credit when due. You are definately allowing dissent here. That is to be congratulated.
I am hoping that many ID suporters who have been banned from UD by DS will find their way here (assuming you continue with your posting policy).
This site might prove interesting if it encourages dialogue between the more rational ID'ers and "Evolutionists" (aka "Church burning Ebola boys").
Kevin wrote (Thursday, April 20, 2006 6:48:39 AM)--
>>>Your posts are extremely easy to identify, Larry. You bring up the same points, in the same manner, even if they have already been refuted, plus you have a distinct writing style (nearly as distinct as mine). <<<
What is to prevent another commenter from bringing up the same points, or bringing up other dissident points? And what is this thing about "writing style" ? Unless someone has a really extreme writing style, there is no way to positively identify an author by means of "writing style."
>>>There are plenty of dissidents that post to PT. I have only pointed out those that are sock puppeting your arguments.<<<
"Sockpuppeting" means posting under a different name for the purpose of pretending to be someone else, particularly for the purpose of praising or promoting one's own arguments. It does not mean parroting another commenter. And I don't know why Darwinists think that anti-Darwinists have no originality. I challenge anyone to find my arguments about co-evolution presented elsewhere exactly as I have presented them on this blog.
>>>PT is aware of this blog. Not the entire population of PT, but a good number.<<<
I would especially like the PT's "lurkers" to be aware of this blog --and particularly this comment thread -- because the PT staff is especially concerned about the impression that PT makes on them. I would also like Scientific American magazine -- which gave a web award to PT -- to be aware of this comment thread (not that it would do any good, for the reasons I mentioned). I would like the readers of SA magazine to see this thread in order for them to see what kind of blog got an SA web award. It is already obvious that not only you but other commenters on PT -- e.g., Lenny Flank and Michael Rathbun -- were aware of the arbitrary, sneaky and wanton manner in which I was banned. You PT folks even have your own secret little codes for discussing bans -- instead of posting something like, "We are going to ban these people on the grounds of suspicion of posting under multiple names," the PT Admin posted, "Rule 6 kicks in for IP address 207.200.116.136," whatever in hell that is supposed to mean. Before I actually started posting under different names, the PT staff never told me in terms I could understand that I was suspected of doing so. BTW, if my posts are so easy to identify, why was I suspected of using other names when I was still using only my own name ?
>>>It looks like they're pretty much going to pull up a chair and watch you and me duke it out.<<<
Not necessarily. Others have already weighed in here.
===================================
Rilke's Granddaughter wrote --
>>>Whether or not you were banned 'appropriately', as soon as you started posting under multiple names you were in violation of the rules.<<<
When I was banned before violating any rules, I had good reason to believe that I was banned because of my ideas.
>>>If you felt that you had originally been banned unfairly is not relevant - the intelligent course of action would have been to discuss that with PT management.<<<
As I said, I figured that the PT staff would have gotten even madder at me if I accused them of arbitrary censorship, even in private. Wesley Elsberry in particular showed himself to be impossible to deal with when he banned further discussion on a comment of mine that he disagreed with, i.e., my comment that the Ohio Board of Education should have heard the public comments before voting on the evolution lesson plan (see my most recent previous comment on this thread).
Anyway, nothing that can be said now can excuse PT's actions. I can thank Kevin for providing proof of PT's nasty behavior (see the PT comment exchange in his post of April 19, 2006 12:45:05 PM )
Larry, you misunderestimated me. My comment was not a personal attack. In fact it was in support of you. I'll quote from it:
I even pointed out that they should leave your posts as educational opportunities for others who have bought into the christian/muslim/whtever far-out concept that we can do anything but marvel over god/life force/ whatever. I argued that semi-educated arguments like yours should be left for others to see so that visitors can see why arguments like yours are wrong. But they are an uppity bunch over there at times and they got angry at you for posting the same argument again after it was demonstrated to be wrong.
I don't really feel like searching PT for my comments, it's usually embarrassing to read them again, but if you search, I know that's what you'll find because that's what I still maintain. I understand that truly off-topic stuff ought to go to the bathroom wall but I disagree with banning you. But like I said, I work with scientists, some of them biologists of one sort or another and they are a prickly group as an overgeneralization. Your comments did tend to be off-topic and they would often spawn a sub-debate within a thread. This creates more work for the author and whatnot. So, I understand why they would do it but, like I said, I don't agree with the policy. Anyway, now you have your own bright shiny new blog and I sincerely hope you get, as mentioned above, some of the mavericks from UD who dared to break ranks with the party line. If a couple of evolutionists show up, you could really have something here.
I debated starting a pro ID blog but decided it wouldn't be worth the effort. I figured I could just go through TalkOrigins.org and pick the opposite of all the articles and provide grist for months if not years of entertaining dialog between people who care deeply about semi-pointless issues. The political overtones of ID are a little unsettling for me but the God thing by itself is just great.
Good Luck,
BWE
Larry said, "As I said, I figured that the PT staff would have gotten even madder at me if I accused them of arbitrary censorship, even in private."
I repeat - that was incredibly dumb. You apparently didn't even bother to find out why you were banned. You made an asinine assumption with no good reason.
"Wesley Elsberry in particular showed himself to be impossible to deal with when he banned further discussion on a comment of mine that he disagreed with, i.e., my comment that the Ohio Board of Education should have heard the public comments before voting on the evolution lesson plan (see my most recent previous comment on this thread)."
I read it; he moved things to the Bathroom Wall. That's what they do - they don't ban people for stupid comments. They ban them for violating the rules.
What you did was the equivalent of a person who is told explicitly that if they shoot someone they are going to get punished. You got punished - but rather than pointing out to anyone (and there are LOTS more folks on PT than Wesley); YOU WENT OUT AND SHOT SOMEONE.
That's not smart, Larry. That's not even logical. It's just stupid.
Why didn't you contact someone else on PT? Why didn't you post on the forum asking for support? Why didn't you make even the slightest attempt to FIND OUT WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS?
You just leaped to an erroneous conclusion, and then behaved like a moron with a grudge. People kept telling you that you were going to get banned; that you were violating rules; that you were immediately identifiable.
People went out of their way to help you; and you ignored them. People went out of their way to point out that you were setting yourself up for problems; and you ignored them.
You behaved, in fact, like a fool - why do you feel you even have the right to complain?
"Anyway, nothing that can be said now can excuse PT's actions."
PT followed the rules that they laid out. You violated them; you didn't think about the consequences of your actions; you ignored all the people who pointed out the self-destructive nature of your behavior.
Dumb, Larry. Dumber than dumb. Idiotic.
"I can thank Kevin for providing proof of PT's nasty behavior (see the PT comment exchange in his post of April 19, 2006 12:45:05 PM )"
Yes; he demonstrated that you behaved foolishly and badly. Posting ill-informed opinions on topics you know nothing about is one thing; being deliberately and consciously malicious and then acting like the injured party is inexcusable.
BWE ( April 20, 2006 4:34:37 PM ) wrote --
>>>Larry, you misunderestimated me. My comment was not a personal attack.<<<
What in heck does "misunderestimated" mean ? And not a "personal attack" ? Calling my arguments "semi-educated" and speaking of my "comic value" and making a fool of myself are not personal attacks ? Who in the hell do you think you are kidding ?
>>> Your comments did tend to be off-topic and they would often spawn a sub-debate within a thread.<<<
My comments were much less off-topic than those of a lot of other commenters, e.g., Lenny Flank and Carol Clouser. Lenny Flank would often drop out of the blue a stock question or a stock statement that had nothing to do with the topic under discussion . And nothing was more off-topic than the many replies I got that contained nothing but insults and ad hominem attacks.
Larry, how exactly did you find out you were banned (referring of course to the banning on or around Jan 26)? Was it by email, did you try to send a message and a page popped up saying this IP address is banned, or did you try to send a message and get a page that said this username is banned? Please include all details to the best of your memory. If it was by email, include the text of the email.
BTW, I found a fourth time where we noted the multiple posters from the same IP address, and there we linked it to your disappearance as Larry Fafarman. This was when we first identified John B. and Andy H. as you. This was three days after you started posting as John B. (The ID was made on the 30th, two days after you started posting under a different name. Didn't take us long, huh?) This is also the thread where I first offered you additional info on the attorney's email as an incentive to come clean.
argy stokes, January 31-
"Indeed. Didn’t Larry disappear after that note from the admin saying that “Thordaddy,” “Larry Fafarman,” and “the pro from dover” had all posted from the same IP?
Hey Larry, weren’t you ranting about people using pseudonyms? Why do you find it necessary to do so yourself?"
We even blathered about Rule 6 violations and stuff. If I had been banned for some unknown reason, and someone pointed out an event that appeared to be linked to my banning, I would have checked it out. Especially if I already knew that posting under multiple names was against the rules and that the site enforced bans by IP address. Especially if someone brought it up again 5 days later with more details.
Kevin wrote ( April 20, 2006 10:53:06 PM ) --
>>>Larry, how exactly did you find out you were banned ?<<<
When I tried to post a comment on PT, I just got a message, "You are not allowed to post comments." No reason or explanation was given. To my knowledge I was never sent an email ( I get a lot of emails, and I might have missed one if it was sent ). I used only my real name before I was banned. I had no reason to use another name before I was banned. The PT staff never offered to unban me if I went back to posting under my real name. Anyway, my worst suspicions were confirmed by that exchange of PT comments (your post of April 19, 2006 12:45:05 PM )
>>>Hey Larry, weren’t you ranting about people using pseudonyms? Why do you find it necessary to do so yourself?<<<
I didn't rant about other people's use of pseudonyms until after I was condemned for using pseudonyms myself -- but I had to use them in order to evade banning and deletion.
Reply to Rilke's Granddaughter -- The PT staff and commenters were mostly hostile and therefore you can scratch the idea that I could have gotten help from them. I already explained that I did not want to make matters worse by accusing the PT staff of arbitrary censorship -- you make me keep repeating myself over and over again. As for Wesley Elsberry saying that he was going to remove any further discussion about my supposedly stupid comment about public comments at meetings of governmental bodies, my comment described the law in California, which probably has the most detailed public-meetings law in the USA (the Brown Act), so he is a lousy jerk and you are a lousy jerk for supporting his actions. To a normal person, it would be obvious why I would not want to deal with a character like Elsberry. I tried to stick with PT only because it appeared to be the biggest, most active forum dealing with the evolution controversy and because I was annoyed that PT holds a Scientific American magazine web award while behaving so badly.
I think that we have pretty much exhausted this topic. You folks just won't face the fact that there could be anything wrong with the way that your beloved Panda's Thumb blog is run. There is really nothing more I can say.
What is to prevent another commenter from bringing up the same points, or bringing up other dissident points?
Nobody but you is stupid enough to bring up the same idiotic and oft-refuted points.
Larry said, "The PT staff and commenters were mostly hostile and therefore you can scratch the idea that I could have gotten help from them."
This is a complete fiction. The PT staff bend over backwards not to ban people; they encourage free opinions; and there are lots more of them than simply Wesley. No matter how many times you repeat this fiction, it will not become fact.
The fact of the matter is that you didn't even try. You didn't even give the PT staff an opportunity to rectify a mistake. You just jumped all over them and behaved like a jerk.
And you got punished for being a jerk, and now you're whining all about persecution.
It won't wash. It won't even dry clean.
And the reason it's important, Larry, the reason for continuing to bring it up (since this topic is far from closed) is that by behaving like a moron, you sacrificed whatever appearance of ethical and/or intelligent behavior you possessed.
That's an important point: people can see (both from this blog and from PT) that you behaved stupidly and with a complete lack of morals.
Given that, who's going to care what else you post on this blog? Who's going to believe that you don't edit things you find inconvenient?
The only folks who are going to post here are the ones who find demolishing your ignorant and illogical opinions to be good practice for dealing with fundies and creationists.
And aren't you embarrassed enough?
"I already explained that I did not want to make matters worse by accusing the PT staff of arbitrary censorship -- you make me keep repeating myself over and over again."
And in what possible way could asking the PT folks why you were banned make things worse? That's simply idiotic. To ask them why you were banned would have been the INTELLIGENT, RATIONAL thing to do.
But you didn't bother to do the intelligent, rational thing. You did the most irrational thing possible.
Your claims about 'making things worse' are meaningless unless you can demonstrate that they would have. And without that demonstration, your accusations and protestations are just childish whining.
"As for Wesley Elsberry saying that he was going to remove any further discussion about my supposedly stupid comment about public comments at meetings of governmental bodies, my comment described the law in California, which probably has the most detailed public-meetings law in the USA (the Brown Act), so he is a lousy jerk and you are a lousy jerk for supporting his actions."
Larry, the discussion was about Pennsylvannia, not California. The law in California is COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to a discussion about legal procedures in Pennsylvannia.
Got that? Your remarks were UTTERLY IRRELEVANT to the discussion.
Would you find it relevant if in our discussion right here, I were to point out that case law in Japan says that sushi can't be eaten with wasabi on Fridays?
No, you would not. And that's how irrelevant your remarks were.
PT points out up front that irrelevant remarks will get removed. So once again, you did what you were warned not to do, and yet you're whining about it.
If I tell you: "don't hit people, it's not nice and it's against the rules", your first response should not be to go out and hit someone. That shows a certain lack of sense and intelligence, wouldn't you say?
"To a normal person, it would be obvious why I would not want to deal with a character like Elsberry."
And you didn't have to. No matter how many times you try to distract from the fact, ELSBERRY IS NOT THE ONLY ONE RUNNING PT. YOU COULD HAVE GONE TO ANY OF THE OTHERS AND REQUESTED INFORMATION.
But you didn't even bother to try. You didn't even make the attempt.
Where is your credibility, Larry?
"I tried to stick with PT only because it appeared to be the biggest, most active forum dealing with the evolution controversy and because I was annoyed that PT holds a Scientific American magazine web award while behaving so badly."
PT behaves according to the rules they set down. They did not violate those rules in any way.
You did. Continually. Deliberately. Maliciously. Even after being warned.
The only person behaving badly here, Larry, is you. You are the victim of your own foolish choices; your own lack of reasoning; your own lack of ethics and morals.
No one else is responsible for your banning, Larry, but you.
"I think that we have pretty much exhausted this topic."
Well, since you have no defense except to whine that you were mistreated, when the record makes it clear that you deliberately chose to ban yourself by your actions, then perhaps not.
"You folks just won't face the fact that there could be anything wrong with the way that your beloved Panda's Thumb blog is run."
It runs according to the rules. As your quote from More says,
it construes according to THE LAW.
You were the law-breaker; you were the rule-violator; you were the one showing petty spite and bad behavior.
A sixty-year-old who is unable to deal with the consequences of his actions.
Sad, really.
"There is really nothing more I can say."
The only truthful thing you've said so far.
Larry, you're crazy as a loon but I am thrilled you set up your own blog (finally)!
I have never encountered anyone online who is as irrational misguided, and lacks an ability to concede an obvious point as you.
Best wishes for you and your new blog!
Mr Christopher
Mr. Christopher,
That is a tad unfair. Have you not come across Dave Scot, Thordaddy, JAD or Salvador Cordova?
Misunderestimated is new word in the english language. Google it. Your arguments are, in fact, semi-educated, you do have good comic value and you often make yourself look foolish and I find all that highly entertaining. You also seem to have a good attitude about all of that.
I agree that on a continuum, Carol Clouser is a lot more off-topic than you. She is also frequently moved to the bathroom wall. She also has high comic value, a level of understanding that is just enough to be damaging to her own case and she often makes herself look foolish. I do not think that she posts under other names though. Lenny is off topic typically in response to a wingnut post. He merely points out over and over ad nausium that ID is religious apologetics.
The fact that the replies your comments generated were off-topic is also my point so we agree on that at least.
Let me be clear though, I don't think that any of the things that make you funny are reasons to ban you. If the rules are clear and if you broke them I suppose you get banned. Crime and punishment you know. But now you have a blog where you can post your ideas and I look forward to replying and having some dialog about them. If you notice, I already have. In having a chance to refine your ideas, you may get some that prove to be valuable. I certainly wish you the best. You're a good sport Larry and that is a difficult quality to find in someone these days.
>>>From post of Jon Fleming --
" What is to prevent another commenter from bringing up the same points, or bringing up other dissident points? "
Nobody but you is stupid enough to bring up the same idiotic and oft-refuted points. <<<
OK, but what about the "other" (i.e., new) points?
I think that I will continue to haunt PT just to keep 'em guessing about whether it is really me.
Rilke's Granddaughter wrote ( April 21, 2006 5:55:52 AM ) --
>>>The PT staff bend over backwards not to ban people; they encourage free opinions; and there are lots more of them than simply Wesley. <<<
I heard that Wesley Elsberry is the official owner of Panda's Thumb, so he might have the last word. Also, other PT staffers have been pretty nasty too, arbitrarily deleting comments and closing comment threads in the middle of discussions. None of them can be trusted.
As I said a million times, I never posted under different names before I was banned, so I had no reason to believe that I was initially banned because I was suspected of using multiple names. I could only presume that I was banned because of the contents of my comments (the record shows that that was at least a contributing factor). And why didn't the PT staff confront me first as to a possible reason why I should be banned ?
>>>Larry, the discussion was about Pennsylvannia, not California. The law in California is COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to a discussion about legal procedures in Pennsylvannia.<<<
Actually, in this case the discussion was about Ohio, not Pennsylvania (minor point).
RG, do you live in Kansas, Ohio, Dover, Cobb County, etc.? Then why do you care about the evolution education standards and policies of those places? After all, you believe that people should only be concerned about the laws, regulations, and policies of their own communities and states, right ?
Tell me, RG, why the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision should be cited outside of the federal court system's Middle District of Pennsylania, the only place where it might be binding precedent (I doubt that federal district-court opinions -- even published ones -- are binding precedents even within their districts. A few years ago, the 9th federal appeals court circuit had a rule that no district-court opinion could be cited at all in any federal court of the 9th circuit -- I don't know if this rule is still in effect ).
RG, has it ever occurred to you that California's very detailed open-meetings law, the Brown Act, might be considered to be a model for other states to follow?
Furthermore, RG, I did research to show how the Ohio Board of Education could have been sued under the laws of Ohio. Furthermore, RG, my research showed that under the laws of Ohio, a lawsuit against the government can be considered "frivolous" only if the lawsuit "is not warranted under existing law, cannot be supported by a good faith argument for an extension, modification, or reversal of existing laws, or cannot be supported by a good faith argument for the establishment of new law." (emphasis added). And the surest way to show that the lawsuit is not frivolous under this standard is to wave a copy of California's Brown Act under the nose(s) of the judge(s). My legal analyses are on the following two PT posts (these are unfortunately posted under "Andy H" and "Bill Keely," and I had to change names between postings in order to evade a new ban) --
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/02/the_win_in_ohio.html#comment-80158
-- and --
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/02/the_win_in_ohio.html#comment-80241
So tell me again how irrelevant California's Brown Act is.
It is interesting that those who think that it was OK for the Ohio Board of Education to hold votes without notice and without first hearing public comments took the opposite view when expressing approval of the new Dover school board's decision to not have a real "emergency" discussion and vote on the ID policy at the Dec. 5 meeting (which was known to be the last regular meeting before release of the decision).
Larry was set up for banning at Panda's Thumb. They did the same thing to me. If you're too persistent in arguing against the party line PT admins will begin deleting your comments without warning or explanation. In my case they also disemvoweled comments but I think they stopped that because it can't be hidden.
A normal reaction to having comments that have broken no rule deleted is to change your name so your comments aren't targeted by who wrote them. As soon as you do this and they figure it out they match up IP addresses and ban you for breaking the rule about using multiple screen names.
It's actually, in every case I've seen, a matter of Panda's Thumb admins being the first to break the rules. They break the rule about comment integrity first and then when a rule is broken in response they ban you for it.
If they weren't lying about all this I wouldn't give a shit. It's their blog and they can ban whoever they want. It's the lying about it being an open forum that annoys me. It's not open to persistent disagreement.
Try using trackbacks to Panda's Thumb. They'll delete those too. My last couple of trackbacks to PT from Uncommon Descent never showed up while trackbacks from other sites did show up so they can't claim (as they have twice in the past) that their trackback handler was broken.
Larry said: "I think that I will continue to haunt PT just to keep 'em guessing about whether it is really me."
This is great fun. I still post there on occasion since they never figured out a reliable way to stop anonymous proxies. What's really fun is to make them think you're a different banned commenter by using stereotyped expressions. I've lost count of how many times they've thought I was John Davison.
I love it so!
Who is next?
Hi Larry,
I just ended up here from a link posted in "Antievolution.org" discussion forum. I've been reading through some of the discussion here. I happened to notice your comment that "John Rennie, the magazine's [Scientific American] editor-in-chief, is a fanatical Darwinist." I'm just a little curious - is being a "fanatical Darwinist" like being a "fanatical heliocentrist" or a "fanatical gravitationalist" or a "fanatical 'disease is caused by microorganisms and not evil spirits'-ist"? If not, I wonder if you could explain the difference.
— Steve G.
If you want a free course in deception just ask DaveScot. He knows all the angles. Trust me.
Hi Larry, I am intrigued by your "no holds barred" attitude to your website. As I was a moderator on a software development site (not very controversial) for a while, and saw the kind of insanity that ends up trying to be posted, I am intrigued to see how this goes. My bet is that you won't choose to be quite this wide open in a year.
DaveScot wrote (Saturday, April 22, 2006 7:37:49 AM) --
>>>>
A normal reaction to having comments that have broken no rule deleted is to change your name so your comments aren't targeted by who wrote them. As soon as you do this and they figure it out they match up IP addresses and ban you for breaking the rule about using multiple screen names.
>>>>
I used only one name on Panda's Thumb -- my real name -- right up until the time I got the message "You are not allowed to post comments" when I tried to post a comment. I started using different names after that to help evade banning and deletion.
>>>>
If they weren't lying about all this I wouldn't give a shit. It's their blog and they can ban whoever they want. It's the lying about it being an open forum that annoys me. It's not open to persistent disagreement.
>>>>
I agree in part. It is so hypocritical. I too concede that private blogs have the right to arbitrarily ban people and delete posts, though I disapprove of it. But at least the bloggers should be honest about it. I am especially disgusted by the PT gimmick of moving comments to an off-site place of oblivion called the "Bathroom Wall" -- that way the PT staff can practice censorship while pretending that they don't. I expected the PT staff to be more tolerant because they proudly display the logo of a 2005 Scientific American magazine web award that the blog received. Also, PT has a very large staff, and it is possible that some of the staffers might disapprove of the censorship policy.
"Larry was set up for banning at Panda's Thumb. They did the same thing to me."
Aw diddums.
Paranoid often?
"If you're too persistent in arguing against the party line PT admins will begin deleting your comments without warning or explanation. "
Wassamatter, DaveTard? A case of being able to dish it out but not being able to take it?
"A normal reaction to having comments that have broken no rule deleted is to change your name so your comments aren't targeted by who wrote them. As soon as you do this and they figure it out they match up IP addresses and ban you for breaking the rule about using multiple screen names.
It's actually, in every case I've seen, a matter of Panda's Thumb admins being the first to break the rules. They break the rule about comment integrity first and then when a rule is broken in response they ban you for it. "
LMAO.
ALl this coming from someone who routinely lies, suppresses posts by anyone who doesn't toe the party line, deletes other posts that don't show him in the best possible light, clearly has major jealously and anger management issues (referring to Richard Dawkin's wife and wanting to beat PZ Myers's face to a pulp, respectively), and toadies to William "I lie for Jesus!" Demsbki?
"If they weren't lying about all this I wouldn't give a shit. It's their blog and they can ban whoever they want."
Oh, but you clearly do. You've already admitted trolling PT by posting under aliases by being banned, for one thing. You just like to tar PT with the same dishonest and unethical practices that you're so fond of implementing.
Oh, and I will take my hat off to Larry, at least for now, for allowing free discussion (a trait that seems strangely limited amongst IDers).
Since this seems to be a "no holds barred" type of discussion, I have a direct question for DaveScot. Let's see if he will answer it.
When, DaveScot, are you going to reinstate my several published papers, papers that you placed on the side board and then purged without explanation? Please include in your answer your reasons.
Just got an out-of-memory message on this thread. Does that mean that no more comments will be accepted? If this thread runs out of memory, I will make room for this thread to continue by adding another opening post on this topic, titled "Continuation of comment thread on censorship."
Sounds to me like something DaveScot would do to avoid a direct quesrion. Bullies are like that.
SteveG wrote (April 22, 2006 10:09:53 AM) --
>>>I happened to notice your comment that "John Rennie, the magazine's [Scientific American] editor-in-chief, is a fanatical Darwinist." <<<
John Rennie asked university presidents to sign the following petition,
“As university presidents, we affirm that evolution by means of natural selection is a demonstrated fact of science. We also assert that any failure to teach evolution, or to teach ‘intellectual (sic) design’ as an alternative theory, harms students’ educational standing.”
-- from http://sciam-editor.typepad.com/weblog1/2005/04/cowardice_creat.html#comments
I think that it would be inappropriate for university presidents to sign such a petition because they should be trying to maintain an atmosphere of open inquiry at their universities. Furthermore, I completely disagree with his statement that teaching alternatives to evolution harms students' educational standing, because people can use evolution theory even while believing that all or part of it is untrue.
Also, see http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/1051
I also heard a rumor that in November Rennie went so far as to propose that universities deny admission to graduates of Kansas public schools because of the Kansas state evolution education standards. I am wondering if anyone can confirm or disprove this rumor.
Stephen Elliott wrote --
>>>The irony of Dave Scot whining about censorship was damn near too much to handle.<<<
At least Dave Scot is honest about practicing censorship on his blog. Panda's Thumb has not been honest about its practice of censorship.
>>>Can you stop posters deleting submitted comments?<<<
I presume that they cannot delete comments, except perhaps their own. So how are they deleting comments?
DaveScot is not a random idiot. He is a briliant engineer who is unfortunately also a rabidly egomaniacal sociopath who has no business moderating anything anywhere. He has absolutely no control over himself. He is also Dembski's pet Chihuahua , serving faihfully to divert attention away from his master in his iron-fisted role as blogczar. I predict once again that Uncommon Descent will not long be for this world. What will DaveScot do then?
Have a nice blog. I have better things to do than to listen to this sort of meaningless dialogue.
I love it so!
Larry said:
"I heard that Wesley Elsberry is the official owner of Panda's Thumb, so he might have the last word."
Since you don't know who owns the blog, nor do you know you has the last say, it's pretty ridiculous to claim that something would have happened had you behaved like a grown-up.
Larry said:
"Also, other PT staffers have been pretty nasty too, arbitrarily deleting comments and closing comment threads in the middle of discussions. None of them can be trusted."
I do so love the smell of paranoia in the morning. PT staffers do not 'arbitrarily' delete comments; they moved them to the bathroom wall, and you were told this, quite explicitly.
Lying is not a good practice if you wish to demonstrate that your statements can be trusted, Larry.
Remember that: lying is not good.
Larry said:
"As I said a million times, I never posted under different names before I was banned, so I had no reason to believe that I was initially banned because I was suspected of using multiple names."
Good for you. Of course, you did threaten to post under multiple names, and spent dozens of posts boasting about how you could do it undetectably.
Stupid move, Larry, if you wanted to convince people of your integrity.
Larry said:
"I could only presume that I was banned because of the contents of my comments (the record shows that that was at least a contributing factor)."
No, it does not. This is simply another lie. You were banned for violating the rules on mulitple identities; even John Davison only got his stuff moved to a separate thread in the end.
You were banned for violating the rules. You were not banned for any other reason.
To claim otherwise is to lie, blatantly and without shame.
Larry said:
"And why didn't the PT staff confront me first as to a possible reason why I should be banned ?"
Exactly. Why didn't they? Because they didn't ban you. They banned a particular IP which they had good reason to believe represented a multiple-name poster.
Get that, Larry? They did not ban you. You leaped to the conclusion that they had, and then did something that guaranteed your banning.
No matter what other thing you might have done before, to engage in ban-producing behavior was
stupid. Grade A stupid. Dumb. Moronic.
I really can't think of another good way to put it.
And if everyone over there is so evil and malicious
why in the name of God did you want to post there in the first place?
You can't claim it's a preeminent site for discussing evolution AND a hotbed of biased, comment-deleting, dissent-banning nut-jobs.
That would be insane. Or least really silly.
Larry said:
"Actually, in this case the discussion was about Ohio, not Pennsylvania (minor point)."
I acknowledge the truth of what you say. My bad.
Larry said:
"RG, do you live in Kansas, Ohio, Dover, Cobb County, etc.?"
No, I live in Baltimore at the moment. Unless JH is willing to relocate to Minnesota.
Larry said:
"Then why do you care about the evolution education standards and policies of those places?"
I don't like watching stupidity at work. It offends me. And I don't like the trend that stupidity sets: it might come my way.
Larry said:
"After all, you believe that people should only be concerned about the laws, regulations, and policies of their own communities and states, right ?"
Larry, you'd get along better with people if you didn't lie about what they say. You're inventing a strawman and fabricating my opinion.
Stupid. Very stupid.
Larry said:
"Tell me, RG, why the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision should be cited outside of the federal court system's Middle District of Pennsylania, the only place where it might be binding precedent (I doubt that federal district-court opinions -- even published ones -- are binding precedents even within their districts."
What a pity you know nothing of law, Larry. You should read up on it. It might do you good. We're not talking about 'binding'; we're talking about 'precedent'.
Use your brain, Larry. Really. It's all you've got, and apparently you've put it into a blind trust.
Larry said:
"A few years ago, the 9th federal appeals court circuit had a rule that no district-court opinion could be cited at all in any federal court of the 9th circuit -- I don't know if this rule is still in effect )."
Then who cares? STOP MAKING UP IRRELVANT NONSENSE.
Larry said:
"RG, has it ever occurred to you that California's very detailed open-meetings law, the Brown Act, might be considered to be a model for other states to follow?"
Sure. BUT IT'S NOT. TO CITE AND DISCUSS IT WHEN IT HAS NO BEARING ON THE TOPIC IS STUPID AND INANE.
It would be great if Law X were in force in Baltimore; but since it's not, to cite and discuss it is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT.
That's the problem with your remarks, Larry - they don't show that you've done any thinking about the topic at all.
Larry said:
"Furthermore, RG, I did research to show how the Ohio Board of Education could have been sued under the laws of Ohio. Furthermore, RG, my research showed that under the laws of Ohio, a lawsuit against the government can be considered "frivolous" only if the lawsuit "is not warranted under existing law, cannot be supported by a good faith argument for an extension, modification, or reversal of existing laws, or cannot be supported by a good faith argument for the establishment of new law." (emphasis added)."
Bully for you, my child.
Larry said:
"And the surest way to show that the lawsuit is not frivolous under this standard is to wave a copy of California's Brown Act under the nose(s) of the judge(s)."
No, it's not. That would simply get you laughed out of court. Larry, you claim that you went to court on other occasions - and they ignored you completely.
Ever wonder why? Because you know nothing about the law: to cite another state's law on dicussion in no way demonstrates frivolity.
Any judge or real lawyer would laugh themselves silly at your suggestion.
Larry said:
"My legal analyses are on the following two PT posts (these are unfortunately posted under "Andy H" and "Bill Keely," and I had to change names between postings in order to evade a new ban) --"
And in consequence give them ground for banning you.
How dumb can you be, Larry? Why do stupid things over and over and over again?
I read those posts. They are irrelvant.
Citing state law of a different state is not grounds for ANYTHING, Larry.
Larry said:
"So tell me again how irrelevant California's Brown Act is."
I just did. You can look up stuff all you want, Larry - but you don't understand how to apply what you've learned. You don't understand how the law WORKS.
That's why no one takes you seriously. That's why you would be laughed out of any court in the country for your opinions on these subjects.
Larry said:
"It is interesting that those who think that it was OK for the Ohio Board of Education to hold votes without notice and without first hearing public comments took the opposite view when expressing approval of the new Dover school board's decision to not have a real "emergency" discussion and vote on the ID policy at the Dec. 5 meeting (which was known to be the last regular meeting before release of the decision)."
We were completely consistent: we pointed out the actual laws and regulations in both cases.
You didn't. You didn't show that you even bothered to find out how the Ohio regulations apply.
California law is not relevant to the Ohio case; to argue otherwise is simply (I hate to keep using this word, but no other one fits):
stupid.
I love it so!
rilke's granddaughter
Wesley is the registered owner of the pandasthumb.org, antievolution.com, talkorgins.org, austringer.net and some others I discovered that don't come immediately to mind. These are all a matter of public record. He recently changed some of the internic ownership records out of his own name into the name of a non-profit corporation "TalkOrigins Archive Foundation". Wesley is president of the foundation. I'm the one who told Larry about who owns PT in private correspondence some weeks or months ago. At the time I told Larry the transfer of ownership from Wesley the person to Wesley the non-profit corporate shell had not been accomplished.
Here's another little gem. Antievolution.org had a database of all posts made to Panda's Thumb. The cool thing is that the database contains comments that were subsequently deleted. As long as this database doesn't disappear (amazing that it's still accessable) it stands as proof of deleted comments.
Example:
http://antievolution.org/features/mtexp.php?form_author=larry%20fafarman
I don't know which if any of Larry's posts were deleted but you can find out by clicking on the "link" portion of the comment and see if it takes you anywhere. If it doesn't take you the comment shown then it was subsequently deleted.
You can see how that works by trying out mine at the link below. The comments towards the end of the list are no longer on the site. Earlier comments are. It appears someone was spoofing my name in the last few comments. Go to the comments beginning on 3/17 to see them disemvoweling my comments. I challenge you to find any rule I broke prior to when that happy horseshit of disemvoweling comments started.
http://antievolution.org/features/mtexp.php?form_author=davescot
Dave, you broke the golden rule.
bwe
I realize he who has the gold makes the rules.
All I object to is lying about the rules.
When the game becomes detached from the rules that govern it we call that "jungle rules" in the Corps which essentially means that anything goes. I can play by those too. Evidently so can Larry although I will confess I was his advisor in how to get around the attempts to block his comments.
IP banned on Panda's Thumb?
No problem.
Two words: CGI Proxy
http://proxy.org/cgi_proxies.shtml
Enjoy!
You want to play real dirty? Ask DaveScot. He's the best.
I love it so!
DaveScot wrote --
>>>IP banned on Panda's Thumb? No problem. Two words: CGI Proxy http://proxy.org/cgi_proxies.shtml <<<
Wow, Dave. That proxy list is really huge. The one that I found is much shorter.
My favorite real anonymous-proxy name is "HideMyAss.com."
Anyway, Dave, I think it is a bad idea to give away hackers' trade secrets on how to evade commenter bans. Such information might help bloggers find ways to defeat those evasions.
I finally had to give up on Panda's Thumb because I could no longer post my easily-recognized trademark ideas -- e.g., "there is no constitutional separation of bogus science and state" and "scientists can use evolution theory even while believing that all or part of it is untrue" -- and also because things were getting so bad on PT that almost any dissident comment was suspected of being mine. In the end, I started checking the time zones of the PT bloggers in order to place my comments at the best times in the middle of the night in the hope that my comments would be seen by a fair number of PT readers before being found and deleted.
>>>Furthermore, RG, I did research to show how the Ohio Board of Education could have been sued under the laws of Ohio. Furthermore, RG, my research showed that under the laws of Ohio, a lawsuit against the government can be considered "frivolous" only if the lawsuit "is not warranted under existing law, cannot be supported by a good faith argument for an extension, modification, or reversal of existing laws, or cannot be supported by a good faith argument for the establishment of new law." (emphasis added).<<<
And as I showed only a few posts later, claiming this to be the only way for a lawsuit to be considered frivolous is clearly incorrect, as there are 7 ways to consider a lawsuit frivolous (although the last three would not be applicable here, as they deal solely with inmates). The fact that you provided a quote from the law demonstrates that you are lying when you make this claim. The most relevant of the other three potentially applicable ways is for the lawsuit to be harassing or malicious, though the other two might apply depending on how Larry went about filing the lawsuit. Follow Larry's link and scroll down a bit to see my posting of the 7 conditions (the one he identified is the second, the one I mentioned is the first). Meeting any one of the listed conditions is sufficient for a lawsuit to be considered frivolous.
BTW, Wesley never conceeded that your post was on-topic. He merely said it was more-topical than your completely off-topic whinging about him removing comments. It was related, but still off-topic. The topic, for those unaware, was the hypocrisy of the Ohio BOE and the connection between their "teach the controversy" and ID and creationism, it was not about whether it was legal for them to act the way they did. That was already being debated elsewhere where it was topical - Larry was trying to invade another thread with the same argument.
Rilke's Granddaughter wrote ( Sunday, April 23, 2006 12:24:00 PM ) --
>>>PT staffers do not 'arbitrarily' delete comments; they moved them to the bathroom wall, and you were told this, quite explicitly.<<<
The "Bathroom Wall" (BW) is just a gimmick that PT bloggers use to practice arbitrary censorship while pretending that they do not. Comments on the BW are mostly ignored, no trace is left of comments moved to the BW, and moving comments to the BW disrupts discussions.
>>>Of course, you did threaten to post under multiple names, and spent dozens of posts boasting about how you could do it undetectably.<<<
Wrong. I made just one boast because another commenter asked that I be banned. I did not make another boast after I got a warning about making such boasts.
>>>You were banned for violating the rules on mulitple identities<<<
As I said a zillion times, I was banned before I violated any of the rules.
>>>they didn't ban you. They banned a particular IP which they had good reason to believe represented a multiple-name poster.<<<
Again, we've been through this before. Banning an IP address bans the users of that IP address.
>>>why in the name of God did you want to post there in the first place?<<<
"In the name of God"? Be careful, RG, saying things like that could result in a ruling that teaching evolution is a government endorsement of religion.
I posted on PT because it is apparently the biggest and most active blog dealing with the evolution controversy. And one of the reasons why I continued posting after I was banned was that I was annoyed that PT holds a Scientific American magazine web award while practicing such egregious censorship.
>>>Larry said:
"Then why do you care about the evolution education standards and policies of those places?"
I don't like watching stupidity at work. It offends me. And I don't like the trend that stupidity sets: it might come my way.<<<
But RG, you live in Baltimore. What happens in Kansas, Ohio, and Dover does not directly affect you. IT IS IRRELEVANT. It doesn't matter if those standards or policies are good or bad -- they are just none of your goddam business. You should stop trying to tell those folks in Kansas, Ohio, and Dover how to live their lives. MYOB. If you don't bother them, maybe they won't bother you.
Anyway, RG, speaking of "trends," if the evolution standards and policies of those places can spread to Baltimore, then why can't California's Brown Act spread to Ohio?
Tell me, RG, why California's laws concerning a particular issue in another state can never be relevant to a discussion of that issue.
Anyway, RG, my mention of California's Brown Act was not the reason why I was bathroom-walled. The reason was that Wesley Elsberry had not heard of any complaints from the Ohio public commenters about not being heard until after the vote of the Ohio Board of Education.
>>>Larry, you claim that you went to court on other occasions - and they ignored you completely.<<<
We are not talking about other occasions, RG, we are talking about this occasion, and you are making a very weak case.
>>> to cite another state's law on dicussion in no way demonstrates frivolity.<<<
You obviously missed the point. The Ohio law says that a suit against the government cannot be considered frivolous if the suit can at least be based on a good faith argument for a new law or a revision of existing law. The Brown Act open-meetings law could be the basis for such a new law or a revision of existing law, unless it can be shown that the California state government did not act in good faith when it enacted the Brown Act. Anyway, I showed that a good argument could be made on the basis of existing Ohio law.
>>>We were completely consistent: we pointed out the actual laws and regulations in both cases [ i.e., Pennsylvania and Ohio].
Wrong. I was the one who pointed out the actual laws and regulations in both cases and showed how they applied in both cases. The Pennsylvania rules do not even require advance notice of items that are discussed and voted on at meetings.
>>>You didn't show that you even bothered to find out how the Ohio regulations apply.<<<
Wrong again. See my post of Friday, April 21, 2006 3:05:23 PM
Well I see DaveScot refuses to explain why he summarily purged all my evolutionary papers from the side board at Uncommon Descent. In fact he doesn't even acknowledge here that he did it. He remains silent. Since he refuses to explain why he purged them I can hardly expect him to explain why he refuses to reinstate them even though I have repeatedly requested just that.
So I will explain why he did what he did and why he refuses to reverse his knee jerk, spiteful, irrational actions. You see I had challenged some of his remarks and the general tenor of the situation at Uncommon Descent which is under the iron-fisted control of this man. Nobody, and I mean nobody, challenges either Spravid Dinger or his lord and master Dilliam Wembski.
Every one of my papers literally screams Intelligent Design. It is the sine qua non for everything we know about both ontogeny and phylogeny. Why then must Uncommon Descent remove these papers from its records. Folks, it is as plain as day. Nobody questions either Dilliam Wembski or his loyal Fascist butcher Spravid Dinger. That is why. Dinger takes great pride in what he did but refuses to explain why he did it. And do you know why he does not explain his actions? It is because he can't, because they were done for purely personal, spiteful reasons for which no rational excuse can possibly be offered. That is why.
My name is no longer to be mentioned at Uncommon Descent for the same reason it is not to be mentioned at Panda's Thumb, ARN, EvC or just about anywhere else in cyberspace. It is because I have rejected both camps in this imbecilic debate, both sides of which are dominated by a bunch of illiterate, ignorant, uneducated, egomaniacal, intellectual degenerates who are only interested in seeing their overinflated egos presented everywhere in the world except in the one and only place which really counts, a refereed professional journal. Well folks that is where my works are found and those are the works that the great pontificating blogczar, for purely personal spiteful reasons, purged from the side board at Uncommon Descent, the major forum supporting Intelligent Design. Twenty two years years of scholarship scrapped on a knee jerk personal whim by an intolerant egomaniacal, cowardly sociopath. Those are the reasons that he now is ashamed to admit. By his actions he has defined his character, or more accurately lack of same, far better than I ever could.
There now I feel somewhat better. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to tell the world what I think of Spravid Dinger and his forum. It is right next to what I think of Esley Welsberry and his and for exactly the same reasons. They are both pathetic caricatures of themselves just like Dichard Rawkins is, all three "born that way," "natural born" victims of their "prescribed" fates.
"EVERYTHING is determined... by forces over which we have no control."
Albert Einstein, my emphasis.
I love it so!
Mr. JAD,
Do you get mad when you hit a severe slice?
Do you ever get disturbingly strong impulses to put your fingers in light sockets?
Do you like avacados?
Dave,
How hard was the "don't ask, don't tell" policy? Did you ever cry? Did you get beat up? Is that what made you stupid?
Larry,
There is no separation of wingnuts and state either and that has done far more damage.
>>>Wrong. I made just one boast because another commenter asked that I be banned. I did not make another boast after I got a warning about making such boasts.<<<
Wrong. The commenter did not ask that you be banned. He merely informed you that on most other blogs, you would be banned by that point.
As far as your so-called ban, the ban of the IP address came about because a)thordaddy and M appeared to be the same person, and b)they were both being highly disruptive, much more than you. You just happened to get caught in the investigative sweep like pro from dover. By your argument, I've been banned from PT on at least four different occasions, all because I happened to be posting from an address identified as problematic.
>>>Anyway, RG, my mention of California's Brown Act was not the reason why I was bathroom-walled. The reason was that Wesley Elsberry had not heard of any complaints from the Ohio public commenters about not being heard until after the vote of the Ohio Board of Education.<<<
No, it was because it was off-topic and you were dragging the argument over from a thread where it was on-topic.
Larry
Yeah, your ideas give you away every time. It's a fun challenge to see how long you can disguise yourself. Life is a game then you die so you might as well have some fun while you're here so long as no one gets hurt. Wiccans have a saying that goes something like "if it harm no one, do what you will". For instance, KeithS and Alan Fox have changed their names several times and re-invaded Uncommon Descent. I don't hold it against them. That's part of the game. If they can do it without getting caught more power to 'em. I faked a Chinese accent on After The Bar Closes and stayed hidden for a while but was eventually found out.
BWE
I don't know how difficult the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was in the Marine Corps. For one they didn't have it back then and for two your momma was keeping my whole platoon satisfied for $20/week. She charged extra to take out her false teeth. I bet you look a lot like one of the seventy of us that she serviced.
Larry, there are significant pecularities in your understanding of logic. Consider just this one case (I choose it because it's a good example).
RGD>>>You were banned for violating the rules on mulitple identities<<<
As I said a zillion times, I was banned before I violated any of the rules.
No, Larry. No matter how many times you repeat this nonsense, it will not become true.
You are LYING when you claim this, Larry. Uttering a falsehood. Making something up.
One of the IP addresses that you post from was locked. That does not, repeat, NOT constitute a ban on a user; just on that address.
That address was locked for good reasons.
But again, had you demonstrated the intelligence given to a four-year old, you would have asked about your 'ban'.
You didn't.
Because you didn't, you did something incredibly stupid and got banned for real.
But had you simply asked a question; had you actually used your brain; you would not have been banned.
Getting banned was entirely your choice. It was entirely your decision.
No one else is responsible for you getting banned, Larry. Just you. Just because you overreacted and did something stupid.
RGD>>>they didn't ban you. They banned a particular IP which they had good reason to believe represented a multiple-name poster.<<<
Again, we've been through this before. Banning an IP address bans the users of that IP address.
Again, you are lying. Banning the IP address bans the IP address.
Get over it, Larry - you were dumb. You screwed yourself over royally and you don't have the integrity to admit that it was entirely your fault.
No one else banned you Larry - you banned yourself by an asinine choice.
Larry said,
"The "Bathroom Wall" (BW) is just a gimmick that PT bloggers use to practice arbitrary censorship while pretending that they do not."
It isn't nice to lie about other people, Larry. Show lack of integrity on your part. The folks at PT are quite clear about moving OT posts to the bathroom wall. it says so, right on the forum.
If you can't bother to read the rules of the road for sites that you post on, then you shouldn't be posting.
"Comments on the BW are mostly ignored, no trace is left of comments moved to the BW, and moving comments to the BW disrupts discussions." No, it doesn't, because the POINT OF THE BW IS TO HOLD OT COMMENTS.
What about the English language do you find so difficult?
Larry said,
"Wrong. I made just one boast because another commenter asked that I be banned. I did not make another boast after I got a warning about making such boasts."
Once again, falsehoods and lies. Do show some integrity, Larry.
Larry said,
"As I said a zillion times, I was banned before I violated any of the rules."
And has been pointed out to you before, this is a lie. You were NOT banned; the IP you were using was banned. Since you use multiple IPs, that means that YOU were not banned.
Simple logic, Larry. Learn to apply it.
Larry said,
"Again, we've been through this before. Banning an IP address bans the users of that IP address."
Not in your case, my dear - since you don't use a single IP.
Larry said,
""In the name of God"? Be careful, RG, saying things like that could result in a ruling that teaching evolution is a government endorsement of religion."
That's perhaps the dumbest thing you've said in weeks; and you've said some pretty darn dumb things.
You were stupid, Larry - that's the bottom line.
You made some dumb choices and got yourself banned.
It was purely YOUR actions and YOUR decisions that got you banned - no on else's.
To whine about it now simply looks like... well, childish whining.
Get over it. Behave like an adult. Move on.
Larry said,
"I posted on PT because it is apparently the biggest and most active blog dealing with the evolution controversy. And one of the reasons why I continued posting after I was banned was that I was annoyed that PT holds a Scientific American magazine web award while practicing such egregious censorship."
In other words you posted like a malicious four-year old who has been told that he can't drive the car.
Grow up, Larry. Behave like an adult.
Larry said:
"Then why do you care about the evolution education standards and policies of those places?"
RGD said in response,
"I don't like watching stupidity at work. It offends me. And I don't like the trend that stupidity sets: it might come my way."
Larry said,
"But RG, you live in Baltimore. What happens in Kansas, Ohio, and Dover does not directly affect you. IT IS IRRELEVANT. It doesn't matter if those standards or policies are good or bad -- they are just none of your goddam business."
Gee, Larry - you live in California. What happens in Ohio, or Pennsylvania IS NONE OF YOUR GODDAM BUSINESS!!!!
You should stop trying to tell those folks in Kansas, Ohio, and Dover how to live their lives. MYOB. If you don't bother them, maybe they won't bother you.
There it is, Larry - in black and white. Since you don't live there, what they do it NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS AND YOU SHOULD SIMPLY SHUT UP ABOUT IT.
YOUR OWN WORDS.
BEHAVE ACCORDING TO YOUR OWN RULES, YOU TWIT!
W. Kevin Vicklund wrote ( Sunday, April 23, 2006 7:47:02 PM ) --
>>>"Furthermore, RG, I did research to show how the Ohio Board of Education could have been sued under the laws of Ohio."
And as I showed only a few posts later, claiming this to be the only way for a lawsuit to be considered frivolous is clearly incorrect, as there are 7 ways to consider a lawsuit frivolous <<<
And I demolished your arguments a few posts after that, at --http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/02/the_win_in_ohio.html#comment-80315
In my above comment, I posted as "S.P." I also posted as Andy H. and Bill Keely on the same thread. I had to keep changing my name to evade a ban.
Anyway, Kevin, what do our differences of opinion on this matter have to do with your attempts to justify PT's arbitrary censorship of me?
>>>BTW, Wesley never conceeded that your post was on-topic. He merely said it was more-topical than your completely off-topic whinging about him removing comments. It was related, but still off-topic. The topic, for those unaware, was the hypocrisy of the Ohio BOE and the connection between their "teach the controversy" and ID and creationism, it was not about whether it was legal for them to act the way they did.<<<
Give me a break! The thread was about the Ohio BOE's decision to delete the evolution lesson plan and my comment was about that decision. And part of the Ohio BOE's "hypocrisy" is the underhanded way in which they make decisions (that was the second time that the lesson plan was treated as a phony "emergency" matter ). How can anything be more on-topic than that ? The reason why comment threads are called "threads" and not "ramrods" is that a thread has some flexibility !
Rilke's Granddaughter wrote ( Monday, April 24, 2006 9:45:20 AM ) --
>>>Larry said,
"The "Bathroom Wall" (BW) is just a gimmick that PT bloggers use to practice arbitrary censorship while pretending that they do not."
the POINT OF THE BW IS TO HOLD OT COMMENTS.<<<
Calling a comment "off-topic" is often just a pretext for moving it to PT's Shithouse Wall.
Speaking of being off-topic -- I saw one PT thread degenerate into a long discussion of British beers and ales. So please don't give me any more of this crap about my supposedly "off-topic"comments.
W. Kevin Vicklund wrote ( Sunday, April 23, 2006 10:38:21 PM ) --
>>>"I made just one boast because another commenter asked that I be banned."
Wrong. The commenter did not ask that you be banned. He merely informed you that on most other blogs, you would be banned by that point.<<<
OK, but he made a veiled threat -- he said, "don't bite the hand that feeds you." Also, at the time I may have been pissed off at other commenters' requests that I be banned. One commenter actually proposed banning anyone who responded to me, then almost immediately responded to me himself.
All of this banning and deleting crap that occurs on the Internet is defeating one of the Internet's biggest potential advantages -- an opportunity for all viewpoints to be heard. Before the Internet, It was not practical to disseminate more than a very limited number of brief public-opinion statements in newspapers, magazines, and radio talk shows.
What about all the banning and censorship that goes on at William Dembski's Smile a While a Creationist Day Camp?
Good lord (space alien? time traveler?), they (Dave Tard at uncommonly dense) ban more people in one week that the PT does in a year.
Anyhow, Larry you rock! Congrats on the new blog!
>>>Anyway, Kevin, what do our differences of opinion on this matter have to do with your attempts to justify PT's arbitrary censorship of me?<<<
What does lying about a law have to do with your attempt to justify your egregious and unwarranted posting behaviour? (As an aside, you in no way demolished my arguments, though I'm willing to concede on 2)a)ii) - which still leaves the harassment clause)
>>>Give me a break! The thread was about the Ohio BOE's decision to delete the evolution lesson plan and my comment was about that decision. And part of the Ohio BOE's "hypocrisy" is the underhanded way in which they make decisions (that was the second time that the lesson plan was treated as a phony "emergency" matter ). How can anything be more on-topic than that ? The reason why comment threads are called "threads" and not "ramrods" is that a thread has some flexibility !<<<
Wrong!* The thread in question predates the second vote. It was about the creationist/IDist/controversionist board members treatment of the commenters at the end of the meeting, such as reading newspapers and interrogating them. The real issue is that Larry can't bear not to have the last word.
BTW, the "ban Larry" "no, ban those responding" comments came a week after you threatened to come back under multiple names.
>>>Speaking of being off-topic -- I saw one PT thread degenerate into a long discussion of British beers and ales. So please don't give me any more of this crap about my supposedly "off-topic"comments.<<<
Except that beer was on-topic for that thread. Beer is always on-topic for a Prof. Steve Steve thread. But this one in particular spent several paragraphs and photographs on beer in the original post. Including a picture of a room of beer cans from all over the world.
* In the interest of fairness, I should note that I mistakenly identified the comment that Wesley called more-topical as bringing an argument over from another thread. It does appear to be the original reference to the California Brown Act.
I have a question for Rilke's Granddaughter.
Do you spit or swallow?
I would suggest that this poster has severe homosexual tendencies that the marines exacerbated (giving tons of material for the spank bank) and who couldn't handle the don't ask-don't tell policy so they took up a position on their knees in front of Dembski A-la Mr Burns and Smithers. To deal with the self loathing, he (the poster) has to resort to asking Rilke's Grandaughter questions that he longs to answer to his boss. Do what is it Dav.. er.. Last poster, spit or swallow?
bwe your obsessed with homosexualty and marines. Is their something your not telling us?
W. Kevin Vicklund wrote ( 4/24/2006 07:11:09 PM ) --
>>>>What does lying about a law have to do with your attempt to justify your egregious and unwarranted posting behaviour? (As an aside, you in no way demolished my arguments, though I'm willing to concede on 2)a)ii) - which still leaves the harassment clause)<<<<
I did not lie about the law -- I simply ignored parts that did not apply, like the part about "harassment."
What is real harassment is when people go to great trouble to attend a meeting of a public agency and then the agency does not have the courtesy to listen to their comments before voting. It happened to me in California where it is illegal, so this is really a sore point for me.
What is real harassment is when a government agency has plenty of time to place a matter on the agenda but deliberately waits until the last minute and declares the matter to be an "emergency" in order to avoid notifying the public and have a phony excuse for postponing public comments until after vote. The Ohio board of education did this twice in the case of the evolution lesson plan ! I guess that you never heard the expression, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." Of course, Kevin, you would not mind being fooled a third time, or a fourth, or ?
This same mentality is shown by the sleazebags on Panda's Thumb who trash on-topic comments that took a long time to write and research.
You even went so far as to argue that the $500 in compensation that is automatically awarded to winners of lawsuits against violations of the Ohio open-meeting law constitutes "harassment" !
And the Ohio law on lawsuits against the government is so generous that it even allows lawsuits based only on good faith arguments for new laws or changes to existing laws! And you are telling me that suing the government on the basis of existing Ohio law would be considered to be "harassment" ?
>>>The thread in question predates the second vote. It was about the creationist/IDist/controversionist board members treatment of the commenters at the end of the meeting, such as reading newspapers and interrogating them. <<<
So reading newspapers and rude questioning were wrong but those other bad things that the Ohio BOE did were OK, right ?
Let's go over this again. The reason why Wesley Elsberry banned further discussion of my comment was not that he thought it was off-topic, it was that he had not heard of any complaints from Ohio about the board not hearing the public comments until after the vote. What a jerk. And to think that he owns PT and that PT got a web award from Scientific American magazine !
>>>Except that beer was on-topic for that thread.<<<
Beer was certainly not on-topic for a blog dedicated to discussing the evolution controversy. Anyway, this is just one example of PT tolerating rulebreaking when the rulebreakers are favored commenters.
>>>BTW, the "ban Larry" "no, ban those responding" comments came a week after you threatened to come back under multiple names.<<<
You must have a whole file on me, Kevin. You know things about me that even I can't remember.
Anyway, I said that I made that threat only once and promised to not repeat it.
It is nice to have my own blog so that I no longer have to bang my head against the wall trying to post on PT and other Internet forums.
Larry: I am glad you now have a forum where your ideas will not be censored simply because the ideas are disliked. I look forward to reading the blog.
Cato the Elder
heh heh heh larry said "head"
Larry, now you have a blog and not even dave tard can ban you. So do tell, what do you think the intelligent designer is? God? A Space alien or a time traveler?
As I said, dave tard cannot ban you from your own blog so feel free to give me your honest answer.
Personally I think the intelligent designer is a time traveler, but I'm open to other theories. So do tell, what's your designtheory?
And do you have any plans to write a book on intelligent design? Remember, you need not be a scientist or even understand science to be a best selling design theorist! Heck look at all the dough william dembski has raked in and he's a dunce who lacks fundamental math skills (he still believes in the bible codes, something an 8th grader can see through). How cool is that?
That's is the beauty of intelligent design theory, everyone can do it and anything goes!
So, I'm curious who you think the designer is and also if you have any plans to write a book.
Cheers!
I think these obcene morons from Panda's Thumb should be reminded that their fearless leader, Der Fuhrer, Herr Doktor Professor Esley Welsberry (pronounced velsberry) has sternly warned his brown shirted, brown-stained underwear wearing loyal troops about using obcenities at other forums where they may be posting. I guess he figures (correctly) that it makes his own hog trough look bad when that happens. Shape up boys. You sure don't want to offend Der Fuhrer. It makes him nervous as it should and I guess you all know what that means - absolutely nothing! Carry on.
I love it so!
Cato the Elder said...
>>>Larry: I am glad you now have a forum where your ideas will not be censored simply because the ideas are disliked. I look forward to reading the blog.<<<
Thanks, Cato.
Larry
I too Larry
DS wrote:
I don't know how difficult the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was in the Marine Corps. For one they didn't have it back then and for two your momma was keeping my whole platoon satisfied for $20/week. She charged extra to take out her false teeth. I bet you look a lot like one of the seventy of us that she serviced.
Y'know, She mentioned that platoon. You must have been the guy she had take over when she got tired. She talked a lot about you. I'm sure she appreciated it.
Anonymous said...
bwe your obsessed with homosexualty and marines. Is their something your not telling us?
There are many, many things I'm not telling you.
Anonymous
There is no need to know who the designer is or was or even how many there were. All that is necessary is to swallow the reality that one or more had to once exist. Got that? Write that down. I get tired of having to repeat myself.
I love it so!
While I can't prove it I like to think the moron that posted the last message was non other than Spravid Dinger, Dilliam Wembski's trained Chihuahua. It bears his inimitable style.
I love it so!
As far as I am concerned any post that is presented by a cowardly anonymous poster came from the biggest two faced phony in all of cyberspace, Spravid Dinger. Got that? Write that down Spravid baby.
To slightly modify Descarte:
I think, therefore you are.
And there is not a damn thing you can do about it is there.
I love it so!
Just for the record I think Davison is creating all these phony names and blaming me for it. The man has obviously lost his mind.
I don't know enough to create phony names and pull all the crappy stunts that Dinger is a master of. He has stated that I don't know enough to do email and now he is accusing me of doing what he brags about, creating false names and invading banned blogs. What a lying two-faced hipocrit. I don't have to know about crap like that. All I have to do is publish significant papers over a period of twenty-two years only to have them purged without explanation by the same person that introduced them. Dinger's actions define his character or more accurately a total lack of same.
I notice he doesn't want to talk about refusing to reinstate those several papers, papers that he introduced in the first place, only to purge them the moment I offered the slightest criticism of his lord and master Dilliam Wembski. I don't blame him because he can't justify that action and he knows it. Cowardly sycophants are like that.
Pretending that we critics of the various polarized factions never existed is an old story that has been going on for 147 years now. I am just a recent example of a long line of students of the great mystery of organic evolution, a mystery that everyone thinks they know all about. None of us exist because, if we are allowed to exist, the Fundies and the Darwimps alike are history and they know it.
It is no wonder this creep has the reputation that he has, the biggest bully in cyberspace, bar none.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for both factions in the debate that never should have been.
So don't explain your shabby actions Dinger. We all know you can't without further exposing yourself. Just keep right on pretending it never happened. You have six more days after which I regard everything you and Wembski, and Elsberry and so many others insist on doing as fully documented material for journal publication. I should have done it long ago. The ball is in your court where it has always been. Do something honorable for once in your life, admit you were wrong, rectify your mistake and and apologize for your inexcusable behavior. Are you capable of that? We will soon see.
"A man in armor is his armor's slave."
Robert Browning
I love it so!
Me the biggest bully in cyberspace?
Wow. What an honor. Seems a mite exagerated but I guess it's befitting of Davison's inflated opinion of himself - his enemies must be the greatest enemies of all time. [snicker]
Your papers are gone from Uncommon Descent, Davison. They're gone because I don't like you and I don't want anything to do with you. They aren't going to be put back so whatever it is you think you're going to do about it, stop talking about it and start doing it.
I have already exposed you here and most everybody else is doing it for me everywhere else I look like, for example, over at Panda's Thumb. I appreciate you telling the truth for a change. You purged my papers only "because you don't like me."
Now there is a real sound reason isn't it folks? Think about it. My papers are as sound as a dollar and they most certainly are which is why he presented them in the first place, but Dinger "doesn't like" their author so he won't put them back. What a confession!!
You can be sure I will quote him verbatim so don't be surprised folks if this yellow bellied jackass deletes his last post. He often does that after he realizes what a monumental damn fool he has been. Right Dinger?
Alan Fox copied some of your slime on my blog before you got around to deleting it. You're garbage Dinger abd the whole world now knows it. You haven't even got the brains or common decency to keep your mouth shut. You just proved the kind of pig (Sus spingeriana) you are and you did it in your own words.
I love it so!
Don't forget to delete your rabid confession.
I love it so!
Listen to this folks.
Spravid Dinger purged twenty-two years of my research because "I don't like you and I don't want anything to do with you." Isn't that precious?
By way of contrast I don't like Spravid Dinger much either. In fact I dislike this creep so much that I wouldn't dream of deleting anything he ever said about me or any of my great predecessors. He is most welcome to mouth off freely on my blog and I give the bullying goon my word that I will never delete a word of it no matter how virulent it is. That goes for anyone else that wants to vent his spleen on me and my research. You are welcome one and all. Larry's is not the only blog that permits every conceivable kind of pathological activity. I set the standard with
prescribedevolution.blogspot.com/
and I am prepared to continue it with
newprescribedevolution.blogspot.com/
So come one come all. The only messages that will be deleted will be those that contain no meaning whatsoever. Insults and denigrations are especially welcome as they reveal the sender not the recipient. I especially welcome the rabid comments of the biggest, most arrogant uncontrolled bully in cyberspace, Spravid Dinger. I get an enormous kick out of watching him delete his own posts soon after he realizes what an ass he has made of himself. It is great fun don't you know. At Uncommon descent this creep bans people because of what they presumably said somewhere else. He even has to delete himself more than anyone else in history because he can't trust himself to stay civil let alone rational. He is beautiful. He reminds me of what Harry Truman once said about someone he didn't care for:
"He is a living miracle with neither brains nor guts."
I do notice he has sure slowed down over at Wembski's precious Uncommon Descent. Maybe Wembski is finally realizing what a liability this bullying goon really is.
The very name of that forum raises my hackles. Maybe Spravid Dinger, the pompous pontificating know it all, will tell us who our close relatives are if they don't include apes. Maybe Wembski will, but I doubt it. He is too busy praising his hero and editing Festschrifts honoring Phillip Johnson, who as near as I can tell doesn't believe in evolution in any form. It is hard to believe isn't it?
A past evolution is undeniable. A present evolution is undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
I love it so!
No one cares what you think about them, Davison. Surely you must know at least that.
I know mothing ofthe kind you deluded nit wit. I know that both camps are scared stoolless of both me, my sources and my papers. It is only mindless degenerate lying two-faced bullies like yourself that can't see that. Go back and suck up to Wembski some more. That is all you are good for. He is your only hope and I have a strong suspicion he has had just about all of you he can afford to tolerate. I sure don't see much of your typically condescendig arrogan bluster any more. I'm surprised he has let you go on as long as he has. The smartest thing he could do right now would be to close his shop and go back to lecturing to Fundies at his Baptist seminary. Whatever would the great Spravid Dinger do then?
i love it so!
"Whatever would the great Spravid Dinger do then?"
I'm going to join up with the camp that's "scared stoolless" of the great and powerful former associate professor John A. Davison and do what they do to cope with their fear - pretend you don't exist.
[shudder]
Of course you will if you can keep your word for a change. You are no better than all those other phonies over a century and half that did exactly the same thing with all the critics of the Darwinian fairy tale. When you do that you join right in with Dichard Rawkins, Ghephen J. Stould and Mernst Ayr, the "Three Stooges" of Darwinian idiocy, not to menion Dilliam Wembski, Wonathan Jells and Jillip Phonson the Bible-waving "Three Wise Men" on your side of the ideological fence.
For someone who suddenly feels I don't exist you sure are paying a lot of attention desperately trying to bully me with your mindless drivel. Take a lesson from M.P. Zeyers, Pott L. Scage and Esley Welsberry and leave me alone you phony hipocrit. I notice you are perfectly willing to behave like the coward that you are here but you wouldn't open your filthy,, lying, two-faced mouth at Uncommon Descent because you have been instructed by Wembski to cool it. My name is not to ever be mentioned again there just as it is not being mentioned any more at Panda's Thumb and for exactly the same reasons. Both sides in this crazy debate are scared to death of me and my predecessors, not a Fundamentalist or a Darwinian in the lot. Now do as you threaten to do and start pretending I never existed at Uncommon Descent. Pretend you didn't introduce my papers and refer favorably to them only to subsequently describe them as "goofy" and poorly written and all the other hipocricies you have conjured up. Your credibility is zero buster. You are the biggest phony in cyberspace, bar none. Now slither back to your home base and keep your word for once in your miserable unfulfilled life and leave me alone. If you must continue to insult me, do it on my blog you cowardly cur. I'll copy it so even after you delete it, as you usually do, it will still be preserved for posterity. I recommend Larry adopt the same policy with every post you send.
I love trash like you. You are my greatest ally, way ahead of another iron-fisted dictator, Esley Welsberry. At least he seems to be sincere, something you are incapable of. They also have your number at Panda's Thumb as anyone can see.
I love it so!
> At least Dave Scot is honest about practicing censorship on his blog. Panda's Thumb has not been honest about its practice of censorship. <
And now Larry is not being honest about his censorship.
Larry
You call it honest to ban someone for what he said somewhere else? I don't. Do you think it is appropriate to purge a man's several published papers from the side board without a word of explanation? I didn't realize you were such a big fan of Dinger. Good for you.
I love it so!
Hi. Just wanted to say that I've been posting on P's Thumb for a while and have not experienced any attempts at censorship. This is despite the fact that I've argued scientific and political positions that conflict with the P.T. world view. In my opinion, P's Thumb gave you plenty of freedom to state your case....and you abused that freedom. You flooded many threads with extremely long, repetitive posts; you posted under multiple identities in clear violation of the board rules; and you even attempted to sabotage some threads. Every blog has a right to set its own rules and Wes's actions were reasonable. Larry, as a Holocaust denier you should know the precarious state that liberty's in....why try to trash up a blog that gives both sides a hearing? If you feel that you're being suppressed, go after the governments and bullies that actually threaten our right to free speech. Picking on Wes is stupid, immoral, and counterproductive.
Hi, this is The Ghost of Paley. Just wanted to say that I've been posting on P's Thumb for a while and have not experienced any attempts at censorship. This is despite the fact that I've argued scientific and political positions that conflict with the P.T. world view. In my opinion, P's Thumb gave you plenty of freedom to state your case....and you abused that freedom. You flooded many threads with extremely long, repetitive posts; you posted under multiple identities in clear violation of the board rules; and you even attempted to sabotage some threads. Every blog has a right to set its own rules and Wes's actions were reasonable. Larry, as a Holocaust denier you should know the precarious state that liberty's in....why try to trash up a blog that gives both sides a hearing? If you feel that you're being suppressed, go after the governments and bullies that actually threaten our right to free speech. Picking on Wes is stupid, immoral, and counterproductive.
The Ghost of Paley -- aka Anonymous -- said ( 5/10/2006 04:09:30 PM ) --
>>>>>Hi. Just wanted to say that I've been posting on P's Thumb for a while and have not experienced any attempts at censorship. This is despite the fact that I've argued scientific and political positions that conflict with the P.T. world view.<<<<<<
Maybe PT tolerated you because you did not argue as effectively as I did.
>>>>>>P's Thumb gave you plenty of freedom to state your case....and you abused that freedom.<<<<<<
Bullshit. Once I posted the opinion that the Ohio Board of Education should have heard public comments on the evolution lesson plan before voting on the plan. Wesley Elsberry banned further discussion of that opinion because he was not aware that any of the Ohio public commenters had complained about not being heard until after the vote. That is censorship with a capital "C."
>>>>>You flooded many threads with extremely long, repetitive posts<<<<<
If others found my posts too long, they didn't have to read them. If I was repetitive, it was because other commenters forced me to repeat things that I had already said -- just like on this blog.
>>>>> you posted under multiple identities in clear violation of the board rules;<<<<<
I did not start posting under multiple names until after I was banned. I posted under multiple names in attempts to evade the bans. Compare that to the commenters here -- at least one from PT, probably more -- who post under multiple names and even impersonate other commenters.
>>>>>Every blog has a right to set its own rules and Wes's actions were reasonable.<<<<<<
Wes's actions were not reasonable -- see above.
>>>>> and you even attempted to sabotage some threads.<<<<<
Baloney. My posts were on-topic. Sometimes, other commenters would take one of my incidental references to some off-topic subject -- like my comparison between the use of evolution theory in biology and the use of imaginary-number math in AC circuit analysis -- and blow it out of proportion by starting a big off-topic argument. Many commenters would clutter up the PT threads with responses to me that consisted of nothing more than insults and ad hominem attacks. Here is what PT blogger Steve Reuland said --
"Trying to rebut the nonsense he posts is perectly fine, but almost no one who responds to him tries to do that. What they do instead is spew out a dozen or more responses consisting of rude name-calling, some of them simply saying “shut up Larry”. Why anyone thinks that’s going to work is beyond me. While doing nothing to shut him up, posts like that do serve to drag this blog down into the gutter. " From --
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/03/the_south_carol.html#comment-85872
It was other commenters -- not I -- who sabotaged threads.
>>>> Larry, as a Holocaust denier you should know the precarious state that liberty's in.<<<<
There we go -- smearing me as a "Holocaust denier," and I haven't even posted any Holocaust denial or revisionism stuff on this blog yet.
Well, I don't have time to go into a blow-by-blow account about who did what & when...I'll let Vicklund do that for me....seems he's doing well enough. But are you really claiming that you were banned for arguing too well? I find that strange, since the board allows Berlinski, Nelson, Cordova and others to whip up on them from time to time. Why aren't they banned? In addition, your arguments rarely strike at the core of Darwinism itself, preferring to tap-dance on superficial legal issues. Sure, that needs to be covered as well, but do you think arguments of judicial bias really scare evos? One more thing: do you or don't you believe there was a systematic plan to annihilate Jews by shooting, gassing, and working them to death? Or to put it another way, why did the Nazis build gas chambers? Please explain in as much detail as possible.
Ghost of Paley said ( 5/11/2006 05:51:51 PM ) --
>>>>>Well, I don't have time to go into a blow-by-blow account about who did what & when...I'll let Vicklund do that for me....seems he's doing well enough.<<<<<
No, Vicklund has done very poorly. He has made himself look very bad, and I have made him look even worse.
The record here speaks for itself.
>>>>> But are you really claiming that you were banned for arguing too well?<<<<<<
How else do you explain why I got so many responses that contained nothing but insults and ad hominem attacks? Those commenters were just plain frustrated because they could not find flaws in my arguments.
>>>>>> I find that strange, since the board allows Berlinski, Nelson, Cordova and others to whip up on them from time to time. Why aren't they banned? <<<<<
Part of the problem -- as Kevin Vicklund showed -- was that I was initially banned by mistake because I was falsely suspected of posting under multiple names. But PT wanted a good excuse for getting rid of me anyway.
>>>>>In addition, your arguments rarely strike at the core of Darwinism itself, preferring to tap-dance on superficial legal issues. Sure, that needs to be covered as well<<<<<<
I did not get involved much in the scientific discussions -- particularly about ID -- because those were so involved and I did not want to spread myself too thin. I chose to concentrate on the legal issues and also on non-ID challenges to evolution theory ( which I have presented here). However, you will notice that I also posted my views about ID here.
>>>>>> but do you think arguments of judicial bias really scare evos?<<<<<<
Evos have good reason to be scared. It looks like there is a good chance that the Selman v. Cobb County evolution-disclaimer textbook sticker decision will be reversed.
>>>>> One more thing: do you or don't you believe there was a systematic plan to annihilate Jews by shooting, gassing, and working them to death? Or to put it another way, why did the Nazis build gas chambers? <<<<<<
So far I have avoided discussing that issue on this blog because it is virtually a taboo topic in our society. Once you start questioning official holocaust history, many people just start tuning you out and are not interested in what you have to say on other issues. But I plan to bring up this topic eventually.
....So far I have avoided discussing that issue on this blog because it is virtually a taboo topic in our society. Once you start questioning official holocaust history, many people just start tuning you out and are not interested in what you have to say on other issues. But I plan to bring up this topic eventually. ....
But this (non)response suggests that you really do question large parts of the Holocaust. Why else would you be reluctant to state your opinion? Some historians argue a "functionalist" hypothesis which holds that the Holocaust evolved from the bottom up to address shifting priorities within the Nazi bureaucracy. Historical contingency, rather than a highly structured master plan, shaped Nazi policy from this POV. So rather than forcing an Official Story on researchers, the Holocaust "establishment" embraces diverse ideas, so long as those ideas contain logic and evidence. Could you at least answer this question with a "yes" or "no": Were gas chambers in the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex, as well as the ones in Belzec, Treblinka, Majdanek, etc. used primarily to kill Jews? If you agree that these camps were used to kill millions of Jews, then you should be able to answer the question.
> How else do you explain why I got so many responses that contained nothing but insults and ad hominem attacks? <
Perhaps they were answering like with like?
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