Shall Mr Vacula Make a Misstep in the Capital of Eire?

[Tribble]

I know I already mentioned this but does anyone else get the feeling that some of these people are probably very mentally ill? Whenever I see a Caine post I always imagine an obese autistic 30-year old who lives in her parents' basement and sits at the computer all day, defending PZ's blog from rape apologists and drawing pictures of animals fucking each other to post on her DeviantArt page.

Caine (who is indeed the very worst of the worst) is actually (she says) in her mid-50s, one of the older of those lunatics. She has apparently doxxed herself quite nicely at the "Pharyngula Wiki":

http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Caine,_Fleur_du_mal

There's a Pharyngula Wiki?

Can these people be any more narcissistic?

It's like Conservapedia -- an alternate reality for ass-clowns who can't handle reality and think WAY to much of themselves. It's also a cult-like behavior and, I think, helps to support that FtB has many cultish aspects, though isn't a true cult in the sense of the term.

[Cold]

You smart asses think that Nerd's such a fool. Well, he just provided incontrovertible proof that Shermer's guilty:

He’s giving prima facie evidence he is a bad guy, by not defending himself here, which he could do. But he has his lawyer attempt to intimidate PZ with threat of a lawsuit. Bullies are bullies, and that is why Jane Doe wants to remain anonymous.

Only a bully would defend himself using the law, instead of going onto a website known for the most egregious and spurious "arguments" (like this one) and bullshit "evidence."

Ha ha, QED.

Nerd is the JoeG of Pharyngula (for those familiar with AtBC, Uncommon Descent, and the like).

Lol that's pretty spot on. He's Joe with tits.

Whatever happened to that mental case John Kwok? Does he still occasionally post his ramblings at PT?

[welch]

I've tried to figure this out: PZ on @elevatorgate. MAybe it's just because I don't use twitter or storify, and couldn't care less if people copy what I make public or if they want to spam. Spam gets tossed out and ignored. Same as junk mail and junk phone calls - deleted off the machine.

PZ compares him to Mabus. Not sure on this. As far as I know, @elevatorgate never threatened anyone (could be wrong, as I don't follow him).

But this bit from John Scalzi (twice now, I suspect some kind of SJW or SJW friendly): (this is the whole quote that PZ quoted, linked in the original)

A Twitter and Storify user who goes by the handle “@elevatorGATE” is a well-known cyberstalker of women via social media. His latest method of doing this is to compile thousands of pieces on Storify, often including every single tweet sent by his chosen targets, and then publish them, which notifies the women in question that he had published yet another piece archiving their every word. After repeated complaints and requests for help, Storify temporarily deactivated the notification feature on his account, which doesn’t actually solve the problem.
In a conversation yesterday with Xavier Damman, the Storify CEO suggested that the women @elevatorGATE is targeting turn off all notifications from Storify, which essentially suggests that they withdraw from the medium if they don’t like being stalked, and which also wouldn’t solve the problem of this user archiving everything these women say. One of the users pointed out that this is very much like telling a woman who is being harassed via telephone to never answer the phone. It was at this point in the conversation that Damman went from passively enabling a stalker to actively assisting one. He tweeted, in response to the women, that they “…can’t do anything about that. It’s @elevatorgate’s right to quote public statements…”
Prior to this point in the conversation, the women had named their stalker, but not used the @ symbol in front of his username. You know enough about Twitter to know why that’s a big deal. Damman either carelessly or deliberately notified a man stalking multiple women that they were seeking some way to prevent him from continuing to harass them, and then claimed it was no big deal because anyone searching for the information would have been able to find it. But there’s a very big difference between information existing and that same information being directly brought to a person’s attention.
If you know much about stalking, you’ll know what happens next. @elevatorGATE has substantially stepped up his harassment of the women who had asked Damman for help. Men who follow him on both Storify and Twitter have been bombarding these women via Storify notifications and Tweets with additional harassment. He has also increased his harassment of known online associates of the women in question, making it difficult for them to seek out help or support from fear of his beginning to stalk their friends as well. It’s the reason I’m contacting you privately, via email, rather than via social media: I’m afraid. I don’t want to be added to his list of targets.

It sounds like this guy is doing the same thing as spamming. However I don't know what is being said, and whether it is harassment - whether he is manking personal suggestions, etc, or just spamming. I did notice the disconnect that we have been saying all along. There is a difference between things being brought to your attention and things that you must go to and look for yourself. That I agree with.

As for the rest, I really can't say. I have twitter but rarely use it, and in any case I have notifications turned off. The last thing I want to do is waste my time at work getting a bunch of tweets about where people are or what they are eating, or doing. If I want that, at that very minute, I'll call. Having grown up without that intrusion and pushing your personal life into the public, I can't understand the kids or adults who cannot be weaned away from their twitter/facebook/text/IM/whatever pacifier. What is so important that you need to be notified if someone mentions your name? What kind of ego is that - it doesn't seem like one that is very secure. I know I'm assigning motivations, but I just don't get it, and really, I'm not sure I want to. Hell, if everyone in the world wanted to talk about me, go ahead, I have no idea who you are so I don't care what you say.

Now, I will say if he's doing something illegal, then he should be stopped. I might think of more, but I have a Rifftrax Live event to go to, and gots to gets ready.

Posting this here, for posterity. A response to John Scalzi:

Isn’t this why Storify was created in the first place? To document conversations? Does the mere act of documenting — essentially keeping a history log — now constitute as harassment? And how does it enter into constituting as harassment again? This is very confusing.

Also, isn’t cyberstalking a crime? Don’t you have to have sufficient evidence to accuse someone of cyberstalking? If all he does is Storify their conversations but never actually takes part in the actual conversation, including tagging them, then he isn’t just keeping a log? For instance, if I were to Freezepage (or save) every single blog post you make, John, to hold and keep as evidence for something or other, but never actually posting a single comment on your blog, would that count as cyberstalking? Doesn’t that mean that pinging an article would serve as cyberstalking as well?

Finally, I can’t see where @elevatorgate is encouraging his followers to stalk and/or harass women. On his blog?

http://elevatorgate.wordpress.com/

Nope. Seems the last submission there was back in 2012. On his Storify account?

http://storify.com/ElevatorGATE/

Seems not. Can’t see a single reference to the encouraging of stalking and/or harassing women online.

Again, isn’t accusing someone of being a stalker (even a cyberstalker) a crime worthy of libel?

And again, why is documenting conversations on Twitter considered cyberstalking?

An addendum to the post: PZ compares him to David Markuze, and claims @elevatorgate hates women (without evidence, obviously, par for the course). Now correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Mabus' shtick that he injected himself into every conversation and created sockpuppet upon sockpuppet to weather the incoming bans? Doesn't @elevatorgate just Storify people's conversation on Twitter, essentially keeping a log, but not actually participating himself? Wouldn't that make him nothing at all like Mabus, or am I wrong?

As for his claims that @elevatorgate hates women, wasn't it @elevatorgate who kept a log on the bullying of Sara Mayhew, Miranda Celeste Hale and Harriet Hall? Is that what hating women signifies?

You already know the answer to all this. PZ knows his fans won't think for themselves. He also knows they need an enemy to be focused on. EG doesn't play by PZ's rules, and he can be a twat at times, so he's the perfect enemy. No matter what he does he's wrong. He's never going to be anywhere they are in person, so there's no worry of having to deal with him face to face.

So, they demonize him because they can. I think he figured it out a while ago, and ignores them, and cheerfully goes on with his thing. He could care less about what they think of him, and he's good about playing by the rules, so they can't do shit about him.

But yeah, basically, they're playing the ophie song: YOU READ WHAT I WRITE, HARRAAAAAAAAASSSSMMMMEEEENNNNNNT!!!!

[welch]

I know I already mentioned this but does anyone else get the feeling that some of these people are probably very mentally ill? Whenever I see a Caine post I always imagine an obese autistic 30-year old who lives in her parents' basement and sits at the computer all day, defending PZ's blog from rape apologists and drawing pictures of animals fucking each other to post on her DeviantArt page.

It would be fascinating to study these people in real life and find out what motivates them to write the way they do.

Last I heard is that Caine lives in Dakota out in the sticks. That is supposed to explain it all.

North Dakota actually, and as all of N.D. is the sticks, you're being redundant there :-)


(actually, it's a flat, frozen shithole. But other than that, it sucks.)

[another lurker]

I have some slight education in music history and theory, and I'm pretty sure most artists or at least art historians agree that what is now called "stealing" or "copyright infringement" is simply the way that the vast majority of art is and always has been created. Everyone takes from what has come before, hopefully adding to it and making it their own, relevant to new times and new audiences. There is nothing truly "original", there are only twelve notes, for fucks sake. Now, taking someone's exact chords, timing, lyrics, and calling it your own original is stealing....but some of what Led Zeppelin did (and what blues and folk artists do all the damn time since the dawn of man) is more of an "inspired by" sort of thing. A re-working, a re-imagining, sometimes bearing little resemblance to the earlier work.

Some artists even go so far as to say that extending copyright to the levels we have is closer to "stealing", as it pretends to ownership that is not real and chokes off the supply of material that can be incorporated into new works, generally for the benefit of non-producers, even long after the death of the "original" artist.

Yup, in fact, it was often expected of composers in the Baroque and Classical era to do that. The idea of copyright or "owned music" was unheard of. Most of Bach's work was signed SDG - soli dei gratia "Glory to God alone". And, that was for both secular and sacred music. (Beethoven and Romanticism brought many changes in that regard)

For a more modern example, look at the jazz world. It is expected that you will take existing tunes and put your stamp on them; everybody does it; everyone accepts this practice and expects it to be done. There are many named chord progressions used e.g. rhythm changes, etc., where the chord progressions are taken from a named source (in this case I Got Rhythm by Gershwin).

Many of the old blues tunes that the Stones, et al, covered, trace back to early blues players, but even then much of that 'original' material dated from earlier anonymous sources. Folk music was always thus.

I would type more but I have a hawt date with Rebecca Watson to prepare for.

:violin:

The fashion industry would cease to exist if not for the 'borrowing' of ideas.

[Guest]

So @elevatorGATE is "obsessed", "abusive", "harassing", "stalking", etc. for documenting and screen capping social media posts:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... tes-abuse/

But when FTB does the same thing:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamo ... y-is-that/

It's okay?

Note these were posted on the same day. The cognitive dissonance is impressive.

[Ä uest]

John Scalzi:

Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/10/pe ... y-out.html
Charles Bukowski:

In 1969, publisher John Martin offered to pay Charles Bukowski $100 each and every month for the rest of his life, on one condition: that he quit his job at the post office and become a writer. 49-year-old Bukowski did just that, and in 1971 his first novel, Post Office, was published by Martin's Black Sparrow Press.

15 years later, Bukowski wrote the following letter to Martin and spoke of his joy at having escaped full time employment.

8-12-86

Hello John:

Thanks for the good letter. I don't think it hurts, sometimes, to remember where you came from. You know the places where I came from. Even the people who try to write about that or make films about it, they don't get it right. They call it "9 to 5." It's never 9 to 5, there's no free lunch break at those places, in fact, at many of them in order to keep your job you don't take lunch. Then there's OVERTIME and the books never seem to get the overtime right and if you complain about that, there's another sucker to take your place.

You know my old saying, "Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors."

And what hurts is the steadily diminishing humanity of those fighting to hold jobs they don't want but fear the alternative worse. People simply empty out. They are bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. And the body. The hair. The fingernails. The shoes. Everything does.

As a young man I could not believe that people could give their lives over to those conditions. As an old man, I still can't believe it. What do they do it for? Sex? TV? An automobile on monthly payments? Or children? Children who are just going to do the same things that they did?

Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: "Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don't you realize that?"

They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn't want to enter their minds.

Now in industry, there are vast layoffs (steel mills dead, technical changes in other factors of the work place). They are layed off by the hundreds of thousands and their faces are stunned:

"I put in 35 years..."

"It ain't right..."

"I don't know what to do..."

They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I could see all this. Why couldn't they? I figured the park bench was just as good or being a barfly was just as good. Why not get there first before they put me there? Why wait?

I just wrote in disgust against it all, it was a relief to get the shit out of my system. And now that I'm here, a so-called professional writer, after giving the first 50 years away, I've found out that there are other disgusts beyond the system.

I remember once, working as a packer in this lighting fixture company, one of the packers suddenly said: "I'll never be free!"

One of the bosses was walking by (his name was Morrie) and he let out this delicious cackle of a laugh, enjoying the fact that this fellow was trapped for life.

So, the luck I finally had in getting out of those places, no matter how long it took, has given me a kind of joy, the jolly joy of the miracle. I now write from an old mind and an old body, long beyond the time when most men would ever think of continuing such a thing, but since I started so late I owe it to myself to continue, and when the words begin to falter and I must be helped up stairways and I can no longer tell a bluebird from a paperclip, I still feel that something in me is going to remember (no matter how far I'm gone) how I've come through the murder and the mess and the moil, to at least a generous way to die.

To not to have entirely wasted one's life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.

yr boy,

Hank

[welch]

There's a Pharyngula Wiki?

Can these people be any more narcissistic?

If I remember correctly it was Nerd of Redhead who created it and/or did most of the work...(I may be mistaken).

There's even a 'Slimepit' page at the Pharyngula wiki; here's its text:

The slimepit was a series of threads on ERV which welcomed a handful of vocal misogynists, confessed trolls, and other lost souls. Slimepit trolls have invaded threads at other sites as well, including Butterflies and Wheels, Pharyngula, Furious Purpose, and Almost Diamonds. Most slimepit activity on ERV is contained on the thread "Periodic Table of Swearing," which has a function somewhat analogous to that of TET on Pharyngula.
Some commenters regarded as personae non gratae at Pharyngula, preferably with links demonstrating why:

bluharmony [1][2][3][4][5][6]
cthellis
DavidByron
dustbubble
EvilYeti
Franc Hoggle / probably felch.grogan
John C. Welch
John D
John Greg
Justicar [7]
Michael Kingsford Gray [8][9][10][11]
Munkhaus
Notung
0verlord
Phil Giordana, FCD, aka Schroedinger's Dog [12][13]
Phyraxus
pornonimous / pornonymous / pornalysis
Prometheus
Rayshul
Rystefn
ScentedNectar
Spence
Tristan
TylerD

OH yeah! I had a lot of fun with them one day. Literally, one day, for about 3 hours.

I don't often troll, but when I do, I troll at high speed:

http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Specia ... Johncwelch

[real horrorshow]

Any one peckish? I've been over to Scalzi's blog to pick some low-hanging fruit:

Scalzi claims @elevatorGATE is violating the Storify TOS as follows:

http://i.imgur.com/kXDzEhB.jpg
Because I Am Not A Lawyer but, archiving people's public writings is like totes illegal dude

His comment policy is this:

http://i.imgur.com/vyIUWLR.jpg

And the link there about what will get you banned leads to this recent popular favourite. So we know what we're dealing with here.


Baboon ethics are soon on display:

http://i.imgur.com/A0cJyon.jpg
Dontcha just luv 'im?

Also, baboon logic:
http://i.imgur.com/LFbNm4N.jpg
Where can I go to complain about his service which I do not and will never use?

And the very Whitest of Knights:
http://i.imgur.com/8oe9QPh.jpg

Almost certainly more to come.

[welch]

Because he feels he was successful and made it on his own, then all white men should be successful and make it on their own.

Where in the article does he say anything remotely like that?

What he's saying is that, all other things equal, things would have been harder for him, or for pretty much anyone, to reach social success if he had been black or female. Hard to argue with that IMO.

From my own totally scientific WAG estimate, 99% of people who dismiss the concept of privilege misunderstand it.

Given how much time Scalzi spent explaining what he really meant in that article, I'd say he's in that group.

[Tigzy]

From Peez's @Elevatorgate post:

I’ve compared him to Dennis Markuze before, and it’s exactly the same: using internet protocols and an abundance of free time to constantly harass people he doesn’t like with pointless, content-free noise. The offender goes by the pseudonym “@elevatorGATE” on twitter (right away, you can tell what inspired him), and he’s been doing this for years now, obsessively dunning his targets with noise. There are some differences: Markuze aims his vitriol at skeptics who questioned the existence of paranormal powers.

@elevatorGATE hates women.

Peez in the comments:

He’s doing hundreds of storifies every day. I’m not kidding when I say he’s got the same mental illness as Dennis Markuze — this is a guy whose useless life is fully absorbed with tracking and echoing the words of people he hates.

As if the Shermer incident wasn't demonstration enough - Peez, you are such a fucking mong.

Laughable, feeble little man. In fact, Peez, if I ever saw you in real life, I think I might just slap you on the head rapidly and repeatedly, like what Benny Hill used to do to the little bald old man. Slap-slap-slappity-slap, right on top of that nub-like noggin. Even if you tried to waddle away, I reckon I'd still be there, following you around, slapping away.

I mean, why not, eh Peez? Now that the vapidity oozes openly from your pores like the porcine sweat-on you get when Watson's pheromones are fugging up the air, what's the point of responding to you in any way other than to get some lulz? Not that I could go so far as to consider you Atheism's court jester, given that Ye Olde Jesters served an important function in keeping their feudal overlords aware of their follies. If anything, it's this place that has done a better job of providing the necessary Lords of Misrule. Whereas you, Peez, vacuous, vindictive blot that you are, have regaled us all in no manner other than that of a bloated, fulminating, disingenuous robber-baron.

And a deluded one, at that, lording over what you believe to be the strong ramparts of your mighty fortress Pharyngula, when it is apparent to all but you and your sycophants that you are a toad squatting upon a flyblown dunghill.

So I do indeed hope that Shermer takes you to the cleaners, not so much out of spite, but because of the beautiful irony that you'd have escaped your fate were it not for a little skepticism on your part. Hell, it might even get me back into church.

Speaking of which, I think the famous words of another self-righteous, barbarous, angry puritan might be in order:

'You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!'

So yeah. Bugger off, Peez. A man, after all, does good business when he does away with a turd. (That one was Edward I, I think)

[welch]

Nerd's a fucking idiot. Anyone knows that the best way to determine Shermer's guilt is to throw him in a pond. If he sinks, he's innocent. If he floats, he a fucking rapist. QED.

FTB have introduced a new kind of witch hunt: where the hunters are the witches.

[youtube]CmPNuruWMTA[/youtube]

[real horrorshow]

IT'S SO HARD BEING BLACK AND FEMALE HAVE I MENTIONED THIS RECENTLY OMFG THE HARDSHIP

I fucking hate Scalzi, myself. :)

You 'shut and listen' rayshul! Having recently popped out your second and third white male off-spring, you are clearly not only a gender-traitor but a race-traitor as well!

[real horrorshow]

That's one of the reasons why Presence and III are my top albums of theres at the moment. But it changes. I also have a soft spot for really good Zep covers, like:

"Rock 'n Roll", Heart
"Misty Mountain Hop", 4 Non-Blondes
"Out on the Tiles", Blind Melon
"Dancin' Days", Stone Temple Pilots.

Dread Zeppelin (with Ed Zeppelin and Tortelvis) FTW!

Oh yeah, them. And Fred Zeppelin!

I favour Hayseed Dixie myself:

[youtube]pST4tHrc6Q4[/youtube]

[Tribble]

Lol that's pretty spot on. He's Joe with tits.

Whatever happened to that mental case John Kwok? Does he still occasionally post his ramblings at PT?

Isn't Kwok the one who demands a camera for some reason? And is blabbing on about cameras? I went back there a few days ago and went through a couple of threads. I think he's still there with a new handle and is still demanding a camera.

[Skep tickle]

Have missed some stuff today. Did see Myers' concerns about @elevatorgate.

Whassup with @elevatorgate's twitter account? It's there, with history of 22K tweets, but 0 followers & 0 followed, but when I click "Follow" then go back to look at the account again it still has 0 followers....

[Steersman]

http://i1285.photobucket.com/albums/a60 ... 3f32a9.jpg

:lol: :clap: Well done sir.

[FrankGrimes]

GrapeGate?

[socialcuntism]

Crazy Woman Thinks Mailman Is Stalking Her

[youtube]4CL298TO1pA[/youtube]


I had the same problem with Mr. Softee ice cream van.....
to this day i cant climax without that jingle playing and a popsicle up my ass

[welch]

Scalzi's an entitled tit who feels vaguely guilty about that.

[Skep tickle]

Screen shot (not shopped, I promise)

http://i.imgur.com/ZNFRUdy.png?1

[bovarchist]

They Are mongooses, they kill cobras.

Cobra vs. Mongoose [youtube]vdg9gkmWsEA[/youtube]

The Cobra is in deep shit and most likely dead with just one mongoose. Hiss asss is grasss with more than one. Hass no chance at all.

So the original meme would more accurately be about solitary reptiles with an over-inflated sense of how superior they are to the furry masses. Not unlike PZ.

BTW, I've heard that cobras are actually fairly slow strikers, as snakes go. Put a mongoose up against, say, a common rattlesnake, the rattler makes quick work of him.

[welch]

Dread Zeppelin (with Ed Zeppelin and Tortelvis) FTW!

Oh yeah, them. And Fred Zeppelin!

I favour Hayseed Dixie myself:

[youtube]pST4tHrc6Q4[/youtube]

That's kind of awesome

[Tribble]

Oh. ElevatorGATE has been banned or suspended from Twitter.

[Cold]

Lol that's pretty spot on. He's Joe with tits.

Whatever happened to that mental case John Kwok? Does he still occasionally post his ramblings at PT?

Isn't Kwok the one who demands a camera for some reason? And is blabbing on about cameras? I went back there a few days ago and went through a couple of threads. I think he's still there with a new handle and is still demanding a camera.

Yeah I do remember him having some kind of camera fetish. Also his Amazon account was pretty lulzy, if I remember correctly he'd leave the strangest book reviews and he had an incessant love of namedropping important people who apparently had no idea who he was.

[Mykeru]

And I will just leave this here

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7310/9521 ... 6783_c.jpg

[bovarchist]

Nerd's a fucking idiot. Anyone knows that the best way to determine Shermer's guilt is to throw him in a pond. If he sinks, he's innocent. If he floats, he a fucking rapist. QED.

And if he starts furiously fucking the fish, he's PZ Myers.

[AndrewV69]

Is she one of those FTBloggers who isn't really an Apluser? She makes too much sense for that group.

I am no fan of Maryam Namazie because she is a Marxist.

[Steersman]

Denoument

Wherein:
Herr Meyer's hentai porn has trouble making it out of Berlin,.
There is trouble in the Intellectual Artillery Corps.
And we find out who's really responsible for the fall of National Social Justice-ism.


Okay, that's it for now. Partly, because I appear to have upset Skeptickle (who I admire) and partly because the SO has grown tired of hearing Bruno Ganz raving in the study.

:lol: :clap: Another one knocked out of the park:

General Carrier left [Ashley Muller] in charge when he had to suddenly leave for Argentina.”

We’re not going to be silenced! We’re going to be mocked into oblivion! We’re fucked!

Apropos of which is Vicky’s signature quote of Mark Twain: "Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand."

Although somewhat of a shame in a way, I think. More than a few over there seem to defend some credible principles - unfortunately though many others, or maybe the same people, seem to have overdosed on self-righteousness. Tends to cloud the judgement.

[Rystefn]

Because he feels he was successful and made it on his own, then all white men should be successful and make it on their own.

Where in the article does he say anything remotely like that?

What he's saying is that, all other things equal, things would have been harder for him, or for pretty much anyone, to reach social success if he had been black or female. Hard to argue with that IMO.

From my own totally scientific WAG estimate, 99% of people who dismiss the concept of privilege misunderstand it.

IT'S SO HARD BEING BLACK AND FEMALE HAVE I MENTIONED THIS RECENTLY OMFG THE HARDSHIP

I fucking hate Scalzi, myself. :)

Scalzi is a douche canoe of the first order. The only thing separating him from the A+ assholes is that he lacks the courage of his convictions and puts on a (relatively) more reasonable public face, and quietly bans rather than trumpeting how great he is when he does it.

He's also a fantastic example of why I pretty much don't read sci-fi that's been written in the last 30 years. If his brand of drivel is the best they can come up with, I want nothing to do with it. I flush better sci-fi down the shitter every morning.

[Cold]

Nerd's a fucking idiot. Anyone knows that the best way to determine Shermer's guilt is to throw him in a pond. If he sinks, he's innocent. If he floats, he a fucking rapist. QED.

And if he starts furiously fucking the fish, he's PZ Myers.

I'm pretty sure PZ's affinity for the wet and slimy is limited to cephalopods. He's a fan of quantity over quality. The more appendages, the better!

[rayshul]

IT'S SO HARD BEING BLACK AND FEMALE HAVE I MENTIONED THIS RECENTLY OMFG THE HARDSHIP

I fucking hate Scalzi, myself. :)

You 'shut and listen' rayshul! Having recently popped out your second and third white male off-spring, you are clearly not only a gender-traitor but a race-traitor as well!

I'm building a privilege army to wipe out the SJWs!!! Really though - class is what matters. And it's only ever been class - god bless those who try to convince the world otherwise. I remain amazed though that these SJW people are the SAME people who've seen the messages of occupy wall street (the 99%) and still think that your gender and your race mean diddly squat in the greater scheme of things.

[rayshul]

Mean anything but diddly squat is what I meant to say there.

[bovarchist]

And if he starts furiously fucking the fish, he's PZ Myers.

I'm pretty sure PZ's affinity for the wet and slimy is limited to cephalopods. He's a fan of quantity over quality. The more appendages, the better!

THEN WHY IS HE TRYING TO BREED THEM IN CAPTIVITY? I TELL YOU, HE'S CREATING A HAREM!!!1!!1 :o :o :o

[Steersman]

Is she one of those FTBloggers who isn't really an Apluser? She makes too much sense for that group.

I am no fan of Maryam Namazie because she is a Marxist.

Indeed. Although she is not thereby without some insight. But isn't Ally Fogg of the same political stripe? In any case, I think that Massimo Pigliucci [biologist/philosopher] argued that communism and Freudian psychology qualified as pseudoscience - interesting hypotheses, but with too broad applicability and too little provability.

But, in passing, in view of your previous Canadian joke, you might enjoy this one that Jerry Coyne recently included in a post of his.

[AndrewV69]

IT'S SO HARD BEING BLACK AND FEMALE HAVE I MENTIONED THIS RECENTLY OMFG THE HARDSHIP

I fucking hate Scalzi, myself. :)

Thats clearly because you are a "chill girl". A "sister punnisher" of the first water. You are also a racist, sexist, neo-colonialist imperialistic oppressor of the poor and down trodden who wants to bring back slavery.

Last but not least, your greatest crime against humanity is you do not think much of Nerd of Redhead.

Yours in PeeZuss Christ,

AndrewV69 (The compassionate).

[Verklagekasper]

The reason why Twitter storifying raised the interest of PZ is this:

White knight to the rescue:

He does have a crush on her, doesn't he. If the FTB/Skepchick environment wasn't so sex-negative, they could have settled this with drunk monkey sex long time ago, and nothing of all the current hassle would have happened.

[real horrorshow]

Oooh, it's a bumper harvest:

In which we learn that very powerful people (also old white & male, we can be sure) are, in fact, very scared. And bite people via Twitter or something. How scared then, should not very powerful be? Well even scarderer, obviously!
http://i.imgur.com/YPm0jyN.jpg

I thought this might be a Poe:
http://i.imgur.com/IObGEVr.jpg

Were it not followed by the rest of the post. In which we learn - if we hadn't already - that this person too, is not a lawyer.
http://i.imgur.com/CSL2qo5.jpg

Nor, I suspect is, y'know, this person:
http://i.imgur.com/BhI4UA5.jpg
I'm not sure what @elevatorGATE is doing has much to do with:

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances

Because, after all, it's not his speech he's archiving. But, in true baboon fashion, they can't pass up an opportunity to spit on the rights and freedoms many died to provide them with. FREEZE PEACH HURR!

http://i.imgur.com/geSegjB.jpg
Dudebro forum? What can s/h/it mean? Are you guys hiding porn from me?

http://i.imgur.com/Mrsqpik.jpg
Not a lawyer but, possibly, a Harvard MBA. Yes indeed, what Storify should do is to stop people from Storifying. That's the only sane and 'decent' business model for them.

[ERV]

The reason why Twitter storifying raised the interest of PZ is this:

You know what I thought was scary, Rebecca? Having a real stalker.

White knight to the rescue:

He does have a crush on her, doesn't he. If the FTB/Skepchick environment wasn't so sex-negative, they could have settled this with drunk monkey sex long time ago, and nothing of all the current hassle would have happened.

I am big on trust in my relationships. I dont care if my partner goes out and parties with friends/family without me, or has scantly dressed women as fitness clients. I am either with someone I trust, or Im not with someone.

But the way Myers has been following Watson around the past few years, seeing him throw away relationships over her, risk his career and the financial security of his family for her, going to events she is at (that he isnt speaking at)-- I would have ended it with him a long time ago.

Its weird.

[Ä uest]

elevatorGate is accused of

* stalking by reading
* stalking by storifying
* harassment via notifications

It should be trivially seen that

* stalking by reading and/or storifying is neither stalking nor harassment

Right now Storify shoots off emails for:
http://i.imgur.com/cQR72g6.jpg

Storify should

* allow users to turn off notifications for the activities of specific other users.

[Cold]

He does have a crush on her, doesn't he. If the FTB/Skepchick environment wasn't so sex-negative, they could have settled this with drunk monkey sex long time ago, and nothing of all the current hassle would have happened.

He's clearly too beta to ask her out.

Just buy her the bar, PZ, that's how the cool kids are doing it right? Deep down he just wants to be show those jocks like Shermer, Dawkins and Hitchens that he's a manly man too!

[Pitchguest]

And I've been banned over at Scalzi's.

Wonderful. Basically all I asked for was evidence that EG had harassed and/or stalked women on Twitter, but John accused me of deliberately ignoring "patterns of intent" where EG had, apparently, explicitly stated that his purpose on Storify is to harass and/or stalk women on Twitter. When I questioned this and asked if he had any evidence himself to support this claim, Scalzi finally saw red and applied the aforementioned Malletâ„¢. Oh well.

You can read the beginning of my "conversation" here.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/08/15/s ... ent-496715

It continues further down, with more condescension from Scalzi (and from the usual suspects). You'll also notice the ad-hominem tactic to avoid a discussion. (Yeah, as a note here, you don't think I know about your reputation as well? Didn't stop me from at least TRYING to have a debate, now did it? It seems ad-hominem tactics is only valid when they do it.)

I hope I didn't sound too unreasonable. (I began to get a bit annoyed at the end there.)

[Gumby]

I don't often troll, but when I do, I troll at high speed:

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd24 ... 02254c.jpg

[AndrewV69]

He does have a crush on her, doesn't he. If the FTB/Skepchick environment wasn't so sex-negative, they could have settled this with drunk monkey sex long time ago, and nothing of all the current hassle would have happened.

He's clearly too beta to ask her out.

Just buy her the bar, PZ, that's how the cool kids are doing it right? Deep down he just wants to be show those jocks like Shermer, Dawkins and Hitchens that he's a manly man too!

If any of the above is true I smell a false rape accusation in the making. Speaking of which:

Woman makes false rape claim, cop: 'We run into that all the time'
http://www.cotwa.info/2013/08/woman-mak ... e-run.html

An unlikely source, feminist gadfly Amanda Marcotte, once wrote that "the idea that it's shameful to just have sex because you want to" is "the reason that you have false rape accusations in the first place." Marcotte noted that "women who aren't ashamed of having sexual adventures like group sex-even ones that go bad-don't use rape accusations to cover up their choices. It's the women who are afraid they'll be called sluts if it gets out that make up these rape stories." Amanda Hess similarly talked about women who make false claims to defend their "femininity." There is much truth in what they say. Without excusing the false accuser (who, like the rapist, must be held accountable for her actions), false rape claims are largely culturally induced.

Whatever Man. Fuck (Die Antwoord).

[ConcentratedH2O, OM]

http://i.imgur.com/4y7m1y8.jpg

[Satan]

Something tells me Scalzi won't be in a hurry to denounce the Public Shaming tumblr for doing essentially what @elevatorgate did, except to people SJWs don't like, and to a much larger audience.

As usual, it's OK when the SJWs do it.

[FlyingV]

[The reason why Twitter storifying raised the interest of PZ is this:

You know what I thought was scary, Rebecca? Having a real stalker.[/quote]

"Stalker" sounds better than "Guy who can't stand me because I say stupid sh*t all the time, and he calls me out on it."

Have they ever stopped to think that maybe people don't like them not because they're women but because the best part of them ran down their mothers' legs?

[Rystefn]

The reason why Twitter storifying raised the interest of PZ is this:

You know what I thought was scary, Rebecca? Having a real stalker.

"Stalker" sounds better than "Guy who can't stand me because I say stupid sh*t all the time, and he calls me out on it."

Have they ever stopped to think that maybe people don't like them not because they're women but because the best part of them ran down their mothers' legs?[/quote]

Oh, Twatson knows perfectly well she's got no stalkers outside of the SJW camp, and she knows perfectly well why people don't like her... but why cop to that when you can just call criticism harassment and carry on drinking until the chick in the mirror looks like a hot 22-year old?

[AndrewV69]

Is she one of those FTBloggers who isn't really an Apluser? She makes too much sense for that group.

I am no fan of Maryam Namazie because she is a Marxist.

Indeed. Although she is not thereby without some insight. But isn't Ally Fogg of the same political stripe? In any case, I think that Massimo Pigliucci [biologist/philosopher] argued that communism and Freudian psychology qualified as pseudoscience - interesting hypotheses, but with too broad applicability and too little provability.

I will look into that. If he has said so I may have missed it.

But, in passing, in view of your previous Canadian joke, you might enjoy this one that Jerry Coyne recently included in a post of his.

Ahahahaha! So fucking true!

[FlyingV]

Oh, Twatson knows perfectly well she's got no stalkers outside of the SJW camp, and she knows perfectly well why people don't like her... but why cop to that when you can just call criticism harassment and carry on drinking until the chick in the mirror looks like a hot 22-year old?

I'll admit that it's not a bad short-term strategy, but in a few years, there won't be enough alcohol to convince anyone, not even herself, that she's "still got it." Nobody likes the lonely, old woman at the bar crying into her beer and going home with the a guy that has an un-ironic mustache. Tick tock, Becky.

[yomomma]

I was shocked that people like this exist. I felt insulted as a woman that they try to speak for me, and as a mother... can you imagine what it is like to read all that rape theory shit and for me to look over at my 5 year old son, and think, they are labeling him a potential rapist. On some level I felt attacked.

Yep, Vicky. That's how I feel. As a mother of two sons, I fear for them. I fear that simply being themselves, just being decent human beings who happen to be boys, still makes them vulnerable to a sub-culture of women who wish them ill will and suffering through no fault of their own.

And maybe it's a wee bit paranoid, but I'm scared to death that one of my boys will be falsely accused if they piss off a girlfriend. I know I'm raising my boys with integrity and respect, and they have good role models who have definitely challenge the stereotypical gender roles in our household, but still...it's a real concern for me. I just hope that most women aren't like the radfem nut jobs I've found in the skeptic community.

[didymos]

Storify should

* allow users to turn off notifications for the activities of specific other users.

Yes, it should, and in fact, they've already said they're working on it. In the meantime, these people should learn how to create a fucking email filter that auto-deletes notifications from EG's Storify account. It'd take a minute or two at the very most, and they won't miss notices from their pals. Of course, this advice will be unacceptable to them because it:

a. Requires them to do something other than complain at anyone they can get to listen and/or blog about it.
b. Places an unfair burden on the victims.
c. Can't erase the terrifying knowledge that somewhere...out there...Elevatorgate is still storifying their tweets which will lead to...something or other. Probably misogyny.

[Satan]

@Elevatorgate should be suing.

It's very unfortunate that there's no anti-SJW organization with deep enough pockets to fund legal defenses for people who have been defamed by rabid feminists.

It's disgusting that SJWs have been able to silence critics of feminism by manipulating service providers, abusing the structures of society, and abusing the law with impunity because the only person who's had the resources to fight back, so far, is Shermer.

The hatred that these manipulative assholes spew is actionable and damaging to both individual reputations and to society at large. The longer they are allowed to act with impunity the more damage they will do because the more mainstream they will become and the more damage their demented ideas on acceptable forms of human interaction will cause.

[katamari Damassi]

I haven't read any of Scalzi's novels so I'm not a fan, but I can understand why he's at least SJW friendly. A lot of geeks are SJW's and we know how fickle the SJW demographic can be, but geeks who oppose the nonsense of the SJW's are still going to read his stuff even if they disagree with his nonfiction, ideological writing, because nonSJW geeks will read pretty much any SF and fantasy.

[Ä uest]

Storify should

* allow users to turn off notifications for the activities of specific other users.

Yes, it should, and in fact, they've already said they're working on it. In the meantime, these people should learn how to create a fucking email filter that auto-deletes notifications from EG's Storify account. It'd take a minute or two at the very most, and they won't miss notices from their pals. Of course, this advice will be unacceptable to them because it:

a. Requires them to do something other than complain at anyone they can get to listen and/or blog about it.
b. Places an unfair burden on the victims.
c. Can't erase the terrifying knowledge that somewhere...out there...Elevatorgate is still storifying their tweets which will lead to...something or other. Probably misogyny.

I'm honestly shocked (my own naivete) that any modern published author would have any sort of a problem with "scrapbooking", logging, storifying the public tweets of other people.

I have read maybe one or two Scalzi stories, but geez, if an author believes collecting/logging/scrapbooking/storifying other people's tweets is a form of harassment, then I do have to wonder if I awoke in another dimension or on some other planet.

I mean, that guy is fucking dangerous.

[Cold]

Interesting post from AtBC. Apparently they're discussing it over there albeit more slowly than over here.

The degree of skepticism should be proportional to the consequences of being wrong.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/Se ... e&x=38&y=4

[Ä uest]

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/08/15/s ... ent-496814

http://i.imgur.com/gOYHlwv.jpg


http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/08/15/s ... ent-496817

http://i.imgur.com/9w2jDYX.jpg


After storify implements per user notification blocking, will Scalzi agree that EG is not a stalker?

And sadly I have to wonder, will storify implement per user notification blocking, or will they implement user reporting and banning?

[Geist]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER

William Le Queux was a popular novelist in the early part of the twentieth century. He was half French, half British and he wrote books with wonderful titles like Strange Tales of a Nihilist.

Le Queux had started off as a journalist on the Daily Mail - but then had travelled around Europe getting to know lots of famous and infamous people. But as he did so he became convinced that many of the European countries, but most of all Germany, envied Britain and wanted to get their hands on the wealth of the Empire.

The trouble was that the British people didn't realise this. So Le Queux set out to warn them - above all by telling them that the Germans were sending spies to Britain to prepare for an invasion.

But the ruling classes in Britain laughed at Le Queux. They said it was just fiction - which it was. Plus he wasn't really British and he hadn't been to a proper school, he was far too vulgar and insistent in his patriotism. In short he was a bore.

So Le Queux did what anyone in their right mind would do in such a situation. He turned to the Daily Mail.

He wrote a gripping account of a future German invasion of Britain and took it to Lord Northcliffe who ran the Mail. It was called "The Invasion of 1910" and it described how the Germans landed in East Anglia and marched on London.

Northcliffe loved it - but the Mail's circulation department said that many of the towns on Le Queux's invasion route didn't have many actual or potential Daily Mail readers in them.

So Lord Northcliffe changed the route of the invasion to make sure that all the towns that were sacked and pillaged had lots of Daily Mail readers. Here is the map of the invasion as agreed with the circulation department.

The serialisation was an enormous success. The prime minister got up in the House of Commons and said Le Queux was "a pernicious scaremonger" and that the story was "calculated to alarm the more ignorant public opinion at home."

Result.

Then things started getting out of control. Thousands of Daily Mail readers sent Le Queux letters telling him that they had spotted people acting suspiciously - which meant they must be German spies.

The letters were mirror images of what Le Queux had written in his books. But rather than making him suspicious, Le Queux decided that this proved that what he had written as fiction must actually be true. There was a gigantic German spy ring in Britain.

Thousands of Daily Mail readers couldn't be wrong.

The man whose job it was to uncover spies in Britain was very excited by all this. he was called Colonel Edmonds. He had a tiny budget and two assistants - and noone on the General Staff bothered with him.

But now Col. Edmonds saw his chance. He teamed up with Le Queux and together they bombarded the Committee for Imperial Defence with the evidence from the Daily Mail readers. Edmonds said that the government should set up a "secret service bureau" to combat the threat.

The head of the Committee - Lord Haldane - said this was ridiculous. But even he couldn't stand against the wave of spy fever that was sweeping the country. He gave in - and MI5 was set up - created in large part by the dreams of a socially excluded novelist, and the paranoid imaginings of the readers of the Daily Mail.

But the problem for MI5 was that the spy network didn't exist. The Germans did have some agents in Britain - but nothing like the 5000 that Le Queux had described.

[Rystefn]

I haven't read any of Scalzi's novels so I'm not a fan, but I can understand why he's at least SJW friendly. A lot of geeks are SJW's and we know how fickle the SJW demographic can be, but geeks who oppose the nonsense of the SJW's are still going to read his stuff even if they disagree with his nonfiction, ideological writing, because nonSJW geeks will read pretty much any SF and fantasy.

Yeah, nerds need to pull their heads out of their asses on that front. There's a difference between good writing and bad writing, and it's not defined by genre. Fuck, it should be legal to punch people in the dick for suggesting George R. R. Martin is even a competent writer, much less a good one. That's not even counting supporting horrible human beings who will take the money and use it support evil shit. (Yes, I'm comparing Scalzi to Card, and I stand by it. Two sides, one coin.)

[Biohazard]

OK, this is the FB conversation, featuring Carrie Poppy, I was referring to that no one could see. I have replaced the names of people not already mentioned with anonymous handles (Commenter #1 etc.). This is based on the conversation as it appeared this morning, it in two parts so get your scroll finger limbered up if you're not interested:

Commenter #1 Nailed it.
Yesterday at 6:40am • Like • 1

Commenter #2 Brilliant!
Yesterday at 6:44am • Like • 1

Commenter #3
[snip picture of Nancy Regan with a "just say no" sign in front of her.]
Yesterday at 7:18am • Like

Commenter #4 He really went for the jugular in the end, lol.
Yesterday at 7:36am • Like

Wendy Hughes The Deity does not mince words.
Yesterday at 7:55am via mobile • Like

Carrie Poppy Yeah, great. Victim blaming. Great.
23 hours ago • Like • 1

Commenter #4 Where's the victim blaming?
23 hours ago • Like

Carrie Poppy The alcohol bit appears to be a reference to one of the accusers saying alcohol was involved in her alleged rape.
23 hours ago • Like

Commenter #4 You mean the water into wine comment?
23 hours ago • Like

Carrie Poppy No, he's offered alcohol and says no, and then says that wasn't hard, because he's an adult, responsible for his own decisions (summarizing-- I watched it last night).
23 hours ago • Like

Commenter #4 Oh, I see. I had initially took that part as the wine being a metaphor for gossip. Don't drink from the cup of gossip, so to speak.

But now that I rewatch that segment from the perspective of the claim that the victim was plied with alcohol, I understand what you mean. Now I wonder if he did mean that. If he did, I'd say it's a cheap shot. To me, this whole issue is about how PZ chose to treat the issue as his own personal dilemma about whether to blog about it, instead of urging the claimant to go to the authorities and then waiting for that to play out. I mean, there shouldn't have been a big hurry considering the alleged event took place several years ago.

Either it's a legit claim or it's not*. The details about alcohol and otherwise are irrelevant, as far as I can tell.

*this isn't to say that I think it's someone crying rape falsely, but it's a suspect situation with an 'anonymous' claimant reported by a guy who's been acting rather erratic lately.
23 hours ago • Like

Carrie Poppy For the protection of the victim/accuser, I can't say much, but I know who she is, I have heard her account, and for what it's worth, I believe her. And based on what she's told me, I understand why she hasn't gone to the authorities, although I (and PZ) have encouraged her to do so. Ultimately, that's her decision. But what she asked was for PZ to post her statement. So, he did.
23 hours ago • Edited • Like

Carrie Poppy But anyway, back to the alcohol: If that's not what he meant, I don't get the joke. Definitely read as blaming the victim, to me.
23 hours ago • Like

Commenter #4 Yeah, if that's the intent of that gag, it's no different then him doing up his top button and suggesting that we should cover up.
23 hours ago • Like • 3

Carrie Poppy Absolutely.
23 hours ago • Like

Carrie Poppy There are no winners here. I get why it sucks for everyone. But blaming the victim is, hands-down, the worst way we can handle this awful situation.
23 hours ago • Like • 3

Commenter #4 Agreed. I can't imagine what it would be like to endure an assault by a prominent community figure and feel stuck. I also can't imagine being accused of rape (assuming I hadn't done it). From my perspective, I have no personal knowledge of the truth of the matter is so ultimately, I don't have an opinion, beyond wishing that justice would miraculously occur for all parties. I just think PZ's delivery of the information was pretty ridiculous.

Now, if I had a friend who felt stuck and she confided in me and asked me to share her experience on a prominent blog, I don't know what I'd do, to be honest. You want to believe your friend, but taking such a inflammatory claim to the court of public opinion is a huge risk.

Ugh. You are absolutely right about there being no winners, Carrie.
23 hours ago • Like

Carrie Poppy It was definitely a risk. But he knew that, I'm sure. He did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. Like him or hate him, he took a huge risk because he wanted to help a woman who said she'd been raped, and felt she had no other options.
23 hours ago • Like • 2

Barbara A. Drescher The wine segment clearly refers to a story that didn't involve sexual contact at all. Of course you'd have to have read the story for this to be clear, but I believe it was added to PZ's post. The story was a woman who claimed that she asked Shermer to sign a book and he was chatty and flirty with her afterward. She said that he kept filling her wine glass. She found it creepy and left. End of story. There is no victim to blame.
23 hours ago via mobile • Like • 2

Barbara A. Drescher I'll add that, like abuse of the term "privilege", calling every criticism of unsubstantiated claims "victim blaming" is a convenient dodge of personal responsibility. This issue is not black and white. There is very little in this world that can be categorized so neatly into "always right" and "always wrong". That's why we have systems in place to help us decide where the lines are *as a society*.
22 hours ago via mobile • Like • 2

Carrie Poppy Oh, if it was a reference to the "creepy" wine thing, that's fine (I hadn't even heard that story). But the woman who made the statement to PZ said the story involved alcohol, too. She says she was raped.
22 hours ago • Like

Carrie Poppy Actually, I shouldn't say "that's fine." It's still not a very responsible thing to do right now. But it's certainly different from the reference I thought he was making, if you're right. And I would be somewhat relieved to learn you are.
22 hours ago • Like

Barbara A. Drescher You can't have it both ways. If drunk people are not responsible for the choices they make, then nobody should be prosecuted for drunk driving, are you prepared for that? All of this *sounds* very compassionate, but short-sighted thinking and rhetoric-driven behavior such as blacklisting and vigilantism is actually very, very irrational and harmful.
22 hours ago via mobile • Like • 2

Wendy Hughes It's a lot like the death penalty. It's across the board or not at all. You can't pick & choose who and when to apply it.
22 hours ago via mobile • Like • 3

Commenter #2 Maybe I'm just really naive about this, but if someone keeps giving you drinks, are you at all obligated to drink them? Can you not just say "no thanks" if a person keeps giving you drinks? Or give them to someone else if that person insists on buying you drinks? Unless you're being forced to drink (or are drugged) are you not responsible for your own actions and alcoholic intake?
21 hours ago • Edited • Like • 2

Carrie Poppy Again, I can't give more details. All I said was that alcohol was involved. There are a lot of assumptions being made here, and they are incorrect assumptions. I can't give you more details than that because the victim asked me not to.
21 hours ago • Like

Commenter #2 I'm talking strictly about a hypothetical situation, based on Mr. Deity's speech.
21 hours ago • Like

Carrie Poppy Okay. I'm not.
21 hours ago • Like

Barbara A. Drescher The details are not relevant. That's part of the problem with this conversation.
21 hours ago via mobile • Like

Barbara A. Drescher Try taking the bit on face value.
21 hours ago via mobile • Like

Carrie Poppy Well, I just lost faith in humanity.
21 hours ago • Like • 1

Commenter #5 Getting drunk and getting in a car to drive it implies action on the part of the drunk person. Getting drunk and and having something done to you (like sexual assault or robbery, say) doesn't mean you've actually made any decision except the decision to drink itself. I'm sure we'd all agree that if a drunk person is passed out in a public park, say, it doesn't mean we can all go have sex with them. Or if a drunk person passes out in your hotel room. Obviously not every situation is that clear, but I don't think this parallel totally passes muster.
21 hours ago • Like • 2

Barbara A. Drescher [Commenter #5], please do not misrepresent what I wrote. People who are passed out don't drive cars, either. They don't make choices. That's a straw man.
21 hours ago • Edited • Like

Commenter #5 Yes, that's true. Didn't mean to lump everything together like that. Was more of a response to other alcohol comments. I realize yours is a more nuanced comment.
21 hours ago • Like • 2

Barbara A. Drescher Thank you, [Commenter #5]. I expected someone to bring it up and I'm glad that it was you, since you clearly recognize the difference.
21 hours ago • Like • 2

[End part 1 of 2 (damn character limit)]