A Small Victory

In fact, she is now of the thought that a good portion of humanity sucks and that most of those who do suck often spend their days leaving comments on blogs.

Right.On.The.Button

I'm not exactly certain which I item I think is the most funny:

- that you so eloquently told people what to do with their ice cream

- that people actually think they have a right to tell you what to do with your blog.

Works for me. When I visit your Blog I consider myself a guest in your house and conduct myself accordingly. This doesn't mean I have to agree with every word you write. It does mean that there are limits to the way I express those disagreements.
You often write about things I have no interest in, your taste in music gives me the heebie-jeebies. So I crank up the Charlie Daniels and don't read what doesn't interest me.
I fail to understand why these simple concepts are so difficult for so many to grasp.

So because you have a house on a public road, I CAN'T come into it and tell you how to decorate? Damn! Do you know how COLD ice cream is?

Talk about "dense" -- I explicitly noted the e-mail address you'd pointed out, while I was busy replying to the other one, which I then sent out.

Wow. I hate it when I get dizzy.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

that most of those who do suck often spend their days leaving comments on blogs.

O.K. Now back to business. I think you should bring back the little dead girl and have an album poll for the 70's and a movie poll for the 80's and you should lay off Tedd Rall and Michael Moore and you need to have more about cartoons and less about Kerry and you should change the format back to the way it was three formats ago and...eek that ice cream's cold!

Wow, the ice cream feels kinda good actually.

Hmmm...I had to ask Dick Cheney what you meant about the ice cream. He referred me to Pat Leahy who offered to demonstrate. I declined his kind offer.

I'm only coming back when you decide to be sincere and forthright and stop hiding your real feelings.

We can work it out, Michele, we can work it out.

I am ready to see the talking doctor with you. I will make a committment to that.

As Joe Bob Briggs would say:
"I'm amazed I have to tell you people this stuff!"

I suck, and that's sad.

I suck, and that's sad.

That's weird. My comments showed up before previously left comments.

There just aren't enough people quoting Joe Bob Briggs these days.

Thus, you will see a lot of posts supporting the owner's ideals and opinions, and not so many - probably none - supporting yours.

Not true. I, also, am a fan of boobies.

Welcome to my world, Michele.

Having fornicated someone else with a mouthful of icecream, I can attest that it produces spectacular results.

bah - you used to many words to tell the moonbats off - just threaten them that you'll go 'Dick Cheney' on them and if they don't understand that then they can just go F*ck themselves.

Permission to modify slightly and use on my site well said, you go girl

Take a fucking chill pill mate.

Reminds me of the time Caz and Yobbo were having a big cry about people who commented in their comments sections too long after the original post!

How long is too long? Better ask those two clowns.

All men are capable of reason. That is the fundamental principle of democracy. Because everybody's mind is capable of true knowledge, you don't have to have a special authority or a special revelation telling you that this is the way things should be...........Joseph Cambell

Mmmmmmm, ice cream.....

ASV, the next Fox News. ;)

To have bias is right-wing and therefor fascist. Bias means you censor ideas.

Compare with leftwingers like myself. We have no bias. We are completely democractic, open minded and socially just. We have no bias. Looke at Michael Moore.

Meanwhile you have bias and it makes us sick, you fascist! Enjoy it while you can. It is only a matter of time before the Internet is regulated by the UN and fascists like you are shut down!

Looke (sic) at Michael Moore

No thanks.

Oh, look, another thoughtful, insightful post from a person on the left. Wow, what retoric, what brilliant words of wisdom!

Idiots. It just amazes me that you have to post the rules. I consider myself your guest. Most civilized people know that you don't poop on the carpet when you're a guest.

Elizabeth
Imperial Keeper

Here. Try wearing protective goggles before looking.

THE GOGGLES, THEY DO NOTHING!

That's the job of your audience, to point out the issues what you conveniently ignore, Michele. For example, I find it very telling that you excerpted an ENTIRE Ted Rall editorial yesterday save ONE critical paragraph on starting pay fo rthe armed forces and how it's a bad deal financially. And your defense is that you skipped "one or two issues" that aren't interesting to you. Why isn't the issue of Army pay interesting to you?

Does that issue detract from your point about how the Left is intellectually bankrupt?

You kick ass.

So does Joe Bob Briggs. Thank you, Toren.

Brad, try to comprehend this: My post was about Ted Rall's claims that a) soliders were not spit on and b) his continuing belief that soldier are dumb, poor killing machines. It was about TED RALL.

Get it? Probably not.

"That's the job of your audience, to point out the issues what you conveniently ignore, Michele"

No, that's probably the job for the audience of a mainstream newspaper that is ethically bound to be fair and balanced. It is NOT the job of the audience of an admittedly biased personal site.

I think it's quite possible to be open to discussion of issues relevant to sources used to counter points made or skipped from those sources, without claiming to represent a "fair and balanced" perspective. Oftentimes, for example, people make arguments by taking quoted sources out of context. I'm not trying to defend Rall--nor do I think you took him out of context in this case. However, by excerpting the entire piece except for a single paragragh you demonstrated something that I thought I would point out.

But your site is clearly not a public forum. I get it. You're a condescending narcissist, Michele. And a total waste of my time.

Ok, Brad. See ya.

Brad translated:

"WAAAAAAH! I can't make idiotic left-wing moonbat assertions without having them shredded and ridiculed! You're picking on my god, The great and wonderous Ted Rall! You're all a bunch of right-wing meanies! I'm going home to pout!"

And I forgot this- "I'm trolling for hits for my blog. Come on over! It's leftist so it's "fair and balanced". It's like having an intellectual lobotomy! It's bliissss!"

Not for nothing, but this post was not a left/right issue. And yet, somehow the comments ended up as such.

Yo, Brad. You really ought to read the post before you comment. You would be the subject. Have a nice, sad day.

Nowhere in the above editorial policy does it state whether anyone as yet has provided the blog with the necessary, full banana clips. That is what I want to know. Does the blog have a responsibility to report said risk? Where is the effing, "Will M Go Postal" meter?

Brad- nobody can waste your time here but you. Michele does not come over to your house and force you to read her blog.

As for the point of GIs being poor dumb schmucks, most of my fellow reservists make a good living, and most of us take a pay cut when we go on active duty. Sometimes a huge one. We are not bribed, nor are we coerced.

Michele,

It's inevitable nowadays that even the slightest mention of a political figure/columnist/issue will turn any particular post into a left/right mud-slinging festival er, debate.

As far as my smart-ass reply/replies to Brad's posts , I couldn't resist.

When I see someone put on the airs of an arrogant pseudo-intellectual asshat and start throwing gratuitous insults at the blogger, I have a compulsion to mock and ridicule them.

If I go "over the top", just give me a "cease and desist" order and I'll stop.

I don't try to violate any particular blog's code of conduct on purpose. If I did, I apologize.

E-Man

But your site is clearly not a public forum. I get it. You're a condescending narcissist, Michele. And a total waste of my time.

Pot. Brass kettle. Black. Etc., etc.

Brad: "I'm taking MY ball and going HOME! Waaaaaahhhhh!!! Michele won't cater to my whims!!!! Waaaaaahhhh!"

Fuck you, crybaby. Go get your own blog and rip into Michele from there... she MIGHT even leave your trackbacks up there... maybe.

Now, on a different note... does this policy apply to me, since I've been telling you write a certain post for a few weeks now.... oooohhh, that ice cream is cool and creamy!

excuse me for a bit....

"...a total waste of my time."

Got 'im with a curve ball, Michele!

The big problem with sending you a check every two weeks and being your blog-boss would be that whole Sexual Harassment Policy thing.

I, for one, do not want to be sexually harassed. It's just downright creepy, eh.

Love your site. Love your rules even more. My blog is too new and under the radar to have comment problems (altho I have had a few looney ones), but I'm saving your rules in case I ever get them. Keep up the good work.

Go with registration -- all the cool kids are doing it.

It's crazy to just leave piles of crap sitting around in your comments, but unreasonable to expect you to take the time to police them. I hear you have a life, a job and everythang.

Add some accountability and make people own their words, it won't solve the problem but may make people think twice before pissing on the carpet. Email harassment is harder, but a start would be not making your email quite so public. Use a contact form. It will add a bit of complexity keeping away the most dimwitted and provide you with more header information for filtering and dropping the banhammer when necessary.

I simply don't understand this. All I do is make a reference from time to time that my weblog is not an objective news source, and the idiots either shut up, get shouted down, or go away.

Well, or I ban them.

They used to pull this crap in the BBS days, too. I was called a "fascist sysop". I started wearing that label with pride.

Meryl's right. The inability of some people to "get it" goes back at least as far as the BBS era, and probably farther.

I remember at one point arguing with a guy and eventually getting around to saying, look, let's say our sysop, instead of putting up a BBS with his own time, equipment, and money, instead started a neighborhood drive to feed the hungry and went around collecting cans, and distributed them to families in need. Would you piss on him because he brought you bean with bacon when you wanted chicken noodle?

And the answer was--I'm not making this up--yes, because the guy would have had no business starting a food drive like that; that, I was told, is the job of government.

What can you say to someone like that? I threw up my hands and said "I give." Hopeless.

How long do you have to have a blog for this to be a problem?

Right now, I wouldn't mind people leaving nastygram comments on my blog because that would mean people are reading it.

(Of course, it might help if I gave them something unique or interesting to read.)

Interesting. Brad has a blog called "Sad Parade"...how apt.

BTW Michele, you totally kick ass. ASV is on of the few blogs I read frequently, and by frequently I mean I'm checking in here five or six times a day. I love your writing, your sense of humor and the way you go off on moonbats. Reading an article or a post where you tear into some slack-jawed knuckle draggin' asshat is a thing of beauty to behold. Pleas don't ever stop.

If you read between the lines it's clear what people want: more info on upcoming Night Ranger tour dates and more discussions about Jack Blades' solo & side projects.

http://groups.msn.com/NightRanger/

I am a close personal friend of Joe Bob Briggs.

...this post was not a left/right issue. And yet, somehow the comments ended up as such.

Hell, all I did was post a pic of cute baby lions with "Caption it if you want" and I got a farking poem about Iraq from a liberal blogger.

You can't escape it no matter what you do, Michele cause people are idiots.

God, Brad, you are one whiny crybaby.

You have your own blog (suck... er, such as it is). Go there and bitch about anything and everything to your shrivelled little heart's content. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

Dare I hope we won't hear from Brad ever again?

I humbly suggest the following addition (which suggestion probably violates your guidelines and renders me dense) to those who still don't get it:
Prior to using said ice cream to Cheney yourself it would be wise to use it as an aid in removing the cork stuck so high up your ass. [And if the shoe fits - you can use that in lieu of ice cream.]
Ivan

"The owner of this site has run out of patience with people in general. In fact, she is now of the thought that a good portion of humanity sucks"

Maybe that's why you're "right of center."

In the meantime, you done been challenged by RNCWatch to find the quotes alleging that those of us "off our collective rocker" are planning all sorts of craziness during the Republican National Convention.

Take the challenge -- or admit that the police and local media are spreading lies to make the defenders of democracy seem "off their collective rocker."

Cheers.

Why does it have to be one or the other, Jed? Everything I've been reading about the "defenders of the democracy" and BY those people lead me to believe that the police aren't talking out of their asses on this one.

That's funny, Michele. I interviewed a dozen organizers of the events, including the dread anarchists (of which I am not one) and here's what they had to say:

http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/96125/index.php

Here's what I had to say:

http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/96072/index.php

Here's a debate largely among anarchists using Indymedia and what they had to say:

http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/96512/index.php

But hey, I'd be game to see your links if you weren't backing out of RNC Watch's challenge... Since you "don't have the time" to ensure the veracity of your own claims...

If I made those claims up out of thin air, I'd be responsible for backing them up. But I was quoting a source.

Got a problem, ask them to back their claims up. I didn't make the claims, they did.

Oh, and here's a great research packet from Chris Anderson of The Indypedent on the "fear factor" before large protests over the last four years. He chronicles the yellow journalism of our times.

Ah... the "liberal" media...

http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/97252/index.php

Ok, Jed. So any violence that has happened at protests in the past few years has either not really happened or is not the fault of the protesters.

Got it. Thanks.

But they are lying. No such quotes exist. The NYC Independent Media Center is the largest center for debates on what's going to happen during the RNC protests and I've seen nothing of the type.

Here's the real question: Why would they lie?

Then again, there's those WMDs were not even looking for anymore...

And Cheney's little energy meetings...

And the flowers and songs from grateful Iraqis...

I guess you're punch drunk from too many glasses of bull.

Name one person convicted of violence at a recent protest.

Find one link to protesters at any event of the type we are discussing attacking anyone.

In the Daily News article that started this discussion there were images of police trampling non-violent protesters with horses and shooting projectiles.

There were none of protesters hurting anyone.

Back it up, Michele.

So we're limiting it to presidential election protests?

Narrow margin.

Well, there were tens of thousands at Bush's innauguration (as shown in the recent film Fahrenheit 911) and then again in Philly and LA.

John Timony arrested over 400 people.

Imagine if that happened in another country. Dozens of those arrests were "pre-emptive" and entirely illegal as later determined by the Philly courts. But you don't hear about that when the same kind of anti-democratic fear-mongering picks up again.

At the DNC in LA, a concert (?!) of all things was attacked by the LAPD with "pellets" and chemical sprays.

But I would include:

Seattle and the WTO

DC anti-World Bank and IMF protests

New York protests against the World Economic Forum (organized largely by anarchists and entirely peaceful except for one police assault based on the attire of demonstrators)

The Feb. 15, 2003 protests which were denied permits and then assualted by mounted police.

------

This isn't the 1960s you know. Things have changed and the hardline control tactics of police are just plain wrong. When privately owned, partisan media begins to spread distortion and outright fabrications, I would think you'd step up to expose it.

I mean, wasn't that was wrong with the Soviet Union and Pravda? Why be a patsy?

Hamster. Wheel. Run.

As a long time reader but very infrequent commenter, I promise to follow the rules!

Ah, yes Michelle. The "peaceful anachist". A term so much more often honoured in the breech (at least since THoreau) than the observance that it is simply nothing more than an oxymoron of the military intelligence variety. Nothing more ironic than watching a bunch of amateur, (virtually all white) upper middle class nihilists (yeah, go ahead folks, tell me how diverse you are and how many of you folks can actually describe yourselves as members of the lumpen proletariat) attempt to create chaos (anarchy)by disrupting traffic, destroying property (I guess since all property is theft breaking windows and causing damages to stores is peaceful)on behalf of the workers of the world. Most of them wouldn't recognize a worker if they saw one. Of course attempts at chaos will always generate a response. (In Seattle the cops were overwhelmed and unprepared. In DC the cops were instructed to shut everything down quick - and did. And yes they did over respond. I work near the World Bank. Ironically the biggest complaint about police mis treatment came from the vegatarians who thought it oppressive that their jail food consisted of bologna sandwiches. Nothing worse than being forced to eat working class food I suppose. No whole grains in jail.) So yeah, let's create chaos and dare the state to stop us - so we can scream violence and oppression when they do. That passive agreessive approach is nothing new. Nothing wrong with chaos and anacrchy every now and then. I enjoy it. I just don't express shock and dismay when someone makes me stop. But that is just me.