With Malice Aforethought

[MCB]

You know what would be hilarious is to do some "word print" studies (or whatever the current technology is) and see how many are sock puppets and who else (NOT on that board) has the same style. I think you have some connections in that area....

Probably not worth the effort, but still....!!

That would be interesting, I agree. Who knows what they might come up with!! Of course, according to some of the argumentation on this board, all word-print studies are invalid, or at the most, questionable.

I am getting deep into moderating the book. Who knows, maybe some LDS might think I am liberal LDS. I do get along well with them, it is the "Skousenites" I have trouble with. Even you, with your wild philosophical ideas, I find-- interesting, but not threatening.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

That would be interesting, I agree. Who knows what they might come up with!! Of course, according to some of the argumentation on this board, all word-print studies are invalid, or at the most, questionable.

I am getting deep into moderating the book. Who knows, maybe some LDS might think I am liberal LDS. I do get along well with them, it is the "Skousenites" I have trouble with. Even you, with your wild philosophical ideas, I find-- interesting, but not threatening.

The real question, is when are they going to do an appropriate word study and actually get who the author is. Not just a study that says, out of canidates X,y,and,z z is the closest.

[MCB]

You minimize. Especially given the parallels with other literature available at the time. Especially Clavigero and Maccabees. Those parallels exist primarily in the parts attributed to Spalding. That is reasonable, given that he was a well-educated person.

I'm busy right now. Bye----

[Honorentheos]

LOL. You might feel a bit differently if you had been a regular victim of his anonymous slanders and misrepresentations for several years, as I have been.

I used to find him irritating and somewhat puzzling. But after four years (or more, now? I haven't really calculated) of being incessantly targeted by him for character assassination, I've come to find him mostly a predictable albeit vile bore.

He has an audience in the low to middle double digits, I'm guessing, and a following of probably four or five (of whom at least one and possibly two may be spoofing him). Some on his board find him as absurd and as wearisome as I do; they've written me privately and told me so. It finally dawned on me that there was really no great value in spending much effort on rebutting his never-ending distortions and accusations -- to say nothing of the out and out fictions that his "informants" have been foisting off on him over the past several months -- and, since that was essentially the only reason I was over on his message board, I quit posting there.

Life is better, paying less attention to his malicious foolishness.

Oh, I agree with this last sentence completely. What I find most humorous is that he explicitly claims to have created this character Dr. Scratch as a parody of you. It wouldn't surprise me if both MFB AND you are correct. He could very well be maintaining sock puppets as well as telling you he doesn't agree with the root character's behavior.

Or it could all be a lie. Or ....

Since I'm not on the boards for hero worship in any form, I don't really care either way. I don't bear him malice. I didn't care for his treatment of LOAP, and expressed that I saw his behaviour as being out of hand. But I also see in many of his non-personal attacks an intelligence that can cut quickly to core matters in a way that is rather remarkable.

But he seems to have made you his hobby, or better said you are actually his raison d'etre as a character. I envision it somewhat like the two protagonists spinning down from the airplane explosion at the beginning of Rushdie's The Satanic Verse.

[LifeOnaPlate]

I take it that MCB isn't joking, right? This isn't just a colossal, wildly over-the-top send-up of anti-Mormon excesses?

My initial thought was that it was a really labor-intensive joke. It's being posted under a pseudonym on a website run by people who have fashioned dumb lies about little old me only made my initial thought seem more plausible. I admit, I'm not so sure now, and I don't really care to find out.

[Daniel Peterson]

What I find most humorous is that he explicitly claims to have created this character Dr. Scratch as a parody of you.

Mister Scratch wasn't a parody of me, but I imagine that his adoption of a "doctorate" was.

Other than that, though, I don't really see the parody. If what he does had any real similarity, even as a caricature, to what I do, maybe that would make sense. But it doesn't.

Since I'm not on the boards for hero worship in any form, I don't really care either way.

I'm not on the boards for hero worship, either. But being on the receiving end of four years of virtually unrelenting slander from Scratch, I do sometimes care. I don't enjoy being portrayed as an anti-Semite, for instance, or being called a liar time after time after time after time. (The thrilling novelty wears off after forty or fifty iterations of the charge.)

I don't bear him malice.

Nor do I.

But I also see in many of his non-personal attacks an intelligence that can cut quickly to core matters in a way that is rather remarkable.

His "non-personal attacks" are a relatively small proportion of his overall output.

His approach seems to me something like that of a malignant bizarro-world People Magazine, focused almost entirely on personalities rather than on substantive issues -- and devoted very largely to me.

But he seems to have made you his hobby, or better said you are actually his raison d'etre as a character. I envision it somewhat like the two protagonists spinning down from the airplane explosion at the beginning of Rushdie's The Satanic Verse.

It's not a matter of moral equivalence, or of equal-but-opposite obsessions. If it weren't for his persistent, malignant, never-ending crusade to smear me and, to a lesser degree, some of my associates, I wouldn't pay him even the slightest attention. As it is, I'm paying him less and less. In and of himself, I have no interest in him whatever.

[Wiki Wonka]

Uh, this is a pretty big post. Shouldn't this rather be on a wiki page, or part of the FAIR library somewhere? You know, someplace more accessible?

We tend not to waste wiki space on works that contain chapter titles such as "Brighamites as Shape-Shifters." A work that has zero potential impact requires zero effort to refute.

WW

[Wiki Wonka]

Mister Scratch wasn't a parody of me, but I imagine that his adoption of a "doctorate" was.

"Mister Scratch" is the opponent of "Daniel" in The Devil and Daniel Webster.

WW

[Daniel Peterson]

We tend not to waste wiki space on works that contain chapter titles such as "Brighamites as Shape-Shifters." A work that has zero potential impact requires zero effort to refute.

Yeah. That's a bit of my problem, too. Some specimens of malignant and egregious absurdity are just plain fun to "rebut," but one has to ask oneself whether it's really worth spending much time on them, and even whether giving them attention might elevate them to a prominence that they richly don't deserve. This seems an obvious instance.

[Daniel Peterson]

"Mister Scratch" is the opponent of "Daniel" in The Devil and Daniel Webster.

Ah yes!

I know the play, of course, and I knew that Mister Scratch was a nickname for the devil, but, somehow, I hadn't thought of the "opponent of 'Daniel'" angle.

I guess I really am his raison d'

[urroner]

I know the play, of course, and I knew that Mister Scratch was a nickname for the devil, but, somehow, I hadn't thought of the "opponent of 'Daniel'" angle.

Dr. Dan, didn't you know the "devil" is in the details. Interesting angle indeed.

[mfbukowski]

With all the talk of internet bullying of late one wonders at what point there are legal ramifications if genuine damages could potentially be shown.

Perhaps such a course could at least shut him up.

[LifeOnaPlate]

With all the talk of internet bullying of late one wonders at what point there are legal ramifications if genuine damages could potentially be shown.

Perhaps such a course could at least shut him up.

He usually responds with further aggression to any sort of hint of going after him for his online behavior. When I mentioned the possibility that his lies about a review I wrote constituted libel he exploded with glee, turning my comment into a "threat," that I was threatening a lawsuit. Of course, I didn't threaten at all, but Scratch's modus operandi is to twist whatever you actually say into his narrative. Sometimes his twisting is pretty clever. I view him not as an actual person, but a character of sorts, who doesn't really perceive his actions as bullying any more than what he believes DCP and a few other people have done. The most remarkable thing about it to me is the longevity and time spent. It's embarrassing now to think I helped fuel the fire by engaging with him in the past, sometimes with a good deal of snarky attitude. In fact, even making this comment has more potential to encourage him than to discourage his efforts.

[mfbukowski]

The last thing I would ever do is modify what I would say because it will be picked up over there. I am kind of surprised I have seen no reaction to what has already been said here, maybe I have missed it.

I just can't understand the mentality of people who take an "anti" anything position- living their lives to be against something with apparently having very little to live for which is positive and creative on their own. It must be a very pathetic way to live.

Someone opened up a thread there recently just to get me to post over there with Simon. I can't understand that mentality. When I go over there all I get is abuse. Why would I want to post there?

[Tarski]

I just can't understand the mentality of people who take an "anti" anything position- living their lives to be against something with apparently having very little to live for which is positive and creative on their own. It must be a very pathetic way to live.

I've seem many that seem opposed to what they call the gay agenda. But that's different right?

[USU78]

I've seem many that seem opposed to what they call the gay agenda. But that's different right?

Johnny could only sing one note

And the note he sings was this

Ah!

Poor Johnny one-note

sang out with "gusto"

And just overlorded the place

Poor Johnny one-note

yelled willy nilly

Until he was blue in the face

For holding one note was his ace

Couldn't hear the brass

Couldn't hear the drum

He was in a class

By himself, by gum!

Poor Johnny one-note

Got in Aida

Indeed a great chance to be brave

He took his one note

Howled like the North Wind

Brought forth wind that made critics rave,

While Verdi turned round in his grave!

Couldn't hear the flute

Or the big trombone

Every one was mute

Johnny stood alone.

Cats and dogs stopped yapping

Lions in the zoo

All were jealous of Johnny's big trill

Thunder claps stopped clapping,

Traffic ceased its roar,

And they tell us Niagara stood still.

He stopped the train whistles,

Boat whistles,

steam whistles,

Cop whistles,

all whistles bowed to his skill

Sing Johnny One-Note,

Sing out with "gusto" and

Just overwhelm all the crowd

Ah!

So sing Johnny One-Note, out loud!!

Sing Johnny One-Note

Sing Johnny One-Note out loud!

[Tarski]

Johnny could only sing one note

Aren't you embarrassed by this?

One note?

Would that be my hundreds (maybe thousands) of posts about Mormonism and evolution, physics, philosophy to name a few topics? Or would it be my handful of posts on homosexuality?

By the way, you are your friend gave me references to prove that the gay lifestyle was full of violence (I called CFR). I read them both and found out that lesbian relationships suffer less violence than male-female relationships. The only point was to make sure people were aware that (surprisingly) there is also some violence in lesbian relationships.

Looking over the whole thing we find out the unsurprising result that the more males involved the higher the incidence of violence:

female-female-relationships (some domestic violence)

male-female relationships (more violence)

male-male (still more violence)

It isn't homosexuality that is the factor of correlation. Apparently the problem is "maleness". I assume you don't want to discourage men from being in relationships even if it would lower domestic violence.

Now go read the pages long thread called "dangerous knowledge" or one of my several older threads about evolution and anthropomorphic gods and then tell me again what is this one note I am singing.

The fact is that the mathematician and philosopher in me cares about noticing bad arguments, false analogies, hypocrisy (in this case) and lack of evidence.

I am ashamed to say that I have done very little to support gay rights. It isn't my hobby horse--far from it.

One note indeed.

[mfbukowski]

Aren't you embarrassed by this? .......

One note indeed.

That sword cuts two ways.

I think the point was that indeed I also recall discussing one or two other issues with you besides the "gay agenda".

Just one or two.

[Pahoran]

Aren't you embarrassed by this?

One note?

Would that be my hundreds (maybe thousands) of posts about Mormonism and evolution, physics, philosophy to name a few topics? Or would it be my handful of posts on homosexuality?

Tarski,

no-one brought anything "gay" into the thread until you did, with your rather "gay" post about "gay rights."

If it had been Darin, whose sole purpose here is to promote his "gay" agenda, we'd have heard him coming a mile away.

Likewise, if it had been a certain other person who denies being "gay" almost as strenuously as he champions homophile anti-Mormonism, then we'd know what it was about as soon as we saw his name in the thread.

But when you appear in the thread only to insert something "gay" into it, in reply to nothing that anyone else said, then that seems at least potentially a bit obsessive. And you do seem to have been rather exercised upon the subject of late.

One note indeed.

Indeed.

Now, as the thread originator, it is my view that "gay" issues, Tarski's interest in the same, and "Doctor" Scratch are all equally off-topic.

Thus, if no-one else has anything to say about MCB's dreadful screed, or my review thereof, it may be time to close this thread.

Regards,

Pahoran

(Edited to ease Tarski's feelings of persecution.)

[Tarski]

Tarski,

no-one brought anything "gay" into the thread until you did, with your rather "gay" post about "gay rights."

It was brought in not as a new topic but to make a point about the the hypocracy of ranting against people who are "against things".

You aren't running on enough neural power to see that, and so you and other equally distractable folk decide that I am trying to redirect the thread to the subject of gay rights. I'm not, but your reaction has ironicaly caused it.

The mere mention of homosexuality causes some people to do a 180 and miss whatever the main point might have been.

Such people behave like a bull seeing red. They just can't handle it.

The same point could have been made with another example, perhaps political or something.

One could have responded to the real point.

The correct response would have been "Oh point taken! I guess it is sometimes OK to be actively against something".

[blah blah blah]... Tarski's "orientation,"

lol

Let it be noted that, with an attempt at plausible deniability, Pahoran has stooped to insinuating that I am gay.

Whatever.

I am reminded of a quote by Christopher Hitchens regarding religious leaders who repreatedly and feverishly denounce homosexuality. I am forced to paraphrase: "I have a rule of thumb for such clerics and have never known it to fail: Set your watch and sit back, and pretty soon they will be found..."...ahem,...in a compromised position.

http://www.slate.com/id/2268796/

There really never was a point in responding to you Pahoran. All you do is jump in from the sidelines with aggressive insulting personal and self-righteous attacks and you seldom if ever wield the sword of logic or evidence. Hence there is never really anything important to respond to.

[Daniel Peterson]

I remember the topic of the thread.

Does anybody else?

I had never previously paid any attention to MCB, but I have to admit that her book looks like a laugh riot. What a credit to the website on which it's featured!

[Tarski]

I remember the topic of the thread.

Does anybody else?

I had never previously paid any attention to MCB, but I have to admit that her book looks like a laugh riot. What a credit to the website on which it's featured!

Has anyone considered the possibility that this is exactly why it is linked to on the Caussius U. website?

Isn't someone's tongue planted fairly close to, if not firmly inside, their cheek?

Someone needs to figure out how seriously this Causius thing is supposed to be. Perhaps your chains are being yanked rather hard.

[Daniel Peterson]

Has anyone considered the possibility that this is exactly why it is linked to on the Caussius U. website?

Yup.

Isn't someone's tongue planted fairly close to, if not firmly inside, their cheek?

Again, yup. And not only mine.

Someone needs to figure out how seriously this Causius thing is supposed to be.

You mean, you haven't always known that it was just a fairly lame and much too long joke?

Perhaps your chains are being yanked rather hard.

But, well, umm, Tarski? I'm like, you know, not the one who seems to be realizing only now that it's a spoof . . . ???

[Tarski]

Yup.

Again, yup. And not only mine.

You mean, you haven't always known that it was just a fairly lame and much too long joke?

But, well, umm, Tarski? I'm like, you know, not the one who seems to be realizing only now that it's a spoof . . . ???

Well, I have been on friendly terms with Gadianton for a long time. But still, he doesn't always make it clear where the humor ends and begins. Maybe you have it figured out better than me but I doubt it.

I take it to be a mixture of spoof and faux-seriousness with other things intended to be taken as serious points (albeit presented in the context of the overall joke and with a sort of sardonic humor).

[Daniel Peterson]

I wonder if MCB understands that your friend is mocking her, and exposing her to ridicule.

Or do you think that her voluminous tome is, itself, a joke?