Soj, you are a character! I mean that literally. It seems that your identity and the particulars of your life and career came under a bit of scrutiny on both the Daily Kos and Booman Tribune. As if that weren’t bad enough, the findings of these discussions found their way into the hands of your nemeses the Super Patriots. Now I find that you have penned the most bizarre mea culpa it has ever been my displeasure to read. Unfortunately, that writing raises far more questions than it answers. Soj of March 2006 writes:
The truth is that I have not always been “me”, that is to say “Soj”. I use a pseudonymn and protect my own privacy for a number of reasons, but how I became “Soj” involves someone who was very close to me and the idiot Super Patriots have managed to re-open that wound.
The person they say I am is “SE Reames”. Just about everyone who knew him called him “Eddy” however and he was a very good friend of mine, someone I’ve known for over 20 years. He’s not here anymore, which is why it hurts, and these bozos got their laughs off of me like they wanted to.
I don’t know how Eddy had been using the internet, but I know for a long time his nickname (or “handle” as they used to call it) was Sojosoniq. That was what he called his “DJ name” because he used to spin records when he lived in Des Moines, Iowa. He never made any professional records or anything, but he used to upload his mixes onto the internet and “Sojosoniq” was his DJ name…. At some point while at my house, he showed me this DailyKos website (which by the way is the first time I’d ever heard of the word “blog”), logging on as “Soj”. Why it wasn’t Sojosoniq, I don’t know, maybe because it was a political website and he wanted a more “serious” name. I don’t know and frankly I don’t care.
Soj of June 2005 wrote:
I’ve never done this before but I think now is as good as time as any to explain the name “soj”.
First, it is most definitely inspired by the feminist Sojourner Truth, who spoke with incredible courage at a time when she was a double non-entity – both black and a woman. Her speeches and statements are online and if you look at the date she spoke them, it just amazes me that anyone could speak “truth to power” at a time when the mentality was so different.. and so hostile to what she had to say. That’s real courage and it inspires me daily to stand up for and to say what’s right.
Secondly, I like the second part of her name, which is “truth”. And that’s something that inspires me every day, to speak the truth on the issues I feel are important.
Third, the word “sojourner” comes from an old Latin root, which means someone who “sojourns”, or to be a “temporary traveler”. Since I’ve traveled all my life and been a temporary resident everywhere I’ve lived, I am indeed a living sojourner. It’s also a semi-synonymn with the word “pilgrim” and I often feel like my entire life has been a pilgrimage.
Fourth, “The Sojourner” by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, is one of the most profound and moving books I’ve ever read in my life. I regret to say my copy of this book is in a box in the USA now, but I’ve read it dozens and dozens of times and the story is in my heart if not on my bookshelf.
So were you lying then or are you lying now?
Now when you say that your long lost friend Eddy introduced you to blogs when he showed you Daily Kos — you know, the first time you’d heard the word “blog” — was that before or after your pursuit of Tom Tomorrow led you to the same discovery.
Seven or eight years ago I used to read a free newspaper in a midwestern city, which had what I thought was a local comic strip of biting political satire. It turns out that comic was This Modern World, distributed nationally, written by a genius who calls himself Tom Tomorrow.
Approximately three years ago, in a late-night web surfing session, I re-discovered that comic strip online and there on his site was a “blog”. One thing led to another and I was soon visiting others, including DailyKos, and joined up.
So Eddy let you borrow his password and post under his name. What a guy.
So perhaps a half dozen times in 2003, if you find some ancient old comment on there under “Soj”, that was me. But the vast majority of them were him. It was a fairly small website at that time and neither he nor I had any idea of what would come in the future.
The first soj diary currently listed in the Daily Kos data base, a diary entitled “What’s Going on in Russia” is dated 11/1/03. I count 73 diaries in 2003, mostly on foreign affairs, and strangely, including several of the World Updates that you do to this day, under the name PDB. Is that an idea you took from the late Eddy Reames — God rest his soul — along with his identity?
The first comment in the data base is dated 10/14/03. I count 438 comments in 2003 under the nickname soj. I’ve read a number of them. The writing style is awfully similar to yours. A lot of them are in the area you take such pride in, foreign affairs. And many of them are in the threads for World Updates by soj.
And while we’re on the subject of World Updates, another important point suggests itself. Your first World Update appears on Daily Kos on 11/8/03. On 11/12/03 another World Update becomes the first post on a blog then called “Flogging the Simian” now called “An American in Romania.” It is the blog of someone called soj, but it appears in November of 2003; a time when you claim to have only contributed a half a dozen posts under your friend’s moniker. Someone started this blog. Was it the late, great Eddy Reames, or was it you?
In an entry dated 12/31/04 you say, “I started my blog in November of 2003, covering the revolution in the Republic of Georgia.” You thank the many people who helped you with Flogging the Simian.
My humble and eternal gratitude goes to: PB, BC, HH, SS, BL, RC, PF, EF, SM, CT, GB, MB, SM, EB, KC, EA, JK-S, TH-J, JG, SH, DT, VR, RYP, JT, BS, DM and last but not least, Debra Bennett. I sure hope I haven’t forgotten anyone š
You’ve forgotten SER, Samuel Edward Reames, your dear departed friend, who gave you your entre into the blogosphere. That’s quite an oversight.
And now, according to you, you’ve co-opted not only the ideas, but the identity of a dead man, so you could feel close to him. That’s a little creepy.
So to answer your question, at some point after his death, I was on the internet and on the DailyKos site. And partly to honor his memory and feel like a piece of him was “still there”, and partly just due to laziness, I continued to use his nickname.
I’m also a little confused about this.
Idema always claims to have contacts in military intelligence. Let me tell you what a damned lie that is, because the real military intelligence contacted me two years ago asking me (in confidence) if I was Eddy Reames, etc. I had a courteous discussion with that officer and she and I have had a productive relationship ever since, but then again she is a real officer and not a blowhard show-off like Idema and the “anti-sex trafficker” crew.
Two things: 1) What exactly is the “real” military intelligence? There are 4 branches of the US military: Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. Each has its own intelligence division. The Coast Guard has yet another. Who contacted you? Naval Intelligence? Coast Guard Intelligence? How does your contact with this one officer give you such insight into Idema’s alleged contacts? Did this officer speak for every military intelligence agency? Did they tell you that Idema had no contact with any of those agencies? 2) Being an “anti sex trafficker” is a bad thing? Who on earth do you know who is “pro sex trafficking?”
You tell us that Eddy was a pretty simple guy, and never did the exciting things that you imply you have done.
He never had anything but civilian, unclassified jobs at ordinary places of employment like a hardware store.
The outrageous nature of your career claims have been well covered elsewhere. Are you now attempting to throw a little sand in our eyes and obscure your job record once again? Is this you or the late Eddy Reames describing menial work on 12/4/03?
As for being “distracted” by a menial job, I rather find that menial jobs pay me a little but don’t ask me to think too much. I use that time to think and read and research and just generally learn things that otherwise I’d never have time to do. I might get paid only X dollars per hour, but in a sense, the City of Macon (and so many other jobs before it) are paying me to:
Read the news, learn Romanian, build complicated charts and datasets in Excel, read internal Homeland Security documents, learn how to file/write grants to federal agencies, meet criminals and the victims of crime and hang out with all kinds of lower-income people I’d never otherwise meet, etc, etc.
I only ask because it strikes me that, if it’s Eddy, you two had a lot in common: an interest in Romania, working for the Macon PD and Homeland Security… Yet this post describes it as menial work. Whereas this more recent post makes it sound much more exciting and important.
A few years ago I was unemployed and through a moderately strange series of flukes, I ended up working in law enforcement. I should mention here I’ve been a lifelong pacifist. I was “promoted” straight to the Detective Bureau and worked murders, rapes, armed robberies and child molestations.
Eventually 9/11 happened and the creation of Homeland Security and because of my skills, I ended up working with the federales for a while. I got far enough inside the alphabet soups that I knew that this was not the right career path for me. In fact, I was strongly disillusioned by the sheer lack of understanding on the part of those who should be better informed and knowledgeable.
I quit all my positions in June 2004 after wrapping up a terrorist case and finalizing the preparations for the G-8 summit in Sea Island.
Then, of course there’s this from the blog of… someone called soj, which again describes the job as pretty mundane. It’s from 3/19/04, a few months before you claimed in the previous post to have been retiring from law enforcement. At what point did your illustrious law enforcement career really take off?
A lot of people already know this, so it’s not like I’m giving away state secrets or anything, but in case you didn’t already know, I work for the police.
Let me just clarify this issue right up front, because I know a lot of the people who visit this odd little corner of the universe come from countries with different kinds of police. Let me clarify this: I am talking about the police in my town only. I can’t speak for all police. I am only going to speak about my police.
Also let me say before there’s any confusion: I am not a police officer. I do not carry a gun. I have never arrested anyone. I have never put anyone in jail. I do not drive a police car. My job is to interview people….
For the record: I work in a “normal” office. I sit behind a desk. I have a computer and a printer. There are no bright lights. There are no “1-way” mirrors. There are no videocameras or recorders of any kind.
My job is essentially to be the invisible third person in the room besides the detective and the suspect/witness/victim. When they’re talking, I type down everything they say. When I say “everything”, I mean everything.
Where I come from, that’s called stenography.
One more thing:
I’m an intensely private person and I’ve been keeping my personal life to myself since I was 13, when I tricked a person who lied to me when giving me an “assessment” test. I should tell you all about that sometime, about how a certain very prestigious university was trying to recruit pre-teens for a special program over the summer, but that’s neither here nor there today.
Now you’re just giving me a headache.
Crossposted from The Blogging Curmudgeon and Flogging the Simian.
uncool to call a person out in a diary. I’m not amused by your tag-teaming with your Curmudgeon counterpart every time soj posts a diary. It’s rude that you choose to debate the person instead of the facts/ideas in the diary.
…from Soj’s defenders.
So when the question is posed, Why should we care if Soj has lied to us about his/her identity? The answer is….?
My answer which will probably not satisfy Soj’s staunch “believers” (and I use the word “believe” advisedly) is this:
There is a difference between not offering up an identity or proferring credentials, and fabricating an identity and credentials. If somebody writes a diary on global warming, for example, and doesn’t tell me anything about his background, I’ll judge the writing based on the work alone. If, on the other hand, somebody tells me, “Believe me because I’m an esteemed scientist” and I learn that he’s a clerk at the Kwik-E-Mart with no scientific training, then I feel I’ve been deliberately lied to about credentials in order for the writer to gain credibility he doesn’t deserve.
Either don’t offer credentials and identity, or be truthful about them. It is Soj who has founded his/her authority as a blogger on a false identity as this mysterious former law enforcement official whose name is a tribute to Sojourner Truth–and then it turns out that all of that is a lie. When somebody lies to me about something as basic as background and current identity, even misleading as to gender, then that person has destroyed his/her credibility.
So the answer–“debate the person instead of the facts/ideas in the diary”–is not an answer at all.
Soj has made Soj the issue, by issuing a pattern of lies about his/her background.
As for the charge of “tag-teaming”—we pointed out many obvious factual errors in two of Soj’s diaries, and rather than correct the factual errors in the diaries, Soj chose to delete the diaries and all appended comments. Talk about rude–other people (not just the Curmudgette and me) made an effort to read Soj’s diaries and comment intelligently on them. And Soj deleted the diaries without explanation or warning, erasing not only his/her own work but other people’s as well.
Which was very rude. As in “inconsiderate” and “self-centered”.
And, for purposes of clarification, the Curmudgette cross-posted this diary on Soj’s own site, Floggingthesimian.com, to give Soj a chance to defend himself–per Booman’s rules.
of anyone who has to endure target practice and character assassination. I hope you and Curmudgette sleep well tonight knowing that you wasted your time researching a person’s background rather than the issues they raise in their diaries.
What is and is not a good use of my time.
Open your eyes, man.
This person has deceived you and everyone who’s ever read his diaries.
Our intention was not to “tag-team.” We both noticed that there were historical and other inaccuracies in his diaries. Rather than address those inaccuracies, he pulled the diaries. This happened twice. Although I’ve since been told privately, and noticed in a comment on the Daily Kos by dtj, if memory serves, that he has a long history of pulling diaries when people point out errors of fact.
I’d also like to point out that all I’ve done is “debate the facts/ideas” in soj’s diaries and noted that he does not seem to be in agreement with himself.
of this diary seems solely to annoy and abuse another user, which is inappropriate as well as uncool.
So now instead of fighting the f*cking Repugs, we’re going to fight each other. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the technical jargon is circular firing squad.
Im no soldier for soj, but this is a total waste of time for anyone to read. You may get your jollies holding grudges against bloggers who construct confusing personas for themselves, but I don’t give a shit who you are or who any other blogger says they are. I come here for discourse and ideas, not for probing other bloggers identities like some obsessed stalker.
I’ve been re-reading this awful diary thread tonight, because this is the first time I’ve ever launched a 0 megatroll nuke (I changed them tonight to 1’s to be more in order with others here).
I think this post really hits the nail on the head about why this is so obnoxious.
I’ve never given out a zero here other than to nuke some comment spam that cropped up in earlier days, but I encourage you to let it fly when you encounter some crap like this. My only regret is that we can’t megatroll the whole diary out of existence.
I don’t care who anybody is, even the operatives.
I read what they have to say, and either agree or disagree with it. I probably disagree with soj 50-60% of the time, but s/he is a good word writer, and the “asl” of soj or anybody else is to be blunt, a matter of supreme indifference to me.
However, this thread has tempted me to start a rumor that soj is a very precocious 8 year old girl in Osaka, and Curmudgette is a well known professional Swiss yodeler who blogs in lederhosen.
A Contemplation:
If you tell the truth in a forest and people put their fingers in their ears and say loudly “LA LA LA LA!! I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” does the truth make a sound?
If you tell people the forest is on fire, do they burn to death?
The Definition of Irony:
Yesterday a front page diary appeared on this very site entitled “Blind.” In it Chris expressed amazement at the capacity of 20% of Americans to still strongly approve of Bush.
I, too, have contemplated long and hard the capacity for Americans to live in denial; clinging to beliefs, instead of looking at the proof of Bush’s many lies. It seems soj’s fans are equally impervious to facts and evidence.
For the Record:
As no one appears to be actually reading the content of this diary and checking the links, I’d like point out that I did not reveal soj’s identity. I was accused of this by many people on the Daily Kos before the diary was pulled, ostensibly for that reason. Soj revealed soj’s identity in his own diary. Or, at least, he revealed the identity of the original soj who he says is now deceased. In fact, the majority of my diary is soj in his own words. If those words are an assault on his character, perhaps you should take that up with him.
Let me ask you something: how come you did not post one single comment in Dkos?? Did you fear their wrath? or maybe being trolled beyond recognition???
Kossacks are notorious for abusing the rating system. How unfortunate that you’ve imported that behavior onto this site as well.
i’ve been an admirer of soj for a very long time. I admire soj’s writing and grasp of global issues and politics. I admire soj’s political philosophy.
I could give a fuck if soj is a 12 year old boy living in Des Moines, a twenty year old girl living in Macon, Georgia, or a 40 year old woman living in Romania.
Most of the people that have been after soj were doing it at the behest of a former associate of mine for purposes of revenge or spite or something. I have no idea what your motive is. But I don’t understand why discrepencies in how soj descibes herself takes away from the substance of what soj writes.
An enormous amount of energy is spent digging into soj’s past to find any hint of contradiction, but why anyone would want to silence or marginalize soj’s message is beyond me.
The only validity I can see in it is to question an occassional claim to insider knowledge. But whatever the truth of soj’s career, I know one thing. soj would be an asset to any intelligence agency’s crew of analysts.
I gave you a 2 as a warning. But you went ahead and gave Manny a 2 your transgression of calling out Soj was a lot worse so I had to re-adjust my ratings. Just so you know, it is the first time I give a 1 to someone here.
Adjust your glasses. I didn’t troll rate ManEgee or anyone else on this thread.
I mean Man Eegee. My apologies for the mis-spelling. Either way I didn’t troll rate him. My simple, clear, completely non-abusive response to him, however, was troll-rated into oblivion. I think it’s a sad commentary on this site that troll ratings are being used to express disagreement over matters of fact.
It is the fact that you are calling out Soj in that way. If you have problems with Soj’s writings you are entiteled to discuss it. However, this is personal (look at the title “Soj You’re a Fraud”) And, as I pointed out before, Many did notdeserve even a “warning”. That was when I decided to lower my rating. Like I said, I never gave anything below a 4 here.
I didn’t warn him. I didn’t rate his comment at all.
Since the overwhelming response here, including mine, is ‘why should we care?’ maybe you would rather answer that question than engage in a debate over ratings.
Because I could care less whether soj is a man or a woman, or why he/she chose her name, or where her job was interesting or boring, or any of this. I’ve never seen soj write anything anout world affairs that I found to be deliberately misleading.
So, why are you scouring through her personal life and making an issue of it?
I’m not scouring through his personal life. Everything I posted came from his own published writings. He thought the details were interesting enough to write them.
A short time ago, I posted comments on his diaries questioning some of his facts. His response was to pull the diaries, rather than address the historical and other inaccuracies. That struck me as bad faith.
My larger concern arose when I noticed another of his diaries on this site a while back. I find his naked appeals for cash crass. I like to know something about the charities to which I donate.
How’s this? Visit my store and buy some merchandise to help me pay my bills. I have a $800 rent bill, and over $400 dollars in utility and other phone bills. I have a $130 server bill. I need to reregister the ET url. I’d like to eat lunch today. Is that also crass?
What do you need to know about me?
In my opinion? Kind of. I look at like this. Money comes from work. The work should speak for itself. It’s one thing to charge a fee or ask for donations based on the content or service provided. It’s another to emotionally blackmail people with tales of woe. That’s my opinion. You are welcome to disagree. But I stand by it.
As to what I need to know? You’re pretty transparent about who you are and your agenda. Soj on the other hand weaves a tale of mystery about himself that would make me very uncomfortable donating funds. Understand I distinguish between seeking remuneration for a service, about which I don’t need to know much other than what I’m receiving in kind. Charities on the other hand require a good bit of transparency, imho.
I find it ridiculous that you think I am kind of thoughtless, vulgar, and insensitive as to lack all refinement or delicacy, because I occassionally ask people to support my efforts and pay my bills.
For the record, Booman, I have no problem sending you a direct donation. As Curmudgette pointed out, you provide a worthwhile service and you have expense to pay to keep this site operating.
However, it’s the nature of the appeal for cash–“I need money to live”–that’s a bit crass (although I can well and truly sympathize with being strapped for cash).
Appropriate appeal: “Help support Booman Tribune and its promulgation of Democratic/liberal politics by buying merchandise or sending a donation.”
Crass appeal: “I’ve got to pay my rent and buy groceries…send me money!”
I’ve actually seen you do both types of appeals. The first one is entirely appropriate…the second one much less so.
I think people who blog here SHOULD support Booman Tribune financially, because you give us a public space where our ideas can be published. You’re providing a service. That’s the only appeal you need to make.
As for Soj…ay yi yi yi. You’re defending the wrong person, Booman.
whatever.
Really.
But the phrase, “I could care less” grates on me, Booman.
The correct phrase is, “I couldn’t care less”, meaning that the matter is absolutely of no importance to you.
The phrase, “I could care less” means that the matter is of some importance to you and that you COULD care less (but you don’t).
Not to worry, it’s a common mistake, and nobody’s too old to learn.
Actually, you know, I wonder why you haven’t chastized Soj for recently pulling two diaries after the Curmudgette and I pointed out GLARING factual errors in it.
For example, Soj claimed that the Korean War didn’t end until 1955 (it actually ended in 1953) and that the Korean War was fought entirely by an all-volunteer army (it was fought almost entirely by draftees). Anybody who watched a single episode of MASH knew the latter fact.
Well, so what if Soj committed some factual errors? The point is, those “facts” were key to his argument, which tried to draw parallels between the current US occupation of Iraq by an army of all-volunteer soldiers, and the Korean War, which Soj claims was fought by an aromy of all-volunteer soldiers. Except the soldiers in Korea were almost all conscripts–I should know, my Dad was one.
All Soj had to do was correct those factual errors in his diaries–but correcting them would have ENTIRELY DESTROYED the parallels he was trying to draw…INVALDATING THE ENTIREY DIARY.
So what did Soj do? He deleted both that diary and another one, both of them riddled with factual errors.
Yet have you publicly criticized Soj for deleting those diaries? Or for refusing to correct important factual errors when others have pointed them out to him?
You say you “admire” Soj’s writing…I wonder why. I have been reading what you write for quite some time before I posted on this site, Booman, and you definitely know your facts–especially when they’re KEY to your argument.
Why not demand that Soj (and all bloggers here) be held to the same standard? Everybody slips from time to time, but with Soj it’s a pattern–wild misrepresentations, totally wrong “facts” that are central to his diaries, and a swift and sudden deletion of any diary where someone takes the time and trouble to point out the error of his ways.
(Awaiting troll rating by Cruz del Sur….)
I never even saw the diaries, nor did I know they were deleted until you told me. So, I cannot judge why they were deleted. Deleting diaries is the author’s prerogative, although it is often poor form to do so, since it erases other’s comments.
If you are correct that soj made a central error in her argument, she may have erased them because of that fact alone.
Frankly, I could care less.
You may have noticed a lack of diary police around here. You are one of the few people that has even managed to get a troll rating on this board. I am not in the habit of reprimanding people for making factual errors in their diaries.
As for why I admire soj’s writing, it should be obvious. I don’t have one-tenth her ability to gather and synthesize information, let alone do it in a few hours and present something as astounding as, for example, her PDB’s.
A talent like that is rarer than a Giant Panda, and just as precious. Why you want to poke the panda is a mystery to me.
Booman, just because I got a troll rating from Cruz del Sur doesn’t mean I deserved it. Maybe you should be chastizing Cruz del Sur for abusing his trusted user status and giving an undeserved troll rating, instead of blaming me for being on the receiving end? Just a thought…
Ok, this part really bothers me, Booman:
Two points:
I agree that Soj’s talent is “rarer than a Giant Panda”–but it’s a talent for somehow getting people to turn a blind eye to the fact that he bases many of his diaries on “facts” that he just fabricates, and bases his authorial authority on a fabricate identity.
And here’s the last bit that bothers me as well:
I translate that as I believe in Soj because I want to believe in him, and I don’t want the issue confused with facts…not even facts that he himself has presented in two entirely contradictory writings in which he claims to be two entirely separate people.
Am I wrong?
You are trying my patience.
In my experience, soj makes vanishingly few errors and is known to acknowledge them, respond to them, and correct them.
So, your entire premise is not one that I accept.
The rest of your argument is based on inconsistencies in how soj has represented herself. For example, soj has never claimed to be a man in any correspondence with me or in any post she has ever made. However, she once made a comment about her hair that makes people think she must be a man.
There is also a man that used a similar handle in other forums. That man may be soj, or it may not be soj. She says it was a friend who has since died. Do I care? No, I really don’t.
There are over 3,000 members of this site. I have no idea if they are who they present themselves to be. And I don’t care.
The reason I didn’t chastize soj is because a) I don’t chastize people for such things, especially when b) I don’t even know the facts.
I don’t need you to tell me who I should ‘believe in’. I believe in talent, and I support people that share my political views. If they are less than 100% transparent about their personal lives, I don’t give a shit, I could care less.
I also hope you know you are walking into a lion’s den on this issue, perhaps without realizing it. Many enemies of soj, are prominent trolls on this site…people that seek to disrupt this site and hurt its traffic and influence. I do not accuse you of being one of their members, but it might help you understand the response you got here.
A lion’s den?
Actually, I’ve had more trouble from Girl Scouts when I refused to buy their cookies.
You’re selling yourself short Booman. I think you are a far better writer than soj. I’ve enjoyed your diaries for a long time, even if I don’t always agree with them. Your writing is clear and concise. And you often approach things from a fresh angle that others miss. There is also a real sincerity to your writing that I admire.
Soj, on the other hand… Throwing a lot of words at something is not writing. I find his diaries overly long and lacking cogent narrative structure. They are often riddled with factual errors, discrepancies, and unsupported assertions. His grammar and syntax also bother me, but that’s not such a big deal in the scheme of things.
For the record, I would never poke a panda. I may be misanthropic, but I’m not heartless. They’re so adorable.
we all have our favorite writers. soj is one of mine.
Curmudgette’s right, you know.
You are by far the better writer.
And my many typos in that comment above shows why all of us should be cut a LITTLE slack. But there have to be limits.
I should have just run spellcheck. Bad on me!
Fine. you didn’t. But you are still calling Soj a fraud in your title. Discuss Soj’s diaries.
You have spent a lot of time researchig Soj’s diaries and comments. Maybe you should cannel you’re enrgies in doing the same with this administration.
Also, it is my understanding that the rules of this site allow for diaries directed at bloggers, provided that those diaries are also posted on their site. As indicated, I posted it on Flogging the Simian. This distinction was made clear to me a while back when TheBloggingCurmudgeon published a diary disputing Maryscott O’Connor’s opinion on Darfur. Although his was an attack on ideas, not Maryscott personally, there was some discussion of the propriety.
Curmudgette gets a prize for a correct interpretation of the rules! What about…oh, a stuffed panda toy? They’re incredibly precious…but you have to promise not to poke it.
My first reaction to this is : WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU??!!
Sure, Soj is a fraud in a million ways up one side and down the other.
Soj is also one of the best writers in the left blogosphere.
Meanwhile, I have never heard of your sorry ass.
So I repeat: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU??!!
Really, who the fuck are you, and why the fuck do you think we should care about this obsessive character assassination? You asshole!
Or else he’d surely have troll-rated it. This post is the definition of trollishness–not arguing a point, not presenting evidence, but just calling names and trying to disrupt the diary and enflame emotion.
I’m correcting Cruz del Sur’s oversight and troll-rating you. I don’t do it lightly–you very much deserve it. I’d give you a subzero rating if the system allowed.
For what it’s worth, I rather sheepishly agree that my post was much too harsh. I’m not really a troll, but I should never use such strong language–even when a diary really pushes my buttons.
Ok, I changed your rating to a “2”. It takes a big person to admit he lost his cool.
NOt argueing a point. That is a good one, specially since I said that I started giving you a 2 as a warning, and then when you gave Many a 2 , who did not deserve it I adjusted it to a 1. Guess all I can expect from you is not to discuss shit. After I talked to Curmudgette and realized that I had made a mistake, I took the 1 away.
Want to exchange ideas and discuss this diary? Looking foward to it!!
One Irish pub
Two pints of Guinness (give or take a pint)
One blues band
Repeat as necessary.
Slainte.