Rumproast attic

Ever since Rumproast freaked out and put their forum offline, there has been some speculation about what kind of illegal and/or unethical behavior is going on behind the curtain. But why do they even bother with the secret decoder ring routine, if they’re just going to let their most narrow and conservative male supremacists out of the attic? I’m talking about Humboldtblue, the same Humboldtblue who back in March of last year told us:

I smoke and the weed I smoke is f*cking awesome,…I for one, voted for a Democrat, because, as Kevin pointed out, a Democrat is the best chance to get legalization through…..

So what is Humboldtblue up to this time? Well, first he invokes the same-old, same-old raaacist theme the Rumpsters use to characterize anyone they don’t like.  But chances are, you won’t find the people he’s mad at using the kind of polarizing language — hate speech, really — that he uses:

Here’s where you know if you’re going to find common ground with them—just ask yourself the question, do I hate n*ggers in charge? When you can answer that question you’ll know which side of the debate you are on.

But wait, wasn’t that the same Humboldtblue who just last year was telling everyone how women should be denied equal opportunities so he could stare at their butts?  Oh, dear, yes, that Humboldtblue:

I just don’t think I’m cut out for the whole “women are equal and deserve our respect” thing.

Tsk, tsk.  And it seems that Rumproast  still cherishes his presence.  Why am I not surprised?

Maybe someone should put it to Rumproast like this:

Here’s where you know if you’re going to find common ground with them—just ask yourself the question, do I hate b*tches in charge? When you can answer that question you’ll know which side of the debate you are on.

…and then explain to me why these guys can’t seem to find common ground with progressives who like women.

~~~~~~~~~

*edited for ethnic slurs, profanity, hate speech, etc., etc., as usual

Rumproast Behind Closed Doors-death to Lieberman

~~~~~~~~~

“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest (Thomas Becket) ?–King Henry II.

“Let us away, knights; this fellow will arise no more.”–King Henry’s knights.

~~~~~~~~~

Rumproast’s infamous forum, the Rumper Room, may have disappeared, but thanks to technology like the Wayback Machine and Google Cache, nothing on the internet ever really disappears.   On a recent Cannonfire thread, Rumproast regular “Strangeappar8us” even hinted that it was just temporarily offline, not gone.

So why have they locked the doors?  What is going on in there that they don’t want the public to see? Using my Google-fu, I have discovered that Rumproast’s  latest targets are Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa.  Here’s their latest attempt at witty repartee (image clickable) :

~~~~~

“The fact that Ms. Coakley shares two things with me–a vagina and a vote for Hillary does not mean she is a proper representative.”

Color me confused.  Aren’t those the only two things that matter about a person?
Comment by sean on 01/20/10 at 09:30 PM

~~~~~

Maybe we should take a page from the Tom Coburn playbook * and start praying for certain senators from states with Democratic governors to kick off really soon.

I’ll start the list—Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

(Note to lurkers: I’m kidding. Maybe.)

Comment by Oblomova on 01/20/10 at 09:39 PM

~~~~~

Oh hey, can we curb-stomp** Lieberman now? Since the super majority thingie has gone bye-bye, we might as well. Sure would turn my frown upside down.

Comment by Betty Cracker on 01/20/10 at 10:22 PM

~~~~~

Oh hey, can we curb-stomp Lieberman now?
Please God yes.  I have no idea what he cares about, but I hope someone figures it out (Goldman?  BCBS?), so we can tear it apart while he watches from his AEtna sinecure.

Seriously, though, Lieberman represents the new American dream—“I’ve got mine, bitches”—and there’s not much we can do but get our own and hope that he gets some hideous cancer.

Comment by sean on 01/20/10 at 10:55 PM

*Tom Coburn playbook : “‘What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can’t make the vote tonight,’ he said. ‘That’s what they ought to pray.’ It was difficult to escape the conclusion that Coburn was referring to the 92-year-old, wheelchair-bound Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) who has been in and out of hospitals and lay at home ailing.”

** Curb stomp. Urban dictionary: “Placing someones mouth on a curb, then repeatedly stomping and/or kicking the back of the person’s head, hard enough to detatch their jaws. Most people die from this experience, due to head, neck, or vertabrae injuries.”

Rumproast reprise

Just when I was starting to enjoy my little blogging vacation, I have gotten sucked back into the ugly vortex that is the political blogosphere. This time it is about a subject near and dear to my heart: internet anonymity. Everything worth saying about the subject has already been said here, at the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Anonymous communications have an important place in our political and social discourse. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment. A much-cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads:

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

The reason the subject of internet anonymity has come up now, is that a blog called Hillbuzz (I made some comments about them here in December) is claiming their anonymity has been compromised by Obama supporters at a website called Rumproast.  In turn the Obama supporters claim they are being harassed, but oddly enough, at the same time, they have freaked out and closed down their main forum. The main subject of discussion involves the identity of Rumproast blogger JohnD, who started a website called “stupidpumas” on WordPress, and later at stupidpumas.com and pumafail.com, and whether he has published real names and photos of anonymous persons.

At one point, “JohnD” invited me to “dialog” and brought all the Rumpsters along.   I have since removed all the Rumproast threads and aired out my blog, but the four letter words I had to put in my filter are still there. After the “dialog”, they also stalked me for ages at various blogs, discussing comments I had posted on non-political blogs at length on their forum and linking to a photograph they said was of me. One of them impersonated me at Pandagon; the Pandagon admin deleted the account of my stalker, but would not provide me with the IP of the person who did it.

I am not happy about the Rumproast visit to my clean and quiet blog.

While I don’t publish either real names or IP’s, I do link bloggers with their sock puppets. Here are the names JohnD has used on this website, commenting:

• as “theWatcher”: Rumproast Leftovers
• as “JohnD”: Rumproast Wonkette Lurker Thread
• as “johnd12009” and “JohnD”: Rumproast Flame War (just kidding)
• as “theWatcher”: Rumproast: the Eightfold Path

and on his own blog:

• as “johnd” and “obotinchief”: Hanging it up (on this thread you also see johnd consumed in flames at the same time as TheBigotBasher rises from the ashes like a Phoenix, with nearly identical links given to stupidpumas.com and pumafail.com respectively.)
• and the thread about outing economics professor Dakinikat.

UPDATE: Part of Rumproast proprietor Kevin’s narrative is that the excesses of the misogynist bullies that take refuge at his blog are outliers, not condoned or encouraged by him in any way. He lays out this position on his Hillbuzz FAQ post where he states, “…but I deleted the comment the minute I saw it and basically told TheBigotBasher to bugger off. I do not support, nor have I ever supported, the outing of people who blog or comment under aliases, regardless of what I personally think about them.”

Riiiiggghht.

Going back to “The Dialog” let’s take a look at another Rumproast regular, “Strangeappar8tus”, who has control of enough editing keys at the Rumproast to author his own posts. “Strange”, as he is nicknamed:

• wrote the full name of a private citizen, a troubled individual, in this comment.
• And in this thread, he uses the name Robert Ching and pretends he has never seen my blog before: (“I found this site through Stumble, quite by accident.”)

For anyone with enough morbid curiosity, the other posts here where “Strange” commented are

• (Eightfold Path)
• (Leftovers)
• (Flame War-just kidding)
• (Wonkette lurker thread)

For diehard Rumproast sniffers I have also resurrected, hopefully for a very short time, some posts I wrote some time ago on a private, non-unsearchable test blog when it became clear members of Rumproast were stalking and impersonating me and posting photographs they said were of me. For those with the time to search defunct blogs with the Wayback Machine, some of the posts contain old links and screenshots of now-disappeared forum discussions.  I have also restored the Rumproast members’ all time search favorite, Farewell Strangelove, my tribute to the Strangeappar8us courtship which I found both so touching and so repugnant. We still have Paris, eh, Strange?

So is the current bru-ha-ha just about one rogue blogger, or is Rumproast an astroturf machine that regurgitates predigested talking points while spying on and trying to disrupt progressive non-misogynist bloggers?  Is the Rumproasters’ real goal to  “cut away from the herd” in their “neutralize and release” program, or was that just talk?   Has Rumproast achieved “plausible deniability”?  I sort of hope the Hillbuzz people can get to the bottom of it.

ANOTHER UPDATE:

It just occurred to me, when PumaPAC founder Murphy did a radio broadcast on the line with Jennihillary, the Rumproast regulars showed up en masse to comment on the radio stations blog.  Some of the comments were pretty over the top.    And unlike their Rumper Room forum, Rumproast doesn’t have the capability to scrub these blogs…yet.

Interview between Jenniforhillary and Darragh Murphy of Puma PAC on KPFT November 13,  2008:

• transcript
• audio with blog comments
• a second comment thread

RumpRoast loses Hubcap

Tears rolled down my cheeks this morning as I read the obit of the Rumproast cat, Hubcap. The photogenic Hubcap had captured my imagination as a small fighter who in spite of her size, met life’s challenges with dignity, determination, and extended claws. Her character showed in her face, and even though I’m not an artist, I tried to capture her timeless spirit in a reworking of totalitarian art in the Shepard Fairey style.  Her owner Kevin seems to be one of the most laid back and least toxic of the rumproasters; perhaps it was the influence of this remarkable animal. Ah, well, Hubcap is with Ceiling Cat now.

One blogging community uses a single period by itself in obituary threads as shorthand for a moment of silence.

For Hubcap:
.

Hubcap has a posse

Hupcap the Fighter: Small. Brave. Puma-hearted.

Rumproast: the Eightfold Path

This afternoon as I was pondering the eightfold path of Rumproast, I was having a hard time getting up to eight. Then one of the Rumpsters claimed (incorrectly) I had called him an Obot and ran off in a snit. Suddenly I realized I now had all eight parts of the spiritual journey of the Rumpster. Here it is:

1. When in doubt, shout “epic fail”.

2. Pretend to read. It makes you look erudite. Post the name of a book you are reading in the sidebar, something like say, Nixonland by Rick Perlstein, but never change it. No one will notice.

3. Collect grievances. If you can’t find any, make them up. When you complain about something on your grievance list, don’t use specific quotations or link to anything. You don’t want anyone to find out that you made the whole thing up.

4. Post pictures of cute little animals. Include some videos of pets doing tricks with balloons.

5. Swear. If you are posting on a blog with a child-friendly rating, swear anyhow. The F-word is preferred, but talking about genital mutilation works as a standing joke. If you use the genital mutilation one, you have to pretend someone else on a different blog said it. See #3.

6. Ridicule other people. Especially fat people, people with unusual chromosomes, and children who have been sexually assaulted. Also women who have been abused or killed by their husbands and boyfriends. Then maybe the jerks you are so afraid might turn around and ridicule YOU will forget to do it as you egg them on to ridicule someone ELSE. (For some real doozies, see some of the comments Rumproasters left over at KPFT.) When people question you about why you were making fun of them, say you know they were having icky thoughts and they deserved it. Make and wear the special inverse tinfoil hat that amplifies other people’s thoughts so you know what they are thinking.

7. Don’t think of anything new of your own. Find a blog or two with creative writers and post long stretches of conversation from their forums. You can probably even create a whole new blog with them as the theme. You might call it something like stupidpumas.wordpress.com.

8. If you can’t think of a good argument against someone, claim they insulted you and go off in a snit.

Rumpster or Obot?

How do you tell Obots from the denizens of Rumproast? The question occurred to me this afternoon as a Rumpster snarked at me that I had called him/her an Obot. Not true. Or is the Obot part of it true? I have always thought of Rumpsters and Obots as distinct critters, but now that it has been brought to my attention, there could very well be a bit of overlap. Here then is the story of how I discovered the  Obots and the eightfold path of Rumproast.

I first became aware of the bots reading straight news. It’s no secret that my first love is the Middle East. I subscribe to several international type feeds as well as the major U.S news feeds, as a feedreader lets you scan a lot of headlines quickly without trying to google all the websites. If you read just one news source, you won’t find out the truth–you have to read several.

And what I found in scanning the national news stories was literally armies of very obnoxious people posting hate comments at the end of the straight news pieces. The same comments over and over on one news service after another. I was appalled at their hatred towards women and the vulgarness with which they approached sexuality. It was clearly organized. At the same time I discovered a few individuals trying to hold back the tide of misogyny who signed their names with Puma. They had all discovered the Obots individually, but they blogged together collectively at PumaPAC.org. They were the only ones actually trying to do something about the iron-my-shirt kind of ugliness and hatred directed against any and all women in the public sphere regardless of their political affiliation.

Who knows what direction this blog might have taken if I hadn’t seen the Obots.  I might have reread Biden’s plan for dividing Iraq and commented on it.  I might have had time to write about some amazing detail about the Palestinian state I came across in a book about something else.  I might have spent more time polishing my Arabic.  But instead someone named Geeklove left a message asking me to post a video about women.  I did.  Since then I have gotten pulled further and further away from my personal goals.  Here it is again.  Hillary ‘s voice talking about the contributions of women all over the world in her China speech against a backdrop  photo montage of the way women in public service  are treated–by Obots.

Will I ever get back to blogging about the things I love?  Or will I be forever stuck at first base, back at election 2008, defending the right of women–ordinary women like myself and extraordinary women like Hillary — to have lives and to be treated with basic human dignity.

Rumproast Leftovers

A few weeks ago I got an email inviting me to dialog with the folks over at the blog Rumproast. One of the regulars there had seen some comments I made about Islam at PumaPAC.org and wanted to talk.

Sniffing around their blog, I found an odd mixture of  profanity, snarks,  politics, and grisly anatomical fantasies involving the women who blog at PumaPAC.  Instead of deleting the misogynist comments, or debating the assumptions behind them, the editors and other commenters compliment each other for every particularly vicious turn of phrase.  They seem to spend hours a day combing the pumapac blog  for something in the comments they can collect  for their complaining sessions.  What kind of “dialog” can you have with people like that?

If that sounds like an exaggeration, here are some examples of the type of comments I found over there (I have had to add some asterisks to keep my child-friendly rating):

Kevin
“Tell the PUMAs over at The. Best. Mexican. Soap. Opera. Ever. that we really appreciate the endless hours of entertainment you’ve provided us with in 2008 and we’re looking forward to a lot more of it in the new year.”

strangeapar8us:
“And, no, I don’t get my kicks out of “mocking” you. I get my kicks out of thwarting your purblind political agenda and actively campaigning against it in online forums and the media-at-large. I only post here for the regular check from Soros, which ain’t nearly enough.”

Kerry Reid:
“I have absolutely no problem quoting the late great Michael O’Donoghue to you disgraceful racist idiots and losers: “I’d give you all a swift kick in the c*nts to wake you up, but I wouldn’t want to ruin my shine.” Now go back to crying in the Giant Bowl o’ Fail that makes up your collective lives.”

Kerry Reid again:
“If I was really being crude, I would have suggested you f*ck yourself in the *ss with a rusty d*ldo (thereby avoiding congress with those nasty Rapist Oppressor Real P*nises) until you enlarge your *nus to the point where you can shove your head comfortably up the enhanced opening.”

yetanotherfreakingbrit:
“As for Guy PUMAs, they’ll no doubt have bled to death after you’ve shot all their p*nises off or whetever the next fantasy is.”

skillit:
“Armed with Rusty D*ldos
On Fantasies we Ride
We Dance with Pumas Left and Right
No P*nis by our Side
Up, up, up we scream
Rise, Hillary, Rise
Until the Day that We Can See [minus corneal transplants, cataracts, shingle-related eye-disease] NOBAMA on the outside
So up, up, up with people (but only if you’re GIRLZ)
And save yourself for all the pleasures of b*tt pl*gs and d*lderzz.”

Tom65
“We need to do some more pointing and laughing.”

Brad Mays
“Why do you feel that so many men feel justified in using sexual imagery and language as a way of demeaning women engaged in political discourse?”

Brad Mays, of course, is sort of a Puma, or at least used to hang around filming Pumas.

And who are the Pumas they hate so much? What is the “purblind political agenda” the Rumpsters are so desperate to thwart?  Here is the Puma mission statement Manifesto:

• Passing the Equal Rights Amendment after 86 years of struggle
• Monitoring the 111th Congress and advocating for legislation that supports our mission
• Documenting and Protesting sexism in the mainstream media AND educating the public about its widespread and long term effects
• Developing a national women’s rights curriculum for all American children
• Researching and investigating voter fraud and campaign finance violations during the 2008 election
• Protecting women’s lives by strengthening anti-femicide laws and drawing attention to the crisis of woman-lynching in the United States

How do you talk to someone who opposes that?

Ah, but they used the word “dialog”.   They had sucked me in.  So I opened a first thread thread for the Rumpsters, then a second thread and eventually 11 of them came to visit. Rumpster Guests in the order of their appearance: StrangeAppar8us, pumarubbernecker, kcindenver, Mrs. Polly, sean, Betty Cracker, Clownshoes the Clown, yetanotherfreakingbrit, johnd, Observer at PUMApac, zipperupus…. thank you all for your comments.

What with the new semester starting and everything, it took me more than two weeks to sort out all the comments and respond to them. Here is the final tally.

Total word count: 11071

Written by Nijma: 6172 words

Written by Rumpsters: 7450 words (average: 677 words/Rumpster)

Censorship:  15 Rumpster swear words and ethnic slurs edited.

Okay,  so the Rumpfest was exhausting. For me at least.  What did it accomplish? I don’t know.  But I remain firmly convinced that dialog is never wasted.  And what did the Rumpsters want to talk about? They wanted to repeat campaign talking points. They wanted to comment about my defense of Arabs and moderate Islam in  the comment threads.  They were troubled about the variety of opinions in the Puma website comment threads.  Some were thoughtful; some were bombastic.

And over and over again they mentioned one particular Puma commenter, JenniforHillary, who had been involved in a radio show (transcript here) and a video (transcript here) about the Pumas. Curious, I went back and looked.  If I was a Rumpster, I would not be too proud of this episode.  Wonkette and Rumproast posted photoshopped pictures of her in order to make fun of her weight.    Curiously they did nothing to refute the points she made in the interviews about election fraud in the primaries.  The posts were taken down quickly after both the Confluence and PumaPAC pointed out the difference between ridiculing powerful political figures and ridiculing private citizens because they take their civic responsibilities seriously.

What the Rumproast did to Jenni was tacky at the very least.  When Jenni first started writing at PumPAC she was just excited about Hillary, and her posts conveyed her thrill in being part of it all, but after she was baited, she started getting nasty and writing in ALL CAPS: what a surprise! And as someone once said, what fun it is to bait people until they turn nasty! If you did that to someone’s face, they would probably punch you, but since it’s on the internet all they can do is get angry.  What cowards to bait someone until they get angry and then write post after post ridiculing them for it.  Did I say coward?  No, comic! It’s funny to bait someone until they turn nasty, yeah, that’s the ticket. Bullying tactics are funny.

Rumproast Flame War (just kidding)

Thanks to the RumpRoast for inviting my comments, and thanks to all the Rumpsters who commented here.  Actually, thanks to John D, specifically.  Now that he has identified himself as the one who sent me the super secret email, I guess it’s not a secret anymore. [Note: If you want to read the original email, he has added it to the comments at January 23, 2009 at 7:34 pm.]

I want to start to respond to all the comments by saying something general about Islam, since so may people commented about that specifically, then I’ll try to answer the rest of the individual commenters separately.  And there’s a final thought at the very end.

But first let me just repeat Answer #5 from my FAQ in the original thread:

Q: [X] person on [Y] website is not a nice person and said something I don’t agree with.

A: I don’t care.

Several people have gone into detail about various Puma commenters, and to tell you the truth, I haven’t followed every single personality and every single ping pong among the many people who comment on various Puma websites.  I don’t necessarliy agree with 100% of what every commenter writes.  I do read all of Murphy’s posts at pumapac.org.

There are some 500 or more comments that come across my feedreader every day just from the pumapac.org  blog, and many more that are on the blog that for some reason never make it through the feedreader.  That’s a huge number of comments to read, even if that’s the only blog you look at.  It would be a huge number of comments for any moderator to keep track of and try to keep every person to a party line, if the Pumas did have a party line.

Perhaps some of the disappointment some of the Rumpsters have with the PumaPAC blog is that it isn’t a neatly prepackaged product and doesn’t fit any neat genre that they are used to.  The posters are of all types, all ethnic groups and income levels, and levels of education and internet experience. They don’t have a supreme dictator telling them what to believe. They do have a lively dialog, lots of points of view, and some disagreements. Some issues are getting worked out and some ideas are being kicked around for the first time. No one is having a single point of view crammed down their throat–there is a lot of educating going on, and a lot of times, education can’t happen until the person is ready for it.

It might not look tidy from the outside for someone who is used to receiving their talking points pre-digested, but maybe if you feel so strongly about some issue, instead of just sitting back and making smug remarks on a blog none of them will see, why don’t you enter the conversation–without the elitist snarks and repetitive Axelrod talking points–and ask them about what they think? If the only reason you interact with someone is to provoke some sort of reaction that you can use somewhere else to try to “prove” some predetermined negative opinion you’ve already formed, then go back to some other forum and make remarks that “prove” you are “superior”, they will sense your hostility, and I can guarantee you’re not going to have a dialog–or convince anyone of your own point of view.

Okay, about Islam.

Several people have pointed out some very extreme comments about the Middle East.  I wrote more about the Middle East internet thing yesterday here, and I posted the hate mail I received on the topic  here. (Scroll down to the screen shot of the email, then click on the NSFW image link to see it without the child-friendly asterisks, then read the rest of my comment about who may have written it.) If you’re going to point out the negative comments, you will also have to point out some of the long time Puma commenters who have responded very favorably and have left some positive, compassionate thoughts about Islam here as well.

The point I want to make is that no one knows who is making those comments. They seem to appear long after everyone  in a U.S. time zone has gone to bed, in fact, about 8 or 9 in the morning Tel Aviv time–or Gaza time. And the people who post them don’t seem to have any other comments to make about American politics or women’s rights.Anyone could write them.  In fact, I notice a few Rumpsters already have Puma accounts and  occasionally talk about posting comments at PumaPAC. So for all I know, the Rumpsters themselves could have written it.

That said, Murphy has also posted a few things about the Middle East, some of it not very complimentary about the treatment of women in those countries.  In particular, Murphy has published some photos of extreme acts against women that deserve to be more widely known–I only wish she had printed links to articles describing the scenes. Someone needs to do this–to hold extremist Moslems accountable for the acts they do in the name of their religion, that is giving Islam a bad name. You won’t find that here.  Remember my “about” page?  I’m the one who wants to suspend mistrust and look for common ground. But someone needs to do hold some feet over the fire when it comes to Islamic treatment of women, and do it in a responsible, accurate way.

Some of the over-the-top right wing  comments about “jihad” (it’s “struggle”, for Pete’s sake, and can be accomplished by studying the religious writings or by…housework!) only serves to mask some of the valid criticisms that can be made about the culture. Unfortunately, the right -wing bigots make responsible criticism very hard to tell apart from pure hate speech.  That’s another reason I go after them online.  They make valid criticism look like one more prejudicial smear job,  and set back the rights of women around the world.

~~~~~~~~~

Now, responses to some of the individual comments I haven’t already responded to.

kcindenver, thanks. With the war winding down in anticipation of the inauguration, I think we’ll see less boilerplate Middle East spam in the forums.

Mrs. Polly, I can’t answer for the structure of PumaPAC.  As with most new populist organizations, it is very ad hoc, and will probably evolve, but seems to be the only women’s organization involved in activism at this point, and the only women’s organization that crosses class boundaries, or has any patience for the blue collar/ union values and aspirations. I also can’t answer for the individual you are talking about, as I know nothing about the context of what happened or any of the underlying issues.  I did see the film and the tacky comments about appearance and voice, but AFAIK this is not someone who speaks for Puma. I don’t see the problem with the sidebar widgets you are talking about on any of the computers I use.  I wonder if you are using Internet Explorer? It’s notorious for stuff like that. Here’s the free Firefox download.

pumarubbernecker,

Who do you have back there

I’m glad you asked.  I have kat in your hat 01.18.09 at 8:55 pm

but you seem rational enough on the surface that I’m curious how you don’t see what a giant trainwreck of crazy the PUMAs are

That kind of comment is a prime example of why Rumpsters get called stuff like immature fratboiz. If you want to deconstruct it, it’s a bunch of non-specific adjectives that don’t really say anything, except that the writer has a negative opinion of something.

It’s like this.  Say you want to describe a car.  You say “A nice car.” Now everyone can visualize the car, right? Not at all.  Now you say “a green two door car with purple leather upholstery and a sun roof.”  Now people start to visualize the car.  You don’t have to say if it’s nice or not because people can see the car for themselves. Or you can just do like Kat in your Hat and wait until Murphy isn’t looking, then post a video that expresses your opinion about teh motivations of someone who would write a giant trainwreck of a crazy comment like that.

Sean, as I indicated elsewhere, I have no knowledge that the Pumas are the ones writing the anti-Palestinian spam.  In fact, several Pumas have commented favorably on some of the first-hand stuff I have written about Islam here. The people writing the offensive stuff don’t talk about American politics and they don’t come out in the daylight, at least when it’s daylight on this side of the globe. I suspect they don’t care about Puma at all but are just using the PumaPAC forum for their own purposes. I actually find it sort of interesting in a canary-in-the-mine sort of way.

Betty Cracker, the post I was referring to was  on the Rumproast,  not some other blog:

Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Dear Democrats
More like this, please.  Thank you.
Posted by Kevin K. on 01/13/09 at 05:52 PM

The link was to a blog with a photo of a fat person with a wheelbarrow.  Obviously I would like to see “less like this, please.” I have no problem with “the Daily Pig”.  It singles out people for their actions, which they are responsible for, and not their appearance,  which is an accident of birth. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for employers like Dov Charney. Since I don’t have a trust fund, I need to work in order to eat. American Apparel did the right thing in removing Charney from contact with employees , but they still are paying the price for his indiscretions. He was not just some jerk schmo lurking in the alley, he was the CEO.   Let’s hope there aren’t more like him still out there–waiting for your own daughters when they get old enough to look for work.

I notice, Betty Cracker, that your blog has the “b-word” in one of the titles–and linked with violence towards women no less. I see where violence against women has become slick and trendy these days. Looks like the Rumpsters are helping that trend  along just a little.

Clownshoes the Clown, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have never written about those subjects. If you think something I have written is “racist”, do point out where specifically, and say why you think it is “racist” instead of making vague menacing  accusations. As far as “levels of trust and approval”,  although your statement seems a bit like unsupported assertion/adoration at this point, there are people who do measure this.  As might be expected, public trust in the government dropped sharply after Watergate, but rose slowly after that.  I doubt if you could collect statistically significant data at this point before a government is actually in office. Your “shooting fish in a barrel” comment doesn’t make any sense at all. Are you saying you want to shoot me? Kindest regards to you too. Oh, and this pretty much sums it up as far as mysogyny in the campaign.

yetanotherfreakingbrit, I would be curious as to which of Murphy’s posts you found offensive. Also I’m not quite sure which of Murphy’s posts contains the “conspiracy theories” you object to, but the mission statement is here. Looks to me like this is their program:

• Passing the Equal Rights Amendment after 86 years of struggle
• Monitoring the 111th Congress and advocating for legislation that supports our mission
• Documenting and Protesting sexism in the mainstream media AND educating the public about its widespread and long term effects
• Developing a national women’s rights curriculum for all American children
• Researching and investigating voter fraud and campaign finance violations during the 2008 election
• Protecting women’s lives by strengthening anti-femicide laws and drawing attention to the crisis of woman-lynching in the United States

John D, thanks again for the invitation.  As I’ve said before, I don’t think you can draw any inferences from something on one website linked to by one commenter late at night when the thread is pretty obviously unmoderated. As far as the “Kill them em all. Let God sort them out,” quotation, that’s often used by right wing blogs in reference to suicide bombers, but the old military proverb goes back much further than that, to at least Roman times–in Latin: neca eos omnes, deus suos agnoscet.

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One final thought. Everyone posting here has a mother, a sister, a daughter, or is one themselves.  What do you see as the agenda for women during the next four to eight years?  What outcomes do you want to see in 2009? Then, as Bill Clinton would say “Tell me how, and be specific.”

Rumproast Wonkette Lurker Thread

Last week’s Weblog Awards voting frenzy is over, but apparently I’ve attracted attention on some blogs I don’t ordinarily read. The reason I know is that they make remarks about me on their blogs (but not remarks to me on the blogs where I comment) and sometimes they even send me emails. So if you’re one of the people who has commented about me, pasted remarks I made on another blog onto your own blog, emailed me with either lovemail or hatemail, or even just thought about the possibility of emailing me, here is your opportunity to say whatever it is you want to say.

For anyone who is not familiar with the earthshaking and intellectually stimulating commentary that goes on at these blogs, the last time I peeked in on them, they had posted a picture of a generic fat person and everyone was linking to it and making cutting remarks about the person’s weight. And no, I am not going to post a link.

FAQ:  Okay these aren’t necessarily real questions, (and they’re not necessarily not real questions), but they are questions you (or an anonymous secret person who may or may not have emailed me) might have asked if you had thought about asking them.

1. I sort of like you a little bit.
Thank you.

2. You are just like us.
No. I am just like me.

3. Can I make a comment on this thread?

Yes, that’s what it’s for. Questions are unmoderated, with no trigger words, but WordPress has a very aggressive new spam filter. For some reason I can’t figure out, genuine comments often go in the spam filter. WordPress claims their spam filter has the capacity to learn, but even my own remarks from the same IP always go in the spam filter if I am not signed in. I look in the spam filter about once a week. Okay, every day, as soon as I finish this syllabus project. If someone really want to have a discussion, I will really try to answer them.   Really.  I just don’t want to talk about some “issue” like whether myiq2xu is hawt, okay?

4. Can I use bad language in the comments?
Yes, but I will replace it with asterisks. I told WordPress this is a child-friendly site.

5. [X] person on [Y] website is not a nice person/said something I don’t agree with.
I don’t care.

6. Why don’t you come over and make comments on [X,Y, or Z] blog?
If you can make it worth my while, email me with the financial details.

7. Can we have a dialog?
For all you do, this thread’s for you.