CORRECTION: New evidence suggests that the screenshot discussed in this post and elsewhere was not a forgery but the result of a glitch. I offer a correction, and an apology, and a discussion of the implications, here.
So the mighty Paul Elam has acknowledged — in the comments section of Girl Writes What’s blog, at least –that there might just be some sort of problem going on with regard to, you know, that whole fake screenshot thing. You know, the blatant fraud that A Voice for Men mangling — sorry, managing — editor Dean Esmay seems to have engaged in to cover up a mistake.
But, Paul being Paul, he somehow manages to turn his sort-of acknowledgement of the problem into an attack on me, bizarrely blaming me (the person who actually pointed out this fraud) for him not knowing about it before today:
As much as I hate to say it, Futrelle does have a valid point. I am looking in to it today, and unlike Futrelle, I will address the results of my inquiry in public no matter where they end up.
I don’t mind looking into problems, even when they are pointed out by such a bald faced liar. I would have actually been aware of this sooner if his blog were worth reading. I had to become aware of it in your comments to even know there was a problem.
Well, Paul, I would have happily brought my findings to the comments section of A Voice for Men, rather than the comments section of Girl Writes What’s blog, but you may recall I am banned there. And I wonder if anyone there would have had the courage to stand up and say that, gosh, this Futrelle guy has a point, given how quickly people are censored there for deviating from your site’s perverse “conventional wisdom.”
And gosh, Paul, how unfair it is to expect the publisher of a site to be aware of what’s, you know, published on it. Concerns about the story were brought up by your own commenters shortly after it first ran. Esmay referred in an article and an editorial note to my alleged “lies” about the story; it didn’t occur to you to even go look at what I had said? And even aside from the phony screenshot, or anything I’ve written, did you really think that Esmay’s bizarre explanations for the original mistake made any kind of sense?
In other words, are you incompetent, or are you lying about being unaware of the problem until now?
In any case, I await the results of your “investigation.” I am especially eager to see how you will manage to spin things so it becomes someone else’s fault. Will it be some evil conspiracy that “set you up?”
And when exactly have I lied, Paul? Could you offer a citation? When I point out the lies on your site, I fucking back up each claim.
[EDIT: Added some stuff in the “gosh, Paul” paragraph and made a few other changes.]
This discussion of evangelism is reminding me of that tract I livetweeted.
http://storify.com/inurashii/bible-halp-the-majesty-of-god
I’d QFT Radical Parrot, but ze just said it, so yeah, what Radical Parrot said. As a far too common example, there’s an XKCD for that! The difference between the scientists and the newspaper — “the newspaper said…” is a fallacy, “science says…” generally isn’t (rules of Red Herrings still apply of course). For an I,portent Example — scientists largely agree climate change is A Thing, so when people get all “but Fox said…” it’s a fallacy, retorting with studies isn’t (otoh, if you retort with one Big Name ze’s better be an expert in the field, not an intern running the data [as in, I am an expert in nothing, not even fish])
Ha, I can’t believe how angry you all are over me dismissing Myers. I’m chuckling cause it’s as if I killed your dog by not liking that guy! I struck a /nerve/.
All I have to say is that I deeply apologize for not reading every single blog post of this enigma of a figure and for not learning to both truly understand and respect the immense intellectual breadth he has – so sorry for misrepresenting one of the most important internet philosoph3rs of our age. PZ Myers, greater than Spinoza, Dietzgen, Engels, Dauve, Deluze, Focault, and TIME CUBE combined
@freemage: Oh, there are a lot of absolutely terrible pagans, no question. Some of the most violent bigots out there are pagan or pagan-inspired, Gardner was an extreme homophobe even for his time, and a lot of neopagan paths and especially cults boil down to “women and men are the only options, they are absolute, they are innate, and they are literally different species”. And don’t EVEN get me started on the Frosts. My point was that there is a huge difference between us and the Abrahamic religions as far as power goes, and I get tired of hearing atheists say that my dinky little path that has a few thousand adherents worldwide is on equal footing socially with, say, Christianity. I’d disagree, however, that pagans are “foisting” anything on the general populace. We can’t even have workshops without people trying to hurriedly pass laws that would ban us from doing so and preachers testifying that allowing us into a community is condemning that community to Hell. If people choose to take part in New Age stuff, it isn’t because pagans made them do it.
@ Sid
It made me really sad when I figured out that “pagan metal” often means “racist xenophobic assholes singing about how Odin/Brigid doesn’t want POC in our country”.
Fu fu fu fu, you have all played right into my hands! Look at how worked up you are, posting in other threads and talking about heavy metal.
No joke 🙁 I’ve settled on Celtic/Finnish/etc. folkmetal, because I’m terrified I’ll find a pagan metal group and really like them and then be completely disgusted. Eluveitie, Korpiklaani, and Arkona are pretty lovely, though.
Some of the Irish ones are a bit dodgy too. Korpiklaani…I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I saw them making some rather eyebrow raising comments about how Finnish society needs to reconsider how open it is to foreigners in one documentary.
Um, Fintroll seem like decent guys? I’m sure someone will now tell me that they’re racist too, though.
…Well THAT’s another one that’s going off my Pandora. Godsdammit ;_; On Fintroll, I don’t know if the band itself is racist, but “Fintroll Henri tells racist jokes” was one of the first results when I Googled them.
Figures. Oh, metalheads, why must you be such assholes?
@Dvärghundspossen
WOOT! Glad for your husband’s victory, workers don’t usually win over here cause the labor law’s ridiculous and our unions suck. What a weak boss BTW, the /threat/ of a strike got them to capitulate! I hope your husband and his workmates maintain their power!
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve seen YouTube metalheads comment on Judas Priest videos and whine about the fact that Rob Halford is gay. And then there are other metalheads who are like “Even though he’s gay, he’s still awesome so shut up!” (implying that him being gay would be wrong otherwise).
It’s truly an unfortunate sight. I wish there were more non-bigoted metalheads. They’re quite rare.
Oh my fucking gods. I hadn’t read the whole thread yet before replying, but about that “this is not fucking harmless” -report, no. No. Nonono. No. Just no. Fuck no. That’s fucking sick. I’m seriously gonna retch. To bleach the brain and appease the furrinati, have an adorable lion cub that’s trying its hardest to roar.
@Argenti: Zie/ze, zir and hir are all okay. Sorry, hadn’t mentioned my preferred gender pronouns earlier, so thanks for being sensitive*.
*Yeah, I know, it’s something that’s sort of expected from a decent person. I’m just in the state of mind right now that I’d rather give positive feedback for the nice and kind things good people do on a daily basis, rather than blow my top over something assholes do. On a daily basis. Fuck this shit.
Yes, that’s exactly it. *eyeroll*
Dvarghundspossen, high fives and whoots to Husband and co-workers!
J – you may be just sixteen, but ferchrissakes grow up. You’ve had good posts here, don’t go blotting your copy book and acting like a troll … or a silly little kid.
j: A serious strike threat about a service the public depends on… not to be taken lightly. When the employer knows it’s at a moral disadvantage for being wrong… the victory for labor was certain, so it’s better to make a tactical capitulation and spin it as putting the interests of the public first.
Of fer chrissake. A nerve? Yeah, I suppose being trollish does strike nerves. Not in the way you think. It’s not like you are going to find people here who like him without reservation, but all in all; he’s a decent guy. I’m not so fond of how he deals with theism, but it’s mostly harmless (because of how prevalent theistic hegemony is in the culture).
But in the decade or so that I’ve read him, he’s said some shit I didn’t like. So what?
He’s not trolling the net, he’s not a raging douchenozzle and you’ve betrayed some basic ignorance; people called you on it.
Trust me, if you “strike a /nerve/” you’ll get a lot more than you got over this. Ask buntzums and harley, or €sobbra, or brz, or Brandon, or NWO, or DKM, or Blackhat, or Tom Martin, or Mr. Mikhail Torvus Butthorn Varpole SteeAL, or Mary Sunshine, or Judgeybitch, or ToySoldier, or Crack EmCee, or any of the other raging assholes who’ve come in here to “tell us how it is”.
Crack EmCee? I missed that one? Or is this another incarnation of Mr. No Name?
Radical Parrot — besides using ze/zir myself, I’m taking lessons from pecunium in “Work like you were living in the early days of a better nation” (which is probably a quote I haven’t bothered to google and am sure he’ll tell us 🙂 )
You missed him. he came in, all piss and vinegar in a Thomas Ball thread, and then tried half a dozen ways to get some of us on his side: he played the,”you’re a vet Pec, I expected better of you”; which led to me doing some trivial digging, and him looking even worse.
Then he explained that all cults are based on yoga, and his wife was a murderer; hiding out in france. it was bizarre: Let’s see where it was.
Found it: http://manboobz.com/2011/06/22/arms-and-the-mens-rights-movement/comment-page-6/#comment-32694
There was so much (like which maternal figure it was, and all sorts of inconsistent story).
All in one thread, so that’s the whole thing from there on in
It’s from Oysterband (a great group, british, political, angry, celebratory, kick ass, folk, punk, powerful)
And one which is topical to manboobz, The Oxford Girl
You know how you so much Emily Autumn is apposite?
Same with Oysterband.
(and they don’t re-release songs, when they have one on more than one album, it’s a different recording).
Perfect.
Speaking of metalheads – I totally want to read this book!
What Are You Doing Here?: A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal
http://www.amazon.com/What-Are-You-Doing-Here/dp/1935950053/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371694597&sr=8-1&keywords=what+are+you+doing+here
Just want to add to whomever linked to Freethought Blogs… Patheos is a good place as well, Hemant Mehta’s blog is there (The Friendly Atheist) and he’s always a good read.
By the time I catch up on these comment threads, they’ve far surpassed me…
kittehs: not quote perfect, I think (on inspection) this is better:
€sob-brah!