Letters to the Editor
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A hope. metanoia. (annoying) <*> delete me, etc., and William Timberman. <!>
W.T. is in the same boat, and the underarms stink. The jargon confuses wee imbeciles. people lead blind readers into wretched lives. Ditch 'um. The bowels get restricted, and become clogged. W.T. bellows like a stuffed moo cow.
He loiters in the city red light districts. Hey you, ya's want a tryst with a kangaroo from Oz's backwoods country? No.
Who keeps writing about rogues? Do we need to grieve tomorrow? A hungry stomach is not in a thralldom. Listen to the impoverished, moan, wail, and count grains of rice. IT's the Poverty? Yesterday, I teased a true friend about rationing chicken eggs. She laughs to inform.... One egg with free greens sustains me.
O Talk FISA. Spy. O affluent?
GOPS are so-so disheartening.
If my shoes were worn tatters?
Cook taters! no say, GOPS are drudgery?
But, they are bleak, and same as a scabby.
Birds do sing. bah. The cocks have crowed.
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William Timberman
I've read several complaints here in the past week about comments being deleted, and in at least one commenter's case, Glenn's denial that he'd done any deleting.
Good Celery claimed 2 of his comments were deleted. They hadn't been.
But I have been deleting comments over the past week or so -- from two commenters in particular without regard to what the comment is (because they've conclusively established that their goal here is simply to disrupt and degrade the conversation, and my belief is that they'll go away once they see that the time spent in commenting allows them to post for between 2 minutes and 30 minutes at most), and a few sporadic comments that are the type that I requested a couple weeks ago (mostly with futility) that the commenters responsible refrain from posting.
As anyone who reads much here knows, I hate deleting comments and regulating the comment section and do so only for behavioral -- never ideological -- reasons. Anyone can just read any comment section to see that people are free to disagree with whatever I write, often rudely and vehemently. I've always had an extremely permissive approach to the comment section, based on the belief that a freer environment producers better discussions even at the price of encountering comments and commenters one dislikes.
But sometimes, that balance shifts, and the tone and "substance" starts to resemble a whiny, petty, ugly second-grade playground. When that happens, I find myself dreading coming here, wanting to avoid it, and I know from emails and the like that I'm not alone. In the extremely rare cases when that happens -- and it's happened in the last month or so -- I'm going to take action to preserve the quality of the comment section (which is of great importance to me on several levels).
The deletions aren't always going to be perfectly fair and even-handed because I'm not going to take the time to study the genesis of every outburst in order -- using the standard cry of the second-grader -- to see "who started it." I don't have the time for that and it's the absolute last thing I want to be doing. And I'm not going to debate every deletion either.
I'm just going to be guided by my general sense of what needs to be done here, and hope that it's very temporary and I can go back to letting the comment section proceed without intervention. The absolute last thing I want to be doing is regulating the comment section, explaining deletions, etc. - which is why I asked, to no avail, that the offenders voluntarily refrain from this conduct.
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@WT
Am I missing something?
Probably nothing important. In the last thread, there are about four pages of comments between bedtime and this morning (EST). Some folks refer to comments that they say are no longer there, and I saw some inline pastes from previous comments I hadn't seen, but it could be that I just missed 'em the first time. Could be other people did too.
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@WT
Oops, GG responded, so nevermind my superflous comment.
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Andrew Todd
Glenn repeatedly deletes posts where I point out his many deficiencies.
This is an absolute lie, as your multiple comments in this very thread -- all of which were critical of what I wrote and are still here -- demonstrate.
You didn't even start commenting here until Saturday. That was the first post you wrote. I haven't deleted a single post you wrote, let alone done so "repeatedly."
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Are you opposed to democracy?
"That might make you an authoritarian or a totalitarian."
On the other hand it might mean you see clearly now. It might mean you know that democracies are blood thirsty empire builders when given the chance and few, if any, have a clean record in their relations with other countries.
Germany was a Democracy that gave the world WWII. The USA is said to be a democracy that has invaded countless other lands and has oppressed the powerless in this country since the very beginning.
Democracy: When 3 wolves and a sheep vote on who to eat for supper.
I studied "Art of Film" long ago in college and we spent most of the time looking at the tyranny of the majority. Little has changed over these 4 decades; the majority still brutalized the minority any chance it gets; and it gets a lot of chances when the central government is as strong as ours is.
Believe in Democracy? You might be an authoritarian or totalitarian.
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Thanks for the preview
I really like the ad. Putting a price tag on the Constitution really is what this is all about. I look forward to seeing the video, as well. I presume you will make YouTube copies of it available? I can imagine quite a bit of viral use of that. In fact, I'd like to put it up as a warning against my Congressman who also takes lots of money from the telecoms. We have a blog making the case against him, and I suspect the Carney ad just might make him a tad uncomfortable.
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@QS - Stop it! You'll owe me a coffee and a monitor.
re: Since letters are being deleted now
I think that any unsubstantiated smear against anyone posted here in UT should be taken down... Why allow it here?
Why indeed.