Comments on: Anger

By: msg

msg — Sat, 14 Feb 2004 01:09:43 +0000

One comment, and only one, takes up the real person whose safety and privacy were threatened by the originating post, everybody else gets all frothy on procedural sanctions and definitional jots and tittles. Anybody who’s spent more than 45 minutes on the ‘net knows there are rabid and nasty minds out there – a teeming, festering mass of them, actively seeking vulnerable targets. To expose anyone to that sick horde, even potentially, who has in no wise sought out that exposure, is not just a breach of protocol, it’s criminal, it is the thing for which the designation of acts as crimes was first instituted. Whether there are statutes that apply, or codes of etiquette and deportment, whether there is reciprocity of blog “presence”, is trivial beside that.

By: dipnut

dipnut — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 22:54:19 +0000

In the teachings of Bokonon (and the religion of Bokononism), a karass is a group of people who, wittingly or otherwise, share a particular destiny. No, that’s not quite right. Basically, the idea is that God has a plan, and the members of the karass ensure it goes forward. In Cat’s Cradle, the narrator’s karass fulfills God’s intention with hilarious results. The karass “pivots” around a wampeter, a physical object essential to the plan. Any group of people which is not a karass (for instance, the maintainers of Crooked Timber) is a granfalloon. And all of this is foma, or lies. As for Brad deLong, this “not part of my karass” business is his answer to everything. De-link, don’t read it, shut your ears, blah blah blah I’m not listening. Whatever. Membership in any given karass is not a matter of choice.

By: Richard Vagge

Richard Vagge — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 21:36:45 +0000

And what’s a “karass” anyway?

By: Richard Vagge

Richard Vagge — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 21:34:44 +0000

Brian, sorry about that. I didn’t notice the links on my first view and I was still mad about DeLong’s comment above and didn’t take a good enough look. But DeLong’s comment makes for a good example. I think that Brad DeLong is a big fat idiot(Apologies to Al Franken), but I read his blog every week. Why? Becasue no matter what I think of Brad, he writes about things that you’ve got think about and address. You don’t have to like someone to listen and you should listen to as many voices as possible.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 21:31:18 +0000

Instapundit links to Crooked Timber and DeLong. Crooked Timber and DeLong do not link to Instapundit. While this may not tell you everything you need to know, it says lot It tells me someone needs to explore the “Find” function under his browser’s “Edit” menu.

By: GMT

GMT — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 21:15:41 +0000

No, you are the real partisans, who can’t conceive of anyone criticizing a Democrat without being a bought-and-paid-for operative. I can. Do I get a cookie? I seem to remember something about publishing a young woman’s personal information, rather than Democrats… Oh, well, gone now. Noise too high, signal too low. Or maybe that was the idea.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 20:46:46 +0000

“Forgive my bluntness, but I don’t understand the problem. First, why should you care about another website pulling a tabloid stunt? It’s not on your web site.” Please rewrite. This is not intelligible in its present form.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 20:37:55 +0000

We, er, do link to Instapundit, under the law section. He just doesn’t get a headline billing. If we really wanted to be partisan I guess we’d (a) get rid of his link and (b) remove Volokh, OxBlog, Libertarian Samizdata and others from the ‘Lumber Room’. I think both those things would be mistakes, and there hasn’t been much uprising to do either around here.

By: Richard Vagge

Richard Vagge — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 20:03:02 +0000

Instapundit links to Crooked Timber and DeLong. Crooked Timber and DeLong do not link to Instapundit. While this may not tell you everything you need to know, it says lot. It says that tolerance is a difficult thing and some can do it and some can not. Can some one point to the baselines? What are the ideas that someone expresses that make all of their other pronoucement unexceptable? How does one get kicked out of the club? Please tell.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 17:42:09 +0000

I get the feeling asg thinks ‘partisan’ means ‘prominently endorses views I disagree with’, because that’s the only way Instapundit could be less partisan than most of us at CT - me being a possible exception ;)

By: asg

asg — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 14:23:46 +0000

I am glad Glenn removed the post. And let’s face it, Glenn is a lot less ideologically obsessed and partisan than most of CT’s contributors are.

By: Barry

Barry — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 14:08:50 +0000

MC, Instapundit matters just like Rush matters. Too many people listen to each, and take them seriously.

By: mc

mc — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:10:05 +0000

Forgive my bluntness, but I don’t understand the problem. First, why should you care about another website pulling a tabloid stunt? It’s not on your web site. Or is this the same kind of argument like “the internet doesn’t get respect because of paedophiles”? The “blogosphere” means nothing, you might as well start talking of a “mobilesphere” that includes everyone using a mobile. What they say on it has nothing to do with what they’re using. The means of communication does NOT define the content. Second thing I don’t get. Why, in 2004, do you still get upset if some US Presidential candidate had or might have had an affair or twenty? If you don’t like the tabloid stunt, then at least you shouldn’t give a toss about the claim. If you care so much about both, then congratulations, you’re the perfect tabloid reader, so don’t complain! :D

By: Prometheus 6

Prometheus 6 — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 05:57:24 +0000

Frankly, I only find out about what Instapundit posts by reading how outraged he makes some of us. He was the first blogger I read, and the second I categorized as a propagandist. He had some good stuff linked sometimes but finding it was like bobbing for apples in the sewer.

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 05:36:04 +0000

Dipnut: Hey, it was a cheap shot. Seeing someone idly link to garbage like that kind of merits one; christ, it’s not like it requires a lot of soul-searching to realize that the post at the heart of this discussion was a stupid, zero-class thing to do. Or to continue doing; I have no idea if the point-post-and-giggle over pictures of interns is still going on, nor do I really care. Stumbling over net circle-jerks isn’t something I enjoy doing. And I don’t speak for—and I’m not representative of—every single Democrat, much as I’d like to do.——————————Neil: I think demanding that he be fired or whatever is too harsh. Everybody makes mistakes, everybody says and does stupid things online, and it’s not like Reynolds is hosting pictures or repeating phone numbers or anything like that. His link is gone, and to his credit it was gone quickly. Calling him stupid and avoiding his page works for me.