Imagine – if you can – not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.
And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.
Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.
You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.
In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.
You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered.
How will you live your life?
– THE PSYCHOPATH – The Mask of Sanity
.
Banned Again!
Posted by Rebecca Watson on May 31, 2008
Dear friends,
Things look bleak for our humble cause. I was reinstated to the JREF forum yesterday and found that they had given me moderator powers. I helpfully pointed this out to them with a thread ( http://forums.randi.org/showthread.ph… ) in the community section, and also I banned my arch enemy Scrut (who as you may know started the competing Ban Rebecca cause here on Facebook). Just after my 2nd post in that thread, I was banned.
I messaged the mods of the forum asking why I was banned, and was told there was an “investigation” pending. Because no one else seems to know I was banned, I thought I’d just send out this helpful note to all of you, my dearest supporters in this difficult time concerning Very Serious Issues.
Thanks,
Rebecca
– Free the Rebecca 1! Facebook Cause
.
The things you dig out of Google cache… It was just a random result ralphed up whilst looking for something else and it led to a broken link. I found the above in the cached copy and doing some more digging eventually found the actual page. Screencaps are appended below.
As tempting as it is to think this may actually be a real call to arms, I doubt even Watson is that stupid. But you have to remember she has the cunning of a sewer rat – this is more likely a desperate effort to salvage an unsalvageable situation using her stock standard “mock bitch” mode and create the impression that her vile behaviour has been misconstrued, vastly exaggerated and it’s all really just a storm in a teacup… An exercise in pure distraction.
Much the same tactic as she used in her second post-Elevatorgate video when she was first beginning to realise that her catastrophist dramatics weren’t quite getting the universal support she fully expected and deserved – laying on with a trowel the hipper-than-thou snideness to deflect from the basic reality: that she is a selfish, spoiled, drama queen brat that really can’t deal with life whenever it proceeds in a manner that’s not 110% to her satisfaction.
The important thing to note is that in both cases it is clearly evident that Watson would rather eat broken glass than admit any wrongdoing, and the psychopathy is clearly evidenced by the convoluted manner she went about trying to maintain her waif-like, irreproachable innocence.
But the basic fact remains – there’s no amount of lipstick or manipulation she can ever use to disguise the reality that she was banned from Randi.org for committing a criminal act. A criminal act of the kind that, given the right circumstances, is more than sufficient to earn the perpetrator some serious jail time. This is compounded by the fact that the criminal act was both coldly calculated and remorselessly executed.
I detailed Watson’s actions in a previous post fairly thoroughly. It can be briefly summarised as follows – Becky used unauthorised administrative access at Randi.org to access areas of the site where she should not have been and proceeded to tamper with and delete other users’ data, and to delete other users’ account credentials and identities1. This IS a CRIME in most jurisdictions anywhere on the planet. In a subsequent post I compared her actions to those of David Kernell, currently in a Kentucky prison, for the email hack that exposed serious malfeasance in Sarah Palin’s political machine – ostensibly a somewhat nobler intent than Watson’s pure malice, and certainly no more criminal than Watson’s actions. Here are a handful of other comparisons found after a few minutes googling –
Two Orange County, Calif., high school seniors were supposed to have graduated Wednesday.
Instead, they’re facing serious prison time for alleged crimes that some people might not think are all that serious.
County prosecutors allege Omar Khan, 18, of Coto de Caza, and Tanvir Singh, 18, of Ladera Ranch, broke into Tesoro High School in Las Flores to steal tests and change their own and others’ grades on the school computer network.
While Singh allegedly only tried doing it once, Khan apparently did it several times.
Khan’s been charged with 69 felony counts and could get more than 38 years in prison. Singh faces four counts and could wind up with three years.
- Khan was sentenced to 30 days in jail, three years of probation, 500 hours of community service, and was ordered to pay over $14,900 in restitution. Singh was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and three years of formal probation. [link]
Man faces prison hacking into wife’s Gmail account
A Michigan man is facing five years in prison (and a $10,000 fine) after police say he logged into his wife’s Gmail account without her permission with the intention of spying on her.
33-year-old Leon Walker is charged with a felony ‘hacking’ count following the incident, during which he discovered his wife had been unfaithful to him.
- Conviction status unknown, possibly still in court.
IT manager will serve five months for hacking into his previous employer’s network.
An Orange, California, IT manager who earlier pled guilty to hacking into his previous employer’s computer network was sentenced Monday to five months in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said this week.
According to a plea agreement dated August 30, 2004, Mark Erfurt broke into the computer systems of Santa Clara, California’s Manufacturing Electronic Sales Corp. (MESC) on January 23 and 24 of 2003. During that time, he deleted data, read e-mail, and downloaded a proprietary database from the network using the PC Anywhere remote control software, the agreement says.
- In addition, was also sentenced to five months of home detention and three months of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $45,000 in restitution.
The list of these examples is endless. And while these can be viewed as deliberate crimes, there is additionally the serious risk of similar prosecution for inadvertent or genuinely ignorant information system abuse. What is readily evident is that law enforcement and the courts definitely do not share Watson’s view that this type of vandalism is a “joke”.
Yet to Watson it is a “joke”. It is hard to see how. The willful destruction of other users’ identities is the online equivalent of cold-blooded murder2. To any folks that I know and deal with normally, it is a final taboo, it is a line that you never cross under any circumstances, no matter how bitter your disagreements, nor how antagonistic your relationships. You just DON’T DO IT. Watson however has no such compunctions, no remorse, and judging from her bragging, no regrets. And the only thing preventing her from repeating these actions in future is her awareness of getting caught (again) – definitely not any inherent moral or ethical considerations.
This is the person that CFI, The Naked Emperor, Gollum and SGU endorse, support and think is an appropriate role model for the godless and skeptic movements. Why aren’t more people asking them why? Myers at least has the excuse of being an equally abject and amoral harlot, but the rest? This is a cancerous lesion within the movement and someone at some point needs to address it or else the rest of us just abandon it all and go home. To allow the status quo to persist with Watson and company having carte blanche to behave like absolute pigs and peddle their noxious ideologies slandering community members indiscriminately can only be explained away by one of two possibilities – apathy or complicit corruption. Either is not even close to acceptable.
Footnote – Criminality and Denialism (22 September)
Nowhere does the complete absence of ability to be objective by Watsonistas present itself quite like in the denialism that Becky actually did anything criminal. I am sure they would maintain the same point of view were I to find their webmail credentials on a candy wrapper and proceeded to send abusive email from it to all their friends prior to deleting all their messages. Uhuh. Plausible.
Here’s a state-by-state breakdown of the penal codes for the US –
Computer Hacking and Unauthorized Access Laws
“Unauthorized access” entails approaching, trespassing within, communicating with, storing data in, retrieving data from, or otherwise intercepting and changing computer resources without consent. These laws relate to either or both, or any other actions that interfere with computers, systems, programs or networks.
Similar laws apply in pretty much any of our first world (“pink and pudgy”) states.
1 – I don’t want to hear any of this shit “oh but they left the door open…” That is a nonsense. If you walk down a street and see a house with a door open, that does not entitle you to walk in, rummage around and destroy any diaries or personal paperwork you may find. It was a CRIME. In my time working in the IT security industry, the simple act of even touching another worker’s computer without their express permission was grounds for instant dismissal, let alone tampering with their accounts. It was a CRIME. End of story.
2 – If you consider this an exaggeration, consider how you would feel if someone who didn’t like you gained access to your primary email account, deleted all its contents, sent a bunch of abusive messages to others with your signature and then locked you out of the account or simply canceled it. Bet you’d really be laughing it up.
Portrait of a psychopath 1
Portrait of a psychopath 2
grey lining 
September 10, 2011 at 11:58 pm
Thats a really cute pic of her.
Looks like me when I had an allergic reaction to some antibiotics.
Eck…
September 11, 2011 at 12:09 am
If you had the Black Plague you still could not manage to be any more repugnant than Becky.
September 12, 2011 at 11:17 pm
There you go again Hoggle. Shrill, obsessive, wiltingly puerile, grinding your blunt little axe and putting your flaccidity on full view of the Internet. Paid any prostitutes to watch you have an angry wank recently?
September 12, 2011 at 11:45 pm
Michael: Paid any prostitutes to watch you have an angry wank recently?
Wow. A baboon from Perth. Thought you morons were a northern hemisphere thing.
Why do you insist on confirming what I write about? This neo-puritan shtick is what I keep saying is one of the root causes of the new, new atheism cancer. And here you are laying sex guilt on me like some catholic nun, and worse, assuming it will somehow hurt. Do you have anything other than standard ad himinem to add? Not very likely. Go back and suck Myers’ balls on the baboon board loser – you don’t have to think there.
September 13, 2011 at 12:04 am
Stating the obvious – FTW!
September 13, 2011 at 12:16 am
I’m still waiting for one of these baboons to offer anything other than just an imitation insult of the kind The Naked Emperor has already hurled. It is the Borg. Goose-stepping as one. Not a single unique thought amongst them. Ever. A replay of a replay of a replay. Now that is something to be ashamed of.
September 13, 2011 at 5:54 am
“Go back and suck Myers’ balls on the baboon board loser – you don’t have to think there.”
hahahahahah
brilliant.
September 13, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Dear me, you poor frustrated little man. I couldn’t give a toss – unlike you – where you put your angry inch. I’m glad, really happy for you, that you are liberated enough, man enough, enlightened enough, sophisticated enough, frustrated enough, to pay someone to watch you have a wee strop. I am merely embarrassed for you, but that’s perhaps a waste of emotion as your superior sensibilities have clearly evolved beyond that. So wank away Hoggle, wank with my blessings, and that includes your obsessive-compulsive Watson-wanking articles like this.
ps – look up the definition of ad ‘himinem’ before you use it. You may have evolved beyond any intellectual shame but it still helps to understand the phrase you’re mangling
September 13, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Michael: Dear me, you poor frustrated little man. I couldn’t give a toss
That’s why you keep coming back. And can you parrot squawk something other than verbatim Myers gibberish? Y’know, use your own words? Probably too hard.
ps – look up the definition of ad ‘himinem’ before you use it.
You really are a dickhead aren’t you?
September 13, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Stuck on a Pharyngudrone "lather, rinse, repeat" cycle
ad ‘himinem’ (you’re so witty!) – yes, you don’t understand the phrase you derived it from do you?
But dear me again, your ad himinem attack on me notwithstanding, you didn’t say a single new thing did you? But that’s fine because apparently this is all a cut-and-paste from Pharyngula. And by blindly stating that and dismissing it you’ve absolved yourself of the need to actually, you know, think. Or address what I wrote.
That’s fine. Your blog, your rules. Bye Hoggle, happy obsessing over Rebecca and PZ. I’ll check in occasionally to hear how your latest wankypoos are going, because those things give me such a neo-Puritan thrill (ooo!)
September 14, 2011 at 3:39 am
But WTF did you write Michael? Something about others wanking.. who cares? you even say you dont care, but bring it up again and again. You are one guy who needs to stop writing and start reading and thinking more. You add nothing to the conversation.
September 14, 2011 at 2:18 pm
Astro, what do you really expect? These baboons are a “liberal” mirror image of Fox News viewers, just like Myers is a “liberal” mirror of Glenn Beck. It’s closed loop feedback. Without actual substance, all they can really do is mimic each other in a self-congratulatory circle jerk. I have yet to see any of them bring any observation or thought to the table that is above crude personal insult or puritan guilt; almost always a repetition of something the Baboon King has said anyway. Yellow journalism has come to godlessness.
September 21, 2011 at 9:06 am
So is this a site for teenage skeptics or something? The comments read a lot like jr. high bickering.
September 22, 2011 at 2:01 am
Stuck on a Pharyngudrone "lather, rinse, repeat" cycle
You’re a catty one, aren’t you?
You want some cream to go with your comments? You’re acting more like a particularly annoying 13 year old girl than an adult of any gender.
September 11, 2011 at 12:54 am
Outstanding franc!
I realize now that Beckie and I have something in common. I too have been banned from some blogs. The difference is that I have been banned for fighting against the pseudo-religious fembot hoard. Beckie, on the other hand, gets banned for malicious self promotion.
I will wear my ban as a badge of honor as I am ready to fight for truth. Beckie has no honor so I guess she probably feels as good as I do. She feels satisfaction by collecting power at any cost. I feel satisfaction by promoting the truth. Each to their own I guess…. huh….
September 21, 2011 at 9:07 am
“fighting against the pseudo-religious fembot hoard”
Oh, cool. Dittoheads!
Do you have the femanazi trading cards?
September 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm
An excellent idea Confess. Thanks for the tip. Do you have any gender feminists in mind?
September 21, 2011 at 11:48 am
Sadly, they never saw the light of day –
But if you read much here at all, I always stress that lowering yourself to using the same tactics as the opposition is admission of defeat. This would be pretty much be in the same gutter as Myers/Watson with their publicly displayed blacklists – which they seem proud of. And do work – sadly, seems even folks you expect to be smarter, like Steven Novella, pay attention to them.
September 11, 2011 at 1:10 am
Keep up the good work Franc.
September 11, 2011 at 5:48 am
I want to be clear up front that I am not for an instant in any way defending Watson — I think she is vile, dishonest, manipulative, and should no longer get airtime on SGU nor podium time at the various conferences she holds malicious sway at.
However, I think it’s pretty important to point out that your examples of cybercrime are not in any way, neither by degree nor motive nor intent, except perhaps in the most vague sort of false dichotomy / association by wishful thinking way, the same thing Watson did at the JREF — especially in light of the fact that it may have been what Phil Giordana calls (at ERV) a “war-for-funsies”.
Her crime was not in any way hacking. She took advantage, potentially criminal advantage of an unwarranted and incorrectly given set of privileges (ha, ha, that word again … it just keeps popping up), and abused, perhaps in a criminal and hostile manner; perhaps in only a “war-for-funsies” manner, those unwarranted privileges. All of which is far, far less “criminal” than your examples.
What Watson did may have been a crime (I am no legal expert about that and wouldn’t know for certain); nonetheless, I think you are inflating it well beyond rationality.
Yes, it is ridiculous that Watson continues to get her seemingly bottomless free pass from her various supposedly professional supporters. And yes it is ridiculous that anyone would support her JREF actions and her claims to utter innocence — and that screenshot of the “supporter”, with claims of framing etc. is pretty darned funny.
Still, going crazy overboard with accusations of serious criminal behaviour, and deeply psychotic personality flaws (without actual diagnosis and without being a psychologist or psychiatrist), does not in any way that I can see advance the Anti-Watson cause. Because it kind of begins to make you look/sound rather like a crazed, or at least irrational conspiracy loon — I don’t think you are said loon, but at times the language and the rhetoric you post do seem to edge into that kind of level of unfounded extremism.
I am also not saying “don’t be a dick”. I am simply saying that when you cross over into extremist hyperbole that cannot in fact be backed by actual facts, you weaken your argument substantially.
In my opinion.
September 11, 2011 at 9:10 am
“Her crime was not in any way hacking.”
Uh, what? What’s your definition of ‘hacking’? It’s irrelevant what you call it, anyway, because what she did is still illegal under the same laws that cover the other cases. They were the same crimes, it’s just JREF didn’t push the matter and the other parties did. Methinks you don’t know much about the law in this matter. I’m not a lawyer, BTW, but I’ve done my homework in this area. It makes no difference if she exploited an unintended access setting or if she had ‘hacked’ (whatever that means) in some other way; the same laws cover her behaviour as the other cases.
September 11, 2011 at 11:53 am
You are correct. See footnote 1 – it is no different to you leaving your house front door open and having someone just walk in and shred your personal documents. That is the crime. How you arrived to the point that you could destroy data is irrelevant.
September 11, 2011 at 9:39 am
Intuitively I would agree with you that calling it criminal behaviour just doesnt sound right. But I once had an experience at work that gives me pause. As a software developer, one day we needed to use another team member’s computer, who was away sick (we had good business reasons to want to use one). Since he was sick, and also because we work in a casual and team-oriented environment, I didnt call his home to take his permission. As soon as he found out that we rebooted and logged into his PC, he was very upset and asked me if I realized that what we did was a crime. When I discussed it with my boss later, he thought the guy was being a dick. Later on, when I started paying more attention to the Systems guys (who know their computer laws stuff), I realized how reluctant they were to venture into this territory. In retrospect, I am glad that guy didnt go to HR complaining about me.
Whether we accuse her of such or not, it sure is weird of JREF to permanently ban her from their forums, but offer her a platform at TAMs.
September 11, 2011 at 11:06 am
“it sure is weird of JREF to permanently ban her from their forums, but offer her a platform at TAMs.”
indeed it is.
September 11, 2011 at 11:45 am
@John Greg –
My, you’re counter-accusations of my accusations give new meaning to “excess”. Where to begin?
1. “Hacking” is a word created, promoted and abused by hack journalists and fear monger politicians. In their context, it is meaningless to the actual tech and security community. I detest the term myself – it carries false meaning to plebs much like “liberal”, “conservative” and “freethinker” do now.
2. Show me precisely where I accused Becky of “hacking”? I did no such thing. I accused her of “criminal behaviour”. Don’t put words in my mouth.
3. Her crime is unauthorised intrusion and data destruction. That is a crime no matter how you want to dress it up. My comparison examples are perfectly valid. Becky’s criminality equals them – is it being watered down in your mind because she has a pussy? And that only boys are real “hackers” anyway?
4. “and deeply psychotic personality flaws (without actual diagnosis and without being a psychologist or psychiatrist)” – I diagnosed nothing. I painted a picture and quoted someone else’s words. I don’t tell you what to think. That’s your problem. But having had more than my fair share of psychopaths in my life, Becky is just so awfully familiar to me, in thought, word and action. To summarise Becky in 3 words, it’s “me, me, me”. Further, if you are going to accuse me of this, you really should understand the difference between “psychotic” and “psychopath” first.
5. I have not rushed to judgment on anything pal. I have carefully compiled a detailed case on a malignant presence in our community. This is a summation of many, many previous observations. If you backtrace and read my thoughts on this issue, I have showed enormous restraint. The evidence now is however overwhelming, and even this post, if anything, is an UNDERSTATEMENT.
September 11, 2011 at 2:34 pm
R1. Franc, thanks for the clarification of the word “hacking”. Clearly I needed it. My understanding of the word hacking was when a computer programmer, or someone with programming skills, committed a known illegal act of code writing/rewriting (hence hacking) in software that then altered the function of a program / computer / computer network, so as to steal, remove, or otherwise alter both the program / computer / computer network’s functioning, and/or the data therein.
R2. I did not in fact say anywhere in my comments that you accused Watson of hacking (as per my understanding of the meaning of the word). I said that the examples you used as comparitive and associative of her crime included hacking and were in my opinion not at all like her own actions — though again, your point regarding the crime being deletion of data, and not how you get there, is valid. And again, I thank you for that clarification.
R3. The reason I think your comparisons are not valid has largely to do with degree. You seem to me to be assuming that all crimes of data theft / alteration / deletion are equal, and I don’t buy that anymore than I buy that all crimes of killing are equal, or all crimes of any other sort of theft are equal — and not only in the eyes of the law, but in degree, damage done, motivation, parties involved, and so on.
You said: “… is it being watered down in your mind because she has a pussy? And that only boys are real “hackers” anyway?” Ha, ha. Certainly not. It’s a matter of degree, as I say above, and clearly we disagree as to that degree.
Clearly I might be wrong, but it seems to me that you are viewing this as a pure and absolute black and white crime of major data theft deserving of harsh criminal punishment, and I don’t think your argument or the apparent evidence supports that.
R4. I know you diagnosed nothing, that was part of my point. You said: “The important thing to note is that in both cases it is clearly evident that Watson would rather eat broken glass than admit any wrongdoing, and the psychopathy is clearly evidenced by the convoluted manner she went about trying to maintain her waif-like, irreproachable innocence.” (My emphasis.) So, there you are specifically declaring her to be suffering from psycopathy (implying quite specifically that she is a psychopath), but doing so without diagnosis, something you are not professionally accredited to do.
Also, the large quote opening your post tacitly implies through association that Watson is a pretty serious psychopath in need of repair. So, my point is, that forcefully implying that Watson is a psychopath, as opposed to saying she behaves like a psychopath or behaves like someone with psychopathic tendencies, tends to skew the argument into the unkown and the hyperbolic in an uncomfortably Pharyngulate fashion. I am probably chewing at straws with that kind of pedantic perspective, but nonetheless, I feel the moving into the unknown weakens your argument.
R5. I did not say you rushed to judgement — did I? I can’t find it. As I said, though clearly I was not clear enough, I think most of your factual stuff on Watson is pretty darn accurate, especially when it comes to Watson’s specific actions and quotable statements. I just think that your descriptions of the generally unknown things, such as her motives, her goals, and her personal desires, while quite possibly accurate, tend to border on hyperbolic and extreme, and certainly move into the unknown.
And obviously your sense of restraint and my sense of restraint differ. But that’s not a right/wrong thing; it’s just a difference in approach. What you see as restraint I see as tending toward an uncomfortably similar kind of posting, rhetoric, and to some degree language and/or diction as those whom we here and at ERV tend to so harshly criticize as overzealous over simplifcations and gross generalisations on “the other side”.
May the best pedant win. Hoy hoy!
Other than all that, I quite enjoyed the post, as I do most of your posts. As I say, I agree that Watson is vile, manipulative, mendacious, and should be removed.
September 11, 2011 at 3:07 pm
My more-pedantic-than-thou hat: “hacking” has traditionally meant modifying technology to perform outside of it’s original scope – and malice or gain is never the motive. “Cracking” is the term most of the Defcon/Blackhat crowd prefer to use where there are ulterior motives beyond technology modification. And if you want to jump in the wayback machine, “hacking” originated at MIT in the pre-computer age. All of these terms are generally useless in description of actual malicious activity and their only purpose is that of eyecatching buzzword for nonsense mongers, like politicos and journalists.
The reason I think your comparisons are not valid has largely to do with degree. – I see, like she’s “a little bit pregnant”. This is irrelevant – it’s the difference between stealing a candy bar or an i-pod. The law does not care. My point has nothing to do with “degree” anyway – and everything to do with intent, premeditation and malice. This was a conscious action motivated by spite and childish anger. If anything, that makes it *worse* than some of my other examples, specifically the Palin email guy.
As for the psychopathy – I am saying “here is Rebecca” and “here is someone’s observations of psychopaths after studying them”. To my mind, what speaks volumes about the possibility that Becky is a certifiable psychopath is not the actual actions most people focus on, but this Causes page and the second EG video I mentioned. This is a person that considers themselves to be above the social contracts and considerations that bind the rest of us together as a society. She can ignore all that crap. It does not apply. It is displaying absolute contempt for the fact that we know she is a grubby liar and manipulator – she is telling us she simply doesn’t care and will continue this act regardless. She is dissociated from common human decency. This is the difference between immorality and amorality. She is the latter. I’ll leave it to a shrink to diagnose in clinical terms.
September 12, 2011 at 4:52 am
Franc, again, thanks for the clarifications on both hacking and cracking. I’ll keep that in mind in the future.
You said: “My point has nothing to do with “degree” anyway – and everything to do with intent, premeditation and malice.”
OK, I accept that. But your rheotric led me to perceive your point as being more about highlighting severity than highlighting intent — maybe my bad; maybe your bad; perhaps a bit of both … I’m not sure.
You said: “As for the psychopathy….” (whole paragraph). OK, again, I can accept that now that you’ve explicated it a bit more.
Over the years I’ve often been accused of being overly pedantic and demanding too much precision and specificity in language for online posting. But I only do so because as well as experiencing my own misunderstandings of others’ posts, I witness it happening all too often online in instances where it is clear that most posters, world-wide, fail to take into account how differently different people from different experiential backgrounds, different ages, different cultures and sub-cultures, and so on, will read and comprehend what might seem to the poster to be a straight forward and obvious point as something altogether different.
To some people it might seem like talking down, but making one’s rhetoric as clear, specific, and concise as possible to as many people as possible is nothing but a win-win.
Sorry if I pissed you off — not my intent. Clarity is always my goal, and as I so often fail at that in my own blather, like a movie critic I feel it incumbent upon me to help others clarify themselves.
/irony, and self-deprecation, if perceived, is intentional
September 12, 2011 at 11:35 am
Hey, you didn’t piss me off. I am just abrupt at the best of times and have a hair trigger when it comes to Becky apologetics – which to my bigoted mind you were flirting with in a “keep an open mind” kind of way. I probably could have been clearer, but then the entire post would be wall to wall hyperlinks – and I, probably wrongly, assume everyone has read the preceding posts upon which the observations here are founded. This was essentially a closing summary argument of all I have written presented to you, the reader, who is the judge.
I got spanked anyway. See below. I’m sorry I implied pussy favouritism on your behalf. But sweetness-and-nice style fascism does tend to make my blood boil to the point where control is sometimes difficult.
September 13, 2011 at 7:55 am
Franc, thanks for that post. I really must admit to feeling that my wrist has been slapped — and appropriately so. I agree almost completely with everything you`ve just said.
I am in no way, shape, or form a Watson apologist, l but indeed I can see how it might have looked like I was flirting with it.
Cheers.
September 12, 2011 at 2:48 am
[…] in the comments on one of my posts. It doesn’t explain why anything Rebecca Watson did is being laid at PZ’s feet (warning: you don’t really want to have read that site) as though he were responsible for her […]
September 12, 2011 at 3:34 am
PeeZee Myers is a “harlot”? Wut?
September 12, 2011 at 11:44 am
Of course he is. He’d sell his mother for a bunch of happy snaps of him getting fondled by Skepchicks. He more than happily spat on Richard Dawkins to defend their “virtue” even after the fact that he wouldn’t be where he is today had Dawkins not given him a leg up. That is how much Myers values friendship. Expedient, self-serving harlot.
September 12, 2011 at 5:00 am
“… is it being watered down in your mind because she has a pussy? And that only boys are real “hackers” anyway?”
Love you, Frankie, but that was a Becky move.
John Greg was a complete gentleman about that, and saw right through the sarcasm.
and
“But your rheotric led me to perceive your point as being more about highlighting severity than highlighting intent — maybe my bad; maybe your bad; perhaps a bit of both … I’m not sure.”
I’d say it was equal.
September 13, 2011 at 9:12 am
For what it’s worth, fighting the good fight and trying, probably in vain, to encourage Novella to dump Watson:
link: http://www.skepticblog.org/2011/09/12/24-hours-of-skeptical-activism/#comments
September 13, 2011 at 9:39 am
excellent post, John
September 14, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Thank you sacha, I do appreciate the aknowledgement.
September 14, 2011 at 4:38 pm
And there are voices of agreement. Excellent. This is what is necessary. Letting the dissatisfaction be visible where it counts. Precludes me. I have attained somewhat of a reputation as a maniac amongst the jihadis. But folks that share the grievances should start letting the right people know about it. It’s the only way anything will change.
September 17, 2011 at 4:27 am
I’ve now commented there as well. There is a significant group of us who have spoken there. I’m disappointed to read Novella’s responses, however, I don’t expect him to agree on any of this publicly. Perhaps he will take the time to consider our point of view. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but I have an enormous amount of respect for the man, so I’m hopeful.
September 15, 2011 at 2:35 pm
John, they are just not letting my comments get through there. (I am a first time poster, and have tried 3 times so far, getting rid of URLs as well). If you are looking for some non-elevatorgate ammo, you can use this.
September 15, 2011 at 3:54 pm
Astrokid – they have posted your comment, and now there are more commenters that agree with us. Plus The Naked Emperor himself (PZ Myers) had to weigh in.
September 19, 2011 at 9:05 am
Whew! It’s cooking full steam ahead over there.
Someone named Anne. C Hanna is worth reading to get a really drawn out picture of the mindset of the anti-anti-Watson community. She distorts like all the best Watsonistas — though, to be fair, I don’t think she really is a Watsonista; just someone who cannot stand to see the anti-Watsonistas get angry.
And of course the redoubtable Sheila is at her vituperative best.
Max keeps asking me for a specific single link to one specific Watson incident that proves my Watson-lies claims — I keep pointing out that I cannot do so, but he won’t buy it. So I’ve pointed him, here, there, and everyehwhere. But I don’t think he’s going.
I think Steven Novella may have now stepped back from the dialogue.
To blather on a bit more, I think that is the point that most of the Watson supporters are missing: It is specifically the lack of dialogue that so many of us anti-Watson people are concerned about: Watson does not do dialogues; Benson, Myers, and others censor or delete any dialogue that doesn’t meet their very specific very narrow defitinion, and so on.
We aren’t trying to stop the dialogue; we’re trying to stop a single ideologue.
Ah well, enough blather for today.
@ sacha: saw your comments over there: very good; very well worded and clear and concise.
September 19, 2011 at 9:35 am
“… specific very narrow defitinion….”
Whoops!
“… specific very narrow definition….”
September 19, 2011 at 11:32 am
Well, dialogue by definition means “an exchange of ideas or opinions” – which is hardly desired by any ideology. They are “my way or the highway” one way streets not even remotely interested in the other. The second definition is unintentionally funny –
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ideology
2. such a body of doctrine, myth, etc., with reference to some political and social plan, as that of fascism, along with the devices for putting it into operation.
September 19, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Hmm. Interesting. Just taking a peek from over from skepticblog, curious to see what goes on behind the scenes with these anti-RW loons. Fun stuff. Hi John D! Hi sacha! Hi John Greg! You guys are a hoot! A HOOT! Don’t ever stop, you are doing a service for all mankind. Bless your crazy brains.
This is embarrassing.
September 19, 2011 at 3:29 pm
aaron: This is embarrassing.
Sure is. Watching secularism get reduced to being a pseudo-Muslim Brotherhood in skirts.
September 19, 2011 at 3:52 pm
thank you, John. I do not understand how one can possibly call you the things they have. You are polite, articulate, pleasant, happy to give clear examples, and you keep your cool. These people are incredibly deluded.
Ignore Anne C. Hanna – she has made up her mind and no amount of facts will sway her, she is not a critical or science-based thinker, I believe she just enjoys arguing for no apparent reason. She has said some bizarre things, I want to respond to her, but I think I’d be giving her the attention she desperately craves.
and “Shelia” with her “Is that because you’re not pretty?” comment shows exactly who she is. I may comment to that.
Right now Anne C Hanna is too convoluted to attemp to respond to. She’s also an idiot, and that is not ad hominem, it’s fact.
September 20, 2011 at 3:38 am
Hey guys, what’s going on in here? Hey, you’re a borderline hate group huh? Nothing but cranky codswallop from cranky ideologues.
September 20, 2011 at 4:42 am
Hey Guest (any others that wanna drive-by-shoot),
Let me help you learn something today.
http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
Your level of discourse is at DH0. Raise it and we can talk.
September 20, 2011 at 6:13 am
Stuck on a Pharyngudrone "lather, rinse, repeat" cycle
Astrokid, not really interested in talking, just here to gawk and ridicule. We’ve all seen what talking with you people accomplishes.
September 20, 2011 at 7:17 am
“We’ve all seen what talking with you people accomplishes.”
Yes. It’s called discussion and debate with both agreement and disagreement; exchanging differences of opinion; presenting new, sometimes valid; sometimes ludicrous, ideas.
People like yourself who prefer to stifle discussion, debate, and disagreement, stifle the world.
September 20, 2011 at 11:11 am
Congratulations Guest, you are comment #1000 (excluding spam). I was really hoping it would be something memorable, but I guess I have to settle for you.
September 20, 2011 at 7:42 am
Holy shit, how is your “dissatisfaction” not visible? From ANYWHERE!!!? All you guys do is make noise and rattle your sabers. You dicks are so loud and obnoxious you are visible from space!
FAIL! Novella has DENIED your dumping request. What part of REQUEST DENIED do you dummies not comprehend. Your tone, your toxicity, your hatred; It isn’t going to persuade anyone. So much fury, so much rage from such a little incestuous group of jerks. Your astro-turfing over there isn’t working out as well as you’d like to pretend.
What a bunch of bastards.
September 20, 2011 at 11:01 am
Oh look. Another toilet slave. One day, one of these twerps will be articulate and have substance. Then the universe will implode.
I think we can all look forward to long and happy lives.
September 20, 2011 at 11:52 am
Toilet slave says: “Oh you haters are such haters…. I hate you bastard haters! Hate is bad.” Thus spouts hater anti-hater hate! Haha!
September 20, 2011 at 12:04 pm
@John: Where have we heard this before? Oh, yeah, that’s right. The Jewish question. “The Jew hates you… The Jew is filled with rage…” That’s about the size of the Watsonista counterargument.
September 21, 2011 at 11:54 pm
Hoggle,
You might have better luck with women if you didn’t hate them so much. Blaming your cute straw man (woman) image of feminism for your lack of romantic success isn’t going to help.
September 22, 2011 at 1:04 am
Actually, you are a toilet slave. It’s funny how consistently you baboons want to imply sexual insecurity and other miscellaneous sexual guilt bullshit. It’s the one constant theme from every baboon board blow in – from the baboon king down. I never really see this kind of behaviour from people that have adequate sex lives themselves. That’s the funny thing about puritans. No wonder Myers is so easily bought by skepchick prick teasing.
September 22, 2011 at 1:43 am
“Toilet slave”
Really?
You use the phrase “toilet slave” to describe men you don’t see as sufficiently macho and you expect to be taken seriously?
September 22, 2011 at 1:59 am
What’s “macho” got to do with anything? Your preoccupations with sexual insults and gender roles are disturbing for those that seek to educate us about gender politics. Shows the complete destitution of the apologist camp. Which, if anything, a toilet slave implies. Mindlessness devoid of autonomy that needs to be led around.
September 22, 2011 at 2:41 am
I dont know why I even respond to posts like the one from Matthew, but I have some hope that people who take the time to read blogs at least want to learn.
Matthew,
Read the below and you will understand the cosmopolitan way of life.
https://greylining.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/skepchick-rebecca-watson-and-acosmopolitanism/
To the cosmopolite, all personal idiosyncrasies such as race, place of origin, gender, sexuality, spiritual outlook, political predispositions and other miscellaneous beliefs are of little more import than streets signs in a village – just informational snippets to assist us in getting our bearings for the purposes of social navigation, mostly for the purposes of avoiding maniacs, or being forewarned and forearmed for dealing with them. It is egaliatarianism of acceptance of the other on a take it or leave it basis, with no desire to change it unless it does pose genuine risk to life and property.
This all tends to lead to absurdities. Quite often, in the presentations of their position in argument, cosmopolites will get branded with some kind of -ism, usually that of race or sex. The absurdity lies in the charges being of crimes against the very same artificial social constructs that the cosmopolite has abandoned as irrelevant in the first place. Ordinary folks simply are incapable of grasping the basic fact that if a cosmopolite dislikes you, it has nothing to do with your race, gender or belief system – the only reason they will ever dislike you is if you are an asshole.
September 13, 2011 at 9:18 am
I like your taking this issue to the N-teenth limit. The sociopathy is a cultural virtue of WPF’s, and is widely seen as a ‘harmless’ behavior, when in fact it is what leads us to war in Libya, etc.
But all this negativity towards womyns–It’s time that you did something good for women for a change: Today I am kicking off my ‘Fill the Hungry Vaginas with Hope’ campaign to raise awareness of objectification…
Are you one of THEM, or one of US? Help save the vaginas….
September 13, 2011 at 10:23 am
Good article!
Well I also find that both are mistaken but I got many more haters than you:
http://dysfunctionalwatsondawkins.wordpress.com/
See? there are Skepto-jihadis around us, they do not like when someone disagrees with them.
The worst thing is that Dawkins could have avoided all this by not sending a single word…what a terrible mistake.
September 13, 2011 at 12:03 pm
I don’t see how you can frame Dawkins as an equal party to this idiocy. The extent of his role here was his initial comment, which he no doubt now regrets. Nevertheless, it is a comment that needed to be made, and it was a comment very much in the Enlightenment Freethinker spirit – it was worthy of Voltaire. He responded to stupidity with ridicule – but ridicule that had a barbed and very valid point to convey. His only error was to then attempt to justify it – which thankfully was only briefly. He has since remained silent on the subject.
In response, there have been calls for boycotts bordering on book burning; endless slanders and vilifications; accusations of rape apologetics and so on. Perhaps the crowning idiocy was the Dear Dick letter / petition with the surreal closing line –
It should be noted that the authors of this piece of gibberish, Almost Diamonds, have now also relocated to the baboon king’s oxymoronically named new empire FreethoughtBlogs.
You are equating chalk and cheese. Dawkins has maintained dignity in the face of overwhelming and unjustified insult and abuse. Becky and company have staggered from new low to new low. It’s impossible for me to understand how you arrive at your views.
September 13, 2011 at 11:13 am
Oh! that was gold! PZMyers ALSO freak out on me and gave me 2000+ unique angry! visitors after he cried out loud his outrage for my open letter
http://bit.ly/pSpoBg
September 13, 2011 at 3:26 pm
From one of the admins from that time (Remi) Rebecca Watson was most likely drunk at the time she did that ‘break’ into JREF. She has a drinking problem, whichs makes for funny photos at events but now the only ‘platform’ she’s given at TAMs is as class clown a role she’s always played on the SGU. It’s not even a secret any more that Evan of SGU can’t stand her and Novella only keeps her on ‘because she’s popular’. How must it feel to be the ‘other guys’ when she gets all the attention for doing as she does?
See how many people she’s used in one way or another to forward her career. Its not slut shaming to notice that Sid Rodrigues deserved better than a social climber who had flings with another skeptic.com at conferences. Now with CFI employee Adam Isaak. No cooincidence that the CFI conference is at his workplace.
September 13, 2011 at 4:22 pm
“White male privilege” indeed. It’s like Imelda Marcos bitching she doesn’t have enough shoes.
September 14, 2011 at 1:16 am
Now with CFI employee Adam Isaak.
For real?
September 14, 2011 at 10:52 am
NM– Verified myself.
Watsons Flickr: “Photo by Adam Isaak”
Amazing how so little can explain so much.
Reminds me of a couple other other scam artists in the skeptical movement– Josh Timonen and Maureen Norton, in appearance and behavior.
The atheist movement needs a few rounds of chemo.
September 14, 2011 at 11:11 am
ERV: The atheist movement needs a few rounds of chemo.
You’ve summarised my entire blog. I am ashamed to be godless with where we have arrived.
September 21, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Citation needed
September 21, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Fair call. Would that this degree of skepticism be applied to whether EG was even a skeptic, and not a hotel blow in, or as to whether he even exists and is not a fabricated story to begin with.
September 30, 2011 at 3:41 pm
You’re pretty creepy, posting this. It’s not topical, nor is it a criminal issue. Why would you post it?
September 30, 2011 at 3:51 pm
There’s a word for comments like yours – denialism. In simple language, it’s sticking your fingers in your ears while yelling “LALALALA”.
It is a criminal issue, as explained in simple terms, and Becky behaves like a malicious criminal to deliberately harm others when she thinks she can get away with it. Amongst an endless list of other stupidities with which she is dragging secularism down into banality and idiocy. I know you folks aren’t very good at reading or following links, so here it is again –
http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=13494
Becky is a criminal, end of story. She gets away with it because she is white and has a pussy, and folks are too terrified to treat her as an equal before the law. This is a type of “privilege” that doesn’t exist for you does it? Bad thought. Don’t think it.
She is an ideogical fascist and malicious vandal. The real crime is that she represents secularism in the public space and demeans us all in doing so.
September 30, 2011 at 6:11 pm
I’ll bet you could manage even to pull the wings off a fly if you had half a dozen of your mates handy to hold it down.
September 30, 2011 at 6:25 pm
“Franklin Percival”? For real? I bet you got beat up in school a lot.
Yes, I know that’s cheap, but really, given the track record, that’s all you clowns deserve.
September 30, 2011 at 11:12 pm
You people are pathetic. Get a life.
September 30, 2011 at 11:39 pm
You come in here just to deposit that comment and you’re telling me I need a life? Go back to your baboon troop. You’re lost without them.
October 1, 2011 at 8:50 am
Franc,
I wish there were a checkbox in the comments for ‘Select this if you are a pharyngudrone’ with an accompanying ‘Hello I am retarded’ pic. I am sure they will select it.
July 15, 2012 at 2:00 am
LOL, this ragecase kid got destroyed by rebecca watson and now he’s hella affected. good fight, wasn’t close
January 13, 2013 at 10:56 pm
Reblogged this on The Critical Atheist.
March 7, 2013 at 11:25 pm
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actually a fastidious post, keep it up.
July 31, 2013 at 5:40 pm
Rebecca Twatson is a semen drooling whore whose only talent is getting in the proper light for her homemade fellatio movies.
August 1, 2013 at 1:13 am
Classy BeccaT, real classy.
You’ve done a good job making Watson’s critics look bad.
May 10, 2014 at 1:39 pm
[…] a job cunt!-) so I found those sites to be either rambling (worse than me, no less) or have an “honest, take no prisoners” approach to criticism. Yet, none of them qualifies as “hate” (Rebecca’s […]
May 10, 2014 at 1:40 pm
[…] a job cunt!-) so I found those sites to be either rambling (worse than me, no less) or have an “honest, take no prisoners” approach to criticism. Yet, none of them qualifies as “hate” (Rebecca’s […]