1. Didn't happen.
2. If it did happen, the techniques were authorized.
3. Even if the techniques were not authorized, we got useful information.
4. Even if we didn't get useful information, we couldn't take the risk of not acting.
5. Even if we could take the risk, he was a bad guy and deserved it.
6. Democrats love terrorists.
7. Clinton did it to.
8. 9/11.
Yglesias lays out a sequence of events that begins thusly:
# Al-Qaedist Abu Zubaydah was captured in March 2002.
# Zubaydah's captors discovered he was mentally ill and charged with minor logistical matters, such as arranging travel for wives and children.
# The President was informed of that judgment by the CIA.
# Two weeks later, the President described Zubaydah as "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States."
# Later, Bush told George Tenet, "I said he was important. You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" and asked Tenet if "some of these harsh methods really work?"
I want to know what happened between steps 3 and 4 of that sequence.
Unless by "mentally ill man" you mean the President, who was tortured by the possibility of changing his mind. Fortunately for him, he overcame that temptation.
Did anyone see the PBS Frontline last night that ties in to this?
PBS website says the whole episode will be online Thurs. , but the extended interviews with the key players are online now.
Back on topic though, Something Like This happens when administration officials need to be able to point to someone or something and say, "See! We're right! Nuke the fuckers!" The source could be a schizophrenic platypus, as long as whoever is pitching the story can look at the camera and say "we have information pointing to...".
Posted by
I Can't Put Esquire After My Name |
Link to this comment |
06-21-06 9:37 AM
What's the appropriate adjective to describe how this story makes me feel? Sad/angry/hopeless?
Also, this is the kind of thing I want to send to my right-leaning Christian acquaintances who don't think they have a duty to get involved in the world. See what is happening? Is there ANYTHING that will get you to get your head out of the New Testament for a few hours?
The mentally ill are among the worst treated in any prison, anywhere. Their susceptibility makes them number one fucking target for this kind of abuse, and the continuation of it, because as we see here, it produces results that satisfy people. Makes them feel like they are doing their job.
Reading this stuff makes me feel really, really ill. Also makes me want to quit my job a lot.
I think I begin to understand how the diehard Bush supporters do it. I simply don't want this to be true so much that I am tempted to ignore it altogether.
I want it to be true. It is a very important story in that it directly connects Bush to torture, and goes even further in showing that he is in charge (Billmon calls it the Cheney administration); what in reality motivates the man; and his style of management by intimidation.
After decades of Republicans out-sourcing their atrocities (Chile,El Salvador) it is very useful that we can now directly connect the party to torture, war crimes, and human rights violations. However much the rank-on-file might want to avoid responsiblity for the behavior of its enthusiastically supported leadership, it becomes more difficult with every revelation that there is not something systemically wicked, pernicious, and/or irresponsible in the core philosophies of conservatism and Republicanism.
This has certainly been worked upon theoretically, but the attack on conservatism will require mountains and centuries of evidence to have the stake driven thru its heart.
While not doubting the truth of it for a second, I am still dumbstruck by the following sequence of events:
CIA and FBI to Bush: Abu Zubaydah is a nobody, and crazy to boot.
Bush to America: Abu Zubaydah is a key figure who has important information.
Bush to Tenet: Go make what I said true, by any means necessary.
But, but.... look, it's not like Bush hasn't said stupid things in the past that were discredited and spun.
I mean, suppose it had come to light earlier that 'Abu Zubaydah, who the President said was a key figure, has been determined to be a minor figure at most, and crazy to boot. Blah blah blah, proof of the honesty of our intelligence operatives', pat Zubaydah on the head, send him home with a cookie and prescription, and now whenever anyone questions U.S. interrogation policy, have a blindingly clear counterexample 'see see see they are good guys they let that crazy guy go even though they could have hidden it'. Or you do it all quiet like, the NYT picks it up six months after the fact, random f00b writes a editorial no one reads behind the firewall, lala, no problem.
It's not like this guy's track record is built on accurate information.
The liberal blogs fume for a few days, most of the country shrugs because that's apparently all the electorate is good for when you dangle terrorism in front of their noses, right-wing blogs get to whip it out whenever there's a critcism of the war on terror. We acknowledge our mistakes! Unlike the left!
So what the FUCK is going on if they honestly decided that the best way to use someone they knew was insane was to follow up on the information he made up? What am I missing?
19:Did you miss David Kay and a cast of hundreds spending a year in Iraq and millions of dollars sifting the sands for the WMD's? Bush said:"They gotta be there, because I said they were. You incompetents just aren't finding them."
So what the FUCK is going on if they honestly decided that the best way to use someone they knew was insane was to follow up on the information he made up? What am I missing?
All I can come up with is that they just don't care. They don't care about torturing this guy when he doesn't know anything, they don't care about wasting resources following up bullshit -- the whole point is the publicity effect of "Following Up Information We Got From Interrogating Terrorists." It looked productive, and they just didn't give a damn about the substance.
It's a good strategy -- be so lawless and sadistic that most people will not be able to bring themselves to believe that the leader of their country is actually like that.
Even if (though) Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove are pulling the strings, George W. Bush is completely morally bankrupt as a human being, and a war criminal. Every day he remains in office is a standing insult to the concept of justice.
What you are missing is that torturing opponents is never done to aquire accurate information (that doesn't work), but to make political points.
Look at the Soviet era: people were tortured to confess "conspiracies" so a counter-campaign could be sold to the public.
The communists in China used it that way, and all the dictators in Latin America and the Middle-East; the Bush-regime just follows a standard pattern.
22: Alternatively, welcome to beauracracy. Someone wrote a memo saying, "I think he's insane," rather than "He's insane." Someone else saw "I think" and decided it would be safer, career-wise, to follow up on the information. What's the real downside for the decision-maker in being too careful?
So what the FUCK is going on if they honestly decided that the best way to use someone they knew was insane was to follow up on the information he made up? What am I missing?
Well, these are the motherfuckers who claim they create their own reality.
24: What I don't understand is why they bother actually torturing the innocent prisoners in order to back up the lies that are being told to the public. Why don't they just tell the public the lies and PRETEND that the information actually comes from prisoners?
People may be overreacting here. I'm not sure these "harsh methods" are actually torture. If "death threats" count as torture, then the recruits of our own armed forces are all "tortured" in boot camp. Plus, if this guy was crazy, it is awfully odd that he seems to have been able to figure out exactly what his interrogators wanted to hear. Can't have been too crazy, is what I'm saying.
Waterboarding fits my definition of torture. And if you've ever dealt with legitimately crazy people, they can often be very skilled at telling you what you want to hear.
35- it doesn't strike *you* as odd, because you're not crazy. It's a perfectly sensible answer. That's my whole point. If he had said answered "inside the brown cow" or "the seventh moon of jupiter" then I'd be thinking he was probably crazy.
Look I'm not trying to defend these practices. I just think "torture" might be a bit of a strong word. I've never been "strapped to a water board" myself, but I imagine it's far less unpleasant than having you testicles crushed in a vice, or your fingernails ripped out, which were the sorts of things done to US troops in 'Nam. To me it just sort of dishonors their memory to be calling "threats" torture. That doesn't mean what was done here was right or moral.
You know, when discussing actual instances of torture I'm not really concerned with whether labelling it as 'torture' dishonours the memory of US troops in Nam.
I'll repeat, if you think that's a major concern in this case then you're a moral imbecile.
And, Rooper? If you're going to appeal to our troops who were tortured in Nam, I sugggest you defer to the judgment of someone who it happened to on whether we're doing the right thing here.
And further, the point isn't that Zubaydah was mentally ill to the point of being unable to respond sensibly to being tortured, the point is that he was mentally ill and he didn't know anything useful.
This may be the stupidest, most irritating bit of rhetoric in general use. Everytime someone starts talking about "honor," I want to make sure I still have my wallet. It's clearly wrong to go around dishonoring anyone, living or dead. And I'm happy to say that dishonoring military dead is worse than dishonoring non-military dead. That makes it about No. 1000 on the list of things I actually give a fuck about. I see the same fucking argument constantly used to justify flying that fucking traitorous flag.
I don't think he needs to be banned; he's not being needlessly irritating just for the sake of being irritating. He's just saying something that he believes; I happen to find it endlessly irritating, but there's no evidence that he's doing it for that purpose. But, of course, it's not my call.
I can't believe I'm taking this much abuse and I'm not even defending the practices in question. I said they weren't necessarily right or moral. Geez... how would you treat someone who actaully disagreed with you?
I just think it's telling that people get so worked up about something like this -- this guy beign mistreated, whereas they have no similar outrage over American soldiers being KILLED in teh line of duty, or people like Nick Berg being BEHEADED. THAT is torture my friends. I'll take being "threatened" with death any day over having my head chopped off on a fucking videotape. Why is there so much outrage over one and not the other?
My whole point is that words like torture ought not be thrown about over little bits of this and that. Torture is a very serious thing. This is like a woman giving a guy a blowjob and deciding the next day she didn't like him anymore and calling it "rape". It's watering down a very serious word and stripping it of all meaning, so it becomes useless. It's dishonoring true victims of torture just like it would be dishonoring true rape victims.
And what about Haditha? Why do we care about what happened to this crazy guy, and what happens to the detainees in Guantanamo who don't get exactly all the foods they want so they too cry torture, why do we care about these things and not what is happening to the Marines from Haditha? Haditha is in many ways analogous to what seems to have happened in the Duke rape case - Duke players were charged despite a total lack of evidence because of what a stripper said. Now everyone knows that strippers are low, base, morally corrupt individuals. The word of a stripper shouldn't be discounted outright exactly, but it shouldn't be taken as reason enough by itself for bringing charges, either.
In the incident in Haditha, as I understand it the allegations came about primarily because of what Iraqis said. This makes me skeptical. Has no one considered that possibly these Iraqis have been threatened by terrorists, or maybe themselves are friendly with the terrorists? Further, there is a good deal of agreement among those who know about that part of the world that lying and dishonesty aren't viewed the same as they are here. That is, Iraqis don't seem have serious moral qualms about lying.
Yet several brave soldiers may have their careers destroyed over this incident. That's the sort of moral relativism that burns me about the modern left -- ruin the careers of American GIs, behead them on film, all that's okay; but don't you dare refuse to give the terrorist-suspects in Guantanamo their choice of foods to eat. That would be TORTURE!
Why are these not treated as equally serious issues? Can anyone explain this to me?
Haditha is in many ways analogous to what seems to have happened in the Duke rape case
Let the record show that this is the single stupidest sentence I have ever read. How do we get to point where we're torturing nutcases? Because too many Americans can write sentences like the above with a straight face.
Look, Mrs. bitchphd, if you'd prefer I not comment on your blog then okay, I won't. (Yes I know you have a blog too). I just left my comments because this seems to be a place full of reasonably intelligent people. I thought it was a place where people might engage the issues. But it sounds like you'd prefer to just sit in the echo chamber and "ban" and voices that disagree with your own preconceptions. Fine. Again, I'll be sure to stay away from your blog. I hope the administrators here are more charitable, more open to dissent, but if they feel the same way you do they can ask me to comment no more. It's that simple.
Wow... the conflation of Haditha and Duke is just too far out. It's right over my head. 49 gets it exactly right. SCMT, do you still think Rooper's activity is not "trolling"? Because I have nevernot recently seen so many fluffy bits of right-wing nonsense strung together so glibly and meaninglessly. I am not seeing thought or engagement behind it.
Posted by
Clownæsthesiologist (formerly TMK) |
Link to this comment |
06-21-06 7:41 PM
53
sit in the echo chamber
Andrew? Is that you? Or is this metaphor of the week for trolls?
Have you become Clownaesthesiologist because of that thread at Apo's today? Does a C'gist have instruments to track his progress or must he have a subjective judgment of laughter? Does C'giology work in an echo chamber?
I was going to defend Rooper, as an act of indirect self-defense and as a expression of solidarity with the vulgar and stupid commenters of the world but then I read 47.
If I ever wrote anything like the third paragraph Marcotte would drive up from Austin and strangle me. Or my corpse, cause my partner would beat her to it.
6 years and I have never been banned from anywhere. Trevino didn't even ban me. I think I am doing this commenting stuff wrong.
I submit two things for consideration:
1) If all of the psychological torture being inflicted upon the detainees were being inflicted upon captured American troops, I am sure the chest-beating about how tain't real torture would stop right quick.
2) Wasn't most of this psychological torture designed to be a) more devastating and b) without leaving marks?
I disagree with nearly every one of your words, but you actually sound somewhat sincere, so I'm going to take (the already foreseeably regrettable) step of engaging you.
It may (or may not, I don't know) be true that the torture inflicted by Americans in Vietnam was "worse" or "more serious" than that inflicted by Americans on Iraqis. But it doesn't change the fact that Americans are torturing people, and in that sense, I don't care whose torture is worse. I don't think calling a "lesser" form of the offense "torture" "dishonors" Vietnam vets. Are the veterans you know in some kind of torture contest? Are they really quibbling over whose torture was "worse" and who gets to be called the torture champion?
Also this:
Now everyone knows that strippers are low, base, morally corrupt individuals.
I have to assume you're joking, because it's preposterous. Even so, it's not funny.
Iraqis don't seem have serious moral qualms about lying.
and
don't you dare refuse to give the terrorist-suspects in Guantanamo their choice of foods to eat.
In the incident in Haditha, as I understand it the allegations came about primarily because of what Iraqis said. This makes me skeptical. Has no one considered that possibly these Iraqis have been threatened by terrorists, or maybe themselves are friendly with the terrorists?
I'm sure NO ONE of the Navy investigators on the case has ANY INKLING that such things might happen. Too bad Rooper isn't over there to hold their hands and explain how to conduct a fucking investigation.
55/56 -- Yeah, from the thread at Apo's. I am liking the idea of putting people to sleep with my buffoonery. And also, I felt like I should stop reminding LB and AC of their lecherous teacher.
Is there a meaningful distinction between "troll" and "offensively stupid"? What says Kant on this question?
Well, with Kant, it's the intent that counts, so if Rooper's really stupid, he/she/it gets a pass.
If OTOH Rooper is merely launching half-thoughts into the thread without having bothered to read anything on Haditha--say, at Farber's blog--then he/she/it at least needs to work in some cock jokes. Like, NOW.
Oh, but we'll lose the metacommentary. I am Cala's obligatory sad face.
I think Kant would say you have a duty not to launch half-baked thoughts, like Critique of Judgment into public discourse. But we honestly have little clue what that fucker said.
Okay, so perhaps this idjit gets a pass in terms of intent. But how is one to determine intent, with idjits? And are one's actions towards said people to be meaningfully different, if one can do so?
60- jms, it is true that there is no torture contest. All torture is awful. I don't even think it's meaningful to compare some torture against another and try to decide what's worse.
What I'm talking about it drawing a line in the sand and saying "this is torture" and "that is not". And to me having someone say mean things to you is just not the same things as having your eyes cut out or your hands cut off. The question is on which side of the line this falls. This isn't as bad (it doesn't seem to me) as what happened to our troops in Vietnam, so I'm not comfortable watering down the abuse they endured by calling this "torture". Again, I wouldn't have so much of a problem if we could just refer to it as "mistreatment." (Which it likely was -- again, I'm not condoning what happened.)
And no, it's a bit off topic but I'm not joking about strippers. Have you ever known one to be moral, in the true Aristotelian sense? And I think my observation is fully supported by how the Duke case seems to have in fact played out, don't you?
Is there a meaningful distinction between "troll" and "offensively stupid"?
Not really. In the dark night of the soul all trolls look alike. Or something like that. I take back 49, actually. Those remarks are so ignorant and such a classic effort at button-pushing, that I'll do Jack the Rooper the favor of believing he isn't serious.
I wish the hell I did know how we got to this place (oh, yeah, I know: Bush became President, criminals destroyed the WTC, the rest is history. But how did we get here?). So often I read the news and think "this isn't the way it's supposed to happen." I feel as if I've slipped into some kind of Sliders America. I suppose I'm naïve. I suppose this is just the nightmare of history and I've been too fortunate to notice until now. I wish to hell I knew how to get out, though.
Anyway, good booze helps, I find, though the cow-eyed Alameida might disagree with me on that.
Now everyone knows that strippers are low, base, morally corrupt individuals.
Oh, what a charmer you are Roop. And soooo smart, figuring out that connection between honest and taking one's clothes off. It still eludes me, but maybe some day I'll be as smart as you and figure it out.
Strippers and Iraqis: known liars. It is objectively anti-truth to believe the word of a known liar over that of an American Soldier™ or a lacrosse player, especially if either are white men. Whom we know to be proven truth-tellers by nature.
Tia- the connection you are missing is taking one's clothes off for money. That's obviously different than just taking off one's clothes, though I suppose the straw-man is easier to attack. It's a self-evidently base and corrupt activity.
Um, I looked in the data base for [I'm blanking on that term for the number associated with the computer that made the comment] and it looks like Rooper is a regular commenter who's fucking with us. Regular commenter, I'm going to do you a favor and not out you now, so you can return to your normal identity here if you want to without everyone thinking you're a tool, but cut it the fuck out, really.
I think your [number associated with the computer that made the comment] may be off, although I confess I don't know much about the technical aspects of computers/the internet. I'm a fairly regular reader, but not commenter. Given my un-welcome reception, I may soon be a fairly regular neither-one, though.
83: You are on the same planet, right? Same rules of logic? Do you accept the law of the excluded middle, my boy? (If not, go sit in the corner with Wolfson.)
You're the only one that's mentioned Haditha, and as near as I can tell the only relevance it has to the Duke case is a) something bad has been alleged and b) you don't like that it was alleged because you think there's no reason to pursue it because strippers and Iraqis lie. The DA and the military, respectively, don't agree with you, what with the whole pressing charges and all.
Can we all find some point of comity soon? I really want to go to bed early tonight and don't want to worry about waking up to find the comments exploded into a shitstorm overnight.
Rooper, you fucking tool, unless you want to explain that you share a computer with another Unfogged commenter, or Becks wants to tell me IP addresses work differently than I think they do, it's you.
Oh, and now that I scroll up in the comments list I see you were responsible for the "not parody, but admittedly hyperbolic" comment the other day that was also trolling.
You know what, fuck this, you have totally abused our trust. Antifeminist trolls aren't welcome. It's Urple.
Tia, one caveat -- I think it's possible that Rooper is just somebody who has the same ISP as Urple -- particularly if they both have dial-up access -- I think ISP's give out IP addresses from a pool to people who connect remotely.
Tia- the connection you are missing is taking one's clothes off for money. That's obviously different than just taking off one's clothes, though I suppose the straw-man is easier to attack. It's a self-evidently base and corrupt activity.
Before Rooper goes away and comity is restored, I have to squeeze in a stripper anecdote. Years ago, I was at a table with eight or ten other young lawyers talking with a stripper. She asked what we all did and we all looked at each other in embarrassment. She pressed. Finally I confessed that we were lawyers. She professed astonishment that we weren't eager to brag about that. I explained that a lot of people don't much like lawyers. Her response: "Oh, that's OK, a lot of people don't like strippers either."
111: If Urple swears it's not him, there's no point in trying to figure out who else it is. I don't think anyone's interested in outing Rooper's real identity.
111 - I don't think it matters. It would probably be best if we all just moved along. Depending on how the ISP/firewall is set up, he might not know. And it's not like we're going to go around outing people.
I'm going to bed. I don't think this calls for pitchforks and torches. Please try not to escalate this into something crazy.
I have a friend who used to be a stripper. It worked fairly well with being a full-time college student, as long as she landed afternoon classes.
Now she designs and sews custom clothing and creates original knitting patterns. She got her degree right on time, which is better than I can say, and went on to develop quite a career.
Too bad all that knitting is spoiled by her being an inherently base and corrupt liar.
A technical note for C'gist/TMK: Yes, ISPs do assign IP addresses to dial-up customers from a set pool. They do the same thing for cable modem/DSL connections, as well, though those reset much less frequently and even less frequently actually change when refreshed. However, pools of IPs are also commonly assigned to geographical regions. All dial-up users of ISP X in Townsville will get their IPs out of a common pool that is designated for Townsville. Thus, if Rooper and Urple show up with the same IP, it at least lands them in close geographic proximity. I remember nothing about Urple, and thus have no prejudice one way or the other. Rooper, however, is a total fucktard.
Remember kids, if you vote Republican you get to do anything you want as long as it's not as bad as something else that was done in the past and that you can think of in a hurry, especially if it was done by fur'ners.
123: Whoever that was clearly had a little straw-feminist talking to him through his fillings. This guy seems to be channeling talk radio. They seem to come from the same neighborhood in Crazytown, at least.
Remember kids, if you vote Republican you get to do anything you want as long as it's not as bad as something else that was done in the past and that you can think of in a hurry, especially if it was done by fur'ners.
Actually, not even those restrictions apply. You can do absolutely anything you want, because you are a Good Person and anything you do is therefore a Good Thing.
if you vote Republican you get to do anything you want as long as it's not as bad as something else that was done in the past and that you can think of in a hurry, especially if it was done by fur'ners
And/or if it's not as bad as being a stripper. Or accusing some poor innocent man of rape.
116: I have no troll secret identity, or, like Farber and Wolfson, no secret identity at all. There was a time I might offer multiple personalities, but now alas, I can barely afford one.
66: I proved by algebra over at hilzoy's that the 3rd Critique was the bestest Critique, and the foundation of the first two. Nobody even laughed.
FWIW, it really didn't sound like Urple to me, but who cares as we're not going on any witchhunt.
---
So, being a wingnut is like playing six degrees of separation? ("I can get from Haditha to Chapel Hill in three easy steps.") Or more like Clue? ("The insurgency... in Abu Ghraib... with the waterboard!")
I missed the quai-troll. Was it fun? I propose a new rule: no changing handles, either to troll or not-troll. Let's face it: my handle sucks. But do I discard it, and all its glorious history? What if we all did that? Unfogged is the history of our collective handles. Some of them suck. But we go to the unfogged with the handles we have, not with the handles we would prefer.
Why is it always a "moral calculus"? Is algebra immoral? Those integrals seem awfully curvy, if you ask me. I had to stop when we got into double and even triple integrals--that was just too much. Nope, I'm sticking with plane vanilla algebra.
new rule: if you changed your handle before I can remember, then you may keep your new/old handle. If you changed your handle after I moved to honkytonkland and lost track of things, you must change it back.
98- Holy fucking shit! WRONG PERSON!! I'm skimming happily through this and all of today's threads and then, BAM!, I run into this?!
I haven't been commenting much recently because I've been pulling 80 hours weeks at work, and this is what happens while I'm away! Talk about dishonoring someone's memory!!
I swear I am a victim of anonymous-identity theft, or something. I'm may have to call the national identity-theft hotline tonight and see if they can help me out. The REALLY frustrating thing is that this exact same thing happened to me a few months ago on a local sports message-board. (Yes, I sometimes comment on local sports message-boards. Why are you looking at me like that?) Some whacko (not named "Rooper") came in saying stupid things and eventually the host "outed" him as -- me, which was total bullshit. I really don't have much in the way of technical chops, so I really don't understand exactly how this whole IP address thing works, but I can tell you this is the second damn time someone has confidently pinned me an evil troll based on my IP address. Look, I read/comment here frequently from either of my 2 home computers and from my computer at work. All three are in the greater Boston area. I have a comcast cable modem at home; I don't know what the fuck we have here at work. If I can give you any other information (other than, um, you know, actual personal information) to help you tell me what is going on I would gladly do so. I'm really fucking pissed. I realize I shouldn't actually care, but it bothers me to have my integrity questioned, even my anonymous integrity.
For the record I think all torture is terrible, what happened this this poor man is terrible, what happened to this poor man is torture, and strippers are not necessarily low, base, or morally corrupt. If I missed any other stupid thing (Though most frequent patrons of strip-clubs are, as least in my experience. While we're on the subject.)
A technical note for C'gist/TMK: Yes, ISPs do assign IP addresses to dial-up customers from a set pool. They do the same thing for cable modem/DSL connections, as well, though those reset much less frequently and even less frequently actually change when refreshed. However, pools of IPs are also commonly assigned to geographical regions. All dial-up users of ISP X in Townsville will get their IPs out of a common pool that is designated for Townsville. Thus, if Rooper and Urple show up with the same IP, it at least lands them in close geographic proximity.
Close proximity meaning same state, or same region, or same town, or same street, or same building, or what? The host I referred to in 169 was SURE he could tell that said troll and I were using the same computer, which I know wasn't right. But he was so confident he asked me not to comment there anymore. I really wish I better understood how these things worked.
Forget it I'm going home to go to bed. One of you west coast people who's still awake and is tech saavy should dig up some answers and get back to me in the morning.
It's your work IP, Urple. It's not unusual (in fact it's common) for all the computers in a company to report the same IP address (that of the firewall they're behind). The IP that you and Rooper have used belongs to your place of employment (and all the comments from it have come roughly during business hours). One of your co-workers is a troll.
Given that this has happened on two very different sites, it's very likely someone who knows which sites you visit, so either there's some arrangement in your office that makes this possible, or it's one of your IT people.
Urple is P/aul D/eignan! Or rather, he's got P/aul D/eignan stuck on the back of his head, which is why he always wears that turban. Sometimes Paul gets the best of him.
Behold, an incredibly dull response doth commence:
172: "Close proximity" varies in scope from place to place. I actually just waxed, in preview, a ridiculously spammy explanation of why that is. Suffice to say, if Urple is in Boston on a Comcast cable modem, it is entirely possible for various reasons that another Comcast cable modem user in eir general neck of the woods (not same block, most likely, but easily the same metropolitan area) would get assigned "Urple's" address (the quotes signify the fiction of ownership of a temporary IP address, not the fiction of pseudonymity) and that Urple would be an innocent and utterly accidental victim. It would surprise me, but it's not like Jesus returning on a Segway level of surprising.
However, I have no first-hand knowledge, none of the details, and haven't worked the home-users side of an ISP in years. (I work for an ISP now, but my scale on the behemoth's belly services corporate clients with dedicated data circuits, and I just deal with the firewalls we manage for them, nothing else). Becks probably knows this better than I do, anyway. I just figured it was worth mentionin'.
*points at ogged's comment* There you go. I shouldn't have tried to answer fast and then dithered in preview when I was already talking out my ass to begin with.
Urple needs to start knockin' some IT heads. Very, very politely.
By the way, Urple, there are a couple of things that come immediately to mind that you can do about this, though I'll leave it to the younguns to explain how, as I'm going to bed and check comments irregularly. You can edit the User Agent that your browser reports, so that a site administrator could tell you apart from your trolling co-worker (but this wouldn't help you get around an IP ban). Or you could go through another proxy server, which would change the IP address your browser reports. Or you could find out who it is, and use his posts to humiliate him, but that probably violates the Dictum of Online/Offline Separation.
As to Rooper's issue, here's why he's a fucktard: when confronted with questionable practices, he would rather get into a pissing match over whether something does or does not fit the technical definition of torture, and in so doing he untethers himself from any moral gravity. Not to sound all Republican, but what the fuck ever happened to a little personal responsibility? If this happened, either endorse it or don't, and have the spine to say the hell why it's a good thing or a bad thing.
Trying to turn the issue into 'well at least we didn't shove bamboo under their nails' or 'as long as someone wearing our flag has been accused of something and you aren't defending them then your outrage is clearly misdirected' is an attempt to run away from LB's inescapably direct question: How do things like this happen? Justify the actions, or condemn them, but don't point over our shoulders and say, "Oh my god, it's Vietnam and they look like they mean business!" and expect us to whip around to look in that direction while you beat a hasty retreat from a confrontation with the very real sins of today.
"I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm just saying it's not as bad as some other things and also I'm not sure it fits the dictionary definition of 'torture,'" to paraphrase, is not an attempt to answer the question. It is an attempt to distract. It is the lily-liveredest "what the definition of 'is' is" argument possible in the face of something as serious as whether we are, essentially, torturing the mentally ill to create grist for the soundbite mill.
I wish the story were untrue, but I doubt it is. Bush has demonstrated repeatedly that he is utterly blind to the fact that when we are unnecessarily hurt, attacked, wounded, that we suffer, yes, but that we also suffer when we are the one who unnecessarily hurts, attacks and wounds. Whether it's called 'torture' or 'extraordinary methods' or 'high tea at the Gitmo Country Club' it demeans us, it chips away at our moral fibre and our influence and our ability to take the high ground in matters of human rights. That we do not treat people like that is part of what makes us us. Bush has done a lot of rationalizing to justify acts that should shame us as a nation, and it will take a long time for us to recover from that, and he doesn't give two shits because he always has been, and always will be, a shitty businessman who can see absolutely no further than the very next moment and even then sees it only in terms of ways to avoid being held accountable. He has no long-term view, does not care to acquire one and probably thinks they're for pussies, anyway. CEO president, indeed; funny how no one mentioned during the campaign in 2000 that every company he'd helmed was a fucking disaster.
It's extremely unlikely that the shared IP address between Rooper and Urple (even apart from previous trolling incidents) is due to random assignments from ISPs. It would have to be that the very person that is trying to frame Urple just *happens* to get assigned Urple's old IP, when such reassignments are actually quite rare. (I had a Cox cable account for two years and my IP never changed, despite it being technically for it to change every week or so.) It would be even less likely that this would happen if Rooper weren't aware of Urple.
No, far and away the most likely explanation (so much that the other explanation fades into insignificance) is that Rooper is some mischevious or malicious coworker with a considerable amount of technical knowledge.
Urple, it's ridiculous to think that an IP address ties a comment to an individual machine, and the moderator who asserted this was an idiot.
Urple could change his UserAgent, but it would be easy for his coworker to use a network sniffer to find out and copy the user agent, if he were so inclined. I think the best solution is to use a proxy to comment.
For many purposes, IP addresses can be used with a great deal of confidence to assert the identity of a commenter. For other purposes, that confidence drops dramatically.
He was overconfident in the mistaken knowledge that he did have, and it led him to make bad decisions. That leads me, I think justly, to have a low opinion of his judgement.
Wow, I just read the whole thing, and would like to assure Urple that I shared Dr. B's reaction -- "Urple? That doesn't make any sense -- Urple's not like that." Sorry about that stalker you've got, Urple -- figure it's got to either be someone with access to your online surfing habits, or someone you at least talk to about them. In either case, they suck.
And Rooper is a complete ass based on what he writes, but I wouldn't want to start banning people just for being asses. Based on the trying to frame another regular as an ass, while I haven't got any idea how to prevent him from showing up, he's certainly unwelcome to comment here, and I'd support any action that someone else wants to take to keep that from happening.
179: Please don't use that name without googleproofing.
197: Too long. "Stupid" covered it fine.
Urple, I'm sorry I entertained the possibility for even a second. I'm also sorry that "I never thought of Urple as an asshole" was framed so negatively! LB's reaction was much more what I meant, and should have said.
He was overconfident in the mistaken knowledge that he did have, and it led him to make bad decisions. That leads me, I think justly, to have a low opinion of his judgement.
Sorry, pdf, I thought you were talking about Tia. Because I are so smart.
178/190/all the other comments referencing someone trying to frame me: really? Is that really the most likely explanation for what's going on? I mean I guess it's possible, it's just that I haven't talked to *that* many people about my online surfing habits, and I'd like to believe that none of them are evil. (Evil people that is. I know that many of my online surfing habits are evil.) I suppose it could be someone in IT (Hi IT!, if you are reading this), it is a really big department, but the idea of a dedicated Urple-stalker down in IT seems a little too conspiratorial for me. I mean, I guess it's not impossible but... why?
Again, I don't understand the technical aspects here, but from what has been said in this thread could it be possible that these two incidents involve two totally unrelated people at my work? It's a really big office. I mean, the other site was a local sports website, and I know I have a number my co-workers who frequent it -- maybe one of them is a troll on the weekends. Could some other, unrelated party have stumbled onto this site and begun posting as Rooper? To me this sounds much more plausible than than someone is trying to sabatoge my online anonymous good-name.
But maybe what I'm describing doesn't comport with the technical evidence Tia is looking at? If so could someone let me know? Because if there definitely is a dedicated, ill-willed Urple-stalker, I'd like to know and I'd like to alert IT. Ogged's wise words in 193 notwithstanding, I think the manager of the dept. would like to know if someone if spending their time maliciously stalking employees (who themselves are innocently trying to waste company time). And surely, since no one in IT would likely have any personal off-line vendetta against me (I don't even know any of them), I'm probably not the only person this guy is fucking around with, right?
PS- if you can tell from the IP address that the signal is coming from my work, can you also tell where I work? That's a bit disturbing to me, honestly, but I guess it's okay.
209- my 171 was in jest. I knew what you meant. :)
215 -- Yes they can tell where you work with reverse IP lookup. If you want to hide this information from sites you surf, you need to use a proxy. I'm not really familiar with how to do that but I'm sure someone else on this forum can give you the goods.
PS as long as I'm here I may at least comment on the thread. Comment 1 made me laugh out loud at first, until my laugh faded into a soft chuckle, and then the corners of my mouth dropped, and my brow furrowed, and suddenly I was overcome with gloom at the haunting realization that the comment was not at all a joke.
When I first read 47 I thought it was a fucking comic masterpiece. I actually read it twice, just to take in its full essence. By the time I got to 68 I began to think the comedy was losing its edge, and of course it stopped being humorous altogether when I reached 98.
Urple, whether it's more likely one person or two different people is something you're more likely to know. All we can tell is that the IP addresses are the same, and all that tells us is that they're from the same organization (yes, if we do a lookup on the IP, we can see where you work).
(Well, I don't have access to server logs and such anymore, so it might be that we have logs that also note browser version and screen resolution and such, so there might be something in our logs that would give us a clue as to whether we're dealing with more than one computer other than yours.)
And by the way, I didn't think you had a stalker, just someone who liked trolling and was following you to websites (a "this user went here, hey, that looks interesting" kind of thing), probably without even thinking that it would get people on the sites mad at you.
I probably shouldn't have said 'stalker' but coincidence seems unlikely. I am so not on top of our stats, but we haven't got all that many regular lurkers -- IIRC it's a couple of hundred, certainly less than a thousand. So a pure coincidence that someone would be commenting from your workplace isn't impossible, but seems low odds -- I'd bet Rooper followed you here. Rooper? Want to chime in and explain yourself?
But ogged is right -- there's no reason to think that it was a deliberate frameup. I just jumped to that conclusion after your other story about the sports site.
Unless Urple really wants to pursue it, I suggest we let it go instead of asking Rooper to chime in and explain himself. This whole incident may have already outed Urple to his coworkers more than he'd like.
219: Hmm. You know, I think if the person had used Urple's handle, we would in fact have been less likely to believe it was Urple. We would be like "Wtf? Clearly an impersonator."
Tarnishing someone's goodwill by making them seem like a person who pretended to be reasonable under one name and trolled the site under another name would be much more effective than tarnishing someone's goodwill by making them seem like a person who was reasonable and then went batshit crazy.
None of this is important, of course. I was just thinking whether apo's 219 was actually true. Not that trolls/stalkers are that smart anyway.
It doesn't really need to be said to anyone here, but another Rooperism I loved was the "strippers are morally corrupt, but those nice boys who hired her, why surely they wouldn't do anything immoral or lie about it, would they?"
Also, Tia, I propose another stick for our pile:
Bugging, assaging, sphinxing, etc. = doing it well
Roopering = doing it badly (either that or it means calling the assagee the wrong name in the throes of all that hott sphinxing).
I agree that it's likely that whoever's doing this probably does it to other people at the same workplace, if they don't have some sort of personal grudge agaist Urple. And it's not necessarily someone in the IT department, either. Just someone who knows how TCP/IP works, and how to use a network sniffer.
Whether they're intentially trying to tarnish the reputations of their victims is another question. Rooper's behavior here appeared calculated to be maximally noxious, but it could be that the person is just a really obnoxious person. (The shallow, right-wing-stereotype talking points speak against this, though.) But if other incidents also show the same pattern of maximal noxiousness, then it's more likely that it is calculated.
Also, 224 gets it right, except that this troll would have to be pretty intelligent to do all those things, and to know precisely the sort of trolling that will draw the ire of a given site.
It's interesting to note that (and I'm by no means accusing Urple here--his word is good enough for me) there is no good way to prevent people from creating sock puppets on the internet. On can increase the cost of making them with various registration systems, but not prevent them.
216- wait, wait, wait.. I'd actually like to drop this conversation soon, but.. can you also tell where I live?? Can any website I visit from home pull up my street address through my IP address??
This is ignorant, I don't know, but until someone answers the question who does know, I'll tell you what I think I remember.
No. Assuming you don't do anything tricky, your IP address is going to identify you to within your workplace or within your ISP. Your ISP is going to identify you within a pretty small geographical area, but not your street address.
227 -- No. Or anyway, I'm pretty damn sure that is not possible. The IP address a site sees when you surf from home is one assigned to your ISP -- reverse lookup on it will get your ISP's name and contact info. If you had a T1 line into your house then it might be different.
Okay well that makes me feel better, at least. These internets are less anonymous than I used to think.
I still don't understand why you can use my IP address from work to figure out where I work, but can't use my IP address from home to figure out where I live, but it's probably not worth the effort involved in trying to explain it to me.
I was thinking last night that it was a co-worker, because it wouldn't be all that unheard of for someone to check out a website a co-worker was looking at.
More ignorant stuff I think I know: your IP address ties you back to a specific [server?], which is registered as owned by an organization. Most workplaces are big enough that they have their own servers, and so an IP reverse lookup says "Urple is posting from a server owned by the Burlington Coat Factory. He must work there." You don't have your own server at home -- you hook into your ISP's server. So all the reverse lookup tells us is that "Urple is posting from a server owned by an ISP located near Rutland, Vermont." (Note: locations invented. In theory I could know similar information about Urple -- in practice I don't.)
Urple, your service provider is assigned a block of IP addresses to use. When you reverse look-up an IP address, you can see who owns that block of addresses.
If a workplace or university owns a block of IP addresses like an ISP, when you look it up, it will indicate that it's a workplace or a university because they own the block of addresses. But on your home computer, you don't own the IP address, your ISP does. So ogged can see that you're using Comcast, say, and that you're in a certain region, but beyond that, the IP addresses are theoretically reassigned periodically.
I'm pretty sure that even most pretty big companies don't own their own IP address blocks, though I'm not clear on that.
But if your company has a web site, and hosts the site from the company headquarters, then that IP address will often be the same used for employees' outgoing connections, and thus the web site's domain name can be tied to that IP.
The thing I don't get is why anyone would want to troll this site. It's not that.... popular. [Ducks] It seems like if you were going to troll you'd want to do so somewhere with much higher traffic, no?
See, I still don't think it was an attempt to troll. I think it was a genuine (stupid) attempt to join the discussion, made by someone too stupid to realize that there's a difference between dissent wirth engaging and stupidity.
B, you're probably right. But there have been troll problems here before, no? Of all the sites in the great big internet, what makes this an attractive place for trolling?
I understand it's just a problem with which all sites must deal. I just don't quite understand why. I mean, the troll-bots over at the Washington Monthly make some twisted sense. But here??
Dunno. I get 'em too (though I'm really surprised I don't get more). Maybe it's the psychology of guys who want to feel like all these super smarty pants types need to be taken down a notch?
Wait a second. I get what you're doing! You were the troll. And now you're acting all innocent and trying to get us to explain our theories of trolling, so as to more effectively troll in the future! I see through your clever ways, mister.
Am I not allowed to make jokes about your troll identity?
B, your jokes about my troll identity are always welcome. Although, wait, I take that back... if 242 was supposed to be a joke, it wasn't very funny. Your jokes about my troll identity are welcome so long as they are funny.
I'm pretty sure that even most pretty big companies don't own their own IP address blocks, though I'm not clear on that.
Actually, most really big companies do, but it's really not a very interesting explanation. Suffice to say, the company that made your car probably does outright own its own IP space, and whatever telecom company they pay to come in and manage everything for them just routes that block over their own networks. The company that made your favorite coffe mug, however, probably leases blocks of IP space from their provider.
Quick talking points:
1. Didn't happen.
2. If it did happen, the techniques were authorized.
3. Even if the techniques were not authorized, we got useful information.
4. Even if we didn't get useful information, we couldn't take the risk of not acting.
5. Even if we could take the risk, he was a bad guy and deserved it.
6. Democrats love terrorists.
7. Clinton did it to.
8. 9/11.
Posted by Ugh | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:30 AM
Arrgh:
7. Clinton did it too.
Posted by Ugh | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:31 AM
Yglesias lays out a sequence of events that begins thusly:
# Al-Qaedist Abu Zubaydah was captured in March 2002.
# Zubaydah's captors discovered he was mentally ill and charged with minor logistical matters, such as arranging travel for wives and children.
# The President was informed of that judgment by the CIA.
# Two weeks later, the President described Zubaydah as "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States."
# Later, Bush told George Tenet, "I said he was important. You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" and asked Tenet if "some of these harsh methods really work?"
I want to know what happened between steps 3 and 4 of that sequence.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:31 AM
Someone distracted Bush by showing him a shiny object?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:34 AM
7. Clinton did it to
...that woman, Miss Lewinsky.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:35 AM
I want to know what happened between steps 3 and 4 of that sequence.
The president asked God, "Is the CIA right? Or are my instincts right?" And God told him his instincts were right.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:36 AM
I want to know what happened between steps 3 and 4 of that sequence.
Wasn't it between step 3 and 4 that we tortured a mentally ill man?
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:13 AM
I don't think the torturing took place between steps 3 and 4. It seems more likely to have been between steps 1 and 2, and then again after step 5.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:15 AM
Unless by "mentally ill man" you mean the President, who was tortured by the possibility of changing his mind. Fortunately for him, he overcame that temptation.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:16 AM
Did anyone see the PBS Frontline last night that ties in to this?
PBS website says the whole episode will be online Thurs. , but the extended interviews with the key players are online now.
Back on topic though, Something Like This happens when administration officials need to be able to point to someone or something and say, "See! We're right! Nuke the fuckers!" The source could be a schizophrenic platypus, as long as whoever is pitching the story can look at the camera and say "we have information pointing to...".
Posted by I Can't Put Esquire After My Name | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:37 AM
Back off topic: Iran scores!
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:39 AM
I hope this is a lie. I don't want to think that it's true.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:20 AM
What's the appropriate adjective to describe how this story makes me feel? Sad/angry/hopeless?
Also, this is the kind of thing I want to send to my right-leaning Christian acquaintances who don't think they have a duty to get involved in the world. See what is happening? Is there ANYTHING that will get you to get your head out of the New Testament for a few hours?
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:22 AM
The mentally ill are among the worst treated in any prison, anywhere. Their susceptibility makes them number one fucking target for this kind of abuse, and the continuation of it, because as we see here, it produces results that satisfy people. Makes them feel like they are doing their job.
Reading this stuff makes me feel really, really ill. Also makes me want to quit my job a lot.
Fuck you, George Tenet.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:27 AM
I think I begin to understand how the diehard Bush supporters do it. I simply don't want this to be true so much that I am tempted to ignore it altogether.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:30 AM
I want it to be true. It is a very important story in that it directly connects Bush to torture, and goes even further in showing that he is in charge (Billmon calls it the Cheney administration); what in reality motivates the man; and his style of management by intimidation.
After decades of Republicans out-sourcing their atrocities (Chile,El Salvador) it is very useful that we can now directly connect the party to torture, war crimes, and human rights violations. However much the rank-on-file might want to avoid responsiblity for the behavior of its enthusiastically supported leadership, it becomes more difficult with every revelation that there is not something systemically wicked, pernicious, and/or irresponsible in the core philosophies of conservatism and Republicanism.
This has certainly been worked upon theoretically, but the attack on conservatism will require mountains and centuries of evidence to have the stake driven thru its heart.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:56 AM
I want it to be true.
I don't doubt the truth of it for a second.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:59 AM
While not doubting the truth of it for a second, I am still dumbstruck by the following sequence of events:
CIA and FBI to Bush: Abu Zubaydah is a nobody, and crazy to boot.
Bush to America: Abu Zubaydah is a key figure who has important information.
Bush to Tenet: Go make what I said true, by any means necessary.
I know I'm repeating myself here, but damn!
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 12:18 PM
But, but.... look, it's not like Bush hasn't said stupid things in the past that were discredited and spun.
I mean, suppose it had come to light earlier that 'Abu Zubaydah, who the President said was a key figure, has been determined to be a minor figure at most, and crazy to boot. Blah blah blah, proof of the honesty of our intelligence operatives', pat Zubaydah on the head, send him home with a cookie and prescription, and now whenever anyone questions U.S. interrogation policy, have a blindingly clear counterexample 'see see see they are good guys they let that crazy guy go even though they could have hidden it'. Or you do it all quiet like, the NYT picks it up six months after the fact, random f00b writes a editorial no one reads behind the firewall, lala, no problem.
It's not like this guy's track record is built on accurate information.
The liberal blogs fume for a few days, most of the country shrugs because that's apparently all the electorate is good for when you dangle terrorism in front of their noses, right-wing blogs get to whip it out whenever there's a critcism of the war on terror. We acknowledge our mistakes! Unlike the left!
So what the FUCK is going on if they honestly decided that the best way to use someone they knew was insane was to follow up on the information he made up? What am I missing?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 12:37 PM
19:Did you miss David Kay and a cast of hundreds spending a year in Iraq and millions of dollars sifting the sands for the WMD's? Bush said:"They gotta be there, because I said they were. You incompetents just aren't finding them."
The man is insane, and in charge.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 1:37 PM
He also actually enjoys torturing "terrorists"
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 1:39 PM
So what the FUCK is going on if they honestly decided that the best way to use someone they knew was insane was to follow up on the information he made up? What am I missing?
All I can come up with is that they just don't care. They don't care about torturing this guy when he doesn't know anything, they don't care about wasting resources following up bullshit -- the whole point is the publicity effect of "Following Up Information We Got From Interrogating Terrorists." It looked productive, and they just didn't give a damn about the substance.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 2:19 PM
It's a good strategy -- be so lawless and sadistic that most people will not be able to bring themselves to believe that the leader of their country is actually like that.
Even if (though) Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove are pulling the strings, George W. Bush is completely morally bankrupt as a human being, and a war criminal. Every day he remains in office is a standing insult to the concept of justice.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 2:31 PM
What you are missing is that torturing opponents is never done to aquire accurate information (that doesn't work), but to make political points.
Look at the Soviet era: people were tortured to confess "conspiracies" so a counter-campaign could be sold to the public.
The communists in China used it that way, and all the dictators in Latin America and the Middle-East; the Bush-regime just follows a standard pattern.
Posted by robd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 2:33 PM
22: Alternatively, welcome to beauracracy. Someone wrote a memo saying, "I think he's insane," rather than "He's insane." Someone else saw "I think" and decided it would be safer, career-wise, to follow up on the information. What's the real downside for the decision-maker in being too careful?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 2:35 PM
So what the FUCK is going on if they honestly decided that the best way to use someone they knew was insane was to follow up on the information he made up? What am I missing?
Well, these are the motherfuckers who claim they create their own reality.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 2:35 PM
24: What I don't understand is why they bother actually torturing the innocent prisoners in order to back up the lies that are being told to the public. Why don't they just tell the public the lies and PRETEND that the information actually comes from prisoners?
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 2:50 PM
Ned.
they do it to convince themselves.
Posted by robd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 2:55 PM
Hey, thinking up potential targets to protect is hard work, and would just be done by some worthless bureaucrat anyway. Better to outsource it.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 2:56 PM
George W. Bush is completely morally bankrupt as a human being, and a war criminal
But he's a good Christian. So obviously he is a good man.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 3:41 PM
they do it to convince themselves.
More specifically, they do it to convince themselves that they need to do it.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 4:13 PM
People may be overreacting here. I'm not sure these "harsh methods" are actually torture. If "death threats" count as torture, then the recruits of our own armed forces are all "tortured" in boot camp. Plus, if this guy was crazy, it is awfully odd that he seems to have been able to figure out exactly what his interrogators wanted to hear. Can't have been too crazy, is what I'm saying.
Posted by Rooper | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 4:39 PM
Waterboarding fits my definition of torture. And if you've ever dealt with legitimately crazy people, they can often be very skilled at telling you what you want to hear.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 4:41 PM
re: 32
So, you'll be first in line to volunteer as test subject for these 'harsh methods'?
If you don't think waterboarding and similar measures are torture then there's something deeply wrong with your moral compass.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 5:17 PM
it is awfully odd that he seems to have been able to figure out exactly what his interrogators wanted to hear
"Where is al Qaeda going to attack? Tell us or we'll stick you under the water again."
"Uh, the Statue of Liberty?"
That doesn't really strike me as odd.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 5:18 PM
35- it doesn't strike *you* as odd, because you're not crazy. It's a perfectly sensible answer. That's my whole point. If he had said answered "inside the brown cow" or "the seventh moon of jupiter" then I'd be thinking he was probably crazy.
Look I'm not trying to defend these practices. I just think "torture" might be a bit of a strong word. I've never been "strapped to a water board" myself, but I imagine it's far less unpleasant than having you testicles crushed in a vice, or your fingernails ripped out, which were the sorts of things done to US troops in 'Nam. To me it just sort of dishonors their memory to be calling "threats" torture. That doesn't mean what was done here was right or moral.
Posted by Rooper | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 5:25 PM
re:36
You know, when discussing actual instances of torture I'm not really concerned with whether labelling it as 'torture' dishonours the memory of US troops in Nam.
I'll repeat, if you think that's a major concern in this case then you're a moral imbecile.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 5:30 PM
Rooper in 36:
You seem to have confused "mentally ill" people with "quirky children's literature characters who say amusing nonsensical things."
Posted by jms | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 5:45 PM
And, Rooper? If you're going to appeal to our troops who were tortured in Nam, I sugggest you defer to the judgment of someone who it happened to on whether we're doing the right thing here.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 6:19 PM
And further, the point isn't that Zubaydah was mentally ill to the point of being unable to respond sensibly to being tortured, the point is that he was mentally ill and he didn't know anything useful.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 6:21 PM
I love the "At least we're not as bad as the North Vietnamese!" defense. Good old moral relativism!
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 6:22 PM
dishonors their memory
This may be the stupidest, most irritating bit of rhetoric in general use. Everytime someone starts talking about "honor," I want to make sure I still have my wallet. It's clearly wrong to go around dishonoring anyone, living or dead. And I'm happy to say that dishonoring military dead is worse than dishonoring non-military dead. That makes it about No. 1000 on the list of things I actually give a fuck about. I see the same fucking argument constantly used to justify flying that fucking traitorous flag.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 6:31 PM
Can we immediately ban Rooper for being too stupid to hang out here?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 6:35 PM
I don't think he needs to be banned; he's not being needlessly irritating just for the sake of being irritating. He's just saying something that he believes; I happen to find it endlessly irritating, but there's no evidence that he's doing it for that purpose. But, of course, it's not my call.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 6:43 PM
But it's stupid.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 6:51 PM
Too casual usage of the phrase "dishonors the memory" dishonors the memory of those whose memories were truly dishonored in the past.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 6:56 PM
I can't believe I'm taking this much abuse and I'm not even defending the practices in question. I said they weren't necessarily right or moral. Geez... how would you treat someone who actaully disagreed with you?
I just think it's telling that people get so worked up about something like this -- this guy beign mistreated, whereas they have no similar outrage over American soldiers being KILLED in teh line of duty, or people like Nick Berg being BEHEADED. THAT is torture my friends. I'll take being "threatened" with death any day over having my head chopped off on a fucking videotape. Why is there so much outrage over one and not the other?
My whole point is that words like torture ought not be thrown about over little bits of this and that. Torture is a very serious thing. This is like a woman giving a guy a blowjob and deciding the next day she didn't like him anymore and calling it "rape". It's watering down a very serious word and stripping it of all meaning, so it becomes useless. It's dishonoring true victims of torture just like it would be dishonoring true rape victims.
And what about Haditha? Why do we care about what happened to this crazy guy, and what happens to the detainees in Guantanamo who don't get exactly all the foods they want so they too cry torture, why do we care about these things and not what is happening to the Marines from Haditha? Haditha is in many ways analogous to what seems to have happened in the Duke rape case - Duke players were charged despite a total lack of evidence because of what a stripper said. Now everyone knows that strippers are low, base, morally corrupt individuals. The word of a stripper shouldn't be discounted outright exactly, but it shouldn't be taken as reason enough by itself for bringing charges, either.
In the incident in Haditha, as I understand it the allegations came about primarily because of what Iraqis said. This makes me skeptical. Has no one considered that possibly these Iraqis have been threatened by terrorists, or maybe themselves are friendly with the terrorists? Further, there is a good deal of agreement among those who know about that part of the world that lying and dishonesty aren't viewed the same as they are here. That is, Iraqis don't seem have serious moral qualms about lying.
Yet several brave soldiers may have their careers destroyed over this incident. That's the sort of moral relativism that burns me about the modern left -- ruin the careers of American GIs, behead them on film, all that's okay; but don't you dare refuse to give the terrorist-suspects in Guantanamo their choice of foods to eat. That would be TORTURE!
Why are these not treated as equally serious issues? Can anyone explain this to me?
Posted by Rooper | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:04 PM
Because we are objectively pro-beheading, obviously.
Now can we ban this guy?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:10 PM
Haditha is in many ways analogous to what seems to have happened in the Duke rape case
Let the record show that this is the single stupidest sentence I have ever read. How do we get to point where we're torturing nutcases? Because too many Americans can write sentences like the above with a straight face.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:15 PM
Look, Mrs. bitchphd, if you'd prefer I not comment on your blog then okay, I won't. (Yes I know you have a blog too). I just left my comments because this seems to be a place full of reasonably intelligent people. I thought it was a place where people might engage the issues. But it sounds like you'd prefer to just sit in the echo chamber and "ban" and voices that disagree with your own preconceptions. Fine. Again, I'll be sure to stay away from your blog. I hope the administrators here are more charitable, more open to dissent, but if they feel the same way you do they can ask me to comment no more. It's that simple.
Posted by Rooper | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:18 PM
That's Doctor Bitch to you.
It is full of reasonably intelligent people. Which is why you don't have the price of admission.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:19 PM
Wow... the conflation of Haditha and Duke is just too far out. It's right over my head. 49 gets it exactly right. SCMT, do you still think Rooper's activity is not "trolling"? Because I have
nevernot recently seen so many fluffy bits of right-wing nonsense strung together so glibly and meaninglessly. I am not seeing thought or engagement behind it.Posted by Clownæsthesiologist (formerly TMK) | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:41 PM
sit in the echo chamber
Andrew? Is that you? Or is this metaphor of the week for trolls?
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:42 PM
Let the record show that the Clownæsthesiologist's first appearance on these boards prompted a snarl from the Unfogged Happy Fun Kitty.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:43 PM
Why the new name?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:47 PM
Have you become Clownaesthesiologist because of that thread at Apo's today? Does a C'gist have instruments to track his progress or must he have a subjective judgment of laughter? Does C'giology work in an echo chamber?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:48 PM
I was going to defend Rooper, as an act of indirect self-defense and as a expression of solidarity with the vulgar and stupid commenters of the world but then I read 47.
If I ever wrote anything like the third paragraph Marcotte would drive up from Austin and strangle me. Or my corpse, cause my partner would beat her to it.
6 years and I have never been banned from anywhere. Trevino didn't even ban me. I think I am doing this commenting stuff wrong.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:50 PM
Is there a meaningful distinction between "troll" and "offensively stupid"? What says Kant on this question?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:50 PM
I submit two things for consideration:
1) If all of the psychological torture being inflicted upon the detainees were being inflicted upon captured American troops, I am sure the chest-beating about how tain't real torture would stop right quick.
2) Wasn't most of this psychological torture designed to be a) more devastating and b) without leaving marks?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:51 PM
Rooper:
I disagree with nearly every one of your words, but you actually sound somewhat sincere, so I'm going to take (the already foreseeably regrettable) step of engaging you.
It may (or may not, I don't know) be true that the torture inflicted by Americans in Vietnam was "worse" or "more serious" than that inflicted by Americans on Iraqis. But it doesn't change the fact that Americans are torturing people, and in that sense, I don't care whose torture is worse. I don't think calling a "lesser" form of the offense "torture" "dishonors" Vietnam vets. Are the veterans you know in some kind of torture contest? Are they really quibbling over whose torture was "worse" and who gets to be called the torture champion?
Also this:
Now everyone knows that strippers are low, base, morally corrupt individuals.
I have to assume you're joking, because it's preposterous. Even so, it's not funny.
Iraqis don't seem have serious moral qualms about lying.
and
don't you dare refuse to give the terrorist-suspects in Guantanamo their choice of foods to eat.
Actually, you probably are just fucking around.
Posted by jms | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:53 PM
In the incident in Haditha, as I understand it the allegations came about primarily because of what Iraqis said. This makes me skeptical. Has no one considered that possibly these Iraqis have been threatened by terrorists, or maybe themselves are friendly with the terrorists?
I'm sure NO ONE of the Navy investigators on the case has ANY INKLING that such things might happen. Too bad Rooper isn't over there to hold their hands and explain how to conduct a fucking investigation.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:55 PM
I assumed he was referring to the torture of Americans in Vietnam, not by them. Still a non-sequitur, just not weird.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:57 PM
55/56 -- Yeah, from the thread at Apo's. I am liking the idea of putting people to sleep with my buffoonery. And also, I felt like I should stop reminding LB and AC of their lecherous teacher.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:57 PM
Is there a meaningful distinction between "troll" and "offensively stupid"? What says Kant on this question?
Well, with Kant, it's the intent that counts, so if Rooper's really stupid, he/she/it gets a pass.
If OTOH Rooper is merely launching half-thoughts into the thread without having bothered to read anything on Haditha--say, at Farber's blog--then he/she/it at least needs to work in some cock jokes. Like, NOW.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 7:57 PM
re: 62 -- oops, angry typo.
In 60, "by" s/b "on."
Posted by jms | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:00 PM
Oh, but we'll lose the metacommentary. I am Cala's obligatory sad face.
I think Kant would say you have a duty not to launch half-baked thoughts, like Critique of Judgment into public discourse. But we honestly have little clue what that fucker said.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:00 PM
Okay, so perhaps this idjit gets a pass in terms of intent. But how is one to determine intent, with idjits? And are one's actions towards said people to be meaningfully different, if one can do so?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:03 PM
60- jms, it is true that there is no torture contest. All torture is awful. I don't even think it's meaningful to compare some torture against another and try to decide what's worse.
What I'm talking about it drawing a line in the sand and saying "this is torture" and "that is not". And to me having someone say mean things to you is just not the same things as having your eyes cut out or your hands cut off. The question is on which side of the line this falls. This isn't as bad (it doesn't seem to me) as what happened to our troops in Vietnam, so I'm not comfortable watering down the abuse they endured by calling this "torture". Again, I wouldn't have so much of a problem if we could just refer to it as "mistreatment." (Which it likely was -- again, I'm not condoning what happened.)
And no, it's a bit off topic but I'm not joking about strippers. Have you ever known one to be moral, in the true Aristotelian sense? And I think my observation is fully supported by how the Duke case seems to have in fact played out, don't you?
Posted by roop | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:10 PM
68 was me - typed my name wrong.
Posted by Rooper | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:10 PM
Is there a meaningful distinction between "troll" and "offensively stupid"?
Not really. In the dark night of the soul all trolls look alike. Or something like that. I take back 49, actually. Those remarks are so ignorant and such a classic effort at button-pushing, that I'll do Jack the Rooper the favor of believing he isn't serious.
I wish the hell I did know how we got to this place (oh, yeah, I know: Bush became President, criminals destroyed the WTC, the rest is history. But how did we get here?). So often I read the news and think "this isn't the way it's supposed to happen." I feel as if I've slipped into some kind of Sliders America. I suppose I'm naïve. I suppose this is just the nightmare of history and I've been too fortunate to notice until now. I wish to hell I knew how to get out, though.
Anyway, good booze helps, I find, though the cow-eyed Alameida might disagree with me on that.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:14 PM
Now everyone knows that strippers are low, base, morally corrupt individuals.
Oh, what a charmer you are Roop. And soooo smart, figuring out that connection between honest and taking one's clothes off. It still eludes me, but maybe some day I'll be as smart as you and figure it out.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:15 PM
Strippers and Iraqis: known liars. It is objectively anti-truth to believe the word of a known liar over that of an American Soldier™ or a lacrosse player, especially if either are white men. Whom we know to be proven truth-tellers by nature.
All is right in the world.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:18 PM
Tia, stop trying to argue with your betters. Get out of those clothes and fetch the man a drink.
Actually a drink sounds like a fabulous idea.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:20 PM
Tia- the connection you are missing is taking one's clothes off for money. That's obviously different than just taking off one's clothes, though I suppose the straw-man is easier to attack. It's a self-evidently base and corrupt activity.
Posted by Rooper | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:20 PM
Wait, is the trial over?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:21 PM
Trial? What's the point of a trial, Cala? It's self-evidently base to accuse nice boys of rape.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:22 PM
I'm pretty sure Tia was indeed referring to the removal of clothes for money.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:22 PM
Paul, my dear, you are a douchebag.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:23 PM
Paul, pass the bottle.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:23 PM
Oh, okay. Well, in other news, I'm pretty sure I know why there's no outcry when something this happens!
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:23 PM
It still eludes me, but maybe some day I'll be as smart as you and figure it out.
You can practice at my place. I'll show you my lie detector! ;)
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:24 PM
Um, I looked in the data base for [I'm blanking on that term for the number associated with the computer that made the comment] and it looks like Rooper is a regular commenter who's fucking with us. Regular commenter, I'm going to do you a favor and not out you now, so you can return to your normal identity here if you want to without everyone thinking you're a tool, but cut it the fuck out, really.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:24 PM
75- Wait, is the Haditha trial over? Hmm?
Posted by Rooper | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:24 PM
77: Impossible. Tia is a girl, and therefore self-evidently far too stupid to see the nuanced nature of Rooper's raper-like wit.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:24 PM
Wait, I meant Rooper.
Sorry, Paul.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:25 PM
I'm also pretty sure why there's no outcry at my incessant manglings of English grammar, cf. Sisyphus, rocks, hills.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:25 PM
[I'm blanking on that term for the number associated with the computer that made the comment]
IP address.
raper-like wit
Heh.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:25 PM
Wow, the only way that could possibly be appropriate ATM is if it were the buildup to a cock joke. But it would have to be a pretty damn funny one.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:27 PM
If I'm being played, I'm seriously pissed off at whoever it is.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:27 PM
(Wait, is it LizardBreath?)
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:28 PM
82 - Damn, Tia. Good sleuthing.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:28 PM
(Doh. 91 makes it kind of sound like it was me. It was not me. I was just complimenting Tia.)
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:29 PM
Maybe if it's Alameida I could forgive, since I imagine she's bored shitless. But that's about it.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:29 PM
I think your [number associated with the computer that made the comment] may be off, although I confess I don't know much about the technical aspects of computers/the internet. I'm a fairly regular reader, but not commenter. Given my un-welcome reception, I may soon be a fairly regular neither-one, though.
Posted by Rooper | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:30 PM
83: You are on the same planet, right? Same rules of logic? Do you accept the law of the excluded middle, my boy? (If not, go sit in the corner with Wolfson.)
You're the only one that's mentioned Haditha, and as near as I can tell the only relevance it has to the Duke case is a) something bad has been alleged and b) you don't like that it was alleged because you think there's no reason to pursue it because strippers and Iraqis lie. The DA and the military, respectively, don't agree with you, what with the whole pressing charges and all.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:31 PM
94 -- Yay!
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:31 PM
Can we all find some point of comity soon? I really want to go to bed early tonight and don't want to worry about waking up to find the comments exploded into a shitstorm overnight.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:33 PM
Rooper, you fucking tool, unless you want to explain that you share a computer with another Unfogged commenter, or Becks wants to tell me IP addresses work differently than I think they do, it's you.
Oh, and now that I scroll up in the comments list I see you were responsible for the "not parody, but admittedly hyperbolic" comment the other day that was also trolling.
You know what, fuck this, you have totally abused our trust. Antifeminist trolls aren't welcome. It's Urple.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:34 PM
Have you ever known one to be moral, in the true Aristotelian sense?
[whistles]
Foul! Insufficient understanding of introductory philosophy course, on the offense. 15 yards, repeat first down.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:34 PM
Rooper's going to go away in a snit because we're not welcoming towards stupid people. Comity shall be restored.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:35 PM
Apparently Tia's own lie-detector is working just fine. But was she able to figure out the IP thing while wearing clothes? I'm so confused.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:35 PM
Sorry, Paul.
No worries. I'm probably somebody's douchebag.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:35 PM
Tia, one caveat -- I think it's possible that Rooper is just somebody who has the same ISP as Urple -- particularly if they both have dial-up access -- I think ISP's give out IP addresses from a pool to people who connect remotely.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:37 PM
97: I think we can all agree that it would be great if Rooper would go play somewhere else.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:38 PM
Alright. Rooper, go away, you're a troll. Urple, I'm sorry if it's not you. Come by and tell us it's not you.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:38 PM
Tia- the connection you are missing is taking one's clothes off for money. That's obviously different than just taking off one's clothes, though I suppose the straw-man is easier to attack. It's a self-evidently base and corrupt activity.
Before Rooper goes away and comity is restored, I have to squeeze in a stripper anecdote. Years ago, I was at a table with eight or ten other young lawyers talking with a stripper. She asked what we all did and we all looked at each other in embarrassment. She pressed. Finally I confessed that we were lawyers. She professed astonishment that we weren't eager to brag about that. I explained that a lot of people don't much like lawyers. Her response: "Oh, that's OK, a lot of people don't like strippers either."
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:40 PM
Well, that's great. I feel really shitty now. I don't remember thinking that Urple was an asshole.
Ah well, a minor disappointment in an otherwise incredibly stressful day. Although, really: if you can't relax at the Mineshaft, whence camaraderie?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:40 PM
Or sometimes just being behind the same firewall, I think.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:41 PM
106: Good for her.
107: I hope it wasn't Urple.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:42 PM
Can't you use WHOIS to check the IP?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:48 PM
If Urple swears it's not him, then he can help figure out who it is, if it matters. If it is someone behind the same firewall, he should know that.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:48 PM
111: If Urple swears it's not him, there's no point in trying to figure out who else it is. I don't think anyone's interested in outing Rooper's real identity.
Posted by jms | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:50 PM
10: "Did anyone see the PBS Frontline last night that ties in to this?"
Well, yes.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:54 PM
Are you confusing Andrew with Urple?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:55 PM
111 - I don't think it matters. It would probably be best if we all just moved along. Depending on how the ISP/firewall is set up, he might not know. And it's not like we're going to go around outing people.
I'm going to bed. I don't think this calls for pitchforks and torches. Please try not to escalate this into something crazy.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:56 PM
All I want is for regular commenters not to have secret troll identities. That's gross, if it's happening. But maybe it's not.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:58 PM
Hey everybody, she's gone! Let's get crazy!
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 8:59 PM
117 -> 115
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:00 PM
And I misunderestimated the locality of firewall; I thought a building or workplace. If it's a whole ISP, then I agree, pointless.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:01 PM
Here's the other trolling comment that shared the IP.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:04 PM
Disregard 114. I hadn't reached the part of the thread that concerned IP addresses.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:07 PM
I have a friend who used to be a stripper. It worked fairly well with being a full-time college student, as long as she landed afternoon classes.
Now she designs and sews custom clothing and creates original knitting patterns. She got her degree right on time, which is better than I can say, and went on to develop quite a career.
Too bad all that knitting is spoiled by her being an inherently base and corrupt liar.
A technical note for C'gist/TMK: Yes, ISPs do assign IP addresses to dial-up customers from a set pool. They do the same thing for cable modem/DSL connections, as well, though those reset much less frequently and even less frequently actually change when refreshed. However, pools of IPs are also commonly assigned to geographical regions. All dial-up users of ISP X in Townsville will get their IPs out of a common pool that is designated for Townsville. Thus, if Rooper and Urple show up with the same IP, it at least lands them in close geographic proximity. I remember nothing about Urple, and thus have no prejudice one way or the other. Rooper, however, is a total fucktard.
Remember kids, if you vote Republican you get to do anything you want as long as it's not as bad as something else that was done in the past and that you can think of in a hurry, especially if it was done by fur'ners.
(No, not the yiffing kind of fur'ners.)
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:10 PM
120: Now that's confusing. Because that comment wasn't trolling, at least as I understood it -- it was just bizarre, and other-planetary.
Posted by jms | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:10 PM
123: Whoever that was clearly had a little straw-feminist talking to him through his fillings. This guy seems to be channeling talk radio. They seem to come from the same neighborhood in Crazytown, at least.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:23 PM
122: Yeah, but she took her clothes off all the time just for the hell of it, too. The money was just icing.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:25 PM
Remember kids, if you vote Republican you get to do anything you want as long as it's not as bad as something else that was done in the past and that you can think of in a hurry, especially if it was done by fur'ners.
Actually, not even those restrictions apply. You can do absolutely anything you want, because you are a Good Person and anything you do is therefore a Good Thing.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:26 PM
if you vote Republican you get to do anything you want as long as it's not as bad as something else that was done in the past and that you can think of in a hurry, especially if it was done by fur'ners
And/or if it's not as bad as being a stripper. Or accusing some poor innocent man of rape.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:27 PM
116: I have no troll secret identity, or, like Farber and Wolfson, no secret identity at all. There was a time I might offer multiple personalities, but now alas, I can barely afford one.
66: I proved by algebra over at hilzoy's that the 3rd Critique was the bestest Critique, and the foundation of the first two. Nobody even laughed.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:36 PM
FWIW, it really didn't sound like Urple to me, but who cares as we're not going on any witchhunt.
---
So, being a wingnut is like playing six degrees of separation? ("I can get from Haditha to Chapel Hill in three easy steps.") Or more like Clue? ("The insurgency... in Abu Ghraib... with the waterboard!")
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:42 PM
128: By algebra? The normal route is through France.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:43 PM
I missed the quai-troll. Was it fun? I propose a new rule: no changing handles, either to troll or not-troll. Let's face it: my handle sucks. But do I discard it, and all its glorious history? What if we all did that? Unfogged is the history of our collective handles. Some of them suck. But we go to the unfogged with the handles we have, not with the handles we would prefer.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:52 PM
that's quasi-troll. quai trolls are never fun.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:53 PM
I mean, I could become Mr. Mcboobiescratch. That would be funny, to some. But think of what we lose. Think of what we lose!
It was ok when Kriston changed his handle, and otherwise it must never be done.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:54 PM
And there's an exception for the Clown Formerly known as TMK.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:55 PM
Why is it always a "moral calculus"? Is algebra immoral? Those integrals seem awfully curvy, if you ask me. I had to stop when we got into double and even triple integrals--that was just too much. Nope, I'm sticking with plane vanilla algebra.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:56 PM
I dunno, I would support onymous commenters choosing to become pseudonymous, as long as they clearly indicate who they are.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:58 PM
quai trolls are never fun.
The Troll Under the Bridge on the River Quai.
Posted by TheyCallMeDoctorLove | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 9:59 PM
Is algebra immoral?
It is certainly base. Usually base 10.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:00 PM
they can put in slashes to google-proof if they want, or pull a Saiselgy. TMK has to go back to being TMK.
Tough cases make bad law.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:00 PM
Doesn't he have to go back to what he was before he was TMK?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:03 PM
I changed my handle over a year ago. Deal with it.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:04 PM
oh yeah. Good catch, teofilo. When all is as it was, fontana labs will return for good, and ogged too, and they will bear a child to rule us all.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:05 PM
And textualist will be back.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:06 PM
new rule: if you changed your handle before I can remember, then you may keep your new/old handle. If you changed your handle after I moved to honkytonkland and lost track of things, you must change it back.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:07 PM
New rule: shortening your handle is allowed.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:08 PM
How is Honkytonkland, by the way?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:09 PM
Labs, Fontana. The moral calculus of when to integrate your natural log; or, Deriving The Mineshaft. Unfogged: New York 2006.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:09 PM
Trolls make bad law.
Text is a fine name, and people can do what they want as long as they aren't stupid about it. So there.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:09 PM
Shoulda said, overreactng to trolls makes bad law.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:10 PM
When all is as it was, fontana labs will return for good, and ogged too, and they will bear a child to rule us all.
And.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:10 PM
Honkytonkland is good. People jog often. It's easy to park. Nobody has peed in my soup, that I know of.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:13 PM
of course! "integrated his log"! add it to the pile, M/tch.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:15 PM
I'm not reacting to the troll, but all the change. I'm afraid.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:15 PM
actually, "added his stick to my pile" isn't bad either.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:15 PM
There there, text. You can still suck cock in the restrooms, we've just reupholstered the bar stools.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:17 PM
Wait, what? Not with anything furry, I hope. I need them slick so I can show off by sliding down them.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:18 PM
tia, you're thinking poles (as usual).
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:20 PM
B, "suck cock" s/b "get pleasured by manifold women of great beauty while reading my verse"
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:22 PM
Dude, the blow job is one thing, but listening to poetry is truly degrading, don'tcha think?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:23 PM
text is right! let's none of us ever change our handles again!
Posted by Mr. McBoobyscratch | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:26 PM
"reading my verse" s/b "eating baked beans"
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:27 PM
the poems sometimes go on too long, but they end well, and always produce a tangible reaction.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:28 PM
I was not thinking poles! For context, my act usually succeeds a bunch of other whores bragging, "I am so loose, I can..."
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:29 PM
you win, tia. well played. g'night all!
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:31 PM
163: Like this.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:33 PM
Changing handles has to be allowed! I'm soon going undercover, new handle, new blog. Should be fun.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 10:57 PM
Coming back late to the thread and wow am I sad I missed the good stuff...
Well, yes.
Farber, that may be the shortest comment I've ever seen from you anywhere, are you feeling okay?
Oh nevermind, I just followed the link, should have thought to check your blog earlier...
Posted by ICantPutEsquireAfterMyName | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:01 PM
and they will bear a child to rule us all.
And he will be her father and she her mother. Just 'cause they're so damn hot.
Yes! I confess! I'm a slut for television!
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:03 PM
98- Holy fucking shit! WRONG PERSON!! I'm skimming happily through this and all of today's threads and then, BAM!, I run into this?!
I haven't been commenting much recently because I've been pulling 80 hours weeks at work, and this is what happens while I'm away! Talk about dishonoring someone's memory!!
I swear I am a victim of anonymous-identity theft, or something. I'm may have to call the national identity-theft hotline tonight and see if they can help me out. The REALLY frustrating thing is that this exact same thing happened to me a few months ago on a local sports message-board. (Yes, I sometimes comment on local sports message-boards. Why are you looking at me like that?) Some whacko (not named "Rooper") came in saying stupid things and eventually the host "outed" him as -- me, which was total bullshit. I really don't have much in the way of technical chops, so I really don't understand exactly how this whole IP address thing works, but I can tell you this is the second damn time someone has confidently pinned me an evil troll based on my IP address. Look, I read/comment here frequently from either of my 2 home computers and from my computer at work. All three are in the greater Boston area. I have a comcast cable modem at home; I don't know what the fuck we have here at work. If I can give you any other information (other than, um, you know, actual personal information) to help you tell me what is going on I would gladly do so. I'm really fucking pissed. I realize I shouldn't actually care, but it bothers me to have my integrity questioned, even my anonymous integrity.
For the record I think all torture is terrible, what happened this this poor man is terrible, what happened to this poor man is torture, and strippers are not necessarily low, base, or morally corrupt. If I missed any other stupid thing (Though most frequent patrons of strip-clubs are, as least in my experience. While we're on the subject.)
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:18 PM
For the record the comment linked to in 120 was not me either. I say stupid things sometimes, but always under my real-fake name.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:20 PM
I don't remember thinking that Urple was an asshole.
How very sweet of you, B...
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:22 PM
A technical note for C'gist/TMK: Yes, ISPs do assign IP addresses to dial-up customers from a set pool. They do the same thing for cable modem/DSL connections, as well, though those reset much less frequently and even less frequently actually change when refreshed. However, pools of IPs are also commonly assigned to geographical regions. All dial-up users of ISP X in Townsville will get their IPs out of a common pool that is designated for Townsville. Thus, if Rooper and Urple show up with the same IP, it at least lands them in close geographic proximity.
Close proximity meaning same state, or same region, or same town, or same street, or same building, or what? The host I referred to in 169 was SURE he could tell that said troll and I were using the same computer, which I know wasn't right. But he was so confident he asked me not to comment there anymore. I really wish I better understood how these things worked.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:27 PM
172 was me, and what an ironic mistake...
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:28 PM
I smell the work of Daniel N. Guap.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:29 PM
I googled 174 and got nothing. Inside joke I'm missing?
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:34 PM
He Who Shall Not Be Named. He was defeated, but rumor has it he still walks among us.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:36 PM
Forget it I'm going home to go to bed. One of you west coast people who's still awake and is tech saavy should dig up some answers and get back to me in the morning.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:37 PM
It's your work IP, Urple. It's not unusual (in fact it's common) for all the computers in a company to report the same IP address (that of the firewall they're behind). The IP that you and Rooper have used belongs to your place of employment (and all the comments from it have come roughly during business hours). One of your co-workers is a troll.
Given that this has happened on two very different sites, it's very likely someone who knows which sites you visit, so either there's some arrangement in your office that makes this possible, or it's one of your IT people.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:40 PM
Urple is P/aul D/eignan! Or rather, he's got P/aul D/eignan stuck on the back of his head, which is why he always wears that turban. Sometimes Paul gets the best of him.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:45 PM
or ogged's explanation. to bed, text.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:47 PM
I am almost Becks-style. Insufficiently Becks-style.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:52 PM
gotta get Becks'd up!
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:54 PM
For you, text, anything.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:54 PM
sweet! Try this indian princess outfit on.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:58 PM
Behold, an incredibly dull response doth commence:
172: "Close proximity" varies in scope from place to place. I actually just waxed, in preview, a ridiculously spammy explanation of why that is. Suffice to say, if Urple is in Boston on a Comcast cable modem, it is entirely possible for various reasons that another Comcast cable modem user in eir general neck of the woods (not same block, most likely, but easily the same metropolitan area) would get assigned "Urple's" address (the quotes signify the fiction of ownership of a temporary IP address, not the fiction of pseudonymity) and that Urple would be an innocent and utterly accidental victim. It would surprise me, but it's not like Jesus returning on a Segway level of surprising.
However, I have no first-hand knowledge, none of the details, and haven't worked the home-users side of an ISP in years. (I work for an ISP now, but my scale on the behemoth's belly services corporate clients with dedicated data circuits, and I just deal with the firewalls we manage for them, nothing else). Becks probably knows this better than I do, anyway. I just figured it was worth mentionin'.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-21-06 11:59 PM
What is this bullshit? Another swig of [beverage] and my head is clear as day. I will now have a penetrating insight.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:01 AM
Working on it.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:02 AM
*points at ogged's comment* There you go. I shouldn't have tried to answer fast and then dithered in preview when I was already talking out my ass to begin with.
Urple needs to start knockin' some IT heads. Very, very politely.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:03 AM
I am an Indian princess. And always have been!
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:03 AM
By the way, Urple, there are a couple of things that come immediately to mind that you can do about this, though I'll leave it to the younguns to explain how, as I'm going to bed and check comments irregularly. You can edit the User Agent that your browser reports, so that a site administrator could tell you apart from your trolling co-worker (but this wouldn't help you get around an IP ban). Or you could go through another proxy server, which would change the IP address your browser reports. Or you could find out who it is, and use his posts to humiliate him, but that probably violates the Dictum of Online/Offline Separation.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:03 AM
there's no penetrating in sight where I am. To bed, very soon.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:04 AM
wait, I've got to get my Greek captive costume on.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:07 AM
And I wouldn't recommend messing with your IT people unless the fact that they likely know about every site you've visited at work doesn't worry you.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:07 AM
I am an Indian princess.
So who's the lucky guy?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:11 AM
Steve.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:15 AM
violates the Dictum
What goes around comes around, that's all I'm saying.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:18 AM
As to Rooper's issue, here's why he's a fucktard: when confronted with questionable practices, he would rather get into a pissing match over whether something does or does not fit the technical definition of torture, and in so doing he untethers himself from any moral gravity. Not to sound all Republican, but what the fuck ever happened to a little personal responsibility? If this happened, either endorse it or don't, and have the spine to say the hell why it's a good thing or a bad thing.
Trying to turn the issue into 'well at least we didn't shove bamboo under their nails' or 'as long as someone wearing our flag has been accused of something and you aren't defending them then your outrage is clearly misdirected' is an attempt to run away from LB's inescapably direct question: How do things like this happen? Justify the actions, or condemn them, but don't point over our shoulders and say, "Oh my god, it's Vietnam and they look like they mean business!" and expect us to whip around to look in that direction while you beat a hasty retreat from a confrontation with the very real sins of today.
"I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm just saying it's not as bad as some other things and also I'm not sure it fits the dictionary definition of 'torture,'" to paraphrase, is not an attempt to answer the question. It is an attempt to distract. It is the lily-liveredest "what the definition of 'is' is" argument possible in the face of something as serious as whether we are, essentially, torturing the mentally ill to create grist for the soundbite mill.
I wish the story were untrue, but I doubt it is. Bush has demonstrated repeatedly that he is utterly blind to the fact that when we are unnecessarily hurt, attacked, wounded, that we suffer, yes, but that we also suffer when we are the one who unnecessarily hurts, attacks and wounds. Whether it's called 'torture' or 'extraordinary methods' or 'high tea at the Gitmo Country Club' it demeans us, it chips away at our moral fibre and our influence and our ability to take the high ground in matters of human rights. That we do not treat people like that is part of what makes us us. Bush has done a lot of rationalizing to justify acts that should shame us as a nation, and it will take a long time for us to recover from that, and he doesn't give two shits because he always has been, and always will be, a shitty businessman who can see absolutely no further than the very next moment and even then sees it only in terms of ways to avoid being held accountable. He has no long-term view, does not care to acquire one and probably thinks they're for pussies, anyway. CEO president, indeed; funny how no one mentioned during the campaign in 2000 that every company he'd helmed was a fucking disaster.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:23 AM
193: Aw, you're no fun.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:24 AM
cf.176 & 179
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:26 AM
That was sloppy of text. I wish text would warn us when he is about to be sloppy, so we can make the necessary preparations.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:29 AM
201!
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:30 AM
It's extremely unlikely that the shared IP address between Rooper and Urple (even apart from previous trolling incidents) is due to random assignments from ISPs. It would have to be that the very person that is trying to frame Urple just *happens* to get assigned Urple's old IP, when such reassignments are actually quite rare. (I had a Cox cable account for two years and my IP never changed, despite it being technically for it to change every week or so.) It would be even less likely that this would happen if Rooper weren't aware of Urple.
No, far and away the most likely explanation (so much that the other explanation fades into insignificance) is that Rooper is some mischevious or malicious coworker with a considerable amount of technical knowledge.
Urple, it's ridiculous to think that an IP address ties a comment to an individual machine, and the moderator who asserted this was an idiot.
Urple could change his UserAgent, but it would be easy for his coworker to use a network sniffer to find out and copy the user agent, if he were so inclined. I think the best solution is to use a proxy to comment.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:41 AM
"that IP address necessarily ties"
For many purposes, IP addresses can be used with a great deal of confidence to assert the identity of a commenter. For other purposes, that confidence drops dramatically.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:45 AM
the moderator who asserted this was an idiot.
The moderator lacked some technical knowledge that you possess. Not at all the same thing.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:46 AM
Urple, I'm glad it's not really you! Sorry I wasn't more tentative initially.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 5:31 AM
The title of this thread is now apropos on two levels.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 6:37 AM
He was overconfident in the mistaken knowledge that he did have, and it led him to make bad decisions. That leads me, I think justly, to have a low opinion of his judgement.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 7:29 AM
Wow, I just read the whole thing, and would like to assure Urple that I shared Dr. B's reaction -- "Urple? That doesn't make any sense -- Urple's not like that." Sorry about that stalker you've got, Urple -- figure it's got to either be someone with access to your online surfing habits, or someone you at least talk to about them. In either case, they suck.
And Rooper is a complete ass based on what he writes, but I wouldn't want to start banning people just for being asses. Based on the trying to frame another regular as an ass, while I haven't got any idea how to prevent him from showing up, he's certainly unwelcome to comment here, and I'd support any action that someone else wants to take to keep that from happening.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 7:40 AM
179: Please don't use that name without googleproofing.
197: Too long. "Stupid" covered it fine.
Urple, I'm sorry I entertained the possibility for even a second. I'm also sorry that "I never thought of Urple as an asshole" was framed so negatively! LB's reaction was much more what I meant, and should have said.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 7:53 AM
209: Google-proofed.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 7:55 AM
Dear god, thank you. Wanna blow job?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 7:56 AM
sorry about that. got carried away.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 8:02 AM
Yes.
Posted by god | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 8:04 AM
He was overconfident in the mistaken knowledge that he did have, and it led him to make bad decisions. That leads me, I think justly, to have a low opinion of his judgement.
Sorry, pdf, I thought you were talking about Tia. Because I are so smart.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 8:17 AM
178/190/all the other comments referencing someone trying to frame me: really? Is that really the most likely explanation for what's going on? I mean I guess it's possible, it's just that I haven't talked to *that* many people about my online surfing habits, and I'd like to believe that none of them are evil. (Evil people that is. I know that many of my online surfing habits are evil.) I suppose it could be someone in IT (Hi IT!, if you are reading this), it is a really big department, but the idea of a dedicated Urple-stalker down in IT seems a little too conspiratorial for me. I mean, I guess it's not impossible but... why?
Again, I don't understand the technical aspects here, but from what has been said in this thread could it be possible that these two incidents involve two totally unrelated people at my work? It's a really big office. I mean, the other site was a local sports website, and I know I have a number my co-workers who frequent it -- maybe one of them is a troll on the weekends. Could some other, unrelated party have stumbled onto this site and begun posting as Rooper? To me this sounds much more plausible than than someone is trying to sabatoge my online anonymous good-name.
But maybe what I'm describing doesn't comport with the technical evidence Tia is looking at? If so could someone let me know? Because if there definitely is a dedicated, ill-willed Urple-stalker, I'd like to know and I'd like to alert IT. Ogged's wise words in 193 notwithstanding, I think the manager of the dept. would like to know if someone if spending their time maliciously stalking employees (who themselves are innocently trying to waste company time). And surely, since no one in IT would likely have any personal off-line vendetta against me (I don't even know any of them), I'm probably not the only person this guy is fucking around with, right?
PS- if you can tell from the IP address that the signal is coming from my work, can you also tell where I work? That's a bit disturbing to me, honestly, but I guess it's okay.
209- my 171 was in jest. I knew what you meant. :)
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 9:32 AM
215 -- Yes they can tell where you work with reverse IP lookup. If you want to hide this information from sites you surf, you need to use a proxy. I'm not really familiar with how to do that but I'm sure someone else on this forum can give you the goods.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 9:42 AM
PS as long as I'm here I may at least comment on the thread. Comment 1 made me laugh out loud at first, until my laugh faded into a soft chuckle, and then the corners of my mouth dropped, and my brow furrowed, and suddenly I was overcome with gloom at the haunting realization that the comment was not at all a joke.
When I first read 47 I thought it was a fucking comic masterpiece. I actually read it twice, just to take in its full essence. By the time I got to 68 I began to think the comedy was losing its edge, and of course it stopped being humorous altogether when I reached 98.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 9:43 AM
Urple, whether it's more likely one person or two different people is something you're more likely to know. All we can tell is that the IP addresses are the same, and all that tells us is that they're from the same organization (yes, if we do a lookup on the IP, we can see where you work).
(Well, I don't have access to server logs and such anymore, so it might be that we have logs that also note browser version and screen resolution and such, so there might be something in our logs that would give us a clue as to whether we're dealing with more than one computer other than yours.)
And by the way, I didn't think you had a stalker, just someone who liked trolling and was following you to websites (a "this user went here, hey, that looks interesting" kind of thing), probably without even thinking that it would get people on the sites mad at you.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 9:46 AM
Yeah, I doubt it's at all targeted toward you, or s/he'd have used your handle, too.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 9:51 AM
I agree with 218 and 219, although it's possible the person just stumbled onto Unfogged without following you here. The site's not that obscure.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 9:54 AM
I probably shouldn't have said 'stalker' but coincidence seems unlikely. I am so not on top of our stats, but we haven't got all that many regular lurkers -- IIRC it's a couple of hundred, certainly less than a thousand. So a pure coincidence that someone would be commenting from your workplace isn't impossible, but seems low odds -- I'd bet Rooper followed you here. Rooper? Want to chime in and explain yourself?
But ogged is right -- there's no reason to think that it was a deliberate frameup. I just jumped to that conclusion after your other story about the sports site.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 9:54 AM
Unless Urple really wants to pursue it, I suggest we let it go instead of asking Rooper to chime in and explain himself. This whole incident may have already outed Urple to his coworkers more than he'd like.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 9:59 AM
Eh, you're right. Do I have the figures on regular lurkers in the right order of magnitude?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 10:02 AM
219: Hmm. You know, I think if the person had used Urple's handle, we would in fact have been less likely to believe it was Urple. We would be like "Wtf? Clearly an impersonator."
Tarnishing someone's goodwill by making them seem like a person who pretended to be reasonable under one name and trolled the site under another name would be much more effective than tarnishing someone's goodwill by making them seem like a person who was reasonable and then went batshit crazy.
None of this is important, of course. I was just thinking whether apo's 219 was actually true. Not that trolls/stalkers are that smart anyway.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 10:22 AM
It doesn't really need to be said to anyone here, but another Rooperism I loved was the "strippers are morally corrupt, but those nice boys who hired her, why surely they wouldn't do anything immoral or lie about it, would they?"
Also, Tia, I propose another stick for our pile:
Bugging, assaging, sphinxing, etc. = doing it well
Roopering = doing it badly (either that or it means calling the assagee the wrong name in the throes of all that hott sphinxing).
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 10:25 AM
I agree that it's likely that whoever's doing this probably does it to other people at the same workplace, if they don't have some sort of personal grudge agaist Urple. And it's not necessarily someone in the IT department, either. Just someone who knows how TCP/IP works, and how to use a network sniffer.
Whether they're intentially trying to tarnish the reputations of their victims is another question. Rooper's behavior here appeared calculated to be maximally noxious, but it could be that the person is just a really obnoxious person. (The shallow, right-wing-stereotype talking points speak against this, though.) But if other incidents also show the same pattern of maximal noxiousness, then it's more likely that it is calculated.
Also, 224 gets it right, except that this troll would have to be pretty intelligent to do all those things, and to know precisely the sort of trolling that will draw the ire of a given site.
It's interesting to note that (and I'm by no means accusing Urple here--his word is good enough for me) there is no good way to prevent people from creating sock puppets on the internet. On can increase the cost of making them with various registration systems, but not prevent them.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 10:45 AM
216- wait, wait, wait.. I'd actually like to drop this conversation soon, but.. can you also tell where I live?? Can any website I visit from home pull up my street address through my IP address??
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 11:22 AM
This is ignorant, I don't know, but until someone answers the question who does know, I'll tell you what I think I remember.
No. Assuming you don't do anything tricky, your IP address is going to identify you to within your workplace or within your ISP. Your ISP is going to identify you within a pretty small geographical area, but not your street address.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 11:26 AM
227 -- No. Or anyway, I'm pretty damn sure that is not possible. The IP address a site sees when you surf from home is one assigned to your ISP -- reverse lookup on it will get your ISP's name and contact info. If you had a T1 line into your house then it might be different.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 11:27 AM
Pwn'd.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 11:28 AM
Can any website I visit from home pull up my street address through my IP address??
No. LB is right.
The only way to tie that IP address to your real-life name/address is to get the records from your ISP.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 11:39 AM
Okay well that makes me feel better, at least. These internets are less anonymous than I used to think.
I still don't understand why you can use my IP address from work to figure out where I work, but can't use my IP address from home to figure out where I live, but it's probably not worth the effort involved in trying to explain it to me.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 11:49 AM
I was thinking last night that it was a co-worker, because it wouldn't be all that unheard of for someone to check out a website a co-worker was looking at.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 11:51 AM
More ignorant stuff I think I know: your IP address ties you back to a specific [server?], which is registered as owned by an organization. Most workplaces are big enough that they have their own servers, and so an IP reverse lookup says "Urple is posting from a server owned by the Burlington Coat Factory. He must work there." You don't have your own server at home -- you hook into your ISP's server. So all the reverse lookup tells us is that "Urple is posting from a server owned by an ISP located near Rutland, Vermont." (Note: locations invented. In theory I could know similar information about Urple -- in practice I don't.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 11:54 AM
234 makes sense. Thanks.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 11:57 AM
Urple, your service provider is assigned a block of IP addresses to use. When you reverse look-up an IP address, you can see who owns that block of addresses.
If a workplace or university owns a block of IP addresses like an ISP, when you look it up, it will indicate that it's a workplace or a university because they own the block of addresses. But on your home computer, you don't own the IP address, your ISP does. So ogged can see that you're using Comcast, say, and that you're in a certain region, but beyond that, the IP addresses are theoretically reassigned periodically.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 11:58 AM
Oh, good, Cala knows what she's talking about. Um, yeah, when I said [server] I meant 'block of IP addresses'.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:08 PM
I'm pretty sure that even most pretty big companies don't own their own IP address blocks, though I'm not clear on that.
But if your company has a web site, and hosts the site from the company headquarters, then that IP address will often be the same used for employees' outgoing connections, and thus the web site's domain name can be tied to that IP.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 12:16 PM
The thing I don't get is why anyone would want to troll this site. It's not that.... popular. [Ducks] It seems like if you were going to troll you'd want to do so somewhere with much higher traffic, no?
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 5:17 PM
See, I still don't think it was an attempt to troll. I think it was a genuine (stupid) attempt to join the discussion, made by someone too stupid to realize that there's a difference between dissent wirth engaging and stupidity.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 5:21 PM
B, you're probably right. But there have been troll problems here before, no? Of all the sites in the great big internet, what makes this an attractive place for trolling?
I understand it's just a problem with which all sites must deal. I just don't quite understand why. I mean, the troll-bots over at the Washington Monthly make some twisted sense. But here??
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 5:27 PM
Dunno. I get 'em too (though I'm really surprised I don't get more). Maybe it's the psychology of guys who want to feel like all these super smarty pants types need to be taken down a notch?
Wait a second. I get what you're doing! You were the troll. And now you're acting all innocent and trying to get us to explain our theories of trolling, so as to more effectively troll in the future! I see through your clever ways, mister.
Am I not allowed to make jokes about your troll identity?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 5:37 PM
B, your jokes about my troll identity are always welcome. Although, wait, I take that back... if 242 was supposed to be a joke, it wasn't very funny. Your jokes about my troll identity are welcome so long as they are funny.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 5:55 PM
What would be funny if if I started posting like this and calling you "Mrs. Bitchphd" all the time.
Posted by Rooper | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 5:58 PM
You have to learn how to type first.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 5:59 PM
Typing is women's work, B. I take pride in my typos.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 6:05 PM
Yeah, B, how come your husband's last name is Bitch? And why do you use his title?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 6:09 PM
I'm pretty sure that even most pretty big companies don't own their own IP address blocks, though I'm not clear on that.
Actually, most really big companies do, but it's really not a very interesting explanation. Suffice to say, the company that made your car probably does outright own its own IP space, and whatever telecom company they pay to come in and manage everything for them just routes that block over their own networks. The company that made your favorite coffe mug, however, probably leases blocks of IP space from their provider.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 6:36 PM
The company that made your fave coffeE mug, however, are total tools and are living in the stone age.
Stupid fingers...
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 6:37 PM
My husband's last initial is B--that doesn't mean we share a last name ;)
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-22-06 7:24 PM
248: Yeah, that's what I meant. I don't imagine many companies with fewer than a few thousand employees do that.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 06-23-06 8:10 AM
I just have one last thing to say and that is fuck you all. I think the link below captures exactly what I am talking about:
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/dennisprager/2006/06/27/202728.html
You call me stupid but I ANTICIPATED these arguments.
And fuck you too "Urple" (what a fag name) I don't work with you I'm not even near Boston.
This site is a waste of my time.
Posted by Rooper | Link to this comment | 06-27-06 11:15 AM
Nice.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist |