I know you're all tired of this, but ...

[Calilasseia]

... I felt it was time to say something on recent events, having engaged in relevant deliberations. Accordingly, I offer this.


An Open Letter To PZ Myers

I have some questions arising from recent events. PZ, if you're observing this, please take your time to study them, and then provide an answer.

[1] Does not having launched into a spate of venomous abuse against Pappa, as a result of my not being aware of the thread in question, prior to your intervention, make me a "rape apologist"?

[2] Does not abandoning friends I made a good long time ago, just because one of them happens to have made an ill-conceived attempt at humour, make me a "cockroach"?

[3] Does the phrase "I disagree in the strongest terms with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it" resonate with you at all?

[4] Given that several here have had personal experience, with respect to the matter of escaping the rule by decree and thought policing so beloved of supernaturalists, does it not strike you as woefully ironic, to be seen as engaging in the same behaviour as your purported enemies in this matter, with respect to your interventions?

I would prefer substantive answers instead of one line dismissals if possible.

Yours sincerely,


Calilasseia.

[rEvolutionist]

[laklak]

Think he'll respond, Cali?

[Ian]

I wouldn't count on it. He launched his hate campaign over at Pharyngula, but hasn't come here much except to briefly call us all a nest of cockroaches. Besides, he asked to have his account suspended.

[Jaygray]

I'm sure his lap-dogs will pass the message on. I expect he will either be too aloof to answer or he'll give the usual summary dismissal with 'assholes' being used a lot. Got to rally the troops, what?

[Tyrannical]

I wouldn't count on it. He launched his hate campaign over at Pharyngula, but hasn't come here much except to briefly call us all a nest of cockroaches. Besides, he asked to have his account suspended.

Perhaps we may get lucky and he decides to take his medication before posting. I'm curious if he can discuss things he doesn't like or agree with without resorting to acting like a sixth grader.

[Atheist-Lite]

I wouldn't count on it. He launched his hate campaign over at Pharyngula, but hasn't come here much except to briefly call us all a nest of cockroaches. Besides, he asked to have his account suspended.

Perhaps we may get lucky and he decides to take his medication before posting. I'm curious if he can discuss things he doesn't like or agree with without resorting to acting like a sixth grader.

That wafer really contained something...then?

[Audley Strange]

Seems to me, like a lot of academics I've met (and I'm sure some of the academics here have met) that never having left school, but skipped from one class to another, many of them have a very skewed idea of reality. Given that and given his obvious lack of self-criticism since his hagiographers and courtiers have inflated his ego to a degree that has allowed him to delude himself into thinking he has some kind of "leader" role in a community that increasingly marginalises him because it has had enough of his and his fawning lickspittles.

[rasetsu]

I say we dust off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I’m going to postulate — just an idea — that perhaps there is a secret chemical that has been genetically engineered which is on the surface of that paper so that when the Ph.D. candidate receives that roll of paper this chemical is absorbed by the skin, goes into the bloodstream and is conducted directly to the brain. This is a very carefully engineered chemical which goes directly — please don’t laugh; this is science — goes directly to the speech center of the brain and paralyzes the brain in such a way that two sentences from then on, in any given language, are no longer possible to be pronounced by that person. Those two sentences are, “I don’t know” and “I was wrong”.

— James "The Amazing" Randi

[colubridae]

I say we dust off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I’m going to postulate — just an idea — that perhaps there is a secret chemical that has been genetically engineered which is on the surface of that paper so that when the Ph.D. candidate receives that roll of paper this chemical is absorbed by the skin, goes into the bloodstream and is conducted directly to the brain. This is a very carefully engineered chemical which goes directly — please don’t laugh; this is science — goes directly to the speech center of the brain and paralyzes the brain in such a way that two sentences from then on, in any given language, are no longer possible to be pronounced by that person. Those two sentences are, “I don’t know” and “I was wrong”.

— James "The Amazing" Randi

I'm definitely right when I say I know what he means.

[amused]

[5] Given your own disgust with concern trolls, aren't you now disgusted with yourself?

[JimC]

If he won't treat Cali seriously, he wouldn't treat anyone seriously...

[Atheist-Lite]

If he won't treat Cali seriously, he wouldn't treat anyone seriously...

...except I, for myself, find the questions to be apparently rather weak coming from one of the acknowledged strongest gamesters on the skeptical board.

[rainbow]

If he won't treat Cali seriously, he wouldn't treat anyone seriously...

I find Cali too boring to take seriously.

[rachelbean]

Cali is anything but boring