On Friday, February 11, when I publicly accused my old high school friends Mike and Jerod of having left mean-spirited comments here under false names, they responded with righteous indignation, suggesting that upstanding conservative men such as themselves would never do such a thing… Here’s a quote from Mike:
“I would be honored to be thought of as a troll here but I must confess, I have posted only as myself each time… Nowhere did I obstruct an intelligent discussion (until now… which really isn’t an intelligent conversation). I actually started one on social security and was immediately called a ‘money worshipping occultist’ by your loyal posters. There is a substantiated fact. Go look at the whole thread. I posted as Mike. Definitely no need to cover up my thoughts with an alias. It’s also funny that you assume that all the trolls are Jerod and I. Why? I thought you got so much traffic here that it could be just about anyone from any country in the world. At least that’s what you tell everyone that rarely comes to this site.”
First off, I never brag about the MM.com traffic. Anyone who reads this site knows that. I only get a few hundred readers a day, and I doubt that you can find an instance of me saying it’s more than that. But, that’s a clever technique to obfuscate the issue, to make me look like a braggart… like that damned Al Gore who “invented the internet.” So, you’ve got to give Mike some credit for that.
Now, as for his not using aliases, sadly it looks as though he was lying about that. Here, in case you don’t believe me, are screen grabs from a few comments. The first, you’ll notice, is under his name. The others, which contain more offensive material, are under the names of other people. You’ll notice, however, that the IP addresses all remain the same.
I wasn’t the only person to figure this out. The MM.com webmaster, Steve Cherry, saw it too. When he confronted Mike with it, Mike responded by saying that not just he, but everyone in his office, was commenting on my site that day, and they all had the same IP address.
And, when Steve then pointed out that they came from the same e-mail address as well, Mike had an answer for that too — apparently, he had told all of his coworkers, all the folks sharing this one IP address, to use his email address when leaving comments. Sounds a bit farfetched, doesn’t it? (Like when Condoleezza Rice said under oath that she’d never been told that terrorists might crash planes into buildings, and that the Clinton administration never told them that al-Qaeda was a threat.) Here, in Mike’s own words, is how it happened:
“In my letter to my 6 or so conservative coworkerss, I gave them the URL told them to use whatever name they wanted if they didn’t want to use their real name and said that they have to enter an email in order to post. I provided one.”
For what it’s worth, the same exact thing must have happened in Jerod’s office. I could post images of those emails too, but I don’t want to give this subject any more space than I have to. I will, however, share this quote from Jerod concerning his innocence. I thought that it was pretty convincing.
Just to add to Mike’s comments with regards to postings. I have only posted a couple of times (as myself) so before you decide to make accusations and derogatory remarks and reduce yourself to “our level” you should probably figure out who is actually sending this info.
I have a suspicion that they won’t let me, but I’d like to leave it at that and move on to other, more interesting subjects now. There is, after all, a country that needs our attention right now.
51 Comments
mark,
You are a pathetic example of the left… I am not Mike.. I do work with him, instead of confronting ANY of our arguments, you seek the politics of personal destruction.. I should feel mad but all I feel is this sadness…..
Mark,
I see you’ve taken time off from gay-baiting, to attack your old friends… I respect you .. pathetic… why dont you just block everyone but the chosen.. That way your echo chamber can go unchallenged
Mark, looks like you need a web master that knows something about networks. The ip that you posting is the only ip address for outbound traffic in our office. Everyone will have that ip so you are again incorrect in your allegations. The email is just made up. You can type anything you want. I know you don’t know much about the technology side of this site and that is not a slam but everyone that posts here could use the same email. It’s just part of a simple form that has no authentication at all. You can waste your time with your “investigation” but you are simply wrong, again. However, what does seem obvious from your posts is that you never seem to answer any questions relating to the actual topics. Why? Why spend each night coming up with articles on your front page telling everyone that there is a troll here and a liar there but never answer a question. There are plenty of valid points, and links to articles that you refuse to rebut. The only thing you can come up with, incorrectly, is that they are all from one person. I think Brett could attest that I post as myself quite often. I think I have posted enough that he knows I will not post under any other name. Why is so hard for you to actually answer simple questions instead of pretending your John Ashcroft. I am happy once again that you have made Jerod and I the center of attention though. You know how that makes me feel. Maybe we can rename the site MikeandJerod.com if the only value you add is compiling our stats. And while you are at it why don’t you run through your logs (they are simple text files so it should be easy) and do a search for some mean spirited name calling and list everyone that has written a mean spirited post. We can start with you, our statmonkey.
john galt…I also feel the sadness. It’s embarrassing that his webmaster doesn’t know an IP from TP. It’s not mark’s fault. He was misled and lied to and trusted someone that betrayed him. The simpelist thing would be to ban all IPs that disagree with mark. But then I would feel discriminated against and only conservatives discriminate, right?
Mark,
stop flinging shit at mike and jerod. They obviously have more important things to talk about than you do (all you do is gay-bait). I have learned much from their arguments, all I get from yours is hatred. Mike and Jerod represent the new wave.. you are the past, move to france if you want.. they still live in the past… I’d much rather listen to their cogent arguments than your hate-filled homophobic, racist rants.
Oh and then Mark says that they all come from the same email address and I look at his pictorial examples and they are two different address in 3 examples. Hmmmm. I am cunfused. Hey mark, can you apologize to me publicly? I am not lying. There are actually other conservatives out there in this world. I am not the only one believe it or not. I hope to bring more for you. I am not telling them to troll, but I don’t have control of what they say. I think they add a fair and balanced perspective to your site. They are no more mean spirited than you yourself or Liberal posters here, not that two wrongs make a right. Anyway, enough of this, there are topics here that are more important than false accusations and statkeeping.
I find it disturbing that mark seeks to post the personal details of anyone who disagrees with him.. Why doesn’t he do the same to his fellow travellers? Mark, You look good in that brown shirt…
John – you know the story. When you can debate the issues, make fun of mike and jerod. It only brings me sadness, because I know he is a frail man. He has surrounded himself with yes men his whole life. Know the truth has finally arrived and fear has set in. His whole belief system is being questioned for the first time. It’s got to be hard but I think it will make him stronger in the end. I am here to help.
he is obviously weak willed. I’m sure by now he is crying in is bed to Linette.. who is telling him to pretend “we’re in a glass box” … well keep pretending Mark, because we’re real, we’re here, and we’re not going away until the truth is told.
john -like in Fahrenheit 911?
This is my last post as I have to play Halflife2 right now. I am at a good part…but this site is entertianing. I will check in tomorrow to see more personal details about me.
And I really didn
I do feel some sadness as I have been dragged down in the mud with Mike on this one. Yes I did post some “I support..” comments with an alias but quickly changed back to JF and have been JF all along.
Mike is the nasty, hateful one out of the two of us. I have been trying to have some debates and conversations regarding some of the issues (from a more conservative view). Mark seems to feel the need to drag me down with Mike but as I said before. Mark review my posts and except for one or two where Brett pissed me off where have I gone wrong in your mind? Stop being so paranoid.
Jerod
yes, as I recall I am the money worshipping occultist, shit throwing troll among other things. Of course, many posts are atributed to me that don’t really belong to me. It is sad as I have posted as mike all along. I’m no shit thrower.
“Methinks thou dost protest too much.”
If the trolls won’t leave you alone, you could ask the owners of those IP addresses whether the coworker alibi holds up. The trolls’ bosses might be interested to learn how their employees are spending their time.
(This post was deleted by Mark in order to keep an old friend with a big mouth from fucking up his life.)
“Ma Bell- I got the ill communication.”
From Bell South: Acceptable Use Policies
Impersonation
You may not attempt to send Electronic Mail or USENET News articles using a name and address of someone other than yourself. Attempting to impersonate any person, using forged headers or other identifying information, is prohibited. Attempts to do so that are discovered by BellSouth or reported by other parties may be reported to the proper authority immediately, and may result in the offending account being terminated immediately. The use of anonymous e-mailers and nicknames, by themselves, does not necessarily constitute impersonation if it is not being done with the intention of misleading the recipient or another party into believing that you are some other specifically identifiable user or person other than yourself.
Mark,
Before this gets way too personal I would ask you to take Mike’s personal information off this site. I know that he and Brett have been going at it for some time now but what Brett did in his post is beyond low and knowing some of the posters on this site it will only going to lead to disaster for several.
Just trying to keep the peace.
JF
I wouldn’t say that using the most common public IP database is ‘beyond low’:
http://www.arin.net/whois/
The information found doesn’t give out any personal details, beyond the issue of which IP’s service policies you’re abusing.
Brett – yep, you got our work IP. And please let my boss know, He actually posts here now and has done so many times. If fact, he loves it. Also, please look up the terms ‘Electronic Mail or USENET News articles’. This is niether. You guys obviously don’t work in the tech field. Why don’t you stop wasting your time concerning yourself with who is making up what alias and just answer the questions. I could frankly care less if Mark is tony buttons or Brett is also Steven. I have answered questions when asked and most of you do not. You either don’t have the answers or are more interestd in doing your detective work. You seem consumed by hate.
JF -thanks for the concern. Hopefully mark and the others can figure out the IP thing so they know I am not lying. If they would just look into all the posts that disagreed with them over the weekend (when nobody is at work) then they will see I am certainly not the only conservative here. I also hope mark refrains from using any more personal information of ours that he might have as the main topic of discussion. I don’t know if I can stand another picture of me wearing a member’s only jacket and foam hat. That was during our latin club trip to italy and france by the way. I always wondered how mark was going to use those pictures. I am sure there are others. I am afraid. What if my medical records get released just like Rush?
Brett,
Yes after I posted my response I realized I made a mistake. Sorry for accusing you of any wrong doing on that one (serious). At first I thought it was a home address but then realize the error in my way.
Jerod
“Also, please look up the terms ‘Electronic Mail or USENET News articles'”
I say let Bell South sort out the details. After about fifty complaints it won’t really be about how you interpret the agreement between your employer and Bell South.
boy, sounds like a plan to me, Steven. Put it in action. Ultimately, what is the goal here again?
Steven,
What will your complaint say? “He disagrees with my point of view so he is a bad person?”
Just curious.
JF
I like the one on 2005-02-10 14:43:28 where someone posting as “NAMBLA” from 68.153.34.254 used Mark’s email address.
Then there’s the one on 2005-02-10 15:03:23 when a user from the same ip address posted as Mark, with mark’s email address saying “I support the right to call people “Ass Selling Pimps”.
JF, it won’t say that. It will be more along the lines of “one of your customers has fraudulently used my client’s email address, please refer to Bell South’s Terms of Service agreement”. I’ll post it here when I’m done with it.
What is mark’s email address? I don’t see it here? I commend your work ethic. Although it’s kind of creepy.
Mike you dumb ass it is markmaynard@mindspring.com. It is listed right there on the front page of his website.
oh. I was just wondering because they said I used the same email address all the time from our work IP and they know it’s not Mark’s. They even have pictures of the email address I used. Now I am confused.
Mr. Bell:
You are misguided. To somehow believe that getting “6 of your conservative coworkers” to spam up the site is more honorable than posting under different names yourself is ludicrous. They are the same. The fact that you do this all the while telling everyone what a friend you are of Mark’s is equally crazy.
You are right that most of us wouldn’t know about what is involved with a tech job such as yours. But apparently it involves hanging out at a “friend’s” site all day with “6 other coworkers” and taking pride in making a nuisance of yourself. All because you don’t like their politics. I would hardly call someone a friend just because you knew them 20 years ago. I would think stalker might be a more appropriate term.
ken, see JF’s latest post in the ‘no more monkey business’ thread. He hit it on the head and nothing else needs to be said. Of course you can accuse him of being misguided also if name calling is your strong suit. I didn’t recruit anyone to “spam up the site”. I gave coworkers the URL. They can do what they want.
mike is referring, no doubt, to the oft-repeated:
“I don’t see anything wrong with a healthy debate on any of the issues he decides to post on this site.”
i would be curious if a few terms could be clarified, though, such as “Wrong”, “Healthy”, and “Debate”, which i feel can be potentially regarded as open to interpretation.
“they said I used the same email address all the time from our work IP”
wrong. many of your “co-workers” used the same fake e-mail address. Two posts used Mark’s address. Try to keep up mike.
you’re boring me web master steven.
Anyway, I have found an article that gives me hope that I can continue to post here forever. Maybe it’s time for a new thread mark.
sorry for the long URL but this is kinda cool:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&e=4&u=/ap/20050213/ap_on_hi_te/one_man_s_immortality
I suppose being exposed as a liar is boring, you are out of wiggle-room. Liar.
I feel sad for you stephen the name caller.
mike, as i know how upset you get when people don’t read your links, i went ahead and read it immediately. congrats. you have me trained.
the article is, i must admit, ‘kinda cool’.
it’s also ‘kinda off topic.’
as well as ‘kinda not a new idea to those of us who read science fiction’.
Oh, I’m not name-calling, you are a lair. I’m sure you’ve heard of cookies. You know this site sets a cookie when you visit. I looked at the logs, liar.
yeah, I don’t read much science fiction now days, unfortunately.
Ok so apparently, you sensitive progressives, like to post personal details of anyone who doesn’t agree with you. Why even be on the web? You’d be alot safer if you guys just mulled over your conspiracy theories at your next “progressive” bookclub meeting.. Why don’t you just go to the library and burn any books you disagree with while your at it.. As to the email addresses, the form requires one to post, noone sees it unless you’re a fascist who goes through the logs that vistors cant see and selectivly posts peoples personal information if he doesn’t like what they say. If mark wants to enforce registration, then let him.. I think he’s probably enjoying the most traffic he has ever had.. I’m sure if a bunch of neocons led the types of personal attacks that steven is trying to do.. you guys would all be in the streets chanting something catchy.. like bush lied people died. You guys still haven’t even attempted to address the contents of any posts, you just lash out at the posters… As for the I support the right to call people an ass selling pimp post. That is just what mark did on his main page. I find that offensive.. Rather than address this blatant homophobia you attack the person who pointed it out.
Why would anybody debate with a liar?
To quote Ronald Regan “there you go again”. Steven if you’re so intent on reading logs, why don’t you post a disclamer on the main page saying something like. This is a blog devoted to discussing “Progressive” ideals and how to fight the evil neocons.. We welcome a frank and lively discussion, but if you post something we disagree with, we will do everything in our power to personally destroy you.. This includes posting your otherwise private info, informing your ISP that you are a mean wrong-headed person.. Posting photographs of you.. Driving to your house and having a picket on your front lawn..
“you sensitive progressives, like to post personal details of anyone who doesn’t agree with you.”
no, *some* semi-identifying information was posted, which was because your tone is threatening, the redundancy of your supposed questions is nearly spam-like in nature, and whether you’re operating alone or in tandem the clear objective is to frustrate the existence of this blog in a borderline DOS attack, not enhance its content or diversity of opinion.
“You guys still haven’t even attempted to address the contents of any posts”
yes, we have. repeatedly. ad nauseum.
You brought this all on yourself. If people want to argue with a liar, it’s their business.
Ok I can see we’ve upset the carefully constructed echo chamber here.. So here’s a simple way to get rid of the “trolls”
1) Require registration and have some process in place to verify email address.
2) Ban people who post things you don’t agree with.
This very simple step will ensure that you never have to experince the horror of a dissenting position again..
Stop this shit, guys. Enough’s enough.
I’m going to go up and remove the information about Mike’s IP address that Brett posted, and I’d like to ask that we all get back to our lives now… Whether you like the administration or not, you have to admit that the economy isn’t that great right now, and I’d hate to see anyone looking for a job because of something that they did from work.
So, let’s move on.
Mike, this is your chance to drop this. If I were you, I’d take it. Seriously, you’re pissing a lot of people off, and they will pursue this, and I won’t be able to hold them off.
So, let’s move on.
Mike and Jerod, just send me a private email (apparently, you know my address) if you have something more to say on the matter. Please don’t post anything else here.
I’m not doing it mark. Why are you telling me to stop something I am not doing? If I have done something under the posting name of ‘mike’ that you want to pursue then let me know and will see if I went over the top and will make apologies right here if I feel I need to. Otherwise, pursue whomever you want to pursue, sadly, it won’t be me, but at least it would once and for all prove that I am telling the truth. I know Jerod and I both warrant apologies from anyone posting personal info. I also know that steven calling me a liar will be proven incorrect if you want to pursue anything.
Mark,
I give up. You are obviously not going to believe me when I tell you that, except for a few threads early on (long face), I have only posted as myself. I am racking my brains trying to figure out what has pissed you and your tribe so much. Outside of some sarcasm I have stuck to the issues and if this group cannot handle an alternative view then fine.
Some silly little threats about not being able to hold someone off is not enough to make me stop speaking how I feel (free speech) and responding to the issues. I will however stop based on an old friends request.
If you are asking me to stop posting my opinions on the topics on this site because they differ from the views of everyone here then I will stop. Thought we were debating the topics (some have gotten nasty on both sides). Is this what you are asking?
JF
How old are you doods?
Seriously.
For people who have better things to talk about, they sure talk about this a lot . . .