The real question, of course, is how many Bothan spies died to ensure that Paul's lawsuit might live.
It would be nice if I were so curmudgeonly that I could give boring lectures and have the students too afraid of my curmudgeoned brilliance to dare to be sullen.
But cheer up! One day you will have Actual Tenure and you will be able to send nasty e-mails to my coworkers when I make a fool of myself online!
I find myself weirdly obsessed with the Ballad of Paul Deignan
Does Paul have a big blue ox? 'Cause that would be cool.
FL, is this a small seminar or a big lecture?
I'm thinking we should pick a popular musical (Hedwig?) and rewrite the lyrics collaboratively. Because, apparently, I have an endless amount of time for doing stupid shit on the off chance that it will make me laugh.
I refuse to accept that Hedwig and the Angry Inch is the name of a real musical.
Yup. And you probably don't want to know what the Angry Inch is, besdies the name of her band.
looking at the IMDB page for the movie (I didn't know there was a movie...) stole my innocence of the term...
incidentally, there's a bar in DC called "The Angry Inch" It's terrible, and I caution against it, if for nothing else that emblazoned above the door it says "Est. 1969", even though it opened up in early 2004...
6: Okay, but maybe a slightly more popular musical, without quite so much self-awareness, would be a better choice.
Considering Hedwig is based on Plato's Symposium, I propose that Labs make his students rewrite other great philosophical texts in the form of a rock musical.
And you probably don't want to know what the Angry Inch is
ATM.
I took my extremely sheltered 17 year old brother to see an outstanding live production of Hedwig last summer. I thought his head was going to explode.
On nights like this
When the world's a bit amiss
And the lights go down
In the computer lab
I get down, I feel had
I feel on the verge of going mad
And then it's time to rant and rave
I put on some make-up
And turn on the tape deck
And put the tinfoil on my head
Suddenly I'm The Rightwing Info Theory King
Until I head home
And I put myself to bed
I look back on where I'm from
Look at the manly-man I've become
And the strangest things seem suddenly routine
I look up from my persecution complex
My martyrdom comes to me on the ‘nets
Through my friend the laptop screen
I make me some comments
I act like an asshole
I wish they were already in hell
Suddenly I'm Wingnut Cause Celebre
Until I wake up
And I turn back to myself
Some guys they have natural ease
They write any way they please
With their knowledge pearls
And their courtesy
Wear it ,out, put them down down
This is the best way that I've found
To be the best you've ever seen
I make me some comments
I act like an asshole
I wish they were already in hell
Suddenly I'm a victim litigant
Until I wake up
And I turn back to myself
Sneer, condescend
It will never end,
I'm super duper smart
You didn't know did you
With your leftist feminazi
and bad motherhood, too
Flip, for, frizz, flop
It's all because of you
It's all because of you
It's all because of you
(okay...everybody...)
I make me some comments
I act like an asshole
I wish they were already in hell
Suddenly I'm a complete and total tool
And I ain't never
I'm never turning back
it says "Est. 1969", even though it opened up in early 2004...
I was wondering about that. I figured it had just moved locations or something.
The movie was actually better than I had expected, I'm ususally not one for the campy stuff (Rocky Horror excepted).
And you probably don't want to know what the Angry Inch is
Paul Deignan's mild-mannered alter ego?
I just can't get enough of Paul Deignan. No I cannot. And here's why:
He is incapable of answering any questions without coming off like a complete asshole. And the best kind of asshole -- one who meets all three possible definitions: 1. (n.) A jerk, i.e. someone who mistreats others; 2. (n.) A clueless person, a fool, someone who is wrong about a considerable number of things without ever realizing it; 3. (n.) a rectum.
If I wanted to create a giant ass -- a Falstaff, if you will -- I could not do better than our man, P.D. He is utterly fascinating. Several actual lawyers have posted on his site to tell him exactly why he has no defamation case, and he is completely unfazed. Not only does he decline their advice, he evades the fact that they have actually given him advice.
I could not think of a better way to troll -- but he has created an entire blog, and is trolling the world with it.
Magnificent.
Text, I share your fascination. Several people at his site have suggested the whole thing is an elaborate trolling device or a hoax of some sort, but it's one that requires the use of his real name, the construction of a year of blogging, and the foreswearing of any dignity whatsoever.
Road trip to Indiana?
Let's face it: they guy is King Lear, or at least Coriolanus. His faulty personality reaches a scope that most of us can never attain -- the strength to ignore the good advice of thousands, and emperil your own career and dignity over an internet spat that costs you nothing, that is some powerful stuff he's got.
How was he made? How did Paul Deignan come into being? Abuse, humiliation, sure -- but just the right amount of praise too, and then something else. What else was required to create such defiant spirit?
He is a stallion that cannot be broke.
You may be right, text, but I'm going to buy him a bottle of wine nonetheless. He's *earned* it.
I don't think so, but looking at his site I find that he's now accusing her of having accused him of sexual harassment. At this point, it has to be performance art, rather than sincere idiocy.
I see your comment now.
Ah well. I propose that if I were to create a piece of excrement that had no corners, three dimensions, and that all possible radii of said piece were the same length, that would be a spherical piece of excrement.
Anyone disagree?
How was he made? How did Paul Deignan come into being?
Did he who made the lamb—make thee?
OK, now that he's added sexual harassment to the charges he's bring against Dr. B, I'm convinced that he's doing this solely for my amusement. I mean, sexual! harassment! is just too much
I think that's just another part of the libel charge -- that she accused him of sexual harrassment. And the accusation was libel.
Of course, that's a joke.
He's saying she falsely accused him of sexual harassment. Any idea on his textual basis on this from her site?
It's really like he's just trying to find a reason to make this stick. Does he think Volokh should have sued everyone who said he was pro-torture?
'WTF. I c4nn0t pr0v3 teh lib3l about teh sp00f1ng. I 4m l33t haxx0r. I h8 teh chick5, especi4lly when they pwn meh.'
'WTF!!!11!! Sh3 sayz i h8 t3h chick5!11!!! M0r3 lib3l!'
The Mineshaft should plan an intervention.
Cala, please more of that. I've not laughed this much in awhile.
'WTF. I c4nn0t pr0v3 teh lib3l about teh sp00f1ng. I 4m l33t haxx0r. I h8 teh chick5, especi4lly when they pwn meh.'
I imagine Cala saying this in the voice of Shredder, from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.
text, this is the only thing I think he can be construing as a claim of harassment.
that's right: being called a sexist is the same as being accused of sexual harrassment, the cause of action.
this guy is teh sm4rt, indeed.
Ah well. I propose that if I were to create a piece of excrement that had no corners, three dimensions, and that all possible radii of said piece were the same length, that would be a spherical piece of excrement.
Anyone disagree?
Seeing as those three dimensions are the id, ego and superego, I take it this is a reference to shit-for-brains?
Also:
I'm in, FL
Did the comma really scare you guys off? Or was it just too easy?
Wait! Maybe this is part of Deignan's dissertation.
Did the comma really scare you guys off? Or was it just too easy?
That comma really plugged that opening.
Sam K, I was thinking more in the voice of the programmer dude from Goldeneye, the Russian one (Boris?) who thinks he is teh pwn when he is not.
How was he made? How did Paul Deignan come into being? Abuse, humiliation, sure -- but just the right amount of praise too, and then something else.
We cannot limit ourselves to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.
I'm in, FL
Earlier today, Michael mentioned a friend who had left had left their car in FL. Perhaps FL is becoming all-encompassing.
Re: 41. Honestly, I don't remember him saying anything.
Oh, shit. You must be talking about the movie, not the video game. How embarrassing.
Dude, I spent most of the day alternately reading metaphysics and yammering in l33t to the amusement of bored commenters.
Who's supposed to be embarassed, here?
Has he actually filed suit? This is much more entertaining than writing a presentation about Uexküll. Tell me, lawyers: is there really a secret Martindale-Hubble?
Entertaining except for the fact that it's gotta be no fun for the esteemed Ms. PhD.
I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. And everyone else reading this. Which could get complicated. But if I had Deignan's l33t h4xx0ring skilz I'm sure I wouldn't have any trouble.
I'd surmise that her estimate of the risks from (1) a lawsuit (basically none) and (2) being outed (non-zero, but that's part of being anonymous online) are pretty realistic, and that she isn't bothered much as a result. (2) sucks, but sucks in a way that she must have known was going to come up sooner or later.
If Hettle actually tipped off Deignan's advisors, aren't they reading along right now?
I'm going to be amused as all hell if he outs Juan Non-Volokh or our dear Gayatollah has BPhD.
'Sh3 4 m4n!!!11! M0r3 lib3l!'
as, not has.
Though if FL has BPhD, they should liveblog it.
The whole thing is hilariously funny. I am also strangely riveted by the train-wreck quality. The main problem with following it closely, though, is that I strongly suspect his main purpose is to drive traffic to his site (that whole advertising thing; his obsession with how many visitors he's received during this stunt supports this theory, IMHO). So, I am loathe to give him additional traffic. Yet, it is *SO FUNNY* that I just can't stay away. Particularly in that he seems to have no concept that this stunt WILL HURT HIM in the future. LOL LOL LOL.
Stupid is as stupid does.
I've thought about that, but it's not as though giving him traffic does any harm. Really , I feel as though I owe it to him for the entertainment value.
He seems to this he is conducting some kind of social experiment.
I don't feel Pathetic. Woe is me, for I am a lefty and cannot think!
Aw, he's welcomed us in, and made us an integral part of the ever-evolving artwork he's crafting. I'm flattered, and touched.
I don't get it. Many people have offered serious criticisms (short form: dude, you don't have a libel case here, Jerry Falwell didn't have a case against Hustler for crying out loud) and he just acts like everyone who criticized him said he was just a big meanie.
And he keeps wrapping himself in some sort of flag of Conservatives Against Classroom Oppression, and how he's for freedom of speech. I'm just not getting it. How is he supporting freedom of speech? How is her blog a classroom?
Hey, I said it was art. I didn't say it was representational art.
This guy does not address any serious criticisms put forth. Even if he was genuine to start with, I don't think he is now. As was mentioned, he has to know his advisors or other faculty might check this out. He's probably just trying to be annoying. He's descended into into self-parody and finds it amusing.
Cala, you're failing to take into account the key, unstated premise, which is that Deignan isn't just in the right here, he's got things factually right as well. Of course no one could be offering serious criticisms without misunderstanding the issue (since he's right), so either they're just dumb or being emotive.
Similarly, he'll never explicitly acknowledge that he has no case, but the transformation to social experiment Sam K notes will probably become more pronounced as he decides not to file suit (which he was never going to do anyway, 'cause it was a social experiment).
To prove what? What the FUCK would the null hypothesis be on this thing?
Prediction: He'll decide not to file suit 'due rethinking the time and expense, and he thinks his point has been made' and will out some poor shill at the U of T as BPhD, who will probably turn out to be male and living in Oklahoma.
Dude, I spent most of the day alternately reading metaphysics and yammering in l33t to the amusement of bored commenters.
Isn't that basically Aristotle's definition of the good life?
You want a piece, Armsmasher? (U of T != Texas, btw.)
Why, to prove that leftists FEEL and conservatives THINK, of course. Look at some of the language being used to abuse Deignan's purported suit. People call it "absurd", for instance. Pure "feel"-talk.
THREE MINUTES AND NO ONE WANTS A PIECE. THE BARBECUE IS ALL MINE!
BOW BEFORE MY ACCIDENTALLY STRUCK CAPS LOCK KEY! BOW!
International Caps Lock Day was October 22nd, Matt.
Ronald Reagan Memorial Ice Cream Day was way the hell back in August, but that sure doesn't mean I'm not eating ice cream right now. Ronald Reagan Memorial Ice Cream.
Dude, is it really made out of Ronald Reagan?...........what's it taste like?
(How obvious is it that I am avoiding multiple terribly frightening deadlines?)
It tastes like victory. Sweet, wrinkly victory - preferably over a tiny island nation with little in the way of a military.
So it tastes like rum-soaked raisins?
LB, me too!
(proffers cannon)
Someone shoot me.
Can I borrow that cannon when you're done with it?
I bet a bottle of wine that liberals taste better than conservatives!
I'm actually kinda listening to Terry Gros interview Maureen Dowd right now. huh. I wonder how long this will last.
Better yet, take the ramrod and tamp me into the barrel.
Matt Weiner, yes. In the Nicomachean Ethics, one source inserts (translated freely from the Greek):
"Teh study 0f teh met4physics 4nd phil0soph33 is but 1 fac3t 0f teh g00d l1f3. 0n3 should als0 amus3 l4t3nt g33k5 wit l33t."
But don't just leave me there waiting, remember the "boom" part.
That really made me laugh. I always did wonder what meant those funny symbols Aristotle scholars insert in the middle of their articles.
89:
ATM. Come to think of it, 91 as well.
Terry Gross sucks.
And Maureen Dowd never gets the opportunity 'cause she's so smart and uppity, and she's pissed about that.
and 88. and 92. and 83.
ATM! ATM! ATM! (both kinds)
95: I think we could have made that inference ourselves.
No, no, ben. We're liberals, we can't handle the inferences. Just the emotions.
Well I make it absolutely clear that I hadn't complimented SB, who is already in a fragile enough state as it is.
I wanted to make it absolutely clear
But text, there are three kinds of "ATM", one temporal, one local, and one modal.
I sing of the goodness of the world: the burrito take-out place also does take-out margaritas.
You have a margarita stuck in you?
I'll put my hand up as another can't-look-away trainwreck observer.
The trouble is, soon he will find a way to back off the idiot lawsuit (e.g., Social Experiment in Blogging, as mentioned above), and then he will vent/distract by outing Dr B. All of this would be good clean fun except that he'll get her identity right (it's not hard to establish) and she'll get burned as a result of his asshattery of hitherto-undiscovered-giant-squid proportions.
If, in fact, he really does know who she is. Any good reason to suppose he does?
Terry Gross, while less hot than Maureen Dowd, is married.
Why do you people insist on claiming that MoDo is hot?
Why do you keep denying the self-evident, Michael?
You're just partial to your own kind.
I've just been reading the Deignan blog in the voice of a former professor, and I'm half-way convinced that it's him. He's very into info theory and game theory, smart, but incapable of dealing with people, which has caused him and the law school some difficulties as of late.
The guy is an ass in the King Lear way, described above, and for that reason, has always fascinated me. He's got this playful way about him, and yet deeply misunderstands all other people. Anyway, Deignan writes just like Dean Levmore talks.
I need to go home.
I just watched tonight's Trading Spouses. I don't normally watch that kind of TV, but the commercials sucked me in. That woman was seriously effin crazy.
Somehow I managed to combine text's "I need to go home" with Chopper's comment on Trading Spouses, and reached the conclusion that--let's call him Topper--was traded into the house of an effin crazy woman and was calling on us to rescue him.
Well, I didn't actually believe that.
Boy, it sucks being a ghost. But it's pretty cool doing whatever it is Text does and Chopper does at the same time.
Let's see--bitch about work, make crude jokes, and dick around on the internets instead of working combined with, uh,
huh.
Text, are you sure you're not me?
re 113
wait--which woman is crazy?
damn I want a tv.
112: I've been reading the Deignan blog in the voice of Reducto from Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.
"Libels, libels EVERYWHERE! I'll sue you with my sue-ray!"
Hilzoy says [paraphrasing]: Lindsay Graham has proposed an amendment to the defense bill which will strip Federal Court jurisdiction from any attempt by an enemy combatant to challenge their detention. Good time to call your Senator.
Hilzoy says [paraphrasing]: Lindsay Graham has proposed an amendment to the defense bill which will strip Federal Court jurisdiction from any attempt by an enemy combatant to challenge their detention. Good time to call your Senator.
Fuck, it didn't post on the first couple tries, but I guess I gave it one too many.
Also see this on John Yoo's understanding of the constitution.
w-lfs-n:If, in fact, he really does know who she is. Any good reason to suppose he does?
{grind gears} Game theory! {grind gears} Asshattery! {grind gears} The ears have walls!
Therefore: could be.
He hasn't attempted to out her because it's the only good weapon he has. Once he uses it, it's gone, and that one time may not work very well. Worse: he could be wrong. If his research skills are as bad as his legal reasoning (and that is his actual reasoning), then he's going to miss the target and fuck himself.
Of course, if you were someone like me who had done a lot of that sort of thing...
At any rate, he is a classic baby k00k. That is, he's trying to use the lawsuit and 'game theory' (chicken, in this case) to humilate the woman, so he is an asshole, while at the same time, I strongly suspect he believes, or wants to believe his legal reasoning. And no doubt he is enjoying the attention. So he an obnoxious, self-destructive, attention-seeking and brain fuxored, which surely passes kook threshold test. Which means his best kook days are ahead of him.
He wants to sue for 500,000 dollars, he views a lawsuit as an investment, he's just about to excape school and go job hunting, he needs cash for the wifey and the kinderwinkies, and thusly, last month he spent 1500$ on ... downing Harriet Miers. (1500$ still buys a lot of diapers and formula.)
Koo-koo-kook-chu!
There are an amazing number of people (men, almost entirely) like that running about with the requisite self-inflicted head wounds.
No sane person pretends (as a joke, as performance art) just exactly like that. The emotional payoff curve is too flat and too low. (Ali G, in comparison, gets immediate payoffs.) On the other hand, a certain kind of grandiose personality, suffering from failures due to sheer ineptitude, will flip paranoid, and try and take the fight to the 'abusers'. The malfunction is in the perception of where the threat is coming from, how big it is and how much can be done about it. (The reaction itself is commensurate with the percieved threat.)
ash
['Man, it's early/late.']
I read through the article. It seems pretty fair. Hettle comes off irredeemably horribly, which seems right. Deignan comes off as an obnoxious person who freaked out after having been wronged by Hettle and dealt with it badly. And Dr. B comes off as someone who deserves none of this, but also should probably admit that what she does is as much about self-empowering performance art as it is open debate. (Not that that's a bad thing. I personally find open debate overrated, especially when what you really want is to hang out with your on-line friends.)
It was pretty fair, especially about the part that indicates what everyone in the world has been trying to tell Deignan; that he's going to have to show actual evidence of harm, not just that he got his feelings hurt.
The fact that his advisor said 'Blogs? Huh?' is making the harm case looking even less plausible.
But.... he's 41? I would have figured 25 or 26, especially with all the freaking out about his future; didn't seem as plausible on a man who has potentially years of work experience and contacts.
Oh, and I heart text. Just had to say that. What a beautiful addition to the FAQ.
That article makes it sound as though he may actually have a lawyer, which snaps this into a whole new level of poignancy for me. Let crazy grad students harass people on the internet all they like, but why must innocent lawyers suffer? Nothing is less fun than trying to explain things to an unbalanced client.
You presume there is such a thing as an innocent lawyer.
I thought this sentence of the article was not fair at all:
He accuses both Hettle and Bitch Ph.D of libeling him — Hettle because of the e-mail he sent to Deignan's professors, and Bitch Ph.D. for saying that he may have used a technique known as "IP spoofing," which is a form of hacking, to try to determine who she is.
Bphd accused him of "IP spoofing" in order to get around her banning of his original IP. He's admitted to using DHCP, whatever that is, to do so. Basically the only question is whether it's technically correct for her to use the word "spoofing," and it's clear that if it's not it was an innocent mistake.
I fear that the article, if you don't know what's going on, makes bphd look like an equal participant, hurling various accusations along with everyone else. And does it anywhere say that Deignan is threatening to reveal bphd's identity? It doesn't. That's what pushes Deignan from "dealt with it badly" to "scum."
DHCP just means you contacted your host server for a new IP address (it's a mouseclick). Basically, PD got banned at his IP, wanted to continue to post, so he got a new IP. Technically, this is called 'ban evasion'; which isn't illegal or likely to be detrimental to one's career.
'Spoofing' has a technical sense that is illegal, but in a loose sense, it just means masking one's identity to appear to be coming from somewhere else (usually, but not necessarily, for illegal purposes). BPhD pretty much used the word incorrectly, and from context, it's clear she wasn't accusing him of flooding the server, but evading her ban. Her further remarks indicate that she was using it non-technically.
This is a huge non-issue.
And that sentence is inaccurate. She didn't say he was IP spoofing to find out her identity at all.
I just left a comment to the effect of 133 on the CHE article. May the Lord have mercy on my soul.
Careful! You might get sued for not being nice!
BPhD pretty much used the word incorrectly, and from context, it's clear she wasn't accusing him of flooding the server, but evading her ban.
You know, I'm pretty non-technical, but is it clear that she used the word incorrectly, rather than in an alternative sense? I've understood 'spoofing' to mean doing pretty much anything to the identifying features of an internet interaction to make it appear that the facts are other than they are -- faking the 'from' address on an email; right here, people were talking about 'spoofing' comment numbers last week... anything like that. The word doesn't appear to me to be used consistently to require any specific technical activity or level of wrongdoing -- just a generalized sense of misrepresentation. Doing anything, however trivial, to change one's IP address for the purpose of evading a ban seems to me to fit comfortably into 'spoofing' as that word is commonly used.
And this is pretty much what you said in your 134 -- I just wanted to say that a 'loose' sense is not an incorrect sense, even if there is an alternative, tighter sense of the word. We speak a loose language, but that doesn't itself make informal speech incorrect or defamatory.
It's also simply a terrible standard that Losernet dorks impose on nongifted computer users. Only l33t h4x0rs know how the Internet works; n00b5 will be prosecuted.
thanks Cala (from way back). I was hoping he'd answer some of those questions. I am fascinated by the man.
LB & le Armsmasher: I agree. Certainly it's not prosecutable to use a word colloquially when it also has a technical meaning, nor should it be. I meant 'incorrectly' insofar that the technical sense of 'spoofing' isn't what she meant.
Certainly it's not prosecutable to use a word colloquially when it also has a technical meaning
Dammit, does this mean I'm going to lose my suit against Madonna over "Justify My Love"?
The current claim seems to be that it's OK to use "defendants" not in its technical meaning, but "IP Spoofing" and "trolling" are off limits.
Matt, you may have a case for "Justify My Love (excluding Gettier counterexamples)", but I'm afraid plain ol' justify is out of bounds.
Justify My Love (excluding Gettier counterexamples)
The extended dance mix?
The Typographers International is going to sue you for that, Cala.
Electric Boogaloo!
(As thoughts of dancing epistemologists, erm, danced in her head....)
Google Image Search is teh suck.
This has already been discussed.
In fact, in this discussion the eventual conclusion (my eventual conclusion) was that in dancing, epistemologist r00l, ethicists dr00l.
(I would say 'metaethicists' but I seem to recall Korsgaard attacking the whole idea of metaethics, so she'd probably object to being called that.)
And yet what other term is there for someone who spends so much time talking about the metaphysical status and rational basis of ethical claims?
I think if she read this she'd be suing me for using a technical term in the wrong sense.