One question:

Do you know how to R-E-A-D?

Obviously not.

Look at my first sentence.

Look at it carefully.

Here it is again, in case you can’t figure it out:

This happens at ALL high-traffic blogs with open comments, like this set-up and Haloscan

Kos does NOT have the same set up. See any ratings systems here? See any “hold for moderation” banners? No, you don’t. Those things weed out “Fristers” at places like that. Those filters are NOT here. Capisce?

Am I making this simple enough for you?

Not complaining? Then how about NAGGING? You’re being as annoying as my ex-boyfriend’s Chihuahua who had a bad habit of grabbing onto my pants legs all the time, and not letting go. And if you find it an insult, too bad. This is an open forum. You do things like you have, somebody might insult you. YOU derailed the thread with your relentless harping on this issue. NO ONE ELSE. Capisce?

Welcome to the Internet.

This happens at ALL high-traffic blogs with open comments, like this set-up and Haloscan, and nothing stops it, short of closing the comments section.

No it doesn’t. I don’t see that at Kos, for example. But anyway, “complaining” as you called it, was not what I was doing. I remarked about it, expressed my opinion about it and then had banter about it with whomever chose to banter about it. What’s the difference between that conversation and many of the other conversations we’ve had on here? We don’t always stick to the ‘hard cold sad facts’ of what is going on in our world, do we? No, we don’t. We toss stuff around with one another. We try to get to know one another in some respect by voicing our opinions and putting out a little bit of who we are. That is, in essence ,all that I was doing by taking on the subject of ‘fitzing’ in a direct way. To call one a complainer just for doing that is an unwarranted insult.

This happens at ALL high-traffic blogs with open comments, like this set-up and Haloscan, and nothing stops it, short of closing the comments section. This is just how people are on the internets, and complaining about it only instigates needless flame wars–which ironically take away from the serious discussion the complainers want to have. After a while you learn to scroll, baby, scroll. The alternatives are to stop reading comments, or not visit a site with open commenting anymore. And, by the way, if folks think the Fitzing distracts from serious discussion, check out the Yahoo Boards sometime. There’s some highbrow conversation for you.

That old AA Serenity Prayer might help handle the Fitzing: Change what you can, accept what you cannot, and have the wisdom to know which is which. Now can we all get along and talk about something interesting. Lucianne doesn’t have any sex organs by the way. Jonah took them with him when he was born.

It starts with a rehash of the story La Republica published some time ago concerning forged yellowcake contract documents, although it posits corruption within the Niger Embassy as its starting point rather than a break-in to steal old documents that could then be used as the basis of more modern forgeries. The effect of the rehash is to make those who believed in – or claimed to believe in – the forgeries look perhaps marginally less stupid and to shift some of the opprobrium from the Italian authorities to Niger Embassy staff. IN this version there’s no mention of Cheney’s urgent need for more WMD evidence or of Stephen Hadley’s visit to Italy.

The story then goes on to detail Tony Blair’s supposedly corroborating second piece of evidence – a letter from Iraq’s ambassador to the Vatican, requesting talks about opening a commercial relationship with Niger. This letter, which is not known to be a forgery, is taken as genuine evidence that Saddam was at least seeking to purchase yellowcake.

The story claims unnamed NATO sources. Offhand I see nothing fishy about this version of the “Italian Connection” story, but bear in mind that the Sunday Times is a Murdoch (of Fox news fame) newspaper.

PS As regards all the Fitzing: it may have once been mildly funny, but after a while it became mildly irritating. And, at least as far as this supercilious Brit is concerned, after all this time it’s no longer mildly irritating; it’s depressingly juvenile and has gone on far too long.

http://www.nationalreview.com/…..081200.asp

They’re shameless.

DAVID BROOKS: He’s got Iraq.

But, you know, they gave it to Judy Miller, and, then, eight days later, they gave it to a lot of us. They handed — I think Scooter Libby himself handed the NIE the — to me, this intelligence estimate.

JIM LEHRER: This is the national intelligence…

DAVID BROOKS: Intelligence estimate.

JIM LEHRER: Gave it to you?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, we were — I was in a group of a whole reporters.

JIM LEHRER: Raise your right — raise your right hand.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

JIM LEHRER: Put your hand on the blue sleet.

DAVID BROOKS: I now have to get a lawyer. I shouldn’t have said that.

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

And as a minority, the “the majority have spoken” attitude slightly bugs too. Just because most people agree on something doesn’t automatically make it ok. But this is about an annoying habit particpants in the blogosphere have instead of something significant, so it doesn’t bug too much.

And now, back to real discussion. I just wanted Kitt (and some of the “majority” people) to know that she/he wasn’t alone.