Not yet. But to be fair, we just went through nuclear armageddon. And I hear radioactive fallout is particularly hell on stamps. So.
Watching Frey sycophant Dustin taking dumps all over RSM’s thread last night, it occurred to me that, rather than answering the never-ending parade of repeated accusations — a rote litany of my supposed transgressions polished by the Freyers into a Hannity-esque soundbite I’m commanded to explain — I’d just take a few moments and do it once, so that going forward I can simply link to it as needed. Not only will this post save me future time and energy, but it’ll answer in one place all those accusations that I’m beginning to suspect Frey and his little cadre of smearbots spread far and wide, knowing that, to those who weren’t closely following our various tussles, their carefully crafted rendering of events would take root — namely, that a violent and dangerous Jeff Goldstein set out to wreck the professional career of the good and just public servant Patrick Frey, who (when he’s not battling the forces of liberal bias at the LA Times) prosecutes cop killers; and that Goldstein did this because he is psychotic and evil (and grubs money, among other things), and he picked Frey out for reasons no one can understand, then set out to destroy his honor! His honor!
How many times that version of events has been emailed around is anybody’s guess. How many of the bigger bloggers simply accepted the argument as presented and decided to distance themselves from me I can’t say.
What I can do, however, is set the record straight. So. When Dustin writes:
Um, you admit accusing Patterico of being a racist, Jeff? I have no idea if you deleted it within minutes. I just know you lied a while ago when you said you never said it at all, and now you’re probably lying to say you deleted it within minutes (and why should that matter? it’s great context for your later google bomb).
“Wow” you say. Yes, Jeff. WOW. You lied all up and down this thread, saying you never played the race card and that I am such a coward to tell the truth about you.
And it’s not like you did this a single time, is it?
Why in the hell did you claim to be a victim of racism, claiming that Patterico was putting you in your place (your words) because you are a Jew, if Patterico never said a thing that referenced your race?
That was just one of many lame attempts to intimidate someone out of winning an argument. You’re trying to do the same to me with your “shut up” comments.
— I respond thusly:
Here’s what I “admit,” Dustin: I admit that several people watched as Frey, in full meltdown mode, called me, Jeff Goldstein, a “moneygrubber.” I admit that this took place in the midst of an argument over how easy it is to take people’s words, decouple them from intent, and turn them into something they likely didn’t mean. I admit that, in reaction to Frey’s “Goldstein is a moneygrubber” comment, I and several others immediately seized upon his rather loaded description and showed him just how easily it could be construed as antisemitic, using Frey’s own favored hermeneutic methodology. I admit that I took the comment down a few minutes later (having made my point), then emailed Frey and told him I didn’t want to escalate. I also informed him that I’d removed the comment.
He has that email. I know, because he saves and catalogs everything. And yet almost never does such evidence reappear to provide context.
I admit that months later, Frey once again got exercised and used “moneygrubbing” to describe me. I note that he did this prior to any parody posts on my part — but after my initial posts criticizing his “vetting” of Stacy McCain, which post yet again highlighted what I felt to be a dangerous misunderstanding of language function by those on “our side” (a site theme that was hardly new, or that had hardly focused solely on Frey).
I note, too, that prior to either of my two parody posts using Frey’s name in the title, Frey posted, between Dec 12 and the time of my first of two posts on the 16th, one, two, three, four, five, six posts with my full name in the title.
— Including “Jeff Goldstein Plays the Race Card,” which he posted a day after he’d once again described me as “moneygrubbing.” Guess he was trying to forestall people taking notice that he may or may not be antisemitic, and that he tends to direct the same loaded phrase to a guy named Goldstein every time he gets especially stressed.
So. You rely on screenshots of comments I myself removed, and 2 posts — pointedly and obviously based on Frey’s own “investigation” of Stacy McCain, and which pointedly DO NOT call Frey antisemitic — to suggest I Google bombed his reputation.
Meanwhile, you ignore the 6 posts with my name in the title Frey posted over a 4 days span, you ignore the meltdown he had in my comment section, and you ignore the 38 spam comments he tried dropping on my site. You ignore his behind-the-scenes private email exchange — likely one of many, this being one I can document — in which he was vowing to “destroy” me, slowly; to prevent me from being published; to drive me off the internet.
And then, having conveniently bracketed all that, and having gone from threaded comment to threaded comment repeating the same “accusations” over and over, you have the temerity to pretend you are winning an argument?
I admit that you are a liar. And a coward. Q.E.D.
There are other lesser charges to be answered, like the suggestion that I routinely change comments when someone disagrees with me — and that I do it without their notice — but you all, as regular readers, know this not to be the case. And you also know that, in those instances when I have changed comments, there were pressing reasons (for instance, when I tried simply deleting some of the trollish comments, Frey, who had copied them(!), would then repost them on my site against my wishes; or when Frey Google Bombed my site with 38 of the same comment, spreading it around through old posts, some of which weren’t even written by me).
Interestingly, no one ever accused me of running a “hive-mind” site, or banning people “at the drop of a hat,” until these run-ins with Frey. In fact, as many of you remember, the reason Karl ultimately left protein wisdom is because I wouldn’t ban one of our regular trolls. At the time.
Subsequently, I learned that it’s best just to get rid of the problem elements — particularly if I’m going to be characterized anyway as someone who brooks no dissent — despite my having opened my site to guest posters such as Jeralyn Merritt, nishi, SEK, and others, and despite the fact that I’ve routinely encouraged contentious issues to be discussed here.
What I’ve learned throughout all this is that when a man of the right embraces what I’ve been at pains over the years to point out is a leftist view of how language functions, it should hardly be a surprise when he uses every dishonest trick of leftist rhetoric — removing or adjusting context, bracketing intent, selective quotations, broad generalizations, etc. — to smear his rivals. Making him no more than a leftist who supports conservative policy.
Just as I always warned would happen.
http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-wars.html
Third party observation.
Funny how back in the day, we were warned to be careful about what we said, lest it be used against us by the Left in a bad-faith, out-of-context argument. Turns out, you don’t need to watch what you say, because a certain Good Man — on the Right!— is willing to put words in your mouth and create “context” out of whole cloth.
L.A. County can’t go bankrupt quickly enough.
I’m rooting for ol’ San Andreas. Myself.
DEATH THREAT!!!
Obviously comments #1 and #2 are together and the quote is from Donald Douglas at American Power.
Good Lord.
I go away for some backpacking with my son, sans internet, and this happens. I need to stop taking vacations.
Cheers, Jeff.
All this talk about the race card business seems like their preferred way to either avoid answering any questions or prep the battlefield about this magical C&D letter. Either no one pays attention to the issue at hand – that Frey asserted a C&D letter that may or may not exist – or Jeff’s name gets tarnished (he’s mean and plays the race card! Like Al Sharpton! Ergo, his story about not getting a C&D letter is untrue!) the same way a defense attorney would suggest that a rape victim shouldn’t have been out so late wearing such a short skirt.
But that’s just me. I’m sure that the acolytes of such a dedicated patron of justice wouldn’t stoop to using such tactics.
Huh. Armageddon just ain’t what it used to be.
http://theothermccain.com/2011/03/23/not-only-wrong-but-dangerous/#comment-171329045
Could timmah be Patterico’s mystery date?
You don’t edit stuff, JG? Dangit. Edit my stuff and put me some prose and verbs. Please.
Funny how back in the day, we were warned to be careful about what we said, lest it be used against us by the Left in a bad-faith, out-of-context argument. Turns out… is willing to put words in your mouth and create “context” out of whole cloth.
I’m just going to express my pleasure upon finding a person that remembers that by pointing to this, to be appreciated within that specific historical context.
Like, y’know… cuz we told them so.
I hope Minnesota fails.
You know, it’s common for women to be thought of as more catty than men. I used to have a blog years ago that “exposed” lies in multi-level marketing scams like Mary kay. I felt the number of unhinged women that came by to spew hatred and accuse me of being a demon was impressive.
Until I started reading blogs by dudes. wow.
I hope this resolves itself in your favor, but some advice: I read your blog because of your (unique) intelligence and wit. As long as you don’t suddenly become unhinged like that Johnson guy at LGF, I couldn’t care less about some lawyer smearing you like a 7th grade girl.
:)
BTW, I think that timmah post at #10 (it is hard to be sure with timmah) was directed to you Jeff. It was some recent series of posts timmah did over at TOM. I have never had any direct email interactions with timmah (or his Sybilic personalities) in the past, to my knowledge.
But seriously.
You know this?
In this context???
Kind of like this.
Know what I’m saying?
Joe,
I wonder. Wasn’t he the one who was impersonating Jeff and/or posting vile things about Jeff’s son?
I try to tune out the trolls, so I tend to forget which is which.
my recollection is that Jeff G.’s celluloid wisdom was a place of happyness and joy – little did we suspect that Jeff was simply developing his dirty tricks and comment-fu for when he unleashed protein wisdom on an unsuspecting internet.
.
Well played, Jeff.
Well played.
–
Yep a site where the ban hammer is used so sparingly that one of the commenters (SBP) on his own initiative writes a program (trollhammer) that allows each person reading the blog to individually block certain commenters from being displayed on their own computer and to change those settings at any time.
A blog where even the most vulgar of trolls are encouraged to go to a section of the blog where anybody can put up their own posts and express and defend their own opinions, free and freely.
Yeah that’s the place that bans at the drop of a hat. Touchy guy that runs that joint.
Not too too long ago, this used to be ‘one of the blogs I liked’ but not an addiction. I liked Patterico back then too. Following this Saga, I really learned to dislike him and unsubscribed – he has a bunch of other readers so I’m sure it’s no sweat off his a55. Now, this is probably my favorite read out there. I disklike Patterico all the more although I feel bad for him – watching him and you have it out is like Watching Soulja Boy try to beat up Mike Tyson.
timmah! I told you, Jeff. ;D
“We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It’s a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It’s interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan’s, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.
Why didn’t they discover the new number was higher right away? It’s a thing that scientists are ashamed of – this history – because it’s apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan’s, they thought something must be wrong – and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan’s value they didn’t look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that…”
http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm
Intentionalism?
The intent of the electron was to have a charge of something on the order of ?1.602176487×10^-19 Coulombs. Fear of embarrassment for being too out of line with the original prize-winning estimate caused scientists to reinterpret the charge on the electron to values that were more socially acceptable.
Of course, using an inaccurate value for such a fundamental constant limits how far one can get in pursuit of anything that depends on that value: making other physical measurements, designing advanced materials, building functional electronic devices, and so on.
There would be no internet if the charge on the electron had not eventually been refined to a value more in line with its intent.
Could Patterico be so stupid as to stake his reputation on timmah?
See! See! His own crazee obssessed fanboyz think he’s capable of Mike Tyson like outbursts of insane whackjob violence. Save your ears! He’s after your ears! >/Idiot Javert>
Not unless the electron willed that it communicate something to us. I’ve heard that God is in the details, however.
Maybe it just wanted to express itself.
He just cannot quit you, Jeff.
“Don’t miss it. Just make sure to e-mail me if there is anything I actually need to know.
Comment by Patterico — 3/23/2011 @ 5:29 pm”
Seems to me, there never was. It was all optional. Started out as a hobby. Got serious when he granted the hobby the power to control him.
Am I missing something obvious? Did Frey want to parlay his blog into something larger?
My son is getting an award at school tomorrow morning so I’ll be gone all morning. Hopefully Darleen or JHo or whomever can pick up the slack.
If they can’t, here’s my post: “Obama does stupid shit, everyone suffers.”
Maggie —
I don’t think it was timmah. If it was anyone at all — and I’m taking Frey’s word that it was someone, though this person received no emails from me, as I’ve insisted all along — I suspect the person has gone quiet. It would be interesting to see who among Frey’s regular commenters has been far less active than usual since he watched Frey level those false accusations against me.
Frankly, I’m surprised neither the person nor the lawyer has stepped forward. They really hung Frey out to dry.
Of course, Frey was silly enough to make the accusations without having seen any proof, so that much is on him. And now he’s been keeping information from me that could help us all find out who 1) harassed his friend, and 2) stole my identity to do it. But rather than try to help, he’d rather see me (and the first victim) put in jeopardy. Because helping would be admitting he made a false accusation.
Torn between ethics and saving face, he’s chosen the latter.
Honor.
Avocation perhaps is a better term than hobby.
I’m just being silly. Interesting to see who comes out of the woodwork though.
Man he’s got you guys pegged. Vitriol? By the bucketload. Lousy Humor? Hmm, let me check with a READER POLL! Down with the Klown? I’m sure someone is. Loves auto-tune? who doesn’t, greatest musical invention EVAR! History? turtles all the way down. Reruns? Everyone loves Rerun, he needs to get back on TV. Dinner? Chili anyone. Rolaids? for said chili.
Lies? Only show up when Joe posts quotes from a certain somewhere.
What’s not to like?
Me, I came for the semiotics, but I stayed for the sack beatings.
lousy humor
Mine’s only ticky. Okay, maybe a flea or two, but NO LICE!
Tip your waitress …
Oh, I get it now. Yep. Good stuff.
He left out “kinetic”.
“I routinely change comments …”
I wish you would have corrected all the typos in mine.
BTW – My offer remains open, I’ll contact and confirm, and treat such as confidential.
Oh, and as for Dustin, what is with the job identification/worship? I was an Assistant State’s Attorney for 5 years and got plenty of bad actors sent to the joint – so what? That was a job, not some sort of magical characteristic that made me pure and honest and infallible and crap rose petals.
Could Mike Nifong be so stupid as to stake his career on Crystal Gale Mangum?
“Jeff and his Klown posse . . . .”
Does that make us Jeff’s Juggalos?
nk is not around. And he certainly has the motivation to lie.
And nk has the mendouchery character to do so.
Off to my son’s school for assembly and award ceremony. Back later.
lousy humor
In my defense, I’m much funnier in person, just incredibly ugly…………………and fat.
I don’t think there is a C & D letter. I think they’re just messing with ya.
I wonder how many people Jeff will assault at the award ceremony. Stay tuned to your local news!
I got six in the betting pool.
I dunno, McGehee…Jeff’s such a
badasshorrible person that if he were to encounter e.g. Timmah in real life, Timmah’s ankles would just snap themselves out of sheer terror.I’d bet Jeff’s superpowers make it mostly unnecessary for him to ever touch others. And so he goes unprosecuted, even though people continue showing up in hospitals with various broken bones, dislocated joints and associated hematoma.
True, but he doesn’t like to use his superpowers all the time. I’m thinking he’ll leave half a dozen for exercise.
…and now timmah’s starting to bore me. He’s like an old toy that you forgot you had; you find it, take it out and play with it for a while, and then remember why you’d forgotten you had it in the first place: it just didn’t do very much that’s interesting.
[..]He’s like an old toy that you forgot you had; you find it, take it out and play with it for a while, and then remember why you’d forgotten you had it in the first place: it just didn’t do very much that’s interesting.
Those are great for putting on a fence post and shooting off the sticky-out bits, until you’ve just got the middle bit left.
He’s like that dude “Charlie X” in the original Star Trek series; his eyes roll back in his head and he simply imagines horrible violence occurring, and, well, his intended victim is kaput.
But, you know, he’s largely unprosecuted since 1) no fingerprints are left, 2) he leaves very few survivors, save for the occasional one to tell the tale, and 3) the authorities are too afraid that when they come to get him all they’ll see is those eyes starting to roll back into his head…
CAN NO ONE PUT A STOP TO THIS VILLAIN!
Re: #39-40
Unsubstantiated allegations is the Freysian road, not a good path to start down.
C’mon, geoffb, shit don’t stir itself.
Jeffs like the Emperor in the original Star Wars.
He just stares at you, and you choke…
quoth Daleyrocks:
I can’t reply to that because a) there’s no links in it, so I don’t know that the hell he’s referring to, and b) my browser has moved the reply button off the right margin.
But it smells like bullshit. Good thing we didn’t step in it!
“Explanations of irony, parody, and satire often follow, because people just don’t understand language or something. BS, it’s not about language when Jeff does this stuff because he’s not following his own rules. As I’ve pointed out innumerable times, he’s making it up as he goes. You folks are just willing to be gulled.”
This dude really needs to be fucked with a frog spear.
Maybe with your frog spear, Abe.
I can’t decide which one to order.
Abe, for your purposes, I’d go with the largest one.
daleyrocks isn’t in the position to explain anything. Being not nearly so bright as he imagines himself.
Someone might want to explain to the poor dear that the reason I have no evidence someone stole my identity is that Frey won’t let me know who the supposed victim is, who the victim’s lawyer is, where the cease and desist letter was supposedly sent, what the email headers from the alleged emails tell us, and on and on. Hell, I’ve even contacted the LA County DA’s office to see if I can get that information.
As for the rest, I don’t really know what he’s talking about. Frey kept going to “moneygrubbing” in his descriptions of me. I don’t know if he’s antisemitic and never said he was. I linked to the supposed posts where I had mused on the topic. Following the second instance of his using that particular descriptor. The parody was obvious and only needed to be explained after the fact to the textualists who were pretending it was anything else. But you all be the judge. My “evidence” for Frey being disingenuous in his praise of Obama is that he’d written of Obama as “scum” prior to telling us all he is a fundamentally good man and a patriot. I don’t remember suggesting Frey specifically was collecting crazy party money. I suspect I said something much more general about blogs and the GOP, and — like DEATH THREAT! — it was spun as far more sinister than it actually was.
I do know the way Frey think language works is dangerous. I believe I’ve shown how, too. And I know for certain that daleyrocks has never ever ever shown that I’m making it up as I go — as plenty of my pre-blog, academic writing on the subject clearly illustrates. For more likely — and predictable — is that daleyrocks doesn’t understand how it works, despite my best efforts to explain it.
Yet, those who do get it? Duped.
daleyrocks is Pattericos attack poodle.
I have heard Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua once fucked him at a rave in the Hollywood hills, but I can’t tell you who told me that.
good lord, Slart, that daley.rocks.in.head is a piece of work. I just dropped a couple of comments over there.
he really should seek help
I’m just about done with them. I’ve had a kind of epiphany: these guys don’t want to argue to get at the truth of something; they just want to argue. And win, hopefully, but by all evidence hope is most of what they’re armed with. They have no weapons, no strategy, no tactics and no objective, other than to be victorious.
Whereas Jeff’s strategy is, I believe, to be understood. Compare and contrast, there. Patterico wants to win the argument personally, while Jeff wants a victory of ideas.
Could be complete bullshit, but that’s kind of how it looks to me.
I don’t pretend to have any of Jeff’s expertise with language, but I don’t really think most of what’s being argued is all that hard to understand. It’s practically commonsense. And of course there are deeper layers to the onion of meaning, as there are with practically any subject you care to name.
But they don’t get it. And as twisted as their apprehension of things is, it actually kind of makes sense that they’ve given over final arbitration of meaning to Patterico. I mean, someone has to do their thinking for them, and they’re certainly not up to the task.
Could be that Pat just wants to co-opt Jeff’s ideas since they are gaining traction (Althouse, VDH and others new found concentration on words/meanings) and then declare Winner!
Maybe he’s put together just a few sorties on Language and Meaning so he can say ‘as I’ve always said’ even if it’s 180 degree departure from the facts on the ground, but hey I did speak about this once or twice – sorta how the Pres**ent never really commits to a course of action while allowing others to fight then jumps in and declares ‘as I’ve always said’ declaring victory after the war is over.
That would allow Pat to claim to ‘win the argument personally’ without actually having to understand the battle or engage in it honestly or actually – bromides for his acolytes on the subject and voila “Win!!” And in his eyes that would be his win, not Jeff’s. Dishonest on its face and dishonorable to boot and that’s consonant with the evidence presented so far in ALL of his blogwar misadventures.
You don’t crap rose petals? Well damn, coulda fooled me :D
Think about that for a minute. The guy is a prosecuting attorney, yet he’s willing to make accusations without proof. That’s F’ing scary. I used to read his blog and got the distinct impression that he’s no different in person.
Yay! Finally!