Online Blogintegrity

CAPTION: RIP AND PHILA ROCK DA HOUSE!

Anyway, here I am, rock me like a hurricane, etc.

Looks like not only is our mission accomplished, fellows, we did it without stuffing sweatsocks down our gym shorts (NTODD! STOP, NOW!)

Here is my pithy comment on the whole thing: FUCK 'EM. El gato negro's is, I believe, "lick 'em," but the shitty sound here at the Nassau Colisseum is making it tough.

Online Integrity is not merely dead, but is pissed on good and proper.

Scumbags lack integrity, you know, and what they spawn is never no good.

Peace. Except Mike Krepansky. You can bite me.

Goldstein: Just another prick in the hall

First off, Jeff, I'm only posting this here because I don't want to "dirty up" your precious website, and you told me to fuck off. So, here I am, fucking off on a Tuesday evening - wasting my valuable time to give You a lesson in basic humanity and etiquette. The things I won't do for you, eh?

I've been following the barrages of literary reductionisms or whatever you call them with some mild amusement. Personally, I don't care who's correct - it doesn't really change the way I read but it was interesting to watch two people debate something other than politics, for a change. I consider Thers a friend (as much as one can, knowing someone only via the internets) and I respect his intelligence and wit. I'd never heard of you before but I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, until now.

Until Drs [Thersites] and [NYMary] of [redacted] College in [redacted] NY prove that one of my commenters made this comment about their kid—or else explain to their own commenters that coming over here and trying to tar my site with this offense is very bad form and will no longer be tolerated—Drs [Thersites] and [NYMary] of [redacted] College in [redacted]NY can kiss my ass. From the annex where they teach comp to GED recipients.

What are you, some kind of tough guy, Jeff? Fucking grow up, man... Or perhaps you can tell me what good reason you have to post this kind of information in comments on your website. We both know, you and I, there are only two reasons to post info like that: 1) You're expecting some reader (whether one of "your commentors" or not) to harass and intimidate Thers and Mary, or 2) You're posting it to intimidate them with the threat that #1 will occur. The idea that you would hold someone's privacy hostage for the sake of your "public reputation" is appalling and shows that you cannot be trusted in the slightest. Your family must be so very, very proud.

But, for the sake of civility and teaching you something, let me throw a few Surely's your way.

• Surely, you can agree that a man (or woman) who's not a "public figure" has a right to earn their living in peace, without harassment from persons known or unknown to them. By posting personal information, you've opened the door for random freaks to impinge upon Thers' and Mary's right and ability to work in peace.
• Surely, as a husband and father, you can appreciate the fact that the safety of one's family is paramount. Thers and Mary are loving and concerned parents of several children. By posting their personal information, you've opened the door for random freaks to intimidate or cause harm to their family.
• Surely, you can agree that a blogger's level of anonymity or personal revelation should be determined by the individual, not by relative strangers who assume that blogging is akin to celebrity and take it upon themselves to act as demented paparazzi.

Assuming that we can agree on these basic points, I have to wonder what was going thru your tiny mind.

As far as the lewd comment about Thers' daughter, I'm not pointing any fingers at you or your commentors. For all I know, it may have been a random internets freak or just someone who doesn't like Thers. But again, your website's "reputation" is far less important than Thers' and Mary's privacy, and your intentional posting of their information, semi-public and researchable as it might be, is beyond the pale. You've proven to be nothing but a spoiled, vindictive child and you don't deserve the slightest hint of respect. But you won't find me posting your personal information here or anywhere else.

Tena—you are, without doubt, one of the stupidest people I have ever encountered in any forum. And you shouldn’t take that lightly, because I’ve spent several weeks now having to do battle on the finer points of interpretive theory with a bunch of adult education instructors posing as big shot university literature professors.

Oh, I would argue that it's You, Jeff, who's one of the stupidest people I've ever encountered in any forum. Throwing a tantrum by posting someone's full name and employer information (multiple times) because you disagree with them is hardly the work of a man who's in full control of his senses or his civility, wouldn't you agree? Also, I was bemused by the phrase "having to do battle" - were you under some form of duress that you felt compelled to engage Thers repeatedly? I'm sure your "public reputation" could easily have withstood the challenges of an "adult education instructor", no? By the by, you and your commentors aren't exactly the Pristine Kids on the Block when it comes to debating other people, either, so don't pretend you're all Sweetness and Light there, pally.

I hope you'll take this castigation in stride, Jeff. Like a lot of people, I'm concerned about the tenor of debate on the internets - some days less than others, of course. But I find it hard to believe that a scholar, such as you are, would stoop to something of this nature. You really need to grow up and act like a Man.

Rip -

So we emailed RedState about Pat Bell. We await with bated breath their response. Oh God this is so exciting. I nearly dropped two ice cubes instead of three into my gin and tonic.

Text of the RS email below:

Hello, Red State.

One Patrick Bell, a diarist at your site and a blogger at both "Respectfully Republican" and "Reagan's Children," has delightedly violated the terms of the Online Integrity Pledge by "outing" a blogger who wished to remain anonymous.

The post where he did so is

here.

Additional documentation furnished upon request. But he did do it, and has vowed to do it again. He is, as the young people say, "totally busted."

We observe that you are signatories to the Online Integrity pledge according to which outing someone who wishes to remain anonymous is a big bad No-No.

We respectfully request that you inform us as to your proposed course of action, if any, in this matter.

Love,

Thers, Revered and Beloved Founder
Online Blogintegrity
http://blogintegrityblogspotcom.blogspot.com/

Oh, not only do I reserve the right to publish their email, I also reserve the right to relay their response in the voice of Herve Villechaize.

Well, fuck.

Nah, I wouldn't publish their emails.



UPDATE: Well, we have our answer! It is, essentially, that if he does something like this on their site, they will do something about it. No word on the denial of links, no publicity, shunning, public shaming, snicker-snagging, etc. I assume that is all being done behind the scenes, though. As Tacitus has reminded us, the Right Polices Its Own. (Or as Michelle Malkin has declared, the Right deals with its own crazies. Which presumably means getting them a contract with Regnery to put out a book stuffed with racist tripe.)

We have also been told that we are playing a "cynical game of gotcha" in the face of a noble attempt to set clear standards of Civilized Online Behavior.

Perish the thought. We are driven solely by Love. (Except for NTodd, who is driven by his need to clear his name and find the real killer before it is too late! Run, NTodd! Run! THEY KNOW WHERE YOU ARE! Put down that jelly donut and RUN!)

Because we certainly would have no reason whatsoever to be cynical about Online Integrity...

Looks like we face the first test of the Emergency Integrity System. From Sadly, No!:

A few days ago, an anonymous left-blogger well known to many of us was outed, with his personal information including his employer and a photo of himself posted at a right-wing blog financed by the Discovery Institute — a fake ‘nonpartisan’ foundation that specializes in junk science and the Christian ‘Dominionist’ agenda.... [The wingnut] refuses to take the information down, instead threatening to expose other bloggers, threatening personal-grievance lawsuits of near-infinite variety, and (most recently) making false complaints to the ISPs of anyone who emails him on this subject.

He’s one of those young, completely dishonest GOP wingnut-welfare operatives who do nasty things to others, but then create whining victim-narratives when there are consequences.

The snotnosed twit in question revealed himself in the SN! comment thread:

No need to keep my identity secret (ooh, Mr. X, so mysterious) — I’m Patrick Bell everybody. My friends and fellow bloggers want you to keep the photoshopped images and “roasting” comments coming; they think it’s a riot, and tell me they haven’t laughed this much in months.

PS - If any Sadly, No! readers want to see what I’m really all about, visit my personal blog:

Dopey Blog link [fixed the link - Rip]

PPS - Contrary to what you’d have your readers believe, no one pays me to write my blog, and I do it from home before or after work :0) Speaking of work, where’ve I heard what you said about DI before? Typical poppycock…

Yeah the Discovery Institute isn't a nest of well-funded lunatics, mmmm-hmmm...

Anyway, the post where Pat does the "outing" is here.

This is a pretty clear case of a violation of the Sacred Principles.

Wonder if RedState, a proud signatory to the Sacred Principles, where this dipshit has a diary, is going to pants him and take away his marbles, or whatever. They "police their own" over there, or so I've been told.

We here at Blogintegrity anxiously await further developments.

[Update by Rip] - From Patrick's blog:

Privacy Policy: Anything emailed to a contributor of this site is fair game for public display. Since your true identity may be revealed, we suggest you choose your words wisely.

Another Malkinesque blogger who feels that if anyone says anything disagreeable to them, they're entitled to post personal info, in the hopes that other readers will harass the e-mailer. Wow, what a tough guy...

When it comes right down to it, it's not really about integrity - it's a matter of common decency and respect for other people. Patrick seems to be stuck in "look how she was dressed - she was asking for it!" mode. Nice...





UPDATE:
Just posted this at Online Integrity; the comment has not shown up yet, but I'm sure it will. I'll also put it up at Swords Crossed (the Armando/Tacitus blog), SadlyNo!, and heck, let's see if we can get Atrios interested...

Patrick Bell of Respectfully Republican, Reagan's Children, probably elsewhere, and a diarist at Red State, has pretty clearly done something that violates the OI statement of principles.

The post where he does so is here. In this post he provides the real name and picture of someone who wished to remain anonymous, and added his employment information. There is no question that Bell did this on purpose; he acknowledges in the post that the person he outed "doesn't want anyone to know his full identity."

As far as I can tell, Bell has not signed the "pledge." However, we have been told that "Violations of these principles should be met with a lack of positive publicity and traffic."

To be fair, Bell defends himself here. Just to note, Bell apparently has no wish to be anonymous and makes his employment status clear, so his complaint that the person he outed did it to him first makes no real sense.

So there you go. What's the response?

Daai Tou Laam Diary (I think the name is Chinese for I Have No Integrity™) apparently is just happy to see us:

[I]t was with great amusement that I was watching McDull, The Alumni during the rainy weekend. The kindergarten class was discussing "pillars of society" as every little boy and girl and pig and cow should want to grow up to be a "pillar of society". The teacher, Miss Chan, tells the pupils that tomorrow they should come to class dressed as the "pillar" they want to grow up as. A discussion between May and McDull begins on their costumes, when May states the ultimate question for Online Blogintegrity fans.

I find myself both vaguely disturbed and incredibly aroused by the discussion.

Tacitus has presented me with an interesting challenge. Can I say anything about this post that will be funnier than the post itself?

Not bloody likely, so I'll just give you the gist of it. It seems that the authoritarian Right is contemptible - among other things - for its "tinpot nationalists" and "clerical ministers." And the authoritarian Left is contemptible, among other things, for its "true believers in mass action from union and activist ranks," and "adoring fetishists of the United States military."

Are you following me so far? Good.

Tacitus says, "I take second place to no one in my admiration for the American armed forces." The Left, by contrast, has "led the charge against the intrinsic moral value of the American soldier." And not only that:

[T]he death of the public valor of soldiering can be laid directly at the feet of the ideologues who disparaged the things — God, country, ideals, comrades — for which soldiering is done. It can be laid at the feet of the left.

As opposed to the "tinpot nationalists" and "clerical ministers" of the Right, who have no influence whatsoever in American discourse, and even if they did, would rather drink from the dick of a goat than cynically exploit the "public valor of soldiering" as a shield against criticism.

It's not just that us goldurn lie-bruls hate what's good about the military, of course. We also love what's bad about it:

[W]hat they love in the American military is precisely that which departs from the best of American life and heritage. They love the levelling, the oppression, and the infantile cosseting of grown adults. They love the very things about the American military that it fights, suffers, and dies to protect Americans from.

You heard him right: the Left "loves" the military because, in certain essential aspects, it's a microcosm of the enervated, cardboard-grey nanny state we all lust after.

[I]t’s profoundly revealing of the leftist mindset. Rhodes’ trope demands a levelling, a making-equal on a relative scale, that as easily demands a lowering of the high as a raising of the low. In the military, as we’ve seen, we have the former.

Damn straight. Whether you're a millionaire, a world-famous brain surgeon, or a member of the Bush family, you will be cut down to size when you enter the military, just like those trees in that kickass Rush song (you know...the ones that were chopped down by social workers and fags who didn't, like, understand them).

You can work as hard as Ragged Dick. You can fight as bravely as Audie Murphy. You can follow orders as assiduously as Jeff Gannon in a White House bedroom. In the end, it will avail you not one whit, because in the military, "the cosseting of the 'free' beats out the challenge of the self-made." Wherever you begin in the military, that's where you'll end up.

I'm joking, of course. After all, Tacitus did say "making-equal on a relative scale." Meaning, I suppose, that colonels are forced to occupy one level, and privates another. Or something.

So, how do soldiers bear conditions in this Streisandian cacotopia? Well, for one thing,

[M]ost members of the armed forces these days bear them....because there is an implicit trust, not always justified, that the authorities within the military will act in a just and moderate manner.

There's no word on what happens if that "implicit trust" turns out not to be justified. Tacitus notes that "the soldier is denied free speech; he is subjected to “planning” in the Hayekian sense"; obviously, then, he or she is at a disadvantage when it comes to speaking out on policy matters. And folks on the left can't speak out, because they - as everyone knows - hate the military and America and heroism and all that's true, honorable, and decent.

So who does that leave? The Right, of course: The sole credible arbiters of "justified" and "civil" and "patriotic" speech. That's why it raised no eyebrows when the Right said that Clinton's military adventures comprised a snare and a delusion that'd kill American kids for no good reason. There was no talk about anyone on the Right "hating the military" in those days, because the only people who can hate the military are, by definition, Leftists. Which is why, when people on the left express concern for the lives of military men and women, Tacitus can blithely ask questions like these:

Have they discovered the value of patriotism? Do they suddenly see a virtue in armed service?

Nothing like that, friend. We've simply got a raging collective stiffy for the hive-mind uniformity of the workers' paradise.

I know Tacitus' argument sounds insulting. To some, it may even sound dehumanizing and demagogic. But please, try to take it in the constructive spirit in which he offers it. Remember: Decency and respect benefit us all.

Oddly enough, Tacitus notes that under Bush, "it is Republicans who have botched war policy." That sounds like a pretty serious matter, so it's really too bad that the Left's sole interest in American soldiers is as exemplars of utopian socialist gemütlichkeit. It looks like the problem of Republican misrule and corruption will have to be solved by Republican politicians and think-tank experts. Let's hope they're up to the job.

Just when we had given up all hope on our fellow bloggerros at Online Integrity, there came a faint sign of life...

¡A comment! The first activity een seven days!

¿But, thees commentario, has she come too late?

¿Weel thees comment die alone, unread and unresponded to, een a thrrread rapidly gathering dust?

¡Stay tuned, constant reader, for further installments!

so.

A sharp pain in my large integrity

So, here I sit, thinking I'm going to help out a friend in need - a blog-brother, as it were - but I realized my PayPal info needed to be updated. Have you ever tried to update your PayPal info after you've moved? Let me assure you, friends, it's no bag of puppies and kitties. I trotted thru the site to my Profile and began, what I thought would be, the breezy task of changing my CC#, address, phone, etc. when PayPal decided to question my integritomocracy.

Me!!! A contributor to this very site, which alone should be more than adequate acknowledgement of my honesty, forthrightness and general good character as a denizen of the internets. A netizen of such pristine character and sterling reputation that one could hardly imagine, let alone expect, that I should suffer such a demeaning and dis-tegritous response from the capo of online payment processors, PayPal. But I was snubbed.

Every new piece of information I offered was met with a sneering "We'll need to call you to verify the information".

"But", I protested, "I'm no longer at that address! I have a new phone number! The old credit card is but a dream! I'm Ripley! Ripley, I tell you!"

But they would have none of it. The phone number they wanted to call was the old number. The address was the old address. I couldn't remove them without the verification phone call and I couldn't convince the system to call my new number. In short, I was good and truly fucked. My only choice, to call their (non-toll free) customer service number and plead my case. And plead, I did.

John, the nice young man from India, was patient and understanding. He did not, however, sense my integribonics from our phone conversation, as I generally devote most of my integrilistic energy toward things online. He made a few changes to make the process easier (HA!) but told me I'd still need to go thru the process of the security confirmation call.

Well, you can imagine my frustration and, dare I say, bitterness at having my online integr-o-sheen questioned, but with no alternative at hand, I completed the process to receive my security call. At which point, I received this message:

The network is currently down. Please try again at a later time.

Are you motherfucking kidding me?!? After all this bullshit and 15 minutes on the fucking phone with a guy from "It's Tomorrow Here, Already" and your fucking system isn't working?!? You have the balls to take 3% of transfers when I sign in with my e-mail and password, but I can't fucking change my account information online when I log in?!? I have to wait for an automated fucking phone call?!? And when I talk to a real person, you still won't accept my fucking changes, and tell me to go thru the process again?!?

Fuck. that. noise...

What is the fucking sense of making people use the phone to set up online payment options? Jesus Christ in a horsedrawn carriage, I thought Home Town Bank was bad when they made me sign a form to set up online banking. But PayPal doesn't even have a fucking teller window!!! I don't know whether to feel insulted or flabbergasted, frankly.

I will not have my online integristicity challenged by the likes of you and your India call center, PayPal. In case you're wondering, I'm glaring at you right now. Do you feel the glare, PayPal? Well, do you???

Still glaring...

Rip -

The Valley Girl of Socio-Political Discourse, Michelle Malkin, apparently has some blog-type thing, or what have you, in which she totally gags you with a spoon by laying down such witticisms as this:

As bad as things are for grass-roots conservatives following President Bush's "Read my lips: No new amnesty" speech, at least we're not in the absurd rhetorical position of confused moonbats.

Oh, Mercutio, am I now wounded? Good sir, tell me true, I beg thee! Have I long to live? I fear the blood doth rain from my body, crimson rivulets of this virility now feeding the Creeping Charley... my Father's dreams a mere whisp of moonbat smoke, drifting at the whims of the gods...

Err... yeah...

Anyway, you'll be happy to know:

We're opening comment registration again for a brief period if you want a place to vent.

Try as I might, I couldn't find any real value in Michelle's site. Where is the pithy analysis, Michelle?

Would love to participate, but I'm scheduled to appear on The O'Reilly Factor tonight to provide post-speech analysis.

Oh yeah... I forgot about that. I think Michelle is flat out, balls to the walls LYING when she says she's going to offer analysis. We all know that Michelle is a fucking hack, right? Right. And O'Reilly ain't exactly the Steven Hawkings of politics, if you catch my drift. I could forgive some of this, due to Michelle being an insecure, lying HACK, if it weren't for non-tegrilific bullshit like this...

(Biggest inside joke: That Karl Rove would ever call me for anything.)

Which is followed by a few blind links and this...

Doesn't mean it won't happen.

What the fuck, Michelle?!? God damn, woman, if you want people to write you and tell you how pretty and powerful you are (like Sela Ward in that Tom Hanks film with Jackie Gleason. God... Sela Ward... anyone else horny?) just fucking ask them to write you! I'm sure your Loon Squad will be happy to oblige; all the macho "ex-Marine snipers" thinking they'll get a kiss on the cheek from their Lady Michelle... puke.....

I could possibly find an uncharted corner of my heart to let all this go, if I hadn't read this...

Only now, on the day the Senate revisits his favored, faltering pet proposals for mass amnesty, does he find it important enough to send a show of military non-force down to the border--a show that was immediately emasculated to satisfy the "American is a continent, not a country" crowd.

Michelle, why do you hate the National Guard? Why do you spit on the men and women who sign up to protect America? Do you not know that the NG troops go thru real live Boot Camp, just like every other troop? Do you consider them less than soldiers? Do you not respect or appreciate the fact that if these NG troops are deployed, they leave jobs and families behind to stand on the fucking border to make "americans" like You happy? (lowercase intentional)

Michelle, your blog is a pissant adventure in narcisssism - a telling sign of your complete lack of integriphilia. You have none. You're the Milli Fucking Vanilli of bloggers. Fuck, you don't even write anything anymore - you just drop names and quotes. What fucking grade are you in, sweet cheeks? Do you take the time and effort to gut it out and run a blog or are you just phoning it in? Are you using a PNAC intern to do your work for you? Again, puke....

Do America a favor - either get yourself some integrimerity or shut. the. fuck. up...

Rip -

ShrinkWrapped is today's posterchild for balls-out, in-your-face onlinified integritudity. This weird site is the magnum opus of a "practising Psychoanalyst, Psychiatrist" who uses his professional skills - though not, Lord knows, his professional ethics - to "make sense of" such fashionable ailments as Self-Hating Jewishness (i.e., being a Jew who fails to glorify the Israeli hard right in thought, word, and deed), and Conservative Fatigue Syndrome (i.e., a mild, easily reversible malaise that occasionally strikes loudmouthed assholes who've spent six years or more defending the indefensible).

ShrinkWrapped's discussion of self-hating Jews leads naturally to a discussion of Bush-hating lefties:

If we are at war with Islamic fascists, then those who oppose many or most of the Bush administration's efforts to use our full armamentarium against the Islamist enemy, including the ACLU, parts of the Democratic party, much of the MSM, almost the entire political and media establishment of Europe, and millions of people throughout the West, would be most charitably described as using the defense of denial to avoid knowing what the danger is and a small but influential sub-set would be employing "Identification with the Aggressor" in order to minimize their feelings of vulnerability and threat. Those people would be consciously aiding and abetting our enemies out of an unconscious process which includes "Identification with the Aggressor."

Cute, eh? While Tacitus troubles his beautiful mind over the vile ones who "mock the mentally ill," his worthy constituent ShrinkWrapped authoritatively argues that an "influential sub-set" of people who don't line up behind BushCo comprises pathological cases who consciously aid Islamofascism through an unconscious identification with it. (To be fair, he may have a point: On the surface, I aid and abet al-Qaeda 'cause I gots mad respeck for the pimp-ass styles they wear. But I've often suspected that I may identify on some deeper level with their eliminationist stance against the West. Still, that's just me.)

Having read the Ethics Code of the American Psychoanalytic Association, I think ShrinkWrapped is on very shaky ethical ground. (For the record, I think this is true of the guy who wrote Bush on the Couch, too.) But either way, I'm really glad that Tacitus - that passionate fighter against politically opportunistic rhetoric about mental illness - has given ShrinkWrapped's slanderous crackpot psychobabble a stamp of respectability.

Amigos,
¡El Gato Negro! has often been curious at the affinity held by members of la blogesfera for the forms and tropes of la ficcióna ciencia.

We have bloggerros conservativos who weesh to be "Star Fleet" Captains and generales sillónerros who write Star Trek books.

Then we have las bloggerras ala izquierdas who can no just do the straight-up Star Trek theengy.

¡Gatos del Paradiso, no! That would be too geeky, eh?

So they are forced to try to make heep, ironic, post-moderno referrent-based jokes using the more obscure moments een el mundo de la ficcióna ciencia.

Compañeros, eet ees een the spirit of trying to understand thees affinity, thees need to use some recognized character from some popular-culture Sci-Fi (or how-joo-say "skeefee") setting een order to make some meta-metaphor for joo,
that I offer thees leetle appropriation of a familiar story
wheech I hope to revisit weeth some use.

Thees ees how los Republiculos weesh the American pipples to see the world:












The Taxpaying citizens of
America must be protected

















from the rampaging threat
of Islamifascoliberalism,
















By their straight-talkin' hero,
El Chimperador.












But as per their usual way of doing thees theengs, Los Repubiculos are no giving joo the whole story, or even the right story.

Here ees how ¡El Gato Negro! would write the story:



The American pipples
must be protected











from the rampaging threat
of los Republiculos











and las Democratistas
are the only ones who can do so.








Thees ees how the Dems should be writing the story of the 2006 election, eh?


Oh, for the purposes of disclosure, I must state that here at Blog-Integrity, we have employed thees device as well,
using thees character as an exemplary representation of what we mean by Blog-Integrity.



and tambien I could no let thees opportunity pass by
weethout making a friendly suggestion to the other group out there fighting for Online Integrity.
An example of a character from the realms of la ficcióna ciencia
who I hope they weel realize as a paradigm weetheen wheech all their beliefs and hopes are represented, no?




So.

Just some updates on the vital statistics of the progress of the Online Integrity project.

The last comment on the site was on May 11, from someone styling himself "General JC Christian" (I suspect that this is a pseudonym of some sort):

Gen JC Christian Says:
May 11th, 2006 at 7:08 am

How do I get listed as an endorser? I want people to know that I have as much integrity as Dean Esmay.

The last trackback to the site comes from here, and it is not entirely complimentary. Indeed, it is almost (SHUDDER!) incivil:

So no, I won't be signing this pledge and actually, I would never sign any such pledge, no matter how well intentioned. I behave with integrity because I have integrity and I don't need any silly pledge to determine whether other people behave likewise; their actions will tell me soon enough whether or not they are good people or not.

Of course, one suspects that this individual is a (SHUDDER!) furriner, and furriners notoriously lack the integrity of say, Dean Esmay and the like. One hopes the National Guard might be deployed to stop such incursions in the future.

As for the Online Integrity E-mail discussion group, well...

Activity within 7 days:
(No Activity)

How melancholy! I for one am shocked that there is such an apparently widespread reluctance to spend hours and hours and hours and hours and hours discussing "Integrity" with Tacitus. Just.... shocked.

Never fear, though! An exciting new site I found on the list of Online Integrity signers,promises to explore in excruciating detail the sheer fun and intellectual excitement of Polite Discourse. It is called, thrillingly enough, Polite Discourse, and has a lot of terrific things to say, like:

Well, OK, I'm taking a little longer to get this site finished than I first thought. My target is May 15.

And, in a neat little blurb, the site poses the fascinating question:

How do we achieve concensus?

Not by learning how to spell, that's for damn sure.

It is nice to see though that a site that does not actually exist yet nevertheless has Integrity. How, uh, subjunctively ethical of them.

There is a reason, you see, that discussion of Integrity and Ethics is inherently fascinating and people really, really love it. Like they love eating Brussels sprouts in nothing sauce, with a side of raw wheat kernels and willow bark.

It is time that you unintegritudinous peons started to engage in a process of sincere self-reflection on your lack of integrityness, instead of nattering away here in an unintegrityesque fashion. GO! Read the link to Tacitus on the left and ponder its wisdom.

THIS IS A CLOSED THREAD. NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO POST ON IT, EVER. THIS MEANS YOU!

Queen Victoria, the civillest discourser ever, says NO COMMENTING ALLOWED.

Victor Davis Hanson has discovered a daring new method of historical analysis. It may draw on common methodologies (e.g., Making Shit Up; Saying Really, Really Stupid Things; and Being A Scaife-Funded Douchebag), but the end result is pure Hanson.

In order to show by analogy how treasonous today's media are, he's concocted a chilling op-ed piece written against the Allies, and dated May 21, 1945. Here's an excerpt:

After the release of The True Story of the B-17 Slaughter, Gary Cooper thankfully came forward to remind us how President Roosevelt took us into a British war that we were utterly unprepared for. Next look for Coop’s recently completed and powerful American Gestapo this fall. Likewise, Jimmy Stewart remarked from the front lines above Germany (so unlike our president, who failed to serve in any of America’s past wars) that it is hard to know who the real enemy is after we have bombed the children of Hamburg. And Clark Gable is currently preparing a documentary on the Pacific theater, 12/7, that outlines the racist nature of that campaign that seeks the extermination of all the living Japanese we encounter.

Remember, folks, this is May of 1945. We're just about to nuke the goddamn Japs, and the media want FDR to throw in the towel. Who can fail to see the eerie parallels with George W. Bush's current woes?

And it's true: You can't imagine anyone saying this stuff during WWII (save for Charles Lindbergh, the Bund, and a bunch of powerful right-wing industrialists and politicians). Which shows how much we've devolved since then.

Another, much funnier sign of that devolution is that Hanson has neglected to note a vital detail: "Mr. Roosevelt, in whose hands our collective fate lies," died on April 12, 1945...over a month before the date of Hanson's op-ed piece.

But hell, Edison didn't get the gramophone right the first time either. Why harp on Hanson's errors? I admire his method, and I'm keen to give it a whirl. Accordingly, I thought I'd see if I could use it to explain why, all things considered, the Spanish Inquisition could've been a hell of a lot worse. Here goes nothing:

In 1478, under the aegis of queer co-monarchs Ferdinand and Benjy of Castile, a prancing, shrieking gaggle of flamboyantly gay inquisitors went forth to seek out and destroy the "heresy" of heterosexual love. At the same time, a number of gay-ass laws were passed stating that none but homosexuals could hold positions of authority, and that henceforth, property rights would be restricted to those who were queer as three-dollar bills.

In schools, children were taught that homosexuality was not merely natural, but a moral duty. They were rewarded (with gay sex, usually) for turning stubbornly hetero parents over to the Inquisitors for trial and punishment. In order to wring confessions from these sexual heretics, the Inquisitors wouldn't hesitate to use such diabolical tortures as the Reacharound, the Trombone, and the Dirty Sanchez.

Citizens who insisted that they'd rather fight than swish were told "Denial ain't just a river in the land of the Mamluks," before being handed over to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. This was a shadowy order of zealots charged with a dreadful mission: to promote a healthy, self-respecting spirit of gay pride, by any means necessary. A few brave souls stayed "in the closet" to the bitter end, but most victims of the Sisters' ministrations ended up as gay as Dickie's hatband.

In 1565, Pedro "Bam Bam" Menendez de Aviles set sail for the New World, under the Rainbow Flag; his goal was to establish a gay resort at St. Augustine, Florida. However, the crew's addiction to same-sex orgies left the ship unmanned a good deal of the time, with the result that it drifted aimlessly in the Atlantic for several years.

Spain's decadent utopia came to an end in 1574. The dead-butch Moors, who'd been forced to leave Spain when they refused to embrace the gay lifestyle, saw their chance and invaded. The Spaniards, of course, were far too faggy to put up a fight. As a result, the Muslim hordes seized Spain, and imposed an Islamofascist regime. This regime soon spread to the rest of the world, plunging every civilization on earth into the eternal night of Dhimmitude.

It's not that far-fetched, ya gotta admit. All things considered, I'd say we we got off fairly easy.

This isn't the main problem with the non-existent anti-non-Integrity un-movement:

I'M NOT-NOT SIGNING IT!!

Granted; their boorish, sometimes childish portrayal of other folk that just wanna get along makes me snicker sometimes. And while I know that their sentiment is in the right place, I just can't not support them.

In these troubled times, we need to come together, as bloggers and hacks, to fight for the common good...like better access to cute puppy and kitty websites for the less fortunate, etc. And these Online Blogintegrity jokers are just keeping us down. They want to go back to the days when the internet was a lawless, porn and video game mecca. I just can't go along with that.

I just can't not go along with that, either. Now where's my goddamned t-shirt and Snickers bar, bitch? And take a memo with your Pen of Integrity™:

1. No more septuple negatives in any post about Integrity™.
2. No pooftahs!
3. No more cats.
4. No Word Verifications when I want to fucking post.
5. No more discounts behind the Tastee Freeze.
6. No running.
   
7. No more lists!
   

Any questions? Good. And when you figure out what the hell I'm talking about, please let me know since I have no fucking clue. But at least I have Integrity™, which makes all the difference in the world.

PS--Could somebody loan me a sawbuck? I've got a lot of contributions to the Swear Jar to make...

What makes Josh "Tacitus" Trevino (above, left) such a compelling spokesman for online integrity?

His intellectual rigor and ethical consistency, natch. Over at Swords Crossed, he informs a goggling world that certain people call him names, and that these people are denizens of "fever swamps." (Please note, though, that these are metaphorical fever swamps; a goodly number of Trevino's foes are sick and crazy, sure...but not in the sense that making fun of them can be construed as making fun of the mentally ill. That's something only the Vile Ones do.)

In addition to demonstrating, yet again, that there's a right way and a wrong way to engage in lazy ad hominem attacks, Trevino pulls off a nice editorial sleight of hand. He notes that Tristero recently said "Liberals need to learn how to show the Trevinos of American politics no mercy."

Pretty unhinged, huh? Unfortunately for Trevino's sad-sack delusions of holy martyrdom, Tristero's quote is somewhat less melodramatic when one reads it in context:

Briefly, Trevino's rightwing shtick isn't necessary. True, liberals need to learn how to show the Trevinos of American politics no mercy; meaning it's high time we treated them exactly they way they've treated America's most mainstream (many of them superb) political leaders, from Powell to Feingold. And also true, liberals need seriously to polish their ideas and rhetoric.

But in no way does the task of competently advocating an intelligent commonsense (ie, liberal) agenda for the US require the lying and smearing of decent people and majority beliefs that follow from Trevino's "methodology" as surely as pus flows from a deadly infection.

Next, Trevino quotes someone who calls him "a vicious Opus Dei thug." You'd naturally assume that this someone is Tristero, since the quote comes very soon after the words "It's Tristero," and no other author is named. But you'd be wrong. It was actually written by a commenter.

While Trevino's not half so skilled with words as he supposes, he's competent enough to understand that as presented, the quote appears to be by Tristero. And he's been blogging long enough to know that many, many blog readers don't bother to click quote links...particularly in posts by bloggers they agree with or trust.

Tristero's lengthy post makes a number of substantive points, and I'd think that an honest opponent would feel obliged to address them. But instead, Trevino takes one line out of context, presents it as a stand-alone sentence, tosses in an inflammatory comment without noting the change in authorship, and finishes up with some leaden sarcasm about left-wing "fever swamps."

I'm beginning to suspect that the daedal niceties of online integrity will always remain just beyond my grasp.

After reading the OI-Statement of principles, eet occurs to me that thees blooger-person, how-joo-say "Tactless", could seemply have called hees work "The Online Pseudonymous Privacy Project", and left the whole concept of "Integrity" out altogether. (and possibly has, no?)

Tactless claims that he seeks to protect online privacy, especially that of pseudonymous bloggers, and I theenk we can all appreciate what would lead heem to take thees course of action.

(Sadly eet seems that at least one signatory to hees leetle juramento de integridad does no agree weeth heem on thees point.)

But now, the dialog has sheefted from privacy for plagiarists to thees whole notion of "Civility".

*Ack!*Ackhkhk!
Hrnrnrnrn! Hrnhrnhrnhnrnnn!
Ack! ACk! Koff!! *SPLAT*

Perdóna me, I had a hairball.

ahem.

For Tactless, "civility" would seem to be synonymous weeth "condescension" as he showed when he trolled threads at Sadly, No, FireDogLake, and MyDD.

Eet ees true that El Gato Negro! does no possess thees form of "civility".

But what do the nutty-weengers mean generally when they speak of thees idea, thees "civility"?

Do they mean racial tolerance?
No.

Do they mean uplifting the dialog eento a higher level of respectability?
Evidently, No.

So when Tactless says:

One closing note: when the major left-bloggers — including but not even nearly limited to Hamsher — began their campaign against the nonpartisan, nonideological Online Integrity, one major excuse given (besides the Ackbar thesis) was that the blogospheric left is more than capable of policing its own — and does so with alacrity. So, Georgia10, Chris Bowers, Matt Stoller, Stirling Newberry, Oliver Willis, dKos editors, et al.: let’s see it. Let’s see the left enforce some basic decency in its own ranks. I, for one, have the greatest confidence in your integrity and your word.

Then he can only mean one theeng.

No more cursing.

Liberalista bloggerros, by and large have a reputation, deserved or no, for los maldiciones. I must confess I myself have been guilty on occasion of referring to right-nutty-weengers as "steenky" and also enculando asqueros maracon de playas sin huevos qui chinga ses madres.

For thees I am resolved to try to amend my behavior.

Amigos, there ees an uncomplicated, yet elegant solution to the perceived problem of los bloggerros dropping the F-bomb like so many rabbit pellets all over la bloggesfera.

Señors, señoras, y señoritas, I present to joo:

The Blog-Integrity&trade Online Virtual Swearjar&trade



Si, weeth the help of the new Blog-Integrity&trade Online Virtual Swearjar&trade los bloggerros can begin to atone for their feelthy, feelthy, potty-mouths, while at the same time, working for a better bloggesfera for all.

Here's how she works:

Whenever a lefty bloggerro or bloggerra publishes a post containing a nasty word, they seemply put a nickel een the Blog-Integrity&trade Online Virtual Swearjar&trade. (We weel endeavour to have a Pay-pal account up by Monday, eh?)

Now, los bloggeros can begin to track and police their own naughty language.

Then, when we have enough dolares saved up een the Blog-Integrity&trade Online Virtual Swearjar&trade, we can buy Tactless hees very own internet, where he and hees leetle squalling, bigoted, eliminationist anormales can all go and be "civil" together, and leave us alone.

¿And the best part?

Joo do no even have to sign a steenky old pledge.



so.

[Lifted and seperated from The Zen Cabin - with updates for to make it more apropos-y for this place]

Spies, spies and damned spies !

When the first NSA illegal wiretapping story broke, BushCo claimed they were only listening to international calls between US citizens and known Al Qaeda agents. Huh...

1. How does BushCo know who the Al Qaeda agents are and how did they get their phone numbers?
2. If they have the phone numbers of known Al Qaeda agents, why haven't we captured said agents? - or -
3. How did they know that these US citizens were talking to Al Qaeda agents?
4. If they know US citizens are talking to known Al Qaeda agents, why haven't they brought these citizens in for questioning or arrested them?
   

The governments of free nations don't listen in on their citizens' phone calls and they don't request millions of call records from the phone companies.

Apparently, America is no longer a free nation. Perhaps, instead of "fighting them over there", we should be fighting them over here.

Here's where I get confused. We, mere bloggers and riff raff, have all, with some notable exceptions, taken a pledge to be as integritarian as possible in our daily endeavors. Yet, El Presidente has refused not only to sign the pledge, like NTodd and some others, but to even act integricariously, as we do. Well, then, I ask you - what hope have we, the desperate and teeming hoi polloi? Without sufficiently integrific leaders to emulate, our actions are merely "a sequence of grotesque poses assumed to no purpose, a magic dance, empty of belief."

No, my friends, this won't do at all. I suggest we start a petition drive, to request that El Guapo sign our Pledge of Integritition, thus returning honor and glory to America. Who's with me?

Rip -

For me the lie, the golden lie! Tomorrow or the day after I shall awake, shall be compelled to awake

Why We Mock

Over at Penises Touching (beg pardon, "Swords Crossed"), Tacitus informs us that

when the major left-bloggers — including but not even nearly limited to [Jane Hamsher] — began their campaign against the nonpartisan, nonideological Online Integrity, one major excuse given (besides the Ackbar thesis) was that the blogospheric left is more than capable of policing its own — and does so with alacrity.

Dude. There was a CAMPAIGN? I swear to Jebus, I started this site because I independently decided the Online Integrity site needed some funning.

HOWEVER, if the shadowy figures what are directing the Campaign would like to subsidize us, please, do not deny us some of those fat Soros checks, pleeeeez!

That would make Worf a Merry Man.





Update At SadlyNo, I asked Tac, Mr Civility himself, what the evidence was that there was a "campaign" against OI. He kindly informed me

It's at a Google Groups, er, group called "Townhouse."

Which is great fun, as a "campaign" confined to a closed e-mail list is a pretty lousy "campaign."

It is entirely possible that many individuals reached the same conclusion about OI entirely on their own. Nobody really needed a "campaign" to be told that New Coke wasn't a very good idea, either.

One More River to Cross

The latest self-approval ratings are out for Online Blogintegrity, and the numbers are gratifying: 100% of us are glutinous with self-approbation.

That’s what happens when you eschew flirting, and incivility, and Deleuzian nomadology, and the rest of the sins to which the liberal flesh is heir.

But is this really good enough? Should we settle for being smug, when with a little more effort we might find reason to become insufferably smug?

Not on your motherfucking tintype, as the saying is. That’s why I’m going to up the ante, by announcing my nonpartisan, nonideological commitment to irrefragable moral excellence.

In practical terms, this means that I’ll refrain - on principle - from hacking into the sites of my political enemies and posting photos of anal creampies.

Granted, hacking is illegal. And to be quite honest, I’d have no idea of how to go about it even if I wanted to. All the same, I believe that in this wrenching act of renunciation, I’ll make Tolstoy’s Prince Nekhlyudov look like Helen Chenoweth.

I hope you’ll all join me in my commitment to clean living and fair play. But if you choose not to, that’s perfectly OK. Like spirochetes, tse-tse flies, and the boonie dogs of Guam, untermenschen like yourselves have their humble place in the Great Chain of Being. And if you truly find the stench of a cesspit sweeter than attar of roses, far be it from me to drag you from your faeculent womb.

"Used Like Puppets Strings"

Since nothing in the BI statement of principles forbids cheap shots, quote-mining, or the establishment of guilt by association, let's take a look at how certain signatories to Online Integrity are fulfilling their commitment to "basic decency."

I note that an amiable young lady named Republican Jen has a bone to pick with liberals:

[T]he liberals want to stop President Bush and the blessed US military from fighting them??? The first people Islamo-fascists would want to kill in the USA are all the hippies!!! And they are the very ones being used like puppets strings to support "palestine"!!! IDIOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jen also claims that some or all liberals cheered on the murderers of Atwar Bahjat; she rails against "those who perpetrated these horrendous acts and the liberals who support them."

Hooray, says I, for basic decency. And thank you ever so much, Tacitus and Co., for putting a veneer of respectability on this subliterate dingbat. She may have implied that I applauded Bahjat's murder, but at least she didn't send me any death threats. Or call me a cocksucker.

Meanwhile, Small Town Veteran offers this charmingly antiquarian solution to the problem of "Aztlanist" immigration:

I submit that a few bodies left to rot on the wire as proof that we mean business would reduce that number to near zero.

Again, I'm sure STV takes his OI pledge about respecting online privacy very seriously indeed, even as he indulges in his masturbatory eliminationist fantasies.

As for the lefty bloggers who've signed onto this thing...well, I suppose the kindest thing I can say is that they put me in mind of this amusing panel from George Herriman's "Major Ozone":

Our Integrity Is The MOST Delicious of ALL!

NTodd put in SiteMeter today. And it tells rather an interesting tale: 102,286 visitors since we started up last Thursday. Not bad...

But check this out: the site we're spoofing, Online Integrity, has a grand total of 9,204 visitors since they got started.

Draw your own conclusions, but I for one think this is pretty freaking funny. (It's also intriguing that by far the largest number of OI's recent referrals come from the MyDD post where Chris Bowers said he wouldn't sign up for OI.)




[Update - 5/10] - I just had the cable internets access hooked up. So now, we're not only the most deliciously integrific, we're the most fastest integritizers who ever made integrity a word between... ohhh.. insult and intellectual... Rip -

I Am Fabius, And I Refuse To Sign

I have begun a new guerrilla campaign here on Blog Integrity Dot Whatever Dot Bloggered Dot Blogsport Dot Commie. I have employed the new integritous sigil on my blog YET I REFUSE TO SIGN THE PLEDGE OF INTEGRITUDE!

Why? Because I lack Integrity? No. No! A thousand times NO! (just imagine I said it a thousand times because that can get old pretty damn quick)

It is because I have the Utmost Integrity and need not these petty rhetorical demonstrances of logos, ethos, and pathos to have the aforementioned Utmost Integrity. I am Utmost Integrity Personified, and I hardly have to remind you every 30 femtoseconds of that fact.

Nay, as we read in Matthew 6:5-6:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

I quietly pray my Prayers of Integritousness in my Closeted Fortress of Integricity. And you should follow my Intrigityish Example, if you are to have Real Utmost Integrity.

I merely follow in the footsteps of my Quaker forebear, John Dickinson, who refused to sign the Declaration of Independence. He also didn't sign the Consitution because he was out sick that day--but still! You get my point. He wasn't a Signer, but was a Patriot. A Patriot of Integrity. And he didn't even get a big monument proclaiming it:

Dickinson, who died in 1808, was a stanch Quaker and was buried with the simple rites of his sect in the Friends' graveyard now in the heart of Wilmington. His last resting place is marked only by a small headstone with "John Dickinson, 1808", engraved thereon.

So I, a recently-singled, independent, non-violent, counter-dominant, left-liberal, possibly charismatic, not entirely insufferable, non-obnoxious, Tom Green-esque, quasi anarcho-libertarian Quaker, hereby refuse to swear feality to Thersites and his Vile Oath, and encourage all readers to do likewise. To sign The Integrity Pledge is to be objectively anti-Integrity

Please, let us know in comments that you will not partake in this anti-Integrity Integrity Movement, thus joining me in my anti-anti-Integrity Integrity Movement Movement, and we will thus restore Integrity to the Blogoverse.

BI Nano - for a littler sense of integricility

Here's another verion of the BI "You Bet Your Pants Ass I Signed Up!!" pic, for those who might have a smaller sidebar. (See a Doctor about that, will ya?)

To save, right click and choose Save Image As -
[If you're using a Mac, press the Me Savey Picture button.]
[If you're using a Mac and wearing a coonskin cap, press the Me Davey Crockett button.]

Rip -

Props for Armando: One of the Online Integrity originators, Armando, has linked here and called it a "funny spoof." You have to give a guy props for being able to take a joke, so, Armando, here are your props:



They're from the Titanic, but that's about all we can afford around here in the nosebleed seats of the Internets.

On another note, the lovely and talented Spork has designed a nifty little bit of sidebar art for all of our fabulous signatories!



Whaddya think? I am all for it, meself. Worf has never looked so good!

Incidentally, I note we're having more of a discussion of ethics over here than they are over there. Very few new comments. I really did try to engage, well, civilly with Aziz Poonawalla, but that, uh, got nowhere. Oh well. I'd still let him download our logo, though! And why not? Spork will be getting a nickel from Soros whenever anyone adds it to their sidebar.

UPDATE: Though one cavil about the logo -- are we going to get requests to rent out Worf for private 3-ways?

A WaPo reporter walks into a bar...

Thers has posted a follow-up about the Online Integrity project at his blog, metacomments.

And I just do not like the idea that the question "where are all the civilized bloggers?" should be granted any legitimacy at all. We ARE "civilized." Some of us may may swear, or use crude language, but so...? Many of us don't. MyDD doesn't, usually. But now MyDD is no longer a blog that "we" can point to as "civilized," because it isn't "over there"! The fact that Poonawalla considers Chris Bowers a "fellow traveler" is appreciated, but will this distinction be appreciated by the next Washington Post reporter who peers at the Left Blogosphere disdainfully? Permit me to doubt it.

Excellent point - and there's my issue with the whole, big, ever so important kerfuffle about civility and the blogosphere: Who gives a flying rat's ass?

Look, there's a world of difference between content and delivery, to be sure. But you can bet that in any given bar, in any given city, on any given night, there are thousands of "regular people" discussing the same topics we're discussing and using the same, coarse vernacular. It doesn't matter what their political leanings are, some people will curse. Does that negate the validity of their arguments? You're fucking right it doesn't. The same applies to blogs, Left or Right.

So, if you go to my blog and you're put off by the fact that I call the executives at Exxon-Mobil "greedy fucks", but fail to understand the point of my post - that E-M pays their CEO 40x more in a year than they spend on researching petro-alternatives - maybe the problem is with you, the reader, and not my "lack of civility".

The difference lies in content and intent, in my opinion. Call it ethics, since that's such a cause celebre, lately. I don't care if a blogger on the other side of the aisle says, "Fuck Ripley! He's a tree-hugging Commie and a traitor!" It's fiery rhetoric and I use it myself - these are scary, trying times and we need to vent. But when some fuck-monkey at LGF says "we should turn Iraq into glass/if we kill all the ragheads, we'd have a better world"... that's uncivilized, kids. When the Jan Brady of socio-political discourse, Michelle Malkin, makes the effort to post personal contact information on her site, knowing that some unhinged, lunatic fringe patriots will take it upon themselves to threaten the SAW kids, that's uncivilized. When Fred Phelps calls for the execution of all homosexuals, that's uncivilized.

You want truly uncivilized typing? Look no further than Judith Fucking Miller and the rest of the MSM glory hole attendants who calloused their fingers for BushCo between 9/12/01 and today. I'm not much of a Mary Scott O'Connor fan but she's a fucking saint compared to Judy Miller and Robert Novak.

Remember the Coronation Inaugural Concert in January, 2005? Bret Scallions, front man for Fuel, said, "Welcome to the greatest fucking country in the world!" Oh, my... people tut-tutted and put their finger tips to their lips in feigned surprise and disbelief. Such language these rocker types use! But was Bret uncivilized? Not at all - sure, it may have been vulgar, by definition, but it was surely a decent, albeit dubious, statement (given the state of America since 2001).

[I think Fuel is a great band - their debut album is one of the most quirky and original hard rock albums I heard in the 90's. I saw them live in Dec, 2001 and was surprised by Bret's onstage persona, though. He was rather bar band-esque and had... I guess, a sterotypical "dumb rocker" aura about him. I could be wrong, it's just the feeling I had, watching and listening to him. No offense, Bret - maybe it was 9/11 aftershock you were dealing with.]

Thers is absolutely correct, and I'll amplify his statement. The traditional media will always look upon bloggers as uncivilized. We're also unfettered by boards of directors and the fear of losing a fucking dollar or two. I pay for my site and I blog/podcast because I am deeply disturbed by and concerned about the state of affairs in the world today. Most of the time I enjoy writing and the creative outlet of podcasting. (Yeah, yeah... I'm working on one, give it some time.) And sure, just like the traditional media, I enjoy knowing that there are people who agree with my views - but I don't panic if someone disagrees, or worry about losing a reader or pissing off some arrogant, greedy fuck in DC or Big Biz. If the morality terrorists at Family Research Council or some overpaid snake oil lobbyist want to point their fingers at me and cry "Boycott!", I could care less.

The traditional media's job, in my opinion, is to question authority and hold The Powers That Be accountable, then let me know why I should do the same. If I want fatuous, obsequious hyperbole, I can log onto Fox News or GOP.com and let the Republicans drop their manly balls into my mouth. I don't need the NYT, WaPo and every other "respectable" journalistic outlet to pimp the party line to me.

The online integrity project is nothing more than an exercise in reputation masturbation. No self-respecting blogger is going to cross the ethics line - if they do, they'll find themselves chin deep in scorn and short on readers. And if you're thinking, "Malkin did it!", I'd submit that Michelle Malkin has no self-respect, to say nothing of respect for others.

I think I can safely say that not one of the signatories on this site, parody that it is, would even entertain the notion of causing any kind of harm to anyone, public or private. We may be unhinged but we're not cruel or inhuman. So, when WaPo publishes another article about how uncivilized I am, I won't think twice about typing "FUCK" as I'm posting an article about equal rights, social justice, environmental damage, government corruption and the piss poor job the Republicans have done in the last 5+ years.

I've been drinking beer while I type this. I hope we don't have to read an article about the Drunk Left Blogosphere anytime soon.

Rip -

A Contest

Spork points out that we need one of those sidebar-banner-thingies so as everyone what has signed the pledge can demonstrate they have the Integrit-o-lossitude.

Anyone got any ideas and/or the Mad Skillz to design one for us?

The designer of the winning, uh, design will get an extra helping of delicious Integity and a side of Ethics.

The contest will be judged by the site proprietors and an Independent Integrity Expert, pictured below.

They will come, friends.

They will knock on the door of your blogs like rabid, horny Jehovah's Witnesses - shirts pressed, shoes shined, spelling checked, flecks of Troll Chow clinging to their dry, plump lips... They will come...

And they will say, "I saw your latest post - but where's your Integrity????"

Gently set down your cup of Earl Grey, turn down the Hi-Fidelity music system, stand tall, clear your throat and say...

"Sir or Madame, whichever you are, I will not have my Integrity impugned! My Integrity, Sir or Madame, lies to the east, west, south and north, somewhat, of my blog. And I'll not stand idly by while you attempt to sully my good reputation with your scurillous accusations. Begone!"

Then, ask them if they've signed up here. Because, if they haven't, they are traitorous pig-dogs with no integrity. It's a fact - you can look it up on this website..

Fact: Anyone who has not signed the Integrilicious Pledge for Integrity is a traitorous pig-dog with no integrity.

See? We told you.

What Is Best In Life?

Was it Genghis Kahn, Conan the Barbarian, or Dick van Patten, who said, "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women"? If I had any integrity, I would look up the answer, but not tell you, lest I reveal the identity of someone who wishes to be anonymous.

Of course, being an un-integritous hacker bastard child blogger, I have no integrity, so I have to tell you that the person who uttered such a horrible philosophy in that quotation is none other than...Aziz Poonawalla!

Fuck if I know who that is. Some Schmoe™ who is Noble™ and gots him the RealIntegrity™ that is required for all Civil Discourse™ in this age of Shrill Oppression By Liberals™.

Now, where are the HOOKERS with my peeled grapes? My hossenpfeffer? My pants?

One hundred and sixty bloggers have signed on in less than three hours! What a coup. Also, we've avoided getting stuck with Jeff Goldstein. Huzzah!

Rather a shame we couldn't get mental patients like Kim de Toit and Dhimmi Watch and Islam Exposed to come on board, like that other, less rigorous integrity site.

UPDATE!!!

GREAT NEWS!!!!

Father Jack Hackett has agreed to serve as our site's new Ethics Czar. He will be carefully monitoring all of the registered sites for strict adherence to The Rules.

Integrity Is Dad Fuckers!

I have no integrity, refuse to sign Ther's stupid motherfucking pledge, and I skipped the ethics part of the information security class I teach, so I have hacked this site. I also, like, like commas, and wear no pants.

Regardless, I call on all Muslims to condemn the Catholic Church, and all Chinese to condemn the Catholic Church's condemnation of Chinese Catholic Bishops, and all Martians to condemn drunken Mick louts, who refuse to condemn all condemnations done in their name.

Please sign my condemnation pledge, lest you be a Dhimmi in league with the Islamocatholocthulujihadofascoliberofuckoburgeros.

The Online Blogintegrity Statement of Principles:

The Online Blogintegrity Statement of Principles is simple:

PRIVATE PERSONS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR PRIVATES ONLINE. If your pants go missing, don't go whining to us. We don't know where they are. Your pants are not a matter of Civil Discourse.

PUBLIC FIGURES ARE ENTITLED NOT TO BE MADE FUN OF AS LYING DOUCHEBAGS WHEN THEY ARE MEMBERS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. This is, after all, a Time of War. What are you, some sort of Islamofascist jackass? Don't let's make Jeff Goldstein pompously botch a J. L. Austin reference to prove this point, or otherwise we'll have to read his 15,000 word treatise about why he wasn't really just picking his nose the whole time.

NO FLIRTING. This one should be clear. How will bloggers ever be taken seriously by Serious Journalists if they come to our blogs and see... flirting? EEEEEEEK. Some scary assed shit right there.

NO CUSSIN'. Fuck that cursing shit. I mean, like, fuck it. FUCK.

PERSONS SEEKING ANONYMITY OR PSEUDONYMITY ONLINE SHOULD HAVE THEIR WISHES IN THIS REGARD RESPECTED AS MUCH AS IS REASONABLE. Exceptions include cases of criminal, misleading, or intentionally disruptive behavior, or when Jeff Goldstein figures out how to weasel out a way to defend Michelle Malkin for pissing on kittens.

VIOLATIONS OF THESE PRINCIPLES WILL BE MET BY US STAMPING OUR TINY FEET AND HOLDING OUR BREATH UNTIL WE TURN BLUE. SO NYAH. NYAH WE SAY, NYAH.

Signatories of these principles appear in the blogroll to the right. To the RIGHT. No, to the RIGHT. Sheesh... If your name is not there it means you have no honor, and therefore Worf hates you. Look at how displeased he is at your lack of integrity:



Wait, sorry, I meant the left. My bad.

ANY-hoo. This statement is nonpartisan and nonideological. It is open to participants and adherents left, right and center. In an era when online activism and community have more impact, promise and peril than ever, it is essential that we seize upon the best aspects of the internet — its self-policing, democratic nature — and use them to set an example of reasoned restraint and considered civility. But mostly it means that Kos is a dick.

Overall, we need to remember that bloggers must present a much more GROWNUP image to geniuses like Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, and Cokie Roberts. PLEASE from now on dress and act like Elrond, you ignorant gobshites:



TAKE THAT, MSM!!!!!