Was your attorney a part of the Dewey Cheatum and Howe law firm?

Ridor - No assumptions here. I know for a fact that your sources are dead wrong.

Looks like someone made an ass out of u and me.

Pippin - I agree with you that Ridor deserves more than just these notices. I hope more people read Vikki’s blog and be informed of what they can do to prevent bloggers such as Ridor from continuing to back-stab anyone else or passing information on the certain issues without credible evidence to back it up.

Excellent blog, Vikki! :)

D.C. Gal -

You’re right. Vikki’s blog is an excellent (and educational) read. Thanks for reminding me!

DefBef: who the **** are you!? besides, i don’t detest RT enough to misspell cease and desist.

i don’t know anything about that, and why the heck are you posting as me? now i have to wonder how many comments are credited to DefBef. it’s defBef, by the way, so you might want to raise your credibility some.

Ridor,

Whats the matter, cat got your tongue? No more bitchy remarks?

You are full of it. You are hurting yourself more than you are hurting others. Have you heard of the saying…what comes around goes
around.

Looks like what’s coming around is going to deal you a major karmic attack. Don’t you find it interesting that the first person people
thought of when this blog came out was suing you? We know you have no money,
that you draw social security, and are begging for money. People know you
have no money but that does not protect you from being sued - money isn’t the
point.

Your libelous and slanderous days are numbered.

You couldn’t get a job as the SID with Gallaudet. Have you ever thought you didn’t get the job because 1) your writing sucks and 2)you’ve burned your bridges with everyone you know.

Seek counseling. God knows you need it.

McDonald’s Fan,
You made my day! :-)

Yes, you are right. Some journalists are bloggers as well. So?

They have a right to write what they write on their own blogs. As for what they write for their publications, that is under the supervision of their editor.

That said, the Fairness Doctrine has to do with broadcast media. It hasn’t been enforced since 1991 (and I think you can see the effects of how coverage have become unbalanced).

This has nothing to do with blogs.

Unbalanced? Certainly. Bad journalistic ethos? Sure, in a lot of cases. But it is also about competiton and how the media have thrived because of it.

That is, if you view media and the free press as a business. That is fine. I, however, take a more traditional view of them as the third estate, to faithfully report on the facts and share information with the masses that is unbiased and objective.

I don’t see that happening those days. that’s why I’m glad we have the blogs - we can check out opposing opinions and perhaps gather information or combat misinformation that the mainstream media have suppressed in favor of their own interest (hi there, Judith!).

That is why it is so important to maintain a free speech zone in regards to blogs. The media isn’t doing their job. Who else will make sure they do?

Of course people have a right to blog whatever they want, but not when it causes irreparable harm to others. It’s *not* as simple as “clicking that x” on your browser window. Even those who do not read the blog are hurt, too- if they’re related to the person being defamed. Our governing bodies enact laws to deter manslaughter (for what I hope you can see are valid reasons). Spewing forth a bunch of really nasty comments about another person’s character online is not the same as criticizing a national figure. Don’t confuse the two. The damage can sometimes be irreversible. Just think about it this way - the public safety (at general) v. individual freedom (in a specific constraint). When somebody makes anonymous comments defaming my character, I want to be able to take legal action, just as I could if that same person came towards me with an actual baseball. Please don’t put this in the same category as dissenting with a public figure’s intellectual product; that’s a rather weak argument (i.e., comparing apples and .. bicycles). Also, don’t forget that individuals (in this country, at least) are also entitled to reasonable expectations of privacy. That’s destroyed through false allegations as well.

and one last thing… no offense, but I usually crack my knuckles in exasperation whenever I hear of that hackneyed ’slippery slope’ phase. It’s a fallacy in itself. Very rarely are all the conditions truly met before a single snowflake leads to an avalanche.

:-) You made my day.

the real julie,

Anybody and everybody has the right to say whatever they want in a blog, for example. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it. Even if it means hurting other people. They have the right to write whatever they want. The only problem is the consequences afterwards for that blogger. People do have the right to sue. And if certain laws are broken (e.g. national security, threats, etc…) then the person will have to face the court.

It’s a matter of using your common sense and a sense of responsibility. But then again, some people just don’t have those.

Not a slippery slope? do you remember when the Dixie Chicks criticized President Bush and they were thereby banned from Clearchannel airwaves? There ARE cases nowadays when people using their personal soapbox, whether they are in the arts, or just a blogger/vlogger suffereing consequences when they express their opinions. I would normally not be so alarmist, but I have seen attitudes towards restricting the freedom of speech the past few years that have really alarmed me. There was a time when you could not speak against the President or the Iraq War without being labeled a traitor.

You are correct that slandering/libeling a person who is not a public figure is different from commenting on someone who IS a public figure. I do agree that it does a lot of damage to aperson personally and their reputation as well. I remember as well as many when the mere whisper of “slut” could destroy a girl’s reputation for years.

My dilemna is that even though I personally condemn those who would undertake those actions, I am much more concerned with protecting our freedom of speech rather than restricting what others say those days.

Taht said, I can see why legal recourse might be a viable option for those who feel they need it. But will legal recourse be abused? Will there be malicious lawyers who will see this as an opportunity to target old grudges? What about wealthy, anonymous donors who wish to enforce their personal beliefs on a whole group of people? Would they bankroll a libel suit just to shut a blogger up because they didn’t like what was being said? I don’t see it as out of the realm of possiblity.

I once read somewhere - “Would you rather protect a few guilty persons to ensure freedom for innocents or to condemn more guilty parties at the risk of jailing innocents?”

That is the very basis of the American judical system - sometimes we have to protect those who are guilty so the innocents are ensured their rights. That is one reason why there are people so strongly against the death policy - one innocent person dead for a crime they didn’t committ is too much.

Should we condemn one blogger or focus instead on making sure other bloggers have the right to say what they want?

Sigh. This is a very difficult topic I have many conflicting feelings about.

May 6, 2006
‘And we hear that the most humiliating thing you can do is make one Arab male disrobe in front of another. Sounds to me like it’s pretty thoughtful.” in reference to tortue of Arabs.

Here’s more

October 23, 2006 (approx)
in response to the ad Michael J. Fox made -

‘if you’d just quit bobbing your head. …”..

‘”I stated when I saw the ad, I was commenting to you about it, that he was either off the medication or he was acting. He is an actor, after all.”

wow. he picks on someone with a serious degenerative disease. what a nice guy.

not to forget this one -

FEb 10, 2006

about liberals -

“hey HATE war heroes! They always have. But now, they suddenly found one to call their own so they can run around trying to make you think they are the big HAWKS!. These people phonies. This is who they are.
”

Jan 24, 2005
again, about liberals

“You hate fellow Americans more than you hate America’s enemies. You liberals think that Americans who you disagree with are posing a greater threat and are greater enemies than the people who drop bombs on our soldiers and fly airplanes into our buildings. You people have the wrong idea and a polluted, corrupted version of just who America’s enemies are. ”

02/28/2005
yes, it’s liberals again

“They’re just livid - the press, the leftists in this country - are just upset there are not enough deaths to get people outraged and protesting in the streets against the war. They’re mad these doctors are saving lives. They want deaths! They’ve been counting deaths up to 1000. They still want Bush out of office. Make no mistake about it. ”

Look, it’s obvious this guy has a real hate on the liberals, the left, Democrats.

That said, I still support his right to say those things if he wants to.

But you can’t honestly make a case that he doesnt’ say malicious things.

I guess wildstarryskies got a point McConnell, you are not always right but you do have a right to believe what you want to believe but thanks for your input though.
Dont forget Rush made fun of too many people especially when he crossed the line about Michael J. Fox accusing him of falsifying his disease! tsk tsk!

Those are not ill wills. LoL. It’s sarcasm and that’s his brand and his way doing it on the show.

Disrobing is not torture compared to what real tortures are, for example.

About the MJ Fox, completely blown out of proportion. It was about the people who picked him to do the video involving politics which was embryonic stem cells. Now,are you trying to say that we shouldn’t dare question people who have disabilities. He didn’t pick on him to make fun of his disabilities. That wasn’t his intent at all. And he made clear of that early on. What was he was unsure of was Michael’s tremor and shaking was much more pronounced in the video. He said either he was acting (he is an actor) or off of his meds. It was neither, Michael said he took too much medication. And before that info came out Rush said he would apologize if neither of his opinion was the case. He did so apologize.

I asked for examples of Rush showing “ill will and malicious things” towards other people. What you have provided weren’t “ill wills” towards other. Neither were they malilcious. Malicious means ” harboring ill will or enmity”. He did no such thing.

Next, he doesn’t hate liberals. He just finds them incredulous at what they say and do. And in his opinions call them idiots. That’s not malicious. Nor is it wishing ill will upon them. It’s called “an opinion.” He doesn’t mind liberals calling on the radio. He let them speak. And have their say. But in the end he makes a point about the cluelessness out there.

Ill will or being malicious is like wishing upon a deaf father in the hope that he trips over his infant son and kills him. *THAT* is ill will.

Brian, WS didn’t provide any point. It was a copy and paste effort, and having never listened, followed nor read the transcript of the show. It’s easy to go out and pluck out a small paragraph and twist it out of context. Unless you’re there to listen to the whole show and how he arrived at what he said, then the whole context of the talk would be made clear.

*MY* point was the maliciousness part. Where are they? Ill wills wished upon on other people? I don’t see any. Making fun of other people is not defined as being “malicious” nor is it “ill will.”

Excuses, McConnell, excuses.

You haven’t even touched upon the his recurrent “liberals suck” themes. And no, the Michael J. Fox thing wasn’t out of porportion. I follow the news just as you do and I was perfectly aware of what was going on way back then. How else would’ve I known to google for the exact quote? He accused Michael J. Fox of playing up his disability to earn brownie points, simple as that.

I won’t even go into the torture thing. I know that it’s hard for you to believe that America, the most bestest perfect country in the world, could be involved in something as shady as torture against wrongly accused people, and no matter what I say will change your mind. So I won’t debate that with you.

Last, but not least, technalities schmalities aside, Rush Limbaugh is not your friendly neighbor on the radio. He has crossed the line many times and will continue to do so. He has done in his private life (hello, drug abuse), while condeming those on the radio who have faced the same problems as he has.

Sorry, McConnell, your little “Rush ain’t so bad” theme won’t wash.

You still haven’t provided an example of him wishing “ill will” upon others. That was my whole point of my argument. He does have opinions. He may belittle others. He may use sarcasm on a daily basis. But to actually wish ill upon other people?

Nope.

The MJF. Not accusing him outright because he gave out two alternatives. One, he’s either acting it out. Two, he’s off of his meds producing the noticeable tremblings. He was wrong on two counts. It was too much meds or in this case he “over-medicated” himself. And he said he would apologize if he was wrong. And he did. Move on. But he did make a point that people did use MJF so people would pity him when the message was about embryonic stem cells. Yet, very few successes were ever reported on Emybronic Stem Cells compared to the reams of successes involving adult/tissue stem cells and umbilical cord blood stem cells as well. It was about people using MJF as way to get pity. So, Rush questioned that. But don’t we DARE question disabled people!!

Anybody who believes America is the perfect country is actually delusional. It may be considered as the best by many, but perfect? Preferable, yeah. But not perfect.

Putting panties on the heads of prisoners counts as torture, I’m sure. That makes nearly all of the fraternities in America guilty of torture, too. I’m sure prisons during Saddam’s era were quite posh, too, for prisoners to enjoy before they meet the meat grinder. You oughta read those true stories in Iraq.

I don’t think asking “purty please” will get prisoners to give up valuable data. Yet Gitmo prisoners receive one of the best treatments around. Proper dietary meals. Koran books. Allowing them to pray and worship daily. Clean clothes. Comfy beds. Televisions. Books. Library. Access to their “lawyers”. Ad nauseum….

Rush is pretty good. Makes lots of good points and observations, and between the lines points he makes.

Hey, this is fun.

Yawn. Same old neocon theology. “they-did-it-first-so-can-do-it-too”. Whatever. If we just do to what they do to us, then they’ll do it back, then we’ll do it back. It’ll never stop. We all learned it in kindergarten - if you hit back, you just make it worse.

No, this isn’t fun for me. It scares me that there are people out there who think this is an appropriate approach to resolving problems. Whoope that it’s a joy ride for you, but there are a lot of people suffering out there. I happen to think of us all as citizens of the earth and as human beings worthy of equal treatment and I don’t condem people to “special” treatment because of what others have done in their name.

You scare me sometimes. Really.

Not sure what you’re getting at. Probably a misconception thing going on here.

There are things that we cannot simply sit back and ignore like nothing ever happened. Pretending that perhaps, just maybe, juuuuust maybe if we ignore it long enough the problem might leave us alone. And we can try be neutral about it. Well, we tried that. I’m talking about before Pearl Harbor. And what did that do to us? We lost a couple of thousand of men in one day on December 7, 1941.

Let’s move 60 years forward. The years leading up to 9/11/01. Nothing was done, basically so, even after several attacks against Americans abroad. The first big clue was in 1993 in NYC. We thought ignoring the problem was the best way. How wrong were we when we tried to ignore all these attacks over 8 years.

Ignoring the problem *won’t* work thinking the enemy will not come after us. They have and they’ll continue to do so. What makes you think they won’t? And they’ll keep finding whatever weakspots there are to get to us again..and again…testing our resolve, our weak areas and so on. What makes you think this will stop?

That’s the scary part. We know they enemy will not stop.

And what’s more scarier is when we have the MSM helping the enemy/terrorist at every turn with valuable information. Had they done that during WWII they would have been carted off, gone trial, get a guilty charge, and then sumarily executed for treason during wartime.

There are two things here on earth, WS. Good, decent human beings, and then we have the dogs who care for nobody and if you don’t do as you’re told or follow the rules, you’re dead meat. But it’s a bit more complex than that. Nobody ever said this sort of thing is ever black and white. Nor is it perfect. Or idealistic.

If the enemy doesn’t concern you, then something is wrong here. And that is exactly what they banking on.

I constantly get neocon trash in my bookstore from customer trade-ins. You know what i’m talking about - the Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter gibberish deceptively marketed as and charitibly called BOOKS, which would more accurately be described as woodburning stove fuel.

I’ll start sending truck loads of this crap to you, mcconnell, because i am starting to worry the smoke and ash from that trash is toxic as well.

cheers,
ken @ bibliomarket

Ok. Send them over. Any freebie books, even the Democrats ones, I’ll be glad to have and read.

Right now I’m reading a book called “When Computers were Humans”
http://www.amazon.com/When-Com.....mp;s=books

Without those “human computers”, we wouldn’t have won WWII.

Are you serious? I am, too. You know where to find my email address. Send those books over.

McConnell, do you ever admit you’re wrong sometimes? I do. I do see you do have a point but WS does too.
“There are things that we cannot simply sit back and ignore like nothing ever happened. Pretending that perhaps, just maybe, juuuuust maybe if we ignore it long enough the problem might leave us alone” I do agree with you on that one! The world tend to focus on the subject for a short while but hoping it will be forgotten, like the destruction of the Rain Forest around the world that is actually causing Global Warming but we turn our backs hoping to forget about it. Pollution, landfills, poachers, war, and so on by focusing something more amusing, entertainment, to get our minds off something that needs to be looked at! I am not saying look and focus on it 24/7 but do something about it.
I do agree sarcastic and ill will is a difference. Sometimes we can never tell if Rush has any ill will because the look on his face when he talks about someone seems like he really dislike the person that it is an ill will toward them. I saw some of his show on TV not radio, I notice he would be sarcastic and etc. which I could tell, then when a subject that he really disagrees with, his face, his manners, and tempers seem to flare up a little. Does he hate anyone? How do we know that? We do not know him personally. But sometimes painting someone as the bad person and slandering them front of millions can hurt someone’s career, with MJ Fox, it could have damaged his career as a person we seem to love to be a manipulator to get our support? Sometimes in english language, we have to be careful on what we say thanks to this bunch of P.I. crap that we have to live with today!

mcconnell - you’ll pay for shipping and handling. shipping is $3, handling limbaugh/coulter toxic waste has a fee of $500 per second.

I accept paypal.

ken @ bibliomarket.

Brian, having an opinion is not about right or wrong. It just is.

The whole point was “Show me where Rush specifically expressed ill will, enmity or malice towards another person”.

That was my question.

And my contention was that Rush is not the type to do that which is why I asked, show me where he did such a thing. Making fun or being sarcastic IS NOT expressing ill will.

That is not too hard to ask, Brian. And yet we went horribly off-topic.

Rolling of the eyes, sarcasm and such are not by definition expressing “ill will” towards another person. It’s all part of the package of how Rush expresses his opinion. There is a difference here between “ill will” and “sarcasm”. You just said so yourself. And that is what Rush do many times on his radio show. His tv show is old! That was 15 years ago when it started.

Rush has always been the outspoken conservative politico person. He has a certain style when it comes to the delivery of politics. It is not like he’s Randi Rhodes on the (now defunct) Air America show where she imitated a shotgun blast over the airwave imitating the Godfather scene at the lake but the person in the boat would be Bush on the other end. and laugh about it, including Al Franken. That’s ill will. That’s a desire hoping somebody will do it. There is a difference here on that matter, Brian. I’m being intellectually honest here and not skirting the question.

About MJF. Sure, there was a potential slander issue. It wasn’t the intent to slander, even maliciously so. He even apologized if his theory wasn’t the case, and did so apologize later on.

biblio…or so, no free books because they’re trash to you? I’ll take ‘em for free if you want them off of your hands. I mean free everything if you believe it’s that bad for you that you are willing to pay for shipping and handling fees. Don’t you have a sign that says, “Free Books” so people can get them off of your hands?

of course i give away books all the time. [see the paperbackswap logo on my blog for more info] At paperbackswap, though, you got to be willing to give something to get something. add 9 of your own unwanted books to start, and they will give you some free points to ‘buy’ books with. from there, you can request all the neocon stove fuel you can possibly stand.

ken @ bibliomarket

ok McConnell, right or wrong, you always seem to have this desire to have the last word. Plus you seem to have the tendency to talk down to fellow bloggers making them feel they are wrong! That’s why I said right or wrong.