SCIENCE ODDITIES

These weird creatures have much in common with this weird guy: they're bottom-feeders; they're spineless; and they suck. It's the spineless suckiness of the latter I'm going to focus on.

Tim Lambert (Deltoid at Scienceblogs.com) recently leapt to the defence of accused sock-puppeteering lefty Glenn Greenwald. In defending Greenwald Lambert redefines sock-puppetry:

Posting under more than one pseudonym is not the same as sock puppetry. And I don't think it is a crime if your partner posts a comment on your blog.

This is really interesting because Lambert recently accused me of sock-puppetry for commenting using a pseudonym - the only reason I used a pseudonym was to bypass his moderation; I was not supporting my own argument (see links in excerpt immediately below). Lambert was also unhappy that my adult daughter lodged a comment in the same thread but from a different computer at a different address.

Since this is relevant to Lambert's Greenwald defence, I lodged the following comment at 6:54 PM (AWST) yesterday:

Mr Lambert,

You've gotten yourself all confused. When I commented using a pseudonym you specifically said I was engaged in sock-puppetry. The comments were made using a pseudonym to ensure they actually got posted – comments under my real name are known to disappear in moderation. (Interestingly, my pseudonymous comments prompted you to correct an error in one of your earlier posts.)

You also told a whopping great lie - see first link above - in accusing me of habitually abusing other commenters. You know no shame.

When I noticed over four hours later that Lambert was active at his blog but had still not posted my comment, I sent him the following email:

So, how are you going to justify my comment getting sucked into your moderation black hole yet again? Abuse? Sock-puppetry?

Come on mister science guy post my comment and then hammer me with the truth. Ha!

My comment has now been in "moderation" for 22 hours. The email remains unanswered. If Lambert had a spine he'd put up my comment and make his case. Instead, yet another of my comments has been sucked permanently into his moderation black hole. Pathetic.