Banned ! (The day the music died?)

(..The marching band that refused to yield.. )


[Click on images below for bigger ones.]

[I'm posting this to refute the charge on Rationalskeptics that I was "a disruptive influence incapable of reasoned and rational debate".  If you read my collection of "offensive behaviours" see if you find them justified given the context.  You might even wonder (as I do) if the targets to whom they are directed might not enjoy a degree of moderator protection.]




CERTIFICATE OF BANISHMENT
P418 Post #8350

..authenticating my credentials. (You can make that red-card image bigger by the way if you just click on it but here's the link down the bottom (save you typing it.)

Judgement
handed down

by Kiore
For what?  "..An intention to be not here to engage in reasoned and rational debate".
Why banned ?   Because hanging around will only prolong the disruptive posting(s)


Kiore  is a moderator on Rationalskepticism.org.  If you click the link at the bottom of the red card it will take you to an admirable project to use the latent power of computers connected to the web as a supercomputer to aid scientific research - a very laudable enterprise indeed - with which Kiore is closely associated, if not steering.  If he/she is steering, then that's not bad (for a mouse) (a hundred and one years old) (from South Sudan), eh?

Not that we're being ...  or animalist, .. or ageist, .. or nationalist you understand, .. just drawing attention to the anonymity that scientists prefer when they're indulging themselves in the company of news-and-views and people they would otherwise prefer not to be seen with - like Earth expansion for example. And/or the cabal who would like to sink it.  In such situations it does seem advisable not to let your real identity show.  You just never know who might be looking, .. or when you might be called upon to change hats, .. reverse your position, .. and it wouldn't do to be seen sporting a skunks bum. Might be ok when out hunting, .. but not when the scientific fashion (and needs for justifying grants submissions) requires something a bit more sophisticated.

So why banned?  Because, says Moderator Kiore,  I'm not there to "engage in reasoned and rational debate".

Now, .. I would dispute that entirely, as I think my postings in response to any 'reasoned and rational' points raised show.  In fact I might be credited with making a few (but that's easy for anybody to check). It's just that there's so little that would qualify as reasoned and rational to respond to.  When so much of the so-called 'reason and rationality' is pejorative and puerile comment, exchanges are rarely constructive.  But I do (/did) my best.

(Disruptive /stirring 'em up)   Mm-Mmm?  Now, .. I would agree with that wholeheartedly!, and would say that if anything,  congratulations would have been in order, .. *anything* (!) to disturb the so-called 'rationalism' that supports the turgidity that Plate Tectonics wallows in would have been welcome surely, but no, .. rather it seems to mean that anything that detracts from that stagnation is considered 'disruptive'. Quirky world.  I had already received my fourth red card by the time this blue note (below) showed up, which marks the beginning of 'the troubles'.  I didn't experience it.   I wasn't there.  I was already banned. But neverthless I got blamed for it.  My fourth warning (/month's suspension) was withdrawn and converted to a ban.

This was the start of  "The Troubles".

P418, post #8342



(A bit further down the same page is my banned notice, shown here at the top of the page.)

"Highly emotive today," says blue note.  So  what was happening?  Well, .. what was happening was that Spearthrower was feigning a tissy-fit over me having called him a nig-nog on my blog (note: not on the forum).  A what?  Yup. He'd read my blog you see, where I was commenting on the Kangaroo Court that had just awarded me my fourth red card (below) banning me for a month for "abusing" Gingko, and I had said he (Spearthrower.) was a bit of a dill.   I think it possible he was the one drawing my "insult-to Gingko" to the attention of moderators, since he said I had been reported so quickly after the fact (how would he know otherwise?)  He's forever creating diversions and lighting fires. Seems it's the only way he can contribute to discussion - "throwing spears around". Read any of his posts.   And note that it *was* on my blog and not on the forum.)  I called him a nig-nog specifically because of his propensity to use ridicule ("pointing and laughing") and it being the apparent limit of his repertoire in debate.  Not ridicule on account of illogic that can be discussed but simply just making faces and jeering (metaphorically speaking).  Others' responses typically add swearing to their accoutrements.  Gets a bit jading - hence the 'nig-nog'.  But apparently swearing and jeering is ok under the rules of the forum, and goes under the aegis of 'robust debate'.  It seems to be a case of the management having these attack dogs on the front line to do the savaging - the "willing idiots".  I wouldn't be surprised if half the time they don't understand their role in this 'Rationalskepticism'.)  Or maybe they just feel a natural predisposition to fulfil a role that is happily symbiotic..

So there he is, .. feigning umbrage and creating a stir and distorting the word - claiming copyright on it because he lives in England.  (Crikey, it might even be Scotland ! except no true Scot would do such a thing).  Well if that's the case he should know nig-nog has got nothing to do with Deep-Tan, and goodness only knows where the eggnog connection comes from.. Anyway, .. I had to post an explanation on the origin of the term as best I understand it, though some modern meanings appear to have arisen on the urban dictionary as people bandy it around.  Saves them inventing new ones and why bother when there are plenty already (clown, nig-nog, dill, dope, idiot..etc etc), and why get picky over which one applies to you, unless you want to wear it like a badge (for some reason - like, .. to show people "what-he-just-did").


So there we are.  I called him a nig-nog on my blog.

And he feigned a tissy fit on the forum, dragging in others.

And so my month's suspension for insulting Ginko was withdrawn and I was banned instead (for "being disruptive and having no intention to engage in reasoned and rational debate."

Here's my fourth red card, a bit further down the same page as that blue note above banning me for a month (for "insulting" Gingko). The othersr follow in reverse order, so you can see how I got my black belt in 'insulting behaviour'.

 FOURTH ACTIVE WARNING (P416 post#8320)
 The offence cited goes to Post #8259 on P413.

(In which Gingko escapes with a caution) (the blue note just above the red one) Why shouldn't there be a first time penalty for truly abusive invective.  One might ask, but Moderator View appears to be, "It's not what's said that matters, if you want to be offended by it that's your business."  Exactly this point is the substance of the first and fourth warnings - and those in between as well.


 THIRD ACTIVE WARNING (P391, post #7802)
The offence cited goes to post #7760 on  P388.

(Paul changed his avatar since the mention.  Here's Paul, suffering from homeopathy)

SECOND ACTIVE WARNING, (P379, post #7566)
Offences cited are  1.  post #7425 on P372, and 2. post #7419 on P371

(Note that the enquiry regarding infection was a reference to a virus alert on the frontpage of the forum at the time, in conjunction with the gobbledegook posting to which it referred.) ("Please be aware this is a witless zone.  Any posts that can in anyway be construed as a joke will be deemed offensive due to the cognitive incapacity of the resident cabal to understand this form of communication.")

FIRST ACTIVE WARNING,  (P367, post #7324)
(The link refers to a couple of posts just higher up the same page, ..post #7321 )

So you can see how I went from bad to worse, and how the forum was seriously endangered by my "insults", culminating in my fourth red card being "awarded", then summarily withdrawn in my absence and replaced with a ban : I was being abusive, they were engaging in reasoned and rational debate.  Though I repudiate entirely calling any of them "scum" and "vermin".  That again was Shakespeare wrestling with his flea-infested straw, and using poetic licence to represent my reference to a 'kangaroo court' as vermin, a term I do believe has respectable currency and which refers exactly to this situation, .. and that is not _ of _ my _ making.  (Though I carried the can.)


Well, it was an experience in the world of reasoned and rational debate.  The best bit I thought was where they all jumped out and detonated themselves, when I said I had just learned that the Earth was oblate ( post #7541 and following few responses).  That was really quite funny.  What was not funny however was what it revealed - an astonishing inability to see through a leg-pull given that most of their 'degredation-posts' are themselves mostly leg-pulls (to the best of my reading), not really meant to apply personally.  One misguided jihadist I could understand, .. but several, .. and all pushing each other out of the way to detonate first.  (Holey Moley!!).  It was virtually an exact copy of the nig-nog furore - except I think the nig-nog response was so surely feigned, the oblate Earth one most certainly was not.  All of a sudden I understand the Koran jihadists's response to cartoons - and why I was banned..   Is Salman Rushdie still in hiding?  Are women in the west treated any better than in Pakistan?  (Going by some women's experiences this side of the dark, it's debateable.)

Judgement :-

(Kangaroo) :- "No madam, simply because he punched the wall, kicked the cat, .. broke all the plates and stuck a knife through the bread fixing it to the table whilst informing the neighbours at large of his great good fortune in having married you, does not mean he was being abusive towards you in any way. He was merely expressing a robust domestic view, just as you were exemplifying domestic bliss by sipping your wine and reading your book whilst he did so. To this court's way of thinking both of you are the epitome of domestic harmony.  I am of the opinion that you are being abusive of your spouse by expecting to lodge a complaint.  I therefore issue you with a blue card and suggest you return home and put the dinner on so you do not, if you so object, have to witness a repeat of what we can only regard (as indeed your husband declared to the neighbours), as a somewhat excited affirmation of your virtuous qualities.  But in no way threatening to your person as you suggest.  No true Scotsman would ever contemplate abuse.."

"Award" :-   (I must say, I was really struck by the "being awarded" my fourth red card.)

"Now, .. Do the right thing and stand still please, while I award you this bullet as a reward for your contribution to making this forum a better place by your absence."

The really strange thing (about the oblate Earth) was the way it went right over their heads.  If a leg-pull like that is too subtle, what chance for them seeing the flaws in Plate Tectonics?  Would they have the wit to question it?  Or see the questions if put to them?   And if, as I think, most of the 'abusive banter' is not really meant to be abusive, but simply obstructive and disruptive (to which I was to an extent mirrorring), then all things considered it seems highly possible that *THAT* was the charge of being disruptive - not just for joshing them out of their literalist comfort zone, but in being too close to the bone in mirroring their reflection back to them.  (Or was what was revealed in the mirror for real?)  (Oh, Gee..) (Australia's future, .. hairdressers and make-up artists, late-stirrers and sunny-sellers.)

Some swamp that rational place.

(Think I'll go down the sea-side for a paddle and contemplate where all that sand and water came from, and why the Earth isn't just a big beach.)


[ See also - Debunking Plate Tectonics - at :-
http://www.platetectonicsbiglie.blogspot.com/ ]