Its like your hand slipping off you c0ck and accidentally slapping the guy next to you in the circle jerk..

insider trading

KRONGARD: I can tell you very frankly, I am not aware of any financial interest or position he has with respect to Blackwater. It couldn’t possibly have affected anything I’ve done, because I don’t believe it. And when these ugly rumors started recently, I specifically asked him.
…
WAXMAN: I see. You indicated you had called your brother to ask him earlier whether he was on the board. He told you he wasn’t.

KRONGARD: Well that was about six weeks ago, and I was not aware — and this board meeting happened yesterday, and I found out just during the break that he had in fact attended yesterday.

Comment by slappy magoo — November 14, 2007 @ 2:58 pm

A+

yesterday i presented “hits” with the elements of a good thesis and challenged him to respond by using those elements to support one of his rw arguments. he/she couldn’t do it. but your thesis on trolls in general and “hits” in particular did. congratulations! that’s the way you blow a troll like “hits” out of the water. again, well done. i don’t want to go ot on this thread but i hope “wilco” read your thesis. i’d like to read his opinion of it.

…even though I didn’t attack HIM personally. After all, I only said people with opinions LIKE his tend to be crying li’l momma’s boys. If it doesn’t apply to him, then there’s no reason to be offended. Unless of course, it DOES apply to him…

In any event, when it comes to doo schnozzley flow chart trolls, the last thing you should do is take them seriously. And in their minds, “taking them seriously” also means ignoring them, because it just means they’re THAT smart, that you fear them. Acknowledge their presence, but with the same disdain Henry Fonda used to acknowledge Lee J. Cobb at the end of 12 Angry Men, keep spinning your wheels silly man, let us know when you come to your senses.

Comment by impeachcheneythenbush — November 14, 2007 @ 2:59 pm

I didn’t say one thing about opposing opinion nor did I say anything about conservatives. I am speaking directly about the trolls. Nothing more. Don’t put words in my mouth or on the screen in this case.

In fact, if you go up a couple of threads, the guest blogger even mentions friggin’ trolls.

It would be easy for TP to fix this problem, especially now that they have registration.

Also, it is quite easy to figure out which ones are trolls and which are real conservatives.

Here is how. All of the real conservatives have moved on and realized how wrong they were about Bush. Most have changed their voter registration and are now on our side.

Trolls are trolls and always will be.

Fox meet henhouse.

Why do they still allow trolls to ruin every single thread they write?

Comment by Spudge Boy — November 14, 2007 @ 1:54 pm

I’d simply like to point out that NO troll could ruin every thread if other posters didn’t respond to them. If you don’t want trolls, don’t feed them! They are not here to have an honest debate, but to disrupt debate. I don’t have a problem with someone who honestly disagrees with TP and rationally demonstrates WHY. We can all afford to learn to think outside our “box,” because if we don’t, these very serious problems facing our nation will never be resolved. Nothing is ever black or white; that is Manicheian thinking and has been the bane of this administration, doubling back to bite the American people and all peoples of the world.

Some trolls just throw out stupid comments in the hopes of provoking the ire of everyone else.

Some genuinely believe the horse hockey they write about and will defend it to the death…OK, they’d pee their pants before it got to the point where their lives were truly threatened. But they will defend their inanities until they’re banned.

There are concern trolls, who pretend to give you advice on how the other side (YOUR side) can win the argument or battle, because, of course, YOUR side is just too stupid to win on its own (and it’s fun to misdirect and try to get people to do things “for their own good” which is really to their detriment, just ask any Young Republican who tells one of the special needs kids in school that the head cheerleader is crushing on him and he should sing a song to her, HIGH-larity!)

Then there are flow chart trolls like hits, who make an inane comment, and continue to make comments based on the replies. In fact, they practically demand you reply.

If you respond to hits with anger and personal attacks, he’ll accuse you of knowing he’s right and since you have nothing to counter with, you attacked him personally, therefore, he wins.

If you try to respond patiently, with facts & logic, he attacks you personally, making bizarre claims that your argument makes no sense (wihtout telling you WHY it makes no sense, since it really does), attacking the wording you opted to use to make your point. Therefore, he wins

And once you’re able to strip away every facet of his argument, proving him to be full of oh so much crap, he ignores you. After all, at this point, he has a dozen or so people writing specifically to him, he doesn’t have time to casually dismiss EVERYBODY’S opinion anymore, and since YOU’RE so stupid, you’re the first to be ignored. Double whammy! He wins.

If you make an A-type comment, he has a B-type retort. if C then D, if X then Y, and Z means you’re too stupid to be tolerated anymore.

And if everyone opts to ignore him in the first place, he claims nobody wants to challenge him because he’s right. Therefore, he wins.

Aaaaaand then he goes in the corner to masturbate, or choke small animalsm or whatever it is ‘loids like him do when they are “victorious” in their attempt to derail internet threads.

At the risk of sounding like a “concern troll” myself, I’ve found the best way with dealing with flow chart trolls is to acknowledge them indirectly without challening them directly (Heh, I’m like the Jane Goodall of internet trolls). Make an on-comment topic then an off-handed remark about the troll. Allow me to provide an example…

“There really needs to be an investigation into Krongard’s phone records, let’s see who he actually called during the break into the proceedings. After all, it IS a matter of national security, and since the telcos are going to get retroactive immunity anyway, might as well get at least one small victory out of it by stripping this lying doo schnozzle of any vestige of respectability.

Oh, and hits’ comments are too dopey for words.”

At a future point, hits may opt to challenge me directly, after all, if A then B, I’ve insulted him, and he’ll choose to insinuate that he is the victor because I’ve refused to argue him on the merits of his comment.

The desire would be to retort with “What merits” and a break down of every dopey word he wrote followed my insighful commentary on wht it’s so dopey. Which is what he wants. So duck left, feint right.

“Any self-respecting reporter would approach friends and family of Krongard with some questions. I’d bet a shiny nickel at least one person will say ‘Of course, he know, they’re BROTHERS.’

People with opinions like hits tend to have their mom clean their diaper. Not that people with opinions like hits can’t use the toilet like a big boy. They just like the smell of hand lotion and fresh cotton.”

At this point, hits would attack me directly, even though I didn’t really attack him directly. After all, I started with “people with opinions like hits TEND to…” It’s not MY fault if hits can’t read and assumes I’m talking about him. Likewise, it’s not MY fault if what I wrote correctly describes hits, and his feelings are hurt like some kind of little turd baby…

My point is, there’s no need to directly attack flow chart trolls like hits, in fact, it’s better if you don’t. But there are ways to get them to crack and minimize their impact on the board. Don’t take them seriously (but ignoring them means you are taking them seriously, in their minds, it just means you consider them THAT MUCH of a threat). Just make sure you know you think they’re dopey. Despite my doctoral thesis just written, it’s pretty simple.

And fun.
hits would, at this point, attack me personally

Comment by had enough — November 14, 2007 @ 2:37 pm

Nah, that’s just the sulfenic acids reacting to the air. I hear if you cut it near an open flame it won’t irritate your eyes so much.

Comment by Wilco — November 14, 2007 @ 2:25 pm

for the record, i never complained about them. i have “egged” them on but for good reasons. trolls, i have noticed, are often better at supporting progressive thought and opinion then progressives themselves are. look at “hits”. point out one, just one, comment that he/she posted that didn’t make him/her look like a mental masturbating midget. and that’s just “hits”. compare him to some of the other trolls like “southern man” and “proud american” and he’s willaim f. buckley. and when they post their comments middle americans who read them here (especially here) recoil in disgust and almost reflexively open their minds to the new and better ideas that progressives have to offer. if i were george soros or mark cuban i’d pay “hits” to come on here everyday and post his crap as often as he/she could. he does a great job for progressives and for liberalism and i thank him for it.

thank you tp for allowing me to post this opinion. if anyone here disagrees i promise to read their comments thoughtfully and carefully and reconsider my position if you can persuade me with a better argument.