“Nice try, PZ, with those last two paragraphs”


Comedy interlude.

A comment on my piece titled What should we do? at the Freethinker:

  1. Blueshift Rhino says:

    Nice try, PZ, with those last two paragraphs, but you simply can’t have it both ways.

    You cannot continue to use the derisive label of “Dear Muslima” when someone argues that there are more important issues than the horror of being invited for coffee in an elevator or – even – the outrage of people disagreeing with you on the internet. Either it’s as black-and-white – we at FTB know which issues matter and which don’t, and everyone else needs to shut and listen to us – as you have been claiming for years, or it really is nuanced as Dawkins was saying and everyone who hasn’t drunk your Koolaid has been trying to explain to you since then.

    Why you are incapable of saying that you’ve made a mistake (in the past) and/or simplified matters too much is beyond me. Just take back your response to Dear Muslima and embrace what you, yourself, wrote in the first three-quarters of this column: some problems are worse than others and everyone is entitled to his or her opinion on the rank-ordering. Oh, and while you’re at it, head over to Michael Nugent’s biog and apologize for your indefensible public smears against him,l so that maybe we all can move onwards.

Maybe you’re thinking PZ wrote a long comment on my piece, one with more than two paragraphs, and that Blueshift Rhino is responding to that? Hahaha no, PZ didn’t comment on my piece. I have no idea why Blueshift Rhino calls me PZ, unless it’s because his simmering rage makes it hard for him to read names.

Update:

The confusion is compounded. Blueshift Rhino comments again:

As O.B. knows, my previous comment was retracted and a request that it be deleted was clicked before anyone other than O.B. saw it. The dishonesty of not mentioning this is unsurprising. The inability to understand that a quick retraction is the correct thing to do when a mistake is made is also unsurprising.

With that said, my main point still stands. Using “Dear Muslima” as a slur is not only simplistic or ignorant, but often hypocritical.

Oy. One, I hadn’t said anything about the PZ comment there, so what “dishonesty”?

Two, no I don’t know – how would I know?? How on earth would I know his previous comment was retracted and a request that it be deleted was clicked before anyone other than me saw it? What am I, magic?

Oh good grief, does he think The Freethinker belongs to me? Does he think I’m the editor and webmaster? Does he think it’s this extra blog I have?

Lordy. The Freeth is the oldest surviving freethought publication in the world. It was founded by G W Foote in 1881. The editor is Barry Duke. I write a monthly column for it.

Comments

  1. says

    Weird. Blueshift Rhino is banned at my place (he’s a slymepitter), I didn’t write what he’s complaining about, but even at that, Ophelia’s last two paragraphs directly contradict what he says: she’s saying that I don’t get to dictate what is most important to someone, neither does Ophelia, neither does Richard Dawkins, neither does Blueshift Rhino.

    But then, another reason he got banned at Pharyngula is that he’s a stupid little shitbird.

  2. says

    I always enjoy the ham-fisted way deniers and fringes – creationists, fringe and pseudoscience types, and MRAs – try to appropriate phrases they’ve seen and use them. In this case it was “nuanced” to describe Dawkins’ stylings on social justice, etc. mod course the problem, or one of them at least, that Dawkins has had is lack of nuance. But folks like BR see the word being used, effectively, so they try to use it too. Turns out it doesn’t work when one obviously doesn’t understand that words should have some connection to an underlying reality to be effective.

  3. yazikus says

    Whatever, PZ, everyone knows that you write all of the blogs here at FTB. Obviously, I can’t explain how you manage to alter your appearance, or be in two places at once, or in more than one body at one place at a time, but who cares! /snark

    What I find weird is it isn’t even like BR commented here assuming PZ is reading all the comments on all the blogs, they commented over there, where you had linked from here, clearly stating it was what you wrote. How would a person mistake that for PZ?

  4. says

    Just more evidence that these people obsess over Professor Myers day and night to the point where they see him in every shadow and just around every corner. Like the slimepit boogieman or something. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Blueshift Rhino addressing replies to “PZ” at every site they visit.

  5. John Morales says

    I’m certainly amused.

    In passing, I noticed Blueshift Rhino attempted to post a comment to this thread, despite knowing he’s banned.

    (Heh)

  6. Janine the Jackbooted Emotion Queen says

    Ophelia, don’t you want to find out why even though it was an article that was clearly written using your byline, he knew that it was PZ and was trying to get you to apologize to Micheal Nugent?

    Oh, wait, I don’t want to know.

  7. Hj Hornbeck says

    I’ve always found this weird. Some people can’t understand why feminists exist to such a degree that they think we’re all the same person. How else to explain all these feminists running around? Can’t be because they have solid arguments, so, uh… they’re shills! Sock-puppets! TOTALITARIAN STATE CONSPIRACY!!1!

  8. Hj Hornbeck says

    Ok whoa hang on here. Blueshift Rhino is banned at PZ Myers’ blog. He sees a post by Benson, thinking it’s by Myers… and they comment on it? Even argumentative lil’ol me has the sense to respect other people’s bans, no matter how much I disagree with them or want to argue back.

    Blueshift Rhino just outed themselves as an entitled asshole. Well, they may have done that before, but in that case they’ve just outed themselves again to a different crowd, which is arguably worse.

  9. says

    I realized that we first met years ago, albeit briefly: July 27, 2010, a horde meetup with PZ at a brewery in Seattle. I even have pictures, which I recently found! Proof that you and PZ are not the same person, Ophelia 🙂

    I’m going to go retweet the “we are all emanations of The One Giant Feminist” now…

  10. screechymonkey says

    The Freeth is the oldest surviving freethought publication in the world. It was founded by G W Foote in 1881.

    Inconceivable! Atheism was invented by Richard Dawkins over six days in 2001. There are conflicting accounts as to whether He created YouTubers on the second or third day, but all agree that on the seventh day, He rested and enjoyed a nice jar of honey. And it is beyond dispute that PZ and all FtB’ers were cast out of Atheist Paradise after Rebecca Watson turned herself into a snake and whispered in PZ Myers’ ear that he should eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Feminism and Social Justice.

  11. says

    Oh you were there! That was a fun meetup. I think I have one or two pictures too, on the old B&W.

    Speaking of which, let me know when you come to Seattle in future if you have any spare time.

  12. Al Dente says

    Blueshift Rhino posted at The Freeth:

    As O.B. knows, my previous comment was retracted and a request that it be deleted was clicked before anyone other than O.B. saw it.

    Unfortunately for BS Rhino, the comment was not deleted.

  13. says

    I know, I added it in an update. It’s a ridiculous comment which assumes that I saw his comment before it appeared and could have deleted it. He must think The Freethinker is my site. It’s not.

  14. yazikus says

    Instead, do this: blog about this silly error of mine on click-hungry FTB …..(blah, blah, blah)….Yeah, I know, this might not score any points with true free thinkers, including the owners of this site, but it sure will please The Horde … what few of them are still left.

    Ah yes, the phenomenon of the click hungry FTB, which almost no one reads, anyways. Makes total sense. As much sense as the The One Giant Feminist.

  15. screechymonkey says

    What’s with this “please delete my comment” stuff anyway? I thought the slymepitters were big on the whole theory that “deleting anything is just like the memory hole in 1984, so we must obsessively copy and storify every tweet of our enemies in order to catch them at it!”

  16. says

    OB@22:
    it’s almost as if you were a writer with columns published in many places where you don’t control every comment like it’s your blog! Who could have known.

    (I’ll definitely be in touch the next time I’m in Seattle, we need to coordinate about how to get Josh to move out here)

  17. Donnie says

    Ironically, Blue Rhino is not banned at Michael, “the Timothy (minus the pedophile) Dolan of Ireland’s website of grand standing verbosity.

  18. Hj Hornbeck says

    screechymonkey @24:

    What’s with this “please delete my comment” stuff anyway? I thought the slymepitters were big on the whole theory that “deleting anything is just like the memory hole in 1984, so we must obsessively copy and storify every tweet of our enemies in order to catch them at it!”

    Permanence used to be a big selling point at Abbie Smith’s blog; nobody’s comment would be edited or deleted, and thus everyone would be held accountable for their words. It became a justification for preserving the words of other people, because they were applying the same standard across the board. But with the move to a dedicated forum, the ‘Pit has slowly stopped caring about holding themselves to that standard and will happily ask for their own stuff to be edited, while shaming other people who edit or delete.

    While the change has ratcheted up their cognitive dissonance a little, it has the advantage of allowing them to memory-hole or at least forget about their embarrassing gaffs.

  19. Holms says

    There is an easy test for whether OB and PZ are the same person. It is a well known fact! that PZ smells of ‘chloroform and science,’ therefore, simply sniff!

  20. Daniel Schealler says

    There is an easy test for whether OB and PZ are the same person. It is a well known fact! that PZ smells of ‘chloroform and science,’ therefore, simply sniff!

    To be more accurate, he smells of chloroform, science, the souls of murdered zebrafish embryos, and for some reason a faint hint of cloves.

  21. Al Dente says

    Are pictures in which the two of us are detectable considered dispositive?

    In this day of photoshopping? Not hardly.

  22. says

    I would now like to mention something I didn’t know that some jerk said about something else he said which I also didn’t know, on the off chance that this has happened. because he might be making a scene of himself and then blame me. Or some other random individual.

    Thanks,
    The Management

  23. Athywren; Kitty Wrangler says

    What? That comment doesn’t even parse properly.

    You cannot continue to use the derisive label of “Dear Muslima” when someone argues that there are more important issues than the horror of being invited for coffee in an elevator or – even – the outrage of people disagreeing with you on the internet.

    While…? If…? And then…?
    Are we just saying that “Dear Muslima” can’t be used derisively? Then why mention the inability to have it both ways?

    And since when was “this is a trivial issue” a nuanced position? Personally, I think that pointing out that atheists are capable of being decent, thoughtful, moral people, and talking about implicit anti-atheist biases is kind of trivial when compared to the fact that apostates are actually murdered in some parts of the world, but I’m not going to tell people to shut up about them. In fact I’m still going to fight against those biases and do what I can to make people see that we’re capable of being decent, thoughtful, moral people myself, because, for one thing, it’s possible for me to do something about those things… I have no idea where I’d even start with putting an end to murder over apostasy. If that’s black-and-white thinking then… well… I’m a penguin.

  24. Athywren; Kitty Wrangler says

    it sure will please The Horde … what few of them are still left.

    Oh yes, what a dwindling force inhabits this place! I keep forgetting what a ghost town this whole site is… all that pesky contrary evidence stuff keeps getting in the way of the truth that there is almost nobody here in this thing that is most definitely an echo chamber.

    @screechymonkey, 24

    What’s with this “please delete my comment” stuff anyway? I thought the slymepitters were big on the whole theory that “deleting anything is just like the memory hole in 1984, so we must obsessively copy and storify every tweet of our enemies in order to catch them at it!”

    Oh, ugh, do I share that with them? Well, half share – I actually hold to it. Except for the copying and storifying every tweet of my enemies thing… I don’t think I have any enemies in order to obsessively copy their tweets.
    I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising, though. Editing or removing your own comments for purposes other than spelling correction, clarification or updating when further information comes in is kind of questionable at best or blatantly dishonest at worst. So I can understand them holding non-deletion/editing up as an ideal but, obviously, what with their being utterly full of shit, they can’t really hold to it themselves.

  25. John Horstman says

    Regarding the update, the original comment is still there, it hasn’t been edited (I’m unsure if that’s possible using their comment system), and there are no comments by Blueshift Rhino in between the original and the claim that a retraction was requested. (Ze apparently doesn’t know how retractions of published information generally work – they’re issued in the same publication forum as the original statement in order to inform the people who would likely have seen the original: print newspapers and magazines publish retractions in the next issue, and if you wish to disavow a comment you made, do it in another comment right there.)

    I’m going with the working hypothesis that this is the Worst. Gaslighting. Attempt. Ever.

  26. John Horstman says

    Also, that first comment is incoherent argle bargle. Like Athywren, I have no clue WTF that bit ze quotes in comment #37 is supposed to mean.

  27. chigau (違う) says

    Are you sure?
    Maybe Blueshift Rhino hates PZ.
    and can’t keep track of …..
    never mind

  28. Athywren; Kitty Wrangler says

    Oh! I see the problem. Blueshift Rhino isn’t his name – it’s just Rhino, but he’s blueshifted. Now, as we all know, this means that he looks bluer to us than he actually is, but it also means that we look bluer to him than we really are. Clearly, PZ’s normal colour spectrum is simply bluer than Ophelia’s but, with the blue shift, her spectrum looks more like PZ’s than PZ’s does. It’s actually pretty obvious when you think about it scientifically.

  29. Crimson Clupeidae says

    Athywren@38:

    [W]hat a dwindling force inhabits this place! I keep forgetting what a ghost town this whole site is… all that pesky contrary evidence stuff keeps getting in the way of the truth that there is almost nobody here in this thing that is most definitely an echo chamber.

    It’s me. Keeping up with all those sockpuppet accounts gets very tiring, but I do it for the greater good of the horde, which is me.

    Actually I wrote your posts, too.

    I’m sooooo tired.

    I am Legion!

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