Every morning when I get up and get on the computer, the first thing I do is delete the pile of spam from Dennis Markuze, each of which is usually cross-posted to 50 to 100 other people. Every time I fire up Twitter, the first thing I do is clear the garbage Dennis Markuze has left there; yesterday I blocked and reported spam from over 25 Markuze accounts, amounting to several hundred messages.
You know what? This is wrong. I shouldn’t have to do this. Over the years — I’ve been getting these threats from Markuze since 1993 — it’s gradually grown from an occasional deranged message on usenet to part of my daily routine, where I’m dealing with hundreds of ranty messages every day from one disturbed individual in Montreal, Canada. And I’m not even his sole target: he has a hate-on for Shermer, Randi, and Dawkins, and this is all he does with his life: he sits in his bedroom in his parent’s house and sends out shrill, incoherent messages to the world, all day long.
I have reported him to the police. I have seen these complaints climb the ladder from the local department, to the FBI, to the RCMP, to the Montreal City Police, where they promptly fizzle out. The police don’t care. The word I’ve gotten back is that they aren’t going to do a thing until he snaps and starts killing people. A little late, don’t you think?
As a target for over almost twenty years, I’ve been watching this guy escalate — his hate messages have gotten crazier, more vicious, and more frequent. He’s a psychological cripple who wastes his life in this “project” to howl stupidly at the world; he’s on a clear trajectory of more and more demands for people to recognize him, and he’s not going to ever get any respect from anyone.
I am not a psychologist, but anyone who writes those disconnected rambling death threats, and does nothing else all day long, is mentally disturbed. Something is wrong in his head. I’m not the only one to notice.
The only people who don’t seem to notice are the Montreal city police.
If you’re on Twitter, one thing you can do is, when you receive one of his spam messages, retweet it, but delete all the names on it (because I don’t need more!) and add one: @SPVM. Give the Montreal police a sample of the noise coming out of their city that we’re drowning in.
There is now a petition demanding that the Montreal city police take his threats seriously. Sign it, please. I want at least ten thousand names from around the world on it.
I don’t have any confidence at all in them: they’ve had this deranged man making death threats on their watch for over a decade, and have done nothing. I don’t think the petition will do a thing.
What I want is a public record of the criminal neglect of that police department, so that when Markuze does have his little psychotic break and harms someone, probably some innocent, they won’t be able to deny that they were warned, that there was a world-wide outcry, that hordes of people thousands of miles away could see all this coming, and the incompetents in Montreal sat on their hands and did nothing.
(Also on Sb)
Advice from a psych professional I consulted last year about DM: any time an official (police, government, whatever) puts off your concerns about him, ask for their name and contact information for the record, and so that they might be added to the lawsuit if he does snap.
This professional made a strong distinction, in terms of diagnosis and potential involuntary institutionalization, between ranting and raving on one hand, and death threats on the other. He needs help.
PZ,
Have you looked into the possibility of taking out an injunction against Markuze, so that if the continues to harass you the police will be forced to take action ?
What about the RCMP? It would seem that they might have jurisdiction in this matter if the Montreal City Police refuse to take any action.
He doesn’t just harass famous bloggers. He was on my blog for a good three-four month period, shouting his threats of violence and murder at me. DM is SCARY, and crazy.
Signed.
It’s sad that the best we can do is try to make the police look like assholes.
Or the Sûreté du Québec?
He comes to atheist conventions. It’s a cheap plane flight from any major city in Canada to Houston. Maybe it would be a good idea to inform the Houston authorities, as well as US immigration, about Markuze before the freethought conference in October.
The mounties might not take this guy seriously but maybe these people will.
http://www.dhs.gov/files/reportincidents/counterterrorism.shtm
If you (and others) have the goods then the DHS could block him from entering the U.S.
They’re making themselves look like assholes; we’re just documenting it.
I run a forum which I prefer not to mention but within his domain of interest. Posting to the forum requires a captcha, an email address, registration and then activation which usually happens within 7-14 days depending how lazy I am.
He tried spamming there a few times until I blocked his IP. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, I have a much larger problem to deal with – spambots. These bots register themselves with forums, bypass captchas and end up flooding me with 100+ bogus registrations every day. So I use scripts to look up each IP / email against the No Spam Forum’s databases.
Wouldn’t you know that Markuze is such a prolific spammer of gabble that he get’s flagged up in the No Spam list too? So I get to kill two birds with one stone. Which is nice.
Signed – this guy’s lunacy has long ago crossed the line from Mostly Harmless to Back Away Slowly.
Would love to sign, but I don’t feel comfortable putting my address in such a partition.
If this guy ever finally snaps, we’ll probably get a bunch of “No one could have seen this tragedy coming, just like the shootings in Phoenix, Wichita and Oslo. I mean, who would think a crazy extremist might kill somebody?” stories in the news.
Markuze tried to post some 200 comments on my blog in the course of 2010. This helps to underscore the magnitude of his insane behavior if he is driven to the point that he devotes so much time to a tiny operation like mine in addition to the deluge he inflicts on PZ. He is an extremely sick and potentially very dangerous man. The police authorities in Montreal are professionally negligent if they do not take this seriously.
Uttering death threats is definitely a Federal offence in Canada, as I am sure it is in the US. The RCMP has no reason not to act.
Yeah, the Montreal cops — who blaze away at fleeing suspects from long range, thereby taking out innocent bystanders:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/06/07/montreal-shooting.html
Not the most competent police force in the world.
I wonder if contacting the news media in Montreal might be more effective than the petition. Has anybody tried that yet?
Mr. Markuze has, apparently, crafted and transmitted such phrases as ‘I am going to execute you, fucker… The police will not save you… we’re going to beat the fuck out of you, u lying little sack of shit…’
… indeed, my understanding is: he does this sort of thing regularly, now…
… and the SPVM have still not, apparently, managed to charge him with anything?
Given this, I find myself very, very friendly to PZ’s statement that their failure to do so is criminal neglect. The law is pretty clear, here. This is a clear and unmistakable death threat. Remember that the crown doesn’t even technically have to prove Markuze is capable of carrying it out (nor at all that he genuinely intended to do so). Only that he intended to intimidate, and that a reasonable person would take the same as a threat. Add to this the convenient fact that he’s actually physically approached at least one gathering of the people he harasses, seriously, this shouldn’t even be fucking hard, now, people.
Seriously, the conviction is just hanging there, now. And depending on the shoe leather they want to expend nailing down the document trail, given the sheer volume of BS he’s emitted, they could probably have him on what, a few thousand counts? Y’know… if mebbe some prosecutor might like to get ’emselves in the Guinness records or somethin’…
Pathetic. I know the legal system’s always got its hands full, ‘n all. But this really should be an easy one.
Clearly a disturbed individual. You would think the Montreal Police would remember Mark Lapine, who murdered 14 women at the Ecole Polytechnique. Their only crime was that they were educating themselves. It was more than 20 years ago but it still resonates as to what kind of dispicable actions people like this can do. Sad that the police are so pathetic. I have little faith in the RCMP or the Montreal police.
If I were heading up any Athiest/ Skepical conferences in North America I’d have him banned. We should have a list of such individuals, a most wanted, to keep these nutbars from coming to our conferennces
I just looked it up but it looks like he can’t be put on a no-fly list in Canada until he joins a terrorist organization or threatens air flight security. This man should not be allowed to travel but if he truly lives in his parent’s basement hopefully he has no money to travel.
Then there’s this thread, over at evcforum. Markuze regularly starts threads there.
No, he doesn’t need to be institutionalized – he is already an institution.
I suspect that his life has become more and more narrow, with nothing much left in his daily activity, except his insanity. It has become the center of his life.
Yes, I’m sure it’s a pain having to regularly clean up after him.
Why aren’t the ID blogs telling us about how their brilliant intelligent designer came up with Markuze?
can’t be put on a no-fly list in Canada
OTOH, assuming he’s even capable of applying for a passport, surely uttering threats should be enough to get him declared inadmissable by other countries? (the US in particular) Still sucks for us Canucks, but at least he can’t go anywhere else.
Yep he hammers me all the time and has for a while.
Has anyone tried calling his mom?
Here are the applicable sections of the Criminal Code of Canada.
264.1-266
Perhaps if you included these you might get a response. I am suggesting this to anyone who is threatened by him. I’ve been reading his rantings for several years, but he hasn’t found my blog yet. If he does, I will definitely be reporting him.
I wondered about that, too. It can’t be easy to be his caretaker. Cutting off his internet connection would probably lead to serious disruption of their home life. Surely someone must have let her know what he is doing? …I wonder what her thoughts are.
I about pissed myself when I saw the @SPVM asking people to stop spamming them this morning about Mabus.
Oh, the irony.
I wondered about the @SPVM person’s claim on Twitter that this is the first they’ve heard of Dennis Markuze, and there are no prior complaints about him. Odd, that.
Petition signed. He’s never showed up at my blog, but that’s because I don’t tend to link to it from here or any of the other atheist blogs/sites. But he has bothered me on Twitter a few times, usually after I’ve retweeted something of PZ’s.
DM has violated a lot of US civil and criminal laws at least in the USA. Death threats over the internet are felonies.
At the least this is cyberstalking and harassing, both crimes.
You could sue him in civil court in the US for civil torts and win.
Unfortunately, none of this would do PZ much good because he is in Canada.
Going the civil law tort route probably wouldn’t make much difference either. Without any assets or perhaps even a permanent fixed address, what could a judgement yield. Except his electronics, computers, cell phones and so on. Which, might help a lot though.
BTW, he would have already been picked up in the USA most likely. Since Jared Loughner, Cho Seung, and many other mall shooters and mass murderers, the police have gotten a lot more proactive.
I’m sure that DM is on the US no fly list and the Do Not Cross (from Canada) list. Or would be if the FBI and Homeland Security knew about him.
These days its pretty easy to get on those lists.
PZ, have you considered going to the Human Rights Tribunal? The hate language, almost certainly, would be of interest to them. If the police are unwilling to take interest in the death threats, perhaps quoting the relevant legislation would be motivating? Both death threats and hate language are illegal in Canada and Quebec.
Raven, he can’t be prosecuted in the US. He’s Canadian. Regardless of how illegal his behaviour is in any other country, he’s doing it from Canada (from Quebec, specifically). I don’t think an extradition request would be filled. He wouldn’t be compelled to attend any court in the US, nor would any of the charges or judgments matter a whit. How, exactly, would PZ going to US authorities do anything at all?
If ge lives in his parents’ basement, in all likelihood he will have plenty of disposable income. The question is, how much has he spent on weapons. Serious stuff.
Have you tried copying to the local prosecutor’s office?
Signed.
I was at the hotel in Montreal when the Atheist Alliance International held its 2010 convention: Mabus showed up, was removed by hotel security, turned around and walked back in. Removed again, showed up later. Security evidently just kept walking the guy out onto the street while telling him not to return. Surprisingly, this shrewd tactic didn’t seem to work.
Later on, those at the convention thought the ‘real’ police should have been called. Sounds like it wouldn’t have made much difference.
One of the things that disturbed me about this incident was how many of the attendees reacted with glee and excitement when they found out “Mabus is here.” They wanted to find him and argue with him. Hell, even PZ wanted to seek him out and talk to him — which might be understandable in some ways but I suspected that if nothing else the Trophy Wife would have taken a dim view and tried to discourage this.
Markuze is NOT a crank. He’s not a crackpot. He’s gone over those lines: he’s mentally ill and preoccupied with images of violence. Even a gentle, reasonable, friendly approach can backfire. The guy isn’t capable of being reasoned with — at least, not outside of therapy.
And he gets out of the basement.
He seems to go after anyone whose blog or twitter PZ mentions, so if PZ would just mention Obama and Harper, praise them for their pro-atheist standpoints, link to their blogs and tweets about them, it’ll work itself out.
But signed, anyway.
How about getting together, hiring a Canadian lawyer and starting a class action suit?
A co-worker in Canada recently had all kinds of trouble coming to Houston for business because of a minor incident resulting from a bar brawl in college, more than ten years ago, that he wasn’t even in. He was stopped at the border. He was denied entrance to the US for more than a year.
And this creep who makes thousands of death threats, hundreds probably a day, is of no concern to the police or immigration? Appalling.
no concern to the police or immigration?
I don’t think we know that the latter don’t have him on their “Don’t Admit” radar. If he hasn’t tried to cross the US border, then we likely wouldn’t know (and even if he did, his barring might not be public knowledge).
What we really want at the moment is for the former to take official notice.
Perhaps we need to get the Renton, WA, police on the case, since they’re so interested in “cyber-stalking”. Didn’t PZ once live there? (You should be able to click on my name for a link to Ed’s Dispatch on the subject, otherwise just scroll down in his posts from yesterday.)
Does DM also threaten his fellow Canadians, or is his hate limited to folks from other countries? I can see where that would cause the police to be less concerned. Or perhaps they’d be more interested if his rants were in French.
Does DM also threaten his fellow Canadians,
Yes.
Original sin; you don’t even need a retrograde permeation of original sin through time to answer that one. ;)
Signed.
Regardless of my personal feelings towards PZ, this guy left “harmless nutter” behind years ago, and the refusal of competent authority to take him seriously is appalling. I really don’t want to see that it took him snapping and taking a bunch of people with him to get the cops to finally take him seriously.
Someone get the disinfectant out please.
Signed.
I also contacted the CBC and some newspapers here in Canada. If the police won’t act, maybe we can get the media to put some pressure on them. They seemed really interested in the story. I also sent them links to this blog post, Jen’s, and the post that PZ put up a while back about specific threats he received.
I hate to ask this but i’m fairly sure if this goes any higher someone else will….
PZ, have you actually asked Markuze to stop spamming you?
It sounds daft, I know, but I suppose I deal with spam/idiots in much the same way as every else; either by judicious use of the ignore buttons or spam-filter.
I don’t expect asking him to stop will have any effect whatsoever but it may strengthen any legal sanctions against Markuze if you can demonstrate that you have previously asked for him to desist in his behaviour.
It is possible to sign the petition without showing your personal information.
I don’t think there’s any need for this, since sending a death threat is illegal.
Signed. I’ve been targeted by Markuze, too.
Markuze has gotten through to Pandagon a few times in the last few days. Mostly links to pictures of pigs.
This guy is obsessive and intelligent. That’s a dangerous combination. Stupid stalkers get themselves caught. Markuze is smart enough to do some real damage if he decided to.
It’s not as simple as that.
The police aren’t the bad guys here. Currently the justice system in QC is under seige. The prosecutors are underfunded and have been demanding some help from the government: none is forthcoming. Markuze is a problem, but if they arrest him now without the ability to secure a prosecutor, he walks. And then what? As he has yet to act on his rants, he is considered a “smaller crime” and for now gets pushed behind actual assailants, robbers, and murderers.
Srsly, protest the state of the justice system in Québec, and then something might be doable.
@Random – I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve asked him to stop. His response was simply more bile spewing without any recognition of the request.
I’ve signed as well.
Considering that I’ve contacted them about him myself, and I can’t have been the only one to do so, I’m forced to assume that it’s only their public relations person who hasn’t heard of him. Honestly, the Morris PD were friendlier and more helpful, and he’s not even their problem.
Been at this for 15+ years, remember?
I’ve asked him to stop.
I’ve told him to stop.
I’ve banned him hundreds of times.
I’ve banned many of his IPs — the catch is, he gets new ones all the time, and does a lot of his fucking around in internet cafes.
I ban the URLs he links to.
I tried banning his email accounts — he gets new ones all the time, though, and it turned out to be more effort to create multiple new filters every day than to just hit delete.
He’s an obsessed, stalkerish creep. Those of you who get the occasional annoying spam from him don’t have any idea of the magnitude of his obsession; those of us who are his primary targets have an inkling, but even there, I’m not seeing the full brunt of it, because he spreads his love around to quite a few people.
Mabus is the crazy man painting the walls of his cell with his own feces, only in this case his cell is the internet.
No, the police and other social services are to blame.
The last time the Montreal police contacted him directly a few years ago, they did nothing except send him on another posting spree in which he bragged that the police could do nothing to save him. They made it worse.
Also, I don’t want him arrested. This isn’t the kind of thing where he will be helped by being thrown in jail. He needs serious psychiatric help. His parents need to be told that he’s a serious nuisance. He needs to be taken off the computer and put into some kind of therapy.
Twitter says that the Montreal police dept. is tweeting back at everyone to please stop it because they’re looking into it. Either mass annoyance worked, or they’re just saying that to get everyone off their back.
Carlie, I’m going with the latter.
Well, he is their problem. If they know what he’s doing and don’t do anything about it, they’re going to bear some of the responsibility if he gets himself in trouble or hurts someone else. I wonder if they know; maybe they think he’s a web site designer or something and would try to get him help if someone explained the situation to them. If they’re providing him food, shelter, internet, and electricity, they’re probably the only people on earth who have leverage with him. Obviously he doesn’t care about the law or commonsense or what any of us think.
The problem with going to the cops is that it’s deploying force that (as we’ve seen) is very very unlikely to do anything. Because cops’ options are pretty small, really. The people with the longest list of options are the caregivers and we don’t know if they’ve tried anything, yet. In fact, it might be that the cops are showing up there all the time – or not at all – the caregivers are this potential fount of useful information or help (or maybe they’re as crazy as he is)
A couple years ago a friend of mine had a stalker and the whole problem was cleared up when she finally just visited the guy’s mom – and discovered that apparently he’d take himself off his meds whenever he felt good, and would freak out at random in the direction of whatever was occupying his mind at the time. Stalker’s mom got him back on his drugs and the problem went away.
Lately, whenever I hear someone say “call the cops” I think about cops tasering, shooting, and beating retarded or schizophrenic people – I know it’s just a few bad apples, but I just am not very impressed with how police handle the insane. Really, if you send someone who’s trained to restrain, beat, and shoot people to deal with someone who needs a doctor, the likelihood of a successful outcome is very very low.
It’s sorta upside-down, but this guy thinks it an atheist mole sent to discredit the Christians.
Deep Cover Liberal David Mabus (Dennis Markuze)
http://www.cornswalled.com/2011/08/deep-cover-liberal-david-mabus-dennis.html
I guess the extremeist shooter in Norway might have been the same thing … except for all he wrote saying he was Christian.
Great suggestion about media. Police are held to account by media. I say everyone send this blog post to one Montreal journo, soon it will be big news. They will be forced to act
Yet another victim of Markuze here. At his height at foreverinhell he was posting, or attempting to post, 50 comments a day. 50. Every day. And every single one of those comments contained at least one death threat, generally more.
He only stopped when I moved from blogspot to my own domain. I have no idea why that stopped him.
From what I’ve read, his parents do know, when called they said ‘oh no he’s not doing that again’ or similar. Obviously his IP and ISP know so he goes to public computers and I hear he runs a used computer shop. His parents don’t think he has mental health problems. One person said that Dennis stopped harrassment after the victim sent Dennis a photo of his house from google and called his parents. If someone calls (all his info is on the net inc home number) be nice to the poor parents but aim to convince them he needs help.
http://www.bizearch.com/company/Used_Computer_Shop_16688.htm
Signed.
Unfortunately, international threats are a low priority for a local police force.
Alexander Cornswalled believes that Markuze is a liberal, trying to discredit Christians by pretending to be dangerously crazy. Other things Alexander Cornswalled believes:
*It isn’t stupid that he recently thought an Onion article about a giant “Abortionplex” was real, because people who provide abortions really might do something like that.
*God causes technical problems that take down skeptical web sites.
*President Obama was born in Kenya.
*It shouldn’t be illegal for a South African church to promise to cure your AIDS.
*Bill Clinton’s “PowerBalance” wristband is a sign that he is a Satanist.
*The National Organization for Marriage is (this sounds familiar) run by liberals, trying to discredit Christians by pretending to be dangerously crazy.
*British atheists are plotting to assassinate Prince Charles.
*Homeopathy works.
*This one I can’t even summarize: the “Divine Universal Matrix” “will hopefully improve the lives of all, by washing away atheistic, humanist ideas and restoring a Christ centered thought process to science.”
*There is a very real danger of witchcraft linked to “Harry Potter.”
*Carl Tilley invented, tested, and proved a car engine 20 times more efficient than known engines, but was persecuted powerful oil interests.
*At least one homosexual routinely violates the bodies of US soldiers fallen in combat.
*American scientists used a “quantum’ high-energy beam” to puncture the thermosphere. This has caused catastrophic weather throughout the world.
*The CIA has send planes to spray mutant swine flu virus on China.
Also, he was blocked from Conservapedia- for wild speculation.
Oh- I’ve been Poe’d, haven’t I? This is a comedy site, and the ‘X crazy conservative is actually a secret liberal’ was the clue? I… I can’t even tell the difference between the reality and the satire any more.
Alexander Cornswalled believes Alexander Cornswalled is a liberal, trying to discredit Christians by pretending to be incredibly dumb.
Interesting link there Melanie … the address is same as that given by cornswalled.com for his house.
2872 Rue Werbrouck
Saint-Laurent, QC H4R 1B5
Which Google maps shows clearly as basic townhouses. I guess the business is more virtual than physical. How could he have time to buy and sell used computers with all this spamming? And how could he have 5-10 employees??
Signed.
Just broke 2,500 signatures. Spread this around to other high profile individuals, other blogs, other websites. There must be more than 10,000 of us who would like to see this man arrested.
Signed. He has messaged me on Twitter before. I will no longer delete them when he does, but RT them to the Montreal Police.
I’d say the Montréal police will do something. I know it’s frustrating, but you are talking about taking away someone’s rights (and no, uttering death threats is by no means a right, and it is a crime that usually carries jail time here in Canada) which is not done lightly by the medical system.
Signed.
He’s only targeted my blog once, and I deleted him pretty quickly. I assume he hasn’t been back because I’m too low-level, and I mostly post about comics… though most comics make a lot more sense than Markuze’s bizarre rants…
He used to visit my blog, but then I set it so comments were only unmoderated the first two weeks for each post. Considering I only post every few months or so (and now not at all), he lost interest. That, and nobody reads my blog, so it was a waste of his time to even comment there. Not that he minds wasting time.
I signed, a few hours ago. I’ve had a few “You recruited __ to sign” messages.
As a former Mtl resident, I just want to say that your experience with their police department is not at all abnormal for that city’s bureaucracy. It’s a lovely place, and I miss it, but the governments in that province just DO NOT have it together.
I hope this exercise helps.
Is “display my signature publicly” necessary?
I’ve signed, of course.
This is the nature of Poe’s Law.
Yes, to show we really mean it and aren’t afraid.
Anyone else notice he keeps creating new names to post comments on the petition people are signing to get arrested?
… anyone else realize he has to sign that petition in order to post comments on it?
He’s Pharyngulating his own arrest warrant.
If only all creationists were this accommodating…
It’s a shame he’s not muslim as well.
Signed.
Signed.
I live in Tucson, AZ, and know full well what happens when an obviously disturbed individual doesn’t get the help he needs. People get hurt. People get killed.
I’ve signed the petition. I hope it will help to get the authorities involved.
Be safe.
Not muslim? WTF does that matter to this?
On related idea, we seen to know his address and can see it on Google maps. Once there you can search for ‘coffee’ nearby and find many places. If he is going to internet cafes, those are the obvious places to look. In my quick look, however, a fluent speaker of French might forward some of this to them should they know him and think him weird but never called the police. (If they have never seen him, no biggie. They have a photo and a strange email.)
The Montreal Police are useless. They kill innocent folk wandering by when they decide that a loon with a knife should be shot.
Do not expect these idiots to do anything, if they were of any use at all they would be in the RCMP.
So how do you say “Keystone Kops” in Quebecanese?
The petitions got there attention during business hours. They stopped any reply about end of business in that time zone. From looking on the web, the RCMP explicitly say they do not take reports of crimes via email. And I could not find a twitter feed for that area.
He is still spamming change.org and Heather Henderson and Kyle VanderBeek. If he can not get onto the net at home, I bet he is at the Pierre Elliot Int’t Airport which is close and has open wifi. It would be open and is RCMP territory. Oh … it is served by Bell the the IP would resolve to them.
Signed.
Minor chuckle from Twitter:
Are the various internet cafes in his area aware that there’s a local crank who regularly abuses their services to send death threats? Don’t they have any kind of ban-lists themselves? Perhaps they can also be contacted.
Police finally take notice of Twitter threats
St. Laurent man’s tweets target scientists, atheists, online petition alleges
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Police+finally+take+notice+Twitter+threats/5238610/story.html#ixzz1UibT5iwT
He didn’t sign up for the skeptic conference in Montreal; he just showed up at the hotel and barged in.
The word for “Quebecanese” is Québecois or, for working-class Montréal Québecois, joual (a phonetic rendition of cheval).
La Presse is also reporting the story.
Ah, I see PZ had already noticed it.
And then we’ll be the bad guys for “politicizing the tragedy.” Just you wait and see.
Poster that uses copies of post titles for a nym. Stop doing that. Either use one nym, or fuck off.
I think those are pingbacks. Unless I’m missing something.
I’m sure that some of you already know this by now, but it appears that The Petition has borne fruit (and it happened before I could even sign it myself, damnit!):
From http://www.change.org/petitions/montreal-police-take-mabus-death-threats-seriously
“After nearly 5,000 people signed the petition calling on the Montreal Police Department to investigate the thousands of death threats issued by Dennis Markuze, the Montreal Police have responded via Twitter that the case is officially open.
Markuze has been threatening atheists, scientists, writers, public figures and their friends for more than a decade under the pseudonym of ‘David Mabus.’ As the threats began to increase in intensity and frequency, his victims decided it was time to take action.”
Dennis Markuze has been arrested and his computers have been seized.
I give a blow by blow of how skeptics and atheists on Twitter came together to make this happen over the past seven days in my blog post. It’s an interesting story.
Tim Farley, your catalysis is appreciated. Nice job!
(I reckon PZ appreciates it even more)