I thought I was done with this nonsense way back in early November; I wrote a post summarizing Michael Nugent’s bizarrely obsessive behavior, and washed my hands of him. Little did I know, he wasn’t done: for the past 6 months he’s gotten increasingly stalkerish, and is still hammering out thousands of words complaining about me. And now he’s complaining that I am diminishing the effectiveness of Atheist Ireland and the worldwide atheist cause! Perhaps if he quit embarrassing himself and his organization with his crusade, he’d be less of a joke.
But I have no interest in arguing with him further. I merely have an obligation to point out that several other people have been trying to penetrate his skull, and that it would be graceless of me to fail to acknowledge them. So if you’re curious about the details since November, you won’t find them here, but on these sites:
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Alex Gabriel, 8 April: Atheist Ireland’s statement on PZ Myers, with added links to actual things he actually said.
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Ashley Miller, 10 April: The Background of Atheist Ireland’s Breakup with PZ: It’s about Michael Shermer.
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Ashley Miller, 12 April: More on Shermer, PZ, and Michael Nugent.
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Richard Carrier, 16 April: Avoiding Drama = Avoiding the Truth: On Michael Nugent’s Use of His Atheist Ireland Fiefdom to Attack PZ Myers.
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Ashley Miller, 18 April: An open letter to Michael Nugent.
Three people writing a mere five posts comes nowhere near the pernicious prolixity of that preoccuppied poltroon, but what they lack in unrestrained noise they make up for with pithy quality. And thanks, people, for trying to shake some sense into him.
Michael Nugent who? Atheist Ireland what?
If Atheist Ireland’s sole reason to exist is to…attack some biologist in Morris, Minnesota USA, it is badly misnamed and not worth a penny of support or a second of attention.
Just change the name from Atheist Ireland to Michael Nugent’s Playpen. And anyone who wants to support his fantasy world can do so knowing the real facts.
Given the maturity he displays, some bottles of warm milk might be appropiate.
Yup, Nugent’s blog is back to being about PZ every other post again. Mostly by now whining about “smears” from MA Melby and “PZ Myer’s defenders”, and “defamatory” statements from Richard Carrier. Notice a certain verbal pattern?
I did get a chuckle out of Nugent casting PZ out of Atheist Ireland, cursed to wander the outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. Except that Nugent is the one who’s doing the wailing and gnashing.
Oh, no! PZ! How could you? You just called him a perniciously prolix preoccupied poltroon! And then filed it under, “Fools, Tools, Kooks, and Goons”!
Do you realize how many tens of thousands of words you are forcing him to write, and immediately, too? How many tens of thousands of words we might read and wish we hadn’t?
Cruel, cruel, cruel!
Susannah
At least PZ only used “Fools, Tools, Kooks, and Goons”. He could have used the “Irish Wanker” tag.
Which blog do I read if I think PZ is just a big softie?
This has become a comedy… and not a very good one.
Dear Michael Nugent (since I know you’re reading this, obsessed with PZ Myers as you are),
Will you please just stop? PZ is not hurting Atheist Ireland. You are because you are obsessed with him. Why not just ignore him, hmm? Why not just shut up and go do your Atheist Ireland stuff and quit banging on about what a US-American from Minnesota does in his Minnesota, USA time, that does not in any way impact you or yours all the way over there in Ireland?
Seriously, Nugent… you’re obsessed.
Sincerely,
A Nobody
Ashley Miller’s was a really good effort, maybe the best so far. But even that one ignored the fact that Nugent has turned completely to the slyme dark side.
Or if you want to look at it another way, they just finally brought out the regressive obsessive freak in him. There is no point fighting for Nugents’, or Dawkins’, or Blackfords’ or any of the other socially regressive atheists souls anymore, they have well and truly declared their cards, and we should all move on and dump them from our collective minds.
The only difference between our fascist prime ministerTony Abbott and some atheist leaders is really that Abbott professes belief in a deity.
Aren’t there more pressing problems facing Atheist Ireland, such as the preponderance of faith-based schools, and the existence of a blasphemy law? Shouldn’t Nugent concentrate on such Ireland-based campaigning?
“Why not just ignore him, hmm?”
But…but…if he does that, how can he create a social cost for talking honestly about Shermer?
Moggie,
I was just going to say that. It’s all really rather sad, since Ireland can use a good dedicated organisation promoting atheism and more importantly secularism.
Maybe Atheist Ireland should just change their name to Shermer’s Holy Defenders, and let some other people take over the name.
Also, just like his buddies the slymepitters Nugent has taken up the irritating meme of “my speech is free speech, your speech is slander”. I’m pretty sure Nugent doeosn’t understand either.
Michael “Ted” Nugent is sailing perilously close to becoming the atheist Bill Donohue. I wonder if he’ll figure that out, even a little bit, and just drop this frankly baffling campaign to tell the entire universe, often, how much he disapproves of PZ Myers and get back to doing whatever it is he did before he appointed himself Eliot Ness to PZ’s Al Capone.
I’m reminded of that old canard which people often post on their facebook walls in meme form – it’s a canard I loathe because it’s incomplete in addition to being trite: “great minds talk about ideas, mediocre minds talk about events, small minds talk about people.” I say it’s incomplete because it fails to take into account (among other things) that ideas come from people, that people cause events, that even just an idea can be an event in the right circumstances and that combinations of people, events and ideas are basically the entirety of human history in a nutshell (my rejoinder is usually “the greaterestest minds seek to understand the relationships between them before posting bumper-sticker wisdom about it on facebook”).
That being said, Nugent’s disproportionately huge and strident (yep, going there) output regarding PZ is a crystal-clear demonstration of that last point. Small indeed is the mind of a man who spends upwards of 75,000 words across six months, castigating someone he purports to have absolutely no time for and who’s committed no offence against him; smaller still is the mind of a man who then publicly disassociates from said man despite having no association with him in the first place. It’s like saying “You’re such a poopyhead that if we were going out, I’d TOTALLY dump you and here are 75,000 words explaining precisely why!”
Ugh, WARNING:
the comment threads over at Ashley’s have been thoroughly invaded by a who-is-who of slymepit shitbags, all happily arguing over which alcohol level counts as ‘not rape’, engaging in general rape apologia, bringing up long debunked talking points regarding FTB and PZ, and generally showing of that they are indeed horrible, horrible people.
Not for the weak of stomach. I now have to go do something fun to take my mind of of it.
I’d have been more impressed with this post if it contained a solemn declaration that the rest of 2015 would be a M____ N____-Free Zone.
Hank_Says:
Father Ted Nugent?
Good point. Worse than that.
Thanks to the Catholics, there are hundreds or more dead babies and children from their social services programs in graves around Ireland. I assume they’ve stopped that but someone needs to make sure and at least, document the horrrors.
Right now Irish hospitals using wacho Catholic nonmorality, have protocols in place that can and will kill women with pregnancies that go wrong.
Child sexual abuse in the Catholic church was common and might still be a problem. Someone needs to watch the priests because the RCC hasn’t shown itself to be very interested.
I have no idea how common discrimination against nonxians and atheists is in Ireland, but given the RCC, it is probably serious.
Given the huge number of problems the RCC has and does cause to Ireland, one would think Atheist Ireland has centuries of work ahead of it and a target rich environment for reforms. Instead, Michael Nugent rambles on about a biologist in Minnesota, USA.
Really Atheist Ireland needs to give Nugent a pat on the head and tell him to stop bothering the adults and go play on the swing set.
Hank_Says @ # 12: … Nugent is sailing perilously close to becoming the atheist Bill Donohue.
Ssshh, you might give him ideas! (Per that Wikithing, Donohue’s Catholic League has an annual budget of $2.75M, assets of $22.7M, and a staff of 13 – as of several years ago.) I doubt the ~1K members of Atheist Ireland support their fearless leader in quite such swank style, but they do seem to be indulging him quite excessively already…
raven
Tsstssstss. A blog is NOT the right place to talk about such issues. Have you contacted the authorities? It is irresponsible behaviour to talk about such grave matters in public instead of quietly reporting them to the police. What about all those priests and nuns who deserve due process?
*may contain sarcasm in abundance*
I would also think that the vote on Marriage Equality would be more important than an American blogger. I think that Atheist Ireland has spent some time arguing for a yes, but nothing like the effort that Nugent has spent on PZ.
I borked that link – it is http://www.marriagequality.ie/
It’s not that Michael Nugent thinks PZ is more of a concern than any other atheist related issue in Ireland, but that it’s more important that the alleged rapist Michael Shermer know that he has a zealot willing to write novels in exchange for possible fame and fortune than anything affecting atheists in Ireland.
STOP IT, PEOPLE! You are belittling me. Good sycophants would be declaring that, yes, PZ MYERS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE ATHEO-UNIVERSE. How dare you even suggest that there might be other, more important subjects?
@21 : changerof bits
Ah, Michael Nugent is looking for a sugar daddy for Atheist Ireland. At least, that puts some perspective on it.
#22
Nice, PZ.
Perfect for quote-mining!
AND ALL CAPS, TOO!!M!!
PZ Myers @11
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
zenlike.
Yes. I started on those Ashley Miler posts yesterday. I got to about 360 comments on the first one. And, for some inexplicable reason, I’m determined to finish it today. I suspect it’s some kind of paying my dues thing. She’s been sticking to the comments and, somehow or other, persisting with the idea that if she’s criticising the inhabitants of Nugent’s blog then she has some kind of obligation to allow them to comment on her post. I wouldn’t give them any more than a couple of comments each, but she’s letting them go on … and on … and on … and on … forever, with rape apology and regurgitated elevatorgate dreck for added sparkling zest. (But very little jest, do these people have any idea how tedious they are, quite apart from the nastiness).
So I’ll be off to start my self-imposed task in a while. Though my commitment may falter at some point. Hats off to her though. Even though I think she’s daft to even try to talk sense with them.
I would LOVE MN’s response to this comparison, which so neatly exposes his hypocrisy. Unfortunately, there’s probably not enough storage capacity in all the digital media on Earth to contain his resulting filibustering, so please nobody tell him about Giliell’s comment.
mildlymagnificient:
Holy shit, I stopped paying attention. It got that many comments, just the first one? Jesus fuck.
That’s interesting because they insist that they are a Laugh Riot. A bunch of jokesters with layers upon layers of sophisticated humor. Guess they ran out of their A material.
Said poltroon has replied to Ashley’s open letter.
Unsurprisingly, it contains more subject-changing, goalpost-shifting , self-back-patting and disingenuous waffle than the poltroon himself has received by the often like-minded representatives of the Catholic church.
That response is rich. Let me take some artistic license and re-enact it:
“I’m sorry I didn’t reply to you, I don’t have time to reply you, here is a 1212 word essay about why I can’t reply to you. First, thank you for nuance and proper tone, it means I can put you on the back burner, which is of course precisely what you were talking about, but I am not self aware enough to notice. Also poor me, I didn’t want to reply to Richard Carrrier, but I had to, because my precious organization’s good name was on the line, you see. I had only a mere hour’s sleep, fighting Defamatory Smears (TM), and I certainly did not want to do that, and I could not be described as itching to make such a reply at all! Such a mischaracterization! So, like I said, I will reply to you later and it has nothing to do with tone, I assure you. Just my abject terror in the face of Defamatory Smears (TM)! Also totally not a sexist, I swear.”
Indeed; it appears Nugent has been working on his tapdancing and handwaving skills of late.
What a shame that the weaksauce isn’t enough to cover the taste of waffle.
Hey Michael Nugent, it is you who used your organisation as a platform for your personal vendetta. They are now a target for our mockery and criticism, and it is you who is to blame for this, not the people doing the criticising. You dishonest douchebag.
…and so I said to the Monsignor, “Hey! It’s my intemperate language!”
Nugent now has a short (for him) post up for Ashley, a reply explaining why he didn’t reply and why he’s not replying now, along with some speculation about when he might get around to replying, and including a partial reply to part of her open letter.
I wish that that summary were snark. It’s not. It’s actually a fairly accurate description.
“Filibluster” would also be a fairly accurate description.
I noticed MN ignored two women with substantial posts, and complained about a man’s tone. I think it is becoming obvious to people that MN has a problem addressing women as equals….
@Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls #36: I’m sure Mr. Nugent would gladly treat women as equals if they would just accept the obvious fact that he knows better than them about complicated issues like tone and time management and rape.
#1
#32
#9
Irish atheists challenge new blasphemy laws
Atheist Ireland and Children’s Rights Alliance promote right to education without religious discrimination
While I totally agree that Nugent´s crusade against PZ is misguided and a spectacular waste of time for everyone involved, it is simply not true to say that Atheist Ireland is “Nugent´s fiefdom” and exists only to attack PZ. Atheist Ireland actually does a very impressive job at campaigning for a secular society. I understand that people are angry at Atheist Ireland for their nonsensical “disassociation” from PZ – but criticism should still be directed at actual fuck ups, not imagined ones.
I agree with kesara; Atheist Ireland does work on several good and pressing causes, including pushing for a blasphemy referendum, challenging religious privilege in education, and supporting the marriage equality campaign. Nugent’s creepy, obsessive logorrhea is bad on its own merits, not because it’s a distraction from that work, which is an argument I wouldn’t expect anyone here to accept if directed at a writer on this site.
They’re still asking me for money, by the way. I should probably let them know why they won’t be getting it. On the plus side, I finally figured out how to subscribe here. You could stand to make that a lot easier to find…