Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Fumento has now made three posts on his blog and a whole pile of comments on other blogs in response to my revealing his use of a sock puppet. He has called me a liar, claimed that I am insane and falsely accused me of using sock puppets myself. What he hasn't done is deny that Tracy Spenser was his sock puppet. I wonder why not?
This comment from Fumento is pretty funny:
Meanwhile, since I made my first post on Lambert's Vendetta.com my site has been swamped with vile fake trackbacks for non-existent pornographic URLs. None before that posting; about 40 a day now. Coincidence? I find it unlikely.
It's, umm, a little paranoid for Fumento to blame me for any spam his blog gets. And his traffic must be really pathetic if 40 hits a day swamps his site. But the funny bit is this:
trackbacks for non-existent pornographic URLs
How does he know they linked to non-existent porn sites? No wonder Fumento sounds so frustrated.
Update: Fumento's sidekick Jeff "Xrlq" Bishop claims that Fumento has denied being Spencer. Where? Xrlq is keeping that part a secret. He also falsely claims that I haven't denied the charge that I forged the Tracy Spencer comment. I have denied it (see second sentence of this post), but again, for the record, I did not forge the comment. It was posted by someone with the same IP address as Fumento.
Comments
40 a day? What a piker!
My blog averages over 12,000 trackback spams/month — an order of magnitude larger.
Posted by: Jacques Distler | December 12, 2005 1:44 PM
He called you a lair? Why, the impudent bounder!
Posted by: tim | December 12, 2005 7:44 PM
About thirty years ago I had a roommate who was conducting a junk mail war with a favorite enemy. They signed each other up for every piece of advertising and solicitation possible. The guy literally got a sack full of mail each day. Ticked the postguy off a lot. How we are progressing.
Posted by: Eli Rabett | December 12, 2005 8:52 PM
Typo corrected thanks to the microtim™ system. It's a useful service, but sometimes it gets stuck in a loop, repeatedly reporting the same spelling mistake over and over again.
Posted by: Tim Lambert | December 12, 2005 9:18 PM
I read this on the post "Tim Blair, a fellow Aussie with a terrific blog." I guess if he thinks Blair's site is good then this says it all really.
I notice our friend Mr Hissink does not allow comments either. Seems that these people like to rant undisturbed by unseemly challenges to their undoubted wisdom.
Posted by: Ender | December 12, 2005 11:42 PM
"non-existent pornographic URLs"
The self-styled owner of the site assures all that there was indeed a pornographic site there, but it was lost due to an unfortunate disk crash. Unfortunately, all finances were paid in cash, there is no list of the employees, and in fact there is no other evidence regarding the existence of the site, other than one porn fan who thinks remembers going to a porn site at the time, and believes it is the one in question.
Posted by: z | December 13, 2005 12:03 AM
Nevertheless - it was shown conclusively, before that unfortunate crash, that the overwhelming majority of porn uses are purely defensive. I believe the word "brandishing" featured in there, somehow, though I can't recall the exact context.
Posted by: jre | December 13, 2005 7:04 PM
Presumably Tim was driven to use non-existent porn URLs by the extreme scarcity of real porn sites.
Posted by: Ian Gould | December 13, 2005 10:28 PM
"I believe the word "brandishing" featured in there, somehow, though I can't recall the exact context."
Funniest sentence of the week.
Posted by: z | December 14, 2005 11:14 AM
Michael Fumento (or at least someone with the same IP address) arrived her after doing this search. Still no denial.
Posted by: Tim Lambert | December 15, 2005 8:33 PM
Maybe I'm underestimating the influence this Fumento guy has. Is he really worth the time you give him? Or is it just that everybody needs a chew toy, and if he insists on volunteering...?
Posted by: Gar Lipow | December 18, 2005 7:45 PM