Joe - No apology needed. Fumento sounded a bit full of himself.

Michael Fumento said:

The two top bloggers, Michelle Malkin and Instapundit, make no room for comments -- any more than I do on my website. John Hawkins allows for comments but does not respond, nor does he allow guest bloggers to respond. Why? Because most comments are inane, saying readily falsifiable things and often are simply insulting. That includes the specific comment you insisted I respond to, which you can see from the response I did reply to at your urging, that was was incredibly stupid and (Who knew?) implicated homosexuality on my part. How edifying! But YOU felt it deserved a response; nay, that NOT responding to it made your site look bad. I've got news for you; giving people like that the time of day is what puts egg on your face.

As a long time lurker here at Winds, I'd like to say that out of Winds, Malkin, and Instapundit there is only one blog in that list I read daily, and it isn't the ones without comments. I think one of the enourmous strengths of blogging is the corrective factors provided by comments. Yes, you sometimes have to wade through some inane and useless comments. You also find a lot of coherent and well thought out commentary and other sides of an issue you would otherwise miss.

I applaud WOC for keeping this channel for open communication. As for Fumento, I find this sort of grandious self moral rectitude too similar to certain MSM News Anchors. That tainted their reporting, I have to wonder how much it will come to taint his.

StargazerA5

There has been an unfortunate tendency in the last 6-10 years of vitriolic attacks substituting for reasoned argument in political debates. I see it on ALL sides of the aisle and it is incredibly corrosive to our society and our ability to discuss the important policy issues we all face.

Fumento is right that in many cases science has become deeply politicized. Sloppy thinking and Dowdified quotes aren't the answer to that, however.

I have to say I find his outburst amazing (I'm from the UK and know nothing of him outside of these events) considering the comments quality on Winds is of a consistently high level.

Perhaps it is due to the content and tone of the blog and the fact it is well known without being "too" popular. LGF being an example of an excellent blog with comments I never even glance at due to the avalanche of trivial chit chat etc.

If he wasn't willing to attempt to reply in the comments (With respect to people's busy lives - they don't exist to reply to MY comment after all) he had no place on a blog that endorses civil discourse.

Apologies if this lowers the tone after saying all that, but he does sound like a pompous fool so no great loss...

Thank you Joe, thank you Marc, thank you Michael for the insight that the email exchange reprinted here gives us.

I have been following the "Duke Lacrosse Rape Hoax": with some interest for the past few months. It is a small issue concerned with the misdeeds of people in parts of the legal and academic establishments. Partly because it is so constrained in space and time, it brings some larger issues into a sharp and unforgiving focus.

Along the lines of this post, I'll offer an edited version of a comment I left at the Duke student newspaper's site. It is a response to a commenter who took me to task for criticizing someone on "my team." That "teammate" had offered an insult-laden response to a stupid defense of the anti-due-process Duke profs.

Rhetoric

Hopefully, we write for an intended audience. Three broad categories here:

• Those who have made up their minds, and support the anti-due-process Group-of-88;
• Those who have yet to fully make up their minds; and
• Those who have made up their minds, finding the Group-of-88 culpable for rushing to judgment, for preparing the ground for the corrupt prosecution, and for dissembling in its aftermath.

The audience I write to is the middle group.

As a former member of that group: when I would read seething comments that employ cheap insults and ad hominem attacks, the effect was to drive me away from the poster's position: "That is the best you have to offer?

Civility

The Group-of-88 is not disgraceful because of their politics (there are many decent leftists) or because they are bad people (surely, most are not). Rather, it is because they abandoned the ideals of the University. They made forty-six lacrosse players the lead players in their race-'n-sex metanarrative, and then falsely claimed they had not done so. They applauded prejudgment and scorned Due Process, and then falsely said they hadn't. They re-arranged history rather than admitting to their errors.

People should see these issues for what they are. The Group-of-88 should be publically shamed for failing to respond to issue-oriented questions like KC Johnson's. Ad hominem attacks hide the issues behind questions of personality. Nobody gets blamed for not answering scurrilous, personal, offensive attacks. In other words, "Insult" is the wrong tool for the job.

Leftists have done good things for this country (Google "communist "civil rights" 1930s"; see TalkLeft's contributions to unraveling the Duke Rape Hoax). For a long time to come, we will still have a Right, Center, and Left. Those of us on the correct side of the Hoax will be dealing with people from throughout the political spectrum (the skin-color spectrum too, FWIW) for many years to come. By sticking to the issues, we set a good precedent. Stupidity and insult (in the original comment) is not effectively rebutted by more of the same.

I cannot believe this development and the childish antics on display. You should be ashamed of your behavior. Even your parting shot (don't let the door hit your backside on the way out...) in a public forum is so beneath common decency and civility; it's incredibly immature.

Joe and Michael, I don't care how appropriate or inappropriate Fumento's comments were, you have just tarnished your own website and in my estimation have gone against your own principles of tolerance and inclusion of opinions differing from your own. This particular topic obviously touches some very sensitive nerves that has brought out some previously unseen character traits. It appears that politics has the upper hand on science in this discourse, too, or is at least the principal motivation for your increased sensitivity.

BTW, I believe Michael Totten has also been to Iraq, not just Lebanon. Didn't he post on a trip to Kurdish Iraq (via ground transportation through Turkey) several months ago? I regularly read both Michael Totten's and Michael Fumento's own websites. For what it's worth, I've enjoyed your site more because they were both associated with it. In other words, Fumento added to your site.

The WoC leadership has done the right thing here.

Fumento got lucky once and found a real nugget and it ruined his whole career. Now he's a hack. (Maybe he was before, too.)

E.T.

Believe it or not, on the stem cell issue I'm actually very close to Fumento's position, and so if anything, I'm inclined to back him rather than tear him down.

That privilege does not extend to misrepresentation of science research material, however, a very serious charge for a professional science writer - and indeed, for anyone who takes the ethic of science seriously. I metion it here in this post as a marker, because I have a copy of the original paper now and will be returning to this issue in a forthcoming post.

Beyond that, I will NOT let references like "chickenhawks" or "chairborne rangers" pass - and I have no issue with quoting someone's own words, unabridged and unedited, when they cross key lines. Fumento crossed several.

Reputation is a significant aspect of Fumento's professional job/role, and it's important for people to see which lines he is crossing, in order to better judge the his approach and weigh the level of credence he deserves.

RE: Michael Totten, E.T. is correct. Note the line in the post "Totten's un-embedded Iraq experience is nothing to sneeze at, either..." In fact, I consider it some of the best reporting of the entire war.

Yes, Totten did go to Kurdistan. But he did embed. With the Pesh Merga (tongue in cheek on that, it was foisted upon him) on a trip high into the eastern mountain towns bordering Iran. Great photos along with the text in his archives.

I haven't been reading Fumento's pieces here at Winds, but he does seem to need some fact-checking: "The two top bloggers, Michelle Malkin and Instapundit, make no room for comments." By most metrics, the two top bloggers are Daily Kos and Huffington Post, both of which make room for comments. Sounds like selection bias.

Nor do I think Glenn Reynolds would agree that the absence of comments reflect a lack of perceived value in them. Reynolds got his start as a commentor and he reads comments on other blogs and quotes them from time to time. I suspect Reynolds doesn't think the hassle of maintaining comments is worthwhile at a site that mainly serves to send people to read other people's blogs.

Michelle Malkin has comments over at her other website, Hot Air.

I for one appreciate that Winds is self-policing. There are many blogs I generally enjoy but have had to stop reading because one or two authors can't keep themselves under control, or the single author can't keep himself under control on some particular issue. I simply don't want to read the bile and vindictive pettiness that characterizes such sites, and Fumento was already seriously annoying me here.

There's an argument to be made that simply noting in a post that Michael Fumento would be leaving Winds due to editorial disagreements would have been the better way to handle the issue. Be that as it may, I prefer that the issue be settled favorably in public than that it remain unsettled.

Thanks, guys, for keeping the blog readable.

For a moment, I was wondering why Fumento was linked to as a jerk - not wanting to reply to a comment, no matter how important it was, seems 'fine' by a poster; they don't exist to read all the spam that we produce, no matter how important I feel my comment is.

I've always looked up to the quality of posters here.

PD Shaw made some good points. It surprised me that Mr. Fumento used Glenn and Michelle. (I don't read RWN enough to feel comfortable making points on his using John Hawkins as a defense.)

All sites have a distinctive character and purpose. Glenn's a law professor and as I think he has noted himself, has had a linker, not a thinker, format (I don't think I need to explain those, here.) While has explained himself at various times about not having comments, he has opened comments on significant issues when he does an in depth, thinker post.

Michelle is an opinion-journalist that made a transition to blogging to continue in that profession. She used to have comments, IIRC, but shut that down because of the concerted effort by some to inundate her posts with very mean-spirited and hateful personal messages.

Michelle and Glenn frequently engage their readers via email and use updates often to include comments received from readers.

WoC's character and purpose is not that of Glenn's, Michelle's or John's. AL and Joe post so as to debate and discuss them with readers. They've added contributors that have information which they also want to debate and discuss. Those folks follow in that vein when they contribute.

It seems to me that WoC is much more like the examples Mr. Fumento uses than unlike them, particularly in that all find information and facts, post about it with their interpretation and opinion in an effort to persuade others.

I have not read Mr Fumento's offerings before here but in the several posts Mr. Fumento has placed here, I have thought his temperament lead him to elevate his interpretation and opinion to the same level of fact as the information he marshalled, to wit, they are all inarguable and unquestionable. His email response to AL and Joe, with his chickenhawk and chairborne rangers remark, butresses my thought about his temperament.

Having that temperament is no way to live life or convince people of the infallibility of your thinking. In fact, inarguably and unquestionably so :-), the best way to present infallible thinking is not to tell people it is so, but write it in a way that your reader has the impression he arrived at it himself. If that is too hard to do, the next best thing is to discuss and debate it in an air of friendliness.

I've been a reader here a long time. However unfortunate the manner in which this parting took place, there's something to learn from it, including, I hope, for Mr. Fumento, and WoC will be better for it.

E.T. - I have no obligation to tolerate those who refuse to show it to me or to others. It's a mutual agreement, or it's nothing at all.

And I was on the fence about publicizing Fumento's self-exposure; on one hand just letting it pass and parting ways would have been better manners. But Fumento made clear his view of not only the Winds community (one that is important to me) but of the nonprofessional blogs in general.

There are a number of writers and journalists who blog or use blogs to build sales and prestige. Some of them get it, and some - as Fumento has shown - don't. I won't accept someone who, unprovoked, slurs the group that I'm part of and believe in.

And I particularly won't accept it from someone who's work here is as shoddy as Fumento's was, and who hides behind his experience in Iraq (I know a lot of people who are and have been to Iraq, including one woman who has been there four times, without being embedded and outside the Green Zone.

So yes, I get it that posting this thread wasn't the politest thing Joe (and I) could have done.

But it was certainly the politest thing Fumento deserved.

A.L.

If you still want a copy of the Nature Biotechnology paper, email me and I'll send you a pdf.

I preferred to judge Michael Fumento on a book he wrote that I liked. He more or less insisted, don't judge me on your preconceptions; this is what I am.

OK. (sigh) That's Michael Fumento, and I am unimpressed. The combination of excessive harshness, personal shots, refusal to engage properly with feedback, and dubious quoting and other abuses that call for the feedback he won't accept is impossible to respect.

I don't care how many times you embed or how many books you publish or what your other credentials are, a Dowdified quote is still a Dowdified quote, for one example. Mistranslation from Michael Fumento is no more acceptable than mistranslation from Jaun Cole. You can't be so big that that you're above the truth.

And you can't be so big that you have a license to be so vitriolic and ill-mannered that people may hesitate to call you on it when you depart from the truth. The move to a demand for one-way courtesy is a disguised move to privileged crookedness.

Civility matters, and graciousness is not a trivial virtue. Truthfulness thrives on a spirit of modesty, and courtesy makes space for that.

Saying in effect that you need not respond to someone because you are putting contempt on them, which is the upshot of Michael Fumento's last paragraph in comment #4 here (link) ("The reason I didn't respond to you the first time is because you didn't deserve a response. It is the same reason I will not respond to whatever smarmy next posting you come up with.") is an unsatisfactory answer to the kind of factual points Andy X made here (link), and no amount of pre-existing goodwill can make it satisfactory.

This is not something that ever could have had a regular place at Winds of Change. Fortunately.

On the specific issue of lethal human embryonic stem cell research (which I disapprove of on moral grounds), I do not want science or medical writers to tell me I'm right, I want them to sum up and accurately interpret facts and research that I can refer to in argument (arguments ultimately intended to save human lives) without any fear of embarrassment, without fear of blowing my credibility and harming the cause. Everything trusted writers say has to be accurate, fair, solid and in no need of bluster or bullying to defend it. Obviously I can't rely on a post from Michael Fumento as being a good source of the kind of information I want.

I think the departure of Michael Fumento is not much of a loss to me or other pro-lifers or to Winds of Change, even if his continued presence, acting the way he was, could have been acceptable, which it definitely wasn't.

Good call. I'd been meaning to write a long, detailed e-mail complaining to him, but I didn't have the time last weekend. I come to this blog for thoughtful, articulate discourse about the events of the day and their impact on our future. Unfortunately, Mr. Fumento was providing little more than self-promotion and bile, the latter frequently drowning any good points he did manage to make. If he wishes to lead a mob, then such rhetoric is ideal. However, I'm trying to make myself into a more informed citizen of a republic, not to work myself into a frenzy. Frenzy seems to sell better, though, and I guess there are always people who can find ways to profit off of a divided and blinded society.

Andy X is right? How do you figure, bright boy? Only one human clinical trial involving placental stem cells he says. That's still one more than Newsweek, which he defended, said existed. In fact, there are three cited in this blog of mine:

http://www.fumento.com/weblog/archives/2007/01/newsweek_blows.html

Two were written up in the New England Journal of Medicine, one in 1996 and one in 1998. One has been ongoing since 2001. The problem with most bloggers, including you, is that you thing massive, massive amounts of opinion can substitute for little things like "facts." And was Andy X also right in alluding to me as a homosexual because, after all, I came to a conclusion he didn't like?

As to chicken hawks, that refers to "Armed Liberal," who never got closer to Iraq than watching CNN, and it refers to you personally. I don't see any leash keeping you from going. If a tiny little woman like Michelle Malkin can go, so can you. I'm 47 and going back to Iraq's most dangerous city for the third time in mid-February. Care to come along? Yes, that's a challenge. It's also a challenge to Danziger, who even as I write this has an egg coming out his rear. You can come or you can also lay an egg in that comfy home office of yours. Or are you just going to impugn my sexuality, too?

I read Michael Fumento's posts here because I remembered his one-time association with the Hudson Institute.

As an undergrad back in the early 70s I had the privilege of spending time on several occasions with Herman Kahn, the Institute's founder -- both as a guest in his home and at two Institute weekend seminars he gave on controversial public policy issues. Herman had a rapier wit which he wielded against wrong-headed policy. However, he balanced his iconoclasm with his expertise as a nuclear physicist and his care to ground his arguments well in demonstrated patterns of fact. Even those who despised him usually respected him - often despite themselves.

Sadly, it would appear that Mr. Fumento doesn't begin to rise to the same standard of behavior and probity.

Joe and AL,

What you've done here is more important, and more valuable, than moving one self-absorbed guy from posting to commenting. You're modeling the enforcement of civil discourse in a civil society.

The reason the Founders wanted to guarantee free speech was not to be nice (and certainly not to be nice to the government). It was because the search for truth requires continuing arguments between people of different opinions, with both the speakers and the hearers able to evaluate the soundness of the arguments.

And yes, Michael, facts matter. But it's all the facts, and not just the ability to focus on a single gotcha to ignore the rest of a serious critique.

One of the problems our society has been facing for several decades is the deterioration of public discourse, with an ever-accelerating arms race in methods to derail informed discourse about serious criticisms. The art of the gotcha and the art of the ad hominem slur have advanced to the point of almost drowning out genuine discussion.

Almost, but not quite. There's a small but growing number of places around the web where people actually try to find the truth. Even by civil discussion with those they disagree with.

As a scientist, I tell my students, "If there's anything wrong in any of our work, especially including mine, I want to know about it here in our own lab, so we can fix it. So ask the toughest questions you can, and practice answering the tough questions you get from the others."

Our society as a whole needs to learn how to carry on discourse that is focused on finding the truth, and not just on squashing the opponent. If you find a way to win an argument, but your position is fundamentally unsound, then when you put your plan into action, reality comes and bites you. I'm pretty fond of my own ideas, but I don't presume to think that I'm right all the time. And if I'm wrong, and I succeed in silencing my critics, I am not serving myself well. [Hmmm... about those WMDs in Iraq ... ]

So, Joe and AL did the right thing with MF. And I hope we can learn larger lessons for our society.

Fumento, Fumento - so little attention to detail. Danziger (me) is also Armed Liberal (me).

And I'm thrilled to read of your bilious contempt; I've often felt that you can judge a person well by the enemies they make, and I'm really tickled to see someone like you be an enemy. I must be doing something really, really right.

I've also pretty much finished talking about the "chickenhawk" slur - but go ahead and stand beside your buddy Kos on this - the two of you really, really do deserve each other. Kerry Dupont (the woman I mentioned who's been to Iraq - unembedded and outside the Green Zone - several times) is having dinner with Phil Carter (just back from deployment) and me and the three of us will hoist a glass in your memory to chickenhawks everywhere.

And what's with the "egg out of the ass" thing? Is that some kind of Fumento family slang you ought to explain to all of us?

With this, I'll exercise my editorial rights and let you know that your next comment here ought to be a really, really good one, because it will be your last.

A.L.

Sorry for the second comment, but I've been thinking about the ethical question of posting that correspondence for awhile now. I think I understand now why so many people seem to feel that it was acceptable (including me), even though they wouldn't normally condone that. It all goes back to UHF (the Weird Al movie, not the spectrum band).

Toward the end of UHF, the antagonist says something nasty about the people of the town in which he runs a television station. He thinks he's having a private conversation, but the room is bugged and his statement ends up broadcast to the whole town. Why do we as an audience cheer this? Because an unpleasant man is unmasked for who he really is, to the benefit of a previously unwary audience that had trusted him to give them news about their community and world.

I think this is a similar situation. Here we have someone who clearly has no regard for the readership here, viewing us with little more regard than that character in UHF had for his audience. And I use the word "audience" advisedly--Mr. Fumento is almost a parody of "old media" stereotypes about which bloggers frequently complain. "How dare you question me?" is the rhetorical question at the foundation of his reply here.

Well, Mr. Fumento, this is the blogosphere. I don't care how many articles you've had elsewhere, or how big your audience was there. We're not just audience members here. We're conversation partners, resources, research libraries, and even a wacky, contrarian Greek chorus. And that's just the way we like it, even the normally quiet ones like me.

Go back to your "audience," Mr. Fumento. I think everyone will be happier all the way around.

I used to be a fan of Fumento but I think that his understanding of the interactivity of the internet experience has been poisoned by his own obsession and vitriolic reactions to his own hatemail over the years.

Its a shame. Perhaps someday in the future, he'll have the opportunity to revise his tone and style.

AL

Holey Crow! You must still be wiping the spittle off after that one!

And once again, you do have to wonder about the slang, this time referring to Dirty Anal Things.

I'm now thinking about that big fat Cuban he photoshopped into his mouth in the self-portrait that accompanied his article about....oh no, it was that rectal disease, Diverticulitis, wasn't it ???!!!

I'm no psychologist, but I would definitely keep my hands over my privvies if you ever find yourself within fondling distance of this guy....

Years ago, someone (was it Lileks?) posted a link to Fumento's website. One of the pages consisted of nothing but readers' comments and Fumento's snide retorts. None of this exchange therefore came as a surprise to me.

At least now I know who Ann Coulter is, when [s]he isn't in drag.

You certainly shouldn't be concerned about posting your email exchange with Fumento -- he has a section on his site where he posts his email exchanges with others. And you posted his unaltered email. Fumento makes little edits to the emails he posts to make the other person look bad. Example

Let me see if I have this right. Somebody named Katzman is the editor or something called the Defence Industry Daily, and he is upset because the well known bully and all round jackass Fumento, best known for his recent defenestration by a sponsor, and widely detested for his knuckle dragger ways....is being rude. Is that it, bucky?

I don't believe it. It is just too perfect. And here is an issue about ethics (really?) raised in a blog that seems to function as a bulletin for Israeli propaganda when it is not offering the military opinions of characters who, one seriously doubts, could recognize an ambush even after it happens. And yes here is the false hair on the chest clown himself, noisily boastng about his prowess in abusing the living space of the Irakis. What that unfortunate population has had to put up with!
And here are references to other self promoting individuals who also frequent this blog and also are busily picking up combat-tourist badges to show at the next Scout meeting.

I really do not think you lot should chase away Fumento. After all hardly anyone will talk to him, while your bunch is a truly dismal lot of delayed adolescents. You really deserve each other. You can go to Rocky movies together and hold hands and stuff. I mean, enjoy. By now.

#28, thank you for descending from the heights to trouble yourselves with our mortal affairs.

Buy now.

You all lead unreasonably protected lives if you think Fumento was rude, or any ruder than AL or Katzman. And why should anyone have to accept or respond to comments? There's no blogging requirement to do so, and it's a waste of time.

BTW, the reason DailyKos's blog site gets so many hits is because of the comments, not because he's such a popular site. Comments represent traffic--which is why it's hard to believe the pious folks who prate on about the value of commenters.

#30 from Cal: "You all lead unreasonably protected lives if you think Fumento was rude, or any ruder than AL or Katzman."

To decide whether Armed Liberal or Joe Katzman were any ruder than Michael Fumento, you only need to read them, you don't need to live a wild life.

-

#30 from Cal: "And why should anyone have to accept or respond to comments? There's no blogging requirement to do so, and it's a waste of time."

There's no requirement for bloggers in general to accept comments, and I respected Michelle Malkin's decision to end them. Her attitude and her ability to live with people talking back to her were fine, but she was under attack by sickening people with disruptive intentions. Nobody has to put up with that.

However, Winds of Change is a nice site that stays that way by being actively policed. Also, traffic is not so heavy that responding to hundreds of comments such as you could get at Little Green Footballs would confiscate your time. Therefore, responding to comments is more possible.

It's also desirable. This is the Winds of Change way, and when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Responding to comments is all the more desirable when you may be wrong or in the wrong. If anyone could say they had no need to respond reasonably or at all to the comments here, it would not be Michael Fumento.

-

#30 from Cal: "BTW, the reason DailyKos's blog site gets so many hits is because of the comments, not because he's such a popular site. Comments represent traffic--which is why it's hard to believe the pious folks who prate on about the value of commenters."

The pious folk here who talk about the value of comments are entitled to their piety because they pay for it. Nobody is making anything from this site, and a bunch of people, mainly Joe Katzman, put a lot of work into maintaining it because they think it's a Good Thing.

Winds Of Change is in a sense one years long dispute for the sake of God. That's something to be proud of, and to encourage others to emulate.

AL & Joe -

I have been surprised by Mr. Fumento's tone in several of his recent posts. He seems to mistake disagreement for personal attack.

I don't think I would have posted your e-mail exchange with him, but I am not the least bit upset he is not posting here any more.

A Steve's comments above say about what I believe.

The two top bloggers, Michelle Malkin and Instapundit, make no room for comments -- any more than I do on my website. John Hawkins allows for comments but does not respond, nor does he allow guest bloggers to respond. Why? Because most comments are inane, saying readily falsifiable things and often are simply insulting.

Allow me to advance another possibility: Comments force writers and pundits to be accountable to readers for the material posted. That's a good thing -- if the goal is accuracy and open discussion. It's terribly inconvenient for the writer if his or her material is riddled with inaccuracies, easily exposed deception, or logical fallacies.

It's a credit to this site imo that the administrators and regs support the former and not the latter.

The comments about Fumento have moved to Joe's latest post on the topic. However, as a Winds Marshall I'd like to make one more observation.

Andy X, you are skirting very close to the unacceptable with you harping on Fumento and sexuality. Lose the obsession and join a more productive line of commentary and critique.

Thank you.

I read a couple of his posts and cringed at the thought of having to read Fumento's poorly written, poorly argued opinions and "facts." The man -- as he has represented himself here -- is a hypocrite, childish and unentertaining (much less informative).

After seeing the spat of posts he threw up, one after another, I stopped reading Winds for a few days, not so much out of conscious choice, but just a natural lack of interest to wade through his junk to get to the good content Winds has provided for a long time.

Perhaps Fumento's problems with blog comments relates directly to the type of supporters he attracts and the "I can't believe you had the gall to post that nonsense" opponents. Regardless, he didn't fit in here -- thanks for being open about this whole thing, it makes Winds just that much more consistent.

Seems to me that the biggest problem is Fumento's burning desire to come off as a complete jerk, as often as possible.

As to chicken hawks, that refers to "Armed Liberal," who never got closer to Iraq than watching CNN, and it refers to you personally. I don't see any leash keeping you from going. If a tiny little woman like Michelle Malkin can go, so can you. I'm 47 and going back to Iraq's most dangerous city for the third time in mid-February. Care to come along? Yes, that's a challenge. It's also a challenge to Danziger, who even as I write this has an egg coming out his rear. You can come or you can also lay an egg in that comfy home office of yours. Or are you just going to impugn my sexuality, too?

And here you are, doing exactly what you Joe and Armed Liberal were talking about. Your "experience" doesn't count for a hell of a lot if you can't make better arguments than brandishing it.

Is this the same brilliant Michael Fumento who wrote "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS"?

How's that theory working in Africa, Mike?

-GSD

GSD -

You beat me to it. Except that I would have added India, Thailand, and China...

A.L.

#38 from GSD at 9:41 pm on Jan 23, 2007

"Is this the same brilliant Michael Fumento who wrote "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS"?

How's that theory working in Africa, Mike?"

Not so well.

In Australia, it worked better than the saturation advertisements the federal government was running, with a terrifying grim reaper mowing down families and mainly kids like bowling balls (yes) in a bowling alley, stressing that all of us were equally at risk. Aids doesn't discriminate, it doesn't play favorites! rrr-RUMBLE! CRASH!! AIEEE!!!

Apart from giving a lot of kids nightmares, the ads did nothing to solve any problem they were just a typical mis-allocation of resources prompted by political correctness and also prompted by and fiercely contributing to panic.

Things like needle exchange programs, safe disposal bins and the promotion of condoms - all the things the government did that went straight at the populations really at risk - were the proper solution.

There is such a thing as useful debunking. That book did a lot of it. It was part of the solution, not the problem.

I very much regret coming upon this thread. Ladies and Gentlemen of WoC, take it from a MILBLOGGER who applauded the idea of you giving Fumento a spot here: you needed to take whatever steps necessary to preserve a very rare commodity, that of a place for civil discourse.

I don't know enough about the catalyst for Michael's online behavior, accuracy in posting, and behavior towards the WoC contributors and regular commenters, to judge whether he "crossed a line" prior to this thread. I can certainly judge whether he did so after. Throwing in entirely gratuitous insults about financial renumeration underscores the sense that he, like some others, looked like they are more interested in personal gain than furthering information flow debate. (Figure that, there are some of us crazy enough to see this as a calling and labor of love, rather than profit-making.)

Too bad, really. First person accounts, even highly subjective and self-serving ones, can still provide value in the dangerous world we all share.

Just some feedback from one of your MILBLOG fans. Keep up the good work.

Have commentators here actually read "The Myth of Heterosexual Aids"? Fumento was exactly correct with his claim that the danger, in developed countries like America, of heterosexual aids was wildly overblown. He has an entire chapter (9) about why Africa (and other places with lousy health care systems, needle reuse and so on) is and would continue to be different.

Fumento may be wrong in this current dispute. He may be right. But I can not find a single important claim in "The Myth of Heterosexual Aids" that has failed the test of time. Can anyone?

Also, could someone please clarify whether Fumento quit Winds of Change or was booted off first?

Re: L'Affaire Fumento:

JK and/or AL, please correct me if there's an error in substance here.

Speaking as an observer, not a participant, the sequence of events appears to be...

He wrote posts in an outspoken and perhaps unmannerly way; was corresponded with through email "backchannel" by Joe K. (and possibly others); responded poorly to Joe's suggestions regarding style and content; and email acrimony ensued, leading him (Mr Fumento) to take his leave, strictly speaking, before being explicitly invited to leave.

Some would say that Mr Fumento's manner booted him off WoC even before the leavetaking, in the sense that his posts were, in tone, from another planet. I know they made me blink and rub my eyes in wonder.

_#28, thank you for descending from the heights to trouble yourselves with our mortal affairs.

Buy now._

If you don't go shopping, the terrorists will win?