Secrets, secrets, damn your secrets! I look at some encouraging signs that a backlash against greater government secrecy is gathering steam.
New at Reason
Comments to "New at Reason":
Jennifer | August 16, 2005, 1:28pm | #
Last February, the pair introduced the OPEN Government Act (yet another cute legislative acronym: this one's short for "Openness Promtoes Effectiveness in our National Government Act")Is "prom toes" what you get when you cram your feet into cute but ill-fitting prom shoes?
And bitchy copyediting aside, who wants to place bets as to whether the Abu Ghraib photos appear in public during this President's term?
We have got to accept the amount of openness Bush says is good for us. We must not question our leaders, that is treason.
Curiosity Dep't | August 16, 2005, 1:48pm | #
I want to hear the Flt 93 tape(s). I see no policy reason why this tape should be secret.I'm surprised more people haven't complained about the "it will help the insurgents" excuse. What, so the government shouldn't have to release anything which makes the government look bad? FOIA was only meant to give people access to Presidential fan mail?
And hour one of "Shannon Love Watch" draws to a close without the elusive quarry being spotted, despite the attractive bait laid out by Julian Sanchez....
Lowdog | August 16, 2005, 1:56pm | #
Bring on the toture apologists! Bring on the 'secrecy for our own good' apologists! Bring on the 'don't you know there's a war on' crowd!Oh wait, there's Jane. At first, you couldn't tell if she was being serious or not (starting with Juanita, but now her arguments aren't even anger-inducing because they're so far out of the realm of possiblity - even for a troll.
Eric the .5b | August 16, 2005, 2:01pm | #
Jane comes across to me as deadpan ironic, albeit in the same incredibly tedious way as the "Why do you hate America?" gag, and without the benefit of making any actual contribution to a discussion.But to each his/her own.
Forget the wussy Shannon watch, SR. I'm waiting for Mona to drop in and explain why REAL Libertarians don't mind giving more power to the government!
thoreau | August 16, 2005, 2:07pm | #
Actually, if either Shannon Love or Mona shows up, the real question is when Hak Bart Gunnels will arrive to chuckle at them.Now, be very quiet and keep your head down. This elusive quarry can be difficult to spot.
SR | August 16, 2005, 2:09pm | #
"I'm waiting for Mona to drop in and explain why REAL Libertarians don't mind giving more power to the government!"Yes, I'm sure she'll be here too (despite the weekly threat to cancel her subscription and not come back), but Shannon is the bigger defender of government secrecy, so this article is practically a red flag.
Jennifer Fudd | August 16, 2005, 2:17pm | #
Shhh! Be vewwy vewwy quiet. I'm hunting weal wibetawians.thoreau | August 16, 2005, 3:17pm | #
<whisper>We might have scared them away. But we might still be able to attract Jean "The Hak" Gunnels. Somebody talk trash about the French and see what happens.
</whisper>
jf | August 16, 2005, 3:21pm | #
That law would attempt to eliminate "stealth exemptions" to FOIA by requiring Congress to explicitly identify any statues that would limit the public's right to access information under FOIA."I thought Ashcroft covered those statues up, and then Gonzales uncovered them.
Captain Awesome | August 16, 2005, 3:34pm | #
I always figured that Jane/Juanita were just regular posters making a joke.Jane (the dead baby angel) Juanita | August 16, 2005, 3:36pm | #
Do you have any idea how hard it is to dance in a toilet? LET FREEDOM RING!!TheDumbFish | August 16, 2005, 3:37pm | #
Steve "Wibetawian Hunter" Irwin: "Crikey, look at this little beauty!"*Picks up a Hakluyt
Steve: The Hakluyt can spit invective from up to 15 posts away. It has ablilty to post repeatedly in multple threads. Most people, including experts, can't tell the difference between a Hakluyt, Gunnels, French Jean Bart and a Jason Bou...
Hakluyt: *chuckle*
Steve: Oooo. Yer a naughy little girl, aren't you.
Jane | August 16, 2005, 3:58pm | #
Do you have any idea how hard it is to dance in a toilet? LET FREEDOM RING!!What?
Bush is making us all free by fighting for our freedoms in Iraq. If you hate America move to Cuba. If the president wants us all to die in a war, and makes it the law, then we have to do it, no one has any right to commit treason by questioning the president.
LET FREEDOM RING
Jane, the point of parody is to do an EXAGGERATED, humorous imitation of something, not a word-for-word quote.
Tim Cavanaugh | August 16, 2005, 6:44pm | #
Things I do know: Jane plays more roles on Hit & Run than Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers combined.Things I don't know: Whether Hakluyt is JB/GG/JB/TM, etc. I hope so. I need somebody to play Klaus Kinski to my Werner Herzog.
Something I just realized: That Mona has been around lately. I hadn't noticed him or her for months, and assumed that Mona had finally made good on that promise to leave us once and for all. But I see a late-July subway thread was a regular Monathon.
Things I wonder about: What became of dj of raleigh, Thomas Paine's Goiter, Andrew, James Merritt, and so many others. You all shit your pants whenever I ban somebody, but who sheds a tear for those regulars who just fade away... Where are the snows of yesteryear?
Lowdog | August 16, 2005, 6:58pm | #
Sometimes I think Jane/Juanita/Bob is thoreau just being silly. But it doesn't seem to be thoreau's style. Still, doesn't it seem that when Jane/Juanita/Bob are posting a lot, thoreau isn't? Has anyone seen them all in the same room together? :)Good question, Tim. I do wonder what happens to some of our regulars. I can't say I shed a tear, though.
If Hak isn't those other personas, I'll buy everyone a round... :)
Brian Courts | August 16, 2005, 7:12pm | #
Yeah Tim, as far as I'm concerned Hak gave himself away when he pulled the old 'go read up and relieve yourself of your ignorance' on some poor commenter (can't remember who it was) a few weeks back. Nobody else but GG can pull that off and make it sound so routine. He'd obviously done this before :)thoreau | August 16, 2005, 9:35pm | #
Lowdog-Science is demanding more of my attention lately. Sometimes I do sarcastic posts, but I either do them under my name or I do them under an alias that's part of the joke.
So I'm not Jane/Juanita/Bob.
I miss James Anderson Merritt and, in a way, Andrew. dj of Raleigh's posts were always laid out like poetry. And I know he said it had something to do with the browser he was posting from, but it totally ruined the style and made it hard for me to read his posts. So I always felt bad for not giving him serious consideration.
As to whether Hak is GG/JB/etc., before GG left he said he was moving to NC. Hak is in NC. Presumably the different IP addresses are due to the move. And, Tim, didn't you say that GG had hundreds of IP addresses?
Well, in NYC this September we'll confirm that at least a few of the people on this forum aren't Gary or Jane. And I can tell you for certain that Mr. Nice Guy is a real person.
TheDumbFish | August 16, 2005, 11:20pm | #
I'm a committed lurker here. I'm not clever enough to contribute anything of substance. About the only the only threads that actually lure me into making a post are the ones where posters are speculating about the identity of other posters. It's great fun.The most interesting mystery here concerns Jean Bart/The Merovingian/Gary Gunnels/Jason Bourne/Hakluyt/Did I miss one. Any one else interested in the Gunnels chronicles? Try searching for "Gary Gunnels" (in quotes) in the Google news groups. There you will find some classic entries from more than 10 years ago posted by a young, obnoxious Gunnels. He's pissing off people on USENET even back then, although he hasn't quite got his style down yet. No "chuckles* to be seen in those posts.
"Classic" Gunnels fun facts:
-Former Oregon State Univesity student
-Former Auburn Grad Student
-Sports fan. Particularly the Knicks apparently
-History Buff
-Sci-Fi fan
-Fond of using alternate identities
I know, it's creepy that I've searched and gone back and read those posts. But at least I haven't started stalking the guy. He was pretty careful not to leave his address anywhere that I could find on the web.
BTW, has anyone noticed Hakluyt giving any one a *chuckle*? I haven't.
thoreau | August 17, 2005, 9:08am | #
DumbFish-Thanks for that info. Here's a classic Gunnels post from or.politics. If you google newsgroups it's the first one that comes up, and it's at the bottom of the page:
I am a OREGONIAN. Don't you get it? I graduate from OSU, and grew up in
Oregon. BTW, Auburn is in Alabama, not Georgia, you geographically
challenged toad!
TheDumbFish | August 17, 2005, 10:41am | #
Nice. There are alot of classic Gunnels posts in there. Here's one with a very famliar tone:"u really expect me to respond to such nonsense, John I have always thought that you were a reasonable person who was highly intelligent until this post. Please don't delve into historiography and international relations until you have done some serious reading on the subject."
And here's a pretty bizarre post from a thread entitled "Hey!!!!! Fuck You!!!!!":
"I'm drunk get a life. I love Star Trek, and I'm gay so I want to sleep with Riker."
Not very Gunnels-esque, is it?. Guess he really was drunk. Or maybe Jean Bart, his roomate from downstairs, was using his PC that day.
thoreau | August 17, 2005, 10:49am | #
DumbFish-I was talking about this a couple months ago with some friends. One of them is a grad student in a humanities department, and some of the dirty laundry from the department listserv got aired to a wider audience. There was all sorts of controversy over it.
We've all had those late-night dorm conversations where we say really dumb things that sounded profound at the time. Well, with the internet we can post those idiotic comments in a form preserved for posterity. So imagine what the 2024 Presidential election will be like...
drf | August 17, 2005, 11:12am | #
Other missing posters:Pat Cameltoe
Slippery Pete (a nom de plume for GG's arguments with himself? - another "Andrew" or Shannon or Mona?)
twistedmerkin
(was it Andrew who would "stage whisper" or was that Pete?)
Laz Long (who played Andrew to GG's Lefty)
Rick Santorum's Dog - just kidding
as for GG: there's one auburn website where his claim to fame is having tons of "nics".
back to topic:
"I'm surprised more people haven't complained about the "it will help the insurgents" excuse."
Jennifer - helping the insurgents, the ticking timebomb theory, gitmo and abu ghraib apologists, etc. There are ad hoc excuses for everything here. Whether they got drawn in with the 1991 "hate on towelheads" anti iraq propaganda, whether there is a cultural tie to israel, and therefore an increased US presence there is a benefit, whether they're just into war, there will always be a justification for those differing reasons for being gung ho.
Jennifer | August 17, 2005, 11:17am | #
Drf--I'm just amazed that these evil sons of bitches can be so self-deluded that they find nothing ridiculous in saying "If people are allowed to know what evil things we've done then they will hate us for doing said evil things!" If you don't want people to find out you've been torturing, raping and murdering people, then don't torture, rape and murder people. Especially not in the name of liberating them from being tortured, raped and murdered. Dumbasses.
drf | August 17, 2005, 11:24am | #
uh huh.and how the iraqis are free from torture - the torture chambers have been shut down. win the hearts and minds. 9/11. 9/11. 9/11.
see - it's esay to see how those evil sons of bitches get so self deluded.
the mean streak in me wants to connect the self delusion with them being religious, but that's inaccurate (and Dan is a big time atheist hawk) and wrong. sigh.
Stevo Darkly | August 17, 2005, 8:51pm | #
Things I wonder about: What became of dj of raleigh, Thomas Paine's Goiter, Andrew, James Merritt, and so many others. You all shit your pants whenever I ban somebody, but who sheds a tear for those regulars who just fade away... Where are the snows of yesteryear?The thing is, when someone stops posting, there's not trigger event that causes you to say, "Hey, so-and-so doesn't post anymore. I guess he/she is never coming back." Especially if the person's presence trail off gradually. In other words, when someone fades away, there's no specific "grief trigger event." Whereas a banning is an abrupt and specific event.