No One Knows You're A Dog

As the famous saying goes, on the internet, no one knows you're a dog.

However - they will probably figure it out if you are a horse's ass.

Patterico and LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik are at it again.  Maybe Hiltzik wins some of these rounds, but I haven't noticed.

For a bit of perspective, let's check the reaction to John Lott when his "Mary Rosh" sock puppet was outed.  Here is Kieran Healey of Crooked Timber, Tim Lambert, and Timothy Noah of Slate.

Comments

[windansea]

Hey there's a "Specter" involved in this kerfluffle...is that our Specter??

Maybe Hiltzik is also DougJ et al

[cathyf]

Ah, but is anyone else here old enough to know that the dog in question is Brandy the Wonderdog, whose human servant is Darren F. Provine?

(If I remember correctly, Brandy didn't believe in 2-valued logic. Which made for some rather odd theology. Darren, on the other hand, was a free-will Baptist. I've lost touch over the years, though -- perhaps Brandy and Darren have settled into more sedate Anglicanism.)

cathy :-)

[JJ]

Per Mr. Crank:

"Really, I'm starting to wonder if Patterico is actually Hiltzik - this guy is just too pitch-perfect a weaselly, sneering, blinkered, high-handed caricature of a big media liberal to be for real."

Bark, bark, woof, woof, neigh! Hee haw!

[Gary Maxwell]

Hey TM what about your own trolls here. We have seen sock puppet behavior out of JayDEE/Katina/AB in the past. How about lately? Got any interesting IP matches for us? Is DougJ lurking?

[Barney Frank]

I followed a few links about Tim Lambert and eventually found that Mr. Lambert who was excoriating Mr. Lott for sock puppetry had done the very same thing on his own site, using two different aliases. Its getting harder and harder to remain an anonymous dog on the internet these days, although it seems it will always be easy to be a horse's ass.

[Al]

Yes, but IOKIYAD.

[Tim Lambert]

No Barney Frank, I did not use any sock puppets on my site or any other one. I have always posted under my real name. I caught Michael Fumento using a sock puppet on my blog and he retaliated by making a counter accusation. Trouble is, he had no evidence for his claim, though it seems that there is always someone gullible enough to fail for it.

[Sue]

My goodness. I much prefer Tom's what the hey attitude...

[Crank]

One might also ask about the reactions from people who got all hot and bothered about Ben Domenech's pseudonym at RedState.

[Tim Lambert]

A small correction, Tom. The Kieran Healy posting wasn't about outing Lott as Mary Rosh. After he got caught once, Lott just switched to another sockpuppet. And when he got caught with that one, he used another one. And when he got caught with that one he switched to another one. Healy's post was about outing him as "economist123". Not to be confused with outing him as maximcl or washingtonian or Tom H or Bob H or Kevin H or Gregg or timewarp or Alt37 or ......

[MinuteMan]

You the man, Tom.

You.The.Man!!!!!

.

[SteveMG]

As Russell Kirk might have said, "Stay away from these Jacobin machines."

Nothing good will come from them.

SMG

[Daddy]

Possibly he had just read the Instapundit's Book, learned about Blog swarms, and in order to beef up his lackluster web site, created "An Army Of Hiltziks".

[noah]

We know TSK9 is in fact a dog!

[windansea]

I've told everyone here I am just a labrador with typing skills

and TS is one smart puppy

[noah]

Does anyone remember when the judge is going to issue an opinion on Libby's motion to dismiss?

[Lew Clark]

Just to make sure, I downloaded all of Tom's posts and the posts of all the regular detractors. Then i ran it through NSA's (super top secret but now leaked) "writing style analysis program" It proved with 99% reliability that none of those posters are Tom's sock puppets. However, because of the Mohammed controversy on South Park, all recent episodes were being analyzed also. I was shocked to find that "Mister Hand" is Tom Maguire’s sock puppet!

[topsecretk9]

We know TSK9 is in fact a dog!

a bitch to boot! Woof.

[TM]

A small correction, Tom. The Kieran Healy posting wasn't about outing Lott as Mary Rosh..

Darn - I threw in the "Mary Rosh" as a late add to help jog people's memories.

Well, I would fire my editor, but then I would have to post as... well, I'll think of someone.

As to the Ben Domenech debacle - interesting point, but Ms. Hamsher seems to be more annoyed by Domenech-Augustine's content than by the fact that Domenech was using a pseudonym at his own site.

You the man, Tom.

I have tried to sock-puppet myself twice now, and the darn thing keeps defaulting to the real me. Darn.

[SillyPseud]

Still, you *are* the man!

[TM]

Free at last!

[windansea]

a bitch to boot! Woof.

heh..I was gonna say that cuz I know you are a female doggie but I chickened out!

TM all your editors belong to us

[Dwilkers]

Speaking of dogs, Hiltzig has really made an ass of himself with this. Keep in mind this guy is buried in the same MSM that is doing the reporting on Fitz.

Thank goodness the court filings are public record.

[NotDwilkers-Not EvenRelatedToHim]

Good point Dwilkers. You sure are smart.

[cathyf]

Are you sure you're not Dwilkers' dog?

[Gary Maxwell]

Apparently a lot of "no comment" replies coming out of LA Times. Means ( to me ) they are reviewing Mr. Sockpuppet. Hugh Hewitt invited both Mr. Sockpuppet and his editor on his show but apparently they are already booked and declined.

[Dwilkers]

I don't know who that was Cathy, but he sure does seem to be a highly intelligent fellow. And good looking. Yeah he's smart and good looking too I think.

[Al]

Now up on Hiltzik's blog:

"Notice from the Editors
The Times has suspended Michael Hiltzik’s Golden State blog on latimes.com. Hiltzik admitted Thursday that he posted items on the paper’s website, and on other websites, under names other than his own. That is a violation of The Times ethics policy, which requires editors and reporters to identify themselves when dealing with the public. The policy applies to both the print and online editions of the newspaper. The Times is investigating the postings."

[DwilkersDog]

This is DWilkers dog Herbie.

I'm usually forced to work like a dog, all day long, but today he let me use the computer to post on this blog. I decided to say something nice about Dwilkers in the hope that he would feed me, because I have been losing a lot of weight with all the work he makes me do.

But he really is a nice guy. And smart. And good looking too.

There. Feed me Dwilkers.

[windansea]

a new phrase is born

he pulled a Hiltzik

[Barney Frank]

Well I did a little reading about Mr. Lambert and was not surprised to find he is not entirely forthcoming. I will admit first that the accusation that he has engaged in sock puppetry is rather weak, coming as it does from a rather petulent adversary and not really backed up by any info. If it is true, and I don't really know one way or the other, that he hasn't engaged in the dirty sock thing then he has my apologies.
However Mr. Lambert failed to mention that he has apparently falsely accused several people of sock puppetry in an insipid and tedious dispute at Wikipedia over the John Lott article.
Nor did he mention the apparently unethical behavior reported about himself at a site run by a fellow named Tim Blair.
Nothing like the old pot and the kettle.
Here's a couple of sites;

http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/ethical_academic/

http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/mr_popularity/

http://doubletap.cs.umd.edu/WikipediaStudy/

[topsecretk9]

HERBIE! you are cute and your paws are so manly with all that work you do ...wanna go on a walk sometime? ::wink::

[topsecretk9]

By the way Dwilk

If there such a thing as blow comment awards, yours would win.

and I think Herbs is the da bomb.

[Daddy]

Personally I think Karl Rove orchestrated the whole thing.

[cathyf]

Herbie, very attractive crotch shot, there. So suave, so debonair...

(At least we didn't have to listen to "loud personal hygiene" though...)

cathy :-)

[JM Hanes]

Yo DwDog!

Need a sock puppet? Or a loose socket puppet?

[Tim Lambert]

Barney Frank, not only is the countercharge Fumento made against me unsupported by any evidence at all -- it has been proven false. Oddly enough, if you just read his blog you don't find out my side of the matter.

So what do you do? You throw out some more charges, claiming that I don't mention things that are covered in detail on my blog. It's just that Fumento and Blair don't link or respond to my side of the issues. But according to you, this is because I "don't mention it". Here: one and two and three.

[Shad]

Thanks for the reminders of the dishonesty of Tim "Soylent Green is People! Iraqi People! The Lancet proved it!" Lambert, Barney.

I'd forgotten that he'd hijacked all the original writings from Tim Blair's site onto his university's servers (until, under threat of legal action, the administration smacked him down for the blatant copyright violation and intellectual property theft and forced him to stop).

Quick show of hands, everybody -- which is more offensive: posting under a psuedonym while pretending to be someone you're not, or stealing the entire content of someone else's blog?

[Soylent Red]

Dwilkers and Herbie:

I may be crazy but...

Why do dogs all give the same baleful look when you take their picture?

I have asked Soylent Dog (who is a master of the hangdog look), and all I can glean from him is that it must have something to do with putting the damn camera down and throwing the ball again...

[topsecretk9]

---stealing the entire content of someone else's blog?--

badder.

[Joe Mealyus]

"a new phrase is born

he pulled a Hiltzik"

The question is, is a "Hiltzik" the sock-puppetry thing or a "Hiltzik" the post ("On Anonymity in Blogland") he wrote in response to his outing by Patterico?

"On Anonymity in Blogland" is just amazing. I didn't really understand the insightfulness of "when the going gets tough, the weird turn pro," until now.

[Tim Lambert]

Shad, I didn't steal the content of Blair's blog. You are dishonest.

[kim]

You sound like one of these newspaper reporters on Plamegate. In possession of facts, utterly unwilling to share because it might disturb a paradigm, or confuse the metanarrative.
==========================

[PeterUK]

Dwilkers,
Why have you got Herbie plugged into the mains supply.
Top Secret,you have outed yourselfwith that picture,you are no longer top secret,there shouild be an enquiry.

[MDP]

Roshanon: a tale told from the perspective of one man's various pseudonymous persona.

[Shad]

Anyone interested in who is being dishonest can just click on Barney's link to Mr. Blair's blog and read about the events that occurred.

Alternately, they could contact Paul Compton and ask him if he remembers the incident. Who knows, perhaps the University of New South Wales has changed its policy since then and now approves of its servers being used to facilitate the wholesale intellectual theft of other people's websites?

[Tim Lambert]

No Shad, if you follow the link to Blair's blog, you only find his side of the story. You haven't bothered to find out my side, and Blair doesn't link to my response.

[richard mcenroe]

Tim Lambert — strange... many of us from Tim Blair's site managed to find out way over to yours from his and respond to "your side." Are you lying because you think no one will make the effort to check your story, or are you lying because you think Americans are just gullible?

[Crank]

Noah's comment is an illustration of MinuteMan's law: if a thread goes on long enough at this blog, the subject will eventually turn to Valerie Plame.

[cathyf]

Well, Val isn't a dog. I have to say that Joe is, though. One of those enduring mysteries of the whole kerfuffle is just what she sees in him. I dunno... Maybe it was a mid-life crisis thing for her (she was certainly entitled) and, ya know, any port in a storm and all that...

cathy :-)

[Barney Frank]

Mr.Lambert,

I merely meant you came onto this site making certain statements without mentioning other controversies which you have been involved in which are of a similar nature; not that you have never discussed them anywhere else at some time or another.
I did go to your blog. I saw the accusation of sock puppetry and your denial and a great deal of silly cheerleading by what you might describe of someone else as meat puppetry and sophistry everywhere else. So you'll have to excuse me if I didn't spend my entire day immersing myself in your other perorations. Its all pretty tedious.

[kim]

Yes, cf, Val remains very much the woman of mystery. I can't help but wonder at her relative innocence, or relative guilt. Which is it? I really have very little clue, but I suspect, from the secrecy and flight, that she is not a happy camper.

So what metanarrative dare he only hint at, our mystifying but apparently well-known troll?
======================================

[Jim Miller]

Purely out of curiosity, does anyone know whether the New Yorker cartoon (which you can find with a Google image search using "dog + internet") was the first use of that saying? Or did the cartoonist borrow it from somewhere, and, if so, where?

[J F Beck]

Tim Lambert doesn't like my views on the anti-malaria use of DDT. Rather than argue the matter he chose to bounce my tiny little blog's links to his old site. He has also manipulated and stealthily deleted my comments. At his new site he falsely accused me of lodging an abusive comment, which was, of course, deleted. He also moderates my comments, sometimes holding them for 12 hours or more, in order to prevent me making a timely contribution to discussions.

Lambert's homepage currently displays 16 posts, of which eight are related to John Lott. He's got obsession issues – check his old and new archives for posts on "Lott", "Lancet" and "DDT" if you have any doubts.

[kim]

I say that dog is a byatch and I say to hell with her.
=====================

[cathyf]

Jim Miller, I know you're probably gone, but the Darren Provine whom I pointed out above used to sign his usenet postings with a disclaimer that any postings appearing under his name might be from Brandy the Wonderdog. This had already been going on for some time when first started posting on the Internet in 88 or 89 or so. Brandy also had her own email account and used to post to soc.religion.christian, and would disagree with Darren.

The New Yorker cartoon is from 1993, and so would be much later.

cathy :-)

[Broccoli's Best Friend]

Why are you universally suspected of stealing Blair's dog? And listen, that byatch is my best friend so watch your step lest your toes touch what fascinates your nose.

[kalonline Geons]

I am so happy. They understand me so well, kalonline Geons is my favorite.

[LOTRO Gold]

When you have LOTRO Gold, you can get more!