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Today's TRMS

By Vanessa Silverton-Peel

Osama bin Laden's driver has just been convicted of providing material support to terrorists following an illegal, secretive terrifying kangaroo court trial at Guantanamo. Joining Rachel tonight to talk about Hamdan's life, trial and conviction is the man who just wrote the definitive book on the subject, Jonathan Mahler. His new book is called: The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power.

Also, journalists only need the vaguest sign of friendship between one of the candidates and another politician to assume that a vice presidential choice is nigh. But, it does seem like Obama is spending an awful lot of time with Evan Bayh. So much so that we are nervous this is more than a coincidence. So we've asked John Nichols to join us today to talk about why Bayh would be a terrible, terrible running mate.

Earnest Request -- To All TRMS Bloggers

Since an extremely disruptive individual has resurfaced on the blog, I'd like to ask everyone to pledge to ignore this individual -- refrain from responding in any way, ever again.

I hope everyone will look at these three recent pieces on abusive behavior on the web.

Last Sunday's NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html

On the Media (Ira Glass - abusive behaviour on a "This American Life" message board)
http://www.onthemedia.org/episodes/2008/07/25/segments/104537

Wired Magazine
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2008/07/autoadmit

It seems possible that AAR blocked this person's access under his old login. If they did, I applaud them, and I'd support banning the person by IP address. However, I can recognize that if this person is really determined to get back in, he'll likely find a way to regain access.

So, I think we have to do our part, and I think the very best thing we can do is to totally -- no exceptions, always, no matter what, forever -- ignore this individual.

I don't want to lecture anybody for having replied to this individual. I have, myself, replied a few times against my better judgment, until I got a really good read on the level of viciousness behind these posts. So, I absolutely understand how hard it is to remain silent while the blog is being constantly bombarded with inflammatory insults, racist and homophobic remarks, and other generally infuriating and destructive behaviour. It's been especially hard when some of the most disturbing comments have been personalized -- aimed at specific bloggers.

By encouraging use of the perma-iggy option, I realize I'm not telling any of you anything that you didn't already know. A lot of us have reminded each other now and then to stop engaging this person, and if we need to do so again, let's do it. But I'd like to try to go one step further. I think our best hope is to band together and ignore this person. It's the best way I can think of to -- individually and collectively -- declare that this is not worth our time.

So, I am hereby pledging to all of you: I will not reply to this person again. If I have a moment of weakness and reply to this person, I'll give $350.00 to a charity chosen by the first person to call me on it on the blog.

How's that?

By essicAugust 6, 2008 - 11:58pm