3. Speaking of “bite me,” Jude got himself banned by taking umbrage at my giving that send-off to a veteran commenter here who, in my opinion and that’s what matters, charged over several red lines to accuse me of hypocrisy. I had mentioned that as the one who labors about three hours a day to make this blog interesting, stimulating, current and useful, I reserved the privilege of being a jerk now and then when a commenter annoys me sufficiently. (This is right in the comment rules.) Jude insisted that I did not have that privilege, precipitating his exit. The analogy, of course, is my home. I treat guests with respect and kindness, until they abuse my hospitality, other guests, or me. They do not have leave to do that, but I do have leave to react however I choose within the law. In extreme situations, that reaction may be excessive, as in that of a jerk. It’s still my house.
4 Finally, regarding serial rogue banned commenter “A Friend,” I am through being nice. It wastes my time having to delete his posts, and if anyone has invited my jerk privileges to be unleashed, it’s him. I just posted another bit of smoking gun evidence showing how biased his favorite paper, The Gray Lady is, so I will expect an insulting rebuttal any minute. What to do? In the Thirties, the great humorist Robert Benchley served as a drama critic for The New Yorker. He hated the long-running show “Abie’s Irish Rose,” and yet had to write a thumbnail summary of the show for every issue while the comedy ran for years. Eventually, he refused to acknowledge the show at all, and in the space reserved for his latest summary, started copying in random sections from novels, poems, and other non-sequiturs. I’m open to suggestions regarding what to use to substitute for “A Friend’s” carefully composed pedantry after I delete his content and substitute mine. Proust? Henry Miller? Excerpts from the speeches of Grover Cleveland?
Ethics Alarms 
Wouldn’t copy/pasting stuff in his place be more time-consuming than deleting the comment? And isn’t there a way to block banned users from commenting at all?
You should understand me better by now.
If it amuses me, it’s worth the time.
Excerpts from the speeches of US Presidents sounds great, and if you identify which President’s speech each one was from, they’d even count as educational. Some of the individuals who are obsessive emailers to the law firm I work at I sometimes wish we could do the same to, but they’re either our clients (and it’s the attorney’s call on when to withdraw representation) or the opposing side in litigation (so the staff all roll their eyes and the attorneys respond as needed).
Excerpts from presidents’ speeches are good, but without attribution. The commenters who wish to engage can attempt to identify the president quoted. A contest where the “prize” is nothing by bragging rights.
I like that Idea! And it would increase the challenge level (or motivate commenters to do some serious Googling before posting an answer).
I would recommend you have AI rewrite his comments in the style of well-known characters like Foghorn Leghorn or the Swedish Chef.
Kamala Harris? Though that might blow up an AI bot…so “Kamala Harris” it is!!
Ag gernesh berndy New York Times…!
Taken under advisement…
“Ah say, ah say . . .” or “That boy’s about as sharp as a bowling ball.”
A personal favorite is from “O Brother, Where Art Thou” which is, “Is you is, or is you ain’t, my constituency?” followed closely by “You two are just dumber than a bag of hammers.”
jvb
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-Jut
My high school Latin teacher, who justifiably hated me, would be shocked that I even receivd such a comment. My answer: “Oh yeah?”
It’s dummy text, kind of like A Friend’s comments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum
I thought you were aware of this.
-Jut
My preferred ipsum: https://baconipsum.com/
As a person who has been squatting in your proverbial home with full tenant rights the past two decades or so…I demand due process.
🙂
Glad you were able to get it straightened out so quickly. I felt your pain, having dealt with, at various times. the IRS, bogus credit card charges, credit bureau info, etc. With all of them, I was in the right, the proper information was verifiable, but they dragged out for months. Credit bureau: After going in catch-22 circles online and by phone with India or wherever, I finally got a number for the company president’s executive secretary at Equifax, and she politely and competently fixed the credit info issue in about two minutes.
A hacker (or a grumpy pro se opponent in one of our law firm’s cases) hacked our Best Buy account last year to buy a video game console (a type we’ve never owned, at a Best Buy location we’ve never been to). It took a few months to convince Best Buy that it was a fraudulent transaction, and our credit limit still got reduced to at best 1/3 of what it had been pre-hacking. We haven’t made a major purchase from Best Buy since then, largely because the new credit limit is so small that it’s insufficient for replacing computers at our home or business.
How about quotes from Lewis Carroll: “For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.”
Excellent option.
My favourite is a Foghorn Leghorn line that is, sadly, not canon:
“Boy, I say boy, you are about to exceed the limits of my medication.”