June 13, 2011

"On the Internet, everybody knows you're a lesbian"

From the Washington Post:
‘Paula Brooks,’ editor of ‘Lez Get Real,’ also a man 
By Elizabeth Flock and Melissa Bell 
Just one day after the author behind a popular Syrian lesbian blog admitted to being a married, American man named Tom MacMaster, the editor of the lesbian news site Lez Get Real, with the tag­line “A Gay Girl’s View on the World,” acknowledged that he is also a man. 

I think that last bit should read: "... he, also, is a man." But you get the general idea.
“Paula Brooks,” editor of Lez Get Real since its founding in 2008, is actually Bill Graber, 58, a retired Ohio military man and construction worker who said he had adopted his wife’s identity online. Graber said she was unaware he had been using her name on his site. ... 
Graber said he started the site to write about gay issues after seeing the mistreatment of close friends who were a lesbian couple. He said the site was “done with the best of intentions.” As a former Air Force pilot, he also said he used the site to argue in favor of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal. 
“I didn’t start this with my name because... I thought people wouldn’t take it seriously, me being a straight man,” he said. ... 
In the guise of Paula Brooks, Graber corresponded online with Tom MacMaster, thinking he was writing to Amina Arraf. Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian.

I can't top that line, short of revealing that "Steve Sailer" is actually a fictitious character, so let me, Selena Gomez, change tone. Something that we ought to have learned from the proliferation of Internet opinionizing over the last 15 or so years is that the conventional wisdom that there was all this diverse pundit talent out there who were being held down by the old boys network of white male privilege was about 179 degrees wrong. It turned out that the people with interesting opinions on the Internet were more white and male than the people who were paid to offer opinions on TV and in print. When you take away how pundits look and how they speak and just get down to the words they have to say, it turns out that the big discoveries were ... a whole bunch of white guys. To take one example, the Internet revealed that the best sports pundit in America was a white guy named Bill Simmons.

75 comments:

  1. Reason he said he pretended to be a lesbian:

    Graber said he started the site to write about gay issues after seeing the mistreatment of close friends who were a lesbian couple. He said the site was “done with the best of intentions.”

    Real reason he pretended to be a lesbian:

    Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian.

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  2. For some reason, a lot of men are turned on by lesbianism. Not real lesbianism -- Howard Stern fantasy lesbianism.

    If you meet a few real lesbians, the whole girl/girl thing quickly loses its appeal.

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  3. "If you meet a few real lesbians, the whole girl/girl thing quickly loses its appeal."

    Yeah, I've met a few lesbians. They don't look like Penthouse Magazine lesbians that's for sure.

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  4. If you meet a few real lesbians, the whole girl/girl thing quickly loses its appeal.

    Yeah, I've known some pretty hot bisexual women but never any good-looking lesbians. And unfortunately, the women that the hot bisexual chicks usually go for are the mannish lezzies, not other hot bisexual chicks. Damn it.

    Cinemax has a lot to answer for.

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  5. your BFF: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html?_r=1&hpw

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  6. Yeah, I've met a few lesbians. They don't look like Penthouse Magazine lesbians that's for sure.

    That should have been the first clue that "Amina Arraf" wasn't what she claimed to be. When I lived in western Massachusetts my favorite beer bar was in Northampton, a town with an all-girl's college and adjacent to a town with another all-girl's college. It's a lesbian Mecca of sorts and consequently I've seen hundreds of lesbians. They're all much closer in appearance to a bull-dyke like Rachel Madow than to the woman the guy used for Arraf's picture.

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  7. For anyone wondering, I am a man.

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  8. 'Coming out of the closet' used to mean a guy declaring he's gay. Now, it means a 'gay girl' or 'lesbian' declaring that she's a straight guy. Or a straight guy declaring that he's a lesbian who's really a straight guy.
    Maybe it should be called 'coming out of the port.'
    Postmodern sexualism. What with pomosexuals starting to come out of the closet, let us be careful not to be pomophobes.

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  9. With so many swapples being honorary fruits, aka metrosexuals, maybe this isn't such a strange thing.

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  10. I think it may be easier for a guy to pretend to be a lesbian than a straight woman online. If he slips up and lets a masculine tone creep into his prose, it may well be excused on the theory that of course a dyke would have somewhat masculine interests, etc.

    Also, as our gracious host pointed out way back when, lesbians love to write-- and I may say, so do the men who impersonate them on line.

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  11. How many other characters are you portraying yourself as online, Sailer? Could you be outed any day now in a delicious scandal guaranteed to leave us both titillated and aghast for months to come?

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  12. This is where the barrier between fiction and non-fiction breaks down. When writing fiction, an author puts himself/herself in the minds of fictional characters--white, black, brown, gay, straight, asian Jewish, muslim, etc--and becomes other people. But we know who the author is and what his/her characters are. We know who is really real and who were invented.

    But with social networking, some people can create fictional characters and animate them as real-life people. It's like a cyber version of the identity cons we see in Mamet movies. But the funny thing about this guy and Tom Mccaster was that they were, in a way, utterly sincere in their deceptions. They really seemed to believe they were doing good, telling a noble lie to represent a higher truth or cause.

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  13. I sometimes most politicians are not real but just fictional characters paid for and created by AIPAC and Wall Street. They are all sockpuppets of the Netanhayus and Soroses of the world.

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  14. "the conventional wisdom that there was all this diverse pundit talent out there who were being held down by the old boys network of white male privilege was about 179 degrees wrong"

    On the other hand, there are lots of talented, intelligent, and opinionated gays and lesbians.

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  15. With virtual techhnology, this will just get worse and worse.. or better and better. Surely one day they'll be able to create a CGI person who looks human in every way. Imagine peoples using these animated images as themselves.

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  16. Yup, straight white guys make the best fake non-whites, gays, and everybody else. Takes a white guy to make those dull and drearily predictable groups interesting.

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  17. So, the truth reveals three liberals--two 'lesbians' and weiner--to be nuts and one conservative--Palin--to be sane(after Sarah Papers or emails were released).

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  18. What if Gaddafi was just a Hollywood actor--maybe Jewish--who's been planted there all these yrs just to give us an exucse to invade?

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  19. It's even funnier when you read his wife's perspective:

    Britta Froelicher, wife of ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus,’ caught in her husband’s ‘hurricane’
    By Melissa Bell

    My favorite excerpt from the article:

    "Froelicher also heard a new admission Monday: MacMaster had posed as a lesbian on dating sites and communicated with women flirtatiously by instant messenger. One woman, Sandra Bagaria, had thought she and Amina were in a virtual relationship and had been planning to meet the fictional Amina in Italy in July."


    I think I'm glad I'm not married. This would happen to me. I know it.

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  20. Notice how the media are just brushing these stories as harmless hoaxes since the guys were pushing a pro-gay agenda. Suppose a conservative had created a fake gay person to make gays look bad. Then, the media would be crying foul and screaming for blood.

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  21. Stories like this are why I no longer call myself a 'conservative.' What is left to conserve?

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  22. Well, this whole thread explains a lot of my problems.

    I know now that I'm a transgendered lesbian: a woman who loves other women, trapped in a man's body.

    I think I'll go back to college on an affirmative action scholarship, then when I get out I can start a business and apply for some minority government contracts.

    I mean, c'mon, I'm gay AND transgendered. How could I NOT be oppressed??

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  23. Steve S. said:

    In the guise of Paula Brooks, Graber corresponded online with Tom MacMaster, thinking he was writing to Amina Arraf. Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian.

    This is another instance of Muggeridge's Law. Seriously, I belly-laughed for a solid minute when I read this.

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  24. Another big lie.

    Alex Haley and Roots.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObWSZTZzVvg

    And of course, Rigoberta Macchu or something like that.

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  25. I'm a man and so is my wife.

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  26. "For anyone wondering, I am a man."

    And I'm a girl.

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  27. "How many other characters are you portraying yourself as online, Sailer? Could you be outed any day now in a delicious scandal guaranteed to leave us both titillated and aghast for months to come?"

    My theory is he's FeministX.

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  28. The Selena Gomez comment was meant to throw us off the trail, but I wasn't fooled for a moment, Steve...

    ...or should I call you by your REAL NAME, Malcolm Gladwell?

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  29. Before and now in parallel with the Intertubes, books have been a fertile field for (mostly leftish) white male hoaxes:

    * Greg Mortenson - Three Cups of Tea

    * James Frey - A Million Little Pieces

    * Herman Rosenblat - Angel at the Fence

    * Clifford Irving - Howard Hughes fake autobiography

    * Primary Colors - Joe Klein

    * Anthony Goodby Johnson - Rock and a Hard Place

    * Gerd Heidemann - Hitler Diaries

    * Jerzy Kosinski - The Painted Bird

    White women also get in on the hoax action as well:

    * Margaret Seltzer - Love and Consequences

    * Misha Defonseca - Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years

    * Beatrice Sparks - Go Ask Alice

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  30. You're all wrong. Steve is really Amy Chua, a.k.a. Tiger Mother.

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  31. On the other hand, a surprising number of "straight" women are actually "sexually fluid."

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  32. "Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian."

    The internet has created previously impossible new fetishs.


    "I think I'm glad I'm not married. This would happen to me. I know it."

    lolz

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  33. As a lesbian there's nothing I like more than watching half-naked beautiful young girls in wet itsy-bitsy bikinis coming out of the surf like Ursula Andress.

    But then, I'm like most Lesbians.

    I also like playing softball, drinking beer, and I'm also a tad overweight and have short hair.

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  34. "The Selena Gomez comment was meant to throw us off the trail, but I wasn't fooled for a moment, Steve...
    ...or should I call you by your REAL NAME, Malcolm Gladwell?"

    No, David Brooks.

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  35. The bloated slug in Scotland looks like your garden-variety internet loser. But check out the picture in the WP article on Buffalo Bill Graber and tell me you don't immediately hear the synthesizer music from "Goodbye Horses."

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  36. The final stop for this trainwreck is Lonelygirl 15 giving a Crying Game ending.

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  37. I hope you write something on the GOP debate, Steve. Blowhard Gingrich was the best debater, but Michele Bachmann kicked ass and came in a close second. She also literally reached out to Newt during a break and when asked who she would pick as her veep made a coded reference to Gingrich.

    Bachmann - Gingrich 2012. Bachmann is good on immigration, and Newt's flakiness fits the VP role well.

    Heard it here first.

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  38. I was first introduced to the world of HBD about 12 years ago by a woman who posted on the message boards hosted by CNN. She really knew her stuff... destroyed all comers in debate, making all the best Steve Sailerish arguments. I thought she was just about the coolest, hottest chick ever. But when the board was finally shut down and I sent her a flirtatious private message she admitted that she was, in fact, a guy.

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  39. Dweeby straight men pretending to be lesbos online is a bit like wimpy men wanting to play on a girls' sports team.

    The funny thing is that just like low-grade male athletes on girls teams, low-grade male writers look like geniuses when playing against girls.

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  40. Alexa Di Carlo, a hot "escort blogger," turned out to be a man too.

    LINK

    A government worker worker doing his/her blogging on government time, if I remember right.

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  41. I was first introduced to the world of HBD about 12 years ago by a woman who posted on the message boards hosted by CNN. [...] But when the board was finally shut down and I sent her a flirtatious private message she admitted that she was, in fact, a guy.

    Yeah, Steve's "HBD chick" alter ego has broken lots of hearts.

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  42. There's lies, damn lies, and statistics...and then there is the internet...

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  43. Uh, hasn't it always been the case that most lesbians on the internet are actually guys?

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  44. For the record, I am actually Rigoberta Menchu.

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  45. Hey! I think HBDchick is a real gurl. She's a fellow aspie, and therefore not good at telling lies. If only she were not already connected with another guy...

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  46. I saw Axl Rose about 15 years ago wearing a T-shirt that read "Nobody knows I'm a Lesbian".

    What would really freak me is if Truth turns out to be......White!

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  47. Steve,

    Even the psychos that hate you have to be rotfl with this post although it may piss them off even more when they recover. So spot on, so F'n funny.

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  48. There's no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman that hasn't met me.

    Dan in DC

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  49. "There's no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman that hasn't met me.

    Dan in DC"

    Alpha!

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  50. I wonder if whiskey is in fact scotch-irish?

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  51. for anyone wondering, I am a chick.

    no, really, i am. i SWEAR!

    (^_^)

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  52. I wonder if whiskey is in fact scotch-irish?

    LOL'ed - beat me to it.

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  53. Of course, the other burning question is whether Albertosaurus really is the Dos Equis guy.

    OTOH, wouldn't it be hilarious if Albertosaurus were a pseudonym for, say, a Florence King?

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  54. I'm twice her age, but I'd give Ms. Gomez some affirmative action anytime!

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  55. Along with their short index fingers, Lesbians tend to have masculine sensibilities. Combined with their hard left political views, it's difficult to distinguish their writing from that of, say, Paul Krugman.

    Hmm...

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  56. Jacques Clouseau6/14/11, 7:53 AM

    Pretty sure I'm not alone in thinking that iSteve suffers from multiple personality disorder which manifests itself here via his alter egos:

    * Truth
    * Whiskey
    * RKU
    * Fred
    * HBD Chick

    and others...

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  57. I think that last bit should read: "... he, also, is a man." But you get the general idea.


    What is wrong with the quality of journalism nowadays, insofar as this type of grammar can be used without anyone noticing?

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  58. "The Selena Gomez comment was meant to throw us off the trail, but I wasn't fooled for a moment, Steve...
    ...or should I call you by your REAL NAME, Malcolm Gladwell?"

    Nah, he is either Nicholas Wade, Steven Levitt or Bryan Caplan. If he's not, I can assure you that those guys read this blog!

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  59. "Thomas said...

    Uh, hasn't it always been the case that most lesbians on the internet are actually guys?"

    The genius of "Feminist X" is that "she" was bisexual who all intelligent men beyond adolescence know are more sexual and girly than lesbians. Score one for Half Sigma.
    Less known amongst the targets was that bisexuals are flaky, emotional tornadoes.
    And so it was we got a hot, young, raunchy babe who loved to do quant analysis in her spare time. ROTFLOL!

    I think the perps AND the victims of these social/political hoaxes are the same people. When Steve wrote about the first "lesbian", I was surprised to read that there were women who had been conned of whom that "Paula" lady was one and was even quoted. When "she" was outed later last night, the world began to make sense again.....

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  60. I think "the Internet Lesbians" would be a great name for a band...

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  61. If Simmons is the "best sport pundit" in America then Harry Knowles is a debonair polymath and Mitt Romney is your ideal drinking buddy... Steve/Selena here is--once again--on the wrong side of history. The world-shaking, game-changing, disruptive technology of the Internet has empowered hitherto marginalized voices all across the spectrum of glamorous teenage lesbians in exotic locales--so much so, in fact, that you don't even need actually to be one to participate in the grassroots consciousness-raising revolution. That's the noble cause for which MLK, Gandhi, and Princess Di sacrificed their lives. Let's not just give short shrift to this new generation of youth, or in this case, late-middle-aged men, rewriting the playbook and obliterating the boundaries of the white power structure old-boy network of Beltway fat cats in the MSM. Free Mumia!

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  62. alonzo portfolio6/14/11, 10:39 AM

    I had a really beautiful lesbian chick once in Sacramento, $60. Some kind of a native-american, hawaian mix. She didn't deliver everything she promised, though.

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  63. Of course, the MAGIC NEGRO was never a real black guy but an idealized image created by white guys. In fact, even with more diversity in Hollywood casting, we don't see diverse characters as they really are but as how white/Jewish scriptwriters think of them or wish of them. Take the giant black in GREEN MILE who just wants to wuv a tiny wittle white mouse. And the public Obama was largely scripted too, aided and rehearsed and created by Obama white/Jewish liberal handlers. Some might say THE WIRE is more realistic but even that is a liberal Jewish recreation of the mean streets to make a point.

    This brings us to another aspect of the fantasizing. Though magic negro may be a white invention, some black people may actually run with it as a formula to gain power. Oprah and Obama belong in this category. Oprah understood that she could cash in bigtime by playing the magic negress, and so she played the part.

    So, if some Arab-American wants to make it in Hollywood or media, what he or she has to do is run with the 'gay girl in damascus' formula. Play to white liberal expectations. Take something fake and make it 'real'.

    When lesbian becomes fact, print the lesbian.

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  64. Abu Graber sure grabbed her.

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  65. Apparently, the Lesbian dude #2 was the one who busted the Lesbian dude #1. As Steve asked in the previous post, what would the world do without us straight white guys? When you need something accomplished you've got no choice but to call in one.

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  66. Also forgot to add:Definitely agree about real world lesbians not living up to the Penthouse fantasy.They ahd a show on Showtime called "The L Word" which was a fictional account of the lives of lesbians.Now theres another (reality) show,about real-life lesbians. Care to guess which show has better looking lezzies??

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  67. Hey, I had coffee a couple of times with FeministX. Unless a huge hoax was being put over on gullible me -- always a possibility -- I can vouch that FeministX is a sexy, smart young woman.

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  68. "A government worker worker doing his/her blogging on government time, if I remember right."

    I think it's fair enough to fake your identity a bit if you're partially whistle blowing.

    .
    "What would really freak me is if Truth turns out to be......White!"

    Truth has white alleles.

    .
    "Less known amongst the targets was that bisexuals are flaky, emotional tornadoes."

    Very true.

    .

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  69. "Two stupid sons of bitches with TMTOTH. (Too much time on their hands). C)But isnt the grammar OK:"The editor...is also a man"??"

    My take is that "Paula" just wants to feel as special as a marginalized minority. Probably was jealous of the attention his sister got as a child.

    I think "Amina" suffers from the same inferiority complex as Weiner. The wife in each relationship is more successful so these two guys engaged in passive-aggressive behavior with enough risk it might eventually go public. MacMaster is getting away with it so far. I imagine both women should consider getting a divorce or finding a way to build up hubbies ego. Both of these guys were getting back at the wife, guaranteed.

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  70. Pretty sure I'm not alone in thinking that iSteve suffers from multiple personality disorder which manifests itself here via his alter egos:

    * Truth


    If you crossed Steve with Tyler Cowen, I could absolutely see Steve trolling/mocking his readers with a Truth persona.

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  71. Harry Baldwin6/14/11, 8:21 PM

    Which reminds me of dear old Johnny McCain being soo upset that the black boxer James Earl Jones,or whatever his name was, hasnt been pardoned for his violation of the Mann Act,so long ago.

    Yes, McCain the tireless panderer.
    I'd have more respect for him if he tried to get Mike Tyson pardoned for that trumped-up rape charge. Not that Tyson hadn't done plenty of things that deserved jail time anyway. Just not that one.

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  72. Bruce Banner6/15/11, 6:11 AM

    I think the perps AND the victims of these social/political hoaxes are the same people.

    Yeah, the same kind of people who like to wear their wives'underwear.

    In other news, I hear there's a "Scotch-Irish" journalist impersonating a Philipina blogger and columnist.

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  73. Re Whiskey: Based on his melodramatic love for Israel,I think i know what he is. Recently,he referenced Roissy(again) and used Roissy's standard line referring to sexually active modern young women riding the "Alpha C--- Carousel". Only Whiskey couldnt bring himself to write "C---",instead writing "Alpha Carousel",which,of course,doesnt make any sense. But he didnt want to use that word. Whiskey,you see, is a Christian. B)Memo to Steve:Selena Gomez? As you would say,"Selena? Really??" Maybe Jennifer Lopez would be a more appropriate go-to Latina crush? She still lookin' good,but dont try anything while her little mad dog husband is around!

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  74. I had a really beautiful lesbian chick once in Sacramento, $60. Some kind of a native-american, hawaian mix. She didn't deliver everything she promised, though.

    What, the Crying Game? Don't be so coy, Alonzo.

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  75. Ray Sawhill said...
    Hey, I had coffee a couple of times with FeministX.


    "Ray Sawhill" = FeministX

    ReplyDelete

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