On 22 Feb 2004 20:52:57 -0800, (Nick) wrote:

(In which Nick Borebackatus reached for the other arrow in his quiver,
his famous ego stroke list, the Reader's Digest version of all the
nice things people have said about him.)

(My responses are appearing for the first time, here in this thread.)

Not quit true, Nick, these responses have appeared all over the
newsgroup, over and over.. You trot them out, oh, maybe every couple
weeks.

A "trolling buffoon" would be an accurate self-description of Mike Murray.

(I had called Nick a "trolling buffoon". Overly generous, I realize,
but I was trying to be nice.)

With his characteristic dishonesty, Mike Murray again has *falsely* implied
that my writings here are not respected by any readers.

"Writings"? How modest! Nick, when do you plan on ratcheting it up
to "works"?

Be that as it may, *some* readers may respect one or more opinions
even of a "trolling buffoon". So you're not totally out of luck.
Every buffoon has its day. A pompous gasbag may float above the
meadow on a calm spring afternoon.

Most of your references, most of which I snipped again, as an
anti-pollution measure, demonstrate that someone agreed with, or at
least liked, *one* or more of your posts. Someone who posts as often
as you do and who evidently spends as much time googling as you do, is
*bound* to say something interesting once in a while.

snip of some the nice things said about Nick Borebackatus

But, I have some time on my hands, so let's deconstruct this next one
a wee bit, shall we?

Susan Polgar:
"Nick, Thank you....I am glad to see posters like you."

Now, this little snippet might tempt the unwary reader into believing
that GM Polgar had reviewed the whole corpus of Nick's newsgroup
"writings", finding him refreshing and informative. In fact, there is
no evidence that she read more than this single post. She had been
rudely attacked by a poster with a reputation for caddishness, and
Nick directed the following post to Polgar:

Fortunately, you have not been reading some of LeModernCaveman's
recent postsabout you with regard to your divorce, ... I shall not reproduce
here what "LeModernCaveman" wrote
about you, but you should know that many readers here were quite
offended by LeModernCaveman's gratuitous insults and his
evident personal malice toward you. In many of his recent comments
about you, "LeModernCaveman" has been far from courteous, and I
expect that other writers here should be ready to corroborate the
truth of that statement about him.

The reader may question whether Nick successfully navigated the
boundaries between gallantry and
tattling-with-shameless-attempt-to-curry-favor, but it *is* clear that
GM Polgar's comment was more akin to a thank-you note than to an
evaluation of Nick's many "writings".

Other posters have characterized Nick as an outright liar, but I see
him more as a propagandist or ad-man (in the service of himself, of
course), as the above example demonstrates.


On the other hand, 'The Masked Bishop' wrote in his response to the
same Michael Adams post (which Mike Murray praised) in that same thread:

"ESL (English as a Second Language) classes are offered at a community
college near you."
--'The Masked Bishop' (13 January 2004, writing to Michael Adams)

"Excuse me, I meant special education classes, which you obviously are
more in need of."
--'The Masked Bishop' (15 January 2004, writing to Michael Adams)

Evidently, 'The Masked Bishop' disagreed with what Michael Adams wrote and
with Mike Murray's judgement that Michael Adams "seems a 'reasonably literate
reader'.

I respect His Excellency's opinions, even when they differ from my
own, all the more so because they are expressed in a pithy line or
two, not in endless paragraphs of Borebackatus twaddle.