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A tricky question for Praguetory

In January of last year, Paul Staines (aka 'Guido Fawkes') repeatedly equated homosexuality with paedophilia:

Bloggerheads January 23, 2006: "Our legal advice is that Mark Oaten is not a paedophile."
Bloggerheads January 25, 2006: Guido, the Monkey, and the elephant's trunk

He then refused to apologise for this or even acknowledge that he had done it... but somehow found time to delete all record of the words he claimed to stand by. (Yet another smooth move from the master of hypocrisy.)

Since that time, there has been a single question (posed in variant forms, depending on the circumstances) that has vexed many supporters of the 'Guido' website.

Here, you can witness Dizzy first dodging the question, then refusing to acknowledge the point.

At the bottom of this post, you can see an example of another supporter (Out From Under) actually running away from the question, never to return!

Last Friday, Praguetory faced that same question.

It began with this post showing many examples of his hypocrisy:

Bloggerheads March 9, 2007: Praguetory

He responded with this:

Praguetory March 9, 2007: The Rules On My Blog

Blogging is a game, we make the rules. Here are the ones that govern my blog. I made them up.

1. No profanities on obituaries (running since my Milton Friedman obituary).
2. I may on a whim amend or remove posts or comments to them without explanation
3. Anon bloggers will generally receive less respect.
4. For your guidance I may fail to reply to your comment for any one or combination of the following reasons - rudeness, time, boredom, acute embarassment, forgetfulness
5. Tim Ireland is banned because he abused Iain and Guido's hospitality at their sites. This is where I first encountered him defending one of his clients by way of ad hominem attack.
6. All rules are subject to change. Updates will not be generally be provided

The rules are largely unchanged from when they were last updated on 5 December. Most readers like them then. Since then I have opened myself up to criticism. That's the complaints box.

Note how he infers that the post about him was purely an objection to the way he behaves on his own website. This is not the case. It is Praguetory's behaviour on other weblogs that does the most damage; the cautious censorship of his own website mostly serves to show the breathtaking hypocrisy behind it all.

Note also the entirely false suggestion that most deletions are due to the use of profanity.

There is also the great and noble move by Praguetory to open himself up to criticism with a dedicated thread... thereby leaving individual articles unmolested. He is to be congratulated for inventing the blogging equivalent of a Free Speech Zone.

There is more... but it will keep for now, and I know you're hankering for a reaction to that special question.

So, here we go... starting with CuriousHamster rising from his funk and to the occasion. From the comments of the above post:

CuriousHamster said...

"Is it OK to slur someone as a paedophile? My answer (as should be obvious from the post you link to) is no." - PT

So, are you going to be delinking "Guido" and unleashing your fearsome faux outrage on his "beyond the pale" comments or what?

In other news, rumours abound that that no-one likes a cowardly two-faced hypocrite.

-

Praguetory said...

CH - give me the link to where Guido said it. I understand that this is from about a year ago before I started blogging, but I'll look into it, if you can send me the link to Guido's site where that slur is on the record. (and don't give me a link to Tim Ireland because he is an unreliable witness re Guido).

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CuriousHamster said...

PT, nice wriggle. I suspect you think I can't access the podcast and you'd be right.

Fortunately, since I asked the question, I'm still willing to supply the information you've requested. I happen to know that "Guido" had previously written the same smear here.

Oaten? A slaphead who most mothers would feel uneasy seeing near a playground. - "Guido Fawkes"

And you say?

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Praguetory said...

And that's it? Harsh words, but it looks like Guido was trailing the rentboy story for those in the know. It's certainly some distance from calling someone a paedo. Presume the deluge of comments in support of Mark were deleted by Guido?

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CuriousHamster said...

Dear oh dear.

Can you just fill me in on the ways in which mothers and playgrounds are related to male prostitutes?

In other news, rumours abound that that no-one likes a cowardly two-faced hypocrite.

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Praguetory said...

We all know what Mark got caught doing a few weeks later. Guido may have been surreptitiously signalling his insider knowledge. There's plenty of middle-aged men whose appearance might scare moms - that's a reality.

Oh dear...

Praguetory tries to squirm out of it at the end, but I'm seeing the homosexual=paedophile equation at work here.

Regardless, I feel that Praguetory deserves a repeat crack at the question, as he is currently working at a disadvantage; he is labouring under the delusion that, because I am critical of 'Guido', my transcript of the 'Guido'/Oaten affair cannot be trusted (there is logic there, if you don't look too close).

If Praguetory would like to hear the relevant podcast in full, he only has to ask... I have a copy saved to my hard-drive, and so do many others*.

[*You may not be aware that you have this file saved to disk; Paul Staines sent a copy of the podcast as an attachment. The email you're looking for is from 19 January 2006, from 'Guy Fawkes', and headed 'Guido and the Monkey Podcast Experiment']

When Praguetory has listened to the podcast in full and ascertained for himself that the transcript is accurate, then we can return to the question... and a few other matters.

Over to you, Praguetory...

UPDATE (4:31pm) - Tch. Still waiting on word from Praguetory. Meanwhile, CuriousHamster has this.

Posted by Manic on March 12, 2007 1:56 PM in the category The Political Weblog Movement

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