Other than expanding "GfS" to "GoofuS," I don't see that I am calling Guest from Sanity any insulting names as some seem to think I am doing. There was a time when GfS was referring to my initials, "DF," in close proximity to the expression "Dumb Fuck," which is not normally capitalized. It was pretty hard to miss that he was being highly insulting. I do not indulge in that sort of uncalled-for nastiness.

Nor have I, with no evidence to go on, accused GfS of picking up women in bars, "knocking them up," and then "dumping them." I have never picked up a woman in a bar in my life, nor have I gotten a woman pregnant and then "dumped her."

So if anyone wants to twit someone for insulting others, I don't think I really qualify as a good target, especially compared to GfS himself, who insists on referring to me, an admitted political Liberal (based on readings in political philosophy and general regard for people) as a "loony liberal," and other expressions of contempt and abuse.

As to sourcing the material one cites as evidence for one's assertions, a bit more rigor is definitely in order for people in general when the assertions are especially controversial. And linking to a whole cluster of websites, rather than the one or two from which one is quoting is an obvious device intended to discourage people from trying to check those sources, because anyone with a life at all does not have the time and energy to wade through a long list of links from Yahoo and/or Google to try to find the source of what someone like GfS is alluding to—if, indeed, it is there at all. It's a ploy to discourage people from checking.

I thoroughly dislike the rude and insulting tone many (most) that these more controversial threads are taking, but on the one hand, I don't believe that an erroneous statement or an outright lie should go unchallenged. And on the other, one certainly has the right respond to personal allegations (and often outright lies) that have nothing to do with the discussion but are simply ad hominem attacks on the one who challenges the assertion.

Don Firth