Lately Mr. Appell has been hitting WUWT comments with his favorite M.O., which is to write baiting missives and demand attention to his viewpoint, demand we agree with his viewpoint, and when we don’t, to keep pushing the same premise again and again, ignoring what anyone else says about it. Finally when he doesn’t get his way, he’ll run off to his blog and make a blog in the vein of faux outrage, telling the world how terrible we here at WUWT are. He’s done this about half a dozen times. I’m used to it. In fact, I even predicted it in comments. Like I said, normally I ignore him when he posts angry missives on QS, but I’ll make an exception, just this once.
What he did on Friday was a true thinking outside of the box demonstration that not only does he have no class, he has no scruples either; he brought my deceased mother into the debate.
Yep, he made up a headline claiming that I deny the existence of my own mother. How rude. You can read his desperate cry for attention, archived here.
Now I’ve had far worse things said about me (scroll down to corrections), so in this regard, Appell is pretty much an amateur. I’ve been insulted by professionals.
But from my viewpoint, this particular entry crossed a line, and Mr. Appell, who has almost 100 comments here at WUWT going back to 2008, is no longer welcome here. Feel free to disagree with me and this blog all you want, but when you start dragging my family into it, even in some sort of satirical jest, that isn’t something I’ll accept from someone who was a guest in my home on the Internet, nor do I have to. If you were in my physical home when you made that comment, I’d show you the door.
So what got Appell into this over the top frothing? He’s upset that I didn’t take the recent news of death threat claims against climate scientists seriously enough for his taste in his litany of comments on WUWT here.
My position was that I have yet to see any substantiated credible death threats to climate scientists. I’ve seen lots of taunts, I’ve seen some ugly, foul, and hateful language, and I’ve seen lots of news stories talking about these things. I don’t deny they have been covered by the press, but I haven’t seen anything rise to the level of significant concern. More on that in a bit.
* A caveat, I’m probably over-experienced when it comes to death threats. Having spent 25 years in newspaper, TV, and radio newsrooms, I’ve seen dozens. I’ve taken phone calls, I’ve read letters, I’ve seen death threat and hate email that follows when somebody or some organization has been reported on in the news in less than glowing terms. So, one could say that I’m far more experienced with the subject than Mr. Appell is, having direct hands-on experience with the issue.
The recent death threat row started in Canberra Australia in June 2011 over a story about “30 Australian climate scientists get death threats”. The Australian ABC reported on it here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-04/death-threats-sent-to-top-climate-scientists/2745536
I read that story when it first came out, initially, I was concerned, but then I saw this ending sentence:
The Australian Federal Police says it is aware of the issue, but there is no investigation underway.
That was a cue for me, because in all the time I’ve been in the media and seen the threats we got, only once did we call the police to investigate. That was the one person dumb enough to sign his name to it. Later, he backed down saying it was a “joke”. We didn’t press charges, as he was just another ranter and TV stations and public figures must endure these things at a higher level of tolerance than the general public.
So when the Australian police didn’t even bother to start an investigation, I wasn’t concerned that there was anything credible there.
Despite that, the story went like wildfire, Googling phrases “climate scientist” and “death threats” yields about 35,000 results. Some of those results are related to previous episodes from Climategate in Dec 2009 where Ben Santer, Tom Wigley and others apparently got some nasty email. Problem is, they didn’t/couldn’t share it. In the ABC article on Wigley, they state,
He is unable to reveal the details of the threats, as they are now being investigated by the FBI and UK police.
Well that sounds credible, but like the Climategate investigation itself, we’ve heard nothing more about it. So it seems to have evaporated as an issue. There’s been no follow-on public announcements about investigations, no arrests from the FBI or other police units. I figure if the FBI took it seriously, we’d have heard more about it. If I’m in error, somebody please leave a note in comments.
So again, we have a lot of excitement and arm waving and angry blog missives about the issue, but no substance in the long term.
That result is pretty much my entire lifetime experience with death threats as a member of the media. Not one person I’ve worked with that has ever gotten a death threat or threat of any kind has had it acted upon, nor have we ever had a police investigation that brought anything to light that elevated these things from rant level to concern level where some action or arrest is required. People get mad, they blow off steam by writing stupid anonymous letters, and they send it, often later regretting it. We’ve come to expect this in the media. It comes with the territory.
I found it even more difficult to get worked up over these emails in Australia when I learned about some of them from Jo Nova, who pointed out that some of them had been released, but without anything beyond the body of text. Here’s part of her post:
=============================================================
To a climate scientist, *swearing* equals a Death Threat (no wonder these guys can’t predict the weather)
Wait for it, some death threat emails have been released. Number eight is positively sinister with intent (shield your children):
Now several of the abusive emails have been published on a blog by environmental writer Graham Readfearn, after the scientists agreed to release the poison pen letters.
Number Eight:
“If we see you continue, we will get extremely organised and precise against you. We will not do so if you rightfully argue against our points from a science view. But we will if you choose to stray into attacks on us as people or as a movement. The institution and funders that support you will find the attention concerning.”
God forbid, imagine a member of the public imploring a scientist to argue with science instead of slurs. Well I’ll be!
How chilling does it get? These scientists must get hundreds of emails a week. Here are the worst two Sunanda Creagh could find:
…several correspondents had a more chilling message for the scientists.
“Just do your science or you will end up collateral damage in the war, GET IT,” reads one email.
“If we see you continue, we will get extremely organised and precise against you,” reads another.
Obviously we need to protect our scientists against this unreasonable intrusion on their right to issue baseless propaganda and unsubstantiated smears. Imagine the threat of members of the public getting “precise” in their arguments? How dare they?!
The rest of the emails released by Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a climate scientist at the University of Queensland, were unbecoming, rude, and full of four letter words. (I strongly advise skeptics not to swear in emails.)
===============================================================
When I read Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg was involved, then read the body of the emails he claims are “death threats”, I was doubly not worried. Generally, for something to qualify as an actual death threat, it must actually contain the word “death” or some variance such as “kill” or “murder”. Searching the email bodies posted doesn’t find those words.
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is well known for being overly excitable when it comes to climate debate, I had first hand experience with him in Brisbane where he interrupted our presentation, hogging the micropone and demanding to be heard over all others.
So, given the way he behaves, I didn’t see much credibility in his claims, especially when the “death threats” don’t actually contain the word.
And it gets worse. It turned out the June death threats in Australia were stale:
CLAIMS prominent climate change scientists had recently received death threats have been revealed as an opportunistic ploy, with the Australian National University admitting that they occurred up to five years ago.
Only two of ANU’s climate change scientists allegedly received death threats, the first in a letter posted in 2006-2007 and the other an offhand remark made in person 12 months ago…
The outdated threats raised question marks over the timing of their release to the public, with claims they were aired last week to draw sympathy to scientists and their climate change cause.
The university denied it was creating a ruse, maintaining the initial report, in the Fairfax-owned Canberra Times last week, failed to indicate when the threats were made.
Meanwhile, without checking into that, Appell is getting more upset that I’m not getting alarmed about his original comment which was:
“It is stunning to see essentially no condemnation of the death threats here, ……”
Many commenters pointed out that the article was about PNAS equating FOIA requests to death threats in an NYT interview, and had nothing to do with any actual death threats made. Undeterred by facts, Appell kept at it, becoming more and more “outraged”, which is his style, then he builds up enough responses to blog about it. Basically, he quote mines with language grenades.
I suggested in comments that he show some credible examples. Other commenters kept asking for the same. He kept ignoring that call, and his posts got snipped, with the message to look upstream in the thread, that some action was required on his part to show credible examples. I pointed out that we have not seen any actual emails like we have in Climategate where they could be verified. We have only second and third hand reports.
And predictably, he wrote an interim post, shown below, calling us all demented:
He finally posted a list of what he called evidence: a series of news articles.
| David Appell
david.appell@xxxx |
Submitted on 2011/07/13 at 9:34 pm
The death threats against climate scientists have been widely acknowledged by several of them and reported on by many journalists. The Guardian, in particular, has seen them. One scientist had a dead animal dumped on their doorstep, according to ABC News. Some of the threats have been reported to the FBI. It is pernicious, obnoxious, and dangerous for people here, especially Anthony Watts, to claim that these threats exist do not exist. It is of a kind, and only a step from being complicit. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/06/hacked-climate-science-emails-sceptics-abuse http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/climate-scientists-receive-death-threats-10729457 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/hacked-climate-emails-death-threats http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t694484/ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017922.ece http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/05/hate-mail-climategate http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/12/democrat-obama-climate-change-agenda |
Well, as any lawyer can tell you, news articles aren’t the same as physical evidence. I’d seen these before, and Appell is keen in his latest post to point out the top link from the recent Guardian story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/06/hacked-climate-science-emails-sceptics-abuse
If you scan that article, you’ll read a bunch of ugly juvenile rants that are something that looks like the same person authored a majority of them, but once again the key words “death, kill, murder, execute, etc” just aren’t there.
Note to David Appell: a death threat must actually contain the words. Otherwise it is just annoying capitalized hate mail rant with cuss words, like the kind I get here at WUWT every week and put in the bit bucket. It seems Appell’s entire outrage is predicated upon his conflation of rude emails to death threats. In his blog post here, he even goes so far as to contradict himself:
…he won’t even allow evidence of death threats against scientists to be posted in the comments of his blog,
I offered all these articles, especially this article from The Guardian which directly quotes from some of the threatening emails.
Point taken Mr. Appell. Rude threatening emails in this article you highlight are not death threats, especially when they don’t contain the key words. Your argument morphed from death threat, to threatening emails.
So Appell threw up a straw man argument in comments on a story about “FOIA being equated to death threats”, complains that I’m not upset enough, sends “evidence” that doesn’t contain any actual death threats, just foul language, and then claims I’m denying that the death threats exist and makes up a headline that I “deny the existence of my own mother”.
And this guy writes for major science magazines? Stay classy, David Appell, but do it somewhere else other than WUWT.
For the record, I deplore hate mail, death threats, and threats of violence, no matter who might be saying it, and always will. Nobody should have to put up with these to do their job and I wouldn’t wish them on anybody. I hope the day never comes when a credible death threat is delivered, much less acted upon. Any such credible threats should get the full measure of the law.
And as a final note, one issue that Appell got upset about (that he tried to post on WUWT) got snipped because it was from a LaRouche Youth Movement supporter who held up a rope noose saying “Welcome to Australia” during a speech by Hans Schellnhuber. It was ugly, tasteless, stupid, and full of bad imagery, but again missing the key words that define a death threat. Even so, some in the media (and many in the alarmosphere) are calling it a “death threat” and trying to paint it as being launched by skeptics. For the record, neither I nor anyone who publishes here associate themselves with the Larouche people, and I denounce their actions. I don’t think you’ll find a single mainstream climate skeptic who would say any different.
There are several key words and topics we don’t cover here, such as Chemtrails, HAARP, and yes Larouche rants among others. I don’t want to give these Larouche people any exposure more than I need to make this point. By policy, we don’t post such videos and I won’t even link this one here. That’s not denying the existence of it, as Appell claims, but only exercising responsible journalism by not spreading obviously staged publicity stunts by the Larouche people. If you really want to watch the video, Google “David Appell, Quark Soup, and Death threat video”, and you’ll find the Larouche video on his blog, along with a second video.
But, here’s the key point that Appell and a bunch of other people miss. By Appell’s posting of a second video by the Larouche people, he blows his own case, saying “Here the perpetrator actually brags about his threat:”
I go back to my original issue with why I didn’t get upset back in June:
The Australian Federal Police says it is aware of the issue, but there is no investigation underway.
Yet here on Appell’s blog, we have the very Larouche fellow who held up the noose, narrating a video he produced about the incident after the fact. Clearly, it was a publicity stunt, and if it was as actual death threat, actionable under Australian law, don’t you think the guy would be in the slammer rather than narrating propaganda videos afterwards?
If the police don’t consider it a credible death threat, making no arrests, the only explanation for the constant beating of the drum by Appell and others is that the issue has propaganda value to paint skeptics with a broad brush.
Jo Nova and Willis Eschenbach sum up that problem well in Throwing the Hate Crime Grenade
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I wondered about the ‘dead animal’ threat also…. along those lines, I’d posted the bit below on another thread where Appell was posting & the death threat issue being discussed (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/13/peer-reviewed-paper-2010-russina-heat-wave-mostly-natural/):
Rational Debate says:
July 23, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Years ago I was I was living just outside a large metro area but in a quasi-rural setting, at the end of a dirt/gravel road. The nearest neighbors had several wild cats living right around their place. One day I was horrified to discover a headless young cat/large kitten in the middle of my driveway, right at the main entry gate. The kitten was quite literally decapitated, almost as if it’s head had just been sliced off. Frankly it was hard to imagine that anything other than a person had done it – but I sure couldn’t figure out WHY anyone would do such a thing.
Over the next few weeks, a couple more decapitated kittens appeared at about the same spot. This was pretty disconcerting, as I had my horses on the property and no one there while I was away at work… not to mention myself there alone when home, and a very beloved dog who was allowed out whenever she wished as long as I was home.
Then I found a mostly skeleton of what I assume was another kitten, hanging over the top of a six foot high fence post that was far closer to my home and the horses than those decapitated ones in the drive… That was REALLY weird.
Finally one day coming home I saw this huge owl sitting in the cedar trees right next to the lane & gate where those kittens had been. Out came the Audubon bird book, and low and behold the owl was pretty much the largest species in the area and is known for sometimes decapitating it’s prey, taking the head and leaving body behind…. including prey as large as a house cat! Even then I was skeptical, thinking there’s no way an owl could decapitate that cleanly. So I looked them up online a bit, and low and behold, found some photos that were proven owl decapitations that were every bit as ‘clean’ and unlikely looking as the kittens I’d found. Believe me, they sure didn’t look like something you would think a wild animal kill would look like, if you hadn’t run into this before.
I hated that the kittens were being killed that way, but have to say it was a huge relief to figure out that it wasn’t some deranged wacko human stalking me or hanging out just toying with the idea of hurting or killing my horses while I was away at work.
Long winded way of giving an example and agreeing that finding a dead animal on one’s step sure doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is threatening you – even when it may seem there couldn’t be any other explanation.
For that matter, it’s amazing what can manage to get inside your house – and it may be either dead or alive when you find it. I once walked into my bathroom, then back out and had the thought cross my mind “I don’t remember leaving a belt on the bathroom floor.” Stopped for a second and thought, “I KNOW I didn’t leave a belt there.” Go back in very carefully, and low and behold it was a very much alive snake, 2 or 3 ft. long. Heck if I could tell what it was and it looked as if it might be poisonous. Got it in a bucket and took it to the right gov. department to find out. It was a young black snake, at which age they sometimes still have markings and their head looks a little triangular (like poisonous snakes), and when they feel threatened they’re notorious for curling up and shaking their darned tails at you & looking like they’re about ready to strike (as this one sure had!). No rattles of course, but believe me, it’s still pretty disconcerting. Apparently they do it because if in dry leaves it can scare off animals who assume they’re rattlers. They get far less aggressive as they get older. I named him something ridiculous (for a snake) like Harold and released him in the run-in shed area.
Heck, if you have a doggy door, even finding something bigger than a snake or mouse inside your house wouldn’t mean someone had done it. Just hope what you find isn’t a live 7 ft alligator! http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/alligator-invasion-reptile-sneaks-doggie-door-bathroom-florida-gator-intruder-13458049
PS, and like it or not your website is so big now that you do have to address real Freedom Of Expression issues. When you ban somebody it really does curtail their freedom of expression – the same as if google banned you specifically from using their search engine. The argument that he has other outlets does not wash – the MSM say that all the time about stuff they want to censor.
On the other hand, the blog is your property – and you can do with it as you wish.
PPS sorry to bang on, but we see that kind if thing all the time – where a private entity buys up everything, such as Canary Wharf, and then because it if “private property” they can do whatever they want and you have no rights. The problem is with Canary Wharf, is that most of us have no choice but to use the shops and services there (such as the post office) other than to travel for hours. Your “private property”, i.e. you blog, has become so big and influential that it is just like Canary Wharf – when you ban someone, it curtails their ability to do stuff, such as make comments.
But, it is your property and you have the right to do what you want with it. I’m just urging you not to chose to ban people – don’t turn it into Canary Wharf.
Indeed J. Felton, or you could just read the mainstream Australian media where journalists call for skeptics to be gassed or tied to posts next to the rising seas.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/sideshow-around-carbon-tax-must-stop/story-fn56az2q-1226079531212
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-dangers-of-boneheaded-beliefs-20110602-1fijg.html
The problem here is that these aren’t closet crazies writing unseen emails, these people are professional journalists writing in major publications. The former is wrong, the latter inexcusable.
In the absence of any credible threats might I make one ?
Mr Watts, If you ever allow the exemplary standards of courtesy, tolerance and genuine scientific enquiry on your blog to fall to the level of some other climate and science blogs I will travel to your country and blow a raspberry at you.
Is that threatening enough ? Would it be over the top to add “.. and make a rude gesture.” ?
Anthony – thank you for your honesty, integrity, persistence and general excellence in what you do. You have permission to treat this as love mail.
Obviously Appell is just a juvenile attention seeker and it’s a pity that you had to deal with him in this way when, I’m sure, you’d have preferred to carry on ignoring him and attending to your business and WUWT. Your website is, for me, a wonderful knowledge-expanding facility – so please don’t become too diverted, though that may be part of Appell’s ploy.
According to his QS site he didn’t mean it literally, I assume he was trying to be clever to insinuate that you do not listen to his comments as he would like. The problem with bullies like David is that they don’t think about their actions before putting finger to keyboard. David is one of those people who are so desperate to get their ideas to the forefront that they will compromise any decent behaviour. Initially I was in two minds about whether banning him from WUWT was the right thing to do, as it will undoubtedly improve his ‘status’ with many people and his website popularity. But thinking again, and looking briefly at the quality of QS and some of the threads/comments, I think that you are absolutely correct. You have to have some basic rules of respect and quality otherwise there is a danger of becoming embrolied with side-issues and nonsenses that degrade the whole climate debate. By removing pen poison like this we can all have more time focusing on the real issues at hand. Thank you for your site and lets all rejoice that in WUWT we have a forum where we can all learn and express ideas with respect.
i would wounder if these were the same ones someone did on the gm crop death threats
It is so ironic that so-called scientists and science writers are misinterpreting the available evidence once again.
There is a reason that security details do not publicize real threats, it is precisely because of the inevitable increased chatter and copycats, which make the job far more difficult. It results in more hay in the stacks covering the actual needles.
Here is the truth: an actual death threat is a self-correcting situation. They do not require media stories to solve them. 99% of the time the person is not anonymous and will be found. Prosecutors and law enforcement take these things very seriously and are often looking for dramatic slam-dunk crimes to investigate rather than the nebulous he-said she-said conflicts. It makes no sense to publicize an actual death threat. Unless of course you yourself are seeking publicity.
As soon as the stories began getting publicity with the typical theme of poor put upon climate scientists it was obvious to me that it was a mere sympathy play, pure public relations. There is no way that these were reported threats because both the authorities and whatever personal security they employed (remember the canard: ‘some of them need bodyguards’) would not sanction or recommend going public.
Dead animals on the doorstep are not death threats, it is however in bad taste and certainly cruel to the animal, and is perhaps a nod to The Godfather. Cursing foul language is rude and perhaps even intimidating but is not a death threat. Someone threatening to kick your ass is doing just that, but still it is not a death threat. Many of these things cross other lines though, harassment or threatening bodily harm or a plethora of non-felonies. These tactics are not advisable unless you are really intent on seeing your tax dollars at work first hand by exploring the judicial system you paid for.
What most of these drama queens are experiencing is merely angry feedback from the taxpaying public, specifically the public that disagrees with them, the public that they do not want to hear from anyway. They want to be left alone to spend the taxpayer monies and to be kind of an insulated aristocracy or nobility with all the attendant perks and privileges. It’s okay to call upon them when you want to present them an award or for a fabulous getaway in Cancun, or to write a glowing article about hip scientific rock stars in leather coats. But please do not send criticisms. It is disturbing and they’re very busy saving the planet. 😉
I remember there was an earlier story here where a few more trolls were banging their drums over this non-story …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/07/climate-ugliness-gets-personal/
Appell was a no-show in that particular thread though (but this year Appell has been dropping into Steve Goddard’s site a lot). Well he sure got his fifteen minutes of fame today!
Hmmm a BS in Mathematics, shouldn’t that be BSc ? I thought BS was something else.
How about this as an example of a real and present danger?:
http://www.infowars.com/argentinian-couple-shoot-kids-kill-themselves-over-global-warming/Argentinian
Couple Shoot Kids, Kill Themselves Over Global Warming
Monday, March 1st, 2010
A seven month old baby has miraculously survived being shot after the parents killed themselves and their two year old son, citing fears over a lack of government action on global warming.
Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 23, are said to have shot their young son in the back, killing the toddler instantly.
Neighbours called the police, after complaining of a stench coming from the house.
Police broke into the property and discovered the horrific scene three days after the shooting, the Latin American Herald reported Saturday.
Still alive, but covered in blood, the baby was rushed to the hospital where it was revealed that the bullet from her father’s handgun had somehow missed all the child’s vital organs, lodging itself in her chest.
In a suicide note, reportedly discovered by police, the couple cited their extreme fears over the effects of global warming.
The couple were said to have expressed anger at the government in the letter for not doing more to avert a worldwide environmental crisis.
And how about the violent green extremists trying to physically stop power stations, with all the risks involved for the general public, industry, hospitals, opeating theaters, causing misery, financial losses and death?
Green/warmists are the real threat to society with their violent ways of trying to make a point.
From wermet on July 24, 2011 at 11:47 pm:
I had read about the event, didn’t take notice who’s doorstep it was.
I Googled “ben santer dead animal step” to try to dig up some specifics, got some seemingly unrelated links from Small Dead Animals blog. Coincidence?
On the main page, I found this story I’m certain people like Appell will gladly tout as “proof” of “skeptics” having lethal intentions. It concerns the tragic recent Oslo bombing and subsequent shooting rampage at that Norwegian summer camp. I strongly consider the last line of the original post to be Not Helpful, even though it was presumably said sarcastically (it really needs better noting as such). That said, the contents are far more abhorrently shocking.
Yeah, this nutjob was killing people because he was a “climate denier.” The (C)AGW faithful, already convinced of “death threats” against climate scientists, will now expect “climate deniers” to rise up and commit terrorist acts, including murdering children.
Sound like they might be working up a case for governmental monitoring of vocal climate skeptics, as climate skeptics are now proven to be potential terrorists. Actually, since “everyone knows” that climate skeptics must be mentally dysfunctional since they’re denying the “proven settled science” thus rejecting reality, perhaps gathering them together “to protect the public” is justified. Just put them in some nice camps somewhere, since they’re obviously ignorant of the real science it would help to have some re-education…
I won’t speak for my fellow “climate skeptics,” but personally, going by that reported blogger guy’s statement, I’m even more certain who are the real reality-denying crazies. They sure ain’t us.
I’m not qualified to profile violent criminals or Mentally deranged individuals but I find the subject fascinating so I’ll atempt to do so here.
The immediate striking obvious observation is that they all have their own blog that they use to aggressively assassinate the character of their infatuation, and in-turn it brings to life an imaginary figure one in which to actively portray into a bad light detached from reality as an attention seeking exercise of acceptance from their peers for the self gratification and justification to continue to frequently troll that object of an unhealthy obsession that they have, in-turn it begins to cause deep felling of rejection causing depression and therefore illness.
Observable Qualities of a Sociopathic troll:
Pathological Lying, Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.
Grandiose Sense of Self, Feels entitled to certain things as “they are right.”
Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature, Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
Checklist of observable Qualities:
1. Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them
2. Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them
3. Authoritarian
4. Secretive
5. Paranoid
6. Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired
7. Conventional appearance
8. Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)
9. Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim’s life
10. Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim’s affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)
11. Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim
12. Incapable of real human attachment to another
13. Unable to feel remorse or guilt
14. Extreme narcissism and grandiose
15. May state readily that their goal is to rule the world
Sending hate mail or death threats apparently isn’t on the Sociopaths to-do list.
But I could mention a fue people that fit the above criteria of the Sociopath almost perfectly and who stereotypically look like one too. Can You?
What a loser. Anyone who takes this guy seriously has likewise forfieted their credibility.
Anthony,
we all have a right to free speech, at least for the moment (EU permitting), but what Appell did in drawing your family into his rant is reprehensible and I don’t believe any rational observer would disagree with your decision.
I think Mr Appell needs to spend a lot more time up one of his favourite mountains reflecting on what an ass he has made of himself rather than continuing to promote this fact in print on the internet. On the mountain, once he has calmed down he may wish to dwell on how to explain his actions to his own Mother.
Oh… I checked out his site. He can’t seem to hold down a job for very long. I checked out his You Tube channel. It has a whole two subscribers. I’m just sorry I increased his view counter.
Chris S.;
Unmitigated hooey. Putting up with ranters is not allowing “Freedom of Expression”. That right, btw, is Constitutionally provided only for those who are dissing the government. Has nothing to do with interpersonal communications, either one-on-one or in bulk.
Rational D.;
fascinating owl discovery. But would have been a bit more pleasant to read if you hadn’t repeated “low and behold” so many times. Because it’s “lo and behold”. Archaic for “look”.
“Low”, on the other hand, means “moo”. “Moo and behold” is nonsensical.
Hmm, well—young Master Appell seems an awfully excitable child, don’t you think?
Perhaps Mr. Appell needs a target identification course:
If it looks like a foot — from every angle — smells like a foot (!) moves like a foot and feels like a foot, perhaps he shouldn’t point his blunderbuss at it and pull the trigger …
Maybe he’ll mellow with age and experience—he needs much more such as you’ve just given him, Anthony, to complete his growing up—if that’s possible. Good on you.
He sounds like he is straight out of the same (lunatic) mould as our Energy and Climate Change Minister , Chris Huhne (currently been investigated by the Police for possible perjury with regards a traffic offence). Anyway this “class act” equates “Ignoring Climate Chanege with appeasing Hilter”
That old “denier” line again….
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2011/07/22/ignoring-climate-change-like-appeasing-hitler
“David Appell denies he has any class”
Superb, Anthony!
(That should be googled into the top result for a search on his name, hint, hint ya’ll.)
Not sure about the canary wharf comparison. If i ran a cinema and the same guy kept coming in and shouting during movies and spoiling it for everyone else am i abusing his freedom of speach when I eject him? He’s been given more than enough opportunities to defend his position properly and express his opinion properly. Fine to drop the ban hammer at this juncture in my opinion.
Also if you want to talk about premature banning and censorship I think it’s pretty clear which side in this “war” get up to that the most.
Trying to recall: didn’t some high-profile politician call for ‘Nuremburg-style’ trials for deniers?
sorry to hear that this obnoxious boy has been causing insult. He does sound quite psychopathic