Sometimes, you just have to fight back. This is a personal note that goes along with the recent news of the bullying of Dr. Susan Crockford and Dr. Judith Curry.
Thanks to the Chico Police Department and officer Jim Parrott, I learned today that we were able to shut down a person living in Windsor Ontario who has been serially harassing me and threatening me and my family for over a year. He was doing this because of my views on “climate change” and my website: https://wattsupwiththat.com
Officer Parrott reached out to the Windsor Police Department (Constable Strong in the WPD Major Crimes Unit) and provided him all the research I’d gathered (including setting up an Internet “honeypot” to trap him) and today we get word back that the suspect has been identified, and has had police officers show up at his front door.
This particularly malicious troll is one of the “Arctic sea ice zealots” that inhabit Jim Hunt’s “Great White Con” website on sea ice. Both Jim and this troll were long ago banned from WUWT for serially bad behavior breaking our commenting policy multiple times, but this one troll couldn’t let it go. He escalated, and continued to do so.
Of course, the troll embraced the crazy and patently wrong views promoted by Dr. Michael Mann and many others that I’m an “agent of the Koch brothers, and on the take to run WUWT”.
As I’ve said many times in the past, I’ve never taken a dime from the Koch’s; they don’t even know who I am. WUWT is entirely supported by advertising and donations.
My opinions published here and the opinions of guest authors is entirely our own, and not “for hire” as some weak-minded people assert. One of these days, Dr. Mann is going to find himself on the wrong end of a lawsuit for promoting these falsehoods that incite people like I’ve had to deal with for over a year. In fact, this particular troll claimed he had enlisted Dr. Mann as part of his plan to “expose me” (the troll’s words). He also said he’d enlisted Sou aka Miriam O’Brien of Hotwhopper in his cause against me. Of course, it turned out to be nothing but bluster, but wow, this guy had quite an imagination and hatred for me in his heart.
Thanks to the work of the Windsor Police Department and the Chico Police Department, this malicious Internet troll won’t be bothering me again.
Thanks also to a number of bloggers who helped me zoom in on this guy by sharing information. Thanks also to “Poptech” whose research was very helpful. Great thanks to our own “Charles the Moderator” who helped me stay calm and focused on the “long game” rather than let this toad get under my skin.
Its quite a feeling of satisfaction to [get some action on] this case, especially since this dirtbag had assumed multiple identities, used fake emails, and other techniques to hide his identity. Much like some of the other trolls we deal with here daily, but this one stepped over the line, time and time again.
For example here are excerpts from a long rambling email I received (along with Charles the Moderator who was helping me) Tuesday, November 07, 2017 4:28 PM
Great news perverted WOMEN HATERS;)
(Saul pulled it off and remained invisible, aren’t you impressed, my two little twinkies? Hehehe, just 11 followers)
NOVEMBER 12th 2017
This is just one of dozens of crazy emails with threats I received over the last year and a half. Some contained thinly veiled death threats, some like this one were irrational rants, some were incomprehensible references to things he “knew” but I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. The reference to November 12th in this email was a “drop dead date” for an extortion attempt (I was supposed to donate to the Canadian organization Medicine Sans Frontiers aka doctors without borders to avoid my exposure of “Koch dollars”). Of course, I’m not easily extorted, because I knew this jerk was just making things up out of his own Koch-fueled imagination.
My mistake was originally treating him with respect over a complaint he had about WUWT, and replying using my personal email. That was a dumb move of trust on my part that I won’t repeat again.
So, we nailed him. Despite his cowardice and shapeshifting, we prevailed, and we used his own stupidity against him to trap him in the “honeypot” so a positive ID could be made.
I won’t share the technique I devised, but it’s safe to say he had no idea what hit him when officers showed up at his door in Windsor. While it is very very tempting to share the file I have on him thanks to the police, I’ve learned long ago that “discretion is the greater part of valor“. I’ll just keep it handy, just in case I need to exercise my rights further.
Right Thomas? aka “Lawrence Martin”, aka “Reggie”, aka “Reginald Perrin” aka “Saul from Montreal”, aka “Solomon Gursky”, aka “Master of Space and Thyme” among others… here’s a partial photo of Thomas the troll from the file:
In the meantime, potential dirtbags that might be thinking of threatening me or my family or any other climate skeptic should think again. We won’t tolerate it. Climate skeptics are fed up with the threats and smears as we’ve seen against Dr. Curry and Dr. Crockford, and we aren’t going to take it anymore.
So, in closing…
Troll, troll, troll your boat gently down the stream…
Merrily, merrily, merrily merrily, anonymity is but a dream.
UPDATE:
BTW, I forgot to add this note. There’s precedence for arresting Internet trolls in Canada, such as this notorious one who got 16 counts and a psych evaluation:
https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2011/08/prolific-intern.html
Now we need to get the “Science police” to pay a call on Michael Mann.
Well done, Anthony. Its a great pity that the Internet was initially designed without security features that would help prevent nasty stuff like this. But at least it is now possible for the police to track down and hopefully stop some of the perps. I am amazed that some folk let a mere difference of opinion take over their lives like that. Just for interest, I once heard a theory that extreme religiosity was caused by a virus that affects the brain. Hmm.
Keep up the great and good work, and stay safe!
“I am amazed that some folk let a mere difference of opinion take over their lives like that. ”
Some people are crazy and can’t help themselves.
Yes, I’d think this is from the almost medical end. But let the court decide.
I agree with Ben Franklin.
Free speech is important. Anonymous pamphleteering is important so that folks can express unpopular ideas without exposing themselves to the tyranny of the majority. link
Freedom is what made America great. Destroy freedom and you destroy America.
There, fixed it for him.
Back in the days of the ARPAnet, things really were mostly a big, happy community. It helped that its capacity was 256 nodes (many running timesharing systems, so more than 256 users). None of us had time to be idiots, we were too busy creating something truly awesome.
Sorry about how Email turned out.
Even then, we had the cannonical jokes threads. Imagine, I had over 3000 lawyer jokes, some of them totally tasteless, some of them so funny that lawyer friends of mine laughed with tears in their eyes. But, no, the vast majority of people kept it on the straight and narrow.
ARPAnet let me get a copy of the program “Proceedings of the X-15 First Flight 30th Anniversary Celebration.” Thanks Ms. Schaefer at NASA.
PLEASE SHARE 3,000 LAWYER JOKES…
The tendency to blame everything on a virus is no different than blaming everything on CO2.
The times are a changing and it is now time for more of this. Onward.
I don’t see how sending annoying e-mails and posting unpopular messages on blogs should be cause for receiving police at your door.
Oh, well, you haven’t seen the complete file. That was just one sample. There’s an entire docket on this guy. Blog comments are fair game, I can simply delete and ban when I get threats, but as I understand it from my briefing, the law treats this just like they would telephone harassment, postal mail harassment, etc.when it comes to me personally. Add an extortion attempt, and you’ve got a more than just “annoyance”, you have an actionable crime.
There’s precedence for arresting Internet trolls in Canada, such as this notorious one who got 16 counts and a psych evaluation:
https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2011/08/prolific-intern.html
In this case, international crime.
It isn’t annoying e-mails it is a death threat … the law doesn’t distinguish communication mechanism it is what it is.
The police don’t show up on your doorstep for annoying emails. Duh.
@MikeN
“I don’t see how sending annoying e-mails and posting unpopular messages on blogs should be cause for receiving police at your door.”
Uh, did you even read the article? This seems even beyond harassment. I can’t imagine constantly getting this kind of ugly e-mail for a year and a half. It’s a lot more than “annoying e-mails” and “posting unpopular messages”. Nobody has a right to make threats. When something like this is going on, it can make life a living **** for someone. As far as I’m concerned, it’s no different than doing it in person.
MikeN,
Being threatened with bodily harm is not merely annoying.
MikeN
Does the term “clueless” mean anything to you?
Is that James Comey?
It could be a good idea to change your personal email every so often. I had to do that involuntarily twice and it’s a big pain with financial accounts etc. But it might be worth it.
Congrats 🙂
Absolutely shocking – sorry you had to go through all that Anthony and Charles.
Catastrophism is a moral slippery slope. What crime is inconceivable to someone who truly believes the world is on the brink of destruction?
Even people who aren’t true believers can use the guise of true belief as cover for their antisocial viciousness.
No different to Jihadis justifying their nastiness in the name of their holy mission to “save” mankind.
No different than a religious zealot of any stripe.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire
Actually, no one can make you believe or do anything. Only you can do that.
Anti-religious zealots suck too. At least they mostly just go around trying to prove how much smarter they are than those “believers”.
Though not all. The Ted Bundys and Jeffrey Dahmers were atheists too.
Agreed squiggy. I have known some religious people that I would have rather never even heard of (and I am both happily religious and capable of rational thought), yet I have met some anti-religious individuals who were just as obnoxious.
I mock people who think that only people who believe in a metaphysical higher power are zealots. People who believe that human beings or governments are the highest power are quite capable of being overcome with obnoxious zealotry.
Followers of Marx, who wanted to do away with religion (belief in a metaphysical higher power), only wanted to do away with it so that the people would instead worship the state as the highest power. Humanists, which include atheists, prefer to worship humanity as the pinnacle of higher power, and that can also create zealotry.
“tis a pity there is no shortage of worthless nimnuls eager to do Satan’s work in God’s name.
It is great to see the heat being turned back on the worthless aggressive Trolls and to see that the Windsor Police Department and the Chico Police Department are working together and doing their job as expected. I hope that this malicious creature will not be bothering Anthony or anyone else in the future. He had been encouraged in his enterprise by the Leftist Hegemony.
[snip – wildly off-topic -mod]
[snip – wildly off topic -mod]
Yeah, but you saw it.
Good RIddance to bad rubbish!
A lawsuit or criminal charges could go a long way to beginning to open some public discussion about climate science. I cannot believe how much heat (ahem) I get for even mentioning what I have learned here and elsewhere during polite dinner conversation. It’s disgusting. This kind of intellectual bigotry and self-righteous indignation, all based on a series of frauds, can amount to bullying at its finest. It tends towards a kind of totalitarianism, and it is not to be taken lightly. It is a mob and should be regarded as such. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, besides perhaps teaching you much about your ‘friends’, at least if you value free thought.
I realize this is a group largely geared toward science concerns, but rest assured there are more frauds in other domains from which elaborate, equally harmful belief systems have formed, and these can be dangerous. They function the same way.
It is wise to ask yourself seriously, How do I know this thing I have been told to be true?
public nutrition is a case in point. diabetes epidemic from junk science. US war dead in WW2 no heart disease. Korean war tons of heart. disease in young men 18 years old. smoking and animal fat blamed. both drastically reduced with very little increase in longevity.
no one asked what changed in the diet during ww2. it wasn’t smoking or animal fat. plenty before the war. margarine and hydrogenated vegetable oil was the big change. synthetic food humans were not adapted to eat via evolution. we are seeing evolution in action as people die early humans become better adapted to eating junk food.
The ‘diet-health’ hypothesis, Ancel Keyes and his Seven Countries Study, the role of the Sugar Association in lobbying to mislead the public through nutrition policy and more, the vilification of John Yudkin and the nearly complete destruction of his scientific career is of course an excellent example, and not much politically controversial so easier to discuss than ‘climate change’. (The term as typically used makes me cringe.)
There are others, and often poorly conducted (or outright fraudulent) studies are used to create a body of claims that become a belief system, and so are born various religions to which the rudderless may adhere.
One really must be vigilant.
And off the rails we go. Science is not an issue.
Most excellent.
While the internet has unleashed great creativity and great minds, it has also revealed mankind’s darker sides … strange critters that lurk in most unexpected places.
Stay safe.
Not a climate “scientist”, no beard. Cord jacket and t-shirt, could be an English Lit prof; can’t spell, scratch that, failed grad student? Looks like the Unabomber. Psycho-scary.
Legal recourse is appropriate. May be the only way skeptics will be heard.
Yeah, I think I know who he is,he can be really snotty at Jim Hunts place too,since Jim would ask him to stop swearing and similar to avoid getting his comments in the mod bin.
If there’s no groping involved, no one is paying attention.
If you’ve never been seriously harassed or stalked, count yourself lucky not to know the feelings it causes or the expenses it generates. Nails in the driveway, sugar in the gas tank, chased on the highway, and crank calls to family and employers take a toll. People who do this have some level of mental sickness that needs to be addressed — either by therapists or civil authorities. Good work, Anthony.
Sugar doesn’t dissolve in gasoline, your “sugar in gas tank” is an urban myth.
Sand doesn’t, either, but it can still be a problem in your gas tank. Don’t be a jerk for the sake of being a jerk and people just might not treat you like a jerk.
Elmo,
I don’t think that you have the whole picture. Why don’t you try putting a cup of sugar in your gas tank and get back to us after a week? You might be surprised at the results. If you are certain about it having no effect, you have nothing to lose.
Check again. Sugar is not tgw bogeyman but it is not good for engines.
The internet can be your friend.
Had a chemist analyze it. So maybe it was corn syrup. But that wasn’t the point.
Elmer,
It does work and I’ve seen it. It’s not catastrophic, but it’ll stop your car and cause expensive repairs to get rid of it. It works because it doesn’t dissolve.
Sugar has basically the same result as sand. It clogs up filters and is messy. It may stop the car, but not destroy the engine. There are far worse things that can be put in a gas tank. We should probably be happy that many people believe myths.
(Gary—I’m not saying the sugar doesn’t cause a problem. It does. I would be furious if someone tried it on my car.)
For sure. And it doesn’t have to go as far as nails in the drive or sugar in the gas tank. I’ve had more than one “neighbor from ****” – the problem was noise 24/7.
Glad you were able to get this guy, Anthony. It speaks volumes about how serious the situation is when the police see a need to be involved.
There are a bunch of wind farms down Windsor way. Maybe this guy lives near one and that helps explain his scrambled brain.
Wow, that was a barely coherent tirade. I’d say there are some legitimate mental issues, or he wrote it as a stream-of-consciousness exercise. I wouldn’t relax just yet, Anthony, some people aren’t easily dissuaded by the long arm of the law, unless they are in prison. Not someone I think that would respond to rational discussion either.
The only thing less coherent would be random letters.
Well done, Anthony! I hope the troll’s also well done!
I was in the process of executing an additional, and much more complicated plan to lead him to a honeypot.
Luckily, for my naturally lazy self, he fell for stage one before I had to put in much effort. And no, we will not tell you what I was up to.
I look forward to the thriller. I’d look forward to the movie too but Hollywood has no ability to tell the good guys from the bad…
Is he related to Sarah Myhre?
Just kidding.
The fellow needs counseling.
I wonder if this is the same scumbag that forged my name to a series of hate-filled posts a year or so back? I always wonder how these people’s minds work. They know they cannot refute the argument logically or with evidence, so they forge fake posts. They have to know that they are wrong, surely? So why don’t they switch to the right side? Have they simply willingly chosen evil over good? Very puzzling. Anyway, great work, Anthony!
From personal experience of living side-by-side with such a person for 11 years:
“They have to know that they are wrong, surely? So why don’t they switch to the right side? Have they simply willingly chosen evil over good? ”
No, …What they know is that they *must* be right, as they were told they were right the first time. All else is betrayal of themselves, so they will make up whatever interpretation of events is needed to believe that their assigned position, of being on top, is right. To do otherwise is the evil of betrayal of self. They are either on top of the world, by being right, or they are scum scraped off the bottom of the cesspool, and there can be nothing in between. Yes, they can kill someone when their belief pushes them to that. There were 4 attempts from him on my life in those 11 years. Their enablers are nearly as bad.