matteo's commentary on the dios vs. rothko contest

October 21, 2005 4:24 PM

"You guys have some sense of outrage over something that was a goof".
O.K., let's play, then, since it's such a funny a goof, apparently. I volunteer for the next MetaSurvivor round -- let's give my many MeFi friends a nice fat chance to vote me off the island. Two requests, though. 500 dollars are bad for my ego, let's make it 1,000. And I don't care enough about CreativeCommons (sorry!), so if you want to kick me out you have to donate to these guys. Who wants to play with me?
posted by matteo to Feature Requests at 4:24 PM (65 comments total)

Of course, I give my word that I won't contribute to ban the other user. I won't expect the same courtesy from him of her, anyway. (also, I'm cheap)
posted by matteo at 4:25 PM on October 21, 2005

I'll shut up for a week for a plo chop.
posted by keswick at 4:32 PM on October 21, 2005

well, I won't volunteer for that
posted by matteo at 4:34 PM on October 21, 2005

posted by dhoyt at 4:42 PM on October 21, 2005

jesus, can you give it a fucking rest matteo?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:46 PM on October 21, 2005

that's pretty rude, you know? if dios does it it's funny, if I do, it's not? but OK, this is your house, just kill the thread
posted by matteo at 4:48 PM on October 21, 2005

I approached dios and alex, not the other way around.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:49 PM on October 21, 2005

damn, that's even worse. but it's OK. sorry.
posted by matteo at 4:51 PM on October 21, 2005

Won't somebody think of the kittens??
posted by konolia at 4:54 PM on October 21, 2005

Hate the game, but up the stakes?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:56 PM on October 21, 2005

I'll give up my virginity.
posted by bardic at 4:56 PM on October 21, 2005

Ok, I'm game. The amount is pretty high, so I say we make the donation period open-ended, though. If you get to $1000 first, you stop posting for a week. If I get to $1000 first, I'll stop posting for a week.

Agreed?
posted by Bugbread at 4:57 PM on October 21, 2005

what, no dhoyt? too scared?
posted by matteo at 4:58 PM on October 21, 2005

I will eat your children!


Praise be to Allah.
posted by dhoyt at 4:59 PM on October 21, 2005

*beats chest*
posted by Stauf at 4:59 PM on October 21, 2005

What if they gave a charity gala, and no-one came?
posted by Kafkaesque at 5:01 PM on October 21, 2005

bugbread, nobody would pay 1,000 bucks just to get rid of you, come on.
but you're right, 1,000 it's a lot -- let's say the loser stays out until January 1, 2006
posted by matteo at 5:01 PM on October 21, 2005

Why are you insisting on making such an ass of yourself, matteo? I just don't understand it.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:01 PM on October 21, 2005

Can't we just put on a show?
posted by bardic at 5:02 PM on October 21, 2005

Don't let dyoyt participate. I can't afford it.
posted by FYKshun at 5:03 PM on October 21, 2005

Seems totally in character to me.

People are always saying what a great guy matteo is when he isn't being such an asshole, I guess I don't hang out in the right places; all I ever see is the asshole.
posted by timeistight at 5:05 PM on October 21, 2005

Why are you insisting on making such an ass of yourself

what, too broke to vote, s.?
posted by matteo at 5:06 PM on October 21, 2005

Matt:

Related to the other contest, can we get a final graph?
posted by Bugbread at 5:07 PM on October 21, 2005

*dances, sings, quips, shoots matteo on sight*

Not too broke, just don't give a shit. Watching you spin yourself up into a froth is amusing though, I'll give you that.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:08 PM on October 21, 2005

hhmmm, Korean beer froth
posted by matteo at 5:09 PM on October 21, 2005

What's the going rate for a GSOH transplant these days? I'd chip in for that.
posted by elphTeq at 5:10 PM on October 21, 2005

Only 9am here -- way too early for beer, Korean or otherwise. Coffee's on, though.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:10 PM on October 21, 2005

I don't understand matteo lately. He used to be a funny, cultured guy with a bug up his ass about politics. Now the bug has burrowed its way through his entire body and eaten his brain. Be afraid, be very afraid...
posted by languagehat at 5:11 PM on October 21, 2005

So wait... The real objection was that you weren't asked?

(You did have a total "Don't hate the playa, hate the game," attitude for a bit. I really just wanted to say "Don't hate the playa, hate the game." Damn.)
posted by klangklangston at 5:13 PM on October 21, 2005

stravosthewonderchicken: Way to early? Crazy.
posted by brundlefly at 5:13 PM on October 21, 2005

Tell you what, if you folks can get to $1000, I'll shut up for a whole month. But you have to give to money to meeeeeee!

*wrings hands, cackles*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:16 PM on October 21, 2005

for $20 i'll strangle the fish in my pants.
posted by quonsar at 5:18 PM on October 21, 2005

what, no dhoyt? too scared?

Ok, my slimy chest-beating amigo: make the contribution toward a legit, non-terrorism-affiliated group...

• In August 2003, CAIR's civil-rights coordinator, Randall "Ismail" Royer, was arrested on charges of possessing "in his automobile an AK-47-style rifle and 219 rounds of ammunition" in September 2001, and conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda and to the Taliban. He pleaded guilty and is serving 20 years in federal prison.
• On February 2, 1995, CAIR advisory board member Imam Siraj Wahaj was named by the Office of the U.S. Attorney as one of several "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators in the attempt to blow up New York City monuments," including the World Trade Center in 1993. He has called for replacing the American government with an Islamic caliphate, warned that America will crumble unless it submits to Islam, and was a character witness during Abdel-Rahman's World Trade Center bombing trial.
• On December 18, 2002, Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of CAIR-Texas and a co-founder of the Holy Land Foundation, was arrested by the FBI on charges of having ties with front groups that fund Islamic terrorism. In 2005, Elashi and two of his brothers were convicted on 21 counts of federal terrorism charges related to funding Hamas and the illegal export of electronics equipment to U.S. State Department-designated state sponsors of terrorism.
• In January 2003, CAIR's director of community relations and founder of the Islamic Assembly of North America, Bassem Khafagi, was arrested by the FBI on charges of having ties to front groups that fund Islamist terrorism. Khafagi pleaded guilty to charges of visa and bank fraud, and agreed to be deported to Egypt.
• Sen. Charles Schumer (D., NY) describes CAIR as an organization “which we know has ties to terrorism.”
• Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) observed that CAIR is “unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect.”
• Steven Pomerantz, the FBI’s former chief of counterterrorism, noted that “CAIR, its leaders and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups.”
• The family of John P. O’Neill, Sr., the former FBI counterterrorism chief who perished at the World Trade Center, named CAIR in a lawsuit as having “been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism” responsible for the September 11 atrocities.

...and I'll kick in a dollar.


Maybe.
posted by dhoyt at 5:20 PM on October 21, 2005

That's gotta sting.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:21 PM on October 21, 2005

Yeah not fair, the person who doesn't get silenced should pick the charity. I think this is all great fun. Someone please take Matteo on. We could have weekly deathmatches. And if silencing doesn't work for some people, how about various humiliations? Like having to write erotic slash fiction or something.
posted by loquax at 5:27 PM on October 21, 2005

Well said, dhoyt.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:28 PM on October 21, 2005

Y'know, I was just about to praise dhoyt for finally putting up a post with links and substance instead of just baiting Alex or shitting all over people for not being good enough liberals. Then I started following his links (all to Wiki)...

We don't have an article called "1995/wiki/February 2"

Can I unflag a post I prematurely flagged as being great?
posted by FYKshun at 5:30 PM on October 21, 2005

This is the batshitinsane thread, make of it what you will.
posted by solotoro at 5:35 PM on October 21, 2005

posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:37 PM on October 21, 2005

Oh and I also nominate Krrrlson to go up against matteo. Or Jenleigh.
posted by loquax at 5:39 PM on October 21, 2005

There's an extra "1995" in all of those links. Take that out and you're all set. Or just go to the original source.
posted by mendel at 5:39 PM on October 21, 2005

Then I started following his links (all to Wiki)...

...And if I'd put up the list without anchor tags at all, you'd have been asking why I didn't source it.

But frankly I don't see what difference it makes. These CAIR incidents—among a dozen others—are not news, are not from partisan sources, are not obscure, and have no doubt been peeped by anyone who's read a paper the last few years. It should give anyone pause before throwing money at their feet.

The same cannot be said for CC, which has done great work.
posted by dhoyt at 5:40 PM on October 21, 2005

see, because instead of post-ponement i said post-poniment, like a pony.
posted by cortex at 5:42 PM on October 21, 2005

dhoyt : "...And if I'd put up the list without anchor tags at all, you'd have been asking why I didn't source it."

Uh, dhoyt, the problem isn't that the links are Wiki, it's that they don't actually go anywhere. Try clicking a few to test them out. There's an extra "wiki/1995/" in every link.
posted by Bugbread at 5:47 PM on October 21, 2005

(Er...edit: There's an extra "wiki/1995/" in every link I've tried so far. Dunno about the ones I haven't tried)
posted by Bugbread at 5:47 PM on October 21, 2005

I realize that, bug. What I'm saying is even if the links were pasted correctly, someone would follow them to Wikipedia, see that Wikipedia wasn't 'sourcing' them, ie, linking to the respective news articles, and cry foul. Regardless -- it's info to give one pause about CAIR. Any of the info is Google-able.
posted by dhoyt at 5:52 PM on October 21, 2005

i think dhoyt's volunteering, no?
posted by amberglow at 5:52 PM on October 21, 2005

so, anyone know how to make spring convert bind errors to messages in the page? i've got a bind exception instead. meanwhile, fmt tags are switching with the locale. so something knows about messages (and there's a message defined with a code that matches the bind exception).

what?
posted by andrew cooke at 5:54 PM on October 21, 2005

Oh, if dhoyt's volunteering, great. I thought he wasn't interested.
posted by loquax at 5:54 PM on October 21, 2005

This is why we can't have nice things.
posted by Otis at 5:55 PM on October 21, 2005

No, this is why we can have nice things and then right next to the nice things we can also have really shitty annoying self-regarding things.
posted by cortex at 5:57 PM on October 21, 2005

+ +
posted by Stauf at 6:01 PM on October 21, 2005

So let me get this straight. matteo and amberglow are dead set against this idea, UNLESS they can piss all over it's good-spirited nature and make their "point". Then they're all for it. Is that about right?

Cute, and IMHO far too revealing of their actual character, which is in stark contrast to the "nice guy" personas they attempt to slather all over the participants here. Way to show your true colors. I'll take the tactless, honest participant here as opposed to a superficially nice liar any day.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 6:02 PM on October 21, 2005

posted by cyrusdogstar at 6:04 PM on October 21, 2005

Thanks for the re-direct to the source, mendel.

I mean, I guess that block posting section of the wiki article that covered allegations of CAIR's connections to terrorism, and then manually adding sixteen broken links to entries for items as esoteric as "AK-47" and "FBI" is somehow better than sourcing nothing.

I started looking up some of the linked individuals on wiki, and (for example) the article on Siraj Wahaj didn't coroborate the information in dhoyt's post. Ah, the joys of an open-source encyclopaedia. It's going to take more time than I have at the moment to follow-up any of the other allegations to see if they hold water.
posted by FYKshun at 6:05 PM on October 21, 2005

ahhhh. chapter 14 of the manual explains all.
posted by andrew cooke at 6:08 PM on October 21, 2005

So let me get this straight. matteo and amberglow are dead set against this idea, UNLESS they can piss all over it's good-spirited nature and make their "point". Then they're all for it. Is that about right?

Nah, you're giving them too much credit. If dios had won, or if his winning had never been in doubt, then nobody would have batted an eyelash. But since it was possible that rothko could actually win, suddenly the site's become Little Blue Footballs and mathowie's posting Cox and Forkum cartoons to the front page.
posted by darukaru at 6:17 PM on October 21, 2005

can't you guys do this when i have mone to spare? I'd pay 1k by myself just to close this stupid fucking thread.

where's ewkpates and leapingsheep, anyway? that thread was at least amusing and not retchingly self-absorbed.
posted by shmegegge at 6:20 PM on October 21, 2005

What the...? What in the name of John Hancock's accumulated nocturnal emissions is that hideous screeching noise?
posted by loquacious at 6:46 PM on October 21, 2005

Nah, you're giving them too much credit. If dios had won, or if his winning had never been in doubt, then nobody would have batted an eyelash.

You're so wrong. So very wrong. And the attacks visible here kinda prove how really bad the original "contest" and "battle" was to begin with. Any excuse to attack, huh? Who needs a contest?
posted by amberglow at 6:49 PM on October 21, 2005

If ever a thread needed to be hijacked, this is it. Malicious post =
posted by edgeways at 6:52 PM on October 21, 2005

[this is ugly]

And it demeans us all.
posted by interrobang at 6:53 PM on October 21, 2005

This is ridiculous. Matteo has totally lost it.
posted by trey at 6:58 PM on October 21, 2005

so does this mean i'm not getting a plo chop?
posted by keswick at 7:12 PM on October 21, 2005

in before deletion
posted by greasy_skillet at 7:28 PM on October 21, 2005