Charles Johnson, the admin and the only one who can actually see the IP adresses of comment posters at LGF is mad at one Dennis Perrin, posting away nervously over at the liberal loonybin HuffPo.
Dennis in Distress makes a ludicrous claim that he was threatened on an LGF comments thread, told to get the heck out or be tracked down by his IP address and rendered an ex-liberal.
Like any good Democrat, he found discretion the better part of valor and beat a hasty skedaddle, according to his own tall tale, aptly named The Liberal Surrender:
At Little Green Footballs, several commenters bluntly advised me to leave the site, or they would track me down via my IP address and kill me.
Probably hot air, but there are plenty of crazy people in the world, and arguing at an anti-Arab racist site wasn’t worth taking the risk, however slight.
Now that he’s skarkered out of there and back safe as a baby at Mother Huffington’s generous bosom he sure is getting cocky and throwing around the insults. We still have your IP Denny. You can’t hide behind Adrianna’s skirts forever!
Mr. Johnson takes exception to this risible claim:
That’s a lie, Dennis. It never happened. Man up. Prove it, or retract it.
Fact: no one at LGF knows poster’s IP addresses but me.
Fact: Dennis Perrin never reported any such thing, either to me, or to the police.
You might be able to track someone’s general area, but how the heck could you find their exact physical location just by IP address? That seems pretty flimsy in itself.
It would probably be easier to track him down by his bio on HuffPo, which he himself put up, then by an IP address that is hidden from everyone but the site Admin.
Anyway, why would any rightie want him dead? Kooks like him are best used as advertisements to remind the American public why they don’t like liberals. Mike Moore, George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, the entire HuffPo team probably helped Dubya win the ’04 election, and will contribute greatly towards the R’s winning the ’08.
Dennis, we love you! Keep posting crackpot theories and lies! Keep America in Republican hands!
I do enjoy Dennis’ Worchestershire sauce though.
UPDATE: Perrin Responds! And admits that it didn’t happen the way he said it did, but he has created a new “narrative”:
There was never a death threat made against “Dennis Perrin.” This is because “Dennis Perrin” didn’t use his real name when commenting at ChazJo’s joint. “Dennis Perrin” used a single, anonymous tag — a rare practice online, I’ll concede, but what the hell, you only live once. What that tag was I have no idea, since I posted there maybe five years ago, two computers and three hard drives in the past.
I knew very little about that site’s politics at the time, as I was relatively new to the Web, so I thought I could argue from a different perspective in good faith. Umm, right. My biggest mistake was insisting that the Palestinians are human, which is science fiction to Chazzy’s tribe. Several commenters told me to leave, and one said that if I didn’t, he’d track my IP address and “hunt” me down, encouraged by a few others. Now, whether this was possible or not, I don’t know, but as I said in my earlier post, I figured, fuck it, and moved on.
When someone says they’re gonna hunt you down, I don’t picture them arriving at your door with a gift basket and a warm smile. So, yes, I took that as a death threat. Again, how serious it was, I haven’t the faintest, and at this late date, I really don’t care.
Um, ok. You still don’t explain how anyone could hunt you down using your IP, especially when they can’t see it anyway. But hey, why take chances? Best to run away, quickly. Don’t defend free speech, when someone threatens you, back down, shut up and close the browser. Because the net is a scary, scary place.
Dennis Perrin is still a lying asshat because in his original post he maintains that there was a credible death threat made against him, real enough that he took the precaution of leaving the forum. Now he’s saying he was too stupid to know that no one can reach through the monitor and choke you to death, I guess. That’s about as likely as someone tracking him down from a one-word, generic screenname.
More reactions:
Protein Wisdom: Lefty Ass Afraid of Right-Wing Dicks [Dan Collins]
LGF: HuffPo: Evil LGF Commenters Threatened to Kill Me
Protein Wisdom:
Dennis “Don’t Chase Me From Your Forum Bro” Perrin: I’m A Beautiful, Precious Flower