>>>SNIP
>>>>
>>>>OTOH, I don't believe that I have ever attacked someone without, what I believed at the time, just provocation. Unfortunately, you can't say the same. (Word to wise: Don't go here, for I'll be happy to demonstrate via your own posts.)
>>
>>>Go at it George. Please cite message#, date of message, object of "attack" and the "attack" phrases *I* uttered. You should know that anything between EdR and myself should, by definition, not be included.
>>
>>>Sounds like you have a nice long list on hand that you are itching to publish. You have my blessing to do so. Remember, now, UNprovoked and uttered by *me*.
>>
>>Ah, I see, you want to set your own rules. You don't want to take responsibility for your actions. I would think that any post, by anyone that was not directed directly to you or mentioned you specifically by would be fair game.
>>
>>I'd strongly suggest that you back off. I know more about that incident and your actions afterward than you might think.
>>
>>>As for the rest of your comments, I'm just too tired of repeating myself. But I do find it comical that this whole attack of yours would have been totally pre-empted if I had only used the word "issue". Oh, and I do not have the luxury of working with the likes of Randy Brown nor anyone else on or near the VFP Team. That holds true for most of us, by the way.
>>>
>>We're (and I mean "we") asking you to be responsible for your actions which you characterize as being for the improvement of the product, but in reality are potentially harmful, and you classify that as "comical"? I think that I'll let the readers of this post draw their own conclusion...
>>
>>Now here's one for you. Do you ever say anything that has a factual basis? Do you ever talk about something you actually know something about? In your last sentence, you don't know anything to justify it. You're clueless. You don't know when it occurred (what if I wasn't an MVP at the time?), you don't know about the circumstances at the time, or who began the exchange. Nada! Nothing! Zip! You act as if Randy's email address is a deep dark secret, known only to a priviledged few, when exactly the opposite is the case.
>>
>>I think we're done here.
>
>No we're not at all done, George.
>
>You accused me of making UNprovoked attacks on people. You said that you could prove this in your statement "Word to wise: Don't go here, for I'll be happy to demonstrate via your own posts.)".
>Anyone reading that has to believe that it's true, especially coming from our "scientist" and our champion of heartwarming "open letters".

Jim, you want me to demonstrate? Then all you have to do is go back to your original post to me on this thread. You mis-characterize both my motivation and character. That, both directly and indirectly is an unprovoked and unwarrented attack. I spent considerable time writing the original post. One of the things I cerrtainly did not want to do was offend anyone, including you. You took offense because you chose to do so. =

>Now it's down to one "incident". One where you (proudly proclaim) "know more of my actions afterwards than I might think". Well I have no problem with you 'exposing' anything you like about the "incident". Others may, but I don't, so as far as I'm concerned, go right ahead.

OK, after that post, you demand that Ed be expelled from the UT. Deny it, and you are a liar.

>So either put it all up here for all the world to see or retract the entire statement. Do it by your own "rules", with the simple exception: You say "...or mentioned you specifically by would be fair game" and that cannot work, because EdR's main modus operandi was to insult (me) in other threads directed to other people, not mentioning my name but rather coining a phrase like 'hardware expert' and using that to refer to me. So if your "incident" includes EdR then you had better take that into account. Don't waste my time by making me have to do so after the fact. Do a nice clean scientific job of it on the first go around, will you?

So you choose when and where someone can make a statement? You are the final arbibtor of what's allowable and what's not. I don't think so. The one thing that has and continues to guide me is a quote from Voltaire:

I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Ed, who has personally evaluated both hardware and software for computer magazines isn't allowed to express his opinions if they run contrary to your's? If I express an opinion that you don't agree with, is that out-of-bounds also?

Now to clean things up, Ed wasn't even aware of your presence on "that" thread. I know from his own words that you were on his "filter". You presume too much. Yet you took it upon yourself to unleash profanity towards him, and then demarded that he be expelled from here.

>Who else but you is the "we" that says I have been irresponsibe in stating that the REINDEX/bloat "issue" is a bug???? I really didn't know you were a spokesman for the community.
>And it is comical that if I had called the problem an "issue" then you would have been alright with that. Comical on two counts, actually:
>1) you simply could have said so in your first reply on the thread;
>2) your venom towards anything I say makes it impossible for you to read my stuff properly.

1. I did. 2. If I've mis-read anything of your's and responded inappropriately, I did apologize.

>As for my cluelessness, what the hell are you going on about???? It matters not how/when you "worked with Randy Brown", just that the vast majority of us do not. Period. Anyone who would send an unsolicited e-mail to Mr. Brown deserves a response along the lines of 'sorry, I don't do debugging by e-mail'.

Did not John Koziol solicit bug reports to he and Mike Stewart? My statement was in that regard. Randy, may (I'm not 100% sure) contacted me about a post I made on the UT regarding the C0000005 errors. If he did not, then I took his words as being an invitation to submit such. In this particular incident, I was wrong and apologized to both Randy and the Fox team for wasting their time.

>As I said earlier, George, I am far too tired of this whole thing to go to the bother of showing how your "logic" in this thread, as regards *my* statements and your retorts, do not answer my statements, confuse various issues, introduce unrelated fluff and generally are born of venom rather than good sense.

You started this. In no way, shape, manner or form was my original post directed towards you. If I recall correctly, I told you this in my initial response. You, however, have chosen to be offended. There's nothing I can do about that.

>Show the world my UNprovoked attacks on people, George. And if you don't then have the decency to retract your accusation.

I just did. I've also directly confronted you with your taking my statements out of context and blatantly mis-quoting me. Did you bother to apologize? No!

The bottom line here is that when you stop attacking me, I'll stop having to defend myself. The choice is your's.