How can you say “there’s no way [I or anyone else] can say” anything about some third-party poster’s motives? First of all, you’re only guessing that he reads posts via e-mail notification. I sure don’t do it that way and no one has any way to know that except the poster, themselves. Secondly, I would maybe buy your argument, except for one niggling little detail… the thread in question was started by Collounsbury. It was his thread. For all the argument here about how bright a man he is, you can’t make me believe that he suddenly put on the stupid hat and forgot what forum he posted his own damn thread in. Sorry, I’m not buying it.
Hey hey boo boo, no one would say you are an apologist. You’re just a purveyor of hypothetical nonsense.
Fair enough. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. No big deal.
DAMN IT.
Just for archival completeness, I’m posting two links. First, a link to the other post-banning thread,
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=201393
I’m also posting a link to Collounsbury’s live journal for those who come after and may be interested in the next chapter of MENA-boy’s continuing saga.
Friends, Dopers, countrymen, lend me your ears!
I come to bury Collounsbury, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Collounsbury.
Thanks for that, Truth Seeker. I will miss his unique take on things, and I share Eva Luna’s opinion that a truthful but foul-mouthed poster is more valuable than one who decieves and misrepresents and refuses to address issues in a responsible way.
I am normally a pretty chilled-out person but some of the hateful anti-Arab sentiment, based in shameless ignorance and prejudice, that has surfaced since Sept 11 has made me pretty angry as well. I appreciate that someone more knowledgable and more well-prepared than I has been able to take up the task of trying to dispel it, and I can fully understand his ire. But I agree, maybe this board is not the best place to vent it, and I believe that we are all poorer for it.
Oh dear. Not again. Well, this is most unfortunate, but Sugarlump had his chance. I’ll miss the perspective and the intellectual integrity–however controversially he presented it–he brought to the board. Now poor Tamerlane among others will have to pick up the slack here [giggle], and I imagine he and the others certainly don’t appreciate the extra work that Sugarlump has left for them to do. [sigh] C’est la vie. I do wish Sugarlump well with his LiveJournal. 
Well, I closed the other Colounsbury Pit thread yesterday. I see no reason to leave this one open now.