Dear Wayne.

Y'all forgive me for making this post just a touch personal, but I'm going to try to save someone from a life of abject ignorance and, sometimes, drastic situations call for drastic measures.

Back here, one-time commenter Wayne made the mistake of mindlessly regurgitating the now-debunked neo-con talking point of how the New York Times had compromised the personal security of some members of the Bush administration by (gasp! horrors!) publishing, with their permission, stories of their vacation houses as part of a travel feature. Me, being in a bit of a snotty mood at the time, took the opportunity to lay a quick beating on Wayne, who seemed a bit hurt by it and claimed that all he wanted are facts.

No, Wayne. You don't.

What you appear to want, Wayne, is to mindlessly and gullibly regurgitate an endless stream of idiotic right-wing talking points, without taking even the smallest opportunity to see if there's any truth to them. And why can I say that and get away with it? Easy. One need only consider your blog, Wayne, to see what I'm talking about.

Let's take a look at that blogroll, Wayne, shall we? Now, with the exception of your "favourite lefty/prog" (excellent choice, naturally :-) and the rather weird selection of "Talk Origins" in the middle of all that, one can safely say that your choice of reading material is almost exclusively right of centre. And not just slightly right of centre, Wayne.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep up with news from the wankersphere but, seriously, is that the best you can do in terms of where you get your information? In terms of the conservative viewpoint, we're not talking the creme de la creme, are we? It's more like the scum de la terre. I mean, really -- Dust My Broom? Free Republic? Kate McMillan? Canadian Free Press? Proud to be Joel Johannesen's Bitches? This is your idea of trying to stay informed? This is your idea of trying to figure out what the facts are? To get your perspective on the world from the most rancid purveyors of right-wing dishonesty out there? But that's not even the worst part.

Consider all of your latest postings on that main page. Almost without exception, they represent nothing but links to, or straight reproductions of, hard-right news pieces. FOX News. Front Page Magazine. The National Post. Adam Daifallah, fer Chrissake! But it's not the sources that are so irritating, it's that there's not an original thought of yours anywhere there.

As far as I can tell, Wayne, you have contributed absolutely nothing to the online discourse. Not a sentence. Your entire production consists of nothing but other peoples' work. In short, you could just as effectively stop posting and have nothing but a blogroll, and readers would get exactly the same information. You've shown absolutely no interest in doing any research of your own, and yet you have the nerve to show up in my comments section, claiming that you're just interested in "facts."

Let me give you some advice, Wayne, and here's hoping it sticks. If you really want to know what's happening, stop reading those worthless neo-con sites. And if you want one, just one, recommendation for a site that shows you what real research and writing is all about, you can't do any better than Glenn Greenwald who, coincidentally, has some recent articles on that whole New York Times idiocy. Glenn is a model of what real blogging is all about and, if you have the sense God gave a urinal deodorizer disc, you would make yourself comfortable and invest an hour or two over at his site. But there's one more thing I want to mention, Wayne, about how you've pissed me off lately.

In a recent comment of yours, you actually had the nerve to thank me for bringing your attention to the web site "Proud to be Canadian," which I see you've added to your blogroll. So, if I understand this correctly, I have exposed PtbC's Barbara Kay as a dishonest hack, and Joel Johannesen as a whiny, petulant sleazebag, and your response is to add that site to your blogroll? Can you now understand why I consider you to be a total prat?

I mean, really ... think hard. It'll come to you.