Good morning all - I am the inconsiderate jack@ss, RJ. No excuse for my actions, suffice to say, I will put my money where my apology is for Amy's time ASAP.

Give war a chance, huh?

I'm sure that the local Armed Forces recruiter would LOVE to talk to such a manly-man. Perhaps someone should pass "R.J. Thunderschlong's" contact info along to them.

I wonder why he hasn't already signed up to fight?

*gasp* You don't think he's all talk and no bullocks, do you?

Nooooo….couldn’t be….

- The Gene Pool Needs A Shock of Chlorine

RJ -- $50 is not enough. I think you should give Amy some oral service. Lena

Since you clearly have RJ's balls on a silver platter, Amy, why so shy about posting them? Still working on the garnish and herb dressing?

Not sure why, but reading your post has made me instinctively cross my legs.

Amy-

I guess I still don't get why you need to tie in the whole "dead marines" thing to driving SUV's, and wonder what kind of reaction you expect from people when you accuse them of contributing to the death of their countrymen. It doesn't strike me as a whole lot different than Fred Phelps saying this war is gods retribution for Americas tolerance of gays, though not in the same league of crassness.

The man is simply an idiot and has even admitted to being one. Now stupid people aren't that hard to find but one who's mean spirited and stupid at the same time, well that's just someone with a big target on thier own SUV problems.



According to what I see he is:

Richard LaBarba

11880 Quitman Street

Westminster, CO 80031

Phone: 3033194535

rjlabarba@comcast.net



By signing someone up without their permission to several mailing lists he probably violated the TOS of comcast. Mail comcast.



And if you look at the laws in CO about stalking and harrasment, it's not pretty for this guy who wants to say 'Ahhhh, Capitalism!!!!! Support the economy that has given us all so much!!!!" '



Since he runs a photography service, if anyone wants to honor his ideals about capitalsim simply file a complaint about him using his own busisness account to harrass someone that he happens to disagree with. I'm sure the AG of Colorado or the BBB would be very happy to hear from you.

The contentions with the childishness of the action taken, and the issue with some of the things he said are well covered...But as a professional computer geek, I'm dismayed by seeing it done it in such a way that's so easily traced back to the source. (sigh) There are so many ways to do such things that can easily evade most methods of backtracing. All geeks/hackers/computer pranksters hang their heads in shame. Then again, I'd never do that to strangers...I'd do it to people I know personally, who also do me the same "favor", and would take it as a joke, not as a personal attack. True, it's bad all around to do something like that, but to do it poorly, isn't that the greater crime? /sarcasm

He's a stupid bastard for proxy-spamming you.

On the other hand, what about the time and effort other people have to spend taking your droppings off their cars?

They should bill you for that, and for disposal of the litter, shouldn't they? Fair's fair, after all.

Amy scored a clean kill with her muscular counter-strike, but the guy took some of the sport out of it with his sober, abject, obsequious retreat. Memo to self: Do not blog-annoy girl detectives.

Eric- Do you think the western world's energy policy is where it needs to be?

I'm impressed.

I like RJ's stand-up willingness to take his lumps here in Amy's own baliwick.

I'm sorry about RJ's car.

I'm sorry about Amy's time.

I think we can all get along. Call me crazy.

By the way, I pitched a regular feature writing this stuff -- not letting people "get away with it," whether it's stuff like this, loud cell phoning in public, etc., -- to the new editor at LA Times Magazine (now "West") and was turned down.

The LA Times may not want to know, but Kevin Roderick at LA Observed just cross-refed you. So everyone in the City of Angels will now be singing (with apols to Richie Valens) "para burlar La Barba"....

Crid-

The western world is now competing with the eastern world for these same petroleum assets, but they don't have soldiers dying in Iraq. Of course I would like to see American companies innovate to the highest fuel standards possible, and the least polluting. They are not, so GM nears bankruptcy while Toyota builds new plants in Tennessee. Changes will come from the marketplace, not George Bush, and it works.

Right now the marketplace says big cars are attractive, and will remain so until the price of gasoline demands a move to smaller more efficient vehicles. (I am garaging my Tahoe soon until the snow flies again for a nice little two seater, not because I can't afford the gas, but I don't need all the SUV for zipping around town.)

But this does not mean is that I am killing marines in the winter, and being a patriot in the better weather.

PS- Why is the rest of the world building nuclear plants, while America still thinks of the Pepsi Syndrome?

Eric, you rock.

Sometimes I navel-gaze at what would happen if the U.S. government stopped spending so much money protecting oil. Let's just say (while we are in the land of make-believe) that this reduced spending resulted in a corresponding reduction in income taxes.

We'd all start paying more for gas, which would probably cause two things to happen:

1) The people who weren't paying income taxes to begin with would bellyache to high heaven about the increase in gas prices. The minority of people who pay most of the income taxes would probably benefit or net out to zero, so they wouldn't complain. This would be seen as a benefit to the evil rich.

2) Those market forces Eric is talking about would affect U.S. consumers the same way they affect Europe. You'd see lots of those teensy-weensy little commuter cars that get 80 miles to the gallon.

Bravo Amy! Amazing investigation, you could do this for a living (think about it, really...) He'd better send the check with flowers or something a bit classy. The "google" punishment is pretty bad already: his name is forever associated to this disgraceful episode!

Way to go on tracking him down :-) I think him signing you up for loads of spam was a crappy thing to do. Kudos to him for being big enough to apologize for it, though. But, Amy, I love reading your stuff, however I honestly think he's come across as the bigger person. He apologized, sincerely, and yet that wasn't good enough. No wonder people are getting ruder and ruder these days. Common courtesies such as apologies are no longer enough. Not your finest hour, IMO.

As a P.S. - I know you didn't do it, but I think it's really uncool for somebody to have posted his address and phone number on your site, and a bit irresponsible to leave it up. It would be a shame if he were harrassed or his property vandalised over this whole thing.

Anne, his phone number is on the front of his site, and his information is readily available in the Internet registry -- no secret to anyone with Google and a moderately agile mind. Moreover, the Colorado address is wrong. He lives in Charlotte, NC, as you'll see if you go to his own site, where I found his cell phone number and dialed him up and ragged him out with great ease. I'm not going to restrain myself from criticizing somebody or posting publicly available information because there might be some yahoos out there. I don't wish physical harm to come to anyone, but restraint in this area is not my job.

What a great story. I had to do the same twice. I got apologies once I tracked them down but I never thought to ask them to compensate me for my wasted time. Good job.