Uh, oh. I angered off the biggest political spammer in Salt Lake City! Pirate “Captain” Mark Towner likes to spew out craziness and ignorant hyperbole and, here’s the surprise, he doesn’t want to be called on it. I’ve had several phone calls this morning, some from folks that think this is pretty funny and some from Republicans that want me to know that they have not a damn thing to do with Mark.
Also, and most comforting to me, is that the premier republican blog in Utah, jumped in to distance themselves from you:
The Senate Site Says:
June 21st, 2007 at 1:02 pmProbably should clarify a minor detail here. Mark Towner isn’t a fundraiser or political consultant to President Valentine. Towner organized a cool event. Valentine and Mark Shurtleff are friends. Everyone had a good time. That’s about the extent of it.
Have a good weekend.
So, what started all this? Mark thinks it’s a great idea to nuke Iran. He says so on his blog. I guess as a make-believe pirate, you kind of knee-jerk toward blowing things up. More on that in a moment. First, this nugget from Mark’s blog:
I have NEVER met this person, EVER and yet he feels “I’m an ignorant douche bag”
Hey Mark, we’ve not only met a few times, up on the hill and at a Sutherland Institute event, but, via email, we’ve fought about you spamming my email addresses from a non-opt out list that I’m pretty sure you swiped from Utah Policy Daily. So, either you’re a liar (i vote yes) or you suffer from selective amnesia (again, I vote yes).
You want to nuke another country, Mark. So, yeah, I think you’re an ignorant douche bag. You boneheaded neo-cons seem to think that diplomacy is spelled W-E-A-P-O-N-S S-Y-S-T-E-M. Now, lets be honest with each other for a moment (unless you’ll break out in hives, or something); I have no problem with the use of military force. I think that Bosnia was a righteous military engagement. I think that Afghanistan was a righteous military engagement. I’m also partial to the Revolutionary War, the war of 1812, the Union side of the civil war, WWI, WWII, and Korea.
I think that Granada was silly, I think that our involvement in the Central and South America is the majority of the reason we have so many problems down there, I think that Vietnam was a gigantic and tragic waste of American lives totally based on a strategic set of lies and I think that the Iraq invasion and subsequent clusterf**k will turn out to be the biggest threat to the American Ideal and Image imaginable.
And you, you simple, pedantic sycophant, want to drop nukes on another country because about 0.00008% of their population (the government and it’s puppet masters) has murderous and hateful feelings about America. How many people do you want to kill, Mark, to nuke the world into forceful submission to the American way of life? That’s oxymoronic AND moronic at the same time. Quite a feat.
I think it’s because you lack the necessary intelligence; the function of brain mechanisms beyond breathing, babbling and both literal and figurative defecation to THINK about something other than killing people to “solve” a problem. I think, basically, that you’re a joke, that your neo-con talking points and your ignorant, thick headed view of Foreign Policy are making things far, far worse, and I can’t believe that I took three minutes to respond to you.
JM Bell said “Hey Mark, we’ve not only met a few times, up on the hill and at a Sutherland Institute event, but, via email, we’ve fought about you spamming my email addresses from a non-opt out list that I’m pretty sure you swiped from Utah Policy Daily. So, either you’re a liar (i vote yes) or you suffer from selective amnesia (again, I vote yes).”
Spamming your email, what crap! Every email has an opt-out link at the bottom (your first lie) I swiped a list from Utah Policy Daily, I personally provided Paul nearly 4000 subscribers to UPD. When I started working for LaVarr Webb there were about 3500 subscribers. When I left there were nearly 7000, your second lie. So who is the liar JM?
Sutherland Institute event? What was an Angry Liberal Democrat doing at a Sutherland event, oh yeah they had free food there, it figures. What did we talk about? Were you the guy I was talking about airplanes?
Confused
Mark Towner
BRAVO!
Good, God, Mark. Set down your talking points. I’m not a liberal, I’m a progressive. There’s a difference to all but the ignorant.
Yes, we talked about airplanes. I prefer helicopters, but, flying an airplane costs a lot less. And, for your information, I didn’t eat the food, but I went because I used to get sent tickets.
You see, Mark, I’m one of those people who takes the time to actually look and listen around BEFORE I shoot my mouth off and make an ass out of myself (which I do quite regularly).
I’m open minded. and I don’t think that all Republicans are bad, immoral people. Sometimes, heaven forfend, they actually legislate from an area not concerned with mass killing, inherent greed, flawed and bastardized puedo-Christian extreme fundamentalism or from the dark black depths that replace the heart of supply side economics pitch men.
You know, for the public good. Look it up sometime; Jesus loves it.
As to your damn list, you had three of my email addresses on it. I would never subscribe to something you sent out, Mark. And your opt-out, for what it’s worth, took weeks to finally get around to dropping my addresses. Weeks. That’s bad manners on the net, Mark.
I really couldn’t give a shit about what you did, or did not do, for UPD. You took a list, whether it was given to you, or not, and added it to your personal list, and then said it was subscribers. Horseshit. It’s spam and it’s a lie, and it’s all you doing both.
Mark, I call BS on the spamming. While you’re barely able to skirt around Utah’s anti-spam laws by sending messages of a non-commercial nature, your messages are entirely unsolicited. Remember all of those pissed-off people sending messages to that short-lived Google Group that you signed a bunch of people up for? I think that’s your best indication that harvesting addresses is so not cool.
You’re leaving a trail of ill will all over the place, buddy.
Mark,
I was invited but could not attend a Sutherland gig. Why not see what the other side has to say, that is unless the otherside wants to fry Iran.
Come on Mark, you’re better than this,
Well said!
And there is an even larger issue here, which is how quickly a person brave enough to type the original “Nuke Em All” post on his own blog single handedly digresses into a defensive and reactionary position, rather than backing up what he original wrote that people objected to (the killing of millions of innocent people).
It is a blustery form of argument that Mark uses, usually reserved for those that either 1) Have no real substance to argue a point from, or 2) Have no real skill at self expression via intelligent verbage.
Our point at The Sidetrack was the irresponsibility of what Mark chose to write, and the willingness elected and appointed officials to associate with the likes of Mark Towner (et al). Mark has yet to address this issue and the foolishness of his post. Instead he jumped quickly into a personal arguement in the COMMENTS rather than back himself up with a logical argument, ironically proving true the claim that he is, indeed, a vitriolic douche bag.
And not that eloquent either.
It really is time we rid our local (and of course national, but that may have to wait a few months) political arena of those who lack integrity and skill. Mark is irrelevant at this point with his constant “foot in mouth” problem, no one wants to touch him. Yet the willingness of our Attorney General to be involved, even in a once removed fashion, with Mark’s fund-raiser is an example of the decay of Utah politics, and intelligent decision making.
Accountability for all!
Thanks for the post, JM.
I live, but to serve, Jason The
“And you, you simple, pedantic sycophant…”
I have no idea why, but that just made my day.
Wow, when I read this I suddenly had this weird flash-sideways:
I have NEVER met this person, EVER and yet he feels “I’m an ignorant douche bag”
When someone vanity googles their name, and the first hit that comes up is a Deseret Spectacle post which, at best, is debunking/mocking them and their letter, I wonder if they have the same type of pained, visceral reaction.
Hmm..
You know, I gotta say that if they do, I think I’m okay with that.
DS
This makes my point:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http:///www.marktowner.com/
13 pages in 1994 of which after meeting with Bill I agreed to remove the two degrees so there would be no question and did this on August 26th, long before the campaign start time. Marktowner.com was never used for my Campaign. Look how hard you had to go to find this.
Mark
Doc Towner tried to threaten me this morning for exposing his spamming ways. Thanks goodness he posted here admitting that his list is not opt-in (a violation of the FeedBlitz ToS) and that he stole it from Utah Policy Daily (a violation of their privacy policy). I sent e-mails to both organizations this morning. He’s going down in flames and your blog helped do it!
Oh Jeff, you shouldn’t make fun of poor Mr. Towner…He does quite well all by himself!
Now, how can I get off Towner’s spammer email list?! I “unsubscribed” months ago after not subscribing in the first place only to have his “Let’s Nuke Iran” post find it’s way into my Inbox last week. I clicked the unsubscribe button only to be directed to an “error” link.
This post seriously made my day.
Megan: Send an e-mail to abuse@feedblitz.com to let them know that you did not opt in. The more of us that complain about his spamming, the more likely it is he’ll be shut down for good!
Meh
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