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I've Never Done a 'Callout' Before. Am I Doing It Right?


Ashoka the Great

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When I posted my musings on having torn my rotator cuff, I didn't expect someone to wander in and call me a liar over something completely unrelated.

Behold Jaiar, proud member of the New Pacific Order:

You must be bored out of your mind to write all this and all your other blogs. You'll get some replies but I doubt people are genuinely interested in all this much less your horribly shopped up pic with Margaret Thatcher - Not RealYeah yeah, I'm not important either but at least I know it.

Wait, what? I post a story about my idiotic stunt that injured my shoulder and my previous experiences with Canada's appalling healthcare system and someone I've never heard of wanders in, calls me a liar about something that I posted in the picture thread some time ago and expects me not to respond?

tsk tsk tsk

He don't know me very well, do he?

I did attempt to give the photo some context:

You must be bored out of your mind to write all this and all your other blogs. You'll get some replies but I doubt people are genuinely interested in all this much less your horribly shopped up pic with Margaret Thatcher - Not RealYeah yeah, I'm not important either but at least I know it.
I type at somewhere around 115 words per minute, so it's no effort whatsoever. When I'm feeling motivated I write. No motivation? No writing. It's really quite simple.With regard to the picture, I'm not entirely sure why you decided to bring it up, but OK I'll bite.It was September 1992 at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. Thatcher was there to speak to a group of about 1,000 businesspeople organized by Vancouver's Fraser Institute. I was the Institute's Director of Development for several years, beginning in mid-1991. It was my first job after university. In that photo I would have been 26-1/2 years old, give or take a couple of weeks.If for some reason you require proof that I am who I say I am, go here. Note the sentence-long biographical blurb at the bottom. Send me an e-mail. I'll be happy to post it here.If you wish to dig any further, please let me know. An awful lot of my life is recounted in long-buried parts of the Internet.Sorry to disappoint.

EDIT: Horribly shopped up pic? Did you make sure to examine the pixels?

EDIT2: Mea culpa. It was actually 1993. She was in town to promote the first volume of her autobiography. (1992 was a different meeting altogether.) If you look closely, you'll see that the brooch she's wearing is a Haida-inspired rendering of a killer whale. That was our gift to her, since she didn't charge her normal fee for a speaking engagement.

In return I received this:

The pic is most likely a family photo the way the lady in the center is sitting and you the son behind her then Margaret imposed on the pic. Margaret is strangely close to the lady in the center damn near elbowing up her boobs. It's a badly shopped up photo. Your career proves nothing about the photo. You didn't disappoint because I know I'm right.

I don't object to someone attacking me over something I've done. I could probably provide a shopping list of previous activities that would earn my condemnation from all corners of CN. I don't really care, though.

What I do care about is my integrity. At the end of the day, a person is only as good as their word. And, well, I'm not especially fond of being called a liar.

So....I'm calling you out chimp chump champ.

I'm not entirely sure what it will take to convince you that I was there and, yes, that a photo was taken.

Oh wait, yes I do.

I am prepared to give you the contact information for several individuals who can confirm my attendance at this event. If their memories are functional they may remember that I was the person who introduced Lady Thatcher at the luncheon. (It was eighteen years ago; people are allowed to forget things.)

Or, if you prefer, you may appoint a neutral referee to make inquiries on your behalf in order to ensure some kind of fairness.

Presumably there are only a few questions that need to be answered: Did the Fraser Institute host an event featuring Margaret Thatcher at Toronto's Royal York Hotel in 1993? Was I Director of Development at The Fraser Institute at the time? Did I raise the money to pay for the event? Were photographs taken? Was I in one of those photographs?

That should cover it, right?

I am prepared to put it all on the line right here, right now.

So which person would you like to e-mail:

1. The person I shared an office with at the time? A Ph.D in History, former university professor, now working as a newspaper columnist and regular contributor on a Canadian news network. He was there.

2. My former boss? Ph.D in Economics, former Advisor to the Governor of the Bank of Canada. He's now retired but will likely remember my attendance at this event, since I'm the one who raised the money to make it happen. He and I also had some good old-fashioned shouting matches while I worked for him. (Absolutely brilliant man, but one of the most difficult people to work for whom I've ever encountered.)

3. How about my best man? Actually he was my best man on two occasions, but I digress. He's the former owner of Canada's last privately-held Internet Service Provider and the son of one of the founders of a Canadian television network. He was there as my guest. One year later, and at the last minute, he volunteered to serve as photographer for an event featuring the U.S. vice-President, who was in town for a speaking engagement with us.

So take your pick.

Give me a bit of time and I can probably recall others who were there and who will certainly remember my being there as well. Unfortunately, the Institute's Director of Events/Conferences in 1993 has retired. But her then-Assistant now holds her job, so she'd know. Oh wait....and there's our former Director of Finance who, last time I heard, is now an Accouting Professor. (You'll like him. Harvard MBA but not stuffy at all. Good guy.)

In the meantime, I've given you three very public figures to choose from. Select one, I'll send you their contact information and presto, you shall have your answer. Or you can select all three.

Then you can apologize.

Or, you can take the shorter route and apologize now.

Or, finally, you can take the even shorter route and either ignore this call-out or say something like "I didn't say you weren't there. I said the picture wasn't real." This is the route I expect you to take.

(Protip, pal: If you're going to accuse someone of using Photoshop, GIMP or any other kind of program of that nature, try to make sure they're actually adept at the program. Within NoR, my complete lack of graphics skills is very well known.)

Are you man enough, punk? Do you have the courage of your convictions?

Let me sweeten the pot for you:

If any public figure whom I recommend says I wasn't there, I will pack up and quit CN for good.

Ball's in your court, my friend. Do you have the courage to volley or would you rather just admit defeat right now?

-------------------

And, before anyone asks why I'm doing this in such a very public manner, it's because our consonant-challenged friend did so first.

nyah nyah and all that

(Also, the lady whose face I blacked out -- the publishing V-P -- wasn't sitting. She was just very, very short.)

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The short answer goes something like this: Maggie Thatcher was a professional politician and met a ton of people, many of which had their photographs taken with her.

Now if you'd claimed to have your photograph taken with say the Unabomber we'd be a lot more suspicious. But this? Man.

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Now if you'd claimed to have your photograph taken with say the Unabomber we'd be a lot more suspicious. But this? Man.

Do remember that the Unabomber was a professional academic and assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley and lectured in mathematics. It's not unreasonable that he would have had his photograph taken many times during his tenure there.

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http://errorlevelanalysis.com/permalink/ed74592/

Interesting error levels around Thatcher's clothes that are not present around those of the two other individuals in the photo, but none around her head, and the error levels are similar to those present on the inside edges of Thatcher.

Not sure that that means, so I'm going to say... leaning towards confirming the authenticity, but overall somewhat inconclusive.

If I'm reading that right, my edit is actually more authentic than the original. Clearly this means the that original is indeed 'shopped, and my version is correct.

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Now if you'd claimed to have your photograph taken with say the Unabomber we'd be a lot more suspicious. But this? Man.

I'm not sure which year it was, but I recruited David Radler to serve on our Board of Trustees. Not really that 'infamous', but I think he may be the only person I've met who did actual prison time. (I know plenty of folks who have been arrested at one time or another, but that's it.)

The Institute's by-laws included a provision by which each of the top ten donors were eligible for appointment to the Board. It was worded rather vaguely. Foundation donors were removed from the equation, since they always said no.

Hollinger made a one-time donation that put them in the top ten one year, but I can't remember what it was for. I think they may have sponsored something. A lot of folks made it on that way.

Fun factoid: Up until the time I left and perhaps beyond, no one had ever been asked to step down from the Board. As a result, it ballooned over time and eventually came to resemble a photograph of the Politbureau c. 1981. Looking at their current Board, I see nothing has changed. One of their Board members has been there since the Institute started up in the mid-1970s. He's now ninety-two, and needless to say, has been retired for more than thiety years.

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In all the years ive played this game almost 4 to be exact Ive known Zog for most of them. Hes a lot of things but in his blogs ive never seen him lie. Jaier man up and apologize.

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Now if you'd claimed to have your photograph taken with say the Unabomber we'd be a lot more suspicious. But this? Man.
I'm not sure which year it was, but I recruited David Radler to serve on our Board of Trustees. Not really that 'infamous', but I think he may be the only person I've met who did actual prison time. (I know plenty of folks who have been arrested at one time or another, but that's it.)

I used to live in Hintonburg; I think most of my neighbours there had done actual prison time. However they had not done so quite as famously. :)

I was arrested once when I was a teenager. And of course there were plenty of times I met the police around teenage parties and the like, but really, that's very common.

It is true that the Unabomber had a public face. I was referring more to the whole photograph-taken-inside-Unabomber's-hideout kind of thing. But whatever.

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I expect the technicality to be "clearly these people have been contacted ahead of time to give the answers you want."

Good point. And so, with that in mind, I just posted it on my Facebook page with the following text:

I need your help as I engage in the most worthwhile activity our Digital Age has to offer. I speak of 'winning an argument on the Internet'.

About half a dozen of you (possibly more) should be able to explain:

- When/Where this photo was taken

- Why I'm in it

- How you know the above

No points taken away if you fail to remember everything completely. T'was a long time ago, after all.

Does this poison the well somehow? Beats me.

The one thing Jaiar got 100% right is that I'm bored. :)

(Although he did -- in a lateral way -- inspire me to submit an article for publication for the first time in nearly five years. I suppose I should be grateful for that.)

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Sounds to me like Jaier is just another internet weasel who needs his head examined and a boot up his backside (in that order, since part of the head examination requires removing it from inside the second area to clear room for the boot).

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I don't see anything particularly wrong in questioning something. It's barging into an unrelated discussion to say 'You're a liar' and then leaving that bothers me.

I suspect I won't get responses on FB unless I actually send PMs to the people who can answer, because most of them have these things called 'lives' that preclude looking at every single post on every single day. Hell, I go weeks at a timne without any FB activity, have three-day posting flurry and then walk away again.

But one never knows.

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I type at somewhere around 115 words per minute

This is clearly a lie! I demand unequivocal proof of your typing speed! A notarized affidavit from Mavis Beacon will do.

And yeah, although it pains me to say so (as a mindless NPO drone, I should mindlessly support anyone in my alliance, an allied alliance, or someone who resides on Red), Jaiar behaved poorly and should apologize.

But I still demand proof of your typing speed.

*Joe Izuzu has inferiority issues since he only types at about 65 wpm

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I've had my picture taken with Bob McDonnell, the Governor of Virginia. His daughter attends my college, and stopped by during a campaign. I was part of the College Republicans during his visit, even though I am quite liberal (I joined up for !@#$% and giggles, and stopped attending meetings after the first one....they started asking me to pay dues after that, and being myself I refused. I never give up money when I don't have to. I even refuse to tip waiters). During that time I and countless other insignificant people got to stand next to him in poorly taken photographs. Of course I am barely recognizable in the photo, as I was wearing a hat and sunglasses, and I was also sporting an absolutely ridiculous goatee at the time (we all make mistakes).

But enough about that. Jaiar, it is not unreasonable to believe the photograph is real. Thatcher was a politician, a supposed libertarian I believe. Zog worked for years at a libertarian think-tank up in Canada, if my memory of his earlier blogs serves correct. He got his picture taken one day when she decide to visit, and so did at least a hundred other people I am sure.

I do understand that this is the internet, and not everything is to be believed. But if you doubt everything, even unremarkable personal claims such as having a picture taken with a politician (politicians will have their picture taken with anyone, it is part of their job), well if you have that much skepticism than I can only say that you are a stupid jackass.

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