Offensive Avatars

Here's my Quandry.
25 hours after you complained in the thread about S.A.M's avatar, we have Enmos making this comment:
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1795700&postcount=190

Two minutes later with have Shorty 37 making this comment:
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1795703&postcount=192

Which suggests that at this stage S.A.M hasn't changed her Avatar.

Then we have this comment from Enmos:
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1795705&postcount=193

From which the only reasonable thing I, personally, can infer is that he's listing alternatives to whatever S.A.M. has her avatar at this point which suggests to me anyway that Enmos is querying what in addition, or as an alternative to whatever it is that S.A.M. has as her avatar, which, in turn suggests to me that the Swastika isn't visible in S.A.M's avatar. In other words, it comes accross as (to me at any rate) a side discussion about what other avatar's might or might not be acceptable, and just how far one might be able to take freedom of speech before one got the proverbial rap over the knuckles.

And no, I don't believe that a Bobblehead would genuinely upset you, however, given the tone of the thread at that point, and the tone of some of the other posts you made at around that time, and others (for example, (Q)) made at around the same time, I, likewise, do not believe that you had to be genuinely upset at the time to make the comment that you did - especially when one considers some of the frankly sociopathic stalking behaviour that some of the atheists on this forum display when dealing with anybody who dears to exercise their right to religous freedom (some of which, I have had the misfortune of moderating).

My position seems to be strengthened by the fact that in the intervening pages, I can not find one single comment that indicates that S.A.M changed her Avatar between the side-discussion about the swastika, and the comments about bobbleheads. Moreover, there are comments that come after the discussion that suggest that S.A.M's avatar may not been changed at this point. For example, this one from Enmos:
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1796600&postcount=280

Suggests (to me at least) that she still has the same avatar up that Enmos asked her to take down.

Also, based on what I have observed of S.A.M, I do not believe that she would not take it down so quickly - especially if she had a point to make, I believe the more likely scenario would be that she would procrastinate about taking the avatar down, going as far as engaging James in an extended PM debate, perhaps expressing her exasperation in the Mod forum (which I can find no evidence of), and then logging off for 12 hours and changing it when she logged back on. I do not believe that the time between your complaint in the thread, and the discussion of bobbleheads is sufficient for this to have occured.

 

Correct - for example, when Bells stepped down recently, she changed her avatar back to (presumably) what it was, and has since becoming a mod, changed it away from that (again).

Lateral thinking, it's a gift, and it's a curse. Some times I overlook the obvious in favour of the obscure, but I have since learned to reign that in, of neccessity (if it helps, I started from Phlogisticians comments in this thread, and searched the post histories of the beligerints in this conversation).

However, my gift for lateral thinking, as useful as it might be in the work place has seen me in no end of strife on this forum as I point out aspects of peoples arguments they for the first had not considered, and for the second are incapable of considering as a logical consequence of their statements. Often I lack the time or the patience to try and step them through the logic to arrive at the same conclusion, and they lack the capacity to consider a point of view they have convinced themselves as being wrong.

As often though, I will admit, my petty vindictive streak enjoys watching people flail like fish on a line as they struggle to comprehend what I'm actually saying (as opposed to what they think I mean).

 

Which is precisely what I stated, and was asserting, but building from that and making the point that in the intervening 25 hours there is no evidence in that thread (or any other that I have found) that she had changed it - IE I'm making the point that the available evidence suggests the Phlog was objecting to the bobblehead avatar.

Which is the claim that I was specifically addressing - based on the information that I have been able to find, without relying on what any individual now has to say on the matter, this seems increasingly unlikely to me.

I work in law enforcement (albeit enviornmental law enforcement). Two or three of my colleagues are former police officers, one of the cases I have recently been peripherally involved in was one that has been ongoing for four years. I would go as far as suggesting that I am intimately familiar with the vagaries of relying on eyewitness memory over time.

Moreover, very recently, there has been a case involving a police officer killing someone in a MVA. The cop, as it happens, unintentionally purjored himself. He was convinced he was telling the truth, however, as it turns out, his recollection was wrong - it turns out that the events he recalled were, in essence, the events how he wanted them to happen, or wished they had happened - with culpability for the accident resting on the other driver, rather than him, when it was actually the police officer that had caused the accident. It wasn't about deliberate deception, but self preservation. A consequence of this is that when you're interviewing an alleged offender about an incident, the first things they say to you, the first version they give you, will be the most accurate. Subsequent revisions will be varied to cast the alleged offender in an increasingly innocent light. It's not neccessarily about deliberate deception, and nor should anyone assume I'm accusing Phlogistician of deliberate deception. I'm not, and to assume I am is to completely misrepresent what I have said.

The worst I'm accusing Phlog of is being human. Memory is, by it's nature, revisionist.

I'm aware of that, hence some of the comments that I've made - like pointing out the tone of the thread that Phlog was involved in at the time, for example.

I didn't suggest otherwise, did I?